"We must develop a new strategy," the major went on. "I won't let that degenerate Dracul get away. My daughter will be the one that does the demented monster in. Jane, you will just have to keep a stiff upper lip and all that. Go once more into the breach. Once more. Imitate the action of the tiger and summon up the blood."
"Great, just great," Jane mumbled. Her father was misquoting Shakespeare again, not to mention speaking of blood. A subject that had pretty much been drained dry.
She listened listlessly as her father formed a new plan which she would be expected to execute. In her head she objected quite loudly, but on the outside she remained the perfect picture of the well-bred lady, listening politely.
Her dog, Spot—a cross between a mongrel and a mutt, with one black circle around his right eye—wandered into the room, sniffing at Jane's skirts. Jane tenderly patted his head. Spot loved her unconditionally, as her mother had done. There was no feeling quite like being loved like that, she realized.
Her father went on, "This new strategy is brilliant, and you will execute it brilliantly. You will sneak up on the earl, and he will never know what struck him."
Jane doubted that. She couldn't resist pointing out, "I imagine having a four-foot stake in the heart would be pretty obvious, most especially to the devious undead."
Her father glared at her, and Spot laid his head on her shoe. Jane sighed. Life as a Van Helsing was never easy.
Although, she could say, it was also never dull. Her family was the life of any party—of course, they mostly hung out with the undead.
Sneaking a glance out the room's large bay windows, Jane noticed a skylark feeding at her brass-plated bird feeder. What a delicate little eater the bird was. Jane smiled, wondering abstractedly if man would ever fly the skies as freely. Probably not; even her ostrich, with his large feathers, couldn't get his massive weight off the ground. No, man would never fly. Only vampires who turned into bats in the dead of the night were delegated that privilege.
More movement outside the window caught Jane's eye. "Oh my goodness," she whispered. It was the yellow-bellied sapsucker again. What a marvelous bird he was, with all his golden plumage. If only she had her drawing materials. Could she match that vivid hue? She spent hours detailing her birds.
"Jane, pay attention," her father ordered gruffly.
Again she sighed, and the bird flew away. Another day, another duty, another mission. She only hoped that this one she'd achieve.
"Troop alert, Ethel Jane! Our new strategy is a bloody fine one. Your treacherous target will never know what hit him."
"Perfect," she agreed resolutely. Curses! What had she missed by daydreaming?
Missing his daughter's peevish expression, the major raised his brandy glass in a regimental salute, saying brusquely, "Tally ho! Jane, you can do this. I know you can. Be all the Van Helsing you can be—and that is quite a lot. No bloodsucker will ever get the best of one of us, not even a female. Remember, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself."
"Well… let's not forget the big bad vampire with his big white fangs," Jane muttered, resisting the urge to give a military bow. Annoyed, she cocked her head and glared at her father's back as he turned. Her faithful dog, Spot, did the same. Picking up on Jane's agitation, he growled.
The major scowled. He had heard Jane's quietly whispered blasphemy. From leading and training men for a number of years, the major understood how bad it was when the troops were unhappy. He could tell that Jane was angry. He could hear that Spot was too. But it couldn't be helped.
"The world must be saved, and the Van Helsings are the only ones who can accomplish that objective," he reminded his daughter gruffly, hiding his disgust. To think, the world needed saving, and all he had to offer was his angry, calamity-ridden daughter!
"Remember, Jane, the early Van Helsing gets the vampire," he advised over his shoulder. "If only your brother, Brandon, were here, instead of off chasing vampires in Transylvania. Transylvania, of all places! I told him not to go there. No self-respecting vampire I know would be caught dead in that country. It's too backward."
"Dead, who's dead?" Jane's grandfather shouted as he tottered into the room, a bony hand to his ear.
Jane smiled slightly at him. He was a dear man, if a handful. "No one yet, Grandfather," she said loudly. "We were talking about the next vict—vampire to be slain."
"Capital, capital. The only good vampire is a dead vampire," her grandfather agreed. He then went about preparing several mousetraps with cheese and blood pudding.
Rubbing her forehead, Jane tried to ignore the insistent stirrings of a headache. Seven years ago, her grand-father had gotten it into his head that the ghost of Christmas present visited him on a regular basis, asking his advice on who was naughty and nice. But the ghost of Christmas present Jane could live with; after all, he only visited three times a year. What truly annoyed her was that four years ago Ebenezer had become fixated on the idea that vampire mice had invaded the house. It didn't matter that there wasn't any such thing: her grandfather was convinced. He had set about building a better mousetrap to catch the devious little suckers. In the country with Jane last year, he had even invented the coffin trap. A marvel of nineteenth-century ingenuity it would have been—if it had worked. Instead, the coffin lid, which was supposed to snap shut once its quarry laid down to rest, generally fired late and only caught the tail. As far as Jane knew, the Van Helsing properties had the best-fed mice in London—and they were all entailed.
Things that Go Bump in the Night
The purple hue of twilight filled the heavens as stars climbed higher in the sky, while Jane Van Helsing trudged sadly toward her dismal duty. The wind whipped through the trees, blowing several dead leaves westward where they caught, crackling, in the tall wrought iron fence to her right.
"My father is having partridge pie with lemon tarts tonight, and I'm having to stake for dinner," Jane grumbled to herself. Then, rhetorically she asked, "Brandon, where are you? Oh, brother, what am I to do?"
Despite Jane's abysmal record at staking vampires, the major felt too much was at stake for a staking to be postponed, so Jane was to strike immediately—make no mistake. In the process she'd be taking a life and breaking her friendship with Clair. All to make her father and dead ancestors proud. She'd rather jump in a lake.
"How I hate the smell of burning vampires in the night, and the metallic smell of spilled blood," Jane muttered, recalling the earl's attractive countenance the evening before. She recalled arriving at the masquerade ball and meeting the handsome vampire, but later in the night was all blurred. Jane felt a shiver run through her—a shiver not related to fear, but to something more primal. She almost gasped aloud, finally realizing that the feeling was desire. When she and Clair were younger, they had secretly read about certain things men and women did at night. The books had been forbidden them due to their explicit nature: their use of the word leg instead of limb.
The thought slowed Jane down, her trot subsiding to a fast walk. "No, it's too absurd. I don't desire the Prince of the Profane, the Fiend of Forever. I couldn't. Not really."
She shuddered again as the truth bored into her. She had wanted the earl to kiss her last night. She had longed to feel his cold lips upon hers. She had longed for the touch of—"It must have been the brandy," she told herself, cutting off further thought.
Humbug! What would her mother say about a daughter who felt desire, especially after all those lessons in ladylike constraint? Ladies didn't think about kissing or anything that went on in the dark of night. And while Van Helsings did, they were primarily concerned with four-foot pieces of wood and the hearty placement of them. Also, a true Van Helsing would never desire a creature who sucked down his food. Not only was that evil, it was bad for dinner parties! What would her ancestors say? They were probably turning over in their graves right now.