Wanted… Preferably Dead.

By Latanya

Disclaimer: Everything is great. I own nothing by my mind, my laptop and my PDA.

Chapter Eleven: A moment for comfort and tears.

Van Helsing picked up Tasya's limp form and carried her away from the scene of her friend's death. He wasn't sure if she had blacked out because of blood loss or because of the shock of having to kill Torgny. The friar followed them quickly, after picking up the dropped weapons.

Watching from the shadows, a werewolf let out a rumbling growl, stalking them as they went along. They were both too occupied worrying about Tasya to notice and even Van Helsing's reliable ability to "sense evil" was out of order because of it. As soon as they reached the front of the castle, they ran through the falling snow to the mirror-door.

Glad that he still had Dracula's ring, Van Helsing stepped through the glassy surface, pulling Carl through after him. It was the key to going back through and without it, they wouldn't have been able to get out of there. Once back in the Valerious manor-castle, he carried her to the nearest couch and laid her down.

"Is there anything we can do to help her?" Carl stood back and asked, watching Van Helsing check her for other wounds.

Pulling back, Van Helsing noticed the blood on her face and crossed himself. It was a trail that lead to her mouth. "No. This cannot be."

Carl realized what he was talking about and started to pray to God. Telling him to shut up, Van Helsing crouched beside the couch and started shaking Tasya, trying to wake her up.

"NO!" She sat up, looking around wildly. Her eyes came to focus on the man beside her and she frowned, "Where is Torgny? Please tell me it was just a dream…."

Peering at her mouth, Van Helsing tried to see a change though he could sense no evil, "Are you still human Tasya?"

"What?" She looked shocked for a moment before wiping her mouth on her wrist and saw the bloodstains. Her eyes widened in horror and she looked to Van Helsing.

"We don't know whose blood it is Tasya but besides the bite on your neck, there are no other wounds. By the looks, Torgny didn't drink much of your blood." Gabriel spoke softly to her.

Shaking her head, Tasya blinked back tears, "It doesn't matter. Blood taken and blood given must be at least in ratio. For a small amount taken, a small amount can be given… just means that the change will take longer to happen. We must go after Vladimir and stop him before I become like him. If we can destroy him before I change, then I will be safe because he changed Torgny and the Vampire blood in me will be destroyed as well."

"Really?" The friar looked curious at this fact. "I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell us that before?"

"I didn't think it was necessary." She smiled at the man's humor even in such a dark situation.

Gabriel Van Helsing rose and offered her his hand. "Well then, we had better start riding for the coast before Vladimir goes. How long will it take him to reach there?"

She thought for a moment, "Knowing Vladimir, he will travel by coach and only at night. We can reach the coast at about the same time if you trust me and follow the same path that I take."

"Won't day light hurt you?"

"Not yet it won't. Don't worry Van Helsing, I will tell you when I think I'm going to change. So long as it doesn't happen before we reach the coast, then we should be able to kill Vladimir." Tasya stood up and walked out of the room, trying not to let them see how terrified she was.

This wasn't good.

Torgny wasn't meant to be turned.

She wasn't meant to be turned.

They were meant to kill Vladimir, not become like him.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" She kicked a door open in her anger and stormed into the room.

It was her old bedroom, still the same even after all the years she had been away. Anna had told her that it had been left like it was, that no one used it because it was considered cursed. Standing just inside the doorway, Tasya stared at the cradle over in one corner, the white netting around it covered in cobwebs and dust. Dracula had come in through the window beside it one night. He had come in and drained her baby dry right there. It had been the last time she ever came into this room.

Walking slowly towards the cradle, she didn't notice the tears running down her cheeks. She gripped the side of it tightly, her knuckles going white and the brittle wood splintering under the strength of her grip. Sobbing, Tasya remembered the year and a half she had had watching her daughter grow up. A year and a half was all that she had had.

"It isn't fair! Why have I lost everything that matters to me? Why must I watch everyone I love die? Was it something I did?" She screamed out, wishing that someone would reply, that God would reply.

Standing at the door, Van Helsing watched her drop to her knees, sobbing. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her but he didn't dare – she would probably try to kill him if he did… in fact, she probably blamed him for everything and he didn't blame her for that. Though he couldn't yet remember it, he knew that if he hadn't consummated his love for Hanne Valerious, she wouldn't have had a baby daughter and Dracula wouldn't have been able to break her mind, changing her by killing the baby girl Bellona.

"Making me loose Gabriel wasn't enough was it? You had to let Dracula kill my daughter as well. You took away my love and my child!" Tasya sobbed, covering her face with her hands. "And now this! Haven't I been through enough? Haven't I paid enough! Can't I just rest for once… that's all I want, you know… peace…."

He couldn't take it anymore and he walked over to her, falling to his knees beside her. "Tasya… Hanne…. Please don't cry."

Lifting her tear stained face to look at him, Tasya still cried freely. She didn't want him to see her like this. Not in this room that they had shared on their last night together. Even though it had been many, many long years ago, the pain was still fresh in her mind. The pain of loosing him, of loosing her daughter, of loosing her younger brothers… it was all there, locked away in her heart and mind, waiting for a time to break out and overwhelm her. But he was the key to all of the pain and emotions that she had locked away. The key and the source. If they had never met, then she would have never experienced as much pain and anguish as she had. But she wouldn't have felt as much love as she had when they were together for the time that they were.

"What are you doing in here Van Helsing?" She whispered the question, looking away from him.

Reaching out a hand, he stroked the side of her face gently. "I was worried about you. Worried that you might hurt yourself somehow in your anger. Please stop crying, everything is going to be all right in the end. Everything is always all right in the end."

Closing her eyes, she nuzzled his hand and inhaled the strong scent of him. A sure sign that her senses were already starting to change. "How do you know that everything will be all right in the end? I'm going to become a Vampire. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow night, but I will change and it won't be for the better. What will you do if I turn before we kill Vladimir? Will you have the strength to kill me like I had the strength to kill Torgny?"

"Don't think like that because we're going to kill Vladimir before the blood in you can cause you to change. But Torgny's blood was the blood that entered your system…." He brushed a strand of loose black hair out of her face.

"Torgny had only just been turned. Vladimir's blood was still in him and therefore, it was Vladimir's blood that has somehow gotten into my system. Already it is starting to change me. I can smell things that I couldn't smell before but only close up. It will still be some time before I change totally."

He took one of her hands in his other hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing the knuckles softly, "Don't be so hard on yourself Tasya, that is your downfall. You must learn to accept that things will happen that are beyond your control. Open your heart and mind to the possibilities and try to forget the past. I learnt how to live with the fact that I have forgotten my past but you must learn to live with it."

The deep blue eyes that stared at him reflected her hurt and Tasya fought back more sobs in order to speak, "You do not understand Gabriel, I can't forget. To forget would be to forget my reason. I do not want to live my life without a reason. Revenge for their deaths is all that keeps me going these days… I would be lost otherwise. You might be able to forget the things you want to forget, but I cannot; I will not."

"You would choose to go insane rather than forget? The harder you cling to your past, the quicker you will destroy yourself. Destroy yourself and I…" He paused for a moment before continuing. "And I will not have anyone to love and protect."

She ran up the stairs shouting his name desperately. If he had gone already, she didn't know what she would do. Something deep down told her that if he left before she could talk to him, her cousin would surely destroy him and she would be left alone in the world.

"Gabriel? Please don't have left me already Gabriel." Hanne murmured, opening the door to the room he was residing in.

"I haven't left you Hanne. I've come back."

Hearing the door open, he turned around to see her walk in with tears streaming down her cheeks. When she saw him, she let out a cry of delight and threw herself into his arms.

"Hanne, what are you doing here at this time of the night? What will your family think if they find out you came to my room in the middle of the night?" Van Helsing rested his chin on the top of her head, holding her tightly in his arms.

"Gabriel, do not leave yet. You must wait until morning to go after him because if you fight him while it is dark, he will surely beat you. Only by the pure light of day can you kill him. Please do this for me… I do not want to loose you to my cousin because should he win, he will come here and take me." Her blue eyes implored him to listen.

"You didn't listen to me Gabriel. You left to go after him before it was light." Tasya growled.

Kissing her gently, he glanced over at his bed. "You know I must go my love for it is my duty to do so."

Hanne stifled a cry of anguish, "Then I will never see you again! I could not bare the pain of loosing you as well as my parents Gabriel."

"If that is what you believe my beloved, I can at least give you the best I have got before I leave."

"And when I woke up Gabriel, you had gone! You had left in the night to go and destroy something that the night befriended."

He opened his eyes, remembering that what she said was true. "I had to Tasya and you know it. But I kept one promise to you from that night. I fought him in the day light."

"You kept two actually. Do not forget that you gave me the best you had and though it ended in tragedy, I did have two years of joy from it. Two years of love to give and for those years, I still had hope that you would return. I thought at first that you had been killed but he did not come, so I thought that you had died in killing him. Next I thought that you had perhaps returned to Rome to report that you had done as was asked. But you never came back and in the end, I did not know what to think. That is when I lost hope."

"Yet I am here now with you. What do you think now? Do you know what to think again or are you still lost for hope?"

She laughed in a cynical fashion, "Know what to think? I have always known what to think except when it comes to you. Lost for hope? I do not know. In some ways, I think I have hope again but in others, I don't think I have any hope because I haven't killed Vladimir yet and the blood of a Vampire has some how entered my system and is slowly changing me."

Frowning, Van Helsing asked her cautiously, "Is there anything you can do about it? To counter it in such a way that it will delay the change for a while? Like that ointment you have for treating the wounds caused by a Vampire's bite?"

"I hadn't actually thought of that but you might be onto something there. I wonder if I could mix the ointment into hot water and drink it like a tea? Should it enter my bloodstream, it would suppress the virus and act as an antibody to it for a while. Might even destroy it considering how little has probably entered my blood." Her eyes were thoughtful and she went to stand up.

Grabbing her wrist, Gabriel pulled her down against him. "Remember…."

"I could never forget Gabriel Van Helsing. One doesn't forget things that change one's life as much as that did." Tasya murmured, staring at him with wide eyes.

Lowering his lips to hers, he smiled.

"Perhaps we could recreate it… to refresh my memory of course…." He stroked her hair gently.

"Yes, yes, of course. To refresh your memory."


Well this has been my shortest chapter yet but I thought I would leave it at that. You can all guess what they are doing there… refreshing each other memories…cough cough. Anyway, what do you think? Is Tasya going to become a Vampire or will they kill Vladimir in time? I hated to kill off Torgny but he was a defunct character… in a way I guess. Now, please read and review everyone, other wise I won't have the encouragement to write any more chapters.