1st N.A. Serial Rights All Rights Reserved. THE VAMPIRE OF THE PRIVATEERS by Anthony Durrant I ran for my life down the street, almost stumbling over a garbage can, as the gang chased me down the street. I could already hear their angry shouts as I rounded the corner and the gang, hot on my heels, followed me. One young man grabbed me by the wrists; a gunshot rang out and he fell dead - shot by his leader, Swagger. Using the momentary diversion, I dashed ahead of the gang, and used the headstart to run to the end of the street and turn right; a few minutes later, the gang followed me around the corner. I could hear them shouting as they gained on me; soon, the leader, Swagger, would shoot me dead in the street when he caught up with me. Just as I headed to the end of this street an old woman grabbed me and dragged me toward her house. One of the gang members aimed his pistol at me - and was shot down by Swagger. "That pipsqueak's my target, and my target alone!" he cried. "No one else shoots him." The old lady opened the door of her house and pulled me inside. "So, you want to get away, do you?" she asked. "I do," I told her. "I'm running from the gang of boys who killed my parents!" "I have the perfect answer to your problem," she told me. "Come into my living room." She led me into a large room that had seen better days. Everything was faded; there were cobwebs and dust everywhere, and in the middle of this room was a tall black arch; in the arch, I saw a swirl of sickly green energy glowing in the dim light, giving the room a green glow. "That's a portal," she told me. "One of many, scattered acrossthe multiverse. This particular portal will take you to your destiny, as it was made to do by those who built it - and as the ones who built it programmed it to do, it leaves no one who goes into it unchanged." She brought me closer to the portal. It flashed a bright green, dazzling my eyes; then it grew wider. Soon the portal was wide open, filling the black arch like a hand in a mitten. I was awed by the size and the sickly beauty of the emerald energy inside the portal. "Now," the old lady said, "you go on to your destiny!" With that, she shoved me right into the portal, and I screamed in pain as I went through. Soon, though, I was falling through the portal, leaving my homeworld far behind me. "Why do I have to have my coming-out party now?" Joanna Privateer asked her father, a nobleman named Egbert, First Viscount Privateer, as he laced up her corset. "Tradition, darling," he told her. "You're sixteen now - not a little girl anymore. It has got nothing to do with the family vampire - in spite of what you might think!" With a smile, he helped her put on her ball gown, then took her arm and took her down to the dining hall, where all their guests were waiting, drinking wine, and talking merrily. "Well, well!" Lord Taylor cried. "If it isn't Egbert's little lady, Joanna. Welcome to the party, both of you. Sit down and have a good drink of wine!" "No, thank you," Joanna said. "I don't drink. But I think my father would." "Of course I would, darling!" Egbert cried. "Could you pour me one from the bottle?" "I will," she told him. "But you'd better get your second and third drinks yourself, for I do not wish to serve more than one drink to a drunken sot - even if he is my father." "What a girl, what a girl, eh?" Egbert laughed. So did Lord Taylor's wife Emilia. "She's very pretty," Lord HoratioVulgar said. "Pretty enough to hug and kiss all night." He jumped up and tried to grab Joanna in a drunken hug as she poured her father's drink. "Come on, Joanna!" he cried. "Give us a kiss - a long, passionate kiss!" "Never!" she shouted, stomping on his foot. "I won't kiss any one of you drunken louts!" He screamed and sat back down, holding his throbbing foot in his hands, cursing loudly. "She's worried about our family vampire," Egbert told Vulgar and Taylor. "A curse was put on my family generations ago by a witch. She said that every few generations a vampire will be born into our family and that it will wreak havoc throughout the estate. As I recall, the last of these vampires - my father - was staked about fifty years ago by my Aunt Mathilda." "Don't talk about our family vampire in front of your guests, you bastard!" she told him. "It's bad enough that I have to sit with these drunken lords and ladies you call friends." "I won't let them hurt you, Joanna," he told her. "Don't you worry about them." At that moment, there was a puff of smoke and a tall bearded man in black appeared. He jumped onto the table and tried to grab Joanna, who screamed in terror. "SUCK YOUR BLOOD!" he cried. "It's my father!" Egbert cried. "My father's come back from the grave for revenge! Run as fast as you can, my darling Joanna. Run away before he gets you and sucks your blood!" She ran toward the window, and jumped through, smashing the glass. When she was out, Joanna fled toward the backyard of the estate, hoping to avoid her vampire grandfather. "It's true!" she moaned. "Our family's legend is true!" The old lady's portal dropped me in a grove of trees, leaving me exhausted and dizzy as a result of the trip. I could hear crickets in the trees as I reached up and picked an apple. I bit into that apple and found that it was delicious, one of the best I've ever tasted. At that same moment, something wet and slimy wrapped around my arm, and I looked behind me. It was a long tongue coming out of the mouth of a huge froglike creature. Jerking my arm forward, I yanked it out of that creature's mouth. Within minutes another froglike creature leaped from a nearby pond roaring in anger. The first creature grabbed me while the second wrapped her long tongue round my neck. Breaking free of the first creature, I grabbed their necks in my hands and strangled both of them to death. As I collapsed from exhaustion, I realized my skin was green . . . Joanna ran as fast as she could; the vampire was chasing her through the orchards behind Privateer Manor, where she and her father lived. She stumbled over what she thought was a log, and to her surprise and horror, she found two of her father's special Bullywugs lying dead by the side of a Bullywug pond, their necks broken and lying at weird angles. Just then the vampire appeared, and at the same time the "log" moved. Looking down, she saw the face of what could be described as an emerald Amazon with no clothing who was sleeping by the pond. Startled by the sight, the vampire turned into a large black bat and flew away, screeching into the night: "Yo-an! Yo-an! Yo-an!" Wrapping her shawl around the larger woman, she took one arm around her shoulder and brought her back to Privateer Manor, where she laid her in her own bed and covered her with the goose-feather quilt that was always on the bed. Sitting in a chair, she soon fell asleep. "This woman has definitely come here through a dark portal," Dr. Stahl told Egbert. "As no doubt you already know, she has green skin and seems to be quite powerful." "According to legend," Egbert told him, "when someone goes through a dark portal, their body is forever changed. Only dark portals have such an effect - light portals are safe." "Aye, that's right," Dr. Stahl told him. "Dark portals are the same green as her skin. Her brain and nervous system are not affected, though: just the body is changed in a dark portal. You see, the person going through absorbs some of the dark portal's anti-energy." At that moment, I slowly opened my eyes and woke up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. "Do you know where you are, young lady?" Dr. Stahl asked. "A house, I think," I said. "A big house, judging by the size of this one room alone." "You are in Privateer Manor," Egbert said, "and I am Egbert, First Viscount Privateer." "I am Dr. Cornelius Stahl, my dear," the doctor said, offering his hand. "I examined you. Are you feeling all right? That journey through the portal must have been exhausting." "It was. I remember feeling pain, falling end over end, passing through this green tunnel, and finally ending up in a grove of trees. I picked an apple and bit into it - then some frog-things attacked me. I wrung their necks until they broke and then - I blacked out." "You're fine now," Stahl said, "but when Egbert's daughter found you, you were asleep." I looked down at myself for the first time since I came through the portal. "I'm green!" I cried. "My clothes - what happened to them? I'm nude! And my body -it's changed. I'm muscle-bound . . . and . . . and . . . I've become a woman!" Looking under the quilt, I realized I was looking at what some of the weirder stories I had read called a "pussy." It did look like a cat's head, I thought, so that name fitted well. My large, green nipples dangled on fairly large round breasts on my muscled chest; my arms rippled whenever I moved them. Sitting up, I swung my legs over the bed as Egbert quickly handed me a robe to wear. My legs also rippled when I put my feet on the floor then stood up, the muscles bulging when I walked to the windows and looked outside at the Privateer orchard. It was a lovely sight, especially early in the morning, when the dew dripped off the leaves. When I turned back, to my astonishment, I found myself looking down at the two men from above their heads and smiled at them. A young lady sat in the armchair near the bed; she looked up and her eyes opened wide in surprise. Stroking her face gently, I pulled my fingers through her red hair. "My name is Joanna," she told me. "I found you in the orchard. Do you remember?" "No," I told her. "I don't remember. I blacked out after killing those ugly frog-things." "Our Bullywugs? Yes, they are rather scary-looking." "Dangerous, too. They almost killed me. One of them tried to strangle me to death!" "That is what my Privateer's Bullywugs are supposed to do," Egbert said. "What is your name, young lady? I hope you do have a name, one we will know you by." "On my home world I was a man named Jonathan Garnigan," I told him. "Call me by the name of a fictional character from my homeworld that fits me like a glove now." "And that name is?" "'She-Hulk,'" I told him. "You may call me 'Shulk.'" "It does suit you," Egbert told me. "All right . . . Shulk. That's what we'll call you." Over the next few months, I learned how to dress, talk, walk and act like a lady as Joanna sewed me lovely dresses and taught me better manners. Over time, the rough and tumble speech and shoddy manners of Jonathan Garnigan vanished and in their place arose the flawless speech, polished poise, and elegant manner of a young lady. She taught me how to wear dresses proper-ly and how to act and talk when I was with other people. Her father, Egbert, wasn't very helpful; he normally relaxed in his room, hunted, or caroused with his lordly friends. Egbert usually kept to himself; he didn't like to hurt his daughter by butting into her affairs. Joanna was wonderful; she even taught me how to pour tea properly and how to paint on paper and on canvas. Finally, I was told by Egbert that it was now time for my coming-out party. "You're a lady now, Shulk," he told me. "It's time for you to be presented to society." "So soon, Egbert?" I asked. "But it's only been a few months since I came here!" "We've seen a great change come over you in the past few months, my dear," he told me, "and now we're going to have a party and show you off to all my friends. Joanna will make you a wonderful ball gown, just as my late wife made one for her, and we'll have a lot of fun." "But what if the vampire gets me?" I asked, clutching the smooth palm of his hand. "Don't worry, Shulk," he told me. "He won't get you while there's still life in me." So Joanna took down the old curtains that had hung in her bedroom for years and made a ball gown for me out of them. She tried the gown on me, and it fit beautifully. Egbert was lying on the couch, watching with a delighted smile, as I walked around with the gown on. "Why," I asked Egbert, "are you so anxious to protect us from the vampire?" "Yes, Father, why?" Joanna asked. "I'll show you, Joanna," he told her. "I think it's time you knew." He pulled a small cameo of a man out of his waistcoat pocket; the man bore a very strong resemblance to Egbert; he had a long dark beard and wore a large monocle. "Do you know who this is?" Egbert asked. "My grandfather," Joanna said. "You've shown me that portrait before." He pulled out another cameo. This one was of a bony man with slicked-back hair and an unusually long widow's peak. He wore a sharp goatee and the same monocle. "This is also your grandfather," he told her. "He is the last of the Privateer vampires, and has come back from the dead to take his revenge on me for helping my aunt kill him. Dad wants to take you away from me and make you a vampire just like we took my mother from him. Now, though, don't you worry about him. We'll go downstairs and have a lovely party." He took us both by the arm and led us down to the dining room, where his friends had al-ready begun drinking his special apple wine and were enjoying themselves. "Greetings, everyone," he told them. "I presume you know my daughter Joanna?" "Yes, we do," Lady Vulgar said. "We met her at her coming-out party, not more than six months ago. Who is this other young lady - the one with the face and figure of a goddess?" "This is my ward," he told them. "Everyone, meet Shulk." "We have been having a wonderful crop this year," I said. "Our Bullywugs are filling up their baskets with rich, red apples fit for eating and for making wine. You are tasting the first of the wine barrels we hope to sell at the market this year. Do you like the taste?" "Oh, yes, girl!" Lord Taylor said. "We love it - it's so sweet, getting drunk's very easy to do. You couldn't have picked anything nicer to give us, Shulkie-poo. Come on, kiss me!" "No, thank you," I said. "If you like, though, I will pour you some more wine." "Oh, come on, now!" he cried drunkenly. "Come and kiss me, sweet pea." "Leave me alone!" I cried, stomping on Lord Taylor's foot. He screamed in pain and fell back into his chair. Just then, a bat flew into the room, and transformed into a tall man in black - the same man I'd seen in the cameo. "Where is my granddaughter?" he shouted. "I want my granddaughter - now!" "Shulk, Joanna, run for your lives! I'll protect the others from my father!" Egbert cried. We ran through the orchard as fast as we could; by now the portal had closed, and I could never open it again because it could only be opened from Earth. My destiny was here, and here I would stay. We lost "Gramp the Vamp" in the trees and darkness of the orchard. "This reminds me of a mystery I saw as a child," I remarked, "on my home world." Egbert came running up and embraced both of us warmly. "I'm glad you're both all right," he told me. "I was able to drive my father away." "Shulk has often talked, Father," Joanna said, "about a group of mystery-solving, teenage characters. She's said she enjoyed them very much, and that they always caught the villain." "What were their names?" Egbert asked. "'Shaggy,' 'Fred,' 'Velma,' 'Daphne,' and 'Scooby Doo.'" Joanna told him. "In fact," I told her, "the mystery I just mentioned to you was one they solved." "Well, since they're only fictional," he told us, "Shulk must solve this case herself. Take Joanna back to her room, Shulk, and make sure that my little child is happy." "Don't worry, Egbert," I told him. "I'll take very good care of her." I let Joanna climb onto me so she could ride piggyback to her room, where I set her down again. She walked over to her dressing table and I helped her take her evening gown off. "Does your family really have a vampire curse?" I asked. "Oh, yes," she told me. "One Privateer forgot to invite a witch to the christening rites for a child she'd helped him and his wife to have. She put a curse on our family: every third generation produces a vampire that must be stopped before anyone can be harmed." "Your grandfather, it seems, was the last of the vampires." "So far," she admitted, "but I fear that my child may be the next vampire." "Poor, sweet baby!" I said, hugging her gently. Just then there was a knock on the door. When I went to answer it, I found Egbert's clerk Vendaggle, on the other side. I saw him now and then when I went into Egbert's office. "I've brought a message," he said, "from Egbert." "Thank you," I told him. "May I have it?" "Of course - Shulk, is it?" "That's right," I told him. "That's my name." "Thank you, Shulk," he told me. "Now I can go to bed." "You're very welcome," I told him. "Godsspeed, my friend." After Vendaggle had gone, I gave the message to Joanna, then went to my own room and tucked myself into bed. Later that night, I woke to the smell of fire and rushed to Egbert's room, which was the same one he had once slept in with his late wife. Several of Egbert's servants had beaten me there and were trying to put out the fire with buckets of water. Rushing into the room without a second thought, I dashed toward the bed, but saw I was too late: Egbert lay on the bed, wreathed in flames, and there was nothing I could do to save him. When I came out again, I discovered that my nightgown had burned off in the flames, yet I wasn't even singed. "Are you all right, milady?" one of them asked. "I feel fine," I told him. "Your master, however, is dead." "We know that," he said. "He couldn't have lived through the fire. Give our condolences to Lady Joanna for us. She likes you and will be very glad to have you bring the news." "I will tell her," I said. "She has to know." I went to Joanna's room and knocked on the door. "Who is it?" she asked. "Shulk," I told her, "and there's something I've got to tell you." Joanna opened the door and let me in. I reached down and took her in my arms. "Joanna," I said, "There's been a fire. Your father . . . Egbert . . . has been killed." "What! Father, dead?" "I'm afraid so," I told her. "Not even I - with all my strength - was able to save him." "Father, my father," she whispered. "Gone forever - never to return!" She buried her face on my chest and we hugged each other tightly, sobbing bitterly, and a few minutes later I put her down, led her straight back to her bed, and climbed in myself. Within an hour both of us were fast asleep. The next morning Dr. Stahl's partner, Dr. Johann Proud, was sent for; he went upstairs, and took Egbert's body away as evidence. Joanna and I met him in the lovely garden where she had found me, after he had come back to Privateer Manor. "At least this world has some knowledge of detective work!" I thought. "Have you seen my partner?" Proud asked me. "He vanished last night - into thin air!" "No, I haven't," I said. "Where could he have got to?" "No idea - Shulk, is it?" "Yes," I told him. "I am Shulk." "Well, it seems Egbert was dead before the fire was set - I found a bullet in his head near the right ear. Joanna, your father was shot and laid in the bed; the fire was then set." Joanna hugged my waist tightly; she only came up to my chest. "My father was murdered?" she asked. "Who could have done such a terrible thing?" "I don't know, Joanna," I told her. "I simply don't know." "Shulk?" Joanna asked. "Yes?" "I want you to find out who killed my father." "You do?" I asked, surprised. "Yes, Shulk," she told me. "My father was murdered, and there's no one else I can turn to to solve this mystery. You're the only one who can catch the killer and bring him to justice." "Then I'll do it," I told her. "I will find the person who killed your father!" My first stop was the Privateers' library, a large room where the books were kept - Velma and the others found valuable clues in a library in one Scooby Doo episode. Walking over to the big book on the table, I saw that someone had written the word KAZ on one page. "That must be part of a secret password," I thought. "I think I will find the other part very near this book - in the second volume, which is still on the shelf to the east." Walking to the shelf, I took down the other volume of the book and put it on the table. In a few seconds, I had turned to the same page - but found that the page had been torn out! "Stop where you are!" a voice cried. Whirling around, I saw the vampire in all his glory. "Egbert's daughter Joanna is the last of the Privateers," he shouted. "I shall have her soon and my lips will taste her blood! Joanna Privateer will become a vampire like me." He charged toward me, and I backed into the shelf facing the door. In the process, I accidentally opened a secret door! Pushing the door open, I threw myself into the secret passage that was on the other side. As I closed the door, the vampire's hand reached through, then he pulled it back. Looking around the passage, I saw a piece of paper on the floor and picked it up. It turned out to be the missing page, and on the top was the word IBAN. Taking the paper with me, for it was a clue, I followed the secret passage to an ebony door that was obviously magical. I grabbed the knob and was hit with several hundred volts of magic; my hair stood on end until I pulled my hand away. Now I knew what the magic words written in the books were for. "They make up the secret compound word that will unlock this magic door," I cried, then took a deep breath, faced the door and said, "Ibankez!" Nothing happened; the door didn't open. "Of course," I muttered. "I had the order reversed - the word is Keziban!" Smiling, I proudly spoke the magic word, and the door vanished. I stepped into the room beyond it and found a large wooden tripod with a round top in the middle of the floor. On it was a book bound in black leather and with a ribbon attached to the top of the spine. It was anchored to the tripod with a short chain, which I snapped when I took the book into my possession. Once back in the library, I found the vampire had gone away. Sitting at the table, I opened the book to the front page and found this title staring back at me from the parchment: HMS ODIN CAPTAIN'S LOGBOOK "A log book?" I thought. "How wonderful! It could even be a clue to this mystery." I spent several hours reading the book, turning every page as eagerly as a beaver cuts into the trunk of a tree to build its dam. Most of the entries detailed Egbert's adventures on the sea as the captain of the HMS Odin, a great sailing vessel. One of them was very interesting: "Captain's Log, Fifth day of Kardent: "We have found a yacht that has been attacked by pirates. Foul monsters! The crew had been slaughtered like so many cattle, though they put up a good fight. When we entered the cabin we found the passengers all dead except for a baby girl - only a few weeks old at most - in an ornate crib in the corner of the room. I have decided to take the girl as my own, and will call her Joanna, after my dear departed grandmother. She is very strong - in fact, I am amazed that she'd survived for so long after her mother and father were so tragically butchered." Closing the book, I rushed up to Joanna's bedroom and showed her the entry. She almost fainted, but steadied herself and looked at me with eyes as wide as saucers. She was sitting in an old chair in front of a desk with an oval mirror mounted on it in which I saw our reflections. "Shulk," she asked as she handed the logbook back to me, "what could this mean?" "It seems," I told her, "that Egbert adopted you after finding your parents dead and raised you as his own. It also seems you had a father who loved you very very much, and took the very best care of you. He wouldn't want you to grieve for him; he'd want you to be happy and always to remember him as he was when he was alive and you two were together." "That I will," she told me. "I'll remember him as he was when I was a little girl: a proud sea captain who often took me with him aboard the Odin, and who was very sweet to me. I have no wish to remember him as he was at the time of his death: a sad old man, boozing it up here at Privateer Manor with his nobly drunken pack of 'friends' who frequent the Manor." She turned to the mirror and adjusted her nightgown, then powdered her nose. While she was staring at the mirror, I heard a loud gong. Just then Joanna stopped moving for a short while and then whirled around to face me - bearing long sharp fangs! She lunged at me, but I was able to step out of the way. Grabbing a magazine from her bedside table, I showed it to her. "'Beauty Hints?'" she asked, gazing at the beautifully rendered drawing on the cover. With that, she tore the magazine out of my hand, and threw it away. Joanna forced me to back into the wall opposite her bed. When my back hit that wall, I accidentally knocked a secret door open and fell into a secret passage that led to a stairway. I went down the stairs and discov-ered that they led to a wooden door. I smashed the door apart and found myself in Egbert's private study, a neat room with an ebony desk at the back. Behind the desk stood a cushioned ebony chair. I sat down in the chair, put the logbook on the desk and began to read. Egbert told of how the Odin had sunk in a storm; he and his men had rowed to a deserted island in lifeboats and had spent months building a new ship using the native trees which they'd christened the Odin, giving her the name of their sunken vessel. It must have been on this ship that Joanna had traveled with her famous father; Egbert had directed his men when they built the second Odin, and had worked right along beside them as they built the new ship from the keel up. I read: "Captain's log, Day 12 of Murtual: "We finally launched our new ship today, and are en route to the next stop in our journey. We have a fair wind, the sky is blue, and the sun is shining. We should arrive at Allakhabad just on schedule, and I feel sure that a crowd awaits us at the seaport at Allakhabad." "What an amazing man!" I thought. "His journal entries ring with all the excitement and adventure of a bygone age when men were men, pirates sailed the seven seas, and ancient houses haunted with the voices of people long since dead. It was a great age, a proud age, and the greatest writers of the age were giants - all of them good people who led proud lives and died happily, leaving behind the greatest books my homeworld has ever known." I filled a goblet with wine from a carafe on Egbert's desk. "Here's to you, Charles, Emily, and Charlotte!" I cried. "God bless you, and may all the words you wrote live on forever. You three were giants, and I toast you with this wine!" With that, I tipped the glass back and drank the wine, then tucked the log into a pocket of my dress, and left the office through the main door. I went into the main hall and down the stone stairway to a huge room full of coffins that were arranged in neat rows. One of these coffins was open, and Joanna was sitting in it. In front of her, his cloak waving in the breeze, was none other than Gramp the Vamp. He held his arm in front of her and spoke in a loud voice. "Now, darling, it is time for you to rest. Lie back in your coffin and sleep till nightfall." "Yes, Grandfather," she said, lying back as she spoke. "I will sleep now." "Good girl, Joanna!" he said as he closed the coffin lid over her before walking off. After he'd left, I walked over to the coffin and lifted the lid off with one hand. Whatever Gramp the Vamp had been planning, he hadn't seen me behind him. I'd come down just in time to save Joanna's neck. Looking down at her, I saw that her eyes were wide open and staring into mine the way a cat stares at you when he is angry. Fortunately, I'd read many stories in which an archvillain hypnotized the hapless heroes, and I knew how to break a hypnotic trance. I snapped my fingers, and Joanna jolted awake. She looked around her and gasped in shock. "What am I doing in the crypt, Shulk?" she cried. "Look - I'm in one of the coffins!" "What's the last thing you remember, Joanna?" I asked. "I remember sitting in my room, looking into the mirror -" she said, then stopped when it dawned on her that she'd been kidnapped. "Grandfather brought me here?" "Yes, Gramp the Vamp hypnotized you and brought you down here." " 'Gramp the Vamp?' " Joanna asked with a giggle. "What a bloody fine name for him." " 'Gramp the Vamp' was the name Shaggy gave to a vampire who haunted a hotel run by his supposed granddaughter, in a story much like the one I'm trying to solve. He, too, kidnapped his granddaughter and hid her in a coffin in a crypt - but was unmasked as her father! I suppose, after seeing this vampire for the first time, the name just popped into my head again!" Looking around the room, I noticed a newspaper clipping on the floor and picked it up. " 'Ed, Ed, can stand on his head,' " I read. " 'Ed, Ed, drinks boiling lead!' " I raised my head and let out a laugh. "This isn't a clue!" I said. "Still - still, I'll tuck it away in my pocket for later use." After pocketing the clipping, I took Joanna by the hand and had her lead me to the attic at the top of Privateer Manor. It was a huge room filled with the Privateers' memories, and lying in the corners and on the floor were many relics of Egbert's past - the biggest of which was the ship which he had built and in which he'd sailed his final voyage: the Odin herself. "Based on his log," I told Joanna, "it was more like an ego trip than a voyage." "Well, Father never did things by halves," she told me. "He had the Odin taken from the harbour and put in this attic, which he had added to the Manor for the purpose, by magic." Opening an old chest, Joanna pulled out some dusty old paintings and dusted them off. "These are Father's class paintings," she told me. "Here he is in the tenth form." She handed me the painting and I looked at it curiously. It showed a group of children, in three rows of chairs, looking out toward me and smiling. One of them was young Egbert, before he had become famous - a slender boy with dark hair and flashing green eyes. "He was a nice-looking boy," I told her. "Very nice-looking. He would fain have been a success in anything he tried, Joanna. You're lucky - he was a sweet and kind father." "So he was," Joanna said. "You're right about him being a success, you know. After returning from his last expedition and leaving me in the care of my mother, he went off to the Great Prairies to pan for gold and didn't come back till after my mother died last year." "There you are!" Gramp the Vamp cried as he came into the attic. "Come here, Joanna -come to your grandfather. It is I who shall look after you from now on, sweet child." "Don't come any closer!" I shouted back. "You're never going to get Joanna again!" Grabbing a vase, the vampire hurled it at me, but it just bounced off my chest. Leaping a full ten feet foreward, I landed on the deck of the Odin and watched the vampire climb the anchor rope to the deck of the old craft. Standing at the stern of the ship, I turned to face Gramp. As he charged towards me I grabbed one of the sails, tore it loose from the mast, and threw it directly at the approaching vampire. Knocked down by the impact, he fell directly under the sail and I watched as he struggled to get out from underneath it. Tearing a hole for his head, I tied the man up with some rope I'd found on the deck, wrapping an iron belaying pin round his wrists to avoid the possibility of having the vampire escape from my clutches. I jumped down, scooped Joanna up in my arms, and brought her up to meet the man who had so cruelly kidnapped her. "Now," I said, "as Velma would say, let's see who Gramp the Vamp really is!" Grabbing hold of his face, I pulled hard and the mask tore off - revealing our enemy to be seemingly none other than Egbert Privateer, Joanna's father! I felt the man's face. "Wait a minute!" I cried. "This is another mask!" Again grabbing the man's face, I pulled on this mask and it tore away. Beneath the mask was a weather-beaten man with brown eyes and long dark hair whom I didn't recognize. "Who are you?" Joanna cried. "First officer Jason Connah, miss," the man said. "Your late father's right-hand man." "I don't understand!" Joanna told me later, after Jason had been taken into custody. "Jason posed as the vampire after the fire and was the one whokidnapped me. But he was with me, Shulk, when the vampire first attacked me at the dinner table that night!" "That was Dr. Stahl wearing the mask, Joanna," I said. "It seems he was a werebat in cahoots with Jason from the beginning. Evidently Jason had studied his position carefully, after he had decided on his coup. Your father had died in the Great Prairies, but nobody knew that. Both of your uncles - Egbert's brothers - have long since died, nobody would know he was not Egbert, for he wore a magic mask made for him by the doctor that hid his real face. He ran through most of the estate money very quickly, thanks to his drinking, and soon he was broke. Worse, the doctor must have begun to blackmail him at this time. Jason murdered Dr. Stahl, dressed the man in his pyjamas, laid him in the bed and put the covers over him. Then he set fire to the room. Soon afterward he hypnotised you, made you put on false vampire teeth and attack me." "What was his motive for impersonating my father?" Joanna asked. "A simple one, Joanna," I told her, "A very simple one. The old song says it all: "The great war has ended, the fighting is all done, Home from the battle comes the weary one. I'll hold you and kiss you with a love that's true: A sweet rose of yellow for a faded coat of blue. "Jason had no family," I explained, "no one to hold and kiss him when he got back. That, darling, is why he impersonated your father - he wanted someone to love him after he came back from the sea, so he stole another man's family to get the love he craved so much." "Who will look after me now?" Joanna asked. "Who will take care of me?" "I will," I told her, "I love you and I'll spend my life taking care of you, if you wish." Joanna smiled, a smile that could break a man's heart in two. "I think I'd like that, Shulk," she said gently, "for you're the sweetest girl I know." "Thank you, Joanna," I told her gently. "and you're the sweetest girl I've ever known." Joanna climbed onto my back and I carried her piggyback into the garden. THE END