Chapter One
All that was left was the silver gun lying on the ground, still smoking.
"Oh, Velkan," Anna moaned, staring over the cliff where he must have fallen along with the werewolf. Slowly, painfully, she stood up. She brushed her long dark hair out of her eyes -- then froze at a crackling sound coming from the bushes. Anna crept toward the noise. She held Velkan's silver gun out in front of her and parted the branches with it.
"Werewolf!" she snarled. She cocked the gun and aimed it at the wounded creature.
But before she could get off a shot, the creature transformed into a pitiful, dying old man.
"Thank you," the man gasped. "I can die free of Dracula's awful grip."
Anna stared down at the man, who gazed up at her with pale, milky eyes. He gripped her ankle with the last strength he had. "You must stop him," the old man pleaded. "He has a terrible secret. He has --" The man coughed. "He has . . . he has . . ." At last his
fingers released Anna's ankle and his head dropped back. He was dead.
Anna knelt down beside the old man. "Don't worry," she promised. "I will find Dracula -- and destroy him once and for all!"
Van Helsing strode along the rainy cobblestone street, admiring the progress being made on the Eiffel Tower. They should have that thing finished in a few months, he thought.
A "wanted" poster recently plastered to a brick wall caught his attention. A familiar pair of eyes stared out at him. Van Helsing stepped up to the wall for a closer look. The man depicted was wanted for murder.
"A rather handsome fellow," Van Helsing noted, taking in the man's mask, long dark hair, broad-shouldered cloak, and wide-brimmed black hat.
He ran a finger along the brim of his own, identical, black hat. He flung one side of his cloak over his shoulder, then ripped the poster from the wall, crumpled it, and tossed it into the street.
"I suppose I'll need to leave Paris now," he murmured, strolling over one of the bridges that crossed the Seine. "I've become a bit too visible here."
A few days later, Van Helsing sat in a small confessional in a chapel in Vatican City, Rome. He jiggled his foot and gritted his teeth as he waited for the lecture he had coming to him. He didn't have to wait long.
The little door in the wooden panel slid open with a bang. Van Helsing couldn't see much of Cardinal Jinette, but he could easily picture the fury on the tough old man's grizzled face.
"You crashed through a window at Notre Dame!" Cardinal Jinette fumed.
"Not to split hairs," Van Helsing replied mildly, "but it was Dr. Jekyll -- or was it Mr. Hyde? -- who actually did the crashing. I just followed after him."
Cardinal Jinette continued. "Thirteenth century. Over six hundred years old! I wish you a week in hell for that."
"It would be a nice reprieve," Van Helsing muttered.
The cardinal made a few tsking sounds as he shook his head. "Don't get me wrong. Your results are undeniable, but you draw far too much attention to yourself." Van Helsing shrugged. "I do what I have to do."
"Wanted posters!" Cardinal Jinette exclaimed. "You were to keep a low profile, and what happens? Your methods result in wanted posters! Your face, your name, spread all over the city. No -- several cities!"
Van Helsing could feel himself getting angry. "Do you think I like being the most wanted man in Europe?" he demanded."Why don't you and the Order do something about it?"
Cardinal Jinette leaned toward the window and lowered his voice. "You know why," he snapped. "Because the Order does not exist."
"Then neither do I," Van Helsing snapped back. He stood and reached for the doorknob.
Then he heard a click. He tested the door to the confessional and shook his head. The cardinal had triggered a bolt to lock the door from the outside. Apparently, the conversation was not over.
"When we found you crawling up the steps of this very church, half dead, it was clear to us that you had been sent to do this work," Cardinal Jinette said.
"Why don't you just do it yourself?" Van Helsing grumbled.
The cardinal shot Van Helsing a sharp look. "Do not disrespect me or the Order. You have already lost your memory as penance for your past sins." His face moved away from the small window, and a moment later the confessional wall slid away, revealing a staircase.
Cardinal Jinette addressed Van Helsing from the top of the stairs. "If you wish to recover that memory, I suggest you continue to heed your calling. With us."
Deep down, Van Helsing knew that the cardinal did truly appreciate the risks he took for the cause. So he dropped the argument and followed Cardinal Jinette down the dark stone staircase.
They soon reached an enormous underground cavern housing the secret armory of the Order. Represen-tatives from all of the worlds' religions bustled about. They were hard at work, creating the tools and weapons of their shared mission: to rid the world of evil.
Cardinal Jinette and Van Helsing made their way past the huge furnaces where rabbis worked the bellows while Hindu priestsstoked the flames. Muslim clerics pounded red-hot scimitars on iron anvils. Catholic priests toiled beside Kabbalistic mystics pouring lead, silver, gold, and copper into molds. The place rang with the sounds of hammers and anvils, hissing steam and shouts.
Cardinal Jinette stopped to scan the scene approvingly. "Governments and empires rise and fall," he said. "But we have kept mankind safe since time immemorial. We are the last defense against the kind of evil that the rest of mankind, thankfully, has no idea even exists."
Carla Jablonski has edited and written dozens of best-selling books for children and young adults. She is also an actress, a playwright, and a trapeze artist, and has performed extensively in Scotland and in New York City. A lifelong resident of New York City, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.