Disclaimer: It pains me each time I type it, but I still don't own Van Helsing! Or Dracula either and that's the real loss, lol.
Hey everybody! I am really sorry it took me a while to update last time, so I made a special effort to update sooner this time. YAY! And so many thanks to all my awesome, AWESOME reviewers out there!
Christine Marquez: I'm glad you found it highly entertaining, lol. This chappie has its entertaining moments too! And again, I'm sorry for the updating delay. :)
L'Tara: YAY! A new reviewer! Your review was the one of the longest yet and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, lol. Yeah, Drac was cool, but he is, after all, the bad guy, so he had to turn evil sometime! I'm sorry you got confused about the pants/dress thing last chappie. Andrea had pants on under the dress, but they didn't have pockets. Probably cuz the only clothes Drac had for her were too tight for pockets, lol!
Luthien Anwamane: Yup, gotta love the ball scene! It was the best by far. Drac freaks of the world, UNITE!!! Lol.
Lady Kathrin: No problem with the dedication thing…you were after all, the only one to review! I'm glad you liked the chappie and I hope you like this one as well! And yes, Drac is very hot and romantic, but unfortunately, he's not in this chappie. Don't hurt me!! Please! Lol
Fox of the Nova: YAY!! Another new reviewer! Your review was the longest I've had and it made me laugh, lol. Here's more, just like you asked, so don't hurt me! I'm so glad you enjoy my story, it really makes me feel appreciated, lol. Yeah, Hugh Jackman is great, and I'm sorry about the incident with your friend…It's enough to make ME cry of injustice, lol. Anyway, enjoy!
Etherealfire: YAY!!! ANOTHER new reviewer! You're right, that is an interesting concept, and partly inspired my story, in fact. I REALLY like Drac too, and it's great that you like their personalities and think I captured them well…one of my biggest fears as an author is OOCness, so be sure and tell me if that ever happens in my story, k? Enjoy this chappie!
Okay guys, here's the chappie you've all been waiting for and thanks again so much for all your reviews! And now, I present to you: Chapter 9!
We arrived back in Rome, and the next day, after a full night's sleep had gotten us all fully rested, Van Helsing, Carl, and I gathered in Carl's small private laboratory. I sat there looking at Carl's incredibly antiquated (by my standards) lab equipment, and my heart sank. There was no way I could do what I had imagined with these pieces of vastly out-dated technology. In my rush to find a solution to our problem, I had forgotten that none of the cutting-edge technology from home was available to me. I sighed inwardly and turned to Carl and Van Helsing, preparing to tell them the worst. I glanced at Carl and my heart sank even lower. I could tell that Carl was so proud of his laboratory; he probably had the most advanced lab equipment there was in 1891, but to me it wasn't much, and it just wasn't going to cut it. But how could I tell him that? I almost lost my nerve, but remembered that there was something much bigger than Carl's feelings at stake, something like the fate of the world and the destruction of one of the most evil creatures on Earth.
I took a deep breath, but before I had even started speaking, Van Helsing noticed my grim expression. He immediately frowned and asked, "What's wrong?" Carl, who hadn't noticed how despondent I was, continued to smile and look fondly on his various lab stuff out on the table.
"Well," I began, directing my speech at Van Helsing, "I forgot that I don't have the equipment from my time available to me. In my rush to formulate a plan, I stupidly overlooked that fact. Now it's plain, to me anyway, that this equipment simply won't work. It's too old."
Carl, who apparently had only heard my last two sentences, suddenly chimed in exclaiming, "Won't work? Too old?! What are you talking about? All my equipment is in the best working order, and it's the most recent and modern equipment money can buy! Are you saying that–"
"What Andrea means," Van Helsing cut in smoothly, "is that the technology of 1891 is not advanced enough to do what she had originally planned." I glanced gratefully at him, then turned and nodded at Carl.
"Oh. I see now. That makes sense." Carl responded, not nearly as defensive as he was a moment before. "But, what do we do now?"
Carl's question hung in the air as we all realized that now we had no plan at all for destroying Dracula. All our hard work, wasted. I sat on a stool near the table and looked forlornly at the floor, while Van Helsing began angrily pacing in front of me. Carl however, stood stock still. He seemed to be deep in thought. Suddenly, after about ten minutes of silence, Carl shouted, "I've got it!" and ran over to a small corner cabinet mumbling to himself the whole time, "Of course! Why didn't I think of it before? Stupid of me..." His sudden movement startled Van Helsing and me; we exchanged a confused look and simultaneously walked over to Carl. He was frantically searching the tiny cabinet, moving things about in a hurried and careless fashion. I looked at the outside of one of the open doors and saw a sign saying, "Dangerous But Possibly Useful Items From Some Silly Mission Or Another. Do Not Enter Unless Absolutely Necessary!"
It was obvious that Carl had made the sign; I gestured silently to Van Helsing, pointed to the sign, and raised an eyebrow. Van Helsing smiled slightly and shrugged in response. Just then, Carl straightened, and with a triumphant "Aha!" he proudly produced a small glass vial containing a slightly yellowish clear liquid.
"What is it?" I asked.
Seeing that Van Helsing and I clearly did not understand, Carl explained, "It's werewolf venom. I just remembered. I got it from Velken after we found him during our last trip to Transylvania three years ago. I had forgotten I had it until just now." Carl smiled broadly, pleased with himself for remembering now. I, on the other hand, was not so pleased.
Upon first hearing Carl's explanation, my face had brightened considerably. Then a new thought had dawned on me. "Wait a minute," I asked, getting more indignant by the minute, "Do you mean to tell me, that I had to spend an extra 24 hours in that God-awful place with that...that...that monster, wander around that castle for an entire day trying to find the antidote, nearly get killed or worse, and you had just what we needed, safe, right here in Rome the whole time?! Are you kidding me?! Unbelievable! Jeez, Carl, who's side are you on?!" I threw up my hands in utter frustration, spun around and stalked back to my stool. Carl was, by now, cowering behind Van Helsing in complete terror. Van Helsing abandoned Carl and walked over to me. He took my hands in his and made me look up into his eyes.
"Hey," he said; his voice made me feel calmer, "Relax. Everything's fine. In fact, it's better because now you don't have to make the venom, we already have some. And, thanks to you, we also have the antidote in case anything goes wrong. So just calm down, okay? I mean look at poor Carl, you probably knocked 5 years off his life, he's so scared." That made me chuckle; Carl did look terrified. I smiled up at Van Helsing, and his eyes smiled back at me playfully. My heart skipped a beat. Why did that happen? I pushed the thought from my mind and stood up, withdrawing my hands from Van Helsing's.
I turned to Carl. "Once again," I said, grinning, "I apologize for exploding at you. It's just...it all seemed too ironic. Forgive me?"
Carl smiled back. "Of course. And I apologize as well for not thinking of it sooner. I really should make a list of all my stuff..."
"Yeah," I agreed, looking around at Carl's cluttered laboratory, "Then maybe the next time you have to save the world there won't be so much hassle." We all laughed, but quickly became serious as we sat down to plan our next move.
Since we now had the werewolf venom (no thanks to Carl.....well, maybe some thanks, but not much) the next step was to coat our weapons with it, and attack Dracula. Believe me, it was easier said than done. Just getting the venom on our weapons was difficult, never mind the "attack Dracula" part. For starters, we couldn't use any silver weapons; silver and werewolf venom just don't mix, as you can imagine. Why Van Helsing didn't realize this beforehand I can only attribute to fatigue, and the fact that Carl was temporarily out of the room, thus unable to stop Van Helsing from trying something common sense screams is just stupid.
We had returned to Carl's laboratory after Van Helsing and Carl had collected all the weapons they could find. A thought seemed to occur to Carl as he looked at our weapons pile so he left the room for a moment, and Van Helsing proceeded to pick up a silver stake from the pile of various weapons we had amassed, take a cloth, pour some of the venom onto the cloth, and rub it on the stake. I didn't see this until it was too late, and by that time Carl had returned. The same instant Carl walked through the doorway, Van Helsing let out a shout and dropped the stake and cloth on the floor. We all watched as the chemical reactions from the silver and the venom caused the cloth to bust into flame, the venom hissing and spitting like acid.
"Van Helsing! What were you thinking?!" Carl shouted. "Why can't I leave the room for 2 seconds without you trying to burn a hole through the floor?! Didn't it occur to you that silver and werewolf venom are a bad combination? And you call yourself a Monster Slayer." Carl sighed in exasperation and picked up the stake. It was unharmed, but the cloth and venom were burned away. "Try not to waste any more of what little of this stuff we have, alright?"
Van Helsing, miffed at having been rebuked by Carl, even if it was a stupid thing to do, tried to give a rebuke of his own.
"Well, maybe if you didn't leave the room all the time–"
"Leave the room?! Van Helsing, I left to go get some weapons that weren't silver!" Carl rolled his eyes and picked up the steel swords and crossbow arrows he had dropped on the floor.
"I'll just pull out all the silver weapons we gathered then, shall I?" I said, anxious to break the tension. The last thing we needed was division amongst ourselves. Van Helsing grumbled to himself for a minute and sat down on a nearby stool, while I walked over to the pile and pulled out all the stakes, the revolvers that shot silver bullets, and the few silver swords that were there.
When Van Helsing had calmed down a bit, we laid out all the weapons and selected a couple for each of us, so we wouldn't waste time coating all of them. This also proved a difficult task. There was no problem for Van Helsing; he instantly grabbed his tojo blades, the crossbow, a short sword, and his two favorite revolvers. Carl and I were another story. Of course Carl had never carried a real weapon, except to give to Van Helsing, and he had never actually used a weapon at all. In the end it was resolved that if we were to give Carl a weapon, he would probably do more damage to himself than anyone else, so we decided to have him act, as usual, as the trusty and helpful side-kick friar. Once we were resolved on the issue, Carl promptly sat down at a table and started to coat Van Helsing's various weapons with venom. I didn't know what we were going to do for me. Here I am from a century in the future; I'd never used a gun of any kind, and obviously I had no clue what to do with a sword. But I couldn't just leave Van Helsing to fight alone (not that I thought he couldn't handle it, I mean, it's not like he hadn't gone up against Dracula before), but I would've felt like useless baggage. The thought made me shudder, so I picked up a sword to see if I could learn something before we faced Dracula.
Van Helsing perked up with interest when he saw me grab the sword. "Do you know how to use that?" he asked, standing. I shook my head, but something felt strange....different. The sword's hilt felt natural in my hand, like it had always been there, and when I tried a few experimental slashes, Van Helsing raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"You're good. You have excellent form. Are you sure you've never used a sword before?"
"I swear, I've never even held one before."
"Could've fooled me. C'mon, let's go a round. See how good you are." He grabbed another sword from the pile. I was obviously nervous as I turned to face him, but something inside me told me not to worry, I knew what I was doing. And suddenly, I did! I knew everything. I leapt at Van Helsing, and instantly we fell into a rhythm, an age old dance full of weaving, thrusting, parrying, dodging, and spinning. Our swords were streaks of steel as we fought, and I knew every step. I never missed a beat, and never left an opening for Van Helsing to break through. Carl stopped to watch, and before I had even fully realized it, I had backed Van Helsing into a corner, knocked his sword from his hand, and pinned him with my sword at his throat. Van Helsing's shock was even greater than mine. We stood looking at each other with wide eyes, breathing slightly heavily from the exertion, when I recovered from my shock and stepped away, lowering my sword.
"My God," Carl breathed, "Andrea, how- when- Van Helsing is the best swordsman in Rome!" I turned to look over at him, and he gasped. "Anna." was all he managed to whisper before simply staring at me open-mouthed. I then understood why Van Helsing was so shocked. He was still standing against the wall where I'd pinned him, and it wasn't only because I'd disarmed him in all of about 5 minutes, it was because with the sword in my hand and the few curls that had fallen into my face, I must've looked more like Anna than ever. I sighed and put the sword back down on the table. My motions finally woke Van Helsing from his stupor, and he blinked several times and avoided my eyes.
"Well," Carl began by breaking the silence, "I suppose this proves it."
"Proves what?" Van Helsing asked, eager to change the subject.
"That Andrea is indeed Anna's modern reincarnation. Only Anna would have been able to disarm Van Helsing so quickly. Most sword masters can't win a duel against Van Helsing."
While Carl was talking, I wasn't really listening. Instead I was thinking and running through my mixed emotions. At first I felt amazement, who knew I could fight like that! Then, I felt depressed. It wasn't my fault I looked like Anna, but somehow the guy I actually admitted to myself I might be falling for could only think of her when he looked at me. I didn't hate her, how could I? I'd never even known her. It was just depressing. Someone's calling my name shook me from my thoughts.
"Huh?" I asked, not sure what was going on.
"I said," Carl replied, "do you want to try using a revolver?"
"Um...." I thought about this. Anna must've been an excellent shot, but did I really want to shoot a gun? "First of all," I began, "I've never used a gun before, and second of all, there is no way I'm shooting a gun without hearing and eye protectors on." Van Helsing and Carl looked at me.
"Without what?" Carl asked, confused.
"Never mind." I said, remembering once again that I was not in the year 2004.
"So, does that mean you don't want to try a revolver?" Carl asked.
"Yeah, I guess I'd rather not." I said, deciding.
"What about daggers or throwing knives?" Van Helsing inquired while picking up a few.
"God, you people are violent. Isn't a sword enough?" I asked.
"Possibly." Van Helsing answered, "though it's nice to have a variety of weapons at your disposal." I could see the logic in this and relented.
"Okay, fine. I see your point. Give me a knife." I took a throwing knife from Van Helsing and was about to throw it.
"Wait!" Van Helsing shouted, before I unleashed the knife. "What are you aiming for? If we don't know your target, how are we supposed to know how good you are?" Another valid point. Ugh, I hate feeling stupid.
"Okay, see that crack?" I asked, pointing to a small crack between to blocks of stone in one of the walls. "That's my target." Van Helsing raised his eyebrows again but stayed silent. I turned back to the wall, and threw the knife with all my might. When I looked, the knife was buried half-way into the wall right in the center of the crack, vibrating slightly back and forth. Carl let out a low whistle and Van Helsing walked over and wrenched the knife from the wall.
"Well, that's decided. Carl coat up a sword and some knives for this little warrior." Turning to me I saw new admiration in his eyes. "You're...good. Really good."
"You mean Anna's good." I said, slightly angry that all this talent wasn't really mine.
"Well, I..." Van Helsing's voice trailed off as he stood there, not knowing how to reply. The silence grew thick and oppressive as the weight of my statement hung in the air. Finally, I turned back to Van Helsing.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean....I'm just.....never mind." I finished lamely, knowing that I couldn't describe how I was feeling, especially to him. "How's it coming Carl?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Oh, well, I'm almost finished. Good thing too. We're almost out of venom." He coated up one last throwing knife, then set it on the table with the other weapons to dry.
"Okay, now that we have weapons that will actually work against Dracula, what's our next step?" I asked Van Helsing, sitting down on the stool again.
"Alright, we know Dracula has to be killed at dawn, so there's no point in attacking before midnight. That may even be too early. Also, we need to be distracting enough to keep Dracula from noticing the approaching dawn until it's too late. One last thing. We need to make sure Dracula is outside at dawn when the sun touches him, otherwise everything else is pointless."
"Sounds simple enough." I responded sarcastically when he had finished. Carl gave me a strange look.
"Are you insane? You were listening, right?" I rolled my eyes. Okay, not too ift-sway on the uptake-ay. (A/N: That's pig latin for 'swift on the uptake' in case any of you got lost there.)
"I was being sarcastic." I said, then turned to Van Helsing. "About that distraction. Did you have anything in mind?"
"Well, you're not going to like it, but....." he stared pointedly at me.
"Oh no." I replied, catching his drift. "There is no way you're gonna get me to distract that undead monster. No way no how. It was cool meeting him in person, but he's a lot scarier than I thought he'd be. He didn't seem all that scary in the movie, he was just like this really cool villain who everybody hates and loves at the same time. It's hard to describe. It's like you're both attracted and repelled by him, and you don't know how to feel about him. Maybe it's because he's kind of bi-polar, or maybe it's just the fact that he's like the Devil Incarnate. Or maybe–"
"Enough with the character analysis!" Van Helsing cut in. I guess I had been kind of rambling. I do that sometimes. I just sort of space out and voice my thoughts aloud. "Will you do it or not?"
"What do you want me to do? Thrust myself at Dracula like one of his lustful brides? I'm not that good an actress!"
"I want you to cooperate and get the job done, however you have to."
I sighed. "Fine. I guess I'll come up with something. I'll ad lib it when we get there. But it's like leading him into a trap. I feel guilty about it."
"Guilty?! Are you kidding me? You're the one who's bi-polar! Just a second ago you were saying how awful he is, and now you feel guilty about fooling him. Come on!"
"I'm sorry! I just don't like....leading people on, okay? Relax, I'm over it. I said I'll do it and I will, so stop yelling." I took a deep breath and tried not to think about what I had just agreed to do.
"God, I'm glad that's over. You two are ridiculous." Carl stated, rolling his eyes. "Don't worry Andrea, nothing will happen to you. Everything will go smoothly and Dracula will be gone forever before you know it."
I nodded. "And I know that's our main concern, but, have either of you thought about how I'm going to get home after all this? God, it seems like I've been here forever."
Carl opened his mouth. "I think God will just send you back the way He brought you here, but I really haven't thought about it."
"That makes sense I suppose. Anyway, it doesn't matter right now." Van Helsing, who had gotten up and was pacing in thought, suddenly called my name. I turned my head quickly to look at him and as I did so, the partially healed skin over the two bite marks on my neck pulled apart, causing me to wince.
"Are you alright?" Van Helsing asked when he noticed my expression. I put my hand up to my neck and nodded.
"Yeah, it's nothing. What were you going to say?"
Van Helsing came over to me and moved my hand to study the two puncture wounds. "It doesn't matter. You know, I think you'll have a scar from these, I'm sorry to say. They might never go away. Look, they've started bleeding a little again."
"Why am I not surprised?" I said, sighing. I stood up. "Alright, what time is it?"
"Only about mid-afternoon." Carl answered. "We should probably eat something and get some rest in preparation for tonight. We'll be up late. Until dawn in theory."
"Good point, I am a little hungry. Where do you keep the food around here?" I asked as my stomach growled loudly. Van Helsing smiled.
"Follow me. We'll get you something."
And there you have it! A nice long chappie! I hope you liked it and be sure to review please and thank you! Oh, by the way, has anyone seen that movie Phantom of the Opera? I saw it Friday night with my friend and I LOVED it! I thought it was really good. Okay, just thought I'd share…did anyone else see it? Anywho, review soon and I'll update soon! Byes!
Gem