Bernhard Castle is a cancerous thing, and its something that Gabriel Belmont nearly realizes too late.

Carmilla had worked with the entity that was Bernhard Castle in a careful balancing act, feeding it just enough power to keep it placated, but not enough for it to act against her. Laura had fought against the castle during the time she had spent in it after her 'mother's' death, and had remained free of its control in return. Gabriel had fought against its denizens at every turn, destroying the masonry and the furniture alongside the monsters that opposed him - he had never given it much thought.

(He hadn't given anything much thought during his quest - high on anger and lack of sleep, kept going only by strength of will, thoughts of vengeance, and the increasingly addictive effects of Light Magic... Looking back, he had become a madman, and would have drowned in his insanity were it not for Marie's timely intervention.)

He spends time wandering its halls after his vow, his solemn promise before his wife and God. He trails his fingers across soft tapestries, spends hours staring at intricate carvings. The castle is huge - somehow larger than he remembers - and he comes across doors and corridors that he could have sworn had been destroyed and devastated during the violent combat that had taken place only weeks before. Or it it been months? He has bled on these floors and against these walls, and its not until he finds himself sitting on the grand throne of the castle's central chamber that he thinks that there's something wrong.

It thrums within him like a second heartbeat, leeching on what he had taken from the Forgotten One, tugging at the fringes of his memories and muting his emotions into a dull throb of unfeeling. He can't seem to muster the strength to do much of anything more than just sitting there, and that hits him with a sense of alarm. Gabriel has never been a man of inaction. Even at his lowest, he had gone forth at Laura's bequest on 'one more' crusade - and now that he has come to terms with his misfortune, and made the decision to accept it, to use the hand dealt to him by Fate, he refuses to let himself fade away.

It takes tremendous effort to stand; he has to fight against his own body, prying himself away from the throne and practically throwing himself away from it and across the room. The tatters that remain of his Brotherhood armor shred along the way, torn from his back along with sheaves of blood and flesh where the insidious castle had dug itself in, leeching his very lifeblood from him.

"No! My Lord, you mustn't!"

The cry comes from the very walls - the pillars of the throne-room pulse around him as if with breathing, and dark ichor wells up between the polished stone of the floor as if the room is sinking into an ocean of blood.

"What in God's name?!" In all his fighting against the forces of darkness, such a sight is beyond him - Gabriel has never encountered something so macabre and twisted as this Thing which guises itself as a building. It shrieks and rages around him - candelabras flinging themselves around and setting fire to decorative rugs and wall-hangings, chandeliers swinging precariously with squealing chains that echo like the screams of the damned and dying. Ghouls, those rotten horrific abominations, claw themselves up from the castle's blood and set forth against him with a snarl.

Gabriel lashes out as he had so often before, only there is no combat cross in his hand. So numbed by the castle's attempt at possession he had forgotten that Gandolfi's Vampire Killer weapon lies shattered in the depths of the Forgotten One's tomb. The poisonous rancor of the creature makes him gag as he's bowled over - he doesn't remember the smell being so strong. Wild with pain and desperation, he tries to activate his Light Magic to heal his wounded back, and to protect him from the creature's poisonous breath, but it does not come. Neither does the strengthening power of Shadow to help him shove the beast away.

The Cyclone Boots still adorn his feet, however, and with a mighty kick, the ghoul sails across the room like a rag doll, crashing into one of the pillars with a meaty thunk. But it's only the first of many, and Gabriel is weak. His throat burns with his panting exhaustion, the backs of his arms and shoulders sting where the castle had gotten its claws into him. The other ghouls scrabble across the stone, devouring their fallen cohort before turning towards him with a growl.

Gabriel is surprised to find himself answering with a bestial growl of his own.

"...If you're going to call me 'Lord'," he snarls, addressing the Castle and the ghouls both, "...then you'd better be prepared to face the damned consequences! I am not your puppet!"

"Make us strong! Make you strong! Join us. Join us! Join! Us!" The castle howls around him, the ghouls flinging themselves towards him in endless waves to be crushed by the heels of the Cyclone Boots, or torn apart by the strength of the Dark Gauntlet.

Bernhard Castle is an endless well of hunger and death and power, but it is not sentient, not really. It has no sense of tact, of acceptability - it has needs, and Gabriel is the means to fulfillthem. As God's Chosen, as a vampire, as the bearer of the Forgotten One's power, he'll be the most tantalizing feast its ever had - a source of power to feed on for eternity without resorting to being half starved and leashed like it had been for the centuries in Carmilla's care.

The longer he fights against the ghouls that the castle is throwing at him, the more Gabriel tires. He's being backed into a corner by a battle of attrition, and he's well aware that despite his vow to protect his son from the shadows, that his words will mean nothing if he cannot find it within himself to take the fight to the Castle itself. But how does one wage war against a building, especially when he can barely dredge of the strength to fight against the weak fodder being thrown against him?

He is going to die.

He will never set eyes on his living son.

He will have failed. Again.

"No!" Gabriel lashes out, his fist crashing down on the skull of a ghoul so hard that it pops like a rotten fruit, its body crumpling like a puppet with cut strings. "No, I refuse to die here! I have sworn to live! To fight!" He roars, tearing a ghoul in twain as it steps within reach - using his own vampiric strength rather than that of the Gauntlet for the first time. His fangs are large and heavy in his mouth, and his throat burns-!

The next ghoul to throw itself towards him find itself caught in Gabriel's jaws, rather than his fists. The thing's rotten blood is sticky, but also sweet - the cloying sweetness of rot. In that moment, it is the best thing Gabriel has ever tasted - his skin healing and smoothing over where the castle and the beasts' had wounded him. Power surges through his limbs with every swallow. His vision hazes with red, and time passes in a blur of violence, and blood, and the quenching of a terrible thirst.

He comes to, standing upon a sea of rotting corpses and dismembered limbs. The castle is still and silent, and Gabriel feels nothing but contempt, and a strange feeling of satisfaction. He feels whole and strong, in body, at least. Drinking the ghouls' vile blood... It brings him to a terrible idea - a sort of logical and boneheaded stupidity - the sort of plan that just might work if only for its blatant strangeness:

The Castle had attempted to absorb Gabriel - to drain him of his will and power, and feed on him for eternity. Would not turn-about be fair play?

(Though the logistics of trying to eat a castle is something of a problem. If Marie were here - or any of his Brotherhood mentors or comrades - they would certainly be chiding him for that one. He had never told Laura, but winning that game of strategy against her had been a complete and utter fluke.)

Trying to eat a haunted castle would seem more than a little silly if he were to stop and think about it. But Gabriel has always been stubborn to the point of ridiculousness - something that had driven his Brotherhood comrades around the bend on more than one occasion. Once he decides to do something, Gabriel has a way of just going forward and getting it done - and Marie isn't there to be his voice of reason this time.

The stolen powers of the Demon pulse in his veins alongside the twisted warmth granted to him by the fruits of his blood lust. No, Gabriel realizes. The power is his now, not stolen.

He crouches down on the bloody floor, the claws on his fingertips digging into the stone as easily as if it were butter. Gore wells up from the furrows his claws gouge in the stone, and he feels, more than hears, the castle shriek in protest. The sound brings a sharp smile to his lips. Deliberately, he cups his hand in the deepening pool of blood around him and brings it up to his mouth, gulping it down like a man in the desert whom had just found fresh water. It dribbles down his arms and face and neck, and gets caught in his beard, sticky and cloying. One handful becomes two, becomes three, until he's tearing down the tapestries with tooth and claw, and somehow devouring them along with the stones and mortar and furniture.

All of it tastes of flesh and blood.

As before, with the ghouls, Gabriel descends into a red haze of feeding. He's glad of it - the sheer enormity of his self-appointed task would be enough to drive a man crazy, even if he weren't already. It takes a kind of madness to go about devouring a castle.

When he comes out of it, Gabriel Belmont doesn't know how long it has been. He's not tired. In fact, he feels stronger than ever, brimming with energy. But he also feels lethargic... full. Like he has eaten too much, and now needs to take the time to digest, and sleep away the stuffed feeling.

Bernhard Castle still stands around him, only silent. There is no longer a feeling of a presence within its walls; now, they are just stone. Gabriel closes his eyes and breathes deeply - the air is clear of the foul stench of the ghouls' rot, of the mold and mildew and dripping wax.

The Castle breathes with him.

He startles, and across the room a torch bracket sputters to life. He whirls around, crouching as if to prepare for another attack... which does not come. Cautiously, he looks towards a broken window - one of many - and deliberately relaxes himself, unclenching his fists and straightening his posture. The shattered glass pieces itself back together before his eyes, and he can feel it as surely as a scrape being knit together by Light magic.

He lets out a wordless howl of disbelief, and the whole structure resonates with his fury. He is suddenly aware of every room, every secret, every corridor and mechanism, and the knowledge burns in his mind like a white hot iron. Its too much to process all at once, overwhelming in its newness. Gabriel welcomes the dark of unconsciousness.

Bernhard Castle is no more, and Dracula's Castle has risen in its place.