DRACULA: A VERY SPECIAL FLAVOUR

The Brooding Beast - part 3

Andrea Darlington was desperate. Leanna had been gone all night. And God knows what's happened to her.

She drank her morning tea and tried Leanna's number again. Voicemail. She swallowed the rest of the tea including the dregs, and then chucked the mug into the washing up bowl, and grabbed up her coat and keys.

There could be a rational reason for all of this. Maybe, just maybe, Leanna had stayed over with Cecile or one of her other friends. She decided to call in at Leanna's work.

At the sales office in the city, Cecile shook her head as they came out of the elevator, "She didn't stay over no...why? What's happened?"

Andrea was getting agitated now, "She never came home from the party...when I reached your place, I saw her leaving with an older man in a black car. Did she say to you where she was heading to?"

Cecile shook her head as they reached the foyer of the office, "No she didn't"

"She's still not right, she should NEVER of discharged herself from the hospital"

"I know that...but she said she was okay"

Andrea headed to the exit steps and turned, "just call me if she turns up...oh, does this older man have a name?"

Cecile nodded, "Yeah...really weird name...Count Dracula"

Andrea gasped and ran for the doors...

VV
Her head was in a whirl as she hurried back to her car that she found was clamped.

"Agggahh!"

She scratched her head and ran for the Underground. On the tube train she was starting to sweat. All she could think about was Lucy Westenra's fate. Was that her daughters fate too?

She made it back to her office and hurried into the editors suite, "Mr Randell?"

Julia, his secretary shook her head as she tidied her boss's desk, "Sorry Andrea, he's in meeting across town all day"

"Where's Andy?"

"Andy Allen? He said he was meeting someone...", Andrea didn't let her finish and ran for Andy's desk in the main office. She looked around for any clues where this meeting was. Nothing. She grabbed her iPhone and pressed call. Voicemail.

"Andy, it's Andrea...call me when you get this, I think I'm in it up to my neck!"

VV

Andrea got home and sat straight down and was on her phone. She typed in the Dr Zoe Van Helsing. She saw her picture and links to the Jonathan Harker foundation that was no longer in operation.

The link lead to nowhere.

She had to speak to this Van Helsing woman. Andy had told her that she was of some authority there. If somebody knew Count Dracula, then she did...

Her iPhone rang. She gasped when she saw that it was Leanna calling, "Oh thank God! Leanna?"

The voice was not hers.

"Is that Andrea?"

"Yes...who is this?"

"Oh come now...I think you know who I am..."

Andrea was shaking. She was hot and cold all at the same time. Her heart was racing, "Count Dracula...?"

"Yes...I must say, you really have been very busy today with all your research...I only thought it fair to call you, it saves you all the stress of finding me"