Disclaimer: The characters and concepts pertaining to the movie Van Helsing are the property of Stephen Sommers. This story is an amateur effort. There was no money made off the thinking, writing, and or posting processes of this story.
Chapter 21: Storming the Castle
"I hate it." Mina confessed as they walked along. She was holding herself tightly, shivering softly as they made their way towards the growing light nearing the end of the tunnel. Gabriel's eyes were glued on what he wanted to believe was the exit. His instincts told him that it was far from over, and that it was just another phase of Morgan's amusement. She was probably watching them with a grin, laughing maliciously as Gabriel found himself fighting dizziness from whatever was in the spider bites. "It's not like some kind of disease that one can simply get over one day or something that can be cured...it's everyday." She reached out and grabbed the wall, following only the sound of Gabriel's breathing and his footsteps in front of her instead of holding his hand or something. "I haven't seen the sun in seven years which is about enough to declare yourself legally dead."
"Join the club. There seems to be a growing number of people in the world who should be declared dead." Like me, for example. Gabriel reached out a hand to the wall. The pain from the bites near his ankle was starting to intensify greatly, and he could feel something cold moving out from the wounds (Poison perhaps? He asked himself). Mina gave a small smile, thinking Gabriel too rational to go on one of those long, drawn out rants about how the whole world was starting to destroy itself. It was humourous though, something that she hadn't heard in a while.
"It's hard to hate everything about yourself." She admitted. Gabriel looked over his shoulder at those words. They had hit something inside him, thinking hard about what she had just said. He shrugged it off though, trying not to think about it. "And that's why I'm here. It's all just personal: My needs to be human over her need to live. Not nearly as noble as the fact that one does this for a living under the orders of the Catholic Church but that's all I have to keep me going."
"There's nothing wrong with something being personal. I would love it if something about my life was personal." He said.
"The quest for the extermination of all evil things isn't personal for you?" Mina asked him.
"Of course not. The quest for some shred of memory? That's personal." Gabriel clenched his teeth as the chill from the spider bites hit his blood stream. He gripped the wall suddenly but silently enough that he assumed Mina overlooked it as she focused on walking. "This is the church's war, not mine. I'm just a soldier. They're the generals."
Gabriel suddenly lashed out in pain, his hand gripping the wall so tightly his tendons popped out on the back of his hand. Mina's eyes widened as she grabbed a hold of his arm, holding him up as blood and puss dripped down his calf and into his socked foot.
They dropped to the ground. Mina knelt next to him calmly as he clenched his teeth and growled again.
"Where does it hurt?" She asked him. Gabriel groaned again. "Gabe..."
"The right calf, alright?" He shouted at her in frustration.
"Fair enough." Mina said, yanking off his boot and the pant leg. The 'fangs' the spiders had bit him with had gone clean through the leather and the fabric and the four puncture wounds were easily seen in the dark. She could smell the blood either way, and he vampire eyes made out the blood as glowing red fluid with an intoxicating scent. But there was something else inside it, something that made her eyes narrow.
"Poison." She said. Gabriel groaned.
"Perfect." He said. A perfect end to a perfect day. Stabbed, beaten, and now poisoned by spiders. I just seem to attract everyone else's injuries don't I?
"Oh God, it's already hit your bloodstream." She said, swearing under her breath as well. Gabriel was a little surprised. Mina had never sworn in his presence. "Whatever it is it's working quickly. How do you feel?"
"Mina this is not the best time to study this."
"Well what else am I supposed to do?"
"You could suck the poison out." He said. Mina looked appalled for a moment. "You're a bloody vampire. Just do what comes naturally."
It took Mina a moment more. She leaned in and pressed her mouth against the puncture wounds. Gabriel winced and the chill started to fade. Mina lifted her mouth and spat the mouthful of blood aside.
"Is it working?" She asked. Her whole appearance had changed with the blood that dripped from her lips. Gabriel nodded, already beginning to feel better. She moved over to the other puncture wound and drank a small amount from it to before spitting it out and onto the floor. She felt sick to her stomach again. She could feel every sense go into frenzy at the sight of Gabriel's bleeding leg. But she put his boot back on anyways and ignored it, trying hard to focus on something that was less abnormal.
"Much better. Thank you." He said and got back to his feet with some assistance from Mina. They pressed onward as the dizziness faded and the euphoria was dismissed. Gabriel could feel his strength returning.
"The spiders were definitely not faerie. They were probably just new inhabitants who were looking for a place to live." Mina stated, staring ahead at the growing blue light that cast odd shadows across the wall. Gabriel's eyes sunk into his skull and his cheeks dropped. He was a corpse suddenly, as supernatural as Mina and as deadly as Morgan.
"Nice to know." He said.
"You're only interested in certain things aren't you Mr. Van Helsing?"
"I have selective interests, I apologize." He said. "Usually I just need three things: What am I fighting, how I kill it, and the tools to kill it, sometimes not even the last one."
"You lead an empty life, Gabriel."
"Oh and you can judge." He shot back. It was harsher than he wanted to seem but he hated people when they were on his case. Jinette was always on his case. They were at constant war with each other. And Carl had a nasty habit of jumping into his life when Gabriel really didn't need it. Now Mina was joining in. Why did everyone have to tell him he was empty, cruel, and deserved everything he got?
"I'm sorry. I just couldn't imagine not knowing." She replied.
"You and Carl both." He mumbled.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Don't worry about it." Mina was still worrying about it. He could tell by the way her jaw tightened and her eyes softened as if someone was hurting her. Gabriel couldn't think of anything to say. "So what's your plan?"
"What?" Gabriel asked her as a follow up; unsure of what context she was employing the word 'plan' under. Was she talking about how they were expecting to get out of the tunnels or how he was going to kill Morgan?
"How do you intend to finish your job?" She asked him. Gabriel gave a bit of a shrug.
"I intend to break into Morgan's castle..."
"And then...?"
"And then I intend to kill her and rescue Carl."
"And between here and Morgan's castle?"
Gabriel shrugged again.
"We'll cross those bridges when we come to them." Mina rolled her eyes sceptically. "What?"
"Nothing else?" She asked him.
"What did you expect?"
"Something a little less vague."
"Look..." Gabriel said quickly and sternly, sick of the constant back and forth between he and Mina. "Things happen. I'm not going to set standards when I know it's not going to be that easy. Trust me. The more vague things stay the less let-down you are when your plan is ruined."
Mina gave a whimsical smile. Gabriel's eyes narrowed at her actions. How could she be so light-hearted when just moments ago she was sifting through her melancholy. Suddenly she was back somewhere in her memories, and he was afraid of what she was about to say.
"You haven't changed." She said. "You're just work, work, work. Always doing the day's work instead of taking a moment for yourself." Mina's head lowered behind a few strands of her dirty hair, the soft strands curling around her pale blue cheeks and in front of her blackened eyes. Gabriel tried to ignore her but pieces of him were begging him to listen and just for once accept that he could have been someone completely different prior to waking up in the Vatican. Embrace it Gabriel. Isn't this what you're looking for?
What if it's not though Gabriel? He asked himself, droning Mina's words out. What if you're just looking for a reason to keep killing, and you found the first and the easiest one to latch on to. But even though you claim that it's your reason, it's nothing but an excuse. It's just a fool's hope. Because the truth is you don't want to remember. The truth is you're scared of remembering.
Mina's voice was cut short. They had finally reached the glowing light in the distance of the cave and were embraced by it, finding that the light was coming from the magickal glow of mirrored walls. Gabriel could smell the tang of cold metal, and when he ran his bare fingers along the walls he could feel the smoothness of a foreign matter. He turned his eyes from wall to wall and found only his face, only his corpse-like appearance while Mina was spared seeing her own. If he stared at the wall it was like he was by himself. Mina was nowhere to be seen.
It was torture for her. Her eyes avoided the walls, too hurt to be reminded that she could no longer look at her immortal face and see what kind of thing she had become.
The mirrors on either side of the walls made the hallway wide and vast and hundreds of Gabriel Van Helsing's appear on either side. It spanned off for miles and miles with nothing but hallways and Gabriel standing there alone, looking back and forth suspiciously.
"Excellent defence mechanism." Mina commented with a nervous and painful swallow.
"Except against vampires." Gabriel said, recalling 'Aingeal's' comment about being lucky in the long run. Mina ignored that comment. He stopped and gave a small smile. "I think I have some other, less vague ideas about Morgan's death."
"You better get thinking quickly." Mina said. Gabriel sniffed the air. It was getting lighter. They were growing closer to the way out.
Carl struggled with the chains above him. He could feel the blood and sweat from his wrists allowing his hands to slide from the thick manacles. The thought sent a chill down his spine. So that's her plan. I'm simply to fall when I slide from these damned things. Oh... The rest of this thoughts and murmured words were long strings of every curse word he knew. It wasn't very many so he repeated the four or five that he knew fluently as he grabbed hold of the chains to prevent himself from sliding any further down the wall.
He stared hard at Morgan's kingdom, looking for any signs of Gabriel. It would have been a great relief to see Gabriel popping his head up and showing some inclination to get him off the wall. There was very little that he could see though. The dizzying amounts of lights were everywhere making small burns on his retina and more colours to dance irritatingly about.
And then he saw the two figures creep out and into the open, moving quickly from a series of caves by the castle walls. Gabriel! All right, now he just has to get me down from here.
Gabriel turned his head skyward. He shook his head. He thought he had just seen Carl hanging from the tower wall, but that was absolutely...
No. Look again Gabriel. Short stature, large cloth robes, small -no, correction, smallish-head...That's Carl hanging from the tallest tower in Morgan's INFERNAL castle.
He stopped short. "Well this is just perfect."
"What? The fact that we still have to get over the wall? Or Carl hanging from Morgan's tower?"
"Both." Gabriel replied. He took out his grappling gun. "Come on." Mina stepped over to him and felt his hand pressed against the curve of her back, holding her tightly against his chest. He lifted his arm and shot for the top of the wall. The hook snapped out from the gun, embedding itself in the rock and snapping taught.
"Just think about being a bat." He told her as his arm around her back tightened and Mina slung her arms around his neck. With their heads facing skyward the gun began to work. The two were pulled into the air and swung over the wall and onto the stone floor of the wall once again.
"This just keeps getting better and better." Gabriel commented when the guards appeared as if out of nowhere. They stepped out of the shadows with their pale skin glowing. The Faeries that fluttered around the castle were screaming and shouting, giving alarm to those who still didn't know that their castle had been breached. He pulled the hook from the wall just as the first sword swung at him. Mina kicked one out of the way, knocking him back a few feet just as the other slashed at Gabriel. He fired the grappling gun straight ahead, the hook finding its way into the tower where Carl was hanging. Mina had already taken care of the other guard by snatching a dagger off Gabriel's belt and running the other through.
"We really don't have time for this." She said back to him, just as he grabbed hold of her again.
"You really are new to this line of work aren't you?" He asked jokingly, running with her and jumping over the small turrets and swinging down and over the courtyard. Mina wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head into his shoulder as the ground left her feet and she took flight temporarily. Gabriel swung down between the towers and onto an arched, stained glass ceiling. It took him a moment but it was registered quickly in his mind. They were over top of Morgan's ballroom.
"So what's your plan now?" She asked him, waiting to be impressed with some other of his gadgets and his way out of this situation. Especially since there were now bows being loaded from the outer wall. Gabriel pushed Mina to the tower wall, tossing her the bowstring he was carrying for her. She was already gathering her weapon from her back. He looked across to the wall.
Wait a second Gabriel...His mind told him. They're aiming is entirely off. They'll never hit us at that angle...
But they will hit...
"Any second you see fit to get me down from here would be just excellent Van Helsing!" Carl shouted just as the arrows started to fly. The poor Friar lifted his legs and twisted against the wall as the Faeries used his writhing body for target practise.
Mina strung her own bow, forsaking the fact that she could barely aim half as well as the Faerie sentries who were firing at Carl. The Friar gave another scream as the arrow struck the wall by his head. The wooden shaft of the arrow splintered and cracked as another narrowly missed his arm.
The arrow from Mina's bow sped through the air. Her technique was better than in the woods, but naturally, her aim was off by inches. It was hardly the accuracy Gabriel was praying for, but in the end, it got the guards' to turn their attentions towards the outnumbered man and woman on top of their Mistress's ballroom.
"Now that you've got their attention..." Gabriel began. He grabbed the remaining canister of Greek fire from his coat. From a good distance he smashed the canister against the stained glass ceiling. The tiny pieces of jagged clay and inky liquid flew back and just missed his hair and face again. With a burning intensity in his eyes, Gabriel turned and grabbed Mina's wrist as she let another arrow fly. They ran to the flames on the unbroken ceiling.
"Jump!" He ordered. Their feet left the ground and hit the glass. It was only for seconds though and with the combination of their weight and the fire the window beneath them shattered and dropped them into the crowded ballroom below.
Gabriel spun Mina close to his body in a quick movement and fired the grappling hook upwards towards the ceiling. The sharp hook latched onto the thick beams and stopped their fall a few feet from the ground, hanging over the heads of the Faerie dancers they had once been in the company of.
Good going. You've found yourself in another ballroom with another crowd of supernatural creatures.
"What's your plan now?" She demanded.
"I'm working on that." He replied quickly. The ballroom had already gone into a frenzy, having either not heard the faeries outside or choosing to ignore them because of their little ceremony. With his quick reflexes he reached for the sword at his belt just as Mina started to slip from his grasp. She dropped into the crowds of the Faerie folk and was lost for the moment.
"Damn it." Gabriel cursed, and pulled out the sword as he let go of the grappling gun. He swung the iron blade to the side.
The iron blade made the Faeries stop short in fear and pain. The mere presence of the metal was enough to make some grab their heads in agony. Mina stood up with her bow armed and at the ready. The small iron tip of the arrow hovered around the pale faces of the Faerie people. They backed off and hovered in tight circles around the two, hissing and screeching at the intruders. Mina circled around, moving forward to Gabriel as he looked for a way out of the room.
"Alright. I'll go for Morgan. You help Carl." Mina nodded without complaint, never once questioning the orders that he handed her. She headed straight ahead, the arrow still held in the bow with her arm muscles flexed and tightened. Gabriel used his senses, fighting through the cloud of Faerie Magick coming from all sides of the ballroom. He sniffed the air and used all his wits to tell him that Morgan was in the same direction that Mina was headed. He swung the sword around a little, teasing the Faeries as if to dare them to try something. They hissed and screeched again as he took off after Mina.
He bounded around the corner and found his presence right on time. They had lost the element of surprise before ever having it, so it was no shock to find that Mina was already in over her head. She had run into three of Morgan's faerie sentries, each of which was armed with sharp daggers in each hand. The bow was obviously no match for close hand opponents, and she had given up on it long ago, relying mainly on hand-to-hand combat when she could.
It's not like it does much to her anyways. We are talking about a vampire here.
Gabriel slashed the first that was closest to him, taking him out with nothing more that a scratch of the blade. The Faerie went into a spasm on the ground, writhing in agony as his body imploded and changed from a flawless and beautiful willowy creature to nothing but dust.
His eyes narrowed. He had seen the same thing happen before, but where?
The other two Faerie sentries were looking even more merciless with their friend's failure. Gabriel reached into his sleeve and quickly grabbed the lonely tojo blade from the pocket near his cuff.
"Here." He said, tossing it to Mina. He made sure she grabbed it before taking down another. The head of the sentry was thrown to the wall without much difficulty. His own body became dust just as the first had.
With a final thrust the last was finished off. Gasping for breath, Mina handed the tojo blade back to him. Gabriel put it back in his sleeve.
"I've figured it out." He said. "I know what Morgan wants to do. And I know why she needed your blood and flesh to do it."
Author's Notes: I hope this chapter saved readers from the mass of tedium and flashbacks between Morgan's capturing and Carl and onward. I got caught up in the need for angst and action that I started focusing on only one. Sorry about that everyone!
Oh, and a note to everyone: The Anna double will come in nearer to the end. I didn't want to stay in the cave any longer than I had to. Maybe that's a hint that they're returning to the catacombs...maybe it's not....WHO KNOWS?
Reviews:
Fanfiction Fanatic: The virus thing isn't looking too good right now. My mother says the comp might be totally fried and that's not good for either of us. It's worse for her since she's doing a University course over the Internet and needed the Microsoft Office for her assignments. I just hope she can get it fixed enough for even her to use it because I have my own computer at my dad's. It's not as good, but as long as she can get hers to work I'm happy. It's awesome to hear that life's getting back to normal for you.
Sir TiddyWinkle: I hope this chapter was exciting enough for you (I know the beginning was mainly dialogue. Hope you didn't start hurting the computer monitor). Next chapter will hopefully (if my timing's right) the confrontation, so it will be all fun until the end. Thanks for still loving my story despite the tedium!
HyperCaz: Self was right to tell me about boredom. I hope this chapter was exciting again. Lot's of fun when Gabriel's running around and Carl might be exploding things (Wait, he's on the tower isn't he?). I totally agree with you about LXG. I still think it was centred too much on Sean Connery's character. I wanted to hear more about everyone else. The real irony in LXG is that even though Connery's character was the leader in the movie, Mina is the 'leader' in the book and she's a woman. I thought it was ironic. I don't know about anyone else.
J: There were so many awesome things in The London Assignment. I laughed hysterically when Carl starts talking about Lip Rouge and Corset sizes. I can't imagine how many times David Wenham must have burst out laughing (although the man did play a cross-dresser in Moulin Rouge so one must question what his tolerance is for humour). Love the reference to Monty Python with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (I'm pretty sure you spelled it right but who knows). All I could see was the corpse of that blood sucking rabbit go flying through the air and Carl jumping up and down with glee (or maybe that just my sadistic side doing the thinking shrugs)
I can't say that's I've ever read and or watched the anime Hellsing, reason being that the two Blockbuster's we have in town don't carry much anime eye twitch and the anime they do have isn't that great (although, I must confess to having an addiction to Slayers and 'X' the series). I should go looking for it. What's it about?
'Macbeth's Syndrome' was a reference to Macbeth's problem that when he thought too hard about something he would second-guess himself. Sorry, I read Macbeth last year in English and thought of Carl almost immediately. Macbeth is about to kill the king, thinks about it, hesitates, suck it up, attempts to kill the king, thinks about it, hears the son cry out in his sleep, hesitates again, kills the king...and the rest is history. I wasn't implying that Carl was about to kill the king or the equivalent of one (Jinette is priceless. He must survive!), just that he had a problem with thinking too hard.
Oh man! If the DVD artwork sucks shit than that means...well that means that I'll still buy it but be disappointed. Perfect.... Just my luck that the movie I'm waiting for the most (besides Kill Bill 2 and Ladder 49) has SHTTY artwork. Shakes fist
Tremors.... giggles at old memories of watching only one episode on the Sci-Fi network before having to turn it off Carl's awesome that way. He could come up with a weapon or a plan, as long as someone blindfolded him before he could get a good look at what they were up against. I can't wait to write about how he gets down off the tower (That's next chapter). Sighs SO many ways to kill Morgan, so little time. Maybe Gabriel will just leave her alive and start a long line of people to score hits on her. Now that would be funny. She would just keep on recovering and the hits would keep on coming laughs evilly. I watched too many violent movies as a child...
Grissom: Wow. Spontaneous combustion due to a story I wrote? I wouldn't be sure whether to be flattered or be insulted. I would probably take it as a compliment anyways.
Don't feel badly about using WordPad. I hate the damn thing. It doesn't check your mistakes and it doesn't have as many pretty fonts (font is everything in my mind. It has to look good even if I'm the only one who'll see it like that). Our computer is pretty fucked up right at the moment. Pardon my 'French' but it's the only way to describe it. Our Norton Anti-Virus is going haywire and bringing up over sixty viruses (I'm blaming my brother, but isn't that the response to everything? If something goes wrong, the most petty and immature thing to do is blame the sibling. Naturally, it's my first response...)
You have the same problem I have. I can be inspired by nothing at all and the scenes are always ones that come later in the story and never in the beginning. I can't write introductions very well (which is why most of the beginnings to my stories are pretty bad). I can come up with the endings to stories that I haven't even thought out yet, and when I go to write them I can't get started properly.
I like England as a setting. I have only been there once but it is rich with history of human civilization. The Celts settled there, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Vikings...and that's just the people. Then there are the stories and the bloodshed and the Magick and the mystery. Even for people who haven't been there it's fascinating. Judging by your other stories it will be great in the end.
Yes, Canada, eh? I hate to admit it, but the use of eh? Is actually quite common here. It's pretty hilarious. I even find myself saying, 'I know, eh?' It's habit now. However there are a lot of things that aren't true about Canada. It's not that cold here and we certainly don't travel around in dog sleds (depends on how far North you go. I haven't been much further than Lake Superior, and that's not that far). The only people you have to worry about seeing it before October are those who downloaded it off the Internet, but it's getting really hard to do now that they're cracking he whip down on Internet Pirates (hides all the burned CD's of movies under the floorboards and looks around suspiciously) Lol. Just kidding.
Happy Before-College-Starts! That chapter up there, that's my gift to you. I proofread it a few times, so hopefully it's better than the others.
Trinity Van Helsing: Did you have any doubt that Van Helsing would kick their butts? Thanks very much!
Scholar: I'm happy to hear that you're still interested. I was worried with my prolonged absence that people had given up completely. That's a weird remedy. I've never heard of citrus juice doing anything but stinging wounds (And you're eyes if you happen to peel an orange the wrong way shudders at the memory) Then again, I could see Carl doing something like that giggles. And if it worked for someone in the tower of London...
Nicolaus Pacione: I had meant to write in that the Spiders were your idea. They were supposed to have a larger part than that but I'm glad you noticed them just the same. Thank you for letting me use them! Congratulations on having some exclusive stories on Fictionpress. I have to check back there more often. I haven't had time to write original fiction lately. Thanks for saying that you'd publish me. Hopefully I'll get some kind of story idea to write about. Right now I'm pretty focused on this. Thank you!
Well, it's late and I'm tired. Thank you for everyone's reviews. I really like reading and responding to them. It gives me a break from thinking about the story, which is healthy in my mind. Hope everyone is happy with the progress and are looking forward to another end but a new beginning (if I can work out the plot holes in the sequel). If anyone has any ideas, questions, and comments...yada yada yada...feel free to mention them in a review. Happy reading, writing, whatever you like doing!
