The year was 1455. Constantinople had only just fallen to Mehmed the Conqueror two short years before, Vlad III the Blood Drinker had begun impaling criminals and fortifying the borders of Wallachia, and some really neat poems were made about it with the intention of upsetting the people who read them. Amidst it all, a pair of goofy bats flitted about in broad daylight down a central lane that pierced an untold number of well-aligned rows of impaled skeletons, each in a varied state of decomposition, but most of them fairly well decomposed. That pair bats was swiftly followed by another, and yet another, until a veritable swarm of the goddamn things flooded the area, zipping between the hapless corpses of the impaled damnned, when suddenly, a knife struck forth. Some damn blonde lady had been standing there on the steps of this really big castle and for some reason she just straight up STUCK a bat. Can you even believe that? She stuck a knife right through a bat and the thing was in flight when she did it. I mean, have you ever even heard of a bat hurting someone in broad daylight? Come on. And it wasn't even an ugly bat, either.
This brutal display did not go unnoticed. Every other bat in the area noticed it, because how could they not? That was one of their buddies, or maybe even a relative (do bats inbreed?), and his loss was well felt by every furry heart hidden beneath a tiny furry chest and attached to wings. The swarm whipped about furiously, circling in the direction of not-toward-that-blonde-lady-that's-for-sure, and took off toward the mountains that were now significantly blocking the sun's rays as it sank into the land, far, far away. The blonde lady looked out over that swarm and presumably felt a lot of regret or something, then turned and pressed on toward the massive doors of the twisted fortress before her.
The size of the door caught her off guard, even though she'd been walking toward this thing for some time. She gasped audibly and gazed up at the marvel of 15th century architecture before her as the sunset cast a growing shadow over its various grooves and etchings. Seriously, she probably saw this thing from like a mile away, but still acted so surprised to see it. Then, like some kind of invalid, she stepped toward the giant damn thing and knocked.
She knocked. Like that would ever do anything. Like anyone on the other side of this huge goddamn door could hear knocking. It was probably even made to keep the occupants of the castle unaware of stupid shit like that, stupid shit like some random villager just walking right up and knocking. Still, she knocked, and knocked again, the butt of her bat-slaying knife undoubtedly reverberating so hard in her hand that it probably hurt, or something.
She stepped back and away, tucking a strand of golden hair behind her left ear, and looked to her left, where there was obviously nothing to really look at. She was standing in a giant doorway, which was required in order to support a giant door, so to her left there was the wall of the giant doorway. Still, she gasped again, and looked about with a frantic expression.
That was when those massive doors began to part. Slowly, at first, and then slowly afterward, too. The light outside poured through the gap created by the separation of the massive gateway, and the sound of moving gears and clinking chains could be heard echoing throughout an unfathomably large hall that dwarfed any construction the world had ever seen. Without a damn thought in her whole head, the woman strode into that hall, her right hand clenching tightly the pommel of the batslayer.
Past rows of tables and candlesticks she strode, stopping only as those huge doors shut quietly behind her. Much more quietly than perhaps they should have, given their immense size. Then, back into the hall's expanse did she turn, taking in as she did the unceasing array of gothic arrangements within. Everything had spikes. The candelabras, the goddamn wall sconches, even the candle holders that were made to be much larger than the other sources of light in the room. She wondered who the hell spent their entire life placing all the candles she'd seen. They had to burn out pretty frequently, right? Who kept lighting them? Were they scented, or did the place just smell like that smell?
It was then that she saw him. Like the shadow of death itself, but with a soulpatch, he stood at the top of a pair of gently winding staircases that both led to the same damn place, and that place just so happened to overlook the giant hall, and all those candles. It must've been him. The one from the legends or whatever.
"My name is Lisa," she said, quickly introducing herself to the weird stranger that lived in the weird castle with all the bats and candles. "I am from the village of Lupu." Now that she could see a strange person in the room, she thought it safe to sheath batslayer-as, after all, it was for killing bats. And maybe for slicing apples.
"I want to be a doctor." The resolution in her voice was like a stagnant old pond, full of mosquitoes. The stranger in the dark cloak straight up disappeared and then reappeared to her right, slinking between the columns of his crazy huge hall like some kind of creeper.
"Why don't you go to fucking school," the stranger's voice rasped in response. "If you want to be a doctor so bad, why don't you go to school?"
"Do not mistake me for a witch. Only witches go to school, and witches get burned. I want to learn stuff from a Vampire. I believe in science, but-"
The stranger was now on her left, appearing again from the air he seemed to melt into whenever she got a good look at him.
"Would you hold the fuck still? This is ridiculous, I'm trying to talk to you." The frustration in her voice was readily apparent as he peered at her from behind yet another column, making that hissing sound he kept making and acting like he was somehow hard to spot.
She cleared her throat and started again.
"I believe in science, but I need to know more. I just keep making everybody sicker. Turns out horse piss isn't the cure-all my father wanted me to believe it was."
She looked about herself. He'd disappeared yet again, and was probably leering at her from some unseen direction. Tired of catching up, she simply continued with her explanation and hoped he wasn't about to vampire her from the shadows or something.
"I've exhausted all my other options. Books, songs, the bible, horse piss..." Lisa turned from her left to her right as she spoke, unable to catch a glimpse of the spooky creeper that was now clearly stalking her, and backed timidly toward a column, all the while further explaining her plea.
"...and all the stories say that the man who lives here has secret knowledge."
The man's face emerged from behind the column she'd backed into, his foul breath cascading over her porcelain neck.
"I AM VLAD DRA-" the cowled fiend's words were shattered and drowned by Lisa's shrill screeching, even as he'd only spoken nearly four words. She darted away from the column and covered her ears with both hands, peering into the darkness where the man now stood.
"That was so fucking loud!" she shouted, nearly sobbing with fright.
"Sorry. I am Vlad Dracula Tepes."
Her hands left her ears but clenched one another to her breast in an attempt to still her frantic heart's pace. "You mean Vlad the Impaler?"
"Uh, no. Um, different guy. Anyway, I do not get many visitors-"
"You're not Vlad the third? Vlad Dracula is his name."
"I said I'm not, now if you'll-"
"Doesn't Tepes mean Impaler? I'm pretty sure you're Vlad the Impaler."
"I JUST WORK HERE, LISA, SAME AS YOU."
"...Go on," she said, her frightened blue eyes glancing over awful visage before her.
"Thank you. Jesus," the man said, covering his mouth with a loosely coiled fist and clearing his throat with a gentle cough. "Now..."
With this, he'd disappear again, because that was sort of his only trick, and re-emerge behind the blonde seeker before him.
"What have you to trade for my knowledge, Lisa from Lupu?"
Lisa's eyes saw, but did not percieve. All the world around her may as well have been a pitch black pit, as her focus shifted to the man's words. In this moment, she came to doubt the entire expedition. Her journey to this place had been long and perilous, and she had little to offer in return for what she sought. Maybe she should've gone to school. Maybe horse piss just needed another go, maybe there was some way to make the piss do what ALL the people of Lupu thought it did. Maybe there was a reason for the ways that she did not understand. She steeled herself against these thoughts, and prepared her tongue to issue what might be her last response as a living being.
Boldly then, she stepped away from her host's threatened embrace, and turned to face him as she did before. "Perhaps I could help you re-learn some manners. I've crossed the threshold of your home, and you haven't offered me a drink, or to take my coat."
"I don't have any horse piss, and do you see a coatrack anywhere? You could've laid it on any one of the hundreds of tables in this room if it meant that much to you."
"It's the principle of the thing. You're supposed to take the coat from me and put it somewhere that coats can be."
"Oh good fucking - come here." The much taller man nearly stomped around the young woman and snatched her coat by the collar, wrestling it with no small degree of difficulty from her form and doing a good job of yanking her around in the process before casting it carelessly over a nearby table. Beads of sweat migrated into his eyes and nostrils from his forehead, as he didn't manage much in the way of exercise, even though this castle clearly had no shortage of stairs. He straightened his back and fought against the creeping sensation of breathlessness that threatened to humiliate him in the face of his next words. "Was that so difficult?"
She tried to respond, but he made the same face she was making as she did, and it made her feel stupid.
"IT WASN'T. So next time you just take your own damn coat off and put it on a fucking table, because-"
She extended a hand as though to interject, but found herself rebuked by a second fearsome glance from the supposedly mighty, probably fearsome Vlad Dracula Tepes.
"because THAT'S ALL I'm going to do! And you know it now!"
A moment of silence transpired between the two of them.
"NOW YOU KNOW." Tepes turned partially away from his visitor, straightening out his now rather disheveled cape and adjusting his belt whilest deliberately avoiding eye contact and making disparaging, exaggerated expressions to convey his annoyance.
"You still haven't offered me a drink."
Dracula loomed now over the petite woman from Lupu, peering down at her with a raised, incredulous brow. "And what if I take a drink from you? Or have you loaded yourself down with silver, crosses, garlic and other superstitious shit?"
Lisa looked away and covered her mouth ineffectively with the side of her hand. "I think I might have probably eaten an entire roasted garlic sandwich for breakfast and washed it down with a cup of coffee that also probably had some garlic in it." As she raised her arm to cover her mouth, a silver cross with several dried garlic pods tied to it fell from her cloak and clattered to the ground, but she kicked it swiftly beneath a table, reasoning that Vlad's tall ass wouldn't be leaning down to take a look anytime soon. "Was that rude? It was all I had left."
"All you had left was a garlic sandwich?"
"Yes, I'd eaten the rest of my supplies."
"What were your other supplies?"
"Other garlic sandwiches, but I'd eaten them all."
"You eat garlic sandwiches?"
"Listen, I'm really not interested in superstition, or in treating some muttering old wise woman with herpes using boiled nettles and horse piss. I want to heal people."
Dracula began to circle the woman as she spoke, giggling softly to himself at the thought of anyone eating a whole sandwich made of garlic pods.
Lisa's hand shot to her breast as she spoke of her heart's truest wish, an expression she couldn't help in the moment. "I want to learn. Will you help me?"
Tepes now stood nearly alongside the bravest, or perhaps least intelligent woman in Lupu, and cast an understanding gaze over her as she reiterated her earlier request. Another giggle escaped his lips, and at last, he'd respond.
"You are definitely different, and perhaps differently-abled, compared to most humans I've met in recent times."
"Well, maybe I could teach you to like humans again. Or, at least, tolerate some of them." Lisa's eyes sought out Dracula's own, but he averted her gaze.
-END CHAPTER ONE-
AUTHOR'S NOTE
HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS! What's gonna happen? Will Dracula vampire that chick, or do you think she's got some tricks up her skirt? It's all on the line for the next episode of CASHELVEINYA Z
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