Chapter 7: The First Hunt

AN: Yet again, I'm breaking my posting rule. I've decided to do away with that. It's only practical when I'm on a writing spree anyway. But I have a new rule in its place: I won't post a new chapter until I have at least 10 reviews on the previous one. Sound fair? That way everyone's happy. You get your chapters, I get my reviews, which makes for a very happy author, which makes for a very happy muse, which makes for story ideas, which makes for chapters, which makes for happy readers. See? It's one big circle.

Anywho (yes, that is my word), someone asked when this story is taking place. Right now the kids are just about to turn 11 and it is approximately 10 or so years before the movie takes place. Got it? Good. Well, I only have one more thing to say. Weebo. Okay, I'll shut up now and let you read.

The moon rose full and luminous in the velvet darkness of the night, shedding its pale light on the town that lay below. At this time of night, everyone was fast asleep, wearied by the full day's work.

Well, almost everyone.

Van Helsing woke the children who were sleeping in order to have enough energy to last through the night ahead. They rose and dressed, all wearing the same practical outfit of boots, pants, and a loose shirt. They had been given a crash course in shooting, and so were each armed with one of Van Helsing's numerous guns and silver daggers.

Their mother and Van Helsing were waiting for them in the front hall. She hugged each one of them tightly.

"Be safe," she said.

Van Helsing led them to the footprint, looked at the prints, and then examined the ground around them. He found the werewolf's trail and stood. He turned to the children.

"Follow me, and be quiet." And they plunged into the forbidding darkness that was the forest.

Kassia looked around nervously as they walked, half expecting the werewolf to just jump out at them from the trees. She had been in this forest plenty of times, but always during the day. It amazed her how much of a change occurred when the sun went down. Majestic trees became towering monsters, their long branches reaching out to grab her. The paths she normally took were hidden in the gloom. A shriek pierced the oppressive silence, causing Kassia to jump.

It was only an owl.

She looked at her siblings in front of her. Darryl seemed undisturbed, as did Rinska. She snorted. Rinska would never admit to being afraid, even if it were blindingly obvious that she was. She was too proud to show what she viewed as weakness.

They reached a clearing when Van Helsing held up his hand in a 'stop' signal. He drew them over to the side of the clearing and knelt down, pulling something from the cloth bag he'd brought with them. Kassia turned her head away as he pulled out a dead rabbit.

"The werewolf is somewhere around this area," he explained in a low voice, so that even they had to lean in to hear him. "Fresh meat should lure it over here, so that we don't have to go stumbling around the forest blindly, easy prey. Here's the plan: each of you will situate yourself in a high branch of one of these trees. Wait until the werewolf is well into the clearing before firing, and let me take the first shot. Pick your shots, don't just fire at anything that moves. You need to save your bullets. Understand?"

They nodded dutifully.

"Good. Go pick your tree." He threw the rabbit into the approximate center of the clearing and settled himself in the brush to wait. Van Helsing had picked his spot on the eastern side of the clearing. Darryl chose a tree on the north, Kassia on the south, leaving Rinska the western portion to guard.

She snuck up the tree branches as quietly as she could and settled herself on a strong branch. It had plenty of leaves to hide her from prying eyes, but not so much that she didn't have a clear view of the clearing. She could see Kassia and Darryl sitting in their trees. She really didn't expect to be able to spot Van Helsing. He was, after all, a hunter.

Rinska soon learned what all hunters know: waiting for prey to walk into a trap is boring. It seemed like hours passed. She shifted position, trying to get comfortable, which was hard to do, seeing as the tree bark was rough and poked her. Then she heard it: something was moving down on the ground.

Hardly daring to breathe, Rinska leaned out a little to see what was going on. A large furry shape was visible at the clearing's edge. The werewolf was grey in color and bigger than she'd thought it would be. It cautiously approached the rabbit, sniffing around to try and pick up any other scents. Hmm, it was smart too, to be suspicious. That wasn't good.

As the werewolf neared the rabbit, Rinska leaned out a little farther in order to get a better shot. She went too far however, and toppled out of the tree, unable to keep a cry from escaping her mouth. As she hit the ground with a dull thud, the werewolf spun around and snarled at her. Clearly it viewed her as much more interesting prey than a dead rabbit.

The werewolf lunged at her as Kassia cried a warning, and two things happened at once. A shot rang out, causing thee werewolf to howl in pain, and a form barreled into her, knocking her out of the werewolf's path. Unfortunately, her head landed on a rock. Stars exploded in from of her eyes, but her ears still worked as well as ever. Rinska heard the sound of someone fighting the werewolf by themselves and she struggled into a sitting position.

It was another man, armed with a long silver knife, and while it was clear that he had skill with the blade, it was also clear that he was outmatched. Humans were not designed to go one-on-one with a full-grown werewolf. She had to help him. Raising her gun in one hand, she poised her knife ready to throw in the other and looked for an opening to attack. In the background, Rinska could hear her siblings firing their own guns at the beast.

There!

She shot, and flung the knife at the werewolf. The bullet was a bit off-target, only hitting it in the shoulder, but her knife buried itself up to the hilt in its heart. Rinska put her throbbing head back down with a groan.

Kassia and Darryl practically flew down their respective trees and raced over to where their sister lay, not too far from the dead werewolf, which was slowly reverting back to its human form, a sure sign that it was truly dead. Van Helsing followed on their heels, but the stranger got there before them.

Van Helsing eyed the stranger warily, carefully looking him over. He looked unremarkable, with an average build, medium brown hair, and brown eyes. Currently, the stranger was kneeling down beside Rinska, carefully examining her head where it had struck the rock.

"It's not serious," he determined. "But she'll be dizzy for a little while. Looks like only a mild concussion."

"Wonderful," said Rinska sarcastically. The man smiled, stood, and looked at Van Helsing.

"Who are you?" Van Helsing demanded. The man held out his hand.

"The name's Sven," he said pleasantly, as if they were just meeting on a sunny spring day, not at midnight in a dark forest standing next to a dead werewolf. Van Helsing took her hand.

"Van Helsing," he said in return.

Sven bent down and picked Rinska up, as it was clear that she was too dizzy to walk. "Well then, Van Helsing, we'd better get the children back to their house. If I'm correct, Destiny will be nearly beside herself with worry by this time."

That stopped Van Helsing in the middle of his tracks. "Hold on. You know Destiny?"

Sven shrugged. "I'll tell you later, when we get there. She'll be surprised to see me, to put it lightly."

Van Helsing was deep in thought. "So, you were the second pair of footprints then?"

"Yes. I've been tracking this werewolf for weeks, so naturally I would want to investigate anywhere it chose to prowl." They lapsed into silence. The Kassia and Darryl exchanged surprised glances. Things were definitely getting a little weird.

Destiny was watching out the front window for their return. Through the bond she had with her kids, she could feel Rinska's injury and was none too happy about it. Her icy eyes picked out a group of shapes emerging from the darkness of the forest and she sprang up, grabbed a lantern, and rushed outside.

Van Helsing could see Destiny hurrying towards them, lantern in hand. As she neared, the sound of her voice got louder and he realized that she was already berating him for 'letting' Rinska get hurt.

"– and you said 'I won't leave them by themselves'. Maybe you didn't, but –"

"Hey," Rinska interrupted from her position in Sven's arms. "Mother, it was my own fault I got hurt –"

"Then you have some explaining to do missy."

"–I fell out of a tree and Sven knocked me out of the way so that the werewolf didn't get me, causing me to hit my head on a rock."

Destiny rounded on Sven. Drawing breath to yell at him too, she stopped and stared at him. Sven watched, amused by all of this, as she held the lantern up to see him better and peered up at him. Her eyes widened in recognition.

"Sven? SVEN! What in God's name are you doing here?"

"Tracking a werewolf," he said simply. "But it's dead now, so could we take this inside? Rinska's got a mild concussion." As she beckoned them inside, Sven winked to Van Helsing, who realized that Destiny's attention had just been skillfully diverted from venting her anger to being better spent on caring for her daughter. He smiled back.

Destiny directed Sven to Rinska's room, where he lay her on her bed and stepped back to give her mother access to her. Rinska closed her eyes as her mother pressed a cool hand to her forehead. It didn't feel like her mother had done anything, but Rinska could definitely feel the headache and dizziness abating.

"Better?"

Rinska nodded sleepily. Destiny stood and ushered everyone from the room. "Healings always tire her. She'll sleep 'til morning. Now," she said, turning her attention to Kassia and Darryl, "I want you two to go to bed as well. You've had a busy night." They couldn't argue with that.

The adults headed into the living room and all took a seat. An awkward silence hung in the air. Van Helsing was the first to broach the topic. "So, Sven, you told me that when we got here that you'd tell me how you know Destiny."

Sven nodded. "I did say that. It started when I was bitten by a werewolf and captured by a certain vampire named Dracula. He took me to his fortress and forced me to serve him. He can control the minds of the werewolves he uses, can see and hear what they see and hear. Therefore they make excellent hunters. I was rebellious, and he would send his servant to torture me."

"After one of these torture sessions, someone new came into the dungeon. Destiny was the first kind face I'd seen in a while and I didn't know what to make of it. But Dracula came in, angry with her for coming in there. She demanded to know when he got the right to control her every move, and he responded 'When you carry my children'."

Destiny, mentally, groaned and smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. She'd fended off Van Helsing's questions about her lover's identity for nearly two months and Sven had to go and spill the beans. If Van Helsing had been drinking at the time, he would have spat it out in surprise.

"To make a long story short, Destiny was able to free me and cure me of being a werewolf. I've been watching out for her the last five years. She gave me my life back. It's the least I can do to make sure she keeps hers."

Van Helsing hadn't heard any of this though. His mind was still trying to digest the fact that the father of Destiny's children, her lover, had been Dracula. Maybe he should get a drink, a strong one.

"You…and Dracula?" was all he could manage to get out. Destiny was pretending to be intensely interested in something outside the window as she answered.

"If you must know, yes. Me and Dracula. I gather from your stunned expression that you know him?"

"Knew him," he corrected. "That was nearly four hundred years ago, give or take a decade."

"Oh, so you're the one who cut off his finger," she inferred, and looked at his hand. "I was wondering where you got that ring."

Where he got his ring was the least of Van Helsing's concerns at the moment. As the Left Hand of God, he had a duty to protect humankind by eradicating what evil he could. As Destiny's friend, he had a duty to protect her and her children from harm, half vampire though they were.

Seeming to read his thoughts, Destiny stood. "You have a choice laid before you Van Helsing. No one can make it for you, but know that whatever path you take, you cannot turn from. In this game, there are no second choices."

He watched her leave the room. Maybe a strong drink was a good idea after all.

AN: Duh-duh-duuuuh. What'll happen now, I wonder? Actually, it's you guys who are wondering, because I, the all-knowing (yeah right) author, already know! Sort of. Kind of. Well, actually, my muse knows. I'm just the slave. Review and then I'll be a happy slave. Flames will be used to keep my feet warm.