Bloodfellow

By Abraham R. Nox

Banesville: a small town possessed, hosts a Killer clever with carving knives, a lonely Medical Examiner, Dr. Carli Dozzi, who speaks to his dead, a young boy Cott, seeking a mentor and an escape, and Carol-Beth Chaucer, a lady jinxed in romance, open to mystery . . . Patrick O'Brien, assassin, a man with one mission, one reason to stay alive . . . Poised for a catalyst, this diverse gallery of characters is drawn together by an unlikely activator, a self-exiled, morose leader of the dwindling clan of Vampire, Wolf O'bellod. His blood necessary to convert "the crude mortal oil into the Immortal blood," he has nevertheless rebelled against his leadership obligations and left his ruthless, libertine brother Abaddon to rule alone and to protect the Bloodfellows from eventual extinction. Pursued by Abaddon relentlessly, Wolf still maintains his liberty for 700 years. Yet the solo life has left him desperate for conversations, for validation of his being. Now his monstrous intellect is faltering, his memories convulsing through his museum mind, tormenting him. He feels the weight of his History, his Legend and yearns to speak of the misery, the splendor, the solitary glory, the grandiose and ghastly vampire existence. If he gives into his desire to find a woman for love and listening, to intersect with human beings on new level, will be find once again that people are interested only in what he can grant them and not what he can create or offer from his eternal intelligence?  And what will happen to him when he meets at last, the mu rderer loose in Banesville, Vampire to Killer?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abraham R. Nox
• Release date: Jan 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215689783

Book preview

BOOK ONE – SEPARATION

SECTION 1

CHAPTER ONE

THE KING OF WANDS AND THE FIVE OF CUPS

In the mouth of the wolf!

And may the wolf die!

-Italian expression for good luck

IT COULD BE ACHIEVED if one persevered.  Transformation fueled by the immortal imagination.  Creation out of desperation.  Blood into wine.  Cowardice into courage.  Storms out of collisions.  Children from fusion.  Fantasy from delusion.  Miracles out of madness.

A woman out of wishes.

Rare thunder tattooed an intrusion along the periphery of his concentration.  Secreted within the third level of the strangely constructed Castel del Monte, Wolf O'bellod wills his senses to ignore the storm's husky, insistent voice.  He dares not imagine sensuous fingers of rain caressing his body, for Sex and Nature, so near aligned for the living, have no place in the erotic scripts of so unnatural a being.  His sexual experience must evolve only from within his mind.

He lies prone upon a makeshift pallet of luxurious fabric remnants, naked as truth, touching himself to remembered music. Delightful Celtic melodies - songs no modern ear has ever heard - decorate and enhance his passion play.  He smiles as he romances his fantasy through the music, like a lover guiding to a bedroom.

Ah, how he loves music, the electric flow in its movement, the periodic rapture.  He can relate to these pleasing collisions of sympathetic vibrations.  'Tis rhythm intercourse, after all.

He draws in his breath.  The sounds remind him of something, but he cannot determine what exactly.  His thoughts are interrupted by a harp's haunting dialogue.  He strains to listen, his damaged eyes roving beneath ivory lids.  His fingertips begin to tingle - a tactile oracle, a prelude to a visitation.

A memory arrives unbidden, a Sumerian dancer once his lover, her fawn legs again living flesh, her movements fluent in the language of passion.  She dances for him alone, ankle bells singing, brown arms searching the poetry of space for agreeable rhythms.  Her revealing garments rustle as she approaches.  He can once again smell her enticing odor, a pungent fusion of sweat and sandalwood.

When she is within a few feet, she pauses, offers him a gaze of pure adoration before once again resuming her undulation, a mournful lute accompanying each step of her powdered feet, each thrust of hip, thigh, breast.  Under heavily kholed lids, her eyes glitter at him like new promises.  Though she has been dead for thousands of years, tonight he’s provided a vector through which she may again suffuse with life, and dance for his captivated heart.

Midnight strokes, departs, easy as breath.  Alone in the castle, tenantless for ages, Wolf continues to embellish his vision, one hand working his alien anatomy, the other cushioning his head.  His titanium white hair is as dense as hemp, flowing nearly to his waist.  Claret red eyes flutter open, unfocussed with lust.  Despite the El Greco paleness his skin flushes as his ecstasy foments, desire making a mockery of his usual dignified bearing.  Potent blood washes through his system, platelets vigorous with renewal, his veins rich with pirated cargo, the vital blood of others.

Rain-laced moonlight infiltrates the Gothic windows high in the castle's west wall, illuminating him - this albino mythic satyr engorged by his lust, his legends, his gory recollections, both beautiful and barbaric.  Lust rapes him now, his perfect control dismissed by the final stampede before release.  Staring at the marble dome overhead, he sees only a Sumerian enchantress constructed of vibration and longing. He arches to impale her.

Bagpipes expire, breathing their frequencies inside his head, the harp music like female fingernails, plucking translucent grapes of sound, feeding him sweetness, then moving to circle his chest, now lightly raking over his belly, his loins, now composing half-notes of agony into his bare back.  Shivers of erotic current.

His body arched in a bow of ecstasy while the bare castle walls echo his cry of satisfaction, his own personal chorus.

As if responding to his personal release, the storm suddenly ruptures the night sky with sizzling fingers of lightning.  Just as abruptly, the downpour ceased.  For several minutes a temporary peace reigns over Wolf's body.  They pass in utter silence while he struggles to contend with a host of hypnogogic images surging up from his lengthy past.  The ashes of dead adventures, accusations of former lovers, buried forgotten cities, abandoned covenants, are all preserved intact by his flawless memory.

The visions wave on through his mind in random sequence, divorced from their original emotional context, disassociated from their proper time.  Wolf does not understand why he is thinking of these things now, in the aftermath of passion.  There must be a meaning in such hauntings but he is too relaxed now to pursue the mystery.  It is easier to submit, to allow his mind to unroll its scroll of fantasia.

Grateful to be gifted with the visual imagination by which he sires his exotic fantasies, Wolf does not begrudge his brain the occasional rebellion.  He drifts along with the motion of the memories until the last brilliant detail has faded away.

The reverie serves him a face he’s sure he's never seen before - of a middle-aged man, bent over a sheeted corpse, talking.  Wolf can smell the astringent chemicals of preservation burning in his nostrils; he clearly hears the man utter the word, Murder, in the English tongue.  Wolf wonders if the dead man on the table was one of his victims.  Why else would he be receiving this odd vision?  He squints in vain, curious to know who lies upon the examination table, but the identity of the man remained unclear.  Before he can dwell further on the hallucination, or its meaning, another face forms and steals his attention.

Ah, this is a picture much improved, Wolf thinks.  A woman!  He feels a tug in his groin at the sight of her full kissable mouth, her luscious face framed in lurid curls her skin, it was like . . . like —

He narrows his eyes again, hoping to provoke a simile for her pale, luminous flesh but then she, too, vanishes.

Disorderly ghost! he laments.  She will not even stay long enough to inspire my lust!

His fists clench in frustration; he begins to fear for his sanity.  Who were these persons, unknown to him?  Has he finally gone mad, as so many of his own always claimed he would?  Alone for so long, he can no longer tell man from myth, haunt from dream!

Another face arrives to confound him, a young boy.  Shouting, weeping, the freckle-faced child reaches toward him.  The apparition is so authentic Wolf cries out, his deep voice echoing in the hollow room.  Not only is he being afflicted by unfamiliar apparitions, but one of them even addresses him by name!  Deeply disturbed, he bolts to his feet, stumbling backwards over his pallet.

Shall I be followed and tormented in my own castle by a crew of shadows? he wonders. He fights to regain his balance, then the vision abruptly ends.  He beholds only the empty chamber before him, the bright belly of the moon through the open window.  Sweating with relief, he steadied himself against the wall for a moment before dropping to the cold stone floor.  This visitation has frightened him. His rapidly beating heart feels painfully large in his chest.

He wonders how one might defend themselves against such phantoms.  With living warriors, he could do battle, oh, indeed, flesh has always yielded easily to his sword's hard edge, but against attacks of future even an immortal can do nothing.

Visions were like weather, signaling an important change in one's personal atmosphere.  Wolf suspects these people will somehow soon find their way into his private orbit.  He is afraid of what they will portend for his freedom.  Humans always want something. Long experience proved most relationships with mankind usually involved a deceitful veil of layered compromises over a corpulent body of demands.  For the most part he could not bear them, and the feeling was mutual.  In the Multiple-Choice selections listed under the Categories of Creation he knew he was considered Other.

Humanity seemed desperately determined to deny his existence, even as they lay dying in his arms.  Once, he could not have cared.  Lately he found their refusal to accept his species infuriating.  Fate was coming - he could hear it afar off, rumbling like summer thunder.

Oh, hell, he mutters aloud.  All I desired tonight was to be relieved of my frustrations, instead 'tis I who am showered with predictions.  Who composed this script?  I do not favor the author's sense of humor!

Wolf O'bellod, abdicated leader of the Bloodfellows, arranges his legs lotus style upon the soft mound of assembled silks, brocades, satins, and velvets.  He loves these erotic fabrics, stolen one evening from the factory of a renowned fashion designer in Milan. Using a strip of floral silk, he daubs at the carmine semen speckling his body.  The Sumerian dancer has misted away with the attendant music of his illusion; he no longer requires her.  Regrettably he has not copulated with a woman, vampire, or human, in nearly seven hundred years.  Very regrettable, in fact, because desire was encoded in his strain.  Wolf ached for release within the mysterious crotch of woman no matter how he labored to abstain or how regularly he pleasured himself.  Clearly something important in his nature was not satisfied with clever dream dances.  His phallus, in fact, threatened to drive him insane and it surely would, if his hallucinations did not condemn him to the madhouse first.

One evening he forced himself to dwell upon intellectual matters.  Still, he craved a woman, the fever stirring occult and indecipherable from somewhere inside his virulent self.  His existence exhausted him utterly, yearning for blood, sexual romance, the body's wet work captivating his attention like saints to the Word.  Were it not for his imagination, he would be forced to intersect with women more often than he did.  He was grateful for small blessings.

A final surge of rain plays a staccato on the glass windowpanes, as if to call his attention to the world beyond these walls.  Designed in the twelfth century by Frederick the Second of Swabia, the serene 'castle on the mountain' is a perfect octagon boasting eight octagonal towers.  Unoccupied save for Sunday mornings when the visiting masses were allowed a brief tour for a price, tourists often commented upon its austerity, its seamless emptiness.  Not a lush carpet, vibrant tapestry, royal portrait, or grand furniture in any of its sixteen trapezoidal rooms.  Apparently never intended for defensive purposes, the castle conspicuously lacked both battlements and moat.  Theories suggested the eccentric King Frederick regarded it as a summer home or astrological laboratory.  For Wolf’s forced need for secret quarters the Castel del Monte provided a most satisfactory refuge.

After completing his ablutions, Wolf decided to embark on a leisurely stroll of his medieval motel.  He first re-folded his seduction fabrics and set them lovingly in the empty fireplace. Then, still naked, he took off down the long stone hallway to his left.

His tread is light for a being of such robust physique.  Even for an immortal he is an exceptionally handsome man.  Possessed of the classic Italian physique historically beloved by women sculptors, his long hair hints of romance, his nose of aristocracy.  A shade under six feet tall, he has the muscular arms, thick chest, broad shoulders of a Roman soldier worthy to wear his armor.  Covered in silky, white hair, like a polar creature, his was a body accustomed to war, blood, sweat and pleasure, the animal's domain, but his innate refinement, revealed by his facility with language, was clearly manifested in his finely molded hands.  They’d forged and wielded swords yet were sensitive enough to translate the world for him, to paint, to tinker with his scientific inventions, to pack his museum mind with all available knowledge discovered in innumerable generations, to collect the infinite rare amongst the physical exceptional, to carve gems, to sculpt in gold, silver, paper, wood, stone, steel.  The eyes of artists, the fingers of women burned to caress this man, but the fierceness in Wolf's bearing intimidated, so they kept their flames a secret.  And Wolf kept his secret, which was that he desired only the fire in their blood to keep him warm.

He now felt a notch above despair.  His climax relieved the ever-distracting burn - his evening kills already efficiently executed.

His feeding experiences varied.  Sometimes blood was a gift, other times an onus.  Occasionally, if he and his chosen were in harmony, the blood-drinking became a rapture-sacrifice.  Having given up genuine sexual transport, Wolf now lived for those rare events.  Nothing else to console him, not a soul in his life he loved.  He fed from streams of veins and dreams, and he could not remember the last time he’d seen another of his own kind.

That evening's victim, an elderly woman from Trani, a quaint fishing village twenty miles to the east.  Wolf enjoyed the old, their creases, the folding self in the process of contracting back to the spirit before death commenced.  That dense moment, just as Wolf nearly finished divesting a person of their blood, when their soul gathered power like a tornado, dwindled to a mystery, then departed with a rush towards a fresh destination.  At that second, he felt himself seized by a nearly insufferable longing to fuse with his victim, to be torn, stripped, purified into a vast quasar future.  To be distilled.  To be forgiven.  To be granted immunity against whatever it is which condemned him to immortality and perpetual desire.

Old people . . . their ancient faces lured like tantalizing traps. He could stare at them long enough to become entangled in their history.  Those intricate webs of wrinkles!  Little death nets, like the glistening snare of spiders, they drew him near, witless, and willing as a fly.  He could not resist those aged humans, perhaps because they were so close to the grave he'd never known.

This particular woman was perched on her seventh decade, a good old-fashioned biblical age to die in Wolf's opinion.  He startled her as she knelt in prayer inside the church of St. Maria di Colonna.  If possible, he did prefer a proper setting in which to receive his offering.  The church, with its air of reverence would do nicely.  That he might enter as silently as possible Wolf fused his molecules with those of the door, then emerged on the other side, pausing for a moment on the marble threshold, savoring the meditative atmosphere.

The ancient church was utterly quiet.  Darkness knelt in the chilly stone corners, beat back by the conical glow of scores of fulminant tapers.  Pungent incense described arabesque coils of smoke above the altar, carrying the congregations' hazy prayers to their Lord.  Imprisoned within the wall over the nave the dead eyes of mosaic saints gazed down upon the penitent.  Wolf observed the elect ones appeared strained, pinned into their postures of holiness.  If they were distressed to observe one of the reputed undead within their sacred environs, they showed no sign. 

Naturally not, Wolf muttered to himself.  They may be holy, but they are dead.

He scanned the room, shielding his sensitive eyes with his palm against the bright light which would render him blind, for his pupils lacked even minimal pigment.  In the darkness his eyes were keen as any night creature.  He spied the woman immediately, her hoary head bent, shoulders small . . . vulnerable.  The back of her neck showed clearly; his stomach winced with hunger at the sight of her inviting flesh.

Gliding swiftly down the aisle, he entered the carved oak pew directly in front of her.  She gave no indication she heard his approach.  Concentrated in prayer, the old donna's eyes were squeezed shut, lips moving wordlessly.

The tip of her long nose vanished into the temple of her pressed palms; a lacy scarf pinned to her thinning hair slipped towards her right ear.  Wolf noticed with pleasure her papery skin was latticed with wrinkles.  His sensitive nose detected a faint odor of rose oil drifting from her pulse points.

Dressed in black watered satin, a red silk tie pierced by a diamond tie-tack, Wolf seemed only another well-to-do tourist, save for the startlingly white braid down his back.  And his eyes.

He glanced about casually, assuring himself they were alone, he and his intended.  No, not a priest, nun or worshipper present this fine warm evening.  Excellent.  She would soon be his - they would be bound closer than lovers, sharing an experience not even her God could claim.

Kneeling backwards on the bench Wolf folded his hands over hers.  Her dark eyes snapped open.

She was presented with a fearsome, yet strangely beautiful vision, a tall ghost-faced man with radiant red eyes, dressed in formal clothing, wearing a most informal leer. She started to gasp something in Italian, but Wolf caught her words with his lips, kissing her abruptly on the lips, the neck, murmuring cautions, soft pleadings.  Flailing her arms, the old woman began to shriek for help, but Wolf immediately hooked his arm around the back of her head and silenced her by pressing his hand over her mouth.

For a moment they stared at one another, each taking the other's measure. Wolf panted with excitement, the old woman with fear.

My dearest God, she wondered, after a life of rectitudinous faith, was it her fate to be brutally raped in full view of God's altar?  Would she be killed or set free after this man violated her body?  And if he should let her go, who would believe her when she reported this assault to her person to the authorities, a woman of her age?  The police would laugh themselves to death.

Upon closer examination of his features, she realized this man could only be the albino apparition about whom she’d heard strange rumors from time to time.  Many a story, many a story told over a glass of wine!  Apparition or no, he was handsome to look upon.  A noble nose, generous lips, now easing into a friendly smile which revealed slightly prominent front teeth.  A dignified brow and bearing, even though he has just kissed her, the impudent man!  What pale eyelashes and eyebrows, attractive dimples, laugh lines fixed from nostril to chin.  He seemed very simply charming, part altar boy, part paramour, certainly in no way dangerous.

As her last impression formed Wolf struck with sniper's accuracy, too hungry for formalities or philosophical explanations as to why he must end her prayer to God so ruthlessly.  As blood jetted from the chalice of her throat Wolf leaned into the spray, letting it fill his mouth completely before he swallowed.  To the old woman's astonishment her assailant then gave her a wink, licked the tip of her nose with his bloody tongue.  Before she could give voice to her outrage, Wolf sacrificed his humor and yielded himself to the act of feeding. 

While his victim's frail body fluttered in his embrace, the vampire attached his lips to the spurting wound, sucking and gulping with single minded focus.

The candlelight gulped and swallowed in tandem sympathy, playing along the walls, the church pews, across the floor, rendering the scene a dizzy chiaroscuro of broken facets, dark to light.  Cheek to jaw they stayed locked in the theft of energy as Wolf filled the flask of his lack with her essence.

His heart drummed on while her heart, beating between his beats, each time grew weaker, like a slow fainting in the rampant sun.  Beneath the Saints' stoic glare, he sucked her to a husk, then cast her down, panting.  A few minutes passed as Wolf steadied himself against the back of the pew.  He felt as though he’d spent an eternity in an opium den.  His victim's blood was smeared across his cheeks and chin like a lover's enthusiastic lip prints.  He realized he'd better grab his handkerchief from his back pocket and mop his face.  Nothing like advertising to the world at large you're an unrepentant drinker of human blood.

Grinning like a madman, he re-pocketed his handkerchief and began to lick at the blood between his fingers.  When he at last regained his composure, he hastily flung the old woman's silver shawl across her prostrate form, positioned her purse leather-bound prayer book beside her head.  He stared at her for several moments, humming to himself.  For all he knew she might already be in the mystified presence of her Maker, trying to explain her peremptory entrance into his heavenly dominion, a pearly gate crasher wearing her amazement like wings.

Grazie, Signora, he whispered, straightening his starched dress shirt before brushing the sleeves of his satin jacket. His face alive with color, he breathed gratefully, free of his hunger pangs.

This . . . was Bliss itself!  This boundless ecstasy, the sweet iron rioting in his veins, the hot, mute witness of candles, the stone saints, the neat folding up of a tattered gold square of human life and urging it on to new glory.

Why pray to an Invisible God?  I am the only agent of resurrection toward an immortal life! What tedious future awaited you, my dear Signora, if I not intervened?  Old age and infirmity drifting nigh upon you, that dreadful ghostship, waiting to steer you into the unsafe harbor of senility and creeping physical rot.

He faced the altar, gesturing.

Hear me, Creator, you Current Most High God. For over five thousand years, I have petitioned you to permit my death.  What manner of deity are you, to allow your worshippers, here he pointed to the hapless old woman, "to nourish a reprobate such as I am?

"Where is this mercy reputed in your testaments?  Avenge the blood of your faithful, put me to death, I beg of you!

Here am I, the being your followers call Vampire, before your very holy of holies, willing to lay down my unholy life!  If you have power to destroy me, then do it!

Ah, but you will not, Wolf declared angrily.  He began to pace back and forth in front of the altar, continuing to rant, his deep voice rising in volume with every word.

No, I dare say you will not - because you cannot!  Because your power can only be vapor and superstition!  I, Wolf O'bellod, stalked this planet long before you planted your myth here, I shall remain vital even as some other novel religion tempts the humans away from you and your monstrous gospel.  Jesus died on the cross, indeed!  He perished to rise again, did he?  Hah!  Not without my blood he did not!

Silence.

Wolf cocked his head as though awaiting an answer.  He received precisely the same response given every questing religious person, no matter how sincere their inquiry, or how desperate their situation.  Indeed, he’d witnessed many of history's martyrs as they were nailed, hanged, flayed, incinerated, battered, despised, spit upon for the sake of their faith.  He always waited expectantly while they beseeched their gods or goddesses for mercy or, at minimum, a revelation to justify their hideous suffering on their behalf.  But their chosen god never came to save them.  Those deified beings resolutely kept their own counsel and refused to communicate with the dumbfounded sheep.  As long as Wolf had been present and accounted for on planet Earth, there was never a sign nor sound out of the Omniscient Ones.  Not shit.

Wolf enjoyed his periodic one-sided ravings at this latest God to capture the attention of mankind.  He sincerely wished a God of Anything would take offense at his imprecations and scissor his skull with a well-placed lightning bolt.

He should be so lucky.

Tired of his game, Wolf abruptly spun on his heel and strode down the center aisle, casting not a glance at the recently departed Signora.  He thrust open the church's heavy, ornate doors and passed into the parking lot.  Warm air tinged by clean sea wind swept over him, fluttering the legs of his satin pants.

The Adriatic Sea shoved spreading fans of overlapping waves across the rocky, trash-littered shore, a gull shrieking murder.  Before him a locked garden beckoned, extravagant blooms of bougainvillea plummeting over a wrought iron gate.  Palm trees and lively ferns erupted behind the tall spires of fence.  The enclosure seemed a fantastical dark zoo barely lit by the distant moon.

Wolf briefly considered scaling the wall.  A peaceful stroll among the vegetation, ah, with the blissful dark as company and cloak.  The perfumed nights in southern Italy's Apulia region enthralled his senses.

He adored strutting along the stretch of workshops, the restaurants which lined the curving harbor, avoiding as he walked the long coils of ship rope, the twisted nets flung into the walkway by the local fishermen.  Of course, there were a few vexations.  Empty shrimp husks often crunched disagreeably beneath his shoes.  A woman might cry out at the sight of his stark face, recognizing it as the comely phantom haunting her erotic dreams.

Picturesque Trani lured a considerable number of visitors year-round. Wolf used this to his advantage when hunting for his solitary victims.  Still the Vampire were always vigilant about maintaining a nomadic existence.  To grow roots is to draw attention or arouse suspicion.  As much as he loved it there, soon he would have to move on.

Though during his frequent bad days Wolf almost wished a representative of the human community would apprehend him.  Hell, he would be grateful if he could finally bid his immortality adieu.

While the garden tempted him, he felt a vague unease - the inchoate tickling of lust.  A good meal.  A good physical fusion should logically follow.  Unfortunately, a belly of blood was the only comfort he could allow himself.  For physical relief he would have to resort to his fabrics, his imagination, and his memories.  They will have to do, Wolf sighed, for I have nothing else.

As if to torture him further a pair of cats ululated in their passion lock, their unearthly cries emanating from a stand of trees near the churchyard.  His heart howled with them.

His presence, so absolutely a harbinger of death, incited furious sexual activity wherever he walked, as if to reverse his deleterious effects - for without Death no requirement for Sex exists.  In a seemingly unbalanced world, Wolf knew there was a secreted spiritual balance which truly reigned.

Sick with longing he fled to his castle, shed his opulent evening wear, collected his silks, satins, velvets - his female skin surrogates, succumbing at last to his body's other never-ending demands.

And now, after replaying his evening kill until he cannot bear to think of the old woman any longer, his tedious jaunt around the castle's multiple barren rooms all but completed, his thoughts detour towards the idea of self-destruction. They often did so following his lonely fantasies, as if cleverly waiting for the abandonment of his emotional guard to ambush his mind.  Wolf pauses in the interior courtyard, sits down abruptly and weeps, a terrible deep nearly human weeping.  Living in self-imposed exile only served to enlarge his depression, yet the alternative was unthinkable.

Truly though he did love lively and live debate and conversation, he wasn't able to justify the company of human companions.  They were, after all, his food source.  As for the others of his kind, Wolf intended to avoid them at all costs for the remainder of his days.  Since his renunciation of leadership and his willful escape from his brother Abaddon seven hundred years earlier, not a single neophyte had been initiated into their endangered ranks.  Only by an infusion of Wolf and Abaddon's combined blood could new vampire be created.  Wolf held no intention of ever reconciling with his despicable brother.

In Wolf's opinion his twin brother, the Lord Abaddon Nox, distinguished himself by becoming the most degenerate being ever to pollute the planet with his presence.  And as far as Wolf was concerned, the sooner the vampire breed became as extinct as dodo birds, the better.

Abaddon now ruled the congregation of Bloodfellows alone.  He was always a base killer, lusty, brazen, lethal.  Wolf, his adored brother, who reigned as a magician of mind, extracting, and reveling in the meaning he perceived in every act, thought, event.  When Lord Nox discovered Wolf abandoned him, he immediately coiled his fury about him like a dark cloak, until he was swathed in insanity. Refusing to be consoled by his many adoring 'children of the blood', he preferred instead to stoke his anger over the ages, a long, slow incineration of the spirit.

Lord Nox's extreme reaction surprised no one, for their relationship was comprised of more than mere brotherly affection.  For thousands of years, they rampaged and savaged the civilized and uncivilized world with the heady abandon of bold immortal youth.  They slaughtered side by side with impunity, soldiers for hire in every war waged in human time.  For Abaddon, a kill was just a murder for the sake of hunger, the blood merely a fortifying red sap without Wolf to glorify the event, saturating Abaddon's neo-cortex with visions, with music, with an aurora borealis of sensory explosions.  Aware Abaddon lived vicariously through him; it was Wolf's pleasure to feed his brother phantasmagoria.  Yet the day came when Abaddon demanded the fabrication of an even greater intimacy, at a time when Wolf felt a new yearning to search for the great, singular truth which would separate them at last.

After thousands of other relationships Wolf found he could no longer concentrate on his current lover, so distracted was he by watching the stages of the developing friendship unfold.  He hoped to sooner or later encounter a deviation in the pattern of flirt, fuck and forget, but he never did.  No point in getting involved with human beings, he decided, because the union always devolved in the same manner.

Thus, from the tenth century to the present Wolf O'bellod lived as a cosmopolitan immigrant, never staying long in whatever environment he found himself, a peripatetic outlander forbidden the stagnant comforts of roots, security, or routine intimacy.

His existence unfolded: whisking from location to location, city to city, country to country, until he became more of a blur than a man.  Not wanting to live, but irrefutably unable to die, desperate for companionship but not willing to risk exposure.  In such state of mind Wolf recently returned to his favorite castle in Italy.  He read in the dark, slept during the day, and nightly he fed, as he’d always done, from the veins of living men and women.  His only pleasure now was a pleasure with a sting attached, for by feeding he ensured his own survival.

Occasionally Wolf entertained himself with his old hobby, origami, or learned another language or devised new musical instruments.  He talked frequently to a God who refused to talk back, no matter how Wolf begged Him. Sometimes he found it amusing to incorporate his entity into the bodies of animals: bat, camel, wolf, snake, panther, hawk, bear, thus to appreciate the world through their eyes.  No matter his chosen form, he still viewed the majority of mankind as barely evolved animals and himself as something far worse.

Despite his determination to court celibacy, Wolf missed women.  He longed for their soft hands upon his body, despite their false romance in his ear.  Only too well he knew the hands of a woman can fold a man into any creature she wants him to be, yet she is never fully satisfied with her creation.

Women were wonderful and mysterious, but they could never view the world through his eyes.  Therefore, they could never understand him.  Besides, a woman who fancied herself in love with him would never give him up to Death.  Women never let go.  Just as with his brother Abaddon, Wolf always found himself running from the possessive hearts of females as he raced madly towards an ending which eternally rejected him.

His life became unbearable.  He pondered how people could store up so much fear and hatred for a creature they insisted did not exist.  He was an affliction with no cure, a myth no one acknowledged.  Though he’d gained his independence, Wolf did not know what to do with eternal freedom.  Of this, Wolf was certain: there could be no Hades where malevolent dead souls congregated in infinite misery. For his body, and his soul, if he even possessed one, were utterly scorched and utterly damned right there on Earth.  As far this vampire could tell, no one else existed inside his burning existence but himself.

Wolf O'bellod sat in the courtyard of the Castel del Monte, weeping until the sky began to foretell the coming of the sun.

After exhausting his sorrow, Wolf retired to his underground grotto, reclined upon a spectacular 18th century Italian giltwood settee, flung a dark blue Hammersmith carpet over himself and read The Poems of Catullus until dawn, when he then achieved the only semblance of death he would ever achieve, the coma-sleep of the vampire.

Castel del Monte stored its scandalous outlaw tenant within a concealed forgotten and underground room beneath the third tower. As the deadly sun lifted like a bright emblem, and the cypress trees ringing the castle stirred in the morning breeze, the castle sat digesting its night measure of dead emptiness, like an octagonal stone crypt swept of memory and purpose.  No living person knew of Wolf's private sanctuary.  Certainly, none of the vampire had any idea where he’d chosen to hide himself, although he’d barely eluded Percival Fletcher, Abaddon's loyal second in command, in Reykjavik several weeks before.  A pity he’d been forced to leave; he’d loved Iceland - six months of relentless night in which to revel.  And the hot geyser blood of the ice blondes was a delightful discovery.  Ah, well, thought he, for at least some time I shall be safe and undisturbed here in my beloved Italia.

CHAPTER TWO

THE KING OF WANDS AND THE TWO OF SWORDS

GIANCARLO BUCCI UNLOCKED the door of the castle's cramped tourist office at 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.  His eyes were bloodshot; his armpits reeked of alcohol and stale sweat.  A cigarette tilted from his lower lip.  He spoke around it, puffs of smoke accenting each word.

’Eyyy Augusto, strange rain last night.  He eased himself into a chair, the faded cushion exhaling dust.

His assistant nodded cheerfully as he plucked a pack of crushed cigarettes from his shirt pocket.  He smoothed it between his hardened palms, worked one smoke free, replaced the pack, tapped the cigarette on the edge of the cluttered desk.  GianCarlo semi-stood, flicking a match under Augusto's long nose.

Jesus, watch it, you nearly scorched my nose hairs! Augusto blurted.  He shook his head and chuckled.  He raised the cigarette to the fire, inhaled, then stood back, raking his left hand through his greasy blue-black hair.  Twin dragon plumes of smoke jetted from his nostrils. 

Christ, he thought, GianCarlo is such a stupid sadist, if I don't find another job soon, I'm going to end it all.  He did not give voice to this rumination, instead he smiled.

Si, the rain, she's welcome, strange or no.  We needed it.  The region's becoming baked like your brain, GianCarlo.

You son of an unmentionable, his boss countered pleasantly.  What you got in the bag, eh?

Much attention was given to the contents of Augusto's bakery bag, the two flaky buns removed and eaten, punctuated by occasional smacking of lips and satisfied sighs.  GianCarlo wiped his buttery fingers on his stained overalls, belched loudly. 

So, Augusto, I got something to tell you.  GianCarlo smiled conspiratorially.

Well, tell, damn you, Augusto said as he stirred his coffee.  He shrugged when GianCarlos continued to sit silently, smiling like a mad jackal.  Say, what are we supposed to do today?  Soon the noisy tourists will be here, with their stupid cameras, to take blurry photos.  We should look busy.  Then maybe we don't have to answer the same old questions.  He laughed.  So, what you have to say?  What?  He punched the older man's arm playfully.  You poke a new virgin, eh?  She was ripe like fish or tomato, which?  Tell, GianCarlo, you virgin-tarnishing old whoreson villain!

Your mind is filthy, Augusto.  Guess again.

I don't the hell know.  Blowing the bakery bag open he poked his fingers into the bottom, hunting crumbs.

That idiot white vampire's back.  GianCarlo gave him a wicked grin, pleased with Augusto's shocked expression, his hand still stuck in the blue bakery bag, tatters of sticky bun adhering to his open mouth.  

Augusto shook his head slowly.  GianCarlo Bucci! There are no such things as vampires! He frowned, thumping his chest grandly.  "You take me to be a fool?  Heh?  Do you? Well, I tell you, Augusto is not going to listen to this!  Is this a joke you play on me, mi amico?"  GianCarlo is not only a sadist, he's crazy also.  How could it be his misfortune to work with such a drunken Bastardo?

Augusto remembered GianCarlo's ridiculous story concerning some so-called bloodsucker whom he claimed was living in the castle several years ago.  GianCarlo proudly revealed he once tried to smoke the vampire out, but he feared his eviction tactics might cause him to lose his perfect job, which required a minimum of physical exertion and no mental expenditure whatsoever. Therefore, after one unfortunate experiment, GianCarlo limited his efforts to leaving explicit warnings to the vampire, such as hanging bulbs of reeking garlic in all the doorways, leaving cranky misspelled signs in every room.  He even somehow convinced the local Catholic priest, who then indulgently allowed GianCarlo to take a little holy water from the church, which he sprinkled upon the stone floors in the honest expectation that doing so would compel the dreaded albino to vacate the premises.  When these aggressive tactics appeared to fail, GianCarlo carved multiple crude crosses of cypress wood, then scattered them throughout the Castel del Monte, while muttering prayers against the devil and any devil-like groupies who may also have taken a liking to the grounds.

GianCarlo later declared his tireless harassments finally incited the unholy one to abandon the Castel del Monte.  He, GianCarlo Bucci, saved numerous untold citizens from a grisly death.  After hearing this preposterous tale, Augusto decided on the spot GianCarlo was clearly suffering from delusions ofttimes evident in those fond of frequent alcoholic infusions.

No, Augusto said again.  There are no vampires.  Stop your insane talk already.  We have work to do.

He crossed the office to the wall upon which many hooks had been painstakingly affixed and removed his tool belt.  He lifted it up, slung it around his waist, cinching the buckle expertly.  The macho feel of its weight around his hips made Augusto feel like the American movie star, John Wayne, strutting in his gun belt. 

GianCarlo watched him from his chair as he cleaned his grimy nails with a small knife.  He dug meditatively while fixing Augusto with an injured stare.  The penknife slipped and cut his extended thumb.

Shit! he shouted as the knife clattered to the floor.  He stuck his injured digit into his mouth as he bent over, rummaging through the jumble of old newspapers and magazines littering their office.

Augusto laughed.  You're sucking your thumb, like a bambino, GianCarlo.  You maybe like the taste of blood?  Who's the vampire around here anyway, eh?

Shut your ugly face and help me find my knife! GianCarlo growled as he rummaged through the yellowed piles of newspapers and assorted trash littering their office.

There it is, in front of your face.  Augusto pointed at GianCarlo's feet. Near his muddy boot tip lay the penknife.  As he stooped to retrieve it a newspaper headline blazed up at him.  Augusto thought he must be seeing things.  He stared scant seconds, then, utterly forgetting his supervisor, snatched up the paper, intently reading the article.  When he finished, he thrust it at GianCarlo, who’d meanwhile picked up the knife and resumed his rare concession to hygiene.

Read this, old man.  It seems your vampire favors the elderly.  Maybe next time he comes for you.  He said this most seriously, his former skepticism now replaced by uncertainty.  GianCarlo took the proffered newspaper read with slow deliberation, his lips moving along concurrently, the common practice of those who seldom entertain the written word.

Says a woman was killed in a church in Trani?  It was his turn to gape.

I know what it says.  I read it.

Puncture wounds in the neck, GianCarlo said significantly.

I told you I just finished reading the damn article, GianCarlo. Augusto whistled, shook his head before making the sign of the cross.  Poor old donna. Think of her family. Murdered in a house of God!  What sort of monster do we have murdering old ladies in Trani?  What date is on the paper?

Two days ago! GianCarlo.  I said so, didn’t I?  Recently I found evidence of his return.  He puffed out his narrow chest importantly.  He's here, Augusto.  Here in the Castel del Monte!  I'm sure of it.

He leaned forward, waving the little knife for emphasis, We must destroy him.  It's up to us.  God only knows who he murdered last night.  He ran a trembling hand through his graying hair, the other hand still brandishing the penknife.  Augusto gestured at it, smiling at his boss's unprecedented enthusiasm.  While not at all convinced this foul killer was the gruesome vampire of legend, Augusto could no longer be entirely sure he was not.  

One thing was for certain; GianCarlo would find himself in an awkward, if not outright perilous situation with their employers if Augusto did not keep a surreptitious eye on the machinations of his infatuated coworker. 

Augusto forced himself to feign interest in GianCarlo's detailed outline for attack.

First, mi amico, we must carve, the older man proclaimed, again brandishing his Swiss army knife, which looked to be fit only for trimming his dirty nails. Augusto pointed this out, a brief smile betraying his incredulity.

GianCarlo dismissed his observation, frowning.  You're not taking me serious. You think I'm a madman!  But, see Augusto, here he rose, laid his knife on the desk, placed both hands on Augusto's shoulders and said mockingly, "I'm not the one killing pious old women in Trani, no? 

Augusto recoiled at the dank, peat-whiskey smell exuding from his supervisor's pores.  Come now, mi amico, he said guardedly.  You must surely see this creature is not right in the brain.  Shaking himself free from GianCarlo's hold he walked to the office window.  Augusto peered through the smudged glass, his thoughts in turmoil.  Perhaps the turiste would come now for a visit.  Hopefully.  Soon, please.

God, have pity on me, Augusto prayed silently, I'm an ordinary maintenance man. My only sins this week were making love to my friend's wife, coveting my cousin's motorcycle, and I think I took your name in vain a few times, for which I am heartily sorry. Lord, please, if you could bring along some sightseeing, castle-loving visitors with many, many time-consuming questions I swear I will never, ever, touch Mona's ripe breasts again, I do solemnly promise. 

'Gusto?

Augusto sighed.  Si, GianCarlo?

We have, in our castle, a bloodthirsty vampiro, a killer of pious old ladies.  This you know.  And you will not help me save our citizens from this butcher? This is true?

Augusto surrendered a nasal sigh. Craning his neck, he gazed hopefully through the window.  Where are those damn (forgive me Savior) blessed tourists?

All right, what is it we must do? he inquired, his voice heavy with fatalistic gravity.  Visions from every horror movie he’d ever viewed invaded his memory.  Oh, no, did Gia want him to carve . . .

Stakes, said GianCarlo, confirming Augusto's worst fear.  We must carve stakes from the cypress wood, to drive into his devious, black, murderous heart.

Turning to face him, Augusto thundered furiously, "This is not my job, carving stakes!  If anyone is hiding in the castle, then this is a matter for the authorities.  It's possible who sleeps here at night is not a vampiro, but a filthy bum who has no place else to go!  Have you ever considered this?  And if this homeless man is also a murderer, we could become be his next victims!  

All because of your silly belief in vampires. I don't believe in vampires! he shouted, exasperated.  There are no ghosts, no vampires, no witches, no!  And worse than being slaughtered by some tramp, he continued as he began to pace the floor, "the Minister of Culture might send one of his representatives by to check up on us.  What will he find us doing, GianCarlo?  Squatting here in the office chiseling stakes!  Would you be so honorable as to explain why the thought of this shouldn’t make me feel like crapping in my pants?  I need this job; I can't afford to be dismissed!

My Mama, she's old, she's sick, she can't work; I must take care of her.  If I lose this job, we’re evicted from our home! I'm going to say to your vampire, move over, let us live with you and your pointed white teeth!  Please, would you very much mind not biting my dear Mama, as we are homeless and destitute – we, too, need a place to sleep!

He uttered a groan, fell into the nearest chair, covering his face with trembling hands.  Sweat dappling his forehead trickled into the hollow below his Adam’s apple.  Screw it all, he thought.  GianCarlo can go to hell and be absolutely chained in the flames!

The accursed Signor Bucci seemed unperturbed by his subordinate's doubts and concerns.  No one was at home, cooking, cleaning, waiting for him.  His Mama, God rest her, slept in the arms of Jesus.  He never married, certainly not while Mama lived, who could compare?

She’d prayed for her GianCarlo to become a priest.  Many years he studied, but alcohol, most necessary to subvert the desires of the flesh, finally won him to her cult.  Alcohol! She warms, she tastes splendid, she costs little, she imbues his callow soul with courage and flagellates him with humility whenever he walks too cocky.

He demonstrated considerable humility the night before, when he awakened in Naples Piazza Garibaldi around 3 a.m., his pants piss-stained and stinking, his mouth tasting of shit-smoked hubris, his pockets divested of their few pitiful contents by the local toughs, the scugnizzi.  GianCarlo wondered how in merciful Heaven he’d gotten to Napoli without transportation, eventually ascribing it to another of God's miracles.  It was also a miracle, or at least a mystery, how he’d come to be wearing a long silver gown donned inside out, rhinestone earrings, a velvet choker, complete with cameo.  With God, however, all things are possible.

Come, he abjured his younger co-worker.  You're complaining like a woman.  Where are your balls? No one from the General Office has ever visited the Castel del Monte.  I think they’ve forgotten we exist.  You've nothing to fear except this vampire.  Today we make spikes.  Tonight, you spear him like fish, no? Gia's countenance glowed, like benevolent Christ.  In case you need to be reminded, I'm your supervisor.  Consider this is a work assignment.  Ah, he grinned as the front doorbell jangled. I see we have company.  Relieve these tourists of the price of admission while I gather some supplies.

That afternoon Augusto piloted his red Fiat into the parking lot outside the restaurant conveniently built near the castle. At twelve sharp, at the command of his stomach, he’d lost all incentive to work, instead inviting his new-found friends to join him for his usual two-and-a-half-hour noonday repast. He’d heard these French women were uninhibited - he couldn't wait to test the rumor.

The merry group concluded their lunch with cups of frothy cappuccino, finally agreeing to rendezvous at four o'clock.  Augusto took his leave, light-hearted in anticipation of later contact with the alluring Aimee, she of the balsam-colored eyes and dark pixie-cap of hair.

As he drove back to the Castel del Monte, he ruminated over his argument with GianCarlo.  Hopefully his boss had indulged in a thoroughly liquid lunch.  A substantial amount of noontime wine may have subdued him enough to permit those thoughts about the murderous vampire to escape.

As he walked the narrow weed and thistle-choked path to the castle entrance he looked about, hunting for any sign of GianCarlo.  Since he was already slightly late returning to his post, the boss man was undoubtedly already inside.  With a little luck he will be snoring in front of the compact TV they stored on the file cabinets.

The Castel del Monte was now closed to visitors until the following Sunday.  Augusto and Gia would report every other day for maintenance purposes.  The inside court wall was crumbling in some places. Long ago, the Central Office of Tourism wanted them to repair it.  Scaffolding had been delivered, which they’d not yet begun to assemble. Perhaps they would get to it this afternoon.  Augusto planned to leave in an hour and a half, come what may.  A soccer match, a new woman waiting.  Some things were more compelling than work.

He barreled in the front doors and swerved left toward the office where he could see GianCarlo's narrow, sweaty skull through the plate glass.

Oh, no, Augusto muttered aloud.  "What the heck is he doing?

Panic informed his legs. He strode faster.  Whipping the office door open, Augusto nearly collided with GianCarlo.  His arms were heavy laden with the result of his afternoon's industry.

Watch out, Augusto, you clumsy good-for-nothing! his boss greeted in a hearty voice full of pride.  His bird chest swelled with importance.

Heh!  While you filled your face with spaghetti, I’ve labored over . . . these.

Rolled up in the cradle of his sweatshirt, they lay against the dark blue fabric like a regiment: five cypress stakes, one and one-half inches in diameter -   fully a foot and a half long.  GianCarlo’s skills produced a reasonable job of carving; they were sanded smooth, the business ends tapered to a serious apex.

Augusto stared.  Holy Maria.  St. Joseph, St. Bartholomew.

Gia grinned, his teeth considerably less aligned than his stakes.  

Heh!  What do you say, eh? he asked, his cheeks flushed with pride.  You're going to fix our vampire to the wall like a fly, he chortled.  He will bleed to death!  We will watch him shrivel and dry to dust! I’ll cut off his head!  Fill his nasty mouth with garlic—-

Are you nuts? Augusto demanded, gesturing wildly at the pointed sticks of wood.  I told you I didn't want to hear any more about some sad bum who may or may not be sleeping here!  Now the polizia will come, all because you want me to hammer a stake into a poor homeless man.  We will be locked up in prison!  You should hang your head in shame.  I'm going to say a prayer for you, many prayers!  Are you crazy? he asked, for not the last time.

GianCarlo gave him an injured sniff.  You will help me destroy the vermin in our castle.  I've ordered you to help me with this mission.  Don't worry, he consoled, setting the pile of wooden stakes on the desk, where they rattled like a stack of bones, I won't let anything bad happen to you.  What do you think I am?

Augusto declined to say just exactly what he thought his boss was.  Instead, he sought to distract him by assuming a patronizing air, addressing GianCarlo as if he were an elderly relative or dim-witted child.

Look, GianCarlo.  It's a splendid day.  The sun's out, let's get you some fresh air, what do you say?  You stay penned up in this dusty office for too many hours you start to imagine things.  Come, let's go smoke a cigarette, have a look at the courtyard wall.

He beckoned with his hand, his dark eyes on GianCarlo's face, waiting for confirmation.  The old man was still physically strong, Augusto knew, said strength evidenced by the workmanship on those stakes, but his mind was irrevocably pickled.

GianCarlo frowned, his heavy black eyebrows colliding like thunderbolts, his jaw hardened with certainty.  

There is a vampiro in this castle, he repeated.  And we're going to kill him.  Tonight.

Augusto fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, never taking his eyes from his supervisor's face.  He inhaled the smoke through his open mouth and nostrils, twin wisps forked up his nose.  He threw back his head, popped his jaw, exhaling ring after ring of smoke.  Crossing his arms, he tapped his work boot on the hard wood floor.  With the steel tip of his boot, he teased the edge of a stiffening magazine. He wondered if he could be fired if he refused to do something so clearly outside of his job description.

He'd have to hire an attorney to construct a convincing case to take before a committee elected by the union to prove his allegations.  Mention of GianCarlo's alcoholism would be unavoidable.  He might then be fired. Management would label Augusto a squealer.  He’d be hawk-watched, his every peccadillo or incautious word might be documented should he ever again prove himself to be an informer.

And he wasn’t without sin; they'd build a tidy straight jacket for him quickly enough.  A few questions here and there about his affairs, which would get back to his Mama in the unsubtle way of all gossip.  His Mama . . . she’d be devastated.  

Was filing this complaint worth the trouble?  On the other hand, suppose Gia stakes somebody, wouldn't Augusto share the blame?  Not just a witness, your honor, an accessory to murder!

Augusto mashed out his cigarette in a tin ash tray on the work desk and began pacing. He walked slower, meditating, stared out the office window, chewing on a toothpick. A warm day, a soft drizzle from an incoming storm. He watched the tourists as they left, the usual elderly American retirees, wearing cardigans and baggy sweatsuits, high white socks and sneakers, heavy cameras sagging around their necks, loudly exclaiming how gorgeous it all was.

No, the lawsuit scenario reeked also.  The only solution was to humor his supervisor, return to the Castel del Monte tonight after nightfall and scour the halls for . . . anyone who might’ve elected to seek sanctuary within its octagonal walls.  He could monitor GianCarlo's behavior, keep him reined in should an event foment.  Just one evening lost - small price to pay.  This afternoon he'd have the soccer game, some push-me, pull-you with Aimee.  Life could still be grand.

He spat out his toothpick and lit another cigarette.  He inhaled deeply, wishing he could blow a stream of smoke at GianCarlo's face and quit.

Okay, you win, amico. He faked a smile as he walked into the office. What do you want me to do?  You'll pardon me since I’ve no prior experience with vampire-killing.  He realized he could still smell Aimee’s perfume and this time his smile was genuine. Hold on, I got to take a piss, wait a minute.

When he poked his head back into the room, GianCarlo asked, You ready to talk strategy?

Si, si, Augusto said, zipping up his navy work pants. I'm ready.  Let's hear the plan.

GianCarlo's plan led them to this: Two frightened men leaning on each other like drunken pirates, swilling whiskey out of a dented flask, glancing furtively about after each pull, as if the Count himself might any moment drift into the hallway, resplendent in tux and tails, blood-red cummerbund, his black cape billowing behind him.

Good Eve-a-ning, he would rumble in his Transylvanian sing song.  Then Augusto would most certainly, absolutely, foul his jeans.  He planned to run like the devil and leave his boss to his well-deserved fate.  GianCarlo, for his part, clung to Augusto with unpardonable cowardice, considering this was all his idea.

Shh, what's that? he whispered, Hush, did you hear anything?

Nothing, Augusto muttered.

Fear not, Augusto, my amico, not even Death himself can prevail against two devout Italians cloaked in the mantle of God.  Wait!  I hear shuffling!

Augusto prayed, then cursed his boss.

At nine forty-five the castle was steeped in darkness - a supernatural stillness.  The block walls effectively buffered against the shrill cricket serenade outside, the murmuring of tree branches, the crying of the wind.  The two fearless vampire slayers armed themselves with big baton-shaped government issue flashlights with four-inch lamps. Wedged into the belts of their pants they sported two stakes apiece.  GianCarlo spun his flashlight around crazily, like a cartoon sleuth.  Augusto's hung at his side; he felt jittery, ashamed of the snake of fear uncoiling in his belly.  

The castle smelled cold and barren, free of dust and hopefully any creature living. He strained to hear anything, anything at all - moisture oozing from the wall fissures, a rat clicking along on razor nails, dragging its long pink tail.  Anything.  The stakes dug into his chest every time he took a breath. Furthermore, he was beginning to feel ridiculous.  If GianCarlo didn't get on with the show he was going to abandon this stupid enterprise and go home.

As if sensing his partner was considering mutiny, Gia summoned enough fortitude to announce: I'm going to walk the first floor in a circle, you stay behind me.  Wave your flash-light back and forth behind us.  I'll do the same in front.  If the demon sees us, he'll try to run, then we'll separate and corner him.  Whichever one of us is facing him when he bolts around the corner does the staking!  He mimed the act of staking a vampire, his arm raised over his head, then whizzing down in an arc towards his own chest.

Throw it into him with all your strength, Augusto.  Aim for his heart.  I read all about how to kill these fiends.  And don't worry, my plan won't fail!  There's only one exit, all he could possibly do to avoid us is run upstairs, after the third floor he can't go any higher.

I know this castle’s floor plan, Augusto said impatiently.  And I don't like this.  You'd better not screw up . . . get us killed or worse.  You'd better pray this vamp of yours can't fly, Gian Carlo!

They communicated with exaggerated whispers, Augusto getting louder and more frantic with every step.

This is a bad idea! he whispered loudly as they entered the first trapezoidal room.  A very bad idea!

Shut up, 'Gusto.  I hear something. Listen.

Silence.

You didn't hear anything, you old boozer.  Probably you need a hearing aid at your age.  You couldn't even hear yourself fart!

Shh! GianCarlo responded, digging his nails into Augusto's arm.  Listen!

This time Augusto heard the voice, a resonant tenor, swelled from somewhere upstairs, then seemed to cascade down the walls, gathering volume as it reached the lowest level.

GianCarlo's knees unbuckled, he wobbled unsteadily for a moment.  His eyes did not widen in fear but narrowed in a grimace of confusion.

Who are you? shouted Augusto, frightened into belligerence.  No one is allowed to be here!

The castle tossed his last words back at him, here . . . here . . . here. "

Come . . . out so . . . we . . . can . . . talk!  He