'Velkan.' How could Velkan be here, in my room?

'You know my name, I see,' he said, still gazing at the ceiling. I kept silent. So many things were running through my head, so many questions.

How did he get through the portal?

'Surprised to see me?' he asked, turning his head towards me. Our eyes met and I watched in horror as I saw his eyes flash gold. My heart began to race as I recognized the reason as to how he did this.

Velkan is a vampire. I gulped.

'What do you want?' I asked. He smiled at me and disappeared. Before the blink of an eye, Velkan appeared on the edge of the bed; holding the vial that Derek had just given me.

'Give that back.' I watched as he twisted the vial between his thumb and forefinger and held it up to his eyes.

'So this is what they used to allow time travel. That friar was actually good for something,' he smirked.

'What do you want?' He slowly put the vial down and looked at me and patted the bed next to him to signify that he wanted me to sit. I hesitated for a moment, but sat anyway.

'Where to start?' he wondered aloud, 'ah, yes, I suppose that it is best to go to where we last saw one another. After you had ran from Dracula, he turned to me and pulled out the stake that I had impaled him with. He laughed at me, and asked, "you don't remember, do you?" Of course, I was confused and took a step back as he took a step towards me.

"About what?" I had asked.

"Who I am, who you are…." This, of course, caught my attention; I had been looking for who I was for so long. And here was the one person with all the answers I would ever need, the one who could either ruin my life or create it anew.

"Yes," he continued, "I know all about you, Velkan Valerious. All about your past and what you can be in the future." It was at the sound of my name that I froze. It was as if I knew who I was all along, but I didn't at the same time. With my attention distracted, he swept down upon me and bit me. When I awoke a few hours later, I found that Dracula had been murdered already and that you were gone.'

Velkan sighed and continued, 'Since I couldn't find you, I went to find out my past; I went to Transylvania. For almost a decade, I learned about what my history was, about my sister, Princess Anna, and my relation to Dracula. After those years had passed, I went to search for you. Everywhere I went, I could not find you and during the First World War, I moved to the United States in order to search the records for an Erica Townsend. Still, there was no sign of you. I didn't find any sign of you until the late 1990's, when I typed in your name into an internet database. It was curious that a birth announcement dated in the late 1980's came up. None of it made sense, because, how could you have been in the late 19th century, if you were born in the late 20th? So I found where you lived and saw two little girls, aged 10 and 11 playing in the yard. I recognized you without any problem and knew definitely that it was you when your mother called you in by name for supper.'

'Why did you search for me?' I asked, curious. What could have kept him looking for me for over a century?

'Because I need you.' I looked into his brown eyes and saw something in them pleading with me.

'I need to go,' I said as I remembered that Derek was waiting for me in the living room. I stood and he quickly grabbed my wrist. 'Velkan, let go.' He did as I had asked but his eyes flashed gold as a warning sign. I froze.

He held the vial up to his eyes again and after he gazed into it for a few seconds, he grasped the vial in his fist, closed his eyes and pressed the vial to his forehead. He muttered something that I couldn't understand. He then threw the vial at my door, my only way out.

As soon as the opaque smoke began to form, I knew that he had broken the glass. I looked back at Velkan to see his reaction and I saw that he was standing and holding his hand out expectantly. I stared at his hand, wondering what the hell he was doing.

'Take my hand,' he said, 'and go by choice.' I took a step away from him.

'I would prefer that you would choose to go,' he added with a sigh.

'And if I don't?'

'I wish not to be forced into those circumstances.' I hesitated before defiantly saying, 'I am not going with you.'

For almost a minute, we stared each other down, waiting for the other to give in. Slowly he brought his hand to his side, clenching it into a fist as he went.

His eyes glowed as he disappeared. I felt myself being lifted and thrown headfirst at the door. I flew into the chilling darkness and knew what had happened.

I was time traveling. But instead of the orange warm glow of the Order, I was met by a chilly night, filled with damp fog. When I landed, my knees and palms scraped against the brick walk. The pain was immediate, but I quickly stood and looked at the wall I had just come through. Velkan was nowhere to be seen, so I launched myself at the wall, in hopes of going back through the portal before it closed. But it was too late, and my body collided with the wall and I fell backwards to the ground.

Oh God, I'm trapped here, in whatever this place is. And I'm all alone.

I looked around frantically, but soon began to realize I was familiar with this place. I was in London and I was on the street that came out of the Chesterfield maze. The alley next to me was where Van Helsing had scared the crap out of me.

'Carl,' warned a familiar voice that was too far away from me to see the figure in the fog. But I knew immediately that it was Van Helsing.

I gasped. They would know what to do. I took in a deep breath-

'Va-' a hand quickly covered my mouth and pulled me into the dark alley.

I began to struggle and scream, but the figure held me tight and eventually put his fingers on either side of my throat.

'You keep screaming and I'll restrict your air,' hissed Velkan into my ear. I stopped screaming, not wanting to lose any brain cells.

I was close to tears as I watched the shadowed figures of Carl and Van Helsing walk towards the center of the alley opening. I struggled to get away, trying to make as much noise as possible to get their attention. Carl stopped in front of the alley. Van Helsing took a couple more steps before he noticed that Carl had stopped.

'What now?'

'I heard something,' Carl said slowly.

'Carl, Erica is in danger,' reminded Van Helsing. My heart leapt at the sound of my name and I attempted to make more noise.

Van Helsing, you have no idea.

But I was soon swept off my feet and carried off by Velkan. Several blocks later, he gingerly put me down and I fell to the ground, dizzy as hell and about to puke.

Velkan was saying something, but I ignored him and attempted to stop the world from spinning. Once it did finally stop, I kneeled on the ground, trying to regain all my thought. When I did, I was so angry at Velkan that my eyes were blurred from the tears. He had stopped talking by now, apparently because he knew that I wasn't listening and he dropped a bundle in front of me.

'I took the liberty of gathering this from the box in your closet.' I knew without looking at it that it was Anna's hunting clothes. 'The alley is a dead end and deserted. You can change quickly. I'll chase away anyone who comes this way.'

'Why should I?' I asked in a low voice.

'Erica, you know that in this time period that your clothing is both uncommon and not respectable.' With this, he walked away to give me privacy. I stared at the bundle for a few seconds before I grudgingly pulled it towards me and stood to go to the dark dead end of the alley to change.

I rolled up my now ruined dress and walked back to Velkan when I had finished. He turned around when he heard me coming and looked me up and down, approvingly.

'Much better, now, let's go.'

'No. I am not going anywhere with you until you tell me what the hell is going on.'

'Do you wish for to explain it here or would you prefer some place a little safer?'

'I've a knife in my boot, Velkan, and you are a vampire. I think that between you and I, we can take care of anything, so I ain't moving.'

'Fine,' he sighed. His golden eyes shown in the hazy moonlight as he began, 'I brought you here because I need your help in saving Dracula.'

'What?' I gasped. Did he realize what he just asked me? To save the vampire who wanted me dead?

'He knows who I am, Erica, and I must speak with him.'

'Velkan, you are a Valerious, you know this. You said that you had found out your past yourself. Is that not enough to know?'

'No, there must be more. Dracula had hinted at things…'

'What things?' I was now curious as to the lies Dracula had woven for him.

'Things about my past, my future, powers that I can inherit.'

'Powers? What the-'

'Shh,' he hissed. His eyes darted around nervously. 'Someone comes.'

'Vel-' he clamped his hand over my mouth. He then pulled me deeper into the darkness. A second passed before he relaxed and released me.

'I thought you said you found your past?' He ignored me.

'It should be safe to talk to him,' he walked ahead of me, 'come.'

'No. Velkan, do you not realize the threat that Dracula poses to me and my friends?'

'I do,' he turned to me, 'but please, do this as a favor.'

I opened my mouth and then closed it. Instead of giving him an answer, I asked him, 'why do you need me to save Dracula, can't you do it?'

'You are the only one who can stop Van Helsing, prevent him from killing Dracula.'

'You realize that if I help save him that he will be able to murder all my friends including me?' There was no reply. 'Please, Velkan. You know that there is a reason that Dracula is not in the 21st century. He was meant to die. We cannot allow Van Helsing to fail. I even saw Dracula's ashes, Velkan. Please.'

'No,' he muttered, 'I must know.'

'I'll help you find what Dracula had promised, I swear,' I looked up at him and touched his face gently, 'please.' He closed his eyes and pressed my hand to his skin with his hand and tilted his head to it. He then quickly dropped my hand and picked me up bridal style. Without a word, we ran off to Von Trappe's mansion. He took a back way in that I didn't recognize and we ended up in the hall where I had first met Von Trappe. But we had been too late, Van Helsing was already engaged in battle with Dracula and he was armed with a couple of stakes that I know he had covered in werewolf saliva.

Velkan put me on the ground and let out a low growl.

'Velkan, please don't do anything stupid,' I pleaded with him as I watched Van Helsing dodge Dracula. But when I looked over to him, I saw that Velkan was gone. I turned to see him running to push Dracula out of the way as Van Helsing's stake came down. The stake hit Velkan in the chest and I saw him gasp as he fell to the ground and burst into flame. I looked at Dracula and saw him smirk at Velkan's dead body and at me. He bowed to me and then disappeared.

'Velkan,' I whispered and fell to my hands and knees. My vision was now blurry as I realized that he was dead. I heard a growl to my left and my blood turned to ice. I turned to see the werewolf version of me tear out Anastasia's throat. Suddenly, the entire body shuddered and I watched myself transform into my human self, I pleaded with Van Helsing to help me and then I yelled at them to run as I transformed back into a wolf. Van Helsing pulled out a small tube from his jacket and put a couple darts into me.

I crawled into the shadows as Carl and Van Helsing rushed over to pick up my other self. I figured that I would follow them back to the inn and sneak back through the portal after everyone had gone through.

As Van Helsing carried my unconscious body down into the Inn's storage, Carl went up the stairs to his room to get, what I presumed as, some items to make the antidote. I followed him upstairs, hiding in the shadows so that he would not see me and that I wouldn't have to explain myself to him. As I stood in the shadows outside his door, I began to think of my situation.

Dracula was now alive, seeing as Velkan switched places with him at the last moment. This meant that, unless Dracula was killed before I was born, my friends were in danger. I was in danger.

Wow, this whole me being in danger because of him was starting to get annoying.

And yet, if Dracula was still alive when I was born, wouldn't he have attacked already? It didn't really make any sense.

I had to talk to Carl, get a vial of that time travel stuff and go back to the future where I would defeat Dracula before he could get to my friends. Hmmm….sounds simple enough, isn't it?