The castle should be darker than it is. Without so much as torchlight illuminating the passageways, we would ordinarily need to rely on our lamps as we make our way to the beating heart of Dracula’s lair.
Yet somehow, there is enough to see. An eerie, violet light shines in place of mortar between the stones, as though the whole structure were held together by occult force rather than by the arts of man. A lesser hunter might quake with doubt, but I am resolved to see this through.
“Careful, Boltman. Set too hasty a pace and we might fall to ambush before achieving our goal.”
The voice of wisdom to my left comes from Alucard—among my most valuable allies, one without whom we could never have penetrated so far into the enemy’s domain.
With long, tied-back hair the color of sacred silver, bearing a frame and voice that balances on the razor’s edge between masculine and feminine, I had on first meeting dismissed the fop as weak and useless, some delicate, effete molly masquerading at mastery of the martial arts. I have since learned better, having witnessed firsthand how well the other hunter weaponizes the presuppositions of men against them.
It would be a similar mistake to underestimate the young woman behind me, the array of amulets around her neck rattling as she jogs to catch up. Hernández may look frail, but the witch from Spain invokes powers beyond my ken, far exceeding the limits of my meager theurgy. With pockets full of strange trinkets, talismans sewn into her clothes, and arcane symbols etched across her skin, she wields her mystic knowledge to prepare our party for every obstacle.
Neither of them would be with me now if I weren’t willing to trust them with my life.
I grit my teeth and slow my steps to match the pace of the others. We cannot afford to take unnecessary risks, and right now it is my impatience that puts our party in needless jeopardy.
“Good timing.” The witch pitches her voice low, for our ears alone, speaking in hurried, clipped statements. “The snake tail quivers. Threats approach. Not men. Not beasts. Unholy. Undead.”
I draw my silver blade and whisper a prayer. With a nod toward the others, I affirm my readiness as we round the corner together and spring the enemy’s trap.
To get here, we have had to cut through vampires, yes, but also living vines, wolf-men, puppets of stone and spiderweb, and toxic fiends beyond description. Still I am unprepared to witness what faces us in the next room.
Our assailants are more than just undead. Looking like the bones of men picked clean by vultures and bleached white on some ancient battlefield, bones that rise again, lacking muscle or sinew yet standing upright all the same and gripping the weapons they clutched in death, these skeletons charge at us as if still fighting their ancient, forgotten war.
Where to stab? Where to slice? Professor Van Helsing’s unimpeachable research on the undead has proven tragically lacking on tips against this particular variety. Even the garlic I insisted the three of us wear seems hardly to slow them down at all—perhaps because they lack the necessary olfactory organs?
I narrowly avoid the thrust of a spear, catching it and lashing out with a kick that snaps the thing’s femur in two, but broken bones seem to hurt the skeletons no more than the fact that those same bones are missing ligaments to join them together.
“Well done, friend!” Alucard’s heavy glaive shatters the skull of another, though it rises once again to stand, pieces of its skull drifting back into alignment again. “Break as many bones as you can!” The glaive caves in the same skeleton’s chest. “The puissance animating each one is limited. The more pieces it must hold together, the thinner it stretches, the weaker it becomes, until—”
Another strike, cleaving the pelvis just as the skeleton starts drifting upright again, and the monster collapses, bereft of sufficient strength to reassemble itself.
How fortunate to have the company of two fine experts on the dark arts!
The spear makes for a useful quarterstaff with which to bludgeon and crack bones at range, but we are quite outnumbered, and destroying even a single skeleton is exhausting work. Alucard, with that massive glaive, clears enough space for Hernández to do her work, plunging her staff into the ribcage of a skeleton and rending its animating force to shreds in a flash of light, but even our witch is limited to the slow work of dismantling them one at a time.
They’re closing in, surrounding and forcing us slowly backward, toward the entrance to the hallway that led here. That is a real danger. The bottleneck would serve our enemies and their spears better than us; we need the space more than they do.
I cast my eyes around the room, searching for an approach. A heavy oak table sits near a wall, further along which is an alcove bearing an oversized stone statue of a woman I do not recognize. The arched opening leading from the hallway provides a small lip, and above us looms a grand, albeit tarnished, chandelier.
“Keep them off me!” Taking a step back, I sheathe my sword and drop the spear.
Alucard steps forward, not hesitating to fill the double-duty of clearing space for both Hernández and me. The glaive spins in a furious, two-handed whirl. Someday I’ll have to ask where such a fighting style comes from, but for now I simply whisper a prayer of gratitude that my allies are as formidable as they are.
Hup! I leap to catch the lip of the archway above me with one hand, the vantage high enough to offer an unobstructed view of the far side of the room. With a practiced motion, I pop the clasp at my belt and uncoil my long whip. As a part of the hunter’s arsenal—despite my storied ancestor’s efforts to prove otherwise—it makes for a poor general-purpose weapon no matter how much theurgy one invests in its construction, but as a tool it has its utility.
I find my grip on the stone—firm enough—while my other hand lashes forward, casting the whip in an unerring line across the room to wrap around the neck of the statue. I heave with all my strength and pull the thing off its plinth, sending it crashing down atop a line of skeletons.
“Ha!” Alucard barks a triumphant laugh, taking advantage of the sudden chaos to finish two skeletons in rapid succession.
That’s a few more down. Enough to momentarily clear a path through the crowd.
“Coming through!” Tossing the whip to the ground for the moment, I release my grip on the stone and bound ahead, across the fallen statue. I sprint, vault onto the friendly table, transfer my momentum vertically with a leap that kicks off the wall and sends me soaring overhead to catch the chandelier.
I heave myself atop the ancient fixture, even bigger up close than it looked from below. Perfect. With two hands on the chain, I flex my arms and lever my legs to start the chandelier slowly swinging. Need to build momentum first. I’ll only get one shot at this.
My hand grips the sword again. I whisper an invocation to awaken its true power, conjuring forth a brilliant glow of theurgy, the power that makes this heirloom more than mere metal. Gripping the chain, gauging the timing, I slash downward. More-than-silver cleaves through tarnished bronze, severing the chandelier from its support, sending it tumbling into the crowd of skeletons below.
My aim is true. Most of the fiends are crushed with one fell blow. Letting go of the chain, I land on the table below with an artful flip. Made of heavy oak, these wooden legs make for adequate clubs after I chop them off.
With their advantage in numbers greatly diminished and their remaining strength divided between my allies and my dual-club assault on their rear, the tides turn decisively in our favor. We work as a team to crush and dismantle the skeletons until, panting with exhaustion, we emerge victorious.
“Clever work, Boltman.” Alucard claps me on the shoulder. “And not a scratch on you. Each day I’m given new reason to marvel at how well-earned your reputation is.”
Hernández runs a hand through her dark hair, clearing wild strands from her face. “A wonder, truly. I have never before seen anyone—ah, anyone human, that is—move like that. You fly through the air, a hawk among the bats that haunt this castle.”
“I am human,” I respond with more defensiveness than is warranted. “My clan possesses great lore to enhance our human potential, and God Himself blesses my family name, but I am human still, nothing like the devils we hunt.”
“Of course not.” Alucard offers a placating smile. “After all, the garlic you’ve forced us to wear should offer adequate proof of that point!”
Hernández scoffs. “That doctor you so respect plagiarizes local superstitions and calls it science. Smelly plants ward away my distrust no more than they ward away vampires. Morris, my friend, your actions speak with deeper truth; none who fight the undead with such awesome ferocity could count among their number. Let my words never cast doubt on that understanding.”
Her contempt for Professor Van Helsing no longer raises my hackles. To disagree on how one should hunt the minions of night concerns me less than the truth of her own ability to fight them. At least she humors me by wearing the garlic despite her disbelief.
I nod in acknowledgment, then turn my attention to my other companion. “Alucard, what on Earth were those things? I have not seen undead of their like before. Not vampires at all, but something frightfully new.”
“Beyond ‘skeletons?’” A shrug, as if this were a trivial point of academic curiosity. “The Count was a powerful sorcerer long before he became archvampire. We must prepare ourselves for many powers and defenses that exceed the capabilities of ordinary vampire-kind.”
“But how?” I shake my head in frustration. “Are there others capable of similar feats? Could he train apprentices to become a threat on a similar scale?” I gesture at the bones littering the ground. “If all vampires were capable of commanding an army like this, our job would become far more difficult.”
“They say,” Hernández speaks slowly, picking her words with care, “that he was tutored in his youth by a witch who sold her soul to the devil, groomed from childhood to become the ultimate manifestation of evil on Earth, the product of a dreadful ritual that can never be repeated.”
“All the more reason to end him now, while he is yet vulnerable.” Alucard nods decisively. “With that said,” the hunter casts a scrutinizing look toward our party’s witch, “I wonder where you learned such secrets about our enemy. To describe that as ‘rare lore’ would be a fantastic understatement.”
“Perhaps when our job is done, I will lay bare what secrets I still keep. To do so now, well, the walls in Dracula’s lair have ears.”
“Nevertheless—”
“We all have our secrets,” I interrupt, putting a hand on Alucard’s shoulder. “You not least among us, friend. Let us not distract ourselves with talk of the past. It satisfies me to know that we’ll not suffer from an epidemic of Draculas after we finish our job here. Have we not just spoken of our mutual trust? Hold fast to our faith in one another, and we cannot fail.”
The two of them nod in agreement, duly reminded of the bonds between us. They have both become dear friends to me, and I trust them with my life.
But… Why is it that the light casts such strange shadows across their faces? I can hardly make out their features. Their smiles, simultaneously familiar and strange to me, suddenly lose their reassuring quality.
Do I know these people? I rub my eyes as though I can wipe my vision clean, clear this confusion, this nagging feeling that I am not myself.
Names and faces flit through my mind, superimposing themselves on my companions. Elizabeth and Victoria, dignified and dear, catch me as I slump to the floor.
“Boltman, are you well?”
Now it’s Ylio and Carmen, the hands on my body a silent threat, concern painted on masks hiding their true agenda.
“Dracula’s resurrection is at hand.”
When did we decide to assault a castle? Where is this castle?
“I am not yet through with you, Hanna. You must play your role in this story.”
Now it’s Daniel and Carlo, towering above me, swinging whips of blood. In unison, each man’s whip coils around a wrist. They haul me upright, a weightless marionette puppeted by my relatives. Daniel hands me a stake of pure white oak which my fingers mindlessly close around.
“Did you think you could give up on your duty? There are none left to take up the mantle. You saw to that when you made yourself the last of our bloodline.”
My head is weak, flopping to the side, but I do my best to shake it in denial. My voice fails me, but I mouth one word: lies.
“Did you think there were still others? Did you think the Boltmans haven’t been hunted? Did you believe an archvampire drew close to you on accident? By your own hand, you have made yourself the last Boltman, and in so doing you have doomed yourself to become the vessel of prophecy’s fulfillment.”
I refuse. You’re dead and buried and gone! You have no right to rule my life! Go to hell!
“The Cult of Dracula is your responsibility. The death of Dracula is your responsibility. Ending the reign of the vampire is your responsibility. You have no choice.”
No!
I bolt upright. A scream dies in my throat before it escapes to the waking world. My sweat soaks the bed, sheets a tangled mess kicked to the floor.
What was that dream? Not the usual one at all, showing me the moment of Morris Boltman’s death. This one was something altogether new. Is it real, another vision of the past, or merely a nightmare reflecting my fears?
Also, I can’t help but notice, I’m alive. Why am I alive?
Carmen is sound asleep at my side, meaning that I, for once, woke up before her. It must be midday still. In sleep, her back to me, there remains in her no trace of the violence with which she assaulted me last night. I still ache from it, but by now I’m sure the injuries have closed up already.
My eyes fall to admiring the curves of her body, tracing the ornate lines of her tattoos down until I notice a familiar symbol on her lower back.
Huh. I hadn’t caught it before because her version of the design is almost medieval in style, rather than the more modern interpretation I’ve seen, but that is unmistakably the same winged ouroboros worn by Ylio and their allies.
What does that mean? It feels like I’ve been handed the pieces to an important puzzle, but there’s something critical I’m missing. I shake my head to clear my thoughts. Whatever it is, my skull is pounding, and I still ache all over. I’m not exactly in the right shape to play detective about this mystery.
More immediate a concern is the way Carmen revealed some of her true self to me last night. I doubt I’ll ever feel quite as safe around her as I once did, but… she didn’t kill me. She even tucked me into bed afterward and fell asleep beside me just like always.
I could leave now, before she wakes, with the protection of the midday sun, making my way back to my sisters’ place. That would be the smart thing to do, wouldn’t it? The safe decision?
Let me admit the truth to myself, though. I don’t want safety. I’ve never honestly known what it is to be truly safe, and I’m not sure I even trust the concept. All I want, all I ever wanted, is love at any cost.
Wrapping an arm around Carmen, I lie back down, pressing my body into hers. I prefer the familiar caress of a beautiful knife at my throat over the stranger that is “safety.”