Disclaimer: the story is based on the Austrian musical "Tanz der Vampire" and its predecessor, the movie "Fearless Vampire Killers". All due credit goes to Mr.s Michael Kunze, Jim Steinmann and Roman Polanski.

- CHAPTER 8 - DISCOVERY -

Coming out of the basement after a good day's sleep, Krolock found the house surprisingly silent. The reason for it became clear when entering the kitchen, he saw a message from Otto saying that Vanda was doing a late shift at work and he had to leave on urgent business. They were both going to be back home for dinner but if he was in a hurry, he was welcome to take the blood and go, leaving the key in the usual place inside one of the flower beds.

Krolock considered the idea. On one hand, he'd told Meike she would be able to talk to Otto, on the other, it was imperative that he go back as soon as possible, even more so now that he had to take care of the problem posed by Hayman's son being turned into a vampire.

Intent on finding out more about the situation back home before making any rash decisions, he placed a call to Magda. After a couple of beeps, the vampiress picked up. Asked about Anton, she told him he had indeed come to the castle. Apparently, he'd attacked Zhenia but didn't bite her or anyone else for that matter so the worst had been avoided. He'd still have to talk to Hayman about the whole thing but that could wait.

The vampire ended the phone call and went to get himself something to drink. As he dealt with the coffee machine, his sensitive ears picked up the sound of steps. A moment later Meike entered the kitchen.

"Good evening," she greeted.

"Evening," Krolock replied. "Want some coffee?"

Meike nodded. "Is it just my impression or are we alone in here?" she asked as he handed her the drink a moment later.

"Vanda's at work and Otto is out running an errand," he explained and seeing her face, he added, "but he'll be back soon. You still get to talk to him."

The two of them sipped their coffee in silence for a moment until Krolock spoke up again.

"I've been thinking," he began. "We have a good few hours to spare. We could take a ride to the city center, stop somewhere for something to eat. I guess you must be hungry."

"Starving."

"Let's go then."

It had been years since Krolock had moved out of Cluj and back in the castle and yet he had no trouble navigating the once-familiar streets. Parking the motorbike at a comfortable distance, he led Meike towards Piața Unirii.

The city's main square was buzzing with life. At the feet of the Matthias Corvin Monument, some children were playing loudly under the watchful eye of their parents. A few meters away, a lonely old woman sat on a wooden bench and busied herself feeding pigeons. Inside St. Michael's Church the evening mass was in order, chants and prayers seeping outside through the open door and mixing with the traffic noise. Meanwhile, across the street on the east side, people enjoyed an evening drink in one of the many bars and restaurants.

Krolock and Meike got themselves seated outside of a nice little bistro. The waitress didn't speak any English or German so upon a quick discussion with Meike, Krolock placed an order for a plateau of meat with some salad and bread for her and a beef tartare for himself plus a couple of glasses of wine.

As the waitress left, the vampire leaned back in his chair and looked up at the silhouette of the church towering over the square. "It's a shame they don't allow visitors this late," he said. "I would've liked to show you the inside."

Meike flashed him a confused look. "I thought vampires couldn't enter holy ground."

"A ground is just as holy as one believes it to be," Krolock snorted. "A church is just a building. A cross is just a shape. A vampire for whom they hold a religious connotation may be affected by them but even then, their symptoms would be entirely psychosomatic. It would be all in their heads."

"Wait for a second." Meike knitted her brows in thought. "If sacred objects don't do anything then what the hell happened at the ball? You know, the one in 1905?"

Krolock clenched his jaw as the memories of that fateful night flooded his mind: the sweet taste of Sarah's blood, the sparkles in her eyes when she glided with him across the ballroom floor and the cold empty feeling as he watched her run away, leaving him there to die without as much as a second thought.

"I'm sorry." Meike's quiet voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, that's fine," the vampire assured her. He waited a moment to accommodate the waiter who brought them their food and drinks, then continued, "You know that ruined part of the castle? It was originally a chapel before I decided to use it as a ballroom. I had all crosses removed from the inside but I never cared about the one perched on the roof. There was a storm that night in 1905 and while I have no means of proving it, I am convinced lightning had struck that cross just around the time Abronsius and Alfred pulled that stunt with the candelabras. The electricity traveled inside the masonry, causing the inner vault to break and collapse right on my head. The next thing I know I woke up in the crypt. Magda, who had been attending to me while I was unconscious, told me Herbert had dug me up with some help from Chagal of all people. The others… They took my death for granted and seized the opportunity to spread out, causing mass hysteria in the area that wouldn't die out for years to come. I suspect Magda and Chagal had only stayed behind because they had no idea where to go now that they were vampires. The two of them had made themselves useful, however, taking care of the household and myself for as long as I needed it and with time, I came to consider them like family, regardless of their humble origins."

"What about Sarah and Alfred? How did they end up back with you?"

"I only know what they'd told me. Apparently, after escaping the castle, the two of them and Abronsius went back to the inn. Sarah was put to rest, Alfred watching over her, while Abronsius went to talk Madam Chagal into taking part in a blood transfusion. As soon as Alfred fell asleep in his chair, Sarah made a run for it. She swears she'd meant to come back to the castle, to me, but then she'd bumped into Eszter and Zoltan who told her I was dead. Next thing, Alfred caught up with her and tried to take her back to the inn so she bit him and then convinced him to escape together. They'd been wandering around for years until, in the forties, they were caught and-"

"It had been them!" Meike exclaimed, her eyes widening in sudden realization. "Those kids that Otto had saved! They had been Sarah and Alfred!"

Krolock nodded. "They would've likely been killed, even more so if it had been discovered Sarah was Jewish, hadn't it been for Otto. When we crossed paths many years later, the two of them told me what he'd done. To thank him for his respectful behavior towards our kind, I helped him settle down here in Cluj and provided him with funds to continue his research. It paid off in the end, as the discoveries he made revolutionized our way of life."

"How exactly?"

"Mainly, by debunking the idea that we're dead."

"You can't possibly be alive. Not in the traditional sense. I mean, you have no pulse."

Krolock gave the German a contemptuous look, then seized her hand across the table and pressed it against his pulse point.

"Wait for it," he said, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the feeling of her fingers against his skin.

The church bell began to chime in rhythm with the scene playing in the vampire's mind. Ding dong. Ding dong. And there it was, that familiar sensation of a thousand needles at the end of his extremities. Ding dong. Ding dong. Warmth spread over his body as his heart accelerated until finally, it beat fast enough to be sensed.

Meike gasped, staring at him in a mixture of surprise and amazement. "How…? How'd you do that?"

Krolock opened his eyes. A cheeky smile spread across his lips. He looked the German up and down with deliberation and then replied simply, "I just thought of something exciting."

§§§

As Anton drifted out of sleep, he noticed with a certain surprise that it was very quiet, dark and warm. Too quiet, dark and warm. Almost as if he were underground. Almost as if he were in…

"A grave," he yelp as the memories of the previous night rushed into his mind.

Untangling himself from the blankets, he felt the stone above his head and pushed with all the strength he had.

The lid gave way far easier than he'd expected. Moving it to the side, he crawled out into the crisp evening air. There wasn't a soul in the graveyard but looking up he saw a light in one of the castle windows. Pushing the lid back into place, he climbed into the courtyard where he found Magda fiddling with what appeared to be an outmoded electric meter.

"Is the power back?" he asked, walking up to her.

The vampiress glanced at him over her shoulder. "Yeah. I'd say about time." She made a couple more adjustments to the meter and closed the box. "So, how are you feeling kid? Did you get some sleep?"

Anton thought about it for a moment. "Actually, yes." In spite of his reservations about sleeping in a grave, once the lid closed over his head, he instantly dozed and slept without interruption for the whole day.

Magda steered him towards a small door hidden underneath a great arcade. "Let's go find you a room."

Anton smiled to himself. So he was going to get a room after all.

They entered a raw stone hallway which Anton soon recognized as the very same he'd walked with Chagal the night before to get into the kitchen. Turning the corner, there was a narrow passage that connected to the new ballroom and the entrance hall where a grand staircase led to the upper floors.

As they were passing by the Ancestral Gallery, he asked Magda, "Are all these people the Graf's relatives?"

"Oh yes," the vampiress replied. "It's their graves that we sleep in."

"What?!"

"Oh, shut it. They lie buried six feet under. We just use their tomb markers as makeshift box beds."

"That's just wrong," Anton muttered, eyeing the people in the portraits and wondering whose grave exactly he'd slept in the whole day. He only hoped their spirit wouldn't come to haunt him for desecrating their resting place.

Magda stepped onto the spiral staircase but Anton failed to follow, suddenly captured by a large painting that hung on the wall right next to it.

"Is that…?" he began to ask, staring at the faded image of a familiar-looking man in rather unfamiliar-looking clothing.

"Yes, it's the Graf," Magda said promptly, "with his late wife and son."

Anton switched his attention to the woman standing beside Krolock. She was blond like Meike and quite beautiful but there was an air of contempt about her he really didn't like. In her arms, sat a small child with a head full of the same fair satiny locks.

"They'd both died long before the Graf became a vampire," Magda added. "As far as I know, he never cared that much for the wife, theirs being an arranged marriage and all but the child is a different matter. Sometimes I wonder if he'd gotten himself so attached to Herbert just because he reminded him of what his son could've been had he lived."

Anton's mouth fell open as the scene from the night of the ball in which Eszter wouldn't submit to Herbert's orders replayed in his head. Now it made total sense. He only wondered…

"So, if Herbert isn't really the Graf's son, who is he then? What's his story?"

Magda opened and closed her mouth as if she were to reply but ultimately thought better of it. "I suggest you ask him yourself when you have the chance," she eventually said. "Now let's get going."

They climbed further up and passed a couple more corridors until finally, Magda invited Anton into what appeared to be an unused bedroom. There were a few essential pieces of furniture, a vintage rug and even a small fireplace, all covered in a thick layer of dust.

"You'll have to get it in order yourself," Magda said, running one clawed finger over the drawer top, "since Dora, our maid, hasn't returned yet."

"And she's not going to," Anton gruffed. "She's dead."

Magda blinked in confusion. "Dead? How?"

"She was attacked by a vampire in the woods. They sucked her dry."

"No. That's… that's impossible," Magda muttered under her nose, backing out of the room.

Anton wanted to ask her where he could find the cleaning supplies but the vampiress was already running away, perhaps to tell the others about the news. With a sigh, he threw himself on the bed, raising a cloud of dust in the process, and stared at the ceiling. There was a spider spinning a web in the corner. Zhenia would have screamed at the sight of it but Anton didn't mind the little creep. It was just trying to make itself a home in this dire place, very much as he'd now need to do. As worried as he was about what a vampire lifestyle may include, he didn't miss the inn. He'd always hated that place. He'd always hated the idea of marrying Alina, making some babies with her and running the family business until he died, old, ugly and bitter, having never experienced anything remotely exciting. He probably was never going to even now but at least here, at the castle, he could be shamelessly gay.

There was a knock on the door. "Anton? It's Alfred. Can I come in?"

Anton immediately jumped off the bed. "Yeah, sure, come right in."

The door opened and Alfred walked in, arms full. "I thought you could use a change of clothes," he said, "so I brought you some."

"You needn't have bothered," Anton muttered, eyes on the floor.

"These are all things that don't fit me and have been just laying in the closet," Alfred argued, looking around for a place to deposit the clothes.

Anton walked up to the drawer and swept the dust off of it with his sleeve. "You can put it all here before I get this room in order."

"Do you need any help with that?"

"Err…"

The truth was Anton did need help if only finding the cleaning supplies. On the other hand, however, he felt so awkward around Alfred not knowing if the other vampire knew about his crush on him.

Meanwhile, Alfred decided to take matters into his own hands. "Come on," he said, heading out of the room and waving at Anton to follow. "If we get on it right away we should be done by the time dinner is served."

Having been left with no choice, Anton shuffled after the other vampire.

It turned out there was a vast array of cleaning supplies tucked neatly in a storage closet in a neighboring attic area. Taking everything that could possibly be useful, Anton and Alfred headed back.

Arrived in Anton's room, they set to work.

They were halfway through the dusting when Alfred said all of a sudden, "You know, I've been wanting to talk to you."

Anton flashed him a nervous smile. "Really? About what?"

"I wanted to apologize. For leading you on, that is. It was never my intention."

Anton felt his cheeks begin to burn. He should've figured Sarah would tell Alfred about his outburst the other night as soon as she had the chance. And judging by the pained expression on Alfred's face he must have been mulling over it ever since.

"You're a really great guy and all," Alfred went on, "but I love Sarah. I have only ever loved Sarah."

"What about her?" Anton hissed, his anger at the girl taking the better of him. "Does she only love you? Because she seems suspiciously jealous of the Graf."

Alfred let out a small chuckle. "It's not what you think," he said. "Sarah isn't so much jealous of him as she is afraid of losing her status as the sweetheart of the family. She freaks out every time he looks like he may be falling for someone and considering turning them."

As awful as that was, Anton suddenly wished the Graf turned Meike if only for how much it would piss Sarah. Besides, he'd rather she lived on as a vampire than died drained by the likes of the Szabolcs because he knew there was no chance that she was just walking out of this, not when even his father was in on trapping her here.

"I hope we can be friends." Alfred gave him a hopeful look. "I could use someone to talk to without the conversation ending in drama."

Anton guessed drama was what happened whenever Sarah or Herbert were involved. "Of course we can be friends," he said entirely honestly. Somehow the thought of there never being anything more between them didn't hurt as much as it had the night of the ball and suddenly he wondered if he'd only been so obsessed with Alfred because he was the only cute guy he'd had any contact with since graduating high school.

§§§

When Meike and Krolock returned from the city center, Otto was already back home.

"I thought the two of you had left," he said as he let them into the house.

Krolock shook his head. "We just went for a ride."

"Come." Otto led them into the living room. "Have a seat before dinner is served."

This was it, Meike thought as she followed after the doctor. This was the time for her to ask about all the things that still bothered her mind. She couldn't be too obvious about her endgame though or Otto might refuse to tell her what she needed to know. It would've been easier if he had been human.

Then it occurred to her: Vanda was human and she seemed to know just as much about vampires as Otto did, living with him and all. She certainly had to know of a way to counteract the transformation since she managed to keep herself unchanged despite being in some kind of twisted relationship with the vampire which, judging by the band-aids on her neck, involved a lot of biting.

Wasting no time, Meike excused herself under the guise of needing to use the bathroom and snuck into the kitchen where she found Vanda calmly peeling potatoes.

Averting her presence, the woman looked up from her task. "Can I help you with something?"

"No. I just…" Meike began awkwardly. She had no idea how to start this conversation without sounding nosy. Or even rude.

Vanda, however, appeared to have figured it all out on her own. "You want to know how I ended up in this situation, don't you?"

Meike just nodded.

Vanda's expression grew suddenly dark. Getting back to the potatoes, she began, "I was on the run from my ex - that abusive son of a bitch - when in the middle of the borgo pass the bus suddenly caught a flat tire. I remember someone commenting that it happened quite often in that area."

Meike recalled how the bus she was on had suddenly broken down. She had been sleeping so she didn't see what had happened exactly. For all she knew, it could've just been a flat tire or two. She hadn't thought much of it at the time but finding out there were more cases like that, she began to suspect foul play was involved. Who knew, perhaps Hayman put spike barriers on the road or something like that just to get himself more customers.

"Anyway," Vanda continued, "the driver had everyone leave claiming car service may only arrive in the morning and we'd better look up a place to stay for the night. I followed a group of people to a nearby village where we took refuge at the local inn.

"I was talking to Hayman, the innkeeper about there being any transport available to any of the closest cities when a man walked in. He was on his way to visit a Graf living in a nearby castle and had only stopped at the inn to get a bottle of wine as not to show up empty-handed. That man was Otto. As the innkeeper went to get him his wine, the two of us started to talk and I learned he'd come from Cluj and was going back there the upcoming night. He offered to take me with him and suggested I join him visiting the Graf, who was a good friend of his and would gladly provide me with a room for the night. I refused at first, arguing I was fine there at the inn but then Hayman popped up saying he had no place left for me, so I reluctantly accepted."

"Arrived at the castle, I realized only too late I had been lured into a trap. I thought it was the end but then Otto offered me a way out. I guess he only did because he thought my expertise as a nurse could serve him but still. He took me to the side and gave me two options: I could agree to become his associate or refuse and die exsanguinated. You can guess which one I had chosen.

"At first I acted as a housemaid. I cooked, I cleaned, I took care of the place in general. Later I also got myself a nursing job at one of the local hospitals. I was never locked up but despite the many possibilities to escape I never did. Truth is, I had nowhere else to go and besides, I was happy here. Otto treated me with more kindness and respect any man ever did and with time I just…"

"You fell in love with him," Meike guessed.

Vanda nodded and her eyes saddened. "I don't think he loves me though. Not in the way I love him. If he did, he would've turned me."

As much as she felt for Vanda, Meike couldn't let the opportunity to get the information out of her slip. She prompted, "I thought vampires didn't have any choice in that regard."

"Well, technically, they don't. But you're forgetting Otto isn't just any vampire. He's a scientist. Once he figured how the whole turning thing works, he developed an antidote."

Meike's heart skipped a beat. An antidote. There existed an antidote. Now she only had to find a way to get her hands on it.