Posted by The Black Knight on August 18, 2000 at 20:55:45:
Chapter 14
One month after the incident with Heather Taylor, Luke was settling into his job with a great deal of comfort. It was nearly the end of the quarter when another meeting of the Social Studies Department was called. It was an hour after the first night class
when Dracula, Van Helsing, Candice Dalton, and Luke all met in Danielle Francis' office. Danielle came in a little later than the rest.
"Dean Raymond has agreed to finally allow us a little extra money in the budget and as of next week we will be moving out of the Science Building and into an adjoining building of our own." Danielle said as
she sat down.
"Is that so important that you have to call us into your office or are you just so power hungry that you have to have a lackey or two around?" Luke asked.
"Professor Drake if I didn't know better I would think you were jealous of my position." Danielle retorted.
Candice laughed a little.
"There is also the matter of the Halloween Dance coming up in a week." Danielle said.
"How does this affect us?" Van Helsing asked.
"We lost the draw this year. That means it is up to the Social Studies Department to arrange the Dance and supervise."
"How do you expect to accomplish that?" Luke asked.
"We will all have to serve as chaperons and I expect that your connections in the Drake Foundation could dig up the necessary decorations, refreshments, and the such." Danielle answered.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are only five of us. The student population of Walton State numbers in the hundreds." Candice said.
"I've arranged for Miss Morrison in the cafeteria to help us and there is a new professor from Cambridge who is taking a couple of classes in the next quarter who agreed to help us." Danielle said.
"That sounds like that old movie 'The Magnificent Seven'." Candice said.
"May I remind you that only three of them survived." Luke said.
"Spoil-sport." Candice joked.
"Well that's all people. You all have classes in a few minutes so get out of my office." Danielle said.
Candice and Van Helsing were the first to leave then Dracula followed them.
"Why do you do that to me?" Danielle asked.
"What?" Luke asked innocently.
"That crack about me being power hungry. I'm about to get sick of you." Danielle said.
"I like to see that pretty face light up when I embarrass you. Besides people so rarely see your wit."
"Flattery won't get you out of this Professor Drake. I'm not a school girl and I'm not the wide-eyed infatuated brat that Candice pretends to be." Danielle said.
"She told you?" Luke asked.
"She told me. She was shocked to find out that I knew about you. She just couldn't believe that you would keep that big of a secret from her." Danielle said.
"It was to protect you both. If the wrong person overhears your conversation about us you won't live too long." Luke said.
"I will keep that in mind, but you try to keep your friends down below on a leash and while you're at it try keeping control of your ego too." Danielle said.
Luke smiled as he walked out of her office. Dracula stood across the hall leaning against the wall.
"You heard?" Luke asked.
"Of course. Why do you insist on antagonizing her?"
"It's fun. You should try it some time." Luke said.
"No thank you. Do you know who that other professor is that she was talking about?" Dracula asked.
"No. Do you?"
"I do. I had a nice long talk with Dean Raymond last week and he agreed to allow a young woman named Misty Morgan join the faculty here." Dracula said.
"I don't like the sound of that."
"You will. This young lady has had many names since the first century, but her most famous is Julia." Dracula said.
"You didn't." Luke said.
"I did." Dracula replied as he walked away.
Luke walked down the hall and into his office talking to himself.
"What's wrong?" Charli asked.
"Someone's coming. Someone I haven't seen in over three hundred years."
"A friend I hope." Charli said cheerfully.
"You could say that, but I wouldn't. She's my mother."
"Good. I finally get to meet your mother." Charli said.
"Why are you so happy today?" Luke asked.
"I just got my first check for my tuition which means that I don't need this job any more."
"And you want to quit?" Luke asked.
"No. It means I can actually spend some of the money that I get instead of saving it to give it back to the University."
"You know I would almost say that you're ecstatic, but I know better." Luke said.
"Why are you so bitter? She gave you life, doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"More than you think. Yes she gave me life, but one that never ends. I have to watch people that I care for grow old and die, governments rise and fall, and the other torments that come with being
immortal." Luke said.
"I never thought of immortality as being torture."
"You're mortal, you would not think that way." Luke said.
"Kind of a grass is always greener on the other side conundrum. No one is ever happy where they are when they see another person who has something that they do not." Charli said.
"Was that a lucky fluke or actual wisdom from such a young mind?" Luke asked sarcastically.
Charli smiled sweetly.
"I'm not stupid. I may act like it at times, but I'm not." Charli said confidently.
"You persistently hang around me like a proverbial ball and chain. That is not the mark of an intelligent woman." Luke answered.
"I don't like the sound of that."
"What part did you not like?" Luke asked.
"The 'ball and chain' part. You would think that I'm dragging you down or something."
"Perhaps an anchor in a storm of chaos and uncertainty." Luke said.
"You really can't help it can you?" Charli asked mischievously.
"Help what?"
"You're a hopeless romantic. Something that you don't see in this day and age." Charli answered.
"I'm not from this day and age, remember."
"Good point." Charli said as Luke walked into his office.
Later that evening Lorna and Catrina walked into the deserted cafeteria.
"Matty? Leon? Is anyone here?" Catrina asked.
"It looks empty and I can't feel anyone." Lorna said.
The lights turned on overhead.
"There could be a good reason for that." Professor Van Helsing said from the door.
"Van Helsing." Lorna hissed as she looked toward the door to the basement.
There was a large wooden cross erected in the doorway preventing them from passing.
"You have no idea what you are doing." Catrina said angrily as she stepped toward him.
Van Helsing raised a cross in front of her. Catrina turned away from him with a loud cry of pain. A young woman in a red suit came in the door behind Van Helsing. She looked to be in her mid thirties and had
shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, and a very stern look on her face. Her name was Carla Helsing and she was a police captain.
"If I hadn't seen this I wouldn't have believe it." Carla said.
"It is your birthright my dear. To rid the world of the likes of these two." Van Helsing said.
"I think not." Lorna said as she stepped toward Carla.
Carla raised a cross in front of Lorna's face and Lorna spun away. Together Van Helsing and Carla pushed the two vampires back toward a wall. Lorna and Catrina turned growling and snarling like caged
animals trying to escape from their assailants.
"Why are you doing this?" Lorna asked as she backed against the wall.
"Because you are what you are. You prey upon mankind exploiting them for their blood, killing without remorse." Van Helsing said.
Catrina backed against the wall beside Lorna and Van Helsing opened a small bag. He pulled out a pair of long wooden stakes.
"This is just short of murder you know." Lorna gasped through the pain of being forced to be in such close proximity to a cross.
Van Helsing handed one of the stakes to Carla. Lorna screamed as Carla plunged the stake into her chest. Blood ran from the corner of Lorna's mouth as she sagged against the stake.
"Lorna!" Catrina gasped.
Catrina grimaced as Van Helsing pushed the wooden point of his stake into her chest. Her eyes rolled upward as she slumped.
"Are they dead?" Carla asked.
"No, but they are at rest. Did you place the coffins in the hallway as I asked?" Van Helsing said.
"They are on the other side of the cross." Carla said.
"There is no way to truly kill a vampire, but this renders them harmless. They can no longer rise from their graves to plague mankind with their evil." Van Helsing said as he walked toward the hallway.
He rolled two carts into the cafeteria. Each cart held a coffin on it.
"Now lay them in the coffins, but be careful not to remove the stakes from their hearts. An angry vampire is not something that you wish to see." Van Helsing said.
Van Helsing and his niece placed the vampires' bodies into the coffins and sealed the lids. They rolled the coffins out of the cafeteria and out the Science building to a waiting van. A large man in his early
twenties sat in the driver's seat of the van.
"This is John Seward, the great-great-grandson of the man that helped our forefather drive Dracula from England in the nineteenth century. He has agreed to help us rid this country of Count Dracula's
influence as well." Van Helsing said.
"All that is lacking is Harker and Morris." Seward said.
"Dracula has seen to it that there are none of them left." Van Helsing said.
They loaded the two coffins into the van and Seward got back in. Van Helsing tapped the back doors of the van and it sped off into the night.
"Now, we must clean out the rest of them." Van Helsing said.
Van Helsing and Carla walked back into the building and into the cafeteria. They ducked under the cross bar of the crucifix and down the hall to the large iron door. Van Helsing pulled a hammer out of
his bag and smashed the lock. They both struggled against the heavy door and it begrudgingly swung open. They lit a torch and walked in.
"What do you expect to find down here?" Carla asked.
"One of the most despicable dens of evil in the world." Van Helsing said.
"The Democratic Party Headquarters?" Madeline asked as she shut the door behind them.
Van Helsing held his cross toward Madeline.
"You were warned Van Helsing not to mess with me." Madeline said.
"You're a vampire, but you do not flee the cross?" Van Helsing gasped.
"I am a very unique woman my dear Doctor. My mother was a mortal human or at least she was when I was born." Madeline said as she stepped closer to them.
Carla backed away behind her uncle.
"This doesn't look good." Carla said.
"No it does not Captain." Karen Alexander said as she came into the large open room from the other door.
"Lieutenant Alexander!" Carla gasped.
"My name is Dracula. Karen Dracula." Karen said as her eyes turned bright red.
"This would explain quite a bit wouldn't it." Van Helsing commented.
"It's a pity that you'll never live to share that information with anyone." Madeline said.
She batted Van Helsing cross out of his hand and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Madeline hissed as she threw Van Helsing all the way across the sixty feet of the room. A separate door opened and
Count Dracula walked in.
"Professor Van Helsing. It has always distressed me that your family never could keep to its own affairs." Dracula said as stepped over Van Helsing.
"It is the affair of all humans to rid the world of you and your kind." Van Helsing said as he stood.
Dracula lay his hand on Van Helsing's throat and lifted him up off the floor.
"You dare to match wits with me? I have controlled men stronger than you millennia before you were born." Dracula said.
Van Helsing let out a sick choking sound and the sound of his neck snapping reverberated in the whole room. Madeline lay her hand under Carla's chin and lifted it.
"This young one interests you?" Dracula asked.
"She is the last of the Van Helsings. A pretender to power that she cannot possibly comprehend. Do with her as you will." Madeline
said as she shoved Carla toward Dracula.
"How long does it take a human being to bleed to death Captain Helsing?" Dracula asked.
"It depends on the wound." Carla said.
"Have you ever seen someone impaled?" Dracula asked.
Carla gulped and backed away a little.
"It takes nearly a week for a normal person to die that way." Dracula said.
Carla shuddered as Dracula lay his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm going to let you see that first hand Captain Helsing." Dracula said.