Immortality

***
Four

As soon as the name of Dupré left his lips, the hotel's young and eager concierge was only too happy to give out the address of thunteuntess' home; it was, apparently, common knowledge to the wealthier classesthe the French capital, and those who surrounded them, and so the concierge expressed no particular remorse in passing on the information. Especially as Van Helsing's tip lined his pocket so very well.

The driver of the carriage that he hailed outside of the hotel gave him a small and knowing nod when he spoke the address. It seemed the Countess Dupré was somewhat infamous throughout the city and that news of her masquerade ball had spread. Van Helsing rubbed his fingertips against the breast of his cloak, over the spot where the letter lay in the hidden inside pocket of his high-throated velvet costume. The entire situation felt to him almost like a trap, like an elaborate gilded cage designed with the singular malignant purpose of taking him whole and alive. He was ready and prepared for that eventuality, but with his leather-gloved hand pressed down over that letter, he hoped that all he'd been told could be true. If he did have a brother, perhaps there was a chance for him to know even a little of his past.

He stepped down from the carriage into a busy, jostling street and paid the driver absently and rather too well for the service provided. It was dark out, and cold, the air still and biting with the frost that was to come, but still bare-shouldered women left their carriages in flimsy dresses barely suited for the summer let alone the height of the Parisian winter. He made his way with all the other new arrivals toward the wide stop steps and the wide-flung doors of the home of the Countess Dupré, tugging down the brim of his hat and pressing his mask into place. As he drew nearer it seemed that the other guests all clutched small rose-coloured invitations embossed with the countess' distinctive seal; one or two, professing to have misplaced or forgotten their invitations, were turned from the doors by the tall, heavy-set guardsmen who were dressed all in black. Van Helsing began to wonder if this had been a wise choice after all.

But he remembered the strange letter, its assurance that he would need no invitation. He drew nearer to the door and strangely did not doubt that it was true.

"Your invitation, Monsieur," said the excessively tall guardsman to his right, holding out one gargantuan hand.

"I don't have an invitation," he replied, looking the man in the eye as best he could from under his hat and his mask.

"Then I will have to ask you to leave."

"I was told that I wouldn't need one."

"Then Monsieur was misinformed."

"The note was quite clear."

The giant's expression changed quickly from that of a kind of placid subservience to annoyance. "Everyone must show an invitation," he said, in a lower and slightly more menacing tone. "Even Monsieur."

"Unless, of course, Monsieur's name is Gabriel Van Helsing."

A butler dressed exactly as Van Helsing knew did Taylor stepped up to the door and nodded briefly to both guardsmen. The rising complaints of the queuing guests behind him subsided, and he was at last allowed inside. The butler disappeared into the throng of party guests before Van Helsing had the chance to question his admittance, but he noted with a relieved sigh that the letter had been correct; he had not required an invitation.

The large entrance hall was filled with guests fighting to check in their coats and wraps; Van Helsing pulled off his cloak and quickly stuffed it down behind an overstuffed leather armchair by the wall before he bypassed the other and weaved his way through into the ballroom. It was a magnificent sight, spacious in the extreme and hung with enormous, ancient tapestries, great chandeliers suspended as if weightless from the lofty heights of the elaborately painted ceiling, done in quite the elegant if a little ostentatious reproduction of the Sistine Chapel. The room was filled with streamers and strange coloured lanterns, with a smell of wine and just a touch of unexplained incense. He could hardly hear the playing of the small chamber orchestra for the disaffected chatter and the laughing from all sides.

It reminded him, though short on acrobats and founding members of the undead, of another ball. But he shouldn't, wouldn't, think on that. Anna Valerious was dead and gone, scattered to the wind, and he had a man to find. Which he knew might prove to be difficult, considering the unfortunate fact that he had not the faintest idea which of the masked men might call him Doctor Abraham Van Helsing, and the only man that he'd know could help him was dead.

He took a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and retreated to a wall to sip it quietly in the din and scan the room. The men and women were all elaborately dressed, their costumes oery ery colour apparent in nature, and of course all were masked. Even had he known the face of the man for whom he was searching, it would have proved difficult, with that strange collection of masks and numerous costumes. He sipped his champagne and leant heavily against the wall, a little uncomfortable in his black velvet suit. He had to trust that this Abraham Van Helsing would know how to find him.

The evening wore on. The music of the orchestra grew more vivacious, almost to the point of fever, as the dancing went on and the temperature rose. Van Helsing tugged at the high collar of his jacket, above its tiny silver buttons, and felt his stomach growl in hungry anger. He left his position slumping in that most unseemly manner and made his way through the chitter-chattering masses to the tables where the food lay. He was on the verge of popping a delicious-looking vol-au-vent into his waiting mouth when he saw her, and promptly lost all appetite.

She was wearing red, a bright scarlet that caught his eye from the midst of a cluster of black. White gloves stretched to her elbows and she danced with the grace of a princess. A specific princess: Anna Valerious. She turned a little too swiftly in the arms of her partner for him to be sure, but he thought that she resembled Anna in a little more than grace. He felt a sudden chill despite the sweltering heat of the room. It was as if he were in the presence of a ghost. *Her* ghost.

But then the dance ended and in the time that it took him to blink, she had merged into the crowd. He searched, his eyes darting madly over the masked faces of the party guests, but he couldn't find her. He was about to move and search for her further as he felt he must, if merely to satisfy his curiosity, but then a new face caught his eyes. That of a man, talking with a small group of others though his eyes were clearly fixed on Van Helsing.

He looked away, tore his eyes from the staring, gazing stranger and searched again for the girl in the crowd. But it was not long before he felt his eyes drawn back to that stranger. He was now moving toward him, the crowd between them parting as a sea to allow him to pass. The people who moved seemed almost entirely oblivious to their movement, and drew together once again in his wake; he moved between them slowly, almost languorously, his hands tucked neatly in behind his back and his long black cloak brushing against the floor. He wore only a half-mask, a piece of smooth white porcelain that seemed to adhere to the contours of his face through a power of their own. And then he came to a halt, directly in front of Van Helsing.

He was Van Helsing's height exactly and for a moment they looked one another in the eyes, and only that. Then, with a strange toss of his long brown hair, the stranger held out his hand; Van Helsing stared at the crisp white glove for a second and then shook the hand.

"Abraham?" he asked, frowning beneath his mask.

The stranger seemed oddly amused by this, the one side of his mouth that was visible twisting up in a hint of a smile. He smoothed at half of his trim goatee with one gloved hand a shook his head.

"Dorian Gray," he said instead, with a smooth, mellow tone and a distinct English accent. Van Helsing felt his stomach sink and strangle longed to turn away but he could not. There was something about this man that captivated him, held him utterly fascinated; he couldn't tell if it was simply his unnatural good looks, the flow of his limbs beneath his perfectly tailored suit, of if that captivation stemmed more from the feeling as his skin crawled. There was something terribly, terribly wrong with this beautiful, compelling man.

"Gabriel Van Helsing," he said at last and dropped the hand he'd been holding all that time in an almost vice-like grip.

"I know," said Dorian Gray, the vague smile still playing at his lips and vanishing behind the porcelain mask. "I am acquainted with your brother, Doctor Abraham Van Helsing."

"Ah," he replied. He couldn't say more.

"And we must leave, at once." Van Helsing frowned and Dorian Gray continued as if sensing this uncertainty in him. "You brother had hoped to meet you here tonight, with the masquerade serving to distract any agent that might have followed you from London. Your brother himself was followed, and two days ago was taken captive. Aware of his plan to meet you here, I came in his stead. We should leave, Gabriel. Now."

"How can I trust you?"

"I'm afraid that if you want to find your brother then you simply do not have a choice."

Loath though he was to admit it, this Dorian Gray had a point. He wasn't sure that he could trust those brown doe eyes, the beguiling innocence of his face half-seen beneath that operatic mask, despite the apparent lack of any evil that he sensed in him. All he felt was purity of soul, pervasive, blank, as though Dorian Gray had never once set even a half-step astray. The feeling should have buoyed him, but instead it left him ill at ease.

"You're right," he said. "I have no choice."

Dorian Gray turned to lead the way, but as Van Helsing turned to follow, he hesitated. He glimpsed the girl again, just momentarily, in the arms of a man as he spun across the ballroom dance floor. In that one moment when their eyes met, she seemed to be pleading with him, and then she was gone.

A hand touched his arm and he turned with a start; Dorian Gray was frowning at him in apparent concern.

"What is it?" he asked, low but strangely audible through the din of the hall.

"Nothing," Van Helsing replied. "We should go."

***