Sheltered in the numbing arms of darkness, Gabriel dreaded the moment he would have to open his eyes.
A rush of frantic thoughts blended together and faded to black in his mind. His narrow avoidance of frenzy, when Liam's silver dagger glimmered in torchlight, had sent him tumbling down the road of despair as a quiet, hollow sound of Leah's body sinking to the ground reached his ears. His hands were tied, the rope fixed to something overhead. It held him firmly even as he had lost the strength to stand on his own, and hung limply by his wrists.
A number of gashes and cuts in his flesh burned with searing pain, but the throbbing helped him cling to his conscious state. He could smell blood; whether Leah's, or his own, he wasn't sure. The call of the dark to stay in its arms forever spoke of temptation and relief from the hideous truth that he had failed, but he knew he would not heed it, yet.
His eyelids were heavy, but slowly Gabriel forced them open.
In the crimson light, he saw Leah's body laying at his feet. Her unseeing eyes were still wide and turned upward. As he looked down, he met death eye-to-eye. It had the color of quickly cooling steel.
The sight of a long-fingered, pale-skinned hand brushing her eyelids close made Gabriel grit his teeth. For the first time since he remembered, his heart was pounding furiously in his chest and his breath came in quick, shallow gasps. Here and there, the vampire's slender hands were painted with streaks of red. He leaned over Leah's body, inhaling her scent. The black stain on her chest, with the silver dagger still embedded in the middle, kept spreading even as Gabriel looked at it.
With his eyes half-closed, as though he were in a trance, Liam retrieved the knife with a slow move. Inch by inch, he watched as it slipped out of the body of the woman whose life it had cut. As he raised it above his head, as if to stab her again, the vampire's eyes shot open and he looked up.
"Yes," he whispered, "The chaos is over."
Gabriel was trembling, quivering with anguish and wrath. His eyes never looking away from Gabriel's, Liam smiled even as he brought the dagger to his lips. He ran his tongue along the sharp edge, licking off the blood from the silver blade. He shivered, a loud sigh of pleasure escaping his chest. Then he rose to his feet, tall and proud with his head up high, and met Gabriel face to face.
Touching the drops of sweat on the man's forehead, the vampire gave a small shrug.
"How human," he spoke with contempt. "You have lost much of your spirit, Gabriel."
Van Helsing watched with disgust as the vampire wiped Leah's blood from the corners of his lips. Under his stare, he felt pressed hard against the stone wall. Crushed. Dishonored and disgraced. Reduced to a mere puppet dancing on his whim. Fury blurred his vision, boiling his blood, and Gabriel's body jerked with violent labor against the bonds.
Liam's hands upon his shoulders stayed him, pushed him down, fueling up the searing fire in his muscles and joints. Breathing hard, Gabriel looked the vampire in the eye.
"I'm surprised to see you come so late," Liam said, tilting his head. "But it was this day, this moment, that has sustained me all those years."
Cold sweat trickled down his face. Straining against the rope, wrought so tightly around his wrists that it cut his skin, Van Helsing sent the vampire a wry, feigned smirk. "And I thought it was human blood," he said with slight difficulty, and spat blood, squinting.
Liam laughed. "Please, Gabriel. You and I both will do all it takes to survive."
He found it hard not to keep glancing down, where the sight of Leah stirred his blood, clutched at his heart, and made his eyes burn with tears. Emotion was his downfall, he knew, yet anger and grief each had their share in Gabriel's submission to its power. Before he knew the pain of guilt anew, hatred toward Liam would be the most powerful thrust. Exalted as the vampire made himself appear, in his eyes he was no more than a beast, weak in his invincibility. Dependant on others to survive.
And yet, it was in his hands that now lay Van Helsing's life.
"How do you know me?" he asked uneasily, meeting the black pools of malice that were the vampire's eyes.
"Ah." Liam threw his hands in the air, putting on a theatrical countenance. A step forth took him inches away from Van Helsing's face. "It's so sad," he said slowly, "That you have no memory of your brother."
Gabriel blinked, frowned, repeated the vampire's words in his mind. Half-swept out of reality, wrestling with nausea that twisted his guts, he almost convinced himself that it was all his mind's work. No words had been said, the vampire had never charmed him into obedience, had not captured him. Leah had not died; she was safe outside of this nightmare, in the real world where vampires were vanquished with stakes, where he too would find safety, if only he managed to wake up. And for the most part, Liam had not just said that.
"What?" he said weakly.
"So many memories, and all gone." Liam leaned in close to him. A fall of dark hair hid the vampire's face in shadows. "He stole them from you, just like he stole you from me. On God's whim, Gabriel, you turned your back on your brother."
Gabriel shook his head slowly as he said, "It's a lie. I don't believe you."
Sailing ever-farther across the sea of denial, Van Helsing turned his head down and away from the vampire. Liam brought his face next to Gabriel's, lifting up his chin with his cold finger.
"Treachery runs through your veins," he hissed in rising anger. "In return for love you have revenge to offer."
Having released him, Liam sank to the ground next to Leah. The blade fell from his grasp. His hand ran across her face, stroked her hair, his finger traced the line of her mouth. "By her bidding," he whispered, his words trailing off slowly. Then he took her limp form in his arms, cradling her gently as he stood up. He looked Gabriel in the eye. "She is the key. But she belongs to you no more. Now she belongs to my world. To me."
The vampire kissed Leah's cold, still lips, savoring her taste. Yet his eyes were set upon Gabriel's, staring intently at the man's face growing pale. "Night will be her gown and blood will be her drink," Liam whispered against Leah's hair, caressing her cheek as he spoke. "Bound for eternity with her heart within my grasp."
Gabriel heard his own voice as though it came from distance, from behind the glass wall that stood between reality and dream. "She's dead."
Lifting up the body, the vampire sneered. He pressed the dead woman to Gabriel's chest. Her head fell back against his shoulder. Were it not for the blood blackening her clothes, she would look as if sleep had claimed her, not death. Gabriel bit down hard on his lip, fighting back the tears of frailty.
"Would you kill to have her back, Gabriel? Would you stain your hands with blood again, so that you could lay them upon her one last time?"
"If you had a heart," he slurred through his gritted teeth, "I'd tear it from your chest with my bare hands."
The vampire threw back his head. His laughter echoed across the graveyard. "You didn't have the nerve to kill me when you had a chance. What makes you think you could do it now?"
Air entered his lungs with a loud swish. He coughed up blood. With Leah's body, still warm, pressing against him, Gabriel couldn't deceive himself into thinking he was dreaming anymore. Looking at her tore him apart. For some vile reasons known only to him, the vampire had used her, as a tool to do… What? Closing his eyes, he felt one hot tear roll down his cheek.
"What do you want?" he asked, surrendering to whatever would come. To anything but this.
Beckoned forth, two Ghouls stepped out of the circle. As they approached their master, Liam passed Leah's body to them and turned back to Van Helsing. His servants soon vanished in the dark of the night, carrying away the dead huntress.
"Your loyalty, as it's due," said the vampire. "Compensation for your treacherous deeds. For all those years we have lost." He bent down, lifting his silver dagger from the ground. The blade's surface flashed in front of Gabriel's eyes as the vampire brought it to his face. The sharp tip touched his cheek, leaving a small cut as Liam ran it down his skin. "Join me, Gabriel. Together, we shall bring the end to the chaos of this world." He spoke with passion, a radiating glow of madness brightening his features. "Twice before you have let me down, but let us not grow bitter over the mistakes of the past. I have so much to offer, and all you need to do is say, 'yes'."
Darkness claimed him, but Gabriel was not sure whether he had slipped away into unconsciousness, or - which, deep down, he knew was a vain hope - he stood, at last, on the verge of wakefulness. He had not the strength to strain against the bonds anymore; he didn't even feel the pain. He felt better that way, numb and oblivious. In the dark was his refuge, where he would no longer see, hear, feel, until weakness would pass and the claws of horrific dreams let go of him.
"It's a chance, my brother, that I'm giving you now. Yet know, that the third time shall be the last."
No, it was not a dream. His sanctuary shrouded with shadows had shattered, brought down by the vampire's harsh tone, had fallen apart at his cold touch. Gabriel's eyes remained closed, but the sudden acute awareness brought back the nausea. His heartbeat grew furious again.
"Should you decline," Liam continued in a voice of ice, "Trust not that you will find peace in death. For death, my dear Gabriel, is not the worst that can happen to men."
Having gathered the remnants of strength, Gabriel wanted to speak, but he felt a hand slide over his mouth. Looking up, he could read in the vampire's face that he was intent upon playing his game a little longer.
"Make no mistake," he whispered in Gabriel's ear. "I shall give you time to make your choice. Tomorrow by nightfall, you will answer to me as my equal, my brother. Or as my servant."
A wave of darkness swept over him, carrying the scent of death. Liam's touch was cold like winter snow upon his skin, devouring the warmth of Gabriel's body even as the vampire's hand slid down his face. Somehow it pushed him further back into himself, into a place deep within him from which he knew not the way to return. The menacing laughter, growing distant, and distant still, made him cringe and shrink.
Clinging to the edge of awareness, too drained to keep his eyes open, he heard himself whisper, "Though I walk through the valley of shadow and death, I shall fear no evil…"
A hand held him up by the throat, clutching at it just so that he would draw no more than one shallow, labored breath at a time. Another hand covered his eyes; but between the long, cold fingers he could see a pair of black eyes staring intently into his face. He began to suffocate, the lack of air draining all energy he had left from him, but the grasp was firm upon him, and stronger still. Something sharp clawed into his skin, never letting go, until his vision blurred and white specks, like stars on the distant sky, danced before his eyes.
The droplets of rain tapped on his head, his forehead, streaks of water running down his temples as he struggled against the iron grip. Weaker by the second, though yet far from panic, he dreaded the realization that had begun to dawn upon him as soon as he knew that he was being watched.
"Enough."
As the commanding voice spoke, all bonds let go of him and Gabriel fell to the ground. Coughing, wheezing, he put a hand to his throat. A streak of warm substance dripped from his fingers. Blinking to clear his vision, he strained his eyes and looked at his hand. Blood.
He gazed up.
"You bring such shame upon our kind."
The voice, though familiar, startled him. He recognized the face, though at first his mind refused to accept what he saw as real. Yet he knew, and it made him sick; he had been betrayed. Ultimately, irreversibly betrayed.
"You and I are not one kind. Not since you sold your soul," he uttered slowly.
The black eyes pierced him, but Gabriel forced himself to bear the pain of holding his head up, the throbbing in his throat, and endured the other man's gaze.
"But we are! And I shall tell you, my brother, that we were meant for something of far greater magnificence, than this pointless… service."
Gabriel met the speaker face to face, so close that all he could see were those eyes, once reflecting a soul noble and pure. Now, a fire burned in them, deep within, and the soul that had once dwelt in the man was long gone.
"You choice is yours alone. Not mine. I play no part in your game," he said in a hoarse whisper. "And for the love of God, never again call me your brother, Liam, for that is what you are not."
"How ironic of you, my dear Gabriel, to speak here of His love." The vampire let out a laugh. "It was you, you have chosen love over God. And now, look, it has brought you here, to me, to the edge of this precipice. But I reach out my hand to you, for I owe you this. Join me, brother, I bid you, one last time."
"Push me, if that is a brother's deed. I will not follow you to eternal death."
"So be it."
Around him, darkness fell. The sounds faded. The pain was gone.
Seized by a sudden wave of pain in his guts, Gabriel instinctively doubled over, but found himself restrained. His hands were still tied above his head, though it was rather a matter of knowledge, as he struggled for consciousness and began to remember what had come to pass, than of perception. Trying to move his hands, or even his fingers, against the bonds that held him hanging by his wrists was a wasted effort. He hardly felt them anymore, as though his limbs were no longer his. Numb. Nonexistent.
Liam.
He remembered the dream, more clearly than ever before. For seven years, all those nights he would wake up, drenched in perspiration, gasping for breath, but the vision was no mere nightmare. He had always known that much more lay beyond it, a secret as yet unknown, the one he had wrestled to discover. More often than not he would will himself to remain in the embrace of sleep, in the arms of that horrific dream, against the urge that drove him back to wakefulness. Yet, never before had he seen so much, gone so far, remembered so well.
You have no memory of your brother.
Reverberating in Gabriel's mind, Liam's words washed away the remnants of fevered sleep.
Memory of your brother. Of my brother. Brother.
A cry escaped his lips, like a mournful howl of a wolf on a full-moon night. He tried to force his eyes open, but found it impossible. He didn't know how long he had hung there, but the streaks of blood from the cuts on his forehead bound his eyelids together.
Around him, fire sizzled in its quiet dance upon the torches. The Ghouls were still there, keeping their watch on him as they had been told. He didn't know how many; unable to open his eyes, all he could do was estimate their number by ear. Focus came hard, disturbed by the wild waves of nausea, the searing fire burning his throat, the dull pain in his skull. Six, perhaps seven; the guards stood in a circle around him. It would be a tough fight, with his weapons gone, even if he somehow managed to break free from the bonds, even if…
Leah.
Gabriel stopped whatever effort he had been putting into his attempt to escape. His mind went blank.
Liam. Leah. Dead. She's dead.
One by one, the memories as pictures, fleeting and brief, played before his sealed eyes. The vampire with a silver dagger. The blood. Leah's body on the ground, so still, her eyes open wide, staring at him, pleading. Save me, they cried. Save me.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to himself, too weary to will the image of Leah's dead face away from his thoughts. "I'm so sorry."
Ice-crystals pierced his skin as he tumbled down the well of darkness. Reality was too far up to reach for it; the bottom, closing in on him, was the only way out. The easy way out. It's been so long since I took the easy way out, he thought. A lifetime and more.
He fell and fell; weightless, yet heading ever-down, heedless of whatever conscious thoughts remained in his mind. In that dark chamber, scarlet droplets glowed in light the source of which was unknown to him. They fell along with him, splashing beneath him in a lake of blood. The only way was down, yet somehow he began to float, just over the surface, never touching it. A soft light from above spilled over him, over the bloody pool beneath. He looked down.
The pool whirled. Hands first, an eerie silhouette emerged, shaking off the crimson veil; born of blood and yet not one with it. The enormous wings fluttered softly. Their blinding whiteness lit up the dark. The air stirred. The opening overhead grew wider, closer. The winged form lifted him up, slowly, up to the stars, gaining speed as it carried him away from the dark, from despair, from death.
Gabriel gasped.
The smell of burning wood reached his nostrils. Inhaling rapidly, he sucked in smoke. Coughed violently as it tore into his lungs. Behind him, hundreds of voices cried, hundreds of feet made the ground shake, and the smell - nauseating in his dry mouth, was yet refreshing, for it forced him out of the haven of darkness, back to the world.
With the greatest effort, Gabriel opened his eyes. Under his barely lifted eyelids, his vision was blurry, almost black and white in the waning night. One by one, the lights before him went out as the torches fell. He squinted, straining to see what had come to pass, for there seemed to have been no signs of a fight; the guards just dropped dead.
The voices rose in a cacophonic choir of heated cries.
In front of him, a Ghoul sank to the ground with a soft cry. And then another. Among the noises behind and around him, bewildered, he kept trying to see the cause of the commotion, but failed.
Then the bonds broke. He fell. Answering his painful cry, darkness took him.
Awareness returned to him slowly. At first, it took the form of the sound of light steps, somewhere under him. Then the dull pain in his head, the throbbing in his arms and wrists, and the feeling that the whole world around him was spinning, gradually sobered him up. Gabriel opened his eyes with a quiet groan.
The wind chilled him down to the bone, but it brought no relief to his sore body. He frowned. The ground beneath him seemed closer, farther, closer again. Shuddering, he tried to move. Then he realized he was on the move, though he surely wasn't walking on his own.
Whoever was carrying him, came to a halt. Gabriel closed his eyes, squeezed them tight, as a new wave of pain came over him. Not before he felt a solid surface beneath him did he decide to look up. He blinked twice in disbelief, not yet sure whether his eyes deceived him, or if the person he saw was real.
"Padraig?" he asked weakly.
The old hunter leaned over him, wiping his forehead with a soft cloth. A troubled countenance dressed his face. He nodded. "You'll live," he said, a quiet tone of contentment in his voice. "But it was close, my friend, too close."
Bile rose to his throat and Gabriel tried to swallow it down, but his mouth was dry. "Where are we? What happened?"
Padraig smiled sourly. Slipping behind Gabriel, he helped him rise, supporting him so that he would not slump back to the ground. "See for yourself," he said.
Gabriel looked ahead.
For a while, all he count see was a sea of orange, yellow, red. The horizon burned, but it wasn't the rising of the sun that set it ablaze. The flames seemed to lick at the gray morning sky. His vision cleared a little, and his lips parted in a small gasp of shock at the sight that spread before him.
Down the hill, the castle was burning.
Gabriel fixed Padraig with a questioning stare, as yet unable to speak, trying to comprehend any of this. He remembered smoke, the cries around him when he still hung, tied up in the graveyard. Yet whatever had come to pass afterwards, was beyond him to recall. Expecting an explanation but getting none, Gabriel found himself far too perplexed to pursue it now. He remained silent, turning his gaze back to the riveting spectacle of burning light.
Fire had spread its deadly arms quickly, claiming the fortress and the adjacent buildings. Veiled in smoke, the stone walls turned black. Slowly, Gabriel noticed people standing at a distance, watching. Small groups here and there, larger farther away; hundreds of people, with torches in their hands - like a lake of fire, and yet so small against the burning site. The wind swept up the hill, washed over the two men. The smell of burnt wood, cloth, and flesh, was sickening.
"Three hundred against seven," Padraig said in a quiet, bitter voice. "And yet the battle is lost."
The hunter eased him onto the ground. Not sure he understood what had transpired, Gabriel looked at him closely. "What do you mean?"
"This assault solves nothing. It will anger Liam all the more. Driven from his home, he'll make sure his vengeance is more dreadful than ever before."
The smoke. The fire. "Why did they do this?" he asked, wincing at the pain as he tried to move.
Padraig let out a forced laugh. "Revenge drives men to extremes, Gabriel. They can only contain it for so long, before they snap and shove away reason, in favor of a moment of relief." He looked Van Helsing in the eye. "As far as I'm concerned, it was that, or let you die."
His thoughts formed a chaotic disarray in his mind, allowing no understanding besides that he was safe, for now, and that down there, people were dying. The hunter's words echoed in his ears, but it was a hollow sound, meaningless at the start. Fighting back weariness was hard, but his mind kept clearing, and the horror of the endeavors of the last couple of hours struck him with force anew.
"Leah," he whispered, closing his eyes.
"She's dead. I know." Padraig placed a gentle hand on Gabriel's shoulder.
"You. You led us there. Into Liam's trap."
The hunter sighed heavily, rising to his feet. "I didn't know it was a trap. I warned you he's a treacherous bastard, but how he knew you were coming is beyond me to guess."
Lying there on his back, beaten and sore, Gabriel could only do so much as send the hunter a scornful look. "I don't believe you," he uttered.
Padraig took an abrupt turn, falling to his knees by Van Helsing's side. "I swear to God!" he said, returning his stare.
Gabriel looked away. "Your word means little to me."
Padraig turned his gaze down, slowly shaking his head. He sat down on the ground, and hid his face in his hands. "I loved her like a father loves his only child. In a manner, she was like a child to me. Had I known-" he broke off and, looking up, he waited until Gabriel met his eyes again.
"Had I known it would turn out like this, I would have never let you out of my house," he said. "How come Liam knew you were coming is something I have yet to find out. But I swear to God… I swear to you, that it wasn't I who told him."
Standing before a choice whether or not to believe the old man, Gabriel hesitated. Padraig wasn't evil; not before, not now, and he saved his life. But even though he sought it within himself, no sparkle of trust sprung from the fire of anger and pain that burned him.
"It doesn't matter," he said, and his face went blank, his eyes unfocused. "Too late now."
The increasing noise told him the villagers were leaving the site down the hill. Their voices grew louder as they approached. Soon they would reach them, and see the man that many of them would gladly see as dead-cold as the vampire they had come after. Gabriel didn't care.
But Padraig did. He rose and, with surprisingly little effort, he lifted Gabriel off the ground.
"Let me go," he protested, but words were the only resistance he could manage.
"I don't suppose you'd get far in your condition. And I didn't put my own life at risk just to see you dead when this mob arrives here. Their wrath was not sated, Gabriel, and you still have a task to do."
"Where are you taking me?"
"To Leah's house," Padraig said with a quiet sigh. "Can't go back to the village. Too many curious eyes. And you need to rest."
He knew that an argument was a waste of both time and his strength. Padraig puzzled him; Gabriel had been almost convinced that the hunter had betrayed them. After all, Leah had known him long enough that his unusual behavior stirred doubt in her right from the start. And yet, his resistance wasn't half as strong as it should have been, if he indeed had no trust for the man at all.
Leah. Even the slightest recollection of her sent a painful thorn deep into Gabriel's heart. He should have known better than to have walked straight into the vampire's trap. All the years of training, all the experience he had gained over time, and his trust in his own instincts had proven themselves worthless. Gabriel hardly believed in destiny; if something seemed as though it were 'meant to be', to him, more often than not, it meant only that something else - or other - should have been done, but wasn't. It was too late to brood over this now; what had happened could not be reversed. All he was left with was guilt, and a profound sadness that gnawed at him from the inside.
Despite his strong belief in man's ability to alter the courses of his fate, he knew that he wouldn't have been able to listen to that hunch, that told him it was wrong to do what Leah and he had done. Wrong. Hazardous, yes; but most of his assignments heretofore had been. Borderline reckless, and folly - even more so. And yet, he could not resist the feeling that had been contradicting that hunch all this time - he would have gone against all odds and reason, and she would have gone with him, had he told her to stay, or not.
He wondered what it meant. How could something as terrible as her death have been meant to be? Crushed under the pressure of that thought, he shrugged it off as quickly as he could.
Even as Padraig carried him away from the burning castle, Gabriel remained silent, though questions arose in his mind one after another. He intended to ask them still, at a time more suitable for conversation than now.
To his slight surprise, soon they reached the place where he and Leah had left their horses, strapped to a post away from the main road. Padraig lifted him up with ease and put him in the saddle, mounting the steed behind him for security and support. Gabriel couldn't help but notice that the hunter, despite his age, showed no signs of weariness, even as he had carried a man as large as himself for the past quarter. Padraig looked sixty, and even if, in this case, appearances were deceiving, he couldn't be much younger than that. And Gabriel wasn't exactly light like a child, either. Yet the man's breath had not quickened, his strength had not faltered.
It seemed curious, yet Gabriel's mind was full of questions, out of which at least a half regarded things he deemed inexplicable. One more strangeness made things neither better, nor worse.
Author's Notes:
The last chapter was really, really long. This, in fact, is only half the chapter - posted this way so that I don't scare you off completely with the length of my chapters =P The second half will come soon, probably next week, if I get down to it.
While I'm at it -- Liam's quoting Plato here: "Death is not the worst that can happen to men." Yes. I'm a geek. ::snicker::
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ElvenPirate41: Ha! Somehow I thought you'd like him. How about now? ;P He's showing his more cruel, wicked side here.
Wonda: Dear, your reviews make me grin from ear to ear like a maniac. It's so wonderful to know how you were feeling while reading this. Keep it coming, it's suck a kick to keep writing this thing :)
Artemis: Sooo, first of my surprises revealed. If you're hyperventilating like last time, please make sure you don't pass out and hurt yourself in the process =P It's still far from being the end of my surprises ;)
