Egbert

Boy meet Boy

Van Helsing was a character created by Bram Stoker in his 1897 gothic novel entitled 'Dracula'; or as father likes to call it his very own fan fiction. Father met Stoker in the early 90's, of the nineteenth century that is, and may have let slip a supernatural secret or two. Stoker ran with it and created an entire novel. Van Helsing is another story entirely. He was real, well based off a real guy. Gerard Van Swieten.

I feel like my father is going to pop out from somewhere and strike me for even thinking of the guy.

Believe it or not at one point he was actually friends with my father, until he realised that mother was responsible for a string of vampire related incidents in the Ottoman Empire and tried to kill her. He failed obviously, and somehow father convinced him to keep vampirism a secret lest there be mass hysteria. By somehow convinced I mean compelled. Van Swieten was van sneaky and somehow convinced my mother to turn him into a vampire. And by somehow convinced, I literally mean he talked to a hundred year old vampiress and managed to actually get her to do what he asked. I think he was the reason for their separation until they got back together last century. The details at this point get blurry because no one actually talks about it and what I know I've pieced together from old journals and newspaper articles.

Anyway father thought the guy died after a naturally long lifespan, until he resurfaced a fully fledged vamp in 1899 and tried to kill him. They had a massive fight, the hotel father was staying at "caught fire", and 92 people died including Van Swieten, you know, the usual. Turns out Van Swieten had created a secret order to try and exterminate all vampires. Originally called the order of Swieten, after the novel he renamed them the order of Van Helsing because obviously he was a massive fan boy, though he didn't exactly live long enough to see it carry on. Father found the order and destroyed every single member in the most excruciating way. Generally it was just maiming, biting and dismembering. Most members of the order took on the surname Van Helsing, which in hindsight wasn't a very good idea because it made them that much easier to find.

And now there's a Van Helsing here. Not just a single one, a whole family, Scarlett has parents. If father catches wind, she's dead. Not just dead dead, painfully dead.

"Fuck." I sit up on the bed. Vikram is lying on the floor with is head buried in his comforter. I immediately ran to his house. Not for sentimentality but because he's a human and uninvited vampires can't enter human houses. That's just polite breeding. And that thing in the forest was a vampire; full blown, alive for more than two hundred years, feral, vampire. Mother and Father are old and powerful but against a feral vamp that doesn't play pretend to be human they'd meet a tough match. Feral Vampires feed every day on gallons of blood and spend years honing their strength. To survive a vampire only needs to consume blood once a month, to live comfortably, maybe every two weeks. My parents indulge and consume a gallon a week. Anymore and they'd lose their senses and go wild. Feral is a state of mind that wildly increases your strength, they switch to feral mode whenever someone threatens them which is a very rare occasion.

"So she's a Van-"

"Don't say it. Someone could hear you. Just call her a vegan." I wipe a hand over my face.

"She's a vegan. I thought they didn't exist anymore though."

"Evidently I was wrong." I rise to my feet and start pacing, hopping over Vikram. "I need to get her out of town before something bad happens.

"Something bad like your dad kills her?"

"No something bad like he gives her a basket of puppies." My best friend is an idiot. Speaking of idiots, I reach under his bed to look for the amulet. It's tucked between the wooden panelling which cannot be comfortable to sleep on. Pulling it out I have to stop from slapping my face. The amulet is made of a cool white marble, fashioned into a diamond with a ruby in the exact centre drawing power from each corner. This is a white, square rock with a red dot painted in the middle.