After interviewing the leader of Neo Elysium, Nathaniel Abrams, Anna Van Helsing discovers that the Bride of Dracula, Mina Harker, had once worked for Abrams in the past and had since disappeared. Anna discovered that a group with close ties to the cooperation Swann Banks Ltd has recruited new talent for their activities. Anna sets out to meet with the head of Swann Banks Ltd in hopes to finding out more about Mina Harker and the name of the organisation to which it has close ties to, but this next encounter will be more than she bargained for!
Chapter 16
Downtown Los Angeles, 9:10 am. I'm leaning on a street sign wearing sunglasses and with my hands in my pockets expecting someone. The night before I downloaded information on the vampire hunters and vampires of Los Angeles trying to dig up whatever info I could find on Swann Banks Ltd. What I found was no surprise. Swann Banks Ltd mostly consisted of bloodsuckers. I went to a chat room and communicated with the organization's CEO. I was told that I would meet the company's CEO at West 4th Street at 9 am in the next morning. I looked at my watch which now read 9:15 am. I shoved my hands back in my pocket growing impatient by the minute and at the same time the heat started to show no mercy. Sweat streamed down my face and I blew making sweat spray in the air. Suddenly a black stretch Lincoln Town Car limousine pulled up at my left. I walked over to the limo leaned forward and took off my sunglasses staring at the black tinted window at the passenger's side. The window rolled down with an electrical hum to reveal a woman looking at me with a smile. The woman was tall, thin and extremely pale and dressed in a long-sleeved, navy blue blouse and a short navy blue skirt. She had short, blonde hair and piercing light blue eyes. She had a look that was beautiful, mesmerizing and seductive. It was like looking at an angel. "Hop in, dear," the woman said in a soft spoken seductive voice. "The air conditioning's top of the line."
"Ibis Swann?" I said.
"Okay then, forget it."
"Okay, okay. You've convinced me." I stepped into the limo and closed the door. Within seconds the limo drove off. I sat there with my legs crossed at looked around at the limo's interior. There were long benches on both sides, the windows were cleaned to utmost perfection and the air conditioning was really state-of-the art; it made me forget that I was sweating like a pig a few moments ago. I stared at the driver's seat hoping to catch a glimpse of the chauffeur, but the driver's seat was blocked by a black barrier. All the while when I was relishing in the luxury I was now in, the lady at my left was still smiling and she never took her eyes of me for one second. Her name was Ibis Swann. She was the founder and CEO of Swann Banks Ltd, a multinational commercial bank with outlets held around the globe and with its main headquarters right in Los Angeles. Ibis Swann's own personal fortune was estimated at $20 billion, though she was very modest about it. On the flip side, however, Ibis Swann was a pureblood vampire. She was 412 years old, but she had the look of a woman in her mid twenties. She used her own fortune and her company's assets to help fund the activities of many vampire groups around the world, in terms of the shipment of arms and the training of vampire group members. Did I mention that her company had little, if any humans at all? She had her own personal security force called the Guardian Knights comprising of 75 males. The vampire's thirst for blood is subdued during daytime so I was safe. "Care to tell me your name, sweetheart?" said Swann.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "My name is Madison Carey." Madison Carey was another alias I used to hide my identity.
"Madison Carey, huh? I could've sworn you were a man when I met you back there."
"Well, that's what everybody says."
"How old are you?"
"….Seventeen."
"Mm, the younger the better. So you're a vampire hunter."
"That's right."
"Now what would a vampire hunter want with me?" Swann placed her right hand on my left leg and started rubbing my leg. I was caught off guard and it just made my skin crawl. "I would like you to tell me what you know about Mina Harker. You guys call her Bride of Dracula," I said trying to subdue my discomfort of Swann stroking my leg. Swann turned her head to the window at her left and sighed. "Mina Harker," she said. "Lord Dracula was sure lucky to have a woman like her." I suddenly felt Swann's fingers touch my crutch and I started to stare her down with a hard, menacing look. Swann turned her head from the window and looked at me with a smile. I pulled back a piece of my jacket that was covering my left leg and exposed my H&K USP pistol that was tucked in a gun holster that was strapped unto my leg. It was an effort to get her to stop touching me. Swann kept on smiling and released my leg. She then crossed her long, clean shaven, pale legs, pulled down a piece of her dress and exposed a Walther P5 pistol strapped unto her right leg. "This is a brand new limo," Swann said. "I don't wanna have it messed up already. Try not to be so uptight." I reluctantly complied and covered my handgun with my jacket. I felt defeated and helpless. I forgot to mention it: Ibis Swann was a lesbian. The info I had on her was that she had over 1,000 female lovers over the past 350 years and nearly all of her victims were women and young girls. That mansion of hers was often a haven for her desires. She was also known to pay $10,000 to every female prostitute who visited her and she would sometimes sleep with five women in one day. Though her heart remained with women, she was not a tomboy like I was. She was what is described as a "lipstick lesbian". She was a feminine woman who was attracted to other feminine woman and not to masculine women. She already came out of the closet in her public life ten years prior, but I don't think anybody knew the exact scale of her activities where that was concerned. I guess the Guardian Knights were the only men in her life. I was in for one hell of a ride.
"Well...,can we get down to business?" I said.
"I'm always ready when you're ready, dear," said Swann stroking her fingers on my cheek. The more she called me "dear" and stuff like that and the more she touched me made my blood crawl even more. Suddenly there was the ringing of a cell phone that butted in our conversation. Swann reached into her pocket on the left lower side of her blouse and pulled out a black Motorola RAZR V3 flip cell phone. She flipped it open, pressed a button and engaged in a conversation that lasted about three minutes. "Yeah. Uh-huh. It's alright. You could buy any dress you want. Just make sure it's not shit that's worth my whole $50 million, okay?" Swann said to the person on the other line. "Don't worry; I'll be there just in time for the rehearsals. Love you too. Bye." She clapped the phone shut and placed it back in her pocket. "That was my fiancée, Rachel," Swann said. "We're gonna get married in San Francisco in two weeks." I started to grind my teeth and hang my head. I then felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. Don't get me wrong. I'm not homophobic, but man, that was too much! Here's a lady who was already engaged with another woman, yet she's flirting with me and she probably had some more hookers waiting for her at home. I guess there was no stopping her when it came to her and the same sex. "Now, where were we, honey?" Swann said moving closer to me. I looked her dead in the dead in those baby blues and my lower lip started to quiver. I was so uncomfortable words can't even begin to describe it. Swann, on the other hand, kept on smiling. She had this smile that was closely similar to that of the famous Mona Lisa. The more she smiled the more my blood crawled and it also reached to the point of becoming annoying. Apparently she was aware of my discomfort, but she didn't seem to care. "Uh…we were talking about this vampire Mina Harker," I said.
"Oh yes." She wrapped her right arm around me and though I was wearing jacket and a white T-shirt I felt a strong chill through her clothing. At the same time my blood was crawling almost to the point of it bursting through my veins. What the fuck's the matter with you, lady? You don't know me like that!
"Well, what can I say about Mina Harker?" said Swann. "She's most beautiful woman ever to walk among us."
"Well, that's not what I really wanna know," I said. "Have you ever had an encounter with this chick?"
"Why, yes. Exactly five years ago. Word got out that there was somebody killing off our race who was an exceptional killer, killing up to 50 vampires in a day. At first I thought it was one of you vampire hunters who happened to get better at what you do, but then I heard this person got shot up several times and couldn't be killed. That only meant one thing: this person was a vampire. Only we are immune to ordinary bullets. One day the president, Henry Larson, was killed. He was one of the most important members of our board of directors. Then another time two more members of our board got killed and then the vice president, Louis Schmidt, was found dead as well, killed on his way to work. It was with all this shit going on that we decided to launch our own investigation into these murders. We started doing surveillance on several groups and every time we'd eavesdrop on these guys this name kept popping up: Mina Harker. We'd sometimes catch these guys and try to beat out whatever info they had on this girl. Sometimes the info was useful but most of the time they didn't give us anything that was helpful. You see, very little is known about Mina. Most of the info we got was hearsay and rumors. There was one interesting thing one guy said about Mina. Mina Harker is known as the Bride of Dracula. They call her that because of some relationship she had with Lord Dracula."
"What kind of relationship?"
"Well that's what I'd to know myself, honey."
"Do you really believe Count Dracula existed? I mean, some people, especially some vampire hunters don't think he was real."
"Well, do you believe God exists? If there is a God then there was a Dracula. You can almost compare the two. Lord Dracula lived for centuries and came across every vampire hunter, but these guys never had any luck in killing him. Lord Dracula was immune to all their methods of killing. It was until one day Dracula was finally killed. Nobody knew how the fuck it happened. From that moment his death remained a mystery. Coming back to Mina; the main reason we call her the Bride of Dracula because for some reason or the other, the blood of Lord Dracula runs through her veins. Nobody knows exactly how a member of our race could possess Count Dracula's blood. We've been trying to come up with an answer for so long but we just can't put our finger on it. I've been hearing lots of things about this girl: how she got shot with silver nitrate bullets, how she got staked in the heart, how she was set on fire and how she bore the full brunt of an explosion. I'm not kidding. One guy told me that he and a couple of guys tracked Mina down one time at this cafeteria in Rome and they hid a bomb in the place. He said when the smoke started pouring in the air Mina walked out on a limp actually holding her intestines with her left arm and face nearly shredded to bits and her right arm blown off. Next thing you know, she started growing a new arm and a new jaw that was blown off and all of her wounds just closed up and before they knew it Mina was her old self again as if nothing happened."
"Motherfucker!"
"Tell me about it. More things about Mina started to come up the more we started to dig in. She was born in England and has been roaming the world since. Now, England really turns me on because that country has some really lovely women. I also heard that Mina carries around this sword. What's it called? The Final Dawn, a Japanese katana sword. The vampires I talked to are scared shitless of that sword. The sword got its name because whenever a vampire came across Mina that sword would be the last thing they ever see before they leave this world. Mina is said to have killed well over 6,000 vampires. Another to point out: Mina drinks vampire blood."
"Yeah, I've been hearing about that."
"Crazy, isn't it? I could remember standing face to face with the body of Louis Schmidt. He was skinny and wrinkled all over. It was like somebody just juiced him out. Then I saw something that looked like tooth marks on the left side of his neck. I wondered how a vampire could feed on its own kind. It's just brilliant! I consulted with the board and we all thought up a way to make Mina Harker work for us. With her on our side many vampire hunters and other vampire organizations would discover that we were a force to be reckoned with. While we were drawing up our plans the employees of the company would soon fall victim to Mina. Mina then issued a warning, via one survivor; she was coming for yours truly. It was then that I thought an encounter with the legend herself would be a good opportunity to work out a deal so I decided to be the bait. May 17th, 2000; there I was sitting in my office. Mina Harker suddenly bursts into the room and we were looking at each other eyeball to eyeball. God, I've been hearing how Mina was vicious and invincible and all that shit but nobody told how beautiful she is! She has pretty blue eyes, these lovely lips and short, jet-black hair that had a fine shine. She was wearing this black skin-tight leather suit that gave a full view of how built she was and her lovely breasts and her sexy a…"
"Mrs. Swann, please! You don't have to tell me all that! I just wanna know how you got out of the whole thing!"
"Well, I was getting to that before you rudely interrupted me and by the way, you can call me Ibis."
"Alright, Ibis."
"Anyway, there she was drawing her sword out from her back. Right there I stopped her the moment my eyes met her sword. I asked her who hired her to kill me; she said no one. I then asked her what she hoped to achieve by killing me. She expression on her face soon changed from aggressive to like, lost. It was like I hit her with a trick question, a question she couldn't answer. I told her whatever she was looking for through killing her own kind I would help her if she agreed to join me. Suddenly rushed up to me and stuck her sword up to my neck and started to breath real hard on me. I probably pissed her off when I offered my bargain. She then asked me if I was trying to bribe her like all the others to become a low-life fuck like our entire race. I then wondered what "others"? Right there I decided to cease all diplomatic measures and initiate force. You see I wasn't gonna take no for an answer. If Mina Harker wasn't gonna join the ride, tie her up and throw her ass in the trunk. The members of my Guardian Knights broke in and tried to take her down with their stun batons. It seemed to pin her down for a few moments but then she got up sliced one of them in half. She then shredded the last four to bits. At that same moment seven other guys ran into the place with knives in their hands, all wanting to have a piece of her. I could tell you one thing: Mina is an exceptional martial artist. The way she held off those guys was something out of sight. I wish I knew what style that was. Three of the guys tried to rush me to safety, but before I knew it, Mina was right on our asses. She killed all three of the Guardian Knights until she came down to me. There we were, right back in the same way we were moments before, staring each other down. Before I knew it, I felt something entering my body and then I looked down to see The Final Dawn creeping slowly inside of me. I looked Mina in the eyes and saw no emotion at all; just a cold stone face. She started to push me backwards with her sword until she literally stuck me to the wall. She pulled it out and raised it the air trying to make one last strike. All of a sudden one Guardian Knight 6ft 3inches tall, 250 pounds, held her from behind and slit her throat. At the same time another Guardian Knight pulled me away and rushed me downstairs to a car and we were outta there. The last thing I saw was Mina jumping on the other Guardian Knights back and breaking his neck."
"Holy shit! You sure are one lucky bitch to make it out alive."
"Yeah, but it came with a price." Ibis started to unbutton her blouse from the last two buttons. What now? Did she cut off one of your tits? She then revealed a long, yet, very thin scar at the left side of her lower abdomen which was a few meters away from a beautiful belly button. "It starts here and it ends in the back," she said. "It required some stitches. Here's a perfect example why that sword is called The Final Dawn. Any wound inflicted by that sword never heals. But I have no hard feelings. I still love Mina. I kinda like that feistiness in a girl." I shook my head in disgust "Whatever," I sighed.
"You're the one who sent me that e-mail last night, right?" Ibis said.
"Yeah," I said.
"Well, why can't we move on to the other thing you wanted to talk about?" Ibis started to stroke my abdomen from top to bottom. "Mm, nice abdominals. You work out? I happen to remember Mina having the same muscles like you," she said. I suddenly felt the adrenaline rush in my body and I grabbed her hand and threw it on her lap. Ibis laughed and said "I understand. But who knows? You might change your mind."
"Moving on to the next subject," I said putting my best efforts into controlling my anger and discomfort. "A source told me that there was this organisation that's closely affiliated with your company that supposedly has this efficient killer working for them. I'd like you to give me whatever info you have on this company. What's its name and what it involves itself in?"
"Very well," said Ibis. Ibis hugged me tight until both our shoulders touched. "It's an organisation called Spears Inc." said Ibis. "It specializes in the production of military equipment in the U.S. and some parts in Europe and Southeast Asia. My company has been buying stuff from them for twelve years. They also run this underground organisation called Lance of Dusk, their own private army who's been waging this low-level war on the humans. Its leader's name is Peter Craig. He started Spears Inc. forty years ago during the first year of the Vietnam War. His company's been winning contracts ever since and I heard that he just recently won another one. What nobody knew including some members of our race is that behind the scenes he was using all the raw materials from his company to groom warriors so "powerful" that humans wouldn't last for a second to have a good look at them. Now, I don't know if he's been successful with his little crusade but I've hearing that his "army" now stands at 135,000. I didn't believe it the first time a heard it but he offered me about twenty and they did one hell of a job! I don't really have anything against the humans. I just bought them off for security reasons."
"Do you think that Mina works for him?"
"It's a possibility. Peter never shares any information about any members."
"By the way, do you know anything about certain vampires worshipping Mina like some god?"
"Come to think of it, there is this sect who worships her. It's called Dragon's Temple. They believe that Mina holds the key to world domination; how she'll lead all vampires to victory against the humans. But I think they're wasting their time because I doubt that Mina's flattered about this. They view her existence as like the coming of a Messiah, or something. They've tried to contact her several times but were unsuccessful. It seems like the more Mina stayed away the more they'd whorship her."
"Where exactly do they meet?"
"I've been hearing that they hold meetings somewhere at this place near West Hollywood. I doubt that you'll get an easy pass."
"When there's a will, there's a way. Can you give me an idea where I could find Peter Craig?"
"That's the problem: you don't exactly find Peter Craig. I bought off his guys through a company official, not the man himself. He's always on the move, from one place to the next, every thirty minutes. That's why folks like you always catch their ass when trying to kill this guy."
I suddenly felt the engines wine down and before I knew it, the limo stopped in a quiet area in East Los Angeles. "I hope you don't mind the destination," Ibis said.
"Well, come to think of it I don't really like crowds," I said. I paused for a moment and then I thought it would be crazy for me to do it but at least it was being polite. "Thanks for your help," I said reluctantly and softly.
"You're very welcome," Ibis said with her smile. "Good luck with your investigation and if you ever meet Mina, tell her I said hello." Ibis then placed her right hand behind the back of my head drew me close and before I knew it she French kissed me, actually sucking my tongue! I was caught totally off guard. To have my tongue touch another woman's tongue was somewhat… arousing. Ibis' tongue was cold with slight saliva. It was like ice cream, basically. My eyes were wide open throughout the entire ordeal. It lasted for about five seconds. Our lips then departed and we were still close looking at each other eye to eye. A smile was present on Ibis face and my eyes were still widened and my mouth was slightly opened. I was quite excited but above all, just stunned. "By the way, I'm not wearing any undies," Ibis said softly and seductively. I then started to fumble on the door and the door popped opened. I jumped out, slammed the door and started to walk down the road very briskly, not bothering to look over my shoulder.
Later in the day, I was back home. I took off my jacket and flopped on the chair. I started to think about the info I got that morning. I was not at all surprised that Mina would kill off some of the most famous officials of a major company, once they were vampires. So the name of this place Abrams was really talking about was Spears Inc., huh? I'd really like to know if this talent of theirs has a name. Another thing, there's a group out there who worships Mina like Jesus. How the fuck will I get a pass without spilling the fact that I'm a vampire hunter? As I was thinking all this, it hit me. Holy shit! I've just been kissed by a woman! Not only that, a fucking female vampire! I rushed to the bathroom and removed the lid off the toilet bowl. I kneeled down and opened my mouth. I stayed in that position for about five minutes. I was feeling quite nauseous. I couldn't do it but I wanted to so badly. I suddenly felt my stomach turn and then I bowed my head and started to throw up. Right there I felt an easing sensation. I took a look in the toilet bowl saw the water colored red with what I ate that morning. I closed my eyes and raised my head to the ceiling. I suddenly felt all the digested food rush from my stomach to my throat and I quickly bowed my head and throw up again. I paused for thirty seconds and threw up again. I paused and threw up. Paused, threw up. Paused, threw up. I would be like this for the next six minutes.
I'M BACK EVERYONE! I'M SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO SUBMIT THIS CHAPTER, BUT I WANTED IT TO BE PERFECT. IT TOOK ME THREE MONTHS TO COMPLETE IT. REASON BEING IS BECAUSE I HAVE A BUSY WORK SCHEDULE. MY PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT IS UNDERSTAFFED. ANYWAY, WOULD DO YOU THINK OF THIS CHAPTER? WAS THERE ANYTHING FUNNY ABOUT IT? IF THERE WERE LET ME KNOW WHICH PARTS WAS FUNNY. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CHARACTER IBIS SWANN? IN FACT, WRITE YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS ONE PARTICULAR CHAPTER AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. PLEASE KEEP IN TOUCH WITH MY STORY BECAUSE I'M NOT FINISHED WITH IT YET. PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP ON ME! MINA HARKER STILL HAS TO MAKE HER BIG APPEARANCE!