bloodhounds

by regrattore

Summary:

“You’ll remember,” Dwight says. “It’ll all be confusing, for a while. But, you’ll remember exactly where you were when it happened, and how…” There’s something bleak to his voice.

Alucard doesn’t like how it sounds like they’re being comforted. About what?

“We’re not in Wallachia,” Alucard says, and it is not a question.

Dwight levels a look, and it’s a heavy one. “No,” he says, “I’m afraid you’re not.” 

Alucard and Trevor arrive in the Entity's Realm. They meet the cast. Things happen.

Notes:

my first dbd fic, hurray!

first things first, i am a fake castlevania fan. what i mean by that is, i have only seen the 2017-2021castlevania anime on netflix. i am sorry i haven't played/watched anything else castevania-y yet, i will be getting on that.
but because of that, the 'alucard' and 'trevor' featured in this fic are just that - the ones from castlevania, the anime, and NOT the games. however, you can just as easily imagine the game vers of alucard + trevor (if my characterisation allows for that, and if nothing changes too (?) drastically in dbd because of that - i have no idea!)

i made this multi-chapter because i need to learn dedication/commitment on how to damn finish things i start. i've written most of it, which is good, and planted enough seeds to keep myself well fed and willing to continue. but i haven't written All of it, and i tend to entirely redraft my works. thus, the 'rating/warning' may change tags, ahead of time. (i would also add a 'relationships may change tag', but that should be expected of a multi-chapter fic anyway. but, this won't end up being ship-led regardless).
this chapter is considerably safe, but the next may feature violence (in MY dbd? its more likely than you think), thus i'd like to be on the safer side. further, next chapter will also have more tags in the authors note.

all that aside, i am incredibly happy to finish my first dbd fic and even happier to allow it to feature alucard, predominantly, (whom i love and adore) trevor (head kiss) and cameos from some of my favourite dbd characters (who you may see next chapter(s?))

thank you for reading! if you enjoyed this please feel free to comment and let me know. comments are super motivating!
i am also prone to editing summaries/authors notes/tags when i wake up next. with that, let me know if i missed any glaring tags.
fuck yeah, dbd! (cannot WAIT to include some DRACULA (and jake) scenes next chapter with alucard, aaggh!)

Chapter 1

Summary:

Alucard and Trevor arrive in The Entity's realm and meet the people they'll be spending the rest of their lives with.

The last thing Alucard remembers is fog. There was fog, and he couldn’t look away from it. When he tried to step back, it followed.

And when he opens his eyes, there’s nothing but bushes and trees. It looks like Wallachia enough. Did Sypha perform magic on him? He wouldn’t mind if she wanted to experiment, but it was impolite not to ask first.

Alucard walks and stops in his tracks after three steps.

“Where the fuck am I?” A familiar voice says behind him.

Alucard turns. “Trevor.”

Trevor blinks and folds his arms. “Oh, and you’re here. Bloody fantastic.”

Alucard chooses to ignore that because they have more pressing matters. One, what is Trevor wearing? Where did he get that? Was it Belmont garb? Two, “Do you know where we are?”

Trevor seems to understand he doesn’t want to throw jabs back and forth (until he decides to). He approaches, crushing dirt under his boots. “No,” he shrugs. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“I can make a guess,” Trevor knocks on a tree beside them. “Tree, dark sky, crows… we must be in the woods surrounding Gresit.”

“That makes sense,” and it did, because that’s what he thought, but something is wrong.

Alucard feels – nothing. There are certain ‘blessings’ to being a dhampir, especially one who is the son of Dracula. He places his hand on a tree beside him and focuses the energy inside him to turn it into splinters.

“What, become a treehugger?” Trevor asks. Alucard can hear him smirking.

Alucard closes his eyes, applies force to slice the tree into a million parts, and–

“Hm,” he says. “That’s… strange.”

It’s terrible. He feels like he’s been turned inside out. It’s best not to let Trevor know that right now, if ever.

This place is exceptionally cold.

“What?” Trevor asks. “Did you want it to start walking or something?”

“I can’t…” Alucard tries, then shakes his head. He envisions his body warping in a red flash. He remains in his body, not a wolf, a bat, or anything else. “Nothing’s–”

“Wait.” Trevor raises his hand. “Did you hear that?”

Alucard closes his eyes and listens. He focuses, and–

His eyes open. His hearing seems a little worse for wear than he remembers – he should have heard the sounds a mile away – but thankfully, it’s still acute. His heartbeat calms. “I can.”

There was the sound of fire crackling and murmuring conversation in the distance. He can make out both male and female voices.

Alucard tries to throw himself onto a high branch above to get a better view, but instead, he hops on the spot and lands back on his feet.

Thankfully, Trevor doesn’t comment – either from being preoccupied with the orange glow, or because he’ll bring it up later to torment him.

Trevor glances towards him. “Let’s ask for directions.”

“Yes,” Alucard agrees, flexing his fingers. “Lets.”

The bushes shift as they walk past. Alucard touches each tree he passes, pressing force into his fingertips. None of the trees go soaring into the air. Alucard frowns. He tries to summon wings onto his back, to soar into the sky, to look down–

Nothing. Alucard twitches.

Trevor steps on a branch. It snaps under his weight. They wince simultaneously.

All conversation at the campfire screeches to a halt. 

“Always the careful one, aren’t you, Belmont?”

“Shut up, it’s too dark. I can’t see a fuckin’ thing.”

“Yes,” Alucard mutters, trying to glimpse the moon through the clutch of thick leaves above. “It is quite dark, isn’t it?”

“Fuck,” Trevor curses. “Someone’s coming closer.”

“With your light footedness? Never.”

Trevor jabs his side with his elbow, looking to retort. He doesn’t. They prepare for company, readying into a defensive stance.

 

The bushes yawn open like a gaping maw by a man's broad hands. For a moment, the man looks petrified, eyes widening to saucer-size. Another man, meeting his flickering gaze, throws himself back off the log in a tangle of limbs.

“There’s a killer at the campfire!” The man points, “Look!”

Heads turn, and the many people scatter like freshly blown dandelion seeds. Only a few remain seated on sideways logs, rigid as iron, looking at him. In that group, few stand as though preparing for flight.

Trevor comes to his side, fists ready. Alucard prepares himself – and his sword – it’s not there, never mind.

“No, wait,” a man with glasses starts, one of the few to hang around. “Hold on.”

Alucard can still see eyes peering out from opposite the campfire, as though the company was reluctant to sprint too far.

“We’ve been through the motions of this before,” Trevor says quickly, “get your sword out.”

“I can’t,” Alucard whispers. “It’s not on me.” He tried to summon it. That doesn’t work, either.

“It’s not – what? Where did you get that cape from?”

Alucard grabs at the fabric, lifts it, and stares at it. It feels like the same textured cape that his father wore. “I don’t – know?”

“Come to think of it,” Trevor looks at himself. “What the hell am I –”

“Right,” a man with a heavy accent says, “let’s have it.”

He seems like Trevor’s sort. It’s a good thing, because Trevor beams ear to ear, and seems to agree.

“Where’s the Morning Star?” Alucard whispers, suddenly aware Trevor has nothing at the waist unless he’s better at hiding daggers than he thought.

Trevor spits. “Don’t have it. Don’t need it.” Technically true. These were people. Alucard could tell by their eyes, demeanours and the fact they bolted away from him. “We’ll find it later,” Trevor promises. “Right now, I’ve got to–”

The other man with his fists raised. “Got to, what, mate?”

“Beat your fuckin’ ass, what’s it look like?”

“Throw the first punch then, you stupid bastard–”

“Oh, excuses, excuses–”

Man with glasses interrupts. “Stop!” 

Everyone – all three of them – turns to look upon him, his partially untucked shirt, and his thoroughly gnawed fingernails.

“Let's just – stop, a minute,” Man with glasses - Bespectacled - reasons, holding up his hands. “And listen to me – um, please.” He shifts his focus to the man Trevor was willing to brawl with (and from the look in his eyes, he still wanted to), who just took off his shirt and threw it to the floor.

“G’won,” Shirtless man says to his peer. Shirtless glances warily between them – especially him – as though they would leap upon them at any moment.

It isn’t an unfamiliar look.

“Why would It let two killers into the camp right now?” Bespectacled man says, lowering his hands. “It wouldn’t do that.”

“Y’never know,” Shirtless says.

“Well,” Bespectacled scratches the side of his face. “That’s true, but all I’m saying is, It would have done it before. This is the only place where… well. Why would It? What’s the benefit? And,” there’s a look of – guilt, on his face? “Look at them.”

Shirtless lowers his fists and looks at them, really looks. His eyes flicker up and down Trevor – who still has his fists up, good man – and then, back at him.

Alucard understands. The other enthusiasts for vampires were the occasional insane vampire and the even rarer truly insane human.

“Where the hell are we?” Trevor asks, beating him to it.

“You’re new,” Bespectacled says. “I know you really don’t want to, but it might be best to sit and let us introduce ourselves.”

Trevor stares. “I don’t want to. You’re right about that.”

Alucard is inclined to agree. He doesn’t want to get familiar, he wants to know what’s wrong with him.

But Trevor lowers his fists and looks away first from Shirtless Man. He sighs and sits down on a log, arms folded.

Alucard would be damned if he let a Belmont appear more agreeable than him, even with temporary odd-looking company.

That, and he may get some answers out of these funny fellows. Hopefully, some about why they appeared here from nowhere, and where precisely here was.

“Alright,” Alucard sits beside Trevor, folding one leg over the other, fiddling with an ear lobe under his hair.

Bespectacled nods at them, holds his look for a moment, then–

“It’s al’right! Stop fuckin’ hidin’!” Shirtless hollers.

From the bushes, people begin emerging, all ogling. Alucard counts thirty-eight in total. Some are entirely baffling in appearance. He tries not to gawk too much.

It makes the lump in his throat grow. These people who don’t resemble Wallachia or any other place he knows of stare back at him.

“We won’t be here for long,” Trevor whispers below the fire that never spits. “Let’s let them talk and find a nearby town to find our feet.”

“Right,” Alucard nods. “Sounds like a good enough plan.”

Then, they could tell Sypha of the strange people they met in the woods when they return, and write it off as another funny story for their many.

As everyone settles – some staring into the fire, some looking at their laps, some glancing between the two still – Alucard finds he can’t stop thinking about black fog and how he had never felt such a presence before.

 

“And that just about wraps up introductions,” Dwight claps his hands together. “Well – there are some people in a trial right now.” He glances around the logs. “Meg, Adam, Jeff and Yun-Jin. You’ll meet them.”

“Great,” Trevor taps his foot. “Now,” he grins, all teeth. “Where are we?”

Silence. A wavy-red-headed woman (introduced as Mikaela) fiddles with her bracelets. The white-haired woman (Sable) beside her leans into her ear and cups her hand. The two women giggle and glance at him. Alucard raises an eyebrow and shifts where he’s sat.

A black-haired man (Jake) speaks, leaning against a tree with his arms folded. Despite himself, Alucard couldn’t tell he was there until he spoke. “The Entity’s realm.”

Dwight winces. “For lack of a better way to put it… yeah. The Entity’s realm.”

“Who’s?” Trevor blinks. If Alucard hadn’t been surrounded by watching company, he would’ve mocked Trevor for sounding exactly like an owl.

But Alucard finds himself repeating the same sentiment. “The… Entity’s, realm?”

He’d read many books from the sacred knowledge his father kept. None mentioned any officially titled beings under the title of The Entity. No one seemed keen on elaboration.

“What do you last remember?” Jake asks.

“Fog,” Alucard and Trevor answer simultaneously. They blink, and face each other, unknowingly resembling birds of the same feather. It would be comical if the conversation were anything else.

“Where were you?” Trevor asks. “Y’know, when the,” he gestures. “Fog.”

“I was,” Alucard tries. “In… the castle, I believe, reading a book. Or, I was hunting for fresh fish for the village. Or,” he stops. “I… don’t precisely know.” He feels like a fool. For a moment, he even imagines himself running over a drawbridge to fight something on the other side. But that isn’t correct, either. “I can’t remember.”

“Well I was, uh,” Trevor scratches his head. “With… Sypha – don’t look at me like that – talking with her about baby names, I think.” Some people around the camp suck in a breath. A suited man (Felix) looks away, eyebrows twinged. A woman (Haddie) lowers her head and mutters something to herself.

“Y’know what? I thought I was talking with you,” Trevor claims, shaking his head. “Fuck, I feel stupid.”

“You’ll remember,” Dwight says. “It’ll all be confusing, for a while. But, you’ll remember exactly where you were when it happened, and how…” There’s something bleak to his voice.

Alucard doesn’t like how it sounds like they’re being comforted. About what?

“We’re not in Wallachia,” Alucard says, and it is not a question.

Dwight levels a look, and it’s a heavy one. “No,” he says, “I’m afraid you’re not.” 

The tone of empathy bleeds into his voice unmistakably, this time. Even Trevor shifts beside him, and leans forward, uncrossing his arms.

Alucard stares back into Dwight’s human eyes. Dwight looks away, swallowing. For a moment that feels like a while, the campfire is silent. Alucard glances reminding himself of the names attached to each person.

“Sorry,” David glances at him, then looks at Trevor. “For nearly scrappin’ y’both. It’s just,” he goes quiet. “Anyway, do you two know each other?” It sounds less like a question and more like a factual remark.

Alucard beats Trevor to it. “We do.”

“Our family’s go way back,” Trevor says, and he thinks he’s funny. “Well, with his dad, at least.”

Again, Trevor thinks he’s funny.

“Ah see. What year y’from?”

“1477.”

Vittorio lifts his head.

“We’re from Wallachia,” Trevor adds as if anyone would know it. He asks as such, “Do you know it?”

“Uh, no.” David shakes his head. “I’m from Manchester. 2017.”

Dwight turns his head. “Vittorio, do you know – sorry, what’s it called?”

“Wallachia,” Trevor says.

“Wallachia?”

Vittorio hums. Alucard thinks the man almost resembles Trevor when they first met, but neater around the edges. Not that that was difficult for any man to achieve.

“I know a Wallachia,” Vittorio says. “It was a country established around ten or twenty years before I was born.”

“Well,” Alucard tries, “by any chance, do you know a Dracula?”

Most around the campfire blink. Despite staring at Vittorio, Alucard knows some form of recognition was rippling between them.

Which made things even more perplexing, in some ways.

“Like… Bram Stoker?” Claudette cups her chin with her hand. She shares a long look with Jake, who looks down at Alucard. Both look at Dwight and then the missing space where Meg should have been in the equation.

Vittorio answers, slower, “Dracula…?”

Alucard retries, “Vlad Ţepeş?”

“No,” Vittorio says. “I don’t recognise that name. That could be from an entirely different world to mine after all.”

Alucard blinks. A different world? He’s read about different planets in his father’s – his – books, and even, technical ‘different worlds’ – but those referenced Heaven and Hell. The world ‘parallel’ was tossed into the air and played with.

Different worlds reminded him of the Infinite Corridor, in a way. Is that where they were? He thought Saint Germain – well. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing, to be flickered between worlds and realities.

The fog was black. The Infinite Corridor was enough to make your eyes ache.

“Why do you ask?” Vittorio says.

Alucard looks to the fire, bright orange and red and much too quiet, all of a sudden. Watching as everyone else was.

“No reason,” he replies, carefully.

Not one to give up, Trevor mumbles something about his father’s reputation. He leans forward. “What about night creatures?”

With the look on Vittorio’s face, there was no doubt they’d lost any thread of connection. “I don’t remember anything like that,” he says.

It isn’t quiet for long. Claudette raises a polite little hand. “I have a question,” she says. “Urm, for you. Alucard,” she says his name delicately, as though testing it out in thought. “Was it?”

“That’s right,” he says.

“I don’t know how to ask this,” everyone seems to lean either forward or backwards, as she says that – like she had taken the plunge for the group. “Because I don’t want to sound rude, but… what are you?”

“It’s how you’re dressed,” Jane reasoned, “causing the question.”

All of a sudden, everyone seemed to scramble for reasons. Alucard and Trevor blinked.

Zarina, a woman who much too resembled Greta for his comfort, pointed to his clothes. “Like aristocracy.”

“Aristocracy,” Sable breathed, and with no trace of hesitation, beamed from ear to ear. “You are a vampire.”

Alucard got the sense she intended to make that a question but failed.

Trevor nudges his side subtly with his elbow. In light of the company, Alucard ignores him. They could barely turn in any direction without someone being too close to whisper.

There was little point in lying. He could still prod at his teeth with his tongue. They could see them, inevitably, just as easily.

“I am,” he says. “But only by half. A dhampir.”

Most gazes avert. Trevor laughs under his breath. “You’re popular.”

Claudette asks her next question, which is only natural to follow. “Do you want to… well,” she tries. “Not to sound, rude, but we deal with a lot in trials–”

“I do not feel a desire to suck your blood, no.”

“Okay,” Claudette nods. “Okay.”

“It’d be fine if you did, though.” Sable laces her fingers below her chin. “You may even have some volunteers.”

“I’m quite alright,” Alucard does not like that look in her eyes although he cannot identify it.

“We haven’t had a vampire hunt us before,” Dwight ignores Sable and sounds – relieved, by his news. “Bloodsucking is the least of our worries. We’ve no reason to fear–”

Out of thin air, as flickering embers, ash and black fog collect, four people appear from around the campfire: a red-headed braided woman, a bearded man, a man in a white coat, and a woman staring at her nails.

None of them look happy. The man in the white coat puts his hand over his throat and breathes deeply.

The red-headed woman (who a moment later shakes their hands vigorously, introducing herself as Meg), shouts: “You won’t believe what we just went up against!”

 

Slowly, all eyes peel over to him. Alucard, for the first time in his long life, shrinks (a tiny bit) under the weight of human eyes.

 

Right before Meg continues, Trevor raises a hand and stands. “This has been lovely, but I’m leaving.”

Alucard tries to say, ‘As am I’, but the words die in his throat. He feels that won’t be as simple as they’re hoping.

He would like it to be.

Alucard stands and says, “Trevor,” to prevent Meg from explaining what she meant. He didn’t want to hear it. He did want to hear it. “I believe, I believe that–”

Trevor turns to look at him, and the look in his eyes, it’s–

“I,” Alucard stops. “I believe… I should come with you.”

“This should be good for you guys to hear too,” Meg, none the wiser, recommends, “It’d be best if you sat back down. There’s nothin’ out there that’s nicer than being here.”

“Nothing nice,” Yun-Jin adds, sounding disgusted. She sat on a log and crossed her legs, bringing her coat around herself tighter.

“Facts.” Meg nods.

“Tell us,” someone encourages. “Was it a–”

Alucard and Trevor turn their backs on them and start walking. Behind them, Dwight gets to his feet.

“Where are we going?” Trevor asks.

Alucard keeps his voice low. “I thought you knew.”

“I don’t,” Trevor replies, his voice sounding – unlike Trevor Belmont. Alucard hears a shudder on the breath like he had been fighting for a long time. At that moment, Alucard thinks of Sypha, the fire behind him, the castle. And–

“It was a vampire!” Meg throws her arms in the air. “He was huge! He became bats! Bats! And, get this – a wolf!” She shuddered. “Ugh," her hands go to her arm. "The teeth–”

Alucard stops. He turns his head, mechanically.

Someone had been following them. They stand ten or so paces from the campfire.

Trevor whips around, lip curled. “Don’t follow us.”

Dwight holds his hands up. “I wasn’t, it’s just–”

“Oh, no,” Claudette breathes. “There wasn’t enough time.” She looks at them, and her eyebrows pull. In the background, Meg stands on her tiptoes and lifts her right hand, tilting her fingertips to resemble claws.

Alucard stares and pulls his eyes back to Claudette. “Time – for what? Tell me!”

“We haven’t told you about the trails,” Dwight whispered. “It’s going to be rough.”

“Good for you,” Jake made his way over, “at least you won’t be in it.”

Dwight sucks in a breath and looks down. “Oh, Jake–”

“Good luck,” Claudette whispers, and clasps Jake on the shoulder. Too much time and sad understanding passes between their look. They resemble soldiers who had experienced too much, and worse, seen even more.

There’s too much going on. Alucard takes a step back. He doesn’t go anywhere.

Trevor looks down at himself. Alucard looks at him, then himself: flickering embers, ash, and black fog roll into each other and creep up their bodies, moving quicker towards their middle.

Trevor sighs. “Is it over? Is this – Sypha’s magic? Funny looking, but thank God, it’s over. This was nice. Good luck with your trials and you’re what not.”

Alucard whispers. “Wait. Belmont. I don’t think we’re–”

 

Chapter 2

Summary:

Alucard and Trevor's first trial.

Notes:

hii, sorry for the wait! was super busy!
made this a 3 chapter affair because i realised the pacing and full vision to fulfill i wanted couldn't be achieved in a long chapter 2. hopefully chapter 3 will be the final chapter (i have written most of it already, but it very much needs thorough editing), and that will be all
reminder — there’s major castlevania series spoilers here! like for the entire story!!! it’s great please watch it if you haven’t. such a blast of an adaptation

and thank you for your patience! :) i hope you love this chapter, i worked so hard on tweaking it. so many character interactions were changed and the dialogue was altered to death LOL

and also, a huge THANK YOU to itscryptidtime on ao3 for helping me with the ending to this chapter! i had some big decisions to make and he really helped. thank you jinx you're a real one im so confident with the ending here now

so yes, chapter 3 should round things off - unless something strikes me

CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL WARNINGS:

- mention of childbirth and pregnancy
- child abandonment
- animal corpses
- patricide

Trevor opens his eyes. In the distance, something sinister laughs.

The sun is brighter than he’s ever seen. He doesn’t feel heat on his face from it. The corn is taller than him and separated in neat little rows like someone had stitched them.

So it’s a combination of things that makes Trevor know, he’s still not home. “For fucks sake,” he turns. More stalks, a crow that flies away, and a big ass metal contraption that wasn’t moving. “What the hell is going on, Alucard–”

Trevor whips his head left, then right. There is no blonde or black in the field. “Alucard?”

By instinct, he goes for the Morningstar and finds nothing. He remembers and tuts. His hand sweeps the inside of his coat (he had not worn this before) and finds not a single dagger.

Something rustles to his left. Trevor braces himself.

The corn parts, revealing a woman with fashion beyond him. If his memory hadn’t given up on him, her name was–

“Nea,” she reminds. “There’s a gen behind you. Get on it with me. Better you learn sooner than later.” She says, quieter. “For both of us.”

“A what?”

“I’ll explain when you get started. Do you know who it is – ah, ignore that. You wouldn’t.”

Trevor follows her to this ‘gen’. Its insides remind him of when Sypha and he nearly died finding the ‘saviour’. Fun times. “Who what?” He doesn’t like asking so many questions, but can you blame him?

Nea looks around as though not having heard him. She looks to the sky and breathes in sharply. “Well, that’s new. I’ll be damned. Meg wasn’t lying.” Her fingers mangle together some red, blue and green worms – no, wires. There’s a spark with the connection.

Trevor looks up, following where she was looking. His eyes widen.

It’s hard to miss. He’s fought inside it. He nearly (should’ve) died outside it.

Nea eyes him. “I’m guessing you know what that is, beyond the very obvious castle.” Then she mutters. “Or, someone else does.”

“Yeah,” Trevor responds, unsure of what he’s replying to.

The familiar sight doesn’t reassure him as he thought something from home would.

Trevor can’t help but think. If that’s here, then what does that mean for the village? Belmont would be less defendable without it.

He flexes his scarred hand, the one responsible for the defeat of Death, and realises, that it aches less than it should. He can flex his fingers. He can turn his wrist.

The bats circling the castle silently screech, as though in agony.

Alucard had never seen so much colour (besides the Infinite Corridor). This place looked like the inside of a hive, all melted down off-colour honey, with flecks of rotting mold. He thought hay bales were supposed to smell like something, but he couldn’t smell a thing.

The air is stale. The sun is bright. The place, somehow, looked as dead as Gresit was. (Emphasis on the was – before they started building Belmont as a totem of their survival).

He was right, and Dwight was telling the truth. Wallachia was far from this place. Whatever had taken them to this place of cornstalks hadn’t taken them any closer.

But something of home was here. Alucard hears laughter. Under his hair, his ears twitch. He can’t place the noise exactly. It’s familiar. Is it?

Alucard starts walking. Closer to the laugh that makes his heart beat faster. And before he can look around or up–

“You’re one of the bolder ones, then?” Alucard turns, and stares at Jake – the man of forest green who seemed to blend and disappear. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”

Alucard responds: “I do. Wallachia.”

Jake bears a flat expression. “Good luck with that. I know this area well.” He gestures his hand in a ‘follow’ motion.

“That’s a relief,” Alucard trails after him.

Jake crouches. Alucard stares like he grew a third leg. Jake looks back and stares as though he’s waiting for something. Alucard tilts his head.

“You’ll want to do this too,” Jake is nearly whispering. “You’re tall. Your hair is light. Worse, you’ve got a cape.”

“Ah, the cape is not by choice,” Alucard entertains the man’s crouching antics, simply because he can (or perhaps because his heartbeat hasn’t settled. He can’t neglect what Meg said before they were taken from the cold fire). “I don’t wear things like this in particular. They get in the way. Father did.”

How strange, that it’s on him now. He doesn’t despise it.

“Father,” Jake repeats, slower.

Alucard continues. “I would like to remove it, preferably.” His fingers search for a latch and find nothing of the sort. His fingernails keep searching for a moment.

Jake watches his hands and his fingernails scrape for purchase. He was almost slicing.

“It decides what you wear,” Jake mutters, half-distracted.

For a moment, he looks at Alucard still trying to rid himself of the cape, and giving up. Alucard’s eyes beam bright with frustration.

“It’s… creative,” Jake finishes.

In seconds, they turn a corner and come upon something that reminds Alucard of the castle’s inner workings. A machine of mechanical cogs, pistons and wires. He wonders if this functioned similarly to the castle’s features, the things intended to ward off intruders or awakeners.

Speaking of. Trevor wasn’t following behind him. Alucard has faith he’s alright. He’s more than capable, the man who defeated death before.

“This is a generator,” Jake introduced in a way that gave him the impression he’d done this before.

Alucard crouches beside the thing and draws his eyes back to Jake. “A what?”

“A generator. I’ll teach you how to fix it if you don’t already know.” His fingers work fast, demonstrating as he speaks, a true teacher.

Alucard thinks he doesn’t want to repair anything. The pit in his stomach whispers that he has no choice.

If he had the choice – given he was himself – he would fix this. He could. He would be able to soar above them and survey from the sky. He would be fishing in the stream and serving the orphaned children fresh food for breakfast–

Jake continues. “We fix five of these for the exit gates to open. Or, well,” his voice dips, carrying into something hollow. “It’d give us the chance to open them.”

“There are conditions to leave?” Alucard mutters. It aligned, strangely. “And why can’t I–”

A man screams. A crow on the side of a dilapidated-looking shack flies into the air.

Alucard loses what he is going to say. He’s heard that shout before.

That specific panic Trevor is capable of under his rugged layers and too-smart mouth when he’s in true terror. It’s worse here, somehow. It cuts through the air like his whip and hits him in the chest.

“Belmont,” Alucard stands. “Trevor–” 

Jake thins his lips. His hands continue flying inside the generator, reaching out and adjusting levers. Alucard stares at him.

“I know it isn’t nice to hear,” Jake says, “but I saw Nea come in with us. She never abandons anyone new to this.”

Something howls. Alucard’s heartbeat trips over itself.

Any other time, he would feel flushed for looking like a fool in front of someone he doesn’t know. Now, he finds he can’t bring himself to care.

Stay put this, stay put that. Learn this and that and Alucard is still standing, wondering between the firing pistons and the thumping in his chest and the roaring in his ears when–

Trevor screams again. Alucard watches his figure in bright red, brighter than any blood he’d ever seen, collapse.

He can’t teleport there. He can’t sprint there in a second. He can’t be there.

There’s a burst of light. Jake retracts from the generator. “One down.”

Alucard doesn’t like that phrase right now.

“Alright.” Jake wipes oil on his pants. “There could be another in the shack. I’ll–”

Trevor screams again, loud and tearing. It’s worse than any sound he’s ever heard from Trevor, who tends to thin his lips and laugh rather than wail. Alucard thinks it makes the air shake. Notes of the blood bursting out of Trevor sweep over to him in a sweet, tangy wave.

“Get the… hook,” Jake finishes, speaking to nothing.

Jake’s heartbeat warns him of the threat burrowing closer: a figure with sharp yellow eyes and sharper teeth.

Alucard sprints, trying to adjust to how slow he feels. Half his heritage had never been more obvious with Trevor’s red silhouette dangling just a breath away. He feels like he’s barely getting closer.

He winds around a rock, brushing past two stacked hay bales. At that moment, eyes fixed on Trevor, he misses the similarly dressed figure working towards the generator. The figure searches for a flash of green he’s sure, with his incredible eyesight, he saw. He searches, instead of turning around.

Alucard turns the corner, and if he hadn’t seen Trevor stare Death in the face before – he knows, he would’ve thrown himself backwards.

The one image is enough to be grateful Sypha isn’t with them.

Trevor hangs from a meat hook, pierced through his shoulder. His face is almost blank, if not for the pinched tautness near his eyes and lips. His eyes are blank and distant, but alive. Alucard visualises it puncturing his lung and works quickly to get him down.

“Oh,” Alucard’s voice shakes. “Belmont, don’t worry, it’s–” It’s not alright.

Alucard can smell the blood pouring from him. It isn’t black or thick enough to suggest a lung was hit, but it’s more than enough to be a concern.

Trevor looks haunted when down on his shaking feet. He tells Alucard something that makes his stomach curdle. “I’m,” Trevor tries, “I’m – I don’t understand. I’m – God. I don’t know. I’m sorry, Alucard.”

Trevor apologising to him is something he’s fantasised about many times. Now, it’s a contender for one of the worst things he’s ever heard. (But not worse than his father’s grunt as he was staked. Nothing, nothing could be worse).

Alucard focuses on not stuttering. “Why are you apologising, you fool, kneel down, let me see–”

Terrifyingly, Trevor obeys, staring at the floor. He replays what he has seen in his head. He’s sure, no – he knows – that was who he thought it was. He’s seen the man too many times to mistake him now.

Alucard has his eyes.

In the distance, there’s an explosion of inky light. No one screams, but they glimpse the bloody outline of Jake, his hands flying up to the hook punched through him.

“This has to be some sort of dark magic,” Alucard tries explaining, to make them both feel better. His fingers skirt over the wound. “We’ll get out of this, we just need to find out more.” His fingers come back dark red. Something unknown seems to whisper in his ear.

Alucard can’t make out the words. He seems almost paralysed upon realising his hands simply know how to mend Trevor.

“No,” Trevor says, “I meant, I meant – that. Him.”

Alucard’s heart thumps.

“Have… have you not seen?”

“I’ve seen enough,” Alucard means to crack a laugh out of Trevor. It falls flat.

Trevor turns his face away like he’s watching something he shouldn’t. He looks back at Alucard. “Look up,” he says.

“Up–?”

A trim line of fire flies from the floor and nearly singes the bottom of Alucard’s cape. It misses them. Trevor’s eyes widen.

“Get out of here,” Alucard says, automatically. “It’s fine, I’ll handle–”

Trevor throws him a look that Alucard will never bring up again. Gratitude. Sympathy.

Alucard knew Trevor was capable of it. He’d seen it many times. Trevor didn’t mock him for skirting the topic of the man and woman on pikes outside the castle. Trevor looked away from the stuffed dolls of himself and Sypha in front of the dining table. Trevor asked if he would be alright, alone, in the castle where his father lived and died at his hands.

He looked back when Sypha and he were riding away, and Alucard swore, he saw something like sadness on his face.

But despair. Downright despair, now.

Trevor takes off behind a large boulder by a wooden fence. Alucard follows instinct alone to dodge the second line of fire.

He turns in a twist of black cape, bares his teeth, and has never felt sicker.

“Trevor, right?” Jake asks. His fingers finish what Alucard started with practised precision.

Trevor rolls his shoulder. He can move every one of his fingers. He rotates his wrist. The scars from his duel with Death remain seared into his skin. He feels like he should be grateful, instead of questioning it.

He looks over his shoulder to where Alucard is. He can’t see anything over the hay bales, and the thin metal poles of four, bright lights.

“Yeah,” Trevor says. “That’s right.”

He looks back. Jake is waiting for him.

“When he gets hooked,” Jake says. Trevor thinks, when. “I’ll unhook. You stay on that generator, over there,” he gestures his head. “It’d be safer. The newer ones tend to want to prove themselves. They patrol.”

Hooked. Unhooked. It’s all said so damn casually. What’s the word, Alucard would know – that’s it. It’s damn near colloquial.

Trevor breathes in and breathes out. “Alright,” he relents. He has nothing else to say. And worse, nothing he can do. Alucard said: ‘I’ll handle it.’

Not that he asked for pity. Not that he knows what he wants, right now, other than for this to be over with, after confirming Alucard is alright and coming with him to haul ass out of this hellhole.

All he can think about is the warmth of Sypha’s arms. A few days ago, he realised he had a baby name he liked. He never told her what it was. 

Alucard knows, as soon as those long claws come slashing at his front. They barely graze him, as if pulled back in surprise. Alucard collapses like his Achilles heel had been cut. He knows.

He should have realised sooner, at the very start, when he heard that laughter.

His father laughed at many things, almost as often as he smiled. Many years ago, when he was a boy, he asked if he would ever get a younger sibling. At the time, he didn’t understand why his mother’s face went red (he inherited this colour of fluster). Father found it hilarious and ruffled his hair wildly enough for him to spend five minutes taming it again.

Sometimes, before things went up in flames, his father would bring up what he said over dinner. Alucard, slightly older, hoped that the ground would open up.

His father’s laughter wasn’t sweet-sounding, like his mother’s tinkling joy, but deep and rare. Dracula did not feel laughter over anything that wasn’t blood spilling, so said the books, which knew nothing. Before and after his mother’s death, his father didn’t laugh at such things.

Perhaps, in some youthful part of himself, he knew when he was at the campfire. Maybe he clung to childish, delusional hope, that his father was around to help him figure out what was happening.

So, of course, it was all familiar. It’s himself: the blood of his blood.

“Oh,” the figure says. “Oh, Alucard.”

Now, leaning on his palms, he’s staring up at his father. In the dry earth beneath him, Trevor’s blood had crusted over and sank to the floor. His palms feel stained.

Alucard doesn’t remember his father’s eyes being quite so bright.

“Adrian,” his father re-addresses, slowly. His hands, those long claws (that formed a fist, instead of slicing open his throat, when they fought) drip with blood.

Alucard tries to speak. Nothing comes out. The surreality of the situation hits him for another flashing second when his father nears closer. He almost leans down. He’s hovering, just above the floor.

“What… are you doing here?” His father asks.

Despite the situation, Alucard feels like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t, like he was a boy again, sneaking a stool into the kitchen to get at the biscuits atop the cupboard. “Here?”

Where is here, he means to say. But his name, Adrian, coming again from his father, rattles him. It feels like home. It feels hollow.

“Yes,” his father’s voice is blank, almost bleak. It twists with confusion – anger. “It did not tell me you would be. You shouldn’t be.”

“I don’t understand,” Alucard says. “You’re–” Alive. Breathing. Talking to him, after all that happened.

After he knows he shoved a stake through his father’s heart, in his childhood bedroom. Alucard heard his ring fall to the floor. He returned to dust.

Father turns his head up to the sky. Alucard follows his line of sight. Now, he sees the cutting figure in the sky, its tower swarmed with bats.

“If you were to come to this place at all, you should be there,” Father says, “Surely it knows you’re of my blood.” He pauses and looks back at Alucard. He feels his father’s eyes searching his face. It is a title Alucard recognises. That’s what the campfire said.

“You’d make a fine hunter. Perhaps, It would listen to my perspective…”

The word hunter batters around his brain. It feels wrong to hear his father say that – like a vampire hunter. He kept away from the word, almost as though he didn’t believe in its associations.

Alucard knows what he’s hunting here. Revulsion stirs in his gut.

A generator bursts into light in the distance.

“I do not wish to spill your blood,” his father says, “but I am afraid I have no choice.” When they fought, Alucard remembers barely even bleeding. He had scrapes and bruises, but no blood. Never blood.

“Don’t,” Alucard finds himself whispering, getting onto his feet, “don’t, don’t, Father – explain–”

To their right, something in the grass shifts.

“It does not know mercy,” Father continues, voice thick as he tears through justifications. “I won’t be the only one you have if It doesn’t listen to me.” He pauses, as though swallowing. “Well, we’ll have to see.”

Alucard breaks eye contact and looks down at his chest. Only now, does he realise blood had been pouring through four cuts at his front.

Dracula seizes the moment.

When the hook spears into him, Alucard knows that he had never felt raw, physical pain until that moment.

(And if the hook comes too close to his heart, like the end of a stake, and if his instincts kick and scream and struggle, no one but himself knows about it).

He’s taken off the hook and feels the lift and slip of the metal through the meat of his body. It’s nearly as bad as being plunged into it.

Jake gets him off the hook and doesn’t look him in the eye when he’s doing so. Alucard is only somewhat thankful. He would’ve liked the distraction of conversation to stop the racing in his brain, and the feeling of fingers over his wound. He amuses himself with the idea of Trevor doing such careful work.

Jake says, “Follow me to the generator over there. He’s on Nea.”

Alucard doesn’t reply, but follows the instruction like a husk.

The rest of the trial follows in a string of screams, wails and two more bursts of light. He does not see Trevor again, who is struck down presumably without a catch-up and hooked. Nea tries to reach him in time, but she’s too late. The Entity claims another. And then another. And then another, when The Entity plunges through Jake’s chest.

Alucard, unaware of how much time he has before his peer dies, stands alone by the end. He stands beside a tall, dead tree with twisted branches. On their ends hang glutted animal corpses. He can’t smell blood from them.

One question is on his mind. What does he do now?

A whisper begs to drift to his ear. Alucard starts to wander, keeping low.

Now, he and his father were the only ones in this entrapped place.

He does not have to walk for long. He sees something near mesmerising through the parting corn next to a run-down shack: a black, open maw, almost yawning. Alucard feels drawn to it like the fog that (invited him in, vampire’s boy, as though mocking–) stole him away.

(Dwight was right. Like a mosaic, his memories start to patch together, foggy as they were).

The sight of it makes his chest feel light. The relief trickling through him almost makes him ache.

And standing before it is his father.

Everything in him pleads to dart into that darkness, or turn and get a head-start. Alucard does neither, and stares at his very-alive father in the face – the one who made him scream in agony.

His father gestures to the hole in the ground. “That will allow you safety, and to escape this place.”

Alucard dares to hope.

“Not the entire scheme,” a devastating clarification. “Only this space. You will likely return to the rest of them.” Them is spoken with a twinge of distaste Alucard finds standard.

His father is still hovering above the floor like he is a ghostly apparition. Alucard feels the uncanny urge to sweep his hand forward and ensure he’s real.

He doesn’t. His mind is too scrambled to ask a thing, other than: “Can you not escape here?”

The silence he receives is answer enough. The cavern in the floor hums, a commentator watching a scene.

Alucard’s stomach starts forming a pit. That fact is worse than he thought it would be. It is not just him experiencing changes in what he can and cannot do.

(What It permits is a better way to phrase it. Alucard wonders if it would’ve made much of a difference).

Something must have shown on his face. His father gives him an expression similar to the moments before his father put him to rest for a year. It was pity for his personhood.

“Adrian–” Whatever he planned to say cut off. Abruptly, his father gripped the side of his skull – claws and all – and hissed like an animal straight out of hell. (He supposed they were).

Watching the scene, Alucard’s heart thumps with all the mania of a hummingbird. Every nerve in him pleads for out, out, out.

“Father–” Alucard doesn’t think he’s seen him curl his lip like that.

“Even It has recognised the humanity in you,” his father says, and somehow, that’s worse than anything Alucard has heard from him yet. “Get out.”

Alucard takes those few steps forward – feels the chill around his father (he inherited the same coldness) – and plunges into the darkness.

He looks up as he falls into the cool comfort. The last thing he sees is the uncanny yellowness of his father’s eyes which Alucard knows, without searching for a reflection, It had put upon him.

For a moment, he’s burning hot, seemingly the only warmth in this place other than the warm palms of his cohort. Then, he’s chilled once more (undoubtedly made worse, by his biology), as he opens his eyes and sees the fire.

The scene looks the same as before he was snatched into the trial. People sit on the logs, some on the leafed floor, quietly conversing or staring at nothing.

Alucard comes back from just behind two logs. He can’t see Trevor in the crowd.

His heart thumps. The sensation is foreign. In the trial, he didn’t have the time to dwell on the fact he had never had his heart beat before. He can’t ignore it here.

Claudette fiddles with a stone tool and a piece of metal that wasn’t quite a bowl, crushing a plant-looking thing. She looks up at him.

Besides her, Meg follows her eyes. “Heard you got the same guy. Scary, right?”

Nea pulls her hat down over her eyes.

“Scary,” Alucard repeats. For some reason, he feels the calamity press on his stomach and feels like he needs to bend over and wretch. There’s nothing in him to make its way out.

His knees feel weak. His ears twitch. And for whatever reason, he feels as though he can’t move, sweeping his eyes across the many heads illuminated by the glow of the fire. Their discussions overlap and fade away.

He breathes a sigh when he sees the cutting white coat. Trevor was preoccupied with talking to a woman with curly brown hair.

As if sensing Alucard’s eyes, he looks up. Alucard sees ease on his face. It brings some alertness back to him in only a way that Trevor can achieve.

Alucard whips around. Jake looks briefly surprised. The fire is far enough to scarcely light his features.

“Father,” Jake says. “I heard you say, father.”

Alucard doesn’t think he’s imagining the immediate quiet near their side of the campfire.

 

 

 

Somewhere across the realm, Vlad Ţepeş – Count Dracula – sits in a cold, dark room in his re-claimed castle. Many times, before he was taken into his first trial, he wandered and searched for company he thought had a chance of being there.

He didn’t find him. Now, he knows why.

The single master of the castle swirls a glass of blood. It’s in a wine glass that he kept in a cabinet for many years. He had no use for it. He had not drunk human blood since Lisa’s passing. Something about this place made his throat feel dry and his body weak in ways he had not predicted.

Master of Castle, Dark Lord Count Dracula, takes another slow sip. His fireplace bears no flame, but black smoke.

“You do know he is my boy,” Dracula stops swirling his glass and watches the blood settle. “He is not one of them,” he pauses. “If you let him, and allowed him what he needed to perform, he would be excellent.”

It does not respond.

Dracula leans on the back of his hand and thinks of what he had heard of the others here: the ones with the role that he had been given. If he had not been stripped of his capabilities, Alucard would have bested them all with ease.

Admittedly, so too would the Belmont. But the thought of him being mutilated and facing all horrors does not remain on the mind quite so much.

Alucard is not of the kind that he is, even before coming to this place by his will or not.

He had always been one for the humans, like a dog who loves the scraps.