*Chapter 9: The Dunlikus Start Sniffing Around*
Back in Anvilania, things remained the same, albeit a bit quieter without most of the Warner Clan at their castle. Something that their rivals had quickly picked up on.
Umlatt and his Dunlikus coven had been quite the sore losers since their war with the Warner coven. Although the war ended in stalemate, they were entirely convinced that they got the short end of the stick when it came to the 'cease fire' negotiations. That was arguably and highly questionable, since they didn't lack for anything, much less food and hunting grounds. Perhaps the biggest reason why there was so much resentment, was the fact that the Warner coven got more notoriety and infamy while the Dunlikus coven was simply labeled 'that other band of vampire that happened to live in Anvilania.
Well, technically, it wasn't quite Anvilania that they dwelled in. It was on the border of Anvilania and Transylvania, and a little patch of land that was somewhat concealed by the rugged and treacherous mountainside. Her was another point of contention for Umlatt and his underlings; being in the mountains made it rather difficult for them to hunt for their primary food source. Of course, there were plenty of mountain lions and goats for them to subsist on until some unfortunate soul came along while traveling. However, if they were in dire need of mortal blood, they would have to venture down into the valley below. Something easier said than done.
So there Umlatt sat in his private study armchair (a piece of furniture that he was absolutely proud of), moping and sulking about his coven's state of affairs. Spink, his assistant, came bustling in with a few envelopes, and a parcel.
"MAIL CALL!" the shorter man shouted at the top of his lungs through a megaphone.
"Hmph, it's been about four days." Umlatt muttered sourly as he drummed his fingers along his desk. "What do we have for this week?"
"Mostly timeshares from England." Spink replied. "Shocking how those bloomin' businessmen seem to find people. You'd think they'd be trackers."
"Indeed." Umlatt agreed with a nod as he scrutinized each envelope. Then he noticed the brown parcel that his assistant had under his arm. "What's that?"
"What's this? Looks like something ol' Jack ordered from Ibay."
"Has that lad been on the internet again?!"
"Well, him and Howie. I mean after all, they don't really print catalogs that much anymore."
Umlatt pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning back in his chair. Call him old fashioned, but the days of modern technology made him yearn for the era of gas-lit lighting and horse-drawn carriages. Things were much simpler then. Although they weren't bordering anywhere near bankruptcy, the cost of internet services around their area was sky high.
"Oh, and I found somethin' else out there that you might find interestin'." Spink added as he dug through his maroon cloak.
He pulled out a near tattered piece of thick parchment that he had folded up. After unfolding it, Umlatt couldn't help but crack a coy smirk.
"How droll..." he sneered. "I do wonder how much they put up."
"This one's older, but I found a few others posted around. Judging by their scent, they were made fairly recently." Spink commented.
It was one of the 'Missing' posters that the Warner coven had put up in an effort to locate their member that had gone MIA. In his sadistic nature, Umlatt found it deliciously amusing and something of poetic justice. Then, he suddenly had a thought occur to him.
Although he himself had no idea how or why this vampire had disappeared, Umlatt felt he could work this to his advantage.
"Spink, call for a clan meeting." he ordered in a syrupy tone. "I do believe I've found a golden opportunity to turn our wretched situation around."
XXXXXX
Rem had a rather busy day for a Saturday. After returning to the dorm with groceries, and throwing breakfast down her throat, she set about laundry duties since it had fallen into her hands. While her and Alice's uniforms were in the wash, Rem went to the photo lab and developed a few more pictures from her camera. All the while almost forgetting about what had happened earlier between her and the Warner kid. Except for one small detail...
"You tell me...do I look familiar to you?"
Something about the way he said that make her think that he somehow knew more about her than what he was letting on. But the more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded to her. Honestly, her imagination must be running wild.
With the laundry all done, Rem hoisted it back to her dorm as her photos hung to dry from being bathed in developer fluid. She was very much ready to move on past her odd outing with the elder Warner and get through the rest of her weekend...
...At least until she opened the front door to find not just Yakko, but also Wakko and Dot having tea with Alice.
"Oh hey, Rem! Look who stopped by!" the bubbly blonde greeted cheerfully.
"Heeeelllllooooo, you!" the siblings cracked.
Rem could feel rage envelope her again, harboring thoughts of smacking her dorm mate and murdering her guests.
"You remember the Warners, right?" Alice said.
"Well shit, Alice, we only kinda sorta met them nearly a week ago." Rem grumbled, before turning her attention to the trio sitting opposite of her dorm mate, particularly the eldest. "And just what the hell are you doing here?!"
"Other than having a nice visit with your lovely dorm mate?" Wakko replied suavely while bouncing his brows up and down, making Alice giggle and slightly blush.
"Whoa, dumber than advertised." Dot quirked.
Now Rem's blood pressure was skyrocketing, but Alice gave her the evil eye.
"Now Rem, don't be rude." Alice said in a slightly stern tone. "Come sit and join us."
Rem gritted her teeth, wanting to growl out that she had homework to complete. But Alice would probably given her the mother hen pecking order in response. Begrudgingly, the shorter teen sat down at the table. What didn't help was her immediate taking note of the fact that while Alice's mug was half empty whereas the Warners had hardly touched theirs.
"So, don't like socializin', huh?" Yakko asked coyly.
"I'm an extreme introvert." Rem replied gruffly. "Sue me."
"But it sure wouldn't kill ya to come out of your shell a little bit." Alice fired back.
Rem bit her lip. Even though she could do that, she still felt somewhat uncomfortable around the trio because she remained suspicious of their intentions and that they might be stalking her. Other than that, Rem couldn't really explain why she exactly she was so hostile towards them...outside of being quite annoying.
"So, your dorm mate tells us that you've been Romania Dreamin'." Yakko said, looking quite interested.
Rem shot a nasty glare at Alice who simply drank from her mug in a dignified manner.
"And why would you be curious about that" Rem answered back, sounding more suspicious.
Instead of responding, the siblings just gave her large toothy grins, which was becoming something of a trademark with them. On the other hand, it wasn't like it was a dirty secret or something.
"...well, if you must know, it's been going on for a while. I think for about a few years." Rem began with a heavy exasperated sigh. "Sometimes I draw them out if I manage to remember them."
"Oh, so you're also an artiste." Dot purred.
"Are you a musician too?" Wakko inquired eagerly.
"...Um, no." Rem replied. "I can't even read music."
Her response was very disappointed expressions and a few blinks.
"You know, for someone as talented as you, you can't tell me you never picked up an instrument." Yakko said in a somewhat scolding tone, folding his arms.
"I'm being serious." Rem insisted. "I mean...I wanted to play cello ever since I was younger. I just...never got around to it."
She and Alice completely missed the slight sigh of relief that the Warners emitted. For them, at least Rem had still expressed a desire to play what was her instrument of choice.
"It's never too late to try." Alice added to her dorm mate, to which she just moped.
"Anyway, getting back to the previous topic..." Rem continued. "...I kinda sorta have the feeling that I might've been there before...but that's stupid, because I've never physically set foot outside of the US."
Yakko's grin got a little wider.
"Ever feel like visiting?" he quirked.
"...Not particularly." Rem replied.
"I would if the school offered it as a studying abroad kind of thing." Alice added thoughtfully. "But I suppose that's something I can look forward to in college."
Suddenly, before the conversation could continue, a ringing sound began to chime. Yakko pulled out a pewter pocket watch which had skulls and red hourglass shapes to make up the numbers.
"Eeeeeeeehhhhhh, if you'll excuse us, we've got an errand to run." Yakko suavely declared.
"But thanks for the tea and hospitality." Dot added.
Rem arched a brow at that.
...but you guys hardly touched it.
"Not at all, thanks for dropping by." Alice replied cheerfully. "We should do it again sometime."
Both she and Rem watched the trio leave with Rem eyeing them ever more suspiciously.
xxxxxx
The siblings were next seen in the forest of redwood trees where they met Slappy Squirrel sort of waiting impatiently for them.
"So, how we doin'?" the elder squirrel asked coyly.
"...FEED US." they rumbled together, their fangs starting to poke out from their maws to which Slappy arched a brow at.
"Goin' to the school of hard knocks with all the mortal kids finally gettin' to ya, huh?" she replied matter-of-factly. "Well lucky for you, Skippy just caught a Grizzly out there."
The grey furred squirrel pointed with her thumb towards the younger squirrel who was just emerging from the very heart of the forest with a fresh carcass of a predator animal slung over his shoulders, heartily whistling from his catch. In a flurry of footsteps, the siblings ravenously went at the carcass before Skippy had a chance to sink his own fangs into it.
"Hey, you can least share, you know?" Skippy pouted.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to utilize that...oh what do you call it? Self-control?!" Dot ranted.
"Especially around her?" Yakko piped in irritably.
"So I guess our lil' lady definitely is a mortal huh?" Slappy sighed.
"About as mortal as you can get." Yakko said. "Been spending a good part of the day probing like Scratchy."
"You think we should have brought him with us?" Wakko inquired.
"Nah, we just to put a little more effect into it. Since we planted the seeds, she's at least starting to recall bits and pieces."
"Didn't know you had a green thumb, there." Slappy quirked.
"I have a question." Skippy interjected. "What happens when she does remember us? Does that mean she'll be back to being a vampire like us...or do we have to do that?"
There was an uncomfortable pause.
"Well, we've been thinking that maybe, just maybe she could be our very own Marylin Munster." Dot said tentatively.
"I suppose that could work." Slappy responded with a shrug. "However long that lasts tho."
XXXXXX
Back in Umlatt's castle, all of his goons gathered in his elaborate study for a clan meeting of their own. Although Umlatt was bubbling to the brim with ideas, the rest of the coven didn't quite share his enthusiasm.
"Whadda we here for, boss?" asked Jack as he fiddled around with a switch blade.
"Yeah, I've got Midnight Radio tonight." Howie complained, going over his fangs with a toothpick.
"Not to worry, gentlemen." Umlatt assured them. "I will make this brief and quite worth your while."
He then gave Spink a small stack of papers for him to pass out to everyone else.
"What's all this?" Howie asked.
"Does this young lady look familiar to you?" Umlatt inquired with the purr of a tiger.
The rest of the coven gave him blank looks and shrugs. Jack on the other hand, lifted his shades, sort of scrutinizing the head shot.
"...wait a minute..this is..." he murmured, as if there was indeed something familiar about the girl in question. Then, a split second later, he tossed aside the paper. "Nope. Ain't coming to me."
"Hold on, isn't this one of those infernal Warner brats?" asked another vampire named Flaxeed.
"Right you are, Fermin." Umlatt deviously replied. "These are, as you can see, missing posters that those beasts and the rest of their ilk have undoubtedly posted all over Anvilania. I've had Spink here Xerox these for you to look at."
"So they lost one of their members, boo-hoo." Jack ranted. "Why should we care?"
"Ordinarily I would agree with you, Jack. But then, our dear Doctor Phrankenstein made a quaint little discovery."
A haggard looking woman with an odd walk sauntered out of the shadows, revealing a large black and white striped beehive hairstyle, very pale, mint shaded skin.
"Allllright, boys 'n girls..." she said in a very syrupy voice. "After doing some tweakin' around on the wretched interwebs, I found that they have been in contact with a mortal, Boardman by name, over their missing sister, and it seems that most of them have gone on a trip America."
"Now why do you suppose they would waste their time going there if there wasn't anything worthwhile?" Umlatt purred again. "Perhaps we can milk this for all its worth."
"Whaddya sayin'?" Howie asked, his interest slightly piqued.
"I'm simply suggesting that we give an arrow under the guise of an olive branch; offer our assistance in finding this lost lamb, be we find her first, and hold her for ransom."
"Sounds like a cheesy plan." Howie said, sounding a little disappointed.
"True, on paper...but it is the easiest way for some retribution for our humiliation."
Now that definitely got Jack's attention as he clutched his switch blade tighter as if eager to start using it.
"But we don't know where this brat is ourselves." Flaxeed protested. "Alright, so she's in America. Do you have any idea how many mortals live there?"
"So much the better." Jack gleefully interjected, the nasty fanged grin on his face getting bigger. "We can blend in easily."
"Yeah, but Flax's gotta point." Howie pressed. "Especially in the major cities; their stench is enough to cover up one vampire."
"Not to worry, gentlemen." Umlatt continued. "I believe Doctor Phrankenstein has more on the subject."
"Yyyyyes..." Phrankenstein leered. "I have them at a little, itty-bitty town in the northern part of the state of California. Crescent City to be precise."
"And that's were our ruse will come in, gents." Umlatt said. "Our first step is to offer our assistance, let bygones be bygones. Then we infiltrate from within."
"You mean like sabotage?" Flaxeed inquired.
"Very much so."
There was a pause as the rest of the coven considered the prospect. However, Howie still had a problem.
"How can we be sure if they're actually at where Phrank says they're at?" he asked with an arched brow.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Howard." Umlatt told the stork. "We can always pay a visit to the Warners' castle and do a little eavesdropping."
The rest of the Dunlikus thought the plan over. A few seconds later, they all nodded in agreement.
XXXXXX
Rem tossed and turned in her sleep that following night, disturbed by the dream playing in her brain. Everything was rather dark, but she could barely make out a rugged mountain terrain and two large groups of people concealed by shadows. She could still see the sky glittering with stars in spite of the fact that there was no moon.
Then Rem realized this was the so-called 'Romanian Dream' again. It made her feel as if she were stuck playing Slender on the computer.
Finally, the teen woke with a start when thunder rumbled loudly through the skies. Ice cold rain came drizzling down the window and only flashes of lightning briefly betrayed what lied hidden in the black of night. Not able to go back to sleep, Rem sluggishly got out of bed and walked over towards her desk. Turning on the lamp revealed the messy surface littered with more bus passes along with the scraps of drawing paper, crumpled up notebook paper, amongst other things. Grabbing a pencil, eraser, and a clean sheet of sketch paper, Rem began to draw again. She remembered the dream quite vividly, and strangely enough, more clearly than the previous ones she had before. Her glassy eyes stared down on the blank white sheet as she tread the pencil across it.
A few minutes later, her right hand produced a weird looking battle with weapons that appeared to be ripped out of any current popular anime. Rem didn't even really think much about was she was doodling...until her brain suddenly alerted her that the scene was...vaguelyfamiliar. And so were the shadowy warriors fighting. She probed her mind as hard as she could to figure out just where the hell she seen all this before and why it kept coming back to her.
Then she realized that at least three of the figures in battle strongly resembled the Warners...
Before Rem could fully register that thought, another flash of lightning cast a shadow of a person looming just outside her window onto her desk, causing her to nearly fall out of her chair with a yip. Quickly glancing at the window, the teen only saw pitch darkness once more, apart from the droplets of rain and the clouds lighting up. Despite her suspicions, no one was out there, and who on earth would want to be? But Rem could've sworn someone was lurking around and spying through her window. Taking one last long glance into the wet nocturnal environment, Rem reluctantly closed the curtains completely shut.
She returned to her desk, now feeling too wide awake to go back to bed. She stared at her drawing with some added scrutiny.
...I know these people. But how...and where?
XXXXXX
Back at Warner Castle, von Plotz and von Scratchansniff were enjoying another sporting round of Bingo. With fewer competitors of course.
"B-53." Pip dully called out.
"Ahhhh, it's a pity they took that new guy with 'em on their trip." Plotz slightly lamented as he marked up his card. "Could use some service around here."
"Neverzaless, I do hope zey are makeeng progress at least." Scratchansniff commented.
They were both interrupted when there were suddenly loud knocks at the front doors, catching them both off guard.
"Now who in the underworld could that be?" Plotz exclaimed, pulling out a black hourglass with red sand. "And at this time of day?!"
"Perhaps eet ees za postal man droppeeng off a package, ja?" Scratchansniff suggested.
"Well, if it's APS, they're late."
The pair curiously went to castle foyer to greet their 'visitors', only to find that it wasn't the postal service at all.
"...ACK-you?!" Plotz cried.
"Quite a surprise isn't it, ol' Thaddeus?"
Umlatt, with Spink and his two enforcers, Jack and Howie at his side, was standing on the Warners' front porch.
"What in the name of darkness are you doing here?!" Plotz demanded furiously. "I thought we had agreed that you fools would never trespass into our lands again!"
"Oh but of course, Thaddeus." Umlatt purred pleasantly. "However, it's been brought to our attention that you seem to have a spot of trouble recently."
"Eh-heh, trouble?" Scratchansniff stammered innocently.
"You've lost someone have you not?"
Both Plotz and Scratchansniff turned paler at this. They couldn't deny it, especially since Jack was holding up one of their 'Missing' posters.
'...I knew putting those things up was a bad idea!' Plotz telepathically fretted to his partner.
'Let's just hear vhat zey have to say und humor zem, ja?' Scratchansniff answered back in the same fashion. 'After all, ve have no obligation to really tell zem anytheeng of value...'
The two vampires put on their best neighborly grins and tried not to look nervous.
"Oh yes, quite right!" Plotz said aloud. "Erm, we've been searching high and low for the lass for some time."
"Vhy do you ask?" Scratchansniff inquired.
"Well...we've all been thinking." Umlatt continued, glumly taking off his hat while his entourage abruptly made innocent expression as a violin played in the background. "We feel rather terrible for acting like ghouls all those years ago and knowing how difficult it can be for a lone vampire to make his or her way without the protection of a coven, we would like to make it up for our past transgressions, and assist you in your search in any way we can."
Plotz and Scratchansniff stared at Umlatt with total disbelief. Plotz nearly burst out with mocking laughter at the absurdity of it all. Scratchansniff was quite certain that they were full of bologna, but felt it was best to simply play along.
"Vell, ve do appreciate your desire to help." he began wholeheartedly. "After all, ve could use all za assistance ve can acquire; but ve must confer vith our masters first, ja? Eet vouldn't be of any inconvenience eef you vaited a day, vould eet?"
Although Jack and Howie betrayed the slightest hint of annoyance, Umlatt wasn't fazed at all. He was expecting this of course. After sending a telepathic message to his entourage, he gave a very polite bow to the keepers of the castle.
"No, of course it wouldn't." he told them gracefully. "Just give us a shout, wont' you?"
"Certainly." replied Scratchansniff, humoring him.
With that, Umlatt departed with his men. Both Plotz and Scratchansniff watched them with unease as they disappeared, slowly returning into the castle.
"What do we do?" Plotz asked. "Should we tell the others? I mean, it's quite obvious they're up to no good."
"I agree." Scratchansniff replied. "Zat, und zey ver acteeng too pleasant."
"It's just typical that they choose now, when everyone else is in Northern California!"
"Ja, ja, I know, T.P. Let us send zem an email und alert zem to za fact, ja? Eet's za least ve can do for now, und vait for eemput."
"Good idea!"
Unbeknownst to them, Umlatt, Spink, Jack, and Howie had all transformed into bats and hung from a nearby windowsill, listening to every spoken word.
'...Well, there you have it, gentlemen.' Umlatt telepathically sneered to his underlings. 'Shall we make travel arrangements to America, then?'
With agreeing nods, the four fluttered with much haste to their own castle.