A/N Okay, I'm sorry if this is too long, but what can I say? First an orthodontist appointment then an hour of Algebra. Who wouldn't go nuts?! Mostly it's a lot of important explanation , so I promise the rest of the story won't be THIS long! And how can yall complain if it's Carl who's doing most of the talking?

Chapter 1

A Time for Lessons (and a lesson about time)

The cloaked and armed figure approaching the Church seemed to be the stuff of legend: the tall, dark, muscular, silently tragic hero. Ironically, he was also the stuff of 'Wanted- for murder' posters. Which he considered himself to be, the hero or the murderer, was very much up in the air. He walked towards the confessional slowly, taking a deep and steadying breath before entering.
"Forgive-" He began, but the priest cut him off.
"Gabriel Van Helsing there is no time." He said hoarsely.
Van Helsing blinked several times and followed the priest- whom he did not recognize- down the secret staircase. When they reached the secret chambers, he noticed that everything was in a state of wild turmoil. People were rushing around, flipping through books, shouting across the room to each other. It seemed that in the week he'd been in Paris the Order had lost it's mind.
"What's going on? Where's Cardinal Jinette?" Van Helsing asked.
"I was only told to await you in the confessional. I do not understand fully what is going on. You must speaking with Friar Carl urgently." The priest, who he now saw to be quite young and most likely untrained, was desperate. Van Helsing nodded and set off briskly to find Carl.
The Friar was in his usual place surrounded by his beloved inventions. He was rushing around, his goggles forgotten on top of his head. As Van Helsing watched him, he saw that his hair had not been combed in at least two days, nor had he slept in as much time.
"Carl? What's going on?" He asked. Carl started and turned.
"Thank God Van Helsing you've come back from France. Something has happened!" He cried fearfully.
"Most people curse God when they see I've arrived, and I can see that something ahs happened. WHAT happened?" Van Helsing said dryly.
"Cardinal Jinette died. Simply stopped midsentence and DIED." Carl said in a bewildered voice.
"I can understand the strife then, but it's not as though he was a young man, Carl. Why is everyone rushing around in a state of utter fear, like this was some sort of murder mystery and the killer was still amongst us?" Van Helsing said with a frown. Carl sighed and shook his head.
"He didn't just DIE, Gabriel. There was no body. One moment he was talking to us, and then the next he seized up and fell over. I rushed to him, but there was no wound. And then he simply vanished. It was as though he had been erased." Carl shook his head again. "The first place I started looking was his genealogy. When I looked at his family tree, he wasn't even on it. In fact, the entire tree had been erased all the way up to his ancestors from around 400 years ago, and those are the distant ones who never became involved in the Order. I ran an analysis of the page, and there wasn't even a trace of ink on the page below the ancestors that weren't erased. It was like nothing had ever been there. I checked all other records we had of him: doctor's records, church records, school records, and got the same results. According to them he had never even existed." The Friar began to putter around again, mixing liquids and powders, but Van Helsing suspected there was more coming. Surely enough, Carl soon began his talk anew.
"So, I did some research on the time up to which his family tree had been erased. It was around the time Dracula was first killed." Van Helsing felt his blood turn to boiling sludge with a mix between fear and rage. "Then I started looking into other recent and mysterious killings. You know how we receive multiple newspapers from various countries, correct?" Van Helsing nodded. "And how I keep in contact with scientists around the world?"
"Yes, you have a bizarre obsession with pen pals that worries me. Please continue." Van Helsing said through gritted teeth, putting his hands down on the table. He instantly flinched and recoiled as he put his weight on his hands; Carl noticed, but said nothing.
"Well, in the newspapers there were reports of identical killings. I discovered that most of them were important scientists involved with the Order. The rest were those who supplied us with chemicals and other materials necessary to our continuing research. At that time I arrived at the conclusion that somehow Dracula was alive and back in the past, trying to destroy those that preceded the Order." Carl looked up. "Those that would one day help you."
"How do we stop him if he's in the past?" Van Helsing asked quietly, almost to himself. He began to get deeply worried. Carl was the only friend he had; what if Dracula went after him next?
"That's what I asked myself." Carl replied. "Then I decided to pay a visit to an old friend, a powerful Wiccan friendly to the Order. When I got there, Dracula was halfway through killing her ancestors. Before she died, she managed to pass on a helpful hint: the name of a book in her library. I managed to hunt it down; it contained the names of several chemicals and powders that might be able to transport one back in time. I've been working endlessly on perfecting the formula, since much of the text was gone. And now-" He held up a glass vial with a murky black liquid in it. "I think I've got it, just in time for your arrival." Van Helsing took the vial.
"I suppose then that the question becomes which of us has more impeccable timing: you or I." He mused aloud. "Please tell me I don't have to drink this?" The Friar took the vial back.
"No, you don't have to drink it." He said. He began packing up his implements. "Collect your weapons. You know what you need for Dracula and there are no new ones since you left." Van Helsing began to put on his weapons when a thought occurred to him.
"But what I needed last time was a werewolf. You and I both know all too well that I am not a werewolf anymore." Van Helsing said in a voice full of quiet pain.
"You forget: at the time you first killed him he was not a vampire. You'd simply be killing a human." Said Carl lightly.
"SIMPLY? Killing another human is SIMPLE? I'm already branded a murderer for killing hideous, evil monsters. What will I be if I kill another human? Satan himself?" Gabriel shouted suddenly. He noticed that everyone heard, but no on stopped for him. No one stopped for his pain. He was just some stupid, emotionless, killing machine. A tool.
"You are the left hand of God, Gabriel. No one would call you Satan." Carl said while he continued cleaning, and Van Helsing found himself calmed by his unobtrusive presence. He never asked what was wrong, but comforted him all the same. "And besides, you wouldn't have killed him in the first place if he hadn't done something wrong." Van Helsing simply nodded. "Alright, let's get going."
Carl led him to the back rooms. They were old and usually unused except for those wishing seclusion and for dangerous experiments. The Friar walked up to a door that had another Friar in font of it.
"Have you got it this time, Friar Carl?" he asked wearily. He too looked like he hadn't slept in a couple days.
"I should." Carl turned to Van Helsing. "Friar Jonathon has been keeping guard here while I experiment with the different mixtures in case I get hurt. I've been testing them in this room or making new ones nearly round the clock for the past couple days, so neither of us have gotten much sleep." He opened the door and ushered Van Helsing in. "Jonathon, don't open this door for ten minutes. No matter what. If we're gone when you open it... then pray for us. Pray that it works." Jonathon nodded.
"Godspeed." He said. Carl smiled, then followed Van Helsing, closing and locking the door.

A/N Believe it or not, this is actually only PART of the chapter. I'm cutting it into two because it's REALLY long. Anyways, tell me what you thought! Flames will be used to roast Carl's hair (and we don't want that, do we?)