A/N-- Whee! My story has over twenty chapters! --random happy dance-- And, all typed on my computer, it has 123 pages!!!! Scary, eh? Here's to my M&M-getting reviewers:
marrokinhas: I'm happy you love my story! Gabriel will be telling the truth... two chapters from now, I believe.
Dare()- Yup, they're gettin' Carl back! The mystery woman was indeed a form of the Wavewriter... just thought I'd scare yall with her. And nope, no Hawaiian surfer monks. I'm sorry.
I thought it was cute to have him kiss the tip of her nose... I think that's the cutest way to kiss someone! I hope I continue to keep the characters IC for the rest of this story... soon there'll be danger for Gabriel to go OOC. I just hope I can handle it.
I actually do write original stories, I'm hoping to publish my first before I get out of high school (I graduate 2008.) My penname on fictionpress.com is Arlen Herafrin (my old penname on here was Arlen Halfelven.)
Cryptkeeper()- You reviewers confuse me.... half of you are all like 'We want Anna back we want Anna back' and then I bring her back and now you are all opting for her to get injured!! Jeez... LOL.
That's a great idea, thanks so much for it! It really helped me write the fight scene... although the circumstances didn't allow me to fully copy it. Thanks for your review!
Anthem82- I'm glad you enjoyed the fight scene and the vampires... I loved writing both. Looking back, I thought their names were a little bizarre. But I'm happy you thought they were cool!
Irish Anor- Don't make me bite you hand again! LOL. And relax.... read the rest of the chapters... there is hope for Carl... I was wondering where you were! I missed your reviews! I'm glad you are back!
(2nd review) Oh boy, the Gabriel snuggling returns... And I had to explain this earlier. The Cardinal died in chapter one. No one remembers that! LOL.
(3rd review) You are meant to hate Cardinal Kokolios, dear. He is a very bad man. LOL.
(4th review) I'm not sure that's a compliment either... what IS an Irish Anor anyways?!? I'm so confuzzled...
(5th review) You crack me up..... And here's your update!!
HyperCaz()- there you are! I was wondering... And yes, there are definite Carl-coming-back-vibrations in the wind. He looks so different normally! So does Hugh Jackman...
Location in this chapter is based on the map of Transylvania on vanhelsing.net. If you were to go to that and go from the icon that says 'the Ballroom' and then go northeast, along the river, you'd see pretty much where I placed this town.
Chapter 20:
Shattered Souls and Renewed Hope
"Wow." Was All Anna could say once they saw the town.
It was quite an achievement for her to have said as much; she had not been pleased to be awoken at five o'clock in the morning, told that the cult still hadn't been flushed out, and that they'd be riding all day to a town northeast of Budapest to defeat a rampaging Warlock also involved with the cult. For once, she had been the brooding one, glowering on her horse as they rode, and Van Helsing had been the chatty one. She was a little suspicious about his good mood...
She had chosen an appropriate moment to express such eloquent sentiments as the word 'wow.' After a solid twenty-four hours of riding, (stopping only to eat and to get fresh horses at a village they passed through) the sun was just rising and giving birth to the sight of what must have been a rather large tantrum-throwing child. Windows on houses were broken, all greenery was smoldering, and chickens and hogs were running happily through the wreckage. Unconscious people were just now stirring, and discovering that various articles of their clothing and furniture had been thrown willy-nilly all throughout the streets.
Still gaping, Anna and Van Helsing stepped gingerly through the mess. Nothing had been left untouched by whatever strange phenomenon had swept through that night as they rode. Upon reaching the town square, the desolation reached a new level; before, everything had seemed almost comical and injuries had been minor. But here, people were actually bleeding and dying. Fires were still burning here, and on buildings as well. Directly in front of them was the church. The building, once white and tall, looked as though lightening had struck it and split it in half. A few nearby businesses had been crushed by the gleaming steeple as it fell, and more had been wounded by the flying bits of stone and wood that had been spewed forth in whatever impact had taken such a sizable bite out of the large church.
"What happened here?" Van Helsing asked a bewildered woman who stood, staring at the destruction as they did. He had pretty much figured what had happened, but needed to know for sure.
"That horrible man... sorcerer or whatever he was... he grew angry about something... and began to rip apart the town with his spells from his place atop the church steeple." She said weakly. "And then he turned the spell upon the church itself, making it explode... But I saw him get away, across the river and towards the mountains."
"When? How?" He pressed.
"I'm not sure!" The woman cried desperately, hot tears of rage and despair cleaning the soot and dirt off her face. "I went unconscious right after I saw it happen, I don't know when it was! He had us working all day and night to serve his purposes!"
"And what were they?" Anna asked gently.
"Well..." The woman sniffed, calming a little. "They were unpredictable. Sometimes he'd want a festival, sometimes he'd want us to have a mock funeral. He'd have us work endlessly for days at a time washing the church till it shone, for that's where he lived. Or he'd have all the men out hunting and all the women cooking for him. He'd have children play games at his feet and call him Papa..." She shuddered. "And there were days when he'd command us to be inside and never come out and shut all the windows and lock all the doors. And we'd hear scratching and creaking and moaning, and sometimes even explosions. He said he was working on something, on a machine or a spell." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He was a very good sorcerer, but the worst sort of man."
"Can you point to the direction he left in?" Van Helsing asked. The woman nodded and pointed just to the left of the wrecked church.
"Past the mill on the river, and up into those mountains there. I went unconscious after that." She replied.
"Thank you." Van Helsing replied. With that, he and Anna mounted their horses again and were off.
In under and hour they passed the decimated mill on the river, and found a place to ford the said water. After passing through the chilly substance and wondering at the curious 'U' shape that particular bend took, (A/N-- You could probably find this on the map) they found themselves directly on the slope of the mountains. The peaks were steep and jagged, so they opted to tie the horses to a couple nearby trees.
"I wonder if they ever get tired of being left behind." Van Helsing mused as they began their ascent.
"Probably not. For one thing, these are different horses than last time. For another thing, I think they might be the smart ones. After all, they figured out how not to get involved in stuff like this." Anna replied as she began to follow.
Hours of training now paid off for the two Hunters. The climb was long and arduous, often forcing them to pull themselves forward on their stomachs or practically walk on all fours through the snow to get where they needed to go. They were following more signs of desolation, mostly ash, along the mountain, and once they reached its peak, it veered sharply to the right. Following it to its end, Anna and Gabriel straightened at last. They were standing on a cliff, looking across a chasm perhaps just as wide as the one that had separated Castle Frankenstein from the forest they had used to escape. And there, on the next peak over, was a huge black spire, perched precariously on the mountain.
"Why can't evil fortresses ever be easy to get to?" Van Helsing sighed, his arms dropping.
Anna looked down and saw that the mountain didn't simply stop; it dropped down sharply for around five feet onto a large ledge. From there, it curved gently down in an exaggerated U, then curved back up to meet the mountain they were trying to get to. All along this ran a narrow trail, just wide enough for one man. They could use it to get to the other side... but the going would be dangerous. The trail had snow on it, and on either side it was a nearly sheer snowy mountainside.
"We could use that trail down there to get to it." Anna said out loud, still leaning over the edge and looking down at the trail. The sunlight was gleaming in the snow, giving the impression of warmth, but the biting wind easily reminded her otherwise. Both this contradiction and the height she was looking down from gave her a feeling of extreme dizziness that wasn't at all unpleasant. It was actually quite fascinating.
"Only if we wanted it to take an age." Van Helsing replied. She could hear him shuffling around for something, but didn't look up to see what he was doing.
"Do you have a better idea?" She retorted, still fascinated with looking down.
"Yes, actually." Van Helsing said mildly. There was the strange sound of something being fired, but before Anna could react he had seized her around her waist and pulled her close to him. "Remember Castle Frankenstein?" Anna nodded and rewarded him with a daredevil grin.
Van Helsing lodged the grappling gun in a crevice in the rock near where they stood, then clamped the special glider onto it. He thanked God that Carl had known him well enough to know that the original gun would probably not return from Transylvania and had built a second one, then leapt off the ledge.
The flight was cold and harrowing; when they reached the other side, both were exceedingly glad for solid ground. Unlike their escape from Castle Frankenstein, this flight didn't include the fear of heights, but the fear of slipping and crashing onto the narrow trail below them. Or worse, missing the narrow trail below them.
They leapt off the glider and landed, stumbling, on the platform below the mysterious spire they assumed was home to the sorcerer. It was supported by four black iron pillars, but there didn't seem to be any means of entry. The floor of the room above was about ten feet from the ground, and the faint outlines trapdoor could be seen.
"Anna, if I get you up on my shoulders do you think you can try and open that trapdoor?" Van Helsing asked. Anna observed it for a moment, then nodded.
"I think so."
"Alright then."
Van Helsing knelt and Anna stepped up onto his shoulders, balancing herself. Carefully, aware of how close to the edge they were, Van Helsing rose to his feet enough so that Anna could comfortably work on opening the trapdoor. She pushed vigorously on it, even punching it in her frustration, but it would not open. Next she seized the small grooves that gave away its presence and tried to pull it open.
"It won't push open!" She said with exasperation.
"Wait, I'm taking you down." Van Helsing replied, slowly kneeling again. Anna hopped off and watched as he took out his crossbow. He fired a single shot, leaving the bolt embedded in the door. "Now try pulling it open." Anna got on his shoulders and he lifted her again. This time, after some tugging and wiggling, she managed to pull it open.
"Got it!" this last word ended in a brief shriek as a rope ladder tumbled out and hit her in the face. Startled, her arms began to windmill and she fell backwards, taking Van Helsing with her. He crashed safely to the platform, but she kept going, falling off the edge and into the snowy oblivion...
"Anna!" Van Helsing called, immediately flipping onto his stomach and scrambling to the edge. To his relief, she was there, clinging desperately to the edge. He hauled her up. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." She said breathlessly.
"Good." He said with relief. Turning to the rope ladder, he began to climb it cautiously.
The warlock paced his upper rooms in a state of agitation. Damn the world! Damn the way it worked! No matter how hard he tried, he could never get his spell to work...
All his life, he had been fascinated with the human soul. His beloved mother had taught him to have supreme faith in it, and, despite their poverty, given him hope. But when he discovered that he was an illegitimate child, born of the passion his mother lived with, and the church he had faith in told him she was damned to hell, he began to hate the rules that governed the soul.
His mother's untimely death had not helped at all either. He was struck with the anguishing realization that, according to those disgusting rules, she was now in hell. A young teenager out on Transylvania's streets, he quickly learned of magick and its uses. Having always been a brash and capricious person, he immediately attempted to resurrect his mother, only to be saved from her same fate by an experienced magick-user who agreed to teach him the ways of the art.
He had become proficient in it with surprising quickness, devouring whole tomes of lore. As a young man, he traveled all over his native country in search of those who could teach him more, but none could teach him what he sought: the secrets of the soul.
Remembering the rules of his old church, which he still believed held true, he began to fear for his soul. Would he be condemned, as his mother had been, for trying to use magick to understand life? It was at that fateful time of worry he discovered a powerful spell: the Spell of a Thousand Souls.
The basic idea was this: by capturing a thousand souls, one could know the nature of one's own soul. He immediately was fascinated with the spell, but it did not help in one aspect. It did not tell you exactly how you were supposed to get the souls. Being a Transylvanian, he knew of vampires and how, when they turned you into one of them, your soul was lost. He theorized that it could be captured immediately after you were sired, and briefly considered becoming a vampire to be able to do this. But that would've defeated the whole purpose, seeing as how vampire's don't have souls to be judged in any case. Still, it didn't rule out getting help from a vampire...
For years he sought out Count Dracula, the most infamous vampire of them all. For this task, he would not consider going to anyone else. But the vampire was nowhere to be found. And last night, he had learned of Dracula's demise, which had taken a substantial chunk out of the vampire population. Oh sure, there were still some left... but they were mostly second and third generation vampires, not nearly powerful for what he needed. Plus, the device he had been designing for capturing the souls had fallen apart under the strain of one of experiments just the previous night.
Forcing himself into a state of calm, he stopped his pacing and cursing. He could do nothing in this state. He would go through his books again, try and find another well-known and powerful vampire whose help he could seek. Yes, books had ever been his friends. They would soothe and comfort him now.
Nestled in his armchair with books all around him, he registered the bumps below him only vaguely. The brief shriek of terror he heard? Well, he explained it as the wind howling outside.
Anna and Van Helsing pulled themselves quickly through the trapdoor and came up ready for a fight, which they expected. But there was nothing. Not even a trap. The room was small and circular, made of the same steel as everything else. Messy bookcases were everywhere, books scattered haphazardly across the room in a fashion that reminded Van Helsing of Carl. A ladder in the center of the room led to the next level. After both had made a careful circle of the chamber, the Hunters nodded to each other and headed one after the other up the ladder.
This room held both of them in awe; it was absolutely covered in gleaming weapons. Almost every type of sword imaginable, from daggers to long-handled broadswords. There were sais, spears, axes, flails, bolas, shields, war hammers and even a few strange weapons that they had no names for. This room they approached with even more caution, hesitantly putting each foot in front of the other.
"The warlock must be higher up. We should find a way to block this room off once we leave it so he can't get down here for aid." Anna supplied in the barest of whispers. Both were incredibly nervous, fearing that their words and thoughts indeed weren't theirs at the moment. Their guards were down as they approached the next ladder, which explained why the trap nearly got them.
The second Van Helsing put his foot down on the flagstone in front of the ladder, a sword from the wall swung out, so that when he jerked back he almost decapitated himself. He heard Anna call out and saw that in a circle all around the room, pieces of the stone floor were flying up, hitting the ceiling, and raining bits of rock down on them. That also meant that the floor was slowly dissolving.
"Onto the ladder!" Van Helsing cried, shoving Anna ahead of him and wincing as a stone flying from the ground hit him hard on the head. He stumbled backwards, threatening to fall to the room of the floor below him.
"Gabriel!" Anna said sharply, reaching out and snagging the front of the coat.
She jerked him against herself, bypassing caution and causing him to hit his head on the iron ladder before he was finally able to grab on and pull himself up beside her. With Anna at the very top and her head pressed against the trapdoor and Van Helsing just below, his head on the small of her back, they watched the floor crumble and disappear. When all was quiet again, they assessed their condition. A few small cuts on each of them from the falling rock, and a bruise forming on Van Helsing's chin from the flying piece of floor. All Anna's jerking him into the ladder had done was leave a red mark and give him a headache. He was currently rubbing the place she had hit, making her blush and grin weakly.
"Sorry." She said sheepishly.
"No matter." He sighed. "It's so hard to find good help these days." He leaned off the ladder and, after pulling his coat sleeve over his hand, managed to pry the sword sticking off the wall out. "We can block the trapdoor off with this." He told Anna, who now opened the trapdoor and pulled herself into the next room.
Once she was in, Van Helsing pulled himself up, closed the trapdoor, then barred it with the sword (it was more of a saber) he had taken from the room before. He then straightened and realized why Anna had frozen and was staring fixedly in front of herself.
The warlock had been forced to acknowledge that something was wrong at sound of rocks smashing against his floor and the cries of two people- a man and a woman -he could hear from below him. He promptly threw his books to the side and stood, listening intently. Gradually, the rock smashing ceased, but, judging by the sound of muffled voices, the intruders had lived. He prepared himself for a battle, spells already in mind. This was the peak of his tower, larger than all the other rooms. On the narrowing walls that spiraled upwards to the heavens he thought of so frequently, forming that spire shape, he kept all his potions and ingredients. He had more charms placed on this room to aid him than he could count.
Maybe this was a gift from God. Maybe these people would help with his experiments.
Anna had frozen the second she had stood inside the room, her eyes meeting with the cold blue ones of the man she assumed to be the warlock. He wasn't much taller than herself, wearing a dark blue silk robe, lined with gold, with similar ninja pants on underneath. A golden medallion hung around his neck. His red hair was completely slicked back. And, all in all, he didn't seem happy. Gabriel froze too, meeting his eyes.
"Please, come into my home." The warlock said dryly. "I hope you enjoy your. Please forgive the floor in the other room, it gives me such dreadful problems."
"Sir, you are now in the hands of the Knights of the Holy Order, having been suspected of-" Van Helsing began automatically.
"In your hands?" The warlock laughed harshly. "I hope you have enough hands to catch me." There was a blinding flash of light and, suddenly, there wasn't just one Warlock... There were too many to count when they were moving as fast as they did.
Van Helsing and Anna were quickly overrun. They were everywhere, levitating to get up to chemicals higher in the spire, circling around them, floating above them in the air. This was when the warlock was glad of his hours upon hours of training. He was using a spell called Shards of the Soul, which splits you into as many parts as you can manage, completely replicating you and your abilities, albeit at a fraction of your power. But since he had become so powerful, he was still able to do many things in this state. And if he focused three parts on the same task, they would combine all their strength.
Six immediately attacked Van Helsing and Anna, leaving them no option but to back up slowly until they were against the far wall. The circle was completed by their fanned out attackers, and as they drew closer, both Hunters drew their swords and turned the draw into a side-to-side slash that gutted all six. They leapt out of the way as the corpses toppled into their own blood and entrails. Mysteriously, they dissolved.
The warlock smirked inwardly. Only one body contained the essential piece of his soul. If they could locate that one and kill it, they could kill him. Of course, with every wrong kill, all the other clones grew in strength, especially the one with that special piece.
This was quickly realized by Anna and Gabriel, who charged forward and began to wound every one of the clones they could reach; but with everyone they killed because they had no other choice, the other ones seemed to grow stronger, faster, cleverer. At last two that had dropped down from levitating charged and separated the duo, the glimmers of spells held in the palm of their hands. Divided like sheep, they were now on their own against the wizards.
Anna spun on one foot and slashed with her sword, trying and succeeding in getting her opponent to back away. But as she raised her sword to deal a vicious strike, she came down on a wooden desk. The clone was gone. But she heard the crackling behind her and released her sword. She twisted, falling to the ground with one leg tucked beneath her and the other one straight out, her upper body supported a few inches from the floor by her hands. The small fireball flew over her and hit the papers, setting them briefly aflame before the clone she was fighting doused the flames.
Still in her crouched position, she drew a knife from her boot and stabbed down at the clone's foot. He stepped out of the way a second before the strike made it, but his robe was caught. She was back on her feet and hefting her sword out of the table, slicing down through the air towards her trapped opponent. But he pulled out of the way, ripping his robe. Before she got too off balance, the gypsy jerked back, barely avoiding a deft palm strike from the clone. She tried another side-to-side slash, but he deflected her arm outwards with his and tripped her, knocking her back onto the wet table. Dropping her sword, she propped herself up and kicked out with both legs, sending her attacker stumbling.
Van Helsing wasn't fairing very well. He had been caught in a vicious duel with his clone, who had summoned a sword that was apparently made of lightening. Once, it had caught on his coat and almost set him on fire. And whenever it came into contact with his sword, it send frightful jolts through him. It was one of those moments now; the clone had tried a deft uppercut, and he had parried by knocking it upwards. But while he had intended to just bat it away and hope he didn't get too badly shocked, the clone had released his sword with one hand and used his over to perform some sort of holding spell that kept his arms locked in the position they were in. Powerful waves of energy rolled through him, making him freeze and gasp. It was perhaps the weirdest, most painful experience of his life.
The clone was smiling, backing him up hard into the wall. His head was bent backwards over a wooden shelf, leaving him staring up into the malicious eyes of another clone holding an Erlenmeyer flask of some strange green liquid and slowly tipping it. van Helsing shut his eyes and waited for a slow, painful death to come.
But then he was jerked roughly away and onto the floor by some strange force. It turns out that that force was Anna's opponent, having just been knocked away and into Van Helsing's opponent at an angle. Since there was currently a spell of binding on the two, they were both sent flying out of the way of the acid. The three now lay over the trapdoor, Van Helsing on the verge of passing out from all the energy pumping through him. Anna's previous opponent got to his feet and gasped, seeing that the spilled acid was now seeping towards the trapdoor. Van Helsing saw it too, but was on top of his clone. If he could wait long enough...
Anna rushed forward, sword held out, and stabbed the one she had previously been fighting. He melted into blood before her, and the ones above began to fly around even faster, gathering bottles. She recognized them as the same one that had contained the acid... She began to run circles around the room, causing the clones to drop their acid in a circle that began to drain towards the trapdoor. She saw that Van Helsing was still there, nearly dead from the electricity, but she had been forced to climb onto one of the tables to avoid the acid. The clones were now busy looking for other things.
"Gabriel!" She screamed, feeling for once utterly helpless.
The clone banished the electric sword, finally ending Gabriel's torment. But he refused to move, still pinning him to the ground. The acid at last arrived, from all side. It chewed into the man quickly. His screams filled the spire and echoed hauntingly back down in the form of the other clones' screams, both of the wounded that had stayed out of the fight and the ones that had tossed the acid. Without warning, they all burst as the other ones had. From the one Van Helsing had previously been on top of, a strange, white PIECE of light floated up. It hovered in the air for a moment, then shattered and fell all around them like bits of a star. As beautiful as it was, and as happy as they were to have the enemy dead, there was still one problem; Van Helsing surrounded by acid.
He yelped and swore, leaping to his feet, as it soaked through to his knees and onto his palms. Anna shouted his name desperately and he saw that beside her table the acid was mostly gone. One his tip toes and as quickly as he could, he ran to her. She hauled him onto the table beside her and cradled him as he collapsed, shaking from utter exhaustion and pain.
"Van Helsing? Gabriel?" She asked frantically as he simply went slack against her. "Are you...?"
"I'm going to live... I think." Van Helsing gasped out, lifting his head to see her face so close to his. Were those tears that made her eyes glitter so brilliantly...? "Are you okay?"
"Me? Yes. Yes. I'm okay. I-" Anna started to speak quickly, then trailed off. There were two more words she wanted to say, but her lips and her throat would not form them. "Was worried." She finished.
"Well... I'm made of tougher stuff than I look." He grinned lopsidedly, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.
"If you're made of stuff tougher than you look, what's that make you? Paper?" She joked. Barely awake, all he could do was laugh in his throat.
He would never know how he made it back to the village they had started their search at. All he remembered was leaving the tower and crossing the chasm again, but after he got his grappling gun back he could remember nothing. Later, Anna told him that he was just mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, but seemed in a daze. She always walked very close to him out of concern, and half-led his horse when it was time to ride again. Van Helsing's next memory was of waking to the smell of breakfast. Anna was feeding it to him, since he was mostly incoherent. Now he was seeing a whole new side to her: a softer, gentler side. It was her rolling accent and graceful words that would lull him into a gentle, painless slumber, and her tender calling of his name that reminded him to return to the world of the living.
A very odd thing occurred on the second morning they were there. As he had since they had left the Vatican, he was haunted by that voice calling his name in the unfathomable black. But it was more kind, pitying, but still urgent. Like a worried friend beckoning verbally to a wounded comrade to return from the void. Finally, he began to follow the voice.
I'm coming... He murmured mentally. I'm coming to you...
"Gabriel?" asked a confused voice.
Suddenly, he snapped out of his reverie. Anna was still at his side, a look of confusion on her face. He sat up slowly, now fully aware of his surroundings.
"Anna... How long have I been out?" Van Helsing asked, resting against the headboard.
"The inevitable question." She laughed shortly. "You were out the rest of the day after the fight and all that night, as well as all yesterday. I would wake you for meals and nothing more."
"What about you? You got some rest too, right?" He asked quickly.
"Yes, I slept in between meals as well." Anna reassured him. "Are you feeling well enough to eat?" She offered him a plate of sausage and toast she had probably gotten from the innkeeper.
"I'd rather get going, actuall-" He cut himself off mid-word at the sudden, stormy look on Anna's face. "Right after some breakfast." He finished meekly, accepting the tray and devouring it.
They left the town before noon that day, thanked the gracious innkeeper, who had given them everything free despite the desolation of her town as thanks for killing the warlock.
"Strange." Van Helsing had mused. "I never even knew his name."
By noon of the next day, they were back in Budapest and the inn they had stayed at previously. They paid for new rooms, and the innkeeper gave Van Helsing another note with the initials G. V.H. on it. It read as follows:
Excellent job with the warlock. I hope you mend soon so that you can make a trip to Castle Frankenstein... a scientist's misguided creation awaits you there. My apologies that I could not meet with you in person... but I am sure that you are beginning to trust me more. Here is your reward.
Warm Regards,
A friend
A piece of paper, shaped almost identically to the one he had gotten as a 'reward' previously, fluttered out of the note. He bent to retrieve it, noting that it had a different pattern of dots than the other.
"What is it?" Anna asked over his shoulder. He immediately crumpled the note but showed her the piece of paper.
"Part of a map. The Order thinks that if we can find the rest we can find the cult's headquarters." He lied.
"Oh." Anna said slowly, her eyes not leaving Van Helsing's. For a frightening instant, he was afraid she didn't believe him. But then she smiled. "Well, let's wait till nightfall to rush off on their next assignment, yes?"
"Yes." Van Helsing returned the smile brightly. There was a kind of happy electricity in the air. They could rest a little now. They were definitely getting closer.
A/n-- Damn, these chapters just get longer!! yet more M&M's for reviewers, since the final action chapter is up next. Hope I didn't drive you nuts with this one... And thanks to Cryptkeeper for the idea about the warlock making clones!
marrokinhas: I'm happy you love my story! Gabriel will be telling the truth... two chapters from now, I believe.
Dare()- Yup, they're gettin' Carl back! The mystery woman was indeed a form of the Wavewriter... just thought I'd scare yall with her. And nope, no Hawaiian surfer monks. I'm sorry.
I thought it was cute to have him kiss the tip of her nose... I think that's the cutest way to kiss someone! I hope I continue to keep the characters IC for the rest of this story... soon there'll be danger for Gabriel to go OOC. I just hope I can handle it.
I actually do write original stories, I'm hoping to publish my first before I get out of high school (I graduate 2008.) My penname on fictionpress.com is Arlen Herafrin (my old penname on here was Arlen Halfelven.)
Cryptkeeper()- You reviewers confuse me.... half of you are all like 'We want Anna back we want Anna back' and then I bring her back and now you are all opting for her to get injured!! Jeez... LOL.
That's a great idea, thanks so much for it! It really helped me write the fight scene... although the circumstances didn't allow me to fully copy it. Thanks for your review!
Anthem82- I'm glad you enjoyed the fight scene and the vampires... I loved writing both. Looking back, I thought their names were a little bizarre. But I'm happy you thought they were cool!
Irish Anor- Don't make me bite you hand again! LOL. And relax.... read the rest of the chapters... there is hope for Carl... I was wondering where you were! I missed your reviews! I'm glad you are back!
(2nd review) Oh boy, the Gabriel snuggling returns... And I had to explain this earlier. The Cardinal died in chapter one. No one remembers that! LOL.
(3rd review) You are meant to hate Cardinal Kokolios, dear. He is a very bad man. LOL.
(4th review) I'm not sure that's a compliment either... what IS an Irish Anor anyways?!? I'm so confuzzled...
(5th review) You crack me up..... And here's your update!!
HyperCaz()- there you are! I was wondering... And yes, there are definite Carl-coming-back-vibrations in the wind. He looks so different normally! So does Hugh Jackman...
Location in this chapter is based on the map of Transylvania on vanhelsing.net. If you were to go to that and go from the icon that says 'the Ballroom' and then go northeast, along the river, you'd see pretty much where I placed this town.
Chapter 20:
Shattered Souls and Renewed Hope
"Wow." Was All Anna could say once they saw the town.
It was quite an achievement for her to have said as much; she had not been pleased to be awoken at five o'clock in the morning, told that the cult still hadn't been flushed out, and that they'd be riding all day to a town northeast of Budapest to defeat a rampaging Warlock also involved with the cult. For once, she had been the brooding one, glowering on her horse as they rode, and Van Helsing had been the chatty one. She was a little suspicious about his good mood...
She had chosen an appropriate moment to express such eloquent sentiments as the word 'wow.' After a solid twenty-four hours of riding, (stopping only to eat and to get fresh horses at a village they passed through) the sun was just rising and giving birth to the sight of what must have been a rather large tantrum-throwing child. Windows on houses were broken, all greenery was smoldering, and chickens and hogs were running happily through the wreckage. Unconscious people were just now stirring, and discovering that various articles of their clothing and furniture had been thrown willy-nilly all throughout the streets.
Still gaping, Anna and Van Helsing stepped gingerly through the mess. Nothing had been left untouched by whatever strange phenomenon had swept through that night as they rode. Upon reaching the town square, the desolation reached a new level; before, everything had seemed almost comical and injuries had been minor. But here, people were actually bleeding and dying. Fires were still burning here, and on buildings as well. Directly in front of them was the church. The building, once white and tall, looked as though lightening had struck it and split it in half. A few nearby businesses had been crushed by the gleaming steeple as it fell, and more had been wounded by the flying bits of stone and wood that had been spewed forth in whatever impact had taken such a sizable bite out of the large church.
"What happened here?" Van Helsing asked a bewildered woman who stood, staring at the destruction as they did. He had pretty much figured what had happened, but needed to know for sure.
"That horrible man... sorcerer or whatever he was... he grew angry about something... and began to rip apart the town with his spells from his place atop the church steeple." She said weakly. "And then he turned the spell upon the church itself, making it explode... But I saw him get away, across the river and towards the mountains."
"When? How?" He pressed.
"I'm not sure!" The woman cried desperately, hot tears of rage and despair cleaning the soot and dirt off her face. "I went unconscious right after I saw it happen, I don't know when it was! He had us working all day and night to serve his purposes!"
"And what were they?" Anna asked gently.
"Well..." The woman sniffed, calming a little. "They were unpredictable. Sometimes he'd want a festival, sometimes he'd want us to have a mock funeral. He'd have us work endlessly for days at a time washing the church till it shone, for that's where he lived. Or he'd have all the men out hunting and all the women cooking for him. He'd have children play games at his feet and call him Papa..." She shuddered. "And there were days when he'd command us to be inside and never come out and shut all the windows and lock all the doors. And we'd hear scratching and creaking and moaning, and sometimes even explosions. He said he was working on something, on a machine or a spell." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He was a very good sorcerer, but the worst sort of man."
"Can you point to the direction he left in?" Van Helsing asked. The woman nodded and pointed just to the left of the wrecked church.
"Past the mill on the river, and up into those mountains there. I went unconscious after that." She replied.
"Thank you." Van Helsing replied. With that, he and Anna mounted their horses again and were off.
In under and hour they passed the decimated mill on the river, and found a place to ford the said water. After passing through the chilly substance and wondering at the curious 'U' shape that particular bend took, (A/N-- You could probably find this on the map) they found themselves directly on the slope of the mountains. The peaks were steep and jagged, so they opted to tie the horses to a couple nearby trees.
"I wonder if they ever get tired of being left behind." Van Helsing mused as they began their ascent.
"Probably not. For one thing, these are different horses than last time. For another thing, I think they might be the smart ones. After all, they figured out how not to get involved in stuff like this." Anna replied as she began to follow.
Hours of training now paid off for the two Hunters. The climb was long and arduous, often forcing them to pull themselves forward on their stomachs or practically walk on all fours through the snow to get where they needed to go. They were following more signs of desolation, mostly ash, along the mountain, and once they reached its peak, it veered sharply to the right. Following it to its end, Anna and Gabriel straightened at last. They were standing on a cliff, looking across a chasm perhaps just as wide as the one that had separated Castle Frankenstein from the forest they had used to escape. And there, on the next peak over, was a huge black spire, perched precariously on the mountain.
"Why can't evil fortresses ever be easy to get to?" Van Helsing sighed, his arms dropping.
Anna looked down and saw that the mountain didn't simply stop; it dropped down sharply for around five feet onto a large ledge. From there, it curved gently down in an exaggerated U, then curved back up to meet the mountain they were trying to get to. All along this ran a narrow trail, just wide enough for one man. They could use it to get to the other side... but the going would be dangerous. The trail had snow on it, and on either side it was a nearly sheer snowy mountainside.
"We could use that trail down there to get to it." Anna said out loud, still leaning over the edge and looking down at the trail. The sunlight was gleaming in the snow, giving the impression of warmth, but the biting wind easily reminded her otherwise. Both this contradiction and the height she was looking down from gave her a feeling of extreme dizziness that wasn't at all unpleasant. It was actually quite fascinating.
"Only if we wanted it to take an age." Van Helsing replied. She could hear him shuffling around for something, but didn't look up to see what he was doing.
"Do you have a better idea?" She retorted, still fascinated with looking down.
"Yes, actually." Van Helsing said mildly. There was the strange sound of something being fired, but before Anna could react he had seized her around her waist and pulled her close to him. "Remember Castle Frankenstein?" Anna nodded and rewarded him with a daredevil grin.
Van Helsing lodged the grappling gun in a crevice in the rock near where they stood, then clamped the special glider onto it. He thanked God that Carl had known him well enough to know that the original gun would probably not return from Transylvania and had built a second one, then leapt off the ledge.
The flight was cold and harrowing; when they reached the other side, both were exceedingly glad for solid ground. Unlike their escape from Castle Frankenstein, this flight didn't include the fear of heights, but the fear of slipping and crashing onto the narrow trail below them. Or worse, missing the narrow trail below them.
They leapt off the glider and landed, stumbling, on the platform below the mysterious spire they assumed was home to the sorcerer. It was supported by four black iron pillars, but there didn't seem to be any means of entry. The floor of the room above was about ten feet from the ground, and the faint outlines trapdoor could be seen.
"Anna, if I get you up on my shoulders do you think you can try and open that trapdoor?" Van Helsing asked. Anna observed it for a moment, then nodded.
"I think so."
"Alright then."
Van Helsing knelt and Anna stepped up onto his shoulders, balancing herself. Carefully, aware of how close to the edge they were, Van Helsing rose to his feet enough so that Anna could comfortably work on opening the trapdoor. She pushed vigorously on it, even punching it in her frustration, but it would not open. Next she seized the small grooves that gave away its presence and tried to pull it open.
"It won't push open!" She said with exasperation.
"Wait, I'm taking you down." Van Helsing replied, slowly kneeling again. Anna hopped off and watched as he took out his crossbow. He fired a single shot, leaving the bolt embedded in the door. "Now try pulling it open." Anna got on his shoulders and he lifted her again. This time, after some tugging and wiggling, she managed to pull it open.
"Got it!" this last word ended in a brief shriek as a rope ladder tumbled out and hit her in the face. Startled, her arms began to windmill and she fell backwards, taking Van Helsing with her. He crashed safely to the platform, but she kept going, falling off the edge and into the snowy oblivion...
"Anna!" Van Helsing called, immediately flipping onto his stomach and scrambling to the edge. To his relief, she was there, clinging desperately to the edge. He hauled her up. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." She said breathlessly.
"Good." He said with relief. Turning to the rope ladder, he began to climb it cautiously.
The warlock paced his upper rooms in a state of agitation. Damn the world! Damn the way it worked! No matter how hard he tried, he could never get his spell to work...
All his life, he had been fascinated with the human soul. His beloved mother had taught him to have supreme faith in it, and, despite their poverty, given him hope. But when he discovered that he was an illegitimate child, born of the passion his mother lived with, and the church he had faith in told him she was damned to hell, he began to hate the rules that governed the soul.
His mother's untimely death had not helped at all either. He was struck with the anguishing realization that, according to those disgusting rules, she was now in hell. A young teenager out on Transylvania's streets, he quickly learned of magick and its uses. Having always been a brash and capricious person, he immediately attempted to resurrect his mother, only to be saved from her same fate by an experienced magick-user who agreed to teach him the ways of the art.
He had become proficient in it with surprising quickness, devouring whole tomes of lore. As a young man, he traveled all over his native country in search of those who could teach him more, but none could teach him what he sought: the secrets of the soul.
Remembering the rules of his old church, which he still believed held true, he began to fear for his soul. Would he be condemned, as his mother had been, for trying to use magick to understand life? It was at that fateful time of worry he discovered a powerful spell: the Spell of a Thousand Souls.
The basic idea was this: by capturing a thousand souls, one could know the nature of one's own soul. He immediately was fascinated with the spell, but it did not help in one aspect. It did not tell you exactly how you were supposed to get the souls. Being a Transylvanian, he knew of vampires and how, when they turned you into one of them, your soul was lost. He theorized that it could be captured immediately after you were sired, and briefly considered becoming a vampire to be able to do this. But that would've defeated the whole purpose, seeing as how vampire's don't have souls to be judged in any case. Still, it didn't rule out getting help from a vampire...
For years he sought out Count Dracula, the most infamous vampire of them all. For this task, he would not consider going to anyone else. But the vampire was nowhere to be found. And last night, he had learned of Dracula's demise, which had taken a substantial chunk out of the vampire population. Oh sure, there were still some left... but they were mostly second and third generation vampires, not nearly powerful for what he needed. Plus, the device he had been designing for capturing the souls had fallen apart under the strain of one of experiments just the previous night.
Forcing himself into a state of calm, he stopped his pacing and cursing. He could do nothing in this state. He would go through his books again, try and find another well-known and powerful vampire whose help he could seek. Yes, books had ever been his friends. They would soothe and comfort him now.
Nestled in his armchair with books all around him, he registered the bumps below him only vaguely. The brief shriek of terror he heard? Well, he explained it as the wind howling outside.
Anna and Van Helsing pulled themselves quickly through the trapdoor and came up ready for a fight, which they expected. But there was nothing. Not even a trap. The room was small and circular, made of the same steel as everything else. Messy bookcases were everywhere, books scattered haphazardly across the room in a fashion that reminded Van Helsing of Carl. A ladder in the center of the room led to the next level. After both had made a careful circle of the chamber, the Hunters nodded to each other and headed one after the other up the ladder.
This room held both of them in awe; it was absolutely covered in gleaming weapons. Almost every type of sword imaginable, from daggers to long-handled broadswords. There were sais, spears, axes, flails, bolas, shields, war hammers and even a few strange weapons that they had no names for. This room they approached with even more caution, hesitantly putting each foot in front of the other.
"The warlock must be higher up. We should find a way to block this room off once we leave it so he can't get down here for aid." Anna supplied in the barest of whispers. Both were incredibly nervous, fearing that their words and thoughts indeed weren't theirs at the moment. Their guards were down as they approached the next ladder, which explained why the trap nearly got them.
The second Van Helsing put his foot down on the flagstone in front of the ladder, a sword from the wall swung out, so that when he jerked back he almost decapitated himself. He heard Anna call out and saw that in a circle all around the room, pieces of the stone floor were flying up, hitting the ceiling, and raining bits of rock down on them. That also meant that the floor was slowly dissolving.
"Onto the ladder!" Van Helsing cried, shoving Anna ahead of him and wincing as a stone flying from the ground hit him hard on the head. He stumbled backwards, threatening to fall to the room of the floor below him.
"Gabriel!" Anna said sharply, reaching out and snagging the front of the coat.
She jerked him against herself, bypassing caution and causing him to hit his head on the iron ladder before he was finally able to grab on and pull himself up beside her. With Anna at the very top and her head pressed against the trapdoor and Van Helsing just below, his head on the small of her back, they watched the floor crumble and disappear. When all was quiet again, they assessed their condition. A few small cuts on each of them from the falling rock, and a bruise forming on Van Helsing's chin from the flying piece of floor. All Anna's jerking him into the ladder had done was leave a red mark and give him a headache. He was currently rubbing the place she had hit, making her blush and grin weakly.
"Sorry." She said sheepishly.
"No matter." He sighed. "It's so hard to find good help these days." He leaned off the ladder and, after pulling his coat sleeve over his hand, managed to pry the sword sticking off the wall out. "We can block the trapdoor off with this." He told Anna, who now opened the trapdoor and pulled herself into the next room.
Once she was in, Van Helsing pulled himself up, closed the trapdoor, then barred it with the sword (it was more of a saber) he had taken from the room before. He then straightened and realized why Anna had frozen and was staring fixedly in front of herself.
The warlock had been forced to acknowledge that something was wrong at sound of rocks smashing against his floor and the cries of two people- a man and a woman -he could hear from below him. He promptly threw his books to the side and stood, listening intently. Gradually, the rock smashing ceased, but, judging by the sound of muffled voices, the intruders had lived. He prepared himself for a battle, spells already in mind. This was the peak of his tower, larger than all the other rooms. On the narrowing walls that spiraled upwards to the heavens he thought of so frequently, forming that spire shape, he kept all his potions and ingredients. He had more charms placed on this room to aid him than he could count.
Maybe this was a gift from God. Maybe these people would help with his experiments.
Anna had frozen the second she had stood inside the room, her eyes meeting with the cold blue ones of the man she assumed to be the warlock. He wasn't much taller than herself, wearing a dark blue silk robe, lined with gold, with similar ninja pants on underneath. A golden medallion hung around his neck. His red hair was completely slicked back. And, all in all, he didn't seem happy. Gabriel froze too, meeting his eyes.
"Please, come into my home." The warlock said dryly. "I hope you enjoy your. Please forgive the floor in the other room, it gives me such dreadful problems."
"Sir, you are now in the hands of the Knights of the Holy Order, having been suspected of-" Van Helsing began automatically.
"In your hands?" The warlock laughed harshly. "I hope you have enough hands to catch me." There was a blinding flash of light and, suddenly, there wasn't just one Warlock... There were too many to count when they were moving as fast as they did.
Van Helsing and Anna were quickly overrun. They were everywhere, levitating to get up to chemicals higher in the spire, circling around them, floating above them in the air. This was when the warlock was glad of his hours upon hours of training. He was using a spell called Shards of the Soul, which splits you into as many parts as you can manage, completely replicating you and your abilities, albeit at a fraction of your power. But since he had become so powerful, he was still able to do many things in this state. And if he focused three parts on the same task, they would combine all their strength.
Six immediately attacked Van Helsing and Anna, leaving them no option but to back up slowly until they were against the far wall. The circle was completed by their fanned out attackers, and as they drew closer, both Hunters drew their swords and turned the draw into a side-to-side slash that gutted all six. They leapt out of the way as the corpses toppled into their own blood and entrails. Mysteriously, they dissolved.
The warlock smirked inwardly. Only one body contained the essential piece of his soul. If they could locate that one and kill it, they could kill him. Of course, with every wrong kill, all the other clones grew in strength, especially the one with that special piece.
This was quickly realized by Anna and Gabriel, who charged forward and began to wound every one of the clones they could reach; but with everyone they killed because they had no other choice, the other ones seemed to grow stronger, faster, cleverer. At last two that had dropped down from levitating charged and separated the duo, the glimmers of spells held in the palm of their hands. Divided like sheep, they were now on their own against the wizards.
Anna spun on one foot and slashed with her sword, trying and succeeding in getting her opponent to back away. But as she raised her sword to deal a vicious strike, she came down on a wooden desk. The clone was gone. But she heard the crackling behind her and released her sword. She twisted, falling to the ground with one leg tucked beneath her and the other one straight out, her upper body supported a few inches from the floor by her hands. The small fireball flew over her and hit the papers, setting them briefly aflame before the clone she was fighting doused the flames.
Still in her crouched position, she drew a knife from her boot and stabbed down at the clone's foot. He stepped out of the way a second before the strike made it, but his robe was caught. She was back on her feet and hefting her sword out of the table, slicing down through the air towards her trapped opponent. But he pulled out of the way, ripping his robe. Before she got too off balance, the gypsy jerked back, barely avoiding a deft palm strike from the clone. She tried another side-to-side slash, but he deflected her arm outwards with his and tripped her, knocking her back onto the wet table. Dropping her sword, she propped herself up and kicked out with both legs, sending her attacker stumbling.
Van Helsing wasn't fairing very well. He had been caught in a vicious duel with his clone, who had summoned a sword that was apparently made of lightening. Once, it had caught on his coat and almost set him on fire. And whenever it came into contact with his sword, it send frightful jolts through him. It was one of those moments now; the clone had tried a deft uppercut, and he had parried by knocking it upwards. But while he had intended to just bat it away and hope he didn't get too badly shocked, the clone had released his sword with one hand and used his over to perform some sort of holding spell that kept his arms locked in the position they were in. Powerful waves of energy rolled through him, making him freeze and gasp. It was perhaps the weirdest, most painful experience of his life.
The clone was smiling, backing him up hard into the wall. His head was bent backwards over a wooden shelf, leaving him staring up into the malicious eyes of another clone holding an Erlenmeyer flask of some strange green liquid and slowly tipping it. van Helsing shut his eyes and waited for a slow, painful death to come.
But then he was jerked roughly away and onto the floor by some strange force. It turns out that that force was Anna's opponent, having just been knocked away and into Van Helsing's opponent at an angle. Since there was currently a spell of binding on the two, they were both sent flying out of the way of the acid. The three now lay over the trapdoor, Van Helsing on the verge of passing out from all the energy pumping through him. Anna's previous opponent got to his feet and gasped, seeing that the spilled acid was now seeping towards the trapdoor. Van Helsing saw it too, but was on top of his clone. If he could wait long enough...
Anna rushed forward, sword held out, and stabbed the one she had previously been fighting. He melted into blood before her, and the ones above began to fly around even faster, gathering bottles. She recognized them as the same one that had contained the acid... She began to run circles around the room, causing the clones to drop their acid in a circle that began to drain towards the trapdoor. She saw that Van Helsing was still there, nearly dead from the electricity, but she had been forced to climb onto one of the tables to avoid the acid. The clones were now busy looking for other things.
"Gabriel!" She screamed, feeling for once utterly helpless.
The clone banished the electric sword, finally ending Gabriel's torment. But he refused to move, still pinning him to the ground. The acid at last arrived, from all side. It chewed into the man quickly. His screams filled the spire and echoed hauntingly back down in the form of the other clones' screams, both of the wounded that had stayed out of the fight and the ones that had tossed the acid. Without warning, they all burst as the other ones had. From the one Van Helsing had previously been on top of, a strange, white PIECE of light floated up. It hovered in the air for a moment, then shattered and fell all around them like bits of a star. As beautiful as it was, and as happy as they were to have the enemy dead, there was still one problem; Van Helsing surrounded by acid.
He yelped and swore, leaping to his feet, as it soaked through to his knees and onto his palms. Anna shouted his name desperately and he saw that beside her table the acid was mostly gone. One his tip toes and as quickly as he could, he ran to her. She hauled him onto the table beside her and cradled him as he collapsed, shaking from utter exhaustion and pain.
"Van Helsing? Gabriel?" She asked frantically as he simply went slack against her. "Are you...?"
"I'm going to live... I think." Van Helsing gasped out, lifting his head to see her face so close to his. Were those tears that made her eyes glitter so brilliantly...? "Are you okay?"
"Me? Yes. Yes. I'm okay. I-" Anna started to speak quickly, then trailed off. There were two more words she wanted to say, but her lips and her throat would not form them. "Was worried." She finished.
"Well... I'm made of tougher stuff than I look." He grinned lopsidedly, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.
"If you're made of stuff tougher than you look, what's that make you? Paper?" She joked. Barely awake, all he could do was laugh in his throat.
He would never know how he made it back to the village they had started their search at. All he remembered was leaving the tower and crossing the chasm again, but after he got his grappling gun back he could remember nothing. Later, Anna told him that he was just mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, but seemed in a daze. She always walked very close to him out of concern, and half-led his horse when it was time to ride again. Van Helsing's next memory was of waking to the smell of breakfast. Anna was feeding it to him, since he was mostly incoherent. Now he was seeing a whole new side to her: a softer, gentler side. It was her rolling accent and graceful words that would lull him into a gentle, painless slumber, and her tender calling of his name that reminded him to return to the world of the living.
A very odd thing occurred on the second morning they were there. As he had since they had left the Vatican, he was haunted by that voice calling his name in the unfathomable black. But it was more kind, pitying, but still urgent. Like a worried friend beckoning verbally to a wounded comrade to return from the void. Finally, he began to follow the voice.
I'm coming... He murmured mentally. I'm coming to you...
"Gabriel?" asked a confused voice.
Suddenly, he snapped out of his reverie. Anna was still at his side, a look of confusion on her face. He sat up slowly, now fully aware of his surroundings.
"Anna... How long have I been out?" Van Helsing asked, resting against the headboard.
"The inevitable question." She laughed shortly. "You were out the rest of the day after the fight and all that night, as well as all yesterday. I would wake you for meals and nothing more."
"What about you? You got some rest too, right?" He asked quickly.
"Yes, I slept in between meals as well." Anna reassured him. "Are you feeling well enough to eat?" She offered him a plate of sausage and toast she had probably gotten from the innkeeper.
"I'd rather get going, actuall-" He cut himself off mid-word at the sudden, stormy look on Anna's face. "Right after some breakfast." He finished meekly, accepting the tray and devouring it.
They left the town before noon that day, thanked the gracious innkeeper, who had given them everything free despite the desolation of her town as thanks for killing the warlock.
"Strange." Van Helsing had mused. "I never even knew his name."
By noon of the next day, they were back in Budapest and the inn they had stayed at previously. They paid for new rooms, and the innkeeper gave Van Helsing another note with the initials G. V.H. on it. It read as follows:
Excellent job with the warlock. I hope you mend soon so that you can make a trip to Castle Frankenstein... a scientist's misguided creation awaits you there. My apologies that I could not meet with you in person... but I am sure that you are beginning to trust me more. Here is your reward.
Warm Regards,
A friend
A piece of paper, shaped almost identically to the one he had gotten as a 'reward' previously, fluttered out of the note. He bent to retrieve it, noting that it had a different pattern of dots than the other.
"What is it?" Anna asked over his shoulder. He immediately crumpled the note but showed her the piece of paper.
"Part of a map. The Order thinks that if we can find the rest we can find the cult's headquarters." He lied.
"Oh." Anna said slowly, her eyes not leaving Van Helsing's. For a frightening instant, he was afraid she didn't believe him. But then she smiled. "Well, let's wait till nightfall to rush off on their next assignment, yes?"
"Yes." Van Helsing returned the smile brightly. There was a kind of happy electricity in the air. They could rest a little now. They were definitely getting closer.
A/n-- Damn, these chapters just get longer!! yet more M&M's for reviewers, since the final action chapter is up next. Hope I didn't drive you nuts with this one... And thanks to Cryptkeeper for the idea about the warlock making clones!