Hand in hand, Fang and I strolled up the cobbled stoned steps to the biggest set of wooden doors I had ever laid eyes on. These were straight up from castle Greystroke. Huge slabs of wood held together with iron hinges and sporting a set of great big round knockers. Yeah...you can giggle at that...I did. They were a little overkill in this day and age of the doorbell.
"Fee-fie-foe-fum," I muttered under my breath.
Fang gave me one of his patented pained expressions. Sighing heavily, I mimed zipping my lips shut. Satisfied that I was going to stay quiet, he turned to the door and grabbed hold of one of the gigantic rings and knocked on the door in three quick booming successions. The sound vibrating through the door, down into the stone and up my legs, making my knees knock together. Okay...so they weren't purely decorative.
Slowly, the great doors creaked open. Seriously? Nobody around here knew how to use a can of WD-40, I thought as I winced at the jaw jarring sound. But, I suppose, if you wanted a nice well rounded stereotype of a haunted house, then creaking doors are an absolute must.
Peeking around Fang, I thought I would finally get to see a version of Igor standing there in dirty rags and a hump. But, instead, a little old wrinkled man with white hair sticking up in every direction like a troll doll wearing a two toned livery outfit right out of the 1800's, stood hunched over with a wide grin and merrily snapping green eyes. He was adorable. I just wanted to pinch his saggy basset hound cheeks.
"Good evening, Master Drake. It is so good to see you again," he warbled in a squeaky British accent, absolutely pleased as punch.
Obviously, he was an immortal, but could he get any cuter? I swear, I could just pick him up and tuck him in my pocket.
"Good evening, Wilfred," Fang said, giving him a curt nod as he pulled me behind him and into a grand entrance hall.
The extravagant surrounding quickly nipped my desire to pocket Willy in the bud. Holy Moses on a pogo stick, this place was huge! I felt my jaw drop as I tried to take it all in. Elaborate woven rugs laid across highly polished wooden planked floors. Massive iron chandeliers with real candles burning, hung from the cathedral ceiling, reflecting the light on highly polished suits of armor and hanging various weapons and coats of arms.
A roaring fireplace big enough to park Gizmo in, raged on one side of the room with a stuffed bookcase on one side and grand piano on the other. In front of it was a bear skin rug. Its sightless eyes and snarling jaws looking ominous in the flicker of the firelight. The only furniture in the vast room, was one long benched table and a throne. Not one of those delicate gold filigree jobbies with a dainty velvet seat either.
This thing could have easily sat a family of Yetis with room left over. Carved out of dark wood and adorned with more gargoyles than Goliath had in his cartoon clan, it dominated the room. Garnishing either side were two life size, white marble statues. They must have been representations of some kind of vampire deity because they each had three arms.
While Fang talked to Willy in hushed tones, I strolled over to the statues. Each had a beautifully carved face and were looking down at the throne with complete admiration. Their lips pulled back revealing long fangs, gave their expressions an orgasmic quality. Yeah...that was kind of disturbing. Imagine having that staring down at you all day.
Pulling my eyes away from their simpering smiles, I walked up closer to inspect one of them a bit closer. My perusal was greeted with a nice carved, broad chest and impressive abs. Not quite up to snuff to Fang's, but not too shabby. But then, my eyeballs popped out of my head. Well, not literally, but dammit...dang close.
That was no third arm! That was the biggest...
"Mel."
Most gigantic...
"Melanie."
Penis I had ever seen.
"Melanie!"
"What?" Jumping at the sound of Fang shouting my name, I whipped around to face him. Well...I meant to face him and I sort of did as I was technically standing forward in his general direction. But my eyes...yeah...they had a mind of their own and zeroed straight onto his package, bouncing from him to the statue and back again.
"Wilfred has went to go fetch the Elders."
"Uh-huh." I nodded my head sagely, but frankly, I wasn't remotely paying attention. Instead, I was trying to figure out just how anatomically correct those stone figurine fellas were.
"Remember, let me do the talking."
"Uh-huh." I mean...wowza! If Fang was packing anything remotely close to those two guys...I swallowed hard. My eyes darting back to the gleaming marble.
"Really?" he drew out the word. "Then I suppose you wouldn't mind if I told them to go ahead and behead you and suggest they do it with a butter knife so it will be excruciatingly slow. Afterwards, we can knock your head around for a rousing game of soccer for a few hours before hanging it up and using it for a piñata."
"Uh-huh." Why didn't I want to sleep with him again? I am sure I had a valid reason, not that I could think of it at the moment.
"Melanie?"
"Uh-huh." Certainly, sleeping with him would be scientifically based. My eyes drifted back to the very proud statue and then back to Fang, all sorts of sizing and measuring going on in my head.
"Oh for the love of all that is holy," Fang muttered, grabbing me by the shoulders and giving me a shake hard enough to rattle my teeth. "Snap out of it!"
"What? I mean...yes...no....What were we talking about?" I blinked my eyes furiously, trying to focus on what he was saying. As they settled on his scowling face, I could see the greenish glow highlighting his cheekbones, giving his olive toned skin a slightly sickly sheen. Oh great. The pheromones had flipped on my horny headlights. My face grew hot enough to cook s'mores on.
"You need to pay attention, Red," he said sternly. "Your life is depending on this meeting."
"Yeah...death, dismemberment, dungeons...I got it Einstein." I snapped, pulling away from him and away from the temptation of the statues. "In my defense, you guys need to wrap a towel around those things. Or an apron...a fig leaf at least..."
"Drake, darling! You are home!"
The feminine booming voice, snapped both our heads around as a tall, gorgeous woman dressed in a full length crushed, red velvet gown with a slit clear up to her who-ha glided towards us on a pair of amazing Christian Louboutin black stilettos. The collar around the dress was one of those stiff clichéd Dracula jobbies and the whole front panel was peek-a-boo I see you have boobs...black lace. The dress hugged her curves accentuating every impeccable dip and bend to perfection. She oozed sex appeal in spades.
Her long, black hair was the color of midnight and was done up in a high ponytail that cascaded in an inky straight sheet down to the middle of her back. A little I Dream of Jeannie for me, but on her...it looked fantastic and highlighted the paleness of her flawless skin. Deep red lips were pulled back in a fully fangy come hither smile and her heavily shadowed golden eyes greeted Fang with the caress of a lover.
Well...that is until she got a gander of me. Then they turned into catlike slits of pure hatred and those pouty lips suddenly drew back into a full fanged snarl. Instead of the elegant supermodel sashay of earlier, she came barreling at me like a runaway freight train, claws out and murder on her mind. I'm not going to lie, I totally ducked behind Fang.
"What have you done?" she screeched, only just stopping from taking a swipe at me when Fang grabbed hold of her upper arm.
"Stop it, Druilla," Fang barked, scowling at the furious female vamp.
Druilla? What the hell kind of name was that? Though, I had to admit, right now with the way she was spitting daggers at me...it was a fitting nom de plume. I peeked out from under Fang's armpit and noticed two other pale people had joined the party. All with glowing eyes and white, sharp teeth looking like they had just stepped out of a fancy schmancy ball of some kind in their tuxedos.
"Everyone just calm down."
The speaker was a tall, dark and lanky fellow with thick blond hair which was swept back from his face in lush waves. He was totally sporting a Conan O'Brien hair swirl, but, remarkably enough, he was pulling it off with ease. His eyes were the deepest black, with a hard glitter to them, but although they were frightening, they also drew you in. They were like two obsidian pools reflecting the starlight at night and beckoned you to go skinning dipping. And skinny dipping was a good thing, right?
The second fellow stood on the far side of the still growling Druilla. He wasn't nearly as impressive in looks or height. In fact, he was rather short, about a full head shorter than me, with brown eyes, a comb over and a rotund physique. This vampire totally broke the "all vampires must be unbelievably good looking" myth from the books and movies and seemed more interested in shoving handfuls of Doritos into his mouth than what was presently going on in front of him.
I liked him immediately. Anyone who liked Cool Ranch was okay in my book. Unless he voted to kill me, then I might need to rethink my philosophy on that.
"He brought the redheaded demon into our mists!" Druilla hissed, pointing a red lacquered pointy shaped nail at me.
"She is not a demon," Fang snorted with disgust, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her a look that could have curdled cream.
Go Fang! I gave him an encouraging pat on his leather clad back in approval.
"Come forward child, so we may see you better." This came from tall, dark and swirly.
I gulped hard, unsure what to do. I was fairly certain I was a hell of a lot safer behind Fang then I would be anywhere near the rabid Druilla. Sensing my hesitation, Fang looked over his shoulder at me, giving me a tight, encouraging smile and a little push.
Stumbling forward, I stood in front of the three of them feeling like the new kid being introduced to the rest of the class. A feeling I hated back then and didn't necessarily enjoy now.
"Uh...Hi," I said, wiggling my fingers in a wave.
Swirly gave me a nod and a gentle smile while Druilla on the other hand sniffed in disproval, looking at me as if I had just drug dog poo across the carpet. The third guy only gave me a cursory once over before snuffling back into his bag of chips.
"My name is Nicolai." Swirly bowed deeply before standing back up and introducing the rest of the Elders. "You have met Druilla and over there is Taos." He gave the poor vampire a withering glare. "Taos, we have a guest. Please try to control your appetite for five minutes."
Taos looked up, bits of Cool Ranch clinging to his lips. "You interrupted dinner, you're lucky I'm still standing here," he said flatly, giving a shrug before he resumed his munching.
"You must forgive my companion, he is only concerned with his stomach at the moment," Nicolai said softly, though a muscle in his jaw twitched. "And what is your name, child?"
"Enough of this nonsense!" Druilla interrupted, spinning around to face Nicolai in a swirl of red. "What do we care what the abominations name is?"
Enough with the abomination, already. Who was this chick anyway? I took a step forward, but was quickly pulled back by Fang snagging my collar.
"Her name is Melanie Wagner," he said, giving me a brief shake of his head.
"Melanie Wagner?" Druilla laughed. "What kind of name is that for a vampire?"
She was giving me grief over my name? I giggle erupted out of my throat. I didn't mean to. I really didn't want to. But once I started, I couldn't seem to stop it. I mean...seriously? All she needed was to step back one letter in the alphabet and change the D to a C and she would have Dalmatians everywhere in an uproar.
"What are you laughing at?" she snarled, narrowing her eyes at me.
"Stop it!" Fang whispered on a hiss.
"I can't," I giggled. Images of the beauty before me with half her hair black and the other white, dressed in a long fur coat and screaming 'Get me those puppies, you fools!' had me in stitches.
Druilla took a menacing step towards me. "I command you to stop laughing," she snapped. "If you do not, I shall have you executed on the spot and your body thrown out of the sun to set ablaze until there is nothing left of you but a pile of ash."
But all I heard was...Poison them, drown them, bash them on the head. Got any chloroform? I don't care how you kill the little beasts, just do it and do it now!...and I laughed so hard, I snorted.
With her eyes flashing red, she raised a daggered finger at me. Everyone else in the room stopped. Even Taos endless crunching ceased.
"Druilla! NO!" Fang tried to jump into the path of her trembling finger, but she held up her palm sending a pulse of power towards him that threw Fang across the floor and skidding against the fireplace.
An evil smile grew across her lips. "Now, we shall see how funny you think this is," she said softly as her eyes began to glow red as fire.
Oh...Mel. Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut? Will this be the end of our sassy redheaded vampire?
Stay tuned for the next installment of FANGED to find out. Don't forget to come join the fun on my Facebook page K. M. Halandras for sneak peeks!
Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. If you liked it please give it a vote and comments are always appreciated. If you don't see any updates here...check out my other two stories Bending Steele or When Roses Collide.