The last shivers of light from the setting sun slid behind the copious spread of trees about his mansion, settling his attic bedroom in a comfortable radiance of darkness. While vampires are immune to the effects of sunlight, they don't prefer it, instead preferring the more gentle light of the moon. As he slept upside down, his bare feet clinging to his favorite bed rafter, his eyelids slowly phased open, allowing more and more light to caress the weariness of the day before.

He had spent the good part of the day canvassing for clues to help him in dealing with the Legions of Darkness that everyone was aware were on their way.

Harry had stopped by with his handmade crystal ball and produced his magical bag of Elvin magic powders and sprinkled it generously on the faceted glass face, but the best they could see was a great tsunami of darkness building on the vast horizon of the Pacific and the Atlantic, preparing to collapse and roll over the continents that presented themselves to the weight of their evil.

Harry had laughed when Dracula had noted that such darkness, in such a great amount had to bode great magical fortitude and powers.

Harry laughed again, then wiped the tears from his eyes. "Any second rate wizard could produce such an illusion. No, it's not the darkness we should fear, but what its hiding."

"Then why can't we penetrate it, if it's second rate magic?"

Harry considered that all of one second. "Because it is not Elvin."

"But all magic is from the Elves of Fairie."

"No. Correction. All magic used...used to be from Fairie."

Dracula's thick eyebrows rose in orbit over his eye sockets, a rare phenomenon for him, emphasizing the azure black of his eyes, which had very little white to them, instead great dark veins of cobalt coal. "I don't think I like what I'm hearing. I thought you brought words of comfort."

Harry kicked back from the dining table they were seated at and propped his stockinged feet on the table top, despite the hard stares from Dracula, who distasted uncleanliness of any kind, even though he was wont to holiday in a nice cozy, sack of fresh dirt from Transylvania when it became available.

"I'm waiting."

Harry scratched at his day old beard, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "On the positive side James and Sherlock have come up with a plan to deploy our forces along the Thames."

Dracula lost his patience and smashed his fist down on the tabletop so hard, it cracked across its length, then collapsed, spilling Harry onto his back on his chair.

Dracula stood up, towering over Harry. "I am not amused by this display of lightheartedness."

"You should be." Came a forceful voice from behind them.

Dracula turned around so swiftly, that any mortal man might have never seen the movement, but the one he turned to see was even faster. When he turned around, no one was there. He had a heaving of the table halves and turned again rapidly, but this time he saw Lord Graystone in his loin cloth only and heavily bronzed muscles rejoining the table as easily as if they were parts of a child's puzzle. Finished, he withdrew a thick vine from his side pouch, then stripped its exterior with his teeth and began pressing it into the crack between the halves, making him appear almost comical with the intensity of his movements and focus.

Finished, he let go, pressed the halves so hard his muscles sprouted muscles, then with a contented grunt, leveraged Harry from the floor on his chair, then kicked over another to sit down in, his eyes gravely searching Dracula's own.

"We will have enough to fight without taking it to our friends as well." He advised.

Dracula curbed his temper at that moment, realizing the insanity of his actions. He was desperate to solve the problems facing them, because many of his relatives faced the first wave of the Legions of Doom. Many would perish if he were not there with some kind of solution.

"I agree." He admitted, then sat down, but not before swinging a bottle of a special wine he had imported from the India Isles. It was a special grape crossed with pomegranates. He set three crystal glasses down, then poured from the bottle into each glass, settling each glass before his two friends.

Harry still had a smug look on his face he wanted to wipe off, but he also knew that it was not malicious. It was just Harry. He was so used to challenging death that the advent of it didn't shake his soul even a sliver.

"To today." Lord Graystone, the Jungle Lord toasted.

"Today!" Harry and Dracula joined in, then sipping from their glasses.

"So what news?" Dracula finally asked, after waiting what seemed to him an interminable length of time. He was a patient vampire, except when it came to protecting those he loved, then patience be damned!

Lord Graystone turned an eye on him thoughtfully and replied. "We will have the help we seek when the time comes."

"Will it be enough?"

"Perhaps." Lord Graystone replied hesitantly. "There are many more pieces to this puzzle that we have not yet plucked from the box to be able to fit together and get the larger picture."

Harry nodded. "I agree. Even my crystal ball is blind to it. And you know from past experience, that is the rare thing, not the norm."

Lord Graystone was silent.

Dracula's hearing caught a sound at the front of the home. "A moment."

He flew over the plush red carpet that stretched wall to wall in his mansion on feet that barely touched the floor, then plucked open his front door before Sherlock could pull the great bronze vampire head that was attached to it.

"Count." Sherlock greeted, then walked in without another word or look back.

Doctor Watson came next, followed by Challenger and Conan, both dressed lightly for the evening had not yet felt the delicate touch of frost that it was wont to experience this time of year. The weather had been changing dramatically for some months now, which was yet another indication of the danger they all faced in the time ahead.

He closed the door, and all joined him at his table, where he refilled glasses, and poured new until all were settled in their places.

"Where are they young ladies?" Dracula inquired delicately.

Watson laughed. "Were Mrs. Hudson here she would blush with delight."

Dracula inclined his head. "All of you are but children compared to my years."

"Perhaps." Conan pronounced, "but between us all we compile many more years of understanding."

"Bravo, Conan." Challenger responded, clapping his hammy, freckled hands. He leaned across the table and looked into Dracula's eyes. "You fear something, don't you?"

Dracula was going to ignore the question, as he usually did, but with his friends, he knew it would be a caviler move that none would respect u ultimately, expecting better of him. "My family is in great danger from the approaching storm."

Sherlock spoke for the first time. "Everyone's families are in danger."

Dracula settled back, humbled by his great friend's words. "Yes. In that you are right."

Challenger smiled. "I have good news." He frowned. "Or at least I believe I do."

Everyone turned their attention to him. He rubbed a hand through his thick shock of ruddy red hair and spoke. "On my last expedition...to the remains of the old Atlantis. Not the new. I found something I think we will find to be of use."

"Conan."

Conan dug into his doctor's black bag which he always carried with him and withdrew a head that looked like Medusa, except its eyes were closed by patches of cloth, with bands of string holding them close.

Even Lord Graystone blanched at the sight of the head.

Dracula crossed himself, which caused Conan to chuckle for a moment, until Dracula glared at him.

"Forgive me, dear friend." Conan apologized. "I fear we are all in a strait of one kind or another over the approaching..."

"Darkness." Sherlock finished. He templed his long, artistic fingers and placed his chin upon them. "If Medusa helps,  then we must not avoid any token of success that is available, no matter how fraught with danger it might be for our very own selves, for the very sanity of humanity is at risk now, let alone its longevity."

Conan put the head on the table and every man there.

"Lady Shareen, Madame Curie and Mrs. Hudson are working on a proper container for the head before we take it into battle."

The men all shuddered, even the most powerful of them, Count Dracula, for if it took a Medusa's head to slow down, if not stop the enemy, then what they faced was more than just dread and much more than simply death.

"We are agreed then that we are proceeding in the proper directions with our preparations?" Dracula finally inquired.

They all nodded.

He rose, then smiled. "Then I suggest we look to our tasks. Time waits on no man. Or..." He looked at the Jungle Lord. "God."

Lord Graystone smiled at the somewhat subtle joke and then he and the others left the mansion, one by one, giving their goodbyes as they left, until Dracula was alone by himself. He waited for several moments, to make sure they were truly gone, for he did not want them to see what he had been working on.

Satisfied, he descended through five sub basements of his home until he came into a barely lit area with a huge stone well in its center, that was surrounded by pentacles on its five corners with bright ever burning candles in their center. He stepped to just outside the nearest pentacle, then raised his hands.

"It is as you said, your Majesty." He declared.

The waters of the well, which appeared opaque and gelatinous began to boil upwards and slowly, slowly a shape that would bring terror to those who had known it before, slowly took shape. Dracula slowly kneeled before the magnificent beast arising from the deathly well.

"Father." He said.