Disclaimer: I do not own any characters in the Van Helsing universe. Okay?
Plot Summary: Van Helsing is sent to the southernmost point in Czechoslovakia, where an eccentric scientist has disappeared under grave circumstances and rumors that he had been working on something terrible before his vanishing.
Chapter I
February 15, 1891- Prague, Czechoslovakia
Professor Mladen Raedier drummed his fingers nervously as he wrote. He shot a glance out of his window, a few stories up from the ground, to the angered masses below him. Soon, they would break through his massive iron gate, and come marching up the spiraling stone steps of his laboratory, which looked like a massive ebony box with the entwined stairs. His thoughts returned to his log, and after pushing himself to write as fast as he could, he finished. He quickly put his notebook under his arm and turned to leave. Yet when he turned he was facing someone he never hoped to see again.
Doctor Erich Arrdon, a past apprentice of the Professor. When Raedier saw him, he dropped his log book and jumped back. "Erich? What in Heaven's sakes are you doing here?"
"What you were doing, Mladen. What you were doing to make these people want to kill you!" Arrdon said stolidly.
Raedier seemed taken aback. "I've done nothing wrong. I just wanted to find a cure for a disease. Is that so bad?"
"It is if you have to kill people for it. Three dead bodies were found, with their blood drained from their bodies."
"I didn't do it!" Raedier said, shocked.
Arrdon looked at him with unforgiving eyes. "I'm sorry, old friend. But you've gone too far this time." And with that, Arrdon pulled a revolver on the Professor.
Raedier yelled out a cry of dismay, and ran toward his large window. A bullet fired, clipping the wool of his jacket. Another fired, this time plowing right into the middle of Raedier's back. A small bit of dust flew from the point from where the bullet landed, letting Arrdon know it was a direct hit. Raedier staggered, then knocked over some equipment on his work table, with glass shattering and liquid spilling. An electric wave caught fire to the drapes above, setting the east part of the room aflame. Raedier then tripped and fell into the liquid as the entire work table collapsed above him, spilling more liquid and sent an electric wire into the liquid. The room began to creak, and Arrdon flew out of the chamber, as a section of the wall shuddered under a surge of electricity.
By the time Arrdon got out, the highest section of the obsidian edifice exploded, followed by the middle floor, which all gave way into the lowest part, the building crumbling amid flames and electric bolts cracking. A massive plume of fire shot skyward as the rubble hit the earth. Very soon, the collapsing had stopped, and the rubble was at rest. Arrdon stood among the villagers in awe at the disintegrated building, portions in flames.
And out of the rubble, with its smoky tendrils curling around the legs of the villagers, was a green mist.