Castlevania: Genesis and Revelations

V.

The mantle of sleep was forcibly shaken from Richter. He felt a firm hand on his shoulder, and wished it would go away. The shaking continued, mingled with the penetrating shrillness of words, in someone calling his name. He breathed a groan, starting to feel aches where he hadn't felt them for years. He vainly tried to make his bleary eyes function. At least what sleep he did have wasn't ruined by a nightmare.

That is because you are living one, a reminding voice in his head whispered to him. And, with that, like a black flood his recent history swept over him and overwhelmed him.

Gregor!

He had to act. Richter forced himself to sit upright, blindly feeling for the Vampir Killer whip on his belt and finding it, one foot already out of the bed, but then he almost toppled forward. Strong hands steadied him. He tried to focus his eyes and somewhere swimming in his vision was...

"Maria?" he rasped.

"Yes, Richter. It's me," she asserted. She gently dabbed a damp washcloth to his eyes. She leaned over to a nightstand and poured him a cup of water, handed it to him. He gulped it down gratefully.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Two hours or so."

"Why was I allowed to sleep!" he demanded. "My son has been abducted by someone or something from Count Dracula. I shouldn't be here, I should be out doing what I can to bring him back." Richter started up from the bed again and was punched in the head by a surge of dizziness. What he tried to do didn't matter anyway: Maria firmly sat him down again.

"You are in no condition to fight, Richter." She seemed to manage a small smile, although the Vampir hunter wasn't sure. He couldn't rely on his eyes, his head, or himself right now. She was right. "You're a living example of every injury that could be done to a human being. Bruised, scratched, gouged, burned, and I could go on.

"So, I think I can safely assume you've been fighting Dracula's servants," Maria concluded.

"I have...." His eyed had cleared enough that he could reacquaint himself with his relative. Maria was sitting next to him, the stern apparel of her habit failing to diminish her beauty and her kindness. Her headdress was removed and her long golden tresses cascaded down her shoulder and her icy-blue eyes were fixed upon him. Yes, it radiated from her, as it did from her sister. "I have been," he repeated.

Richter became aware of the far less aesthetic and spartanly furnished room he was in, which was in an adjunct to the church, if memory served him. It was vaguely familiar...a room for the sick and the homeless? He didn't know and didn't care. "Where is Annette?"

"She is in another room. Mother Superior Tera is tending to her."

"Has she heard about...Gregor?"

"Yes, Annette knows what you know. She is in shock, of course, though I think after all she's been through she can only feel numb. She has just heard the worst news that a mother could possibly hear."

"Damn it all, I've already lost too much time, Maria!" he retorted. "Forgive my words, but Gregor's life is endangered right now. Surely you must see that. You may be a nun with a nun's sensibilities, but you were a Vampir hunter once, and before that, your sister was taken by Count Dracula as my son was. If I had waited until I was truly ready to able to rescue her and the others...they wouldn't be here now." In a softer voice, he said, "If you had waited until you were truly ready to seek me out when Shaft had enchanted me with his spells, what might have come of me?"

She bit her lip and shook her head. "I can't argue with that reasoning. But where will you go? You don't know where Gregor's abductor's have taken flight to."

"You're right about that. Just staying here isn't getting me any closer to him, either.

What I want to hear from you is that you won't stop me from leaving," he requested, already standing at the edge of the bed.

"No," she murmured. "I will not."

He painfully arose and stretched, and started for the door. "Thank you. I could use your prayers, Sister--"

Her hand was suddenly upon his shoulder. "You shall have more than prayers from me. I am accompanying you."

Richter couldn't have been more surprised if Prince Nikolae had asked to join him. "What? On the road? No, I won't risk your life in this. No, Maria."

The nun's cheeks became flushed bright red. "Now listen here, Richter Belmont, I'm a grown-up and I have been for a long, long time. And, I may be a woman but I am still a better Vampir hunter than Frances I is as King of Transylvania. I will not stand by when so much is at stake and I am able to help do something about it."

He shook his head in disbelief. "Your Mother Superior will never let you leave. Especially not now, when Veros needs all the help it can get."

"She will understand," Maria saw with finality. "As far as I'm concerned, this issue is settled. I'm going."

He shrugged. Maria was ever that way, nun or not -- impulsive and sure of herself. "Very well. It's your choice. I'm going to find a horse and provisions."

"Two horses, Richter," she reminded him.

"Two," he repeated, as he left.

Richter hurried with all due speed, forcibly ignoring his aches and pains. He didn't try to find Annette, if not because he couldn't afford the time to console her, then because even the thought of seeing the pain she was surely struggling through was too much for him to bear. Nor would he ever say goodbye to her. He strode out of St. Wilhelm Church into the still-twilight day. Until he'd actually left the church, it hadn't crossed his mind that the recent battle might still have been ongoing. Thankfully, it was not, although the signs of its furious presence were dominant in the town square. All the trees had been reduced to charred skeletons and many of the buildings hugging the edge of the grounds were not much better off. The haze and the smell of smoke was still thick in the air. Spatters of blood were everywhere on the ground. Richter grimly surmised it to be human and demon together. And the demonic Geschöpfe left their reminders where they were felled in the scorch marks on the cobblestones.

Finding a pair of horses was quick work for him. While he didn't come across his own that he'd freed, there were others roaming about in the streets, untended. Apparently, no one tried to retrieve or thieve them because they were afraid to leave their homes. Provisions came as freely from abandoned merchants' stands. He returned to St. Wilhelm's leading two horses with well-stocked saddlebags, where Maria was waiting for him on the bottom of the steps. She was no longer dressed in a nun's habit but in a simple long-sleeved pale blue belted dress, armored in soft deerskin.

She nodded approvingly. "You do work quickly when you have to. It is an advantage when you don't have to haggle with the merchants, no?"

His smile was a nervous flicker. "You might say that, Sister. Don't hold it against me."

Sister Maria Renard hopped up onto her mount. "No, I certainly won't--" She thought a moment. "--and considering the nature of our enemy, I'm sure God will not either."