Van Hell v2.0 Chapter Three

Van Hell v2.0 Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Family Matters

October 31, 2023
New York City

Not being able to sleep has its positives and negatives.

On the negative side, I was starting to feel more and more like a zombie every day.

On the positive though, I had never gotten so many chapters finished in one sitting.

I lifted my head from the arm of my couch as I looked to the laptop sitting, ironically, on my lap. I had just ended chapter 12 of Lion’s Den. The story of Tau, the prince of an African tribe who was also a lion lycanthrope, and Erica, a young film maker who comes to Africa to document real lions.

It was a romantic novel, yes. So sue me. You have to do something to balance the bad in life. And I needed a lot of balance. Not to mention a good cover story.

After all, who wants to go on a date and be asked what you do for a living.

Oh, I hunt the undead.

Yeah.

I am a hunter by night, but a romance novelist by day. I’m a regular superhero it would seem.

Shaking my head, I shut the top of the computer, cutting off Tau and Erica’s steamy night stranded on the savannah with a pride of lions roaming in the dark around their camp.

At least someone was going to see some action soon. If I decided to let that happen. But then, what was a romance without a little romance?

I suppose I could always turn Lion’s Den into a horror and have Tau eat Erica‘s face off. That would be a nice way to tick off my fans.

Or rather, Angela Garner’s fans.

Well, you don’t sell too many romance novels aimed at woman with a name like Nikolai van Helsing.

Sighing to myself as I moved to my feet, I stretched and made my way to the window of my apartment.

My view was nothing compared to Maximus’ but I had a fairly good angle of the city.

It was raining today. One of those slate gray skies that just seems to leak down water from above. Depressing, yet at the same time kind of lovely.

My eyes went over the buildings in thought. People in the 90s must have thought that by now things would be a lot different. Cars would be flying, gasoline would be a distant memory.

Things were still not so advanced as our parents might have dreamed of in this day and age.

As I watched the sky and thought up ways to further torment Tau and Erica, I heard the soft music of my cell phone from the coffee table. I looked to it curiously, leaning back on the cool glass for a moment before I finally strode toward the table and picked up the small device.

The number made my jaw clench. Joe.

My blood ran icy, but I slowly flicked open the phone and pressed the speaker button on. I didn’t say hello first, but merely waited and listened.

“Van Helsing.” The voice was a hiss of contempt as it said my last name. My eyes narrowed, trying to put a face with the name.

“Yes?”

“How many more must die before you back off…?”

This has to be the killer, I thought. There was no doubt. “Who is this?”

“Just back off if you know what’s best.” The phone went silent in my hand. I stared at the screen for a long moment. Call ended.

Back off from what? From the murders? It was hard to when they were the one’s drawing me into the middle of things.

My skin crawled slightly as I recalled the voice in my head. It could have been a vampire by the sound of it. Which meant I either had pissed off someone by killing one of their buddies…or I had seriously fucked up with the Council.

And if it was the Council…then I had very serious problems indeed.

But then, the Council usually preferred more…direct approaches. They wouldn’t throw around threats like this, especially without leaving some sort of calling card. A warning here and there, perhaps, if you were lucky, but not something as shady as this.

They were much more apt to killing first and asking questions later.

Though I couldn’t help but also take into consideration that they also might jump at a chance to rid the world of one of the top vampire hunter families. Any high class vampire would drool at the thought of taking down, not only a slayer, but someone from such a strong bloodline as mine.

And that was a little worrisome now that I really let it sink in.

While I had the phone out, I debated a moment. It had been a while since I had spoken to either of my brothers. It was just easier than explaining things to Mikale and Gavin. Of course…they probably knew most of what was happening recently anyway. They both, like me, had their sources.

But I needed to talk right now. I needed to hear that they were okay. And I probably should tell Mika happy birthday. Thirty years old was a mile stone for a hunter to reach.

I dialed Mikale’s cell phone number from memory and walked back to the window while the tone echoed in my ear.

Mikale was my oldest brother. He was seven years older than me. Gavin was two years younger than him. None of us really looked alike though. You’d never known we all had shared the same father.

My father had met Mikale’s mother Sophia in Caracas, Venezuela. They’d fallen in love, but he had never married her. He knew that marriage was dangerous for a young hunter, so he protected her by staying away, but when he got word that she was carrying his child, he had to come back. He stayed until Mikale was born, then he left again until he was seven years old. On his 7th birthday, my father took him away back to the United States where he started training him in the ways of the hunter.

The same happened with Gavin. Though his mother Claira had been from Ireland, where he spent the first seven years of his own life.

My mother though…for some reason she had been different. My father had never spoke much of her to me, but when he had told me the odd tale in my younger years, I learned that she was a beautiful woman. I was a mirror image of her. Perhaps that is what pained him so much to look at me.

I knew my mother had been killed. They hadn’t shielded me from the story of that night so many years ago.

My father had loved her dearly and it had killed a part of him that night when he had been the one to have to end her life. In a way…I was the constant reminder of that pain for him.

He had married her, given in even though he knew it would be dangerous for her…for us. But he risked it all for the love he had for her.

And in the end, she had paid for it.

As my thoughts wandered and the phone rang and rang, I began to glance over my opaque reflection in the glass of the window.

The long scarlet hair fell down in a wavy mess to the middle of my back. My skin seemed almost white in the image, as if I was made of white porcelain like a doll. The emerald green of my eyes stared brightly into my own as I took stock of my features.

I wondered just how much Chloe and myself looked like each other. She must have been so much more beautiful compared to me.

“Hello?” The owner of the groggy voice on the other end of the phone seemed to have just woken up.

It pulled me abruptly from my thoughts and I opened my mouth to say something, but the words didn’t want to form.

“…Hello?” The voice asked again, a little clearer this time before it yawned in the back ground.

I drew a breath and swallowed my nervousness. “Hey…Mika.”

“Nikolai?” I heard him shift around quickly in bed as he sat up. Damn it. I hadn’t wanted to wake him.

I nodded slowly, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “I know it’s been awhile-”

“Awhile?” He scoffed slightly, cursing something under his breath. “It’s been nearly a year.” He paused at that, perhaps sensing something was amiss or perhaps he knew I must have called for some other reason than just to chat. “What’s wrong?”

“What, I can’t call my brother and tell him happy birthday?” I asked innocently. He didn’t really buy it, I knew that, but he still was a little shocked.

“Is it really Halloween already?” He yawned once more and I instantly felt guilty again.

“Long night?” I asked with a chuckle and he grunted in response. I tried a different question. “How’s Gavin?”

“Gavin is Gavin. He’s more than likely harassing more women like usual.”

“I meant…has he gotten any word back from the doctors?”

Mika was silent for a moment.

“Mika?”

“He’s not getting any better, Nikolai. From what they can tell the curse is slowly weakening him. He won’t admit it to himself though, no matter what they tell him.”

“Samara really did a number on him…” I muttered.

“That’s what you get for cheating on a girl who knows her hexes. He’s been dying a little everyday since she cursed him.”

I shook my head at the thought. “Has he found any other witches that could help?”

Mikale grunted at that. “They can’t reverse someone else’s spell, especially not such a strong curse as the one Samara put on him.”

“We’ll find something, Mikale, don’t worry. We won’t let him die.”

Mikale said nothing for a moment and I knew he wanted to argue with me, but he chose not to as I heard him lay back in bed again.

“And what about you…? Is it getting easier?” I asked softly.

He let out a soft sigh. “I don’t think I’ll ever get completely used to it, but it is starting to get less violent. It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad these days.”

I shut my eyes and leaned my forehead on the cool glass once more. “I’m sorry, Mika. If I had just been a little quicker that night-”

“Nikolai, don’t. What happened is what happened. Don’t blame yourself for that-”

“I can‘t help it. I‘ll never forgive myself, Mika…” He sighed in the background and I shut my mouth.

He was trying to move on…I knew that, but I also knew I wouldn’t be so quick to accept my fate were I in his position.

And in a way, I was.

“And…how are you doing?” He asked hesitantly as if approaching a sensitive subject.

I opened my eyes to look at the sky once more. “It’s not getting much better…” I said quietly and I heard him let out a soft sigh.

“I guess all three of us are cursed then…” He mused darkly and I couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

“You had any doubt?” I asked innocently and he chuckled.

Soon, we began to rattle on about nonsense. Talking about new guns, my upcoming book, and the woman in his life at the moment. I lost myself in the conversation, mostly just giving him enough encouragement to keep talking. I made sure to steer the conversation away from my own love life.

Mika would hit the roof if he knew I was sharing my bed and a lot more with a blood sucker.

As the conversation carried on towards the hour mark, I started to feel my own wariness beginning to tug at the back of my thoughts.

It wasn’t really sleep and it wasn’t really hunger, but it was a combination of the two. Sighing, I knew I needed to get away from the conversation now. I’d been so wrapped up in writing earlier I must have forgotten my medication.

“Mikale, I need to go. I have some stuff I need to do…”

Mikale seemed a little shocked I would want to go so soon, but finally he conceded and didn’t fight it. “Can you come down to see us sometime? I know he misses you terribly…we both do.”

“I don’t know…I have a lot going on at the moment, Mika…” It was the truth.

“Yeah…well, just don’t forget about us, alright? We’re here if you need us sometime…”

“I know…I need to go.”

“Nikolai?”

His voice stopped me as my finger hovered on the red button to end the call. “Hmm?”

“Keep safe.”

I smiled weakly. “I will, Mika. And you too…Happy birthday.” With that, I quickly hung up the phone before he could say anything else.

I was so exhausted after getting off the phone with Mikale, that I barely had enough energy to drag myself to the bathroom and rummage in my medicine cabinet for my pills. I’d quickly swallowed two of them dry before I collapsed on the floor of the bathroom and curled up in front of the toilet.

It didn’t take a whole two minutes before I was bent over the bowl and thrown up with little I had in my stomach. Including the pills I had just taken.

I was starting to reject the medicine.

With a groan, I fell back to the floor mat, my cheek pressed against the rough blue yarn. I should have really taken the pills again and tried to keep them down…but I’d left the bottle in the sink above me.

And I was way too tired to attempt getting up.

Before I knew it, I was asleep, and I was dreaming.

Though really I should reiterate. When I do dream, the dreams tend to always be nightmares. I honestly can’t remember one dream that did not have some twist within it that woke me in a cold sweat, amidst scream, or on the floor after rolling from the bed.

Most of the time, I can’t remember my dreams after waking, but there are a few that seem to stick with me.

And I knew, even while dreaming, that this would be one of those.

I was in the woods. The trees were whipping past me as I pushed the horse I rode to gallop faster between the trees. I could hear the howling and baying of wolves in the darkness of night.

Men yelled after me and I looked over one shoulder to see their forms in the night. They rode just behind me, chasing me. My white gown was aglow in the moonlight, as if it were spun of the beams of light, like a beacon to my pursuers.

Then, I heard the sound of shots. Arrows.

I dodged, my head ducking down as I gripped onto the horse.

Faster. We had to go faster. We had to escape.

And all of a sudden, the horse lurched and reared back. I tried to hold on, but another arrow hit the white stallion in the flank.

With a gasp, I was thrown to the ground. The forest floor was dry and cold. My hands sliced in the dark on sharp rocks and sticks. I clung to the ground, trying to make myself as small as possible.

And the hooves of those after me grew closer.

My heart pounded in my ears. Thundered until all I could hear was the blood. I trembled as the horses skidded to halts near me and boots hit the ground as the men dismounted their rides.

I trembled and slowly opened my eyes, lifting them slowly to face my coming death, but all I saw was the white porcelain of the commode in my bathroom.

I lay on the floor like I had laid on the ground of the woods.

Strange. I thought, pondering the meaning of the dream.

“Do you often sleep on your bathroom floor?”

The voice made me lurch into a sitting position, shock clear in my eyes as they settled on the figure sitting rather relaxed on my bathroom counter.

Maximus looked perfectly at home where he sat, as if he had been there for hours.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, probably sounding a little bitter.

He shrugged slightly. “About an hour.”

“And you left me lying on the bathroom floor?” Okay, perhaps I sounded a lot bitter.

“Well, I didn’t want to move you, should you get ill again.” He admitted, giving me that gorgeous smile. And I couldn’t help but understand his point.

And as that sunk in, I grimaced. I looked to the toilet again and sighed. It was empty. He must have flushed it without me waking up. Or perhaps I had done it myself after throwing up.

Sighing, I put the lid down on the toilet and rested my head on the plush, blue covering that matched the fabric of the bath mat.

I didn’t even hear Max when he sat up and came to kneel next to me on the floor.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here?” His voice made me look up around the arm I had tucked under my cheek.

“What are you doing here?” I mumbled into my arm. Might as well humor him.

He chuckled softly and reached out to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I wanted to see if you had any plans for tonight.”

My brow rose. “You could have just called.”

He grinned at me and leaned forward to press a kiss to my cheek. “Answer the question.”

I yawned and cuddled myself against the toilet cover, shutting my eyes. “What was the question again?”

His lips found my ear this time and his voice came out as light whisper that sent amazing chills up my spine. “Do you want to go to a race tonight?”

The made me turn my head back to look at him. He smirked knowingly and I returned the gesture. His dipped his head and found my lips in a hard kiss.

A race. He knew the answer before he asked the question.

The night was starting to look up already.