“Otto, next slide please.”
The Master of the Bestiary shrugged and Heimlich sighed.
“Helsing, if you would.”
Brian fiddled with the controller, the next slide slotting firmly into place. On the screen now, a place he’d visited once before in his youth.
“That’s the Seal Sanctuary.”
“Correct. And they’ve reported one or two of their seals going missing.”
“One or two? Surely you can be more specific than that. They’re half-ton seals, not cats, surely it’s hard to miscount them?”
“I only know what I’ve been told, Brian. You want to know more, you go down there and start asking some questions yourself. And in fact, I’d recommend that’s what you do. But first, to the Bestiary with you; werewolves are a whole different ball-game to what you’re used to fighting and Otto will need to fill you in on their unique physiology.”
“Ooh, the Bestiary?” Scylla turned to Brian excitedly. “Sounds interesting.”
Brian thought hard for a moment, images of the Bestiary flashing through his mind. It was a hall of the dead, where previous Helsings’ victims had been taken over the years to be studied and put on display. There was even a Nymph there, frozen in death with all her parts there for the world at large to see. Brian shook his head.
“No, you’re not to come with me, not this time. I’ll need to, erm, concentrate on what Otto has to say.”
“But…”
“No.”
His tone was firmer this time, and something in her eyes suddenly clicked that there might be things there that he was keen to shield her from. And he wouldn’t be doing it without purpose. Slowly she nodded, much to Brian’s relief.
“Fine, you go on without me. I’m sure Gertie here will be happy to give me a guided tour of the Sanctum.”
“Oh yes,” the combat Master echoed, eyeing Brian mischievously as she hooked her arm through Scylla’s, and the pair rose from the couch. “I’ll keep her occupied, don’t worry.”
Worry? He was worried before, but now seeing their smiling faces as they marched off and out into the Sanctum, he was downright petrified. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he thought. Yet still, what could he have done? The Nymph had warmed to him like few women ever had, sea-creature or otherwise, and if he took her down to the Bestiary where the corpses of supernatural creatures were kept on grim display, it would only serve to sour her opinion of the Order and, by extension, him.
“Shall we, young Helsing?” Otto enquired, as he rose from the couch and made his way to the door.
“Let’s get it over with.”
Chapter Four:
Brute Force And Ignorance
The Bestiary was, as ever, silent, with no life bar the two that walked through the museum of the dead. Yet even so, Brian could never shake the feeling he was being watched; he was sure the lifeless eyes of the strange, fairytale corpses in their glass cabinets all about gleamed with an eternal malice that transcended even death itself as he passed on by. Finally, they reached the glass display unit, within which was entombed the hulking carcass of a werewolf, preserved through means Brian didn’t care to guess at. He stared up at the creature, a mass of fur-clad muscle, with broad shoulders and long arms ending in vicious talons the length of kitchen knives. Its fanged maw, frozen in a rictus death mask of a snarl, must have been eight feet in the air, towering high above even Brian’s proposterously lanky frame.
“How in the hell am I supposed to kill one of these?”
“That is what I’m about to teach you,” Otto replied.
“I thought Gertie was Master of Combat?”
“She’s the master of kicking things in the face. Kung fu will do little against a werewolf, I’m afraid; have you seen the size of the thing?”
“I can bloody well see how big it is, trust me.”
“Good. Werewolves, or as your astute girlfriend correctly termed them, lycanthropes, are a different kettle of fish entirely to your previous foes. Ordinarily a normal human, however when the full moon comes out, the parasite they carry absorbs the moonlight and swells them into the great, hulking creature you see before you. While in this state, there is no trace to be found of their human mind. Instead, they’re pure animal, acting entirely on instinct and feeding on anything that moves.”
“Including seals.”
“Yes. Be thankful that so far it’s been nothing but seals. They’re very prone to eating man-flesh. Anything that isn’t nailed down, really. Not picky, werewolves.”
“Can’t I just, you know, persuade them to go for a nice stir-fry or KFC like I did with the Nymphs?”
“Are you not listening or are you being purposefully obtuse? Whilst in this state, there’ll be no persuading, no reasoning of any kind. They are killing machines, geared to do nothing more than feast, to provide sustenance for the parasite that dwells within. They will not stop, not unless you stop them yourself. And that will prove difficult enough, without trying to pander to a human side that no longer exists, so get any thoughts of peaceful resolution out of your mind now before they get you killed.”
Brian gulped at the tirade from the usually quite mild-mannered Master of the Bestiary.
“Fine, I get it. No talking. Just kill. That’s fine and dandy, but how do I do that?”
“With great difficulty, I’m afraid. No real tricks, no fire as with Nymphs, or sunlight and stakes like with vampires. Werewolves are altogether more natural, after a fashion, and unbelievably robust. High-calibre bullets such as those in Bertha’s Punisher cannon will do the job, but their physique renders them all but invulnerable to small arms fire. Luckily, your side-arms were fitted with silver ammunition. Silver is anathema to werewolves; something about its anti-biotic properties interferes with the protection the parasites bestow upon them, so hopefully your sub-machinegun should be able to harm them, should you be caught away from Bertha.”
“You keep saying ‘they’ and ‘them’ which worries me. Do you think there’ll be more than one?”
“Most likely. Werewolves, like normal wolves, tend to live in packs. When in normal form they often stay in communes, little communities of people afflicted with the curse, people who can all understand what each other are going through. They tend to rove, not staying in one place for long, for glaringly obvious reasons. When there’s a werewolf pack in the area, things tend to go missing. Livestock, people. These things don’t go unnoticed.”
“Wonderful. So not only is each werewolf a nigh unstoppable monster, but there’s likely to be multiple of them. Awesome. This keeps getting better and better.”
“Indeed. And what’s better still, is we’ve still a couple of nights of full moon to go yet before the threat has passed.”
“Well, if it’s only a couple of nights, why don’t we just wait it out? Surely if they’ve found a food source in the seals, then let them have their fill?”
Otto stared at him for a long moment, before shaking his head in disgust.
“Have you no heart, Helsing? You’d let innocent seals get slaughtered?”
“Hey, you just told me that ninety-nine per cent of the time werewolves are normal, law-abiding folk. And you have no qualms about me killing them!”
“Well,” Otto began to protest, looking quite flustered. “Being good most of the time doesn’t make up for wantonly devouring the populace a small part of the time. Besides, it’s seals at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be people tonight. They need stopping, Helsing, and they need stopping now.”
Brian sighed, the sound that of a man who knew his hands were tied and that no matter his protestation, he’d soon be swept along like a cork in a hurricane.
“Right, so what’s the plan then? Will the ring help me discern the monsters from ordinary men? Or am I going to have to wing it like I did with the Nymphs?”
“No, the ring should work fine,” Otto replied, shaking his head. “Werewolves have a particular musky smell about them, very recognisable. The ring should alert
you soon as one’s nearby.”
“Awesome. So find anyone who’s liable to hulk out after dark, then end them, right?”
“God no!” Otto retorted, eyes wide with shock. “You’re the Helsing, not a murderer! You’ve got to wait until after they’ve changed.”
“Erm.” Brian stood, lost for words, struck dumb by the stupidity of what he was hearing. “How… what? Why on Earth would I wait for them to turn into eight-foot killing machines before I take them out? That’s entirely arse about face! Makes more sense to kill them when they’re still nice and soft and squishy.”
“The poor bearers of the parasite are innocent,” Otto explained. “They’re not in control of the havoc they wreak when under the influence of the change. They live a life haunted by guilt of actions they don’t even remember. If you kill them, it’s tantamount to murder.”
“But if I kill them after they’ve changed, it’s exactly the same outcome,” Brian protested, growing quite exasperated now. “They’re still dead, either way.”
“Yes. But at least you’ve killed the real perpetrator, not the victim.”
“They’re one and the fucking same!”
“You’ve a lot to learn, young Helsing,” Otto told him, shaking his head sadly.
Brian curled his hands into fists at his side, eyes narrowed.
“Will everyone just stop saying that,” he growled.
At the low sound of his voice, a ripple passed through the very bedrock of the Mount, the glass display cabinets rattling in their frames as motes of dust drifted down from their centuries-long slumber on the stone roof overhead. Brian didn’t seem to notice. Otto, however, very much did, his wide eyes darting about the Bestiary, before finally settling back on Brian. If he’d been scared by the strange phenomenon, he gave no sign. If anything, a flicker of a grin seemed to pass across his face.
“Interesting.”
“What is?” Brian asked, finally relaxing and letting his hands hang loose by his sides.
“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry. And sorry, yes, I’ll stop saying that. You’ve already learnt much over the last few weeks, it’s too much to expect you to know all the subtleties of the spirit world after such a short time. Regardless, the Helsing Code of Conduct precludes any notion of killing werewolves when they’re not in their animal form. It’s just not the done thing. Ours is not to question why, for those were the mandates written down by Helsing I and the first Masters themselves.”
“Fine,” Brian finally grunted. “If the hard way it has to be, then so be it. Why is nothing ever easy?”
As always, Heimlich’s voice called out from behind him, causing him to start.
“If life were easy, there’d be no need for a Helsing now, would there?”
Brian turned to face the newcomer. Heimlich was staring intently at Otto, who nodded.
“You felt it then?”
“Oh yes. Quicker than the others, by far.”
“Felt what?” Brian asked.
“Nothing,” Heimlich replied unhelpfully.
Brian stared into the man’s eyes, literally trying to read the real answer from his gaze, a skill gifted him by the ring and taught him by Heimlich himself. But no student could outdo their master after such a short period of time and Heimlich smiled, his mind quite unreadable.
“Come with me now, Helsing. We have matters to discuss before your mission.”
“Wait,” Otto blurted out. “I’ve got something for you.”
“Let me guess,” Brian sighed, turning back to the Master of the Bestiary. “A pamphlet.”
Otto nodded, pulling a tri-fold piece of laminated paper from his lab-coat pocket, upon the first page of which was a hilariously bad clip-art image of a werewolf howling at a pixelated moon.
“A pamphlet.”
Chapter Five:
The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth
“Tell me about your new lady friend, young Helsing,” Heimlich asked him, staring at him over steepled fingers.
Usually the two would have their little training sessions in the small room just off the Scrying Chamber, but this time they were sat in the Snug, alone bar the crackling of the logs in the hearth. For some reason, the comfortable surroundings didn’t make Brian feel any more at ease. And the abruptness of this first question sent shivers of trepidation up his spine. Avoiding Heimlich’s intense gaze lest the man merely rip the answers from his mind, Brian gulped.
“What do you want to know?”
Heimlich clicked his fingers and a glass of red wine materialised in his hand, a trick Brian had yet to be taught and would have found pretty damn handy right about now. Taking a sip, the Master of Magic savoured the taste for a few seconds, swilling his wine about in his glass, before finally deigning to answer.
“Everything.”
“Well, I met her in Newquay on that last mission.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve already told me as much. And I believe you. But there’s something different about her, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Erm…” Sweat beaded Brian’s forehead, perspiration that had little to do with the fire and more to do with the grilling. “How so?”
“She seems endlessly fascinated by, well, everything. And she’s quite knowledgeable about our world, already. I listened in on her and Gertie roaming the Sanctum. There’s little about the arcane she doesn’t already know. She recognised a basilisk egg when she saw it. No-one’s even seen a basilisk egg in centuries, outside of these walls at least. And speaking of her fascination, the feeling seems to be mutual; everyone she meets seems quite enamoured with her. Even Gertie. And she doesn’t like anyone.”
“That’s, well… you’ve seen her, haven’t you? She’s got legs that go right up to the top.”
“Everyone has. Well, except for Friedrick. Otherwise we’d fall over. Still, Gertie’s insatiable hormones aside, how do you explain the arcane knowledge?”
“She… reads a lot?”
“And the boundless enthusiasm? The way she flits from one thing to the next as though everything she sees is the greatest thing in the world?”
“ADHD?”
“ADHD?” Heimlich narrowed his eyes and took another slow sip of his Merlot. “I put it to you that it’s less ADHD… and more H2O.”
Brian shivered.
“I… erm… you see…”
“She’s one of the Water Nymphs, isn’t she?”
A mouse before a cat would have looked less scared than Brian did right then. Did he lie? No, he realised, as he stared into Heimlich’s eyes at a loss for words; that ship had long sailed.
“Please don’t kill her,” he blurted out. “She’s not like the others.”
“I know,” Heimlich replied. “I read your mind. A vegan Nymph? Who’d have thought?”
“You’re not going to tell the other Masters?” Brian ventured, hopefully.
“God no. I’m just going to sit back and watch how this all pans out,” Heimlich laughed. “But there’s one thing I do want to know.”
“Wh… what’s that?”
Heimlich leant forwards, fixing Brian with an intense stare, though Brian was entirely unsure whether Heimlich was capable of any other kind.
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Get girls that are way out of your league.” As Brian stared at him, completely at a loss for words, Heimlich continued. “I mean, I’m tall, dark, not bad looking, with impeccable fashion sense and a reasonable amount of money. And yet I’ve not had a date in years. Whereas you; you’re lanky, awkward, with all the charm of finding a dog turd under your shoe. Yet somehow you’ve managed to score yourself a god-damned ten out of ten Water Nymph for a girlfriend.”
“Erm… thanks, I think?”
“So how do you do it? What’s your secret?”
Brian thought hard, the entire conversation having been turned about so quickly that he didn’t yet know whether he was coming or going.
“God knows. I’m not even sure t
here is a secret. I’m no lady’s man, that’s Neil’s department. But for some reason, Scylla seems to like me for who I am. I… I didn’t even have to try.”
“Not just Scylla,” Heimlich told him with a shake of the head. “But Gertie too.”
“You what?”
“You’ve seen the way she looks at you. God, you’re in an enviable position right now.”
Brian snorted.
“Not you as well. Christ, enviable? I’m beginning to think I’m the only sane person in a world of morons. Morons who are intent on killing me. Yes, there’s a connection between me and Gertie, usually her fist connecting with my face. And yes, the two seem oddly over-familiar with each other, which can only end badly. You know what?” He rose to his feet. “I just want to go and kill some werewolves; sounds like it’d be a damn sight less lethal than staying anywhere near my girlfriend and her girlfriend, particularly with you trying to vicariously live your fantasies through me.”
“Helsing, you…”
“If you tell me I have a lot to learn, I swear, your nose will be broken before you can even think of Blinking out of here.”
“No. I was going to tell you, you have to learn to live in the moment. You’re a Helsing, as I said, a man in an enviable position. You have money, power, opportunity, the likes of which most wouldn’t dare to dream of. And you’re squandering it.”
“Squandering it? How? The only reason I’m forever holding back is because of you guys, your judgement and all these bloody rules and codes of conduct. You say I’ve got opportunity, well it feels like I’m bound with invisible chains.”
“You weren’t holding back earlier,” Heimlich smiled. “In the Bestiary.”
“I… what?”
“When you were angry at Otto. Did you not feel the power you were beginning to tap into?”
“No. All I felt was my fist itching to grab his beard and pull his head off.”
“Well, I felt the power. So did he. You’re still filled with the fear from your previous life and it’s blocking your true potential. You’ve been told before that you’ve the power in you to be greater than any other Helsing. And just then, when you were angry, you summoned such power that you shook the very Mount itself. Think upon that for a moment. And realise that life isn’t as fearful and full of restrictions as you might think.”
Brian Helsing: The World's Unlikeliest Vampire Hunter. Mission #3: Howlin' Mad Page 3
