Van

While most of the farmhouse was dated and rickety, it was clear they were working on restoring the home. Van spied rooms roped off and fresh patches on walls as she followed behind her mother. It was a house of projects, most somewhere in the middle, but Xandra led them to a room that was completely renovated.

Here, the hardwood floors were smoothed and espresso stained. White wainscoting covered the lower half of the walls, complimenting the sea foam paint on the upper half. A fireplace big enough to walk through took up the outer wall, and in the hearth, wood burned cheerfully and scented the room with hickory smoke. To anyone else, it was a cozy space, tasteful but comfortable.

To Van, it was home. Every color and fabric, the smells and furniture... they all bore her mother's style, and were echoes of the homes they lived in over the years.

"Van, thank you for getting this," Xandra said, settling into the chair in front of the late model computer.

She nodded but didn't make eye contact with her mother. After her talk with Luca, the anger in her middle had cooled, replaced by an unfamiliar heat that made her tingle and flush whenever her thoughts wandered to their moment in the dining room. Every so often her fingers drifted up to her lips, but she snatched them down each time, mortified by her body's betrayal.

Get it together, Van.

As perfect as the moment had been, it was just that. A moment. One I hope to repeat... Stop! She shook her head. One kiss and she was acting like a flighty teenager.

An ache spread through her. It was exactly how she was supposed to be spending this time of her life, but the people huddling around the polished desk reminded her there were bigger things at stake. There would be no more moments for any of them if they didn't figure out how to stop the Asylum.

That also meant her feelings about her mother and brother's resurrection had to stay on the back burner. Eventually, the shock and the hurt would wear off, and she would remember how much worse it had been to be without them, but for now, she could only see how another person had betrayed her.

"Xan, what do you see?" Nancy asked, squatting down to peer at the screen.

Xandra clicked on the folder labeled The Countess, and it opened to reveal several more files. They were labeled numerically, which gave nothing away.

Starting with number one, Xandra muttered, "This might as well be a Wikipedia page on Elizabeth Bathory."

"Who?" Luca asked.

"The crazy woman who bathed in the blood of girls to stay young forever? That Elizabeth Bathory?"

"You don't know about shifters and Slayers, but you know about a female serial killer?" Luca's eyes glittered with amusement.

"One is in the history books," she replied casually. He didn't need to know she had a thing for weird history. Especially weird, tragic history.

"Anything you didn't already know?" Nancy was all brisk business.

Xandra's nail scraped against the computer screen as she pointed at a few lines of text. "This mentions a secret child, but it states it as fact, not speculation. Everything else seems to be by the book."

"So what's with the history lesson?"

Van's mother looked over her shoulder to answer Luca. "There are a lot of stories about the origins of vampires, but the Slayers believe most modern vampires trace their roots back to Bathory. It's one of the few things we agree on."

"So not Vlad the Impaler?"

Luca shook his head. "How?"

She ignored him and leaned over to read the text. "Elizabeth Bathory is believed to have killed over 600 people and earned her the reputation Blood Countess."

"She sounds lovely."

"Luca," Van mulled over her question, not wanting to sound like an idiot in front of people who had spent their entire life in the supernatural world, "You told me vampires aren't born the way I've been taught. That they choose the life? How does that fit in with this?"

Her mother answered instead of Luca. "The children of Proteus have not always acted with good intentions. They would often take advantage of mortals, using their gifts, which for some includes not just shifting but the gift of prophecy. Some people will do anything for answers about the future. Others meddled in magic, wanting more than what our ancestor gave us."

Van shivered, a sense of foreboding washing over her. Xandra's tone turned somber, and the fingers resting on her lap twitched.

"There was a man named Haimon. He was a product of this meddling. Generations of inbreeding made him unstable, but it was his inability to shift or tell the future that drove him to explore the darker sides of magic. He developed a ritual that allowed him to absorb the abilities of other supernatural creatures by consuming their blood. But after a while, the powers would fade, and he would seek others. Each time, his body was corrupted and weakened until he had to consume blood just to stay alive."

Luca interrupted, "It sounds like he's the origin of vampires, not Bathory."

Xandra sighed and shook her head. "In a way, yes, but I did say modern vampires. He was desperate to control the bloodlust. It's not wise to constantly murder supernaturals. It's difficult and draws attention. He explored bond magic, studying the bonds between mates and the bonds between offspring, hoping to use them to negate the side effects. His journal indicates he was testing a theory out just before he was killed. He thought if he and a lover shared blood together, they would be bonded and able to draw strength from one another. That's how he met Elizabeth. Even at a young age, she was obsessed with retaining her youth, and it was easy to persuade her to try his method."

"Gross," Van said, reading between the lines.

Xandra laughed. "Very. Elizabeth's father, a man who was particularly fond of torture killed him, and Elizabeth took the knowledge she gained from Haimon and pushed it even further. She wasn't particularly interested in the powers of supernatural creatures, though she enjoyed it whenever she could get one. She found that if she consumed the blood from her victims while they were still living, she stayed young. She shared the knowledge with a few intimate friends, and using her own blood, did what Haimon failed to accomplish with her, bound them to her. Some say by the end, she didn't even need blood anymore because she was bound to so many others, which is why she just bathed in it."

Nancy looked green. "Sick bitch."

"Mom," Van stared at the screen as her thoughts came together. "Do you think Haimon is the father of the mystery kid? What kind of kid do you think a union like that would produce?"

"I think it's likely, and it could explain why the vampires didn't all die when Bathory was murdered. Their existence is symbiotic because of the bond, and a child born from the blood ritual, possessing her blood might be enough to sustain the bond."

"No wonder Helsing has this file, but why aren't we hunting this bloodline down?" Nancy demanded, sounding every bit a Slayer as she paced the room.

Luca stomped across the room, stopping in front of her. "You want to exterminate an entire family because of their DNA? That was hundreds of years ago. We don't know what kind of life that child lived, and he or she could have hundreds of descendants. We would have to kill every single one of them to accomplish what you're suggesting, and it's just a theory. We don't even know if it would work."

Nancy had the grace to look ashamed, and Xandra turned around to face the computer again. "Luca's right, but part of what Nancy said is true. We can all recognize why it's wrong to kill innocents because of what's in their blood, but the Helsings have never been opposed to murdering innocents in the name of their war to cleanse the earth of all that's unnatural. This is exactly the kind of crusade they would hitch their wagon to. So why hide? Damn it."

Van jumped when her mother slammed the mouse on the desk. "What happened?"

"The other files are encrypted. If Tommy... you know what, it doesn't matter. Nancy, can you get in touch with Ruth? We need her as soon as possible."

"On it," Nancy said, her phone to her ear before she finished speaking.

"Excuse me," Luca said.

He reminded Van of a bowstring, pulled tight and ready to release, only she wondered if he was close to snapping. Patience was something he showed in spades, but even he had to have his limits. So as much as she wanted to beg him to stay with her and not leave her alone with her mother, she gave him a nod of understanding.

She sat on the sofa, a plush beige piece placed parallel to the fireplace. She didn't choose it because of its comfort, though it drew a sigh of contentment from her lips when she sank into the heated cushion. She chose it because of its distance from the desk, and the woman seated behind it.

Xandra wasn't a perfect mother. Such a thing didn't exist. But she had always excelled at giving Van space when big emotions were involved, even when she couldn't empathize. That alone would have made her a good mom, but what made her excellent was her ability to know when it was time to push.

When Xandra crossed the room and sat beside her, Van's first inclination was that her mother had grown rusty in their time apart, but the moment she felt the cool tips of fingers brush across her cheek, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ears, she knew her mother still had the gift. Tears filled Van's eyes, and she turned into the embrace she'd been missing for so long.

"I'm so sorry," Xandra crooned, smoothing the top of Van's head as she rocked gently. She brushed tears from her own cheeks. "I want you to know it was never my intention for us to separate."

Shuddering as she tried to hold in her tears, Van sat upright and drew away. She couldn't make it through this conversation if she was touching her mother. "Just tell me why."

Staring into the fire, Xandra ran her palms over her knees as she spoke. "When your father and I broke things off, I didn't know I was pregnant. If things had been like they were before, I would have told him, but after they initiated him, he became a different man. We'd always hoped I could lure him to our side, and I thought I was getting there. He always told me he wanted to differ from his father. He wanted to be a kinder person. He never told me what he meant by any of that, but he didn't have to. I knew he was talking about his future as Supreme."

"Wait," Van wiped under her eyes, her fingers coming away dark with mascara, "What does this have to do with faking your death?"

"I see you're still impatient."

"Mom."

"It has everything to do with faking our death. Your father let me leave the first time because he saw his calling as greater than his love for me. When I found out about you, I knew he would go to the ends of the earth to take you for his own because lineage is everything to the Helsings. Almost six months ago, I caught someone following us home. They were taking pictures of you, and I knew he found us. And it wasn't just you I had to protect anymore, it was Walker. I knew it was time to tell you the truth about what we were. You were going to find out sooner rather than later because Walker had his first shift, and that's where I came up with the idea."

Van picked at a piece of lint on the couch. Her skin felt tight, like it might rip if she moved too quickly, and her heartbeat flooded her ears.

"You were only going to tell me because of Walker?"

"No, no. I was going to tell you regardless, I promise. It's just..." Xandra shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't know how. Not because I thought you couldn't handle it. I was convinced you would be fine. I taught you to have an open mind about the world and its secrets, but I didn't know how to tell you you might never shift. It's bad enough I had to tell you about your father being a megalomaniacal cult leader capable of genocide."

"You thought I'd be like Haimon? Upset that I wasn't special?" Van asked, her tone composed, almost cautious. Would she have been bothered by it? She couldn't answer the question with any certainty.

Xandra nodded. "It's harder to not be jealous than you think. I only knew one other person who was like you, and he was the most bitter person I've ever met. I didn't want that for you, but I would have told you because you deserved to know. Everything just got out of control, and then your father caused the accident..."

The windows shattered, sending glass shooting across the room. The shards bit into Van's face and arms before Xandra threw herself on top of her. She screamed for someone to help, checked to make sure Van was okay, and then jumped to her feet.

"Mom," Van coughed, holding a bloody arm over her chest.

"Stay down," Xandra commanded, the last word becoming distorted as her mouth shifted to one not capable of speech.

In the blink of an eye, her mother went from human to a towering creature of stone. She was nearly eight foot tall and possessed arms roped with veiny muscles. Leathery, black wings spread from her back. There was no hint of the woman she had been before, and the man closest to her when she shifted lost his head as she swiped a clawed hand through the air.

"Van!"

She heard the muffled shout and looked behind her. The explosion collapsed part of the wall, and it blocked the doorway. Luca called for her again, and the door rattled beneath his pounding.

Rising, she took one step and then fell to her knees as pain slashed across her abdomen. A piece of glass as wide as her hand jutted out between her ribs. Every breath she took caused it to shift, and red bloomed around it like flower petals.

Falling forward, both hands going flat on the floor while the room spun, she whimpered, "M-mom."

An inhuman roar met her cry, and it jolted her enough to spur her forward. Behind her, men and women grunted, and something hot and sticky sprayed her neck following a piercing shriek. The door was so close. Luca would know what to do.

"Van!"

One arm gave out, and she caught herself on an elbow before landing on her stomach. Bile rushed up as she imagined the glass sliding in deeper, and she lowered herself gently to her side, too afraid of passing out to keep going.

She didn't know how long she lay there. Minutes or hours could have passed. The surrounding sounds faded in and out as she fought to stay conscious. Finally, someone lifted her. Head rolling back, she tried to open her eyes, but it took more effort than she could give. Whoever it was whispered she would be fine, and fingers moved along her wound gently. Comforted, she gave in to the darkness.