Chapter Text
Sypha finds the answer four days later, in a book focused on the history of siege warfare. It directs her to a manual on castle construction, which in turns leads to a series on warding, ten volumes total, each of them as thick as a dictionary.
It’s a treasure trove of knowledge.
Sypha double checks that the series is complete, has Trevor move the lot across the broken bridge. They moved to a clear table on the second day and filled it within hours so she occupies a third table a level up and directs Alucard to her old pile before happily losing herself in the tomes.
She surfaces for air when Trevor brings them dinner and lights the candles around them, suddenly aware of the shifting light.
“I’ve got it.” She announces, flipping back a book and displaying the ritual that must have created the Belmont’s ward stone. “I think we can use this to lay wards around the castle and the library, especially if we mix it with-“ she rummages through the mess they’ve made and presents them with another book, one better suited for distance and aggression, “this.”
Trevor asks, “Alucard?"
He scans them quickly. “It might work. We’ll need to build in protective measures to keep them from being breached. And we’ll need a boundary to anchor the whole thing.”
“Alright then. Dinner first, then we’ll get to work.”
Sypha works the whole thing out on parchment, Alucard checking her work, adding the occasional flare to the system. She’s better with magic than he is, finds the systems intuitive. She does the initial blending of the spells, redraws the circle in a way that makes sense to her awareness of magic, builds layers into the shields, He applies a framework to the project that allows them to pull the whole thing together, tinkering with the results, refining the details.
“My father called it the scientific method.” He tell her over the table after sunset. They’ve been pushing themselves to finish this, harder than they were before they had an answer. They’re racing a clock, trying to get the castle locked up and guarded before vampire society realizes that it stands empty.
Trevor’s been leaving them to the library, taking over cooking while they studied, acted as a mule ferrying books, and bullying them into sleeping regular hours, but that still gives him large amounts of time to fill. Rather than keep them company in between, he’s been disappearing into the woods surrounding the castle.
He claims the hours are put to more productive use than by hanging round the table doing nothing for them, and with the castle clear the greatest threats to them are all external.
He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t make Sypha miss him any less. They’ve turned themselves into a unit over the past two weeks. It feels wrong to her to separate.
Still, he hasn’t shown up drunk yet so they let him be.
They’re eaten fresh meat every night for the last week, despite Alucard assuring Trevor that the castle’s pantry would never run out food, never spoil. He’s been careful to save the blood from the animals, presenting it, still warm to Alucard with dinner.
He’d protested, at first, but they’d argued him into submission, pointing out that once they left the castle they didn’t know when he’d have access to blood again and they couldn’t afford weakness, not right now.
Trevor always looks away as he drinks it; Sypha never does. She doesn’t know what that says about them as people yet, but she thinks they’ll figure it out sooner rather than later.
When the wards are finished they emerge into late afternoon sunshine to go looking for Trevor, the plans tucked under Sypha’s arm.
They find him in the courtyard, dressing a rabbit for dinner, a bucket of blood between his feet. He’s turned to the sun, away from them, and Sypha doesn’t resist the opportunity to pounce at his shoulders, laughing, scattering the papers to the ground.
“We did it!” She cries, as Trevor tries to escape her.
He stands, keeping a careful hold on the rabbit, dumping Sypha to ground.
“Did what?”
She pouts at him from the ground, “Finished the ward scheme.”
Alucard stoops to gather her papers as she stands. “We’ll need to mark the boundaries and tie the wards to a central point but the spells are crafted and need only to be cast.”
“And you two can that?”
“We three.” Sypha says, dusting dirt from her trousers. “You’ll need to participate in the casting too.”
“I will?”
“Yes.” She says firmly, “We won’t be able to tie you into the wards otherwise.”
“Alright then, that might be a problem.” Trevor says, as Alucard straightens and demands, “Why I do smell blood?”
Both of the humans look at him, incredulously. Sypha makes a wordless gesture towards the rabbit and Trevor very lightly taps the bucket of blood with a boot.
“Human blood.” Alucard clarifies.
“Relax,” Trevor says immediately, “it’s not mine.”
Both of them stiffen at that. “Is that a sentence that usually relaxes people where you come from, Belmont?”
He rubs a hand against the back of his head, ruffling his hair, sheepish, “Usually yes?”
"My god.” Alucard says, appalled.
“Whose blood is it then?” Sypha, before they can start another round of bitching at each other.
“There’s a village about three miles north, that the family used to get supplies from. They were attacked sometime last night. I saw the smoke this morning and went to scout it. The village is gone; razed to the ground.”
“Were there any survivors?” Sypha asks and then immediately says, “No, of course not, you would have pulled us away from the library if there were.”
“None that I could find.” Trevor confirms, “But the fires were nearly dead by the time I got there. That’s hours between the attack and my arrival, and it’s possible they were hiding from me.”
When they look confused at that Trevor adds, “I had the family crest on display.”
Sypha is still confused but Alucard supplies, “Villagers, pitchforks, torches?”
“Yes.”
“Was there any sign of what attacked them?”
“Night creatures; they even managed to kill a few. I’d be impressed if I didn’t remember training their children how to fight.”
“We cleared the castle.”
“Then they must have been outside it.” Trevor condescends.
“The castle was mostly empty when it arrived.” Sypha points out, “And as long as they had somewhere to shelter during the day the army could have survived. Would his army know that your father is dead?”
“I don’t know.” Alucard say slowly. “It would depend on who raised them.”
“And if they didn’t know would they come here?”
“I think they’d come either way. If know they’ll come in the name of whoever controls them now and if they don’t know they’ll come in his name.”
“And that’s going to be the problem. How long will it take to raise the wards?”
“Half an hour once we’ve set all the ward stones, but we need to mark the boundaries, and set five stones- a central one, and one on each of the cardinal directions. That’s at least two days of work.” Sypha supplies.
“Boundaries are already marked.” Trevor says, and then defensively, when they look at him in surprise, “I haven’t just been fucking around in the woods for the past week. I know if we were setting wards we need boundaries eventually.”
“Good.” Sypha says, “I’ll need to check and make certain they work with the spell we built, while you two find stones to set.”
“It’s too late in the day to cover the entire property before sundown.” Trevor says.
“Then I’ll start tomorrow. Let’s see if we can find stones we can use before then.”
Between the wreckage from the Belmont library and the stones littering the castle from their fights they assemble a number of stones that will serve their purpose in the courtyard before sundown.
Sypha shoos her boys away from her and sets to work carving them. She’s cheating, doing this bit with magic, but none of them is a stonemason and they don’t have time to find one, so she focuses and directs her will. The first three shatter before she figures out the trick of it, how apply a little finesse to the flow of her thoughts. After that it goes easier and she applies the runes necessary to each stone.
She’s putting the final touches on the central ward stone, as tall as she is and four times as wide when Trevor brings her dinner, and tells her they’ll be camping above the library until the wards are set.
The boys have already moved their gear outside, pitched tents, set a fire for the night. She’s grateful. Carving the ward stones was harder work than she expected and she’s ready to fall into her tent and sleep.
Trevor fusses at her until she finishes her dinner, informs her that she doesn’t have to keep a watch tonight, and when she starts drowsing in front of the fire shakes her until she moves to her bedroll.
She’s asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.
Sypha is awoken by the sounds of fighting. It’s hardly the first time that’s happened in her life, so she’s up and alert in seconds, a fireball forming at her fingertips, the dagger she keeps on hand already bare.
She’s cautious, leaving her tent, and pulling on her boots but Alucard and Trevor have moved the fight outside of their camp. They’re using the ruins of the Belmont Manor to contain the fight, and she pulls her magic back beneath her skin and creeps up behind the fight. It’s clear they already thinned the ranks of their enemies by the carnage that litters the ground.
Alucard has engaged the largest night creature, twice as tall as he is with horns that curl like a goats and wings that shouldn’t be large enough even get it in the air. Trevor’s handling a handful of lesser demons from the second story of ruins wielding the morning star to catch himself when a wall crumbles beneath him. He turns the fall into a swing that allows him to kick one out the air and bury his blade into the chest of another.
Sypha takes a moment to mark her targets before stepping out of cover.
She’s best at long range, particularly with the element of surprise on her side. Give her enough time to build a spell and a focus and Sypha can move the world. Since all she needs to do now is incinerate a handful of night creatures she only takes a moment to focus and build her magic before stepping out behind them and launching a barrage of fireballs.
They all hit their targets but only two actually kill the creatures they hit. Still it’s an effective distraction as Trevor hits the highest point of his swing and snaps the morning star free, wrapping the whip around a flying demons leg and whipping it into another, the ball at the end cutting deep into both. Trevor leaps clear as they explode, and Sypha throws a bit of magic underneath him to break his momentum as he falls.
Alucard’s used her distraction to gut and behead his demon and between the three of them they make short work of the remainder.
“Did that seem too easy to you?” Trevor asks.
“Not as easy as the party we took out on the way here.” Sypha replies, prodding the dismembered corpse of a night creature with a booted foot.
“None of them fled the fight.” Alucard points out. “Which answers the question of whether they know my father is dead or not and the question of whether they have a new master.”
“No idea?”
“None. No new master either.”
“Good news for us.” Trevor says pragmatically, wiping his sword down. “Do you think that’s all for tonight or should we expect another attack?”
“Best to expect another attack.” Alucard, surveying the mess, a hint of a whine entering his voice as he adds, “We just got the place clean too.”
“There’s a reason we’re sleeping outside.” Sypha says, “We should wait until morning to deal with the mess though.”
He sighs deeply. “It’s probably my watch by now too, isn’t it?”
Trevor claps hims on the shoulder, in mock sympathy, as Sypha laughs.
“You’ll survive.” She promises as they return to camp.
“Yes,” Alucard says, “I’m starting to think that too.”