The Unholy Night

Chapter XXII

"I can't fake it, I'll just make it on my own, on my own, I can't blame them, I've just got to get to my throne"

 - Grrrls by AViVA

A Transcription of Van Helsing's Phonograph Message To Jonathan Harker 

You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall make our search - if you can call it that, as we only search for confirmation, nothing more. You must stay and take care of her today. This is your best and most holiest office. Let me tell you what the four of us know already. 

Our enemy has gone away, returning to his castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, it is as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He has prepared for this in some way or other, considering how quickly that final earth box was ready to ship somewhere. That is why he took the money, so he could hurry away, lest we catch him before the sun goes down. 

It was his last hope, besides perhaps hiding in the tomb that he thought Miss Lucy might keep open for him, but there was no time for that. So he went straight for that last earthwork, his last resource. 

He is so very clever! He knew that his game here was finished, and so he decided to return home. He found a ship going by the route he came, and he went in it. And so we are off to find that ship, and where it is bound, and when we discover that, we will come back and tell you all. 

Then to comfort you and poor Madam Mina with new hope! Hope will be there when you think it is over, hope that perhaps all is not lost. 

The creature we pursue, he has taken hundreds of years to get as far as London, and yet in one day, we have learned how to dispose of him and drive him out. He is finite, after all, though he is powerful enough to do much harm to many of us, and he does not suffer as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose, and we are much stronger together. 

Be of much comfort to Madam Mina until we return. 

As I listened to the message, I became utterly convinced that Van Helsing and Dracula, twin monsters that they were, would never be able to understand each other. Dracula, with the knowledge of the centuries, would believe that someone who was an infant compared to him could not possibly defeat him, and Van Helsing, with his belief that Dracula had been alive through more primitive times, thought he could destroy him. 

So, I put the transcription in this format because I thought it would be the best way to point out everything that was wrong with it. 

He believed everyone around him was a fool, and so he thought he was the only one who could see the obvious fact that Dracula was returning to Transylvania. 

He also once again quoted the myth that vampires can't function during the day. 

He would never have made for Lucy's tomb, because after she became a vampire, he had never attempted to contact her, not to my knowledge, anyway. And hopefully she and Addy would be on their way to Transylvania shortly. My note to them had said that they shouldn't attempt to find us until they were at Borgo Pass or could see the castle. 

He didn't believe his game finished, either - he would not give up so easily. And not to mortals and girls with no idea what they were supposed to be doing, either. His surrender would not be that easy, and I doubted we would even attain it. 

We had also already known where the ship would be going, if there was one, with very little investigation. It would obviously be headed in the direction of Transylvania. 

He also hadn't taken hundreds of years to get to London. He had overthought and over-planned. I have complete confidence that if I was trying to take over the world by vampiric means with his resources, I could have done a much better job, but that's not what I'm trying to do here. I estimate that it should've taken three years of planning at most, but it's not like something was keeping him from London and he didn't have the ability to get there the entire time.