Chapter Text
The first thing you noticed was the clean white marble. Shining majestically in the moonlight. Accentuating every arch surrounding it. Light and dark in equal measure. In harmony. Round the other side lay row upon row of seats stretching above. Here they would be the judge to what happened on stage. A microcosm of the spherical atmosphere all actors inhabited for their brief time, to do the best they can, and be judged as a hero or villain by the bystanders. You almost heard the rhythmic shushing of waves and a salty tang in the nose. Reminding you what lived and what stayed. And what did not.
Martha would have loved it. Maybe that’s why it had been chosen in the first place. It would echo anyway. Best to harness it. Use it for a better future. That’s of course where they’d met. A London opera. People came from every corner to that sort of thing. But more to witness other love than to find it, hidden in the depths, for themselves. Nevertheless, they’d come to find the Red Lady and were not disappointed. Taking a human girl by the neck and dragging her up to a dark doorway. Nothing bar her screams thundering behind. Hexiciah, as usual, remained behind to keep order. Taking his wide-eyed little apprentice with him. Bloodgood to catch the criminal. That left him on perimeter duty. What fun. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Hexiciah was doing something by stealth. Though to do that you had to be smart enough to think of the idea, and cold-hearted enough to implement it. In any case, there he waited for a grand idea that never came. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Though maybe, when that woman landed right into his arms, it would be the last.
The Red Lady had slipped through their grasp again. But that didn’t matter as much. He’d gained something far more precious. And that would only grow. In quiet corners away from the looming, dull shadow of politics. In dark rooms which stank of many a forbidden night past. The only place either of them felt that they belonged. That there was a reason for their being. That there was a way out. Many a time when he’d come out of a meeting, consumed with fear and anger and hatred and suffering. And she killed it all with one soft rub of her hand on his cheek. Three words whispered to make it all better.
“I love you.”
And only then, when they looked into each other’s eyes to prove it, was the deal sealed. A circle of magenta magic glittering round the rims. To only happen once in your life. She was the only one who looked at him like he wasn’t completely mad. Like he had a voice and deserved to use it. He took her voice and made it heard when and where no one else would. She saw those cold and dirty on the back alleys of London where Hexiciah conveniently ignored. He took his father Vlad’s funds and made her dream, the common man’s dream of being listened to and welcomed, a reality. And remarkably, after every time there was always plenty of care left for him. To ensure no one went starving for equality, or without that special someone when they needed it most.
An end in sight created by them. Perhaps predictably, soon they succumbed to the aromas and traditions of the dark rooms their one outlet of happiness was restricted to. It formalised itself in the bed, as it always did. And she fell pregnant. But she lived only five miles from the Central London office. It had been that way since she was born. Born a human as well. Tradition was paramount. The law of the land. Judge. Jury. Executioner. Historian. Teacher. So what he did next he did for her own good. Because he loved her. Because the great future, the world away from humans and their aching romance for short-termism and money, would come no other way.
And for a while, it worked. How Mavis resembled her mother down to those glossy black lips and gorgeous blue eyes when she came! And her smile. Her respect for everyone. Dare he say it-he felt a pang of shame in contradicting her, in saying that humans were to be avoided at all costs. It was for her own good. Jesus. Now he sounded like Hexiciah himself. The difference lay in the truth behind his words, and the delusion behind his. When he reminded himself of that, she once again became as lovely a reminder of the future as her mother.
He’d meant to tell her. They could do that now. The hotel was coming along quicker than expected. Guests were dialling in the second Frank and Wayne had let the word slip. Ixion’s wheel had begun to turn a different way now that people actually stopped and looked at it. One more week. One more week and then the great future would swing its doors wide open. The three of them equally welcome to walk through and never, ever look back on a human. Ever again.
But that night, the humans came to them first. Abraham Van Helsing too scared to rear his damned, cursed, spineless head for the attempt. They came as they always did: stinking, blindly furious, more than a little drunk. Pitchforks. The one upgrade came in the fire, hungrily licking its lips at his wooden dream, they carried over their heads. An orange glow entering the breast of what was a serene night like a great inflamed and infected wound.
He’d have to try his best from the doorway. Hand lifting up and down to prove every point. Face direct into their wild eyes and rotting grimaces. Pleading them to go away. Go to the picket lines for their pay and rights. Discuss this like the men they were.
But one screamed “Vampires!”-and he knew how the rest played out all too well.
Stay calm. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Don’t prove their point. Get Mavis. Prepare an alibi for Lord Stoker. A more robust one for Hexiciah. Go via his apprentice. Dash through burning planks and supports collapsing in front and behind him. Narrowly dodge one threatening to guillotine him as if he was one of their hubristic kings. Pocket Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Because this would be temporary. There would be a future after this. It was to be expected, idiotic humans. Their little cycles of war and peace, boom and bust, violence stopping only to rearm for more. That left getting Martha out. At that precise moment, a sound of collapsing with a screech.
Martha.
In the baby’s room. Still slowed by childbirth. A body that had the life knocked out of it by recent events. And by the plank of wood. Pressing her legs under. Her power lying only in drawn-out winces and groans. Scrapes in the wood near her hands and feet proved the woman he’d loved.
“You brought Tess!”
Her grin infected him, the muscles long since familiar. “I wouldn’t forget it for the world.”
“Is Mavis safe?”
“Right here.”
The baby whimpered a little in his arm before Martha ran spindly fingers across her skull.
“Ssh, ssh. You’re okay. You’re okay. Mummy’s here. You’re Mummy’s girl. Mummy’s girl. Mummy’s girl.”
Mavis cooed and allowed her eyes to slowly close. That same soft smile her mother gave every time enough to comfort him as well. Nothing but optimism, care and sympathy in those perfect eyes, given a new hypnosis by what he’d done. He grabbed the plank, gritting his teeth through the scalding claws that immediately gnawed his pasty hand.
“On three, push out. One, two, three!”
The plank twitched like a snake as it flopped to its brethren on the floor. A hive of them quivering as one heeled foot broke free, and she coughed.
“One, two, three!”
A more severe jerk this time. Footsteps and bellowing heard from what seemed like a world below.
“One, two-three!”
The second he pulled again, Martha screamed. One step forward. Arm out. Ready to catch her.
Too late.
The plank went right through her heart. Body already turning into insignificant ash.
Mavis began to cry. And it took all his might to resist. Only to tumble into doing the same. The tears continuing from both right up until next morning, when a tree forced them under and the house ceased to burn with a storm.
He didn’t leave the building site or Mavis again until the 10th February 1898 when news came from Kulvar the Vengeful, deep inside Scotland. They’d found him. Hiding inside one of his many mansions. Too scared to even face the horrors he’d ordered. And too scared to carry them out himself. This ended now. Hexiciah’s apprentice was gracious enough to keep both kids safe, though in very separate rooms, for a week. So he buried them. Flew for Falkirk. The sword he unsheathed for it weighted across his palm. Proved it sweaty. Its glimmer in the moonlight enchanting and horrifying in equal measure.
He saw it through the fog as he landed. A village of no more than a hundred. Below an opulent sandstone mansion high on the hill. Flag of a ship, shackles and a crossbow taunting from the air. On the right side, a hulking shadow with horns the size of tombstones. Curling up to stab the sky. A massive axe to aid.
“Ah, the great Count Dracula comes to slay his old enemy!” the demonic shadow had growled, his voice like the crackle of thunder itself.
He said nothing, only nodded with the austerity his father gave when he announced him and Martha were engaged a few months ago. Before he’d taken action for it. Before the birth made it a point of no return. An army of shadows lay in wait in the distance. Some sparking at the shoulders. Some adorned with ice crystals in their armour. All with sharpened weapons.
Then it came. The red mist sinking down. Over his head. In his mind. Down his fangs. Running right through the blade of his sword. And right on cue, a human villager came to greet them.
He was dead before his decapitated body hit the floor.
Day itself seemed to darken and distort into a pitch-black night. A thunderous bellow boomed behind him as he bared his fangs. Hunting for any human slow enough to be in his way. The blade soon stained as red as the mist. They ran of course. But it’d never be any use. Each human met their end as a speck on the edge. A gasp cut short by the whirr of metal. So this was what they made him out to be. The image leading the dead. Crippling a mother in the leg so one demon could end with the drop of an axe, and a geyser of blood. The villain, Abraham screamed from his castle as whatever meagre guards did come fell like the rest of them. Dying nobly on their swords? Driven limply onto them would be a more apt description.
The sound of one villager, at his knees beneath the one crevasse of the sun.
“Please, my lord, we think little more of Lord Van Helsing! We can show you to his keep. There are a few spare arms in the blacksmith’s house. A secret path to his gardens. He merely promised us…peace. Spare us. Spare us, please! We are simple folk. We have even less. We only want-”
Any other admittances were replaced with a scream as his chest, like his siblings and sons and the love of his life, was cleaved in two by the sword.
There the real villain emerged through the fog. The infamed monster hunter. Locks rearing above his head. Horns to mimic who he really was. Blunderbuss, spotless as ever without the need for a cloth, in hand.
“We meet again, Count Drrr-acula.” Good grief. That refined voice and squinting, amused piggy eyes never failed to disgust. Glaring at him as if he were some harmless object in a museum. Every single time. No more of that.
“I must say, you continually defy my expectations. Word had it that you were settling down. Starting something. Getting away from it all. You’ve come an awful long way just to see me, hmm?”
“You know why I’m here.” he spat.
“Ah, you’ve changed your mind about Salisbury? Well, my good fellow, that is brilliant news! Alas, I sold it to pay for my medical treatment after an-ahem-certain somebody knocked me off the roof of a train carriage. Nevertheless, I have a new hunting house in Axminster now. East Devon. Wonderful hills and a beautiful forest. Stunning grouse inside there. And this time, to sweeten the deal for you-no werewolf heads. Promise!”
Dracula’s face flickered. Cheeks tinted a bright crimson, right up to the bones. Pupils of his eyes stained. One grit of his teeth revealed, at last, two fangs the size of knives. Sharpened to a point finer than any sword. What he said next could have constituted a sob, the shudder of rage, or both.
“You don’t understand, do you? You have no idea what you’ve done to me. You never have.”
“Now, now, Count Dracula. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If it’s refunds you’re after, it is refunds you shall get. Look here-my lord-my friend, even. My good chap. I’ll give millions. Yes, millions! Up front. Interest! Property!”
Dracula merely tightened his gaze and grip further. “Because of you, the one woman I loved is dead.”
“Oh dear-horrid business, that is. But look. You’re a vampire, my good man! Surely you can’t resurrect her with those fangs of yours? Bring her back to life, eh?” His hands moved to the top lip, each index finger dangling below it. To add insult to injury.
“But oh wait. I almost forgot. Look around you. Did humans do any of this, hmm? I did not drive them into the dirt. And, as luck has it, the King of Monsters himself is right among us. You want to save the one you love? That can be done if, and only if, you survive long enough.”
Only a snarl came to respond. The sword grew ever tighter. Biting down into his palm. The blade no longer heavy or painful. More an extension of his arm. The long arm of justice. The blunderbuss gave a sharp clack as it loaded. So he willed the purple smoke, and the red mist, to come around and vanish him. Make him no more than a wisp of smoke. Under the nozzle. Surge up. Knock it out. Fling it to the side.
Just him now.
Even looking at his pudgy figure made his blood sear and bubble. All of this loss. His love. His happiness. His future. Nothing more than cheap sacrifices. On the hill, the mansion showed vines grabbing the whole foundation, cracking it from top to bottom. Van Helsing’s hands out. One last attempt. Why was he not surprised. The mist ran all round them both. Ringing in his ears. A faint screaming as its undertone. Gaze locked on the man who’d made his life a series of running and hiding for a decade. It ended now.
One swing of the sword was all it took.
Abraham Van Helsing died as he lived. A show-off. Even in the fountain of blood exploding as a deafening crunch sounded. Right through his core. All his head rested on was the edge of the blade out the other side. His last expression a look of betrayal and sadness. Now the old bastard knew how that felt. How his mother felt when birthing him.
Only now could Martha rest easy. In theory, the same lay true for him. There she came now. Ericka looked even better in the night. When no one else was there to distract from her confident smirk. The same as Martha’s was.
“It’s beautiful.” he whispered.
“I knew you’d like the more classical side of things.” Her tone louder, intonation not doubling back on itself. “And right where you’re standing, we’ll do the vows. The Professor will say we can kiss, and we will. And then-I dunno. Ride off into the sunset. Two lonely bats together.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. Two lonely bats together.”
“You know,” she mused, “I never really liked short hair. It’s kinda itchy. And it feels weird. You’re looking at the man you like, but you don’t want to reveal too much in case he misinterprets it so you find something to fiddle with to pass the time. And then you reach round for your hair, only to find none there. Might grow it out over the honeymoon. Even have a little fringe like I’m some kind of girl rockstar.”
“So, the only question is, where will we go next? We’ve seen the world.”
Ericka shrunk into one of the ancient arches. Shadow accentuating her face, though her eyes reflected the light. “Well, there is one place.”
“Where?”
She flashed a smile held back only a little by a million unknown thoughts. Feeling round her pocket for something not there. Trying her best to keep it all cool. Made a little easier for the reason she would’ve been hesitant to do it anyway.
“Take me back to Hotel Transylvania.”
It came barely an hour later. On the cusp of midnight. Married into a new day. A new future. A red carpet, just like back home, rolled neatly and straight through the centre from a split in the audience to the largest arch. The four girls sitting with Syon and his girlfriend. Chatting away about whatever fashion trend came latest. Even he looked happy, if a little conflicted underneath. Murray above them all, ready with rose petals to seal the whole thing. Then the two who’d inspired the whole thing at the very front left row.
And then himself. Wayne.
Sad Frank and Griffin weren’t here to see it. But it couldn’t be helped. Frank just got unlucky in Malaga. No other plausible explanation. Even if the human hosts were there, it would be solely to protect as they had said. But there’d be little point remaining in the past. Especially on today of all days. This was Drac’s day. His day to finally move into the future. The antithesis of all those times a memory of Martha reared again to haunt him now proudly all over his face. Same on his daughter. Same on his son-in-law. Same on their son. A human and a monster at the same time.
To think only ten years ago humans would have been tortured to madness if they were found within a hundred miles of the hotel.
The Professor held the bride’s hand tight. The signature look of elderly, resigned disapproval and resentment there as always. Ericka shared no such thing. Unable to move her gaze anywhere but forward. White cascading from her head. A dress silkier than the first snow of morning uninterrupted by mankind’s selfish, incurable curiosity. Her smile like a child’s on Christmas. Almost devilish in that respect. His old friend’s had long since turned a little austere. Eroded into that with the passage of time and fatherhood. None of that mattered here, though. Instead, all the aged contours of his face shone with relief and comfort as much as the rest.
It'd start at night-what other time? There wasn’t a need to hide it anymore. That’d been long since disposed of. Kicked aside. The embrace of humans taken in its place. On the cusp of morning. The sun rising as a glass, and its claws of hatred and rigidity, were crushed resolutely underfoot.
Only the sound of her feet, clopping finely on the cobblestones, as she strode forward. Each step elegant, refined to the last minute detail. Gaze direct. More jovial with every advance. A bouquet of black roses pressed tightly in. The veil barely concealing her brilliant, pure white grin. Him standing resolutely in the arch. Chest puffed out, but in moderation. The moon hiding behind a collection of clouds so it shone upon them in streaks. Their arms over one another almost perfectly within the borders, save for the right foot of each askew from one chink of light. The Professor stumping behind two lovers with a certain mechanical quality, as if rehearsed many a time, book in hand not a moment too late.
“Captain Ericka, do you take Count Dracula to be your lawfully wedded wife?” The Professor asked with her face frozen beyond the mouth.
“I do.” she answered sharply, her reply nearly a childish squeal.
“Do you promise to defend him in sickness and in health, in the best of times and the worst of times, for better or worse, for richer or poorer?”
She gazed towards the sky. Her expression steely, something he’d expect more of Mavis or Martha. “I, Captain-Ericka, take Count Dracula, in sickness and in health, in the best of times and the worst of times, for better or worse, richer or poorer, till death do us part. In the presence of you, God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I do make this vow.” As soon as her mouth shut, a singular tear glimmered in the forensic moonlight and rolled down her cheek.
“Count Dracula, do you take Captain Ericka to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do.” he responded, the gentleness in his voice the same he gave when keeping his daughter safe all these years.
“Do you promise to defend her in sickness and in health, in the best of times and the worst of times, for better or worse, for richer or poorer?”
His response came all too easily. “I, Count Dracula, take Captain Ericka, in sickness and in health, in the best of times and the worst of times, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, till death do us part. Cross my heart and hope to die. As I am a vampire, I may not be able to make this vow in the presence of God. However, I make it in the presence of all of you. Humans. Monsters. Unicorns. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the happiness and respect we can give and learn from each other. I have lived a long life and turned my back on humans for most of it, but I have no regrets. The past is the past. Perhaps all we can ever hope for is to march headlong into the future with the right lessons and the best outlook. As a wise woman once said, ‘Your zing will come, my love. Cherish it.’ Since the Victorian age I have pored over the great tomes of human and monster, and all their philosophical and psychological lessons. Yet it is one human, my fangtastic son-in-law Johnny, a human, who has taught me the most valuable lessons of all. For no medium is a greater teacher than the age-old, constant, sometimes harsh yet often beautiful medium of love. I may not say ‘bleh-bleh-bleh’, as the legend goes. But what I will say is thank you. Thank you for the humans of this world. Thank you for love. Thank you, my wonderful little tarantula Mavis and Johnny and my amazing grandson Dennis. Thank you all. And may this future, which us humans and monsters share together, be freaky fabulous for us all!”
A resounding cheer sounded across the entire theatre. Only three people did not move. Ericka. The Professor. Syon. The last ready and waiting to break into a smile, but for the moment observant. Waiting for the right moment.
“In that case, I take you, Count Dracula and Captain Ericka Van Helsing, to be, for better or worse, richer or poorer and till death do you part, happily and lovingly married.”
Both beamed at once, their face only darkening a little. His more than hers. Drawing closer to each other. Kiss distance. Kill distance. Though her hand remained static. No sizeable difference in her pocket. Only staring at him. Never letting go. Far beyond the lustful gaze of a hunter. He never let go either. No reason to. Both stretching smiles far longer than either had done in a very long time indeed.
“You may now kiss the bride-”
Move in for the kill-
BANG!
The smoke rose from Syon’s gauntlet.
Murray was dead before his corpse thudded on the floor. The atmosphere shifting at once from stodgy indulgence to tensity stunning everyone. Ericka merely shocked, though holding onto Dracula firmly by the shoulders.
“I knew you wouldn’t do it.” Syon’s voice quavered as he spoke. Hands not moving from the smoking gauntlet. Blade pointed directly at their hearts.
“What is the meaning of this?” Dracula’s eyes narrowed as his face resumed its stern contours. Staring the blade right down.
All Syon had power to do was shake his head. “If I knew the answer to that, Count, I would tell you. Honestly I would. But all I can say is that I have a job to do. A job which your now-wife forsook for her own selfish gain! Ericka, say your full name.”
She shook her head frantically. “No. No, no, no. It doesn’t have to be like this. There has to be another-”
“DO IT!”
She sighed. One more look at her husband. One more tear to cascade down. “You heard what they said. I’m…Ericka Van Helsing. Granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing.”
His reply was barely audible. Bordering on a sob. “If you’re the child of Van Helsing, then why did you not kill me?”
“My family gave me a garlic-tinted knife as a family heirloom. But I threw it into the sea just before the ceremony. I chose to do it, I guess, for only one reason. I…I love you.”
The Professor smirked, malevolence across every inch of her face. “Aww. Isn’t that touching? How romantic. And how utterly spineless and disappointing. After all the struggle the Van Helsings went to, this is how you repay them.”
“I don’t care about that anymore!” Ericka wailed. “I love Count Dracula for who he is. The person behind the fangs. Does it really matter if he’s dead or undead?”
“Syon, kill them both.” The Professor barked.
A moment before his body moved. One word:
“Why?”
“Do you want that placement or not?” The Professor snapped. “Remember, boy, I own you. You do as I say if you want to get anywhere.”
No muscle even spasmed. Though his eyes began to look as tortured as the lovers. Nina shaking her head. Those golden waves tempting him one last time.
“And remember that document I sent. Remember all the times you’ve been held back by these monsters. All the times your dreams have been cut short by this selfishness. Don’t enable it any more! Not after your comrade Ericka has failed. Syon-Doctor Richard Syon-remember Falkirk.”
By now everyone had risen to their feet. Mavis, Johnny and Dennis negotiating their way down to the red carpet. One hand out before they even came close. The other hand pressing deep inside the gauntlet.
One shudder across his arm, and a sinister whirring hissed across the blade.
Upon The Professor’s final word, Dracula’s face began to darken. Fangs pushing over the bottom lip. Curved and sharp like daggers. Red clouds twisting round his legs. Threatening to pull him under to hell. Eyes growing hollow. Soulless. Gaze never leaving Syon’s cold stare. He began to pace around the circular arena in his own spiral. Syon copying at an exact parallel.
He closed his eyes. Breaths large and rushing. Expression solemn. One fist clenched, angled somewhat downwards, as if he were holding a resting sword. Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. In. Out. Red mist kept an inch at most from covering his face entirely. Yet still there. Floating. Waiting. At the centre, Murray lying belly up. Wrappings, like his eyes, faded and sprawling off the main body. One bullet hole, stained with crystalline ruby, gaping right through the middle. His eyes locked in a permanent mixture of betrayal and horror. Neither skewed at Syon or Dracula.
Instead upwards, at a world which ceaselessly kept turning.
“I assume you were responsible for Griffin’s death too?” Dracula concluded in a monosyllable. Syon merely inclining his head. Replying no further.
Dracula sighed. “Why? For revenge? Money? Hatred?”
Again Syon’s lips remained firmly shut. But no pride in silence came from his eyes. If anything, the opposite could be seen all over his dishevelled figure. The Professor watching him as if he were some rare animal in a zoo exhibit.
“Because Ericka refused to do it?”
“You could say that.” Syon murmured. He squared up again and dragged the blade on the stone. A ring of sparks hissing beside his pitch-black suit.
Dracula’s turn to hone in again. But relax as far as possible. Keep the mist out with every cell in his conscience. “What if I were to promise that, should you forsake all this and run away now, and never come looking for me or my family again, you shall come to no harm?”
Syon glanced up at the world in horror, like Jesus in the final moments of crucifixion, and shook his head. “I wish it were that simple, sir. Truly, I do. If it were up to me, I’d happily take up that offer.”
The Professor grinned. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it, boy? It’s never been about you. The same as it was never about your disgusting slave parents when they did their duty!”
Syon whipped his head back.
“Shut the f*ck up, you old bitch!” he roared. “Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?”
At that moment, two flashes of red and purple flickered. A roar embedded ultimately with childish innocence exploding towards Syon. Both parents not far behind. One wing out in front of the other, and a sprig of ginger hair sailing towards the target.
One arc of clean blue ended all that.
A stillness in the air after his arm had sliced through it. Two light thuds on the floor. Barely noticeable. One either side. The left a small, frayed bat wing. The right the rest of the body. The only backdrop a pool of his own blood.
Another, far louder snarl thundered deep into Syon’s ears. A whoosh of black cloth. At its head, the pure face and fury of Count Dracula.
Red mist circling round them both in seconds. Fangs bared. Towering over. The one light between them in Syon’s singing blade. Dracula dived in, eclipsing it by a whisker. Syon rolling over. One, two, three shots. No words. Only a stare of grief at the trigger.
He returned even faster. Bellowing down into his soul. One hand on his neck. Dragging him to heaven inch by inch. Each sink of his fist into Syon’s skull bludgeoning thoughts, heat, and willpower into an indistinguishable void. Dropping him with a clean crack, and hot crimson liquid, seeping out onto the stone.
Dracula’s feet leaving the ground. Never once breaking gaze on his victim below. Cape billowing behind. A pall on a human life cut even shorter. Then streaking down. A direct aim at his heart. Fangs bared. Tinted pink from the mist. Anticipating their target.
One clang of metal when they landed. A hair’s breadth from piercing flesh.
The blade going from a whirr to a violent, grating buzz drilling into everyone. The shadows of others-all the ones they ever hoped to appease in Wayne and Mavis and Johnny and Nina and Ericka-rising to haunt from the ether. Every cell inside him said to relax the blade. To let it all end here. Forfeit the future. It would only ever be so great anyway. No such hindrance for the white man. That warm bluntness right across his head. The smell of blood sapping energy right from his gritted teeth. An enemy he barely knew snorting wildly. Power in his resistance to the blade transmitting a sharp pain down those arms. Syon’s only response to beg pathetically for mercy in a wince. Ericka’s face, smoothened with childish ideas and despicable comfort, rushing towards the two.
That wince turning into his own bellow of defiance:
“No. No more!”
With all the might left in the arm free of that rude, weighty gauntlet, he shoved right and skidded under the fangs. Stabbing into the rock with a sound like a sword hitting bone. Where sweat didn’t turn his skin damp and boiling, blood did. Next to no stain on his dark hand. And none, more poignantly, on the bright blue blade.
His enemy’s fingers now splayed. Arched. Sharpened to a point. Shadows against a bright vermillion circle darkening them both. Times when Dracula’s mouth formed as if ready to make letters. Words. Pleas of reconciliation? Instead, growls of pure rage. No better, then, than all the people who stared at him through their refined eyes and told him he’d never amount to anything. When pressed for reasons, merely reiterating their point. Barely even human. That’s what they’d thought of him. And the moment either had tried to defy that, look where it had got them. The myths an unexpected lover had been taught, and she’d tried so hard to defy, right in front of her. In the flesh. Living. Breathing. A killer who’d never had any humanity. Three fifths of a man. Just like him in that respect.
Another growling behind him. More guttural. Patchier with age as that decrepit old werewolf circled him too. Waiting to attempt to pounce. This was what remained. What Ericka had failed to finish off. Really? The greatest monster hunter family to ever live. Such an idea broke apart as quickly as his torso did. Cleaved in two with one leap. One shout sounding more like an old, beleaguered man. A spot next to Murray. His face stricken with the same shock at betrayal. One claw of his decapitated torso over his friend. One up to the sky. A meek challenge barely noticed among the clouds, and the emotionless judge of the moon. Casting its light merely to amplify the mist. Never to stop it.
“You…are…” Dracula opened his mouth. To rule Syon hellish. That too descending into a meaningless roar of blind hatred. Eyes now veined with the red that stained them. The small red ruby between his neck and chest glinting malevolently. Winking to Mavis and Ericka behind. Themselves powerless to do anything but stare on in horror. One flash of ginger. The sound of feet thwacking nearby ground. A final glint of a yellow t shirt with bright orange hair rising initially. Then falling far away into the fields as if it were never there in the first place. Not even looking back at what, or who, it left.
One vampire charging from either side. But he was ready this time. He had a duty. A role. A place in this world. And what could he do but fulfil it? One sharp click on the gauntlet one last time. Its whirr right through his bones. Into his skull. Both leapt forward. Fangs out. The monsters everyone claimed they were.
Mavis got struck in the fangs. Her father struck through the heart.
A deafening crunch of bone sounding as the blade shoved through anything in its path. A final twist covering the nozzle in blood. One pull of the trigger-a flash of light-and it was done.
Dropping to the floor either side. One guilty from the start. One merely making the wrong decisions. One alive. One dead.
Chapter Eighteen:
Consequence
Truth be told, Ericka always felt a little out of place in the Mayfair mansion. As if something was there far bigger than she could ever hope to be. That she’d always play catch-up. However, often when the gap her parents left felt especially large, or she’d been told yet again that women in Cambridge were too rare a species, she’d come in here. A small square room. Furnished with the same ornate buttresses and ceilings as everywhere else. One window out into the eternal procession of people, mindlessly lumbering towards the next purchase. Every other wall stained a clear, dark shade of red. Always there under an overly detailed white façade.
But the real draw came in said facades. When they made frames with little heads of Greek gods and goddesses. A gold-plated name and date at the centre of each. Stretching from the Civil War right round to the turn of the twentieth century. Right in the centre of each, for amusem*nt and awe, was the head of a monster. Werewolves. Vampires. Zombies. Lords. Perhaps, in hindsight, the one thing the Van Helsings didn’t discriminate against. Starting with a frame for the Red Lady. Empty save for the charred silhouette of a spindly hand. The world’s first international killer. The world’s first woman to not just think about doing what the men did, but actually do it. Yet of course, such a thing warranted her arrest and condemnation to the history books as a permanent villain. Thank goodness she had a space in this room. In both senses. Only after all this did Ericka begin to look at it from the second way.
Then the latest frame. At least make it newly put up. Not there already. Waiting for its prideful display. This frame filed in gold all round. Inside a bright velvet red. The whole thing launching at the eyes. Threatening to overpower with such luxury on the surface.
But when you looked closer, when you actually saw it as it happened, only then did you know. Only then did you realise. Stuffing leaking from the cheek of the chupacabra. Its skin waxy in the same way hers was every morning. Before dates. Before the first night of this whole damned cruise. Hidden the same way Dracula’s first enemy for hundreds of years, his son-in-law to-be, had to cover himself for his own safety.
The final ingredient in the exact middle of the room.
Even running one finger over the rim seemed forbidden. Each fibre ice cold on the nail to reprimand her for defiling them. To dare try claiming credit. One hand slowly coming to rest, like a butterfly finding a dainty leaf which threatened to drop under its presence. Opening it would be out of the question. Not so soon. Not ever. Better to do it out of sight. In Axminster. At least if it was over there she wouldn’t have to be subject to its terror every morning as her powerless presence rose. And every evening, as she prepared to repeat the torture tomorrow.
When she’d let it slip at boarding school or Cambridge, her virginity had always been a critical loophole for the other girls to exploit. A reason to rank her low on the leaderboards. To regard her as next to nothing. That same feeling of smallness drawn from that one finger slithering across the rim, up her veins, right into her heart. From there it welled from head to toe. Red and silver furnishings on the handles grinning at her. Knowing her secrets. And the one time she’d tried to alleviate it, that too had been cut short from the moment it’d started.
Just her to carry the coffin right in the middle.
And the artefacts on top. Pieced together the only way The Professor could muster. A measly Tesco bag. Together, the contents inside would have made Abraham Van Helsing’s ghost. Dragging everyone off with it. The greatest monster hunter. Back for one night only. At the end of all this, at the end of the Van Helsing line, that was how they’d do it. A ghost. A monster to kill monsters. Not even human. Yet who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?
As for the genuine killer, he had scarpered for Bath the moment they returned. Who could blame him? Little comfort that he’d taken Nina with him. Someone to be happy with. Someone with whom you could forget the encroaching past, even for a little while. An afternoon out. He’d murmured over and over again about the threats lying behind and in front. Of whether he’d be allowed to become a teacher at the idyllic Ever After High. Where dreams came true. Where destinies were fulfilled. All of that gone the moment The Professor handed Milton Grimm cash, and the small square Ziploc bag of white powder he knew so well. The position opened like the gates of heaven, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise he took one look back at purgatory, and didn’t overstay his welcome. It should’ve been her to strike the final blow.
That’s how they’d scripted it almost immediately from her birth. Collect the artefacts. Release the most notorious monster hunter of all time. Send them scattering. Everything the King of Monsters had done to betray the world. Dead in five minutes. Then she’d come forth and stab him where she’d blossomed. Right in the heart.
Now the knife for it still lay, unused and clean of any blood, at the bottom of the sea.
Yet it was still her responsibility to display the spoils. Visitors hot on their heels from the States. Distant cousins, if you could even call them that. Van Hellscreams. Begging to see glory. And, of course, make any deals possible right off the back. She stared down the lid of the coffin directly. No other way to appease them. A fact she knew from several outlets very well indeed. Her whole hand through the cross in the centre. Sweat misting its core ruby. For all the good that was worth. Any hope of that same cold feeling in her heart, that expunging of all the world’s flying stresses, went hungry and forgotten.
Only the march of the mindless into that cursed high street.
She knew what she had to do here. In both respects. Both options. That same flush of pride always came whenever she talked about it. Whenever she showed it to Syon, regardless of what he felt. Now she had everything of that and more. All of the reward. And yet…none of the reward. She turned the lid over with excruciating slowness. An implicit hope, an implicit fear, that something may jump out at her the
second it went too far. Even leaping back a pace. Arm out. Brandishing a knife that was never there.
Only the body. Paralysed in that same attack. One claw damning her from the sea of polystyrene pellets. The hideous face, the same face she still felt a pang wrenching at her chest for, emerging to haunt a human one last time. No need to sever the head from the body. The lead from the family. That’d already been done in double trust by her intern. At least he’d had the sense to bear it no longer.
Her only choice was to cradle the severed head in her hands. One damned spot staining her palm as she ran the spiny hair, the brittle fangs and wide eyes stained in crimson through her soft human hand. She’d never seen her parents or grandparents, or anyone for that matter, do what she would have to do with this artefact. Nanny Hubner had no recollection either. It’d always been off to a taxidermist in Oxford Circus, and return it to the wall with a new load of suits from Jermyn Street. Constituted from a paper record not updated since the turn of the 20th century. There’d been no need for it to. In the respect of a growing collection, nothing had changed. No new kills to take credit for. No new ways to impress clients or, more commonly, the occasional guest with a similar kind of house more akin to a museum of Victorian culture.
Her head turned sharply as a loud roar struck from behind. Behind the crowd. One figure alone on a motorbike against a world of largely the same people. The small blond plait behind the helmet betraying them. Ensuring she stuck out behind the other bikers dotted behind and in front. All bearded. Kept away from the billboards only by necessity. Though one look at the biggest one-a bright ad for bread ensnaring the gormless faces of hundreds-proved they got you all in the end. Meaningless shouts from men on every side. Drowned out only partially with a few revs. One look back at the coffin. Nanny Hubner traipsing up, that same resignation in her eyes, to drop the tea, a golden spear-like pole, and a small rope. Yet another crunch to make her wince. The odour of stale blood. Red reflecting on her face as she shoved the cold edge right through her lover. A tear glossing over one open fang. For a moment, it looked as if he was still screaming into the ether for justice and freedom. Her mind rushing inside and out as a light went green, and the woman charged off with her steed bellowing.
But there were some things you could never leave.
The same thing Mavis realised for the first time in the dealer’s. Barely even recognisable beside that same colour. Black. Everywhere. From her hair cascading right down to the fuel tank of her brand-new motorbike, staring at her accusingly. The handlebars cold to the touch. Almost stinging. Her reflection staring at her from the brass at the end of each, and a small wing-mirror. Mavis Dracula. The same, but not the same. Her hair now teased her eyebrows, casting her thinner cheeks in shadow. This accentuated in far more of a scowl than when she was in the hotel. One of the first things she’d done the morning after was take her black dress and give it to a local homeless man to burn. At least there it’d go quickly. But its replacement came in exactly the same shade. Scraped together in a vintage store down the road and the dealer for the hundred dollars the first family had been kind, or stupid enough, to lend her. The leather jacket, her only remnant of anything previous, now bowed on her shoulders. Not that it didn’t fit with the rest. More so the memories. Sharper than any spike it rested on her shoulders. Best to get rid of it any way she could.
So she gripped the handle, twisted a few times, let the guttural sound fill her ears, and pulled off into town.
It felt like flying. Why did that have to be the first comparison? Just the skies and a small human town ahead. Never one her father had said. But there was a lot he’d never said. And only now did that become something she could use to better her life. When it was already too late. She alone able to appreciate an engine rumbling underneath. A definite chill on her back when she realised that.
A week. One week since it had happened. Less than five miles from here. Already she’d had to do everything in her power to find a job. Find shelter. Find food. And be lucky enough to have a monster give it to her, instead of some despicable human. She would rather die. If only it were that simple. Of course, she could always ‘forget’ to put on her suncream one day. Then it would all be over fast. None of this prolonged execution she’d had to suffer on a supposedly illustrious world tour. But something stopped her. Some otherworldly cruel plan forced her hand round that bottle and squeezed it onto her hand every morning and afternoon. The somewhat baseless idea right after that something might turn up. Well, the first night she’d thought that was when her hosts had materialised. A witch family. Barely started with moving in. For her help, the kids shared the middle room so she could have the attic. Looking out over an entire world. Almost from the exact same angle as her old room. They’d even done a few deals with the owner of a local therapy practice, and now she had a way of paying for her own food if nothing else. Apparently they got here the same way she did. The same way as every other monster in this place. And, though they may not admit it, everyone else in general.
Forced out by the humans.
Even what Native Americans were here had long since had to remove their definition of home. One guiding her through the range of bikes until she found one that didn’t prove her an outsider. As if merely being a woman outside the home didn’t do that in the eyes of many already. Right on cue, the orange vests of one example rapidly expanded as she slowed to a red light at the first junction. Builders cramming everyone into one lane. And for what?
“Hey, nice ass!” that same ringleader shouted for the millionth time.
“What time do those legs open, sweetheart?” barked another.
No time nor scope to stop them. What was she supposed to expect from going to the cops? Just wait for it to go green. Three revs right into her soul. Off she went again to the next.
As the sun rose, she dared herself to take a different turn. Told herself. Once her body slid to the road under. Gravitating towards the newest alley. In all honesty it felt good to have the wind rushing in your face. One more thrum like the beat of her heart. Wherever the wind allowed. All she had to do was say so. This is what she’d wanted. Ever since she knew what lay beyond that arched window. Staring at it whenever other footsteps proved far away enough. To experience the human world at its fullest. Hell, she was going to help some of them find that feeling right now! Everyone found their comfort in different ways. Because everyone was different. Once upon a time, she would have paraded her family round to prove that.
And then the memories came flashing back.
One screech left, and a blaring car horn, all that kept her intact. One, two more twists of the handlebar. Her life revolving around that piece of metal keeping her gliding between narrow streets that seemed to stretch on forever. Her tongue once again running over the top lip. Barely in her power to keep a pang of deepest shame at bay when, once again, her fangs proved to be little more than shorn stumps. The price she paid for believing humans. Believing in love. Believing it’d all turn out fine in the end. One look to the sidewalk nearly enough to break every remaining bone in her miserable body. Even that brief synapse, that disconnect she always seemed to carry with her just because of who she was when coming out of her mother’s womb, in killing her because of it, revealing nothing but faces battered into submission by the big, bright and healthy brand names above them. The children of those clasped in their hands tighter than hers round the handlebar. Invading even the simplest, humblest loaf of bread. That in itself a reason why the small overhang under their makeshift shrine, a mere clone of all the others across all countries, was the only place they could call home.
That must be nice.
Two more turns before work. Early enough to avoid the school rush. Better than any awkward, far-off and unreciprocated gaze she always unavoidably gave to Draculaura and her friends. Another reminder of why she was here. Why her fangs were gone. And now, when she needed Johnny’s comforting presence most of all, he’d run away at the first sign of having to try. To think this place was a haven. Monsters running into the gates. Heads jerking back to ensure they were only followed by their kind. Ushered in by teachers like kids evacuating from a war in their homes. Any conversations riddled with brand images. Those comparisons often sending their brethren screaming. And at the end of all that, humans came and defiled the otherwise-grand building anyway. Maybe a little while ago, a world ago, she would’ve done something. But what would be the point?
At least at the next right, a deep rumble of the motorbike, and the squeeze of her jacket as she gave one final surge, reminded her of her role to play. Slowing to a screech outside. One last check in the mirror proving who she really was. Baring her mouth. Always disappointed. The ramshackle offices pressed in against all else, against a million other places which had once hoped to have the same reach and love as the behemoths two blocks away. The best she could do.
But hey. She’d seen the world. She had a role. She could go anywhere she wanted. Even Haweewee! But one final image of Johnny, haunting her conscience. One last recall of the great Count Dracula. Dead by an unwitting man his old enemy hired. They reminded her of the truth. She could go everywhere in the world.
Everywhere, that is, except Hotel Transylvania.
