Brian Helsing: The World's Unlikeliest Vampire Hunter Box Set 1 - Missions 1-3

by Gareth K Pengelly

  “Well, go ask her then.”

  Brian stared at his friend, non-plussed.

  “You what?”

  “You heard; go ask her.”

  “You can’t just go up to a vampire and ask if they’re a vampire,” Brian retorted. “That’s, well… Surely there’s rules?”

  “Well how you supposed to know if you don’t ask?” Neil shrugged. “Can’t lunge at her with a stake. If you get it wrong and she’s not, what you gonna do when she’s dead on the floor with a piece of wood through her heart? Apologise?”

  Brian took a swig of his beer, gazing at the blonde woman. Neil had a point. Besides, if she wasn’t, what was the worst she could do? Think him a weirdo? Most girls did anyway. Wait, he thought suddenly. What the hell was he thinking? What if she was a vampire? He’d seen earlier what such creatures could do. If she was – impossible though it was, he reminded himself – then he’d be in a world of trouble, surely? But then, the weed reminded him, he was in a pub beer garden; she wouldn’t lunge at him all fangs and claws and sexiness in the middle of a crowd, would she?

  No, he thought. No, she wouldn’t.

  “Hold my beer,” he told Neil, thrusting the glass his way. “I’m going in.”

  Slowly, wobblingly, he made his way across the beer garden slabs towards the little trio. One of them, a short Asian lad with thick glasses, looked up, literally, at his approach.

  “Can we help you, mate?”

  Brian raised a finger to bid him shush.

  “One second, short stuff,” he told the youth, the mixture of cannabis and alcohol lending him a forthrightness his sober self lacked. “I’ve a question for the lady.” He turned to blonde haired girl, who looked up at him with a curious expression. “This might sound crazy.” He asked her. “But are you, or are you not, a vampire?”

  The girl’s two friends laughed at his ridiculous question, fully aware now that he was hammered, even if the rank scent of weed clinging about him hadn’t already forewarned them. The girl in question, however, didn’t laugh. Instead, she took a step back, eyes wide in surprise.

  “Why, whatever do you mean?” she asked. Her face and body had the appearance of a young university student, but her words had a strange sound, her tones and cadence those of a dowager countess from the nineteenth century.

  “Well,” Brian began, swaying slightly. “You see, your perfume; I met someone this morning who was wearing something similar. And my ring is vibrating, so there’s that,” he added, lifting his hand before him. The woman stared at him, confused, before glancing at the ring on his finger.

  And hissing like a scalded cat.

  “I thought so,” Brian murmured, smiling to himself, before the consequences of the revelation finally hammered their way into his drug-addled mind. “Oh,” he whispered. “Shit.”

  The pretty young girl bared her teeth, her until-now normal canines now long and razor sharp.

  “Beth…?” the Asian lad ventured, mouth gawping like a goldfish. “What’s…?”

  “Oh fuck off, Sanjay,” the girl spat. “You always knew I was out of your league. Now you know why.”

  The crowd began to disperse about the little group, leaving only Brian and the vampire in the little circle, lit only by the orange glow from the patio heaters. Brian gulped.

  “I was only curious,” he told her, holding his hands up as if to placate her. “No need for things to get ugly. Want me to buy you another drink? Prosecco wasn’t it?”

  “A drink?” she spat, laughing in contempt, a reaction to which he was already strangely inured. “You’re the new Helsing!”

  “How the…?” he started, bewildered. “I only found out myself five minutes ago!”

  “Then ten minutes shall make you the shortest serving Helsing yet,” she smiled evilly. He stared at her, confused, so she continued, rolling her eyes. “Because you’ll be dead in five?”

  “Oh. Well… I’d rather I wasn’t.”

  “I’m sure,” she cackled. “And if ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas…”

  “That… I’m not sure I actually set you up for that,” Brian told her, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “Do I look like I give a crap?” the vampire asked him, before lunging forwards, her nails now grown long and knife-sharp, soaring through the air towards his throat. Out of sheer, panic-fuelled instinct, he leant backwards, those razor-nails just missing his exposed Adam’s apple. Staggering, he righted himself just in time to see her foot swinging towards him, a Primark high-heel aiming straight for his temple. Half-closing his eyes, he raised an arm to fend the attack away. Her long, slim leg rebounded away from his forearm. For some reason, the blow didn’t hurt as much as he’d been expecting. The girl, however, staggered backwards, unbalanced, limping as if in pain.

  “You’re strong,” she snarled.

  Brian stared down at his forearm.

  “Erm… I am?”

  The vampiress spat on the beer garden floor.

  “You mock me? I’ve lived for centuries,” she hissed. “You are but a child, ring or no. And your first day as Helsing shall be your last!”

  With that last scathing cry, she launched herself forwards, teeth bared and aimed for his neck. With a whimper, he flailed his arms once more, this time, out of luck more than anything, catching her across the face with one fist. A sharp crack filled the air as his hand connected and, as if filled with helium, the girl flew backwards through the air to crash upon a table. Brian opened his eyes, surprised to find his neck blissfully un-punctured and the girl struggling upon the wreckage of the table. From her chest, a spike of broken, splintered table leg, covered in black, stringy blood. Her wide eyes gleamed with hatred as her hands clutched pathetically at the length of wood that transfixed her to the floor.

  “How…?” she whispered as dark gushes of blood spilled from her mouth to trail down to her ridiculously-ample-given-the-horrific-situation cleavage. “You’re such an… idiot…”

  With that, her struggles ceased. And dark fire erupted to reclaim her soulless body and return its desecrated form to the Earth, where it could once more be remade into something wholesome and less offensive to nature.

  Silence descended upon Penzance Wetherspoon’s. The Asian lad, Sanjay, stared first at the dark, burnt outline that was all the remained of his friend, then finally dragged his eyes up to Brian. The other drinkers, too, regarded him with stares, at once disbelieving and afraid. After several long, awkward moments, Brian turned his own gaze to his friend, Neil, the man stood there, exhaling a long cloud of pent up marijuana smoke into the night air.

  “Shazam!” Neil called out, with a fist pump to the air and a grin on his face.

  Chapter Five: Oh.

  Thankfully, the police had been less than interested in the fracas in the beer garden. Sanjay and others had detained Brian, surrounding him in an angry ring of drunkards until the coppers had arrived. He murdered a girl, they’d told the police. And yet the distinct lack of a body had called their collective integrity into question. And after hearing the affirmations that her corpse had vanished in a cloud of black flames, the cops had merely glanced side-long at each other, eyebrows raised. The smell of Neil’s weed smoke had hung heavy over the beer garden and the coppers had resigned themselves to the fact that they’d been called out to deal with a group of very high, very bizarre merry-makers, who’d clearly all suffered from some strange mass-hallucination.

  And thus, Brian had escaped his first murder – if murder the accidental impaling of an undead demon of the night could be called – totally scot-free.

  His dreams, during what little booze-aided sleep he’d managed that night, had been haunted by visions of lithe, buxom women, their pretty faces twisted by fangs and eyes that glimmered with bloodlust, each of them dying in some brutal accident of his own unwitting making. Even now, sat in the passenger seat of Neil’s Impreza, cradling his throbbing head against the burble of its dust-bin exhaust, he st
ill couldn’t rid himself of the images of the night before. Had it really happened? Judging from Neil’s excited chatter beside him, yes, yes it had. His friend’s reaction had puzzled him; shouldn’t Neil have been scared by it all? Instead, he seemed buzzing, almost loving this strange new world that Brian had been so suddenly and violently thrust into. He should, by all rights, have been terrified. As Brian was himself.

  But no, intrigued and excited he remained, using even his day off from work to shuttle an unwilling Brian to St Michael’s Mount, to seek out these strange mentors Helsing had hinted at. I suppose I don’t have anything better to do, Brian thought darkly. I mean, every day is my day off now. And even washing-up liquid had failed to remove this accursed ring.

  And so, as they drove along the coastal road, the majestic castle upon its private island rising above the bay, Brian sighed. This was his life now, he thought, resigning himself to this strange twist in his fate. So far it had proved scary and surprising in equal measure, both feelings that Brian tried to avoid as much as he could in his life. The Subaru screeched into Marazion’s car park, the tourists who’d come to visit the quaint village and its soaring castle scattering like birds before a waking bear as it spat, popped and burbled, gifting them dark looks as they darted out of their way.

  Such a chav-mobile, Brian thought to himself, shrinking back into the Recaro bucket seat in embarrassment.

  “Tide’s out,” Neil declared, wholly unabashed, staring out at the sea as he finally, thankfully, switched off the thundering engine. “We’ll be walking across. Just think,” he grinned, punching Brian on his shoulder, “ten minutes and you might finally have some answers.”

  Brian groaned.

  “I’m not sure I want them,” he replied. “I want my bed. I want to veg out on my settee and play some Xbox. Can’t bump into any more monsters if I don’t leave my house.”

  “Don’t be a pussy all your life,” Neil chastised him with a chuckle. “Now come on; destiny awaits.”

  Destiny was at home on his Xbox, Brian thought darkly. Destiny 2, in fact. He’d not even gotten around to opening the wrapper yet. Would he ever? Was he even in control of his own life anymore? It certainly didn’t feel like it as he slowly, begrudgingly, climbed out of the car and followed Neil who was already walking down the path towards Marazion itself. The cluster of pubs, cafes and shops sat on the coast of Mount’s Bay, overlooking the eponymous island, upon which rose, like some mediaeval wizard’s fortress, the castle itself. Strolling past dogs, pushchairs, tourists randomly stopping and taking selfies in front of the spectacular view, Brian and Neil finally reached the cobbled causeway that forged a path across the sea to the island a quarter mile out.

  The castle loomed above them as they traversed the sea, drawing nearer and nearer. Brian had lived in Penzance all his life, the view across Mount’s Bay so normal to him now that he always wondered why tourists flocked down to this craggy nubbin of land that stretched out into the Atlantic. And yet, as he drew near the towering mount, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of history pressing down upon him. It was intimidating. But then most things were for him.

  “Where do you think we need to go?” Neil asked, waving away a spotty young National Trust guide who proffered pamphlets and maps their way.

  Brian shrugged, gazing about the island’s small harbour and its cluster of granite cottages.

  “No clue, mate. I didn’t even want to come here.” At Neil’s insistent stare, he sighed. “Helsing said something about ‘the masters,’ whoever they are.”

  At his overheard words, the spurned young tour guide’s eyes widened suddenly and, to the pair’s surprise, he sauntered closer, looking furtively left and right as he did.

  “You’re here to see the Masters?” he whispered conspiratorially.

  Brian darted a look of warning to Neil, wanting nothing more than to turn back towards the mainland, but Neil merely grinned.

  “Yeah, we’re here to meet them. We were told we could find them here. Something about destiny, vampires, and whatnot.”

  The youth’s mouth opened wide, then he nodded slowly as if in understanding, his eyes taking in Neil’s blue eyes, square jaw, muscled shoulders.

  “You must be the new Helsing,” he gasped. “The Chosen One…”

  Brian coughed, before raising his hand in front of him, flashing the sovereign ring inscribed with the cross.

  “Actually, I’m the, err, Chosen One,” he mumbled.

  The tour guide’s eyes moved from Neil to Brian, scanning him, starting way up at his head with its wispy tufts of light brown, near-ginger hair, down past his gaunt face with its watery brown eyes like two congealed cups of tea, before descending and taking in his body, all limp, noodle-arms and lanky, pipe-cleaner legs. The youth’s smile flickered slightly.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh…?” Brian frowned, but before he could protest further, the youth turned and started up the path and across the harbour, heading for the landscaped gardens at the foot of the Mount.

  “If you’ll follow me, please. I’ll take you to the Masters.”

  “What does ‘oh’ mean?” Brian called after him, hurrying to keep up as Neil chuckled beside him. He turned to his friend, frown still plastered to his face. “What did he mean by that?”

  “You’re probably just taller than he was expecting,” Neil suggested.

  Brian nodded, staring daggers into the tour guide’s back as they continued under an arched gateway, other National Trust guides sidling out of the way as their escort waved them through. Up the main flagstone drag leading to the castle they strode, before veering left at the foot of the great, stone steps, and along a gravel path through the ornamental gardens at the Mount’s base. A thin rope twixt two upright poles on either side of the gravel path barring their way ahead, their guide removing it, gesturing for them to pass. They did as told, the youth replacing the rope with great reverence before turning to them, greasy teenaged face serious.

  “You’re entering the Sanctum of the Helsings,” he told them in a voice hushed and full of foreboding. “A place of forbidden secrets, arcane knowledge, kept safe and secure from the outside world.”

  Brian stared down at the thin rope that swayed in the gentle breeze, on the other side of which, but a dozen feet away, a pack of tourists standing taking photos of the gardens behind them.

  “Yes,” he commented dryly. “A veritable Fort Knox.”

  The tour guide rolled his eyes.

  “Not the gardens, obviously. Now follow me, please.”

  Once more, they followed on behind the teen, crunching through gravel, the scent of lavender and various other herbs that Brian’s unrefined nose could never hope to name wafting up from the low hedges on either side. Finally, as they rounded the back of the Mount, the castle looming like some disapproving parent high above, a door there in the very bedrock of the island. Hewn from thick oak, banded and studded with dark iron, the door looked impenetrable. Upon a small, round plaque in the centre of the door, the very same cross as that on Brian’s ring.

  “Here’s your Fort Knox,” the lad told Brian, before banging loudly on the wood.

  Moments passed, then suddenly an eye-slit near the middle of the door slid open with a metallic screech. An eye gazed out, blinking in the sunshine, darting suspiciously back and forth between Brian and Neil, before settling on the tour guide.

  “What’s this, Steve?” a dry voice barked from within. “Why are you bringing strangers to our hallowed enclave?”

  “It’s the Chosen One, Master Friedrick,” the boy they now knew to be called Steve replied. “He’s arrived.”

  “Oh, good!” the voice replied, altogether more cheery now. “We’ve been expecting you. One second, let me unbolt the door.”

  With that, the visor slit slammed shut and noise began from behind the wood, that of bolts sliding open, keys turning, chains unlatching. For long moments the noises continued, working their way slowly down the height of the door, as Brian and
Neil glanced at each other. Steve stood there, tapping a foot, gazing round at nothing in particular as though embarrassed at how long it was taking. Finally, the last lock had been undone, the door creaking open, and a figure rolled out into the weak sunshine; Master Friedrick. The elderly man’s face was beaming with a smile, and he regarded them with his eyes; one good, normal as it should be, all eye-like and such; the other just a whirring monocle of brass and different lenses that flicked in and out on thin wire arms as he tried to focus on his guests. And yet this strange bionic eye wasn’t even the standout feature of the man, they realised with a start. For he sat on – or rather in, for no legs had he – a wheelchair, four-wheeled and powered by a tiny, smoke-spitting steam engine at the rear, and seemingly controlled by a vast array of small brass levers by his side.

  As the two newcomers stood, struck dumb by the sight, Friedrick reached forth towards Neil with one gnarled, withered hand.

  “Welcome, Helsing,” he beamed.

  Neil raised his eyebrows, before nodding pointedly towards Brian. Master Friedrick followed his gaze, craning his neck up and focusing on the second man with his strange bionic eye.

  “Oh.”

  Chapter Six: The Heimlich Manoeuvre

  It was warm in the Sanctum, Brian mused. Considerably more so than the October air without. The air was thick with strange scents as the three, Brian, Neil and Steve, walked along the long, stone-hewn corridor, lit only by dim oil lamps on either side, following the puffs of smoke popping out from Friedrick’s exhaust as he steamed his way along.

  “I have to say,” Master Friedrick told Brian as they continued on their way. “I was expecting you sooner. Helsing XII’s candle went out yesterday morning.”

  Brian frowned.

  “Well, that’s a day,” he replied. “I mean, it’s not like I went on two-week Med cruise in the meantime, is it? I’d say a day is good going, to be fair.”