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Blood Is Chapter 8
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.
A/N: My carpal tunnel REALLY hates me now. XD
8.
There was a new voice talking to him, a woman's voice. It called him by name instead of "my lord" or my prince". Only the castle's voice called him by name.
He felt another hand stroking his hair and the voice sang to him. The castle never sang to him.
You will never leave here.
He shivered at the feared sound, and the singing voice stopped singing to say something to him, but he didn't understand the words.
You belong to me, Gabriel Belmont! He saw a face then in the darkness that surrounded him, and it had white eyes, and blood dripped from its mouth. He cried out in fear and tried to turn away, but it was everywhere he looked. You are mine, and you will never leave here!
Gabriel tried to close his eyes, but he could still see it staring at him, and his soul shrank away in fear. "Go away!"
******
"Go away!"
Gabriel's voice, and the obvious fear in it, startled Edeline awake. She blinked her eyes open to find that they were still in that little tower room, that the sun was just starting to rise, and that Gabriel was still lying with his head on her lap.
"Gabriel?" she called softly as she sat up. "Gabriel? All you all right, dear one?" His entire body jerked as though he'd been kicked, and then he wailed, a sound that sent shivers down her spine. "Gabriel?" She grasped a hold of him and managed to tug him closer to her so she could cradle his upper body in her right arm. "Mama's here, Gabriel."
His eyes opened then, but they were wild and unfocused. The red irises were a further reminder that her son was no longer human, but she ignored that. Her son needed his mother; that was the important thing. She gently raked his hair out of his face. "It's all right, Gabriel." He wailed again, and then he began to cry.
She felt her heart break at the sight of Gabriel's tears, and she shimmied out from under him, laid him down on the floor, and then laid down beside him. She tugged him over and tucked his head under her chin, ignoring the sensible part of her that warned about the possibility of being bitten. That wasn't important. What was important was comforting her crying child. He nestled close to her, as if he craved the contact, and she put her arm around him and sang a little lullaby to him, like she had done all those years ago when she last cradled him in her arms.
She saw Wolfram out of the corner of her eye, and he smiled at the two of them before he came and laid down on Gabriel's other side. He hummed along with her lullaby as he ran his fingers over Gabriel's hair. Gabriel closed his eyes, and Edeline felt him begin to relax, and a minute or so later, he began to quiet.
"That's right." she cooed. "Just calm down. We're here with you, and we won't let anyone hurt you." Not even those bastards from the Brotherhood, she added silently.
With a few last hiccups and sniffles, Gabriel went quiet, but that quiet did not last. As the light in the small room brightened up, he whimpered quietly, and then he whined. Wolfram stood up, and she looked up and watched him as he moved to the east window and pulled the curtain closed over it. Gabriel let out a little sigh, and then he went quiet again.
"We have to get moving soon." Wolfram said, and with that, he moved over to the other window and took down the curtain. He shook it out, causing a cloud of dust to billow up off of it for a moment, and then he walked back to her and Gabriel. It took the two of them to wrap him in the curtain, and they had to pause for a moment when he cried out in distress as they went to cover his face.
"Shhhhh," Edeline she said gently as she cupped his face in her hand. "Don't cry, Gabriel. We don't want the sun to hurt you when we take you outside." He looked at her with teary eyes, and for a second, she thought they focused on her before they started staring about wildly again. Wolfram covered his face then and used one of the tie cords from the window to hold the curtain in place so it couldn't come loose. Part of her felt uneasy at wrapping their son up like a body for burial, and a quick glance at Wolfram's face showed that he felt the same, but it had to be done until they were safely away from the castle and inside a dark place, preferably their carriage.
Wolfram hefted Gabriel up into his arms, and then he nodded at her. She looked at her husband's determined face for a moment and then let her eyes drift down to Gabriel's wrapped form. She nodded once and led the way out of the small room. She climbed up the stairs and then followed the path to the top of the tower, and she was relieved to note that the wind had lessened overnight. It hadn't stopped – there was probably always wind blowing at this altitude – but it was not as fierce as it had been.
She waited until Wolfram had joined her, and after a long look at him again, she began to inch her way across the narrow bridge that led to the other half of the castle. She grabbed her skirts in one hand to keep it from flapping around and getting tangled up in her legs, and she held her other arm out for balance. She didn't stop to look around at Wolfram, as much as she wanted to.
With the calmer winds, the walk across the bridge was easier than it had been the previous day, and she made it across the narrow path quickly. Only then did she allow herself to turn and look at her husband. Wolfram was barely halfway across, and he was moving very slow and watching carefully where he put each step before putting his foot down. He was holding onto Gabriel with a tight grip, and Gabriel himself was lying still in his father's arms and showing no sign that the sunlight was bothering him through his covers.
Edeline held her breath as she watched her husband inch over to her, and she let it out as a sigh when he stepped off of the bridge and onto the large outdoor balcony with her. Gabriel was whimpering quietly, and she reached out to touch him, but Wolfram brushed past her before she could.
"Let's keep moving." he said. "We can comfort him later." She nodded and followed him as he walked inside.
Gabriel did not quiet once they were inside. His whimpers turned into soft cries, and it was easy to understand why. The feeling of being surrounded by something evil was back in full force, and she could feel invisible eyes boring into her from every direction. She shivered and kept moving, wondering just how the castle was affecting Gabriel to make him react in such a way.
The voices kept silent as they walked down the corridors, back tracking their path back to the main entrance, but it was clear that something was harassing Gabriel, for he became more and more agitated as they walked on. He soft cries became louder, until he was bawling in Wolfram's arms, and he began to wiggle around in his wrappings, which made it hard for Wolfram to hold on to him. Finally, they were forced to stop, and then three of them sat on the floor, while Edeline pulled the wrapping away from Gabriel's face.
His face was damp with tears, and she spotted a few drops of dried blood on his lip from where he had apparently bitten himself. His eyes roved about the hallway for a moment before they focused on an area over her shoulder. She looked and saw nothing, but she knew that that didn't mean anything. Who knew what he was seeing.
He screamed then, and he tried to scoot away from whatever it was behind her. Wolfram pulled him against his own body, and Gabriel turned his head and hid his face in his father's shoulder, like a child trying to hide from a frightening sight.
"If we didn't need them to protect him," Wolfram said as he slowly rocked Gabriel back and forth, "I would throw these damned rags aside. I don't like the idea of any part of this castle touching him."
Gabriel screamed again, and Edeline moved to stand on her knees and moved as close to her husband and son as she could, sandwiching Gabriel between them. Two parents protecting their child, she thought as she began to stroke Gabriel's hair, which she could see was darker than it had been in the mirror. Two parents trying to protect their child from the evil around them.
Would it be enough?
There was a low growl from the walls around them, and Gabriel sobbed in terror. Wolfram threw the cover over his face again and stood up.
"Let's get going."
The growling from the walls turned into a furious snarl as they began walking, and as they moved through the laboratory, the entire structure began to shake. Gabriel wailed in fright -
Give him back!
- and masonry began to tumble down from the walls and ceiling as they ran out.
Don't take our prince away!
He's not yours! Edeline wanted to shout, but she had to save her breath for running for her life as they dashed outside and onto a crumbling pathway that led back towards the entrance hall. They dashed through the large circular room with the demon head over the doorway as what remained of it's floor cracked and began to crumble under their feet. Since she wasn't carrying a heavy weight, Edeline made it across first, and she leapt up onto the stable ledge under the door and turned back to look at Wolfram. He and Gabriel were sinking as the floor slowly collapsed, and with a mighty heave she hadn't thought he was capable off, he tossed Gabriel to her and leapt for the ledge himself.
Gabriel shrieked as she grabbed him by his swaddling and dragged him up with her, and then she grabbed for her husband as he hung from the ledge.
"Take Gabriel and go!" he shouted over the sounds of falling stone and shattering glass around them as the walls started to fall in.
"I'm not leaving you!" She grabbed him by his wrist and began to pull him up as the floor dropped out from under his feet. She could hear Gabriel crying beside her, and she backed away from the edge, still clinging to her husband's wrist. He scrambled for purchase with his other hand, and he dragged himself up onto the ledge as it began to crack underneath them. He scrambled to his feet, scooped Gabriel up, and then they ran down the hallway towards the dining hall.
Dust and rocks rained down from the ceiling as they ran, the statues fell into piles of rubble in their path, which forced them to lose precious time by climbing over them. Torches fell from the cracking walls, and one landed on the old carpet, igniting it. Gabriel wailed as they ran past it, and they reached the intersection in the dining hall and ran down to the right as the dining hall ceiling came down and a billowing dust cloud chased them. They reached the game room as the game board fell into the lower levels of the castle, and they were forced to slow down and creep around the outer edges of the floor as debris rained down on them from above.
The double doors to the entrance hall slammed shut as they reached them, but a quick press of a crucifix against them fixed that problem, and they ran out into the hall. Gabriel shrieked in pain as sunlight shining through the collapsing roof fell on him, and Edeline looked back to see Wolfram pausing to adjust the covering over his face.
"Hurry!" she shouted as the castle roared in full on rage -
YOU CANNOT HAVE HIM!
- and Wolfram finished what he was doing and ran towards her just as a large piece of the roof crashed down where he had been standing.
The windows blew in, and the glass shards caught the sunlight as they ran through them. They ran through the doorway as the archway collapsed, narrowly missing them, and another dust cloud billowed out of the little chapel off to the side. A quick glance as they passed by showed that it had collapsed in on itself. The roof crashed down in front of them, and Edeline shrieked and jumped back for a second before she began to climb over it. She turned to help Wolfram up, and she looked over his shoulder and saw the walls falling outward like an opening book.
She turned back towards their exit, and she saw a welcome sight. One of the massive front doors had fallen off its hinges, and sunlight, bright, welcoming sunlight, was shining through it.
HE! IS! MINE!
They scrambled over the rubble, and she looked up and froze in horror when she saw the entire front wall, bereft of its supports, falling towards them as it began to crumble.
"No..." she whispered as she watched it fall towards her in agonizing slow motion. There were so close... Large stones began to rain down around her...
"Edeline!" came Wolfram's voice in her ear, and she felt a sting against her cheek as he ran by. She shook her head as he hitched Gabriel higher in his arms and kept running, and she ran right after him.
The castle roared wordlessly in rage, Gabriel cried in fear, and she kept her eyes on that bright light as she ran towards it. The light was growing as the wall fell inward... stones were raining down everywhere... the entire castle was shaking under her feet... the other door fell and crashed to the floor...
And then she couldn't see Wolfram and Gabriel anymore as the were swallowed by the bright light, but she could still hear her baby's cries as she raced after them.
"Edeline! Jump!"
She didn't think; she leapt forward with both legs, and suddenly she was flying through the air, through what remained of the doorway and into the bright, early spring sunshine. She heard the crash of the front wall collapsing onto the entrance hall floor as she sailed over the massive front steps. They had made it! They were free! Gabriel was safe! She wanted to shout for joy!
Her jubilation was brought to a rude halt when gravity asserted itself, and she crashed down onto the steps and tumbled down them to land at the bottom. She felt something in her left knee pop, and then there was a flare of heat and pain from her right shoulder, and she rolled to a stop in the snowy courtyard at the base of the steps and stared up at the blue sky, chest heaving.
Wolfram was there suddenly, and he was pulling her to her feet and urging her away from the castle, and she pushed away from his supporting arm and hobbled away towards the road. He walked beside her, murmuring soothingly to Gabriel, who was still crying, as he went. Behind them, she could hear breaking glass and cracking stone as the castle continued to fall in on itself, and as they walked down the drive, there was a massive crash! that made her shriek in surprise. Gabriel screamed, a long drawn out sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up as they turned to face the castle.
The main part of it was nothing but a pile of rubble, and the collapse seemed to move outward like a wave, spreading to the other buildings and towers, which them came down. She thought she heard one last whisper of defiance from it, and then its voices were silenced. Gabriel's scream stopped, leaving him crying in his father's arms once again, and they turned and walked down the drive towards the village.
They said nothing as they walked, not even to comfort Gabriel. His cries quieted as they moved away from the castle, but they did not stop, which made Edeline wonder what had him so upset. Or was it relief that he was finally away from that place? The sound of a cracking whip and horses' hooves on the road made her break off her thoughts and look up, and she smiled when she saw their carriage approaching.
"Remind me to give him a raise when we get home." Wolfram said in a tired voice as the carriage rolled up to them and stopped.
"My lord, my lady!" the driver said. "Thank Heavens you're all right! When you didn't return last night, many feared the worst!" He climbed down from his seat and opened the door for them. He looked at Gabriel but did not say anything. Instead he only helped Wolfram into the carriage. "When I heard that the castle was collapsing, I had to make sure you had gotten out safely." He smiled and offered Edeline and hand up, which she was glad to take. "I am so glad to see you."
Edeline managed a weak smile in return, but she didn't have anything to say as she climbed up inside. Her knee protested the step, but she ignored it as the door shut behind her. A few seconds later, she heard the crack of the whip, and with a jolt, the carriage began to move.
She shut the curtains over the east facing window, blocking out the sunlight, and then she moved over to Gabriel and Wolfram. Wolfram gave her a tired smile, and for a moment, she thought he was most gorgeous sight she had ever seen, covered in dirt, dust, and cobwebs from the castle, with bleeding cuts from flying debris on his face, and his finely made clothing looking like something fit for a rag bin. She knew she was in a similar state. She could feel blood dribbling down her face from the flying glass, and she could feel a draft from tears in her dress. Her knee was aching, and there was a hot throbbing from her shoulder, but she ignored that as she leaned forward and kissed Wolfram softly on the lips. He smiled at her again, and as one, they looked down at their son.
Gabriel was quieting as she pulled the covers away from his face, and she could see his teary red eyes, his white skin, his dark hair, and the two long, sharp eye teeth. No, she decided right then, Wolfram wasn't the most gorgeous thing she had ever seen. She cupped Gabriel's tear damp face in her hands and began to rain down kisses on him while Wolfram laughed. Gabriel closed his eyes and let out a little cry in protest, so instead she threw her arms around him and crushed him to her as her own eyes filled with tears.
"My boy, my boy," she chanted as she rocked him. "You're here, you're really here. I have you now, and no one is ever going to take you away from me again." The desperate hope of the past several days, the fear of facing the castle, the joy of finding their son, the absolute terror from the castle's attempts to stop them, and the unbelievable happiness of having her son in her arms, away from the castle crashed down on her, and she began to cry herself. She made no attempt to stop it; she felt that she deserved a good cry after everything that had happened to them. She only hoped that her tears wouldn't upset Gabriel again.
She felt Wolfram scooting close to them, and she felt him put an arm around her shoulders, while his other arm went around Gabriel. She leaned into him and held Gabriel tight as they rode back to the village, a family finally reunited.
no subject
I think that when Edeline and Wolfram see that yeah, Gabriel has a nasty streak in him, which was there even when he was still human, it's going to be a bit of a shock for them, a bit like when Bilbo Gollums-out at Frodo in FotR, but actually dangerous. Even if he doesn't lash out in a musthavebloodnow! manner, but rather in a very human bout of temper, it could be 'interesting' for them to deal with that.