‘Beware that when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.’
Friedrich W. Nietzsche
White, blinding pain threatened to cleave bone. The crossbow fell limp and lifeless from his dying arm, his buckled knees following swift to the ground upon its splintered ruin. Every breath came as the tongues of Hell, flame and ice in a glory of agony- Van Helsing gasped from the pain of his many injuries. Trembling without control upon the floor of fine and aged marble, he watched as though in a dream his blood drip off the sharded protrusion of talon piercing his shoulder. Dracula’s face- a gaunt and fleshless skull face- swam before his eyes. As Dracula wrenched the wing claw free, it took all strength to stave away the darkness that came to Van Helsing so enticing. If this is to be the last thing my mortal eyes see then let it be Elouise. He conjured her before his mind and the shriveled face of evil melted to one of beauty and light, and though he had no longer the strength to stand, he would not lie like a bled corpse on the floor. He would not bow to evil for death but would die with dignity, at the very least on his knees, and the phantom touch of his beloved upon his skin.
‘It may surprise you to know, Van Helsing,’ Dracula said, his fangs finding difficulty around the slow heavy accent of his Transylvanian home. Outside the vaulted hall, the storm raged as though the very winds of violence fought the stones to take Van Helsings side. Here all was silent, the cold first dawn of winter unfreed from bonds of waking life. The peace of sleeping death. Dracula shattered it. ‘I have always admired you.’
Van Helsing spat red and shook with effort to meet those whiteless eyes.
‘Yes.’ Dracula stooped, long-fingering the bolt that was all to remain whole of his weapon. It was a hollow spike of silver veined with iron, cored and filled by holy water. Pure death to a vampire. Dracula plunged it into Van Helsing's chest, driving his own destruction through flesh and muscle, bone and finally stone as, with the force, Van Helsing was pinned backwards to the floor.
‘I really do admire you.’
Dracula folded his wings against him and they melted into an armor of razored scales, and strode back and forth before Van Helsing’s convulsing form. Watching as he drowned in liquid red. God, spare my life or else kill me now and end my suffering! Have I not always been your servant? Do I not deserve just one act of divine intervention? But still he chocked his blood, damning and struggling for each breath as it came. God it seemed was too busy to hear.

‘I admire your strength, your resilience. You, my old foe, have a such righteous persistence to the eradication of evil as to be found so rarely in true pious men.’
Dracula knelt beside Van Helsing and looked on him with some perverted affection; much the way a professor would a troublesome, good natured student. Each white finger coiled thrice around the bolts shaft and Dracula dragged it, too, free.
‘God is very fortunate to have one as strong as you to do his bidding.’ And he threw the bolt aside.

Van Helsing tried to speak, to stand, yet his great strength was spent. Every breath sent tongues of flame through his chest and he wretched out his life in crimson clouds that burst and fell over his pallid face. One hand, the one still clinging feebly to the realms of the living, sought in his pocket, red-slick fingers closing around metal. A crucifix! Summoning every bloody breath he had for the words of a holy banishment, he drew it. It was pitiful how fast Draculas foot pressed against his wrist- the threat of broken bones not only prominent but imminent. In one deft flick, Dracula kicked the smoking relic from Van Helsings reach and hope.
‘I wouldn’t fight if I were you. You should save your tremendous strength. If you attack me now, I’m afraid I will have to kill you.’ Through a swirling cloud of dying, Van Helsing heard Dracula move away, his voice coming as the great echoes of immortality inside the vaulted hall. ’I do not want that. I have not had such sport for many dull centuries.’

Van Helsing heaved himself onto his chest with more effort than he ever deemed possible, clawing forwards with his one good hand towards Dracula’s smirk. Wait, Death, and I will bring you another soul as well as my own. Dracula laughed to see the unarmed man- near literally in both contexts- dragging himself across the floor. He tutted resigned appraisal.
‘Always such quality.’
By some unseen hand, the great mahogany doors flung wide. Dracula curled and closed his palm: Van Helsing had just time to glance up weakly before he was expelled from the cursed hall in a roar of sound. Some miles away, huddled in the ice and snow, he heard from afar Dracula’s voice call inside his head:
‘Until the next time we meet, Van Helsing.’

Van Helsing staggered with some semblance to his feet, wrapping as much of his rags about him as he could reach for warmth, the howling blizzard searing his exposed bones and blissfully numbing his pain. Shelter. He must find shelter first- what was now a blessed relief against his wounds was set to soon become a pleasure of deadly intentions. His blood leaving a trail of pretty red roses on the crystalline white behind him, Van Helsing wandered aimlessly into the night.

I have been here for little over a week, although I’ll admit the first few days are an agonizing shroud of fevered nightmares to me. By some miracle of luck, though my hosts remain stalwart to the otherwise, I found my way through death and storm to a monastery. They took me in and here I stay. While I lay abed they tried their uttermost to convince me that it  was Gods own hand that turned my fate but I doubt it: if there was a God, by his hand vermin like Dracula would have been smitten long ago. My injuries are still grievous- I fear the demonic wing tip that impaled my shoulder shall never fully heal. However it is a small price to pay for my life, especially now that I have a greater reason to live it for though I suffer I am not alone. The monks here have received news- a letter from my beloved Elouise has come! Her words swell my heart with such desperate longing that I must surely die from it were my joy not just as great, but if I do die I care not  because to die by her love is a death worthy of any great hero of old. Dracula was wrong you see. From this day forth I fight only for my beloved; for her smile, for her heart and to keep her safe from all the evils of the world that taint my soul but I will not let touch her. From this day forth, God, I am no longer your servant. I renounce the destiny you have forced upon me and shall forge my own anew, for what God sends his men to bleed in their name then forsakes them before they can witness the one piece of good they have ever created? My Elouise sent a picture- she gave birth three weeks past by the letters date. My own child. She wishes I could have been there to see it. My bride writes that our daughter suffered a sickness for her first born days but assures me all has past, she is healthy and growing stronger by the day. They both are. I can tell even from this sparse sketch I hold unsteady in my hands that she holds her mother’s features for she is beautiful. My beloved hasn’t given her a name: she wishes for me to choose one on my return. The herbs and poultices the monks give me for the pain cloud my mind and I cannot think of a name becoming of such a fae and fair creature as she. I have not written yet- my hands cannot support quill with any readable clarity- and I fear to tell of her my condition lest it cause her harm so soon after the birthing. How I long to see them. Alas, though because as long as my foe lives I must not return and risk a vampire’s wrath upon them. I feel his presence ever lingering on my mind, fixated, no doubt, on the strong blood flowing in my veins, and know that he will always find me. Yet while my strength regains, and between dwelling on how a mere mortal can defeat one of such speed and power as Dracula I dwell on a suitable name for our child, and dream that I am back once more in my beloveds arms with her soft lips against mine.

The shocking crawl Other Things sends across the flesh woke him in an instant. He was in the crypt, though as to arriving his memory was painfully bare. Van Helsing turned: a women, clad in thin, flowing robes of a white that shifted and changed in a myriad of every color with the breath of a phantom breeze, stood behind him. She was solid, but not substantial- her face seemed shrouded to the eye and it was left to the imagination to fill in the finer features. To Van Helsing, she looked something like his Elouise, but with terrible power.
‘Van Helsing,’ her voice was not that of Elouise. It resounded through his head like the first inaudible thunder cry of a storm and he fell to his knees, for a spirit she must as sure as the moon be.
‘You have fought valiantly in your quest and have sacrificed much in the pursuit of evil. You have bled and braved many dangers and lived. But mortal you remain.’
He felt her eyes upon him as she concluded;’ You cannot win this war.’
‘I must try,’ he said, his voice sounding harsh and horse to his ears after that of the heavenly queen.
‘If you do not destroy Dracula he will come after you. You know this. He will seek you out, and kill all those you hold dear to your heart.’ The ghostly images of his bride and daughter shimmered and extinguished before him as she spoke and Van Helsing grasped desperately at the smoky tendrils their figures left behind. ‘You must try, Van Helsing, but you cannot hope defeat him.’
‘Spirit,’ he cried, ‘I beg to you, speak not to me of riddles. Tell me what I must do!’

He didn’t see her move, but before Van Helsing’s next frozen breath she appeared mere spaces from his face. She was icy cold.
‘I can give you what you need,’ she whispered now, low and urgent as if the carved saints on the walls were trying to listen on their words. ‘But you have to swear to me that you will vanquish Dracula once and for all if I gift this to you.’
‘I swear! Tell me!’
The women straightened, the ever changing iridescence of her robe fixing into shadow. All warmth left her speech turning her words hard and stern.
‘There is a price.’

Before Van Helsings mind flashed his child and sweet Elouise, their bodies drained and mutilated by hungered fangs, dead and cold and resurrected if he had not the heart to plunge stakes into their chests. Tears streamed from his eyes, freezing in lamentious rivers on his cheeks.
‘Anything.’
His soul was damned already besides.

As Van Helsing stared, a strand of the shadowy robes darkened and condensed, until there, suspended above her hands, was a grail. The woman wept. Dark tears cascaded down her pale skin filling the silver cup with the red of blood. Only when it was brim full she raised her head, the stain of her tears streaking her face and swelling ruby jewels on her sleeves. Only Van Helsing was reflected in the grails side, and stray red droplets stained that face as well. Grave silent, the grail was proffered towards him. Van Helsing knew what he must do. With a silent prayer- not to his desertive God but to Elouise- Van Helsing grasped the goblet with both hands and drank from its warm, salty depths.

Aleina. I have decided to name her Aleina. Upon waking the morning after my encounter with the apparition, I found to my surprise that my injuries, only hours before so grievous, were healed and gone, and I was filled with a sense of great confidence and vitality. In greater haste that ever before have I summoned, I took a horse and rode to Castle Dracula before the day had broken. I knew he could not see my approach: a vampire sees in blood and veins and the grail has rendered mine invisible to him and leaving him blind! To be sure, I checked every puddle and metal mirror I passed in search of reflection and found nothing. I reached the castle in a wreath of mist. We fought- the greatest battle fought in three full ages of men- and as we did, I found myself stronger and faster than ever previously. My skill, my speed- the power inside me was mesmerizing. For once Dracula and I were equally matched and by the rays of the dawns light I, Van Helsing, at last slew down my foe. After consigning his body to flame, I now hurry to my home. I find myself a father and should act as such, no longer as crusader to darkness, but sitting at my daughter’s side and watching her grow into life. I am eager to see them both: too long have I been parted from the only true peace and light in my heart. With gold taken from Dracula’s horde- the irony that my deadly enemy shall now serve to keep my sole reasons for life not lost upon me- I paid the coachman handsomely to ride like deaths own mount to my sweetlings side. Yet no matter how fast he goes it is not enough for I am gripped by terrible angst to see them again. Wait for me, my Elouise; we will be together in just two days!

She is as beautiful as I remember, my Elouise. Perhaps more so, for darkness tends to corrode all beauty it touches and light from memory is want to fade. And my daughter. My dear Aleina. From the moment I held her I felt nothing but joy because for the first time I have created, not destroyed. That I had a part in creating something so fair and pure that it set my cold cragged heart to weep. I held her for a good full hour, I think, before I could finally bear to tuck her up in bed. Another ten minutes I was then while I kissed her ‘til she slept.

And my Elouise stands before me, a stray lock of raven hair hiding her blue eyes. One finger shyly twists the thin pearlescent shift she solely wears. Unlike so many who coveted her, I fell for her heart rather that her face. I yearn for her now: to feel her mouth once more against mine. To taste her lips and scented flesh. Her face breaks into a smile, a smile like her heart, all goodness and sweet. Her heart, her sweet, sweet heart. And her veins. Pulsing with every beat of that same heart her veins, beneath the skin. She lies back against the sheets and I can see them: every vein pounding with life. Pounding with blood as red as her lips. My Elouise whispers to me, to join her. Too taste her skin. And the pounding veins that lie beneath. Blood and life beneath her skin. Oh God how I crave it. How I crave the price.