Disclaimer: I do not own Dracula, but I would rent him for a couple of weeks if I could. I also do not own Van Helsing, but might hire him for a gardener or something if I get bored with having Erik the Phantom of the Opera hanging around my house. I DO however, own several lovely e-mail reviews which I CHERISH TO MY HEART with all the deepest gratitude and poetic feeling I can muster.

Camera has smears of blood on the lens. Dracula leans forward and wipes it off with one finger.

"That is so gross." Van Helsing looks up from his engrossing one-man game of cat's cradle, "Come on, I need you to hold the string again while I do this one thing."

Dracula is busy sucking happily on his finger. "Oh stop being squeamish. It's only ketchup."

"You are participating in brutally murdering a vegetable!" Van Helsing drops the string games and freezes. "You son of the devil!"

"Actually they're not vegetables, they're only fruits."

Dracula and Van Helsing look at each other. Then they get up and start looking under the furniture that was smashed when Dracula killed the author.

"Actually I'm not under the furniture, I'm only over here." Carl waves nervously at the camera from one corner of the room. "Hi mom. Hi Frodo. Sam."

"What in the name of all that is unholy and blasphemous is that!" Dracula points a horrified finger at Carl.

Van Helsing looks sheepish, "This is my comic relief man. I hired him so I would look more heroic." He walks over and throws an arm around Carl's shoulders in a carefully platonic gesture. "Carl the Friar, meet Dracula the Dark Lord of Evil and the First Blood Vampire Spawned from Satan, Master of All Things That Go Bump in the Night, Vladislaus Draculea the Third."

Dracula makes a growling noise and reaches for Van Helsing's throat, "I'm not evil I'm just misunderstood!"

Van Helsing goes pale and tries to hide behind a bookcase. When he realizes that he won't fit he throws his string game at Dracula, "Take that Obsessive-Compulsive Vampire!"

Dracula looks at the string game, "Oooh a puzzle. I have to count all the braids in the string now…"

"Ah, excuse me." Carl says timidly.

"Not now, can't you see I'm busy." Dracula is going crosseyed trying to count the strings.

"Actually I'm not a Friar, I'm only a Nun."

Dracula drops the string game. Van Helsing stops trying to shove his nose between two books.

"A Nun?" they both say at the same time.

Dracula bursts in to maniacal laughter that sparks off several small and somewhat dramatically localized thunder and lighting storms. The now fluently Portuguese speaking cameramen and lighting techs applaud heartily and begin a heartfelt study of the healing properties of Yogurt.

"Don't laugh, it's true." Carl looks hurt, "Besides, that's gender discrimination and I thought you were supposed to be tolerant. You don't care about my feelings Van Helsing! You just drag me on your damn fool idealistic crusades like some kind of angelic instrument of judgment and you never even ask me 'Carl, do you want to go to Transylvania or would you rather spend a week at a resort in Aruba' or 'Carl, I think you look tired, I'll carry our arsenal of weapons for a while' or 'Carl, don't be frightened I'll take care of you.' All you do is think of yourself! Just because you're older and the cardinal likes you and you're in charge. All you care about is glory and battles and quests!" Carl sniffs, "You're just like Boromir!" He bursts into nunly sobs.

"You said a bad word!" Van Helsing points out with a shocked expression.

"I said I was only a Nun!" Carl wails.

Dracula shakes his head. "Pitiful. And so nuns and friars can swear but monks can't."

"Well," Van Helsing gives Carl another platonic squeeze, "Archangels and the Left Hand of God are limited to only five swear words a day. So I guess it's a perk that comes with status."

"Or the PG-13 rating." Carl points out.

"Then that must make me infinitely your superior because I can swear all I want." Dracula counter-points out. "Stop interrupting my rant."

"But I want to rant too." Carl sniffles.

"No, I won't allow it."

"But what about the Equal Credit Oppurtunity Act? You can't discriminate. It's illegal."

Dracula looks foiled for a moment. He shifts around uncomfortably.

"He's Aussie, tell 'im that Yank laws don't apply." The Author says helpfully.

Dracula looks up, horrified, "But you're dead!"

"Only as dead as you."

"My point exactly." Dracula throws another chair up at the ceiling just for good measure.

The Author slowly pulls a chair leg out of h/s/I's chest and smiles, "Ith thith your thilver thtake?" H/s/I says in a fantastically good Dracula voice imitation that sends h/s/I's family into hiding for a week.

"No, it's my wooden chair leg." Dracula zaps the Author with a bolt of lightning and knocks h/s/I out. "Bloody feminist."

Carl looks up wonderingly, "Is she a nun too?"

"Sister Margaret Flukezoik FoiGras." The Author says.

"You're supposed to be out cold." Dracula zaps her again. Then he reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a cell phone.

"Wow. I'm Sister Margaret Petunia…or something, maybe it's 'Geranium' or 'Pansy' or something. I can't remember." Carl says and scratches his wimpled head.

"Hello Igor? Can you send Velkan over? I have a snack for him…"

"What does your convent do?" Carl asks. "All we ever do is sing vespers and create exploding balls of flame. Most of the time I work in a munitions factory. I think my convent is very focused on humanitarian work. Peace on earth, and all that."

"My convent buys lavender kitchen appliances and flashy underwear." The Author says just before a rather soggy werewolf with nice abs sticks her head in his mouth and drags her away.

Dracula closes the cell phone with a satisfied smile. "Now where was I?"

"If you won't be needing me anymore, I'd like to join the cameramen's yogurt Jacuzzi party." Van Helsing attempts to sneak off.

"I still have to kill you for murdering my children." Dracula grabs him and pulls him back. "And I'm indicting Carl too as an accessory. He created the murder weapons used to not only murder my children, but my mental patients-that-have-been-called-my-brides, my ball guests at my summer palace, and also attempt to kill me."

Carl looks squeamishly pale, "I never thought of it that way."

"Oh face up to it Carl!" Van Helsing strikes a heroic pose. "Be tough."

"But I told you I wasn't a field man. You wouldn't listen. I like to sit at home in an office."

"Just SHUT UP both of you!" Dracula hollers, "This is my TV show and I'm giving the rant!" He smiles warmly at the camera. "I had sent my children off with my mental patients on a field trip to visit the historic windmill in the lower meadow…"

"And one of them got boogers on my window!" Carl says excitedly. "It was horrible and green and gross."

"Haven't you ever dealt with schoolchildren before?" Dracula looks down his rather more than aristocratically large nose at Carl, "Silly nun. Well while my children were on their kindergarten field trip."

"And I was being a hero!" Carl claps his hands.

"While my children were on their kindergarten field trip, Anna Valerius was killing off my household staff!"

"Who?" Van Helsing asks.

"The corset Barbie. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Well I am an amnesiac."

"In every movie you are in you're an amnesiac." Dracula crosses his arms, "Does that mean you're an amnesiac in real life?"

"Wait…I do movies?"

Dracula turns very resolutely toward the camera again, "Anyways, my butler Ronald was preparing a vat of liquid nitrogen for the children's science class…you know, the kind that you put a daisy in and it turns all hard and crunchy? Well I had to have a huge vat so each one of them could do the experiment and Ronald was stirring it—"

"Daisy! That's it!" Carl shouts pointlessly.

"—And Anna Valerius jumps him and smashes him into the side of the tank and shoves him in. With absolutely no provocation whatever. And then when Lousia Mae tried to stop her and call for help, Anna threw her in too. The science experiment was absolutely ruined, and you know how strict the Los Angeles School District is. I just knew that I'd get a call from the County Superintendent on a truancy charge or something. But I always knew I'd homeschool my children so I could protect them from prejudice about their having wings and fangs and things. People are so insensitive these days."

"You planned to homeschool ten thousand children?" Van Helsing snorts. "I think you're delusional."

"I always believed in large families." Dracula says in harsh clipped syllables, "I have four legitimate brothers, and I always enjoyed tortu…er playing with them when I was younger."

"You don't have four brothers." Van Helsing strikes another heroic pose and gives the brim of his hat a rakish tilt.

Carl wanders off camera.

"I do." Dracula insists.

"Name them."

"Mircea, Radu, Vlad and Mircea." Dracula thinks for a while, "…and Mihail. And me, of course."

"See!" Van Helsing says, "What kind of fool do you take me for. You can't have two brothers named Vlad and two brothers named Mircea in the same family."

"They were hereditary names." Dracula sticks his lip out.

"And they're all vampires?"

"All except Vlad. He was a monk. Didn't hold with vampirism. He said it was frivolous."

Van Helsing is stunned, "Carl you have to hear this."

A yogurt covered blob wanders back on camera, "What?"

"Vlad Dracula is a monk."

Carl faints. He is dragged offscreen by a yogurt covered soggy werewolf wearing a party hat and a towel.

"That looks like some party," Van Helsing comments, "Want to go join it?"

"No. You're just trying to prolong your life by distracting me. I have to finish my rant." Dracula sits Van Helsing down in one of the few remaining chairs, "Now stay there." He turns back to the camera, "After killing my Head Butler and one of the Houskeepers, the corset Barbie started climbing all over my house like some kind of monkey and she finally ended up on the roof where Velkan was getting a suntan." Dracula leans toward the camera, "Yes I can go outside in the day. That is another common misconception about this movie Van Helsing. Contrary to popular thought, most of it takes place during the day. I have no problems with sunshine."

Van Helsing's eyes go blank and stare off into the distance. "This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. He can see in the dark no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come; though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference." Van Helsing belches contentedly.

There is a long silence.

"Are you finished?"

Van Helsing scratches his head, pulls something out of his ear and pops it in his mouth.

"You see, he can't even remember when he used to talk like that every day." Dracula rants on, "Here is the great Van Helsing!" He laughs, "Trained by Stockmen and Swagmen from Walla Walla to Brisbane."

"Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens…" wafts a faint gurgly voice that sounds like Carl.

"Pathetic." Dracula shakes his head, "So, as I was saying before the orator began his speech, Anna started trying to pull Velkan out of his tanning bed…and we all know how much he hates that. He's really very vain, for a man who rips his skin off every night, you'd think he'd be less interested in skincare and moisturizing but no…" Dracula sighs dramatically, "She started telling him that tanning causes skin cancer, but he wouldn't listen and pretty soon, she'd made him mad enough to turn into a werewolf. Such a pushy sheila. Won't take no for an answer. And she is vainer than Velkan too, always goes around in that leather strap thingey that looks terribly uncomfortable and tight. Practically spilling out over the top…" Dracula makes a vague hand gesture. "You know. And high heels. I have no idea how she can run in those things let alone fight off vampires and werewolves and giant squid." Dracula pauses and looks over at Van Helsing, "Did you have anything to add to that?"

Van Helsing smiles sloppily and shakes his head.

"Used up your left-hand-of-God word count for the day?" Dracula asks.

Van Helsing nods.

"Is that a promise?"

Van Helsing hiccups and nods again.

"Sure?"

Van Helsing glares at Dracula.

"Ok then." Dracula sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles, "Ay mates! Bring 'er down."

The yogurt covered Portuguese-speaking camera men lower a badly painted cardboard tree into the scene. Up in the rafters somewhere near the Author's computer lab there are several muffled banging noises.

Anna Valerius falls from the sky, hits her head on a tree limb, crashes back against the trunk, scrapes her knuckles against the cardboard tree bark, gets her ankle caught in a forked branch, smashes her face into a bunch of cardboard leaves, falls another five feet, kills a few cardboard squirrels, manages to catch hold of a branch with one finger, falls again, swings around upside down, cracks her nose against the tree trunk once more for good measure, and lands on her feet next to Dracula.

She pulls a knife out of her thigh high black buckle boot and stabs Dracula in the leg, "Who are you calling corset Barbie?"

Is Platonic friendship as Platonic as everyone thinks? Will the real reason behind Anna's corset ever be revealed?

Find out next time in: Of Rice and Men or Luck Be a Lady Tonight.