The next several nights were pure hell. Seras had done her best to help but nothing could prepare me for Alucard’s sadistic, bi-polar schizophrenic approach to “teaching”. I never knew what to expect. One minute he would be cruel and belittling, the next, sweet and gentle, fawning over me like I was a prized pet performing a cute trick. Sometimes, he wouldn’t say a word but would just begin to physically and psychically slam me as I walked through the door.
All of it was horrible and I found myself crying constantly for almost no reason. Worst of all, I still wasn’t completely sure what it was he expected of me. The duration of my “lessons” seemed to depend entirely on how long it took for Alucard to become bored or disgusted with me and send me to bed.
Seras was usually waiting for me and did what she could to cheer me up. Even taking me over to the barracks once or twice when I seemed up to it, despite the fact that there seemed to be a running spat between her and Captain Burnadett (something about her hating everything about him and him finding that quite amusing). Everyone was quite kind to me except the medic and Captain Chambers who would always leave the room soon after we arrived. At the end of each visit, Captain Burnadett would always kiss my cheeks and slip me another written invitation telling me to visit again soon. Then he would offer the same farewell to Seras and she would slap his hands away and leave in a huff. “I might just have to marry her she hates me so much.” He would sometimes say to her retreating back.
Walter was also very kind. I was having trouble concentrating and was finding it hard to read so I had taken to curling up in the window box and napping. Once or twice, I even slept through tea time much to my chagrin. Far from being annoyed he would simply leave a cup of tea on the small table he had placed next to the window box for me. I would wake to a warm fire, the lovely smell of tea and Walter sitting in his chair silently filling out his crossword puzzle. As soon as he saw I was awake, he would lay the paper aside, freshen my tea and offer me something to eat. If it weren’t for the psychotic monster trying to drive me insane every night, I might actually have called this a pleasant time.
But monsters are real. And the thing that makes them truly terrifying is not their claws and teeth but their twisted sense of humor and absolute lack of pity. I’m not just making this up. I got it directly from the source. Not the part about the twisted sense of humor, I gleaned that nugget of wisdom through personal experience, but the part about having no pity. That came straight from the horse’s mouth as it were.
The first thing I needed to know about vampires, Alucard told me during our first session, is that they were cruel, inhuman monsters without compassion or pity, himself included. That they are self centered evil killing machines and that I must never let my guard down and lest I forget...He flicked his finger and threw me up against the wall.
When I tried to stand, the image of a fiery pit opening up beneath me popped into my head. I could actually feel the heat from the flames. I suppressed my yelp of fear and scrabbled back against the wall. I stared at him warily, unsure how I should react. Be on guard he said, but how? He smiled mockingly. “Your move Angel.”
A test. OK. I took a deep breath and walked across the fire pit towards him my eyes never leaving his. I felt pain from the heat but I never actually fell in. When I reached him. I glanced back and the pit was gone because, of course, it had never actually been there.
“You see, even when you know something is an illusion it can still hurt you, as long as any part of you believes it is real.” I glanced down at my shoes. The soles were smoking from the illusionary fire. “You must learn to completely dismiss the illusion as false.”
He gestured toward an empty chair next to his. I sat down and slipped my feet out of the still smoldering shoes. I looked up at him. “But couldn’t the illusion of one danger be masking another, real danger that I could be walking right into?” I asked.
“Yes Angel, it might. How very clever you are.” He said tweaking my nose. “You must learn to distinguish reality from illusion. Hold to the truth and banish the lie and” He stroked my cheek gently. “Never let your guard down!” He said as he threw me across the room. He stopped me just before I hit the wall then let me dangle in the air a moment before slamming painfully to the floor.
“Have you ever heard the story of the “Lady and the Tiger?” He asked.
I nodded as I pulled myself up to my hands and knees.
“Excellent.” He said. “Then let us begin.”
I stood up ignoring the pain in my hip.
“Concentrate Angel. It wont be pleasant for you if you fail.”
I wiped my sweating palms on my thighs and turned my attention to the two doors which had appeared before me. I could almost feel the tiger’s claws ripping into me. I began to tremble with fear. Real or not, whichever door I chose, it would ‘not be pleasant’ for me... and so my training began.
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