"Vampires, vampires everywhere, and not one dropped. To think!" the major accused, his tone full of anger.
Oh no, Jane thought. Her father was getting worse. He was always seeing vampires here, there and everywhere, but lately his obsession had gotten so bad that the manor halls were decked with boughs of garlic.
"You rushed, daughter. And once again you fell flat!" the major growled.
Yes, she had failed at her task of destroying the Earl of Wolverton. But really, did her father have to get so red faced about the whole affair? She was the one who'd taken the plunge.
"It may not have been one of my finer moments. In fact, it might be considered one of my lowest moments," Jane conceded ruefully. Still, she was the one whose labors had borne no fruit after risking her life to go literally out on a limb. She was the one with the broken fingernails and bruised hip and elbows. And not forgotten was yet another gown ruined in her trek through danger.
"If I keep ruining gowns like this, I shall soon have nothing to wear," she complained.
"Gowns! Who cares about gowns at a time like this? Dracul is in town, Jane, and you speak of clothes?"
"I feel rather like that nursery rhyme—Humpty Dumpty." And all the prince vampires and all the major's men couldn't put her back together again.
"Nursery rhymes and vampires don't mix, Jane," her father retorted curtly.
Jane nodded. She was heartily sick of everything. She was tired of feeling less important than the clueless humanity amongst whom she lived. She was sick of not being pretty enough for society, a duckling in a world of swans. She was bored of never being clever enough or enough of a Van Helsing to suit her father's staunch convictions of what she was and should be. If only women had more rights: the right to decide their own futures, the right to be heard. Well, Jane amended, she could be heard, but the men in her life rarely listened—except for her brother Brandon and Frederick Frankenstein.
Sometimes she really hated being under her father's' thumb, just like all good daughters and wives everywhere. She was tired of treading water, close to drowning at all times. If people could only accept her for who she was. But, then, who was she if not her father's disappointment, the butt of her cousins' jokes?
To the gentlemen of the ton she was a wallflower. She was Clair's dear friend, Brandon's sweet sister and Spot and Orville's beloved mistress. It was strange, she thought ruefully, that she could see the reflection of herself in other people's eyes, but never quite clearly in her own.
"Now pay attention, Jane. The whole art of war with the undead consists of getting at what is buried on the other side of the graveyard," the major insisted. Jane knew that he had stolen the quote from the Duke of Wellington, giving it a slight revision.
"So, we had a slight setback, Papa," she admitted softly. "I am sorry. It's just that my braid got entwined in the tree limbs, and I lost my timing. It could have happened to anyone."
Bitterly resigned and in a foul humor, the major barked, "No, Jane, it could only happen to you."
"I made a mistake, Papa. It's not the end of the world," Jane said, her back still aching from her ignominious leap. She knew that, in spite of all his harshness, her father cared for her. Perhaps not as much as he did for Brandon, but he did care—although he rarely acknowledged it.
She would pay for her incautiousness. Outraged, the major's face turned even redder under his silver-brown hair. "Not the end of the world? Not the end of the world! It very well could be if that dastardly Prince of Darkness decides to suck the human race dry!" the major spluttered.
"Don't you think that's a bit melodramatic? Even Dracul couldn't drink England dry. No one has that big an appetite."
The major shook his head. "Jane, Jane, where did I go wrong with you? I took you to the crypts when you were still in swaddling. I lined your nursery with garlic, gave you padded stakes and dolls that bit, yet you choose to look out the window at birds. Birds! I gave you the best education a vampire hunter could buy. What do I get for my troubles? A calamity, Jane!"
"I did my best."
"Then do better," the major retorted coldly. He rested his arm on the fireplace mantel and lowered his head.
Jane stared into space, somber. Her normally stoic father looked defeated. She hated the expression he was wearing, making her feel crushing guilt once again. She hated disappointing him as she was always doing, over and over. She was the only daughter in the Van Helsing family for over three generations, which had made growing up with her brother and cousins—all male, tallyho! vampire executioners—extremely difficult. She was never as strong or courageous as they. Where her cousins longed for more slaying, more sport, more gambling and other less gentlemanly pursuits, she longed for a family and children, or to fly free like her beloved birds. The major was proud of his son and ashamed of her. That fact rankled and hurt with equal intensity. Yet, Jane loved her father in spite of his cruelty to her. She loved and wanted to be loved by her family.
"You will go to the Huntsley house party you told me about," the major ordered. "There you will be able to get the earl alone and strike."
"That would be disloyal to Clair. One doesn't stake one's host's guests," Jane replied icily, her silver-green eyes shooting sparks. "It just isn't done in polite society."
Major Van Helsing sighed. His daughter looked petite and dainty, but she was a little devil when riled: a regrettable character failing that came from her mother's side of the family. The girl was being silly—no doubt due to her foolish womanly constitution.
"Loyalty is a fine thing, but saving the world is more important. That diabolic, devious Dracul must be stopped. And you must be the one to do the deed! Clair will get over your bad manners when she realizes what a viper she has brought to her bosom."
Jane scowled at her father. His assurances were hardly reassuring. "The house party will have many guests. Count Dracul will be surrounded."
"You can get him alone, Jane. I know you can. You must act the mysterious seductress—without the seduction, of course," the major clarified. "It's the same plan as at the ball, but with no brandy."
Jane arched her eyebrow. She had never been one to turn gentlemen's heads, and this time she'd have no mask to hide behind. "Sir, you know well I hold little interest for gentlemen. I am almost twenty-three years of age, and in that time I have only received two gentlemen callers—and they didn't really want me." One was an author looking to write a book about the Van Helsings and vampires. Fiction, of course, since no one outside the business truly believed in such matters.
Her second suitor had family connections to several lumber mills. He had only been interested in a contract for producing Van Helsing stakes and mallets at a tidy profit. He had even wanted to introduce a new line of Van Helsing mallets called hammers, and to put them on sale to the great unwashed public. Her father had quickly vetoed both the idea and the suitor.
"You will do as I command, and I will have no shillyshallying due to 'female sensibilities.' Van Helsings do not have female sensibilities," he assured her.
Jane shook her head. Seduction by a virgin? No. Make that seduction by a spinster virgin who was not a beauty. As a strategy, it was quite daring—and quite imbecilic. Once again, Jane would be made to play the fool, not to mention made to betray her best friend. She felt her eyes well with unshed tears, and her nose became stuffy.
"I don't think I can," she said.
"You will, or Spot will be turned out in the streets, and that infernal bird of yours will be sent to the butcher."
"No." Jane gasped in horror.
"Yes!" Absorbed in his scheming, the major began to pace. "This is war, Jane. And war is hell."
Jane's sniffles vanished. Oh no, she thought. Not the old war-is-hell speech. If she'd heard it once, she'd heard it a thousand times. Make that a thousand and one times, she accepted silently. Now her father would march up and down, limping slightly with his gout, gesturing into the air. He would get so carried away that he would go back to his earlier training days. Jane could almost hear "The Battle Hymn of the Van Helsings" playing in the background.
Restlessly, she picked up a training manual on the effects of silver chains on vampire flesh. Pretending to thumb through it, she instead looked at the catalogue of fashions for young ladies she had inserted inside. The colorful images were from the fashion magazine La Belle Assemble.
As her father continued his tirade, Jane would take a glance at the pictures and then at him as she pretended to listen and read. The major never noticed, caught up in his fervor.
"I. know it's not easy for you young men"—the major stopped and rephrased—"you young ladies—young lady—but you must go forth and battle the enemy. It takes stern courage, and keeping your senses sharp and your wits keen. But you can do it. For this war, this hellish war, is a necessary evil to stop a truer evil from spreading across the world. When you look in your mirror tonight, think brave thoughts. Know that you fight for the souls of the living. Know that you fight a war for the world, with our battlefield, the earth. I know there will be casualties—"
You can say that again, Jane thought sarcastically. Her father's wars were hell. She'd already lost her peach gown to a tree, and her Cleopatra costume to a mud puddle. She'd endured a horrid headache from overindulgence in brandy, and she was bruised and sore from her fall from the tree. Yes, there had been casualties. She reluctantly turned her attention back to her father.
"—But fear cannot keep you from doing your duty. I know you will succeed. So, tallyho, men. Tallyho!" the major voiced gustily and listened to the echo of his own voice.
"Yes, war is hell, men," he continued, "but somebody has to fight it. Why, I remember a vampire hunt in 1795, when I was just a young man. I had gotten accidentally locked in a crypt with seven bloodsuckers. Seven, and I had only three stakes to my name. Luckily, I carried my model six with me that night."
Jane rolled her eyes. The 1795 vampire story again? She wanted to giggle at the thought of her father trying to stake a vampire with a model six stake. The #6 was huge and difficult to wield, though it could take down an elephant. Happily, there were no such things as vampire elephants. However, there were vampire demons, which were what the model six had been designed to slay. But to use the #6 required two men to shove it into the demon's gut area where the demon's heart was located.
Jane knew the ending of this tale. Her father had exposed most of his foes to sunlight. Still, she raised a brow. The last time she had heard the 1795 hunt story, there were five vampires. The time before, there had been four. The story kept getting fishier and fishier. The number of vampires grew bigger. It was a whale of a tale her father was telling now, with more vampires than he could fry.
Suddenly she heard a loud thwack to her right. A small arrow-stake was embedded in the wall next to a painting.
She gasped, her eyes searching around for the shooter. Her grandfather, Ebenezer, was squatted down behind the green divan, his bow in hand. She shook her head. He had almost shot a Van Dyck! Like a governess reprimanding her wayward ward, Jane held out her hand, determinedly demanding that her grandfather surrender his bow. The wiry old gentlemen glared at her fiercely, a look of wounded dignity on his face and at odds with his silver hair, which was sticking straight up.
Jane sighed, feeling like she was standing before a dike, trying to plug up all its leaks with her fingers. But the more she tried, the more holes opened. Soon she wouldn't have enough digits. Of course, she could always go to Clair's uncle Victor and ask that he add a sixth finger to her hand.
Jane's grandfather, watching her warily, shuffled backward, still in his crouch.
"Give me the bow, Grandfather," she said.
"Humbug, Jane. I almost got the sneaky devil, but the clever little imp ran in here. So, you see why you can't have it, my dear—I have to get the nasty little bloodsucker."
Her grandfather must mean some vampiric mouse he was chasing. Fortunately she knew there were no such things as vampire mice, just as there were no such things as vampire elephants. "I can't have you shooting up the house," she said. Her headache was growing' worse. She wanted to scream.
Her father stopped reminiscing about the good old staking days, and brusquely ordered, "Come now, Father. Let us put up the bow and arrows. It's still too light for the little buggers to be out of their tiny little coffins." He beckoned pompously to his sire.
Ebenezer stood, unrolling his long form and shaking his head side to side. "While Van Helsing's away, the mice will play."
"If you will give me the bow, Grandfather, I will take a watch for you. I know you're tired and you need your rest," Jane cajoled.
The old man smiled, at last handing her the tiny bow and arrows. Then he followed his son, the major, out of the room. Briskly he turned and saluted, confirming what Jane knew to be true: "I shall return."
Jane went over to the wall where the Van Dyck hung and yanked the arrow out. She wasn't even plugging the holes in the dike any longer; she was already drowning.