Mrs. Dracula: Vampire Anthology

by Logan Keys

  He wants me to have no one.

  Not even himself.

  “The pain I must have caused you to make you steal everything from me!” I spin a circle, screaming with rage. Somehow, I know, he’s here watching me.

  The front door is flung wide, but it’s not Dracula, it’s Irena and Roman guards.

  Her champion having been left alive, can now point me out. Trembling with fear, he lifts a hand, a dumb look on his face. “Her. She…used magic to make me weak.”

  Irena smiles with glee as they come forward to arrest me, only to stumble across the body of Alaric. Irena screams, and pretends to go faint. Her champion catches her, and her slaves rush to fan her. “There it is!” she says. “I knew she was cheating and a witch, but I never guessed she was also a murderer.”

  She motions towards poor Alaric. Proof of my treachery.

  My nose winkles and my eyes flare. I lunge forward, but shock makes me hesitate. I don’t need to get closer to know the truth. Worse than this treachery, the faint smell of my husband is lingering also on Irena herself.

  No, she’d not know his nature, he’d never reveal that to a human, but he’d visited the Lady of Rome. He’d no doubt even lain with her, to hurt me, to thrust the knife deeper. In his dead heart, he feels it’s less than I deserve.

  A cold rage fills me beyond all else.

  Before either guard can subdue me, I grab Irena by her skinny throat. “I curse you,” I spit, relishing in the beautiful face twisting into a fear that I’ve only seen a few times in my life. She’s seen her future in my eyes.

  I smile a hard curl of lips.

  And then I flee.

  Modern Day

  Rome had burned after that.

  She had caught fire for weeks and weeks. It had almost seemed as though she would burn for all of eternity, like a Hell for the wicked.

  Fingers were pointed and lives were lost. Irena’s was most regrettable to the city, but the word was, she had been cursed.

  Dracula is here again with me. Nostalgia? Maybe.

  This was the last place where we quarreled. Even if I never saw his face, it was for him what I did after that fateful night.

  I cannot see his face, but I wonder…are there burn marks? Would he have scars? My hands still bear the little marks where the sparks had singed me.

  Even now, I gaze at the tall walls of the Coliseum and I see Alaric fighting, but mostly, I see the fires that burned bigger than the sky.

  A holy inferno cleansing the city.

  “It had burned and burned, do you remember it?” I ask. My gaze grows distant. “It was like a life force coming for you. A beautiful thing, really. And no less what you deserved. I freed slaves who helped me pour the oil. They were only too glad to see their previous owners burn. What do they say? Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

  THE BLOODLESS CASE

  Adelaide Walsh

  Apparently, Lady Dracula hated a lot of things. Crying babies, sunny days, mosquitoes, car rides, snapbacks, cherry pies, sand in her shoes, overly long nails, salad, and hundreds of other things listed in a three-page document that I refused to read in its entirety.

  Who could hate cereal bars? Really? I threw the pile of papers onto the seat next to me with an exasperated sigh. This was stupid.

  Thinking about it, the absurd file about my soon-to-be sidekick in the ridiculous hunt Everley sent me on, was given to me by the weirdest man I had ever seen: a dwarf in a dress with a wig on his head.

  I had seen a lot of oddities during my journey as a witch, but a dwarf in a dress was definitely something else: a whole other level of weirdness, more so than a two-headed crow or a pink cat. But the most disturbing fact about his entire character was how well he wore his long, curly, blood-red hair.

  In any case, it was by far the most ridiculous shapeshifting spell result I had ever witnessed. Something had obviously gone wrong and it was hard to hold back from laughing at this poor guy. Especially since I couldn’t get a thing of what he was saying, as he kept mumbling in his beard. Or maybe it was another language altogether?

  I knew why I was here, though. “Investigate the sudden increase of vampire attacks on humans in the south-west of France” was the official reason given to the file, but I knew better than that. Everley didn’t want me around anymore.

  She feared for her status as High Priestess of the coven, as she should. She was getting old, and me being more powerful, her retirement and replacement were inevitable. Yet, she sent me here, all the way from America to fucking France, to run after some random vampire gone rogue.

  I shook my head. Granny was in denial. Smiling, I couldn’t help but to think about getting back home, after all this crap was sorted, and claiming Everley’s position as mine.

  At the prospect of becoming high priestess, some willpower flowed back into me. With renewed motivation, I retrieved the list and resumed my reading.

  “Hates cucumber cubes.” In one move I stood so that I could happily throw those three pages of nonsense into the nearest trashcan. Who the hell cuts cucumbers into cubes?

  Everyone I talked to about this case so far warned me that I must make sure that Lady Dracula was properly taken care of. Meaning that I should not, “under any circumstances, disrespect her or put her in any uncomfortable situation that could have been avoided,” or so the file said. I didn’t know who this woman was, but she was already getting on my nerves. I was picking her up at the airport. That was enough as far as I was concerned. If she wasn’t happy with me, what we ate, how I dressed or, hell, even the air we breathed, then screw her. I wasn’t here to serve her; I was here to stop a criminal.

  Talking about the devil, the doors of the gate she was supposed to come out of opened and the first load of passengers exited in little groups of two or three. I sighed in contentment. My seemingly endless wait was over, finally. Or so I thought. After twenty minutes with no sign of Lady Dracula I started to worry. Did I miss her?

  But just when I was about to call Inspector Dumas, I heard voices, a woman complaining in a weirdly accented English and a guy yelling back at her in French. The glass doors parted and a tall woman with short hair stumbled forward.

  I stared at her longer than necessary, because while she resembled the woman in the photo that was in Lady Dracula’s file, she was also completely different. She had white hair, but looked like a thirty-year-old at most, not like the woman on the photo who looked to be in her late forties, with long black hair. For someone who hated so many things, I expected some kind of pompous, rich, old woman, but I was faced with a young person in tight jeans, high heels, and leather jacket. Almost my type.

  When she walked towards me, I straightened my back, ready to greet this stranger, but as I was about to say hello, she asked: “Are you Vanessa… King?”

  I frowned in confusion. “You mean Victoria Killingsworth?”

  “Yes, that’s it! So, I take it that is you, good.” That was all she said, dashing forward as if in some kind of secret race, and left me behind feeling dumbfounded.

  She turned around and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Well, what are you waiting for?” As I walked towards her, she rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My bags.” She motioned to a handbag and a wheeled suitcase.

  Now, that was offensive! Angry, I fought back, “I’m not your servant.”

  She looked genuinely surprised when she asked, “You’re not?”

  “Like you, my presence has been required by Inspector Dumas. We’re here as investigators, both of us.”

  Her answer was a simple oh of understanding. “Well,” she came back to me and extended a hand, “my name is Ştefania Dracula.”

  I didn’t like it when someone took me from above but I relaxed, ready to give her another chance. I shook her hand. “I’m Victoria Killingsworth.”

  “Original name.”

  I huffed with
a smile. How could Mrs. Dracula dare to make any comment about my name? “Yours, on another hand, is awfully famous. Almost unbelievable.”

  She smiled, a tint of sadness spoiling it. “Unfortunately.”

  For a moment, I felt compassion and sympathy, almost regretting what I’d said, but then, as she grabbed her handbag, she said, “Would you be nice enough to take the other one?” She walked away not waiting for my answer, probably not expecting any, and I swore on Everley’s head that I was going to kill this woman.

  I took her stupid suitcase and followed her out of the airport. According to the file, Lady Dracula hated car rides, but we took a taxi anyway. The way to the investigator’s office was spent in silence, both of us preferring to stare out the window in silent acknowledgement of the antipathy we felt for each other.

  When we arrived, a nice man in blue took her suitcase, and I was grateful. He led us inside the office and to a fancy door on the second floor.

  The man knocked. “Monsieur Dumas? Elles sont arrivées.”

  “Ah, parfait,” a voice answered from behind the door. “Merci, Christian, tu peut les faire entrer.”

  The man opened the door and we stepped in, looking around. The door was fancy, for sure, and probably, so was the furniture, but it was hard to tell, as every single surface was overflowing or covered in files and papers.

  “Yeah, I know, I’m not the most organized person.” He extended his hand to shake ours: “My lady, Mrs. Killingsworth, I am Patrick Dumas, a Guardian specialized in supernatural investigations. Don’t worry, the room is well isolated, no words will get out. Please sit down.” We gratefully obliged.

  This was my first time interacting with a Guardian. I imagined them more… special. For a descendent of the first Guardians, the children of men and angels, he looked very common. Oh well, it was better for everyone. How awful would it be if the people in charge of the protection and control of the paranormal world looked suspicious?

  Dumas sat back in his chair, then rested his entwined hands on his desk. “I am sorry for all the trouble I put you through, really, but the case we are working on is beyond my field of expertise.”

  “Enough small talk, what do you need from us?” Lady Dracula voiced my thoughts faster than me, but I was grateful that I didn’t have to be the buzz killer.

  “Over the past few months we have been finding more and more corpses. At first animals, then, more recently, humans. Three, to be precise. We would never assume that dead animals would be involved in a serial killer case, but that’s not the only weird part.” He opened a file on his desk and took out pictures of all kinds of dead things: goats, pigs, cows, dogs, cats and, finally, humans. Their skin was entirely white, except for an area at their throat which was red and swollen. “As you can see, they have all been killed in the same fashion. At first, we thought about Biolance, but we dismissed it.”

  “Biolance?” I asked.

  “A company of pharmaceutical products, working on enhancing human bodies. We’re keeping a close watch on them, because information we got mentioned some kind of experiments on humans, something the ministry does not approve of. Apparently, they’re orienting their research towards genetics now. We don’t know what they’re doing, but it cannot be good.”

  “How did you relate the case to them? It’s obviously nothing involving genetics,” Lady Dracula spat out, as if what the inspector said was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. But there was more to that, I could feel a personal, underlying anger.

  “Biolance has a history of being rather careless with how they discard the bodies of their experiment subjects. They got in a lot of trouble with animal protection groups multiple times. They never burn their rabbits entirely, neither do they bury anything, sometimes they just throw bodies in the trash. This was highly unsanitary and we had to intervene. Yet, despite all these problems, Biolance is still thriving. We ignore where their funding is coming from, but we have our suspicions, and-”

  “Cut the crap,” Lady Dracula said, standing in one move. “Say it. Tell us why we’re here.”

  “Well…” the inspector answered, gulping down his obvious fear of the woman’s anger. “The victims have been emptied of their blood in a way that cannot be achieved by human technology, so we thought-”

  “Vampires didn’t do it. It is against our rules. We’re not monsters, inspector, not anymore.” Lady Dracula slammed her hands on the desk. Her aura was dark, heavy in the air, almost suffocating, even to me. I had met vampires before, but this was the first time I felt so much power radiating from one of them. The file was right about her age and identity. She wasn’t a descendent of the Dracula family, but one of the originals.

  Now visibly sweating, the man answered, lowering his head in submission: “Yes, that’s what we thought, too, which is why we gave our attention to our second option, magic. We thought, maybe a witch or a sorcerer would be responsible for this.”

  I understood Ştefania’s anger. This was offensive. No magician would do such a thing, in such a disgusting way. It was my turn to stand up. “This is a heavy accusation you’re making.”

  The man sighed, “We know. Which is the reason why you’re both here. It is not a problem that a human can solve, only experts can, and we couldn’t think about anyone more suited for this than one of the most powerful vampires existing and a one of the best witches in North America.”

  Both Lady Dracula and I relaxed at the praise and reason in his words. We weren’t here to take responsibility for the mistakes of a member of our communities, but to acquit them.

  Cold but calm, Ştefania said, “I need to see the body.”

  Standing up, the man answered, “Of course, Christian is going to take you to the morgue.”

  Christian was a nice guy and very perceptive. I realized that in the car. He understood quickly that Lady Dracula wasn’t in the mood for jokes, but that she would probably murder someone if no one took her mind out of whatever dark pit it was in. Which was why he didn’t ask questions or put on music. Instead he chose what I thought was a bad idea and told us about Bordeaux.

  At first, I feared for Christian’s life, but I soon realized that I was wrong. It turned out that Lady Dracula had always been a huge fan of the city. She knew its whole history, how initially this bar used to be a brothel and this fancy building was built for her by one of her lovers back in 1783. She talked a lot, and while for the most part her face was the embodiment of the word “bored”, every now and then a smile ghosted at the corners of her lips, and for an instant she looked almost nice.

  Almost.

  When we arrived, he cut her off. He did it nicely, but it didn’t seem to matter, Lady Dracula was back in “pouting mode”, and the heaviness I felt in the office was back in the air. I sighed. This woman, I swear…

  The building we went into was ugly, but we followed our guide without a word. We passed the security, then Christian led us downstairs. I had never set foot in a morgue, but I watched TV shows. That was why, when I entered the cold room, I wasn’t surprised by it, yet was very excited. I knew I shouldn’t be, that there were dead people around, but still. It was cool. Or so I thought until Christian pulled on one of the drawers and uncovered the cold body of one of the victims.

  I gagged, but, of course, Lady Dracula didn’t waver, not even a little bit. Her countenance was serious as she put on the gloves Christian gave her and started examining the body. I did the same. It wasn’t surprising that the body had never been in contact with magic.

  No magic, that’s for sure, but this was not a normal death either. The victim had been emptied of his blood, but from the look of the wound on his neck, it looked like it was sucked out of his body with a lot of strength. I could see why the authorities thought about a vampire, but magic? It couldn’t do that.

  After a few minutes Lady Dracula looked at me and stated, “No vampire did that, neither did any witch.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement of what was an obvious truth to both of us.
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br />   “I don’t know who or what did this, but this,” she pointed to the body, “is an insult to my people. They will not get away with this.”

  “Then what did that? Some magical creature, perhaps?” Christian questioned and I shook my head.

  “I don’t sense any magic coming from this body. It’s nothing magical either, or at least nothing that I know of.”

  We were all bitter when we came out of the morgue. Outside night had fallen, so Christian drove us to the hotel Lady Dracula and I were staying at. He helped her with her luggage, until we reached her room, then wished us goodnight.

  After a quick dinner in my room I went to bed, suddenly more tired than I had expected.

  I didn’t sleep well. I couldn’t remember them, but I knew I had nightmares all night. When I exited my room, I came face to face with Lady Dracula.

  “You look exhausted,” she told me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  She sighed, but wasn’t angered by my sarcasm. Instead she looked genuinely embarrassed. “I think I owe you an apology. Humans’ nights are always troubled when I’m around, especially if I’m in a bad mood. That’s how it is, and I can’t help it.”

  Now this was unexpected. “That’s… surprisingly nice, coming from you.”

  She smirked. “I am rude but I have feelings, too. Sleep is precious. If you hadn’t slept in centuries like me, you would think the same.”

  A pang of sadness and compassion hit me then and I found myself thinking about what it meant to be a centuries-old vampire. Not the best life to live, for sure. “Well, still, thanks for your concern.”

  “Don’t get used to it.” She grinned and walked away smugly.

  After breakfast, we left the hotel to go back to the office, where Inspector Dumas was waiting for us like yesterday.

  “Tell me you have a lead,” he told us as we sat down in front of him.

  “Not a clue,” I answered, sorry for him and the victims.

  “What kind of supernatural beings do you have in France?” Lady Dracula asked.