The Van Helsing Conjecture – Excerpt No. 280

A few laughed, but they were quickly silenced. Clara suspected what Julia was saying went over their heads, forcing them to delve into topics that The Tower insisted did not exist. She’s a breath of fresh air in their sterile world.

“Corpse?” Adam said. “How wonderfully colloquial of you.”

Julia’s heart rate shot up, a sign that she slipped out a clue about her true nature. Hunters never used the term corpse, instead they used them, and neither group cared what vampires called themselves. They spent enough time around werewolves to learn their slang?

“Now boys,” Julia said. “Be nice, I promise you that this will be my best chapter yet!”

a dramatic, high-contrast, cinematic photograph of a confident young woman with long, wavy brown hair, wearing a fitted black leather jacket, tight-fitting blue jeans, and a vibrant red backpack, regaling a group of five men dressed in dark, hooded robes, their faces obscured by shadows, gathered around her in a semi-circle, amidst the misty, eerie atmosphere of a dark, moonless night in the woods, the only light source coming from a faint, misty glow in the distance, casting an ethereal ambiance, with lush, dark green foliage and twisted tree branches looming in the background, shot in a shallow depth of field, with the woman as the central focus, her facial features soft and illuminated, while the men in the background fade into the darkness.

Disclaimer: This novel is an work in progress and readers may encounter grammatical errors and inconsistencies. Please view this a draft and not a published work.