Harry glanced out the window of the descending helicopter.  Below them was a grassy, sun-lit field, bound on three sides by quaint, flower-bedecked cottages.  On the fourth side, the sea washed a white, sandy beach, stretching far as the eye could see.  On and over the streets of the village, brightly dressed men and women—as well as several things that could never have passed for human—walked, floated, or even flew.  It seemed a cacophony of colour, a carnival of the strange—and yet…

            “It’s so much like our own wizarding villages and towns,” he said, half to himself.  “So much hidden, so much strangeness, all away from the eyes of the world.”

            Hermione was sitting next to him.  She leaned over, trying to catch a glimpse out of the window Harry was sitting by.  Then, she shrugged.

            “I suppose,” she replied.  “But still, Harry, we in the wizarding world have kept ourselves hidden from the Muggles far longer than they have.  Just to put some things into perspective.”

            Harry smiled.  “That’s true,” he said.  “Then again, there’s also what else they’re hiding from here, isn’t there?”

            Hermione looked at him for a moment, then sighed.  “I suppose,” she said once more.  “There is that too.”  She slumped back in her seat.  “It’s just…there’s so much to learn!”  She smiled ruefully.  “You know, Harry, I thought I knew so much.  I mean, I spent all that time in the libraries, both in and outside of Hogwarts.  I learned so much!  And now…I guess I know now how little I really know.”

            The helicopter touched down, light as a feather, upon the grassy sward.  From the row of seats directly in front of Harry and Hermione rose the tall, imposing form of Count Dracula, clad in long coat and gloves even in the summer sun, a broad-brimmed hat pushed down over his head to ward off the unfriendly light.  As always, the feral light burning within the vampire’s eyes caused Harry almost instinctively to shy away in horror.  He clamped down hard upon that reflex as he followed the Count out of the helicopter and over to the edge of the field.

            There was a man waiting for them there, an old man, with a face seamed by the vicissitudes of life, clad in a dark suit and standing, hands clasped behind his back, watching as the small party made its way across the grass towards him.

            As Dracula neared, the man nodded at him in greeting.  “Alucard.”

             Under the shade of his broad-brimmed hat, the vampire smiled.  “No.  No longer.  I use my own name now.  That name can go to the one to whom it truly belongs.”

            Ron leaned over to speak into Harry’s ear.  “Y’know what’s scary, Harry?  This guy’s a vampire, and here we are looking at him standing there in the sun as if it was the darkest of nights.”

            “The discipline of Fortitude, Mr. Weasley,” said Dracula, “is widely practiced as an application of the power granted us as kindred of the night.  Similarly, Mr. Weasley, it is unwise to speak too openly of a vampire in his presence.  Some of us have sharp ears indeed.”

            Ron gulped.  “Yessir.”

            “Come,” said the vampire.  “Allow me to introduce you to the man who manages this place in the interests of our little conspiracy—John Drake.”

            The man inclined his head.  “You must be Holmes’ new recruits.  Welcome to the Village.”

            Harry shook his hand.  “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”  The others came up behind him, adding their greetings to his.

            Drake bestowed upon them a cordial nod.  “Likewise, my young ladies and gentlemen, likewise.”  He gestured up the path on which he was standing.  “We operate a training center here, for…unusual operatives such as yourselves.  Come.  We’ve prepared quarters for the four of you this way.”

            The last passenger on the helicopter had wandered up to the little group.  Ginny had spent the half-hour flight chatting animatedly with her, exchanging stories of the various adventures the two of them had had.

            “Ohayo gozaimas, Drake-san!”  The strangely blonde Japanese girl bowed deeply in greeting to the old man.

            Drake paused.  “Ah—”  he hesitated a moment “—Minako-chan.  What brings you here?”

            “I came to visit Baron-sama.  I heard he moved out here after I went back to Japan.”  She sighed.  “I think he might be glad to see me.  He seemed so sad when I had to go—so alone.”

            The old man smiled.  “He’s fine, Minako-chan.  Not so alone as you’d think, too.  He’s living in one of the cottages on the main road up the hill.  Number 6, in fact.”

            Aino Minako laughed gaily.  “Number 6?  Isn’t that your old house, Drake-san?”

            “Yes, yes, it is,” admitted the old man.  “To be honest, I believe he finds something amusing about it.  Why don’t you go on ahead and surprise him?”  He indicated Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny with one arm.  “I’ll be getting our new friends here settled in.”

            “Hai, Drake-san.”  The blonde girl waved in Ginny’s direction.  “Sayonara, Ginny-chan!  Maybe we’ll meet again sometime!”

            Ginny waved back.

            As Minako turned to walk up a winding side street that led up the hill overlooking the sea, Drake led the four young wizards down the path paralleling the beach to a small, well-kept cottage within a stone-walled garden.  Behind them, the vampire count clambered back into the helicopter, and as they passed through the open gate, the machine lifted off, and with a thunderous clatter, flew off in the direction of London.

* * *

            Holmes puffed thoughtfully at his pipe.

            “You say these raids have all taken place at libraries containing texts predating the Great Flood?” he asked.

            Raffles paused to take a sip of his brandy.  “It is strange, is it not, to be talking of such things in this day and age, when science claims to have conquered superstition?”

            “Perhaps.  Yet there is more in heaven and on earth, as the great Bard would say.  Which texts did you say had been stolen?”

            “The first to be taken, apparently, was a grimoire, late of the archives of the Helsing Institute.  The document was being shipped to the headquarters of the Council of Watchers when the convoy came under attack.  A gang of hooded and masked figures brought the vehicles to a stop, slew the drivers and guards and made of with the book, leaving the others burning in their wake.”

            Holmes’ expression clouded over his pipe.  The Council of Watchers.  He, and several other members of the League, and most especially Count Dracula himself, had long-standing scores to settle with that organization.  Yet he said nothing.

            “Old von Bek reports that a gang of sneak thieves made off with certain Melnibonéan texts he had in his keeping while he was away.”  There was a hint of malice in the former Amateur Cracksman’s eye.  “It appears that our band of book-thieves feel less ready to contend with him and that great black sword of his than they do hapless truck drivers and security guards.”

            “A good thing,” agreed Holmes.  “Are there any others?”

            “As a matter of fact, yes.  Certain scrolls, as yet untranslated by modern researchers, purloined from the libraries at Miskatonic University.”

            Holmes sat bolt upright.  “What?” he cried.  His pipe dropped from nerveless fingers to the floor, spilling its contents upon the thick carpet.

            “I’m afraid so, old man,” said Raffles.  He shuddered.  “Terrible place, terrible place.  Small wonder everybody working there goes mad sooner or later.”

            “Hardly,” said Holmes, hurriedly beating out the smoldering embers his momentary carelessness had spilled.  “The madness endemic to that unfortunate institution flows from darker sources than the area’s ambience—as well you should know.”  He got up and began to pace, refilling his pipe as he did so.

            “This is bad, Raffles,” he said.  “You know the class of entities those researchers at Miskatonic customarily deal with.”  He stopped.  His gaze seemed to narrow to a hairs-breadth, as if trying to pierce the wall itself.  “There are things in their libraries, Raffles, that in the wrong hands, could consume the world entire.  That episode last year—that one stopped so ably by the Count and our young Mr. Potter—that episode would only have been a foretaste of what they could do.”

            He turned to regard the Amateur Cracksman.  “We need to gain the initiative on this.  We have too many enemies, Raffles.  Voldemort, the Four, that madman Khan down in India—and more, besides.  We may as well start here.  We’ll need to know exactly what was stolen.  We should be able to have our agents at the scenes of the crimes within the next few days.  If there is any pattern to the texts that were stolen, it is possible—just possible—that we may be able to anticipate his next move.”

            “Perhaps,” replied Raffles.  “And who do you intend to use?  The Council is certainly likely to be…refractory.”  He held his glass up to the light, admiring the color of the liquid within.  “I could acquire their catalogue…”

            Holmes smiled.  “Actually, I do believe the Count has plans for that august body.  In the meantime…”  He dropped back into his chair.  His gray eyes glinted.  “What do you say to our sending our newest recruits to interview von Bek about these texts of his?”

            Raffles spread his hands.  “It sounds good enough.  And I do suppose it would be good to get our young agents some experience in our line of work.”

            Holmes nodded and smiled, his gaze distant.  “Yes,” he replied.  “I do suppose it will.”  He sighed and leaned back.  “Do you know, Raffles, those children are what we’re fighting for.  There’s a whole universe out there, waiting, and some day those young men and women will be out there, finding the strange things and bringing them to light.”  He closed his eyes a moment, then, with a swift movement, stood up out of his chair.  “Come on, then.  It’s fallen to us, my old adversary, to prepare them for their task. 

“The game’s afoot.”

* * *

The room was a place of polished chrome and steel, eerily lit by a strange luminescence that emanated off the walls.  A soft symphony of humming electronics filled the air.

In the middle of the room was a large rotating chair.  It was empty as Harry and the others entered the room.  They stopped, glancing around them in confusion.

The past weeks had been busy ones for them.  Most of it had been the training.  There had been classes, tactics sessions, even several nerve-wracking simulated combats in a strange machine called a ‘Danger Room’.  They had learned the secret history of the world, the silent masters and cold warriors who watched and pulled strings in the darkness and slid behind the scenes to cover-up things best left out of the light.  They had learned about the task that faced them, in this day, and the secret struggles that men like Holmes and Dumbledore had waged, for almost a century.

They knew, now, what they had to do.  Standing there, in that sterile-looking room, wondering what it was that they had been called here for, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny looked at each other, and each of them wondered: did any of the others feel as uneasy as he or she did, facing this task?

Behind them, the door irised open, and a woman came in.  She stood, watching them, her eyes alert.  There was a strange, poised grace to her movements, almost as if she were flowing through the air instead of merely moving.

      Harry cleared his throat, nervously.  The woman was small, barely a few inches above five feet.  And beautiful.  Very beautiful.  And wearing an olive-green unitard that left very little to the imagination.  He felt Ginny’s elbow thud into his ribs, and realized that he’d been staring, slack-jawed.

      “You’d be the new ones, then,” she said.  She seemed to be Cockney, and yet—there was a hint of the exotic to her accent, some inflection that none of the four young magic-users before her could quite place.  “Call me Cammy.”

      “Uh, yeah,” Harry heard himself say.  “Hi.  Hello.  My name’s Harry.  Hi.”  Ron’s own reply, to his ears, sounded even more unintelligible.

      The corners of her mouth rose, slightly.  She slid forward until she was looking at Hermione almost eye-to-eye.  “And you?  What do you call yourself?”

      Hermione regarded her coolly.  “Hermione Granger,” she replied.  Her proffered handshake was almost painfully correct.

      “Virginia Weasley,” said Ginny.  Unlike Hermione, she did not offer to shake the woman’s hand.

      Cammy stepped back, placing her hands upon her hips as she examined the four young wizards with what seemed to be an expert eye.  “I expect you’re here for the same reason I am, aren’t you? 

      “And that is…?” asked Hermione.

      The smaller woman spread her hands.  “I wouldn’t know, really.  He’ll probably tell us, when he comes.”

      “You mean Mr. Drake,” said Harry.

      Cammy nodded.  She looked around.  “Funny that he can stand it,” she murmured, half to her self.

      “That, Ms. White, is no surprise at all,” said Drake from the doorway.  He strode in, his strong gaze sweeping across the others present.  “The power that this place once had is destroyed.  I did that, with my own hands and my own mind.  There is no Number Two, no robot balloons that think they are dogs.”  His voice grew quiet.  “I can no longer—never—be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.  Never.”  These last words were said with a vehemence that was almost frightening.

      He glared round at the others a moment, then strode over to the chair.  A panel across one of the arms slid open as he approached.  Stooping over the chair, he tapped out a series of commands on the keypad the panel had revealed.

      “I believe you’ve already gotten yourselves acquainted with Ms. White,” he said to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny.  “She is here in her capacity as your supervisor.”

      “She’s what?”  cried Harry and Ron, almost in unison.

      “Your supervisor,” replied Drake.  His expression was inscrutable.  “It has been decided by the authorities above us that you four have learned enough to carry out your first mission.  Ms. White, as I have noted, will be your supervisor.”  His voice grew deadly quiet.  “I would advise you to follow any instructions she gives you very carefully.  She has significantly more experience in the field than you do.  I assume by now you are quite aware of the possible consequences of any mistakes you might make out there”

      Harry eyed the woman dubiously.  She seemed…capable, certainly.  There was an air of calm competence about her.  Still, he’d survived six years of sparring with the Dark Lord himself.  Didn’t that count for something?

      “I assume you’ll have read the case files, Mr. Potter,” said Drake, his voice dry.  “Most certainly, my own.  And Commander Bond’s.  And Mr. Snow’s own account of his capture by the Four.”

      Harry swallowed, nervously, and nodded.  There had been so many things, in those files, that had seemed so incredible that he found himself hardly able to believe them. 

      Drake smiled, thinly.  “I thought so.”  He tapped a final key on the pad.  A large, flat screen descended from the ceiling, flickering to life as it came level with the party in the room.

      “Now,” said Drake.  The image on the screen was of a small castle, perched high atop a forested mountain peak.  In the distance, a peaceful alpine village could be seen.  He gestured at the castle as he spoke.  “Castle Bek.  Ancestral home of the Counts of Bek since the formation of the Holy Roman Empire.  The current count is somewhat of a scholar, one rather well-known in his chosen area of study.”  He turned to regard Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny.

      “Tell me.  How much do you know on the subject of antediluvian civilizations?”

      “Uh,”  Harry struggled to call up once more long-forgotten notes over which he’d fallen asleep in History of Magic.  “It’s not my best subject,” he admitted, after a while.  “All I remember is that the first wizards appeared some time before Atlantis sank.  They were supposed to have been part of the reason the island sank, or something.  Some sort of war, I think, over some artifacts they had created.”

      “Hm,” was Drake’s only response.  “Ms. Granger?”

      Hermione glanced sideways at Harry.  “Harry’s got the basic points right, sir.  We don’t really know much about the history of magic beyond a few thousand years.  Everything else is just legends.”  She frowned.  “I’d heard there was something, though, a few years ago.  They found something, in France, buried on a farm.  A book—a red book.  It’s supposedly a history of one of the first magical wars.  Something about a ring…”

      Drake nodded.  “Yes.  I’d heard of that myself.  A new wrinkle in an already complicated human prehistory.  The kingdom with which we concern ourselves, however, arose some while after the events you have just discussed took place.  Have you heard of the Empire of Melniboné?”

      “The Dragon Lords?” asked Ron.  He seemed taken aback.  “Bloody hell.  The Dragon Lords?  You’re not saying they’re real, are you?”

      “Quite real, Mr. Weasley, quite real,” replied Drake.

      “Bloody hell.”  Ron’s voice was a whisper.  Beside Harry, Ginny was staring, wide eyed at the old man.

      “B-but, they’re only stories, aren’t they?  Mum used to tell us about them—to scare us.  You mean they are real?”

      Drake smiled.  “I believe, Ms. Weasley, that that was what I’d just said.  Is there anything wrong, my dear?”

      She shook her head. 

      “In any event, Ms. Weasley, the Melnibonéans did exist, the remnant of a once proud empire.  They were every bit the great magicians of your mother’s stories.  Insane, too, from what we know of them—driven mad with bitter pride.”

      “Bloody Hell,” muttered Ron.  “And this von Bek—he studies them, doesn’t he?”  He laughed, then looked around at his friends.  “It’s another fairy-story come to life to bite us in the backsides—Hey!”  He shrank away as Ginny and Hermione both swatted him upside the head.

      “Perhaps,” replied Drake, his features enigmatic.  “To the best of our knowledge, however, the Melnibonéans are extinct.  The islands from which they held sway are at the bottom of the sea.  For those who would find them, however, their artifacts remain.  And, yes, Count von Bek is one of the preeminent researchers in the world today on the culture of the Melnibonéan Empire.

            “Up until a few days ago,” Drake continued, “the Count had in his possession several valuable manuscripts of the Empire.  They were stolen, four nights ago, while the Count was down in the village below his castle.”

            “Stolen?” asked Harry.  “I see, sir, but what has this got to do with us?”

            Drake raised an eyebrow.  “Come now, Mr. Potter.  Show me what you have learned.  You tell me.”

            Harry flushed. “I—uh.”  He paused mind racing.  “I suppose—it could be used against us.  There could be a spell written on them—one that Voldemort might want.  The Melnibonéans—they were powerful magicians, weren’t they?”

            Drake nodded.  “Very powerful, Mr. Potter,” he agreed.  “I would advise you to keep an open mind, however.  There are other powers besides Voldemort who would covet these scrolls.”

            “Yes, sir,” replied Harry.  He gazed at the screen.  The country around the castle seemed…tranquil.  It was strange, he thought, to imagine this place the scene of a strange and occult battle.  “What are we supposed to do?”

            Drake turned to regard the screen as well.  “You, Mr. Potter, and your friends, will interview the Count.  The information in those scrolls is obviously important to whoever our enemy is.  Find out what you can.”  He reached into his blazer and pulled out a dark leather folder.  “Here.  This file will tell you everything you need to know.”

            Harry took the folder.  He stood, staring at it in his hands for a few moments.  He felt…lost, somehow.

            “Harry?” said Ron, from behind him.

            He turned to regard his friends.  “I’m all right, Ron.  It’s all right.”

            Ron placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder.  “Hardly like any of the things we’ve had to do before, is it, Harry?”

            “No,” replied Harry.  “It isn’t.  It’s much bigger.”  He looked round at them, wondering if they were feeling the same way he was.  “We can do this, can’t we?”

            “Bit late for that, isn’t it?” asked Ron. 

            Harry laughed.  “True.”

            Drake clapped him on the shoulder.  “Believe, Mr. Potter.  We have full confidence in you,” he said.  He looked round at the others crowded around Harry.  “All of you.”

            Hermione was the first to break the silence that followed.  “Well,” she said, smiling.  “I suppose we’ll have to be getting ready to go, now.”

            Drake nodded.  “Yes.  I expect you do, Ms. Granger.  I expect you do.”  He smiled.  “Good luck, my young friends, and good hunting.”  He waved them towards the door.

            As he reached the doorway, Harry turned.  “Mr. Drake?”

            The old man turned.  “Yes, Mr. Potter?”

            “Goodbye, Mr. Drake.”

            Smiling, the old man raised his thumb and forefinger, circled, to his eye.  “Be seeing you, Mr. Potter.  Be seeing you.”

 

Back to Stories Page                                                                                                      To be continued...