“Have you ever heard of it being used as a stirrer in order to infuse a solution with some property it possesses?” Van Helsing asked.
“Curious use, to be sure,” Leven said. “Why do you ask? What is this about?”
“I just heard from a friend about how he got a different result in a tonic when stirred it with a white oak spoon versus other stirring implements,” Van Helsing said.
“I don’t know how it would, or what kind of properties it might place into a solution, but it is interesting,” Leven said.
“Do you have anything made of this wood that could function as a stirrer?” Van Helsing asked, but Leven shook his head.
“All I have that’s made of the substance are the cups,” Leven said. “Like I said, I never drink out of them, but I thought they were attractive and novel. You’re welcome to use one as a container. Perhaps that will give you the desired infusion your friend mentioned.”
“I would be forever grateful,” Van Helsing said.
“The only thing I ask in return in that you tell me what happens,” Leven said. “Whatever that may be.”
“I will promise to tell you what I can,” Van Helsing said, and Leven walked to his fireplace mantle where the cups rested. He took one of the wooden cups, which would hold eight ounces at the most, and handed it to Van Helsing who reached for it without considering that he had removed his gloves.
As soon as he touched the rim of the cup, it burned his fingers and he jerked his hand back.
“What is wrong?” Leven asked curiously.
“Apparently, my body does not care for the wood,” Van Helsing said. “I’ll have to explore that too.”
He put his gloves on and took the cup from Leven. He wondered about this reaction, but since the other ingredients of this cure were known to cause pain to Fempiror, it would stand to reason that this substance, as part of that solution, would cause a similar reaction. The cure continued to consist of elements that Fempiror found disagreeable.
“Thank you again for your assistance, my friend,” Van Helsing said. “I appreciate it.”
“Is everything all right, Abraham?” Leven asked. “We’ve known each other for some time, and I can see it on your face: those lines of thought.”
“Everything is not all right,” Van Helsing said. “But I cannot discuss it with you at the moment. Pray that what I am about to undertake is successful. I wish I could say more. I will return this when I am done.”
“I am happy to be of assistance,” Leven said. “Take care.”
Van Helsing returned to the coach and guided it through town to the college where he took everyone inside. He needed to pick up a few things as well as meet with someone before they headed out to the castle, which they would do tonight.
This time, he brought everyone inside with him through the deserted hallways of the school. He checked the time, and he was right on schedule.
“This is a nice facility,” Seward commented. “Are you sure we can’t do it here?”
“You know how it is when you’re somewhere that people know you,” Van Helsing said. “They show up needing help with this or that, and sometimes, you just need to get away. That’s one of the things that Muiderslot is for me: a silent getaway. For us, it’ll be an emergency sanctuary as well. Let us not forget that Vladimir probably followed us, and he’s smart enough to track us down here. I neither want to try and defend this place nor subject anyone here to the attack.
“In addition, we’ll need seclusion just in case we fail. I’ve done other experiments at the castle when I needed time to complete them. I assure you it is as modern as this place is.”
“What sort of experiments have you done?” David asked.
Van Helsing only smiled in return. “You’ll see,” he said.
Van Helsing gave Seward a list and pointed him to one of the labs to fulfill it while Van Helsing filled his bag with items from his office. A few minutes after they had arrived, a young, red-headed woman arrived accompanied by a five-year old boy whose eyes were as sharp and attentive as anyone else’s.
“I do hope I’ve arrived on time, professor,” she said formally at the door. Van Helsing turned and smiled. She smiled in return as they walked toward each other and embraced.
“Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Elizabeth Van Helsing,” Van Helsing said.
“You have a wife,” David said hesitantly, “named Elizabeth.”
“The name is merely a coincidence, David,” Van Helsing said. “And you’ll note she looks nothing like Beth. And before you ask, she was a Fempiror before we met.”
“David, as in ‘David Taylor’ David?” Elizabeth asked.
“The same,” Van Helsing said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, David,” Elizabeth said, her hand outstretched which David shook. “Abraham has told me much about you.”
“I’m so sorry,” David said with a smile.
“Don’t fret,” she assured him. “Not all of it was bad.”
“We met very soon after I adopted the name ‘Van Helsing’ and sort of stumbled over the fact that we were both Fempiror,” Van Helsing explained. “She was more than willing to help me with an experiment I’d been working on for some time.”
“I think I’m more interested in the child at this point,” David said, eyeing Van Helsing suspiciously. “Is he like us as well?”
“Well, that was the experiment,” Van Helsing said.
The boy walked to David and held out his hand. “Good evening, Mr. Taylor,” he said. “I’m Joseph Van Helsing. My father has spoken of you rarely, but enough for me to know who you are.”
David shook the boy’s hand but his eyes were on Van Helsing. Voivode also looked surprised.
“Did you transmutate him?” David asked.
“He thought you might think so,” Joseph replied, “which is why he thought it might be better if I explained it to you. As you know, the Fempiror body temperature is considerably lower than a human’s, and this causes the woman’s womb to go into a state of suspension which is why Fempiror women cannot have children. I am the product of my parents as any natural child would be except that I gestated for a period of eight years due to the slower rate at which we age.”
“How?” Voivode breathed.
“I had to fertilize the egg externally in a lab since Fempiror women do not ovulate,” Van Helsing explained, “but once that was done, her body accepted it rather easily.”
“How old are you, Joseph?” David asked.
“I am forty-seven,” Joseph replied. “Whoever thought being young forever would be a blessing never spent their life looking to be one of the most helpless and hopeless creatures on the planet. I might as well be a kitten for all the credit I get.”
“How slow do you age?” Seward asked Van Helsing having returned from a lab with Van Helsing’s list fulfilled.
“Fempiror age about one year for every ten,” Van Helsing replied. “This is why he looks so young still but is, in fact, older than everyone who isn’t a Fempiror.”
“Can you replicate the process?” Voivode asked.
“I should be able to,” Van Helsing said, “but eight years of pregnancy for Elizabeth was very hard on her.”
“I would imagine so,” Mina said. “Of course, I only know about being pregnant, but from the stories I’ve heard, every woman in the world would have sympathy for you for going through eight years of that.”
“It was worth it,” Elizabeth said.
“Except when I’m out of the room,” Joseph said, “and then it’s ‘I never want to go through that again.’”
“I can’t get over that he’s older than I am,” Jonathan said.
“I know,” Arthur said, “I keep thinking that we can’t talk about this with a child in the room.”
“Well, I am more convinced that we can do this,” Voivode said. “When will we be ready?”
“I have what I need,” Van Helsing said. “John retrieved the supplies I requested fro
m the lab. Everything else is out there already.”
“Mind if I come along?” Joseph asked.
“Not this time,” Van Helsing said.
“Despite my size, I can take care of myself,” Joseph insisted.
“And of that I have no doubt, but this may prove to be very dangerous,” Van Helsing continued, “and I do not want to risk either of your lives out there. That’s one reason I had you meet me here.”
“What’s going on?” Elizabeth asked.
“Vladimir,” Van Helsing replied.
“He found you?” Elizabeth asked.
“Sort of,” Van Helsing replied. “He was looking for Voivode over there, and managed catch up to me by accident. As it is, I think he is following us, so we need to get out of here as soon as possible. Go home and lock the doors. Don’t answer the door or respond to anyone you don’t already know until I come back home. I just wanted to see you before I went out to Muiderslot, and I could not risk coming to the house.”
“I understand,” Elizabeth said, and she kissed him before heading for the door. Before she exited, she turned to David.
“I hope we will meet again someday, David,” she said. “Besides us, you’re the only real family he has.”
“I am happy he has found happiness in you,” David said.
David looked at Van Helsing, and Van Helsing was not sure he wanted to see David again after this. He could not promise that everything was water under the bridge. Yes, a lot of wounds had been healed over the years, but David still brought trouble with him wherever he went. He was not sure he could risk Elizabeth and Joseph for the sake of David.
For now, they had a job to do, and they needed to get to Muiderslot to do it. Mina was already starting to look a bit pale, so she would need a transfusion soon. He would tap the veins of the humans first before risking either his or David’s Fempiror blood in her. No, it did not change Lucy, but he also did not know what would happen if they managed to reverse the Mutation process.
Whatever happened next, this journey was nearly complete.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Muiderslot looked exactly like one might a imagine a stereotypical castle should look, or at least it did back when it was maintained. Nestled within the remains of a moat at the end of a peninsula of land, it was nearly thirty minutes from the University until they arrived at the little roadway that would take them to the stone footbridge that extended across the moat to a waiting drawbridge.
The castle sat at an angle with the four corner towers on the cardinal directions of the compass, so the wall where they entered was on the Southeast side of the structure. From the front, it appeared that the roof of the South tower was altogether missing, and there had not been much of a moat in quite some time as trees grew on the land that surrounded the castle walls. The East tower still appeared to be in one piece, and the keep in the center that also housed the entryway was still as imposing as it had been for centuries with the side view of a griffin set in stone just above two heavy wooden doors.
They had to leave the coach at the end of the footbridge on account of it being too narrow to accommodate the vehicle, and Van Helsing did not trust the decaying drawbridge anyway. He opened one of the main doors and ushered them in. Once everyone was inside, he closed and bolted the doors. He then turned the old wheel that raised the drawbridge, and though the machinery protested, Van Helsing possessed the strength to coax it up. He knew they could not entirely let their guard down due to the windows on the outside wall, but it was safer here than most anywhere else.
From inside the courtyard, they could see that the Southwest wall held the same parapet walk and battlement that was also on the front, and the main house of the castle was part of the Northwest wall and continued itself across the Northeastern side. Van Helsing led them across the courtyard to the Northwest building where they entered into a large room he had made into modern laboratory.
The decorations that used to be on the walls of this room were long gone, the paint was peeling or in most places, nonexistent, and there was only the bare wooden floor with no measure of ornamentation. There were curtains over some of the windows, but others were completely exposed, though the glass appeared to be in place for all of them. From the inside, it bore more resemblance to a pauper’s house than a majestic castle guarding the mouth of the Vecht River. This particular room, however, was augmented to house the equipment that Van Helsing needed for his work.
“Now that we’re here,” Van Helsing said retrieving the same blood transfusion apparatus he had used back in Whitby, “Mrs. Harker needs a transfusion of blood. Who would like to go first?”
“I’ll do it,” Jonathan said.
“Of course,” Van Helsing said. He retrieved a cot and opened it up for Mina to lie down upon, and then he pulled up a chair for Jonathan. Once the couple was settled, he set up the apparatus to pass Jonathan’s blood to Mina. Before he initiated the transfer, however, he took a vial of blood from Mina in order to test it, both for the Mutation serum presence, and to see if the cure worked when they have it prepared.
“I will have to say this room is impressive,” Voivode said as Van Helsing worked. “Most of what is here was not in existence when I practiced.”
“One of the reasons I stay close to the human world is to make sure I’m up to date with what they’re discovering,” Van Helsing explained. “I travel all over the continent looking for information and new tools I can use.”
“You’ve done very well,” Voivode said.
“I’ll say,” Seward agreed. “How long have you had this place?”
“I talked my way into it shortly after I found it,” Van Helsing explained. “Well, back in 1825, the government was going to sell it ostensibly so it could be destroyed and someone would build something else. Someone intervened on its behalf and convinced King William to hold onto it to restore it someday.”
“And are they going to restore it?” David asked. “What would happen to your lab then?”
“I would have to move, but so far, the government has not put aside the money it needs to work on the place, and until they get to it, they allow me to use it. From their perspective, I’m keeping the vagrants away so the structure doesn’t suffer any more damage than it already has.”
“It is in pretty bad shape,” Arthur noted.
“It will serve,” Van Helsing said. “It makes for a nice place to get away, but I couldn’t live here. Fempiror may have a colder body temperature, but this place gets too drafty even for me.”
“I guess I’ll take my place walking the battlements,” David said. “It’s pretty much what I do.”
“And he’s quite good at it too,” Voivode noted.
David smiled and walked back to the courtyard. “I’ll go with him,” Arthur said. “There’s not much else I can do here either.”
“We’re going to have to keep a close watch on her,” Van Helsing said. “Closer than we did Lucy. We have to accept that if we’re unable to solve this mystery, we’re going to lose her. The comatose phase of the process sets in once her blood is depleted, and it will happen faster than we can pump it into her. We can slow it down, but we won’t be able to stave if off forever.
“Since we are stable here, I am going to let the blood pass very liberally instead of cutting off the flow after only a pint or so.”
“You can’t let it go too far,” Seward noted.
“No,” Van Helsing agreed, “but I can let that gauge that tracks the amount of blood that has passed it get at least up to four without permanent damage.”
“Four pints?” Seward asked.
“I know your concern,” Van Helsing said.
“It would be better to do it in smaller amounts over time rather than take four pints all at once,” Seward said.
“If you think you know better, then I would be open to your commentary,” Van Helsing said calmly.
“Of course not,” Seward said. “I’m sorry, doctor.”
“No apologies ne
eded, my friend,” Van Helsing. “Your concern is well-justified, and I may be pushing it a bit far, but I feel it is warranted to give us the best chance of success.”
Van Helsing placed his bag of ingredients on an open table and looked between Seward and Voivode, two brilliant minds he felt blessed to have at his side through this. “Well, gentlemen, let’s get started.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Vladimir, William and Karen arrived in Amsterdam hoping against hope that Voivode and his company had left some clue behind as to their destination. Their train from Calais put them over an hour behind their prey, but at only an hour, there had to be someone around that still remembered a group of seven people in a hurry.
He started with the local workers and eventually one of them recalled a group of seven containing an old man and one woman, but the only recollection was that they had left the station as soon as they arrived. William managed to uncover a passenger who had been waiting for hours for his train who saw the group as well and tried to speak with his old teacher from the university, Professor Van Helsing, but his teacher had no time to talk.
Vladimir recalled the curious correlation between Abraham being in London and word of a prestigious Amsterdam doctor called Abraham Van Helsing. He had never been able to confirm the link before, but this seemed pretty conclusive. If the man were a teacher at the University of Amsterdam, he thought there might be some information there to point them in the right direction.
At the University, it did not take long before someone pointed them toward the professor’s office and once there, they spent most of the day analyzing every piece of information they could find. Unlike some missions where they would break into places to dig around for blackmail fodder, they were not here to make a statement. They also wanted to ensure they reviewed everything, so they approached this job like thieves, leaving little trace of their presence.
However, several hours later, Vladimir felt as if they were getting nowhere. Most of the notes in the room involved a bunch of scientific nonsense that none of them understood, and it was written in a variety of different languages, which likely depended on who was intended to read it. Fortunately, the vast majority were in German, which Vladimir could read fluently, and William and Karen had learned well enough despite most of their dealings being in London with little use for it.
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