Schimbare

XXXII

Panting she slid into a nearby room before carefully shutting the door and sliding down against it. Angrily she cussed herself out before observing the darkness around her. It appeared to be some sort of storage room, or at least the various containers allowed her to deduce as much. During the heat of her running, she had encountered a few leftover men that Alucard didn't kill. They were probably ordered to rape her before they killed her. Slapping herself between ragged and and anxious breaths, she attempted to get a grip on her mental state.

Her heart raced and bounced around against her ribcage while her limbs trembled uncontrollably. Her father really had planned for her rape... While she never had great memories with the stale man, she had never expected him to be so malicious. This was too much too quickly, too fast, it would all numb her. Giving a small sob she clutched a hand over her mouth and bit down on her fingers to sate the mind-boggling sorrow that brewed within her.

"You're being trumped, old man. Weren't you going to kill me? Spread holy water onto my bones? Purify my being? Come on, fight, stop running!" Alucard screamed with madness. Genuinely terrified, the priest continued to hop around and avoid the greasy and oily mass of fur heading his way. Just how would he fight this thing? There was no way it would regenerate once severed from the source...

"Again, you deaf mongrel, I said I came prepared!" he exclaimed before making a running jump to the neck of the foul creature. Before he could run one of his blades through the monstrosities neck, several other dogs bit down on his limbs and held him up similar to a crucifixion.

"Did that hurt? Good, there's no way I'm going to give you a fast death. You deserve to suffer and twist in agony..." he purred as the vortex of shadows manifested themselves into the tall and monstrous Alucard. Angrily, the priest whispered sacred words he hoped he'd never have to use. He was prepared, however, to give up his humanity to fight the king of all vampires.

Frowning, Alucard released the priest before the old man's veins filled with something grotesque. Wait, the room began to reek of bloody miracle...

"You were so desperate to call upon something like that? You have now sealed your fate old man." Alucard muttered with a shake of his head.

The priest stood and in his hand he held something Alucard instantly snarled at. Yes, one of the three nails...

"I didn't want to have to use this, but, seeing as how I'm losing this fight you've left me with no other option." the writhing man exclaimed before revealing the rusted green nail from centuries ago. Just looking at something so miraculous made his insides churn and the souls within him scream.

"Helena's Nail, one of them from the True Cross, you've really done it now. But, if you use that you will no longer be able to topple me, you will become one of God's holy monsters; and I cannot be killed by the hands of a monster." disappointed, Alucard returned to his usual self.

"When one implants this relic it is said that if you so much as touch me you will burst into flame. Your being will be shocked and purified by God's holy light of salvation! How could you beat something designed to annihilate your kind?" he spoke lowly before aiming the sharp end of the nail to his chest. Yes, he would have to drive out his own heart for this last resort to work.

Laughing like claps of thunder, Alucard clapped his hands together slowly. Dear God, he loved humans.

"Where was your God earlier, old man? Why didn't he bless you with strength and power to defeat a devil like me? Why does he allow you to sacrifice your own humanity to fight me? Do you truly think becoming one of His monsters will allow you to defeat me? No, I swallow up all light, I feed upon the souls of others, another monstrosity will prove to be nothing against me." with a cheshire grin, Alucard sifted into the shadows before reappearing behind this moronic old timer. He now took the form Integra had found him in; long hair and a tight body suit to keep his physical encasing from bursting out.

"God cannot interfere with our humanly ways, for we are the sinners he sent his son for, we must now defend all that is holy from monsters like you, just as God's own son did!" turning around, without another thought, the man plunged the nail into his chest and into his beating heart. Gasping, he felt his whole being ignite into flames. His veins welled with power before it tore at his skin. Green and thorny vines erupted from his limbs before they snaked around in the open air. Whistling, Alucard waited for this scrap of a miracle to attack him.

"Keep following her!" one of the men shouted. Running with all of her might, she continued to sprint down these winding hallways in hopes of outrunning her perusers. Making a split-decision, she made a sharp turn into an open room before finding her way to a bookshelf and hid behind it with small breaths. Allowing one last tear to slip down her cheek, she unsheathed her saber once more in preparation for her followers. Why couldn't this all have been simpler? Why couldn't she just formally refuse Alucard and go on with her life? Why did her father need to be the bastard he was. Why couldn't... Why was this all happening because of her?! Why didn't she assassinate Alucard in those years past? No, there was something that happened between them that stopped her. Damn it all!

"So this is the power of one of the nails? How interesting..." Alucard observed as thorny ridden vines wrapped around his body and set him aflame. Just how long would he play along with this dead man's hopes? Certainly not for much longer, this fight was starting to bore him.

Where had he seen this before?

"Don't let this consume you." she worried before running a hand over his cheek. He chuckled before giving her a light kiss and holding her close.

"It won't, Cosmina. I'm stronger than that." he assured her before taking a whiff of her hair and running his palms against his sides and back. He could never disappoint her, to do so would make him less than a bug to squished. If only something like this could last forever...

A painful sob escaped him before he clutched the awaking body before him. Strange guttural noises and snarls could be heard from her cold lips. Looking to her with hope, he was immediately stricken with grief and an unfathomable horror. J-Just what had he fucking done?! Who was this in front of him? This wasn't Cosmina, this wasn't her... No, her skin was usually so soft and bronzed, but now, it's pale and rough. Her eye's were once vividly green like the jade on his chalices, but now, they're nothing but worn out leaves on the ground rotting. What had he done? Did he truly create this monster before him?

With a cry, he dropped her before taking a step back. She stood and stumbled on her feet. Her eyes were void of life and any form of sentience. Blood dribbled from her lip before she walked to him with a limp and a crack of bones.

"Kill me." eyes wide, his crimson eyes stared to her.

"Please..." she mumbled once more before falling to his level and attempting to form some sort of cry and frown. Her lips twitched downward only to remain still while her voice cracked with a dying cry. Tears ran past his eyes and down his cheeks.

"I could not bare to see her like that again, christian." Alucard started before dropping his guns as more vines wrapped around him and burned his flesh away "While you and are now the same, I will triumph." solemnly with a pained breath, Alucard forced an arm to the brush of thorns coming from the old man's heart. An empty snarl from the mass of thorns before him indicated that where he struck was vital.

In another swift movement of tearing through vines and swaths of thorns, he reached for the man's heart before plunging his arm in and through his chest.

Grumbling and falling backward, the vines all attempted to stop the vampire only to have him crush a beating heart and sending the miracles onto the ground, dead.