CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Bethany. Bethany!" Mori was shaking Beth in an attempt to get her to wake up. So far it wasn't working very well. Beth had collapsed after there was that huge flash of light.
"Dang it Bethany! WAKE UP!" Mori shouted slapping her across the face.
"Ouch!" Beth yelped in pain. Mori let out the breath she had been holding. Mori would never admit it out loud, but Beth was the only real friend she had ever had, with the exception of Jen. But she and Beth had lived through the worst. She just couldn't see her life any other way.
"What happened to you?" Mori asked the teen.
"I…uh…I'm not really sure." Beth replied holding her aching head. It was throbbing like mad. What had happened? First there was the crash in the library, then she and Jen falling out the window, being held captive by Dracula…then what? Beth couldn't remember much, only the painful memories she was forced to re-live in her mind.
Bethany was four again. She was running. What was she running from? Her house, she was running from her house. She had just been told that her father was missing. He had been sent out on a secret mission for the military and was never found. It had been a month and they had had no contact with him whatsoever. He was legally pronounced dead yesterday.
Beth wouldn't believe it. Her father wasn't dead. He was alive! And she was going to find him if it was the last thing she ever did. The four year old Beth turned around to look back at her home only to see it being engulfed by red hot flames…
"Bethany, are you alright?"
"Yeah…just tired I guess. We can't all be like you when we jump out of windows, some of us get tired." Beth told Mori with a soft smile.
"Let's get you on your feet. If dear old daddy and his brides…" Mori trailed off as her eyes glazed over. Her mind seemed to be on other things at the moment.
"Mori…Mori!" Beth shouted and snapped her fingers in front of Mori's blank face. She then jerked suddenly, as if she had suddenly been pulled out of a trance.
"I'm sorry, what?" Mori asked turning to Beth.
"You were going to say something." Beth said cocking an eyebrow at her friend. This was so unlike Mori to just suddenly space out. Again, did this have anything to do with the dream she had a while back…Save me.
Mori put an arm around Beth and helped her to her feet. Beth really needed Mori for support to walk. She had no idea why she was so weak. Not only was it inconvenient, but also it was just plain annoying. What had made her this way, Beth wondered.
When they got into the manor, Beth saw Mori do something she never thought she would ever see the girl do. Mori went and got Van Helsing for help. Mori had placed Beth in a chair and ran off to the hidden library. The girl returned minutes later with Van Helsing right behind her.
"Beth, Mori told me what happened." he said as he gently picked Beth up and cradled her against his chest.
"She actually did it on her own free will?" Beth asked, shocked that Mori would do such a thing. Beth turned her head toward Mori.
"Shocked, simply shocked." she told her. Mori smiled at her.
"Well, it wasn't like I was going to carry you all the way to your room." Mori told her. Beth smiled slightly at her friend. She knew Mori would once again never admit it out loud, but she knew Mori was worried about her. If she ever did say that, it would imply that she had emotion and Mori had an image of being hollow that she had to uphold.
Van Helsing carried Beth to her room and set her on the bed. It was only then that Mori and Van Helsing noticed that Beth was sleep. The two silently crept from the girl's room and shut the door.
"So, who do you think threw the rock at Verona?" Van Helsing asked Mori as the two were walking back to the hidden library to tell Anna, Carl and Jen that Beth was alright.
"I don't know." Mori replied honestly. Suddenly, she lost her footing and fell. Van Helsing's fast reflexes were good enough to catch her before she hit the floor.
"Are you alright?" Van Helsing asked as he set Mori back up on her feet. "I've never seen you just trip before."
"I'm fine. I've just been doing it a lot lately, that's all." Mori told him.
By the end of the week, Beth was back to her full strength. She spent most of her time with Mori, training. On occasion, Van Helsing would come in Mori's place. Beth had to admit that Mr. Big, dark and pompous was growing on her. She was actually beginning to like him. The girl discovered this during their training sessions. He would often help Beth with her technique, making her an overall better fighter. Then on one day, just for fun, he helped her with her aim. Beth was gifted with firearms and her aim was good. After a few hours with Van Helsing helping her, her aim was now deadly to anything that didn't possess a soul.
When she wasn't training, Beth was doing research in the library with Jen, Mori, Anna, Carl, and (again) Van Helsing. What they had to find now was a mystery to them all. When Aleera broke into the library, she stole a single book. It was called The Immortalis Chronicles. Now, they had to answer why Aleera was told to steal the book. Why was it important? What was in it? And most importantly, why would Dracula want a sorcery book? Was there a spell in it that he needed? Could he even do magic? Or did he have someone to do it for him?
The only thing that Mori and Beth really wanted to know was why Jen, of all people, knew the name of the book and what kind it was. Jen was a Valerious. If she had anything to do with sorcery, Anna would kill her. Was she going behind everyone's back just to be a sorceress? Beth seriously doubted it, but (as much as she refused to accept it) it was still a possibility.
One night in the library, Beth looked up from her book to see that Mori was growing tired. She could tell because the girl was covering up a yawn. Jen had fallen asleep with her head on the desk, leaving Carl half-asleep on the couch. Beth stood up and yawned as she stretched out her tired muscles. Suddenly from up above her, she heard the unmistakable thunder of a gun shot. Beth froze in place, fearing the worst. If she heard another shot, then she knew her fear was probably true. As if on cue, a second shot rang through the night.
"Van Helsing!" Beth shouted bolting out of the library, breaking everyone around her out of their trance.
"Anna! Answer me!" the girl yelled at the top of her lungs as she pulled out her revolver. She climbed the steps three at a time. Beth couldn't explain it but something wasn't right. She could just tell.
"Bethany!" she heard Mori's voice from below her, but it was too far away to matter to Beth at the moment.
A third shot was heard as Beth flew out of the library door, through the main library and down the main hall, her black trench coat billowing out behind her from her speed.
"Anna! Van Helsing!" Beth shouted once again, hoping to get a reply. When the only sound that reached her ears was the pounding of her own boots on the stone floor of the hall, the teen quickened her pace. The girl flung open the main doors to the manor to see a state of chaos around her. Van Helsing was busy with fighting Dracula and Anna was holding off Aleera and Verona on her own.
Beth raised her revolver and fired. The shot rang out as did a scream of pain. It came from Verona, who's shoulder was quickly healing over. Beth fired at the bride again, each time moving her slightly away from Anna. Each time she hit the bride, and each time Verona screamed in pain and fury. Suddenly, Beth's trusty firearm clicked empty and Verona was finishing extracting the bullets from her flesh. The bride glared at Beth, her eyes filled with rage and insanity.
"Now that I have your attention…" she told the bride, who immediately lunged forward after Beth. The sixteen year old dove to the ground to avoid being grabbed by the bride. Beth was then abruptly pulled up by the collar of her coat and an arm slipped around her waist. She then felt an icy cold hand press itself over her mouth and then that hand tilting her head to the side. That was before she heard the bitter, icy voice whisper in her hear.
"Hello my child. Don't worry at all. It will only hurt for a moment."
Beth bolted upright in her bed, her scream ringing throughout the room. Her face was covered in cold sweat and she was shaking from head to toe. The girl's chest was heaving up and down as if she had just run a mile or two. The still slightly terrified Beth placed a hand over her heart. It was pounding madly in her chest. It was almost as if her heart wanted to pop right through her ribs and into the room before her. It was only a nightmare.
"Beth?"
Beth gasped slightly as she whirled around to see that Van Helsing was standing next to her bed. Her heartbeat lessened in her chest at seeing him, and only him. Van Helsing placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you alright? You were having some nightmare. I could hear you next door." the monster hunter asked her.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Beth replied, placing a hand on the side of her neck subconsciously.
"If you are alright, then why are you shaking?" Van Helsing inquired.
Beth didn't even know she was shaking. Oh, how could something as stupid as a dream scare her this much? She had faced the fiercest warlocks, witches, werewolves and vampires there were without blinking, but she was shaking in fear over something that wasn't even real.
"It's just cold in here." Beth lied and then looked up at him. "What are you doing up this late?"
"I have nightmares almost every single night. I've pretty much given up on sleep." he told her gently as he sat down on the side of her bed.
"Why? The nightmares, I mean…" Beth started. "Why do you have them almost every night?"
Van Helsing sighed and then gave a girl a rare, soft, but pure smile. "I can only remember the last twelve years of my life. I guess the nightmares are subconscious memories trying to resurface."
"I'm sorry." Beth told him, sincerity filling her green eyes as she looked out her window at the night sky.
"Don't be."
"It must be terrible, to not remember your past, to not know if you have any family or not." Beth said as her voice dimmed down into a whisper.
"It is only terrible when other people know more about yourself than you do." Van Helsing told her, a soft, yet encouraging smile on his lips. The man put an arm around the girl, who was still shaking slightly. Whatever her dream was about Van Helsing thought to himself it must have been pretty bad for her to be scared about it.
"It's only a dream. It will be alright. Don't worry." Van Helsing softly told Beth, who was leaning against his chest.
"I know it can't hurt me." Beth told him. "But there…I just have this feeling that something will happen."
"The job of a hunter is never finished. Therefore, I believe we all have a good reason to be paranoid about certain things." Van Helsing told her.
The two sat there in silence for a while. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was just time that they spent enjoying the fact that there was someone to talk too. Even though no one spoke, they both knew the other would be there when one of them did talk.
"Do you remember the first time we met in the Order?" Beth asked Van Helsing out of the blue. Van Helsing looked down at her, the memory slowly forming in his mind's eye.
"I remember. You were only twelve at the time."
"Back when I was innocent." Beth cut in, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
"I remember that I believed that it took a gifted child to test run Carl's weapons. If you recall, when I first met you, you were his assistant of sorts." Van Helsing said as he looked down at her.
"Yes, I remember…"
Van Helsing waited for her to continue but found that the girl had fallen back asleep. He hadn't even noticed it. The monster hunter gently laid her head back on the pillow and pulled the covers up around her. Van Helsing then stepped back and looked at her sleeping form. She just looked so serene with the moon light coming in through her window and making her skin glow just ever so slightly. She just looked so…familiar. Van Helsing could have sworn since the day he met her that he had seen her before. It was the eyes. She had someone's eyes. But who's?
Van Helsing shook those thoughts from his mind and then turned toward the door. He walked to it and turned around to look at Beth one last time before he closed the door just ever so softly. The last thing he wanted to do was wake the sleeping angel.