Van Helsing's Diaries (Books 1-3): Nosferatu

by Peter Cawdron

  The spearhead passes clean through the man, punching through the leather seat and out the other side. The man’s body convulses, arching back as blood sprays across the row of seats in front of me. His hands grab at the wooden shaft of the spear in a futile effort to dislodge the pike rising out of his ribcage. The volume of blood gushing out of him is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Rich, dark, crimson blood. For a moment, I’m mesmerized by the sight of a life being lost with such devastating, ruthless efficiency. The allure is overwhelming. Hypnotic.

  There’s stunned silence as Jane lands in the second row, crouching on a seat back. It takes a moment for the audience to realize this is no act. In the chaos that follows, I lose sight of Jane. The houselights come up. Yelling and screaming erupts from the audience as Jane disappears into the orchestra pit and slips below the stage.

  My heart pounds violently in my chest. I feel a flutter, a tremor in my ribs, and it takes a moment to realize it’s not my nerves, but rather my phone vibrating. I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve it, answering the call, but I can’t bring myself to speak. As it is, I seem to be thrust into the midst of a three-way conversation.

  “—at the rendezvous. Do you have eyes on him? Does anyone? Joe, can you see him?”

  Him? I was trying to keep track of her. He’s not going anywhere. The body pinned to the chair convulses, trembling as its life fades.

  “Ah, yes,” I say in a daze, stunned by the brutal violence unleashed just a few feet from me.

  “Who touched him? Who was first?”

  “The bodyguard,” I say, unsure who’s talking to me, but feeling compelled to respond. The brute beside me holds his fingers to the elderly man’s neck. There will be no pulse—no one could survive being impaled like that.

  Although the bodyguard’s back is to me, I see him shake—quiver would be a better description—and I realize what I’m seeing, something I’ve never seen before. This is the transfer, the point at which the vampire shifts from one host to another.

  “Stay with him. Don’t let him out of your sight—and whatever you do, don’t let him touch you.”

  The horror of the moment passes, and I’m inexplicably excited. I shouldn’t feel this way. I have every reason not to, and yet I feel the thrill of the hunt—the chase surging through my veins.

  The girlfriend screams hysterically. The other bodyguard consoles her while talking rapidly into a radio. Pandemonium breaks out as the audience flees, pressing for the exits, but the brutish bodyguard is focused on catching Jane. He vaults over the rows, pulling out a pistol as he rushes into the orchestra pit.

  I follow. I need to know. I step over the seats, rushing to keep up with the bodyguard.

  “Who has eyes?”

  “I see him. He’s following Jane, heading backstage.”

  I jump over the railing into the orchestra pit, which is set a couple of feet below the floor, surprising me with the extra drop. Music stands and instruments lie scattered on the ground. The entire platform must be raised and lowered on hydraulics as there’s a gap of a few feet at the rear of the pit, leading beneath the stage. I roll on my stomach, adrenaline pumping madly through my body, and slip through the narrow gap, dropping another five feet to the dusty floor beneath the stage. There’s yelling, screaming. I catch a glimpse of a side door closing, and rush to the exit.

  Snow falls outside, drifting lazily to the ground.

  “Jane,” I cry, seeing her standing barefoot in the slush and grime soaking the alley. Jane levels a handgun at my head, looking down the barrel and aiming squarely for the middle of my forehead. My heart races. I dare not move.

  With a calm voice that defies the tension of the moment, she says, “We all fall down.”

  “W—what?”

  Jane pulls back on the hammer of the revolver with her thumb, and the cylinder turns as the ratchet within the gun clicks softly. She speaks with slow deliberation. “We—all—fall—down.”

  “Jesus,” I protest, knowing she’s already squeezing the trigger, increasing the pressure on her index finger. I raise my hands in surrender. If I don’t respond correctly, I’m dead. Back in the village, the old man used a poem as code with his daughter. This is a nursery rhyme. “Ring Around the Rosie,” but that’s the last line. There’s no possible response. It’s a bluff. It has to be.

  “That’s it,” I say, guessing. “We all fall down. There’s no more. We’re dead. We only get one shot at life and then we all die.”

  She smiles, raising the gun and releasing the hammer.

  “It’s so good to see you, Joe.” I’m seriously wondering about her sanity. Her state of mind is fragile, unhinged. “Can I have your cell phone?”

  “Sure,” I reply, handing it to her, relieved the tension of the past few seconds has passed. “Anything to help.” Jane doesn’t even look at the screen. In a single, swift motion, she tosses the phone over her shoulder, sending it skidding down the alley.

  “What the?” I say—that phone cost the better part of a grand.

  “They can trace it,” she says, shrugging as though it’s a shame, but there’s nothing else to be done.

  “Couldn’t we change the sim card?” I ask. I liked that phone. It’s got hundreds of photos and personal contacts on it.

  “Built-in MAC address,” she says. “Always broadcasts. Never changes.”

  I start to protest, but the bodyguard comes bursting through the fire door behind us, sending the heavy metal door slamming into the brickwork. I turn. He raises his gun, but van Helsing is behind him, hidden in the shadows beside the door. The old man swings a baseball bat, hitting the bodyguard on the back of the head, swinging for a home run. As big and muscular as the bodyguard is, he never stood a chance.

  “Gloves,” Jane says as though she never expected any other outcome. She opens a small backpack and hands me a pair of thick ski gloves. Sirens sound nearby. The police are on their way, but I’m still trying to take everything in—an opera singer in Roman garb, standing barefoot in the snow and slush, slipping on a ski gloves. “Grab the gun.”

  I’m not thinking. I pick up the bodyguard’s gun with one hand, still holding the gloves in the other. Although it’s snowing, the ground is slightly above freezing. The alley is filthy, soaking the gun in muck. I check the safety, wipe the barrel on my pants, and reluctantly tuck it into the small of my back. As I release the pistol grip, it occurs to me that my fingerprints are now all over this weapon, and I can almost hear the lawyer for the prosecution pointing this out to the jury at my trial. Far from staying clear of the madness surrounding Jane, I’m waist deep in it. I slip on the gloves, even though it’s too late. What does it take to wipe prints from a gun? Will the edge of my shirt do? How meticulous do I need to be?

  A truck backs up down the alley. The rear door opens.

  “No direct contact,” van Helsing says. “Even unconscious, the Nosferatu are formidable.”

  Jane grabs the man’s arms, while van Helsing and I take a leg each and drag him into the back of the truck. One of the brothers closes the door behind us. I start to say something to him, but I don’t know his name. The ever-observant van Helsing says, “Anton.”

  Anton jumps into the driver’s seat, and a police officer standing at the end of the alley waves us through, stopping traffic on the main road.

  “And Vlad, right?” I ask, feeling as though I’m meeting a celebrity, albeit under the most bizarre of circumstances.

  “Vladimir,” van Helsing replies, sounding annoyed with me. He flips the bodyguard over, securing his hands behind his back with several zip ties—the kind used by the police instead of handcuffs. Apparently, one won’t do, as he puts on four, securing them tightly around the man’s wrists. Jane does the same thing to the bodyguard’s feet. Vlad fits a ball gag over his face, shoving what looks like a billiard ball into his open mouth so he can’t talk or scream. Already, he’s starting to come to.

  “I—I saw,” I say, not knowing quite where to start. “The other
brother.”

  “Michael?” Jane asks.

  “Yes. When I was held in jail—in the customs hall.”

  Vlad shakes his head, muttering under his breath in Slavic as he climbs through the middle of the vehicle into the passenger’s seat.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Michael is one of them,” Jane says, shivering, but I’m not sure she’s reacting to the cold. My head is spinning. I’m not used to things moving so fast. Vlad, Jane and Anton must have been planning this for months, which implies a level of sophistication I didn’t think they had. A police car blocks the road ahead of us, but we’re waved through without being stopped. Somehow, they have connections deep in the German government. Sirens wail in the darkness. Flickers of blue and red lights paint Berlin with sorrow.

  “The old guy back there?” I say, pointing at the opera hall as police cars blockade the road behind us with lights flashing.

  “The old guy back there—he’s now here—same person,” Jane says, kicking the bodyguard. “It is the curse of the Nosferatu—they inhabit the bodies of their victims.” He groans, rolls over, and convulses. His entire body shakes, fighting against the restraints. The truck takes a corner at speed, and I have to reach up to hold onto the roof to avoid falling onto him.

  “Don’t worry,” Jane says. “He can’t hurt you. Not yet. It takes several hours before the transformation is complete.”

  “Transformation?”

  “They alter the host,” Vlad says from the front. We hit a curb, and my head connects with the roof. The truck rides up over a sidewalk, and then down a steep drive, disappearing into a darkened basement. The rear door opens onto a loading dock, and we heave the bodyguard onto a gurney, strap him in, and roll him into what looks like an abandoned operating theatre. Dark stains mark the tiles on the floor. I don’t want to ask.

  Vlad and Anton prepare equipment, while Jane dons a thick winter jacket and some shoes to ward off the cold. I seize the moment to catch her alone.

  “Jane,” I say. “I mean, that’s your name, right? Not Alan.”

  “Not Alan,” she replies, but she can’t make eye contact.

  “What are you doing?” I’m appealing for reason. “Back there, in the opera hall, you killed a man. Forget about all this madness for a second—all the myths and legends—and think about that.”

  “Not me,” she replies. Her pupils are wide. They seem to stare through me. “I struck at a monster. When it switched, it condemned the bodyguard to die in its place.”

  I shake my head, but my motion is an act. With all I’ve seen, I know precisely what she’s describing, but I want her to question what she’s doing, and ask herself why she’s involved in all this. “What’s happened to you?”

  “We’ll talk later,” she says, brushing past me. “Are we ready?”

  “Yes,” Vlad says, securing the gurney against a rack that rotates, standing the bodyguard up so he’s facing us while still strapped firmly in place. Four large leather straps have been wrapped across his shoulders, his chest, his waist and legs.

  Anton rolls over a cart with several truck batteries stacked on top of each other. Jumper cables link the batteries in parallel. Vlad strikes the cables together and sparks jump between the clips. Anton loosens the ball gag. The bodyguard shakes his head, spitting at Vlad.

  “You’re going to kill him,” I say.

  “That’s the general idea,” Jane says. “But not before he’s told us what we want to know.”

  “I—I can’t condone this,” I say, as though my opinion holds any weight.

  “Don’t let them do this,” the man pleads, making eye contact with me. “Please. Stop them. You can stop them. Don’t let them go through with this.”

  Anton pulls the man’s jacket open, tearing his shirt apart.

  “Tell us about the castle,” Jane says.

  He shakes his head. Vlad presses the clips against the man’s chest, and he screams. His body flexes involuntarily, fighting against the leather straps. The gurney shakes, bouncing with the rapid convulsing of every muscle in his arms and legs. Smoke rises from dark marks on his chest. The smell of burnt flesh sears my nose. I fight not to vomit. He’s right. I could stop this, but I don’t.

  “The tunnels beneath the castle,” Jane says as Vlad pulls back, giving the bodyguard time to breathe.

  “No, I can’t,” he says, again looking at me. “I cannot.”

  “You will,” Vlad says, searing his chest with the electric cables. “Talk!”

  The bodyguard screams, but not like anything I’ve ever heard before. A guttural howl echoes through the room. Vlad pulls the cables away and steps back, saying, “It’s going to be a long night.”

  Anton switches on several heat lamps set on wall mounted stands. Warmth floods the room.

  “Where is the entrance?” Vlad asks. “How do we gain access to the vampire’s lair?”

  “You don’t,” the bodyguard replies. “You can’t.”

  “The tunnels. How do we find them? Where’s the opening?”

  The old man is heartless. There’s no feeling, no mercy, no emotion as he presses the cables into the bodyguard’s chest. The voltage he’s inflicting would kill most men. It takes a mere 100 milliamps to stop the heart. The bodyguard screams, struggling against the plastic cuffs around his wrists, still pinned behind his back. He fights against the leather straps holding him to the gurney. Veins bulge in his neck. He’s fighting so hard he’s in danger of breaking his own bones. Each cycle of torture seems longer than the last. Deep purple bruises form on the man’s chest. The skin on his pectoral muscles turns black and peels away, exposing the muscle. Fluid weeps from his sores.

  “This is crazy!” I yell.

  “Joe,” Jane says, resting her gloved hand on my forearm, but I’m beside myself. To deliberately inflict injuries on another like this is too much. The heat in the room builds. The bodyguard is sweating, and I get the impression van Helsing wants him to sweat to help with conductivity.

  Vlad demands, “Tell me what I want to know.” He presses the electrodes into the man’s body as though he were searing meat on a grill, or branding an animal. The bodyguard screams again, arching his body and breaking the plastic ties anchoring his arms behind his back. His hands flex against the thick leather straps wrapped around the gurney, threatening to tear them open, but each strap is three inches wide. The straps groan, but they hold. Anton tightens them further, pulling on them with all his might. Vlad doesn’t relent, driving hard with the electrodes as the man bellows, screaming in agony. The smell of burning meat fills the air.

  “TELL ME!” Vlad yells, pulling back.

  The man’s head hangs low. His body sags.

  Jane prepares an injection by the sink. She sees my interest, and says, “Epinephrine.” At first, I’m confused. Epinephrine is used to stabilize the heart, and I think she’s preparing to help, but she adds, “Even death won’t bring this bastard release.”

  “Please,” the bodyguard pleads, calling to me. “Make them stop.”

  Anton is suspicious, realizing the bodyguard has fixated on me as the odd man out. Sweat beads on my forehead. I remove my jacket, draping it over the bench.

  “He should not be here,” Anton says. Neither Jane nor Vlad say anything in reply, but they exchange a knowing glance.

  “There must be another way,” I say, stalling. “What’s so important that you have to torture this man?”

  Vlad directs a question to the bodyguard, “Why Cetatea Poenari? Why protect that castle? What does it hide?”

  The bodyguard raises his head, clenching his lips, waiting for the inevitable burst of pain to tear across his body again. Vlad doesn’t disappoint him. He presses the brass clips into the blackened flesh, and the bodyguard convulses. Vomit spews from his mouth. His eyes roll back, leaving only the whites visible as his head thrashes around, striking the gurney. Still Vlad persists, driving the electrodes deeper. Blood oozes from the deep burns.

  “Y
ou can’t do this,” I yell, stepping forward and pushing Vlad away. “Can’t you see? You’re no better than him? Is that what you want? To become that which you despise?”

  “You don’t understand,” Vlad says, jostling me. I grab at the cables, trying to wrench them from his gloved hands.

  “Joe. No,” Jane yells, advancing on me. Anton shoves me, trying to push me away from the old man, and I fall back against the gurney. In that instant, I feel the pressure into the small of my back shift, and realize what’s happening. The gun.

  Anton throws me to one side. I crash into the medical tray, sending the vial of epinephrine flying across the tiles. A shot rings out. Within the confines of the surgical unit, the noise is stunning—an overwhelming wall of noise breaking with the ferocity of a thunderclap.

  Jane has her revolver drawn. She crouches behind a counter with her gun leveled at the bodyguard, ready to fire. Anton and Vlad flank him.

  With his arms restrained, the bodyguard’s motion is limited. He can’t bring the gun to bear on them.

  “Put it down,” Jane calls out.

  “I—I can’t tell you,” he says, and I watch in horror as he leans forward, pressing his shoulders against the leather straps, and craning his neck, trying to get his head as far out as he can. With his arms strapped beside his hips and only his hands free, he turns the gun up at his own head, and fires rapidly. Three deafening shots shake the room. The first two shots miss, but the third sends a burst of blood spraying out across the ceiling. Fragments of bone and bits of brain drip from the gurney. The shot caught him under the jaw, tearing up through his nasal cavity and into his brain before exploding out of the top of his skull. The gun falls to the floor, clattering on the tiles.

  Anton paces over to me, throwing the medical cart to one side, ready to tear me apart with his bare hands. I scramble against a set of drawers, struggling to get to my feet on the slick floor.

  “No,” the old man calls out. “What is done is done.”

  “Six months,” Anton yells, grabbing me by the throat. His slick leather gloves choke my windpipe. “Six long months and this fool destroys everything in less than six minutes.”