Michael Belmont and the Heir of Van Helsing (The Adventures of Michael Belmont) (48 page)

He emerged to see Dagon looming over him in laughter.
 
“And just where do you think you’re going?
 
Are you that eager to have your miserable life put to an end?”

“Let’s move things along,” they heard Alucard call from shore.
 
Liam turned to see him standing there leaning upon his sword, the bodies of the fish-man strewn about his feet.
 
“We’re working against the clock here, remember?”

Dagon screeched in fury as he glared down to see the fate of his minions.

“YOU’LL PAY FOR TH—”

Even before he could finish, the orca was upon him, biting him around the waist and pulling him down.

Alucard watched as the pool filled up with violent thrashing and splashing.
 
Water flew in every direction.
 
It was like standing in the rain on a gusty day, and the thuds and screams of battle echoed off the cavern walls all around him.

He immediately began to regret letting Liam take on the creature alone.
 
What had he been thinking?
 
Even if the boy could turn into an orca, he was still just a boy.
 
Alucard watched the battle closely, looking for an opportunity to jump in, but just as he was getting ready to strike, the fighting stopped.

Liam swam in and changed form, casting himself onto the rocks and staggering toward Alucard as fast as his legs would carry him, dragging the lance in tow.
 
He dropped it to the ground at his feet while coughing and gagging and spitting furiously, clenching his stomach with both hands.

“Are you alright?” Alucard asked, grabbing ahold of him and looking for blood or other signs of injury.

Liam nodded, and turned away as he vomited upon the rocks.
 
“YUCH,” he shouted angrily.
 
“You think that thing smelled bad?”
 
He vomited once more before turning to face Alucard.
 
“Well that wasn’t anything compared to the way he tasted.”

Alucard cringed, trying not to imagine it.
 
He turned to see Dagon, floating in two halves upon the surface of the water.

Digging her heels into the ground, Magda held her daggers out to shield her body, and braced for the coming impact.

“Don’t hurt them,” Abigail pleaded with her.
 
“They’re members of my family.”

“WEREWOLVES are part of your family?
 
What are you
talking
about Abigail?
 
You’re delusional!”

Raymond, who had fully assumed his wolf form, lunged for her, but she sidestepped and gave him a sharp kick to the rear, using his own momentum to send him flying through the air.

“This is my Uncle Link,” she said, slowly backing away from the approaching wolf-man.
 
He growled at her menacingly as the heels of his boots clomped across the floor.
 
His clawed hands were out to his sides as if he were preparing for a quick-draw, but Abigail couldn’t see beneath his dirty leather duster to find out if his guns were strapped on.
 
“He’s not a werewolf, he’s just a shape-shifter.
 
But that one attacking you
is
a werewolf, so don’t get bit.
 
His name is Raymond.”

“Great,” Magda told her.
 
“Now that we’ve all been introduced maybe you could ask them to stop trying to kill us.”

“It’s not them, it’s Mihnea,” she said, glaring up at him.
 
“He’s controlling them somehow.”

“Yes, vampires can sometimes control wolves,” Magda agreed as she dodged a few snaps of the werewolf boy’s teeth.
 
“Dracula was known to be a great master of them.”

“And his skills pale in comparison to mine,” Mihnea laughed.
 
“But look at the bright side, Abigail, at least you’re getting the chance to say goodbye.”

Link’s eyes were full of fury as he continued toward her, but for some reason he wasn’t attacking.
 
For some reason, he hesitated.

“Maybe you recognize me,” Abigail told him.
 
“You do, don’t you, Uncle Link?
 
Please, please say that you recognize me.”

He crept closer, watching her like a wolf might eye a rabbit, but as she spoke to him, something in his expression changed.
 
She could see the conflict going on inside his head.
 
He was struggling, fighting Mihnea’s control.

But Abigail wasn’t the only one who noticed it.

“KILL HER!” Mihnea commanded him.
 
“DO IT NOW, YOU
WORTHLESS
SLAVE!”

Link fell to his knees and put his hands to his head, howling out in agony.
 
His hat fell to the ground and Abigail saw the sweat begin to bead up on his forehead.

She turned to see Magda continuing her fight with Raymond.
 
She was breathing heavily.

“If he bites me, Abigail, then I’m biting
you
!”

“Then
don’t
let him bite you,” she shot back.

“Easy for you to say!” Magda yelled.

Link let out a final ear-piercing screech before falling flat on his face and sprawling out lifelessly.
 
Abigail burst out in tears and sank down beside him.

“Please don’t be dead,” she whispered to him.
 
“I love you, Uncle Link.
 
Please don’t be dead.
 
We need you.
 
Please, please, please….”

The sounds of battle mingled with Mihnea’s laughter and echoed through the chamber, but it all seemed to fade away into nothingness as Abigail ran her fingers through her uncle’s hair.
 
She raised his arm a few inches off the ground and let it drop.
 
She pushed open his eyelid to reveal a bloodshot, rolled-back eyeball.
 
She tried to check for a pulse, although she wasn’t sure she was doing it right, and felt nothing.

“No,” she wept miserably.
 
“You can’t be gone.
 
You can’t be.”
 
She sat there for a few moments weeping and holding his hand.
 
First Michael and now her uncle?
 
She felt like her heart was melting away within her.

“Abby, I need your help,” Magda called to her.
 
“I’m sorry about your uncle, but if you want me to subdue your friend without killing him, then get over here and help me.”

Abigail looked up at her and wiped the tears from her face.
 
“I-I’m COMING,” she yelled.

She began to rise, but out of nowhere a large hand grabbed her around the throat and began to squeeze.

Link jumped to his feet, and lifted the small girl high into the air.
 
He glared into her eyes, and this time all signs of hesitation were gone.
 
Only malice remained.

NO, Abigail tried to scream, but the word never came.
 
She sputtered and strained and gasped for air.

“FIGHT HIM, ABIGAIL!
 
YOU HAVE TO FIGHT HIM!”

Magda barely managed to pull her arm away from Raymond’s snapping jaws before punching him hard in the nose.
 
The blow disoriented him, and he staggered backwards, letting out a series of sharp sneezes.

Magda sprinted across the room to the aid of her friend.
 
“FIGHT HIM ABBY, HIT HIM.
 
NOW!”

Abigail felt as if her head might pop off.
 
The world began to blur, and she struggled to remain conscious.
 
Time seemed to slow down as she watched Magda charge up from behind and bury a small silver dagger up to the hilt in her uncle’s shoulder.

She dropped to the floor with a painful thud, and looked up just in time to see Magda dodge away from her uncle’s backhanded swing.

“Wh-why did you do that?” Abigail barked at her.
 
“YOU STABBED MY UNCLE!”

“Abby, he was about to KILL you.”

“NO HE WOULDN’T HAVE,” she insisted.

Raymond came at her like a bolt of lightning, but Abigail heard him and ducked just in time.
 
He flew over her head and crashed into Link, knocking him back into one of the dragon-shaped obelisks.

Magda grabbed Abigail by the arm and spun her around.
 
“Abby, I’ll try not to kill them, but we’re going to have to hurt them to get them to stop.
 
It’s the only way.”

“Don’t you DARE,” Abigail warned her.
 
“There
has
to be another way.”

Their attackers were upon them once more.
 
Link grabbed Magda and lifted her into the air, squeezing his nails into her arms.
 
She squealed in pain and kicked him hard in the stomach several times, but it didn’t seem to faze him.
 
He looked her in the face and snarled before casting her aside like an unwanted rag doll.
 
Then he went for Abigail.

Raymond seized the opportunity and leapt for Magda, but she caught hold of his neck and managed to hold him at bay as his teeth snapped furiously just inches from her face.
 
Foam and spit splashed out as he chomped.

Link again seized Abigail and held her up by the arms as he’d done to Magda, looking her in the face like he was trying to remember something.

“Come on, Uncle Link.
 
Fight this!
 
I know you can do it, you have to FIGHT MIHNEA.”
 

Mihnea began speaking again, and once more Link’s face cringed in agony.

“Please, Uncle Link, please,” Abigail pleaded tearfully.

She looked up at Mihnea and wept, praying that the man who held her was strong enough, and loved her enough to overcome this spell.

And then something happened that she did not at all expect.
 
Michael leapt down from a hole in the ceiling and landed with a heavy blow right on Mihnea’s head.

Michael fell from the hatch door, straightening his legs for the strike, and dropped a good fifteen feet before landing with a crack directly onto Mihnea's head.

The villain crumbled to the ground along with his attacker.
 
It took Michael several moments to draw back the air that had been knocked from his lungs, and as soon as he got his bearings he lunged for Mihnea, punching him hard across the face.
 
Then he punched him again, and again, and again.
 
He noticed the Sword of Van Helsing hanging from his victim’s belt and went for it, but the vampire pushed him hard against the chest, and Michael stumbled back, tripping over Mihnea’s legs and landing on the floor.

Elizabeth looked down at them in shock.
 
“M-Michael?”
 
She placed her hand over her mouth.
 
“What’s going on?
 
I don’t understand this!”
 
She scanned the throne room in terror.
 
The vampire's hold over her had been broken.

Mihnea leapt to his feet, looking down upon him from a strange angle.
 
It appeared that his neck was broken.
 
He reached up and took hold of his head, and with pain in his face snapped it sharply back into place.
 
“I’m impressed,” he said.
 
“But I’ve had just about enough of your meddling.
 
So, you think you can fly, do you?”
 
He picked Michael up by the front of his shirt and threw him toward the bottom floor as if he were spiking a football.

He heard several people scream his name at once as he sped toward the floor, and then felt someone jump up and catch him, as gently as was possible, before tumbling to the floor once more.

Michael opened his eyes to see his uncle, frowning down at him in confusion, and behind his shoulder, up on the balcony, Mihnea struggling with Elizabeth to calm her down, but it didn’t seem to be working.
 
Link turned to look just as Mihnea slapped her hard across the face.
 
She fell down out of their sight.

Link immediately lunged to his feet and sprung toward them, a look of murder filled his eyes.
 
He jumped up and seized the edge of the balcony, but as he was pulling himself up Mihnea tried to take control of him once more.
 
He let go and clasped the sides of his head, falling back to the floor with a heavy thud.

Michael turned to find Magda and Abigail at his side.
 
Together, they ran and hid out of Mihnea’s sight in front of the throne.

“We need to get the sword from Mihnea somehow,” Michael told them.

“How are we supposed to do that?” Abigail asked.
 
“He’s up there and we’re stuck down here trying to hold off Uncle Link and Raymond.
 
Hey, where
is
Raymond anyway?”

“He ran off when Michael attacked Mihnea,” Magda told them.
 
“I’m not sure where he went.”

“Alright, listen.
 
We need to act quickly.
 
Let’s all three of us rush up there and attack him together.
 
We have to do it now, while he’s struggling to get Uncle Link under his control.
 
I’ll take the left staircase and you two take the right.
 
Have you still got plenty of daggers left?” he asked Magda.

She nodded.
 
“Abby, take this bottle of holy water.
 
Dip your chain whip in it, and when we get up there, try to throw the rest in his face.”
 

“Good idea,” Michael agreed.
 
“Let me dip a few arrows in that too.”

Magda held the bottle while Michael and Abigail submerged their weapons, and then she handed Abigail the bottle.