Disclaimer: The characters and concepts pertaining to the movie Van Helsing in this story are the property of Stephen Sommers. This is an amateur writing effort. There was no money made off the posting of this story.


Chapter 12: Solitude

The glass of blood tumbled from the table and struck the ground, shattering immediately. The red liquid flew out in all angles, splashing against the walls and the skirt of her dress.

"You're angry then?"

Elizabeth let out a cry, so loud and so furious that all her thralls were sent into shivers. They curled away from her, gathering in the shadows of her dining hall, watching their mistress in fear. She raised her hands in the air, the human flesh fading to her vampire form. She finally silenced, dropping her arms back to her sides, returning to her mortal state.

Grigori smiled coolly, leaping off the table. The Countess looked furious. She had been dressed nicely for the arrival of her new thrall, her gown crimson and black, adorned with blood coloured jewels. But once he had let the secret slip the mood changed, and Elizabeth went berserk.

It was just the reaction he had hoped for.

"How could you let this happen? After all that we have worked for, you allow this to happen."

He laughed loudly. The thralls growled at him from the separate corners of the room but did not dare move without Her permission. Grigori looked back at the countess.

"I took an oath, my lovely Countess," he said, taking up a glass of blood from the table and sipping it lightly. "I am not to interfere, not even in this body."

"You call yourself a vampire…"

"No," he said, stopping her. He set the glass back down on the table. "We had a deal. I did my part. I got you into the Order. Now, I'm just taking care of my loose end. It's your job to deal with the hunter, not me."

"You were told to make sure those two didn't get in the way!" She shouted. The thralls hissed again in agreement. "You knew the threat they posed. You knew they alone possessed the cure!"

"Oh, gee, must have slipped my mind."

Elizabeth charged, and with a crack and a gush of wind she had the man pinned against the wall. Her fingernails dug into his throat, causing long streams of black blood to drip down the front of his tunic. He gasped slightly.

"This is not a game, Grigori," she said, quieter than before, but stern nonetheless. "Without Gabriel, everything we have worked for in the past years will mean nothing. You saw what he did to Dracula. Unless he stands by my side it won't matter if I have the Holy Order under my control. We will still fail!"

Grigori remained ever defiant, reaching upwards and grabbing her wrist strongly. He yanked her hand from his swiftly, throwing it back in her face before wiping the black blood away from his neck.

"Never forget who you're speaking to," he told her, pointing a threatening finger near her precious face. "Gabriel Van Helsing is your problem, not mine. It's your fault he was found by Francis and that damn daughter of hers. I have my own intentions, as I have always had. And I will not begin to believe that any of this is my fault." Elizabeth growled, her fangs growing. Grigori sneered and shot closer to her, stopping just inches from her face. "Don't even think of threatening me woman. I fear very few people in this world, and you are not one of them." He straightened his tunic. "Now, if you need someone to blame, fetch a servant girl. I'll be in the chamber." Grigori walked off towards the door. Elizabeth growled at him behind his back.

He stopped short at the door. "By the way, Countess, don't even think of interrupting me." He looked over his shoulder, red eyes blazing as his jet black hair danced wildly around his face. Elizabeth glared at him. "I'll tell father."

Grigori smiled and walked out of the room.

Elizabeth screamed. She threw dishes from the table against the walls of the room. The china shattered and cut the faces of her whimpering thralls, each crying for their mistress's pain. She stormed out of the room to the balcony, the wind catching her long lengths of black hair and tossing them about carelessly.

Night had fallen. The moon was full in the sky, shining down on top of her. She could hear the werewolves howling on the parapets above her, anxious for the night's hunt. She sneered cruelly, wondering how she could punish the hunter. She dreamed wicked thoughts and finally came to a conclusion, but not the one she expected.

It would be too easy to fly to Rome and unleash the holy terror of newly made thralls. And Van Helsing would never hear of that until he returned. Besides, holding them just made them hungrier, and they would be even more of a delight to watch.

So she snapped her fingers and called her balverines to her. They were larger, more ferocious than their werewolf cousins, and unlike their close relatives, they did not require the moon for the curse to take hold. They remained wolves their entire lives.

All four leapt from the tower, crawling down the walls of her castle. Elizabeth smiled and closed her eyes, calling out over the land for Gabriel's mind. When she found it she had only one thing to tell him before he was lost to her forever.

Innocent blood spills tonight Gabriel. Your friar and lover will be lost to you by morning.


Gabriel snapped awake and immediately regretted doing so. A wave of nausea passed over him, causing him to lurch forward and nearly vomit. He swallowed back the sensation, however, upon instinct. Of course, everything in his current state was instinct driven. Whenever his conscious mind was too drugged to comprehend things, his instincts were in control, driving him into insanity as he tried to piece together what everything meant.

He had stopped in recent years. The constant calculating and formulating of memories drove him insane from all the times he did it. But now his instincts were moving faster than ever, something that was new to him. As Elizabeth's venom had taken over he had lost them, wondering if their speed would ever return. It had, and he was left reeling from all the information he processed within a matter of minutes.

First, he was on the floor, lying on his stomach and entangled in bed sheets, comforters, and pillows he assumed were there to prevent him from moving around too much. The way they were arranged told him they had once been tucked tightly around his body. But Gabriel couldn't stand being smothered by things. Even at the Order he kicked his blankets practically off the bed when he slept, when he was allowed to sleep in the Order.

Second, he didn't know where he was or how he got there. The last memory was of Elizabeth in the forest, and then darkness consumed him. The house was furnished in such a manner that the décor betrayed the look of the aging wood it was built from. Gabriel found he was surrounded by tapestries and shelves filled with amulets and trinkets from days and battles past. A set of broad swords hung over the fireplace, glistening from the flames that crackled within. Daggers filled the opposite walls, along with bows and quivers filled with beautiful arrows made of mahogany and hawk feathers. Pistols and rifles filled the racks along the walls. Gabriel swallowed hard and felt comforted a little. On the one hand he knew how to use all of the weapons. On the other hand, the residents probably knew how to use them as well.

"Oh my gosh!" A woman's voice filled his ears. Gabriel turned his head again and found a petite girl standing in the doorway. She was dressed in heavy furs from head to foot, her hair disheveled from whatever she had been doing outside. She set her pistol down near the door. "MOTHER! HE'S AWAKE!"
The hunter's ears were ringing. The girl's eyes traveled over his body suddenly. Gabriel felt naked suddenly, and looked down under the blankets.

He was naked.

Nervously, he pulled the blankets up around his body a little more.

"I never would have believed it," she said, still astounded by him as she stepped forward. "Do those hurt? The scars on your back? Do they hurt?"

"Goodness girl, leave the man alone." He mother came inside, dropping down the newly killed animals and her pistol by the door. "He probably just woke up. How are you feeling?"
Gabriel found that he couldn't answer. He finally found his voice. "Where are my clothes?"
"I washed them," the smaller girl announced proudly. "Then fixed them. You had some nasty holes in them. But they smelled like perfume. Do you have a sweetheart?"

The mother laughed heartily and pulled off the heavy furs she wore as a jacket before depositing them down onto the chair. Underneath she was a willowy woman, tall and muscular, built from life in the forest. Her hair was a dusty blonde coloured, knotted into dread locks, and her eyes were pale blue.

"Darling, give him some time to breathe," she said. "I apologize for my daughter. We don't get a lot of visitors out here."

"Where is here?" He asked, pulling the blankets around him tighter as he sat up. His neck was still stiff. He reached up to his throat and found a poultice wrapped tightly around where Elizabeth had bitten him. He jerked back. "Sorry. You were in quite a state when we brought you here. I was wondering if there was anything we could do to get you out of the woods, so to speak." She knelt next to him and started pulling at the bandages. Gabriel inched backwards from her, unsure of her and her daughter. His instincts were taking hold again. It's night, he thought, glancing out the door. When Elizabeth visited him it had been noon. How many hours had it been? How long had he been here?

"Who are you?" he asked, pulling away from her at last. The woman sighed deeply.

"I'm Francis," she said, placing a hand on her chest. "That's Lillith." Her daughter waved as she undressed, revealing the same type of willowy figure as her mother, the same blonde hair and icy blue eyes. "We honestly don't mean you any harm. We're just trying to help. And I can help much better by changing that bandage."

Gabriel's muscles were still tensed. He was in a room full of weapons but ideas eluded him. His conscious mind was telling him to stand and fight. His instincts were telling him otherwise. You're naked, they said. I don't know how threatening you are without clothes.

He finally relaxed, still on guard enough to calculate his distance from each of the weapons in the room. He could reach for a dagger first and still have a chance to hide his bottom half with a sheet before attacking.

Gabriel, for Christ's sake, they're not going to attack you.

"Do they hurt?" Gabriel turned his head, wincing in pain as his neck throbbed. Francis yanked the rest of the bandages from his neck. Lillith pressed a hand against the triangular scar on his back.

"Alright, I'm finished," Gabriel said, pulling up a sheet around his legs as he jumped off the floor. "I want my clothes and my weapons and I want out of here."

"I have to apologize for my daughter," Francis said, standing up. "Lillith get dinner ready. Please, sit back down, I promise we're finished."

Gabriel was still uneasy, fumbling with the bed sheet to wrap himself inside it so no one got a good look at him. He fumbled with the space behind him, trying to find a weapon so he could arm himself. "Where am I?"

"Transylvania," she said quickly, not wanting to annoy him further. Francis still stood back a few feet from him. "Near the Caspian Mountains."

"And who are you two? Why do you live so far away from any civilization?"

Francis was silent, unable to say anything. Gabriel gripped a dagger from the wall cautiously, keeping it within his firm grip before she could answer. The mother finally sighed, looking at her daughter before back at the hunter. "Reasons I cannot state."

"Very well," Gabriel said, taking the dagger from the wall and walking towards the door. Lillith shot a warning glance at her mother, running after him.

"You can't leave!" She shouted from the porch. The hunter stopped short in what would be the front yard. He was surrounded by forest in all directions, alone except for the animals that wandered around at night. The moon was full in the sky, shining brightly upon the hunter and the younger woman.

He took a few deep breaths of the cold air, feeling the winds pick up swiftly. He wanted Mina's bed and her body next to his, her hands running up his back, kissing his flesh tenderly, whispering sweet intelligent nothings in his ear as they fell asleep together. He wanted to feel whole again, not as alone as he felt in the forest with the trees closing in around him, threatening to crush the life from him.

He felt like he had just woken up at the Vatican. Any second now the gargoyles would fly out from the sky and attempt to murder him. Only this time he didn't have any tojo blades to defend himself. He was alone and unarmed in the world, standing naked in front of an army he couldn't kill.

"You can't leave," Lillith said again, coming closer. "She's still got a hold on you. She's still watching you. And if you leave now she'll come after you again."
"Than what am I to do?" He asked, turning to face her. "Stay here for another night? I have people out there, friends I have to help."

She fell silent, lowering her head behind a layer of her blonde hair. She looked almost ghostly in the moonlight, her pale skin, her icy cold eyes…

"I keep seeing things, things I can't stop thinking about. And if I don't leave now people I care about could die." He looked back out to the forests, finding the clouds on the horizon. Snow, his body went rigid. Snow meant Mina and Carl were dying.

"She's showing you what's going to happen," Lillith said. "But prophecies only reflect a choice. A choice you're going to make."

"And how do I stop making that choice?" He asked. "How do I stop something I don't know that I'm going to do?"

"You could start with coming inside and getting your clothes back?" She suggested.

Gabriel looked back to the forest a moment. He sighed deeply and turned his back on the young girl, embracing the wildlife again. Far off in the distance a wolf howled, crying out for his pack. They found him again, calling back with the same long whine as the first. He closed his eyes, heard the pounding of the blood in his ears and finally embraced his weakness as the weight of his limbs started to pull him into the earth itself and swallow him up.

"How did it happen?" He asked her suddenly, out of the blue. "How did you cure me?"
Silence. Gabriel turned slightly, looking just over his shoulder. Lillith smiled back at him, crossing her arms and suppressing a shiver.

"Let's go back inside? It's cold."

"How was it done?" He asked her again, grabbing the sheath from the dagger threateningly. Oh come on Gabriel. You wouldn't actually kill her.

No, he thought, but there's no harm in scaring her.

He whipped around again and found the girl was gone. The moonlight shone down over the small house as the door slammed closed, the blue illumination shimmering down upon his body. Gabriel knew what he was looking at though. He could feel it in his bones, through his veins, moving through his heart. His eyes moved to the rooftop, finding the blue robed figure staring down at him. The man smiled softly, the same smile he always had on his face.

"Hello Gabriel." He said.

The hunter sneered, glaring cruelly. The reaction was instantaneous, something that happened because it was meant to happen. Somewhere inside his body he was told to do it. This man deserved every ounce of his cruelty, his malice. Every single minute of every single day was spent being wicked to this man for some reason Gabriel couldn't remember.

The words that ushered forth from his mouth were the same way.

"Hello Michael."