Well. I'm back. – Sam, Lord of the Rings
I returned – Douglas MacArthur, Manilla Bay
Watson! Good to see you old chap! – Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Hello Central! – The Connecticut Yankee, (In King Arthur's Court)
The Shadow Has Returned! – The Shadow, The Freak Show Murders
Helo agen. Thys iys Vlad. – Prince Vladislaus Draculea, The Improbable: Some Cosmetic Uses of Megalomania
Disclaimer: I am delusional. Also I am on summer break. I have a job now and a new novel bashing in my head simultaneously. Like I said, I'm delusional.
Apology: I can not actually chain Dracula to my house, so I suppose I don't own him.
Real Reason For Not Updating For EONS: Lazy butt. Messed up life. Was abducted by aliens. Won the Nobel Peace Prize and was in Switzerland for a month. Been mooning over the Phantom of the Opera again. Depressed out of skull by commissioned six foot oil painting of ships and crap. Would rather work on Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. Or Rachmaninoff's second concerto. Reading Varney the Vampyre. Discovered the Scarlet Pimpernel dem me. Been avidly refusing to watch Star Wars III. Had Kittens. Forgot how to write in third person present tense. I dunno, what else will you believe? I'm lazy and I need to go back to London.
Well all stories have to end. So here goes.
"Where did you say you were going?" Anna waves her hand in front of Dracula's face.
"Even I think that's totally out of character for you," Stephen Sommers says incredulously, then bites his lip a little, "Ooo but wait, then if you and Van Helsing like had this thing going and then I could have the planets smash together and all the aliens come running over and Hercule Poirot and Anne Of Green Gables could take their bazookas and shoot all of the overpopulation of rabbits brought on by the nuclear winter and…" His voice trails off into mutterings.
Dracula looks around nervously, hoping that a camera has not just suddenly blinked on and is recording his conversation, "It's not because I like Van Helsing or anything. I really need your brother back for my, er, medical experiments. And I have to burn Van Helsing at the stake for killing my children."
Anna raises an eyebrow, "Couldn't you just let the pound put him to sleep with all the other strays."
"Oh no," Carl pipes up, "Death by fire is a much better punishment for such irredeemable cruelty."
Dracula looks at Carl in astonishment.
"Only fire," Carl continues pleasantly, "Can symbolically and physically purge his soul and make it possible for him to enter purgatory instead of going straight to hell."
Dracula begins to smile wildly, mouth still open in astonishment.
"In fact," Carl muses, folding his friarly robes in a pensive fashion, "If we torture him first and obtain a confession, then we can lessen his time in purgatory too. We'd actually be doing him a favor, poor wretch."
Anna takes this opportunity to remove one of her tightly buckled Barbie-shaped legs and bash Carl over the head with it. "You are a part of the Inquisition! I knew it all along!"
Dracula makes a grab at the leg, "No wait! He's got a good plan!"
"Whoa," Steven Sommers says in admiration, "I sooooo should have put the removable legs in the movie."
"As a matter of fact," Carl says matter-of-fact-ly, "We should probably burn Anna because she's a Gypsy and a witch and all that…probably. And Velkan. Never liked him."
Dracula drapes his arm around Carl's shoulder, "I like the way you think, my son. But we should send Van Helsing straight to hell. No purgatory."
"Oh, you think?" Carl nods slowly. "Ok. I can see that."
"What happened to monks being 'peace on earth goodwill toward men' and all that?" Anna asks incredulously, screwing her leg back into it's socket.
Carl looks insulted. "I'm not a monk. I'm only a friar. And besides, I've spent my entire life working in a munitions factory. In fact, I'm better at killing monsters than Van Helsing. Watch this." Carl pulls out a hand grenade from his pocket and chucks it into a nearby pond.
Pieces of The Little Mermaid are later found in Knotts Berry Farm several miles to the south east. There is general relief among the population of teenage babysitters who were forced to watch the movie millions of times.
"But that still doesn't solve our problem." Stephen Sommers says gleefully, "How are we going to find Van Helsing and Velkan in some dog pound in Los Angeles when we don't have a werewolf who can track their scent?"
Dracula glares at him. "I can read your mind. Do not say what you are about to say."
"Actually. I was thinking that I could help." Stephen Sommers says nervously, edging away from Dracula but continuing anyways, "You see, whenever I write something on my computer, a year and a half later it becomes reality."
A computer immedieately descends from the sky/magic carpet floating computer lab that the author rides around in. Stephen Sommers reaches for it gleefully.
"I hate to interrupt you," Dracula says in an exasperated voice, "But we don't have a year and a half to wait. We have to find them within two weeks or the pound will put them down and I won't get to roast them on a spit over a slow fire."
"Not Velkan!" Anna screams desperately.
Dracula rolls his eyes, "Ok. Not Velkan."
Stephen Sommers is crestfallen. "You mean, I can't use my godlike powers over the movie industry to get us out of this mess?"
"No."
"Someone else will save us from this mess?"
"Probably."
"It doesn't even matter that I wrote this little Frankenstein fanfic a year and six months ago about Frankenstein landing in Los Angeles and becoming divinely handsome?"
"No." Dracula says emphatically. "We are going to leave and find a telephone directory so we can look up where they went. It's as simple as that. I will not hypnotize anyone. I will not flap around in bat form. I will not crawl face first down the slimy walls of a dismal winter castle. Notice I am conducting myself as any human father would at this moment." Dracula holds his head up stiffly and begins walking out of the park.
Anna and Stephen Sommers pry Igor and Trixie's mouths apart and haul them kicking and screaming out of the poinsettias and force them to follow Dracula out of the park.
"What a nice man," Maude sighs, and pulls the straw out of the little boy's neck, "That's an example for you to follow child, a true gentleman."
Velkan wakes up with a strange thought. He has just dreamed that he is back with his mother in the dog basket, snuggling up to her warm belly. He wakes up with a bunch of fur in his doggie nose. He really is back with mother! How nice. He snuggles deeper into the fur and warmth and begins nuzzling the tightly stretched belly.
Van Helsing is dreaming too. He is dreaming of a wonderful smell. His paws twitch occasionally as he dreams he's chasing the wonderful smelling thing through the grassy fields. In the distance he can hear his mother howling for him to come back to the woods. Suddenly the wonderful smelling thing bites him.
Frank had been a driver for the Los Angeles City Pound for thirty five years. He'd heard a lot of strange things in his time. He's seen a lot of strange looking dogs in the rearview mirror.
However, he has never seen two very hairy, mostly naked men sitting as far apart as possible from each other and screaming their heads off.
Frank chalks one up to experience and shifts the car back in gear. Then he radios ahead saying that he'll need two extra strength tranquilizers to meet him at the dropoff point.
"Hey where's Monster?" Carl asks just as Dracula manages to pull the Electric Mayhem bus out onto Disney Boulevard.
"I don't care." Dracula says through clenched teeth.
"But we can't just let him wander around LA, he'll terrorize the populace and drown small children and stuff." Stephen Sommers says, aghast.
"Yeah," Anna looks up from fixing her cuticles, "Who knows what he'll do. I demand that we hunt him down with pitchforks and burn him alive."
"One more word out of you and we're going to give Velkan a permanent poodle cut." Dracula hisses, "Now everyone shut up and Igor give me the directions to the first animal shelter listing in the phone book."
"Yeth Marthter." Igor pries his hands of Trixie with some difficulty, "Now letth thee about thith…. Oo this looks like a good one it says that they specialize in tall blondes."
"Wrong category in the yellow pages."
"But it says doggie-land-o-rama." Igor protests, then cowers away from the anticipated nasty look that Dracula is going to give him.
Dracula gives him a nasty look.
"Yeth marthter." Igor goes back to his lisp. "There'th one on 6280 E. Franc Tireurth Thircle. But I don't know which freewayth to take."
Dracula rubs his hands together gleefully, "Behold my amazing power over the elements and the time-space continuum." He raises his arms dramatically.
Fortunately the bus is stopped at a light.
Dracula's hair begins to collect static electricity. "ON STAR!" He shouts, "Demons of Darkness hear my summons and aid me in my quest!"
"On Star, this is Michelle." A disembodied voice says pleasantly, but the pleasantness begins to fade after a while, "Say what?"
"Hell Denizen On Star give me the occult and secret knowledge of the hidden arts and light my way with green fire to the…wait, Igor, what's this place called?"
"Penny's Poodle Parlor."
"…Penny's Poodle Parlor of Incomprehensible Torture and the Ways of the Scholomance!" Dracula finishes.
There is a disturbed noise and a click and the disembodied voice goes away.
Dracula rolls his eyes, "Oh great, I forgot you have to give a blood sacrifice."
"Hey guys." Anna points up at the stoplights. "Remember how we are all like thinking this stoplights is just covered in some Spanish moss and stuff? Well I've been noticing that the Spanish moss smells like wet dog."
"Zounds! You're right!" Carl says, clapping both hands over his nose and moaning in anguish.
"And your point is?" Dracula is not impressed.
"Well I think it's werewolf fur. We should follow it through the city." Anna stretches really far out of the window of the bus and manages to grab the bathtub-drain-leftover looking patch of fur off of the stoplight. She can do this because the bus is really really tall. Really tall.
"So it's just one piece of fur. How can we possibly find them by just one piece of fur?" Dracula leans back and enjoys the sound of yet another stoplight scraping against the roof and snapping once it hits the back railing of the bus.
Anna looks at him peevishly, "Elementary my dear Watson. I am Sherlock Holmes! And I am a Gypsy Princess and incredibly lucky. Turn right at the next intersection. Besides I've done it before. Remember in the movie? It was easy. Just drive up to the most dank looking fortress in the vicinity."
Dracula sighs.
The air is smoky and dark even though it is the middle of the day. The light has been summarily shut out of the warm and dimly lit room by the general consensus of the patrons. Verona exhales the cigarette smoke and watches it curl gently across the room.
The kids the kids the kids. Being a single mom was tough enough for humans with one or two children. She'd been stuck with ten thousand plus. She could remember their names but not the exact number. They were in daycare now. While she was out supposed to be trying to get a job. The one at the McDonalds hadn't worked out. They'd wanted her to wear a uniform that wasn't boob exposing enough. Verona had told them to drop dead.
Now she was out playing Russian Roulette because it felt better than walking around barefoot on the concrete from fast food restaurant to grocery store to real estate office. If only she'd listened to her parents and actually finished that college degree before becoming head wife of Vlad's harem. It had seemed like a good decision at the time.
Verona's eyes watched the smoke from her cigarette trail off across the room into the darkness and the silhouetted outlines of the other patrons. The darkness helped. Maybe it was a vampire thing, but she felt warm and secure in the darkness. Across the room a pair of startling emerald green eyes were watching her quietly. Verona had been ignoring them for the last five minutes, and they had only moved closer. At closer scrutiny she could tell that they were attatched to the squarely cut face of a gigantically statured man. Gigantic. He had to be seven feet tall, and she could see the powerful muscles in his chest ripple and contract through the opening of his white collar. Verona let her eyes meet his again, he was smiling now, and his dark blonde hair was falling over his eyes mischievously.
As she watches he unfolds his arms from across his chest and shifts to his feet. Her breath starts catching in her throat as he walks closer, close enough to touch.
The man leans down and stares deeply into her eyes. Then he sits on the stool next to her and snaps his fingers at the bartender.
Verona feels a shiver run down her spine, his eyes never leave her face, never let her go.
He reaches across and covers her hand with his own, "Bond." His voice is deep and husky and strangely familiar, "James Bond."
"First thing I want to know is who let a dog pound that looks like this get built in the middle of Los Angeles!" Dracula shouts over the driving snow and stares up at the tall and rather imposing fortress.
"Well Van Helsing just grabbed hold of us and jumped over the gate," Anna says snootily, "If you can't jump that high I guess they'll just have to remain unrescued until the end of their days."
"Of course I can jump that high." Dracula says quickly, "I just choose not to."
"Well why? Van Helsing said that jumping over the fence was the only way to get into a dim and dismal doom dead fortress."
"Van Helsing is a moron."
"But he got us inside in like thirty seconds." Anna pouts. "It worked better than your plan is working."
"Shh! Someone's coming!"
"Isn't that a good thing? Aren't you going to turn them into a vampire and your undead mindless slave so they'll let us inside."
Dracula squints at the approaching figure. "Nope. Not this dude. I only vampirize young seductive virgin females."
Stephen Sommers looks disappointed.
"Oh no!" Anna cries, "He's getting away! Vlad can't you make an exception? That's the fourth guy you've let go."
"You'd think that at least one virgin female works at a place called Penny's Poodle Parlor."
"Ya think? How come only men are going inside?"
"You're so picky." Stephen Sommers complains. "I should have written you gay. But then Anne Rice would have sued me."
"Can't you just magic us inside?" Anna asks. "You magic-ed us to Steve's house."
"Don't be boring! Use my powers more than once? That's ridiculous." Dracula sniffs and goes back to hiding behind the bushes.
"But I'm hungry."
"I have to go."
"Are we there yet?"
Carl, Trixie, and Igor look pleadingly up at Dracula.
Dracula raises his hand and using his 'stare of doom' forces them to sit down and shut up.
"Hey you could use that power to mind-control the guard." Anna suggests.
"Nope, too late. Already used it once."
"Well then use another one."
Dracula thinks about this for a while, "Well…I guess that I could…" He does the 'jazz hands' thing and the entire animal shelter is re-painted a vivid green. "Nope, wrong one."
"That's a dumb superpower." Carl comments.
Dracula telekinetically makes Carl slap himself.
"You were telekinetic all this time and you never told us?" Anna yells, "You could have just picked the lock from a distance and then we could have snuck in. And you didn't TELL us you were telekinetic and then you WASTED it on Carl?"
Dracula shrugs.
"That is so DUMB!" Anna howls despairingly.
Dracula smiles beatifically, "Don't worry. I have a plan B."
Anna rolls her eyes.
Dracula snaps his fingers and everyone stands up and follows him out from behind the bushes, into the middle of the sidewalk, up the path, through the giant barricaded gate and up the receptionist.
"Hello, we're looking to adopt a dog." Dracula smiles kindly at the exhausted looking woman.
"Great, take your pick. All I need is an ID and the sixty dollar adoption fee." Dracula reaches into his cape pocket and pulls out a leather billfold. "I'm not a U.S. Citizen, but I have a Work Visa."
"Country of origin?"
"Australia."
"Ok, go through the door on the left and get your dog, Mr. Roxburgh." The lady takes a look at Dracula's ID.
"Actually," Dracula says. "I was wondering if you happened to bring in two gigantic wolfhounds from Disneyland."
"Oh, in that case, you want the door on the right."
"Can I just adopt them now?" Dracula pulls out a leopard-print credit card.
The receptionist's eyes go wide and green. "Sure. Why not?'
"Just keep the credit card." Dracula offers, "I don't need it anymore."
Anna sighs and burbles her lips together. Carl and Trixie are holding their noses against the smell.
"Just walk in and ask?" Stephen Sommers comments dramatically, "I never would have thought of that."
"Strewth Mate."
"I'm sorry sir. It just keeps disappearing."
"Well don't let it happen again. This is the third bloody time today I've been out here."
"I'm notifying VISA as we speak sir."
"Help get me away from him!"
"Eew don't touch me!"
Dracula leans against the bars of Van Helsing and Velkan's cell. "Nice to meet again Gabriel."
Van Helsing points a finger at Dracula and begins coughing, "You, you were the… If I was the left hand of God Archangel Gabriel then you were the right hand of God Archangel Michael and all of this is a joke and you're really not going to kill me because you're a good guy and God wouldn't like it?"
Dracula makes soothing noises and nods placatingly, "Yes yes, it's all a joke. Wait until you hear the punch line."
Carl is chanting 'burn them' in the background.
Velkan immediately runs to Anna and kisses her passionately on the lips. "I missed you so much! Van Helsing slobbers in his sleep."
Anna comforts her brother in siblingly fashion. "There there."
Igor and Trixie carefully copy Anna's movements, giggling.
Stephen Sommers stares up at the ceiling doing nothing.
Dracula grabs Van Helsing by the ear and turns to face the camera. "Dearly Beloved." He intones and gives a hearty yank to the ear. "We are gathered here at last to see justice finally done!"
Lightning cracks in the background and the yogurt covered Portuguese speaking cameramen look up from their Jacuzzi party and begin clapping.
"Poetic justice such as the world has never seen before!" Dracula continues.
The clapping gets louder. The author leans down from h/s/I's perch in the ceiling.
Dracula points first at Anna and Velkan. "These gypsy royalty are innocent of all crimes except being a Barbie and a werewolf. In the tradition of royal siblings everywhere throughout all the centuries I pronounce them man and wife." He snaps his fingers.
"Hey wait," Carl says. "You can't do that. That's my job. I'm the clergy around here." He clears his throat. "I pronounce you man and wife."
Anna looks pleased and she and Velkan do ballet off into the sunset. They kinda float up to the clouds and become fuzzy. Like Sleeping Beauty in one of the Mouse Movies.
The cameramen clap in awe.
"And on that same note, my faithful servant Igor has found a buxom gal too." Dracula glances at Igor. "Erm, children in the audience, ignore what they are doing. Anyway, I pronounce them man and woman."
Igor looks up blissfully, "Hmm?"
"I said I pronounce you man and woman."
Igor breaks away from Trixie in astonishment. "You mean I'm a real boy now?"
"Yes."
"And I won't have to wear these grungy clothes?"
"Not if you don't want to."
"They kinda turn me on." Trixie says admiringly.
Igor and Trixie walk off into the sunset too. As they reach the sunset it becomes infected with the black plague and melts into a fetid mass of rot.
"And Stephen Sommers." Dracula claps his hand across Stephen Sommers' shoulders. "My good friend Stephen Sommers."
Stephen Sommers stops staring at the ceiling. "What is it Rox?"
Dracula leans down and smiles, "May your filmmaking talent always be associated with The Mummy Returns!"
"Now wait that's not fair." Stephen Sommers protests.
But it is too late! Ahahaha!
Dracula pushes Stephen Sommers off into the sunset with the rest of them.
The author cheers wildly.
"Burn him, Burn him." Carl begins chanting expectantly.
Dracula raises his hand, "No Carl, we must first offer forgiveness if he begs for it."
"You want me to beg for forgiveness?" Van Helsing asks. Dracula kicks him in the gut. "Ow, Ok. Please forgive me?"
Dracula looks at him for a moment. A hint of understanding creeps in around the corners of his eyes. Here is a man who has suffered as much as he has. "All right," Dracula says finally. "I'll forgive you. Carl, where's that lighter fluid I gave you to hold?"
"Burn him, burn him." Carl says happily.
"That's a fantastic idea except for one thing." Dracula says. "Gabriel is immortal, just like me, and impossible to kill."
Carl ponders this for a while.
Van Helsing looks hopeful.
"Burn him anyways?" Carl suggests.
"It will be fun while it lasts," Dracula agrees. "And we can do it again once were through."
"Yay!" Carl says happily.
Carl and Dracula walk arm in arm happily into the sunset, dragging Van Helsing behind them.
"So this is your yacht." Verona leans against the solitary mast in the middle of a makeshift raft.
James Bond steps closer to her, so close that she can feel his body heat. "Just a temporary one."
Verona closes her eyes and sighs. "But my children, how will we get them all on the raft."
"They can fly, can't they?"
Verona nods at the pure logic of this. "You've been so kind to me."
"I've always wanted to raise a bunch of children." James Bond runs his hand up her bare arm and squeezes it gently. "Would you like to go to South America with me?"
"Oh yes." Verona answers happily. She looks up at the sky blissfully, watching the red-gold sunset against the cliffs. "What's that smoke?"
"Just our sendoff." James Bond says, weighing anchor and letting them drift off onto the vast orange-blue waters.
(Insert WB theme music) Da da da da de de de da du du du duuuuu Du da da da du de deeewwwwooooouuup. Well that's all folks.
Join us next week for the new NOVA series on something else. Goodbye!
Here ends my pathetic attempt at writing in third person present tense. I should really go for something like second person reverse chronology future tense. That would be creepy enough for a sequel. Until then. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOIU to all readers and ESPECIALLY anyone who ever reviewed UPON WHOM I HEREBY BESTOW THE HONORARY 'ORDER OF THE DRAGON' On behalf of Dracula, who is leaning over my shoulder from where I own him and telling me what to type.
Oh yeah. Did I say that I owned Dracula?
