eiahmon | Blood Is Chapter 7

Title: Blood Is
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Do I really have to mention that I don't own Castlevania? If I did, we would have gotten to see Julius curbstomp Dracula, the storyline would have been neatened up a bit, and Dracula and Alucard would have just HUGGED already after the reveal in Lords of Shadow 2.
Summary: Lords of Shadow Continuity: AU to Mirror of Fate and Lords of Shadow 2: Trevor wasn't the only one that had the truth of his parentage kept from him by the Brotherhood.

He was warm.

He was safe.

Where was he?

Why did he even care?

He looked around but saw nothing but an endless expanse of darkness. What was that?

I have you now.

We will take care of you.

You belong to us now.

That.. didn't sound so bad. Gabriel happily snuggled down into the soft material that he could feel wrapped around him and leaned back against the padded surface behind him. He could stay here forever.

He felt hands on him again, but they did not bother him anymore.

You are ours.

With a sigh, Gabriel fell asleep with a faint smile on his face.

******

How long does this castle go on for? Wolfram thought as they ran into yet another dead end. He sighed as he raked his hair, which was covered in dust and cobwebs, back from his forehead and looked around. The castle was a veritable maze, which was worsened by its poor condition. Doors were blocked off, rooms were caved in, and entire corridors were collapsed, which forced them to backtrack frequently.

The entire place gave him the shivers. They had seen no sign that anyone lived in the castle, yet candles and torches were lit in many places, and sometimes he swore he heard footsteps other than theirs, as well as doors opening and closing, and the entire place seemed to breath like some vast creature. However, the worst part by far were the voices.

They followed them wherever they went, whispering voices that came from the shadows. They told them that they were not welcome, that they couldn't have him, that he was theirs now. It didn't take much to figure that they were talking about Gabriel, which only increased his resolve to find his son and get him out of there. There was no telling what kind of nefarious plans the castle had for him.

He is mine!

Wolfram shuddered, and beside him, he felt Edeline do the same. Where was he? Hours had passed since they had come into the castle, and they were running out of daylight. He didn't want to think about being lost in this cursed place after dark. They had been through so many rooms: a playroom that had it's roof partially collapsed in, a large laboratory of some kind, bedrooms, libraries, and countless hallways and corridors, and he reckoned that they hadn't even explored half of the castle yet.

It was actually a relief when they walked up a long outdoor staircase and into a room that was different than the rest. The large circular room was open to the sky, and its walls were lined with statues of men holding swords. The floor was mostly gone, leaving only a narrow pathway that was littered with broken masonry that led to a large mirror set into the opposite wall. It was simply massive, almost three times Wolfram's height, and about half of that in width. It was framed by a dragon on each side, in a sitting position, wings extended.

"What is that doing here?" Edeline wondered.

Wolfram had to agree with her. "It does look very out of place here, doesn't it?"

"Let's go see..." she mumbled, and she began to walk towards it.

"Edeline, wait!" He chased after her, but she ignored his calls for her to wait. She simply glided across the ruined floor as if she were dancing to some unheard music. It wasn't until they were standing in front of the mirror that she seemed to come back to herself, and she shook her head and looked at him in confusion.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded faintly. "I think so. I don't know what came over me. I just had to see the mirror." She turned to look at it.

Wolfram did the same, and he was forced to take a step back when it began to shine with a bright light of its own making. He pulled Edeline back with him as she gasped.

"What is this?" she whispered.

"I don't know."

The light from the mirror dimmed, and Wolfram gasped just as his wife had done when the reflective surface vanished, leaving an image of a room that they hadn't seen in years in it's place.

"Mathias' nursery." he breathed. "What devilry is this?"

The nursery was as they had left it on that evening so long ago. There was Mathias sleeping in his cradle in front of the fireplace, while his nurse worked on needlework nearby. There was no sound accompanying the images, but he was able to tell when the attack began. The door rattled three times in quick succession, as though someone was knocking on it. The nurse looked up from her needlework and stared at the door for a second, then she tossed it aside and began to drag everything she could in front of the door. Her efforts were pointless though, as the door was ripped from it's hinges, and the furniture and other items she had piled up were smashed to pieces by the men coming through.

She put herself between them and the cradle and refused to move, and though she was unarmed, Wolfram smiled with pride to see her facing down several armed men. When she refused to stand aside, one of them attacked her, and in a contest of bare hands against cold steel, she had no chance. The men in the red cloaks paid no mind to the young life that one of their own had just ended, instead they only walked up to the cradle, while two of them stood guard at the door. One of the men around the cradle knelt down to pick Mathias up, and as he stood with the screaming infant in his arms, the light from the fire allowed Wolfram to get a glimpse of his face under his hood.

"Cardinal Volpe!" he snarled. "That bastard!" Though the face was younger, and the hair had color to it, it was definitely the man that had been asking to have a compound built on their land. "I am going to kill him!"

"Not if I get to him first!" Edeline hissed. "He stole our baby, and after doing that, he wants to ask favors of us! He's going to hang for this!"

The moving image vanished as Volpe walked out of the nursery with Mathias in his arms, and a new image took its place. It showed a boy, perhaps about seven or so, running through a meadow with a girl of about the same age. His brown hair was full of leaves and pollen, and his green eyes were alight with the joy of a child having fun. The girl, with brown hair and eyes of the same color, was chasing after him in the bright afternoon sunshine, and Wolfram imagined he could hear their laughter as they ran about.

"He looks so happy." Edeline said softly. "That's our boy, Wolfram."

The image faded and was replaced with one that was inside a small church, the chapel at the Brotherhood compound, Wolfram realized. A man that could almost be his twin was standing at the altar, his eyes alight with love as he watched his soon to be bride walk up the isle on the arm of her father. The father of the bride handed the woman – an older version of the girl they had seen before – over to the man she was to marry, and stood aside.

"We should have been there." Wolfram said softly. The pews were filled with member of the Brotherhood on the right side, with the bride's family on the left, and Volpe officiating. There was still no sound, but they were able to watch their son and his wife recite their vows to each other and share their first kiss and husband and wife. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Edeline dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, and he had to wipe away a bit of moisture that was gathering in his own eyes as well.

The scene faded as the new couple walked out of the chapel to the cheers of their wedding guests, and the image that replaced it made Edeline laugh with joy. Their daughter-in-law was sitting propped up in bed, cradling an infant in her arms. She smiled and rocked him, and at any moment they expected Gabriel to walk into the image to see his son.

But he did not, instead Volpe and a group of Brotherhood elders walked into the frame. Wolfram growled at the sight of them as they spoke to the new mother and showed her a fragment of some kind hanging on a cord. She looked at it for a long moment, handed it back, and then hung her head and said nothing as Volpe and the other walked out with her baby. Instead she only hid her face in her hands and cried.

"She let them take Trevor!" Wolfram growled in outrage. "She just let them walk out of there with him! Where was Gabriel during all of this!"

The mirror seemed to answer his question by showing them a series of moving pictures, showing Gabriel leaving his home during the early summer as his wife waved from the door, and as soon as he had mounted his horse and rode off, she placed her hand over her womb and smiled faintly. The mirror then followed Gabriel through the changing seasons as he tracked down and sealed away some kind of demonic monster. He didn't return home until the late spring.

"He never knew." Wolfram whispered in horror. "He never knew that his wife had bore him a son. That's why he never returned for Trevor; he doesn't know the boy exists."

The mirror changed images, and it showed Gabriel and his wife enjoying a walk through the woods. They encountered an elderly member of the Brotherhood, who after seemingly pleasant greetings attacked them. Gabriel fought to protect his wife, but he was quickly subdued by some kind of mask being pushed onto his face. He went completely still, and he didn't react as the other man pushed his wife down onto a log and handed him an ax. Gabriel took the ax and walked mindlessly, with no light in his eyes, up to his unconscious wife, and raised the ax...

Wolfram was glad there was no sound as he turned his head; he didn't need to see the rest.

The mirror showed a new series of pictures then, of Gabriel going on his quest, his journey through the wilds, destroying the first Lord of Shadow, and then killing another young woman under the influence of that mask again. It showed him journeying through Bernhard Castle and destroying the second Lord of Shadow in the same room they were in.

"At least we know what happened to the floor." Wolfram said weakly.

Gabriel was then shown journeying through the Land of the Dead as he hunted down the final Lord of Shadow, of how he was betrayed by his guide, who happened to be the one that had caused him to murder his wife and the young woman. Wolfram wanted to reach into the mirror and grab his son when he saw him break down as he realized what he had done, and he just barely managed to hold himself together when he saw what happened next.

Gabriel tried to attack, but the gauntlet on his arm seemed to glow with red light, and he gasped in pain as it drove him to his knees. He was then lifted into the air, helpless and surrounded by arcs of green lightning, and Wolfram was grateful again for the lack of sound, because he could imagine the sounds his son was making, and that was more than enough.

Gabriel was held aloft for one long, agonizing minute, and then he was released to fall to the ground, still and lifeless. The final Lord gloated as Wolfram silently begged his boy to move, to take a breath, to do something.

But then Satan appeared.

Edeline screamed, and Wolfram stumbled back from the mirror. "It's true, he really did..." he stuttered. "Oh my God!"

Satan destroyed the final Lord of Shadow, and Wolfram stared in horror as the Prince of Lies picked up the mask that Gabriel had risked so much to get and began to walk away.

"Wolfram," Edeline whispered, "look." He turned away from Satan and the mask in his hands to see Gabriel, still lying on the ground where he had fallen but...

He was breathing. Wolfram felt his jaw fall open as Gabriel took a breath, then another, and another. He stirred, and then slowly, he got to his feet. Satan paused in his walk and said something, Gabriel responded, and Satan slipped the mask on, and the battle began.

Despite using the God Mask, the Prince of Darkness could not hope to stand against God's Chosen, and Wolfram did cheer when Gabriel sent him back to Hell where he belonged.

The trapped souls of the dead were freed, and Gabriel and his wife enjoyed one last moment together before she too had to move on. Gabriel was left on his knees, sobbing, as she ascended without him.

"My boy, my baby." Edeline's voice trembled. "It's over now; we're here, and we're going to take you home."

The mirror changed images again.

"What now?" Wolfram demanded, feeling a little heartsick at seeing all his son had been through.

The mirror showed Bernhard Castle again, the room with the game board set into the floor, and it showed a still clearly grieving Gabriel, and the vampire child that they had seen before descending the steps in the floor. The pair went through a large underground area of the castle, working together to move forward, until they came to a dead end. They opened some kind of doorway, and Gabriel spoke to the child and began to walk towards it, but she caught him by the sleeve and stopped him. She bit into her wrist and offered the bleeding wound to him as she spoke to him. Gabriel looked at her for a moment, and then he lowered his head to her wrist and began to drink.

"No," Wolfram whispered, "Gabriel, what have you done?"

Gabriel stopped drinking for a moment, and the child begged him to keep going, which he did. Once it was done, his mouth and chin were smeared with blood, while he cradled her still body in one arm. She dissolved into nothingness then, and he turned and entered the doorway. He entered a place that could be best described as Hell, with lava flows and red rocks everywhere. He walked forward and into an open area, and Edeline screamed again when they saw what he had gone in there for.

They watched in horror as their now vampiric son tracked down the large demon and faced him in combat twice. They saw that, even after he was defeated, the demon was not destroyed, and he was using his power to enter the world of men. Gabriel, in desperation, leapt forward and grabbed the demon's power for himself, and then he destroyed it completely as it begged for its life. He then shattered his combat cross, and returned to the human world, and hid himself away in the castle.

The mirror went dark then, and Wolfram looked at his wife.

"Our son is a vampire." he said quietly.

"And he's taken the powers of a demon." she added.

"What do we do?"

"He's still our son, Wolfram."

He nodded once in agreement. "And he needs us." He turned to face the mirror. "Where is he now?"

The mirror shone with light again for a moment, and when that light faded, it showed a room they had not yet seen. It was obviously a throne room of some sort, with six large pillars carved with reliefs of angels holding up the ceiling, and two large sets of double doors, one at the end opposite the throne, and one on the right side of the room. Four tall stands stood on a dais by the throne, two on each side, and they were burning with a bright blue flame.

The high backed throne was sitting in the middle of the dais against the wall, and it had an occupant.

"Gabriel," Wolfram breathed as he laid eyes on his son, reclining in the throne and seemingly asleep. He was wound in a red cloth, and Wolfram couldn't help but think that he looked like a swaddled infant. "How do we get to him?"

The mirror flashed yet again, and this time it began to show a route out of the room they were in that would lead them straight to the throne room. Wolfram looked up towards a room positioned high up; that had to be it.

"We're coming, Gabriel. Just hold on."

The two of them turned away from the mirror and walked quickly back the way they had came, and Wolfram led them through the twisted maze of corridors as quickly as possible.

You will not take him from me.

Wolfram ignored the voice, even as his wife shivered. He was going to find their son, and nothing was going to stand in their, not even a demonic castle.

Finally, after a long trek through dwindling light, they reached the hall that ran straight into the throne room. A large gate separated them from the hallway, but that gate was open. They were almost there. Soon they would be able to hold their son in their arms for the first time in 33 years.

The gate slammed shut, and the loud clang! echoed through the castle.

He belongs to me now.

You can't have him.

You won't take him from us.

Wolfram grabbed a hold of it and pulled, and though there was no lock that he could see, it wouldn't open.

"Open this gate!" he raged at the castle around them.

The prince does not wish to be disturbed.

"Let us through!" Edeline shouted.

He does not belong to you.

"That's my son you're holding prisoner! Now open this gate!"

The castle's response came in the form of mocking laughter.

"You're not going to keep my away from my baby," Edeline snapped as she strode forward, "any longer!" She swung at the gate, and to their surprise, there was a flash of white light, a screech of pain from the castle, and the gate sprang open. Wolfram looked at his wife, and then as one, the two of them looked at the leather pouch with the remaining crucifix that she was still holding in her hand.

Wolfram shook his head. "Let's not waste any more time." Edeline nodded, and the two of them ran through the open gate, took a right turn, and ran straight up to the throne room doors. Those doors also refused to open, but Wolfram pressed the crucifix he was wearing around his neck to them, and they flew open just as the gate had.

They stepped inside the throne room, and both of them paused at what they saw.

"He's really here." Edeline said in awe. "Our baby's really here."

Gabriel was in the throne, just as they had seen him in the mirror, and he appeared to be asleep. Edeline ran towards him, and Wolfram followed her. He wanted to warn her not to startle him, but he couldn't make himself say the words. She reached him first, though he was right behind her. She cupped Gabriel's face in her hands.

"Gabriel?"

He stirred, and one eye cracked open, giving them a glimpse of the red iris before it closed, and his head lolled to the side.

"Gabriel?" Edeline called gently. "Can you hear us? We're going to take you home now." Gabriel whimpered quietly in response, and Wolfram found he couldn't stand by any longer. Without hesitating, he reached out and scooped Gabriel out of the throne and into his arms. He looked down at his son's sleeping face and felt his heart swell with the emotions that warred for dominance within it. He had his son in his arms! His son!

Who was a vampire.

Who had taken the powers of a demon for his own.

That wasn't important! he told himself firmly. He had his son in his arms, and now they could take him home and love him like parents should.

There was a low growl that seemed to come from everywhere at once, and the room trembled.

"Let's go." he said. "We need to get out of here quickly. Keep your crucifix out; we might need it to open doors for us."

"Oh that reminds me." Edeline opened the leather pouch and fished out the third crucifix. Without thinking she reached over to Gabriel and fastened it around his neck before Wolfram could stop her. He stood and waited, expecting Gabriel to scream, to writhe in pain as the holy artifact burned him, but no such thing happened.

"It's not hurting him." he said in confusion, and Edeline looked queasy at the though of accidentally injuring their son before she pushed the swaddling away from his neck to get a better look. There was nothing, no burning, no smoke, nothing that hinted that the crucifix was in any way dangerous to Gabriel. If he hadn't seen that same crucifix just open a gate and cause pain to the castle itself, he would think it didn't have any power at all. She tucked the swaddling back into place and stepped back.

"Can you carry him that far?" she asked as her brow furrowed in concern.

He hitched Gabriel higher up into his arms to make it easier to carry him. "I'll manage. Let's go. I want to get as far away from here as we can, the sooner the better." Gabriel moaned quietly at the motion, and as much as Wolfram wanted to comfort him, they had to get away first, before the castle became even more demonstrative.

They walked quickly out of the throne room and began to backtrack the way that had come. The castle growled and snarled, but made no move to stop them.

We really have our son, Wolfram repeated over and over in his mind. We really have him, and we're really taking him home.

They back tracked to the mirror room with no trouble, but by then Wolfram's arms were shaking with the strain of carrying Gabriel's weight. He knelt down and laid his boy gently on the floor, and that was when the castle finally made it's move.

I am taking back what is mine. came the angry growl, and Wolfram was knocked backward by an explosion of... something that erupted from the floor. He heard Edeline scream, and he also heard Gabriel cry out in fear. He landed against the wall, and he looked up to see Edeline getting to her feet a few feet further down, while Gabriel was still lying in the center of the hallway.

"Gabriel!" she cried out, and Wolfram followed her gaze as the metallic scent of blood filled the air. He ran forward to scoop Gabriel up, but a wave of red blood rose up and knocked him back again. He landed in a heap against the wall again, and he shook his head and looked up to see that blood wave poised over Gabriel like a predator preparing to strike.

"NO!" He couldn't lose his boy, not now, not after finding him again, not while they were so close!

The wave crashed down over Gabriel, covering him completely, and Wolfram ran forward again, to do what he wasn't sure, but before he could take more than a few steps, there was a pained scream that came from the very walls, and the blood was blown away and scattered in all directions. He finally reached Gabriel to see that there wasn't a drop of blood on him, and he saw the fading glow from the crucifix around his neck.

He didn't stop to think; he scooped Gabriel up again and stood up -

"Run Edeline!"

- and the two of them bolted down the hallway, tiredness forgotten for the moment.

He is mine!

As they ran, torches and candles went out, doors slammed closed, debris fell down from the ceiling, and it seemed as though the castle was tearing itself apart to prevent them from getting Gabriel out. They made it back to the mirror room as the floor behind them collapsed, and then the entire mirror room shook like an earthquake and fell in on itself.

You can't have him!

The staircase began to collapse after them, and they made it back inside just ahead of it, but they still couldn't stop. There was an enraged roar from the walls as they ran down the hallway to the lift that took them down through the clockwork tower. They stood on the platform as it descended, as the tower fell down around them, and the platform shook and shuddered all the way down. Somehow they made it to the bottom, and they ran out of the tower just as it crashed down onto itself. They ran back outside and to the narrow bridge that they had crossed earlier, and much as Wolfram wanted to run across, that simply wasn't possible. The wind blew hard across it, and it's surface was slick with ice. Edeline was already inching her way across.

He stepped out onto the narrow bridge as he heard a groan from behind him, and he expected the bridge to go slack as it lost one of its supports, but nothing happened. Perhaps the castle was worried about injuring or killing Gabriel? The fall was certainly high enough.

He didn't want to think about that.

He crept across the narrow wind whipped surface, and he used Gabriel's weight as a balancing pole, hoping that he wouldn't wake suddenly and move about. The wind whipped Gabriel's hair and the cloth he was wrapped in around, and Wolfram imagined that it wanted to tear him out of his arms. Edeline was waiting for them in the tower in the center, and her worry was plain in her eyes as she watched them.

The sun was nearly gone by the time he made it across, and he could barely see where he was going. He wanted to keep moving, but with barely any sunlight to see by, it was too dangerous to cross the other bridge. His arms too, desperately need a rest. Fear for their lives could only carry him so far.

He stepped onto the snow covered tower roof and looked at Edeline.

"We need to stop for a while," he shouted over the shrieking wind. "I think there is a room below us. Let's go there and rest for a bit."

Edeline nodded in understanding, and she led him down the small path to the side that spiraled along the side of the tower and went into a tunnel that had a set of steps. The steps followed the curve of the tower and ended in a small circular room within the tower itself. Two windows, one on either side of the room, let in the rapidly fading sunlight, while candles on stands gave the room a soft yellow light. There was a gate that could be closed over the doorway, but Wolfram opted to leave it open in case they had to make a quick escape.

"Do you think we're safe here?" Edeline asked worriedly as she wrung her hands.

"I think so." Wolfram replied as he laid Gabriel down on the floor against the wall opposite the door. "I think that while the castle doesn't want Gabriel to leave, it doesn't want to risk hurting him either, otherwise it would have collapsed the bridges under us." He sat down next to Gabriel and sighed. His entire body was shaking from exhaustion and the sudden unaccustomed exercise.

Edeline came and sat down beside them. "I just hope we can get out of here soon." She reached out and gently brushed Gabriel's hair out of his face.

"I think we should wait until morning."

Her head whipped up to stare at him. "Why? What are you saying?"

"Think Edeline! I want to get out of here as quickly as you do, but the sun is nearly gone -" He gestured out the window which was closest to the door. The sun was only a barely visible slit of light on the horizon. "- and it is already too dark to see. We need light to make it out of of the castle, especially if it's going to try and kill us again. And finally, my arms are too tired to carry Gabriel any further. I need to rest before I can keep going."

"But the sunlight, Wolfram. Gabriel is a vampire."

Wolfram paused; how could he have forgotten that? "Damn it." he swore quietly. He looked about the small room and saw that the two windows had ragged curtains. "We'll just have to wrap him up real tight before we go and hope the sunlight won't burn him if he's covered."

"And if it does?"

"Then we wait for sundown and hope for the best." He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. The small room went silent then save for their breathing and the wind howling around them, but after a few minutes, he heard Edeline moving about, and he opened his eyes to look.

She carefully sat Gabriel up and sat down against the wall in that spot before lying him back down, with his head resting on her lap. She tucked the swaddling around him in the places it had come loose, and then turned her head to look at him.

"Why don't you take a quick nap, Wolfram?" she suggested. "We've had a long day, and you need to be able to carry Gabriel out of here tomorrow."

No, he didn't want to nap. Despite what he had said, he didn't trust the castle to collapse the tower once their guard was down, but Edeline did have a point, and they couldn't go anywhere at the moment anyway. It helped that, for some unknown reason, the castle's evil presence didn't feel quite as strong where they were. Maybe it was because they were quite some distance from the main structure, but whatever the reason, he wasn't going to complain about it.

Instead he nodded in agreement to his wife's suggestion, leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes. The last thing he heard before falling asleep was Edeline's voice, singing a lullaby to Gabriel.

Family: 6 -- Family: 8
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Blood Is Chapter 7

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