A/N: Hi everybody! Thanks fer all yer mah-velous reviews. And now! Your efforts are rewarded! Joy! I should say that this is mainly a set-up for the next chapter. I mean, c'mon, you know Maddie's gotta show up in this thing sooner or later, right? ;)
Pity the Pipsqueek
By JadeRabbyt
"But I already PAID the advance!" Vlad shouted. "I don't know why I don't switch firms. You people are as unmanageable as the very weather." He listened to the oiled voice on the other end of the line. Full of confidence, it spoke with the honeyed, pick-pocketing deviousness of one who knew that, come heck or high water, there was no way on this earth or any other you could avoid paying for his third vacation home.
"How can that possibly be a fair price. Come now, it's wood! And some metal, and maybe some marble here and there, but really. I'm not asking for a Roman chapel." The voice squealed and slipped like a penguin over a glacier, and with the same cool fluency. Vlad listened, a heavy scowl carved across his features. Kitty lay sprawled on her side atop the kitchen table next to him, ears perked as he stroked her fur. Vlad sat on the stool next to her and continued his disgruntled rumblings. Her calico fur stood out beautifully against the black-and-gray granite.
That was the funny thing, the kitchen table. The wacky decorating in the front room threw visitors for a loop, and the felt carpets and in-home theater left them awed, but somehow, they always expected something in the kitchen… other than a table with a phone hanging on the wall next to it. Granted, the table could send somebody to college and the phone was high-tech enough to double as a toaster, but that was beside the point. They didn't expect an array of cupboards, a small fridge, and a coffee maker, though of course the true bakeries were holed-up elsewhere in the mansion. Vlad liked to keep a small foraging space on hand, and Kitty in her wisdom had never made any objection. Kitchen tables with phones next to them were downright necessary, otherwise, where were you going to sit and read or eat or talk or glare at overdue bills while you also—and this was the critical bit—petted the cat?
"I've told you, I can't get insurance!" Vlad listened, poised for the inevitable. "I can't tell you why the mansion keeps exploding. You are hired hands. Just fix it." He winced to discover that that snipe would cost him another hundred thou, due to the totally legitimate reason that the market price of redwood had very suddenly skyrocketed. Vlad massaged his forehead and growled, the phone away from his mouth for the moment. It wasn't that he couldn't afford it; it was just the principle of the thing. You didn't stay rich by letting every plumber swindle you. Kitty stared placidly up at him and blinked her golden eyes. Vlad winced as she sank his teeth in his distracted hand. He pulled away and concluded matters on the phone, to the extent that they could be concluded.
"It's time to feed you, I expect." Usually he had servants for such nonsense, but they'd all scampered away once the Chia monster had taken out half the roof, even though the surveyor had said the building was still sound. Vlad wasn't sure how much credit he attached to that statement, however, since he couldn't remember if he'd ever cheated that particular surveyor. He should really get a clerk to remember these things.
In any case, he considered, getting up for the cupboards, cats followed the food. Couldn't have a power-house like Kitty acquiring any ignoble loyalties to mere servants. He'd just gotten the small can of cat-chow—Kitty loathed the dry stuff, and let him know by defecating in his dress shoes—when the doorbell rang.
Vlad paused, marveling that enough of his house was intact that he could even hear the distant chiming. He glanced down at Kitty. She stared up at him, seated on the tile, her tail twitching in a way that just managed to suggest that there would be cat-poop in his future if he didn't get busy with that opener. Vlad went back to work. The doorbell chimed again. He'd just gotten the sharp tin lid off when something crashed and splintered.
A passing sailor would have applauded Vlad's inspirational exclamation.
Kitty's head turned on her body, following her foul-mouthed keeper as he sprinted from the kitchen and, she followed disinterestedly to see, turned ghost and jetted down through the floors. She trailed after, padding slowly, her ears twitching back.
Vlad rematerialized in his entrance hall, where a bleached-white man in a pitch black suit and cape was inspecting one of Vlad's really really rare signed footballs. Vlad couldn't stifle a little screech of terror as the burglar actually opened his mouth and bit it. With his teeth. In the hall behind him, it looked like a very small charge of plastic explosive had reduced the very heavy solid oak doors to toothpicks.
Vlad didn't waste any time gathering a big ole' blast of searing pink ectoplasm and letting the old man have it.
The geezer hissed and dropped the football, his eyes instantly flashing molten red. He leaped into the air, and the cloak seemed to get bigger, and his teeth, now fully bared, seemed to grow larger, and a little part of Vlad's brain said Holy Crap. His blast hadn't even left a mark, but as he watched, the man's arms reached out, the cape draping from them, and now the cape seemed leathery, and the pale white skin had flushed tombstone-gray, and the teeth gleamed like sharpened knives. Vlad threw up a shield and wished he could convince somebody to sell him house insurance.
The monster smashed against the pink sphere. Vlad let it down and quadrupled himself. He attacked the monster every way he knew how, but the bat-monster was invincible. Wherever he struck, it bludgeoned him back, and ever dodge and weave meant reducing another wall to gravel. He couldn't get his mind around it. This thing was a big bat, a humongous, evil flying rat, which had come out of nowhere, and now it was very properly 'whomping his tush.' In a matter of seconds he'd lost one clone, with the others on the way out, then he was alone against this monstrous vampiric Thing.
It loomed over him. Beaten within an inch of extreme unpleasantness, Vlad fizzled back to his human self, and it was just as it bent to sink those sharpened tusks into his neck that it froze.
And then it smiled.
It smiled the same way a tiger would if it had just seen its favorite toy. Something fwooshed and bubbled, and then there was a grinning old man in a black suite and cape staring, transfixed, at the staircase. Very carefully, Vlad manage to look around to see what the fuss was, and there on the staircase was Kitty, seated on the step like an empress on her throne. In spite of all his whacks and smacks and bites and bruises and near-death experiences, Vlad wanted to strangle that darn cat.
"Oh, it's you!" said the man in the cape, his arms dropping like noodles to his sides. "Beutus! I had no idea you lodged here." His old eyes sparkled.
Vlad managed to heft himself up on one elbow without screaming in agony. "What?" The man walked right by him, treading on Vlad's fingers as he did so. The man approached Kitty and genuflected—someone like him didn't bow.
"Might've touched meself up a bit if I'd thought you were here," he said, as if speaking to an attractive woman.
Vlad's eyes boggled. A very low growl had started bubbling in his chest, and now he let it out. "I don't know who you think you are, but this is my house and you will not speak with my cat!"
"Bit of a nutter, this one, yes?" the man whispered. Cats don't smile, but it seemed to Vlad that Kitty got pretty close. The man turned and stared authoritatively down at Vlad. "Now see here, servant. I'm here to visit the real master of this establishment… Mister Masters. If this is indeed where he stays." The man shook his head. "Though it's beyond me why such a powerful member of my clan would keep such a lazy slave."
Vlad's cheeks burned in arrogant fury. "YOU WERE TALKING TO MY CAT!" He almost managed to sit up.
"Forgive him," the man said to Kitty. "I hate to fuss, Beutus, but would you tell the keeper of this house that Vlad Dracula is here?"
Elegantly, Kitty walked to Vlad Masters and looked at him. Vlad grinned in the face of his guest's horror. "That's right, you old boob. I am Vlad Masters."
At a loss, he looked to Kitty, who returned his loss with a straight stare, and not even the world's first vampire can win a staring contest with a cat. "But… Why?" Kitty turned her head and licked her back, paying no more attention to either of them.
Vlad grinned nastily. "I gave her pizza, and her name is Kitty."
XXX
Ten minutes later Vlad the three of them had arrived at the kitchen, and Vlad was just finishing dumping the canned cat food into Kitty's bowl. His guest was sitting on a stool next to Kitty, who had reclaimed her leisurely place in the middle of the granite table. The stranger still hadn't introduced properly, but from what Vlad could gather from his conversation with Kitty, the man was the original Dracula. He'd come to the States on holiday from Transylvania, partly to see the magnificent new ghost-lord who shared his first name. Apparently, Vlad had proved a severe disappointment, but by Kitty he was charmed.
Vlad wrinkled his nose at the smell of the food. As soon as he could manage it without destroying his house, this old bat was out of here. Who did he think he was, Vlad's father? You couldn't expect that sort of thing of people. Besides, you could get more stealing from people than by terrifying them. At least he'd never had a mob of townspeople with stakes chasing after him.
He tossed the ceramic food bowl on the table and sat across from Gramps. He watched, delighted, as she dipped her head to eat. "How do you two know each other, exactly?"
Dracula glanced up at him. "Oh, she used to be my cat. Together, we ruled civilization." His face darkened. "Then came the Nordic hordes… They stole my country and savaged my people."
Vlad considered this, trying to get it to ring a historical bell, but no matter how he spun it, that account of things made no sense whatsoever. "What a shame," he mused. "How are things now?"
Dracula reached out a hand and stroked Kitty's back lightly. He sucked his bottom lip, which was a truly disturbing sight to see. "They go… well. The local government somewhat… impedes my movement."
Vlad raised a brow, a hint of a smile crossing his face. "Dictatorship?"
"Democracy."
"Ah!" Vlad sat up. "I might be able to help you with that one. With any so-called 'people's government,' there's always strings to pull." Until Vlad got a working weapon against the original vampire, he might as well get on his good side. "What is it you're trying to do?"
Dracula folded his hands with restrained grace. "I have unusual dietary restrictions, as you may have heard."
"Oh." Vlad blinked. "Yes, that would be a tough one."
A thoughtful silence curled up between them. Kitty licked and smacked at her smelly wet cat food.
"I've had to make do with orphans."
Vlad gagged, but he tried to pass it off as a cough. "I have a meeting to go to." He stood up from his chair. "Very important. I'm not a terror of the night, but I'm a demon when it comes to paperwork, and people need cheating, so, you know… I'll see you when I get back. Feel free to go anytime you'd like." With that he scurried off to his garage, selected a Lotus, and made for the nearest flat stretch of road.
Vlad shook his head as the farms whirred past. "Orphans," he growled. Maybe the old man had been pulling his leg. He certainly had been smiling, a little. And he was a pretty good-humored guy, if it came to that. Vlad decided he must have been joking. He probably drank medical blood, or something. Yes, Vlad thought, passing a Corvette with ease, Let's hold that thought.
He was looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. What he had was an ancient and very reliable source of power. Possibly two, if he counted Kitty. Vampires had all kinds of powers; there must be some way he could use Dracula.
Back at the mansion, Vlad walked into his breezy hall and looked up at the roof, which appeared deceptively sound. He smiled. Nothing had exploded! That was good. He continued on into the house, and eventually found his cat and his eccentric guest lounging on the posh couches of his study.
"Ah, Masters. I have to thank you for reuniting me with Beutus. She has taught me more than I could have imagined in our short time together."
Vlad didn't roll his eyes. Whatever. "I am happy to hear that. Now, I know you are full of ancient wisdom?"
The vampire squinted. "I might be, yes."
"Well," Vlad fidgeted. "I have heard thatyour kindhave a certain… natural sexual appeal to the opposite gender?"
"They might, yes."
"Can I ask how that works?"
Dracula shrugged, reaching up lazily to scratch the back of his head. "Don't see why not. It's just Elder Spice."
"Is that anything like Old—"
"Exactly like it. Just mix in about a teaspoon of mayonnaise, and that does it." He glared at Vlad. "But beware, you are forbidden from telling the mortals. That's one of our most treasured secrets, and I can disembowel a person in forty different ways." Kitty meowed. "Fourty-two. Sorry, Highness."
"Mayonnaise?" Vlad croaked. That was kind of disgusting.
Dracula waved his hand. "That's really all it is. Some kind of unique chemical reaction happens. We first discovered it when the Elvis died. He was eating a tuna fish sandwhich at the time."
"But I thought your ability was far older than Elvis."
Dracula rolled his eyes. "Oh, so now you're the Ancient One? You're the Original Vampire? Oh excuse me. Pipsqueek."
"Have it your way," Vlad grumbled.
"Don't even drink blood, you big fake."
Vlad clenched his fists. "Well she's MY cat, not yours, isn't she? I guess you must have sucked too much for her!"
Dracula sat up and yawned. "I can't stick around this dump of yours, anyway. I have a plane to California to catch. I'll be seeing you, Pipsqueek."
"I'm not a Pipsqueek!" Vlad shouted as Dracula retreated down the steps. "You're just a tired old fart that's hung around too long."
"And clean up this Hoboland before I get back, alright? At least have some proper sushi around here, or something." Somewhere, a door that hadn't been knocked down yet slammed.
Vlad ground his teeth. Give a guy a few hundred years on earth and he thought he knew everything. Rancid old codgers. Vampirism was probably the worst idea anybody had ever had. He was going to keep holy water in every room.
Kitty jumped off the couch and stalked out of the room.
XXX
The next day, Vlad put some mayonnaise in a popular bottle of cologne and shook it up until the fatty blob dissolved. He held the white bottle to eyelevel and sniffed, discovering a complete lack of aroma. He sprayed some on the back of his hand and smelled nothing.
Vlad lowered his hand to Kitty, who hissed and swiped her claws across it. Vlad yelped…
…and went to the mall, having decided that additional testing was in order. He'd glued several cheap dolls, random things picked out from the first toy store he'd seen, on benches throughout the mall, each with a different degree of cologne sprayed on them. Then he'd bribed the guards who watched the mall security cams. As he studied the tapes the crooked guards had recorded for him, Vlad noticed that the males who sat down by them didn't pay them any attention whatsoever, beyond the first curious glance to wonder what they were doing there.
The females, however, tended to spend a lot longer on the bench, never even glanced at the dolls, and seemed to clear their throats a lot. The severity of the symptoms corresponded to the amount of cologne he'd sprayed on the doll next to her.
Vlad grinned.
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A/N: OOOOO! MYSTERIOUS! What will happen next? Who does Vlad want to be his Valentine? GASP! Review, you Curious Georges!