Chapter 14: New Home

Lex waited for the blood delivery. She was reading Günter Stampf's novel, Interview With a Cannibal. It was a favorite of her's and she was enjoying the read as she remembered she would need to warm the blood for Drăculea. Unlike in her book, this blood couldn't be cooked, it needed only to be warmed to 98F. She put her book down and got on Amazon. She ordered a hot bath like the ones used in her college biology labs. Thanks to Amazon prime, it would be on her front porch tomorrow! Lex resumed her reading, though she knew she should be reading about Vlad III Dracula's life. That could wait until his blood arrived. She had just found her place again when the doorbell rang.

Lex put down her book and went to the door. Ignoring the odd looks from the delivery service, she signed for it and carried the blood from the coolers into her own walk-in storage cooler. When the truck left, she boiled a hot water bath in two pots. She placed a thermometer in each pot and sat at the bar to keep an eye on them. Lex was glad for the fume hood she had as she thought about heating the blood with the hot bath she'd ordered. She didn't mind the smell of blood, she just didn't want the smell all over the house and she could only imagine the scent of stale blood floating stagnant over Shake Weighty Rec Room. Not pleasant... especially not if she had to entertain guests other than Ben and Heather.

Pushing that thought aside, she picked up her phone and lazily search "Vlad III Dracula." Lex skimmed through the links... the were all .coms. She was researching though and needed better sources. She switched to Google Scholar and like any good researcher, started at the beginning. "Childhood of Vlad III Dracula." She browsed the new search results, pleased to find better sources. Lex was absolutely exhausted. The last thing she wanted to do was prepare food for a sleeping vampire let alone read of his past. All she wanted was to sleep herself... a nice, deep, drugged sleep. One that she wouldn't wake up from... how nice...

She found a promising site... Psycho-biographical Considerations about Vlad the Impaler also known as Dracula... By Dr. Peter Dan... it sounded boring but wasn't most research she'd done before? "Well... let's take a trip back to my time in college... yes barista, I realize you usually serve coffee but I asked for a side of chai tea with my research paper and I intend to get it!" She laughed remembering when she'd gone off on the poor barista a 6AM whilst thoroughly inspecting her grad paper on sustainable magrav plasma generators... it hadn't been a good morning and she admittedly way overreacted when the barista asked if she meant to order a chai latte... it was a funny memory though, smiling as she remembered it.

She got up to make some tea and began to read..."Vlad III Draculea, later alliterated to Dracula, from the latin draco, meaning the son of the dragon but also possibly the son of the devil, was born at the end of 1431 in the Transylvanian city of Sighisoara. His father, also named Vlad..." (Dan) damn, this was honestly the worst. Why did history have to be so boring she wondered.

It took her almost an hour to finish reading and making notes. She compiled these notes and placed them in a filing folder. The folder was then placed into her records cabinet, hopefully to never need referencing. As it turned out, according to Dr. Dan's research, Drăculea suffers from attachment and trust issues due to the lack of stable parental figures in his life. Not only that but he also had paranoid personality disorder and post traumatic stress disorder most likely resulting from the beatings and rapes he received under Ottoman rule. She also read that he had a tendency to kill and impale small animals... she'd have to watch out for that... she couldn't allow it. Dan also theorized that Drăculea's obsession with impalement stemmed from his unconscious desire to cope with the sexual abuse and the humiliation and lack of control he had from that abuse. In other words... she had a very, very, messed up vampire on her hands. He currently seemed more broken and scared than anything though right now and she hoped the whole "impaling small animals" thing didn't rear it's ugly head, at least hopefully not in the near future.

Lex had forgotten about the boiling water, it was well past 98F... whatever. She dumped both pots into the sink with some ice cubes. She waited 20 minutes and brought 4 blood bags out of the cooler. They were each a pint, she couldn't imagine him eating more than that for the time being... if he even woke up... his body had to be exhausted. It was starved and his stress and fear did nothing to help it. Once the bags were sufficiently warm, she drained part of the contents of one into a coffe mug. The sight was quite odd and kinda repulsive, even to her. It smelled fresh enough... not the smell of fresh carcass but definitely a blood smell.

Drăculea woke up... he could smell the blood. It was downstairs, it had to be. To far, was he locked in? He tried to move... pain. A new pain. Where was he? He slid a clawed hand under the warm blankets. That was new... there were never any blankets, or even a bed, let alone warm ones. He was naked though, that was normal. His usual pains felt somewhat dulled though, he needed to get up and try and get the blood if he could, before the pain came back. His hand slid over something strange. A new cut, just above the base of his penis. It wasn't there before. And... it was... stitched? He pushed the blankets on him and painfully got up. He looked down at himself. His hip bones jutted out cruelly but there was the new cut, something was off... what happened? Then he remembered... master, painkillers... and this was his new chamber? The sun was still low over the water... it was beautiful, it brought tears to his eyes and yet, the sun wasn't hurting him... it was the glass... master had said something about it. He couldn't remember but this view, it was spectacular. He stared for several long minutes before tearing his eyes away to explore his new cell. He found his coffin first! He stumbled to it on legs that were still too painful and too weak to move very fast. The vampire examined his coffin and to his surprise it was in relatively good condition! Much better than when he'd seen it last! It had fresh paint and the holes were gone! And his soil!! It was there too! Under the coffin! There was a clear covering over it but it was there and it looked as though it had been pressed and designed! He couldn't believe it! He had his coffin and a bed! His original clothes! They were there too, cloak and everything! He limped over to them. He smelled them, they smelled clean and fresh. Inside the door they hung on were more clothes, not his own, but others. Then he saw it... in it's own section, his armor... in pristine condition! He couldn't believe it... all this... it was surreal. He dressed himself, despite the pain, he finally was clothed... it felt soooo good. The feeling of shame and vulnerability disappearing as he put each necessary article of clothing on. He chose black sweat pants that had the words Calvin Klein sewn into them... they were odd but covered him and were comfortable even with his wounds. Then he chose a red sweatshirt with similar fabric and design. They felt good on him. He found the bathroom, he had already seen that, it was nice, nicer than anything at Hellsing Manor and nicer than anything he'd had in his own castle. Now it was time for food. He moved awkwardly to the door, to his surprise it was unlocked. Following his vampiric nose, he limped slowly down the hall. The metal staircase was in sight... he crept over to it. The scent of blood drew him, urging him on. He was so hungry. He cautiously set foot on the stairs. It was cold under his bare feet. It was all he could do to support his weight on one leg as he brought the other foot down beside the first one. He exhaled, exhausted from the effort. He had to get to the blood though. He took another step. This time he wasn't so lucky and fell forward down the steps. He let out a weak cry of terror as he fell. Lex heard him and came running. She found her vampire clinging weakly to a metal bar on the railing. He looked oddly cute in a sad, pathetic kind of way. She ran over and picked him up. She was impressed that he had at least picked two of the same kinds of clothes... they didn't match too well but they were okay together. He looked more embarrassed and scared of her than anything but she checked for any new injuries anyway. She was glad to see he hadn't reopened her stitch job. She looked back up at him and saw the hurt in his eyes... she felt bad. She knew he didn't understand why she had done it to him. "I'm sorry, I needed to take the silver out. The pills I gave you were painkillers but they are also used as a sedative sometimes. I didn't want to operate on you while you were awake" she explained. He still looked hurt and mistrusting but seemed to accept her reason. To his surprise, she picked him up, almost effortlessly and carried him the rest of the way down the stairs and over to the bar. He didn't like being carried like this. Master, a female, was stronger than him. Her physical human strength currently outmatched his typically superior vampiric male strength. He didn't like it. But, he had to admit, it felt better on his body than walking.

Lex held him, balancing on one foot as she used the other to slide out a bar stool. Once finished, she set him on it and went back around the bar to get the mug of blood. She had placed it on a mug warmer. She retrieved it and slid it down the bar to him. She loved playing the role of a bar tender... even if it was blood in a coffee mug. Still fun... but under these circumstances, only enough to bring a smirk to her lips.

Drăculea was shocked to see this. Not only did master have warmed food prepared for him, she smiled! It was the most emotion he'd seen from her! Ever since she'd traded for him, he'd been waiting for some sort of emotion to read from her but nothing. Most of the time she had a perfect poker face and if she had any other expression it was a cool artist's rendition of whatever emotion the situation demanded but never a true emotionally driven expression... until now.

Lex looked at her vampire, he was looking back at her. Looking at her face again... he was trying to read her expression... good luck with that she thought. She rarely ever showed true emotion. She, like her friends, had long ago discovered that faking emotions instead of actually having them benefited an individual in almost every situation. One could fake excitement or a drunken state or depression. They could play others or send just the right image they wanted that person to have and then turn around and cross that impression at the drop of a hat. It made them unpredictable and it made them dangerous and that's how they'd survived. So, Drăculea wouldn't be able to truly read her emotions unless she let him... and she wasn't going to... not yet anyway.

(My citation in APA for those of you that care...

Dan, P.(n.d.). Psycho-biographical considerations about Vlad the Impaler also known as Dracula. Retrieved from http/10342218/Psycho-biological_considerations_about _Vlad_the_Impaler_also_known_as _Dracula )