[NOTE: cover image is a cropped edit of Elanor-Elwyn's "Count Vladislavus Dracula - Van Helsing," which can be found on deviantART. Link to original in my profile. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THE ORIGINAL ARTIST.]

Another one-shot, because I find writing these helps to force me out of any kind of writers block I may find myself in. I had posted this one originally for a couple of hours some months ago before taking it down because the original was a bit too dark for me, so I cleaned it up a bit and here we are.

I'm currently working on a new story, which is taking me way longer than I would prefer, but I want to get it right, so - of course - your patience is appreciated. But that also means that when I find myself getting stuck, I'll be writing more one-shots and I plan to post those whenever I get the chance in the meantime.

So for the present, forgive any errors that may have been overlooked and enjoy!

Nightmares

It had been almost a year since the incident in Transylvania had come to an end – a year since the destruction of Count Dracula, marked by the death of the last Valerious. Gabriel Van Helsing had never been quite the same. The loss of a woman he had come to love had been difficult for the hunter, more so than he had anticipated. But the Holy Order had plenty for him to do to keep his mind off of things, and he was grateful.

Grateful, that is, until one evening when his traveling companion, the friar named Carl, awoke him suddenly, tearing him from another dream of being with his beloved. The friar's expression was grave.

"Carl, what is it?"

"You've been summoned."

"What? By whom?"

"Cardinal Jinette's niece, the one that had gone missing…"

"I thought they had found her?"

"They did, but she's not the same."

"Probably the effect of getting out into the real world for a change instead of living safely in that gilded cage they keep her in. She'll be back to her usual self in no time," the hunter replied dismissively, rolling over onto his side so he could go back to sleep – back to Anna. But Carl was persistent.

He grabbed the hunter's arm roughly and pulled.

"Van Helsing, I'm serious!"

The hunter nearly fell out of his bed but managed to catch himself.

"Carl, get out!"

"You don't know Sofia like I do! We were children together. There's something wrong with her. They say she's been possessed."

"Then send a priest to exorcise her."

"They've tried, nothing's worked. She won't see anyone anymore. She… she only wants to see you."

The way Carl said those last words sent a strange chill down Van Helsing's spine. Although he would much rather go back to sleep, his dreams of Anna would have to wait.

"Fine. Show me where this girl is."

They arrived at a large villa that overlooked the sea about two hours before sunrise. The vista was breathtaking and the grounds of the mansion were impressive. But the moment Van Helsing dismounted his horse, a great sense of sadness washed over him as he looked up at the impressive structure. The atmosphere of this place did not feel right – not wholly evil, but something was certainly off.

He was greeted by Cardinal Jinette's brother – a man at least fifteen years younger than the Cardinal, and yet his eyes looked ancient. The whites of his eyes were pink, the flesh surrounding puffy, as if he had been crying, but he put on what smile he could muster as he invited the hunter inside, showing him into the parlor where the Cardinal was seated.

"Van Helsing. Thank you for coming," Jinette replied, looking equally as exhausted as his younger brother.

"Where's the girl?" he asked, eager to get to business and be done with it, but was mildly disappointed when he was asked to sit down. "So why am I here?"

"We're hoping you can help."

"Well, I'm a bit rusty when it comes to exorcisms, but I'll do my best."

"She is beyond our help now," Jinette's brother replied, crossing himself as another tear streamed down his cheek.

"I don't understand. Then why am I here?"

"Yesterday morning, my brother found my niece – Sofia is her name – he found her in the piazza of the neighboring village. She had gone missing in the night…" Jinette began.

"She sometimes sleepwalks," the father added.

"What was she doing in the piazza?"

"We don't know, but she…"

This was the first time the hunter had seen the Cardinal so disturbed and it intrigued him. The man was usually the stuff of legend – resilient and bold. But in that moment, it was as though he were a different man entirely.

The man of God cleared his throat of the welling emotion and flicked a single tear away.

"She had tried to kill herself."

The father crossed himself again, kissing the cross on the end of his rosary beads fervently.

"How?"

"They found her face down in the fountain, but was revived, thank the merciful Lord. If the circumstances were different, she would certainly make a full recovery."

"Are you certain it was attempted suicide?"

The Cardinal looked over at his brother and nodded. The man revealed a crumbled bit of parchment from his pocket and he handed it to the hunter with a trembling hand.

"It's the last page of her diary," Jinette explained. "Prior entries document her earlier encounters with what she calls her 'personal demon.' That entry you see here records her resolve to take her own life in order to free herself of it."

Van Helsing perused the contents of the page.

"With all due respect, it sounds like your daughter has a bought of melancholy. I don't think she's possessed."

"But we've tried everything to lift her spirits!" the father suddenly chimed in. "We've travelled nearly the entire continent, I've had her attend parties, had her spend time with her friends, she's seen countless physicians, we tried laudanum for nearly six months, and it only seemed to make her worse. We've spent a fortune on specialist after specialist. They help for a spell, but when her demons came back, they came back stronger still! I am at a loss, Mr. Van Helsing. I love my daughter – more than life itself, and if I could bear this burden for her, I would. But I don't understand! I don't understand why God would punish my sweet, sweet Sofia. He's abandoned her…" and he broke into tears.

"Brother, you mustn't blaspheme. This is a trial of your faith. The Father, in His infinite wisdom, will…"

"Will what?" he suddenly snapped. "Will cure her? Don't patronize me, brother! I've spent the last year praying for Him to free my baby girl from these demons that cling to her soul, that torment her! God has ignored every prayer and every sacrifice I have made to make her better! If the devil wants a soul to torture, then he should take me! Take me and leave my daughter alone!"

The man crumbled, falling to his knees on the floor and sobbing into his hands. While the Cardinal struggled to comfort his heart-broken and wavering brother, Van Helsing excused himself to go and meet this deeply troubled young woman. The closer he came to her room, however, the more oppressed he began to feel. The strange sadness he felt resembled that of what he had experienced when he had held Anna's lifeless body in his arms, only this – this was so much more.

He found the girl's room on the other end of the house, the door protected by an elderly looking nurse who was busy muttering prayers to the Virgin Mary. The first thing he noted when he entered Sofia's room was how cold it was. Every window in the small space was wide-open, with the cool air of the sea wafting through the floor-length curtains, lifting them up into the air so they floated like specters.

The second thing he noted was the sound of humming, coming from one of the main windows in the room. The tune was disturbingly familiar. He had heard it before, almost a year ago at that ball in Budapest – Dracula's All Hallow's Eve ball, the ball where he had nearly lost Anna to the monster. A chill rippled through him as he shut the door behind him. With the curtains floating in the wind, it was difficult to see who the source of the humming was, but upon further inspection, he discovered a young woman seated on the windowsill, dressed in a thin nightgown that was too big at the collar, so it hung off one of her shoulders. She was a beautiful creature, in the prime of her life, with light brown hair in a fishtail braid, wisps of naturally curled side-swept bangs caressing her cheeks as she leaned against the window frame, staring out at the moonlit sea. Her eyes appeared to be a deep hazel color and they were filled with tears that hadn't managed to spill over her lower lashes just yet.

He pulled up a chair in the center of the room at the foot of the bed, where a large, ornate mirror hung on the wall behind him. He was close enough to the window so she would notice him without encroaching on her space.

"You must be Gabriel Van Helsing," she said, the words interrupting the melancholy tune she had been humming.

"I am," he confirmed. "And to whom am I speaking to?" he inquired carefully. It was strange. For someone being supposedly possessed by demons, he couldn't sense anything evil coming from her – just oceans of unexplainable sadness.

She gave him an incredulous look before looking back out at the sea.

"I'm not possessed by a legion of demons, Mr. Van Helsing."

"That's not what your father and your uncle, the Cardinal, seem to think."

"My uncle is a fool, and my father, though he means well, is too superstitious for his own good."

"I'm pretty sure it's blasphemy to insult the intelligence of a servant of the Lord," he replied cheekily.

"Says a fallen angel with no memory of who he is or what he has lost."

Van Helsing froze in his seat, surprised at her accusation. The last person he had met who knew who he truly was turned out to be the son of the devil. He leaned forward in his chair.

"Excuse me?"

"You're Gabriel the archangel, left hand of God, the messenger, protector of the innocent, vanquisher of evil." She turned and looked at him again, her face unreadable. "Vampire slayer."

"How do you know all of this?"

"He told me."

"Who told you? Your father?"

Sofia broke his gaze after shaking her head, "no" and was suddenly looking behind him. Van Helsing could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as an unsettling presence fell over the room. Her eyes met his again and he watched a single tear tumbled down her cheek.

"It doesn't matter now," she suddenly said. "It's too late for me."

"I don't understand."

She looked away from him again, staring back out the window.

"It'll all be over soon."

"Sofia, look at me."

But she continued to stare out the window.

"You have no idea what it's been like – living like this. Plagued with thoughts of inadequacy, of hopelessness. I've never been good enough – not for anybody. Not my family, my friends. I tried to love them, tried to be happy for them, but all they did was make me feel worthless. They didn't do it on purpose – it's not their fault. It's mine."

"Sofia, that's not true," he insisted. "Your family and your friends love you. They're worried about you. Carl – do you remember him? – I work with him. He's the one that sent me."

"I don't deserve their love. I don't know why they care. I'm a nobody. Worthless, a waste of space. No one would notice if I just vanished off the face of the earth. I doubt anyone would even care."

"Don't talk like that."

"It's those stupid voices in my head, nagging me, telling me I'll never be good enough. I'd never be pretty enough, talented enough, smart enough, spiritual enough. I tried to prove them wrong. I tried so hard to ignore them. I fought them for so long, trying to convince myself that what they were saying wasn't true, but it is true. I'm nothing! I'm so tired of fighting him, Gabriel… I don't want to try anymore."

She covered her mouth with her hand to hold back a sob as she hugged her knees tighter to her body.

"Oh God, I don't want to fall."

"Sofia, look at me."

"I've been holding on for so long, grasping at threads, hoping someone would save me. I'm so tired… I don't want to hang on anymore."

"Sofia, look at me!"

He nearly shouted the words and she jumped, as if she had forgotten he was there.

He suddenly noticed the razor blade in her hand and the deep cuts on her left arm. The blood had stained the front of her nightgown and when she realized he had noticed, a look of fear contorted her face.

"Don't hurt me!" she cried out, holding out her bloody hands in defense and leaning against the open window. He caught her just in time before she could fall out, grasping her bloody wrist and pulling her back inside. He held her close to him, desperately trying to console her as she cried.

As he did, he noticed something strange on her ankle. He carefully lifted the hem of her nightgown a couple of inches and noticed numerous scars, each was a line, some thick, some thin. When he went to move the skirt up to investigate further, she pushed him away, huddling into the corner below the window and hugging her knees close her body with one hand while tightly gripping the edge of her nightgown with the other.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry…" he said, reaching his hand out in defense. "It's okay…" He noticed her blood on his hand and he wiped it absently onto his pants before extending his hand once more. "I just want to help you."

"You can't help me."

"Who did that to you?" he asked, motioning to her legs. "Did you do that?"

"I had to. It was the only way."

"Only way to what?"

"To silence him." She could tell he didn't understand and she hesitantly began to pull the skirt of her nightgown up, slowly at first, revealing toned calves, past her knees to her thighs. The pale skin was littered with scars. Most of them appeared old, but they were all clearly self-inflicted and he shuddered visibly. "He needs my blood," she explained, the words sending a sharp shiver down the hunter's spine. "When I cut, the more I bleed, the quieter he is."

"Sofia, who is 'he'?"

He noticed her looking past him again, as if someone were sitting on the bed behind him. He began to move his head to look, and though he caught nothing out of the corner of his eye, before he could turn fully, she reached out a bloody hand.

"No! You mustn't look! You can't let him see you!"

"Who, Sofia? There's no one there."

The young woman's erratic behavior, coupled with the fear in her eyes and her bleeding, self-inflicted wounds were starting to unnerve the usually steeled hunter.

"You have to help me," she pleaded, grabbing the razor from the floor by the window and shoving it into his hand as she knelt before him. "Please. Kill me."

"What?!"

"Do it. Before he comes back. You must be quick about it. I've tried to do it so many times, but he always comes back, always stops me. He's there – in the mirror. Always in the mirror."

"Sofia, you need to calm down."

"Please. I can't do this anymore."

"Sofia, I'm not going to kill you." He insisted, placing the razor on the ground between them.

"Please… I – I can hear him coming! Oh God, no…" She began to press her back against the wall, using her feet to push her farther back, as if doing so would put any more space between her and the mirror above her bed. Van Helsing watched in helpless horror as her face contorted with fear, her protestations and pleas growing more emphatic as she continued to struggle.

"Sofia, there's nothing there."

She had snatched the razor from the floor and he watched as she made a movement to slice open her arm some more, but he wrestled the shaving utensil out of her hand, despite her appeals, and he pulled out the cross from his within his jacket and held it before her, muttering the Lord's prayer in Latin, hoping it would calm her. It only seemed to make her worse.

The wind outside had picked up considerably, blowing the linens about in the room.

As he continued to pray, holding the cross firmly in his hand, he watched as her face paled considerably, her eyes wide in terror. She lifted a single finger and pointed in horror at the mirror above her bed. Van Helsing felt the atmosphere in the room change considerably, the temperature dropping so much, he could see his breath in the air.

"Sofia…"

"He's here…"

"Sofia, you and I are the only ones in this room there's nobody…" he turned around to prove his point, but before he could finish his sentence his heart skipped a beat and he jumped back in a mixture of surprise and fear at the face he saw in the large mirror above Sofia's bed.

The blue eyes burned like ice and they sent a chill down to his very center and that malevolent smile that had haunted his dreams for almost a year, was now before him – plain as day.

"Hello, Gabriel," the reflection of Dracula said.

"N-no. You're dead!" Van Helsing protested, not willing to believe his eyes. "I killed you!"

"Did you?" he seemed to tease.

There was a flash of lightning from outside and suddenly the Count was no longer in the mirror, but standing by the bed. Van Helsing grabbed the razor that he had torn out of Sofia's hands just moments ago and held it up in a futile effort to defend himself and the mortified girl.

"Leave this girl alone. She's done nothing to you. Your quarrel is with me!"

"What girl? You mean the one you just slaughtered in a fit of madness?" he asked.

"What?"

The vampire motioned to the space where Sofia had been sitting beside the hunter and Van Helsing turned to find her dead. Her throat had been slit and she was covered in blood. The scars on her legs weren't scars at all, but the name "Dracula" carved over and over again into her flesh. Van Helsing looked at the razor in his hand and was horrified to find it covered in blood. He dropped the tool in terror, stumbling to his feet so he could back away from the revolting scene.

"No… No, that – that wasn't me!"

"It wasn't? I suppose Anna's death wasn't you either," Dracula taunted.

There was another flash of lightning outside and when the bright light vanished, Sofia's body was suddenly replaced with the lifeless form of Anna Valerious.

"NO! Anna! Anna… wake up!" he pleaded, lifting her broken and lifeless form into his arms. He could feel the tears of guilt burning in his eyes. "Please… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

Another flash of lightning and Anna's body disappeared from his arms as the face of a werewolf was suddenly snapping in his face – just for the briefest of moments – and he jumped back in fear. He could hear the Count's laughter echoing in the room. Van Helsing covered his ears to block out the maddening sound, but he couldn't escape it – it seemed to be coming from inside his own head. The room was spinning and everywhere he could see Dracula's face – his cold, dead eyes, his menacing smile, the demonic look his face took when he barred his fangs.

The room suddenly stopped spinning and he was facing the mirror again, only this time it was Van Helsing who had no reflection, at least no reflection that resembled him. Instead, his reflection appeared to be that of the Count.

"You and I are no different, Gabriel," Dracula taunted.

"That's not true!"

"You are a murderer, just like me."

"No!"

"You can't escape me, Gabriel. You and I are one."

"I killed you once, I can kill you again!" he shouted at the mirror.

Lightning flashed once more and the Count's reflection vanished. Van Helsing looked about the room frantically for a sign of the vampire, but he wasn't in Sofia's bedroom anymore. He didn't even appear to be in Italy anymore. He was in Castle Dracula, surrounded by ice and stone. He was defenseless, disorientated, and lost – so lost.

"You can't kill me, Gabriel," he heard Dracula say from behind him suddenly and then he felt something sharp and cold pierce through his heart. He gasped at the intense pain that shot through his body and he looked down to find the tip of a silver stake sticking out of his chest. Dracula twisted the stake for the sadistic pleasure of it, his lips brushing against the hunter's ear. "I'm already dead. And so are you..."

He could hear the vampire growl as his other-side took over and before Dracula could sink his fangs into Van Helsing's neck, the hunter awoke suddenly, sitting upright in bed, covered in sweat.

He was panting loudly, tears streaming down his face as he pushed his hair from his eyes and he felt someone stir beside him.

"Gabriel, what is it?" he heard Anna ask and he turned to see her lying naked beside him, her gorgeous gypsy curls sprawled out on the pillow.

"Anna?"

She sat up in the darkness beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder.

"It was just a dream, Gabriel," she assured him, caressing his face sweetly. "You just had another dream."

"Oh God, Anna, it was awful," he sighed, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes as she tenderly kissed his shoulder, one hand resting on his thigh as he calmed down. "You were dead and there was this girl… and Dracula… Dracula, he was…"

"Count Dracula is gone, love," Anna assured him, kissing him tenderly. "You destroyed him almost a year ago."

"And you didn't die? You're really here?" he asked, unsure if he wanted to believe that she was truly there.

"Of course I am," she smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck and he pulled her into a tight embrace. "I'm not going anywhere."

She felt so real against him, her soft breasts against his chest, the warmth of her body on his, the smell of her hair… His body finally began to relax as the tension ebbed away.

"Thank God," he sighed in relief. I couldn't bear it if I lost y…" He pulled away to look into her face but it was Dracula's face he saw beside him and he screamed, pulling away as quickly as his body could, so much so that he fell onto the floor in a heap, just as Dracula's laughter filled his head again.

"You didn't lose me, Gabriel!" the vampire replied between laughs and he sat up in the bed, naked and proud. "I'm right here," he said in Anna's voice. Van Helsing crawled backwards as far away from the bed as he could until his back hit the wall.

"I'm not going anywhere," Dracula taunted, his three brides – Verona, Marishka, and Aleera – appearing on the bed beside him, fangs bared, eyes consumed in bloodlust. Van Helsing looked on, horrified and confused as Dracula climbed off the bed, his brides crooning and reaching for him as he made his way over to the hunter. The vampire extended his hand. "Come, Gabriel. It'll be just like old times."

He could hear Dracula's voice in his head, like a distant memory.

Have you ever wondered why you have such horrible nightmares?

He could see Anna on the bed, her figure barely covered by a sheer material that grew red with blood as two of Dracula's brides bit into a wrist each. The third appeared to be pleasuring the gypsy princess. The scene was both frightful and horribly erotic – like some sort of twisted nightmare.

Would you like me to refresh your memory a little? Hmm? A few details from your sordid past?

He could hear Anna's moans of ecstasy in the background and Dracula's laughter was filling his head again. Van Helsing covered his ears in a desperate act to block out the sound. He closed his eyes, not wanting to witness the debaucheries taking place before him.

"You can never be rid of me, Gabriel," Dracula's voice echoed, the hunter's head throbbing. "You and I are bound. There can be no you if there is no me… there is only madness."

"No," Van Helsing protested weakly, covering his eyes with his hands, but he couldn't un-see what was before him. The scene of the bedroom soon melted away into the funeral pyre on a cliff overlooking the sea where he had set fire to Anna's lifeless corpse almost a year ago. But instead of the comfort of her spirit rejoining her family with the morning's sunrise, the sky was dark and the sea tumultuous.

"That always seems to happen, doesn't it?" the Count asked, now fully clothed and standing beside him on the cliff, watching as Anna burned. "The ones you love always seem to die in the crossfire. I wonder why that is."

"I didn't mean to," the hunter insisted. "It was an accident."

"No it wasn't."

"How are you here? I killed you!" Van Helsing suddenly shouted at the vampire, grabbing him by the lapels of his cloak roughly.

"You tried," the Count replied simply. "But we both know I can't die – not really."

"Anna died in her effort to destroy you," he hissed through the tears. "She risked her life to save her family."

"And you killed her."

"It was an accident."

"You killed Anna Valerious, Gabriel. You had control over the wolf, and yet you still killed her."

"No," he insisted, his grip on the vampire loosening. The Count smacked Van Helsing's hands away violently.

"STOP LYING TO YOURSELF, GABRIEL!" he bellowed, his face contorted with rage. "You killed her because you couldn't bear the thought of what would happen when I inevitably came back, because you knew that when I came back, I would come back not just for her, but for you as well."

"No."

"You had the audacity to save her the trouble of dealing with me once again, because you knew what would happen if her path crossed with mine again. You saw what happened in Budapest that night, Gabriel. You couldn't trust her."

"No."

"So you killed her and you burned her. And no one knows the truth but you and I."

"You're not real," Van Helsing insisted through his tears. "This is a dream. Wake up, Gabriel. Wake up."

"A storm is coming, Gabriel," Dracula explained as he moved passed an emotionally crumbled Van Helsing to stand on the edge of the cliff. The vampire looked back at the hunter, his eyes glowing that unearthly blue. "And before the blood rains down on Rome, know this, my friend – I will be coming for you."

"I will destroy you," Van Helsing promised.

"Oh don't be boring, Gabriel," the Count smirked. "Everyone who has tried has died. Besides, how do you think the Order will react when they hear the ravings of a mad, rouge hunter, hmm?"

"I will stop you. Do you hear me, Dracula? I WILL DESTROY YOU!"

His head began to throb once more as Dracula's laughter filled the air and he held his head in a desperate attempt to ease his suffering. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear his name being called.

"Van Helsing? Van Helsing! Van Helsing! Wake up!"

The hunter could hear Carl calling his name. He blinked once and upon opening his eyes, he found himself in a stark white cell, his wrists and ankles strapped to a bed. He could feel his body thrashing, could hear himself shouting, as if he were having some kind of strange out-of-body experience. The friar was standing over him, trying to console him as a nameless priest shoved a long needle full of a thick sedative into his arm.

"Van Helsing, you must calm yourself," Carl insisted. "We're only trying to help."

"Dracula… he's alive. Carl, you must tell the Cardinal. Count Dracula is alive." Van Helsing could feel the sedative moving through him like a slow poison, the drug gradually numbing his fevered mind.

"No he's not, Van Helsing, you killed him. He's been dead for nearly a year now."

"No," the hunter insisted, suddenly confused and disoriented. "Where am I?"

"You're in the St. Francis sanitarium in Venice, Mr. Van Helsing," the priest explained with unnervingly calm apathy, as if he had given this speech a hundred times before. "You were brought us by Brother Carl almost a month ago because he feared for your sanity, which has been deteriorating, I understand, since your encounter with Count Dracula."

"What? I'm not insane! Carl!"

"I'm sorry Van Helsing, but I had no choice," the friar insisted. The hunter looked into his eyes and soon saw the fear he had tried so hard to suppress.

"What did I do?" the hunter demanded, suddenly mortified, despite his drug-induced state. "Carl, what did I do?"

The friar shrunk away suddenly and the hunter could hear the echo of the Count's laughter in his head and he groaned in agony.

"You thought he was Count Dracula and had tried to run a stake through his heart," the priest explained. "Now stop fighting the medicine, Mr. Van Helsing. You need to sleep."

"No… no, I don't want to sleep," he pleaded. "Don't make me go back there. Don't let me dream anymore. He's there… he's always there."

"The only way to overcome our fears, Mr. Van Helsing, is to face them," the priest replied.

The hunter began to cry again, overcome with grief as images of Anna's death plagued him over and over again.

"Anna, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry…" he wept weakly as consciousness began to leave him once again. He could feel the hellish Dracula-filled nightmare reaching out for him, ready to pull him back under to torment him some more, and try as he might to stay awake, the drugs were too powerful. "Carl, please…"

"Sleep, Mr. Van Helsing," the priest encouraged him. "The only way you're going to get better is if you rest."

Van Helsing soon slipped into another restless sleep as Carl and the priest left the room, never noticing the dark cloaked figure hidden in the shadows near the window, a wicked smile in those nefarious blue eyes.

Thank you for reading! Reviews are always appreciated, so let me know what you thought. And if you liked this, take a look at my other one-shot, He Doesn't See Me. Thanks for stopping by!

-T