Midian Evolution

I made myself continue reading. The book lulled me into a sort of stupor, so, when the bolt of understanding hit me, I nearly dropped the thing. What I’d been missing sat right in my hands. There, in black and white, I read a name. A name so significant that it made my gut twist.

Abraham Van Helsing.

Integra’s great, great grandfather.

Heart pounding, I knew I had to move, to act, to do something. I could not sit here on this knowledge and meet my master’s eyes calmly. I had to see him.

I didn’t know where the music room was, but I focused on Alucard and felt what part of the mansion he occupied. Careful to keep my mind from reaching for him, I followed his dark and powerful aura.

The sound of piano music reached my ears. Beautiful, achingly sad, it trickled down the long and empty hallway. As it grew louder, I noticed tendrils of shadow oozing out of a particular door. I reached it and peered inside.

My master sat before a baby grand piano, playing. His hair flowed onto the floor. His outline looked blurry with the tentacles of night reaching out from his body. He reeked of great emotion, of sadness, of even misery.

My heart ached for him.

I stole inside and sat by the door, noticing with a jolt that Integra occupied the room, too. I hadn’t noticed because I’d so intently sought my sire. She sat on a couch, smoking a cigar and listening to him with her eyes shut.

When he stopped playing, she sighed. “Lovely,” she murmured.

He said nothing. His dark shadows retracted a bit. Slowly, he dropped his face into his bare hands. A shudder tore through him. I didn’t think he knew I watched him. I didn’t think he even knew Integra watched him, which really made me worry. He’d expressed such concern that she not know he had dreams, yet he wilted before her now.

She caught my eyes. With measured grace, she rose from the couch, stubbed out her cigar, and walked for the door. On her way by Alucard, she gave his head the barest, fleeting stroke, still looking at me. Pausing slightly at the door, she flicked her eyes toward my master, then back to mine.

Go to him, her look said.

I stood beside him in just a moment. I felt awkward, inadequate to help him in any way. How could I help him? Words were useless, and I didn’t initiate our contact. That was his right as my master; I didn’t dare.

“I still like the Count,” I said softly.

He raised his head, pinning me with his luminous, orange gaze. “Do you?” he said, but he spoke so softly I barely heard him. “It wasn’t a pig in the bag, Seras.”

I’d expected as much.

“I’m not surprised,” I told him. Carefully, I sat on the floor at his feet but to one side. “You didn’t love those vampire women, but you did want Lucy and Mina,” I guessed aloud. “I’m sorry you didn’t get what you wanted.”

“Why do you care, police girl?” he asked, resting his hands on the piano keys. Softly, he resumed playing. This melody, though a little lighter, still threatened to make me cry. “You have no reason to pity me, girl, absolutely none. Merciless beasts don’t merit mercy.” His expression hardened. “Furthermore, I don’t want your sympathy.”

I didn’t believe him even a little bit, which softened the blow of his claim.

“Not the words of a simple villain, master,” I murmured.

“Arguing with me?” His melody changed, becoming hard and punishing.

“No, master. Forgive me.” Treading carefully around him seemed a wise course of action. But, I wanted him to know I still required him to be my master. These last few nights with him had changed me for the better, and I didn’t want him to return to that old way of ignoring me. “Master? Do you know Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky?”

He stopped playing to look down at me. “Swan Lake?”

No, he didn’t know it. I, however, did. It was the only song I could play on the piano.

I got up and asked him silently to share the bench. He moved over and I joined him. “I hadn’t read Dracula,” I said firmly, “but that’s okay, because you’ve never heard Swan Lake.” And so, I began to play for him.

He sat utterly still during my entire recitation, eyes upon my hands. I didn’t feel nervous about his attention. I’d played this song on the old piano in the orphanage until everyone threatened to break my hands. I could render it in my sleep.

When I finished, I looked at him, smiling. “Pretty, huh?”

His eyes swirled darkness in tones of gold and red. “Yes, very pretty,” he said lowly.

“There’s a ballet. I’d love to see it,” I confessed.

“Would you?” He just kept staring at me.

“Yeah.” I tapped Middle C. “That’s the only song I can play. I bet you know a lot of songs.”

“Many, but I’d never heard that one.” He finally looked away from my face. “Do you play any other instruments?”

“No, I didn’t have the money for an instrument or lessons. The orphanage had a piano. After learning this song, they banned me from touching it. I’d driven everyone spare. I imagine there are about ninety people who cringe every time they hear a piano.” I grinned as I plinked on Middle C again and again.

He chuckled, and it was the best music I’d heard.

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He let me accompany him back down to his chamber. We found Walter standing in his central room, setting a sealed jar of blood on the table. “We thought you both might need more,” he said.

Alucard looked at the jar. He touched it. “This is still warm,” he murmured. “Who donated it?”

“Sir Integra.” Walter smiled at us.

Wow. Sir donated blood to us, I thought.

And, you know it’s delicious, my master answered.

“Thank her for us, Walter,” he said aloud, eyes reflecting his pleasure.

“I will.” Walter moved for the door. “I hope you don’t expect her to donate next week.”

“I never expected it in the first place,” master admitted. “Don’t fret. She’ll have plenty of blood to blush with next week.”

Smiling a very smug and unusual smile, Walter departed. Alucard and I looked at each other and laughed together. He poured a glass and began to pour one for me, but I shook my head. “No, master. I think you should have it all.”

“I will not argue.” He sat with his red drink. His eyes fell upon the book that caused the evening’s upset. “Do you intend to finish reading?”

“I don’t know. It’ll read like an invasion of your privacy, now, and it’s awfully libelous.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know,” he murmured. “I’m world famous. People write stories about me, make movies, even pretend to be me.”

“Maybe your lack of seeming anything like your press made me miss it,” I said. “And, we weren’t encouraged to read anything at the orphanage. The staff did all they could to just keep us clean, fed and out of trouble.”

“I see.”

“I guess you were well educated?” I asked, looking at his collection of books.

“Nobles and clergy were the only educated people in my time,” he answered. “I was a prince.”

I risked a teasing grin. “Explains why you expect people to obey you.”

His soft smile neither denied nor supported my words. Silently, he drank and watched me poke around his belongings.

He had all sorts of books and in many languages. They looked grimy. I went into the bathroom and retrieved the washcloth, dampened it, and began cleaning the tomes one by one. I felt his eyes on me. My skin tingled from his close attention to my movements.

“Who taught you to speak French?” he asked suddenly.

“A girl at the orphanage.” I let the books I’d finished cleaning just sit out and dry. I didn’t want to re-shelve them with damp covers. I had to go rinse the cloth, too. “I kept the bullies from hacking on her, and she decided my reward should be to learn the prettiest language.”

“What was her name?”

“Monique. She didn’t have a last name.” I discovered his shelves were filthy, too, and began cleaning them.

“Did she get adopted?”

“No, she stayed there until she reached the age of majority, like me. I wrote to her a few times when she joined the R.A.F.” I started putting some of his books back, smiling at the memory of my old friend. “She married an accountant, I think.”

“Marriage is a hot topic in this house right now.” Alucard finished the blood and slouched backward a bit, folding his arms. “Why are you cleaning?”

“Your books are all dirty. How can you read them?”

“I’ve read them over and over just as they are. I can form myself without dirt; why would I bother to clean?”

I looked at him. “You don’t shower?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Again, what is the use?”

A bit surprised, I took my eyes from him. “Because it feels good?”

“Does it? I don’t remember.”

“Master,” I sighed. “Yes, it feels good.” He made me sad in strange little ways like this. No wonder he’d lost his humanity. He didn’t even bow to basic human behavior. “You can forego bathing but you still like to have sex?”

He smiled a wolfish smile.

Well, maybe he hadn’t lost all of his humanity.

I loved that he’d broken from his black mood.

“You don’t know anything about sex,” he said. “Why ask me about it?”

“Because you’ll tell me.” I started wiping the next group of books. “You’ll tell me with honesty.”

“I reward honesty. I felt ever so pleased to discover my fledgling tells the truth, too.” He got up and grabbed from a stack of books I hadn’t yet cleaned. Selecting a heavy volume, he put it down in front of me. “That one, next, Seras.”

I looked at it and discovered naked people. The drawings made me blush. “These people are having sex,” I whispered. A particular image caused my jaw to drop. “That position doesn’t look possible.”

“Not for your average couple,” he agreed. “You and I could do it easily.”

“Master!”

He chuckled. “Your delicate sensibilities are a never-ending source of amusement to me.”

Just to spite him, I cleaned the book and sat down with it. “Walter says female vampires can’t conceive. Why can the males make viable sperm?”

“Not many can. It depends on the sort of vampire.” He sat opposite me and began turning pages, subjecting me to image after image of couples…coupling. “Freaks aren’t able to, though they technically don’t have any reason for that. Genuine Nosferatu can. They rarely will, however. Vampires are about taking life, not creating it.”

“Is that your opinion or a fact?”

He eyed me. “A mix,” he admitted after a moment. “You can’t imagine the temptation of a baby, Seras. It proves you’re still a man to get a woman with child, fools a vampire into forgetting what he is. Then, he must watch his mate and child age, proving his inhumanity.”

I stared at a picture of a woman bent over backward with her legs in the air, not really seeing it. “It sounds like you know,” I said.

“I do know. I deliberately planted my seed into Mina Harker.” He flipped my page over with casual grace. “She was pregnant with my child by the time her husband slit my throat. She raised her son, Quincey, as if he were Jonathan’s, and he, pour soul, never knew the truth of it.”

Wow.

“You said you had no family left,” I pointed out, feeling slightly sick from his confession.

“I don’t. Quincey had a human’s lifespan and never sired a child.” Alucard closed the book and met my eyes. “I have no idea why the vampirism did not pass on to him. Apparently, the only offspring I can produce are human or vampire, not both at once.”

Suddenly and awfully, I felt terrible for my master. Still…

“You didn’t rape her, did you?”

“No, I did worse. I coerced her. I made her submit and enjoy. She doubtless carried guilt in her heart until her dying day.”

“Oh, master,” I whispered. “Why would you ever have needed to compel a woman?”

He smirked. “Mina remained loyal in her heart to her husband. I didn’t respect her choice.” He paused. “I still don’t.”

His sincerity sometimes really bothered me. Thanks to his unbiased diatribe I now had to think about all this sordid amoralism.

“Human morals are not vampire morals,” my master lectured gently, and I knew my mental shields had slipped again at some point. “Morals are for creatures who still fight for their souls.”

“You have a soul, master,” I argued without heat. It depressed me to think he believed otherwise. “I don’t care what Sir Integra says, or what vampire lore claims. You aren’t powerful because you’ve eaten souls, either.”

“Then, why?” he asked, sounding curious.

“It’s just something I know.”

In the falling silence, his table clock chimed gently. Alucard got up. Taking a book from the clean stack, he walked to his low divan and stretched out.

Just as I decided to finish cleaning, his voice came to my ears.

“Your instinct?” he asked.

“Yes, master.”

His only further comment was a long, deep sigh.


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