Van Helsing brought the carriage to a halt outside of the Vatican-a place that was all too familiar to him. An unusual feeling washed over him as he dismounted from the driver’s seat of the carriage…returning to the Vatican was almost like returning home after the week-long journey to reach the holy city. And, in a way, it was his home-it was the only home he had known for eight years.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a dark shape in the morning mists that wreathed the Vatican. It appeared to be a large wolf on two feet, a werewolf, and yet, Van Helsing took out no weapons to fight the creature. He knew it was only Alexsei, in his wolf-skin, and he also knew that Alexsei was regressing back into his human guise at that very moment. He opened the carriage door and extended his hand to help Gabrielle out of the carriage. She stepped out on shaky legs; she clutched a small, blanket-lined basket in which Nickelia slept soundly, and her pale face was tinged slightly green from a bit of motion sickness.
“Now I remember why I don’t ride in carriages…or, at least I don’t ride in the back…” she murmured darkly.
As the hunter helped his wife from the carriage, his keen hearing picked up the sounds of footsteps behind him, as though someone was leaving the basilica. A familiar old voice called out to him.
“Ah! At last, the prodigal son returns!” Carl teased as he hurried down the steps of the basilica, the very same steps where Carl and a few other holy men had first found Van Helsing nearly nine years earlier. His left arm was wrapped in bandages and bound up in a sling as it recovered from the injury dealt to him. His blue eyes were full of excitement as he ran towards his friends.
“Hello to you too, Carl,” the hunter said, giving a small, rare smile.
Carl came scurrying over to greet everyone. Alexsei emerged from the mists, his human form restored, his torn clothes now even rattier from the return journey. As Carl greeted everyone, he noticed the basket Gabrielle clutched; a curious look passed over his face.
“What’s in there, Gabrielle?” he asked, gesturing to it with his good arm.
Gabrielle beamed proudly, then reached into the basket, withdrew Nickelia, and set the basket down next to her feet, while cradling the baby in her arms. “Carl…say hello to me and Gabriel’s daughter…”
“D-D-Daughter?!” Carl yelped in shock. He looked back and forth between the hunter and the queen in confusion. “B-But Van Helsing, you w-were only gone for t-three and a h-half months! That’s n-not long enough f-for a n-normal gestation period, not even f-for a v-vampire, and-”
Gabrielle had to swallow a laugh at Carl. “Carl, I was never pregnant. Gabriel and I found her on our doorstep, and we took her in. Her name is Nickelia. Nickelia Adele Van Helsing.”
At the sound of her name, Nickelia yawned and opened her eyes. She observed Carl for a moment through sleepy blue eyes, then gave a coo of content.
Van Helsing chuckled. “She likes you, Carl. She does that if she likes someone.”
He beamed with pride. “Ah, well that’s good!” His grin suddenly faded as he seemed to remember why Van Helsing had come all the way from Transylvania. “Right…about why you’re here…come with me. Cardinal Jinette is awaiting us in the dungeons…”
A brief, grief-stricken look passed over Alexsei’s face before he managed to regain his collected composure. Carl led everyone into the basilica, down a long, long hallway off-limits to the public, and down a narrow, spiraling staircase that was really off-limits to anyone but the slayers and precious few others.
The air at the bottom of the stairs was cooler; they had made it to the dungeons, obviously. Van Helsing felt a tremor of apprehension deep within him, down in his core. Why was Carl taking them to the dungeons? And why would Cardinal Jinette be meeting them there?
The foursome came to a halt in front of a large wooden door, inlaid with iron bars. A key hung on a ring next to the door; Carl used it to unbolt the door, but, with his minimal strength and an injured arm, he couldn’t even make the door budge when he attempted to open it.
“Erm…Van Helsing…Alexsei…a little…help…please..?” he grunted as he pushed on the door. Alexsei simply sighed, then reached out and pressed upon it with one hand. It creaked open as though it weighed absolutely nothing at all.
The dungeon was not as Van Helsing had expected. He had expected it to be filthy, dark, and infested with rats or some other undesirable creatures. But the longer he looked around the dungeon-which was considerably clean, somewhat well-lit, and apparently free of the normal, loathsome dungeon creatures-he realized that his expectations had been a bit silly. The members of the Order may have hated the creatures they held in captivity, but it was, after all, the Vatican-they had to at least keep up appearances. Really, the only expectation of Van Helsing’s that was met was the prisoners: They were all unkempt, with faces full of despair and hopelessness.
Van Helsing looked around, spotting the familiar red robes of Cardinal Jinette a ways down the hall. He started towards the cardinal, and Carl hurried after him, scurrying to keep up with the hunter’s long stride.
“Now, Van Helsing, what you’re about to see may come as a bit of a shock to you,” he said, his voice gentle. “But please, Van Helsing, I beg of you to keep your calm, and not get angry. Because, in all honesty, Van Helsing, your temper scares me…”
Carl trailed off as the group reached the cell. Van Helsing looked into the cell, curious about Carl’s words…and he received the shock of his lifetime.
Catherine was in the cell, her legs tucked under her, her head bowed low, an image of defeat. She looked like a mess-her hair was tangled and matted, her clothes were tattered and bloodied, and, from what he could see of her skin, she was sickly-looking, pale, and far thinner than Van Helsing remembered. But what disturbed-and angered-Van Helsing the most were the chains: Chains had bound Catherine’s wrists together, and also bound them to the floor, and the hunter was sure her ankles were bound in a similar fashion. Her wings had unfurled from her back, and they, too, were bound, weighed down with thick, heavy chains that criss-crossed over each other, pulling her wings towards the floor in a fashion that hardly seemed comfortable. Van Helsing rounded on Jinette, anger flashing in his eyes.
“Cardinal Jinette, what’s the meaning of this?!” he growled.
Cardinal Jinette looked up at the enraged hunter, his eyes unfeeling as steel. “Please, Van Helsing, keep that temper of yours under control. I’m sure that Mr. Dunkirk has filled you in on your sister’s…condition…and you therefore know she is a danger to you and anyone else here…including your wife and child…
Jinette trailed off and glared coldly at Gabrielle. Gabrielle-who had been looking at Catherine with tears in her eyes-shot Jinette back a look that could’ve frozen Hell, it was so bitterly cold.
“She was not responsible for her actions!” the hunter argued back. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t she possessed-?”
A low, throaty chuckle echoed out in the cell. Everyone fell silent as the laughter rang out; glancing in the cell, everyone saw Catherine’s shoulders were shaking with laughter.
“You speak as though this possession was a one-shot opportunity,” Catherine purred. She then lifted her head…to reveal a face marred with cuts, and two lumiscent purple eyes staring back at them, two eyes lined with heavy, dark bruises underneath. “Oh, no…this was far from a mere one-shot opportunity…” Her eyes scanned the entire group before landing-and staying-on the hunter. “Well, well, well. Gabriel Van Helsing. And to think…I thought I’d never see you again…”
“Who the hell are you?” Van Helsing asked, his voice low and dangerous.
She gave another low, throaty chuckle. “I’m insulted, Gabriel…you don’t remember me? Fine then…allow me to refresh your memory.” She gave as much a bow as her chains would allow her to. “Alana Isabelle Tremarie…”
“The Dark Vampire Sorceress of Transylvania,” Gabrielle added softly. Catherine’s eyes flickered over to her when she spoke; a glimmer of interest shone in her haunting amethyst orbs.
“Ah, yes…Valerious, isn’t it? Oh, yes…Princess Gabrielle Valerious, the Gypsies’ beloved damned princess,” she purred. “What brings a vampire like you all the way to the Vatican-?” She stopped short when she saw the wedding band on Gabrielle’s left hand, and she glanced at Nickelia, cradled in Gabrielle’s arms. Her eyes narrowed as the realization came to her.
“I see…” she hissed. “So…she’s the one you love…Yes, I see how it is…Allowed to love a vampire, but God forbid if you love a witch…”
“Leave Gabrielle out of this, you body-stealing succubae!” Alexsei growled.
“Stay out of this, mutt!” she snapped back at him. “These matters are between Gabriel and myself! Now, get your nose out of affairs that don’t concern you or I shall be forced to do some permanent damage to your dearly beloved Catherine!”
“The hell you will…” Van Helsing growled, his voice soft and dangerous. “Now…what do you want, Alana?”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “As if I’m going to reveal to you, of all people, my grand plans! If you wish to find out, you’ll have to come find me!”
“All right, I will,” Van Helsing said, accepting her challenge.
She chuckled softly yet cruelly, a strange sound coming from Catherine’s mouth. “I knew you would, Gabriel. I know you all too well…Very well, then…tell you what, I shall make you a proposition. You have five days. Meet me in Budapest, and there, I shall inform you of what it is I want with your dear little sister…for a price…” She chuckled again. “Bring whatever companions you desire. Meet me at the gates of Vilkova Palace Cemetery at sundown on the fifth day.” A suddenly malicious look crossed Catherine’s often-kind face. “But be warned…if I arrive and you are not there, I shall have Catherine slaughter everyone in this damned place, then come after you and all your companions. Do we have an accord?”
Van Helsing’s jaw clenched in anger. “Yes…”
She began to chuckle, but her laugh suddenly became a scream of anguish and torment. She doubled over, clutching her head, screaming in a bizarre mix of English and Romanian. Tears began to streak down her dirty, sickly face; she looked back up at everyone with pained dark-blue eyes. She was Catherine once more, for however long she could off Alana’s control on her. She saw everyone gathered outside of her cell, and more tears streamed down her face.
Van Helsing heard a click, and Catherine’s cell door slid open. By some random act of kindness Jinette never seemed to have, he had opened the door so any or all of them could go inside to comfort her. The hunter stepped inside the cell, approached his sister, and knelt in front of her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Catherine…”
She looked up at him, tears still spilling over onto her cheeks. “G-Gabriel…oh m-my G-God, Gabriel…I-I’ve done…s-so many b-b-bad things…h-horrible, h-horrible things…I d-deserve to d-die…and t-the p-pain…the p-pain i-is maddening…t-to h-have h-her inside m-my h-head…s-she doesn’t l-leave…s-she n-never leaves…I h-have to f-fight…for h-her to l-leave me a-a-alone…f-for h-her to just l-leave me f-for f-five m-minutes…”
He reached out and gently stroked her messy, matted hair. “Catherine…you don’t deserve to die. You don’t. We’re going to help you. All of us. We will help you…I promise you.”
She gave a weak, shaky smile, then reached up and pulled at the cross that dangled around her neck. She held it out for her brother, who took it, turning it over in his hands curiously.
“T-Take that w-with y-you…A-Alana’s a v-vampire…it w-w-will p-protect you…a-and remind y-you of m-me…” she told him. Van Helsing nodded, clasped the chain around his neck, and smoothed her hair again. She gave another weak smile, then glanced up at Gabrielle, who had moved to stand beside her husband. She gave a small sigh when she saw Nickelia cradled in Gabrielle’s arms.
“S-She’s precious…” Catherine said. “I-Is she…m-my n-niece?”
Gabrielle beamed proudly. “Yes. Catherine, meet your niece, Nickelia Adele Van Helsing.”
“S-She’s…s-she’s…” But whatever it was that Catherine wanted to say, she never said it, She suddenly doubled over again, coughing loudly. The sound echoed off the walls of her cell; her face looked pained as she kept coughing. To everyone’s surprise, a dark-red fluid spattered the floor in front of Catherine, and it dripped from her lips.
“My God…” Gabrielle whispered. “That’s…that’s blood…”
Catherine’s coughs stopped abruptly, and her eyes began to close. She started to slump forward, and Van Helsing reached for her, but Alexsei caught her before she slumped all the way to the floor.
She was unconscious before she even hit the floor.
***
“Let me get this straight: Catherine’s being possessed, and you managed to catch her and put her in a cell, but you couldn’t catch the miserable wretch who’s possessing her?”
Van Helsing, Gabrielle, and Alexsei stood, talking to Jinette and Carl. They were in the armory, tucked away in Carl’s little corner. Van Helsing eyed Jinette with a small scowl on his face, angered slightly by what he had just heard.
“I’m afraid so, Van Helsing,” Carl said, fiddling with something on his workbench. “Sometime during the…the…oh, well, for lack of a better word, the massacre…Alana had Catherine set her free…”
“Does anyone know where we can find Alana?” Gabrielle asked.
Alexsei shifted his weight slightly. “I do…but the manor she and the rest of the Drakebane coven inhabit is heavily guarded. It took a small army of Vatican slayers just to get past her original guards, and I have no doubt she’s replenished her guards to make up for the ones we killed last time…”
Drakebane…That word danced annoyingly within the hunter’s head. It was the name of a coven, a vampire coven, and it sounded so familiar, just as Alana Tremarie’s name had…
They’re connected…he thought to himself. Alana’s head of the Drakebane coven, but…are they both connected to me? Are they a part of that past that’s unknown to me? Catherine would know…she could tell me…but damn, she’s in no condition to tell me… His thoughts suddenly changed, from pondering the mystery of the Drakebane coven and the evil vampiric witch, to concern for his sister’s welfare. She’s so upset…so terrified…so ashamed of what she’s done…And she’s sick. She was coughing up blood. That never means anything good…
“There is always Alana’s plan…her compromise, if you could call it that,” Alexsei’s voice shook the hunter from his reverie. “That Gabriel and any companions of his choosing meet her at Vilkova Cemetery in five days’ time. That could work…”
Jinette sniffed in disdain. “Striking up a bargain with the Devil’s mistress…”
Gabrielle shot him another chilling look. Ice-blue halos ringed her grey irises. “Well, Your Eminence, it seems that ‘striking up a bargain with the Devil’s mistress’ is the best option we have to redeem Catherine from possession, so I say Alexsei has the best plan. Who’s with me?”
“I am,” Alexsei said.
Van Helsing nodded. “As am I.”
Carl nodded too, his turned-up hair ends bobbing. “Aye…I’m with Gabrielle.”
Jinette saw that the others did not share the same disdain he had in bargaining with a vampire, and he sighed, holding up his hands in defeat. “All right, then…” He turned to the hunter. “You are to take whoever you desire with you to Budapest to meet with Alana Tremarie and find out whatever it is she wants.” He gave another sigh. “She is far beyond any hopes of rehabilitation. She cannot be trained as a huntress. You will have to kill her, Van Helsing. Kill her at all costs.”
The hunter was slightly irked that Jinette seemed disappointed about Alana’s fate. In his opinion, her sins warranted her fate. But, as he often did in the presence of Jinette, he held his tongue. “I will kill her.”
He turned towards the armory, heading to grab his bag so Carl could fill it full of weapons, but Jinette’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Your time is limited. Alana Tremarie must be dead within three weeks.”
The hunter whirled around, an incredulous look on his face. “Three weeks? That’s it? Your Eminence, with all due respect-” A heavy amount of sarcasm dripped from his voice at these words. “-Three weeks is simply too short a timeframe to effectively kill this wretch of a vampire. Not with how powerful she is. She has the power to possess people’s bodies, a power Dracula never had, not even in his wildest dreams. The closest he got was controlling a person’s will. She may very well be even more powerful than Dracula!”
“Gabriel’s right,” Alexsei spoke up softly. “Alana is powerful. It’s nearly impossible to possess a creature as strong as a fallen angel and as trained a huntress as Catherine. It will not be easy to kill her…”
“As it is, it will take us almost a week to reach Budapest. We can make it in five days, but just barely,” Gabrielle added. “And we cannot kill Alana then. She’s a clever fiend. She didn’t earn a title such as the Dark Vampire Sorceress of Transylvania because she was foolish. She’ll expect us to try to kill her then, and she’ll stop us withholding valuable information. Can’t you see, Your Eminence? We simply need more time.”
“Gah!” Nickelia added at the end, as if to prove a point, before returning to her task of trying to stick her toes in her mouth.
Jinette sighed, as if Alexsei, Gabrielle, and Van Helsing were all rather dimwitted children. “None of you understand, not in the least. It is imperative that you complete this assignment and kill Alana within three weeks!”
“Give us a reason why, then!” Gabrielle hissed.
Jinette turned to Carl, giving Carl a look. Carl’s eyes widened, and he swallowed nervously.
“Me?” he squeaked. “But…But Your Eminence! Why do I have to tell them?”
Jinette raised an eyebrow, and the friar instantly took on the persona of a scolded puppy. His head ducked beneath his shoulders, and, if he had a tail, it would’ve been between his legs. He sighed and turned to the others.
“Van Helsing…Gabrielle…Alexsei…” he said nervously. “T-The reason…y-you must c-complete this a-a-assignment in…in t-three weeks…is b-because if y-you…if you d-don’t…”
“If we don’t?” Van Helsing prompted.
Carl looked up, his blue eyes filled with sorrow. “If y-you don’t…Catherine…C-Catherine will die…”
