This is really a story about the expansion of the Van Helsing
family. Now, I don't own the Van Helsing character and you may think
that some of the elements to this story are similar to the movie BLADE,
but I hope that you'll disregard this and enjoy it either way.
Chapter 1
Los Angeles, California, 11:45 pm, July 15th 2005. I, together with a handful of hunters closed in on our chosen target. My name is Anna Van Helsing, a proud member of the Van Helsing Clan. The Van Helsing Clan is a group that keeps surveillance and kills a breed of creatures known as vampires. Vampires are unique in every way. They were an undead lot that grab hold of humans and feed upon the blood that ran through their veins. Any human that is killed by a vampire would die in turn become a vampire. Vampires would prowl around the night searching for any pathetic human. I've seen these things jump buildings, run up walls, run at high speed and punch through brick walls. They have dead pale, chalky skin and long fangs. They are immortal, some being able to live up to 500 years. Vampires make full use of their amazing powers during the night, but at day they lose their powers and blend within the human population. The Van Helsing Clan and I made ways of identifying vampires when they made cover among the humans using special goggles. Red means human and blue means vampire. The red represents human body heat and blue shows low body temperature. Vampires don't have body heat that's why they are identified as blue. As much as I hate these things, I have great respect for them. Vampires have been around for years and they can reach heights no other human can. Humans were here just to fill in an empty space and when the time comes we're outta here.
The birth of the Van Helsing Clan goes as far back to an ordinary professor named Abraham Van Helsing. He was called upon to hunt down and kill one known as the lord of all vampires, Count Dracula. Van Helsing did his homework when it came to developing ways to take down a vampire. He learned that the vampire's greatest flaw was that it was weak against the holy cross, holy water, garlic and a stake through the heart. Count Dracula, however, was powerful against all these techniques. He was killed when a Bowie knife was driven in his heart. Years passed when Dracula was killed and Abraham Van Helsing died peacefully at the age of 92. He was survived by his only son Alexander Van Helsing. During Alexander's youth the world was becoming infested by vampires. He was unaware of their existence until a vampire took the life of his first love. From that moment on Alexander led a one man campaign to rid the world of a big thorn in the ass these things were. He became married and had three children. Alexander passed onto his children a goal to ensure that the world is at peace, free from the creatures of darkness. From there the Van Helsing Clan began. Over the years as the number of vampires grew on the earth, so did the Van Helsing Clan. Abraham Van Helsing once said that the vampire's great strength laid upon the disbelief of its existence from the humans. In order to gain the upper hand, the Clan operated in secret, monitoring the vampire's movement among the humans, then closing in on him and taking him out. Over the years the Clan developed a new strategy in killing vampires. It was discovered that vampires were extremely weak against a substance called silver nitrate. Over the years wooden stakes were replaced by stakes made out of silver nitrate. Silver nitrate would later be developed into bullets for guns making it faster to take out vampires.
Vampires nowadays no longer hide like a bunch of pussies in haunted houses and coffins. They're everywhere, the first person you meet when you walk out your house, the CEO of a major company, the cop taking down the lawbreakers, the senator you voted for, the friend you talk to for countless hours on the phone, your school teacher, your mother, your father, your brother, sister, husband, wife, child. The tragedy is nobody even knows. Nobody watches their own back, except us, the Clan. We got Mankind's back. We're not the only slayers around. There are about 150 vampire hunting groups in North America, Central and South America, Europe (this part of the world is the worse because most if not all of these guys don't believe in Jesus), Central America and Central Asia. Sorry to disappoint you, but I won't give you all the names. However, I can tell you that the Van Helsing Clan was assisted by a group called Category 5 when we descended upon our target in downtown, L.A. The Clan makes most of our weapons and equipment, but we also get help from another group called En El Diablo.
My journey began when I was only ten when my father's true colors were shown. His name was Eric Van Helsing. My mother, Hannah, died before I got to know her. I was only two at the time. I was under the guidance of my dad and my big brother Daniel (also called Danny) from that moment on. Dad tried to bring up Danny, who was ten years older than me, and I in a normal life, but there were things about him that were strange every day I knew. We live lived in a quiet suburb in San Diego, Dad worked in a steel mill, or he said at the time. Dad would always come home looking tense and tired. Whenever he came home he would always look through the windows and ask me and Danny if we were okay and if anything bad happened for the day. One night I saw Dad on a limp. He said that he twisted an ankle but I happen to stumble over some clothes and I saw blood. One day when I was ten it happened. My uncle Peter came to my house and said that Dad died in a car accident. I was devastated. My whole world came crashing down. The man I knew as Dad who always looked out for me, who never let me out of his sight and who taught me to live my life in a descent manner and who would know as my true love would never come home to me again. Dad left me nothing but his last words before he walked out the door one last time. "Anna," he said "I want you to know that this world you live in is not about the kids you play with at school or the birthday parties you celebrate or the Christmas carols you always sing when the time comes only once a year. This world is not a happy place at all. There are many things out there that will bring you down and there will many times when you won't live to see another day. You'll understand when you get older, but now I want you to remember wherever, whenever go, each step you take, always watch you back. You have to be strong because that happy-go-lucky world that you're familiar with is nothing but lie. This world lies all the time. And also remember to give a helping hand to anybody because their eyes aren't open to the truth. I know because I live it everyday, so remember that, you and your brother."
Three years would pass when I reached the thirteenth year of my time on earth. With Dad gone I was now under the care of Danny. Danny took up the job of a construction worker while I tried to put some sense in my head at high school. It was only a matter of time when I started to lose my brother, the only family I had. He never talked to me as much except when it was time for me to go to school. We were never this far apart when Dad lived. Danny would always come home late and he would be the same way Dad was: tired and tense. At first I thought it was because of the nights he would spend as a musician at a club downtown. But I knew for a fact that pulling guitar strings could never drain out that much energy. He didn't take his eyes of me for one second, like he was pissed off at me because things between us weren't all peaches n' cream. I know as my big brother he had a responsibility to look over me, but God, it was too much! At school there weren't so many people who I would call friends. There was this young girl who I would wish to call sister. Her name was Karin. She was a free spirit, she never had a bad outlook on life, always lived life to the fullest and she encouraged me to do the same. I always hated walking into the hallways because there were people who would always stare me down. I never had fights with these people, but I just didn't know why the fuck they won't take their eyes of me. One night I was on my way home after visiting Karin's house and Karin agreed to walk me home. We were about a mile away from my house when all of a sudden we both heard this deep whooshing sound. We kept looking up into the air and every time there was a whoosh we turned our heads into the direction of the sound, but there was nothing. Then I felt a violent push on my back which sent me flying across the street. I landed on the flat pitch carpet in pain and then I heard Karin let out a scream so terrible my heart just stopped. When I turned around I saw Karin lying lifeless in the arms of a girl. The girl's mouth was on Karin's neck and she raised her head and blood was dripping from her mouth. The girl's skin was pale, her eyes were yellow and she bore two long fangs. This girl looked familiar. She was the quiet one everyone picked on in school and who was called a crazy ass bitch. Her name was Samantha Grey. I knew something was strange about her when I first saw her. Samantha was a girl always to herself, she hardly spoke a word, but she looked descent enough. I wanted to be her friend but seeing her just made my skin crawled. She was one of the people that wouldn't take their eyes off me. One day I bumped into her and held unto her hand and it was icy cold. I could remember one thing she said to Karin when Karin teased her one day. "Life's short, sister," Samantha said in her usually soft-spoken voice. "People like you don't last very long. Your way of looking down on people, lying and stealing is the reason why you shouldn't exist. None of you deserve to live on this earth." After those words Karin said she was full of shit but for some reason or the other I took Samantha's very seriously. Looking at Samantha that night it didn't take me long to realize that she killed Karin. She then hissed at me and jumped away holding Karin in her arms and in terror I ran as fast I could on my way home.
I rushed through the door of my house screaming and crying. Danny, already home, came to my side and asked me what happened. I hesitated at first then I hysterically gave details of my encounter. The following day Danny told me to round up my stuff and get ready to move out the neighborhood. I thought he made the right decision, especially because of what happened the night before. We packed our personal belongings, hopped in Danny's car and drove of to Uncle Pete's apartment in Los Angeles. While there Danny told Uncle Pete what happened to me and then Uncle Pete asked Danny something about a mission he was supposed to do three weeks prior. Danny told Uncle Pete that the "mission" was a success and that he took out three of the five "targets". "What the hell are these guys talking about?" I thought. Then they turned to me and Uncle Pete said "It's no use hiding it now, Danny." Uncle Pete then told me that the girl who killed Karin, Samantha Grey, was a vampire. He said that vampires were real and that they were attending my school. I found it hard to believe what Uncle Pete was saying. These things that were made famous in books for years were really walking among us. Uncle Pete then started to talk about Dad. He said that Dad was a member of a group that hunted the vampires and that he was doing it for 25 years. Uncle Pete said that Dad didn't die in a car accident like he once said. Dad was killed on a mission to take out a vampire clan. Dad's last wish was for Danny to pick up where he left back and for me not to know anything about it. The time when Danny left with Uncle Pete ten months after Dad died was the beginning of Danny's training. Uncle Pete and Danny revealed that they were part of the Van Helsing Clan, the group Dad belonged to. Seeing that I was exposed to the same thing Dad warned me about, Uncle Pete said it was time for me to "take up the cross."
I began my training as a new member of the Van Helsing Clan at age 14. My training involved the use of many weapons and in martial arts. I was trained to understand and identify a vampire and I killed my first vampire at the age of 15. My target was a member of the Young Knights society, a vampire clan that was involved in the kidnapping and trafficking of humans to other vampires across the U.S. As I grew I became more skilled and wise about the world I lived. I have to admit I never wanted to have something this at first. I didn't ask for this honor. Uncle Pete told me what Dad told him once. "Anna is my whole world," Dad said. "I don't want my baby having to live in fear all her life. Not being able to open her eyes to sun everyday. If Anna should find out anything about me I want her to stand on her own two feet and always be ready because I can't live with the fact that she could die in this world. I'm trying my best now, but I want Anna to do better than me, much better." Those words will always live in me now because I want to survive not only for myself but to fulfill Dad's dying wish.
Back to my mission in downtown L.A. The night before I celebrated my seventeenth birthday and that night Danny and I were together with members of the vampire hunters Category 5 were planning to take out our chosen target in an undisclosed location in L.AWe were prepped by Category 5's leader Ethan Fanning, who was veteran compared to us who much younger. He hunted vampires since he was only twelve and the time of our next mission he was 50. The bald-headed founder of Category 5 told us that our target was the leader of the 300 year old Brothers of Dusk clan named Jacob Wallace. Jacob Wallace was believed to be meeting with vampire elders at a night club called The Apocalypse that night. Fanning drew out a map of the chosen target. "I want you to look at this real good," said Fanning. "Any mistakes will give away the mission totally." The plan was made up of five teams. Two snipers, Cell 1 and Cell 2, and three other teams, Code Yellow, Code Orange and Code Red, to move on foot. Cell 1 would take up position outside The Apocalypse and take out the two door men while Code Yellow, which involved Danny and I moved in. If Code Yellow failed then Code Orange, who would take up position inside on the dance floor and Cell 2 who would take up position on the empty balcony, will move in on the target. If Code Orange failed, Code Red, who would take up position in the back, would move in if the target made any attempt to escape. "Now this mission shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to complete," Fanning said. I yawned all the while because of the long day I had: at the steel mill where I worked, training at the dojo and being awakened from a deep sleep to get ready for this mission. After three years on this team I still couldn't keep up. "Now we gotta make the best of it," said Fanning. "We will get this done before our cover blows and before the place starts crawling with cops. Remember what's at stake here: the human race's existence as we know it. We can't let these motherfuckers gain the upper hand here, guys. Alright, let's go!"
Danny and I, together with the members of Category 5 rounded up our weapons in preparation for our raid. We all gathered our weapons and loaded them with magazine clips filled with silver nitrate bullets. The nine of the 140 members of Category 5 carried Heckler and Koch MP 5 K submachine guns and Smith & Wesson and Glock pistols. Danny and I carried our own H & K MP 5 Ks but Danny also carried a Desert Eagle pistol and I carried two Heckler and Koch USP pistols. We also carried silver stakes. Our line of communication was through headsets and ear pieces. Fanning and his team jumped into their van and Danny and I soon followed in Danny's car on our way to our final destination: The Apocalypse.