B00724AICC EBOK (5 page)

Upstairs beside his king-sized $200 000 bed with the giant bat for a headboard, was a guillotine that had been permitted to fall onto his neck almost a dozen of times, with the end result being dulling of the heavy blade. The expensive bed was probably unnecessary but he liked the comfort of its blackness. Being the world’s first to attain the unfathomable amount of a trillion, he had money to waste. Dracula had become a wise investor long before it had become fashionable. The bedroom also had a large plasma television on the wall and a PlayStation 3 connected to it, and after a month of killing virtual soldiers he had become uninterested in it.

Piers Anthony, creator of the Xanth novels, entered Dracula’s living room and looked up at him hanging from the chandelier. His eyebrows pulled together tightly at the sight. The author looked as if he was ready to play golf the way he was attired, with his blue Lacoste Crocodile Polo T-shirt with the 3cm croc on his left chest and his complementing NIKE shorts. He slowly shook his head. “Don’t tell me your still at it?”

“
Indeed,” he said, his rich deep voice bouncing off the walls and ceiling. Although Dracula, with his dark complexion and handsome face didn’t look much like Elvis, he did have his smile. He cracked his neck inside the noose which Piers found a little disturbing.

Piers Anthony, having been turned into a vampire, was now trapped at the age of seventy forever. But Piers, now with no aches and pains and the strength and speed of a hundred men in their prime, figured that it wasn’t such a bad condition to be in, although he did realize that he would have to fake his own death one day lest people discover his true self. His white beard and bushy white eyebrows continued to grow, which was an aberration for a vamp, but as of late vampires seemed to be evolving faster than ever before. Having been a vegetarian prior to being turned by the Master himself, it made the adjustment much more difficult. Piers now fed on plasma supplied from a local hospital for big bucks.

Sitting on the large two piece curved white leather corner sectional sofa, Piers stared up at the king of the undead. He strummed his fingers on the curved wood armrest. There was silence for almost four minutes before he finally spoke. “You do realize that if you do manage to do away with yourself that I’ll turn to dust, and at this point in time I don’t really want to be sucked up by someone’s vacuum, besides the fact that I just started a new novel.”

“
That of course is unproven, until I do indeed manage the deed. Although I do suspect that it is in fact a fact.”

“
You paid a lot of money for that thing that you’re hanging from.”

“
I’ve got more money than brain cells, and call me Master.”

Piers thought about it but decided against it as he shook his head. “I won’t call you master.”

Dracula actually liked the fact that Piers was defiant, but with a slight wave of his left hand he made the author get up and dance the Irish Riverdance, finding it slightly amusing as his legs almost kicked himself in the head as he jumped around to the music in his head. It was embarrassing but the ability to make him do such a thing was impressive.

“
All right Master, you win. How long have you been up there?”

“
Several days. I don’t know. Time is like grains of sand on all the world’s beaches.”

“
How the hell did you get way up there?”

“
Flew up in bat form and then morphed. Has your imagination been dulled?”

Piers nodded as he was again permitted control of his own body. He returned to the sofa and got comfortable. “I don’t like being a bat, flew into a window last night. The vision is disconcerting.”

“
You’ll get used to it, if you live long enough.” Dracula deliberately moved his right foot which started him swinging slightly, and that was not an attractive sight to the author. It was a living horror movie.

Piers Anthony had been turned in the comfort of his backyard in Florida one evening surrounded by evergreen laurels and beautiful palmetto palm trees. Dracula had flown down his quarter mile driveway as he had used it as a bit of a runway. Piers had been exercising with his bow and arrows at the time. He was pleased with himself, having managed a bullseye on the circular target, his first of the year. It was such a perfect shot that it could not have been more centered. He was in the process of gathering up his aluminum arrows with yellow fletching and his carbon shaft arrows with the white and red-orange fletching when he heard a whoosh and knew what was coming. With his camouflage bow slung over his shoulder, Piers had turned and waited for him to appear. Dracula had approached from the corner of the house and Piers assumed that he was coming for business as per their agreement.

“
Piers.”

“
Dracula. How’s business?”

“
It really sucks.”

Dracula had been a tall dark and formidable presence in his black Armani suit; his florescent brown eyes instantly capturing the author’s attention. He had been a fan of his Xanth books and always badgering him to write more and more. The bargain was to write the vampire a Xanth trilogy exclusively for the Master, where no other was to set their eyes on them, purchased for a princely sum and a bite on the neck.

“
Are you going to come down and talk to me or do I have to hang myself as well?” Piers asked a little annoyed. He turned his head to stare at the new colourful Tiffany Lotus lamp. “That’s not the original is it?” When he turned back the rope was swinging with Dracula comfortably beside him on the sofa.

“
You should realize that I’m in no mood to listen to banter. Not healthy to annoy the Master.”

Piers studied his expressionless face. Dracula was frozen in time with the most perfect and handsome forty-year-old face that he had ever observed. It did in fact make him a little jealous. “Believe me when I tell you that it’s not banter.”

Dracula turned his head to stare into the author’s eyes, and even that gesture appeared to be a little threatening. Looking into those eyes could be like looking into the barrel of a loaded gun, depending upon how he wanted one to perceive them. Piers wanted to run away like a cartoon with smoke emanating from his fiery feet but managed not to flee. “Spew it then.”

“
The planet is going to hell. Vampires are attacking humans in public, and of course it’s an unfair advantage. If I were you I’d get out there, kill several hundred vamps, and get the word out that the boss is back, and that such actions will not be tolerated.”

Dracula blinked several times. “Weren’t you a vegetarian before I turned you?”

“
You know that to be the case.”

“
So how’s that working out for you?”

The writer was annoyed at him changing the subject but there was only so much he could do. “I drink blood that is supplied to me for a price. I don’t kill anything.”

“
Yet.”

“
Ever. Although I must admit that there was this beautiful blond that I, ah, wanted to, ah.”

“
Yes?”

“
We’re getting off topic. Dracula, have you no comment on the situation? Good people are dying out there.”

“
I have no opinion.”

He was silent for several more minutes. It was an awkward silence and Piers could feel him poking around inside his mind. The repeated sounds and sights of squeaky doors being opened and closed was also being shoved into his brain, with a scene of gore behind each and every door. The author crossed his legs and was aware of the Master’s arrogant smirk. He also knew that he was being purposely annoyed so that he would leave.

“
Would you please get out of my head?”

“
I’ve trained sheriffs, and I’m going to let them handle it.”

“
That’s the problem, the vamp population has exploded, and there’s not enough law out there to handle the situation. Some regular law enforcement is actually refusing to respond to calls. Even guns are usually no match for vampires.”

“
I can imagine, and I’m not even an author.”

In the time that it would have taken a camera’s flash to explode, Dracula morphed into a bat, transformed and again hung from the ceiling. It was a talent that only he possessed. “You know the way out.”

Piers stood wanting to say a lot more, but he also wanted to keep his head on his shoulders. “Kids are being killed, and I know you like kids.”

“
They do taste quite scrumptious.”

“
You’ve never touched a child and you know it.”

“
You know the way out. Or I could show you.”

Piers cracked his neck loudly, and the adjustment felt good. He stared up at the noose and wondered how hanging there accomplished anything. “You could train a couple hundred more sheriffs, equip them with dogs.”

“
If I come down there again you won’t like it.”

“
If I come down there again you won’t like it!” Piers mocked.

Piers blurred to the door almost as fast as a bullet, and then exited onto the sidewalk at a human’s pace. He crossed Martin Street and headed down the forest path and into the forest. The sun felt hot but satisfying. How could he get the Master back into the game? Piers wanted time to think and the forest was a pleasant enough place.

CHAPTER SIX

HARRIS AND TANNER MILLER were genuine brothers of the notorious variety, known to the law since they were fourteen for terrorizing their neighbors. Shooting houses and car windows with their pellet gun was a favourite pastime at four in the morning, especially during the summer months when they didn’t have to get up until way past noon. Hanging cats was another favourite pastime. The single mother that had raised them had been interested in the bottle more than the two hellish things that had come out of her. Alcohol had an appeal like nothing else. Beer for breakfast suited her just fine, and on some days for lunch as well.

The two miscreants fed off one another, both mentally and with similar cruel intentions. Their brains soldered with hatred and irreparable things. Their minds could only be changed with a lobotomy. The painful cries of others made them laugh. When Harris said that they should do something with a knife; Tanner would suggest they do it with a gun. If Harris wanted to specifically beat someone unconscious, then Tanner would want to stab the victim in his insentient state. They were two creatures without sympathy for anyone or anything. And they loved destroying public property.

Sunday afternoons were spent sitting on the curbstone and bouncing ideas off one another for the week ahead. What viciousness could they get away with? What faces could they instill with absolute fear? As the brothers grew older their visions also developed into more sinister ideas. They commenced to think of murder and how incredible it would be, to actually be responsible for putting someone in the ground.

So it came to be that the two had stopped an eighty-three-year-old gentleman from re-entering his small brick house on the second of January one bitterly cold and windy night, after he had brought the garbage out. They had planned the assault for a week, and how they were going to appreciate it. They thought it to be a work of genius and for days they were absolutely giddy with anticipation. They blocked Simon repeatedly and he simply didn’t have the strength to fight them off. The wind had been strong and relentless that evening. A punch to his solar plexus halted his feeble calls for help. Within hours he had succumbed from the elements. They had been as excited as they were certain that it had been the perfect crime. The unflawed offense had always been their heart’s desire. The perfect crime made them impeccable criminals in their horrid hearts. They went to his funeral as he had been a neighbour, and that had been the butter on the already delicious pancake.

The brothers were sired by the serial killer John Dawson that had finally been caught and executed in Texas for the brutal killings of an entire family of five in Austin. And John’s father had been a killer as well, though only once, and so it seemed that whatever nastiness that ran through them was either in their genes, or taught from one hateful generation to the next. It appeared that the foulness of their actions was steeped in their blood. They had never wanted to be anything but transgressors. Their sole ambition was to be the best of the worst that humanity had to offer. They had not been brought up in the normal sense, but had been beaten up with sticks and belts until the pain had turned to pleasure.

They were both short in stature but solid individuals that always carried concealed weapons, mostly knifes although they did own a small collection of stolen guns. The guns were rarely used as they preferred the more personal hands on approach. Harris was slightly taller, and both had that look of trouble. They both had dragon tattoos on their forearms like Kwai Chang Caine from the old Kung Fu television series, and their heads were always shaved bald. Tanner had an additional tattoo on the back of his head that stated, “How do you like me now.” They both had distasteful blue eyes and no normal person wanted to be captured by them. They both had crooked noses from previous battles with one another, although Tanner’s was a bit more distended and freakish looking.

It was not healthy to acquire the interest of either brother.

They were perpetually on the lookout for crimes to commit, valuable things to abscond with, and ideas of the most notorious nature. People to kill and crimes to commit were regularly tossed around, with future aspirations of becoming vampire killing machines. How great would it be to have the power of a vampire? Tanner dreamt of it and was always disappointed to awake to his reality of being simply human. They went through vampire scenarios of blood and slaughter as normal folks planned vacations.