Iliana Van Helsing's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Iliana did not go far. The bones on the stakes would not let her. She climbed back up the castle steps and stopped at the first skeleton. She checked the ribs, the skull, the old iron ring still around one finger wrist bone. She knew that ring. Her family wore it. This was a Van Helsing. She needed to know how he died before she owed the Mother anything. A voice came from behind her. "You keep touching the dead. Careful. Some of them still listen." A woman in red climbed toward her. Long dark red hair. A crimson gown that dragged over the stone. Iliana had seen her in the court, at Dracula's side. The princess. A blood bender. When she came close, Iliana's own pulse jumped and stuttered, tugged off its beat. "You're his daughter," Iliana said. Her hand found the crossbow strapped to her back. "Maria," the princess said. "And you're the hunter with the charm. My mother sent me. She wants you to understand before you decide." She raised one hand toward the stakes. Blood rose from the old bones, thin threads of rust and dust. It hung in the air like a red map. "Watch." The threads shaped a memory. Iliana saw men with her family's crest come to the mountains. She saw them find the witches, the Strigoi Vii, weak in daylight because of Hecate's curse. She saw the hunters burn a village of women. She saw the witches strike back, and both sides die, and the vampires drive stakes through the fallen hunters as a warning. Van Helsings had killed witches who never touched London. Her own blood had done this. The red threads fell to dust. Iliana's hands shook. "They weren't monsters," she said. "They were cursed. My family murdered them for it." "Now you know the debt," Maria said. "Blood for blood. My mother could ask for your father's throat and be within her right." Iliana looked at the skeleton wearing her family's ring. She made her choice. She would not defend what her ancestors did. She turned from the bones. The Mother stood at the bottom of the steps again, veil trailing into the dark. "I saw it," Iliana called. "I know what we owe. My family killed your people while they were helpless." She came down the steps. "I will not hide it. I will name it to my father myself. And I will pay it with a truce, not with his death." The Mother watched her a long moment. "You admit the debt," she said. "Good. Then I will hear terms." A red sigil bloomed in the air between them, its lines glowing, sacred and fragile. "But witches do not take promises. We take oaths. Swear on this, or your father hangs." Iliana looked at the burning rune. To bind her family, she would have to swear on witch magic. And her father did not know she had already sold his name.