Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story pertaining to Van Helsing are the property of Stephen Sommers. This is an amateur writing effort.


Chapter 7: The Storm Breaks

Gabriel knew the city of San Marino well, considering he had only been there once or twice in the past he could remember.

He walked his horse down the docks to the boats waiting to carry him over the Adriatic Sea. He stopped a moment, lost within the bustling crowds of crewmen and families saying farewell as a memory struck him. It was distant, but so many of his memories were.

"I have never been to the sea."

Anna paused staring off into the distance as if trying to imagine what the sea looked like. Gabriel had once tried to describe it to her on their way back to Vaseria. They were sitting awake, driving the coach as hard as it could go. His explanations didn't make it any easier. She just laughed when he insinuated that there really were places on earth where the only thing one could see was water for miles and miles.

"I'll bet it's beautiful..."

Beautiful...Gabriel thought, looking around at the sea before him. His sea wasn't beautiful. It was dark and gloomy with black waters, only illuminated by the white moon light. Yes, this is what Anna was missing: the darkness and the loneliness, the weight of the world falling down on his shoulders as he stared out into the horizon.

"Heading our way?" he looked up and onto the deck. Janos Tamas tossed his thick canvas bag on the deck, brushing the oily locks of black hair from his face. Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"They haven't fired you yet?"

"Hah! You're funny, fedeles zsebóra," Janos said, saying something in his own language; the way it sounded made Gabriel wonder if Janos was saying it in Hungarian to avoid a violent reaction from his friend. "Off to Hungary? Romania?"

"Transylvania," Gabriel said. His friend smiled again.

"Back to Hell," he said. "You just keep going back there don't you?"
"Every other week," Gabriel said. Janos took his horse's reigns from him and walked the animal up the gang plank with the hunter following close behind. "I would have imagined you finally going home rather than waiting around here."

Janos shrugged. "I have a few more months of work, and then I will return. Not that I have much to get back to."

"I know that feeling," Gabriel replied, looking around the deck cautiously. The crew was busily preparing to set sail for the other side of the sea. If his timing was right, he would be riding over the Carpathian Mountains when the curse took full hold of him. Perfect...

The wind whistled around them. Gabriel looked up to the sky, watching the horizon.

"Storm clouds on the rise," Janos pointed out. "You sure you want to set sail tonight?"

"Yes," the hunter replied quickly with a small groan. As the wound in his neck pained him again, Jinette's voice filled his head again.

"For you this is all just a test of faith..."

God should find something better to do than test me.

He scowled at the approaching storm and followed Janos into the cabin below the ship.


"Where is this sample from?" Father Bradley asked, taking the two phials of blood from Carl. The small friar folded his arms and tried to calm his pounding heart.

"I can't tell you my sources. If I did I would have to kill you." The aging Father Bradley shot Carl a suspicious look, but did not press the subject further. He looked at the samples of blood Carl had asked him to analyze.

"I can tell you that one of these is thinner than the other," he said, shaking them a little. The second moved more like water while the other looked like oil. "There seems to be an anti-coagulant present in it. If you told me where you got it from I could give you a better explanation."

Carl swallowed, wiping the sweat from his brow. "They're both human samples." He pulled his robe over his hand to hide the cut he'd made. It was the only way to determine what was in the Order's system and he needed a healthy comparison. If Gabriel was right, his blood would be the only sample not infected. He took the other sample from an enthusiastic rookie in the Order, who was under the impression his blood was part of Carl's biggest experiment yet. Not a total lie, Carl said, trying to clear his conscience.

The white haired priest placed several drops of Carl's blood onto a slide and examined it under his magnifying eye piece. "This one is the human sample. Everything is in working order. And as for the other..." He procured another slide from a box on the table and placed a few drops of the second sample. It nearly seeped over the sides of the slide. Bradley looked down at it, squinting a little. "It has an anti-coagulant in it, quite a strong one as well. And..." He stopped a moment, squinting harder. "Where did you get this sample Carl?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Carl, this person has an anti-coagulant in it that I've never seen before." The old priest looked up and stared at Carl. "It's almost as if the anti-coagulant is replenishing all red blood cells and rejuvenating them. I've only seen this type of work happening in..."

"In vampires?" Carl asked frightfully.

Bradley was silent for a moment before he nodded. "In vampires..."


The Holy Order was eerily quiet, and Carl could scarcely breathe. He walked briskly to the Cardinal's office and, without knocking or shouting some kind of introduction, walked inside.

Jinette looked up in surprise, tossing the papers in front of him a little from the shock the friar had given him. Carl was hyperventilating now, getting hideous mental images of the Cardinal attacking him viciously, ripping out his esophagus and trachea and jugular vein and...

STOP IT! He commanded.

"What is the meaning of this outburst Friar Carl?"

Carl's mouth went dry. He swallowed hard.

"Yes?" Jinette said, waiting for an explanation.

"What...what if I told you...we had a problem?"
The Cardinal grinned whimsically. "I have not heard an explosion in over an hour friar, I would say for you that IS a problem."

"I would gladly return to my post and continue but I'm afraid it's far more serious than that."

"What seems to be the problem?"
There was silence for a moment, Carl, attempting to calm himself enough. What issued forth from his mouth however was far from collected. He took a deep breath and because.

"Elizabeth Bathory has infected the entire Vatican with a poison that will turn them into her thralls in just a little under 23 hours – although this is a rough calculation, for I don't know when exactly you all were bitten, but that's beside the point – you will all turn into her thralls and Van Helsing has been bitten too."

Jinette blinked. "Can you repeat that Carl?"

Carl took a deep breath and slowed down a little.

"Elizabeth Bathory attacked the Vatican," he said, "And she killed everyone in here. Except no one stayed dead because she bit everyone and transferred a slow moving venom into their bloodstreams, one that will turn them into her thralls within 23 hours – although that is a rough calculation. And I think Van Helsing is infected too."

There was silence. The Cardinal couldn't say anything. He just stared at Carl for a moment, unable to speak. He finally managed to find the words.

"I need you to go find Van Helsing, Carl," he said quietly. "I will issue a lockdown of the entire Order until you return."
"But I'm hardly a field man!" He said, inadvertently protesting. It wasn't that Carl was afraid (he was terrified, but everyone knew that). He just knew that finding Van Helsing on the hunt would be nearly impossible. Already an hour had passed. There was no telling how far Van Helsing gone in that much time. "He's not someone who is easy to find Cardinal..."

"You are the one who knows him best," Cardinal Jinette said. "Bring him back here. We will deal with Elizabeth Bathory later. Right now, you must find him and make sure he cannot transform. The damage he causes as a human is already catastrophic. If he is allowed to become her thrall, the damage could be irreparable." There was a short pause as the Cardinal breathed, remaining quite calm. "Find him Carl. Use every one of the Vatican resources at your disposal."

"And if I can't find him before the time runs out?" Carl asked, but he already knew the Cardinal's answer. Jinette didn't say anything. He nodded and looked down at his desk.

"Pray friar that it does not happen."


He felt someone kissing him. Mina? No, not Mina. Mina didn't smell like blood. She smelled of perfume and soap, of flowers and fire. This woman was drenched in the scent of death, not necessarily of decay, but most definitely of blood. He opened his eyes and saw her pull back, a layer of her black hair falling around her beautiful pale face. Her lips had blood on them, and as his lips stung, he didn't need to ask whose it was.

"Drink from me, my love..." She held her wrist to him, placing it over his lips. "Take my blood and live forever..."

Gabriel sat up quickly, a tojo blade in his hand as he waved it in front of him blindly. The darkness of the cabin swirled around his eyes. He could hear someone pacing nervously in the shadows as the door opened and shut once more. Cautiously, Gabriel got off the cot and walked to the door, listening hard. He could only the pounding of the rain against the deck above him, running down into the corridors and dampening the floor. He opened the door quietly and looked down the hall, not finding anyone. The other direction was empty as well. He put the tojo blade back in his sleeve and walked to the steps to the deck. Just as he reached for the handle, the door was thrown open by a strong gust of wind. He could hear Janos laughing in the darkness.

"This is the last time I listen to you about when and when not to sail, Gabriel!" He shouted as the ship dipped down into a steep wave and water splashed onto the deck. The hunter slammed the door to the cabin and braced himself against a wall as the water struck him hard. It nearly knocked the wind from him. After a moment it passed and he was left soaked after mere seconds of being outside. The rain pounded against him, penetrating his coat and finding its way to his numerous pockets and weapons. Carl is going to kill me for getting them wet, he thought to himself. When the crossbow had been rusted over Carl wouldn't speak to him for an hour and only mumbled about how careless the hunter had been. Gabriel took it upon himself to remind Carl that it was his idea to use the holy water at the Church.

"It would stand to reason we run into a storm whenever you're on board, Janos."

"I'm always on board when you are. Who's the bad luck now?" The Hungarian laughed heartily and gripped the thick ropes on the mast. "BRACE YOURSELF!"

Gabriel looked ahead, watching as the ship rose over a monster of a wave and headed downwards. He felt the wind push him back against the wall of the ship, pinning him in place as the water rushed up to meet him.

Just as the wave passed he saw the white blur in the sky. There was a cackle and the whole crew went into frenzy. The wave passed over them as everyone looked around, craning their heads skyward as the menacing shadows passed over them. The sound of claws meeting wood alerted Gabriel. He turned to face the tall mast as the lightning crackled.

There were three of them. The thralls of Elizabeth Bathory laughed manically and swooped down on the crew below.

Before he could do anything, the door swung open and he was nabbed from the side. Elizabeth grinned as she slammed him against the wall, knocking him senseless.


He wasn't sure what to expect the first time Mina allowed him into the bedroom. She stood in front of the desk, looking down at the candles that cast golden light over her body. She reached up and pulled off her bodice, dropping it to the floor.

"Mina..."

She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Do you not want this?" She asked. Gabriel was at a loss for words. He blushed. Did he want that? Yes, although he found it a little prudent to simply blurt that out to her. Mina got the message somehow, probably from the small, boyish grin on his face.

"Then help me remove this awful thing," she said, removing her skirt, bustle, and the thin corset cover. He walked over slowly as she lifted her brown hair off her back, allowing the lacings to show from her back. He undid the bow and started yanking at the strings.

"I don't know how you wear these things all day," he commented dryly.

"They're terrible," she said as he pulled at the lacing some more. "You have to start at the top by the way otherwise you'll never get it off."

"Now you tell me," he said moving his hand up to the top.

"Well I would have thought you to be familiar with these things."
"Maybe in a past life," he said, working his way down. She smiled again, taking a deep breath as the corset fell down her hips to the floor. She turned and looked him in the eye, reaching a hand up to his face.

"I don't want to hear about any of those stories, thank you very much," she said with a small smile before moving her hands to his shoulders, easing the coat down his arms. Gabriel just started kissing her, unable to stop.

She could hear someone knocking on glass. The hollow pounding filled her skull with a dizzying throb as she opened her eyes and blinked. The window behind her slid open and there was the sound of struggle as someone pushed themselves through the open space.

Sleep took her again for a moment, but not enough to drown out the sounds of the cries that followed.

"HELP! SOMEBODY!"

"What the...?!" Mina sat up just as Carl tumbled through the window, performing a summersault before striking the bed headfirst and allowing himself to go limp. She walked over to the other side of the bed, fighting off a bought of vertigo as she offered her hand to the fallen friar. "Goodness, Carl. Are you alright?"

Carl didn't say anything. He grabbed her hand and kicked up to his quickly, dropping his heavy bags to the floor immediately after he had righted himself. Mina moved her feet just a split second before the leather sack hit the ground.

"Where is he?" Carl demanded suddenly. "Where's Van Helsing?"
It took Mina a moment to reply. She rubbed her temples.

"I don't know. He must have left. Oh God, Carl! He must have been heading to Cachtice alone!"

"He already left?" Carl asked. Mina nodded slowly, not able to hear anything from her house, and she knew better than to hope that he had stuck around for any longer. He grabbed hold of the bags again and walked awkwardly through the room. "I have to follow him. He probably went to San Marino. It's one of the only ports in Italy that sails to Transylvania this late in the year. Have to find him..."

"Wait, Carl." Mina said. "I'm going with you."

"Like hell you are."

"FRIAR CARL!" He stopped short and faced her. "You call yourself a man of God and yet you have the mouth of a sailor."

"First, I never once called myself a 'man of God' and second, I'm just a friar. I can curse all I bloody want, especially when trapped in situations of intense peril." Mina rolled her eyes and grabbed her bow and quiver regardless, grabbing hold of her old winter coat from the pile of clothing in her wardrobe before following after the friar again. "What did I just tell you?"

"First, I never once took orders from you Carl and second, I am the only person in Rome with any type of archery skills, so I will come along if I bloody well want to, which I am sick of not doing in situations of intense peril." She walked to the front door, pushing passed him as she threw her coat over her shoulders. "And if you even think about spraying with any type of narcotic gas I will give you something to curse about."

She threw open the door swiftly and stepped out into the night, leaving Carl mumbling every curse he knew about women.


Author's Notes: First off, I have to thank Grissom, the very awesome writer who betas this story and worked her butt off to get these two chapters finished, not only on short notice (especially for this chapter) but also with my nagging her maliciously and setting deadlines. Thank you so much! I can't say it enough. You are awesome and I am so sorry for the way I treated you!

So many reviews for Mina to kick Elizabeth's butt...

Reviews:

DoodilyDoo: Hope the updates had enough Elizabeth/Gabriel fighting to appease you for now. Perhaps more violence is in order...

J: Mina's skin is immune to ash because of the Excalibur shard. If she were shot with one, she wouldn't be so lucky, but her skin is virtually indestructible by modern weaknesses to vampires.

I didn't have much of a choice which Van Helsing I got. My parents got it for me as a birthday present. Not that I'm ungrateful. Any Hugh Jackman is better than nothing, although I would have liked the tour of Frankenstein's lab.

Must go search for Ellen.

Random-Battlecry: You printed out all of Shards of Avalon? Last I heard it was 97 pages long (without review responses). That's awesome. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I would have hated for you to spend that much paper and not like something.

Carl is great and David Wenham is awesome too!

Jinette is needed. The way I see it, Van Helsing's duty is to destroy demons, and it's ironic that Jinette is the one demon he can't destroy. He's the villain that's not really a villain. Plus Gabriel's reaction to him is always good. And I can't kill Jinette until he finds out about the bar maid and Carl!

I am happy to have inspired you! Nice to know that some stories are becoming Carl-centric! Long like Daisy Wenham! The fake barfing was awesome!

HyperCaz: George Lucas really shouldn't have made the prequels to Star Wars, although Episode 1 did have some reputable performances (Ray Park, Ewan McGregor, and I loved Liam Niesen). Of course it also starred Jake Lloyd (cringes). Prequels and sequels... the sure signs of greed.

WHOO HOOOO! Chocolate fountain! Thank you!

Darkchylde: Mina kicking Gabriel's ass? I was pondering the idea.

I've never seen Stargate: Atlantis. I'm much too consumed with Stargate: SG-1 right now (LONG LIVE O'NEILL!). My friend just got me into it and I adore it.

I'm getting really freaked out of University. I don't wanna do dissertations! Good luck with yours though, by the way.

I think I'd like to keep Gabriel and werewolves away from one another for a while. Well, if he had a flamethrower with him it would be a glorious affair!

Thanks for telling me you were fenestrae. Lord knows I'd leave two responses to both names.

Lady sernna Valerious: Vampires and Valerious...a match made in heaven. Love the new user name, although I will miss the old one.

Good to hear that you got lot's of chocolate. The people in my town like to give out potato chips. It totally turned me off to trick-or-treating. Now I just buy the discount candy from Walmart afterwards. It's equally as good.

Sounds like an exciting day at school! Nothing like that ever happens at our school. Well, there were those bomb threats...

Emeraldjewel: She's going to Transylvania, but not with Gabriel. I want to experiment a little with her and Carl's relationship (no, not like that. She'd never be unfaithful to Gabriel).

Toto 3: Thank you very much for everything you said. I'm happy the characters are dead on because I would hate to have them any other way. If they're not right, it's not Fanfiction in my opinion.

Bubble gum head? That's an awesome comment. Very original. I laughed when I read that. Excellent description!

Trinity Van Helsing: Nice suggestions. I considered an ending where those things happened. Perhaps I should work them into an epilogue...

Brad Pitt was hot in Interview with the Vampire, but then again, so was Antonia Banderas.

Susan: I was not expecting an entire character profile when I asked for suggestions about the ending. Well Done! I copied and pasted everything you said in a writing file and saved it in my Van Helsing file for later reference. I would probably have to alter some characteristics a little, with your permission of course, if I used her, just so she fit into the Vampire Hierarchy I have already established but I am certainly trying to work the idea into the plot. It would give me another way to free Van Helsing of the thrall venom.

She has a very contradictory mix of species (and I love contradictions in Van Helsing). If you have ever seen the movie Blade, being a vampire and a human at the same time really bites (pardon the pun). I mean, you have a lust for blood and death and destruction but at the same time you have morals that need to be addressed and dealt with as they interfere. I would have to work in the history a little, since if she was the first vampire in history, there would need to be a reason for it and I was intending for the King and Queen of the Damned to be the first regardless. She could be the child of the King and Queen, but then how would she be alive? I'll see what I can do with it. Very nice profile though! Very original method of giving ideas for a story!

Ginnia: Building upon Susan's character huh? I think I would have to draw the line at magickal abilities such as molten silver and light star since I would commonly associate those more with witches and mages rather than vampires. As I wrote to Susan, I will more than likely alter the character slightly so the history fits into the Vampire Hierarchy a little better and she's not all powerful. Even a rose has thorns.

I really appreciate the idea! Thank you both so much for your suggestions! I saved your review in the same file as Susan's so I have them both on hand for when I reach Cachtice.

Gothicvamp8000: Jack the Ripper is fascinating! I have all these books on him and have bookmarked so many websites on him. He's amazing to study!

I'm glad I'm doing the blood countess properly. I have to make her a little more vein though. Poor her, so vein and she can't even see herself in a mirror.

Shadowsage: YAY! Long live Internet! I couldn't live without the Internet. Just last week I was offline for only three days and I realized how much I missed it. (Starts stroking her modem) Yes baby, I missed you... (Hugs modem).

Thanks for telling me about dissertations! I am so nervous about graduating!

Star Magel: The way you described Van Helsing as a vampire was so cool. I could totally see that as being his look, especially as a thrall. Maybe he will become a thrall...just to be evil...

The venom would definitely effect him differently, and I don't have to say why...and I wouldn't anyways.