Alright, here's chapter three! Thank you so much for all of you who reviewed my story this far, believe it or notthey can actually change the story around quite a bit.

Disclaimer: Van Helsing and all of its characters do not belong to me, but if they did...the movie would have ended a LOT differently.

Chapter 3: Healing

Sitting atop an old abandoned church, a new statue stood, unwavering. There were no chips or dents where the others around it were slowly falling apart from erosion. Angels with beautiful feathered wings looked down on the church, their wings clipped from the years of weathering. However, this particular statue was demonic, and its visage was quite hellish.

The crumbling holy relic looked over the town of Sighisoara, on a lone hill outside of town. Wind blew in occasionally, the branches from a long-dead tree scratching and howling at the broken glass windows of the church. One of its walls was slowly caving in on itself, the junction between the roof and the vertical structure groaning under the uneven weight.

Suddenly, the statue moved, but it was ever so slight. In a crouching position, the statue's arms grasped at the roof to stay upright. Looking closer, quite a bit of movement could be seen. The creature's left wing twitched, creating a rippling effect throughout the entire membrane. Clawed feet shifted weight after a time. A few strands of pitch black hair fell over the beast's eyes, but he made no attempt to move them back again. Gashes adorned the creature's flesh, blood glistening as it continued to flow slowly downward. A few precious drops fell to the rooftop as he shifted again.

Dracula looked over the town with keen interest, eyeing the citizens with deep aspiration. Slitted, blue orbs danced as they sighted on countless men and women. What little blood remained in his system rushed to his fang roots, making them ache painfully, eventually subsiding to a dull throb. He turned his head to the side slowly, his large bat ears picking up the slightest sounds from below.

He moved then, stealthily crawling down the side of the wall, the church's frame moaning under the colassal weight shift. Dracua hissed vehemently when his wounds objected with the movements, the gashes burning like hell's fire. The vampire lord had four-hundred years of experience in stealth, and now he put it all to use. His eternal life depended on it.

He also knew that if he transformed back into his human form, he would be too weak to make a silent kill. His visage itself was enough to make grown men run in fear. If a cry was let out, then he would be shot on sight. The vampire lord probably wouldn't die from the shots, but his body wasn't at its strongest right now.

He had come to the city where he was born, in 1422. He hadn't been here in over a century. Things had changed quite a bit since then. It looked happy, almost, where the usual Romanian city was gloomy and gray. It looked somehow more modern, but he wasn't about to go sightseeing. He had been all over town when he was a child, running up and down the cobbled streets with no worries. That was before he was turned into a warrior, someone who could fight for hours without thought of being tired. It was even before he had thoughts of once becoming a vampire, when his mind was innocent and untainted. He had fought the Turks back then, when they were attempting to take hold of Wallachia, and Transylvania. That was also when he first saw Gabriel...

Waiting patiently for all of the townspeople to pass by, he moved on two swift legs to the back of a run-down building. Dracula used all the muscles in his back to contract his wings as tightly as he could; the enormous appendages were quite eyecatching when extended. They would only slow him down at this point anyway.

The building itself was a mess. It looked as if it could fall in on itself at any moment. A slight wind came through, moving the leaves on trees harmlessly. The structure creaked and groaned a reply. The foot of snow covering its bent roof didn't help to keep the building on its feet. Dracula didn't dare attempt to go inside. With his luck right now, it would cave in the second he took a step inside it.

Moving silently into a dark alleyway, he waited. If one looked hard enough in the dark abyss, they would be able to see two electric blue orbs staring right back with enough intensity to bore a hole through a skull. Occasionally the slitted eyes would blink slowly, and just as slowly open back up again.

Dracula could literally feel his life's blood seeping out of his body and pooling in the hard clay below.

Finally, after almost an hour of patient waiting, a young man came around a corner and walked on the cobbled street, his eyes darting this way and that. The vampire lord growled pleasurably, an inaudible growl too low for human ears to register. The human was wary, his nervousness and fear assaulting Dracula's senses. The perfect victim.

Using his heightened senses to make sure no one else was in the viscinity, the vampire came out of his alley and fell in step with the human. The man was extremely jumpy, perhaps one of his own had attempted to turn him. Or perhaps the man was just paranoid. Dracula almost laughed to himself, the human was fidgity, but he never once looked behind him. This was almost too easy.

The man stopped suddenly, but just stood there. The vampire lord stopped when he did, almost instantaneously. Human or not, Dracula had to give him credit that he could feel the vampire's presence.

Dracula could almost grasp the fear in his claws, seeping like molasses and settling on the ground like a heavy mist. He licked his needle-sharp fangs with practiced ease, his fang roots throbbing more and more with each passing second.

The man turned around sharply, but nothing was there. Suddenly he felt a deathly cold, clawed hand close tightly around his throat, effectively cutting off his air supply. Gaping like a fish out of water, his eyes bulged out as the death's hand tightened. Black clouded his vision, and just as he thought he was going to fall unconscious, the hand loosened enough to allow some oxygen through. A second later his eyes were assaulted with the sight of the most horrible creature he had ever seen.

The vampire lord quickly slinked off to the alleyway, making sure to keep a tight enough hold on his prey to keep him from screaming. Once back into darkness, Dracula inhaled the wonderful scent of anxiety and fear. He attempted soothing words to his prey, but his elongated teeth and jaw only produced garbled words and incoherant nonsense.

Dracula swiftly moved his clawed hand to the victom's mouth to keep him from yelling out, the human's neck was already turning purple and blue from the tight hold. Unable to hold back any longer, the hell-beast sank his needle-sharp fangs into the young man's jugular. The vampire had to keep himself from moaning out loud as the wonderful crimson liquid ran down his throat, insantly warming the pit of his stomach. Suckling greedily, he made sure not to let a single precious drop escape his grasp, lest it should go to waste. He could taste the fear and apprehension in the man's life blood, the unique combination of emotions and thoughts sending Dracula's mind and body into euphoria.

Four hundred years of eternal life and he had never once tasted the same combination of emotions. Each donor had a unique taste, whether it be age, stress, emotions, whatever.

The vampire lord savored the taste as he continued to suckle. Letting the precious blood settle in his mouth for a few moments, he made the precise guess that the young man was halfway between the age of twenty-nine and thirty. The perfect age.

He felt all of the man's blood seep into his veins, warming the tips of his extremities. He felt the satisfaction of warmth for a short while before the crimson liquid settled and cooled again. His fangs retracted swiftly, unlatching his lips unwillingly from the donor's neck. The man had long since gone unconscious and died. Dracula had greedily accepted every drop the man could produce, licking his blood-stained lips with immense satisfaction.

Dropping the emptied corpse with indifference, the hell-beast inhaled and let out a deep sigh with the air of a well-fed cat. It was a habit of his, to inhale unneeded air; he had had the habit even before he had been turned centuries ago. Closing his eyes, he stretched out his wings and arms, letting the still-warm blood drift out to his wingtips.

He was startled out of his long-awaited stretch by a small girl. Clutching a teddy bear tightly in the crook of her arm, she trembled and stared at the beast like a deer in headlights. She wore a long, light pink nightgown over her small body. Dracula stared curiously at her with a closed mouth, his fangs hidden behind his blood-stained lips. If she screamed, he would show no compassion in making sure she never screamed again.

But she just stared back at his thoughtful gaze, his electrifying blue eyes keeping her attention. She looked to be the age of around three or four. She was rather short for her age, the stuffed bear's foot touching the ground as she stood there. And before her eyes, he transformed back to the well-known pale face and slicked back raven hair. She gasped a little, only a small intake of breath at the quick change. She still kept her silence, intrigued more than frightened.

"M-mister?" She asked tentatively, attempting communication.

The vampire lord was slightly suprised. Never before had someone attempted to talk to him civilly after seeing his demonic side. Hell, no one had ever lived to attempt to talk to him, besides Gabriel of course. He ventured, "Yes?"

"I promise I won't tell anyone, mister." This young girl was obviously still too innocent to understand the terrors of what lurks in the shadows. Hadn't her parents told her the dangers of being outside after dark?

Dracula nodded. "Alright." He bowed shortly to the child, his hands clasped behind his back. The vampire turned on his heel sharply, walking to the back of the alleyway and towards the back of the run-down building.

Transforming as soon as he turned the corner, Dracula spread his wings and flew away from the city, and towards the abandoned church at the top of the hill. The girl watched in silence as he landed on the roof, a small black dot in the distance. She stood there for a few more moments before running back to her warm home.

Landing gracefully on the rooftop, he transformed back to his human form. In a comfortable crouching position, he began his way of healing.

Swiftly removing his heavy coat, he revealed a well-toned chest, pale with a mist of glossy black hair. He grimaced as he actually looked at his wounds. Deep gashes were blistered and swollen from where the werewolf venom had been inflicted. Whole strips of flesh were even completely torn off in places. The left side of his face and neck would look about the same.

Using his sharp pinky fingernail, he swiftly but his bangs behind his ear, not seeming to notice when it stayed in place for about three seconds, then fell back again.

He elongated his fingernails, turning them into sharp talons. Without hesitation, he used the talons to strip pieces of blistered and dead flesh to ensure he could heal correctly. The vampire winced only slightly throughout this procedure, letting the rotting flesh fall to the rooftop. He did this until he could see new, light pink skin take its place. As he healed the wound, precious blood dribbled down his arm. Before it could drop however, he unceremoneously lapped the blood back up, making sure not to lose too much.

For a good hour he did this, healing the scattered wounds and gashes in the same procedure. When he came to his face and neck, the only difference was that he needed to lap up the blood in a different way. Using his fingertips he made sure to consume all he could.

When he finished, he sighed heavily. The next problem to assess was where he was to sleep. Dracula could feel the sun start to come below the horizon. In about an hour or so, the whole town would be seeing the light of day. His reaction time was already beginning to slow, the sun's indirect rays lowering his senses only slightly.

It wasn't safe in the church, people could just walk in and attack him while he was in his daily trance. He could try to fly back to his castle, using the woods and the mountains to shade him. But his castle was half a day's flight away, he would be physically exhausted by the time he got there. The vampire lord thought to settle down in the crook of a tree in the woods. No, that was too degrading for the most feared vampire in the world, even if no one knew about it. His thoughts wandered back to the run-down building in town. Perhaps that would work, he doubted anyone would venture inside, the building was due to fall. He could create a makeshift coffin out of extra wood. It was like a wooden stake through his ego to fall to those depths, but it had to be done. It was only for one day anyway.

Dracula swiftly clothed his upper body, and with another heavy sigh, he transformed a final time and flew back toward his home-town.

...tbc.

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