It was that last bit that really grated on me. There were already plenty of vamps in the world, we didn’t need any new ones. And Uncle Luke had decreed a couple centuries ago that anyone creating new vampires without his permission, which he never granted, was to be destroyed without a second chance.
Yeah, my uncle is kinda king of the vampires. Luke is short for Lucas Card, the name he’s been going by most of the last fifty years. A dramatic improvement over the name he used with my dad, which was Mr. Alucard. I always thought that story seemed ridiculous, because who couldn’t see that it was just “Dracula” spelled backward? But Dad said people were more trusting in the Victorian era.
Oh, did I forget to mention? My uncle is Count Vlad Tepes, better known as Vlad the Impaler, and way better known as Count Dracula. And my dad? Yeah, he was kinda famous, too. Jonathan Harker? Used to work for my uncle? That’s my lineage—the world’s most famous vampire and the world’s most famous vampire chew toy.
Not to mention my mom, Mina Murray Harker, who my uncle kinda had a thing for, but not in a West Virginia way, since he isn’t really my uncle. And me? I’m an experiment in supernatural genetics, proving that when two people who vampires nibble on marry and have kids, their kids get a little extra oomph in the genetic lottery.
I’m Quincy Harker, and I’m a part-vampire magic-wielding smartass who’s been alive for a century and a quarter and counting. Although if I didn’t focus on my surroundings and not let this ball of fur and fury on my shoulder distract me, I might be able to stop counting momentarily.
Me and my passenger reached the top of the stairs, really just an open rectangle in the floor where a stairwell used to be, and I peered down into the darkness. I couldn’t see shit. I looked over at the kitty. “You see anything scary, puss?”
The cat jumped off my shoulder, stuck its head down in the hole, and looked back at me. “Mrr-rrr.”
Now, I don’t speak cat. I didn’t know if that weird little chirping sound meant “Coast is clear, tall human,” or “You’re so screwed. If you go down there, you’re gonna get served up with fava beans and a nice Chianti.” Probably the latter. In my experience, cats draw a lot of inspiration from the teachings of the great Dr. Lecter.
“Well, kitty, I don’t know what that means, so I guess I’m just gonna have to find out for myself.” I called up a little sliver of power and shaped it to my will. “Lumos,” I whispered, and a sphere of blazing white light flickered into life above my head, illuminating an area at least fifty feet around me.
Now that I looked like a beacon of absolute goddamn hope and glory shining away in the dark of night, I took one step forward, tucked my elbows into my side, and dropped down into the hole in the floor.
The basement level was obviously the vampires’ main lair, and it smelled just like you’d expect an abandoned warehouse turned into a haven for bloodsucking parasites would smell—like shit. The stench of rot and waste hit me like a hammer, rolling over me and making me take a wobbly step back wiping my eyes.
“Quincy Harker,” a creaky voice said from behind me. “We’ve been expecting you.”
I opened my mouth to say something rude and probably only about half as witty as it would sound in my head, but that’s when Graybeard the Furry Nutjob decided to jump down into the hole with me. Right onto my head.
My teeth clicked together painfully, and I stood there for a moment trying to shake the cat off my head, which apparently was hilarious to the vamps in the room, because I heard laughter coming from all sides.
Good. Laugh it up. The more they’re laughing, the less they’re coordinating an attack. The cat shifted position to sit on the back of my neck, with its back legs draped over my left shoulder and its face and front paws reaching over my right.
“How adorable,” a female voice called out from my right shoulder. “The snack brought a pet!”
I didn’t even look over at her, just raised my right arm straight out from the shoulder and shouted “Fuego!” Fire streamed from my palm, engulfing the vampire who stood about ten feet from me laughing and pointing. Well, laughing and pointing until she was burning and screaming, anyway. She went up like a tinderbox, and five seconds later, there was nothing left but a husk of steaming vampire, which would slowly dissolve into a viscous goo. One down.
I turned around to look at the first voice, the one that knew my name. This was almost certainly the leader, the oldest vampire, the most powerful, and the one who should have known that it was forbidden to make new vampires. He was pretty much the whole reason I was there. Well, him and his whole little nest of kidnapping, murdering assholes. But he was the head asshole.
And he looked the part, too. Most vampires dress normally. Their styles might be a little dated, but they generally make at least a token effort to blend in. The image in popular culture of a vampire sitting on a throne in a tuxedo with a red cummerbund, hair slicked back over a skeletal face, and a cape in the sartorial mix somewhere is a complete Hollywood fabrication.
Except to this guy. He seriously had a throne atop a wooden dais painted to look like marble, and he was wearing the whole outfit, down to that oddball medal Lugosi wore in the movie. I asked Luke once what that was supposed to be, and he just shrugged, saying something about wearing lots of medals through the years. He was a pretty accomplished general, after all.
Well, at least feared, if not all that accomplished. But this dude looked like the version of Dracula that stands out on Hollywood Boulevard and panhandles for tourist photos. Or maybe Grandpa Munster.
The self-styled master vampire, and I was convinced that he probably made everyone in the room refer to his as “Master,” rose from his throne, which I now saw was a big office chair with what looked a lot like human bones tied to the arms and back to make it…creepier, I suppose? For a bunch of undead scourges of the night who are supposed to stay hidden, this guy spent a lot of time focusing on his presentation.
I had to wonder who he thought was going to see this shit. I also wondered exactly how intimidated I was supposed to be when his throne creaked and rolled back a couple of inches when he rose.
“Quincy Harker, you have trespassed upon our home, murdered two of my children, and brought vermin into our presence. For these crimes—”
“Wait a second,” I said, holding up a hand, palm toward the Dracula cosplayer. “First, I didn’t bring the cat here, the cat was already here. And second, I’m pretty sure that the definition of vermin doesn’t include cats.”
Lugosi Light stood there frozen, his mouth moving but no sound coming out. He’d had a movie in his mind of how this meeting was going to go down, and I’d just derailed his whole train of thought.
“Cat got your tongue?” I asked. I felt a paw thump against the side of my head, but it was worth it. “Then I’ll talk. You all know that making new vampires is forbidden, on the orders of Dracula himself. You also know that you’ve been…indiscreet in your hunting. And grotesquely ostentatious in your decorating.” I gestured at the bone throne.
I turned around in a circle, locking eyes with each of the six vampires surrounding me. “So, here’s the deal. I’m going to kill your boss vampire here, because he’s the one who made all of you. If you run away while I’m busy killing him, and you behave yourselves from here on out, I won’t feel much need to go looking for you. But if you interfere in our little dance, I’m going to turn you all into smears on the bottom of my boot before the sun comes up, then I’m gonna go to Denny’s and have myself a Grand Slam breakfast while your souls scream in Hell.”