A/N Thank you for your reviews and support so far! I really welcome all your comments about this story - is everyone in character? Have I made any daft mistakes in terms of facts, spelling or grammar? Is the plot interesting? How does it compare to Possessions? Any guesses as to what's going to happen? Let me know how I'm doing, and I'll try to improve whatever's wrong.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! A litte longer than the last, I think.

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The old man moved slowly, painfully, from the repaired front door to the well, each movement stiff and weary. Carefully, he lowered the rusting, ancient bucket into the slightly stagnant water, hauling it up as quickly as he could before all the water leaked out through the bucket's many holes. The man washed himself, and had anyone witnessed him taking off the long black hooded cloak that draped his small, hunched body and obscured his features, they would have been startled to see that the man was not really old at all.

The face, though haggard and exhausted, was that of relative youth, or at least the good side of middle age; the expression had a suggestion of openness and innocence about it, despite the desperate look in the deep sea-coloured eyes. The hair was a soft shade of what might politely be described as a sort of strawberry blonde, untouched by grey, falling in an untidy bird's nest around the man's head. The lips were full and sensual, despite being bitten and bloody; the body, naked to the waist now, was thin and malnourished, the shoulders rounded; the man stood in an uncomfortable-looking hunch that nonetheless seemed natural to him.

Completing his ablutions, the tired man discarded the dirty water and fetched more, which he transferred to an old kettle before returning the bucket to the well. Replacing his cloak, he shuffled back inside the abandoned, half-ruined manor house which had lately become his home, and shut the door.

From the outside, the manor, set in acres of undisturbed, thickly forested countryside, appeared little more than a ruin. The roof was full of holes, and creeping plants grew both inside and outside it. The windows were broken and boarded, the stone walls crumbling, the whole building giving off an air of desolation.

Inside, however, the manor house was more pleasing. Some furniture, dirty but serviceable, remained, as did the stairs, though they were rickety. Some of the bedrooms were mostly intact, but the man had made the old drawing room his base. He slept on a sofa in the dark, dank room which he illuminated with a single dim lamp and some candles for reading purposes. Provisions were neatly stacked in a sideboard; books lay on a solid coffee table in the middle of the room.

The man had brought with him a contraption that resembled a miniature, metal votive stone, but was in fact a cleverly designed mobile stove, which he ran using lamp-oil. He lit it and placed the kettle upon its hob; it soon whistled, and he made hot tea, breakfasting on bread and cheese.

Then the knock came.

The man leapt to his feet with an exclamation of alarm, knocking over the stove. Quickly throwing his tea down to extinguish the flames, he leapt with surprising agility behind the sofa, and hid there.

The knocking became a banging, and then a voice:

"I know you're in there, Carl! Open the door!"

Carl cowered behind the sofa, saying nothing. He had thought his hiding-place safe even from the great demon hunter. He considered fleeing through the back door – but Van Helsing would catch him easily. Whatever his virtues, Carl was not fleet of foot.

"Open this thrice-damned door, Carl! I'm here to help you!"

"Go...go away!" Carl squeaked.

"I'll just have to break it down, then."

"No, don't do that! It took me over an hour to fix it and three to fit the additional security bolts. All right, all right..." he crossed to the door and threw it open, to find himself peering up into the impatient face of Gabriel van Helsing.

"Just what in God's name do you think you're doing?" the hunter demanded.

"In God's name," whispered the friar, "nothing."

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"Come in, make yourself at home, why don't you." Carl flopped back onto his sofa as Van Helsing strode into the room, took off his hat and coat, and sat on the coffee table, pushing Carl's books aside.

"How long have you been living here, Carl?"

"Since I left the thrice-hell-damned Vatican, of course," the friar responded irritably. He was always at his most acerbic when scared out of his wits – for someone else. Just how much of an imbecile was Van Helsing, anyway, coming here like this, thinking that as soon as he got involved everything would be all right...arrogant, reckless, puffed-up, blithering fool of a man!

"I suppose you've been there?"

"Where? The Vatican, or hell? I've probably spent time in both."

"Yes, well, that makes two of us," muttered Carl, in no mood for Van Helsing's jokes. "Didn't you get my message?"

"What message?"

"The one I left for you! On a piece of drawing-paper, written in sympathetic ink, rolled up and concealed in the propulsion chamber of your crossbow?"

Van Helsing stared at him blankly.

"No...I didn't. But I did wonder why the thing wouldn't fire when I collected it."

Carl rolled his expressive eyes.

"What's the use of a secret message if the person it's intended for can't understand it?" Van Helsing wondered.

"I obviously credited you with more intelligence than you possess!" Carl snapped back. Van Helsing looked at him closely, intently, reading his worry, his fear; Carl felt he could not bear that pitying expression on his friend's face an instant longer.

"The note said to keep away from me, not to follow me, to leave me alone. Obey it." Carl got to his feet. "I want you to leave."

"I'm not going anywhere, Carl."

"I said get out!" the friar actually made an attempt to drag the bigger man to his feet, but Van Helsing was about as malleable as a man in the company of the Medusa – and his facial expression was remarkably similar, as well. Carl shoved him, hard, in his desperation; the hunter got suddenly to his feet and grabbed the friar roughly by the shoulders. Finally there was emotion in his face, but it was not anger, it was – hurt. Sorrow. Concern.

"Jinette was right," Van Helsing said, quietly. "You think you're a danger to those around you."

Carl stared at him, then shrugged off his hands and turned away, filled with a deep misery he was afraid that Van Helsing would understand...because he must have felt it too. Misery, fear, self-loathing – and mixed in with those, a sense of elation, of power, that brought a shame and horror even worse than all the other feelings combined. Van Helsing must have felt this – when he was bitten by the werewolf.

If Carl took his friend into his confidence, told him everything, poured out all the terrors he had thus far suffered alone, and Van Helsing understood and sympathised, as Carl knew he would, it would only make it harder to send him away. Harder to be alone, as he knew he must be, for the rest of his life.

The rest of his life! And never knowing until the end whether he would become the monster he hated and dreaded, the thing which had done this to him, stolen his peace of mind, destroyed his future. Tallander. The very memory of the name made him feel sick to his stomach.

It was this last thought, that a fate similar to the dark priest's might await him after bodily death – and if not, hell certainly would – that finally broke the friar. He turned away from Van Helsing, threw himself face down on the sofa, and sobbed.

For a few minutes Carl was lost in despair, but as the crisis slowly passed and he came to himself again, he found himself wondering why Van Helsing was not comforting him. Carl despised himself for this – after all, he wanted Van Helsing to leave him be, for his own safety – but a part of him desperately wanted to tell his story and feel the hunter's comforting hand on his shoulder, hear words of sympathy and shared sorrow, before taking his leave from civilisation forever.

Carl looked up, turning his red and blotchy, tear-stained face towards where the hunter still stood. Van Helsing was staring down at him – and there was an expression of deep disgust on his face.

"I can't believe you've let yourself get into this state," Van Helsing growled, contempt in every syllable. "You're pathetic, Carl. I never imagined you'd just go to pieces like this rather than the confronting the problem head-on, like a man. The man you used to be would never have fallen apart, given in, run away like a frightened schoolchild – I liked and respected that man, but I can see there's nothing left of him. I should never have come here. I'll leave you to your – exile."

With a cold sneer, Van Helsing grabbed his coat and hat, and made for the door. Carl stared after him, astounded, hurt – and furious.

"How dare you!"

Van Helsing was at the threshold, facing away from Carl. He paused, turning his head slightly.

"How dare you speak to me that way when you have no idea of what's going on! Of what I'm living with! You can't possibly imagine what it took to leave Vatican City where I've been safe for most of my life – to leave my home – and not for my own benefit! I had to leave, for the sake of the others; I have to cut myself off from the world and if I'm a little upset about the prospect of never seeing another living soul and suffering eternal torment in the fires of hell, I think I damned well have a right!"

Carl spat all this out without taking a breath, gesturing angrily at the broad back turned towards him, shivering all over with indignation.

"So don't presume to know what sort of man I am, Gabriel van Helsing, and don't dare to call me a coward!" he finished, ringingly – and as he said so, the fallen stove abruptly burst into flame, and the empty tea mug shattered into fragments. Van Helsing spun around; Carl stared at the fire, stricken.

"Get – get out," he managed to whisper, horrified. "Just leave me alone!"

Van Helsing ignored him. He emptied Carl's kettle over the flames, which died immediately, then faced the ashen friar.

"Are you all right?" he asked, simply.

"Go away," Carl mumbled.

"Don't be an idiot, Carl. I have a good notion of what's happening here; why do you think I was trying to make you angry?"

Carl looked up at him, with fear and a kind of desperation in his eyes now – but somewhere, a spark of hope.

"You don't really think that I'm a coward?"

"Of course not."

"Oh..." Carl rubbed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. "Well, that's something, I suppose."

"Tell me what's happening. All of it. I want to help you, Carl, but I can't if you won't trust me."

"It isn't you I don't trust. It's myself."

"Have a little faith in my judgement, then. I don't believe you would hurt me, Carl/ And I'm pretty good at taking care of myself, you know."

Carl bit his lip. Surely there was no harm in telling Van Helsing everything? Perhaps it would finally persuade him to leave – and it would certainly be a load of Carl's heart. He sat wringing his hands, unsure how to begin. Van Helsing regarded him for a moment, then got up.

"Why don't you marshal your thoughts while I make us some tea?"

Carl sat in silence while the hunter fetched more water and two tin mugs from his own pack, made the tea using Carl's ingenious little stove, and handed a cup to the friar.

"Take your time," the hunter said, calmly. "And I want you to know that I have absolute faith in you, Carl – in your morality and your kindness. I don't believe you're capable of harming another human being of your own volition – whatever I can do to help you through this, I will do. With official authorisation or without it."

Carl gave a wan smile. "Yes, that's always the way, isn't it? I'm sorry I doubted you earlier. I should have known you were only trying to goad me; after all, you're your favourite pastime."

The hunter smiled at that.

"That's better," he said.

Carl leaned back in his seat, gazed ruefully at the remains of the shattered mug – and began.

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A/N Next chapter -Carl's story, in his own words. My first time writing Carl first-person!