London - Rumpole Café

 

Across the street from the noted café, a solitary figure peered inside courtesy of the miniature high-powered binoculars he held to his eyes.  He was black – his skin, his body armor, and his trenchcoat.  Even his sunglasses, which he had temporarily removed during this reconnaissance, were black.  To most Londoners, he was just another strange sight that seemed to be more prevalent these days.  To those in the know, he was the scourge of the undead – Blade.

 

His gloved hands went to his combination earpiece-microphone in his right ear.  “Looks like attendance is down about as low as it’s going to get, old man.  You in position?”

 

In the alley behind the café, a jet-black modified can was parked.  The man inside, Abraham Whistler, replied to Blade’s query.  “Yep, I’m there, kid.  But I still say we should be going after more important targets.  Too many people around for these small-time players.”  His wizened face as well as his long white hair and beard showed this age.  The brace on his right leg showed the external suffering that the undead had cause him, although it was nothing compared to the internal pain he had carried for decades now.  Every destroyed vampire only took away the most infinitesimal fraction of that pain.

 

“It’s got to be done,” Blade countered.  “They’re getting more brazen, acting out in the open.  I need to … dissuade them of that idea.”  He noted a pair of women leaving the café.  Once they were clear, he would move in.

 

“It sure ain’t like the old days,” Whistler lamented as he slid his hands along the silver-shelled shotgun he held.  “Can’t practically turn around without bumping into a vampire these days.”

 

“Well then let’s get things back to the old days.  My preference would be for the days when the Montesi Formula actually worked,” Blade grumbled.  For an all-too-brief period of time, the magical Formula from the Darkhold, as cast by Dr. Strange, had destroyed all vampires.  Unfortunately, the spell had been broken, and the vampires returned once again.

 

“You know how much stock I put in mystic mumbo-jumbo,” Whistler commented.

 

“Yeah, I know.”  Blade knew that Whistler only trusted that which he could touch when it came to fighting vampires – silver, wood, sunlight and garlic (though he wasn’t above using holy water as well)  “Mumbo jumbo never seems to work too well.  Always seems like there’s some loophole.”

 

Blade stomped across the street and pushed open the glass door.  His appearance garnered the attention of a few diners, but certainly not all of the customers.  Behind his sunglasses, his gaze swept around the room.  He could smell that there were vampires here.  There was no doubt about that.  The question was – how many of them really were here?  He had picked up their scent from outside.  It was one of the ‘gifts’ that he had gained at birth, when his mother had been bitten by the vampire Deacon Frost.

 

“Can I help you?” the perky brunette hostess in a white blouse and long black skirt asked.

 

“Health inspector.  I’m closing this place down,” Blade replied.  His attention went to a pair of twenty-somethings along the wall of the left-hand side of the café.  They had no drinks; the vegetables and bread on their plates had not been touched.  The only part of their meals that they were eating was the extremely raw cut of beef.

 

“Weren’t you blokes just out here last week?”  The hostess was confused.  This health inspector didn’t look like any typical civil servant she had seen before.  “Could I see your authorization?”

 

Blade reached into the liner pocket on the left-hand side of his jacket.  What he pulled out would be in no way confused with a badge – it was specially designed Uzi loaded with silver bullets.  “You’ve got a vermin problem – vampire vermin.”

 

The pronouncement, with its words and Blade’s loud projection, now had everyone’s attention.  It was silent for second., and then the chaos erupted.  People started rushing out from their tables and booths, but they weren’t sure where to go.  Blade stood between them and the door.  With his weapon drawn, nobody dared rush him.

 

Training the weapon on one of the vampires, Blade flicked on the laser sight.  The red dot hovered over the vampire’s heart.  “Let’s not try to take hostage.  You vamps may be quick, but you’re aren’t superman in the ‘faster than a speeding bullet’ category.”

 

“We’re not predators,’ the targeted vampire argued.  “The fact that we’re hear should prove that.”

 

“Maybe you’re just slumming,” Blade snickered  He noted the emaciated appearance, pronounced even for one of the undead.  “Or maybe you’re just not clever enough to nab a victim.  Either way, I’m taking the ‘un’ out of your undead.”

 

Blade changed the setting on the weapon.  He wouldn’t risk automatic fire here.  There was too much risk of collateral damage.  He pulled the trigger back once and put a silver bullet in the first revenant’s heart.  Screams accompanied the report of the gun, and the second vampire tried to take advantage of the elevated chaos.  He leapt for Blade with extended claws and fangs before the vampire hunter could fire again.

 

Almost faster than the eye could see, Blade flicked his wrist and armed his left hand with a sping-loaded teak dagger strapped to his wrist.  As the airborne vampire came to sink his teeth into Blade’s neck, the scourge of the undead lashed out with a wide arc.  The dagger drew a line across the vampire’s neck instead.

 

The vampire’s hands went to his wounded neck in a vain attempt to keep his vitality from flowing away.  Blade glowered at him and waited for the vampire to succumb.  It wasn’t more than a few seconds before the creature collapsed face first.

 

A second shot put a silver bullet onto this vampire’s heart as well.  Neither revenant would ever move again without surgical removal of the slugs, but Blade had a more permanent plan for them.

 

He reached into his coat pocket and sheathed his dagger,   He then dropped a wad of euros on the hostess’ table.  While everyone else had scurried out, she had remained behind frozen in fear.  “That should cover the bloodsuckers’ bill, and maybe some of the others who won’t come back to settle up.”  He smiled wryly.  “Don’t worry about these jokers.  I’ll take them out back.”  Holstering his gun, Blade grabbed the two vampires by the collar and dragged them unceremoniously towards the rear exit of the café.

 

In the alley outside, Whistler was waiting in the modified black van.  The dark tinted windows were reinforced with metallic mesh.  The entire body of the vehicle was accented with what one might have considered polished chrome, but in reality was refined silver.

 

Whistler deactivated the electronic locks and the back doors swung open.  Blade tossed the vampires in one at a time and then climbed in after them.

 

“Two shots I heard,” Whistler grumbled from the front as Blade slammed the doors shut.  “Not much of a problem, I take it.”

 

“Didn’t even break a sweat,” Blade sighed.  “Audacious - for trying to mix among the real folk.  Dangerous – not so much.”  He knew that there were much more dangerous foes out there.  Deacon Frost still had to pay for this mother’s death.  Varnae was somewhere in Greece, and Blade still had a promise to keep to rescue Janus from that First Vampire.  Then, of course, there was Janus’ dad.  “Big Daddy Fangs is gonna get his, too,” he thought grimly.

 

“So where should we pop and fry?”  Whistler put the van into gear and headed out for the streets of London.  Coming out of the alley, he eased the van into the flow of traffic.

 

“How about Soho for the bodies?” Blade replied.  This was standard operating procedure – decapitation followed by burning the head and body in different locations.  It was about as permanent as vampire destruction came.  “The heads we can burn after I take out whoever’s trail we get on next.”  It always unnerved the typical vampire to see his kindred’s decapitated head before Blade engaged them in battle.  Putting a dose of fear into the bloodsuckers was a good thing, in Blade’s opinion.

 

“Sounds good to me.”  Whistler knew exactly what Blade was thinking.  It was a trick that he had taught Blade back when Blade was just one of the Vampire Slayers.  It had been a long time since those days when Whistler was the mentor to perhaps the most promising group of hunters ever – Ogun Strong, Azu M’Damman, Orji Jones, Musenda Brown, and of course Blade.  Now, after all these years, Blade and Whistler were working together again.  As much as anything could in the mixed up portion of the world under the Black Mass Barrier, it felt right.

 

“Sounds like you’re enjoying this a little bit too much,” Whistler snickered.

 

Blade had unsheathed the katana from the scabbard strapped to his back.  His ran a gloved hand along the side of the weapon.  It was the best in his extensive collection of swords.  What made it even more special was that it had been a gift from his friend Bible John Carik, the mystic Cathari agent.  The last he had heard of the tattooed scholar, Bible John had been in France looking for the remnants of the Cathari organization there.  Something about a town in Languedoc, Blade recalled.  Hopefully, bible John was surviving in this mad world.  Blade had all too few friends left.

 

He looked up at Whistler with a smirk.  “I’d rather be playing my horn over at Slow Boy’s.  But that ain’t gonna pay the bills for hunting.”  He rifled through the vampires’ pockets, helping himself to their wallets, their money, and their credit cards.  Some of the undead liked the comforts of their warm lives.  It was one of the ways that they funded their vampire slaying activities.  “These boys, however, were packing some change.”  He stuffed the spoils into his pocket.  “Slaying.  It’s a job, and I gotta do it.”

 

Whistler turned back as he brought the van to a stop at a traffic signal.  “It’s a job we gotta do.  You ain’t alone anymore kid.”

 

 “Yeah, we.”  Blade couldn’t suppress a smile.  “Good to be back in business with you … old man.”

 

County of West Sussex

 

Far removed from the hustle and bustle of London was a simple churchyard .  The small brick church had watched over this area for over two hundred years.  Some of the bodies interred inside the confines of the wrought-iron gates had been there just as long.  Many of the more dated gravestones had become weathered with age, the names of the departed lost to time.  One monument to the departed stood resolute to the ravages of time.  It was a vault adorned with Greek columns.  The original copper decorations marble had become green with age.  It gave an almost lively appearance to this somber area.

 

A lone female figure approached the locked door to the vault.  In her hand she carried the key to the padlock that secured the chains draped between the door handles.  The key slid easily into the antiquated lock and set it open.  She placed the key back into the pocket of her grey trenchcoat.  The weather wizards had predicted (or was that summoned?) rain for today.

 

Drawing one end of the chain through the door handle, she was able to open the doors.  The hinges creaked loudly as the door swung open wide.  The uneasy odor of decay greeted her senses almost immediately.  It took only a few seconds to acclimate, and she stepped inside.

 

Once inside, her long blond hair stopped flapping in the strong wind.  She stepped down the cold stone steps into the depths of the vault.  As this was a family vault, there were a number of tombs arranged inside.  There had been no new occupants for over a century.  It was the final resident that interested her.  This was a place well-known to her even though she had never been here before.  She found the tomb on interest, exactly where her father had described it to be.  The color of the marble crypt was indiscernible in the meager light that came from outside.  Her hands went to the top of the tomb, where the inscription was.  She ran her hands over the chiseled letters, feeling the history in the name inscribed there:

 

LUCY WESTENRA

 

She knelt down on one knee before the tomb now.  He hand went to the inner pocket of her coat, from which she withdrew a long knife.  It was a bowie knife which also had a linked history to this place.  She laid the knife gingerly on the tomb.  The few rays of lights that reached the blade made it sparkle in an unexpected way.  It’s sparkle was not of steel but rather of silver.

 

“Miss Westenra,” she said with the slightest whisper.  “I have come to pay my respects.  Even though we are separated by the vastness of time, we are linked by name and history.”  She thought of the painting that hung in the study of the estate.  It was a portrait of the blonde-tressed woman in the flower of her youth.  “I come as my father did, as my grandfather did, and as my great-grandfather,  who loved you more than any other, did.”

 

She placed her hands on the flat of the blade.  “I come to renew the vow that my family has taken.  I come to dedicate myself to destroying the monster that destroyed you.”

 

She recalled how her family had been engaged on this crusade, in one form or another, since those fateful days at the turn of the twentieth century.  They had fought by the side of Abraham Van Helsing; they had supported the work of Quincy Harker.  Now those families were gone, but hers, in her person, remained.  She would remain true to the task.  “This I swear.”

 

She took the knife in her hands again.  When used by Quincey Morris all those years ago, it had been simple steel.  As such, it could have never have slain its intended victim.  Now it was impregnated with silver so that it could deal death to the undead.

 

She rose and placed the knife back into her coat.  She climbed the stairs and secured the vault once again.  Walking through the churchyard once again, she came to the black limousine that waited for her on the other side of the wrought-iron fence.

 

The driver, Alistair Woodley, stood next to the brightly polished Bentley.  He had been driving this automobile for the family since it came off the assembly line in 1956.  Though over seventy years weighed upon him, he looked at least a decade younger in his neatly pressed suit and cap.  His expression gave no indication of his confused curiosity as to the nature of this trip.  As far as he knew, no member of the family was buried here, but his employer, as did her sires before her, had made a point of coming here periodically.  Woodley had never asked why.  It would not have been good form, in his opinion, but his curiosity still existed.

 

He walked back to open the door as she approached.  “All finished now, Miss Lucy?  Er, I mean …”

 

She flashed him a slight smile.  It showed her twenty-something youth but also a wisdom beyond her years.  “That’s all right, Mr. Woodley.  It’s only been a month since my father passed away, and it’s still taking me some effort to become comfortable with my new title.”  It certainly had been a dramatic change for her, but it was one for which she had waited ever since the day her father had told her the secret history of the family.  Now it was her turn to assume the responsibility, both in the light of day and the dark of night as Lucy Holmwood, Lady Godalming.

 

Transylvania

 

A cold wind swept down from the heights of the Carpathian mountains.  It was a strong breeze but nothing of the magnitude that would have precluded more unconventional means of airborne travel.  However, the invitation to come here and expressly warned against it.  As the rider of the horse-drawn carriage looked out of the windows, he saw many strange sights that reinforced his decision to comply.

 

The night sky seemed to be filled with leathern shapes.  The woods that lined the rocky path traveled upon seemed to harbor wolfish eyes at every turn.  To the ignorant eye, one might think that this was simply a dangerous place.  To one with the appropriate knowledge, this was a guarded domain.  These bestial sentries acted on the command of their master, the one whom the rider was traveling to see.

 

The rider was concerned, but not fearful.  He was no mere sycophant, although he was in some ways, a vassal of the master of this domain.  At least, that was how the master undoubtedly viewed it.  He, on the other hand, saw himself as more of an ally in the new order of their kind.  The rise of the Black Mass Barrier had caused many changes for Europe, both for those who lived in the light, and those who existed in the shadows.  No one, at least not yet, could claim authority over the night.  Only a combination of skill and savagery would allow one to claim that throne and to use it to dominate the land inside of the Barrier.  The rider was certain that he was not a strong contender, but he hoped to ensure that he was in the food graces of the eventual claimant.

 

For this reason, he had come so far east from his familiar environs of London at the bequest of the eagerly anticipated invitation.  It appeared that the changes that the Barrier had wrought were more pronounced here, but then the ancient ways had always held more sway here in the legendary lands of the Transylvania.

 

He noted that the carriage had made excellent time from Bistriz, with more speed than any equine-powered carriage could have hoped to make, even with the cruelest of drivers.  He thought of the ancient adage expressed in these parts – “Denn die Todten reiten schnell – Because the dead ride fast.”  It was all too true.

 

It was not long before the carriage had finished winding its way to its destination – the vaunted castle built high on a sheer cliff.  It was an impressive structure, both for its aesthetic as well as its military appeal.  It was a testament to its owner.  It exuded the power that was represented here.

 

The driver opened the door and pulled down the step.  The rider nodded his thanks, never getting a good look at the creature cloaked in cape and hood, and exited the carriage.  Looking up, he noted even more red eyes at every turret and almost every window of the castle.  No creature would dare attack this place, and he had no intention of that either.  He walked to the gate and knocked with the great iron ring.

 

As he waited for a response, he adjusted the collar of his frilly white shirt.  Combined with the cut of his leather coat and breeches, he had the appearance of nobleman from some bygone era.   With the rise of the Barrier, such an appearance did not garner much attention.  For him, it was not an affectation but a statement of who he was, of the era that had birthed and re-birthed him.

 

The great iron door swung slowly open.  A very pleasing shape appeared carrying a lit candelabra.  It was a raven-dressed woman, dressed in a white bodice and long black skirt.  Her beauty had been preserved at the most perfect age.  Her tongue passed over her lips as she sized him up. 

 

“I am here at the Voivode’s invitation,” he declared.  He handed her the note, written in dried red, though not of ink.

 

“Ah, yes.  You are expected.”  She opened the door wider and stepped further inside.  “Voivode,” she called out.  “Your guest is arrived.”

 

Once the door was completely open, he could see a dark shape in the foyer.  The light from the chandelier above cast a long shadow from the cloaked figure.  Without turning, the figure spoke.  “Ruthven, Lord of Anglia.  We have much to discuss.”

 

Ruthven did not move but remained at the threshold of the door.  There could be no entrance without specific invitation.

 

The figure turned slightly.  His head, with black slicked hair and mustache poking around the folds of his cape.  A slight smile, showcasing his pronounced canines, emerged from his lips.  “Enter freely and of your own free will, Lord Ruthven.  Welcome to my house.  Welcome to Castle Dracula.”

 

Next Issue: Dracula and Ruthven reveal the developments in the vampire community since the rise of the Black Mass Barrier, while Blade meets up with some old friends. 

UNDEAD LETTER OFFICE

I’m back, and I’m glad to be back.  This is my third go-round at writing Marvel vampire fanfic.  I started with Vampire Tales at Marvel Volume One.  Then I did a new Vampire Tales at Marvel Dark Lore.  Now I’m doing this series at Pendragons.  With the Gansler family growing in the past few years (Benjamin, age 3, and Erika, age 1), the time and desire for writing fanfic had wanted.  Now, as I’ve gotten back up to date on the developments in the Pendragons universe, I’m motivated to make a contribution here.  Thanks to Barry for letting me play in his playground.

You can reach me at goosegansler@yahoo.com

Bob Gansler

11/08/04

 

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