There was a limited window of opportunity, and he had to make it count.
"Open the cell" Van Hellsing ordered to the only person guarding the place. Johnny took the chance to take the situation in. Two armed enemies, one unarmed objective. Doable, if only he prioritized his targets. The guard had to go first, he had the superior firepower, and Nerdy would be second, because he didn't like that bastard. Van Helsing would live just a bit longer, enough for Johnathan to get something useful out of him. As the gate swung open, Johnathan sprang into action. He swiftly kicked the gate, pinning the guard behind it, while pulling the submachine gun he was carrying thought the metal bars. He spun, using his body to keep the guard pinned, while he shot two bursts of three rounds straight into Nerdy's chest. Then he spun again, doing the same to the guard, adding a fifth burst straight to his face when the Kevlar armor protected his enemy. He finally aimed his newly-acquired weapon towards the old man, but by that time the bastard had made a move of his own,
"Impressive, Mr. Marlow. I see that Ranger School does wonders for fighting abilities, but you are still too slow. Now, if you could please get out of my way, I would appreciate that. After all, you wouldn't want me to accidentally slice your girlfriend's throat, would you now?" the blade was trailing Mavis' neck dangerously close, and Johnathan wasn't about to let him hurt her. He slowly backed away from Van Helsing, leaving him plenty of room to scape, while keeping the weapon's iron sights firmly on target.
"You have plenty of room to escape, let go of her" Johnathan ordered, keeping a firm grip on the SMG.
"Sorry, Mr. Marlow, but I'm keeping the demon, whether you like it or no…"
As he was about to finish, a loud shot rang. Van Helsing was struck in his exposed shoulder, making the blade twirl safely out of his grip and clattering harmlessly in the floor. The monster hunter scrambled away, clutching at the bloody wound, while Johnathan rushed towards Mavis' unconscious form. Van Helsing was getting away, but that wasn't Johnathan's priority.
"Come on, Mavy, wake up. Don't give up on me" he shook the girl slightly, but she didn't respond. He didn't know a way to make sure she was still alive, but he was at a loss. He was mulling over his options when he felt the steady breathing. She was out, but she was still alive, despite the burns and lacerations on her body, which were slowly but surely healing. He gently cradled her in his arms, slowly making his way towards the same way the Van Helsing coward had gone, quite probably towards a way out. He tried to stick to the shadows, to avoid detection, but it was moot. It seemed like everyone had bailed out with the firefight in the cells, so he picked up the pace, forfeiting stealth in favor of speed, lest Mavis' condition worsened. As he moved forward, he could hear the unmistakable ruckus of a raging firefight. If that was true, he might be heading straight to it, putting Mavis in danger, and that was not going to do it. His options really sucked, but even in this, his worst time, luck seemed to hold on to him.
As he rounded a corner, he crashed straight into someone he knew very well.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked once he recovered from the stunned state.
"Looking for you, come on, we have to go" Daniel quickly got back to his feet, and helped his brother up. He didn't fail to notice that he had Count Dracula's daughter in his arms, and that was a plus. The two men ran back the way Daniel had arrived, not stopping until they reached a tunnel that went up, a metallic ladder the only way to follow it. A bat came down from the hole above them then resolving into the form of the famous King of Darkness. While only slightly surprised to see Johnathan, he was heartbroken to see the sad state in which his daughter was.
"Is she okay? What happened? Wake up, my darling!" the Count expressed, going through the same process Johnathan had just a moment before.
"I don't know. She's breathing, but we have to get out of here in case her condition worsens" Johnathan calmly responded, pulling the pistol out from Daniel's leg holster. A familiar one, a MK23, he pulled the slide back just a hair, to check if it was loaded.
"And… are you ok?" was the mandatory question, but one that had a longer answer, one for which they didn't have time.
"We'll talk about that later, right now we have a more pressing matter at hand. How do we get out of here?"
"They are massing up near the entrance. I'll toss a flashbang up the shaft. When it goes off, I want you Count to go behind Robert team's line, away from combat. Johnny, you and I will take care of what's-his-face lackeys. We have to move fast." Daniel pulled the pin as soon as he finished, sending the cylindrical grenade up in a swift toss. Moments later, a thunderous explosion boomed, while at the same time Dracula turned into a colored smoke, along with the girl on his arms, and floated up and away from the scene. Johnathan was second up, being the least encumbered one. Topside, he met face-to-face with two guards dressed in similar fashion to the now-dead cell guard, clutching at their ears and clearly struggling to keep their balance. In a fit of rage, he coldly shot the closest one straight on the head, while then switching target and applying the 'two to the chest, one in the head" rule on the second. By that time, a third one was half-way into recovering from the grenade's effect, but that was as far as he made it before he was cut down by Daniel's fire. The following mop-up was short, Robert's squad having done most of the job.
"Johnny-boy! Damn, I thought we had lost you for good, bro" Robert hugged Johnathan to tightly for the man's liking, but he let it slide just because he was really glad that they had saved him and Mavis.
"Yep, good to see you too, Rob. Can I have my breathing back?"
"What? Oh, yes, sorry"
"Thanks. Can we get out of here already?"
"Roger that. Let's move people, someone should fetch the Count; maybe if he can provide us with a place to safely ride this storm"
Johnathan didn't hear the end of the sentence, since he was already too tired to remain upright and awake. While Daniel had been issuing his order, he just sat down against a small barrier and closed his eyes, letting exhaustion take over.
Mavis was vaguely aware of her body, while the fog of sleep steadily but slowly began to dissipate. Halfway through there she began to feel the wounds that she was covered in, unable to contain some light whimpering as her brain processed the sensations.
"It's ok, darling. It's ok. I know it hurts" a soft, motherly voice comforted, running the back of her hand against the girl's cheek. While she did this, Claire tended to the girl's wounds, which were, unexplainably, healing way too slow, and needed to be taken care of. The humans that Marlow had brought in were really helpful, as experienced warriors should be, she supposed. They had provided the supplies to care for the vampire girl, and some helpful information about nursing wounds. This, combined with her (admittedly old) knowledge of magic was more than enough to help with the vampiress' recovery.
"Cl-ai-re-" Mavis could barely mutter, her mouth too dry and her body too tired to properly articulate any other words.
"Sssh, don't waste energy, Mavy. You need it to recover. Your dad and I were so worried. And little Nate, well… he's missed you too" the witch maid was just finishing the sentence when, as if on cue, some low babbling came from a nearby crib, and Claire lifted the small vampire in it, then laying him down close to his mother. The baby instinctively cuddled closer to his mother, Mavis being able to feel his little hands trying to hang on to her. The vampiress tried to at least bring her face closer, if only to feel the closeness of her son, the only physical remnant of her late husband. She simply could not avoid shedding the tears that followed, one of the few things she had enough strength to do. Claire, on the other hand, could not do anything but hold the girl's hand and watch her suffer, now that reality had sunk in. The girl wouldn't be alone, that was for sure, but she would always feel like she was missing something. She had loved her husband profoundly, their son the ultimate proof of that love, and now that man was gone. Only one other person new what that felt like.
Said person was below, in the lobby, trying really hard to look unfazed by everything that had happened in the last month. Too many emotions, too much worrying. It was exhausting, and Count Dracula had to admit that even him, the greatest vampire of all time, had been affected by the recent events. Losing quite another member of his family, then having his daughter kidnapped, only to find her in a tortured and frail state… it wasn't something he wanted to live through again, and that's why he had allowed the humans safe-haven in his hotel. Because he knew they wouldn't rest until they had Van Helsing's head on a pike, and that's what he wanted, more than anything: revenge.
The young mother had fallen asleep again, having found enough strength to wrap one of her arms around her son, sleeping by her side. The witch maid hadn't had the heart to break them apart, so she just remained silent in the room, looking after both of them. Day was coming, and she would soon need to go to sleep too, but not before Dracula came by to check on his daughter.
Our daughter.
Yes. Although Claire hadn't been the one to give birth to Mavis, she had helped rise her, and she felt she had the right to call her a daughter. It was just her motherly instincts kicking in, probably, but even if that was the case, she did care for the girl, as much as she cared for her own daughter, and she wanted to see the responsible for this pay for what he did. And pay he would
"Look who's up and awake. Sleep well?" Daniel called from his seat, a strange-looking but tasty dish in front of him. While every other guest in the hotel went to bed as soon as the sun was up, the group of humans was up and early in the morning, and they were only waiting for Johnny to finally wake up and decide what to do next. After all, Van Helsing was still out there, and as long as he lived, they were in danger. They had to act as soon as they could, lest they find themselves head-to-head against the monster hunter and in a bad position.
"I needed the sleep. After all that's happened, my mind needed a break" Johnathan answered, pouring himself something that looked like coffee, but god knows what it actually was.
"I know, bro, take it easy"
"No, not at all. We have work to do, tell the guys to meet me at the library when they are done"
"We've got a plan?"
"Yeah. We'll rain hell down on them."
"How is she?" the Count whispered, walking towards his wife's side. Everyone in the room except for Claire was in deep sleep. Mavis laid on her bed, one hand gently over little Nate, who clung to his mother's dress with his little hands, and Lilith laid cradled on her mother's arms, peacefully asleep with her arms tucked over her little belly.
"She woke up for a brief moment not long ago, and she didn't seem to have worsened much over the last few days. But she's still very sad about what happened, no doubt. It's going to be really hard on her from now on"
"I know, my love, if there's one thing I can understand very well is how she must feel right now. I wish there was something I could do to help her feel better, but I can't, she has to learn to live with this and overcome this loss. It won't be easy, and she'll need our support, but she's a strong vampire, and little Nate is a strong reason to live"
"I know, Drac. Do you think she could try to... you know..." Claire tried to finish the sentence, but the mere idea of Mavis trying to end her life was something she could not fathom.
"I'm sorry to say she already tried once, my love. Padraigh's brother told me how she got so drunk that she actually tried to suicide by standing in the sunlight..."
"What?! Drac! When were you going to tell that to me?! When she tried it again?! This is worse than I thought!"
The witch maid was now more worried than ever. Mavis had become a very special and challenging case among vampires over the years, suffering from extreme depressive states that had gone unheard of on vampires for hundreds of years. There was no living creature that could tell the couple how to deal with the girl's frail emotional state, and that meant that they had to play it by ear when it came to dealing with her. It was a pretty much "touch and go" situation, and they could not afford mistakes.
"I was told of this not long ago, and, quite honestly, I wasn't sure what to think of it. Mavis has gone a long way, and it pains me to say that she has become a very different monster than we remember. I can't say I like that notion, my love, but it doesn't make it any less true. We have to stop thinking of her as that naive little girl we raised for years, she's an adult now, and a troubled one at that"
"I know that, Drac, I really do, but whenever I look at her I still see our little girl, the one that was so sweet and innocent, whose only problems were not remaining out during the day and protecting her candy from the 'scary humans'. I can't see her as anything but that" the witch lamented, looking down at Lilith, who didn't look that different from her sister all those decades ago. The Count didn't know what to answer to that, so he simply took another chair, set it by Claire's side, and wrapped his arm around her waist, both of them looking at the two sleeping vampires laying in the bed inside the room and just wondering what they would do in the near future with their troubled girl.
"Well, this is becoming more common these days" the girl muttered to herself, looking around into the blackness surrounding her.
"Yeah, I know, it's not terribly original after a while. It's not like I control this, however" the second Mavis declared while getting closer. Like before, she wasn't threatening or hurting her, in fact, she seamed to be pleased.
"Why so happy?" the vampiress asked, with an air of pessimism in her voice.
"You are kidding, right? Princess, you made it, like I said you would. You were able to resist long enough to be brought back to safety, and saved everyone from getting killed by a vicious monster hunter. You were strong in the face of danger, and you should be proud of that. Plus, you now have the opportunity to be back with Nathan, to raise as a good vampire, even if he will never remember about his daddy."
"And what difference does it make?!" Mavis shouted out of desperation, unable to let go of what had happened, "Paddy is dead! Little Nate is going to grow without a father! I ruined my Zing's life! I am a single mother that has no fucking idea of how to look after and raise a kid! I'm a GODDAMNED FAILURE! My dad will only look at me with contempt and pitty in his eyes! He IS string. He went ahead and raised me almost on his own, despite losing the love of his life! I can't do that! I'm a sorry excuse of a vampire. Sean should have let me die that day in his apartment. Instead? He just saved me so I could see how much of a piece of crap I am!"
While the young girl shouted, spoke ill of herself, and just generally pestered herself, the other Mavis just looked in slight disappointment, even as the girl broke down in tears when she was done ranting.
"I can't change the image you have of yourself," she softly said, "but I know for a fact that you are wrong about it all. I can't give you the answers you are looking for, but I will try to point you in the right direction. That's all I can really do for you. I wish that some day you'll understand what I mean to say."
Just after finishing that, it banished, leaving Mavis alone again.
"Come back", she asked, softly at once, but full of rage the second time, "COME BACK!"
But It never returned.
Feels good to update again. i wanted to update sooner, but I had to send my PC with the tech guys and it hasn't come back yet, so I'm stuck with writing on my phone. Amyways, hope you liked this chapter and please leave your thoughts on it in the Reviews section. See you next update.