Leashed Darkness V2 - Rejected Chapter 2 Draft

[Schingiuire]

Title: Leashed Darkness V2 - REJECTED Chapter 2 DRAFT

Author's Note: This is an unfinished draft of Leashed Darkness's chapter 2 that was a rejected idea of mine. I decided to take another path with this chapter but Alex convinced me to post all my rejected drafts and things I would just delete here in the Diary. Please do enjoy, but understand that this is not a part of the Leashed Darkness story, nor is this draft finished or will ever be.



Hellsing Files
Portfolio: Arthur Helsing

Gender: Male

Age: 13 years

Physical Markings: None

Country of Birth: Holland (Netherlands)

Current Residence: England

Profession: Student

Defining Characteristics: Born as the second son to Abraham Van Helsing, Arthur always felt as if he was never was able to live up to his father's expectations or his brother, William's, example.


Chapter Two: My Father's Son

“Love and fear. Everything the father of a family says must inspire one or the other.” ~Joseph Joubert


Arthur's eyes were as cold blue as his father's, but held a certain spark of mischief. He could never get his hair to behave quite right. Often he tried to slick it back like his father's, but traits of his mother's curled hair made many locks wish to follow their own pattern and stick out in random directions. Only thirteen, Arthur felt a bitterness in life no boy his age should deal with, but he buried the memory of William and that event so long ago and concentrated only upon the future and growing up to be what his father wanted him to be, so that he might make the man proud.

Arthur shivered as he stood before the one door his father had passed over during the tour. This was the entrance to the lowers, the basement as Abraham had described it. Cool air brushed over his bare feet as he stood in his night clothes, staring at the door. The old wooden door seemed to course and pulsate with a red aura, and the boy hunched his back, rubbing his hands nervously along his arms. There was something unnatural down there, something he knew he should stay away from but his curiosity was driving him forward. Curiosity and maybe something else not even part of his mind, a foreign hand pushing him forward just beyond his awareness.

Breathing slowly through his nose, Arthur looked over his shoulder, checking the hallway behind him. He was sure his parents were sleeping, and none of the small staff stirred this late at night. Settling his mind, he bit his bottom lip and reached out, gripping the cold metal handle in his hand and twisting, pushing the door forward. The hinges he was sure would screech or make some earth shattering sound only whispered open as if they had been well oiled. Finding this odd, but relieved that no sound would bring the house, and his father, crashing down on him, Arthur stepped into the darkness, squinting his eyes to try to make out shapes.

There were steps ahead, leading down into more darkness, but he wrapped his hands around himself and took a soft step forward. His bare feet made no sound, and for a moment Arthur felt a thrill at sneaking about completely unheard in the night. He imagined himself possessed by some great thief hero from his story books. The thrill was overwhelmed by a sudden blow of deep fear. As he reached the bottom of the steps the air suddenly seemed to become thick, and Arthur swore there was a fog or mist creeping over the floor. A red mist. But he blinked, brushing a hand quickly over his eyes and it was gone, only the darkness surrounding him.

He shivered again, catching his breath to keep loud gasps from giving himself away. He felt it, the great evil that rested here. It wasn't like the evil of children's books or the plays. This evil was not amusing or entertaining, it did not promise a good side or a stupid move that would bring it's downfall. This was the evil preached by the church. Arthur felt the sudden sicking feeling that perhaps there was a demon here, a hell beast that had escaped the sulfur pits and had now made it's lair in the lower rooms of his family's new home.

For a fleeting moment, Arthur considered turning back and waking his father to tell of this sudden find. But there was a whisper in his mind, whether his own thoughts or the pressings of another, he couldn't tell. It was pushing him onward again. Not quite against his will, his feet moved forward again and he found himself turning at intersections of hallways in the maze of stone. The air became thicker with each step and turn, the very stone seeming to pulsate before his eyes with raw, dark power.

Then, at rounding yet another corner, Arthur stopped as he saw light ahead, and heard voices. One of them he was quite sure to be Abraham's. The other he could not place, it was soft, purring almost, like the throaty vocals of some great cat.

OoOoO

“When are you planning to drop this ridiculous form,” Abraham's voice called from across the room where he stood, lighting a torch from the flame of his lantern.

The vampire's hiss at the sudden flair of light broke the seductive persona it had been displaying. Abraham turned, blowing out his lantern and setting it near the door, raising an eyebrow at the Count. Or Countess at the moment. It appeared that his wards, or the creature's weakened state from starvation, had effectively stopped Dracula's destructive power, and kept it from escaping the bonds. However, it did not stop the vampire from changing it's shape.

The previous visit he had left Dracula a battered appearing barbarian warlord. Pale skin the shade of a corpse, clad in ripped noble's clothing. His hair had been a thick, black mane which was wavy, falling well past his shoulder blades and ending in soft curls. The creature's face was twisted with malice and hatred then, scruffy facial hair in the form of a mustache and a bit of a beard framed his mouth. Tall and well muscled, Dracula had been the very picture of a warlord, a monster, and to the people of civilized England, a barbarian.

But now, the Count appeared nothing of the sort. The power to change form seemed to extend to the very clothing the beast wore. The ripped cloth was no more, replaced by a robe of nearly transparent white cotton which hung loose and bunched at the waist revealing long, feminine legs held cruelly by the chains. Bare arms twisted over the monster's head appeared frail in the thick bindings. The skin was the color of fresh milk mixed with honey, red lips twisted now into a soft smirk, parted only slightly to show white teeth, but not enough to show their points. The creature's face was still lean, but now sporting the finer bones of a female. High arched, dark eyebrows were raised at Abraham's roving eyes, and she tossed her head back in a gesture of spirit. Her black hair was still the same wave of Dracula's, the tips curling softly as it pooled over the floor around her where she sat bound.

“Why would I change this form when you are so obviously enjoying it?” she purred. The damn monster had even altered it's voice to give even the Greek goddesses competition. The vampire twisted it's head to the side, pressing it's cheek into the soft skin of it's arm. “Is that not what the captor does? Enjoy his new prize?”

Abraham narrowed his eyes, feeling the feathery soft caresses over his thoughts, the fingers of Dracula's mind attempting to enter his own. He pushed the beast out of his mind, slamming the doors tightly shut.

“I suppose I should have expected this from you,” Abraham replied, gritting his teeth and fighting the heat building his his body. He looked at the vampire, refusing to think 'she' and keeping the label of 'it' attached to the creature. This was no woman, nor a man. Abraham doubted that Dracula even had a gender, not anymore. What sat chained before him was nothing less than a true demon, a creation of Shaitan. This was what demons did, they seduced, made deals that went badly for those they dealt with, and ended lives only to bathe in the blood and chaos.

Dracula chuckled, a soft sound that reminded Abraham of summer breezes toying with wind chimes. A strange, placid feeling took hold in his gut, his eyes meeting the crimson gaze of the vampire. “Expected what? I am only given you what you have asked for. Did you not say I was your prize?”

Abraham felt compelled to move at those words, to reach forward and twist his fist into the inky waves of hair, twist the creature's head back to bare it's throat. He could see it play out in his mind's eye. His free hand ripping away the pointless cotton covering to reveal soft flesh, his for the taking. He felt swallowed up in those eyes, drawn forward to act on the mental fantasy.

The sudden image of Elizabeth's face shattered the dream, her eyes filled with life and sanity, joy glowing from her face. He shook his head, blinking as he found himself straddling the vampire as Dracula leaned forward, straining against the chains with the previously hidden shark teeth now in full view within a gaping, hellish mouth aimed at his throat.

The Count was no longer a beautiful woman, the feminine features twisted into a monstrosity only the Devil could have cursed the Earth with. Fingers curled, sporting long black, curving claws. They spasmed and pulled in the bindings holding the vampire's wrists to no avail. The face was almost entirely mouth, stretched unnaturally, nearly ear to ear, and impossibly wide.

Abraham let out a cry, falling back away from the vicious snap of teeth. A fog still gripped his mind, and he could not quite fumble a rational for the situation. Instead, he clawed his way across the floor, to a bag he had brought down with him. Fingers shaking as he worked open the ties, he pulled free a wooden stake, and turned, now on his feet, to stride across the room and slam the spire of wood, spear point first into the vampire's open jaws.

Dracula grunted as the point drove into the back of his mouth, and his eyes widened when Abraham lifted a mallet in his free hand. The vampire struggled then, slamming his teeth down onto the wood, hoping to break it. But blessed oak would not easily snap with a simple bite. The first blow drove the point into the muscle at the back of his throat and filled his mouth with blood and splinters from his teeth ripping at the wood.

The second blow pierced the spinal chord, which did not affect the vampire's movement, as it struggled all the more, a screech erupting from its lungs. The third strike pushed the stake point through the back of his neck, blunting the spear wood over the stone wall.

Abraham stepped back, panting as he watched the vampire writhe, slamming it's head against the wall as if to jerk the wood from it's mouth. Jaws worked the teeth into a sawing motion, though even if it worked would not pull the part of the stake piercing it's mouth out of the wound. Abraham backed up a step, lifting his free hand to his face in an effort to get control back through his body. The fog in his mind had vanished with the first strike to the stake, so he concluded that Dracula had found a way into his mind somehow, despite his defenses.

He looked up at a sudden secession of Dracula's thrashing to see the vampire grinning gape mouthed around the stake, and to hear a soft sound behind him. Whirling about, Abraham's eyes widened then narrowed in anger as they fell upon Arthur standing in the doorway, one foot forward as if he had been in the process of rushing forward. Abraham could only guess the boy had been hiding by the door and had seen Dracula try to kill him, and in blind fear, had rushed forward to his aid. And he had seen the whole scene.

Abraham became acutely aware that he was covered in sprays of blood, with, in Arthur's eyes, a woman chained to the wall who he had probably just murdered.

“Arthur,” he started to say, but the boy turned and fled before he could get out much else. Abraham cursed, gritting his teeth. The wheezing chuckle behind him only added fuel to the fire of his anger, and with a roar, Abraham turned, slamming the mallet into the side of the vampire's head, again, and again, and again.

Dracula never stopped laughing, it seemed the harder Abraham hit, the louder the vampire laughed, until it echoed off the stone and through Abraham's mind as he tossed the mallet to the floor and stormed from the cell in a cold sweat and dark anger.

OoOoO

Arthur locked the door behind him as he fled into his room, the grisly image still in perfect clarity before him. That room had been the source of the evil that filled the lowers, but had it been the helpless woman, or his own father?

He sat heavily on the edge of his bed, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as his mind tried to work out everything he had seen. There had been the woman chained like a prisoner. His father talked to her like he would to men who killed their children. But for a moment, it appeared as if his father would take advantage of the woman. What would mother think?

Arthur fought tears, shaking his head. But the woman had changed then, almost like an animal. Or maybe that was just his mind twisting things beyond what they really were. What had happened next was beyond what he could understand. Abraham, his father, a saint to so many people, had killed her in such a brutal manor that she had still been alive and crying out when he had fled.

Maybe she was still down there, suffering in a pain no human should have to endure.

The knock at his door frightened him out of his thoughts, and Arthur looked up, eyes wide as he stared at the wood.

“Arthur,” his father's voice sounded behind the door, soft but commanding. “We need to talk.”

“No,” Arthur whispered in reply. “We don't need to talk. You just killed someone. What did that woman ever do to anyone to deserve that?”

A heavy sigh sounded beyond the door, and Arthur slowly stood and approached it. He unlocked the door carefully and pulled it open, looking up at his father still splattered with flecks of blood. Arthur felt himself go sick for a moment, but breathed quickly through his mouth to stifle it.

“That was no woman,” Abraham stated. “It was a demon in the guise of a woman.”

Arthur backed away from the doorway, eyes watching his father carefully then moving to flick over bloodstained clothing. “Do demons bleed like women?”

Abraham frowned, shaking his head. “It's complicated. I told you to stay out of the lowers. And do not tell your mother,” he added with a soft growl. “I do not want her getting hurt.”

The boy shook his head, unsure of what kind of hurt he did not want his mother coming to. “I won't say anything,” Arthur promised quietly, then backed away from his father as the man reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.

Abraham frowned when Arthur retreated from his contact, and sighed, turning away and shaking his head. “It was no woman, Arthur. It was a vampire.”

With those words Abraham retreated, rubbing his forehead.

OoOoO

Dracula spat out the last of the wood as his body forced the object from the wound as it healed.