As they raced back toward Tirgoviste, Van Helsing found himself frightened by how much he was changing. His senses were alive with power. He could hear everything, smell everything, and his eyes could see even the most hidden creatures. There was no denying that with the emergence of his memories, his body was transforming into something. He had given Velkan back his mind, given him a chance to regain his noble humanity. All the signs pointed toward the fact that he was a soldier of good. Clearly, whatever Van Helsing was could not be a creature of darkness.

He had not slept in over a week now. Four days they had been riding, and yet, even with the few stops they made, he could not rest. He was far more alive than he had ever felt before, his visions increasing at an alarming rate. Now he could see clearly the fields of battle, the faces that he fought, and the judgements he passed upon those who would plunge the world into darkness. But the one thing that kept eluding him was that vision of lights. There were voices, that powerful presence, but it would not reveal itself to him. It was like, he would learn when the time was right.

Van Helsing looked to Velkan. He knew the horrible fears that the lycan was going through. Once the bell tolled midnight on the New Moon, he would be lost again, and this time, Van Helsing was sure that he could not be given such a gift again. But, they would find a way to save him, they still had five days to do it. It was the least he and Carl could do.

And Frankenstein. Van Helsing knew that he would save that poor creature. If there was one thing that Van Helsing would do, even if this assignment was the final task he did, he would preserve Frankenstein's life. That was his ultimate mission; to protect innocent life. All the loyalties to the Templar, all his objectives, they meant nothing when compared to that creed. Of course, it would surely make Cardinal Jinette furious. Just one more extra bonus to it all.

And then, there was Dracula.

If they could destroy that monster, it would do more than Van Helsing had originally thought when this mission had begun. Killing Dracula would make sure that Anna and Frankenstein were safe, it would free Velkan from the vampire's command, and Adrian would be free from his haunted past, the shadow of his father which had always plagued him. Of course, the rest of the world would be saved, but Van Helsing found that his world had grown much smaller in the last few days. To him, these were the people that mattered. He would fight so that an innocent man might know peace, so that a noble being of nature might be free from a curse he did not deserve, so that a young girl might see her family finally attain salvation, and so that a tormented soul might be free of the horrors that followed him over the course of four centuries.

Fighting and dying for those things would not be so hard after all.

It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at Castle Frankenstein. Van Helsing and Velkan raced into the fortress, the lycan's predator senses seeking any sign of their prey. Nothing. Van Helsing could feel the corruption in this place, but he could feel no presence of Dracula, his bride...or Frankenstein.

They hurried into the tower, taking the stairs two and three steps at a time. But when the group arrived in the lab, what Van Helsing had already feared was confirmed; it was empty. All the equipment was gone, and from the looks of things, Dracula and his minions had cleared it out in a hurry.

"They must have taken everything to Dracula's lair," Carl reasoned, dread in his voice. "We're too late."

Van Helsing growled. It couldn't be over, not now, not like this. He had been fighting this battle too long to just give in to failure. His hands grabbed a piece of machinery that had been left behind, then, displaying his now powerful strength, flung it back at the wall where it crashed into the rock. "I won't let it end!" he cried. "Dracula can't bring his spawn to life until after sunset, there's still time!"

"Time!" Adrian hissed. He pointed out to the sky, noting the lowering sun. "The sun sets in less than an hour, and we've been looking for Dracula's lair for centuries!"

"You didn't have me around during those four hundred years," Carl interjected.

They returned to Corvinus Manor. The sun was still shining, trying to fight against the encroaching night, and so far, it was winning. But eventually, the night would win, and it would be perhaps the darkest night the world had ever known.

"So what have you learned?" Van Helsing asked of Carl. Gathered in the library, the five could see the results of Carl's research. Books were scattered about on various tables, along with ancient artifacts and relics.

He began to explain, picking up the book of genealogy and opening it. "Dracula was Vlad the Third, son of Vlad Dracul, and lieged by Matthias Corvinus, whose sister he married in fourteen sixty-eight." He pointed to Adrian. "Your mother."

"Everyone here knows that," Adrian retorted. "What else?"

"Oh, right." Carl moved about, moving to an old rubbing and lifting the piece of paper that he had used to show the lower image. "According to this, it all began in fourteen sixty-two, when Dracula was killed in the fields of battle"

Velkan looked at the image. "Does it say who killed him?" he asked.

Carl shook his head, but then gestured to the upper segments, which consisted of paintings of angels. "No, just some reference to the left hand of God."

Van Helsing felt it. That flash in his mind, memories coming back, and he saw the vision of Dracula's death. He had been the one who killed Vlad the Impaler, he knew that, but now, there was more. He could see once more that place of light, the voices, and now, he saw something else. Black feathers, wings curling around him, and then, he could see the earth approaching him, like he had been sent out of that realm. He was remembering now what he was, and it had something to do with the 'left hand of God.'

"And according to this," Carl continued, now holding an elaborate Latin text, "when Dracula died, he made a covenant with the Devil, and was given a new life."

"But the only way he could sustain that life was by drinking the blood of the living," Adrian finished.

Carl nodded, moving now to a large painting of Matthias Corvinus. "Exactly. Now, your uncle, having supported this horrible creature and brought him into his household, went to seek forgiveness. That's when the oath was made. He was to kill Dracula, and in return, he would assure eternal salvation for the entire bloodline, right down to Anna."

"But he couldn't do it," Anna chimed in. "No matter what my ancestor did, he couldn't kill Dracula."

There was a confirming nod. "And so," Carl continued. "He, with the help of a holy warrior, banished Dracula to an icy tomb, through a door from which there was no return."

Obviously, it hadn't been so. "And then the Devil gave him wings," Velkan stated.

"Alright," Van Helsing said impatiently. "So where's this door?"

Now Carl was silent. He sighed, his face filled with depression. "I don't know. But when Matthias couldn't killed Dracula, he left clues so that perhaps Adrian could, with the help of future generations." He pulled out the book in which he had the found the poems and opened it up to the marked passages. "Here it tells about a pure soul who is half-damned, and something about the blood of the son." He turned the page again. "And here it speaks of the view of the world, a gate to the tomb of ice."

"A view of the wor-" Van Helsing stopped in mid sentence. Now it all made sense. "A map." He stepped toward the large painting, now realizing what it meant. "You said that Nicholas and Richter would stare it this painting for hours, trying to find Dracula's lair," he said to Adrian. "I think they were right. Quite literally, this is the door! They just didn't know how to open it!"

"But if this were a door," Adrian replied, walking up to the map painting, "We would have opened it years ago!"

"Van Helsing!" Carl cried. "Come take a look at this!"

The man stepped over and knelt down to see what Carl was looking at. Along the left-hand side of the painting was a Latin inscription, but at the bottom was some kind of niche, about an inch in diameter. Imprinted was the symbol of a dragon. Now, it all was clear. "You didn't have this," he said, pulling off his ring and showing it to Adrian.

"Where did you get that!" the dunpeal said in shock. "That is the family signet of my father!"

He gave no answer. Instead, Van Helsing broke the ring piece from the signet and placed the seal into the niche. He then looked at the Latin text, and stood. "In the name of God," he said to the map. "Open this door!"

At first, nothing happened. But then, a thin line of frost built up, crackling across the map like a growing fracture. It grew in size, washing over the painting like a windswept wave until the painting had vanished completely. In its place was a large mirror of ice. Their reflections were shown distortedly, and then, Van Helsing noticed that, oddly, Adrian's reflection was transparent. No doubt, it was an effect of his vampire blood.

"Dracula has no reflection in a mirror," Velkan stated as they gazed at the wall of ice. "So why a mirror?"

Carl frowned for a moment. "Maybe," he began, glancing to Adrian. "Maybe to Dracula, this isn't a mirror."

Van Helsing took a deep breath. Pressing his hand against the frosted glass, he could feel it pass through, the surface of the mirror cracking into pieces of ice around his arm. "It's cold." He shivered for a moment, then pulled his arm back to reveal snow on his fingers. "And it's snowing."

Without a second thought, he stepped back and grabbed a torch from a nearby wall sconce, then moved to enter the mirror. He glanced to Anna then. "Someone should stay here with her."

She instantly hissed, and he could see the curse in her blood was making her angry and powerful. With a yell, Anna slammed her fist into a table, snapping it half, but there was no injury to her hand. No one could deny it; the infection was getting stronger, and so was she. "I won't sit here and wait! I want a part of this, I need to be there!"

"Anna-"

Adrian raised his hand to stop Velkan. He glanced to the girl, studying her, then nodded. "No, she's right. We should not make her sit here. If nothing else, she must come so that the curse Dracula has put on her may prove to have a use for good."

The matter was settled then. "See you all on the other side," Van Helsing stated, then walked into the mirror...

...and stepped out into a billowing cascade of snow. He had come out of another mirror that was like the one in Corvinus Manor, save that this one was built into a large black obelisk. Anna and Velkan stepped through a moment later, followed by Adrian and Carl. Together, they all looked up at the towering medieval fortress that seemed to have been spat up from the black rock of the mountain.

They don't make them like they used to, Van Helsing thought, but then again, they had never made them like this. The scale of the castle was massive, with spires and battlements that dwarfed anything they'd seen before. The foundations of the fortress seemed rooted in living mountain, the three main towers sprouting from the black rock as if the entire structure had been formed from the stone instead of built. Even the bridges that connected the towers looked roughly formed, giving the idea that perhaps this place had not been built by man, but in fact spewed up by the dark forces of nature.

"Castle Dracula," Adrian whispered.

They began walking toward the main door. The battle they faced would be met head on, not sneaking around. The massive entrance was made of iron, rusted shut and covered in slippery ice for good measure. More so, they already knew that Adrian could not touch this door, for the iron, just like last time, would burn him. There was a transom, a hundred feet up and well out of reach.

Carl was the first to speak then. "Do we have a plan?" he asked, glancing around to the other members of the group. "Granted, it doesn't have to be Wellington's at Waterloo, but some kind of strategy would be nice."

Van Helsing's answer was blunt and to the point. "We're going to go in there and kill Dracula."

"And anything else that gets in our way," Adrian finished.

"But how do we get in there?" Anna asked.

Velkan answered for her. He growled, his body looking to be caught in a partial transformation to his lycan form, and he picked the girl up into his arms, leaping from point to point until he reached the transom, then dropped down into the castle.

There was a smile on Van Helsing's face. He nodded to Adrian, then grabbed Carl by the back of his coat and suddenly, in a single bound, leapt all the way up to the transom. Adrian was not far behind, having transformed into a bat, and when Van Helsing landed inside the castle, he noticed something falling in his wake; black feathers.

"Since when did you keep raven feathers in your coat?"

There was no way Carl could know how wrong he was. These feathers were something that had appeared when he made that incredible jump. A solid suspicion was growing in Van Helsing's mind, of who and what he was. But until that last memory revealed itself, he couldn't be sure, except of the fact that he was not human.

They were in a massive foyer with high walls, massive pillars, and impossibly high up ceilings. This place had obviously been design for a man not bound by gravity. And covering much of the surface of the interior walls were thousands of cocoons with wires protruding out from each one; Dracula's spawn.

"Are all of those..."

"Yes."

"And inside each of them are..."

"Yes."

Carl visibly paled. "Dear God," he whispered. "The world will be a smorgasbord if all those things hatch!"

Noise. "Igor do this, Igor do that!" Someone was coming. Velkan had already shifted his gaze, and Van Helsing turned to see Dracula's servant walk out from the corner carrying a large bundle of wires and electrodes. The twisted man skidded to a halt the moment he saw the group, unable to believe that they were standing before him. "How did you find...is impossible!"

He dropped everything in his hands. But before Igor could run, Van Helsing pulled out his remaining tojo, snapped out the blades, then threw it hard in the perfect angle to catch Igor by the sleeve and pin him against the stone wall.

"Please! Please don't kill me!" Igor begged as Van Helsing approached.

This was actually amusing. "And why not?" he asked. Igor was quiet for a moment, obviously trying to think of a good reason. He was about to strangle the horrid man when Frankenstein's roar of anger could be heard nearby. It was coming from a window right next to Igor. Van Helsing stepped over and looked through the metal bars to see Frankenstein below, imprisoned in a large block of ice, with only his neck and head free. It was a cruel and unusual form of captivity, and Van Helsing had no doubt that the poor creature was suffering greatly.

A horrible screech came from above. Igor grinned from his place against the wall. "My Master has awakened," he whispered.

The pulley and chains connected to the block of ice began to move. Within moments, Frankenstein began to rise upwards.

Anger, righteous fury, overtook Van Helsing. He dropped his torch and grabbed hold of the iron cell bars. For a moment, he wasn't sure just how strong he'd become, but when the bars began to bend and implode in his hands, he understood that at the least, he was on par with a lycan. But then, he gasped, his strength strained. It was hopeless.

Frankenstein continued to rise, and Van Helsing could do nothing save watch. But as the man came eye to eye with the group, he looked to Velkan, and there was something else in his eyes now; sympathy, and a hope. "There is a cure."

"What?" Velkan said in shock.

"Dracula has a cure to remove the curse of the werewolf!" Frankenstein continued. He looked down now as his icy confined rose up higher. "Go! Find the cure and save yourself!"

That was what Van Helsing was looking for. Frankenstein was truly human, putting the life of another before his own. I was right to come for him, he thought.

But something now was bothering him. Yes, Dracula had a cure, but why, that was what he needed to know. Obviously, the vampire lord did not have the same problem other undead did with the venom of a lupus, so why need it? "Why does he need a cure?"

"I don't care!" Anna exclaimed, now pulling her cousin along.

Velkan saw, however, that Van Helsing was right. "I do," he said, looking to his cousin, then to Igor. He stepped over, grabbing the man by the neck and pressing in hard. "Why does Dracula need a cure, the bite of a lupus does not harm him!"

"The lycans," Adrian said, realizing it. When everyone looked to him, he explained. "My father, before my mother died, was working on a cure for lupus venom and lycanthrope. When he turned completely against all living things, he must have kept the cure as a way to make sure the lycans did not interfere with him."

"A way to make them into normal humans," Van Helsing realized. "Take away their birthright." And they had a way to save Velkan. Van Helsing walked over and pulled the tojo free, then took Igor from Velkan's hold and looked into his eyes. "You're gonn'a take them to the antidote."

"No, I'm not."

Van Helsing snarled, pulling Igor along and slamming him against a piece of fallen pillar. His eyes now were showing fire in them, literally, and Igor was shaking in fear as he realized just how much he was mistaken to think Van Helsing a simple man. "Yes, I am!" he said to correct himself.

Satisfied, he turned to his companions. "Adrian, you and Carl go with Anna to find the cure. Velkan, you're with me."

"Are you insane!" Anna exclaimed in reaction. "Velkan needs the cure as soon as possible, he should be going with us!"

True, that was logical, but Van Helsing had his reasons. "I need Velkan with me to help fight Dracula," he replied. He glanced to Igor. "Besides, I'm sure that our friend here will not be so quick to anger his master's son." He smiled now, for once allowing himself some sadistic glee. "And if he doesn't cooperate, have Adrian bite off one of his fingers."

"My pleasure," the dunpeal confirmed.

Igor was quite well terrified by now. "It's in Mephisto's tower!" he cried, pointing to the left. Van Helsing then pressed down on him. There were three towers, and he didn't have time to search them both for Dracula and Frankenstein.

"And where's Dracula! Where's Frankenstein!"

Igor groaned, acting as if this wasn't worth his while. When he noticed something push up under the back of Van Helsing's coat, however, he quickly lost all sense of composure and panicked. "Ba'al's tower, we reassembled the laboratory in Ba'al's Tower!" He smiled, showing his crooked teeth. "Would I lie to you?"

Pulling the man up by his collar, Van Helsing snarled angrily. "Not if you want to avoid the wrath of God," he hissed, then turned and flung Igor into Carl's waiting arms. He looked to Adrian for a moment, then nodded. "Adrian, God knows I need your help up there to fight Dracula, but you need to help keep that thing under control, and to watch out for Anna."

"I'll join you as soon as possible," he replied. He, Carl, and Anna headed for the left tower, led by Igor who was now scared completely by conflicting thoughts of what would happen if he helped these people versus what would happen if he didn't.

There was a grunt from Velkan as he watched his cousin depart, and he gave Van Helsing a pondering look. "Are you sure we can do this?" he asked as they headed for the right set of stairs. "If it turns out that this cure can do me no good..."

"It will," Van Helsing replied. He couldn't let either of them think negatively right now, or they definitely wouldn't make it. And if they failed, the whole world would suffer.

The massive black iron doors swung open, and Dracula stepped into to the newly assembled laboratory. He watched as the Dwergi put the finishing touches on Victor von Frankenstein's equipment. The creature that the late doctor had created was now on the pod, not only strapped down, but bolted as well, and he was screaming angrily at the Dwergi, something about 'foul vermin from Hell.' It amused Dracula that the monster would have no idea how right he was.

"What are you complaining about!" he snapped as he walked over. As if in response, the entire laboratory sparked to life. Great arcs of electricity flowing up and down the walls between the dynamos. "This is why you were made; to prove that God is not the only one who can create life!"

The creature merely gave a stonic expression of defiance. Dracula hissed, then nodded to the Dwergi to raise the creature. So typical of the living, he thought bitterly. Always thinking of only their own existence...Except my Lisa... The monster didn't understand nor care that he was to be the catalyst which would begin a new era, but surely, Elisabetha would have understood, supported him in this. And for the crime of their brethren, all humanity would pay, torn apart into seas of blood, as his age rose from the ashes of the old world.