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Monday, December 10, 2007

Vampire and Hunter

I had this amazing idea one night as I was printing something, and, without delay, I wrote out the characters and plotted out everything. I haven't been this intrigued in a story for awhile, which is a good thing, especially seeing as how my cousin is demanding at least 150 pages of a story by February >.< Well, anyway, here's the Prologue! And, if I don't get discouraged, I'll post up more!
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Prologue

Three years ago…
“I’ll be back near dawn, so don’t wait up,” Abraham Van Helsing instructed his daughter as he shrugged his long brown trench coat on. Despite his words, they both knew that she would wait up, no matter how late he came back. She always did.
Fourteen-year-old Carmen Van Helsing untangled her legs and, setting down the book she was reading, walked over to her father. While straightening his collar and helping to put his hat on, she asked casually, “What’s the job this time?”
Abraham laughed and pinched his daughter’s cheek, saying, “I don’t believe I’ll tell you that, darling.”
Carmen pouted and pretended to be sad.
Abraham shook his finger laughingly in mock severity.
Carmen grabbed his finger and pretended to bite it off.
It was a tradition father and daughter had kept up for over a decade, and it was still faithfully practiced despite Carmen’s increasingly-obvious womanhood.
“Have a safe night, Father,” she called out as her father vanished into the darkness surrounding Van Helsor Manor’s grounds. He paused briefly to wave back, and then disappeared. Everything was the same as it always was—so why did Carmen feel as if she would never see her father again?

Exuding confidence and casualty, Abraham walked into the darkening forest, aware of every sound and movement; decades of training had imbedded the skill into him so it had become as thoughtless as a natural-born reflex.
There was no sound that night—all was quiet, and the famous vampire hunter listened to the tiny sounds of leaves crunching under his boots. Glancing up, he noted with an odd sense of detachment that the stars had just begun to show.
And then everything went black.

When Abraham woke up, he was suspended by ropes that tied his wrists to a tree about fifty feet from the ground. Utterly confused, he shook his head slightly, hoping to clear his muddled thoughts.
“Ah, I see our guest has awakened,” crooned a soft voice that came from inside him, yet echoed all around. Abraham stiffened at the sound—he would know that voice anywhere.
“Vega?” he asked, praying it would be his sister playing another practical joke.
The voice laughed, a tinkling sound that sent shivers up the hunter’s spine. “Guess again.”
“…Magdalena.” It wasn’t a question. If the voice wasn’t his sister’s, it could only be his late wife’s.
“You’re getting warmer,” the voice sang out yet again.
Abraham wracked his mind, and finally came up with the last person in the world it could possibly be. “Carmen? If that’s you, darling, this isn’t funny.”
“It isn’t meant to be funny—and I’m not Carmen.” A vampire suddenly dropped from the branches above to land on the branch that Abraham was tied to. She smiled, showing her fearsomely long and pointed teeth. “Do you remember the name you gave me?”
The vampire watched in satisfaction as Abraham’s eyes widened and fear shot through his body, making it shiver and twitch. “Sorin…”
She laughed and, twisting her body so she was safely balanced against the tree trunk, clapped her hands mockingly. “Congratulations, Father. You still remember me!”
“You never left my mind.” How could he forget his vampire daughter? He had spent so many nights, agonizing over his decision…
Sorin laughed bitterly, Abraham watching her blood-red lips move in that stark-white face, entranced. “I beg to differ. Your words are those of nights spent comforting yourself over your cowardly decision!”
“It was for the best. And I gave you a chance to live.”
“Just a chance! While my sister had the best doctors fighting to save her frail little heart to keep her breaths shuddering through her body!”
“If you had stayed, we all would have died.”
“No. We would have become vampires. Which, of course, in your view, is worse. And I suppose you’ve brainwashed Carmen already. There wasn’t even a guarantee that you all would become vampires! I didn’t start drinking blood until I was seven, by which I could’ve learned not to drink my family’s blood!”
“Sorin, Carmen has a scar she carries to this day. You gave it to her using your sharp little teeth as soon as you were born! You were born with teeth! We couldn’t risk it.”
“We? By ‘we,’ I believe you mean yourself. Because, of course, you had already decided that Mother had to die.”
“She was a full-fledged vampire, uncontrollable in her first urges, yet she held back for us. I couldn’t stand watching her in agony, and at last she begged for me to kill her so she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.”
“All lies!” hissed Sorin venomously, her bright blue cat-like eyes slanting dangerously. “You killed Mother, and tried to kill me! You are nothing more than a cowardly, selfish murderer!” She spat the last word out at her father. “I won’t even give you the benefits of being a vampire. I’m going to kill you right here and now!”
“No!” protested Abraham. “Think about your sister! Carmen isn’t old enough to take care of herself! She’s only fourteen!”
“I was three months old when you threw me out into the forest to be eaten alive by the wild creatures of the night! I have been alone all my life! I am alone now, and I am only thirteen minutes older than Carmen!
“I’ve watched her through the years, sneaking glimpses through brightly-lit windows. You’ve been so careful and doting to her; it sickens me! You’ve never even done half so much for me!
“I wanted to be loved too! I’m half-human! I craved the warmth of a father’s embrace, my mother having been taken away cruelly. I craved the love of a family to help me through my hardest blood-urges when there was no blood to be had. I resisted drinking your blood, although I had millions of chances to do so! There was a period when I tried not to drink blood at all, in the hopes that I could one day walk through the front gates, proudly stating that I was a vampire who did not drink blood! I dreamed of being accepted!
“But all that changed the day I stumbled upon Sonya, dying in one of your infernal traps. My only friend besides Miruna and her daughter Sabine, who had found me! I was rejected by the vampires for being half-human, and I was rejected by humans for being half-vampire. My life has been nothing but loss and rejection!
“And this is all because of you!” During Sorin’s entire monologue, Abraham had not spoken because he was so shocked.
However, now, realizing that Sorin’s rage had peaked and was waning, he felt she was waiting for him to respond with something—anything. Without anything better to say, he gave a wan smile: “You sound so much like your mother. She didn’t get angry easily, but when she did… The thought that someone could speak with such eloquence while caught up in the deepest fires of passion amazed me. She was beautiful when she was angry, and I loved her most then.
“I love you too, Sorin, every bit as much as Carmen. I couldn’t face the thought of you hurting Carmen and then sinking into depression because you had hurt your beloved sister—”
At first his cheek was numb, and then it exploded in a red flower of pain. He stared in dumbfound wonder at Sorin, who had just slapped him.
With her hand still in the position it had landed in after slapping him and a faint flush making her face glow and eyes sparkle, Sorin looked like Magdalena in the flesh. “I wish,” she began in a low voice, swelling as her anger began to rise again, “that you would just shut up! Stop lying to yourself! Stop lying to Carmen! Stop lying to me! All you ever say are lies.” Sorin’s voice sank again, making her sound like a little girl who was about to cry. “Don’t lie to me anymore, Daddy…”
Abraham stared at his daughter, feeling his chest tighten, longing to reach over and pull her to him and comfort her so those pearly tears never fell again. “I won’t,” he promised, his voice husky with walled-up emotion.
At his words, Sorin snapped out of her reverie, eyes glittering dangerously again. “Damn right you won’t,” she smiled eerily. “I’ll make sure you never lie to anyone ever again.”
Abraham Van Helsing, most famous of the vampire hunters, didn’t even have time to utter a sound as his dhampir daughter plunged a silver stake through his heart, the enormity of her strength allowing it to pierce through his body to his back.
How ironic, he mused as his life’s essence began slipping away. All this time, I used silver stakes to kill vampires and thought of them as animals… Funny how I can’t help but love my daughter… I’m sorry for having to leave you, Carmen… Take care of your sister… I love you…
And so Abraham Van Helsing died, rising into God’s palace without ever specifying who he had meant while thinking those last three words.