"How are we going to find him?" Ashling asked as she and Marion raced along the corridor.
Marion did not answer at first, only continued to walk briskly on, flicking her head from side to side, before sighing and saying, "I do not know. But we know where he was before Vay collapsed, therefore he mustn't be far from there."
She took off again and Ashling and Vuk had no choice but to follow her.
- - - - -
Thunder shook the sky as Jessebelle and the children played in the ballroom. It was the biggest room she could think of and the one that was bound to be void of objects and people. As the rumble resounded around them, the children stopped skipping from tile to tile and looked up expectantly at the ceiling. Jessebelle looked too thinking they might see something she couldn't, but there were only the shadows hiding there.
Than and Valdis turned their heads to look out the window. They turned at once and darted toward Jessebelle. Just as she was about to ask what was wrong the sky lit up in a bolt of lightning and the thunder shook the room. Then it was dark, completely dark, as if something had blotted out the moon and stars.
Sophie, left standing in the center of the huge room, began to feel very small and powerless.
"This isn't a natural storm." She barely heard Than say it as it was drowned out by the next pound of thunder. Sophie whimpered and covered her ears.
"What is it then?"
Sophie did not hear the answer over the thunder, but she saw Than and Valdis' faces with the next lightning flash. Fear, and horror plastered over their faces.
Their fear started a whole slideshow of horrible things running through Sophie's mind, and the thought that consumed her was to find Ashling, there she would be safe, Dracula had said she was her mother now.
She ran through the darkness to where she knew the door was, and wrenched it open, running out into even more pitch blackness.
- - - - -
Ashling flung a door open and had nearly closed it before she saw Vay laid out on the bed against the opposite wall. Vuk stumbled in after her.
"Marion!" She called into the hall, then ran inside.
"Don't touch him!" Dracula sat in the corner of the room. His glowing blue eyes were the only way Ashling knew it was him, as dark as it was.
"What's wrong with him?" Ashling asked as Marion ran to them. Dracula stood and came to Vay's other side across from Ashling.
"He is changing." He looked down at the boy a cold distance in his eyes keeping him from showing feeling. "He needs time to sort himself out." He nodded decidedly to himself, and looked at Marion. "Do you think it's all right to leave him here?"
She nodded, "It should be. It can sometimes take days for them to . . . become."
- - - - -
Sophie finally saw a thread of light ahead of her and headed toward it stumbling against the icy walls. With the light came voices.
"Now, Ahlf, we must be alert for anything, the slightest of noises can give them away before they pounce." A deep voice which Sophie crept back from as its owner came into view.
A tall dark man, trench coat, hat, and various weapons on him. A boy followed him, equally dark but much smaller, with a round kind face. Sophie liked the look of him. Perhaps he was a friend, another vampire's child.
- - - - -
As Dracula, Marion, Ashling, and Vuk trotted down the hall, Marion explained about her vision, and the assembled vampires' powers floating out of their grasp.
"It hasn't affected me." Dracula said.
"It wouldn't, nothing seems to be able to overcome you."
If only you knew. He thought of werewolves, and suddenly, "Listen!" He halted, Vuk nearly running into his knee. Footsteps and voices were apparent to him, but neither of his companions could hear it, but Vuk could.
A growl started deep in the wolf-dog's chest, but before it could elevate, Dracula clamped his hands around his snout.
"Go." He told Marion and Ashling, whose hand he clasp to reassure her. Vuk stayed with him, ever a faithful servant, crouching near the floor, to spring. The two crept toward an opening, nothing more than a few missing bricks in the wall, and a new smell reached the odd allies' noses.
Vuk realized who it was before Dracula did, and, as his master strode confidently through the hole toward Van Helsing and his boy, the wolf-dog whimpered.
"Van Helsing, you've decided to join the party!" Dracula was like a joyous host in his speech, though, his thoughts and the murderous gleam in his eyes told otherwise. The moon threw their shadows long on the ground. Van Helsing shoved Ahlf behind him, and the boy fled while he pulled out a stake from his coat.
Vuk was also absent, having slunk away to trace his girl's scent, she was near he knew.
"I didn't know I had received an invitation. I decided to crash." Van Helsing's stake gleamed. Without missing a beat, he charged, the stake held before him, like the baronet on a gun.
Within seconds this happened:
Vuk was feet away from snatching Sophie's dress and dragging her further from the fight, when she flew forward away from him. Plunging herself directly in front of Van Helsing's stake. His thoughts of 'revenge' consuming him, Van Helsing flung her aside, against the wall, with a hole below her heart and a concussion, and pain blinding her. Vukasin thrust through the crevice in the wall, scratching fur off his sides on the stones, and biting Van Helsing firmly on the wrist, keeping the stake down, and bringing him to the ground. Dracula went to Sophie while he had the time, and saw her injuries. She bled profusely from her heart and head. He grit his teeth and breathed heavily as he made his decision. Quickly, and painlessly, he drained her of her blood, and sent her into black death.
Surely heaven waits for you. He thought, and truly hoped it did.
Vukasin yelped as Van Helsing slashed his side, and before he could prepare himself Dracula was on him, screeching like a bat, choking him.
Author's Note: I know VH and Drac's taunts are so nerdy. Sorry for taking so long, school is hell, and geometry has stuck a knife in my chest and is slowly twisting. I'll try to get the next one up soon.