CHAPTER TWELVE
In the stateroom, Van Helsing and Seward found Art sitting on the bed, which must have been properly dressed by a maid during the day, his legs crisscrossed and a small metal lockbox atop his lap. He grunted and muttered curses under his breath as he worked a small tarnished key in the lock to no avail. The curtains were drawn, leaving the gloom to reign over what was not lit by the small electric bedside lamp built into the wall.
“Do you need…?” Seward started, but with a painful shriek of rusted metal and a loud grunt of victory, Art opened the box, and removed from it a small black revolver, a newer model, Seward thought, but he could have been wrong; he was not much attracted to guns of any type.
“I brought this beauty along for no reason at all, really,” Art said thoughtfully as he stroked and admired the weapon. “It was like a little voice in the back of my head was telling me ‘take the gun, take it, you might need it.’ Turns out that I do. If Dracula cannot stand the type of punishment that he usually does, then this may be of some assistance.”
“Art,” Van Helsing said almost as if Art were a genius of the highest caliber, “do you know what you have in your hands? Do you know zat zat gun could, carrying ze right cargo, injure Dracula more zan you tink? How many rounds do you have?”
“There are five in the chamber and ten loose in the box,” Art recited from memory.
“Gift me all za bullets,” Van Helsing said excitedly, his accent thickening.
“What have you in mind, doctor?” Seward asked curiously.
Without replying, Van Helsing stepped forward and thrust out his cupped hands, which shook slightly. “Now, gift me za bullets.”
Art shrugged and emptied the chamber, handing Van Helsing a handful of tubular brass cartages, and then picked, by ones and twos, the remaining ammunition from the box with his thumb and forefinger. With these in hand, Van Helsing, grinning like a madman, shuffled over to the small writing desk by the door and sank down in the chair with a pleased sigh. Once the bullets were on the table before him, he switched on the small lamp, rubbed his hands crisply together, removed something from his jacket pocket, and dipped in like a man would a fine meal. Art and Seward exchanged puzzled glances. Art stood, and with Seward at his side, moved over to stand behind Van Helsing.
“What are you doing, Doctor Van Helsing?” Seward asked as he leaned over his mentor’s shoulder. In his hand was a tiny pocket knife, and he seemed to be sawing into the head of one of the small bullets.
“Why are you destroying my ammunition?” Art asked bemusedly.
After a silent moment, Van Helsing set the bullet aside, standing it on its end. “I am not harming them,” Van Helsing nearly huffed, “I am making them better, gentlemen. You see, on the tip of each of these, there will be a tiny…”
“Cross!” Seward exclaimed, just now realizing what Van Helsing was up to. “Each will have a cross, so that they will prove even more effective against Dracula.”
“That’s a…a capital idea,” Art marveled lowly, as if he had just seen the invention of the telephone or the electric light. He leaned closer over Van Helsing’s shoulder to get a better look.
“Arthur, please back up, you are in my light,” Van Helsing said woodenly, not likely paying much attention to light or dark. Art at once stood to his full height and backed off a bit.
“Will this really work against Dracula, though?” he asked Seward.
Seward looked at him, shrugged, and said, “I would think; Dracula is hurt by holy items, and this is an expressly delivered holy item.”
“Yes, Art,” Van Helsing added, from the farthest reaches of concentration. “Remember what the wafer did to Mina’s forehead?”
Thinking of the bread burning into, and charring, Mina Harker’s head for some curious reason turned Art’s stomach. “Yes,” he pecked out.
“This will do the same thing to Dracula, only from the inside. If he takes enough bullets, then he may even totally burn, and die from just that. Now shhhh.”
For the next half hour, John and Art sat side-by-side on the bed in deafening silence, smoking and playing tic-tac-toe on a piece of Titanic stationary while Van Helsing hunched over his work, meticulously carving a perfect cross, even though his elderly hands were unsteady, onto the head of each bullet. If one of them so much as coughed or yawned loudly, Van Helsing would offer a maddeningly annoying shhhh.
Finally, the old man arose with a pained exhaling of breath and clutched his lower back. “I am done,” he said simply.
Art rushed to the table, closely followed by Seward, each meaning to inspect the bullets. On each they found a cross so perfectly rendered that one would have sworn that Van Gogh instead of Van Helsing had etched it on. Art took five of the long rounds, slipped them into the gaping chambers, and put the rest into the breast pocket of his coat.
“Who gets the gun?” he asked curiously, not wanting to hog the weapon. He had brought it in the off chance that it would prove somewhat useful, but now that it was very useful, he wanted it to be communally used. He really wanted Van Helsing to take it…
“You,” said Van Helsing as he stiffly paced the tiny circumference of the room, working sleep and soreness out of his legs and back.
“I don’t want it,” Seward said as he looked Art up and down. “A real man does not need to use a long range weapon, he fights hand-to-hand!”
“You’ll find out about fighting Dracula hand-to-hand,” Van Helsing said with a small smile.
Seward nodded. “Really, I don’t want it. I’ll make do some other way.”
“Well, we had better get going,” said Van Helsing, “meet back in the smoking room before dinner.”