AN: This chapter is terribly short. Sorry.
"Do you think she will be alright?" Carl asked, looking behind him. He could not see Nisha, however, the hill they were walking down prevented it.
"A woman with a sword and the knowledge of how to use it will be fine," Van Helsing replied, smirking slightly. "I didn't know you had such a fancy towards dangerous women, Carl," he mused. "I would've thought nuns would be more your type."
"I've contacted the order," Carl said, the blood rushing to his cheeks. "They said that you must burn Satan's corpse, then drench the ashes in holy water," he said. "Oh, and you must not touch the body," he added.
"Seems simple enough," Van Helsing said sarcastically. Sometimes he grew sick of the order's tactics for fixing things. Actually, he never did use the order's tactics for anything. How did they expect him to bring back a monster to Rome when he was halfway across the world? Let alone doing it more than once.
"When did you contact the order?" Gabriel asked quizzically. They had been walking for a couple of days now, and there was no civilization anywhere nearby.
"When we were in the village with the crazy people," Carl said, shuddering at the memory. "I just figured not to say anything in front of Nisha, since she might have had a different way of destroying the corpse," he added, shrugging.
Carl glanced over his shoulder casually, then did a double take. "Van Helsing," he said worriedly. "The thing is back."
Turning, Gabriel saw the figure stumbled down the hill they had been walking on just ten minutes earlier. They were still a good distance away. The thing, as Carl called it, looked like they had been injured. Badly. "Keep going, Carl. They won't catch up to us."
"Well, alright," Carl said nervously, giving the thing one last look before running back to Van Helsing's side. He had fallen behind. "What do you suppose we're going to do when we find Satan's body?" Carl wondered aloud, glancing at his companion.
"I thought it would've been obvious, Carl," Van Helsing said, sounding surprised. "We wait for Nisha and then we destroy it," he said.
"I mean after that," Carl said, sounding quizzical. "Why bring the Vial to the corpse?" he said, frowning in confusing. "Couldn-"
"She said something about the vial also destroying the corpse," he interrupted. Although he did wonder that a bit also.
For the next few hours, they rarely talked. Every now and again Carl would make a comment about random things, but Van Helsing didn't reply to any of them. Something was bothering him.
Carl glanced at him, frowning slightly. When these silences came upon them, Van Helsing always withdrew into himself, but remained alert at the same time. Carl guessed he thought about Anna. He couldn't even imagine the pain Van Helsing felt, to kill the one that he loved.
It had been dark for some time, it was roughly around midnight now. Van Helsing had both guns drawn, staring carefully into the night as he walked. No sign of Indy or Daleitra. He was having trouble distinguishing a pattern of when Daleitra attacked, although he knew she liked to try and grab him and fly through the air with him tightly in her grasp.
Van Helsing was looking ahead when he heard the soft rustling of grass. The wind blew gently in his face. He walked a few more steps before turning sharply, pointing his guns at the silhouette of the hooded figure.
For a moment they just stood there, staring at each other. But then he saw another figure beside that one. Van Helsing strained to see through the darkness, but he had no way of even seeing what gender they were.
"You may want to watch yourself, m'dear," a woman's voice purred. Well that certainly gave him a hint as to what sex they were. "Not all of your enemies are true."
Just like that, the two were gone. Van Helsing knew that they were because of the emptiness he felt around him now. The voice had sounded familiar, hauntingly familiar, actually. Although he couldn't remember where he had heard that voice from.
Not all of your enemies are true. What did that mean? Somehow he couldn't really imagine Daleitra being an ally in disguise. Frowning, he simply kept walking, trying to figure out the riddle he had just been told.
"Well are you just going to keep walking like nothing happened?" Carl asked, a bit frightened. "They could be right-" Carl jumped, turning around quickly. "Behind me," he finished, scuttling so he was at Van Helsing's side again.
"Not all of your enemies are true," Gabriel murmured, thinking. He couldn't think of any other way that the little rhyme could be played out and make sense. Maybe they were just bluffing.
