A Little Vampire Story

A Little Vampire Story

  Christopher Andrews

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Andrew Piazza

  Copyright © 2012

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

  Other Stories by Christopher Andrews:

  Doctor Insanity Vs. The Sparrow (novel)

  The Death Of Armadillo Boy (short story)

  ____________________________________________

  “I am the King of the Vampires,” he said, and when I turned to face him, the blood ran cold in my veins.

  He was only six inches tall.

  The cold of the barren night air clutched at my breast as Minutio, the King of the Vampires, flew through my open window and landed on my bedroom dresser. I had gone to great lengths to discover the dark secrets which would summon the prince of the undead, and I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed. I had assumed Minutio’s name was meaningless, but there he was, tiny little cape, tiny little boots, tiny little fangs.

  “I see you have set out for me the two things no vampire can resist,” he squeaked in his tiny, tinny voice, as he nibbled on a bulb of garlic bigger than his head. “Garlic… and blood.”

  “The legends…” I began, as Minutio flew into a hover near the rim of the goblet filled with my blood, and produced a proportionally-sized tiny pewter mug from underneath his cape, “…the legends say vampires abhor garlic.”

  He did not answer at first; rather, he dipped his mug into the lake of blood again and again, drinking with unfathomable hunger, occasionally whispering “mmm- good, it’s good,” to himself. When he had sated his bloodlust, he floated back down to the surface of the dresser, wiping his mouth with a delicate slip of a handkerchief as he composed himself.

  “The legends,” he smiled evilly, shrill voice tinkling through the air like the fall of broken glass. “I am the legend. I created the legend. Five hundred years ago, when the nearby villagers began to suspect my dark presence among them, they sought ways to hide themselves from my power. A confederate of mine spread the word that the Vampyr could not stand the smell of garlic, when in truth, we find it irresistible. The villagers gorged themselves on the stuff, hung it around their necks in great bundles, making it all the easier to find them.”

  Oh, the black genius of the ancient terror before me! Who but the prince of the Vampyr could create such a fiendish conspiracy of tangled lies? There was one part I didn’t quite follow, though.

  “Find them?”

  Minutio’s face darkened in irritation. “They didn’t have light bulbs back then, girlie! I may be a vampire, but I can’t see in the dark!”

  “But enough of this prelude,” he grinned, leaping off of the table and flying into a hover in front of my face like a very, very evil Ken doll on the end of an invisible string. “You have summoned me here tonight for a reason. You seek my dark and bloody gift.”

  “Um…” I stammered.

  “Ah, you hesitate? You hesitate?” he squeaked, mocking me. “But you want me, you want to be with me- or you would not have performed the ritual. So come… give yourself to me! Be my victim! Be my lover! Be my eternal companion, and we shall stalk the night like…”

  “It’s… not that.”

  He frowned. “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  Minutio’s beady little eyes searched around the room, confused. “Well, what is it, then?”

  “I, uh… are you sure you’re the king of the vampires?”

  “What? Of course I am!”

  “It’s just that I was expecting someone a bit… taller.”

  Feral rage lit his undead features, and the icy hand of fear clenched around my heart, until I realized that if worse came to worse, I could just smack him with a tennis racket. His miniature bloodstained lips trembled, and he shouted as loud as a person of his size could, “I’m the King of the Vampires! Twenty-two centuries I have prowled… no! Owned the night, taking what prey I wished, oblivious to the petty concerns of mortality, striking wherever my whims sent me!”

  “Oh, screw this!” he cried, and flew for the window. “Now I’m not going to make you into a vampire, how about that?”

  “I have performed the ritual,” I reminded him. “You have no choice.”

  Minutio stopped before crossing the plane of the window, staring wistfully out into the night air, the night air which had served as his hunting ground for more centuries than I could imagine. “Damn you,” he squeaked. “Damn you and this dark curse which binds me. Very well. I shall give you what you desire.”

  He turned upon me then, and my knees went to water as the pint-sized lord of the undead flew to a perch on my shoulder. His hot, foul breath reeked of the charnel house, and pattered on my neck like when Mr. Whiskers, my cat, sleeps under the covers with me.

  “But beware!” he whispered directly into my ear, tickling me a bit. “It is a black gift I bring, a treachery against all that is good and pure! You will be doomed to roam the night, never seeing the dawn, and forced to drink a daily draught of human blood!”

  “But I’ll never get old, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Very well,” I whispered, tilting my head to expose my neck to him, giving myself to him, to evil, to death, completely, before I could lose my nerve and damn myself to mortality through my cowardice. “Take me, Minutio. I am yours.”

  There was the briefest contact on my neck, like one might expect from a hamster’s paw. The hand of the vampire, I assumed, and steeled myself for the pinch as my vein was punctured and the lifeblood let slowly out of my body.

  “It is done.”

  My eyes blinked in surprise. There had been no pinch, no lifeblood, nothing.

  “Aren’t you… supposed to bite my neck or something?”

  Minutio looked at me quizzically as he returned to the garlic bulbs scattered around the table. “Are you joking? I’d need a pickaxe to get all the way through to your veins. It’s just a touch, that’s it. No biting.”

  “Just a touch?” I certainly didn’t feel any different. “Are you sure?”

  “Check your teeth.”

  Long, sharp, murderous canines pointed down from either side of my mouth. My tongue couldn’t seem to stop running over them; the novel sensation was as compelling as when I’d first gotten my braces taken off, three months ago.

  “Thank goodness for that,” I mumbled to myself, adding a curious finger to the exploration of my new fangs.

  “What?” Minutio asked.

  My answer never came; the door to my bedroom flew open, and there was my mother, blissfully ignorant of the monstrous change that had come over me. “Cass, honey?” she said, “That nice young man from your debate club is on the phone.”

  Minutio shrieked with rage. “No! She is mine!”

  “Jesa-watz!” Mom gulped, backing against the wall in startled surprise. “What the hell is… Ted! Ted! Get up here!”

  The distant, muted sounds of my father shouting his confusion up the steps from downstairs faded away as I nearly fell into a swoon. What had I done? Condemning myself to this dread existence, betraying the love of my mother, my father, and my little brother. Okay, maybe not that little grub, but Mom and Dad, definitely.

  “You are too late!” Minutio squeaked triumphantly. “She belongs to me now! She is the night! She is Vampyr!”

  “Cassie,” Mom whispered hoarsely, eyes
still locked on the vampire and wide in amazement, “what is… it…talking about?”

  There was no gentle way to put it. “I summoned him using black magic and made him turn me into a vampire. Sorry, Mom.”

  “It is too late for regrets!” Minutio declared, pulling insistently at my sleeve to lead me over to the window. “Come, my new student! We must hunt!”

  “Sorry Mom, I gotta go,” I shrugged, as I climbed onto the window, a bit awkwardly in my black dress. “I’m one of the undead now.”

  “But…” Mom stammered, her mind still to hazy to process what she was seeing, “you’ve got school tomorrow!”

  I wept, for I knew those would be the last words I would ever hear her speak. Never again would she be there when I needed her to straighten up my room or remove a stubborn stain from my clothes. Minutio tugged me out of the window and into the night, and a scream tore from my lips, in the illogical fear I would fall to my death.

  Foolish thoughts! I was an immortal now, a vampire, a dark angel on Earth. I no longer had to fear mortal death, and the power of flight was within me; although I did find it difficult to get my bearings and navigate through the trees surrounding our suburban home, and I suffered several embarrassing scrapes before I got the hang of flying.

  The air swirled about my face, ran its lifeless fingers through my hair. The world rushed beneath us at a dizzying speed, and I knew true freedom for the first time in my sixteen and a half years. Laughing, I threw my learner’s permit from me, and as it