Chapter Twenty-Five: Aftermath

Go, I follow

As fast as I've ever run

They limped together through a stone doorway, Carl doing his best to support Tamerlaine, Tamerlaine doing her best to support Carl. Once on the street outside, she guided him towards an alley, uninhabited except for a lonely cat who looked at the two haggard people suspiciously and ran off with a hissing noise.

They collapsed together and leaned back against the wall.

"Are we safe here?" Carl panted.

"As safe as anywhere, I suspect." Tamerlaine tried to get her breath back in a series of fits and gasps.

"Why did they let us go?"

"I'm too bone-weary to even think about that now. Let me be for a bit."

"Right, sorry."

She gasped out a slight laugh. "Carl, stop apologizing for everything."

"Sorry." Carl caught the ridiculousness of things and snickered. "I mean, I'm just, I just really am a little out of things now, I suppose, I—"

She shook her head, leant against him and put her head on his shoulder. "Shut up," she mumbled in his ear and fell asleep.

Van Helsing came awake, blinking slowly. He found, to his surprise, that he stood fully upright, halfway dressed, in Carl's room.

Why am I here?

Why are any of us here?

No need to get philosophical, Van Helsing.

Anna. He didn't even think about it, it didn't even make him blink. Anna was there, in his head. Somehow she'd gotten over the fear that had accompanied her death.

Are you haunting me, Anna Valerious?

Just who is haunting whom, Van Helsing?

He must be in Carl's room for a reason. He began to look around, noting that though this had been the friar's room in his childhood, it held no vestiges of the fact. No toys, few books— it was cold, with the fire out, and completely impersonal. Van Helsing shivered.

There was nothing there.

Come now, Van Helsing, the voice in his head chided. Are you going to give up so easily?

Carl was a bright man, and had been, no doubt, a bright boy, albeit, Van Helsing grinned, a somewhat rotund one. The first place someone would look— would be, probably, under the bed. So it wouldn't be there.

Or maybe it would, if Carl was sneaky enough. Perhaps he expected someone to dismiss the obvious place—

Of course, he may have anticipated that twist of thought, too, in which case—

Van Helsing shook his head. He was confusing himself needlessly. The simplest thing to do would be to look, of course.

He bent down, sinking to his knees beside the bed.

If only I didn't feel this constant need to prove myself Carl's intellectual equal—

If you weren't so insecure about yourself, you wouldn't have this problem.

Insecure? Why should I be insecure? Especially when I compare myself to that pale little whiz- kid of a friar?

Well, they do say blonds have more fun.

Van Helsing looked under the bed.

A few dust bunnies stared back at him.

He looked further, contorting himself awkwardly, but clearly there was nothing there. With a sigh of disappointment that sent the dust bunnies flurrying, he moved to stand back up, and caught his head a sharp crack on the bed.

"Ow—"

Van Helsing rolled over onto his back, clutching his head and cursing to himself. Carl would have been proud.

It was thus, lying on his back staring at the underside of the bed, that he saw it.

He pulled it from the slats that encased it, clambered up from the floor, more carefully this time, and placed the object on the bed. A book it was, fairly large, with no title on the binding.

With wide eyes and careful fingers, he began to turn the pages.