🚀 go-pugleaf

(continued from part one...)

                               ^v^v^v^v^v^v^

     The villa wasn't as wildly ostentatious as she had pictured it, she
realized.  Given the Baron's reputation, she would have expected a garish
exterior, with tacky marble statues and anything else that occured to the
Baron's demented mind.  Instead, the villa was stately...almost sterile,
in a way.
     Perhaps it would look different when the fog lifted and the sun rose,
Chalandra thought.
     The coach came to a fitful stop, and Chalandra stepped out as soon as
the driver opened the door, not waiting for his hand.  He seemed unfazed,
and simply nodded towards the thick doors, which were opening.
     She had hoped to see the Count greeting her.  Instead, it was the Baron.
     Chalandra bit her lip, and started regretting her promise to her mother.
     "Good evening, my dear," the Baron of Phoot told her, smiling what he
obviously believed, with no supporting evidence, to be a charming smile.  "I
trust you had a pleasant journey?"
     "Yes, Baron," Chalandra said, carefully.  "Your driver got me here a bit
quicker than I had expected."
     "You may take the coach in, Waits," the Baron said to the driver.  Waits
nodded, smiled at Chalandra, and stepped up into the coach, to take the
reins of the night black stallions.  "Please come in, my dear.  Dinner will
be served shortly."
     Chalandra allowed him to take her coat, and tried not to shudder as his
fingertips came into contact with her arm.  A servant appeared, almost out of
nowhere, and took the coat, disappearing into the dim cloakroom.
     "I would think having so little light wouldn't be comfortable," Chalandra
said, as the Baron took her arm.
     "I do so as a courtesy to the Count," the Baron said.  "He...suffers from
a rare disorder.  His eyes are weak, and bright light irritates them.
Consequently, he does not go out often in daylight."
     She walked with him through the main hallway, noticing differences, subtle
and not-so, between the Baron she met at the celebration last week and the
Baron she was talking to now.  This one seemed thoughtful, almost reserved.
There were no pizza stains in his neatly combed beard, and his breath did not
reek of cheap wine.  He was dressed smartly, and smelled of lavender.  Had
his behavior at the celebration been out of place?
     They entered the dining room, and he lightly patted her bottom as he let
go of her arm.  With considerable restraint, she kept herself from belting
him.
     Evidently, the answer to the question at hand was no.
     The dining room table was long, but not ridiculously so.  It fit the
decor: reserved, elegant, and somewhat bland.  Paintings adorned the walls,
almost as an afterthought.  If any of them were ancestors of the Baron,
Chalandra couldn't see it in the artwork.
     Two places were set at the table, one at each end.  Chalandra looked
at the Baron, questioningly.
     "The Count will join us after dinner," he explained.  "He..."
     "...has a sensitive palate?"
     "Did he tell you?" the Baron asked, surprised.
     "It was an inspired guess."

                               ^v^v^v^v^v^v^

     She had just finished her dessert when she heard the Count's voice in
the hallway.  He was saying something to one of the servants.  She caught
the name of 'Waits' again.
     "I believe the Count has arrived," the Baron said, without necessity.
"Shall we greet him?"
     "I would like that very much," Chalandra said.  The Baron nodded,
hiccuped, and struggled out of his chair, upsetting what was left of the
wine onto the table.  He stared at it curiously, before swinging himself
around to face the general direction of the door.
     Chalandra saw the eyes first.  Scarlet red, like in her dreams.
     He stepped through the doorway, and the red disappeared, a trick of the
dim light.  Chalandra couldn't keep from smiling, just a little.  Though
she hadn't touched her wine, she felt lightheaded, and as flushed as the
Baron's face was at the moment.
     "Joseph, my friend," the Count said, with only a hint of patronization
in his voice.  "I see you have been celebrating in earnest."
     "Have you ever known me to...hic!...do otherwise?" the Baron asked,
wavering just a bit.  The Count smiled, mirthlessly, and turned to Chalandra.
"I see that you have already had your repast."
     "The Baron explained about your...palate," Chalandra said, smirking a
bit.  Dracula nodded.
     "Let us adjourn to a more comfortable place, where we can sit and talk,"
the Baron suggested.  He started towards Chalandra, to offer her his arm, but
the Count was there first.  The Baron stopped, stared for a bit, then
started in the direction of the hallway.
     The room the entered was heavily decorated, and Chalandra guessed that
it was the room in which the Baron spent most of his time while in the
villa.  The scent of old cheese clung to the air, although there was no
pizza in immediate sight.  The tables to the side of the comfortable chairs
had faint stains left by overfilled mugs of bitter ale, and one of the chairs
bore an impression that distinctly resembled the Baron's limited efforts at
posture.
     "I have cigars, from Sicily, if you would like, Count," the Baron said.
Dracula shook his head.  "Would you like to try one, my dear?"
     What the hell, Chalandra thought.  The dinner with the Baron had caused
a knot of tension to form in her neck - she needed something to relax her.
At least the Baron didn't seem to care whether or not it was right for a lady
to smoke a cigar, she mused, as she placed the end of the cigar between her
teeth.  The Baron lit the other end, and slouched back in his chair,
exhaling soft smoke.
     She inhaled the smoke, and, seconds later, was wracked with a coughing
fit as violent as any she had ever had.  The Baron seemed alarmed by the
noise, and the shades of green that she was sure she was turning, but
Dracula simply sat there, watching with neither approval or approbation.
     After the worst of it had passed, she forced herself to sit up, and
accepted the Baron's kerchief, to wipe away her tears.  She handed it back,
and slowly, more deliberately, this time, took another puff of smoke into her
lungs.  This time, she only coughed a little.
     "It is the rare person who persists in an endeavor, regardless of those
watching," Dracula said.  "It is even rarer when this is done by free will."
     "She is far from common," the Baron commented.
     "Thank you," Chalandra said, finding her voice.
     "I must confess, I was worried this evening," Dracula said, fixing his
cold eyes on Chalandra.  "The bandits have been growing bolder in their
attacks, and with no guard to accompany your coach..."
     "Waits is guard enough," the Baron insisted.  "Match for twenty men, he
is, armed or not."
     "Of course," Dracula said.  "Twenty...men.  But if one listens to the
folk out where the attacks are taking place, one will hear that some of the
attackers are...more than men."
     "Oh, God, not another vampire story," the Baron grumbled.  "I might as
well pass out now."
     "As you wish, my friend," Dracula said.
     The Baron nodded, took a large drink of wine, and sank further into his
chair.  Several minutes passed in silence, during which time no one, not
Dracula, not Chalandra, nor the Baron, moved.
     "At last, he is out," Dracula told her, after waving his hand in front
of the Baron's face.  "Sometimes, he doesn't make it past dinner."
     "I'm not surprised," Chalandra said.
     "Perhaps now we can cease the pretense," Dracula said, fixing his gaze
upon her.
     "Y...yes," she said, almost dropping her cigar as a thrill of excitement
tingled within her, ghostly fingers on her skin playing a rhythm in time with
the pumping blood underneath.
     "I am a vampire," he told her, softly.
     "I know," Chalandra answered.
     "It is not an easy thing to say, even in this setting," Dracula said.
"On the continent, the Inquisition is thriving, and my kind are being
persecuted with particular fervor.  It has reached the point where I jump
at the mere sight of a cross."
     He paused.
     "You know that I seek for you to join me," he said.
     Chalandra nodded, not trusting her voice to speak.
     His eyes watched hers, and she thought she could see a bit of the red,
again.
     "What do you know of my kind, Chalandra?" he asked.
     "Only the legends that Belim has told me," Chalandra said.  "You drink
human blood, for the sake of survival.  You can become mist, or wolf, or
bat, and traverse great distances with ease.  You are stronger than mortals,
and you cannot stand the sunlight."
     "Partially correct," Dracula said.  "For others, it is more correct."
     "I don't understand," Chalandra asked.  "I thought..."
     "The children of the night are as varied and distinctive as the
children of the sun," Dracula told her.  "Some can drink only human blood,
and cannot dream.  Some may drink both the blood of humans and animals, and
are able to fly.  Some dissolve in sunlight, while others, such as the Shinma,
are unaffected.  Their differences can be as important as their similarities.
     He smiled, seeing her questioning stare.
     "We have a legend.  A legend of a time when there were no vampires, no
living undead.  Far, far ago, in a strange land named 'Mitsuke,' a battle
took place, a battle between the forces of light, led by the warrior-king
Gilgamesh, and a dark sorceress named Tara, who led the forces of darkness.
     "They had battled for what seemed to them to be ages, yet both sensed
that the time of final reckoning was at hand.  The very air was changing
around them, and everything seemed to be pressing inward, as though the
world was collapsing into itself.
     "Gilgamesh had broken Tara's spells, and had her by the throat.  Though
she appeared to be no more than a child, Gilgamesh knew that a blackened
heart was within, and he was resolute.  Her blood ran down his arms and
stained the glowing ground, and the sky thundered with unknowable rage.
All around them, his warriors were locked in combat with her vampire-magicians.
There was a catastrophic flash of light, a scream torn from thousands of
souls...
     "When Gilgamesh awoke, he found himself in Mesopotamia again, by Enkidu's
side once more.  It was not until later that he discovered that he was the
only warrior to have returned from the battle...unchanged.
     "Tara had cast a final spell, at the moment of her death.  The blood of
her followers erupted from their bodies, the vampire blood-that-changes, and
washed over and through Gilgamesh's warriors, suffocating them, only to
resurrect them again.
     "Every survivor of the battle, save for Gilgamesh, had become a vampire.
But the each was different, in some important respect.  They divided, and
spread across the world, creating followers, armies...and lovers.
     "Some had more success than others.  The weaker variations, the 'little
fangs,' were destroyed by the stronger types.  Even today, they are
considered aberrations, not worthy of their prolonged existance."
     He looked up at her, sharply.
     "Make no mistake," he said.  "Being immortal doesn't mean you'll live
forever."
     "I see," was all that Chalandra could find to say.  Was that what the
woman was, a 'little fang' that should have died long ago?
     Dracula looked about the room, slowly.
     "This is the wrong atmosphere," he said.  "Would you care to go outside,
for some night air?"  He was already standing, his pale hand outstretched.
Chalandra's body answered for her, rising to take the offered hand, though
her eyes never wavered from his.  She kept just enough presence of mind to
deposit the cigar into an ashtray, in the process.

                               ^v^v^v^v^v^v^

     "The air feels...still, this evening," Chalandra said.
     "Still, and thick," Dracula agreed.  "As though the world had truly
fallen to that mortal sickness, death."
     They stared out into the night sky.  The stars gradually became visible,
as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
     "Will it hurt?" Chalandra asked, quietly.
     "Of course," Dracula told her.  "The most valuable things always do."
     "How long will it take?" she asked, in the same voice.
     Dracula waited a while, before answering.
     "It can be done in a single night," he said.  "Were I in a rush, I
could make you what I am quite quickly.  But it would be unfair to you,
and possibly dangerous, as well."
     "Why?"
     "There is more to becoming a vampire than the physical fact of the
Turning," he told her, like a teacher lecturing a pupil.  "The psychological
shock, even for one who becomes a child of the night of her own will, is
formidable, and the energies that she finds running through her can run out
of control.  It is for this reason that I favor a more gradual process.
     "I will consume your blood gradually, over the coming weeks.  You will
experience some physical changes during this time, and will be able to grow
into them.  When it is time for your death, when the consummation of the
Turning has been reached, I shall give you my blood, and you shall enter
the shadowy land between life and death.
     "That is...if it is your wish."
     Chalandra blinked at him.
     "Isn't it obvious what I desire?" she asked.  "Why would I be here,
otherwise?"
     "Do not dismiss out of hand what I offer you," he said.  "It is not
often that I give those who I turn the luxury of declining.  In fact, you are
the first."
     She took a deep breath, and looked up at him.  The moonlight was sliding
through the thick summer air like rain, gliding from his ghostly skin and
cruel lips.  She could see his hunger in the way his jaw was held, and
wondered what it was costing him to employ restraint at this stage.
     She also wondered why he was restraining himself.  What was so special
about her, that wasn't about his past fledglings?
     There was something he wasn't telling her.  Something that would
frighten her away, if she only knew what it was.  In a way, that was what
attracted her, more than anything else.
     But, in the end, she couldn't say no.  Not to him.
     Never to him.
     "I wish it," she said, forcing the words past the dryness that had
crept into her throat.
     "You will not regret your decision, Chalandra," Dracula said, as his
arms enveloped her, lifting her off of her feet.  She kissed him, as she had
a thousand times before, in the dreams that she knew he had been sending to
her.  She felt as light as a feather as he pressed her to him, and it felt
as though she was burning.
     Her neck tilted back as his lips trailed hot, wet kisses, like footprints
on a fresh grave.  There was a pause...
     Then the teeth, sharper than anything she had dreamed, drove into her
neck, and the stars burned white fire, and her body burned with them, until
she could see no longer.


HOW LONG WILL DRACULA TAKE IN MAKING CHALANDRA ONE OF HIS KIND?

WILL THE PALE WOMAN EVER WAKE UP?

HAVE MARTIN LUTHER AND CARDINAL MENOS MET BEFORE?

DOES BARON PHOOT KNOW THAT DRACULA IS A VAMPIRE, OR IS HE JUST EXCEPTIONALLY
     DENSE, IN ADDITION TO BEING EXCEPTIONALLY TACKY?

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN, ANYWAY?

Get Superguy.  It pays.

+-------- Gary W. Olson --------+        "All roads lead *away* from Ankh-
| swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu  |         Morpork, but sometimes people just
+----- swede@drycas.bitnet -----+         walk along them the wrong way."
                                          - Terry Pratchett, _Moving_Pictures_