Disclaimer:  If I owned them, would I be this cruel?  thinks  Don't answer that…

AN:  My grandma has terminal cancer and her last wish is to go to Alaska, so the entire family, myself included, is going with her for an indeterminate length of time.  I won't be able to update until we get back.  Sorry, guys.

Let Lie the Ghosts

Part 2

"Here.  This could be useful."

Van Helsing reached out to catch the crossbow that Carl had tossed his way, balancing it amid the growing pile of arms in his hands, some of which he actually recognized and understood.

"Maybe this.  Please don't drop it."

There was a carelessness, almost an indiscriminate anger in the friar's voice and actions that put the monster hunter on edge as he leaned over quickly to catch the beaker, his armload of weapons threatening to tip over in the process.

"These are completely finished?"  Carl didn't wait for the large priest at the forge, easily a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than him, to answer, instead merely grabbing a sword and dagger and tossing them in Van Helsing's general direction.

Through a remarkable display of acrobatics, the monster hunter was able to catch the hilt of the sword, but the dagger blade nicked his hand before continuing down to bounce off the flagstone floor not half an inch from his foot.

"Did I do something to upset you, something I should be aware of?"

"Whatever do you…"  Carl trailed off in shock, turning to face Van Helsing for the first time since the hunter had appeared in his lab, catching sight of the blood on his hand.

"Usually I have to leave before people start trying to cut off appendages."  Van Helsing kept his tone light, smiling slightly, but it seemed to do nothing to ease the friar's guilt as Carl grabbed a leather satchel from a passing monk and quickly but carefully packed all of the equipment into it.

"Damn it all, Van Helsing, but I'm sorry about this.  I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't."  The monster hunter wiped the blood off his hand, relieved to find it truly was a very superficial injury.  "In fact, according to the cardinal, you're one of the few people around here who enjoys seeing me in one piece."

"That's not true.  The Order is impressed with your work… they just wish you'd bring some of your dead-or-alive assignments back alive rather than dead."

"I don't bring the dead ones back."

"You're hopeless."  Carl's smirk betrayed his tone as he backtracked, snatching two sheaths from near the blacksmith-priest, apparently completely oblivious to the angry stare being directed his way.

"I'm not hopeless, just realistic.  If it's trying to kill me, best if I kill it first.  Speaking of killing things, how is all this…"  Van Helsing gestured to the bulging satchel full of gear.  "Supposed to help me kill a necromancer?"

"Not all of it's for the necromancers.  How much do you know about them?"

"That I'm supposed to kill them.  Or that's what I assume, given that Cardinal Jinette didn't request that I bring any of them back."

Carl's voice took on a peculiar, excited quality that Van Helsing had learned to associate with a lecture.  "A necromancer is a type of mage, a sorcerer, but a very specific type.  They deal with death, and more specifically beings that have died.  Now, a good necromancer will have at least two main types of power, and since they're sending you I'd assume that they're at least decent.  After all, my great-aunt could kill a run-of-the-mill conjurer without breaking a sweat."

Van Helsing's sigh didn't go unnoticed.

"I'm not joking, Van Helsing.  In all known, documented cases of necromancy the necromancers themselves are human.  It's the things they create and command that aren't."

"Things they create?"  Van Helsing rifled through the bag of equipment, taking out the crossbow and hefting it.  Though similar in weight to the one he had used in Transylvania, it had glass vials of liquid on either side of the bolt cartridge.

"Yes, things they create.  And stop tapping that glass!"  Carl grabbed the crossbow from Van Helsing, replacing it in the satchel after throwing a rather murderous glance at the monster hunter.

Not wishing for a more deliberate repeat of the dagger episode, Van Helsing wisely stepped back, his hands folded behind his back.

"As I said before, a necromancer has two main powers.  The first is recalling the spirits of the dead, usually those who have been damned, on occasion those bound in purgatory.  These spirits aren't usually physically dangerous, though the more powerful ones can cause havoc to anyone not within the necromancer's protective circle, but they can wreak mayhem on people's sanity.  They mix truth and lie.  Whatever you do, don't listen to them."

"Power number one: summoning ghosts that need to be ignored.  Check."  Van Helsing couldn't help toying with the friar.

Carl pointedly ignored him.  "It's their second power that can be cause extreme bodily harm.  If provided with a corpse, usually human but on occasion animal, then they can reanimate it.  The corpse has none of the attributes, none of the soul of the person it was before.  It lives, if such can be said, only to serve the one who raised it from the dead.  Zombie and necromancer are bound, though.  Kill the necromancer, the zombies die.  On the other hand, destroy the zombie and the necromancer will know you're there.  Van Helsing, are you listening?"

Van Helsing turned back to the friar, drawing his attention away from a portable version of the machine gun he had tried to finagle the Order into giving him last time.  "I was listening.  Zombies and necromancers connected.  Kill necromancer, zombies not a problem.  How do you kill the zombies without killing the necromancers?"

"They're already dead, and they feel no pain.  Decapitation will send them back to the grave.  Salt will hurt them, and enough will stop them.  And no, in no way shape or form will the automatic rifle be handed over to you, so stop staring at it."

"Is salt somewhere in your collection?"  Van Helsing gestured to the satchel, raising one eyebrow in query.

"As a matter of fact, it is.  And it's also diluted in holy water in the vials attached to the crossbow, so it should coat the bolts when you shoot."

"Should?  You've never tried it out?"

"I've only been back for a week!  I should think you'd be grateful I managed any design improvements at all.  Not to mention all the time I'm going to lose on a trip to the Americas…"

"What?"  Van Helsing grabbed Carl's hand as the friar closed the satchel.

"Didn't they tell you?"  Carl sighed, the sound somewhere between despondent and petulant.  "I'm coming with you."

"Foolish child.  You think you know so much, and yet you haven't even learned that you can't kill that which isn't living to begin with."

Gabriel struggled against the cold hands that held him, hands that belonged to creatures that God would never have countenanced to live, blasphemies of his children.

"You can do nothing to me, creature of darkness."

"Such bravado, my young one.  Wait and see… wait and see…"  The heathen priest in robes of black moved closer as he spoke, pushing his sleeves back from his hands, hands too pale, too slick, almost like those of the dead that held him.

Struggling against the hands that held him did no good.  He had nothing that could hurt these creatures, had been stripped of all his blessed weapons and defenses.

Pale fingers trailed down his face, the physical touch gentle.

"Will you scream for me, Gabriel, as I rip your soul from your body?  Will you scream when I claim both for my own?"

He said nothing, fighting the urge to wretch at the touch of the dark priest.

"Do you think they will scream back, your father and his master?"  The whisper was accompanied by a tightening of the physical hand, and a vicious stab of pain through Gabriel's soul as the creature before him began whispering the words of a rite even more ancient and foul than anything he had ever been prepared for.

Gabriel screamed.

"Van Helsing?  Van Helsing, wake up."  Carl gingerly poked at the monster hunter's shoulder, not wanting to be on the receiving end of anything painful should he wake up fighting.

Van Helsing's only answer was the same ragged panting that had caught Carl's attention in the first place.

"Van Helsing, come on, wake—"

The monster huter sat bolt upright as Carl jumped away with a low cry, muttering a short prayer for protection as Van Helsing dropped into a defensive position.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

Van Helsing looked around quickly before running a shaky hand through his dark hair, staring hard at Carl.  "Thank you."

"Not a problem.  Are you hungry?  The Captain's sent down some breakfast for us, if you can call it that.  They really do a very poor job of preserving their food."

"Water and bugs, Carl.  Not exactly the best place to keep food."  Still, even Van Helsing looked momentarily put off by the small repast presented by the friar.

"Where do you know Aramaic from?"  Carl looked away as he voiced his question, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.

Van Helsing nearly choked on the piece of bread in his mouth.  "Aramaic?  What makes you think…"

"Because you were whispering it, while you were sleeping, before you started trying to hyperventilate.  You said something like 'father, defend me', but I can't be certain.  I never was exceedingly good at Aramaic."

"Carl, I don't know Aramaic.  I know English, most of the other Romance languages, some Latin thanks to the Order, but I don't know ancient tongues."

"Apparently you did."  Carl scratched idly at the wood planking of the vessel.  "You've been having nightmares practically every night of this voyage.  What are you seeing?"

"I don't know.  It feels like a memory, but at the same time it doesn't.  I'm young, very young.  There's a priest, a dark heathen priest."  Van Helsing gives a strange twist to the words, irony and sarcasm combined.  "If I didn't know better I'd say he was one of your necromancers.  I'm being held by zombies, and he's doing… something to me.  I'm not sure what."

"Why do you say he's not a necromancer?"

"Because he's dead."

Carl could feel the blood drain from his face as he snapped his eyes up to Van Helsing.  "He's dead?  You're certain?"

"Yes.  What?  Carl, I don't like that look."

Carl shifted nervously.  "There are rumors, myths of necromancers who abandon their mortality and their humanity for greater power."

"Everything we chase is a myth."

"No, you don't understand.  Even within the Order, within the ranks of those who know, these are myths.  If such a being existed, it would be extremely powerful, extremely difficult to destroy if not impossible."

Van Helsing straightened, a small smile playing at the edge of his mouth.  "That's what they said about Dracula."

Carl shook his head.  "Dracula was a relatively recent addition to the ranks of the damned.  Tales of this necromancer, this demon for lack of a better word, go back far longer.  What do you think this means?  Do you think it means you killed him, before…?"

Van Helsing shrugged.  "Actually, from the way things were going I'd say it means he killed me."

Carl stared blankly at the dark-eyed monster hunter, who set about his breakfast with an intensity that was definitely not merited by the cuisine.

"When do we arrive in the Americas?"

The friar shook himself, calculating quickly in his mind how long they had been gone.  "Three or four days."

"Good."

The rest of the meal was conducted in silence.

"He is coming for us, brothers.  The one who stalks the night would see us ushered to our demise."

The soft voice carried easily over those assembled, the black-cloaked figures all focusing their entire being on the lithe form pacing before them.  No birds called in the muggy night air, no insects hummed their tune of life.  All had long ago learned to stay far away from the dank collection of stones.

"They have sent the wolfhound after the prey, but they are mistaken if they believe we will go quietly.  Never have they seen anything to equal us.  Never has so much raw power been given form, given substance by so great a congregation as ours!

"Let the wolfhound come.  Let him hunt us, let him find us, let him walk willingly into our midst.  The snare is set, brothers."

One pale hand appeared from beneath the cloak, a fist clenched in a salute to victory.

"And this time Gabriel shall be mine."