The English Vampyre
Images: summer 2011 Vampire fiction contest
Title: the English vampyre
Rating: MA for themes
Fandom: Van Helsing the movie
Feedback: always appreciated
Author's Notes: A mash up of van Helsing and the original vampire story "The Vampyre"; a short story written by John William Polidori in 1816 in that one wild weekend with Percy Shelley and Byron where they all wrote world changing novels; Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein.
My entry for the vinxperience vampire competition 2011. The competition was subtitled 'the other end of the stake' so I thought they wanted more vamp hunters, than vamps.
Disclaimer: Van Helsing in this incarnation belongs to Stephen Sommers and Universal Pictures.
Gabriel van Helsing was a vampire hunter. He had taken down the most dangerous; the smartest of all vampires in his estimation. Count Vladislaus Dragulia. It had cost him his love, Anna Valerious, and almost his own life. 1888 was a very bad year for him and he had had a lot of bad years. He had transformed into a werewolf, the only thing capable of hurting Dracula. He had kept enough of a hold on his humanity to tear out the throat of the vampire. But that fragile hold had broken and he had instinctively attacked the woman coming at him, with what the wolf perceived as a weapon.
It had been the cure; he was cured with seconds remaining and she was dead in his arms. He and the wolf had mourned.
Dracula had taunted him about his amnesia. 'It must be such a burden to be the left hand of God,' he had teased. Van Helsing had told Carl, his assistant, that he remembered fighting the Romans at Masada in 73 AD. He had not had the time, or the inclination, to question the Count on his own history. He couldn't even remember taking the Count's ring; but clearly he had. The count had informed him that he had murdered him; forcing him to make his deal with the devil and starting the whole chain of events. The count was missing a finger and a ring and Gabriel was wearing it.
Gabriel.
Was he truly the Archangel Gabriel? He couldn't remember.
So many gaps.
But he dealt with it, the way he always had. Perhaps for hundreds of years. He hunted. He hunted evil.
Cardinal Jinette of the Order knew him well. He was best handled by keeping him busy. A new assignment, a new target and unfortunately a new assistant. They stood in the Order's secret headquarters under Vatican City.
"No!" he argued. It was pointless, but he argued anyway. "You have lost your mind! You want me to take her," he gestured at the young woman standing nearby, "To hunt down Lord Ruthven, the original English vampire?"
"Is she a virgin?" asked Carl, his ginger haired, science loving weapons supplier and assistant.
The girl in question humphed but didn't answer the question. Everyone looked pained for a second. Carl had no tact.
"This is God's work," argued the cardinal.
"So why can't he do it Himself?" asked Van Helsing.
"Don't blaspheme! You already lost your memory as a penance for past sins," the Cardinal reminded him.
And his love; but the cardinal didn't need to know that.
"Think about it Jinette… you want me to take a virgin woman into a vampire's territory… what is she… the bait?"
"This is not negotiable," the Cardinal stated.
Van Helsing waved his arms in frustration but knew he would lose the argument. Perhaps they could lock her in an inn or something. "I want it noted on the record, that this is a bad idea."
"Duly noted."
"Come on Carl; show me what you have been working on." He picked his hat up from the table, ignoring both the girl and the cardinal.
The Cardinal shooed at her, to indicate that she should follow the two men. The taller of them striding off across the weapons laboratory and the smaller man scuttling next to him and babbling on about multiple firing cross bows and glycerine-48. Behind them, monks ran for the exits. Carl was not known for his safety. Especially after the accident with the phosphorous; who knew that it would not stop burning when you threw water on it? Well, they all did now.
The young woman flicked her long, light brown hair over her shoulder and followed them. She was so excited by the opportunity to work with Van Helsing. He was a legend among vampire hunters.
Carl was still babbling and throwing weird items into a bag as Van Helsing picked up and toyed with various weapons.
"So where are we going?" Carl asked him as he packed.
"Northern England. Lord Ruthven is using the pseudonym of the Earl of Marsden. Marsden is in west Yorkshire, almost 200 miles from London. He has constructed some kind of mill; it is a new thing… a factory I think they call it."
"You doubt his motives," Carl stated.
"I do."
He turned suddenly and studied the girl. She was too pretty; too well rounded and if Carl was right on the virgin thing… just too tempting for a vampire. She seemed weak and foolish, but he supposed he might be comparing her (unfairly) to Anna. She seemed so young; she couldn't be more than twenty. "Do you have your kit; your equipment?" he asked her.
"Don't you want to know my name?" she retorted.
"If I have to." He was brusque. This one would not get too close. Not again.
"Alice Jones."
He nodded. "Kit?" he repeated. He didn't bother introducing himself.
She lifted a wooden suitcase from under the floor, placed it on the table and opened it in a grand gesture."Handy, eh?" she said.The kit held one stake, a wooden mallet, two crucifixes and a bible held in the lid space. The body of the kit was wooden drawers with lots of little bottles, one silver knife, a compass, a syringe and some containers for holy water and host wafers.
Carl and Van Helsing both looked disappointed.
"Oh dear," muttered Carl.
"What?" She was offended.
"Wooden crucifixes, one stake and a short bladed knife," Carl huffed. "Is it even silver?"
"And is that a spice rack?" asked Van Helsing derisively. "You going to kill him or cook for him?"
"Could barely reach his heart with that knife… slice his head off… that'll kill him," Carl muttered.
Alice slammed the kit shut. "It's a standard issue kit," she blustered.
"Yes. It is." Van Helsing had to get her to understand that this was not standard issue hunting.
"Oh." She blinked. "Oh, I think I understand." She frowned, and then turned to Carl. "So what do I really need?" she asked him. Van Helsing allowed a small smile. She might actually be trainable. "What did it take to kill Dracula?" she asked.
"Well," said Carl, "They tried silver stakes, a crucifix, they shot him, stabbed him, clubbed him, sprayed him with holy water, staked him through the heart, and STILL he lived…" He glanced at Van Helsing. "Until him."
"Oh my," she gasped.
Van Helsing didn't want to hear this. "I have some things to do," he interrupted. "I'll meet you both at the inn and for goodness sake, Carl, get her out of that dress."
The man blushed to the roots of his hair.
"That was not what I meant. I meant convince her to dress more mannishly; trousers and so on," he blustered.
"You sure you're not a virgin?" Alice asked Carl.
"The hell I am!"
"He cursed!" exclaimed the girl.
"Yes, not well, but he is only a friar, not a monk," noted the vampire hunter.
"I can curse all I want… dammit," added Carl.
"The inn," Van Helsing reminded them.
They travelled by train across Europe and then by boat to London. From there it was trains and carriages where they could use them or horseback where they could not.
Thankfully Alice had managed to find more mannish clothes. She admitted herself that it was much easier to travel by horseback in trousers. She tried to be chatty and ask them about their lives but after days of being ignored, she got the message and the trio travelled in relative silence.
She had also braided her long hair to keep it neat and tidy. They stayed in inns along the way. Carl was very good at ferreting out information from the locals about odd things happening in the area. Van Helsing spent a lot of time alone in his room; he didn't sleep well these days. He trained and exercised in the room. The others could hear his feet stamp on the wooden floors. He seemed to exhaust himself so that he could sleep.
Alice tried to keep up with them and she tried not to be a burden. She was fairly certain they would find a way to keep her out of the way. She had not been prepared for the interminable travelling. And she was starting to think that she was also not prepared for the reality of facing …evil.
They finally arrived in Marsden. Carl asked around about the Earl and they were given directions to his castle.
"So do we just go knock on the door?" Alice asked.
"Not today," Van Helsing stated.
"Oh right," Alice complained. "Because I am with you."
Carl was studying the river. "Do you think the river moved?" he asked suddenly.
The others both looked at him.
"The bridge," he explained. "It doesn't go over the river anymore."
"It's a defensive thing," Van Helsing explained. "Forces you to approach the building down one narrow path. You remember…" he chided Carl.
Carl nodded. He did remember. His own battle with Igor on a narrow pathway in a storm; to take the cure to Anna who delivered it to the man standing next to him. Oh yes, he remembered.
"She stays in the inn," he whispered to the taller man as Alice mounted her horse.
"Yes, she does," Van Helsing agreed. Unfortunately he didn't notice the bat, hanging upside down in the tree above their heads.
"So what did he do?" she asked.
"Ruthven?"
"Yes."
"Most recently, he seduced the orphaned daughter of the last Earl of Marsden. The title should have gone to her brother Aubrey, but he killed himself before he came of age. Guilt perhaps. He introduced her to Ruthven."
"And the sister?" she asked with some trepidation.
"Found dead on her wedding night." He stared at her intently. "Massive blood loss," he added.
"How is he still the Earl then?"
Van Helsing shrugged. "No one else to claim the title and nothing could be proven." He gave her a wicked grin. "But we don't care about proof and courts of law, now do we?"
"No," she agreed, but she sounded hesitant.
She thought about it for a minute. They started to ride back to the inn. "But how do you know you are doing the right thing? Killing the right monster?" she asked.
For once, he actually answered her. "I only kill those who do evil. They don't even call me unless it has been a very bad monster." He was thinking of Frankenstein's monster that he had allowed to go free, because he was not evil. He might have been made from the remains of seven men, but he was not evil. He was his friend and he hoped he was still free.
"Mr Hyde," interjected Carl.
"Oh yes, he was very bad. Murdered twelve men, six women, four children, three goats, and rather a lot of poultry!"
"He was a deranged psychopath," Alice stated.
"Read the files, huh?"
"You broke the Rose window of Notre Dame Cathedral…"
"Actually, as I pointed out to Cardinal Jinette, Mr Hyde broke the window…"
The bat followed them, unseen, until they arrived at their inn and then it flew off into the gathering gloom.
After dinner Alice and Van Helsing had quite an argument, not that it did her any good. She ended up locked into her room. He even checked the windows. She threw herself onto the bed and sulked like the teenager, she almost still was. He and Carl slipped out of the inn after paying the ostler to keep quiet and headed back to the castle of the Earl of Marsden.
It took them some time to find their way in the dark. They left the horses tied up near the start of the stone walkway. There were some lights burning in the castle but not that many.
Van Helsing used a new invention of Carl's to shoot a grappling hook over the wall. Carl's argument was that he didn't need to climb, having used his brain for the invention, but Van Helsing came and opened the door for him. Just so that he didn't miss out.
"I don't think he is here, Carl. It feels uninhabited."
"But the lights… is it a trap?"
Van Helsing just shook his head and shrugged. "It feels… wrong."
They explored a few corridors quietly, but they found little evidence of actual occupation.
In one particularly tenebrous hallway where the walls and ceiling were damaged by damp, and the moonlight provided the only illumination, they caught a glimpse of a hooded figure. It bared its teeth and muttered something at them in an aggressive, guttural language. A Dwergaz; the dwarven henchmen of Dracula and clearly aligned to this vampire as well. It was proof positive for them that no good deeds were afoot. Van Helsing coolly switched the gas operated crossbow from automatic fire to single bolts and calmly fired a bolt into the back of the fleeing creature.
They approached it carefully. Anna had warned them about the ferocity of the creatures, but it was dead; taken through the heart by the bolt. It had a darkened lantern in its hand. It was clear it had been moving about to make it look like the castle was occupied. Such a deception was only necessary if it actually wasn't.
"Good shot," whispered Carl. "I think we should get out of here. Something does not feel right."
"Agreed."
They made their way silently back to their horses.
"How long until dawn?" asked Van Helsing.
"Two, maybe three hours."
"What a waste of time," complained the hunter. Suddenly he spurred his horse into a gallop. "Alice," he shouted back over his shoulder.
"Oh dear God," prayed the friar, kicking at his own mount.
They were too late. Her room was empty; the door splintered on its hinges. Van Helsing railed at the staff, but they were all petrified of the man who had come for her. And he knew if they had tried to fight, they would be dead.
He sat on her bed with his head in his hands and he cursed the God that had put yet another innocent on the same path he trod. Carl stood just inside the doorway; he had no idea what to say, so he chose to say nothing.
Movement caught his eye. He rushed over and flicked back the sheet to expose a decorative framed mirror. It had been partially obscured by the bedding. The mirror was circular, in a square decorative frame.
His hands trembled as he held it.
"V-van H-helsing." His voice shook. This was not technology, this was magic. It was not technically a mirror; it showed Alice. She was in some kind of carriage, it rocked and moved; she looked terrified, but otherwise unharmed. There was no bruising on her face, but it was clear that she had been crying; tear tracks stained her face.
He held it out to the man sitting on the bed. "L-look."
He snatched it from him. "No!" burst from his lips. His body hunched over the image as if he was trying to protect her. "This is too cruel."
He moved abruptly, as if he meant to smash it.
"Please don't," Carl begged. "We can see her… she is alive… she hasn't been bitten… she is still wearing her clothes… we can see where she is…" He took a deep breath. "We need it, to find her. She's alive," he repeated.
The taller man sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world lay on his shoulders. Sometimes Carl suspected that it truly did.
Van Helsing passed him the mirror as if he didn't trust himself with it. "What did I say? I said she was too tempting… I said she shouldn't come." He dropped back onto the bed, closed his eyes and took some deep breaths.
Carl watched the terrified girl in the mirror. She put her hands up to her face and her shoulders shook; she was sobbing. "There is something on her wrists," Carl stated.
Van Helsing held out his hand. Carl passed him the mirror. "Manacles. She's chained. They're thin, but they will hold her." He looked distraught. "I'll find you," he promised her image. They both prayed that they would not be too late.
Van Helsing started to pace in the room. Movement helped him to think. Carl sat and morosely stared at the image of the girl in the mirror.
"The factory… she must be taking her to the factory… somehow they overheard us… not hard if he has this capacity…" he waved at the mirror. "We need to eat, rest… recoup our strength… we have been travelling for weeks and we made a stupid mistake… because we are tired…" He corrected himself, "Because I am tired."
He stood, squared his shoulders decisively and stormed out of the room. Carl didn't think he was capable of eating right now, but he understood Van Helsing's logic. He was not the hunter, he would sit and watch Alice and let the hunter know if anything changed dramatically. He tried to think; that was his skill. She was in a carriage, so they were still travelling. One of the locals must know where the factory is. He watched her in the image. It really was magic; it stayed focused on her, unfortunately showing little of the background.
Carl wondered why she hadn't fought; where was her kit? Her gun? He had supplied her with a gun and silver ammunition, why hadn't she used it? Once they started knocking the door down, why didn't she fight? Not even a discarded crucifix. Was Van Helsing right and she was just not the right person to send with them? He sincerely hoped her appointment was not a political one, otherwise her kidnapping would have more serious implications for them all.
He knew it was a trap. If they had wanted to kill her, she would already be dead. The Earl wanted them worried, stressed and frightened for their companion. And to come without thinking it through clearly; to rush into the trap. She was indeed bait, but not for the vampire, as Van Helsing had suggested at the Order; she was bait for them.
Her safety was the main priority now. She had stopped crying; she was wiping at her cheeks and trying to sit taller. He whispered to her, even though he knew she couldn't hear him, "That's it Alice, hold on… we're coming." And he went to see if Van Helsing was having any luck finding out where the factory was.
The ostler came through for them; the earlier money they had paid him no doubt convinced him of their bona fides. He overheard the two footmen with the Earl's carriage discussing how bad the road to Hebden Bridge was. They grabbed a map from Carl's bag and checked. The road followed a river the whole way. It was eighteen miles to Hebden Bridge.
"The factory will need power… the river…" Van Helsing was thinking aloud. "It must be along the river, between the road and the river I'm betting."
"With some elevation … vampires prefer such locations…" Carl added.
"Has the carriage stopped?"
Carl checked the mirror. "It appears so; her lips are moving… she is talking to someone… she looks angry…"
"Oh, be careful Alice," breathed Van Helsing. "So that's about two hours travel time… or 20 miles…"
"It fits…" Carl's eyes were glued on the mirror. The mirror was such a tease; it showed not enough information… just her body from the waist up. She was being walked somewhere; into a building. "We need to arm ourselves."
"Yes, bring it all." They used Alice's horse as a pack animal, loading it up with the weapons Carl had brought.
"Tell me you brought the phosphorous, Carl."
"The order told me not to…" he blustered.
"Did they? Lucky you rarely take notice of them then eh? And the light bomb… the one we used on Dracula's summer palace… tell me you brought one of those."
"I only have the one left…"
The horses were nearly foundering; they had ridden them so hard. But they thought they had found their target. Evidently the Earl was draining the marshland and building a proper road through the valley. Carl had asked some locals on one of their rest stops.
"Marshes," muttered Van Helsing. "Full of gas."
"You think he is doing some experiment?"
"Stands to reason."
"Marsh gas is methane… from organic decay… it is lighter than air, and floats in a pale, eerie haze until blown away by a strong wind. It also burns with a mysterious blue flame when ignited." Carl had done his own experiments.
"Well let's burn it and see," quipped Van Helsing.
They stood on the other side of the valley from the new, ugly industrial building; the Mill, the locals called it. Bats hung in the tree above them. "Our spies?" Carl suggested with a pointed glance.
Given it was a trap and the trappers knew that the trapees knew… they just walked the horses across the viaduct bridge. Older ruins of a castle were on their left side, with some newer extensions. Typically a storm was brewing. A bolt of lightning struck a tower above the mill.
"Not again," muttered Van Helsing. "Lightning… why is it always lightning?"
"The mirror…"
Van Helsing looked over Carl's shoulder and blanched. Alice was screaming. The manacles were still on her wrists and clearly, rather than undo them; they had just cut her out of her clothes.
"I can't hear her over the river."
"Trees… there are trees in the background…" They both looked at the Mill. "Towards the rear. She's on some kind of ledge. No forest left here. She's outside. Exposure." Carl looked horrified. He replaced the mirror in his bag.
Van Helsing closed his eyes; the cold would kill her. Clearly the trapper thought they weren't moving fast enough. He kicked the horse into action. The portcullis at the base of the building was open.
He was driven by rage. Pure rage.
He fought his way through a number of waiting mercenaries. Human, and no match for him. Carl scuttled behind him reloading and passing him weapons. The order had built a pump action shotgun for him and he used that at close range, changing to his matched pair of revolvers for closer targets. The Dwergaz he hit with the crossbow. The bolts had been dipped in holy water beforehand.
By this time, they had passed some distance into the labyrinthine building.
They came to a halt at a large room that may have been a ballroom in a previous life; now it housed machinery. Technology replacing beauty.
The Earl waited for them at the foot of the stairs. Elegantly dressed; he was the perfect host.
"Gabriel Van Helsing," he called. "Welcome. You received my emulation? That's what I call the image." He seemed pleased by his own cleverness.
"Lord Ruthven. I have come to end you."
"You? Slay me?" He laughed delightedly.
Carl was pulling at his sleeve. "He seems… false… is he really here?"
In answer, Van Helsing lifted the cross bow and fired. The bolt passed through the vampire harmlessly, the image shivering for a second as it did so. The image laughed again. Van Helsing felt his rage turn sour. There would be no satisfactory conclusion tonight. The vampire had engineered the whole thing. He had probably made his escape as he left the inn. They were so fixated on Alice, they had missed it.
Exactly as he had planned.
The image bowed obsequiously. "Until the next time." And then it faded.
Van Helsing ground his teeth in frustration. "Alice," he muttered.
"Renfields," warned Carl.
A number of the insect eating, vampire servants rushed them where they stood. Van Helsing went berserk. He almost wished for older times and close-quarter fighting. When Carl fell behind or ran out of ammunition he drew a sword and hacked at them furiously. It was all about delay, but they would not survive on their own; either of them. He needed the little friar to re-supply him. He couldn't send him to find Alice until this was done.
Eventually the last Renfield fell and he made a dash for the stairs, climbing higher. The blood dripping blade in his hand cutting down anything that got in his way. He could hear Carl puffing behind him. They emerged on the roof.
"This way," Carl shouted.
He could see a glimpse of scarlet but it wasn't blood. Carl put the mirror down to check her heartbeat. His head dropped. Somehow she had broken one of the chains on her wrist and in a gesture that he wondered at, she had managed to drag part of a curtain out of the room nearest her. Using its scarlet drapery to hide her nakedness. To give her some decorum in death; for dead she was. The bolt through her heart demonstrated that. They had not even waited for the cold to do its worst.
Van Helsing tore the rest of the curtain down and wrapped her still warm body. He lifted her in his arms and for a second pressed his lips against her forehead. The only time she would ever be kissed and held naked in the arms of a man.
"Burn it; burn it all." He strode from the Mill knowing Carl would do so. Nothing, not even the approaching storm would stop those phosphorous bombs from burning.
The mill burnt with a blue flame.
They rode back to the nearest village. The Order had embraced technology and a telegraph message could be sent to Vatican City to inform them of their failure and their losses, once they travelled to the nearest cathedral.
Her body was laid out. He stood in the simple chapel, lit by small candles and studied her still body. He did not pray.
He was still angry, but now he was angry with God.
He refused to kneel. He refused to ask why or to beg for penance or forgiveness or whatever the hell God wanted. He wasn't sure he knew anymore and he was supposed to be his Left Hand. He wasn't sure God knew either. In this new world of machines and factories… was there room for God? When science exploded all his myths, as well as Carl made phosphorous grenades?
He turned his back on that simple altar, placed his hat on his head and he left. He had made himself a promise the last time; that he would never hold another woman's dead body again. He had isolated himself from her as well as he could and still she had died. And worse, he had no idea exactly how many times it had happened to him before.
What could the Order do to him that was worse than this?
He walked away. Away from everything.
FF_2154210_ - 11/08/2011 07:17:00 PM