A month after The Apocalypse nightclub shoot-out, Anna Van Helsing has fully recovered from her injuries. It would be only a matter of time before she is called upon once again to handle a well known sect of a vicious vampire clan. To Anna it's just another night, but this clan would soon fall. The morbid thing about it is it would not be Anna or her allies' doing. You may think that there are inconsistencies with the addresses. Don't blame me, I don't live in Los Angeles.

Chapter 3

August 11th, nearly a month would past when I could finally pick myself up and get on with my life. My wounds and broken bones from The Apocalypse nightclub raid have all been healed. The only thing I've lost was one jaw tooth. That night with Danny and Ethan Fanning together with nine members of his team Category 5, two were lost, Jason Tyler, 21 and Carlos Rodriguez, 32. The overall mission to take out the leader of the Brothers of Dusk vampire clan, however, was a success. Jacob Wallace and his whole entourage that night were all wiped out. I'm sure the team leader, Fanning, was pretty pissed off about me leaving my post to go after Wallace. Thank God he was too concerned about me staying alive to go after my throat. I personally think that if it wasn't for me Wallace would've been still running the show doing wild shit.

Today I just arrived at the dojo after a long day at the steel mill. It was particularly important for me to come in order for me to get all the troubles of work off my mind. My supervisor would always be on my ass. The main reason is for laying down on "important foundations and principles". Hey, I get tired too, and most of the time I take the heat for other employees' fuck ups. It's just unfair. In my sweat top and track pants I spar with my partners, lift the weights and beat the shit out of the sand bang. The sand bang is my favorite because I could always take out all my pain, all my stress and all my anguish on this one bag. As I start to punch and kick the bag I looked back on my life as a vampire hunter. The Van Helsing Clan does not have one central chain of command like other vampire hunting groups do, but it wasn't always like this. During the early days of the Cold War the last leader of the Clan was Richard Van Helsing. The Van Helsing Clan had separate cells around the world with each leader attached to them. At that time the FBI and the CIA was onto anybody that was deemed communist or Anti-American. In 1955 Richard's law office was bugged by the Feds during a meeting with some Clan members on a mission to take out a well known member of the San Francisco city council who was suspected of running a secret vampire clan. He was arrested and sentenced to three life consecutive life terms in a federal prison. Other members of the Clan who stayed low dispersed and never established one man to run the whole group. Global Van Helsing cells also broke apart to avoid detection by various intelligence outlets. From that moment on Van Helsing Clan always stayed apart from each other and never had one base of operations. When we had to our jobs we always worked with other vampire hunting clans. Nowadays it's become more difficult to prevent our cover from blowing, especially after 9/11.

I started to think about the freedoms that this life had taken away from me. Danny and I had been apart ever since I took up this burden. I wish I was given a chance to really know my flesh and blood. I wish that we would be normal brother and sister, that he would be the first one to come to protect me. I wish that I would be able to learn life from his point of view since he's older than me. He would be able to tell me what I should go for and what I shouldn't go for. All my life I wish to be given respect for who I was and I personally thought Danny would show me how to gain that respect because as much as I could remember many people in the neighborhood respected him, even when he wasn't the father. We had our fights, every body does, but I knew deep, deep inside he loved me and he would've never allowed anything to happen to me. It's been only fifteen years we lived together and I wish I was given more time to really form that personal bond siblings are supposed to develop. The life of a vampire hunter stopped me from doing so. With that thought I give the sand bang hard kicks.

I started to think about what life would be like for me if I hadn't started killing blood suckers almost 24/7. I would've lived the life of a normal girl or probably a woman. I would've had more than one friend. We would've hanged out, talk about how much we thought our parents sucked and what our love interests were. I would've had boyfriends. I would've tried to look into his heart and really see what was his dreams, his aspirations, his fears and I would've tried my best to see in what way I contributed to such things and how I should make it better for him. I would've wanted to him to know what my dreams and aspirations were and I would've wanted him to help in some way. I would've also had my first and last kiss. I would've stayed more than just a year in high school. I would've seen what was it really like to live the teen years through all perspectives and I would've come to my own conclusions. I would've stayed in school to get education and probably move on to college and I would've gotten a descent job. I would've found the right man and we would've raised kids. I would've done my part to make sure my kids lived a normal, happy life. The life of a vampire hunter has dashed away all the dreams and when I thought about it I gave the sand band a fast, hard combination of kicks and punches.

I then began to think about what the life of a vampire hunter had done for me. I can no longer live a normal life. I'm always living in fair and it's not the fair of terrorism. The fear of terrorism is nothing compared to what I have to go through every day. I can longer trust a smiling face or a helping hand. To me nothing that comes out of a person's mouth is the truth. There is no safe place on this blue planet. They're everywhere. It's totally amazing how vampires could get every profession and rise up through the ranks. They use these professions to further enhance their greatest desire: world domination. They always see humans as weak and incapable and they're willing to prove their point by any means necessary. In this post-9/11 world it's become easier for the vampires to run everything. Intelligence outlets are after the wrong people. I can't depend on them to take over for me. They can't deal with something that looks human and that has been around for generations just living off the blood that runs through a man's veins. I'm sure the vampires are running the show at the FBI and the CIA. I'm sure they are among the ones that control both houses of the U.S. helping to deny certain members of the human race their freedoms and I know goddamn well they are helping the current ruling class of citizens in bringing down anyone who disagrees with the White House. They could be the ones advocating military invasions of certain countries suspected of supporting and harboring terrorism. They don't really care for the safety of this country. Preemptive strikes on terrorist nations are working well to their advantage of ruling the world as a whole. I'm sure they are among the ones trying to wipe God off the face of my country. If the vampires keep this up they could turn this world into their own playground.

I think about how there can be nothing about life that I can refer to as positive. I can't say that there's nothing wrong with the world or that everything's gonna be all right. I would only be lying to myself if I was to think something like that. I also think about how can never walk the streets without thinking that there could be a vampire watching me at that very moment. I could never look forward to a brighter day. I always have to watch my back because there could never be a time when I could feel safe. I could die any moment. I have the live with the fact that some total stranger has been killed by a vampire. No matter how hard I try I could never know why I have to have someone else's death on my conscience. Every time I think about it I feel like a total failure. I feel like I failed to save an innocent human or failed to stop a vampire from gaining the upper hand. I always have the thought that if I fail the human race fails. With all these thoughts I began kicking and punching the sand bag at a fast past. With every blow the sand bag sunk in despite my small build. I punched and kicked, punched and kicked, punched and kicked until I could punch and kick no more then I bended my back and tried to catch my breath. I'm exhausted both physically and mentally. My perspiration is a mixture of my physical activity and my personal thoughts. It was my thoughts that really drained me out. As a teen I shouldn't be experiencing this. I don't wanna feel like this anymore. I'm not 21. But what can I say? Shit happens. After catching my breath I straightened my back, wiped myself up and left the dojo.

At my small apartment, I entered the door threw all my equipment and smelly clothes in a corner and headed for the shower. I stepped in the shower with my body on fire from a hard day's work and a long time spent at the dojo. I slowly turned on the shower and I felt drops of water rapidly falling upon my body. The moment I felt that water touch my skin I just felt cool all over. I started rubbing myself, suddenly my finger touched a spot that was terribly familiar. It was the scar of the bullet wound I got a month earlier. This was a scar that brought back a horrible memory. I remembered the hot pursuit I was on going after Jacob Wallace. I managed to take out those who were defending the SUV he was driving in and caused it to flip over. I could remember walking over to the wreckage calmly after thinking all the occupants were dead. I could remember the moment I started to squat down I felt something enter my body and exploded. I could remember falling backwards, holding unto my abdomen. My stomach was on fire and I could feel the area where I was holding on just sizzling, literally. The moment I saw red on my palm, it didn't take my long to realize it was my own blood and that I was shot. That was the first time I experienced something like that and hope that it will be the last fucking time.

Upon finishing my shower I dressed myself in new clothes and started drying my hair. Suddenly I heard soft, deep beeping coming from the living room. It was the special headset I used to communicate with Danny. I rushed to the living room, picked up the headset, placed it on my head and pressed the small button to communicate. "Talk to me, bro," I said.

"Listen, Annie," said Danny. "Something new came up. You and I are gonna be riding with the Night's Arrow. They've got hard evidence on a group belonging to Damien's Hand. Met me at the Olympic Boulevard at 20:00 hours."

Taking a cab to Olympic Boulevard, I arrived at the sight of a black van. The back of the van opened and there was Danny summoning me to come over. I looked around then ran over and stepped inside. Inside there was the leader of Night's Arrow Jamal Brown and six other members of 212 man group. Danny and I had fought with the forty-two year old African-American and his team twice before and Uncle Pete was close friend of his. Our mission for the night was to take down about six members of Damien's Hand that were meeting in a small club just before West 3rd Street. Damien's Hand was a vampire clan that was around for three centuries and was known for their brutal tactics when it came to hunting down humans. They would pick up anybody from the street and mutilate their bodies in order to extract large amounts of blood. They were really different from any other clan we were onto. We armed ourselves with Heckler and Koch UMP 40 submachine guns mounted with silencers and drove off to our target.

Riding in a crowded, windowless van I looked around only to see hard faces. I looked at my left and there was Brown. I then looked at my right and there was Danny. I just sat there looking at him in his focused position. I didn't know what I should do, if I should talk or just shut up. I sighed and finally said "Y'know, Danny, you and I never talked anymore."

"Really?" Danny said turning to me. "How long has it been?"

"I don't know. Long enough." I said. I then paused. "I don't know who you are anymore, Danny," I said. "I mean, you and I are brother and sister. We should both getting together and talk more. You know. I really didn't wanted talk about this, y'know. This is probably bad timing on my part."

"Mm-hmm?" said Danny.

"Are even listening?"

"Who said I wasn't?"

"Anyway, we should meeting like where we live or on the phone. Our missions shouldn't be the only place we should be seeing each other."

"I see where you're coming from, but you know the risks if we knew each other's residence and personal info."

"Okay." I then turned away and there was silence. "Well, we're here," Danny suddenly said. "What do you really wanna talk about?" I turned to him, stared him in the eye and paused. I couldn't believe I brought up this and now I couldn't say anything. It never really occurred to me. I was used to hardly talking to Danny. I didn't have the words for this once in a lifetime opportunity. "Well," I said. I then paused again. "What are doing right now, huh? I mean, are you married? Got any kids? Can you keep a roof over your head? I'm working at a steel mill. You should know that by now. What're you doing? Where does the money come from?"

"Well," said Danny. "I ain't got a wife and I ain't got a family. The money comes from Wesley's Club where I play lead guitar."

"Oh. I can't believe you're still in that shit."

"You can what you want. Playing there gets all the shit that's around me of my conscience. You think I enjoy doing this? And about the wife and kids, I could their lives in danger with this job and I can't find a woman who could carry on the family name. You know the problem."

"Okay," I said. There was silence again. I had nothing else to say. I started beating myself up. Danny could die some day and I'm gonna regret not carrying on one simple conversation with him. Should the time the time come, what's the point living in this fucked up world?

I stayed still and heard nothing but the van engine and other cars outside. Suddenly I felt the vibration and flying sensation of the van stopped. I looked at my watch and it marked 10:30 pm. We've made it to our target. Brown gave us the order to move out and we dismounted our vehicle, all nine of us. We ran towards the back of the targeted club with our weapons and one of the members of Night's Arrow placed a plastic explosive at the door. He set the time and we all took cover, then bomb went off with a loud thud, blasting open the door. We all rushed inside in single column, and turned on red lasers that was mounted on our weapons. What we found was not six bloodsuckers playing at the pool tables. We found burning ash on the floor and charred spots on all over the floor and the tables. The whole place was vandalized. All the tables and chairs were destroyed and there were huge holes in the walls. It was like kingdom come. Then we all heard painful moans coming from the left side. As we walked closer the moans got louder. We looked around and I saw a man crawling slowly behind a pool table. As I looked at him I saw that both his legs were gone and his body was slowly turning to ash. I thought he was the only could tell us the whole story so I quickly ran towards him before he could go. "Hey!" I said. "What the fuck happened here?" He slowly turned on his back and looked at me with those yellow eyes and half of his chest was nothing but ash and dust. He raised his hand and said slowly "Mina Har…ker." Then I saw the skin on his face burn away and his bones disintegrate into a pile of dust.