Chapter Four: Speech Defect
"My friends," began Dracula to the room at large, "I have come here to enlist your help. This is a matter of very serious importance. It is in fact both very important and very serious. As I said. Very. Serious. So. So— so vould you stop freaking out?"
He screamed the last bit, and the flurry of activity that his arrival had sparked ceased abruptly. Nothing can scream quite like a vampire. Everyone stood absolutely still and stared at him.
"Thank you." The Count sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair, getting his fingernails tangled and yelping in pain. This ruined the drama he'd so carefully set up, which put him in a bad mood— but a good vampire never gives up on theatrics and so he sighed and ploughed on.
"Van Helsing," he said. "Vhere is Van Helsing, I must speak vith him immediately."
The assembled monks looked at each other nervously and shifted their weight uneasily.
"Vhat's vrong vith you all? Can't you speak?" Dracula glared at one of them, a smallish fattish man with an expression of extreme idiocy. "You there. Talk vith me. Tell me vhat is goink on."
The man dithered rapidly until Dracula swept him up in his grasp, tightening his grip on the man's throat. "Yes?"
"Why— why do you speak this way? Can— can you not pronounce your w's?"
Dracula stared at him in disgust, then lowered him to the floor.
"We can— we can help you with that," said the Smallish Fattish Monk. "We uh, we uh, we make it our mission in life to assist those who need help. This includes people being abducted by aliens, maidens in distress, illiterate children, people seeking plastic surgeons, people waiting for the Writer to update "Lost Tales of a Steward's Son" and people with speech defects. So, as you can see, you're right there on the list— so, uh, so, uh— can we help you?"
Dracula stared down at him. "Can you help me?" he repeated scathingly. "Yes, you can help me. You can tell me vhere Van helsing is before I—"
A familiar voice came from behind him. "Drop the monk," it said, "and turn around slowly."
Dracula dropped the monk and began to turn around
"I said slowly!" the voice rang out. Dracula sighed and complied. "Slower than that. Slower, slower— good. That's good. Okay. Keep it up."
By the time Dracula had completed the turn, the owner of the voice had stepped to the other side, so once again he was behind Dracula.
"Okay now, slowly, slowly— slooooooowly—"
"Van Helsing! What are you doing?" hissed another familiar voice, this one prone to breakage and nasality.
"I'm trying to get him dizzy so I can overpower him," Van Helsing hissed back.
"He won't get dizzy, going so slow!"
"He won't?"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"People get dizzy from the world going by so fast they can't adjust, not from turning around in circles as slowly as possible."
"Really?"
"Really!"
"Oh— so, alright, what do I do?"
The second man sighed deeply. "Well, Van Helsing, seeing as you've got a crossbow, why don't you try threatening him with that instead of trying to get him sufficiently dizzy?"
"Oh? Yeah. Good idea." Van Helsing's tone was admiring. "Man, Carl, you are just figuring everything out today."
"I know, I know," sighed Carl, "it just the mood the Writer's in. She just watched "Molokai" and now as far as she's concerned I can do no wrong."
"Mole-o-what?"
"Exactly what I said. But she said she'd overstepped her Writer's Avatar Quotient (WAQ) for this chapter and she'd have to stop talking about herself in third person."
"Huh." Van Helsing considered. "I wish I knew what all those big words meant, Carl."
"Someday, my son," said Carl with a sigh.
"Alright, Dracula, turn around slightly more rapidly and behold the crossbow."
Dracula turned around and stared at the tall dark-haired man who was growling at him and holding a crossbow in a manner frequently known as "brandishing."
"See it?"
"I behold the crossbow," said the Count equably. "I also behold the flaw in the friar's plan."
"What?"
"Flaw?" said Carl indignantly. "Never! Bugger your flaw!"
"Carl you're not supposed to—.
"Shut up, Van Helsing. What flaw?"
"The flaw," said Dracula gravely, "being that your crossbow is not armed."
Van Helsing stared at him, then stared down at where the bolts of the crossbow should be. They were nowhere to be seen. He looked at Dracula, who was grinning. With a muttered expletive at Carl's expense—
"Bleeping monk!"
— Van Helsing took evasive action; he dropped to the ground and rolled, knocking several monks down like a bowling ball amongst unsuspecting pins. Then he stopped, leapt to his feet, dropped again, stood again, leapt forward, back, and to the right, then did a quick step to the left. He feinted forward again before dodging around behind a morbidly obese monk named Phil, panting with his exertions.
This all would have looked fairly cool if things had gone as expected. Unfortunately they didn't. Evasive action was rendered unnecessary by the fact that there was nothing to evade— Dracula didn't attack, and Van Helsing's acrobatic leaping about for no reason looked downright stupid. Several of the monks, whose only entertainment was whatever Carl blew up, tittered, then stifled the noises at a glare from Van Helsing, who emerged from behind Phil rather red in the face.
Dracula smiled benignly and spread his hands wide. "Good Gabriel, I have no vish to commit physical violence upon your person. I vould have done so long ago if it vould have done any good. No, today I am come on a mission of peace and harmony and other sickeningly over- used things. I am in need of your invaluable assistance, dear Gabriel. I have come vith — a little— proposition."
Carl looked from Count Dracula to Van Helsing, wondering if any of the long words had sunk in. Apparently so— Van Helsing was staring fixedly at the vampire with every evidence of deep, involved cogitation.
He lifted a finger and laid it along his lips.
"Why is it," he asked keenly, "that you can't pronounce your w's?"
