Anna Van Helsing has just found out that a mysterious person known only as "The Bride of Dracula" was responsible for the death of vampire elder Gabriel Heinrich. She also found out that the Bride of Dracula has an unusual habit of feeding on the blood of other vampires. This wasn't enough for Anna. She needed to find out more about the Bride of Dracula by trying to uncover the Bride of Dracula's identity.
Chapter 7
I got my first break. The leader of Neo Lunar, Gabriel Heinrich, was killed by the Bride of Dracula………Who the fuck is the Bride of Dracula? I didn't get a name. All I know is that Count Dracula known as the lord of all vampires had many women, most of whom he didn't had particular interest in. Looking up in my family's archives they stated that almost all of who Dracula was survived by were killed over the past years. My family never missed a target. Whoever missed this so called Bride of Dracula really had shit for brains. Wait a minute I shouldn't be just standing here. I had some other business to attend to. I had to find the Golden Rifles Association's leader to discuss this.
At my apartment I looked up the files that Emma gave me on my laptop. Members of the Golden Rifles Association would often meet at this abandoned warehouse somewhere in the Los Angeles Basin. This warehouse would often be their base of operations. Vampire hunters don't know about it and vampires don't know about it. Maybe it was because of the frequent earthquakes that would occur there. Taking a long bike ride that spanned over an hour and 25 minutes, I got there through tall hills and deep slopes. I spotted the warehouse at an old harbor and parked my bike in the front doors. I walked slowly to the front door, knocked three times and waited. No answer. I knocked again, suddenly a rectangular peep hole slid open to reveal two green eyes. I heard a man's voice come from the same area of the eyes. "Who is it?" the voice said.
"Is George Hunt here?" I said.
"Who needs to know?"
"Anna Van Helsing. I'm from the Van Helsing Clan."
The man's eyes disappeared as he slid the peep hole shut. I then heard the door creak open to reveal the green eyes' owner. A tall man stepped from behind the door and summoned me to come in. Once inside I discovered people wielding tools, some training in make-shift shooting ranges and some on high-tech computers. "Hey Jesse," the man said to a young boy "go get your father. Tell him that there's somebody from the Van Helsing Clan to see him." The boy who was no older than twelve ran and disappeared in the back door. After about two minutes the boy came back with a bald man moving slowly in a wheelchair trailing behind him. "George Hunt?" I said.
"Yes," the man said. "And, you are..?"
"Anna Van Helsing. You can call me Annie."
"She said that she's from the Van Helsing Clan," the man next to me said.
"The Van Helsing Clan?" I've heard all about you!" George Hunt said shaking my hand. "Some of my men fought with your family before. You guys are great."
"You fought with my family before?" I said. "I didn't know that."
"That was a long time ago. You probably weren't born yet. This here is my son Jesse and you've met Steve Hopkins. He's in charge of operations."
"Hi," I said shaking their hands. "Is there anything I can do for you, Annie?" said Hunt.
"Well I need to discuss this in private," I said. "I hope you don't mind"
"Hey, anything for the member of one hell of a group of vampire hunters," said Hunt. "Right this way." He rolled away and led me to another area of the warehouse.
"Do you know anyone by the name Gabriel Heinrich?" I said.
"No," said Hunt.
"Donavon Bradley?"
Hunt shook his head. I paused for a few seconds. "Have you recently recruited anyone by the name Mina Harker?" I said.
"Nope," Hunt said. I was disappointed. I then came up with another question. "Are you aware of the group Wings of Darkness?" Hunt paused for a second "Well, a few weeks ago we had them under surveillance," Hunt said. "They were talking about the death of their second in command. Somebody named Louis King."
I paused right there. It clearly rang a bell. Louis King was second in command of Wings of Darkness. I was involved in a raid to take King down when I found him dead right before my eyes. "You've got anymore details?" I said.
"Well they said that some other vampire hunters took King down and somebody else was working with those vampire hunters."
"Who?"
"I don't know. Somebody they call the Bride of Dracula." I was speechless. The one who Max Heinrich called the Bride of Dracula was actually there when I was in that raid on Louis King's estate? Man, this is some deep shit. "Well do you know if somebody hired the Bride of Dracula?" I said.
"Nope," said Hunt. "Wings of Darkness don't know either. All they know is that the Bride of Dracula already killed 50 members from 6 different clans including their own."
"Well, what's the scoop on this girl?"
"Annie, we don't know shit about this girl,"
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing we can shovel. We don't know who she is or where she came from. All we know that she's this girl that the vampires say is the most powerful of their kind."
"A vampire?"
"When you hear the name Dracula isn't it obvious?"
"God, how could there be a vampire killing vampires?"
"That's what I'd like to know." I paused for a few seconds. "One more thing," I said. "Do you know anything about a vampire sucking out the blood out of other vampires?"
"Well, come to think of it," said Hunt. "There were cases where we found vampires dried up like raisins. They had tooth marks on their necks. Back then we didn't know what to make of it."
"Well, I did some surveillance on a vampire leader's estate. I found out that this Bride of Dracula may be responsible for each case."
"You gotta be shittin' me."
"I'm serious. This guy I'm talking about, Gabriel Heinrich, I with my brother, Danny, found him in the same way you found the others. Do you think she's a member of some other group of vampire hunters?"
"Hell no!"
"Anything strange happened lately?"
"Come to think of it, there was one incident where we couldn't kill a vampire. About 17 years ago we did a raid on an apartment building where about 7 members of this group called Grim Silence were hiding out. About 12 of our guys were involved. Steve was there, he'll tell you."
Steve Hopkins was taking break from welding when Hunt summoned him. Once we all got together, the tall, black-haired man started telling his story. "It was May 15th, 1988. Me and eleven other guys were acting on hard intelligence that seven members of Grim Silence were meeting in apartment 209. Once we got there we saw this girl with a sword cutting off the head of one of Grim Silence's members. I looked closer. This girl was a vampire. One of our guys, Tony Craig, fired his weapon at her. The bullets hit her but she didn't drop. All of her wounds just healed up. Tony kept on shooting then the girl took out her sword and cut his head off. All of us opened fire but our bullets weren't doing shit. Just like that the girl took out four more of our guys. Another one of our guys, Todd Harris, tried to stab the girl with his stake. He dug it deep in her chest. This girl didn't flinch one bit, she didn't even scream. She just stood there and grabbed Todd by the throat and started pulling out the stake from her chest. All of a sudden she stabbed Todd in the eye with the stake. Chris Harris, another member of our group tried to hold her down along with another guy, Dylan Crawford. Chris grabbed her from behind and Dylan threw a choke hold on her. The girl grabbed both of them threw them in the air and took out her sword and cut Chris in half and when Dylan landed on the floor the girl stabbed him in the chest. Three other guys, Eric Manley, Jason Scott and Jeff Vaughn started to go after. I tried to stop them but they wouldn't listen. The girl killed them too. There was just the three of us left, Rob Kelly, Stan Pollack and me. It was there we decided to make a run for it. We thought the girl would take us out too. You might think we were pussies but that girl….," Steve started shaking his head.
"What did this girl looked like?" I asked.
"Well…, I can say she was about 4ft 9 inches tall, no older than seventeen depending on the age she probably became a vampire, and black hair," said Steve.
"You said she had a sword. What kind of sword?"
"I don't know. She just had a sword. I don't what kind it was. All I can tell you is that sword was long, probably about 5 feet long. I don't know how that girl was able to handle it and it looked kinda bent. This girl was fast. Faster than any other vampire I came across. It was too hard to believe. I've never seen anybody use a sword like that. Not the way she did. I just couldn't understand why our bullets didn't kill her. She even got a silver stake to the heart. That was crazy!"
"Anything else?"
"Nope, that's just about it."
After spending a couple more minutes with George Hunt and his team it was time for me to leave. "Thanks for coming," said Hunt leading me to the door. "Keep up the good work you and your family does."
"Thanks. Take care," I said.
"Wait one minute, Annie. You came here and brought up some names and we went down memory lane. I bet that's not why you came here, right?" I didn't answer. "I know you heard me, Annie. Why do you want to know so much about this girl anyway?"
"Well," I said. I then paused. "A few months ago I was involved in a raid with my brother and some other vampire hunters on six members that belonged to this vampire group Damien's Hand. When we got there all of them dead, except one. This guy said somebody named Mina Harker was responsible. I did another raid with my brother on the estate of Louis King, but King was dead already. I found the body of this guy named Gabriel Heinrich and he looked all dried up with tooth marks in his neck. There was this bunch of vampire hunters that had this guy named Donavon Bradley under surveillance. Bradley was killed, so was many others at this party he had. One survivor was rounded up and he said Mina Harker was responsible for that too."
"Wait a minute, you were at Louis King's estate?" said Hunt.
"Yeah," I said.
"What did you see? Who killed him?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see their face. Somebody just cut his head. Anyway, I was doing some surveillance on this guy named Nicolas White. He had a visitor, Gabriel Heinrich's brother Max. Max said the same Bride of Dracula killed Gabriel by sucking out his blood. I also found out that there are some vampires worshipping the Bride of Dracula. They also said the Bride of Dracula is not on their side and that she already killed 2,000 vampires. Thanks to you guys I found out that the Bride of Dracula's responsible for Louis King's killing. Now I find out that I'm after two people: Mina Harker and the Bride of Dracula. I wanna find out more."
"Why so badly?"
"I just want to, okay?"
"Is anybody else with you in this?"
"Nope. Well, I tried to get my brother and others to join me but they all turned me down. I'd rather not let anybody join me because I don't wanna sacrifice any lives over this." Hunt nodded his head. "I understand," he said. "I know somebody else who can help you in this thing."
"No, Mr. Hunt. You've helped enough," I said.
"Not me. There are some bounty hunters in this town across the Mexican border. They call themselves the Road Dogs. They hunt vampires too. Maybe they could give you the information you need. You just be careful, okay? The border's not safe either." I thanked Hunt again and went on my way back to my apartment.
In my apartment I laid on my bed looking at the ceiling, thinking about the events of the day. I got at least some information about the Bride of Dracula. Steve Hopkins recalls one strange event that involved the killing of his comrades by this girl with a sword. But what does all that have to do with Mina Harker? God, this is tougher than I thought. I think I'm turning grey already. There was something about Steve's story that really scared me. He and his comrades opened fire on this girl with the sword but the bullets didn't kill her. This girl even got stabbed in the heart with a stake but it didn't have any affect. How could there be a vampire that is strong against all these killing methods? That didn't sound good. It's driving me crazy. I still got some work to do. The next day I gathered up all my best resources: food, drink, night vision and my P72 goggles. I learned from my mistakes from the Nicolas White experience so I also carried my two H&K USP pistols and 12 clips containing several rounds of silver nitrate. I got out the apartment building and landed on my bike, started the engines and sped off to my next location: a small town along the U.S./Mexican border to find the Road Dogs.