Chapter III

She had been lying there on this cold, rocky, gravel floor for quite sometime. Her head throbbed and her sight rather failed her. She could see light, but her view was a haze, and nothing was clear enough to make any sense. The air around her was damp, and she froze like dog in the snow. She sat up and reached out find some stability in the darkness, and she found the wall of this apparently gloomy cave. She leaned against it to rest, and took notice of a clinging noise, as she realised she was bonded by long shackles, which went beyond her view. Her wrists and ankles hurt badly, now that she thought about it.

She was tired, and her eyes were hurting, and drops of salty water fell slowly down her cheeks from time to time. She sat there, heaving deep breaths, and trying to regain her sight. She could see the colours of the sky, and it was very dark, so it was still night. She was the only one to be making noise in the cave, and she was sitting very still. Suddenly, a clinging sound of shackles, which was not made by herself, was echoing through the cave and she figured it came from somewhere just opposite of her. She tried to say something but realised that her throat was very dry, and the flowing of words was caught in her dessert dry mouth. She coughed, and sank, clearing her throat.

"Hello?" she said, her voice rusty, and a taste of dust in her mouth, which she tried to spit out. "Hello? Is anybody there?" she said, hoping to find an allied, maybe even Vlad or Brey. 'God,' she thought, 'I beg of you, God, let them be in safety. I then beg of you to let them come and find me,'

"…Please, God," she whispered.

A mumble came from the other side.

"Yes," the person coughed. "Tamika?"

That moment her spirits lifted. She let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding, and whimpered.

"Vlad? Baby?" she said, crossing her pain, beginning to pull her self nearer to the voice. He did the same, she could hear. 'Thank you, God,' she thought.

"Yes," he breathed, which made her move faster until she could feel a piece of silk. Then she felt the skin of his back, and he hissed and drew back from her.

"God, what did they do to you?" she said, feeling a wet liquid on his back and immediately knew it was his blood, which was mixed wit his sweat and dust.

"When you were knocked back they came to take me as well, and I put up a fight. Why they didn't just shoot, I don't know, but they thought I didn't deserve getting away with only scratches, as I had broken one of their men's jaws, so they jumped me," he said.

"What about Gabriel?" she asked.

"I don't know. I fainted when they bore me to a horse and threw me over its back. I noticed Gabriel was bound already, and they threw him up as well. That's about it, before it all went black," he said.

"He's not in here, is he?" she said, as a stabbing feeling of failure hit down on her, as she felt she had failed her sworn quest of protecting Gabriel.

"I don't think so. They might be questioning him, as he might have been awake from the start. He didn't look as though he had gotten a good whipping, though," he said, a little bitter, perhaps.

She wanted to hold him, to comfort him, but touching his wounds wouldn't be all too good for him. She then crawled around, feeling her way in the darkness, and found what she had been looking for; her coat. She crawled back to Vlad, who was now breathing hard from the pain in his back. She was about to put it around him, but instead decided that this shirt's time had come, and she ripped off the sleeve, to dry off some of the blood and cleans the wounds as good as she could without being able to see much. Then she ripped the other sleeve off too, and ripped it furthermore into pieces, to put on the wounds. Then she put the coat around him, and he pulled her to him, and she snuggled closer.

"I'll buy you a new one," he said, grinning at her, as though he had just read her thoughts.

"Oh, well… it doesn't matter," she said, not wanting to sound selfish.

"It does to me," he said, holding her tightly.

They sat like this for a while, and Vlad shivered from time to time from the pain. She felt so bad about Vlad's condition, and that she couldn't do more, and she wanted to know what happened to Gabriel, too.

Then there were voices, and a lot of light from torches. The cave was rather small. It wasn't very deep, but very broad. It was only Tamika and Vlad who were preoccupying shackles, but there were plenty more shackles for fifteen other people; perhaps even more. There were seven people coming towards the cave opening.; two men up front, dragging a man between them, a woman in the middle, who Tamika couldn't make out very clearly, as she hadn't adjusted her eyes just yet, and then three men positioned around the woman, who all bore a torch and a piece of weapon of sorts. They spoke in a tongue Tamika did not understand.

One of the torch-bearing men shouted to them.

"HEY! You two, apart, now!" he pointed to Vlad and Tamika.

The woman in the middle said something in their language and walked on. Tamika didn't understand.

"What did she say?" Tamika asked, as she was about to move away, but Vlad tugged her back.

"She said that it didn't matter that we sat together or something like that. I didn't get all the words,"

"Oh, Gabriel," she whispered, as she saw his face, which had gotten bruises, and the left corner of his mouth bled a little.

Gabriel had the shackles put on him as well, before they threw him into the wall. The woman was now in clear sight; she had light brown skin, a small figure and dark brown eyes, which seemed lined with kohl, from her left temple, to her right. She had beautiful body curves, and her hair was loose and hanging down, smooth and flat. She wore a light orange and beige-coloured kind of toga, which fitted her very graciously. She had an arm-ring around her left upper arm that resembled a snake which circled 5 times around her arm and was made of silver and had green eyes. She bore a simple necklace of leather string and a pink-orange conk-shell with white lines. In her right ear she had a single animalistic tooth, but from which animal, Tamika couldn't identify, but it was a good 2 inches long. She wore no rings, but many tattoos all around her viewable skin, including in her face. It was just thin, black lines that twisted and turned all around. Those tattoos were also on the men, only with thicker lines.

Gabriel sat up, drawing shallow rasping breaths, while staring crazily at the woman. His head was leant back, but he bent over, coughing. Tamika caught sight of some blood on his left hand, but he smeared it off on his clothes and the gravel on the ground. He looked very haggard right there, unshaven and his skin almost as dark as the stranger woman in front of him.

She looked down at Tamika and Vlad, expressionless, but then she turned to stand before Gabriel. She crouched down before him, rocking back and forth a little and Tamika noticed that she was barefoot, before she opened her mouth to speak in her melodious voice.

"Usted es un tonto, Señior Van Helsing. Y usted puede intentar y ocultar, pero olvidarse de su pasado, usted debe aprender aceptarlo. Y usted todavía no ha hecho eso, yo puede ver. Y sabrán," she said, looking slyly from Gabriel to Tamika and Vlad.

"No, no si puedo ayudarle," Gabriel answered, to Tamika's complete surprise. She noticed Vlad's expression was one of great concentration as he listened carefully to their conversation. The woman smiled at Gabriel and got up, touching Gabriel's cheek on the way, but he tore away.

"Gabriel, usted es débil, y ha estado siempre. Por lo menos cuando viene a estar con mí," she said. "Todavía le amo, usted sabe? Nada puede cambiar siempre eso," she said the last with a saddened expression, and left with a little smile on her lips.

"What did she say?" Tamika finally asked Vlad. He slightly shook his head.

"Something about Brey hiding something away, but not being successful about it and that someone will know something," Vlad said, looking deeply concentrated at Gabriel, but a bit of sternness also showed. Gabriel rolled over and seemed to be watching the stars, flat on his stomach. Vlad whispered into Tamika's ear this time.

"I think it's her, you know? That girl or woman Gabriel was in love with. It was her back then. I've seen her before, and her name is Sijhima. Only once or twice, and she was always looking for Brey when I met her," he whispered thoughtfully.

"How do you know that she was that woman?"

"She said that she loved him and nothing could ever change that," he said simply, still watching Gabriel, "The man's got taste," he continued.

"So… so that's why he's been acting so weirdly on this mission. He knew he might be meeting up with her again," Vlad nodded at her revelation. "I have to talk with him," she said, as she was motioning to get up.

"Don't, Tamika. He's not ready," Vlad said, as she moved gingerly towards the lying figure on the gravel floor.

"Get back Tamika," Gabriel said in a pained voice, "That's an order."

A/N: RR, plz, and if you feel like translating, feel free to do so.. and excuses if it's wrong, cus i used a translation site, though i had the chance to do it right, but i will later on... that is IF i find my plot bunnies... euhm, RR!