Tourists bring money, and no one fears the castle by day.Tourists bring money, and no one fears the castle by day. They do not fear as much at night, also." She hung her head. I kissed her on the back of the neck. Victoria started to get dressed again. "I have a plan, but I will definitely need _your_ help. I must ask you to be Count Dracula, my vampire lord and mate. It will mean drinking much blood." She looked at me sympa- thetically. "I know how you are about biting." I opened my mouth, but Vic- toria anticipated my objection. "There should not be any need for _you_ to kill." She paused, reading my lack of reaction. "I hope that killing will not be necessary, but castle _will_ be returned to family." I was going stir crazy after a few hours of being in the interior room. We still couldn't leave for a while; they were in the process of closing the castle for the night, ushering the last of the tourists out. Victoria helped pass the time by giving me the true story of her father's death. "They never would have found them if Van Helsing had not invoked Paresi curse against my father. That forced him and my mother to leave this room." "Why didn't they find Marta?" I asked, not knowing what the (or a) Paresi curse was. "The curse was directed at my father. She was hiding in secret room like this, only not as nice, in dungeon. Van Helsing assumed that when my father died, all of his spawn would die. As you can see, he was wrong." Victoria held up her hand, and listened carefully. "Tourists are gone. We may leave here now." We went to the castle roof and flew off, heading to the nearby town. We bit several young children, male and female. The obvious fang marks we left were much more important to Victoria's plan than the actual blood. "This will let them know that the family Dracula lives. Also, the next generation will be ours," she had said. We went to one of the restaurants in town that catered to the tourist trade and closed at eleven. Victoria and I dined, had a couple of beers, and left at closing time to wait for the help. Victoria bit the head chef and busboy as they emptied garbage. She commanded them to come to the castle the next afternoon. One of the waitresses exited, saying merry goodnights. |