Hi again, it's been so long since I have posted anything but I am hoping to change that everything has just been getting on top of me. This is just a little one- shot about how a little Vladimir came to be. Some of it is from the Count's POV which is really hard but quite fun to right. I have an idea for more stories like this but only if this works out. Please tell me what you think and reviews, favourites or follower make my day, literally.
Thank you for everyone who has been reading A Darkened Abyss I am trying to write it but I' m stuck, however, next chapter should be up on Friday. I'll stop rambling hope you like and please review.
Sweet.
About Vladi
Ever since he had got the baby boy into his home the Count had never felt more exhausted or happy in his life, well apart from when his delectable Magda had given birth to darling Ingrid. She was pleasurable enough but now he had his son, someone to call his heir. Not even a year had passed since he had grasped the boy but it felt as if the just turned one year had lived with him the last 500 years. How time flied with children!
The Count, however, would say the only problem was energy. A vampire was fit and healthy, the most deadly hunter, and yet he still found himself worn out with one afternoon with his daughter. Collapsing on the sofa the Count sighed, never again would he try to outrun his darling daughter with her strange games. Maybe he could grab a few minutes rest before the girl returned. He was not so lucky.
Just as the Prince of Darkness closed his eyes did a little black headed figure wander into the room. Her long her flying free and dangled down the far too long cape draped across her small shoulders and dragging along the wooden floor. Her bare feet padded against the wooden floor as she crept up to her resting father. She grasped onto the little toy bat in her hand and patted her father's knee, the highest she could reach.
"Daddy, Daddy wake up." Ingrid whispered up to her father.
"Oh, Ingrid what do you want?"
"Tell me a story like that one about the peasant Uncle Ivan killed with just his little toe." Ingrid giggled as she remembered the story.
The Count sighed again for the umpteenth time, "Ingrid I am tired," he looked down at her sweet face. "Right, I will tell you a story let me think. Ah ha! What about the battle of Trafalgar."
"Daddy, you have told me that one mill.. mill.. loads of times. I want something new."
The count reached down with slender fingers and picked up his daughter and placed him on his knee. She looked up at him expectantly as her father stroked his chin and hummed a chorus of 'mmmmm' to himself.
"Ah, what about your brother?" The Count cried.
Ingrid looked confused. "About Vladi…."
"Exactly, how I got Vladdy. Now let me see it was about two years ago, that's breather years, around September, I believe…
2 Years Earlier, Whitby Goth Festival 1995
The night howled and whipped past me as I came upon the festival. I slowed into a run after speeding there, Whitby Goth Festival '95 red the black banner above my head. I stretched out. It felt really good to be out in the open night air, I was always stuck in the castle with Magda, apart from our hunting trips. Surrounded by breathers is not something I would normally do but this was a special occasion I needed something to clear my mind. I had already had several bites to eat: eight pints of B negative; a sip from rather large women whose blood tasted strangely bitter, a bit like lemons and two pints of AB- rare, however, delicious.
Being here especially dressed in my leathers I really seemed to blend in with the modern goths like a vamp to shadows, it's strange I remember the days when the peasants feared the darkness now some of the breathers happily embraced it. They would be happy to be bitters accepting the night. Teenagers in their black outfits and even young adults were dressed in similar attires. Walking around me, I wonder if any of them new what I truly was, a Prince of Darkness. I even found myself speculating if any of the persons here were actually non-human, something supernatural, like me. Typically, I was extremely well equipped at distinguishing different scents, could easily tell the peasants from my sophisticated kind. Yet here, with the scents of hundreds of different species and souls, it was hard- no impossible - to tell who was breather and who was a bitter. It felt fantastic.
In such a huge crowd of chattering young breathers shouting over the blasting band- which, I will just say, were playing a weird admix of tunes some slow, others loud and rock like, but all of them seemed to be enjoyed- one could easily lose themselves. The music, the smell, the atmosphere. My thoughts were clouded as I soaked in the wonderful atmosphere surrounding me; I was enjoying myself and had almost forgotten why I had come to cheer myself up. But then how could I forget about the werewolf hair in the coffin? Magda was relishing in fun for the third time this lunar cycle. If she wanted to enjoy herself then so would I. I might even try to do this mover often; it was a good way to escape. Who would want to miss this amazing event, I was truly free…
I felt a slight push on my shoulder and a soft voice, "I am so sorry." I looked up at the young girl I had bumped into (I had been lost in thought). She was pretty with dark hair highlighted with purple streaks. Dark makeup lit up her eyes, a piercing blue, and complementing the midnight clothes she wore and her pale skin. On her a small physic she wore a knee-length lace dress and ripped black leggings covered by laced ankle boots.
I stood there for a moment transfixed by her image. Our eyes met.
She giggled in embarrassment, her cheeks turning a light pink as I stared at her with a gobsmacked expression spread across my face- her beauty was truly astounding. She put Magda to shame! I felt bad for bumping into her. Finally I broke away from the trance and the Dracula charm, as my father had called it, set in.
"The fault is all mine, I hope no harm was done." I smiled at her showing my white teeth. "May I have the honour of buying you a drink to apologise?" To breathers buying a drink is a way of asking for forgiveness, I think.
"I was about to leave but I guess another beer wouldn't kill me."
She returned a sweet smile on her pink lips. I ushered a grin her way nonetheless I was worried. No, tonight I would let it rest, I had eaten a lot before I came and for all I knew she might have be a vampire. She certainly looked the part- many of the goths at this festival were extremely convincing. We were only going to have one drink.
That one drink had gone a bit too far. I looked at the clock it was two in the morning, the middle of the night. To me and all vampires everywhere, however, to a young girl, such as the one next to me, it was bedtime. We had already talked about everything under the sun and had got through a shed load of drinks. The evidence was displayed across the table in front of us. Also, by Sally, the girl I had bumped into, slowly falling asleep next to me.
I shook her shoulder.
"Would you like me to take you home? You're falling asleep on my shoulder."
"Okay. I'm staying in the hostel just round the corner."
"Let's go." I held her hand and helped her stand up. Slowly, we made our way through the crowds of the festivals, which were still packed considering the time, and along to her hostel.
I awoke mid-afternoon. My head was reeling then I smelt the scent. I looked to my right in the bed – I was in a bed! - next to me, this came as a surprise, was the girl from last night. A name popped into my head. Sally, Sally Giles.
The images of the night before formed in my mind. The quick beers that led to several more. The chatting of every subject possible: the story of her cat, Snowy; her love of colours, especially blue; her wish to be an environmentalist and how she had only come to the festival because of her friends repeated begging.
More memories appeared of how I had taken her home. The offer of a cup of coffee which I had quickly accepted and enjoyed. I had said I was Salom Smith. Well I could not exactly tell her I was the frightening Count Dracula, a powerful and bloodsucking vampire, stuff of nightmares, PRINCE OF DARKNESS. The rest of my memory was blank.
I hoped this lovely eighteen year old Sally forgot all about me. I simply left her an apology note. Then I left the sweet girl.
I walked out of her room and along the corridor to the fire escape I had seen earlier. Slipping through, I climbed onto the roof and swiftly moved into the shadows. I made a quick dash east to where I knew a small cemetery lay, just a few miles from the hostel. It would be a safe cover until nightfall.
I settled myself in one of the cribs and reached deep inside my long coat pocket, in hope of a small comfort. Instead I felt the edge of card like paper against my fingertips. I pulled it out and a shockingly familiar face met mine.
A small picture of Sally lay in my hands. I did not pretend to understand breather technology but the weird device that had caught her image did not do her justice. She wore a small smile on her lips and looked beautiful. At the bottom of the picture two words were written in Sally's cute penmanship. Sally Giles. The strange thing though was someone had dotted the i with a heart.
"So where did he come from?" Ingrid asked staring up at her father. He had been explaining about how her new baby brother had come but after his long winded story, that no five year old could keep wind of, he still had not explained the beginnings of her brother.
"Then, Ingrid, Sally gave me Vladimir. That is how I got him, my son and heir, and how you got a brother. Now for the moment can you please stop bugging me with questions?" The Count snapped down to his daughter and pulled her of his lap. He had got engrossed in his story telling but his daughter was annoying him now.
Ingrid looked at her father in a peculiar sad but confused expression. She had no idea who this women Sally was or how she was involved with her brother. As far as she knew Mummy was Magda, Valdi was her brother and so Magda was Vladi mother as well. She clutched tighter onto her toy bat.
"Thank you for the story, Daddy. I love you." The Count smiled
"Go on darling to your mother."
"Okay, Daddy." Ingrid ran off to find her mother, her little feet once again padding against the floor.
The Count sat down on the armchair and sighed, once again. Little Ingrid was too much sometimes. Oh and Sally, her memory was so sad every time he looked down at his son he was showed the betrayal he had committed. Yet, he loved his son and his daughter as individuals but together they would be a big annoyance. How would he cope? The Count reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph. The sweet eighteen year old smiled back at him. The Count hunched up and breathed frustrated, "Oh Sally."