Right, OK, I haven't been here in ages, I have two other stories, but what the Hell, I'll stick this one up. I'm no stranger to writing, but I'm not wonderful at it, alright? Tell me whether I should bother to continue. I will anyway, but you know, give us your opinions, preciousssss...
Sold - Chapter 1
Swaying rather too nervously for someone that had fought (tried to) alongside the great demon hunter, whose reputation preceded his physical arrival, Friar Carl rubbed the back of his neck as if it hurt him and stared at the wooden door before him, and mentally swore that it was staring right back.
He ran a hand through his blonde hair and breathed out deeply. He hadn't seen nor heard of Van Helsing since their return to the Vatican, and he had to admit, he had holed himself back up into his makeshift laboratory as soon as he clambered up the steps. That might have been a bit of a mistake on his part, though he hated to think it. Carl hadn't spoken to Van Helsing, because he feared to. Van Helsing may have been a friend, but he was quick to anger, and thought too much. That was his problem. People who thought too much ended up self-doubting and denying. It was a waste of time if anyone had bothered to ask someone like Carl.
"Alright Carl, there's absolutely nothing to this. He hasn't taken up a single mission since his return, he hasn't spoken to you for God knows how long, not even a note…or a card, but that's beside the point. You're going to go in there and talk to him, no matter the price. It depends on what the price actually is, but whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Carl, you talk to yourself far too often for it to remain just "weird" now. It's probably unhealthy. I suggest you stop." Carl listened to his inner conscience and ceased swaying nervously, straightened up to the best of his ability, ruffled his hair up a bit just to see if Van Helsing asked, and breathed out long and steadily.
He pushed against the heavy oak door and he was surprised to first of all find that it opened quite easily and secondly to see a silver, stream-lined stake come rushing past his ear. It whistled behind him and embedded itself into a tapestry on the far wall.
Carl's eyes widened and before he even dared look into Van Helsing's room, he silently closed the door and shut it. The catch clicked slowly and Carl stood there for a few seconds. The expression on his face was the same one that he had been wearing since opening the door.
He breathed deeply again, and this time, knocked. He pushed the door much in the same way that he had before, if a little more tentatively.
"Van Helsing?" he managed to breath. He closed his eyes tightly, as if he expected another stake to whirl past, this time though, maybe not make it past his head.
He opened one eye, and then the other when he saw that Van Helsing had the old crossbow that Carl had constructed himself, trained on his being.
"I'm sorry, I forgot I resemble a vampire, Van Helsing, are you completely insane?! You could have killed me!"
"What, and save the other monks from doing the job without my input?" came the snide reply.
"Friar…" Carl muttered.
"Well, you can't be too prepared for things like these. Strike at the headquarters, take him down when he sleeps, and spike his drinks. It's a cruel business," Van Helsing said with a laugh, checking the crossbow.
"Then I'd say you were too prepared, I'm hardly what you'd call a supernatural entity, now put that crossbow down before you break it," Carl sighed.
"Now Carl, I haven't broken a thing made by you since I met you, so I'd say you were too worrisome," Van Helsing answered brightly. He swung his feet up to rest them, one across the other, upon the table in front of him.
"Then it really is a cruel business if friends can point out their other friend's faults before their strengths," Carl shrugged, his voice rising a little too high for his own liking, let alone Van Helsing's.
"You alright there, Carlene?" he said with a sly grin.
Carl glared and straightened his robes matter-of-factly. If he had responded, they would have been at it all day. It hadn't turned out to be the most pleasant of meetings, but he had to say, the play-arguing hadn't changed a bit, and neither had Van Helsing's quick reactions.
"So Carl, what brings one of such high esteem, here?" Van Helsing asked with a smile after a pause. He rested the crossbow across his lap, but deliberately kept it pointed at the friar.
"Oh nothing at all, to be honest, I had to drag myself up here to see you, strange that…" Carl replied, pretending to think on it and take it seriously. He rolled his eyes; it had begun all over again as if his abrupt silence hadn't severed Van Helsing's greed for more bickering.
"Well then good monk, I will need you to leave while I ponder my next assignment," Van Helsing replied, cutting off Carl's last sentence and waving him off.
"Wait—you took on a new assignment? I heard that you had refused since—I'm not a monk…I'm still a--"
"Friar, yes I knew that. You heard wrong, and you won't be hearing anything else on it either, good day to you," Van Helsing answered with a frustrated growl.
"Why not? Surely you need me to invent something, supply you with something, help you with something?" Carl protested. How on earth could Van Helsing have ignored a friend's offer to help on another quest, or assignment, or mission? It made him more angered than hurt.
"Craving a bit more of that outdoor travelling? That death-defying adventure? That feeling of kill or be killed?" Van Helsing chided, throwing the crossbow onto his desk. It sent papers flying out from under it and float gently to the floorboards.
Carl winced as the crossbow fell with a clang, and promptly picked up the scattered notes.
"No, that's not what I said at all. I hated all of that ridiculous stuff you rattled off. I just want to help out a bit, and then get invited along for the ride," he answered, dropping in the implication in just the wrong place.
"You have no idea what the assignment entails and you want to get invited? You get funnier and funnier each day you spend away from me!" Van Helsing retorted.
"I have no idea what turned you into a damned hypocrite!" Carl answered back, his voice rising, this time, louder than it was a second before.
"Cursing doesn't suit you, Carl. If you don't want to embarrass yourself, please, for the sake of the poor people around you, don't do it," Van Helsing replied calmly. He took his feet from the desk, showering more papers to the ground, and stood up. He dusted off his jacket and grabbed his long coat from the back of the chair where it hung.
Carl lowered his head in defeat, and flicked through the pages that he had managed to salvage, and noticed that between the drawings and diagrams, there was Van Helsing's mission statement. He read the first few lines to make sure that it was genuine, and eventually had to hide the grin that was crawling onto his features. There it was, in pure black and white. It was an invitation after all.
"Right, I'll stop, I'll be damned if I'm caught God damned cursing in front of you, why the Hell would I want to bloody curse anyway?" Carl answered, not even making eye contact with his…friend? Was he still a friend? Carl wanted to answer, "Yes" but Van Helsing's words and actions wanted him to answer differently. He'd think on it later. He hoped he wouldn't start thinking too much.
"Good," came the blunt reply.
Carl raised an eyebrow in confusion, but shrugged and tucked the papers inside his robes as inconspicuously as he could. He made for the door, and as he reached for the handle, a silver stake came hurtling towards his hand and ended up halfway through the wood, an inch away from his outstretched fingers.
"That still isn't funny," Carl stated emotionlessly. He grabbed the handle, threw open the door and slammed it behind him so roughly that he was suddenly afraid that he had ripped the door from its hinges.
"Can't be too prepared!" Van Helsing's voice sang behind the wooden blockade that Carl was now glad separated them both. It seemed as if Transylvania had completely changed Van Helsing, and not for the better. He was still the dark-under toned hunter, but he was now hunting nothing, and had become too dark even for his friends. Maybe it was the loss of Anna that had driven him to insanity. Insanity. Was that really the right word?
Carl shook the thoughts from his mind. Thinking too much, he reminded himself. He tugged at his hair slightly, and then folded his arms. He stormed off down the corridor, and when he came across that first silver stake, he wrapped his fingers around it and tugged until it freed itself from the wall. He stared at it for a second. This was the right word for Gabriel Van Helsing. He was just a silver stake that flew on one course, and didn't care what he hit and who got in the way.
"Damnit Carl, you got in the way," he murmured to himself, and he let the stake slide from his palm. It clattered upon the flagstones and rolled away with a steady hum.
He started to walk back to his quarters, the walk turned into a swift jog, and then transformed wholly into a near-panicked sprint. He ran as if Van Helsing himself was on his tail. Winding through the twisting corridors of the Vatican at such a speed would have confused anyone, but no-one knew the huge halls and narrow alley-like corridors like Carl did, or even saw them the way Carl did either.
He turned another corner and sped down another hallway, and when he reached the hall where his quarters were located, he slowed his pace right down to a meandering stroll. He turned the final corner and saw the familiar oak door in its old worn frame. He rolled his eyes with impatience and sighed with relief that he could catch his breath when he sat down.
He approached the door and rattled the handle. His eyebrows met in a confused frown and he shoved against the door. After many failed attempts to wrench it open, he yelled and banged his fist on the old slab of wood that was obstructing his passage.
He sensed motion behind him. When one was as permanently nervous and flustered as Carl, he knew what moved behind him and immediately calculated how it could kill him.
"Cardinal," he stated blandly, "my door appears to be locked,"
"That is what you do when you leave your room, is it not? I'm sure every other patron here does the same," the Cardinal replied with humour rising in his voice.
"Not me, sir. If I lock a door I usually walk away from it with the key in my pocket, not nowhere to been seen, sir," Carl replied, feeling slightly exasperated now.
"I locked your door, young Carl, so that I could talk to you here before you stormed into that room and disappear from sight and sound before the dawn," the Cardinal answered. Carl turned around and leaned against the door, his arms folded and a frown across his features.
"Now, Carl, could I trust you to do something for me? I want to conduct a meeting, just me and you, tomorrow at the eleventh stroke," the Cardinal said, without looking or even acknowledging Carl to see whether he was even listening. He presumed he was.
"I'm not in trouble am I?" Carl shot back, his frown more worried than frustrated.
"Why, have you done something troublesome?" the Cardinal said with a sly smile.
"Not at all, sir," Carl laughed, trying not to stumble over his own words.
"Good, then I will see you tomorrow," the Cardinal said with a blunt scowl. He reached into his robes and produced the small bronze key, a number indented into the side.
"I suggest you take more care when you lock your door next time, I don't want to see that lying on the floor ever again," he announced, throwing the key in the air, and with one sweeping motion, he floated away, drifting above the flagstones it seemed.
Carl resisted the urge to make an indecent hand gesture at the receding figure of the Cardinal, but thought maybe God was watching.
God. There was someone Carl hadn't reckoned deeply about for a time now. God would forgive him though; he was that sort of chap after all. He shrugged and slid the key that the Cardinal had thrown to him into the lock. Turning it to the left and then pushing on the door, he was thankful that it opened, and that the Cardinal hadn't given him the wrong key. He didn't recall dropping it at anytime during the day. The sneaky old man must have taken it from him whilst he was busy pounding on the door.
For someone who was only one person most of the time, Carl's room was extremely messy. There were books everywhere, to be expected of course, but they were strewn across any available surface. Some were half open, some balancing uncomfortably on their spines, and more than often, a large amount missing pages.
The room itself was pleasant enough in the layout, and surprisingly was absent of anything holy, and filled with more things unholy. Images, drawings, some by Carl's own hand, were pinned to the walls depicting monstrous creatures with or without vicious sounding names. Half-finished inventions and old experiments were placed carelessly across the books that were covering every inch of wooden table or desk. There was one window. A tall one which was in the typical design that was common in the Vatican. It was as tall as an arch, but Carl had thrown across the shutters and used it as a makeshift wall, more drawings and maps posted along the length and breadth.
Stepping carefully around the room so as not to stand on any papers, books or weapons in some cases, Carl made his way to his main desk. He looked down his nose at the mess lying over it, and shoved half of it out of the way. He ignored the dull thuds as one by one books cascaded over the edges like a solid waterfall, and sat down in the space he had made. The chair that used to reside under the desk had been employed to keep the shutters from springing open and also to balance a few stacks of books at the same time.
Carl breathed out and then searched his inner pockets for those papers he had stolen, no, borrowed, from Van Helsing and when he found them, uncurled the corners and laid them out flat against his knee.
His eyes flew across the sentences, and he wished that he could take it all in at once, that way he could discover what this assignment was in a faster time. He turned the pages over; it was all legalities that he already knew about. Where was that one page that he had spotted earlier? He had definitely taken it. Maybe the Cardinal…? No. That was a preposterous idea, why on earth would the old man with the colourful robes take the page from him? It was none of his business. Then again, it was none of Carl's business either. He flicked through the pages once again, becoming a little desperate to find the right one. He could feel the low thumping of his own heartbeat grow faster and faster as he almost ripped the pages scanning them.
Odd then that the one that had given him a paper cut across the thumb was the one he had been looking for. The Cardinal hadn't removed it from his being at all, it was there all along.
His heartbeat quickened and it took several shallow attempts at breathing properly to steady it. He read the first few lines, some more boring legal things, it was all set out in an odd way, and it took a while for him to get used to it, but when he read the mission statement at the bottom, printed in bold, it didn't take long for him to understand it at all.
"Van Helsing, what the Hell have you got yourself into this time?" he breathed through his teeth.
It was a cruel business, indeed.