Chapter 12: An Unexpected Guest

A single tear strode down my cheek.

I wiped it with my left arm. It created a spot on the sleeve of such an arm. It wore a deep red sweater, the color of an orange with less yellow.

"So the chances of the victory conditions being attained," lamented I, "are less than zero? That means they are negative. Negative numbers are not a closed set... we have no lower bound to sustain us. We have no way of knowing how hopeless we are. We could be... less than hopeless."

"Have faith," said Genghis Van Helsing, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

I nodded my face at his words, but without Leah Clearwater our chances were as slim as Megan Fox was in that one movie, Jonah Hex, where the director wanted her to squeeze into this really thin dress and so she lost a lot of weight.

Suddenly there was a knocking upon the chamber's door. Genghis Van Helsing's cape swooshed to the door, the man stumbling. The door began to be opened. Slowly a man's torso behind it was revealed. The man's torso murked in the dark, giving way to its face. Said face lay confined to an arbitrarily small hood, his eyes like diamonds in the rough black of his soiled face. His lips were inside of the hood too, and his nose has a light effect on it so it was visible to the observers. The nose tapered to its point smoothly, like a graceful swan.

"I am a demon messenger whose fight shall be with you shortly," said he, the man's vocal chords mashing. His voice, indeed, continued, saying, "Leah Clearwater was the first but who shall be the last of the line? Death has fated you for your doom apparent."

"What is this trickery?" the lips said, they were Genghis Van Helsing's.

"Enough of this!" and I shouted, "Reveal yourself!"

In short order a cape hood was lowered. No more was the face obfuscated, and it lay barren. The locality of his far left eye (that being my right) was swathed with a tear-shaped tattoo scar. Glasses so thin they seemed stenciled to his face. He smiled easily. His toned legs poked out from beneath the cape. He had cat-shaped pupils.

"My name," he paused his tempo, adjusting to the setting, "is Jack Vincent Kale the Impaler. I am a prince of my native lands."

Genghis Van Helsing cleared his throaty mucus membranes. His aside voice cast its waves directionally, my hearing receiving the following message whose whispered tones were askant: "I have hear of this man. We had best watch our stepwise while he is in our presence. He is not to be truffled with."

To his forward face he said: "Jack, we meet again. What have you done with Leah Clearwater."

"She is a zombie now."

"Ah, shucks!" I screamed.

"She does my bidding now," he gloated.

"Jack, you must die! You do not belong here!"

"I was brought back. I return for the Vampires who wished to tribunal me!"

"Tribute?" he queried, "You stole their souls and made slaves withal!"

"Perhaps you could convey such a factoid regarding all religions!"

"The fool has said in his heart, there is no God!" Genghis Van Helsing pointed out wisely.

"The God of the Old Testament is perhaps the most wicked literary character in literature!"

"Fool of you, to say such filth." From the corner recess of his cape his sword arm came lurching. Attached to its end was a sword. Genghis Van Helsing opened his mouth slantwise. "It is a time to end this!"

To be continued...

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