Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Encore ❯ Beginning to Wither ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Dark Encore

Chapter Four: Beginning to Wither

"Dreamer, always alone

Lost in a part of myself that I can't find anymore

I wonder if it's gonna end tonight?"

- McAuley-Schenker Group, "Never Ending Nightmare"

Author's Note: Ladies, gentlemen, and Barbarois (and dhampires, etc.) This is the first chapter in which at least a small portion of hell is going to break loose. Beware traumatic memories, one archer who foolishly and wickedly attempted to drive on about 2 hours of sleep, and the brief appearance of a vampire in dire need of a psychiatrist or a good view of the sunrise. (After what happened in Bloodlust, who can blame him?)

This is also a long chapter, but I felt that Meier did need to appear before the fifth chapter happened.

~*~

Slowly but surely, the realization dawned upon her that her 'sister' wasn't alone in the grassy meadow so late at night. There was a vampire in front of her - a male, albeit not the 'typical' type. He had straw-brown hair, and light amber eyes - certainly unlike the male vampires of yore, with either black or white hair and inhuman eyes, as well as more elaborate outfits. He wore a plain farmer's outfit, complete with a straw hat and a lack of a cloak, and were it not for the pointed ears and the fact that he was so obviously not human, he would have been considered harmless. But he wasn't. He was a vampire, and he was going to kill Rose!

She watched in morbid fascination as one of the vampire's arms curled around Rose's shoulders, and the vampire bent his head so that he could bite at her neck -

"AUGH!" Erika sat up on the mattress that was placed across the van from Rose's little part of the traveling device/living space. It was morning undoubtedly - a warm one, full of golden sunshine that illuminated the van and made her hair take on a bright hue - yet she had awoken in a very cold sweat. It wasn't the first time she had done this, but she thought it had been over back when she made her choice! She thought the memories would stop haunting her when she became a vampire hunter - well, she was undoubtedly wrong…the memory haunted her dreams once again.

Groaning slightly, she looked out of the window she was located near and, through a haze of sleepiness, realized that something was off. She had parked the van last night on the edge of a road that was, to her recollection, nowhere near civilization. The fact that it was now parked inside a town woke her up with great speed, all alarm bells at full blast. Looking back at her 'room' and jumping out of bed, she hollered the only thing she could say at this moment: "Who the frakkin' hell messed with my van?!"

A quiet whimper of sleepiness notified Erika that Rose had somehow gotten to the front of the car, and sure enough - the crimson-haired girl stumbled to the back of the van and sat down on the edge of her own mattress. Erika had to gawk then; was the person sitting across from her really her 'sister'? The locks of curling red hair that somehow always managed to avoid being braided now looked mussed, and there was a look of extreme exhaustion in Rose's hazel eyes. Her skin was slightly paler than usual, accenting the bags around her eyes…and it lead Erika to only one conclusion. "Rose, why did you take over driving the van when I went to sleep? Why were you up so late anyway?"

Rose looked up at Erika and smiled softly. "I…couldn't sleep. I had a nightmare, and I couldn't sleep." Erika raised one golden eyebrow at the girl's simplicity and waved one hand in a 'please continue' gesture. Rose looked down at the ground, silent for a moment. Then she said, "Really, that's all there was to it. I had a nightmare and couldn't sleep, and since you're always saying time is money in the vampire hunting business, I thought I might as well be useful. That and I didn't have anything else to do - so unlike back at the village, do you remember?"

Erika rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to lightly slap Rose on the side of the face. The girl was out of place in the vampire hunting business, it was true. She was too kind and too fragile to ever really be good at the job, mused Erika silently, but it wasn't like she had been given much of a choice or rather - it wasn't as if Erika had given her any choice. And speaking of fragility - Rose never had nightmares before; perhaps the job was hurting her mind, realized the blonde girl. Walking a few steps over to where Rose sat, she placed one hand on a white-clad shoulder, looked into hazel eyes and asked, "Rose, is it because of what happened last night? Why don't you tell me what's going on, hmm?"

A hesitation, and then Rose whispered, "It wasn't because of last night, I don't think…in fact, it's been going on ever since we took the case. And the nightmare…I'm in a dark room, but there are specks of light all over the place; I don't know if it's a room or the night sky really. The lights are…like a barrier; they're not letting me find out what's going on anywhere else. And I always get the feeling that if I ever figure out what's beyond the lights, I'll die." She looked away from Erika's eyes, finding the mattress sheets interesting for a moment. In a softer, more frightened tone, she continued, "Last night I decided to take a step forward…it scared me so badly that I woke up! That's all there is to it!" Erika knew immediately that this was one of Rose's sad excuses for lies, and when that happened, there was usually no way to get the information out of Rose at all.

Shrugging slightly, Erika decided to drop the issue for now. She would probably try to get Rose to talk if it happened again, but for now, in the safe light of the sun… "All right, I'm not asking any more questions for today, Rose. C'mon, we've got a van to maintain, supplies to stock up on, and stuff like that." She turned away from Rose to head towards the front of the van - and then stopped. Curiously, she looked back to see if Rose was coming with. Rose had a slightly dazed look on her face, and Erika immediately realized that Rose wasn't going anywhere unless someone dragged her. She walked back, grabbed Rose's hand, and dragged her towards the front of the car. "Let's go already, you lazy kid!"

Later that night, the two were back on the road. It had taken until after sunset for them to restock supplies and take care of all the sundry troubles of having a van as a residence, the least of which was making sure the van didn't run out of gas.

Truth be told, Erika didn't particularly like driving at night, and not only because she couldn't see overly well in the dark unless the moon cast a good deal of light (much unlike Rose, who had an uncanny ability to see things during a waning moon. Well, it was uncanny to her anyway, but perhaps it really wasn't so unusual…) No, it wasn't just because of that, it was also because everything dangerous comes out after dark, and vampires did fall under the category 'everything dangerous.' So did ghosts, and demons, and…She just didn't like the night. The night was beautiful; no doubt about it, but it was dangerous too. Erika wouldn't let herself like the night until it was finally safe - until the vampires were all gone…

"There's a hitchhiker dead ahead," murmured Rose softly. She was sitting down on her mattress, her head out of the window so that she could see what Erika could not notice at night. "Pale hair, pale skin, dark clothes that look like they belong to an aristocrat - Erika, please go past him." Her voice had unwittingly risen in what appeared to be agitation, and that alone made Erika slam on the brakes from shock. Rose, sweet little harmless Rose, worried about something? If Rose was worried, it meant something was probably wrong on a grander scale than she had thought. Then her mind reeled at the description of the hitchhiker. She silently compared it with the description of the vampire a terrified town mayor had given her…

Pale hair, pale skin, dark aristocrat's clothes…

"He has hair like snow and the pale skin of any vampire, as well as eyes like blood. He wears the garb of some kind of noble, and most of it is dark!"

"Rose, I'd give you a hug if we weren't about to go out for a confrontation. I think we've found our quarry." Erika's voice quickly adopted an emotionless, businesslike tone. "Get out of the van. We're going to go have a chat with Meier Link." Erika got up from the seat, cast one last look at the hitchhiker, turned away from the window, and started towards the door. She nearly managed to get there before a pair of arms curled around her shoulders and she could feel a small, restraining weight against her back. She looked over her shoulder to see Rose's worried, frightened face looking back at her. "Rose…?"

"Please don't go out there…we can just leave. We don't need to get this one; we can go and get another quarry. We don't need to…" Erika took a closer look at what little of Rose's face she could see and her jaw nearly dropped from shock. Rose was seriously worried about the fight that was to come, and yet…and yet. Erika shook her head, looked away from Rose, and very gently pried her off her back.

She turned around for a moment to regard the girl. "We've earned quite the reputation in the last few years, you and I. We're two of the best vampire hunters still living, and if we lose that reputation, it'll be like leaving the business forever. I won't do that, and I don't think you're going to either. I don't want to, and you really don't have a choice. Neither of us can go back to living until every last vampire in the world is gone - now like I said, let's get going." She grabbed Rose's wrist, turned away from her, and marched down the steps. Despite Rose's protests, she had no choice but to follow Erika outside.

Slowly, deliberately, Erika walked over to the person, making sure to keep a good distance between them. She cleared her throat as if to get his attention before saying, "Howdy, stranger. I'm Erika, a vampire hunter, this here's my friend Rose, and we're after a vampire named Meier Link. From what I hear, he looks just like you. Mind tellin' me if you know anything about him?"

The stranger looked at her, calm disregard in his red - blood-red - eyes as it registered that he was not alone. Then, in a voice that bespoke a very high possibility of being born into the nobility, the stranger answered, "I am Meier Link…ah yes, you two are probably those vampire hunters contracted by that foolish mayor I nearly killed? Greetings."

One of Erika's eyebrows began to twitch halfway into Meier's greeting. This was seriously not what she had expected…she had thought he would be something more like the vampire gone mad that the rumors had spoken of; that is to say, she thought he wouldn't be so…polite. What the hell was going on here?!

Author's Note: Again, I hope I didn't make Meier too out of character…please read and review!