Post by Devyn on Jan 13, 2007 23:45:34 GMT
Maze of Myths
Van Helsing
Van Helsing
____________________________________
18 of December, 1876
It is bitter cold and you would think I be weak at heart, but upon my arrival I saw the same dreary faces of Rome and her inhabitants. The same century old stone buildings and churches. I thought I would have changed. I thought Anna's death would have changed me, I felt it in my heart, but it seems I am much decieved. For the world around me has made no inclination of change. The Wanted posters of my face still hang in the alleys of Rome and people still avoid where I walk as if the plague itself follows me around. I never minded it. And I still don't. That is my proof that I am not changed so much as I thought.
Carl and I arrived not but a day ago and he kept true to his word. He told no one in the church of my transformation and I was greated most spectacularly for my vanquish of Dracula. But it is hard to celebrate when you know the truth, while others know the story. And since then I have locked myself inside a dark and gloomy room, wishing only to be disturbed if there is something for me to hunt. I pray it be no more vampires. I have had my fair share and I rather wish to get my mind off them and the images of my head, instead knowing my misfortune of events I will probably thrust back into them.
I cannot think to write of what Dracula has told me. I cannot think to believe what Dracula has told me. How can I be what he said I am? Granted, I have no thoughts of the past and his explaination (after what I've seen) does not seem so far fetched as I would like it to sound. I have yet to tell anyone of this and I remain that way. I will take this secret to my grave.
In all bitterness, I do regret...
Van Helsing
__
23 of January, 1877
It has been over a month since my return, and I find myself in the most pecuiliar of situations I ever thought I would be. I sitting now, camped somewhere along the road between Rome and Greece. There is a girl by my side as company and she keeps the blissful cold away as much as she allows.
I was called upon not but a day ago by the church as I finally seemed to have received my next orders. Evil does not take breaks for long. I expected to be going somewhere far away, as no problems I'd been aware of revolved around Rome or any of the neighboring places. I was very much wrong. They sent me to the Vatican, a place I have avoided going for as many years as I can remember. Which truly is not very many. I was given no direction of what would happen or even who I would meet. I was just supposed to meet outside the Vatican as the sun was rising.
I was arrested. I thought perhaps, Carl had cracked and told them what I had become during my time in Transylvania-- a werewolf. And it did not matter to the Romans that I was no longer one, they would still have me arrested and vanquished. Again, I was decieved. Although my hands were shackled and my weapons stripped away, these guards brought me into the Vatican and up to where the Pope resided. You can imagine my surprise. Or maybe rather the Pope wanted to see what this 'Van Helsing' looked like in reality. He did not. He had much more important and pressing matters to discuss with me.
If anyone will read this or if I will perchance read this once more if I am alive after this adventure, you will not believe it. How can someone believe that the Pope sat me down, the murderer, and told me he needed his help to bring back his son. I believe I am correct in saying, corruption does go up to all levels. The Pope has a son. An illigetimate son, but a son none the less. I have no idea what age the boy is, I was only told, despite my gaping, that the Pope's son has been kidnapped by a monster. He described the monster, just as he said it-- a monster, a creature perhaps. But there was no narrowing it down from there. The Pope's son has been kidnapped by a monster and I am charged with finding and bringing the boy back.
If you have believed me so far, I am surprised. But this Pope took me to his son's room, a place I would much rather not have stayed. I would pick a prison over the cell the boy was forced to live in. But the Pope explained when you are illegal to even exists, you must count your blessings in the small forms they come in. How this boy was kidnapped rather than just having run away, still alludes my mind. I was left alone in this cell of a room to look for anything that could help me understand who took him and where this boy was taken to. I found it in the form of the boy's own drawings. They stuck out to me and I gathered them, although I had been warned not to take anything from the room. I promised the Pope I would have his son returned, not thinking at first that I had promised to the speaker of God on Earth that I would more than likely accomplish the impossible. Funny how the Pope can be said to be the one doing God's work, when I am the one who Dracula called the left hand of God.
I should not think of it.
I am on my way to Greece and I am only chasing perhaps a fantasy of a young boy's drawings. When I took the drawings with me back to the church I poured all night over books to find where the symbols the boy had drawn had come from. I never found them. Or rather, I never had the chance to when Rain, the girl I spoke of earlier, made herself at my side and easily pointed out the orgin of the drawings. They were symbols. Grecian symbols of Gods and Goddesses of that ancient land. My decision was made for me and despite myself, I asked the Fathers if I could take Rain along. I am in unfamilar territory in anything outside Rome. And just as I brought Carl along on my way to Transylvania, I needed Rain to be guide in Greece.
And so now I sit with her, sleeping at my side. Me-- scribbling hours long in this old and leathered journal. And I am wondering if I will survive this trip. And if I do and there is nothing of the boy to be found... I will not be allowed back into Rome. My home. The Pope will have me killed or banished and I do not want to count or think which of those would be worst. I am on a mission to vanquish evil, but this time, I do not know which evil I am to vanquish and who I am to rescue.
As I said before I find myself in the most pecuiliar of situations...
Van Helsing
*************
Van Helsing put down his journal and stuffed back into the black bag her carried around. He'd long since stripped off his long trench coat and laid it down on the ground for Rain to make a bed of. He glanced down at the younger girl... or perhaps he should call her a woman, and then shook his head. She was asleep to the point that is he shouted, she still might not have woken up. He looked up at the sky and nodded-- it was a clear night, which could only mean that Rain's dreams were much the same at the moment. He hoped like the night previous she wouldn't have a nightmare, he didn't feel like being soaked through with a cold rain.
With another shake of his head, Van Helsing tipped his hat low on his face and closed his eyes, leaning back against the rock he'd been lounged by for the past few hours. Sleep might do him some good, if only for a number of hours before the sun rose and they could continue on towards Greece.
