“Have we found any kind of pattern?” Vladimir asked finally.
“Most of this is pretty dry stuff,” William said. “There are a bunch of words I don’t recognize all over the place.”
“There’s one that keeps coming up now and then,” Karen said, “but I don’t know what it means.”
“Probably Dutch,” Vladimir said.
“That’s what I thought,” Karen said, “but if he’s written the rest of it in German, why reference something in Dutch?”
Vladimir pondered this for only a second. “A location,” he breathed.
“Yes,” William said. “I saw that too. It was in a margin of something over here.”
William placed the notebook he was holding back where he had found it and picked up another that he had already gone through. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
“Here it is,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it when I saw it, just because there’s so much here that I don’t understand, but it sort of stood out to me, probably because it just didn’t fit. Listen.” He looked at the book and traced the words with his fingers as he read.
“I’m not sure of the implications of this test, but I’ll add it to the list for Muiderslot. Once I conclude my investigations, I should have something more substantial to report.”
“Mine reads similarly,” Karen said. “Each time, it seems to have something to do with how he intends to continue whatever he happens to be working on.”
“Thinking back to what I’ve read, I believe you’re right,” Vladimir said. “It isn’t much to go on, and for all we know, it could just be another building in the University or even some technique or journal, but it is worth pursuing. If we come up empty, we’ll just come back here during the day and see what we can learn about this professor from the students or maybe other teachers.”
After some asking around, someone pointed them to the town of Muiden, nine miles away. It seemed a long way to go for a hunch, but it was all they had. Once in Muiden, the first person knew of Muiderslot as a decrepit old castle that was wasting away at the end of a peninsula that extended into the mouth of the Vecht River. The person indicated that no one had lived there in ages, but it had a caretaker that “keeps the rabble away until the king does something with it.”
Vladimir inquired as to whom the caretaker was, but the person did not know. Whoever the caretaker was, he was old since he had been visiting the castle as long as anyone in town could remember. Vladimir thanked the person, and thought to himself that this caretaker sounded rather Fempiror-ish being around for so long.
They approached the castle known as Muiderslot just before sunset on the second day following their departure from London, and kept themselves hidden among some trees. Looking at the castle, they found that walking the battlements was an individual covered in black. Vladimir had found them.
He instructed William and Karen to remain in town and wait for him. He would leave just after dark, and he could handle everyone in there. He wanted to take care of this alone. They understood.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Van Helsing was frustrated and running short on supplies and time. Since Voivode did not know the proportions of ingredients he used, it became a matter of trial and error to make the cure work, and he had been at it almost non-stop since they arrived the night before last. The only break he had was when he involuntarily dozed off at one point only to be awakened by Seward who had wisely left to rest.
During the previous day, he had come close. He tested a cure on Mina’s blood, and even went so far as to try it on her. She complained that it hurt, but after a few hours, he found that it had no effect on the Mutation serum. When he double checked the blood sample, it had reverted back to Mutation blood at some point after he left it. He cursed himself for being so amateurish, but Mina was almost in need of another blood transfusion. He had hoped to have her taken care of before then.
Further discussion with Voivode and showing him what was done so far did yield a little bit of memory from him in that he recalled the citrus aspect of the cure was the juice of the fruit, and that juice was the solution into which everything else was mixed. Van Helsing had looked at his fruit supply and knew that what he had would not yield much in the way of juice, which would end up giving him one shot at getting it right before they had to go out in search of more citrus fruit. The fruit he had happened to be lemons as well, which was not pleasant to drink. He did not dare add any kind of sweetener to it, however, in fear of diluting the effect.
He used all of the lemons he had and mixed it with some crushed garlic in the white oak bowl and let it sit for a time. Voivode did recall that he let the solution rest before he tried it in order to let the white oak properties infuse. Now, in the late afternoon, he used a drop of Mina’s blood which held a slight appearance to Mutation blood that Van Helsing was able to identify under a microscope.
As before, the blood changed to remove the Mutation element, but he was not going to make the same mistake twice. He waited this time. He gave it another hour before checking on it again. When he looked again, the blood remained human.
He took another drop of the cure and mixed it under the microscope with his own blood to see what would happen. The cure reacted with his blood, and it seemed to change, but before the tiny sample could fully change, the Fempiror side took over and reclaimed the little blood particle. Whatever they had made worked on the Mutation, but not on Fempiror. Apparently, Voivode’s missing element was still missing, but there was a chance it would help Mina.
He filled a glass with the precise volume of solution that Voivode said he had used in the beginning, and then asked Voivode to place the remainder in a corner of the room so it would be out of the way. Voivode complied as Van Helsing looked at the solution in the little glass and prayed. He took a sniff of it, but it brought tears to his eyes. It would not work on him anyway.
He carried the glass to the adjoining room where Jonathan and Mina both sat reading. They looked up at his entry.
“Here we go again,” Van Helsing said. “I let this one sit longer, and I checked your sample right before I left the room. It is holding.
“Then I’d best drink it,” Mina said fearlessly. “Whether this works or not, I know you have done your best.”
“If it doesn’t work, we still have plenty of time, Mina,” Van Helsing assured.
Mina sniffed the solution and winced much like Abraham did. She took a few breaths and muttered “I can do this” under her breath before upending the glass and forcing herself to swallow.
Van Helsing, Voivode, Seward, and Jonathan all watched her as she put the glass down. Nothing happened for almost thirty seconds, but then, she gasped and her body went stiff. She clenched her fists and breathed deeply. Her face clenched in pain, tears ran down her face, and finally, she whimpered as the solution worked on her. After a minute of this, she relaxed, her eyes closed.
“What happened?” Jonathan asked desperately. “Is she all right?”
Seward took a stethoscope and listened for her heart. “She’s alive,” he said.
“I want to wait a few minutes before taking a blood sample,” Van Helsing said. “Though disturbing, this is more encouraging than the last reaction, or lack thereof.”
“How long do you want to wait?” Jonathan asked.
“How long do you think, Voivode?” Van Helsing asked.
“I would wait until she wakes up,” Voivode said. “Her body is resting now to heal itself from the trauma of the change, if we have, in fact, reversed it. The original cure worked instantly, but changing from human to Fempiror is also almost instant. Your Mutation change is slower, so you cannot see the immediate results of a raise in body temperature and such that you could test on a Fempiror or fully changed Mutation.”
About five minutes passed before Mina came around. Her eyes snapped open, and she sat up. She looked at the men patiently waiting for her and attended to her once they noticed she
was awake.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did it work?”
“How do you feel?” Seward asked.
“I feel fine,” she said. “Better than I did, I think.”
“Let me take a blood sample,” Van Helsing said. He drew a vial of blood and carried it to the lab where he put it under his microscope. Voivode walked in behind him as he looked.
“Well?” Voivode said. “What do you see?”
Van Helsing stood. He did not want to jump to conclusions so he asked Voivode to have a look as well. Voivode looked through the microscope, and Van Helsing prayed he saw the same thing. Voivode adjusted the magnification a couple of times before he looked up with a smile.
“You did it,” Voivode said. “You actually did it. Congratulations, my boy.”
“We did it, sir,” Van Helsing said. “I could not have done this without you. I don’t know if this will work on a full Mutation, and I honestly never want to have to try it, but if it comes up, I’ll be ready. I’m going to tell them.”
Van Helsing ran out of the room exhilarated. The look on his face was all the Harkers and Seward needed to see. No doubt the cries of joy were heard all the way back in London.
Mina was cured.
* * * * * * * * * *
Voivode watched Abraham run out of the lab to the room where they had left Mina to give them the news. Voivode smiled and looked to the white oak bowl that held the verified cure to the first Mutation phase before he planned to join the others. However, when his eyes landed on the bowl, he paused. All he could do was stare as he felt gripped by a memory; one that had escaped him for hundreds of years.
When Van Helsing had asked him to place the bowl somewhere, he put it on a table that sat against the outside wall next to one of the windows whose curtain was shredded. They tended to avoid that side of the room because later in the afternoon, the sunlight came in so he knew the solution would be safe there.
The more he looked at the little bowl sitting there in the sunlight, the more the distant memory screamed at him. Once upon a long time ago when he was human, he did all of his work in a lab that was open to the daylight, and he worked during the day. Following his transmutation, he did his work at night. The cure contained the things that physically hurt them the most, but Mutations are not harmed by sunlight. The cure he tested back in 1385 sat out in the sun while he was allowing the white oak to do its work as well. When he tried to remake it, the cure never sat in the sun, so it never worked.
He put a glove on and took the bowl out of the sun and looked at it. He poured a little of the cure into a small glass. He looked at it again, and decided to throw caution to the wind entirely. He upended the glass and drank it.
The burning hit him immediately as the deadly elements worked their way through his body. He felt like he was screaming in agony, but his voice was so old that nothing came out as he fell to his knees. He hyperventilated and dropped to his hands as well, trying to keep himself up as it felt like the solution ripped him apart.
Finally, the pain subsided and he felt tears streaming down his face, but it was over. He was not sure if it worked or not, but then he felt cold. Very cold. Colder than he had felt in many, many years. He put his hands against his face, and a warmth spread across them as his body temperature rapidly rose. It worked. His cure had always worked. It only needed sunlight.
Suddenly, he felt cold again. He looked down to see the blade of a sword protruding from his belly. He turned to see an unfamiliar face smiling back at him.
“Who?” Voivode managed to say.
“I am Vladimir of the Tepish,” his attacker declared. “I have been looking for you for a long time, and now I am triumphant. The Tepish should have killed you in the beginning for what you did.”
Voivode fell against the table holding the bowl which knocked it to the floor, splashing the remainder of the cure away.
* * * * * * * * * *
David had been walking the battlements for the last two days, and so far, there had been no action, which was fine by him. As night fell on the second day as he patrolled the Southeast parapet walk, he spotted something off to the West. He ran through the South tower and looked through the dimming shadows of the setting sun but saw no movement where he thought he had seen it before.
He remained on the Southwestern wall for a time wondering if he did actually see something, but nothing moved. Arthur joined him once more to help with the patrol, and he mentioned the curious movement.
“My eyes have been playing tricks on me the whole time we’ve been out here,” Arthur said. “Been jumping at shadows everywhere.”
“I know the feeling,” David replied, but then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked to the ground below, and Arthur looked as well. He could swear he saw something moving toward the main entrance, but again, nothing moved.
“I’m jumping at shadows too,” David said. “I’m going to check the back from the West tower.”
Arthur nodded and kept looking to the Southwest before moving himself to the front. David looked out the backside of the castle, and it was quiet out there. No movement, imagined or otherwise.
“David!” Arthur called out, and David ran to him. He pointed to a narrow strip of land along the side of the wall. “Someone is walking down there.”
David looked straight down from the battlements and saw a shadow quickly moving around to the back of the castle. David charged down the South tower stairs and across the courtyard toward the main house. He went in the main door, and Arthur showed up behind him.
“We need to see if that person is trying to sneak in a window,” David said.
“We’d be foolish to assume he isn’t,” Arthur said. “Think it’s Vladimir?”
“We’d be foolish to assume it isn’t,” David said. “Let’s go.”
David went one way while Arthur went the other. Arthur called out, and David ran towards his voice. He had gone into the lab, and when David charged in, he saw Arthur on the receiving end of Vladimir’s sword. A quick survey of the room also found Voivode lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Moments later, Van Helsing, Seward, and the Harkers rushed in.
David pounced. He swung his sword at the intruder who blocked his every shot, but when Vladimir tried to hit David, the younger Fempiror showed himself to be just as skilled. Vladimir took one more swing and kicked his attacker away. He ran out the door, but David followed closely.
The young warrior followed the old Tepish across the courtyard where Vladimir attempted to jump through one of the window openings, but David’s vicinity made such an attempt impossible. He looked to the front door, but it would take far too long to lower the drawbridge and make any kind of escape.
Vladimir ran into the South tower and charged up the narrow stairway onto the battlements. David suspected the old Fempiror might try to jump, but he could not allow that to happen. As soon as he was on the parapet walk, he swung his sword at his target who blocked it.
Back and forth, the two fighters traded attacks and parries, and neither lost nor gained ground. Vladimir kicked David again, and ran for the West tower, but the young warrior rose quickly and knocked his elder back down. He tried to finish the battle, but the Tepish leader was still too quick. They continued trading blows as Vladimir continued to back away from his attacker.
“How long are we going to do this, David?” Vladimir asked, still backing away but causing a momentary pause in the flurry of swings.
“Until it’s over,” David said.
“So be it,” Vladimir said, and he launched another ferocious attack against his opponent. David was still able to hold his own against the old man, and he could see that age was starting to wear on the elder Tepish.
Vladimir took another swing, and David blocked it close. With his block in place, David grabbed the elderly Fempiror by the shirt and whipped him over his head, dropping the old man on the parapet walk behind him. The young Rastem turned and brought his sword down, but Vladimir bl
ocked him and pushed him away. The Tepish jumped back to his feet.
David charged him again with a flurry of attacks. The ancient warrior struggled to stop them all, and with a final swing against Vladimir’s sword, the old Tepish’s weapon flew across the courtyard and clattered to the ground. Vladimir only had an instant to comprehend this, however, as the victor was offering no mercy to his enemy.
David ran his sword into his prey’s gut and gave it a sinister twist.
“It’s over,” the victorious young Rastem declared.
“Yes, it is,” the last Elrod Malnak of the old Tepish Order smiled and spat in David’s face.
David withdrew his sword at lightning speed and before Vladimir could drop, David brought his sword across his enemy’s neck, separating his head from his body. David turned from the corpse without another thought and walked back inside.
He entered the lab to find Mina weeping against Jonathan, Dr. Seward closing Arthur’s eyes, and Van Helsing kneeling beside Voivode.
“Well?” Van Helsing asked as David walked in.
“He’s dead,” David said.
“I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself,” Van Helsing said flatly.
“I don’t know how I feel,” David admitted. “I am not a killer, but it was either him or me. I feel remorse for the life, not for the person.”
“Arthur is dead,” Seward said. “I suppose we can take some solace in the fact that you killed the one who did this to him.”
“He’s warm,” Van Helsing said. “Voivode is.”
“What?” David asked. He heard what Van Helsing said, but he did not understand the meaning. “What do you mean ‘He’s warm’?”
“Warm as in human warm,” Van Helsing said. “I left to tell them the good news, and he stayed in here. I thought he was right behind me, but he wasn’t. He must have found something or remembered something. His last words before he died were, ‘I did it.’”
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