The Missing Link

Grodd found the stranger near the edge of the square, wiping black blood from his sword with a torn strip of cloth. Without the battle around him, he seemed brooding, his shoulders bowed by thought rather than exhaustion.

“You have a name?”

The man looked up and hesitated. “I don’t remember.”

Grodd’s brow lifted. “Your name?”

“No.”

“Where you came from? How you arrived here?”

The man shook his head. “I woke several days ago outside another village. I had my clothes, some coin, the sword and the shield. Nothing else.”

“And since then?”

“I walked.”

Grodd glanced at the bodies around them. “You appear to have done slightly more than walk.”

Something faint moved across the stranger’s face. “I kept finding people who needed help.”

Vanessa approached with Sheira and Marcus, whose sleeves were stained from tending the wounded.

“You remember nothing, but you still know how to fight,” Grodd said.

“My body seems to remember.”

“And the heroics?”

The stranger looked toward a family helping an injured boy across the square. “Instinct. I know almost nothing about myself, but protecting people feels familiar. As though my blood remembers what I am supposed to do even if I do not.”

Vanessa’s expression sharpened, but Grodd merely exhaled. “Well, if you cannot remember your name, you need one. John.”

Sheira adjusted her spectacles. “Why John?”

“John Doe. Man with no name.”

“That is extraordinarily unimaginative.”

“It is practical.”

The stranger looked between them. “Do I have any say in this?”

“No,” Grodd said.

Vanessa’s mouth curved faintly. “Then John it is.”

Grodd clapped him once on the shoulder. “Welcome to the world, John.”

Vanessa offered her hand. “Vanessa Van Helsing.”

Something shifted in John’s expression at the name.

“You have heard it.”

“I think so. There are things I know without knowing why—names, places, weapons, ways of fighting—but none of it belongs to a memory I can reach.”

Vanessa turned toward the mountains. Fog spilled from the black ridges into the valley, swallowing the roads.

Sheira followed her gaze. “If that keeps spreading, the roads could disappear by tomorrow.”

Marcus frowned. “And the creatures?”

“If they descend from the castle in numbers like this under cover of the fog, they could reach the city before anyone saw them coming.” Sheira glanced toward the wounded villagers. “They could drown these streets in blood.”

Grodd’s humour vanished. “Then we move first.”

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “Before she sends another wave.”

They crossed toward the inn, its windows shattered and walls scored by claws. Grodd entered first, followed by Sheira and Marcus, but John stopped at the threshold without understanding why. Nothing barred his path, yet some instinct held him there.

Grodd looked back. “What are you waiting for, an invitation? Come inside.”

The resistance vanished at once, and John stepped through.

He had barely entered before he noticed Vanessa favouring her left leg. There was a slight hesitation each time she put weight upon it, carefully concealed beneath her composure.

“You’re injured.”

Vanessa glanced down. “It is nothing.”

“You’re limping.”

“Very discreetly.”

“Not discreetly enough.”

She tried another step and winced.

John lowered his sword. “Let me carry you.”

Vanessa blinked, while Grodd stopped halfway across the room and Sheira slowly turned around.

“It is only to the table,” Vanessa said.

“Of course.”

She gave him one suspicious look before allowing him to lift her, one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back. Vanessa settled an arm around his shoulders with rather less objection than anyone expected.

Grodd looked at Sheira. Sheira looked at Marcus. Marcus suddenly found his medical bag fascinating.

John carried Vanessa to the nearest chair and lowered her carefully. “Comfortable?”

“Yes.”

Grodd cleared his throat.

Vanessa looked at him. “Not one word.”

“I said nothing.”

“Your face did.”

Marcus examined her leg while John sat opposite. Maps, weapons and medical supplies covered the table.

Vanessa drew a small brass compass from her coat and opened its worn lid. The needle spun once, twice, then whipped around the face so violently that the mechanism clicked beneath the strain.

Sheira leaned closer. “That is not encouraging.”

“Perhaps the mechanism is damaged,” Marcus said.

“Perhaps it belongs in a grave. My grandfather swore it could detect Dracula blood from miles away.”

Grodd glanced at the compass. “And you believed him?”

“I believed his maps.”

Marcus rose to fetch another bandage. The moment he crossed into the adjoining room, the needle slowed into an uncertain wavering.

John noticed.

Marcus returned and settled beside Vanessa again. The compass immediately resumed its violent spinning, and John’s gaze shifted toward the healer.

Vanessa snapped the lid shut. “Useless old thing.”

She spread worn maps across the table. “Six Van Helsings mapped these mountains before me. We know where the castle stands, which passages remain open and which approaches will get us killed.”

Marcus finished binding Vanessa’s ankle and glanced toward the fog beyond the windows.

“And there is still no sunlight.”

Vanessa smiled. “That is one problem my ancestors solved a long time ago.”

She drew a narrow leather case from beneath the maps. Inside lay silver arrowheads, pistol rounds, etched blades and glass cylinders filled with golden light.

John leaned closer. “Silver?”

“Silver is only the beginning. Some creatures survive mortal wounds, so we improved the weapons instead of complaining about the monsters.”

Grodd folded his arms. “She has been waiting all day to say that.”

“I have been waiting considerably longer.”

Vanessa pressed an arrowhead against one cylinder, and golden light travelled through its engraved channels until the silver glowed faintly. John’s shoulders tightened.

“Stored sunlight,” Vanessa explained, mistaking his reaction for fascination. “Sealed by Van Helsing alchemy and released on impact. If the sun will not reach the vampire, we carry the sun to her.”

Sheira adjusted her spectacles. “Provided none of them explode.”

“One experimental seal failed in Vienna.”

“It removed half a wall.”

Grodd grinned. “Excellent wall.”

Vanessa pointed toward the castle’s inner keep. “We enter from the north. Grodd takes the front, Sheira deals with wards and barriers, Marcus stays behind the fighters.”

“And you?” John asked.

“I kill the vampire.”

The certainty in her answer made it sound less like a plan than a fact.

“And after that?”

“Dracula.”

John looked up. “Dracula?”

“The true power resides with Dracula himself. According to our oldest records, he lies in a casket deep beneath the castle.” Vanessa withdrew a narrow silver blade, golden light shimmering along its edge. “Whether he is dead, sleeping or waiting to be restored makes no difference. We drive this through his heart.”

Something tightened beneath John’s ribs.

“She dies, he dies, their servants die, and we burn whatever remains. The Dracula legacy ends with us.”

Rather than reassurance, John felt an inexplicable ache.

Vanessa closed the case. “Armies, priests and generations of hunters have failed against her. But after today, I think you may be the missing link.”

“You have known me for less than an hour.”

“And in less than an hour I watched you cut through creatures that should have overwhelmed you.” Vanessa held his gaze. “Join us.”

John looked toward the window, where the mountains had disappeared beneath the mist. The thought of walking away felt inexplicably wrong.

“I’ll come.”

Grodd grinned. “Excellent. John Doe is officially one of us.”

Later that evening, Sheira discovered that the crucifixes were missing.

“All six of them,” she said, rummaging through her satchel. “Gone.”

Grodd frowned. “Stolen?”

“Unless they learned to walk.”

Vanessa examined the bag. Nothing else appeared disturbed. “Someone is trying to disarm us.”

“Or something,” Sheira muttered.

Vanessa closed the satchel. “Keep the remaining weapons close. We leave at first light.”

By then, Marcus had begun preparing the herbal soup Vanessa requested. He returned carrying an iron pot and ladled out generous portions.

John glanced at the steaming bowl, and his nose wrinkled.

Vanessa noticed. “Something wrong?”

“What is that?”

“An old Van Helsing recipe. Mountain herbs that supposedly strengthen our blood and make it repugnant to vampires.”

She took a spoonful. “And garlic, of course. That’s the main ingredient.”

John raised an eyebrow. “That explains the smell. Apparently I don’t like the stuff.”

Grodd peered into his bowl. “You’ve barely tasted it.”

Vanessa pushed the bowl closer. “One sip will not kill you.”

John smiled faintly. “If you insist, I’ll get over it and have some.”

He reached for the spoon.

Marcus moved behind him carrying the iron pot, and his hand suddenly jerked.

Hot broth surged across the table before John could taste anything. He dragged Vanessa aside while Grodd seized the pot, and for the briefest instant something pale and unnatural glimmered beneath Marcus’s pupils.

Then he blinked, and it vanished.

“I… I’m sorry.” Marcus stared at the overturned bowls as though waking from sleep.

Vanessa examined the reddening skin across her hand. “Clumsy as ever, Marcus.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“Wonderful,” Sheira muttered. “Our healer has become a danger to his own patients.”

Marcus apologised again and disappeared into the kitchen for fresh water. John watched him go, remembering the compass and the unnatural gleam in his eyes. He didn’t understand a great many things, but of one thing he was certain: he could not trust Marcus.

Far beyond the village, the black bat flew through the fog and entered Dracula Castle through a turret window. Inside, the vampiress sat cross-legged in a high-backed chair, one pale hand resting against its arm while the other held a wine glass filled with something far darker and thicker than wine.

Pat settled nearby. “Mistress, they’re coming.”

The vampiress lowered her glass and laughed.

“Let them.” Her smile widened as she rose from the chair. “But for this occasion, Pat, I think I have to wear white.”