"Run! For God's sake, run to the river!"
"They're everywhere! THEY'RE MONSTERS!"
"MOM! Help! MY GOD, THEY'RE TAKING HIM!"
The icy mountain wind acted as a messenger, carrying the screams of terror from the village at the foot of the cliff to the ears of those observing from the castle heights.
Despite the kilometer distance, the sound of the massacre was clear.
Anna's face lost all trace of color, becoming as white as the full moon. Her entire body began to tremble from a violent mixture of impotent rage and guilt.
Her eyes were fixed on that black, living cloud that was descending, and she saw the faces of the bakers, of the children playing in the mud, of the elderly who trusted her family to protect them, now being torn apart by the abominations she hadn't been able to stop.
"We must go back. Right now!"
She turned around abruptly, the hem of her dress billowing, ready to dash toward the hallway.
"Anna, wait!"
Velkan grabbed her arm tightly to stop her suicidal run. His own face was contorted by anxiety and conflict.
"Going back now is madness, it's too late!" he shouted at her, trying to make her see reason while pointing at the swarm in the distance. "Look at them! Those things are thousands! They are too many for us, they will tear us apart before we reach the square!"
"I don't care if it's late or if there are millions!"
Anna shook off his grip with a violent movement, freeing herself from his hand. When she looked up at him, flames of determination burned in her eyes, searing the tears before they could fall.
"That is our home, Velkan! It is our people who are screaming while we are standing here safe in this damned place! If they are going to die, I will die with them, not hidden in the mountains!"
Upon finishing speaking, she didn't wait for an answer nor did she look at anyone else for approval. She lifted the skirts of her dress and ran toward the exit.
"..."
Velkan stood motionless for a second, watching her back recede. He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached, cursed his own sensibility under his breath, and finally made a decision.
He couldn't let her go alone.
"What a touching display of brotherly love and useless sacrifice."
Lief, who had remained standing to the side leaning on a column, observed everything with a smile, without any wave of emotion disturbing his interior.
Honestly, he couldn't arouse even half a point of genuine interest for something as trite as "saving the world" or rescuing some simple nameless peasants.
However, Anna and Velkan were key characters.
If they went down now and gave away their lives stupidly, the plot would get stuck and his ticket back home could be lost.
"Hey!"
Anna and Velkan, who were already about to disappear, stopped in their tracks and looked back, confused.
"I'll give you some professional advice," Lief said slowly, crossing his arms. "Don't die. Or at least, try to keep breathing until I solve the root problem here. If you die before that, it will be a huge hassle."
"..."
The siblings blinked, astonished.
But they didn't have time to analyze the coldness or selfishness implicit in his words, nor to wonder what he planned to do.
They nodded heavily and their figures disappeared quickly into the darkness of the hallway.
"We have to do something too! We can't stay standing here while they massacre innocents!"
Carl moved nervously from side to side, wringing his hands as the agonized screams from the village ascended to him like an accusation.
"It's useless. We can no longer save those below."
Van Helsing's gaze passed over the torrent of spawn leaving the tower and fixed firmly on the upper platform of the experiment hall.
"Cutting off the head of the snake is the only way to stop the pois—."
But a deep voice completely interrupted his thoughts.
"Spoken with admirable precision... eliminate the source. Isn't that exactly what the Church sent you here for?"
Van Helsing's body tensed, and both he and Carl turned, facing the darkness.
From the deep shadows of the entrance archway, a tall figure emerged with a deliberate slowness, as if time slowed down around him.
He wore a black and timeless noble-cut suit. His hair, black, fell in waves meticulously over his face, framing a face of a beauty so perfect it was unnatural.
His skin was pale, translucent, without the slightest trace of heat or blood.
He made no threatening gesture, he simply stood there, and yet, a suffocating oppression instantly wrapped the entire immense hall.
Count Dracula
Adding insult to injury, the vampire didn't even deign to look at Van Helsing at first. His eyes passed him by and settled with tenderness on the woman laughing maniacally on the platform.
"Marishka, my love... look at our children," he whispered, extending a hand toward the void where the sacs previously hung. "They are so full of life, so hungry..."
"Yes, husband!" Marishka trembled with emotion, almost orgasmic. "They are beautiful! Soon, the whole world will be our nursery and humanity our cattle!"
Dracula nodded with satisfaction, and only then did his eyes move slowly until they locked onto Van Helsing's tense body.
He didn't look at him with hatred, nor with fury; he looked at him with a kind of nostalgia... and mockery.
"Long time no see... Gabriel."
!
Van Helsing's pupils contracted violently until they became pinheads.
Upon hearing that name, a lightning bolt of agonizing pain pierced his skull, splitting in two the amnesia that had sealed his mind for centuries.
A blinding white flash, the sound of immense wings beating, the sensation of an endless fall from the heavens, and a scream of betrayal resonating through the centuries.
The image was blurry, fragmented, like trying to hold water between fingers, but the pain was real and paralyzing.
"...I-I don't know you," he growled shaking his head hard, forcing his body to obey through the pain.
He raised his crossbow with steady hands, aiming directly at the vampire's heart.
"My name is Van Helsing. And by order of the Holy Order, I have come to kill you."
"Van Helsing..."
Dracula repeated it with amusement, savoring the syllables as if it were a wine, and then, laughed with disdain.
"...Look at you now. The Left Hand of God, Heaven's most loyal warrior... and now you are nothing more than a mangy dog whose fangs have been pulled and who has even forgotten his own name."
He took a step forward, walking calmly toward the barrel of the loaded weapon, ignoring the threat.
"Four hundred years, Gabriel. Four whole centuries... There hasn't been a single moment when I didn't curse you, and there hasn't been a single moment when I didn't... miss you. It was you, old friend, who personally pushed me into this eternal darkness, who condemned me to this life."
"And now? Now you come to my house by order of that same God who abandoned us both, to 'end me'? What exquisite irony!"
Dracula opened his arms, "Look at all this! I am about to have thousands of descendants, my lineage will rule the earth forever! And you? What did you get in return for your servitude? Apart from that blood that cannot be washed from your hands and a memory erased so you don't suffer for your crimes... YOU HAVE NOTHING!"
Van Helsing's frown deepened until his forehead hurt. He didn't understand what he was insinuating.
The headache hammered against his temples, screaming a truth he didn't want to hear.
"SHUT UP!"
Swish
The crossbow mechanism released with a click and the stake, with a silver tip and soaked in holy water, shot toward Dracula's exposed chest.
It was a perfect shot, at point-blank range.
Impossible to miss. Impossible to dodge.
However, Dracula simply raised his left hand and closed two fingers.
!
The sound was dry, like wood hitting stone.
The arrow stopped instantly.
Dracula had caught it millimeters from his chest, holding it delicately between his index and middle fingers, like someone holding a cigarette.
"This type of toy is insulting."
Observing it with disdain, he threw it away as if it were trash with an expression of genuine disappointment.
"In four hundred years, humanity and the Church haven't progressed even a bit?"
Van Helsing's face tensed, but Carl moved.
He reached into his tunic and pulled out a silver crucifix. He held it high and began shouting prayers and Bible verses.
Instantly, a faint silver light emanated from the crucifix.
"Ahhh...! The light...!"
Dracula covered his face with his hands in a dramatic gesture of pain, stepping back. But a second later, he lowered his arm slowly, revealing a mocking smile.
"I forgot to mention a small detail..." he said taking a step toward the terrified friar. "That kind of trinket has no effect on me."
However, before he could advance to tear him apart...
!
From the distance, coming from the direction of the village at the foot of the mountain, came a series of dense sounds, like organic chain explosions.
Boom Boom... Splat
That dark cloud covering the village rooftops began to detonate.
As if they were fireworks, the vampire hatchlings exploded group after group.
Their bodies expanded and fragmented uncontrollably, turning into masses of green sludge that rained down on the streets.
"NO! MY CHILDREN!"
On the platform, Marishka's scream was heart-wrenching, the howl of a mother watching her progeny die.
She watched in disbelief as her dream dissolved in seconds.
The cruel smile on Dracula's face froze.
"What is happening..."
Suddenly, the werewolf tied to the cross emitted a painful moan. His body, which had served as a battery, began to wither rapidly; the machine had drained too much energy too fast.
And with that, the cruel reality became evident: his strong vital energy was volatile. It could give life to the dead, but it could not maintain it.
That forcibly grafted life was a defective product from the beginning.
"NO-NO-NO-NO...!"
Marishka lost the last vestige of sanity and with bulging eyes and screaming the names of her dead children, she spread her wings and launched herself, plummeting down the mountain.
Chaos reigned, and Van Helsing did not hesitate.
In the exact instant that Dracula's attention was diverted, he reached for his waist and drew his grapple gun.
Thump
He fired toward a broken skylight in the high dome of the hall and the hook dug deep into the rock, and testing the tension of the rope in a fraction of a second, Van Helsing ran and jumped into the void over the pit.
He swung through the air with agility, crossing the laboratory's abyss, and immediately fired a second hook toward the tower structure on the opposite cliff.
Swish
His figure disappeared through the opening in the wall, sliding into the night and escaping the deadly trap.
"GRRR!"
A roar of pure anger resonated behind him.
The werewolf, whose body had shrunk from being drained, took advantage of the fact that his bindings were now too big and with a violent spasm, freed himself from the shackles that could no longer contain him.
With a jump he landed on the ground on all fours, and his eyes shining with thirst for vengeance, fixed on the disappearing figure of Van Helsing.
For the beast, neither Dracula nor the experiment mattered; only the man who had shot him mattered.
Dragging his tortured body, he broke through the brick wall with his shoulder and went outside, madly chasing the hunter's trail.
In a span of barely fifteen seconds, the hall had gone from triumphant victory to absolute despair, and finally to total silence.
Marishka had gone.
Van Helsing had escaped.
The werewolf was loose.
Dracula remained motionless in the center of the hallway, with his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
His meticulously orchestrated plan had crumbled at the last second.
Slowly he turned around.
His icy gaze swept the empty hall until stopping on the only person remaining: Lief, who had remained in the corner, observing everything calmly.
"Now it's our turn," said Dracula without a shred of emotion. "Interesting smell…"
________
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