Anna Van Helsing is now resting comfortably in the home of bounty/vampire hunters known as The Road Dogs led by Bill Conner. Nursing their wounds, Anna and Bill is finally together to converse on an issue that plagued Anna for so long; The Bride of Dracula.
Chapter 13
My arm is killing me as I lay it on the arm rest of the chair that I'm sitting in the left of Bill Conner. Conner has his left leg resting on a stool. His thigh is wrapped in bandage and blood could still be seen printed on it; all these wounds that both of us carried was a result of the raid on the estate of Benito Valdez. We along with sixteen others went through hell; a gunfight in the living room, being pinned down in a library, coming across a 7ft 2inch dick armed with an M 134 mini-gun, an M203 grenade launcher up our asses and me fighting with Benito Valdez himself. I can't believe I was actually fighting a 424 year old leader of a big time vampire organisation. I was expecting some old geezer, but with that guy's youthful appearance and good looks he could almost pass for a Latin American pop star. I was expecting some casualties but not of the magnitude I experienced. Nine dead, nine of the bravest men I fought with, guys with families, wives, kids who they will never see grow up. I didn't know them personally but I couldn't imagine how it must have felt to suffer loss of life like that. Those guys were probably closer than friends or brothers. They died for a good cause, however; to make sure that the vampires don't outlive the human race.
I gave Conner five days to stomach the loss of his comrades and to physically recover to some extent before he could give me the 411 about the Bride of Dracula. This is it, the moment of truth. "God, there's so many things I wanna say about this girl. I don't know where to start," said Conner. "I mean, I don't wanna bore you to death."
"It's alright," I said. "Just make sure you don't give me a rundown about The Young and the Restless."
"Okay," said Conner laughing. "Well, this girl was first spotted back in 1983 along the border. I was still rising through the ranks."
"Really? I thought it was you who started the game," I said.
"No, that was my dad," said Conner. "He died of a heart attack two years prior to that time. Anyway, there were police reports of some strange killings involving some victims who had their bodies dried up. Autopsies revealed that prior to their murders their bodies had limited amounts of blood flowing through their veins and when they were killed they absolutely lost that blood. With that kind of report that only meant one thing: the victims were vampires." That's true, y'know. Vampires only carry a limited blood supply through their veins which explains their thirst for blood. "We didn't know what to make of it back then," Conner continued. "We just saw it as weird shit. One time, we went to investigate this house that some vampires invaded. There were six dead. At least four of the victims were vampires. Their bodies were dried up just like in the police reports. I saw tooth marks in one of the vampires' neck; in fact, all of the vampires had tooth marks in their necks. Right there we started to take this thing seriously. We couldn't believe that we were dealing with a vampire that was living off the blood of other vampires.
I was helping in surveillance on a vampire's estate one night while I was trying to get the thing about a vampire killing vampires of my mind. It was then when I started to pick up somebody talking about how their guys got killed by this vampire. They talked specifically about this incident involving some of their guys at a hideout. They said something about a girl going down there and killing all but one of the occupants. This girl just came up to this last guy and sucked him dry. I thought it was some deep shit. Even though I was trying not to think about it this problem always seem to pop up. There was this one time when me and some other comrades cornered this prick that belonged to the group Leaders of the Pit. I'll never forget what he said. "Go ahead and kill me. I don't give a fuck. I'd rather be killed by you assholes rather than being killed by the Bride of Dracula. Just don't let her get me, man!" Man, I laughed my ass off. Then again I wondered who the hell the Bride ofDracula was. It seemed vague to me back then but I still kept it in mind. This guy wasn't the only one talking about it. There were many cases when we started taking out vampires and keeping surveillance on those who were talking about the Bride of Dracula. I thought the whole thing was just crazy, but it was still a vague subject to me.
One day it hit me. My brother Jason was involved in this raid on this casino owned by a member of the group Crimson Angels." Conner then paused and swallowed. "They said they got separated and Jason went missing for two hours and then they found him in this room…." He paused, swallowed and continued "with his body…cut up in pieces…" Conner stopped for a few seconds and sighed. He then continued "They said that they managed to get information from one vampire who was there. He said that the Bride of Dracula was the one who killed Jason. They said that the vampire was hiding in a closet in a room when it happened and that nobody else was around. The vampire wasn't armed when it happened and that Jason didn't suffer from any gunshot wounds or had tooth marks in his neck. They also said the vampire told them that the vampire that killed Jason did not belong to their group and that she killed Jason with a sword. From that moment on it became personal for me. I really wanted to get the Bride of Dracula back for killing Jason.
I started to dig up any information I could about this girl. Then I thought why were the vampires calling her the Bride of Dracula anyway? Dracula doesn't exist, for Christ's sake. It's like saying Jennifer Lopez got married to the Easter Bunny." Conner doesn't believe Dracula existed? This guy's gotta have shit for brains. "With the help of some good pals, I started to randomly eavesdrop on some blood suckers, trying to squeeze out some info about their knowledge of the Bride of Dracula," Conner continued. "It so happened that I stumbled upon this one guy, Dean Khan, who was this hit man that worked for Benedict Armstrong, the leader of The Everlasting Mists. Dean was very good at taking out Armstrong's human rivals. They both had information that the Bride of Dracula was working for this rival vampire group and that she and the group's members would always be meeting at this bar in San Diego. They were planning on taking out her and the group at that same location in two days. I knew I had to reach there before they could so I went there and kept a stakeout the group's meeting was over. After this rival group finished their meeting I moved in on this one guy who belonged to the group and started to beat out some info about what he knew about the Bride of Dracula. He told me that she stopped working for them five months prior. I asked him if the Bride of Dracula had a name, he told me that she wouldn't say her name and that he didn't know that she was called that in the first place. I asked him about the incident at the casino that belonged one of Crimson Angels' boys, he said that he didn't know anything about it. I knew that if I wanted to get the Bride of Dracula I had to get the Crimson Angels in my sights. I was able to round up some guys and do some surveillance in which I got some useful info. I discovered that the Bride of Dracula carries around a sword most vampires knew as The Final Dawn. I also discovered that she had an unexplainable habit of living off the blood of other vampires and that she was responsible for killing fifty in the same manner. I eventually found out that the Bride of Dracula was a new contract killer for the leader of The New Order, Raul de la Cruz. I linked up with some trusted associates and we all initiated a raid on Raul's hideout.
It was on December 13th, 1985 when we raided Cruz's hideout. After taking out Cruz's men and Cruz himself, some of us split up in which me and six others cornered this girl, a vampire, 5ft 5inches tall, probably weighed 115 pounds, short black hair and looked like she was probably seventeen years old. From our point of view she wasn't armed so we thought "What the hell?" and emptied our guns on her. This was when the real shit started. She probably took twelve shots, but she didn't fall backwards. She just stood there and all of her wounds starting healing up! I saw her reach in her back and pulled out something that looked like a sword. Just like that, she sliced and diced five of my guys. The last one, Hal Young, keep shooting at her until he ran out of ammo. The girl rushed up to him and in a split second Hal pulled out his stake and stabbed her in the heart. The girl stabbed him in the chest with her sword and then she cut off his head. At that moment I knew it was time for me to haul ass. She jumped on top of me and I pulled out my stake and stabbed her in the chest. I backed away and saw two stakes in her chest then I realized that the stakes weren't doing shit. She rushed up to me and I pulled out my Beretta and fired in her chest at close range. She just looked up to me and kicked me in the chest. That kick sent me flying into a wall. I looked up and saw her walking up to me, pulling out the stakes from her chest and all of her wounds healing up. It was like…, I don't know, like silver nitrate had no effect on her. She then cornered me, raised her sword and brought it down to my neck. Lucky for me, the sword stopped about an inch from my neck. "What the fuck are you!" I said.
"The last person you'd ever wanna fuck with," she said. "I'm not gonna kill you. Instead I'm giving you an assignment. Tell your partners and any other vampire hunter you know that if they know what's good for them they'd stay out of my way and stop hunting me down. Tell them Mina Harker sends her regards." She put her sword back into place behind her back and then she ran away. Years passed when the Bride of Dracula was last seen or heard from again. Her trail went cold; it was as if she just vanished into thin air. The fact that there was this one vampire that I couldn't kill and who was immune to all of my weapons gave me nightmares. To think that I sought out to get payback for Jason's killer and when I finally cornered him I couldn't even kill him,… it just eats me alive. I've never seen a vampire who moved so fast, faster that any other vampire around, and that sword. It was a Japanese katana sword. You've seen those Japanese samurai movies, right?"
"Right," I said.
"Well that's exactly how it looked like," said Conner. "And I could tell you, that blade was strong! I could remember seeing her passing it through the wall to kill one of my men. At the end there was a huge gash in the wall and the sword was still in perfect condition."
"So the Bride of Dracula is Mina Harker!"
"You can say that."
"So that explains why her name kept popping up everywhere in L.A." There was suddenly a look of shock on Conner's face. "She's in L.A.?" Conner asked.
"Well, I don't really know. Just recently me and some other vampire hunters were coming across some vampires that were talking about somebody named Mina Harker," I said. "I did some surveillance on a vampire's house and I found out that somebody called the Bride of Dracula was responsible for the killing of a vampire elder. The same way she killed those vampires back then was the same way she killed two vampire elders. I also found out that she isn't really on the side of her own kind. Many vampires are calling her a traitor and some others have already mounted operations against her. There are some who even worship her for some strange reason, thinking she'll lead them to victory over the humans."
"Oh my God," said Conner leaning back in his chair and passing his hands through his hair. "Why the hell are you doing this, huh? Why do you wanna track this bitch down? What's in it for you?"
"I don't know; maybe someway, some how I could find a flaw in her and use it against her," I said.
"Annie, I dumped all the shit could find on this girl. Silver nitrate bullets and stakes don't do shit against her. Words of advice: once you don't fuck with her, she won't fuck with you."
"C'mon, Bill. Don't tell me you're going squishy on me. Okay, maybe she's hard on the outside, but somewhere in that cold temple, there's gotta be a soft spot. How many more vampire hunters have to die before they realize her true weakness? I could probably make it easier for them."
Conner sighed. "Alright, Annie, do want you gotta do. Just watch your ass"
Later in the day, after some rest, more chats and some lectures Conner gave me in vampire hunting I was finally able to leave. "Hey, Annie, wait up!" said Conner as I was walking through the front door. "Ed's got something to give you." Ed Norris walked up to me with a patch over his eye, looked at me straight in the eye with those beautiful baby blues, took my right hand and placed five M-1 flash bang grenades in my palm. "It's something for you to carry along the way," Harris said. "Just remember, you press this is button to activate it and take cover before it detonates because it gives off light that could blind you permanently."
"Oh, thanks," I said as I walked through the door "Take care of yourselves."
Alright, I finally got a name: Mina Harker. The great Bride of Dracula. I really couldn't link the two at first. I thought they were two different persons and that Mina Harker was human. I then came to the conclusion that Mina Harker was the girl who Steve Hopkins of The Golden Rifles Association came across thirteen years prior; the same girl who couldn't be killed by silver nitrate. Bill Conner made it easy for me to connect the dots. She's 5ft 5 inches tall and weighs 115 pounds, my same height and weight; and The Final Dawn is some fancy katana sword she carries around. That's some good info, but I need more. Where did Mina Harker come from? Why is she immune to silver nitrate? Is she working for another vampire leader? Where's her hideout? How exactly did she get a hold on such a sword? In order to find the answer to these questions I had to ride back over the border back to L.A. and find the answer from an unlikely source, the very thing I hunted nights on end and who would be able to explain it better: the vampires themselves.
YOU MIGHT NOTICE A SLIGHT CHANGE IN MINA HARKER'S HEIGHT. THAT'S BECAUSE A READER ON THIS SIGHT SAID THAT THE INITIAL HEIGHT THAT I PUT HER; 4ft 9 inches WAS TOO SHORT. PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR THAT LITTLE MISTAKE.