Under the Vampire’s Shadow

  We moved through the corridors as quickly as we could. The other Light Soldiers, who were still searching every room of the castle, gave us priority, after all, our mission was of the utmost importance. Some of them pointed us to the next location and tried to help us in any way they could. Our group had already suffered several casualties, despite the experience and training of its members, but we were the ones who had to continue to act as the spearhead - always in the front, always attacking, always facing the enemy.

  Eventually, we came to a door protected by a large, intricately carved golden gate. Dragon heads on either side seemed to be trying to explain the purpose of the next place, now forgotten by time. Inside, the sound of battle was clear. Tiberius Blackthorn glanced at his comrades for a moment, a question unspoken. They all grabbed their weapons and nodded, ready for another battle. The nearby Light soldiers opened the doors for us, wishing us luck in our fight.

  I saw Henry Lecarde raise his staff and unleash a mighty thunderbolt with Zeus's intensity. The enemy mage in front of him took the full force of the blast, smiling unmoved as if he felt no pain, continuing to smile as if nothing had happened, even though the pillar beside him was scorched black from the passage of the plasma. Lucy raised her staff and four bird-shaped spirits began to fly towards the dark wizard. But he launched spheres of darkness that caught them and exploded to stop the attack. The werewolves, seeing that their comrades desperately needed help to defeat the strange dark priest, sprang into action. They took up their positions, raised their muskets and fired the first volley. Then they crouched and the second line took position to fire again. The projectiles from their holy weapons were probably the first to actually hit the mage as they stopped in mid-air, revealing the magical circle of protection he was using as a barrier.

  I looked around, trying to gather more information about what was happening. On a nearby altar lay the body of a young girl. Her purple clothes were now stained with a dark crimson. A large red stain could be seen running from the stone altar down to the floor, where the strange liquid seemed to be happily absorbed. I hadn't noticed it during the fight, but the whole place was strange - the floor, the pillar figures, the viscous liquid seeping through the cracks. Near the entrance, I could see Sakura holding Mitsuki. They seemed to be arguing about something important, the heroine once again focusing on herself and her non-existent greatness rather than the battle unfolding just a few metres away. The dark monk summoned several dark creatures. Huge poisonous spiders descended from the darkness of the ceiling to feast on their victims. Van Helsing raised his crossbow and began firing, at an absurd speed for such a medieval weapon - it was no different to a modern assault rifle, with 30-centimeter metal bars magically fired, and who knows what else he could add to it. He made one of the spiders disappear, leaving nothing but a poor frame full of holes and bile. Alejandro del Toro saw Sebastian Belmont and immediately understood the gravity of what had happened. He took a metal whip from his belt, grabbed an intricately decorated glass bottle, almost like a fine diamond, and poured holy water it over the object. He then handed it to Sebastian, who skilfully caught it in his hands, stretched its tip and then leapt at the attack with his new weapon. He was able to use it to stop the giant insect from moving, then use his own magic to make it explode from the inside.

  The real problem came when another spider silently descended from the ceiling to attack the unsuspecting sisters near the wall. When Mitsuki saw it only a metre away from her and her sister, the mage instinctively cast her best spell to protect them. She raised her hand and, without thinking, froze part of the ground near her. Violent ice spikes began to emerge, impaling the spider dozens of times per second. The creature writhed in pain but knew its life was already lost. Sakura, her sister, was shocked to see her capable of using magic at such a level without ever having practised it. To get out of this predicament, I took Tamamo's hand, who was beside me but distracted by another spider, and raised it in the air. Then I spoke forcefully.

  "Well done, Tamamo! That ice magic was really effective against that spider!"

  "It was amazing! You managed to save the sisters."

  "Now we just have to focus on that wizard over there!"

  Tamamo didn't even know what I was talking about, but being the great manipulator and actress of her own legend, she didn't hesitate for a second to follow my lie.

  "It's just what I thought."

  The spiders are susceptible to physical attacks, so it was best to use magical attacks that could deal kinetic or piercing effects," she said with a proud princess-like smile.

  Mitsuki's face showed the disbelief and insolence of having been robbed of her victory. But somehow, she knew why we were doing it, so she didn't raise her voice to arouse suspicion. Sakura, on the other hand, looked at us, a little annoyed at the perfect opportunity to show her greatness as a warrior in front of her sister. She had swallowed the lie perfectly, and the hardest part was keeping a straight face at that moment.

  With the animals out of the fight, only the wizard who had summoned them remained, but his fate was already sealed. All his enemies stood before him, every one of the hunters he had provoked with his actions back, now without hostages to defend himself. Cornelius Vincent had noticed that he was now facing an entire unit instead of smaller groups, as had been his original plan. Still, he didn't hesitate to fight on, preparing his most deadly magic. But at that moment, everything came to an abrupt end. Walter Bernhar, honouring his family, had hidden from the crowd and fired his ultimate shot in the darkness. Like an expert marksman, waiting to be forgotten by the others and waiting for the perfect moment, he unleashed his magic to seize the golden opportunity. His shot was intercepted by three separate protective barriers around the wizard, all of which shattered in a single motion. A crimson cloud was all that remained of what had been the Dark Lord's most loyal follower, now reduced to dust.

  Tiberius Blackthorn spat on the ground, wiping the blood from his cheek.

  "Well, I guess that does it."

  With the battle finally over, it was time to regroup and prepare for the final stretch. Henry Lecarde ran to the altar and took the girl in his arms. His cry echoed through the room and the source of his pain was clear: one of his daughter had died in the battle. In his grief, he raised her hand and pointed at Sakura.

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  "This is all your fault!" he shouted.

  "All because you rushed to save your sister without thinking and sacrificed my daughter in her place!"

  Strong accusations against the greatest heroine in history, according to Sakura herself. I knew Henry wasn't lying; I had seen similar scenes with her many times before, always pretending to be surprised that her actions had consequences. She had only thought of saving her sister so that she could be praised for her power for the rest of her life. The other girl? Nothing more than an insignificant puppet in the background. And now she would say that what had happened was the result of an uncontrollable fate, or something like that, reflecting her guilt in a "there's no way to know the future", always justifying herself with luck that always benefited her.

  "I just wanted to save them! I tried to help as best I could!"

  "How was I supposed to know we'd be ambushed out of nowhere?"

  "The fact that my sister is alive is a miracle! I'm so sorry for your loss, but there was no way to know what fate had in store for all of us," Sakura said with a false apology.

  "You could have saved her too! I saw you! You were right next to her!"

  "But as soon as you saved your sister, you decided to leave my daughter behind without a second thought!" the poor father of the family complained again.

  "Henry! Stop it!"

  "I know how much pain you're feeling right now, but listen to me!"

  "This is really not the time, this is a war, there is a more dangerous enemy to defeat, we cannot afford distractions despite the losses," Tiberius Blackthorn said with a serious expression, aware that his son was not in the room with us, probably already dead.

  "Hey, Henry, behave yourself! This isn't the time!"

  "Remember, we have a mission to complete!"

  " They will discover us because of you!" added Mr Valerious Van Helsing.

  "Shut up!"

  "This is all because of her! My daughter is dead because of your stupid plan!"

  "Because of your bullshit, my family has to pay the consequences!"

  The Inquisitors argued loudly about guilt and loss, about what was more important - defeating Dracula now or mourning the death of family members. But while all this was going on, Tamamo leaned into my ear to speak.

  "There's something strange about all this."

  "I haven't been able to shake the feeling that something is wrong all night," she said with a serious expression on her face.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Henry Lecarde and Valerious Van Helsing have been arguing all night without stopping," Tamamo explained.

  "An internal fight?"

  "I doubt it, they've had opportunities to betray each other before."

  "But their cooperation isn't solid. It seems more like a last minute alliance to stop a bigger enemy."

  "I think some of the families are at odds with each other, and they're only pretending to work together in front of the Church out of necessity."

  "So we're caught up in a power game again?"

  "Damn, all this talk about fighting evil, and it turns out that defeating Dracula is secondary in their minds."

  "There's something else," Tamamo said, raising her eyes to a particular person.

  "That girl, Lucy Lecarde, has been behaving strangely for some time now."

  "Even though she saw her dead sister, she doesn't seem to care."

  "But it doesn't seem to be out of malice; it's as if she never knew her, or isn't even curious about what's happening."

  "Also, her body is releasing mana in strange ways. She has trouble walking; she pretends to be fine," Tamamo said seriously.

  "I have a strong feeling that there is a trap here that we don't see."

  "Van Helsing and his equipment still have some crossbow bolts left, but also strange glass bottles with some strange liquid, which they haven't used even once, despite the hard fights."

  "Henry Lecarde has a rapier at his hip that he hasn't used, not even to save his own daughter."

  I knew Tamamo. I had heard of her tragic background and the trials she had faced in life, of her skill in magic and deception, of her loyalty and love. I knew she wasn't lying to me, and having been the victim of cruel betrayals, I knew she was the right one to expose them. She shared her doubts because she didn't want me to be betrayed in the same way she had been - by the clash of men's insatiable ambitions.

  I looked at Alejandro del Toro; I've known him for a long time, I know he's much more proficient with a spear, but I haven't seen him use one all night. However, I remember seeing the Meyers have a rather peculiar one in their inventory. Is he trying to pretend his weapon is broken so he can get a new one, one that would be his personal spear? As for Sakura, I have no doubt that she would take advantage of the situation to get rid of me if she could, since I was the only one who didn't bow down to her presence and was her rival. That left only two people: Tiberius Blackthorn, who hadn't stopped leading his group with an iron hand since the beginning of the battle, but he was also a leader who took the lives of those under his command seriously. He knew that the mission was more important than the survival of his group, but he didn't send his soldiers to die needlessly, and would often place himself at the front without hesitation if it meant saving another life. The other was Sebastian Belmont, but the boy seemed more concerned with actually defeating Dracula and respecting the legacy of his ancestors than anything else. For him, it was defeating the Dark Lord or nothing. Besides, he's too young to believe in anything other than being the hero of the story.

  "They've known each other all their lives, their families have either coexisted or fought for centuries."

  "The only new variable... is us," I muttered to myself and Tamamo.

  "That's what I fear."

  "Centuries of power hegemony, and suddenly two new powerful families appear, capable of fighting evil on equal terms with them."

  "One of them could be foolishly bought with promises of fame and glory."

  "The other is completely unknown to them, a new player in the game. There's nothing more terrifying to humans than the unknown."

  "'We've probably attracted a lot of attention with what we've done.'"

  "Damn..."

  "All right, here's what we're going to do. Let's watch a little longer."

  "But if you see Alejandro del Toro approaching a spear, then we know what's going to happen."

  "OK, I'll watch."

  "Be more careful with Lucy though. She's been trying to get close to you since the fight started, but now that she's acting strangely, I think it's part of the same plan."

  "Yes, I'll keep that in mind."

  Shortly after our conversation, the Meyer family's caravan arrived. An armored combat vehicle in the shape of a small church, with a couple of priests in armour, opened the vehicle to show the weapons and mercenaries they were transporting. It was time to resupply before entering the last tower of the castle, the only one left to explore and the only one that led upwards. Soon it would be time to finally engage in the confrontation we had come for tonight. It was Eberhart Meyer himself who took custody of the girl's body and carried it outside in a sarcophagus. He promised Heinrich Lecarde that he would take care of the funeral and that she would receive all the honours of someone who had died in the line of duty. Others, like Van Helsing, exchanged their empty magazines for new ones and replaced his broken hat with a new one. Tiberius exchanged his hammer, battered by so many blows, for a new one, and also changed some parts of his armour. But the moment that changed everything was when Alejandro del Toro mentioned his broken weapon and casually picked up the spear, unconsciously confirming my suspicion of betrayal. Now it had to be me who did something about it, apart from surviving my confrontation with Dracula.