Chapter 2
It Begins...

The Ambassador of Turkey stood outside of the Castle. He, along with a great deal of police officers, stood helpless outside of the massive citadel that seemed oddly erected in the center of a grassy valley. The police noticed an incoming carriage in the distance and one of the officers took a horse out to direct the horse-drawn traffic.

Once the officer arrived alongside of the carriage, he ordered the driver to turn around. The two argued for a moment before the elderly Belmont opened the carriage door and climbed the ladder up to the driver's seat. "What seems to be the problem here?" asked Julius.

The Officer pointed back towards town and said, "This area is off limits. This is a crime scene and we would appreciate it if you took a detour to your destination."

Julius furrowed those thick brown brows and simply said, "That castle IS my destination." He then took out his ID and showed the officer his Bounty Hunting License which allowed him to carry a weapon through the countryside. The officer steered his horse closer to the moving carriage to examine the card then shrugged.

The uniformed cop offered just as simple of a reply to Belmont, saying, "The Castle is impenetrable, anyhow. We've already tried to gain entrance. I need you to turn around and leave, please."

"Listen, I'm part of the Romanian Paranormal department," Julius continued, flipping through his wallet to withdraw another card. He placed his thumb over the expiration date that severed his ties to the Bucharest University. The cop grew quiet for a moment then nodded his head slowly, waving for the carriage to follow.

Julius climbed back down into the carriage and sat back down next to Justus, shaking his head. "I had to lie to them. I said I was part of the Bucharest University Paranormal Department. It wasn't a complete lie, but my card expired years ago."

"Always figured it would come in handy again?" Bell asked.

Julius nodded; "Something like that." The two men gazed out the window at the massive complex of a completely fortified looking castle. The found the structure quite remarkable but it seemed to be in complete disuse. As they drew closer, Justus found he forgot about how much his body ached… He now focused on how incredible this fortified castle looked. 'The only thing it lacks', he thought, 'is a moat with alligators.'

The carriage finally came to a stop in front of the courtyard gates. Julius and Justus exited the carriage quietly and one of the senior officers approached the two. "Who in the hell are these idiots and what are they doing at my crime scene?" he snapped at the junior officer who remained perched on the horse by the carriage.

There were laymen workers cutting the grass around the main gates for the police to set up a tent, using sickles and scythes. Regardless of it being the twenty-first century, these peasants were happily cutting the grass with methods from right out of the middle ages. Justus couldn't help but feel surprised that any part of Europe still lived this way. He couldn't believe that ANYONE still opted for such ancient methods of living.

The lack of automobiles was one thing but seeing a handheld lawnmower seemed a bit over the top as far as the boy felt concerned. His attention snapped back to the argument posed by the senior officer. "I said to get these morons out of my crime scene, I don't care if they're from the University or not! This big-ass castle doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon; they can come back later!"

The junior officer quickly protested. "But, sir, we've been trying to get inside all morning because of the blood on the gate handle that matches the staked victim. Maybe this gentleman can show us how to get inside?"

"I'll blow a hole in the courtyard wall or blast the gate with primacord if I have to," shouted the senior officer, turning to Belmont and Bell. "You two stay with your carriage. I'll have a police escort lead you back to Bucharest momentarily when I can spare an officer. This is a murder scene, dammit." All Justus could hear was the man's nasty tone. The words were meaningless to him. Julius, on the other hand, simply frowned.

The senior officer barked some orders and one of the men took out a waxy strip of cord, placing it on the main gate. The yellow strip of Primacord10 was put into place and everyone moved back, averting their eyes. The loud snap of the explosion should have been enough to take the hinges of the deteriorating old gate but it didn't even seem to phase the entrance.

"Get some Primaline 85 out here," the senior officer groused, narrowing his eyes angrily. It was 8 times the power of the Primeacord10 and came in a light green plastic jacket. The cops rigged the cord to the gate and then moved back a bit.

"Close your ears," Julius said. "Four hundred grain of measure per foot is enough to send that gate into orbit," he added. Justus did as he was told, covering his ears with his palms. The explosive crack of thunder caused a brief puff of smoke. Once it cleared, the entire group found themselves wearing dumbstruck expressions. The gate looked unscathed, minus black charring on the brickwork around the gate's edges.

A noise from above caused Justus to crane his neck. A news chopper flew overhead, its droning sound like that of a fly. The senior officer saw it, too, and looked angry. He immediately began to shout orders again, telling his men to have the chopper recalled, but he knew there was little he could do to the press up in the sky.

"May I have a look, officer?" Julius asked. The cop simply waved his hand as if to say he didn't care anymore. Belmont began to approach the gate, placing his palm against the locking mechanism. He then attempted to reach through the bars but for some reason, he couldn't push his hand through the open spaces. That's when he realized that a binding spell had been cast over the entrance which didn't permit his entrance. "Does anyone have a cellular telephone?" he asked, turning to the group of officers. "I know what's wrong here and I know someone who can get us into this fortress."

"Like who?" the cop asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Julius didn't have time to explain magic seals to this man. "Her name is Yoko Belnades; she's a scientist who works for the church, sir. I assure you, she's the only one who can get through this gate."

"Call her if you want," said the officer. "We'll be inside this castle long before she arrives." He then turned his attention to the other officers. "All right, men! Set up a perimeter and call in the bomb squad. I want to get into this castle by all means and I want the bomb squad present so when I get authorization, we'll already be ready to blast! Let's go!"

Julius turned to Justus, shaking his head slowly. "We'll have to wait for Yoko. Do you want me to put you on a plane back to London with the weeds we found? This may not be such a good idea after all. I don't want to assume responsibility if you're hurt."

"I'll be fine," Justus replied in a flat voice. "The only thing is, if I do change tonight, I'll wind up ripping the doors off with my hands, if what you guys are telling me is true."

"No," Julius said. "Not even if you had paws and claws by the end of the night. That gate is sealed. Only a seal-cracker can get us in. …Either that or someone who can find clues to the seal in the area. However, I have a feeling that any clues would be inside the castle. This is it; I can feel it in my old bones. You'll need a way to protect yourself."

"We'll worry about that if we get inside," Justus replied in English. It wasn't a language that any of the cops knew well enough to understand the conversation. Justus then continued, "If the cops let us in, they'll have enough guns that we should be fine. Else we'll worry about finding something in there. How many of these old castles have weapons just hanging up on the walls for show?"

"Porcelain and ceramic axes don't do much," Julius replied with a bit of sarcasm in his voice. "Look, you're right. We'll wait until we see if we can even get inside before we worry about getting you a weapon. Besides, if you do change, you won't need one."

"Right," Justus muttered, his soft visage growing sour with a moue of disgust. "I've got one hell of a headache. Patronizing me seems to be the key to making it worse. How long before your friend can show up?"

Julius lifted his left hand, signaling to Justus to stand by. He approached the junior officer on the horse and borrowed the man's mobile cellular telephone. Once Julius made the call, he began to talk in another language Justus didn't know. Either it was Romanian or something more Romantic, like Spanish or Italian. To Justus, a Romanticized language sounded every bit as exotic as an Oriental language. He just couldn't be sure.

Suddenly, Julius face-faulted. His left hand closed into a tight fist, so that his knuckles began to change to a white coloration. "Genya Arikado is where? Send that idiot back to Japan; I need you here to open this gate," he announced, clearly, in English. Justus simply blinked in surprise. Then it appeared that Julius repeated himself in Japanese in a tone that was slightly more polite. Obviously well traveled, Julius continued his conversation, revering back to English. "…And we all know that Poenari Castle wasn't really the victim of a landslide in 1888. It takes a Belmont to level Dracula's Home and I need you to break this seal for me so that I can access the interior."

He paused then said, "No, I returned the stone. I don't think Radu's stone would work on this seal; there's no place to insert the stone and I'm not sure Dracula's brother had any real clout or power in this part of the countryside. Let's look at plan A; how long before you can arrive?"

A few moments passed before Julius frowned and then sighed. "It's overcast; raining sporadically. No." Another pause then a concise, "No." After several moments Julius smiled. "Really now? Arikado can get us inside? Very well; enjoy Moscow. I'll let you know if this becomes an issue. I have other pressing matters on the side; I'm here on a family errand. Yes, it's true. I found that I had a half brother, Jonathan. He passed away in 2038 before I met him; he and his son, Simon, were in a car accident… in Romania. Yes, I thought so too. Thank you, Yoko. Do you have an ETA on Genya's arrival?"

He nodded after her reply then thanked her and closed the phone. Tossing the device back to the officer, Julius turned to the group and, in Romania, announced, "A gentleman is on his way from the Paranormal department to the far east. Lucky for us, he was already en'route and should be here within the hour. He'll know a way inside, rest assured. He'll also most likely have special government clearance to allow him access; please do not get in his way… or mine, when we all go inside."

He returned to the carriage and the waiting began. Over the next hour, the clouds began to clear and the late afternoon sunlight covered the valley. Justus glanced at his wristwatch and finally said, "It's four thirty, Uncle J."

Julius nodded. "Yoko said he'd probably be here half-passed sixteen hundred hours. Arikado should be here any time." Just then, his ears perked and the two leaned towards the carriage window. In the distance, a limousine approached at a high rate of speed, jostled hard from driving at such a velocity through the grassy field. Belmont patted Justus on the shoulder and said, "Stay put. This guy is someone special; hopefully we won't cross paths very often, once everyone is inside."

Justus nodded and leaned back in the cushy seat, closing his eyes again. With the clearing of the sky, his body began to ache again. Somehow, he knew it would worsen by nightfall. A few moments passed and the sound of a car door being slammed caused Bell to stir just slightly. More fancy speaking in another language ensued. The conversation lasted several moments with the noise moving from in front of the carriage to a location behind the horse-drawn buggy.

Without warning, an intense blast rocked the carriage, causing it to overturn. Justus instinctively threw his hands upwards, against the roof but spilled from his seat just the same. He tried to look out through the cracked windows on all sides of the buggy but a cloud of dust and soot made it difficult to see anything. The cart had landed on its side, sealing the door shut.

Shouting followed the blast and yet Justus felt trapped inside the capsized carriage. Something sharp pierced the air, sounding a great deal like the crack of a whip, followed by several sporadic gunshots. By the time the dust settled, the area grew quiet. Justus removed his duffle bag from beneath the seat and took out a clean shirt. He placed the fabric against the cracked window and withdrew his father's Swiss Army Knife from his pocket.

Smacking the brunt side of the knife tool against the window finished the job. Justus then lowered the shirt, with the shards of glass, depositing it safely to the side. He shook his shirt out, balled it up and stuffed it back into his duffle bag. He used the bag to clear out any remaining shards in the window frame then tossed the whole pack up and out of the carriage.

Replacing the knife into his pocket, Justus then closed his hands around the empty window frame and pulled himself up and out of the carriage. The duffle bag sat on top, adjacent to him. Carnage claimed the field on all sides. The dead, bloodied horse, a grim mosaic of splattered gore, caught his attention first. Further out in the field, the Limo's front end crumpled down in the front as if an anvil had fallen upon the hood from an outrageous height.

The airbag had deployed, leaving the front windshield in spider webs. Blood in the cracks and on the dashboard suggested that the driver met an untimely fate. Several police officers lay in the grass, dead. At first glass, there was no sign of Julius, the Turkish guy or the other gentleman. The horses that had been in use by the officers were now at the edge of the valley, running for the hills.

Lying in their own blood, the townsfolk with the scythes seemed completely motionless. One of them had a farming scythe protruding from their neck, the handle jutting into the air. Justus shuttered hard, sliding down from the carriage. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since the blast; what could have happened this fast?

"Uncle Julius?" called Justus. He received no response from his uncle or the antagonist force behind the attack. Bell slid down over the rear axle, dropping into the grass with his bag. He shouldered the strap and approached the police officers, checking them for a cellular telephone. Only two carried phones, both of which were destroyed beyond use. Even their SIM cards had been crushed. Next, he checked for weapons.

A stranger to handguns, Justus found a forty-five caliber Taurus 24/7 semi-automatic pistol and some ammunition magazines on several of the officers. He examined the clips and determined that at least one of the magazines wouldn't fit the weapon. The rounds were the wrong width and length. The gun they fit rested on the ground with the barrel crumpled.

'Something with excessive force had to have caused this,' Justus thought to himself. What could have happened in such a short time to have caused all of this destruction? Where were the attackers? Justus found his mind foggy from his inexperience with such situations. He collapsed unceremoniously upon his backside, there in the grass, with four magazines in his lap and a gun in his right hand. There were bodies everywhere.

The scant solace of his palpable relief came in the fact that his Uncle's body was not among the gathered dead. Justus swallowed down his fears and quietly said, "I almost believe you now…"

Suddenly, a hand touched his shoulder. Filled with adrenaline, on wits end, Justus Bell snatched the wrist of the person and flipped them over his shoulder, hard. Even from his seated position, his athletic skills and sports training from high school made him a fairly strong person.

When he realized the person he'd just slammed was none-other-than one of the bloody Romanian people, he felt incredible guilt. They lay in the grass before him, stunned briefly.

"Citatea Lui Negru Vodă," the man wheezed. He had scraps and cuts over his face and horrible bruises on both of his arms. It seemed as though he'd warded off physical blows; the swelling purple marks were just coming to fruition on his flesh.

"I don't speak your language!" Justus cried. "I'm really sorry, man. I'm honorable mention on the wrestling team; I didn't mean to flip you over my shoulder. Do you… do you understand I'm …Sorry?"

"Lui Negru…Voivode…"

Justus blinked. "Wait, wait, Voivode, I know that one… Prince right? As in Dracula or whatever?" He'd just learned this yesterday…

"Voivode Dracula," replied the man, pronouncing the word, 'Dra-cool-yia' and ending on a groan of pain. "Citatea Lui Negru Vodă, Voivode Dracula." The man spoke slowly as if hoping that Justus would comprehend.

Justus became frustrated. "What are you saying? The City of Prince Dracula? Are you telling me this castle belongs to goddamn Dracula or something?"

The man turned his head to the side, coughing. Blood gushed from his mouth as an indication of his ruptured stomach. It became apparent that the man began losing consciousness. Death rattles emanated from his lungs with every shallow breath causing Justus to scramble away on his hands and knees.

"Christ, Jesus!" Justus exclaimed, stuffing the magazines into his back pockets. He picked up the gun and pointed it into the air incase of any approaching attackers. The man in the grass sucked in his last breath then groaned into his final exhale. Everyone around him now lay dead.

Justus' gaze lifted and that's when he noticed something else… 'The gate is missing,' he thought to himself. Bell stood up slowly, keeping his eyes on the open gateway into the castle. It beckoned to him with a whisper on the wind. The howling gale turned to a snarl as if distant thunder attempted a conversation with him. Justus, now standing, backed away until he felt the cool metal of the Limo's passenger-side window against his hip.

He decided to check the vehicle for anything that he could use, like a cellphone or radio. Dashing around to the driver-side, he opened the door only to stop abruptly. The horrific scene of the driver took the young man's breath; an arrow pierced the man's forehead, continued through his skull and stopped on the other side of the leather headrest. A razor sharp arrowhead with mild crimson stains had pierced the headrest. Justus assumed its partial cleanliness had been because the arrowhead passed through the stuffing inside the leather headrest.

The steel or possibly silver shaft of the arrow kept the driver's head tightly fastened to that headrest. The question of the day wasn't what kind of force could cause an arrow to completely penetration a windshield, skull and dense headrest… no, the question made far less sense than that.

It was a simple inquiry really… "HOW IN THE HELL?" Justus finally shouted. He knew he had to reach in, beneath the dead man's left leg and find the trunk release but… he didn't want to do it because… quite frankly, a dead man's left leg guarded the release mechanism. That's when Justus realized that the radio still played soft jazz and the dashboard remained illuminated. 'Obviously the battery is connected; I'd better suck it up and reach for the trunk release and check for a car phone before the battery dies like everything else out here.' He knelt to the ground, besides the dead driver and took a deep breath.

"Crap," muttered Bell. He glanced around then spotted the round button on the dash beneath the heat vent. Located higher than originally anticipated, Justus felt elated to know he'd not have to reach under the dead man's leg. The trunk popped ajar with a thunk. He then scrambled around to the passenger side of the limousine and opened the front door. To his dismay, he couldn't locate a car phone on the passenger dash.

Part of him knew the driver probably had a cellphone in one of his pockets but for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to touch the corpse, to find out. He went to the back, opened the rear passenger door and began searching the limousine but no phone could be found. "Dammit!" Justus balled up his fists, stuffing the forty-five into his front pocket. "The only limo in the world that doesn't have a car phone in the back!" He pulled himself back out of the rear door and went to the trunk. "Great," Justus snapped angrily. "A spare tire and two road flares. Son of a…" He screamed the vituperative curse simultaneous to burying his fist against the metal of the raised trunk.

His knuckles never bruised. Obviously part Belmont, Justus hit the dented metal trunk again before snatching the road flares and slamming the now-welted trunk. Frustrated beyond belief, he returned to the front passenger door, reached in and snatched the keys from the ignition and threw them onto the seat. "You're worthless!" he shouted at the dead driver. Young Justus Bell returned to the shortened grass near the carriage and sunk to his knees.

After a moment to get at himself, the adrenaline surge came to an end and his stomach turned. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, wincing at the foul taste of bile. A moment of heaving ended on panting and the young man paused to spit a few times. He checked his wristwatch… Five PM… had half of an hour really passed in what seemed like a few minutes? Had he blacked out, maybe? He couldn't be sure.

And yet… the strange beckoning from the Castle Courtyard still called to him on the wind…

Justus stood back up, wiping his mouth with the backside of his left sleeve. He re-shouldered his duffle bag and pulled the Taurus pistol from his pocket. He'd seen enough movies to know the basics and pulled the slid back, cocking the weapon. To test it, he pointed it towards the gate and gazed down the tri-notch targeting reticule. The trigger offered little resistance then the gun bucked hard in his palm. The loud gunshot echoed in the air for a moment; a wisp of smoke rose from the barrel.

"All right, Uncle J. I'm coming," Justus said, heading for the gate, passing into the courtyard…

A/N: Aren't I a tease? Just when he's about to start trashing ghouls and goblins, I stop with a short second chapter! Well, I've posted three times and had one reply so… invariably, I've got to take a moment and see if anyone likes it enough for me to continue. Yeah, I double posted today. I actually wrote the first three pages of this chapter about six months ago. Tonight, I posted the first chapter, finished this one and now I've posted both chapters in the same night… yay.

I'm going to go ahead and update my latest Sly Cooper story… if anyone wants to see some vampire slaughter action goodness then please provide feedback. Contrarily, if you hate this, do let me know! I won't necessarily STOP the story for haters; I just want to know whassaup!

-Kit