Well, here it is. You've all been a great audience so I won't hold you up any longer. This first chapter of the final Dracula Chronicles story would go very nicely with "Reunited" from the Van Helsing soundtrack. Enjoy.
Part 1: 20 Years Ago
Sam dived behind one of the larger headstones in the churchyard. Behind him a sign reading Welcome to Oakhaven was blasted apart. Ravencroft was getting closer. He only hoped that Beau had gotten the McKnight woman and her family to safety. All he could think of was her poor baby girl, much too young to have to deal with things like this.
"I can smell you dog" Ravencroft sneered as he glided into the graveyard. "You can't hide from me."
Sam stood up and pulled a revolver out of his robes. "Not trying to hide."
He squeezed the trigger sending a silver bullet streaming towards the man. Ben Ravencroft had yesterday been simply another warlock. One of a specific breed of people born with such powers. Now, having absorbed the spirit of a witch ancestor of his, he had doubled his power and halved his sanity.
Ravencroft held out his hand and stopped the bullet in midair. A ghostly female visage flashed across his face as he did so, the spirit of Sarah Ravencroft. Sam ejected his gauntlet blades, ready to go down fighting.
"Pathetic"
"Ravencroft!" A woman yelled behind him.
Sam looked past the madman to see the woman he and Beau had been sent here to save. Elizabeth McKnight was young, just married, a mother, yet she stood resolute against Ravencroft like the most experienced knights Sam had met. Behind her Beau was running at her, trying to stop her. Her husband, Jack, was taking shelter behind a parked car, holding their baby daughter Sally close to his chest.
"Misses McKnight! Elizabeth! Please!" Sam yelled running towards her, but he was too late.
She had already begun to chant her incantation. Ravencroft realized what was happening too late. He was blasted away in a flash of light, maybe dead, maybe just weakened. The shockwave sent Sam flying. His ribs cracked as he crashed through the wooden door of a mausoleum. A plaque reading O'Flannery Family Crypt smacked him in the face. If he ever met a member of this O'Flannery family he would have to give his apologies.
He landed hard at the deepest level of the structure, having been blasted down at least three flights of stairs. His head rested against a stone marker, denoting the name of the man behind it; Alexander O'Flannery.
Free us
Sam jerked his head around, swearing he had heard something. His eyes were swimming and his ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. A sharp pain shot through his chest as he squirmed on the hard stone floor.
Bring the key. Open the prison…
The noises stopped as his head cleared. Slowly Samuel Colton Rogers stumbled up the stairs and out into the open air, clutching his aching ribs. The sun was rising just over the steeple of the old church house. There was no sign of Ravencroft, but he could see Fletcher kneeling over the damn spell book that had brought them here in the first place.
Cautiously he picked it up and then set fire to it. The flames emanated from his fingers and licked at the two hundred year old leather bound tome. In a matter of moments Fletcher closed his hand as the book was reduced to ash.
"That's the end of that" He said solemnly.
"Oh my god!" Beau's voice cut through the quiet dawn. "Fletcher get over here, this woman needs a doctor!"
Sam and Fletcher ran to where Beau and Rachael were kneeling by McKnight. She was laying still with her hands to her stomach. Her chest was moving up and down erratically and Sam could hear the raggedness in her breath. Across the town square her husband ran towards them, still clutching the baby girl.
"What's wrong with her?" Beau asked worriedly.
"She's overexerted herself." Fletcher said sliding next to them. "Too much magic in too little time."
"Good God" Jack McKnight cried as he came closer. "No, Elizabeth no!" He sobbed.
"Can't you do anything?" Sam said frantically looking from the woman to her distraught family.
Fletcher covered his mouth with both hands and breathed heavily. "I'm sorry" he sighed. "I'm so sorry."
"No!" Sam grunted. "We were here to protect this woman!"
Elizabeth turned to him. Her skin was pale and her breath was barely a whisper. But her eyes were still focused.
"Don't blame yourself." She smiled. "You did everything you could."
"You saved us" Sam sobbed. "I'm so sorry."
Slowly Elizabeth McKnight's breathing stopped. Her face was still smiling, looking over at her family. Fletcher snapped his fingers at Jack and his daughter. Both froze with glazed looks in their eyes.
"I'll implant false memories. Merlyn can do it for the rest of the town, I'll do them personally."
"Fletcher…" Sam sighed as he sat on both knees next to the body, his hands resting in front of him and his head bowed. "Do me a favor, when you do it, make sure they remember that she died a hero."
Fletcher nodded and then began making his way to them. Sam sat there on the grass in town square. Eventually Beau and Rachael stood up as more Knights arrived to do cleanup. But Sam sat there until Elizabeth was taken. She would be buried like a hero; he would make sure of it.
Finally he stood up and made his way back to the car. He would take some time off, maybe visit Europe, maybe Ireland. He just needed to get some rest.