Children of Van Helsing

Chapter Five - An Eccentric Stranger

Jessica

Lily and I had just taken a shower together and were both relaxed and happy, sitting on the couch with mugs of coffee and watching Doctor Who, when I heard Susanna’s car driving up to the house way to fast and breaking hysterically. A few moments after she burst through the door with my youngest sister unconscious in her arms.

“What the hell?!” I yelled.

“What happened?!” Lily asked.

I could see she was shocked. And I couldn’t blame her – they were both wounded, Reggie was unconscious and Susanna was covered in blood, and not just her own. She didn’t answer us at first but just carefully put Regina on the couch. Then she turned around to face us.

“This is difficult to explain.”

“Try me.” I said.

She took a deep breath. “We were cleaning out a nest, nothing usual, but then there was this old woman who started talking about some kind of prophecy, you know, the one written on the wall. She said Regina was ‘the one’ or some shit like that and she somehow knew that we were from the Van Helsing family, and then she got up and held some sort of black smoke in her hand and then there was this flash of light and the old woman was dead. The other three vampires in the cave attacked me but I killed them and I got Regina and managed to get to the car without being seen.”

I tried to take it all in and looked at my youngest sister again. She looked incredibly pale and her arm was bleeding.

“I’ll go get the First Aid Kit.” Lily said – she kissed me on my cheek and then quickly ran upstairs.

“What was that black smoke you were talking about?” I asked. I could hardly believe her story, but I knew she wouldn’t lie. Not to me. Not about Reggie.

“I don’t know. But she was talking about some curse – Elizabeth’s curse or something, like, straight out of a bad young adult novel.”

“Who the hell is Elizabeth?”

She shrugged. “No idea. But I have the idea it has something to do with our lovely family.”

I rolled my eyes. It was family, always family. Ours was completely torn apart due to bad relationships, differing opinions about the hunting business, anger, bitterness, grief, dead friends. All of that. So we stuck together, the three of us, and tried to live as normally as we could. But then, things like this happened, and the façade broke like a mirror falling on the sidewalk. Thousands of pieces, shards, years of bad luck. At least that never changed. Bad luck.

“As soon as she’s conscious and feels okay, we’ll have to dive into our family records.” I said. “Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know.” Susanna, always calm and responsible, sounded as if she was about to break down and cry on the floor.

“This isn’t your fault, Susy.” I said. I walked up to her and put my arm around her. “You couldn’t have known. Maybe it was just the shock. Maybe she’s okay.”

Susanna didn’t answer. Lily ran in with the First Aid Kit and started cleaning Regina’s wounds. I walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water and a wet towel. Susanna just sat by her side, looking almost as pale as Regina.

I put the towel on her forehead and was about to comfort Susanna some more, when there was a knock on the door.

“Should we open it?” Lily asked.

Susanna stayed quiet, so I got up. “I’ll make sure he or she doesn’t get in.”

I got up, quickly checked if there wasn’t any blood on me (try explaining that to a girl scout selling cookies) and opened the door, which was shut by the wind after Susanna had busted in.