Chapter 3: Things Can't Get Any Worse
"Carl!" Gabriel said as he shook his friend into consciousness. Carl seemed lost in a dream, mumbling incoherent nonsense about a woman named Monique followed by a list of reasons she was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. Gabriel rolled his eyes and shook Carl a little harder. "Carl! Wake up!"
"Van Helsing? What are you doing here?" Gabriel allowed Carl's surroundings to say it for him. Carl rubbed the back of his head where it had hit the wall and he sat up, immediately faced with the harsh reality of their current situation. "I had hoped it was a dream."
"It never is," Gabriel replied, helping Carl to his feet. Carl dusted himself off and tried not to breathe through his nose. He was afraid to be met with the harsh scent of decay, even though the bodies were still only minutes into their death.
"Start looking for survivors, Carl," Gabriel said, wading through the sea of bodies with a keen eye. He looked at their features, past the blood from their ripped throats and torn bodies. He rubbed his throat, feeling the wound festering under his scarf. Carl hadn't noticed, and he wanted to keep it that way.
"How could a vampire enter the Vatican unharmed?" He asked to no one in particular. Mostly he was asking himself, searching through his thoughts to find something that made sense. The vampire Elizabeth Bathory had come to the Vatican on a mission of...what? Revenge? Hunger? Whatever it was, it didn't make any sense to him. "And for that matter..." He began, eyes narrowing. He picked up a metal crucifix off the ground. It looked as if someone had taken it by both ends and folded it in half, almost into a knot. "How are they able to touch crosses?"
"Van Helsing?" Carl called, grabbing hold of a heavy, overturned table. Gabriel looked up. "I've found Jinette!"
Gabriel was wary of the bodies as he crossed over to Carl. He grabbed hold of the corner of the mahogany table that lay over most of Jinette's body and lifted. His jaw tightened and neck muscles flexed. He let out a groan of pain as he lifted, trying to ignore the blood moving down his chest. The pain gave him fuel. Adrenaline coursed through every vein in his body until at last the table was upright again.
Jinette coughed. He lay unnaturally still on the ground and only the cracking of his knuckles and the ragged breaths were signs that he was alive. Gabriel knelt down at his side as Jinette's eyes opened. The Cardinal attempted to sit up, but was restrained by the hunter.
"Easy Cardinal," he said, holding him back. He could hear more bones snapping in the Cardinal's chest. Gabriel's eyes narrowed as the Cardinal inhaled sharply. He watched in awe as Jinette's chest filled out again, his broken ribs mending themselves. Carl stared at it, stunned and silent.
Jinette coughed. "I'm fine, Gabriel. What hit me?" Gabriel didn't have time to respond. Jinette had started to survey the damage around him once his eyes had cleared, and he too fell silent.
"Dear God..." Jinette said, looking around. Gabriel was still scanning Jinette, moving his eyes in such a manor that he could see everything that had happened to the Cardinal. Sure enough, he found a bite mark on Jinette's throat, one that was slowly closing and healing just as quickly as the bones had. The Cardinal didn't notice it at all.
Self-consciously, Gabriel touched his own throat. The gaping hole Elizabeth had left there was carefully concealed by his scarf, but it was no longer bleeding. The wound was now healed, but a large mass of scar tissue was in its place. He was sure the blue veins were still spawning from it like a decrepit firework on his neck. Carl hadn't noticed though, and that meant that the 'decrepit firework' hadn't spread into his face yet.
Someone groaned from their position on the floor. The priests and monks throughout the headquarters had started to wake up.
"How did a vampire enter here?" Jinette demanded as he walked through the headquarters. Gabriel followed alongside Carl, heaving a large pile of books in his arms. Carl plucked a book off the top and flipped through it, studying the texts quickly.
"Three vampires," Gabriel corrected. Carl shook his head and shoved the book back into the pile while yanking another from the middle of the stack. The other volumes nearly went tumbling to the floor. "Two thralls and their mistress."
"A Countess Elizabeth Bathory," Carl said, putting another book into the stack before extracting another. "Unfortunately the Vatican has few records on her but what I have been able to dig up is that she was a Countess of Transylvania and a rather cruel one at that."
"Sounds familiar," Gabriel said, making the connection between their newest threat and an older one, namely Count Dracula.
"I was under the impression that the Countess Elizabeth died in the early seventeenth century?" Jinette stated, looking over his shoulder a little as they descended down the stone steps into the chaos below. The priests and monks were already starting to clean up. Gabriel looked around. They all acted as if nothing had happened, just like Jinette had.
"Nothing ever dies in this line of work," Carl mumbled. His words were overlooked by the Cardinal who was glancing at Gabriel. Carl finished his statement anyways. "It was said that she consorted with witches and Satanists of all kinds during her reign."
"Pleasant woman," Gabriel said, looking back to Carl who had finally found a picture of her in one of the books. The face that stared back at him was rough and hardly detailed, but the features were unmistakable. It was definitely the vampire who had been there earlier. Gabriel was sure his memory wasn't playing tricks on him. He rarely forgot creatures that bit out large chunks of his throat in battles.
The Countess was young in the picture, wearing a ridiculous dress that hardly flattered her looks. But her face was flawless and smooth and her hair was jet black, pulled up and out of her face in a bun. Her eyes were dark. Gabriel couldn't tell what colour they were, but they were dark.
"Countess Bathory prided herself on her flawless complexion and determined – through one method or another – that the blood of young virgins applied to her skin would keep her young and beautiful forever," Carl snapped the book closed and placed it back on the pile Gabriel had in his arms. "She was arrested for the murder of over six hundred virginal young girls."
"How charming," Gabriel said as Carl opened up the book again and showed him a picture of one of her torture devices. A black iron cage hung over a large bathtub. A shower head hung from the base of the suspended prison to allow the blood to drip down into the bath below. Gabriel's brows furrowed. "How do I kill her?" He shut the book and set it back on the pile, handing it to a priest who walked by. The priest cocked a brow but said nothing. Carl watched the books disappear as they walked further into the headquarters.
"Conventional methods won't work, Van Helsing, since she is an elder," Carl explained. Gabriel rolled his eyes.
"Mind telling me what an elder is?" He asked. Carl groaned a little, but complied without complaining about how Gabriel never read anything.
"The four Counts and Countesses that sired the entire vampire race," Carl began as they moved through the religious dignitaries that cleaned up the mess. Gabriel was multitasking. Part of him was listening to Carl's speech. The other part was watching everyone very carefully. "Vampires only started surfacing in the early wars in history, mainly soldiers who forged pacts with the devil in exchange for everlasting life and glory on the battlefield. What they didn't realize was that one of the terms set forth by Satan was the allergy to sunlight."
"So they died?" Gabriel jumped to conclusions.
"Most of them did, but there were two who survived. The original blood King and his wife..."
"The Blood Queen, the Queen of the Damned, I know this part of the story Carl," Gabriel said.
"Nobody ever let's me tell the story," Carl said with a childish whine, but he continued nonetheless. "Anyways, Count Dracula and Countess Bathory became vampires in life without sires, through the very same pact as the King and Queen of the Damned. This makes it very hard for them to be killed."
"Where did you read that?" Gabriel asked him.
"Min..." he said, catching himself before he finished the name. The Cardinal gave a sharp glance over his shoulder before turning around again, thinking Carl was just muttering to himself. Carl swallowed hard. "The Vatican...dug up...excavated...books..."
Gabriel nodded a little as Jinette opened the door to his office.
"The Pope will not take kindly to hearing about this mishap. On Holy ground no less!" He was more angry at himself more than anything, Gabriel knew that much. Jinette wasn't his favourite person, but Gabriel knew better than to think Jinette blamed anyone but himself in this situation. "This is your top priority Gabriel. No more sneaking off somewhere. You will return to Transylvania and you will kill Elizabeth Bathory."
All the hunter did was turn around, ready to walk away with Carl to retrieve several undamaged weapons and ride off. The Cardinal, however, saw this as a perfect moment to say, "And I will be expecting an explanation for your multiple disappearing acts when you return."
Perfect, just perfect, at least he's giving me time to think of a lie, he thought as he walked away without another word.
Van Helsing could not have been more furious as he marched through the Vatican. With everyone up and walking, it meant that naturally, they were just like him, infected with whatever venom Elizabeth had in her fangs. That would mean that just like him, in twenty-four hours, they would be the same thing: thralls, servant vampires the equivalent of Dracula's brides.
"I don't like the look of this Van Helsing," Carl said, picking up the crossbow from the ground, handing it and two cartridges to the hunter. Gabriel took them from him. "I mean, just moments ago weren't all these men (he swallowed hard) dead?"
"It would appear that way, Carl," he replied, checking his pistols for bullets. He opened his mouth to ask for more just as Carl handed him several boxes filled with the items he was looking for. "Thank you, Carl. Whatever Elizabeth did to these men they don't remember a thing."
"Perhaps it was hypnosis. There are accounts through history of vampires placing their victims into a trance before drinking their blood," Carl was spilling facts just from his brain now. He looked around at the other priests with nervous eyes. They just shot him odd glances, wondering why he was staring at them the way he was. Carl looked away.
"I think there's something more than that," Van Helsing said, scanning around the headquarters suspiciously. He could only move his eyes because of the burning sensation in his throat. Gabriel itched at it, irritated with it; still trying to hide it from Carl's wandering eyes. "Why just attack the Vatican for blood? And for that matter, why attack the Vatican?"
"Because the Vatican stands in the way of the vampire population multiplying?"
"Or perhaps because it would be the best place to start multiplying the vampire population," Gabriel said. Carl's eyes narrowed in thought before widening in realization.
"Why of course!" He exclaimed, giving a little jump in happiness. It attracted some odd looks from the Vatican workers. Carl ignored them. "The Knights of the Holy Order was the society that sentenced Elizabeth to life imprisoned inside her tower in Castle Cachtice. Why is it that these monsters always have a grudge against humanity?"
"That's what makes them monsters, Carl," Gabriel said, opening a door to the Vatican stables. Jinette had already contacted the guard it appeared, since he nodded them through immediately. Gabriel did nothing. He was still adjusting items in his coat. The guard to the stables bore the same scar tissue on his throat, but it was obvious that he thought nothing of it.
"Is there a problem Mr. Van Helsing?" he asked, concerned of the way the hunter was looking at him. Gabriel shook his head and continued on, following the sounds of the horses above him. He and Carl were silent until they had climbed the stone staircase into the dimly lit hallways of stalls for the horses.
"Carl," Gabriel said as he turned and looking down at his friend. Carl was listening intently. "I want you to stay here and keep an eye on the Vatican. No one goes into the headquarters and no one goes out, do you understand me?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Carl asked. He was a little surprised of his new mission assignment that Gabriel had given him. Van Helsing put a finger to his lips to quiet down Carl a little. Carl tossed his head about, rolling his eyes before whispering, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"In twenty-four hours every single person down there is going to turn into one of her thralls," the hunter said, pointing down the stairs. "I want you to keep an eye on things from here. No one goes in and no one goes out. Are we clear, Carl?"
"How do you know that?" he asked. Gabriel sighed, saying nothing. He wanted to tell Carl. If there was one person he could trust in the world it was Carl. But he kept it to himself, not mentioning the throbbing wound on his throat.
"Carl?" he asked. "Are we clear?"
Carl was silent, wanting to know just how Gabriel got this information about the Vatican. He sighed and nodded. "And what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to do all those horrid things you were talking about when we got here," he said, looking for his stallion. The jet black Andalusian horse whinnied in response to his rider's presence as if to ask him what took him so long to get back. Gabriel ran his hand between the horse's eyes, calming him before taking him from the stall and tacking him up.
"I don't like this plan of yours," Carl stated, crossing his arms.
"That's comforting," Gabriel replied, mounting the horse.
"How is that comforting?"
"Carl, you have never once liked any of my plans. It's good to know nothing's changed."
Gabriel kicked the horse and rode out of the stables. Carl groaned.
"I hate it when he does this," he said and walked back down the stairs to the headquarters.
Elizabeth dropped the limp body of the beautiful young girl at her feet, staring at the dusty blonde hair that draped around the girl's head like a halo. She smiled softly at the sight of it and licked the blood from her lips, savouring every drop. The girl moaned a little, free from the trance Elizabeth's fangs had put her in. The countess turned to her three thralls, the salivating bunch of vampires in the corner. With a snap of her fingers they had attacked the girl viciously, biting her wherever their teeth were near. Within minutes, the corpse was nothing but small pieces of ripped flesh.
"Dorotta," she said, summoning forth her dark haired partner. The woman curtseyed, never once making eye contact with the countess for fear of swift punishment. "Where's the hunter?"
"He just left the Vatican, my lady, and will be heading towards the edge of the city any moment now," the woman said again, still not looking at her mistress. Elizabeth smiled coyly, looking back at the three male thralls behind her.
"Take these morons out for a while just to taunt him. I don't want him leaving the city until he absolutely has to," she said. Dorotta nodded and looked to the thralls, each feasting on small pieces of human flesh. Elizabeth spun and hissed, immediately transforming into her vampire form.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" she shouted. The thralls had transformed with small shrieks, their wings carrying them into the air. As Elizabeth turned she was human again, speaking to Dorotta. "Whatever you do, don't kill him."
"As you wish, my lady," Dorotta said, curtseying again before she too had transformed and flew out the window. Elizabeth watched the four vampires take to the skies.
Author's Notes: I am so sorry it took me this long to post such a short chapter. There was a lot of work I needed for school, I didn't send it off to Grissom for a while and haven't heard back yet, so I just decided to go ahead with posting it. The next chapter is in the works and will be posted much more quickly than this one was. Once again, sorry you had to wait! I like to post weekly. It was nearly impossible with my workload though, sorry!
Reviews:
Grissom: I'm glad you know who Elizabeth Bathory is! I tried to get a little context into this chapter, but if you have the time to look up who she is, it's even better. Unlike Morgan, there are only a few accounts of Elizabeth and not much to draw different conclusions from. It makes it a lot easier!
Don't dawdle too much in the computer lab though. Computers are the way of the future (Here's an, "I TOLD YAH SO!" to the fool who said, "They'll never catch on.")
Bram Stoker definitely ran out of ideas. I saw that ending coming a mile away. And it's so hard to be climatic when he writes in journal format for the whole book. The most exciting part was the letters from Mina to Lucy and when Jonathan goes insane, and of course when Abraham Van Helsing was introduced. Other than that, the whole book is like swallowing a bottle of proverbial turpentine (no offence to anyone who really loves Dracula).
I saw the premier of CSI and was surprised! I thought Jorja Fox had been fired and spent the summer cursing the producers when I found out! It's good that she's back though.
I can't wait for the Van Helsing DVD! Long live special features!
HyperCaz: I wouldn't worry about the transformation. Vampires are a lot cleaner than werewolves. And I wouldn't dare turn Van Helsing into a fly eating Renfield from Dracula (although Hugh Jackman eating flies would be hilarious!).
It's a good thing that liking the same guys as your mom is still cool. Me and my mom like all the same guys pretty much. It's a little creepy, but everyone is creepy once in a while.
Trinity Van Helsing: Ouch, water balloons. My brother used to do that to me too. He used to get up on the roof of the house and pelt them at me and my friends. And then he got grounded, lol.
Emeraldjewel: Well in most religions all the good things in the world are classified as temptations, and we're not to fall into temptation. I am not a very religious person, but I do take a look at what other religions are saying about each other. JK Rowling being the Antichrist nearly made me send an e-mail with a long list of obscenities, but I wouldn't want someone doing that to me because I don't have much of a faith, so I avoided that.
Hugh Jackman would be cool as a vampire, even as a thrall. It was one of the reasons I made it happen to him, plus the race against time and the eventual battle...the ideas are just formulating. Of course Jinette is alive! You cannot kill a character like Jinette. The cool thing about Jinette is that he's not evil, and that even after Van Helsing kills all of those demons, vampires, and werewolves, he always has to go back to the Vatican and face Jinette, the only demon he can't destroy. Or maybe that analogy would work better for Van Helsing? I'm not sure.
Vampire Princess Morwinda: Smiles I am honoured by your words. Bows. I am happy that you are enjoying this story, even if my updates are really sporadic.
Scholar: No way Jinette could die! That man is immortal.
I agree! That line from Macbeth is absolutely amazing, very dark and creepy. Macbeth irritated me for a while, but in the end it was great! Read the Ray Bradbury novel though. It too is very dark and creepy, but so is a lot of Ray Bradbury's work. If you also read A Sound of Thunder, you're set for life. They want to make a movie and I am ashamed.
Fanfiction Fanatic: Life never goes the way you plan for it too. Sorry that you have to have surgery again. I've never had surgery, but I can't imagine that it's very pleasant. I hope everything is going well!
Lady Nessa: Whoa there! Calm yourself. I'm glad you enjoyed Carl and Van Helsing. They're quite a pair aren't they? Personally, I'm all for the dark, mysterious types, but you'd have to wonder how easy it would be to seduce him. He hasn't had the best luck with women.
Mina kicking Elizabeth's butt? I'm pretty sure Van Helsing will take care of it, but Mina will probably get a few hits on her for taking a bite out of her lover.
J: Training and license? (Begins hiding all those conspicuous items in basement that were NOT used to make a homemade flamethrower cough! cough!). I am such a pyro. In Chemistry class we blew bubbles with the natural gas used for Bunsen burners and lit them on fire. Our teacher nearly burned his eyebrows off. It was too much fun. Maybe Carl's flamethrower could have natural-gas-bubbles that explode?
Aerosol plus lighter is always good, especially with scaring your younger siblings.
Elizabeth definitely does not know as much as Dracula though, and not nearly as much as Morgan. She's the least informed of the trio. Michael, on the other hand...
I'm not saying anything else. Sorry if it's gotten a little predictable. I'll try and put as many twists as I can in it as possible.
Darkchylde: Van Helsing is a great healer. He's always been good at getting over things, of course that's mainly due to the unnatural blood that's been in his body. His dent can and will be fixed.
I completely forgot about the machine gun! Maybe he should carry that along to Transylvania this time, just to be certain. And vampire test dummies? Carl would get too much fun out of that. (Mina: OW! CARL! Carl: snickers evilly)
DoodilyDoo: Wow. I would love to send my stories into Universal, but they probably wouldn't accept them. Stephen Sommers is planning a sequel and a television series, and his sequel has the creature from the black lagoon. I think it will be a worthwhile sequel, as long as silly characters like Anna's twin sister or another 'illusive female figure' (no offence to those who have written those types of stories) are added to the plot.
Gothicvamp8000: The blood countess has always fascinated me. Her and Jack the Ripper. Maybe it's the unnatural amount of bloodshed associated with the stories. I'm glad you're enjoying it! I hope I'm doing her justice.
xImmortalx: Nice to see you again! I hope you keep enjoying it!
