Chapter 1: Marching Orders

Feathers: that was the first thing he noticed. There were feathers everywhere. They littered the ground all around him, although he couldn't see where they could've come from. He looked down at his hands: they were dirty and worn. That's right. He was Van Helsing… how could he forget? Had he done this? He was standing in some kind of corridor, gray stone walls on either side of him stretching up into darkness. There were no torches or windows; nothing to provide any glimmer of light. He strained his eyes and turned to examine the carvings covering the walls, but as he moved, pain immediately brought his attention to a pair of blazing wounds across his back. He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat and fell to his knees, hands clenching against his legs as he rode out the wave of agony. He could taste blood in his mouth and he spit it out onto the ground before it made him ill. The dark red liquid splattered across the feathers. White… they were white, he registered vaguely.

He took a deep, shuddering breath to calm his nerves before ripping off his coat, heedless of the pain that rampaged through his body at the movement. He tossed it aside, noting the ruined state of the leather. His vest and sweater followed afterwards. They were all tattered and covered in blood across the back. Dear God, what had happened to him? He braced his hands against his knees, gulping down a handful of breaths to let the throbbing pain pass. Slowly, carefully, he reached a hand back and touched his shoulder. He winced, fingers finding an open, angry wound that ran strait down his back. From the feel, he could assume there was a similar mark across his other shoulder. Why couldn't he remember how he had received these? He growled in frustration, wiping his fingers across his pants and struggling to his feet. Whether he was getting used to the pain or it was naturally fading, he found it was getting easier to move.

He made it to the wall, pressing his hands against the cool stone for support. The strange carvings he had seen before made even less sense up close. Some kind of strange language was scrawled across the walls, etched into the stone as far as he could see. He felt as if he should know what it said, but nothing came to him. What was going on here? Where was he?

As if in answer, a wind whipped down the corridor and he could swear that he heard his name being called from somewhere within the darkness. Steeling his resolve, he turned into the wind and started walking, one hand still pressed against the wall. He heard his name a second time, and this time he was absolutely sure that someone had spoken it. He free hand went instinctively to his hip, searching for the pistol that was normally there, only to find nothing. Not even a holster. He uttered a silent curse and continued walking.

Eventually, he noticed a light at the end of the corridor and he surged towards it. The closer he got to it, the more the air whipping around him turned stale. It became thick, hot and rank. He pressed a hand over his mouth and continued on. The light was blinding and he couldn't see for several moments after stepping into it. Blinking, he squinted out into the world reveled to him. What he saw nearly knocked him off his feet. He knew this place! He stood in the middle of Vatican City. All around him, bodies were strewn across the pale stone ground. He could see everyone from common citizens to holy men amidst the number of dead. Panic clutched at his chest. God… he wasn't responsible for this, was he? As he took in the massacre, his eyes caught sight of something familiar. He staggered forward, desperately trying to believe that he was simply seeing things. What was all this?! He dropped to his knees beside a robed body and pushed it over, his stomach turning as he recognized the face. His fingers clenched around the dark, blood soaked robes and he could feel a scream welling in the pit of his stomach he knew he wasn't going to be able to stop.

Van Helsing awoke with a start, jerking up in bed. Dear God, who was screaming? After a moment in the dead silence of the night, he realized that it had been him. He ran a hand across his face, grimacing at the cold, wet feel of his skin. More nightmares, but not the usual staple of disturbing images of a past he was too young to remember. Recently he'd been having a disturbing number of dreams that seemed uncomfortably close to home. It was almost enough to make him wish he could have the old kind back.

Wide-awake now, he swung out of bed, pausing to touch the back of his shoulder. He felt the faint ridge of an old scar; one of two he knew ran down his back. Scars he didn't remember ever receiving. Sighing, he made his way to the single window in the room and pushed it open, letting the thin winter air in. Rome. He silently thanked the higher powers that the air in Vatican City was fresh; the last thing he needed tonight was a face full of industrial air, although the view presented to him did little to settle his stomach. His dream was still bitterly fresh in his mind and even though the stones of the courtyard below were dark in the night, he could still imagine the bodies laid out on them. The glimmer of sunrise caught his attention in the east. Today was going to be a long day.

There was a flock of particularly fat doves that frequented a small, ancient courtyard deep within the walls of the Vatican. The fact that the doves were fat at all had a great deal to do with the fact that Van Helsing made a point of feeding them whenever he had a day to spare. The grassy courtyard itself was tiny for Roman standards: barely a handful of yards in any direction and graced with a small, cherub-covered fountain in the center. Four stone paths connected the fountain with the surrounding open-air halls. Van Helsing sat on the single stone bench, his coat draped haphazardly next to him, and tossed bits of bread to the cooing birds at his feet. The chanting of monks and the mumbles of those in prayer drifted in on the winter air and Van Helsing let his mind drift with them.

It had been just shy of a week since he had returned from Transylvania. On some level, he was surprised that Father Jinette hadn't just turned him around at the gate for another assignment, as he was fond of doing. Van Helsing entertained the notion that maybe he had some empathy after all. Yet as the days dragged on, Helsing found himself increasingly restless. He lacked the number of distractions necessary to keep his mind from going where he would prefer it not to. His short time in Eastern Europe had affected him far more than he was comfortable with. The words of the late Count Dracula echoed strongly in Van Helsing's painfully empty memory, taunting him with what he could have had. Then there was Anna.

To say that Van Helsing had been heartbroken when he discovered her dead would have been putting it lightly. He had wanted to be with her more than any other person on the earth, and in the end she had left him alone. He remembered her words too, but they brought him some small amount of comfort instead of the expected pain. He would see her again one day. He too would look on the brighter side of death.

A familiar voice talking in short, clipped Italian caught Van Helsing's attention, snapping him from his thoughts. Cardinal Jinette. A glance around the courtyard told Helsing that he might be able to escape if he moved right that moment, but he had spent the past week dodging the old priest and he was getting tired of it. If the Cardinal was looking for him, then he might as well just see what he wanted.

The sound of Jinette's shoes against the marble floor stopped abruptly behind Van Helsing.

"Good morning, Father. Did you sleep well?" he offered in greeting, not bothering to stand up. He knew it would drive the older man up a wall and the notion amused him.

Jinette narrowed his eyes at the back of Helsing's head briefly. "You've had your time off, Van Helsing. We have need of you again."

Van Helsing waved his half-eaten loaf of bread around dramatically. "You mean the world has need of me."

"Don't be smart," Jinette scolded. "You need to go to Spain and investigate the disappearance of a village."

Van Helsing turned to regard the Cardinal over his shoulder, not exactly sure that he had just heard what he thought he had. "What?" Instead of answering, Jinette turned away and started down one of the open hallways. Van Helsing jumped to his feet, grabbing his coat and leaving the last of the bread for the birds as he hurried to catch up.

The Cardinal resumed. "We received a frantic letter the other day, saying that 'demons' had stolen an entire village from the face of the earth. One does not simply 'misplace' such a thing, so we are sending you to investigate."

"This is new," Van Helsing said, his tone honestly interested for once. "Since when have you sent me off and not told me to kill something?" As the words left his mouth, he knew his choice of terms had been less than perfect, but thankfully the Cardinal seemed to let it slide. Or so he thought as Jinette turned sharply to him, jabbing a gnarled finger in his face.

"Demons are not to be taken so lightly, my son," he said, his tone dripping with annoyance. "All that you have faced before have been but mere servants to the greater evil. You should pray to God that this is not the work of Satan's children." Jinette crossed himself and resumed walking. Van Helsing stared after him, stunned at the outburst. Normally the Cardinal seemed more than happy to toss him out into the fray, convinced that he would come back in some semblance of health. To hear him express such concern didn't do much to soothe Van Helsing's growing unease.

Next Chapter: "Call Me Sam."