Hey everybody! Keep the reviews flowing, please! I'll probably be concentrating more on this fic now that "Van Helsing and the Village People" is at long last finished (I never intended it to go past ten chapters, and it ended at 22! Wow.) Guess what I did? Or attempted to do, anyway. I sent the link to "VH and the Village People" to the Dwenham's agent... so Dwen could read it if he wants.... go right ahead and call me insane, everybody else does. Anyway, at long last I saw VH again! Watch it with the commentaries by Richard Roxburgh and the others, its HILARIOUS!

Chapter 13: Comfort

We humans do what e'er we must

We fail and do not hold our trust

Van Helsing, veteran of a thousand wars, warrior against evil, oftentimes thought possessed of the Devil, champion of lost causes, and with a tendency to rush into drastically dangerous situations without listening to what his friend the friar said, was learning what it meant to be truly uncomfortable. He was eating afternoon tea with Hannah Hampton, and learning compassion for Carl at the same time. He was frustrated at every conversational turn.

"Lovely weather—"

"If you call this lovely, I have serious doubts as to your ability to discern night from day. I call this downright gloomy."

"You have a beautiful home—"

"Left to me by my parents when they died. Carl may have mentioned it, though it's doubtful— my mother passed away just a few weeks ago. This is a house of mourning and I'll thank you to remember it and not wear such flashy clothing from now on."

Van Helsing glanced down at himself. Black shirt, black coat, black trousers, black boots, black socks, black, if it came to that, underthings— or at least stained a dirty brown. His bemusement must have shown on his face, because Hanna waved an explanatory hand delicately towards his waist. Van Helsing looked slowly down and, even more slowly, up.

"A belt-buckle," he said, slowly. "A silver belt buckle."

"I've never seen the like," sniffed Hannah. "And on top of that your haircut is most immodest."

"Immodest," repeated Van Helsing, in a modified roar. "How can one have an immodest haircut?"

"I know I, for one, did not think it possible, but you have managed it. By some determined effort to be ungentlemanly to as many people as possible, I suppose."

"It was your younger brother," said Van Helsing lividly, "who was responsible for the hair situation in the first place. And furthermore, if some blasted witch of an old bat hadn't insisted on me not wearing my hat inside, you wouldn't see it at all!"

"Amazing," Hannah huffed on, unperturbed by his outburst, "that to the common observer I must apear to be housing some worldly hooligan, instead of someone who claims to reside in the Vatican!"

"I do reside in the Vatican!"

"And I can only imagine what you do there," said the demon Hannah, sweetly, plumping fat elbows onto the table and leaning chins in hand. "Are you employed as a ratcatcher, perhaps?"

The sudden appearance of Carl was timely in a manner of speaking, because it prevented Van Helsing from strangling his sister with his bare hands, and untimely in a manner of speaking because, well, it kept Van Helsing from strangling his sister with his bare hands. Whatever the verdict, Carl burst into the room with his hair slicked to his head, and his sodden and muddied robes trailing on the floor. "Good lord!" he cried, "a fire at last!"

"Carl!" said Hannah, her eyes wide and face shocked. "You're dripping all over the floor!"

"Brandy," beseeched Carl. Van Helsing tipped something into a cup and presented it to him. Carl drank the cup dry, gulped a few times, then said, "That's wine!"

"I'm sorry," said Van Helsing kindly, "but you kow how your sister is about evil spirits."

"Carl!" his sister said. "You're dripping all over the floor!"

Van Helsing poured some more wine into the cup and pressed it into Carl's trembling hand. "What happened, my friend?"

Carl stared at him, wild-eyed. "What happened?" he cried. "What happened? I fell off the sodding tower is what happened!"

B.R.E.A.K.

Some time later, Carl and Van Helsing sat before the fire in Carl's room. Carl had stripped off his robes but, not having extras with him, or indeed at all, had consented to borrowing trousers and a shirt from Van Helsing. The clothes hung on him rather a lot; though Carl cinched the belt as tight as he could, he couldn't do anything about the extra four inches at the ankles.

"It's funny," he said tiredly, "but you never quite realize the differences in human stature till you wear another man's clothes."

"That's right Carl," said Van Helsing tolerantly. Carl had told him all, and he was mulling it over in his mind. "What did she hope to find out from her captors?"

"I don't know," said Carl. "Unless perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the man Simon was apparently one of them— or in on the scheme. And he's not her brother.

"No?"

"No," said Carl definitely. "She told me he wasn't."

"Then he was lying about everything."

"Not— everything," Carl said slowly. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to open this line of conversation up. "She— she told me, when first we met a few days ago, to ask a cabbie where she lived, that they would know. So I— I asked a cabbie." Carl looked miserable. "This man had been living with T— with her for ten years. Since she got out of the asylum."

"Oh." Van Helsing was quiet. Then he said, "You think you've had a bad afternoon—"

"Well—" Carl stared at him. "Yes, I rather think I have."

"Ah, but you weren't forced to have tea with your sister."

"What— Van Helsing, I—"

"She complained. Absolutely nonstop. I've met demons less deadly than her. She makes Dracula look positively benign."

"Well, yes," Carl admitted, "she does, rather."

"I can't believe how painful she is to listen to. I'd rather put a cigar out in my eye than sit through that again."

"Well, she's had a lot of practice."

"I cannot believe," Van Helsing went on in a tone of cold fury, "that someone who looks as innocently large as your sister can be so evil."

"Oh, Hannah, well— you'd be surprised," said Carl. "Making people feel like they want to throw themselves from extremely high windows is all in a day's work for Hannah. Look, Van Helsing—" He leant forward. "You're changing the subject on purpose. What are you not telling me?"

"Well—" Van Helsing avoided meeting his friend's eyes. "Are you— quite sure she's a prisoner, Carl?"

Shock and outrage registered plainly on Carl's open countenance. "What," he said deliberately, "aren't you telling me, Van Helsing?"

Van Helsing leaned back, lifting his head and staring at the flames. His dark hazel eyes narrowed and he said, as though reciting a learned speech, "A total of twelve bodies were found this morning; most had been in positions of power while alive. Two were on local council, one was in Parliament, three were local politicians, one was the wife of a politician, three were the head members of the police force, one was a prominent clergyman, and one was the child of a politician. They were gathered at the instigation of Sir Edward Gentle, Tamerlaine's uncle. Evidence was found at the scene of the crime— leading the police to believe that Tamerlaine Gentle murdered them and then committed suicide herself. There were three eyewitnesses who placed Tamerlaine Gentle at the scene, and her— mental record is of course well-known to the authorities. Now," said Van Helsing placatingly, somewhat worried at the expression on Carl's face and the fact that he didn't seem to be breathing, "now can you see that it looks a little suspicious to me that your Tamerlaine, when given an opportunity to escape, should choose to remain in captivity? Can you not see that there is a possibility that, having done the things she did and wishing to escape punishment for them, she might also create a decoy in order to lure people into thinking she is dead, before going into hiding herself? And this man Simon, whoever he is, could easily be persuaded to pose as her brother and identify the body, if he truly—" He stopped.

"Loves her," said Carl bleakly. "Yes, I see what you mean. A man would do a great many things for love."

The expression in Carl's eyes was so faraway that Van Helsing feared somewhat for the friar's sanity.

"I am not saying that I am right absolutely," he said hurriedly. "I'm only saying, let us be careful where we tread. I can't think that the Vatican would be very happy with us for liberating a mass murderer."

Carl was very quiet for a long time.

Then he said, "Ah, but don't you see? It does not matter. It does not matter what they want, or what you want, or what I want—"

No matter what Van Helsing said after that, Carl wouldn't speak. He retreated into himself and appeared to be thinking harder than he'd ever thought before. Van Helsing wasn't sure if this was good or bad.

In reality Carl wasn't thinking so much as feeling. Emotions flooded his brain to the point that he sat still in his chair, staring fixedly at the fire as the play of the flames cast odd shadows and lights over his face. He sat for a long time and did not move.

At long last he raised his eyes and said, "My friend—"

Van Helsing looked at him attentively.

"I think— I have— a plan."