Uncle Vlad- Book 1- The Lost Dracula
Chapter 9: Servant's
So without wasting any more time Marlin and Eddie where already heading down to the kitchens where most of the servants would be at this time, the kitchens where underground and the quickest way to get there was to go though the dining room. Once in the dining room, Wolfie was already long gone. Eddie led Marlin to one of the walls facing west. Eddie then pressed his thumb on the centre of the wall where there was a small round button, Marlin had never noticed it until now. Then Marlin heard the sound of a small bell then to his astonishment the wall opened up like the doors of a lift, well Marlin had supposed it was a lift, the door opened to reveal a small square room, Marlin guessed this was the way to the kitchens.
"It is more convieniant that the entrance to the kitchen would be in the dining room." Eddie explained "If we have a large number of guests the servant's would bring the food out rather than use that table method." Marlin nodded, he supposed that given the castle was quite new they haven't had many guests yet. Marlin and Eddie stepped into the lift, Eddie pressed a green button and doors smoothly shut in front of them.
Marlin suddenly felt a bit claustrophiic "How long till the lift stops?" Marlin asked turning towards Eddie
"Not long," Eddie said reassuringly, he had noticed his friend had grew paler than before "Just count slowly to ten and we will be there" Marlin counted starting on ten and count backwards but once they reached number two the lift had stopped, Marlin for one terrifying split seconds thought they were locked in but then he felt a wave of relief when the door slid open.
Marlin quickly stepped out into a brightly lit room with white plaster walls and tiled sparkling clean floor and right in front of his was another door with a small window at the top.
"Its through this door," Eddie said leading them towards the white door where Marlin should be able to hear a banging of pans and shouting, the sounds you would hear in a big castle like this but he couldn't hear anything.
The two stepped inside to find a room full of probably five or six zombies chopping meat, organising cutlery or mopping the floor and chatting among themselves. Marlin was surprised he expected a lot more staff than this and although they were doing their jobs they seemed to be in no rush.
"Hey Beth!" Eddie called strolling over to a young woman who emptying the dishwasher, she had brown hair tied in a bun held by a blue ribbon, the same colour as her eyes.
"Hello wee Eddie," She smiled warmly as the boys approached, she noticed Marlin who was feeling a bit awkward because he had noticed that she wasn't the only one staring at him, the whole kitchen staff seemed to be looking at him with interest.
"Ok ok," Eddie said stepping in front of Marlin, "He doesn't need you all staring at him," He laughed and the ladies went back to their work only being quieter and working harder than before, it seemed that something about Marlin's presence had out them on edge like the Grand High Vampire himself had walked in instead.
"Sorry about that, don't mind them," Beth whispered, "It's rare to see nobility down here, Eddie should know better."
"I didn't know they were going to stare at him like he had just grown a second head," Eddie whispered harshly which unfortunately was heard by all the kitchen staff.
"Beth," A big woman said who was busy cutting vegetables, "I think the young master wants to talk with you, and you should go and see what he wants."
"Yes ma," the young woman nodded and led them out of the kitchen and closed the door behind her.
"So young master and Eddie is there something you need?" Beth asked, hands on her hips looking business like but Marlin could tell she was glad to be out of the kitchen.
"Beth has eyes at the back of her head," Eddie said smiling at Marlin, "She's knows nearly everything that goes on and she is trust worthy."
Beth laughed, "You think too much of me Eddie," She said "Yeah I might know" She said smirking "Ask away!"
"Do you know if anything unusual or out of place happened yesterday 2:45- 2:55pm."
"Or you saw someone around that you don't usually see?" Marlin added.
Beth thought for a moment her hand rubbing her neck, "Well we haven't lived in the castle long, but I know it's not unusually to see people around here, this is lochness after all so there is obviously a lot of tourists and local villagers walking about." She paused "The only thing that happened differently yesterday was His Grandness left the castle but I'm sure he left long before 2:45."
"Are you sure you haven't overlooked anything" Marlin said "Maybe you saw something but you don't think it's important?"
"I'm sorry young master but apart from seeing His Grandness leave everything carried on as normal," He sighed "If you don't mind me asking why are you asking me all these questions or is it secret?"
"Sorry Beth" Eddie said and looked over at Marlin, Marlin trusted Eddie, he had known these people a lot longer than him.
"Ok then," Beth said, "I will tell you if I remember anything else."
"Thanks Beth," Eddie said "Is Old Dan around; he won't be gardening in this weather would he?"
"No he wouldn't," Beth nodded in agreement, "I suspect he's using the bad weather as an opportunity to organize the garage."
The two boys nodded their thanks to Beth and went back to the lift.
"Is it worth asking the other kitchen staff?" Marlin asked as the doors closed in front of them.
"Naa," Eddie said as the lift went up, "If Beth doesn't know then there is no chance that they would know anything, besides unlike Beth the others are stuck ups, they will tell things to His Grandness in hope of getting a promotion, but there are some servants who will keep quiet one of them is Old Dan."
Xxx
According to Eddie old Dan was one of the gardeners who used to take care of the old Grand High Vampire castle but since the new castle was built here in Scotland he had been busy trying to get his bearings around the castle grounds which was bit difficult since it has been raining since the castle was announced finished.
And to no surprise to him it was teaming down again.
Old Dan sighed as he moved his eyes away from the depressing sight of angry dark clouds and the heavy raindrops that pit pattered against his window and concentrated on the task given, organising the garage. What a fun job. Sorting out boxes, putting things on shelves although if the old castle had still been up he would be outside in the fresh air, tracking down the mountain side of Transylvania enjoying the fresh summer breeze running though his grey matted hair and the sun's rays shining in his eyes.
But Britain was just depressing. He knew the country was famous for its bad weather but still...It made him cranky and he wasn't in the mood when he heard knocking coming from behind the door.
Maybe if old Dan kept quiet the knockers would go away, but they didn't, whoever was knocking knew him pretty well and knew he was just hiding in here.
"I'm busy!" he shouted and he opened up one of the boxes he had scattered around him wondering where he was suppose to put all these tools.
"No you're not," Eddie shouted, "you have been saying you have been busy since we moved here and still the garage hasn't been done, I don't why it should be any different today!"
"Clever brat" The old zombie mumbled as he made his way to open the door ready to give Eddie a long lecture about respecting your elders but was surprised when he opened the door to find Eddie with another boy besides him with dark brown hair almost covering his blue eyes and his face...was very similar to His Grandness's. Was this the boy who was meant to be living in this castle from now on?
"Hi old Dan," Eddie greeted and the old zombie moved his eyes away from Marlins to Eddie's and gave the boy a deep scowl.
"Edward!" He snapped "You talk to me improperly again I will be having another word with you mother and we all know how that ended."
Eddie shivered at the memory, to old Dan's delight.
"Anyway what do you want?" The old zombie asked, hoping that they weren't knocking just because the new boy wanted a tour.
"We just came to ask some questions," Eddie smiled, "it's quite important."
"It's always important," the old man mumbled as he opened the door wider and ushered the two boys in.
"Excuse me," a nervous quiet voice came from the strange dark haired boy who Old Dan had no doubt was the His Grandness nephew. "My name his Marlin Chance," the boy offered his hand but the old grumpy zombie just grunted and turned away, royalty or not he was still a boy and like all boys, in old Dan's opinion where nuisances! The young pre-teen vampire may seem nice now but once the boy got accustomed to living in a castle he would act like he owned this place and take advantage of his status, Old Dan had seen it all...
"Make it quick," Old Dan said, "Like I said I'm busy and I've had a hard week!" The two boys looked around at the unpacked boxes wondering if he had been busy all week why wasn't there anything unpacked?
Eddie got straight to the point, "where were you around 2:45 to 2:55pm yesterday afternoon?"
Dan just stared at the two boys in shock.
"What is this, police integration?" The old zombie snapped throwing up his arm in frustration; these boys were wasting his time!
"I'm sure Eddie didn't mean it like that," Marlin said getting in-between the two zombies "we just want to know if you saw anything strange yesterday or if something happened?"
"No!" The old zombie snapped, "Nephew of the Grand High Vampire or not I will not play these detective games with you, now get out!"
Marlin looked like he was about to protest but Eddie put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head and led him out of the door and back down the hall where the two boys just came from.
"Sorry about that Marlin," Eddie said with a disappointed look on his face, "Old Dan has been in a bad mood since we came to Britain, he says it's something to do with the bad weather."
"It was worth a shot," Marlin said smiling encouragingly, "I don't suppose he knew anything anyway."
"He never said though," Eddie said "he might have known something but was much too grumpy to tell us, maybe he will think it over and tell us later."
"Maybe..."
Xxx
For the rest of the day the two boys interviewed some of the servants who Eddie saw as trustworthy or would know something, but it was fruitless, nearly all of them had just said the same thing that Beth had told them except for one boy a couple years younger than Marlin said that he had found an interesting coloured beetle swimming in his soup and how much better the soup tasted after that, but we don't need to know that...
It was just coming to two o'clock once the boys admitted that there wasn't any more they could do so they went back to Marlin's room to rest.
Marlin quickly wrote down what little he had learnt and sighed in defeat, maybe he was expecting too much in a short space of time the only thing he could do now was wait until the rain calmed down so he could go down to the local village to learn where the camera came from.
Eddie said he was going to look up more about the company where the camera was made and Marlin was left alone in his own thoughts wondering what to do now? He suppose he could research the Blood Seed, but he couldn't go the library because Eddie was there and he didn't want to be asked why he was looking at a book of plants, he would have to go later, but there was one thing Marlin could do. He now knew most of his way around the castle since he and Eddie had been looking for the servants so maybe he should start looking for secret passage way, every castle had at least one even one as modern as this one and if his Uncle was hiding something it would be there.
So he set off on his search starting with hall outside his room, he placed his hands on the plain white walls and searching for a hidden button or something like the one in the dining room but he came across nothing. He also looked in the other four rooms that were big, but not as big as his and they were empty of any furniture he wondered what they were going to be used for? But there didn't seem to be any secret passages that he could find and Marlin supposed if there was a secret passageway if would be somewhere busy and full of stuff not an empty room.
Next he tried around the front where the staircase was, he had read a book once where there was a secret passageway in-between the staircases maybe this castle was the same? He probably wasted a good valuable 20 minutes checking every wall, piece of floor, every corner but he found nothing. He sighed in frustration, this was so stupid he couldn't search the entire castle it would take him weeks! And the passageway probably wasn't in the castle it could be in the grounds! He had to narrow down his options.
First it would have to be somewhere busy and cluttered so if someone was searching for a passageway they would have a hard long time finding it, secondly it would have to be somewhere his Uncle Vlad could easily access so no one would see him, such as the servants, so somewhere private maybe?. Unfortunately that narrowed it down to one room that Marlin could think of, unless there was anywhere else, the only place that came to Marlin's mind was Vladimir's bed room.
Xxx
This was probably the craziest plan Marlin had ever had in his life but he a feeling it probably won't be the most craziest ever. Marlin Chance stood awkwardly by his Uncle Vlad's bedroom door, he couldn't hear anything coming from the room so he supposed that his uncle was asleep but he wasn't too sure. There was so many things that could go wrong with this plan that Marlin just thought he should leave it for another day when his Uncle was out, but according to the servants it was unusual that his uncle left the castle for long periods of time and looking at the keyhole in the door he supposed that his uncle usually locked the door when he wasn't using it.
No the best chance to sneak in was probably when he was asleep, and Marlin knew better than to let things drag out it was best to get these things done, out the way so he didn't have to worry about it later on.
So taking a deep breath (which might as well be his last) he ever so slowly pulled down the door handle and so slowly so the door didn't creak and put his eye to the crack, there was no movement his the room and the coffin lid was closed which said that his uncle was probably more likely to asleep at this moment. He opened the door just wide enough to squeeze through and closed the door gently behind him with a click as he looked around the room wondering where to start.
Maybe there was a button hidden underneath one of the many pictures that were stuck on the wall, or maybe one of the rugs hid an underground camber, or maybe it had something to do with the coffin? Let's hope it never comes to that...
Trying to make as little noise as possible Marlin began checking the floor, it wasn't easy with all the stuff in the way and he was too scared to move things in case they made a noise or when his uncle woke up he might notice one of his objects out of place, so he spent a long ten minutes checking under furniture, lifting up rugs and checking the floorboards and every minute or so looking back at the coffin where his Uncle slept but the coffin never opened.
Next Marlin made his way towards the wall of family photographs and very carefully lifted up photo by photo feeling the wall under it in case he missed a button or something. But while he was moving along the wall of photos he didn't notice a pile of books by his feet, suddenly Marlins foot caught the books and they toppled to floor with a surprisingly loud crash! Marlin jumped and screwed up his face at the sound, surely his uncle I had heard that?!
He waited for the sound of the coffin lid to open but it didn't come, Marlin turned his head slowly towards the coffin wondering if his uncle was going to come out or not but the coffin stayed closed. Suddenly Marlin felt like something was wrong. Surly with vampire senses his Uncle Vlad should of heard that and would open his coffin to see what the matter was, unless Marlin was just really lucky but he seriously doubted it.
Marlin cautiously made his way towards the coffin, he could hear nothing come out of it, not a peep, even when he pressed his ear to the thing there was nothing. Marlin wondered if he dared to open the coffin to check but he didn't have to because all of a sudden and door burst open, Marlin jumped in surprise to see Wolfie out of breath and red faced but he didn't seem surprised to see Marlin in the room.
"Marlin I thought I could smell you here!" Wolfie said with a slight smile on his face.
"What's up Wolfie why are you out of breath?" Marlin asked, he was now sure that his uncle wasn't in the coffin.
"Some of the servants saw a group of dark clothed men coming out the castle, they were carrying someone, I think Vlad has been kidnapped!"