What We Do In The Shadows: "Jen..."
Summary: There are unexpected consequences when Laszlo seeks a new human familiar...
Part LXIII...
"Well, Susan..." Roderigo, expansively, to Susan across the large dining room table, in a rather impressive dining hall, complete with works hung on the walls including tapestries from Spain before the Aztec conquest to works by Rivera and Kahlo and at least one French Impressionist...A massive and beautifully carved sideboard against one wall...A large and beautiful rose marble fireplace on the other... "What do you think of the place here?"
"Not bad on a nurse's salary..." she smiled. Mrs. Afanas and Dr. Acura across the table likewise smiling...
Indeed...
Guillermo pondering...
You don't suppose the family fortune didn't come from just a couple of old silver and copper mines, cattle ranching and farming avocados and other cash crops, but from Vampire Hunting?
Dusted vampires, empty houses...Usually big ones from the ones I've met and work for...Stuff in those houses, usually old stuff...
Picturing young Rosa and Cicely Afanas hauling loads to old 1930s trucks from a huge castle rather of the Hollywood horror film variety...
"Ha, ha, ha...Yes, indeed...But it's been passed down, for generations, along with a nice little fortune, the bulk going to maintain the estate as a family trust. Guillermo will be a co-owner, you should know. Along with his share of the divided remainder...He ought to make out well..."
"So, I'd be marrying him for his money?" she grinned.
"Roderigo..." Guillermo sighed.
"Just making the case for you, cuz..." Roderigo grinned. "Never hurts for the girl in question to know you can provide. Though Guillermo has always been a steady worker and a good one." Roderigo, fond beam to Guillermo. "You couldn't do better, Susan, honestly."
"I know...I just have to persuade him of that." She nodded, fond smile at Guillermo who fidgeted a bit.
"But we're embarrassing him..." she noted. "Lets leave it at...I'm sold, great job..." she smiled at Roderigo.
"Well then don't lets waste time. Nothing would please Auntie more than to know the next event here will be a grand wedding." Roderigo smiled.
"One thing at a time, Roderigo." Guillermo sighed.
"Sure...But don't let the grass go, cousin. Time isn't on our side and ladies like Miss Sue here don't grow on trees."
"I know...I'll keep all that in mind."
"Thanks, love." Susan beamed, winking at Roderigo... "He gets so busy sometimes I think he forgets...But I'm willin' to hang around on the tree above him till he's ready." fond smile.
Guillermo blushing a bit now...
"Good enough..." Roderigo nodded. Munching on his burger...As Guillermo relaxed a hair... "How's the food?" Roderigo asked Susan...
"It's wonderful..." she shook head. "I could live on this for sure..."
"The real Mexica stuff..." he smiled, indicating her plate. "But as you can see..." he waved his burger... "I like to get away from the traditional myself sometimes. Doctor? Mrs. Afanas? Everything to your liking?"
"It's excellent, my boy." Dr. Acura nodded, "Though I've had Rosa's own and that's something extraordinary."
"She's a wonder in the kitchen...Right, Guillermo?" nod. Guillermo, nodding.
"Yes, she's always managed to do wonders even when we worked together in the field..." Mrs. Afanas agreed.
"Yeah..." Roderigo sighing a bit, then perking up... "You know, Guillermo..." turning to his cousin... "She was cooking as much as she could the last three months? There's a freezer full of her stuff for when you take over the place with Sue. You won't be cooking for a year, Susan." Smile.
"When I...?" Guillermo eyed him.
"Auntie wants you to manage the place. Oh, I'll stick around and help as I can for a while till you settle in but I've some desire to travel and finish my degree. At least, I hope you'll stay...There's provision to have the place managed if neither of us wants to stay on, but I think it would be best if one of us did."
"What about...?" Guillermo blinked.
"Those greedy bastards would sell the place or run it into the ground in a few months...Don't worry..." he put up a hand... "If you and Sue decide you don't want it, we have a good firm in mind to manage things. Later we can choose together if there's anyone from the next generation worthy. Or deed it in trust to a good NGO...Auntie has several in mind for us to consider. But, if you'll be having a wife and a family..." sly smile. "This would be a great place to raise them."
"I'm really not ready..." Guillermo began.
"There's no rush..." Roderigo put up a hand. "As I say, Auntie has all bases covered. But at least, consider it. Eh, Sue...? Would be a good place for kids to grow up..."
"It would...But I'll have to leave it to Guillermo." She noted, glance to Guillermo, wan smile.
Kids?...Guillermo blinked.
...
Early evening twilight...Manhattan..."Vious"...The happenin' jewel of Simon Devious' nightclub empire...Until his burned out club is restored, shortly.
VVVVIP lounge...
As in you better be welcome or ready to journey to the Afterlife if you come on in here...
"I'm so sorry they tumbled to me, Simon..." Lesley, seated on plush white sofa, in her gown, sighed. Simon in his "top dog, supervillain Blofeld, Lord High Pooba of All Things Undead" white leather swivel chair, unfriendly white cat in lap, narrowly hissing up at him, shaking head.
Several vampires and familiars scattered about the room on various chairs, loveseats, and in the case of one, suffering Simon had noted, from a bad back, sprawling in bat fashion across an upper corner of the wall against ceiling and wall...Two large hulking types, human, perhaps surprisingly on first thought, guarding the doorway...
Some...And not all among the vampiric, not entirely comfortable with Simon's current "love interest"...
Don't get me wrong, humans are fine...Delicious...One tall and cadaverous fellow noting to himself...And Lesley's a peach as they go. But...
C'mon...Be fair. Would she hang out with a bull or rooster? I mean as a permanent, so the Dev keeps insisting, thing? Permanent within the transitory limits of mortal existence, even...
Still she is our canary in the mine...So long as we have her with us voluntarily, we're safe. Her Hunter friends and her ancestor won't risk coming for us.
"Not your fault, love. You gave a great performance. That bitch Ginny was hypersensitive to thrall and despite her own, keen as ever. I have to give it to Nadja, she did a great job there. And it wasn't all loss, they're still willing to consider an alliance against your ancestor."
"Hard to accept that..." she noted. "Surely they suspect your motives..."
"According to Nandor... 'the Relentlessly Doofus'...Charged with handling all negotiations...Why, with Nadja on hand?...But hey..." Simon beamed gleefully, waving hand. "They know I mean to block their redemption. They prefer, however, to Unlive. Can't blame their demon essences really...Hell is not much of a place from what I both hear and vaguely recall..."
"You're never going back, dear." Lesley, fondly.
"No, I'm not...Cause it's not just me the essence alone that would be sent packing...The whole package, soul and all, bound together in permanent. Geesh, talk about unfair and unjust, white-bearded guy or girl Up There!" he fumed. "Maybe my soul is pitch black and marinated in filth, delighting in my crimes both human and vampiral, but hell...Laszlo was a social radical who slept around...Nandor a ruthless warrior who didn't always take prisoners and burned down a couple of villages after they killed his men...And Nadja...Oh..." shakes head.
"Oh?" Lesley, curious.
He's never really told me exactly why he hates his "friends" so...
"She's...A Gypsy." Sigh.
"Eehew?" she offered.
"Eehew indeed..." Simon shook head. "The verminous filth...My mother always said, 'never trust...' Well, I killed her before she could finish the last time she started in, but... 'Never trust those dirty Gypsies, they'll sleep with you and then break your heart and probably then steal all you have, even if my own Gypsy lover just left me, with a little gold to tide me over the winter...Best to get the local duke to drag them all to the gallows or the town square pyre. Nothing says...Chr...Ow...Xmas...Like burning Gypsies or Jews. Especially if they've any ready cash or gold on them or you owe them money.' Ma always said." he reflected.
"Oddly enough, Dad said the same thing..." Hmmn...
"It's why I've always been fond of Nadja since we met post transformation...I was raised to see and scorn her as the acme of Evil, human division."
God...Now I'm what? A neo-Nazi furthering the final solution of the Gypsy problem? Lesley sighed inwardly...
The things I do to evade my fate dying young and forgotten as another descendant of Van Helsing, who's not even top dog but a mere probably unknown "Hunter" subordinate to this "Slayer", whoever she is...To grab a chance at Immortal Beauty, perhaps even evading the bloodsucking if I can learn enough occult stuff from my Undead boyfriend and his minions...
And to further my acting/musical career, natch...
Not that I don't like the little so-and-so...He's a charmer in his way. Harvey Weinstein with good looks if Harvey weren't an utter pig.
"But if you prevent their redemption...Leave them here." she asked.
"Their souls are chained to this plane with the essences using their bodies...Forever...No 'Paradise' for them." Simon sneered. "Of course, there's all that whining they do about being more concerned about the evil their essences have done and might do if they lose the little restraint the souls have forged over them...Hah!...The bastards get a little more human every day..." glare.
"So my ancestor claimed, when he appeared to me on this one...They called on him...And Dracula..." Lesley noted.
"Dracula...Bah...That weak sister...Well, now he's stuck here as well, jerked around by every little human soul that wants to give up Demonity's greatest gift...Them this time round. 'Their time is nigh', so you said the old ghost said..." Simon sneered. "Well, with my secret ally, the snake among them as well as you to guide me, darling...And hold off your ancestor and his little minions, that time will never come. They'll be stuck, condemned, lost, and doomed to Hell, soul and essence merged in despair and torment." he glared.
Drac/Van Helsing 0...Devious 3...grim nod. Well, 4 really...Grin.
"Heck if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for them! Right?! I said, Right!?" he cried, several of the scattered minions, vampire and human offering vague agreement.
Hate it when the Boss whines about his Fate like that...The vampire spread-eagled on ceiling and wall noted.
"My ancestor won't stop, though...And he can reach them via those women...Even by manifesting apart." Lesley shrugged. "He's going to move directly, sooner or later. And I expect you to keep your side, Simon." she noted. "My friends left safely alone...Or else. And you know I'm quite ready to die...I came here, ready to die, before you offered me another path."
"Les...? You cut me, you make me bleed here. What's got you to take this tack?" he eyed her, genuinely hurt by any measure, distraught look.
"Simon. I love you, really. And I really want this chance to avoid my fate. But I know you. You can't help yourself. You're Devious by nature." she gave faint smile.
"Your people are welcome to kill my 'friends' so long as they 'die'...Dust...Unredeemed, cursed, their last hope gone. The quicker, the better, really. Each night lost, another slip toward the Light." he sighed. "Not good...Or rather, too Good. We must drive them to a final desecration, fueled and marinated in Hate, Murder, blood...The way of our People. Right, People?! Right?!" he raised fist in air.
Yeah, sure...Several vaguely raising fists...
Jerks...He glared round. Where's the shock and outrage at this? Vampires teetering on the edge of Redemption...
The Council has truly let things slide...
Am I the only one to maintain standards in this benighted era?
I blame trashy novels, movies, and TV like that "Dracula" and "Buffy"...And that damned "Twilight"...It's got our people all twisted, thinking there might be a way to escape the normal order of things...The Right Order of Things. Eternal condemnation after an existence of Utter Depravity and Merciless Horror and Evil...
Tempered perhaps by an appreciation of the finer things...Art, music, theater...Beautiful men and women, kept in cages like birds.
"Yes, an utmost and final desecration putting them beyond the Pale of Redemption...Eternally."
"Well, there's an office full of helpless minions just waiting to be fully desecrated..." Lesley noted.
"Yeah...That's some comfort. They've made their own bed, now we get them to lie in it...In sordid murder and filth, to the curses and screams of the souls of their victims...Oooh..." he gushed. "Now there's the stuff that made our kind Great."
Deathbed repentance...If plan A doesn't work out, there's always plan B...Deathbed repentance...Lesley thought. Great-granduncle times whatever would surely give me time for it...I'm so pretty and talented, she eyed herself in huge wall mirror Simon liked to practice demonstrating his mastery of mind over matter...The matter of letting yourself believe old wives' tales about mirrors and vampires, that is.
I mean after all, I'd be sincerely sorry I was going to face eternal punishment.
One female vamp in Goth outfit glaring...Human showoff. Someday I'll learn to concentrate enough to see myself in that damned glass again.
...
"So negotiations are underway with Simon the Devious..." Colin notes to camera while standing in his room. The crew having agreed to let him mildly drain one intern in exchange for some interview time regards his take on recent events...
I mean, what are interns for, right? Colin had smilingly noted.
"Leave it to Nandor, our military/diplomatic genius..." smirk. "I'm sure he'll work it all out and defeat Van Helsing's descendants...Even the Slayer, if she's real."
Though I think dunderhead and his sidekicks will need all the help they can get to die unrepentant, unredeemed, unloved and abandoned, he, even by the Cravensworths, all of them condemned forever...Their victims shrieking for Justice and revenge, their souls as cursed as the rest of them...He thinks.
But Simon and I will do our very best...In spite of all Van Helsing and co...And even the damned Slayer if she chooses to show...Throw.
After all, stakes and stones won't dust my bones...Though they might hurt a bit.
"Say...Just wanted to apologize for losing my temper back at the office there...It was a tense sit, even for moi." Thin smile. "After all, my role in holding Simon down was crucial, right? Yes, as usual, Robinson saves the day for his good ole pals."
Hmmn...? He stares at a question...
"This redemption thing Nadja was all in a dither about...? For the birds...And the living. Who'd want to give up Immortality after all?"
Of course how long that "Immortality" may be is open to interpretation...But one should have the brains to read the fine prints in any agreement, right? Shame this lazy bunch has always preferred to shove that job to me...He gives narrow stare at another question...
"Hardly likely...Van Helsing is in the business of killing vampires not restoring their souls. I imagine the souls do get a kick out of sending the essences who took their bodies back to Hell but...What?
"Eh, probably they fly right off to Heaven to the bosom of the guy there...Whoever runs the place if anyone does. No, I never heard that...Really? Some vampiral legends say the souls not only hover about but can be condemned with the essences?" he gave a mocking smile. "Sure sounds like a bad deal...But it's always been my contention the guy in charge is a true sob, rather like me." Grin. "Take what he does to that Job guy? Satan's his errand boy...The other, who knows? Maybe he got mellow in old age...Had one more kid who turned out a Nancy boy..." sneer...
"Who?" frown.
"Dracula...Soul-restored?" sneering chuckle. "Are you guys starting to go the full deal? First that old-time religion...? Next, believe old wives' tales, movies, and Buffy episodes? You'll be asking if William and 'Buffy' are happy next. Did Dracula find his wife? Or if the nice Jewish boy really showed up three days late..." mocking tone.
He stares at camera...As the very questions are asked.
"How the hell would I know? Who cares what they say about the Slayer saving her husband?! Or Dracula, his wife?...Some of us, who loved..." catching himself, quick pause. Angry annoyance quickly fading...
"I think that's enough, folks. Have a great night." Cold smile.