The day had been rough, and the companions' brows were worn by the trickling descent of gallons of sweat. The bar made from repurposed barstools stood beside their path like a cheap hall of Valhalla, but they were obliged to enter by aching joints and diminished wills, and neither had anything to bequeath in the first place. Unfortunately, a robbery was taking place, one which only usually took place as a metaphor for steep prices. The owner, or at least whoever was standing behind the bar of this establishment, held a jagged dagger to the throat of a traveler whom carried more excessive jewelry than a princess. The owner did not look displeased by the newcomers' arrival.

"You, handsome wayfarers, come help me relieve this young man of these encumbering objects. Split three ways, the fortunes each of us will gain will surpass even those found in the kingdom above."

The two travelers nodded toward one another, and approached the occurring trespass of heavenly law. With gentle hands they disarmed the barman and tied him under his tap and cut his mouth in such a way that drinking anything from the above fountain would cause significant stinging. The saved young man looked upon his deliverers graciously.

"Thank you, good sirs. I was not planning on staying here for the night; only the partaking of a drink was on my mind when I came in. Owing you my life, I could not stand for you to sleep in such an unkempt pile of branches. Accompany me to my castle, and there we shall dine on the finest meats either of you have encountered."

"Your gratitude humbles us," replied Goldmund. "We accept your invitation, good friend. I am Goldmund, and this is Gregor. Please, bless us with the knowledge of your name."

"I am known as Chesterfield, and it is a pleasure to meet you, Gregor and Goldmund. Come with me to the cart and we shall be on our way."

And so our weary heroes boarded Chesterfield's carriage and related their travels to the eloquent stranger as they traveled to his castle, leaving out Gregor's strange ability, of course.

Lamb chops, steaks, Cornish hens, and other delicious delicatessens covered the table. When Goldmund inquired if his host ate fruits or vegetables, the man laughed and replied that the animals did that for him. Gregor was sure that was not how it worked, but didn't know enough about biology to correct Chesterfield. Other than that, the unvaried variety of food took up all the space that words could have filled.

Once stuffed, the men waddled to their respective rooms, and fell asleep in their ominously pre-prepared beds immediately, with no time to lie on their backs and stare at the ceiling, wondering why such a polite man lived in such a large castle in such solitude, or how he kept the place clean.

The count bent over his Russian prey, a smile cutting his face almost in two. Preparing himself for sweet, succulent pleasure, the count closed his eyes. Then he gave his visitor a particularly passionate hickey. Once the horrid liquid flowing through the man's veins met Dracula's palate, however, the vampire's eyes grew wide and he drew back, hissing. The giant cockroach, with its bulbous eyes emotionless and incisors sporadically slicing the air, hissed right back at its attacker. Gregor grabbed the white man with his plethora of little sticky legs and defenestrated him, and then hovered out of the window to watch the nocturnal intruder's descent. Instead of falling, to Gregor's disappointment and surprise, the man became a bat, and flew straight through the cockroach, mortally wounding it. Gregor spiraled into the abyss as the bat retreated to the castle overlooking it.

Goldmund heard the figures shifting around him. Chesterfield's mistresses, no doubt, here for something else easily deducible. He smiled. The journey seemed to be returning his youthfulness. He was in the middle of this pleasant thought when one of them bit his neck. Goldmund sat up with a start, causing the woman to stagger backward, her skin bubbling into red pustules, carbuncles forming around her body and then popping, whittling her small body to the bone until all her flesh lied splattered and red around the room, infested and quivering.

"What have you done to me?" the eyeless, bloody, and scraggly skeleton asked him.

Goldmund, unaware that he was an unaffected carrier of the black plague, shrugged. Then he cut off her head with his broadsword. The other two women, who Goldmund concluded weren't women at all, fled. Just at that moment, Gregor's haywire bug form buzzed past the window.

Seeing that his friend was badly injured and thinking quickly, Goldmund tied up the blankets on his bed and threw them out the window.

"Gregor, grab onto this!"

The bug comprehended this command, for it began circling in a more directed way. Just before it slammed into the rock wall below the castle, it became Gregor, and he grabbed onto the rope of cloth. Goldmund pulled Gregor to safety and laid him on the stripped bed, bloodying the mattress in the same manner an inexperienced girl may.

"What the hell is that?" Gregor asked weakly, his eyes catching the decapitated skeleton in the corner.

Goldmund was about to explain but Gregor shook his head.

"Never mind, I don't have much time," he grasped his fellow's hand. "Goodbye friend. Get out of here alive."

"No!" Goldmund shouted. "Wait here, you shan't die. Now, where is that cur Chesterfield?"

And Goldmund left his fading friend's side, the first trickle of sunlight passing over his pale face.

Dracula hocked a loogie and spit, shaking his whole body like a dog to rid himself of the membrane of roach guts encysting him. Elizabeth and Gertrude awaited him in the rotten cathedral, both looking nonplussed and offering no explanation for Alexandra's absence. None of them conversed as they receded into their respective coffins.

"God curse you, Chesterfield," Dracula muttered. "What wrath have you brought upon my household?"

"Where are they?" Goldmund shouted, pressing his broadsword into poor Chesterfield's throat.

"Down the hallway to the right, the fourth door to the left. Please kill them all. They made me do it, I can't be held responsible, though I'm so sorry. I beg you; release me from my servitude, o great and humble lord."

"My pleasure," Goldmund replied, and with that he cut the man in half.

At first it was as if nothing had happened, and then Chesterfield's torso fell backward to the ground with a thump, while the legs still stood, paralyzed. Goldmund kicked them onto the wretched half man and followed his instructions.

The first coffin he opened had a pale white and tall man in it, covered in brown goo. Goldmund dragged the body out of its box and down the hall and down the steps in an uncouthly manner, so that the back of its head knocked against each step and chaffed on each floorboard.

Gregor was not awake when Goldmund arrived. Without concern for the semantics of his plan, he pinned Dracula to the wall above his bed with his broadsword, and then, using his dagger, cut the veins out of the suspended man. Soon Dracula's blood, which had been stored stagnantly in his body for hundreds of years, was flowing into Gregor. Goldmund watched as his friend's chest healed, but grieved when he checked his pulse. Gregor was dead.

"I won't leave you here," Goldmund told the dead man. "I'll give you a proper burial, where the evils of this place cannot taint your soul."

He threw the body over his back and left the castle, stole Chesterfield's carriage and rode for miles and miles, until the horrors behind him were more dream than memory.