September 28 2015
HAPPY 121th BIRTHDAY MAVIS!
I hope you enjoy the new chapter and thanks to my beta reader floodmaster16.
CHAPTER 21: Tell about humans
Mavis, Johnathan and Dracula made their appearance on the stage, and the whole castle fell into a deathly silence, immediately broken by a noisy group of monsters in a corner of the room, who applauded and did a stadium cheering. Dracula gave them a better look. They were his good friends Wayne, Frank, Murray and probably even Griffin. He sighed, embarrassed, but also a bit amused, and went on pretending like it was nothing, whereas Johnathan and Mavis seemed to like the noisy attention.
The three of them sat down behind the long desk on the stage. There were nine chairs but, despite abundant space, they accommodated next to each other.
Dracula immediately began with greetings and introductions, before moving on to a boring monologue about the story of his hotel, but his daughter was elsewhere. She was busy watching the monsters, in the hope of recognizing some friendly faces, in addition to her crazy uncles, in vain hope probably, because those who had been lucky enough to know Johnathan had already asked him two dozen questions, and now they had avoided being in that overcrowded room.
But the thing that worried the young vampire was the first row in front of them. She already knew those individuals looking so similar to humans. They were members of the Order of the Dragon. Who knew if they would ask a few questions, or if they would be passive?
While Mavis watched them with worry, Ryu, the queen of dragons, moved, lifted a hand to shoulder height and... mimed scissors with her fingers to ask Dracula to give a cut to his chatter, but the old vampire did not notice her, and went on until Mavis interrupt him with an elbow to the ribs, and when he turned to her daughter, she pointed with a nod of her head at the queen of the dragons.
"Cut it out, Vlad, no one cares about your talk." The dragon exclaimed, getting applause by the bored monsters.
"Okay, okay, I get it, start immediately with the questions." Dracula said, crumpling the sheets of the opening speech, and throwing them away, angrily.
The old vampire did not have time to finish the sentence as the hands, paws and tentacles of all the spectators stood up to applaud, but, despite their frenzy, there was not much noise in the room, probably because the presence of all the members of 'Order' over-awed all those curious monsters.
"I would like to remind everyone here that I'll express my opinions about the human world at the end of this meeting only, so avoid the questions about my political ideologies."
The monsters looked at each other fearfully, and almost everyone lowered their arms.
"That's better." The count sighed, and looked around. He was puzzled when he saw that, on the front row, was a member of the Order with a raised hand, "Neptune, let's start with you." The vampire concluded.
"Yes, thanks, I have a question just for you;" The merman began, "What happened to my statue's beautiful brass trident in the garden? That is, why should my statue brandish a flag Order of the Dragon?" he asked, a little irritated.
Mavis bit her lip and looked down. It had been a month since that fateful day when, hurt by Van Helsing, her demonic spirit made her dream what might have happened if she had not bitten Johnathan. For a moment she relived what she had seen, the death of Johnny, her suicide, pierced by the trident that his father had removed for that reason.
"Mavy, are you okay?" The human whispered in her ear, worried about her.
The vampiress did not answer for a moment, and then slowly moved her gaze to him, doing a half smile that did not reassure him at all.
Meanwhile, the old count, too focused on the question to see his daughter's problems, replied to his old friend, trying to quickly find a credible excuse, "Yes, of course, yours is an imposing statue that You do understand that this hotel has been designed not only as a place to vacation, but as a safe house where monsters can be safe, and that weapon scared many of them. You know the issue of the forks, that they are not loved by the people in here, right? "He finished looking around, hearing the whispers of those who gave him reason, and feeling relieved.
"You talk about security?" Ryu interjected, "A human came in here undisturbed, and Van Helsing was able to hurt your daughter. Do you really think that this place is safe?"
"You didn't seem to have your hand up." Dracula countered, "But you were the one who dictated the rules of this meeting."
The woman frowned. The vampire that she despised not only was not troubled by her words, but he was also able to speak well enough to force her to silence.
"Hey," The human said sullenly, interrupting Drac.
"Let me finish." The man shushed him, "his movements were senseless and unpredictable, as those of a wild animal. That's why, in addition to a large dose of luck, he managed to get here." The count had a little time to think about the disturbing truth. Johnathan had unconsciously been driven up to the castle thanks to the Lamias, who had driven the ghosts, zombies and other guardians of the haunted woods out of his way. But Drac could not afford to have anyone finding out the truth, the only evidence of the existence of Lamias being the seal tattooed on the buttocks of the boy. He had to catch a Lamia alive, because when they die they burn up, becoming hot coals. Almost impossible, but, had he done it, the whole Council would have set aside all the accusations on him and Hal to focus on the monsters that dragons hate more than anything else.
Unfortunately this was not the time to think about complicated plans, so he went back to concentrating on what he was doing and went on, "Unfortunately, when my daughter was attacked she was outside the castle, but, despite that, she was able to kick him away, and, also, the second time that Van Helsing tried to strike, I defeated him by myself once and for all. Further evidence of the safety of this place was when ,despite the arrival of a horde of humans at the gates of the castle, they did not notice anything, and they are back where they came from.
"You should remember that, Ryu, because you drove those humans up here to test me" Dracula concluded defiantly, generating a "Oooooh" of astonishment from the spectators, who were not aware that those humans had been brought up to hotel Transylvania by the Order of the Dragon.
Another blow to the dragoness, who could not fact, she had endangered the whole monsters of the world for a whim covered as a test.
"Anyway," Dracula continued, "This experience has exposed some flaws in the security system, which is being of the limited intelligence of the zombies and the reduced patrol area of the ghosts, who are confined to cemetery, I added some wendigo, famous for their incredible speed, so much so that I no longer need to catapult zombies to communicate with the castle. And to further improve the area under control, I have added the Trents to the hotel staff, who live in this forest and have accepted my request to help slow the advance of humans."
With the issue of the security settled, many monsters lowered their hands. This was one of the most interest topics.
"We can go on," Vlad continued, "Tell me, you three children." Pointing at the three little monster sitting on the ground in the front row, on the central corridor. They were a mandrake-girl, a cockroach-boy and a rat-boy.
"He called us! He has called us!" The three said in unison, standing up and jumping happily, then the little humanoid plant with long tufts of leaves in her head continued, "I have a question for the human ..." But he stopped, despite the other two telling her to go on.
Johnathan smiled, "Tell me baby, don't be afraid, I'll listen to you." He said, soothingly.
So the mandrake mustered some courage and went on, "Our parents often tell us stories about humans ... and ... and we wanted to know if they were true ..."
"Well, I hope they are not like the stories full of torches and pitch-forks that Drac was telling to Mavy!" The boy exclaimed jokingly.
"No, no torches and pitchforks, worse, they were herbicides!" The little plant-girl said worried.
"And insecticides!" The cockroach-boy added.
"And mousetraps!" The rat-boy exclaimed, sharing the concern of his friends.
The human sighed, almost enjoying the stories that parents tell to their children. The subjects are reversed, but actually there is no difference between humans' and monsters' scary stories.
"Let me explain, we humans use herbicides, insecticides and rat traps ..." But the boy was suddenly interrupted by the desperate cries of the three:
"Waaaaa ! Humans are evil!"
"They have weapons of mass destruction!"
And they began to scream and whine, infecting the other monsters with their panic, but they did not seem to be scared by humans like the time Quasimodo unmasked Johnnystein. They were plugging their ears and running away from the three children. Indeed, the cry of the mandrake was a little annoying, hissing in the ears of the human, even though he was a dozen yards away from this.
"Damn it, what have you done ..." Dracula said, with his hands on his face, then stopping the mandrake with a wave of his hand.
"Too late, Dad ..." Mavis commented, almost amused.
"It is not my fault, they began to cry before I finish!" The human protested, looking at the count, then went back on to the guests; next to the mandrake were another two monster children, a minotaur, two marsh monsters, and a whole family of gremlin, all of them petrified, "What the hell happened?" The boy asked, confused.
"Never let a mandrake cry. If I had not managed to silence her on time, those petrified monsters would have exploded into a thousand pieces. And the healthy ones would become statues." The old vampire replied, then, with two claps, called a group of witch maids, riding their flying brooms who, understanding the situation, did not need any further orders. With their magic, they raised the statues and took them away.
"Forgive this mishap," Dracula began to speak to the guests, "Please return to your seats and ease off on the guy; let him finish his speech before drawing any hasty judgments." He concluded, focusing on the still immobilized little mandrake.
"Thanks Drac. What I wanted to tell you was that what you call weapons of mass destruction probably would not have any effect on you. They are used to drive away pests, herbicides only kill unwanted weeds, insecticides kill nothing bigger than a fly, and mouse traps are small, they can, at much, withdraw into your own hand, but nothing else. Even the cook, Quasimodo, despite having a rat for friend, used mousetraps to keep them away from the kitchen."
High in the stands stood a tiny person; it was Quasimodo, "Keep the rats away from the kitchen? The mice are part of the kitchen, but if I kill them with poison, they acquire a bad taste. The traps instead keep their taste more natural. Among other, rats in bitter-sweet sauce is your favorite dish! "
Johnathan's eyes widened, "Rats in bitter-sweet sauce? Without any quails?" He said shocked.
"Quail?!" Replied the hunchback, "There are no quails in the castle. If anything, some pigeon, but when I cooked birds, Sir Dracula complained that his mailers were on his plate. And then, the rats are easier to catch after Esmeralda has charmed them."
"I'm going to puke ..." the human muttered in a low voice, then took a deep breath and thought no more, he had probably put in worse things his mouth unconsciously, the important thing is that food had been good ... more or less ... "Thanks Quasimodo for your clarification, although I would have preferred not to know."
"You're welcome, human friend," The chef said, pleased to have helped him, "And I thank you, for forgiving my unkind conduct before Sir Dracula kicked me away."
The human's speech was sensible and reassuring. Unfortunately, fear had created myths that, over the years, had worsened, aggravating even further the relationship between humans and monsters, a fracture that was hard to heal. But at least someone was trying.