AN: Sorry it has taken this long to update. Christmas and all…

"In the name of all Saints and Angles, what the hell has happened, Van Helsing?" shouted a young friar named Carl as he ran down from the castle to a horse coming near him. The horse was rode by Van Helsing who was holding unconscious Anna Valerious in his arms. Behind Van Helsing sat Isabella Mortte, looking much shaken.

"Carl, even tough you may not be actual monk I doubt that cursing is allowed to you" answered tired Van Helsing. "Right now I need you to help Miss Isabella to the castle and give her brandy or something. How is Doctor Mortte?"

"Mortte is fine, but that werewolf, Prince Velkan, escaped" Carl said.

Van Helsing's head shot up immediately and he looked quickly to his surroundings.

"He is not here, for God's sake! While you were riding and I was taking care of the good doctor our dear Count let his brides inside the castle. They killed some of the guards and let Prince out of his cell. I saw them leaving the castle from the tower window" Carl explained patiently while helping Isabella down.

This didn't ease Van Helsing one bit.

It took almost three hours to have some order in the castle again. Anna had somewhat regained her consciousness and Mortte was now with her to examine her wound better. She hadn't been bitten, merely wounded.

Isabella had been given some laudanum to help getting sleep.

Van Helsing was looking outside from the window. All his life, seventeen last years actually, he had had remarkable way of sensing evil's presence. He sensed that no evil was near by now, yet he felt uneasy. The whole day had been one big ordeal. He hadn't had much rest or food, not that he ever needed much but neither had he ever had to face vampires, werewolves and Lord of the Undeads in one day.

And then there had been that flashback, image of his past. It was disturbing that he had seen himself living in Transylvania in the 15'Th century, just like in his dreams. More disturbing was that he really didn't have difficulties to believe this. How it was possible was beyond him. Yet Van Helsing was not dissatisfied. The image had verified the thing his dream suggested. He and Dracula had been friends. When the image had come to him so had memories of how he felt then. He had felt brotherhood and respect to Vlad Dracula. Yet the creature he had faced tonight was monster, a demon, whose eyes told that he got his kicks from other people sufferings. In his dreams he saw the impaled corpses and the children he was about to drown. What changed him? What made him turn to the darkness? Van Helsing needed to know. And he knew where to start.

"Carl, what do you know about the Sacred Order of the Dragon?"

Carl seemed to be somewhat puzzled by the question but answered. "Not much I'm afraid. Only that it was a powerful society here in Eastern Europe centuries ago. Its purpose was to stop foreigners to invade in Europe. It no longer exists. Why do you ask, Van Helsing?"

"Do you still have the ring I gave earlier?" Van Helsing answered with a question.

Stunned Carl located the ring from his robes. "I haven't have time to study it with all what has gone on" he confessed.

Van Helsing looked at the seal in the ring. "Carl, don't ask me how but I have reason to believe this is the seal of the Order. I want you to try to find as much as you can from Valerious library about the order around in the 15'Th century and if Dracula had any connections to it. Also try to find if Dracula was ever married and if so to whom" Van Helsing said with a tone that told the young friar to act not ask.

"How much time do I have?"

"Not much I'm afraid" Van Helsing told.

Van Helsing was right. When he came near to Anna's chamber he heard Mortte's voice.

"I'm sorry, princess. I know I gave promises to cure your brother but…me and my daughter have become prays more than once in the course of one day. It is not in my behaviour to turn back but…that creature came to my room and took Isabella. I can't even imagine what all could have happened. I'm sorry that we waste your time, princess, but we leave back to Vatican tomorrow" Heinrich Mortte, scientist but also a father, said.

Anna sighed deeply. "I understand," she said. "Maybe you can still examine his blood in Vatican?" she asked hopefully.

Mortte was silence.

"Tough what use would that do?" Anna muttered bitterly. "He is gone now. Brainwashed by that monster".

Mortte left the room and Van Helsing entered.

"How are you, princess?" he asked.

"Don't use that title" she snapped.

"How are you, Anna?" Van Helsing tried again.

Anna Valerious had a small smile. It had been time when someone else except her brother had called her just Anna. She rather liked to be called just Anna.

"I'm hanging" she said. "Tomorrow I'm going to see that Morttes will get to the Varna and then I'm going to find my brother".

"I'm sorry that you have to carry this burden all by yourself" Van Helsing said. He couldn't really say why he felt so strangely around her. "I'm going to cable to Vatican tomorrow. With your permission I'd like to stay for a while" he said. Truthfully he didn't believe he would be allowed to stay. Still he could buy few days and maybe learn more of this mystery he liked to call his past.

Anna looked at him curiously. "We'll see," she finally just said. "Mortte told me that you brought me back to castle and that you had also tried to clean and dress my wound" she added.

"I did my best considering the circumstances" Van Helsing said, feeling slightly uncomfortable. In order to clean the wound he had to open her cleavage. It had not matter back then in hurry but now the memory of her revealed part of the body was repeated in his head. Van Helsing had spent the last seventeen years mostly hunting monsters. His social life had been somewhat…limited.

Anna noticed this change in his behaviour. "Did you take a peek?" she asked with her mouth wide open.

Van Helsing had to think fast. "Peek? As if there had been something worth peeking at". His limited social life was showing.

Somewhere in Valerious library Carl raised his head out of the dusty volumes of books and documents. He was sure he had heard someone being slapped hard.

AN: More peaceful chapter now with less action. Not my best ones but I hope you haven't give up the hope yet.