Alrihgty now, once again, I stink at narrating action adn the last bit of action is sappy. It may help if you re-read teh beginning of chapter one, you know, the dream Ashian has. Tecnically i could be done with this, but i hate cliff hanger endings. Review and tell me whatcha think.
RandomBattlecry: You are quite welcome for teh chapter dedication.
PiPPin: thank you for finally reading my story.
Becca the Giggler: Thanks so much for you demands that i finsih this. It's actually longer than my novel, but my novel's not done.
Savitri: Stop flamming me, okay! Jeeze, do I need to remind you about your attempt at writing something? Hmm?
Audrey: Dracula's Back!
Jacqui12b: Well, i wrote more!
nicnok: Once again, I updated (with you in mind. Am ionyour author alert list?)
Kawaii Kitty9: Jeeze, it's about time you got to this chapter! (Joking)
Lord Harven: I like Ashian too : )
Elfperson: Thankx for following me writing
legolas-luthien69: Thank you sooo much for my first review! Sorry I never got to review you...
Histories; discovered and buried
"Welcome, my dear, to Hunedora castle." Ashian jumped as Dracula whispered in her ear. "How may I help you?" He began stroking her neck, fingering the seven pairs of pinprick scars.
"You know why I came here." Ashian struggled against the impulse to attack Dracula.
"Yes, you want answers. But my dear, you have yet to ask questions." Dracula stepped back and poured himself a glass of the blood Sonwaja had opened earlier. She had left as soon as Dracula entered.
"Alright, here's one: Why do want me to be a vampire?" Ashian's fist clutched a cross inside her coat, but she immediately released it when it began to burn her hand.
Dracula smirked at her shocked face. "You should probably remove that waste of metal from your personage before it burns your clothes, my dear. Now, why do I want you to be a vampire? You are the final test in a very long experiment, there is no personal reason. That Van Helsing is so powerless against it is merely an added bonus."
"An experiment." Ashian muttered to herself. Perhaps it explained things, but Ashian's mind was slow from grief and pain. "What sort of experiment?"
Dracula watched her pace the room like a breeder would watch his prize charger. "An experiment to find the perfect vampire, unstoppable and feared by all." Dracula paused before beginning anew. "Tell me, my dear, do you know who your sire and dam are?"
"My parents?" Ashian was disturbed by his use of breeder's terms. "Only that my mother was a Romanian pagan priestess."
"Ah, that is more than I expected you to know. Yes, she was a pagan priestess, but not Romanian, she was a Transylvanian. Her name was Tamesis, named for the Greek river goddess. She was descended from a long line of my worshipers, known as some of the freest willed and stubborn women in the history of vampires. Your father was named Tahmores, also a descendent of my followers. He was strong, brave, cunning, and loyal. At my order, they had you. You see, for some two hundred years now, I have tried to breed a successor, but all my attempts have failed. You show the most promise, despite mingling with Van Helsing," Dracula spit the name like it was a curse.
Ashian slowly put two and two together. "Wait, how would you know that I've met Van Helsing before that night I killed Xiomara? You'd have to have followed me beyond the first time you bit me. That means that you were the demon in my dreams! You were the reason I couldn't sleep in the dark! You were the reason I met Van Helsing, which means you were the reason we got in an argument! You're also the reason I've been bitten seven times!" Ashian sunk into an overstuffed chair. When she spoke again her voice was coated with the frosty note that Van Helsing had learned to heed. "You are the reason my life lies in shambles around my feet."
"It is not my fault you were separated from Van Helsing. Do away with your emotion, it makes you weak. If I must, I will kill Gabriel Van Helsing for you, though I was hoping that I could let him die with the misery of knowing what you have become."
Ashian looked up at Dracula, her eyes glowing red. "You will do no such thing."
Carl stumbled through the ice portal for the second time in his life. Two times was too many. He blinked the rain out of his eyes and stumbled into Van Helsing. Did it ever stop raining around here?
"Van Helsing, what are you –" Carl stopped mid-sentence when he saw what his friend was staring at. It was a corpse, ragged and hollow, dried blood caked on its once fine clothes. "Is that…"
"Thomas Elkins." Van Helsing crossed himself.
"Was he a friend of yours?" Carl stifled a scream as Sonwaja peered over his shoulder at the cadaver.
Van Helsing whirled around at the sound of her voice. "Did you this?" He held his katanas spinning and ready to part her head from her shoulders.
"No, it was not me. I would not have wasted so much precious blood. This was your friend Ashian's doing." Sonwaja smirked, totally oblivious to the spinning blades that were digging into her skin.
"You're lying!" Van Helsing shouted. He shoved his katanas forward, but when there should have been a disturbing splash of blood and an awful squelching sound, there was a flare of lightning and Sonwaja was no longer there.
"Van Helsing! Behind you!" Carl shouted as Sonwaja dove from the hanging tree behind him. He lunged out of the way, sliding on the ice and snow toward the edge of the abyss that surrounded Dracula's castle. His gloved hand found the edge in time, only to have his actual hand slide out. As he began to fall, he felt a firm grip catch his wrist. He looked up to find Carl holding onto the cliff edge for both of their lives.
Carl was wondering how long they would hang like this when Sonwaja dove off the edge and flew completely past them. She disappeared into the shadows below and the next instant was flying toward them, a vertical blur of icy skin and flapping wings. Her claw-like hands dug into Van Helsing's back as she flew upward, carrying Van Helsing and Carl (who was hanging onto Van Helsing for dear life) upward and dropping them through the roof of the old laboratory.
Carl landed mercifully on the red couch that he had seen Anna Valerious die on, but the monster hunter was not so fortunate. He landed on a torn piece of equipment and slid limply down its ragged sides, tearing more gashes into his back. He hit the floor in a small pool of his own blood and began to crawl away from the human-looking Sonwaja. She grinned and picked him up by the neck. Small groans escaped his lips as she threw him once again against the rusted piece of apparatus, but this time she held him there.
"Now, Van Helsing, listen well, for it shall be the last thing you hear. I am many dishonorable things, but I am not a liar." Sonwaja's voice was a deadly wind in Van Helsing's ears. "My master wanted you to live so that his experiment might kill you, but for making a mockery of my honor, your precious Ashian will have to settle with weeping over your dead body." Sonwaja licked the blood that ran down Van Helsing's neck before letting her fangs extend. They never had a chance.
Carl rushed Sonwaja with a silver stake in his right hand and a cross in his left. Sonwaja heard him coming and began to fly upward, but not before Carl had successfully driven the stake clean through her stomach. She dropped Van Helsing and clawed her abdomen in pain. While she writhed in agony he stood and pulled the stake out of her belly and sent it through her heart. He stood unflinching as she deteriorated into a pile of dust.
Ashian pounced on Dracula, her body shifting seamlessly into an icy blue demon. She fell short, however, and clutched her head in pain. An unearthly shrieking filled the castle. Just as Ashian thought her eardrums would explode, it stopped abruptly. Dracula had a pained grimace on his face, his jaw clenched and nostrils flared.
"Sonwaja," Dracula whispered to himself. Then to Ashian, "Gabriel has murdered my one surviving bride. As a vampire, her finial cry has a physical pain for you. I wonder, will your pain be as tangible when I kill Van Helsing?" Dracula's features contorted and twisted till he was a vampire's true form.
"NO!" Ashian dove at the ascending hellbeast, her own wings flapping to keep him back. With her contorted feet she grabbed a scourging whip off a stand and shifted it up to her hand. Just before Dracula soared through the balcony in the library that overlooked the laboratory she cracked the whip, sending it wrapping around the hellbeast's neck. Dracula gave a strangled cry and sank to the floor. While he clawed at the strip of leather, bone, and glass around his neck, Ashian shifted into her once human form.
She attacked Dracula with everything in her coat. Her pistols until they wouldn't fire, she shoved crossed into cuts made by silver stakes and knives, roundhouse kicks with the knives in her boot extended, and several blows to his collar bone. Finally Dracula was no more than a limp husk lying on the floor. There were bloody smears along the marble floor and gashes in the walls from the vampire's failed escape attempts. Angered by the sight, Ashian shifted into her own hellbeast shape and threw what had been Dracula over the banister.
Ashian felt her body melt back together as she stared at the bloodied balcony. It was the same scene from the dream she had had before the Halloween party so long ago. Indeed, the library doors came rushing open and a man, bloodied, torn and bruised, came rushing in. Despairingly he surveyed the room, taking in the dismal decorations and smears of blood, old and new. Ashian waited patiently for him to find her, and when he did he almost collapsed.
"Thank God you're all right!" Van Helsing rushed forward and wrapped his arms around her as if she were a specter he didn't wish to let go. Bending closer he whispered in her ear, "I thought for sure you were dead."
Just as in the dream, Van Helsing lifted her chin and let his lips slide over hers. Blood from both their wounds mixed, just as last time they had met so passionately. But this time was different. Ashian let herself get lost in the ardor of the kiss. She didn't want to ever let go, but her eyes snapped open when her enhanced hearing picked up shuffles and murmurs from behind the balcony.
Ashian swung Van Helsing out of the library and threw herself against the door. "Ashian! Ashian, what are you doing?! Ashian!" Van Helsing shouted through the mahogany doors, but Ashian kept him from getting through as Dracula climbed over the balcony.
Dracula's eyes were flaming, his shoulders hunched in fury, his fists clasped tight, and the scourging whip held in his right hand. He cracked it at Ashian and instinctively her arm shot up to block the blow. Shards of metal, bone, and glass dug into her skin. She cried out in pain when Dracula yanked the whip, pulling her toward him. He dropped the whip and squeezed her throat.
His fangs extended and his jaw unhooked. He was going to feed on her, and this time there would be no awakening. Ashian fell limp, realizing there was no hope of escape. Memories flooded her, memories she never knew she had. Christmases at various orphanages, her set of foster parents changing each year, her first day at The Magellan Co-ed Boarding College for Young Adults, whispering with Van Helsing during classes, sneaking out each night, moonlight romps with Van Helsing, their first kiss together, meeting Gabriella, how happy she felt when Van Helsing touched her, and then the pain that shone in his eyes when he knew he couldn't help her. She realized, as her blood flowed out for what would surely be the last time, that she didn't care if she was a vampire of not, but only that Van Helsing loved her and she loved him.
Dracula dropped her and began to scream in pain. High pitched shrieks and low gargles, he clawed his throat, then his chest as if he were on fire. He shifted from hellbeast to human-looking and back again, moaning in pain and hitting against the wall. Finally he sank to the floor and let loose one last animal cry and burst into flames.
Van Helsing forced the door open and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Ashian silhouetted against the blue and white flames. When at last the inferno died out, Ashian collapsed into Van Helsing's arms. She grinned weakly and let him carry her down the stairs and out the hall. Carl was waiting by the portal, trying to remember how they had gotten through last time.
"Gabriel," Ashian whispered. Van Helsing looked down at her, shocked to hear her call him by his first name again. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Van Helsing was frightened by how soft her voice was.
"For being a stupid, scared little girl." She nestled into Van Helsing's arms and let her eyes fall closed.
Alrighty, whatcha think? To continue or not to continue? TELL ME!