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The news of the three children missing had put the people of Belmont in a stand still of fear and an immediate headcount for all the families in the village. It also didn’t help that those three children were none other than Greta and Alucard’s children.
“I haven’t seen them.”
“There haven’t been any kids that have came my way.”
“I didn’t see them today.”
Those were the comments that the majority of the villagers had told Greta and Alucard as they searched around for their children. Their babysitter being a young woman but was passed over temporarily to an older woman so that she could go to the bathroom.
However, as soon as she returned, all three of them were gone and their older temporary babysitter was fast asleep on her rocking chair.
It had been a total of thirty minutes so far since they had been last seen and the parents in question were freaking out. Another thing to add to their problem was that it was getting dark out as well.
All the villagers of Belmont knew of the curfew until all the creatures of the forest were finally taken care of, no one was allowed out at past a certain time.
“We haven’t tried the forest yet.” One villager states.
Greta and Alucard give one another a look of fear.
“They wouldn’t-“ Greta gasps to Alucard who frowns intently.
“We’ll find them.” He affirms holding her hand in his and squeezing in reassurance.
“I’ll go tell Trevor and Sypha to guard the village.” He says to Greta and immediately rushes off to find Trevor and Sypha.
Once he returns, Alucard and Greta are geared up with their weapons and head off towards the forest, Alucard using his nose to find their scent.
“They know better Adrian, they know.” Greta says, frustrated.
“Of course they know, we will find them, Greta. I swear.” He promised to his wife who was shaking.
“We will Greta.” He says then his eyes flick to ahead of them.
“Something’s coming this way.” He places his hand on the hilt of his sword and steps in front of his wife.
The bushes before them were rustling and Alucard squints his eyes in preparation for anything to suddenly appear.
Once he sees a boot appear, Alucard removes his hand and gasps in surprise.
Little hands came out with the rest of the boot as it was holding a long root with the hairs still attached to it. Messy brown hair and brown eyes are looking up at Alucard, their irises lighting up in delight at who they see.
“Da, look! Me, Alicia and Liam found a panacea root, like the book said!” Elijah says excitedly. His hair was full of twigs and face dirty from mud but still the boy was all smiles.
“Oh, Elijah!” Greta sighs in relief as she pulls the boy into a hug, kissing his head multiple times. Alucard is next to give him the same amount of affection as Greta.
“Why in the world did you go this deep into the forest?! Where is your brother and sister?” She asks holding the boy by the shoulders.
Elijah looks at her confused and points at the bush he just came out of.
Alucard parts the bushes and finds Alicia and Liam knelt on the ground, pulling out another root, they too just as dirty as their brother.
Alicia looks up to see her parents and grins at Alucard getting to her feet and running into his arms. Liam was left to pull the root by himself and fell over on his back. Alucard takes a deep breath and sighs in relief.
“Da, we found so many of those pana-uh, um I don’t know how to say it. But we found so many of them!” She tells him her grin still wide.
“Alicia, Liam, thank God we found you three.” Alucard says as he motions for Liam, recently turned three to come over as well.
The three year old was still holding onto the root as well and hugging his papa. Alucard pulls him up to his chest and kisses the side of his head, then sets him back down to let Greta look him over. Thank goodness they were all alright but, right now they needed to get out of this forest, it still wasn’t safe.
Greta is hugging her other two children just as tight and pulls all three of them to focus on her.
“Why did you come out here? You know better!” She scolds and the two older children look at her in confusion.
“But, Da said we could go out and get a panacea.” Elijah said.
“I told you that I would come with you. We are in the most dangerous part of the forest.” Alucard said.
“But, we just wanted to help Ms. Lena. She’s been sick lately and we thought that this root would help her.” Alicia explains nervously rubbing her hands together. Greta and Alucard give a look and Greta sighs.
“Oh Alicia, it’s not-“
Greta is cut off when a roar is heard from behind them. The children are immediately pushed behind their parents and pulling out their weapons.
A large creature stout-bodied reptile covered with both scales and hair comes creeping out from the forest shrubbery and hisses at the family. Alicia hugs Elijah and Liam tightly in fear. Liam buries his head in her blouse.
“A Diplocephalus? What the hell is that monster doing here?”
“Obviously not to make peace.” Greta gripes, irritated.
It roars in anger and licks its chops greedily at the five people standing before it.
“Stay here and protect them. I’ll take this thing down.” Alucard says and Greta gives him a pointed look before returning her vision to the monster.
“No way, if you go down we’re truly fucked. I’ll stand point and get its tail while you distract it.” Greta quickly turns around and addresses her children.
“You three stay right here and do not move.” She says sternly and earns three nods from the young.
As soon as the creature had struck with a menacing hiss, Alucard is already using his sword to fend off the fangs that tried to grab at him.
Pushing it back, Alucard runs off to the left of the creature and slices its side. A raged hiss is elicited from the creature and its red eyes seemed to glow darker than before. It swipes its paw at Alucard and misses.
Greta was watching closely as her husband fought off the creature, it has been a some time since they had seen a scaled creature and it was much larger than what they are used to fighting.
Alucard snaps off a fang of the snake and the creature turns itself and uses its tail to swipe at the blonde vampire. Alucard hops over the appendage and swipes at the creature’s neck.
It dodges the swipe and uses its head to knock the vampire away from it. Alucard is knocked into a nearby tree but is quick to get back to his feet, sword ready. A hiss leaves its fanged maw, mocking Alucard of his failed attempt.
Humming in the distance goes unheard of from deep in the shrubbery behind Greta and the children but Alucard was quick to pick up the noise and his eyes widened in realization.
“Greta-“ his body is suddenly forced on the ground as he’s pinned down by the creature’s large paw. He uses his sword to hold off the creature’s other paw that was trying to press down on him and Alucard grunts resisting.
Slithering is heard from behind Liam and the young boy looks at the moving bushes and a head peeks out from the greenery. Liam jumps back in fear from the sudden appearance.
“Hey, come with me, it’s safe this way.” The head rises higher to fully show their face and a sinister smile on their lips.
Brown hair and red eyes innocently watch the young boy and seemingly waits for a response.
“Safe?” Liam parroted.
“Yes, very safe.” She purrs and holds out her tanned hand to him.
Greta frowns at the unfamiliar voice that she was hearing and turns around to see Liam’s little hand reaching out to an unknown woman.
“Liam! Get back!” She is quick to pull the boy away and uses her sword to slice off the woman’s outstretched hand. She screeches in pain but is quickly hushed by Greta’s hammer slamming against her cheek.
Her body goes limp but is quickly slithering away from the bushes, making Greta put all three children behind her again.
The monster above Alucard roars in pain and is forced to remove its paw from on top of his chest. Alucard rolls away from underneath the monster and stands to his feet.
The Diplocephalus hissed at Alucard and suddenly moves the end of its tail to reveal the woman that was just by Greta. The maiden attached regains her mind and holds up her hand to show the bones and muscles connect into a hand, the skin finalizing to show her regenerated flesh.
The maiden screeches in the air and this makes the creature attached to her rush at Alucard, who is quick to dodge.
Greta is baffled and feeling disgusted at how such a creature even exists and watches closely as the maiden placed her hands on her upper body and her face scrunched up as if she were in pain.
Her eyes focused particularly on Greta and the children and opened her mouth, releasing a huge fireball at them. Alucard’s eyes widen in fear.
“Greta!” He yells.
Greta takes the time to place her hands in *mano cornuta and an ice shield immediately forms in front of her and her children. Greta is quick to hug her three children close to her chest to take any possible damage that the shield probably wouldn’t be able to withstand.
Thankfully, the shield was enough to protect them from the fire ball and Alucard uses this opportunity to hop on top of the creature’s back and quickly slice away at the maiden. Attempting to push out another fireball, Alucard slices her throat and decapitates her upper body, completely severing her from the creature.
Greta points her hand at the creature below her husband and makes her ice shield turn into arrows, flying into the monster. It roared in defeat as it slouches into a heap of blood and ice while the maiden gargles on her blood, twitches in pain and finally stops, finally dead.
Jumping off the monster’s corpse, Alucard swipes his sword, the blood flying away onto the grass below him. He is quick to rush over to his family and immediately picks up Alicia who is wailing and rubbing her hands over her eyes. Alucard hugs her close as he looks down to see Greta knelt down hugging Liam and Elijah, who is also close to tears as well.
“Are you okay?” She asks Elijah who now has tears rolling down his cheeks. Liam nods and holds up his root that he was miraculously still holding all this time.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault.” He sobs and digs his head in Greta’s chest. Greta comforts him and kisses his head.
“All that matters is that all of you are safe. It’s all fine.” She says standing up and grabbing his and Liam’s hands.
“Let’s go home.” Alucard suggests still patting Alicia’s back as the girl was slowly calming down.
Returning to the castle, Trevor and Sypha are both waiting for the five of them at the front gates leading to the village. Their own son Simon being held by Trevor, slumbering peacefully.
“Oh you found them, thank goodness!” Sypha says approaching them. Liam was barely able to stand up straight because he was so tired and Greta picks him up, his head resting on her shoulder to finally sleep.
Sypha rubs Alicia’s back and Liam’s head. Her eyes shift to Elijah who was keeping his head down, his cheeks streaked with dry tears.
“You all, alright?” Trevor asks.
“We’re fine, thankfully no one was hurt.” Greta says.
“That’s good, why don’t you all get some rest. We will keep watch for the night.” Sypha says.
Sypha gives both Greta and Alucard kisses to their cheeks and moves to the side to let them head into the castle, Trevor pats Alucard’s shoulder as he passes by and a smile to Greta.
Elijah keeps his head down as he thought on today’s events, feeling at fault for everything.
After everyone was bathed and ready for bed, Alucard places an already sleeping Alicia in bed, adjusting her bonnet on her head then a kiss to her brow.
Liam slept in the bed next to her, tired from the trek back home and didn’t cause much trouble when it came to taking a bath like he normally does.
Alucard places a kiss to his brow as well and head to Elijah’s room across the hall. Greta is sitting with Elijah, his face buried in her chest as she caresses his hair. Alucard sits on the other side of Elijah and listens to him apologizing.
“It’s all my fault Mama. I shouldn’t have brought Liam and Alicia into the forest. We were just looking for a panacea for Ms. Lena.” Elijah says.
“Oh my boy,” She lifts his chin up to look at her, his eyes filling with tears.
“Ms. Lena is older and has more trouble with her body than she can handle. Although it was a very kind gesture of the three of you to try and help her, but…” Greta looks to her husband for help on how to explain to their son.
“I’m afraid with the root you and Liam brought back was nothing more than a parsnip,” Alucard explains as he places a hand on Elijah’s head.
“It was a vegetable that you found. They normally grow in the middle of a forest like that.”
“But, the book said-“
“It is only able to grow in forests south of Wallachia. We are in the mid-west. I told you that we would look for it soon but, not this soon.” Alucard corrects and Elijah’s saddened expression returns.
“Oh. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” He says.
“It’s alright, son. You are forgiven but you must never do something like this again.” Greta said.
“Although, it was admirable for you to try and help someone else, it was still dangerous to go into the forest with supervision. It was reckless of you Elijah, you know this.” Alucard scolds and Elijah nods in understanding.
“I know-“
“And what’s worse, you brought your brother and sister into it as well.” He continued.
Elijah’s chest begins to heave as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“But I was just trying to do the right thing, like the both of you do. I thought I was being brave.” Elijah snivels.
“Elijah being brave isn’t about going out into a dangerous forest with monsters that could hurt you; being brave is standing up for what you believe is right and what you can do to help that right become real.” Alucard says.
“Even though what you tried to do was right, how you went about it was wrong. Never bring anyone into a situation where all of you could be in potential danger. Understand?” Greta affirms rubbing away his tears with her thumbs.
“Yes, mama.” Elijah says.
Hugging him again, Greta kisses his head and tucks him into bed. As Greta bids the two goodnight, Alucard stays behind to talk more with Elijah.
“Elijah, what do you want to be when you grow up?” He asks the child. Elijah thinks about it for a moment.
“I want to work with medicine. I think I can help find cures to diseases and illnesses by using the herbs around us. Like you told me: anything around us could become a medicine.” Alucard smiles at his son’s ability to remember his words.
“Yes. That is true, but for right now let’s work on finding herbs and other medicinal remedies with more supervision. Alright?” He asked.
“Yes, Da.” Elijah responds.
Bidding him good night, Alucard blows out the candle on the bedside table and leaves the room. He finds Greta in the hallway and takes her hand to walk them to their room.
“We should really find another babysitter.” Greta mentions and Alucard hums in agreement.
“Indeed.” He sighed.