Deadly Abandon

Memories

Ashian watched in horror as the carriage pulled down the wooded lane. Headmaster Jameson had told her that they were taking Van Helsing away, but some part of her hoped he was just lying. As Van Helsing gazed longingly out the small window of his compartment, Ashian attempted to smile, but she figured that between the tears and her swollen eyes, her pinched smile would probably just remind him of the gargoyles that festered in the black forest surrounding the school. Ashian tried to block out her fondest memories, but bloody visions of Van Helsing came flooding in. Among the whirling images one stood out. Van Helsing waiting for her, silhouetted against the moonlight, a gun in his left hand, a silver stake in his right.

A sinewy hand, weathered from countless hours of scribing and embroidery padded not so softly on Ashian's shoulder. She looked up to find her most hated teacher, Mistress Haung, leering down through her large spectacles.

"Come, my dear. You need to find some new friends; friends that don't sneak off in the middle of the night to do ghastly things with innocent young women." Haung's nasally drone wound through the whipping wind that howled like Ashian wanted to.

Innocent. Were that she was. Ashian had seen more – experienced more than Haung had ever in her seventy plus years.

Images blended and feelings mixed until Ashian wasn't sure where she was. There was a sudden spinning and a giant thud.

Ashian felt her body melt back together as she stared at the bloodied balcony. Suddenly the door to the grand library slammed open and a man rushed in. His vision panned the room and came to rest on her.

"Thank God you're alright!" He ran, almost flew, towards her and wrapped her in a protective embrace. "I thought for sure that you were dead." Impulsively, he drew her chin upward and gently, then passionately, kissed her.

Ashian woke in her blood soaked bed, and instinctively her gaze shot to the window. Ashian sighed in relief. She never slept past sunset if she could help it, and she had woken just in time to see the beginning of the sun's decent towards the horizon. Ashian ran her hand through her hair when she realized that her bed wasn't wet from monthly bleeding, or even wetting the bed, but from sweat.

"Not again." Ashian brought her head onto her knees. "Van Helsing, where are you? Why can't you leave me alone?"

For the past two weeks now, Ashian had been reliving her childhood in her dreams. Not the whole childhood, mind you, only her most vivid memories of her best friend, Gabriel Van Helsing. It had been twenty or so years since he abandoned her, and for twenty or so years Ashian had kept her emotions locked away in the darkest corner of her mind, but now they refused to stay bottled up.

Looking once more out her window, Ashian got out of her four-poster bed and quickly pulled on her trousers and a loose blouse. She didn't usually get dressed in her normal clothes until she was sure that none of the respectable society would be out, but tonight she made an exception. Grabbing her pencils and sketch pad, she raced up a flight of stairs to her rooftop so that she could draw the sunset and drown her emotions in the sea lead.

Ashian leapt gracefully onto the railing and perched her sketch pad on her lap. She took a deep breath of concentration and let the inspiration take her. Ashian never really knew what she was drawing until she was done, and sometimes she never really knew what she had drawn even after she was finished. Sometimes her sketches would release pent up emotion that had caused her a slip of some sort in combat, and sometimes the passionate need to draw would over power her so that she thought some other being was using her as a medium for self expression. Indeed, it was often in those times that she would draw scenes of battles long past or of shady woodlands a hundred times darker than the forest behind The Magellan Co-ed Boarding College for Young Adults.

The Magellan College. It was a risky place to start. In 1828 boarding schools were never co-ed. It was believed that young people wouldn't be able to control the wild passions of youthful abandon unless properly supervised. But Headmaster Jameson took care of that. In the waking hours the professors surveyed them like hawks, and after hours the students were watched closer than the crown jewels. But that never stopped Ashian and Van Helsing from creeping away. They would sneak out at ten o'clock every night and return at two in the morning to cram in as many sleeping hours as they could get.

Ashian quickly broke her train of thought and looked down at her drawing. It was one of her better works. They always turned out better when she didn't pay attention. Her sketch was of a tall dark figure on a black stallion against the setting sun. The rider's face was hidden by a wide brimmed hat, and a long dark coat flared behind him. The shading of the drawing showed sweat glistening on the horse's flank, hinting that the rider had been pressing it hard. Many of the leading lines in the sketch brought attention to the rider's right hand. The left hand wasn't showing, so Ashian assumed that the rider was headed north. Upon closer examination, however, Ashian noticed a ring on his fore finger. It was a large green stone set in silver that complimented his strong hands. Carved into the green stone and then filled with silver was a winged snake.

Frightened by the sketch, Ashian quickly crumpled it up and tossed it towards the gutter three stories below her. Shaking with surprise, she swung herself of the railings and marched absently back inside. Who was that man, and why was he wearing Van Helsing's ring?

Ashian headed down the three stories of her quaint Paris town home. The top level was more personal rooms that guests were never shown. They included her weapon room, her library and Gabriella's room. The next level held her sleeping quarters, two restrooms, and two very lavishly decorated guest rooms. The final level was made up of a small kitchen, a dinning room, and a fashionable sitting room that sometimes doubled as a ballroom. Tonight the furniture had been pushed back, and a small dais had been set up for the musicians. A quick glance assured Ashian that Gabriella had already set the table with name cards in the proper positions. Ashian shook her head. What would she ever do with out Gabby?

Ashian walked into the kitchen to find Gabriella seated at the small table with the evening post spread out in front of her. She had a plate of peaches and toast set out in front of her, but Ashian knew she wouldn't eat it and dug greedily into the small breakfast.

Without looking up Gabriella began her usual morning report of what the papers said. "Well, it looks like the queen's heath is still an issue, and those two bank robbers are still at large." She folded the paper and pulled to sheets of paper out from underneath her chair. "And look what I found."

Ashian looked up and saw the sketch she had just discarded. Either Gabriella had gone to fetch the paper just after the drawing had left Ashian's sight, or Gabriella had been watching her. "Well, what about it?"

Gabriella leaned forward to examine the crumpled picture. "Who is it?"

Ashian pushed forward her plate. Suddenly she wasn't so hungry any more. "I don't know. But you remember how I drew the Russian Capital before I'd ever been to Moscow? I think the same thing happened here. Except I think I might know who this man is."

"And..." It drove Gabriella insane how Ashian never told the whole story at once.

"I think it's Van Helsing." Ashian didn't look up at Gabriella to see the shocked recognition in her face; she knew it was there.

Gabriella reached underneath the sketch and slowly drew out a wanted poster. "Then maybe you really do need to see this, love."

Ashian looked up from her discarded plate to the poster. Staring at her was a man with a wide brimmed hat and a high collar. It was the same person from her sketch; it was Van Helsing. He was taller, and his long dark hair fell to his wide shoulders. It hardly looked like the skinny boy who had sat next to her in all her classes, but his face hadn't changed. His dark brown eyes still smoldered beneath a soft brow hardened by experience, his nostrils still flared in his almost continual anger, and his mouth was probably still set in a hard grimace. He didn't look like it, but Ashian knew that Van Helsing could be the kindest bloke you could meet. The poster wasn't a very flattering sketch because it was just a portrait pieced together from eyewitness accounts, but still it flooded Ashian with memories of how beautiful he was when he moved.

"Van Helsing, what did you get yourself into this time?" Even though she hardly whispered it, she knew Gabriella had heard her. Looking up at her friend, she let loose a rare show of emotion. "Gabby, what do I do now?"

Gabriella pursed her lips in a show concentration and sighed before answering, "You continue with the party and all the plans attached. Chances are that he's on the other side of the planet, so you need not worry about him." She stood up. "Come on, love. You need to become presentable if this whole affair is to turn out for the best."

Ashian allowed herself to be ushered out of the kitchen by Gabriella, but couldn't help but shiver as her gaze passed over the poster and her picture.