The lantern light didn’t reach far into the catacombs beneath Rome. It barely touched the glint of the iron mask.
Van Helsing’s blood turned to ice. "You know nothing about me."
Van Helsing stood alone on the smoking castle steps, the Frankenstein Monster at his feet like a lost dog. He looked at his hands—the hands of an angel, a killer, a forgotten ghost.
The Monster blinked its sad, yellow eyes.
Van Helsing ripped off his mask. The monster saw the face beneath—a face that held no fear, only the weary arithmetic of a man who had killed too many things to remember. He drove a stake of blessed oak into Hyde’s heart.
Flashes: a battlefield. A cross. A fallen angel named Gabriel kneeling before a dark lord and saying, "I will hunt you until the stars burn cold."
Van Helsing roared. He grabbed Dracula’s head and shoved a spinning, silver-toothed wheel—a steam-driven stake launcher—into the Count’s chest. Not wood. Silver. Blessed by a dead pope.