Let’s give vampires a voice. What could go wrong?
Earlier…
With Pale Immortal out of the way, Dalla Arnessen presented the next book to the book club. The cover heavily featured abs and blood.
“Enough of this,” Fenrir Jarl barked. “I can’t stand another book where the vampire is either a blood-crazed villain or some sort of… sort of… Immoral…
“Jacked, immortal sex toy who’s lost his shirt?” Anatole smarmed.
“Yes, there seems to be a lot of lusting after well-sculpted bad boys in our literature,” Trenchant said. “Intentional? Perhaps to make it easier for vampires to find willing victims?”
“Are you saying that vampires told authors to make vampires sexy?” Dracula said, taking a seat. “How is that necessary?” He broadly indicated himself. “I mean.”
“So are vampires sexy, or are writers making vampires seem sexy?” Seth asked despite his mounting horror.
“I mean!” Dracula indicated himself more fervently.
“Look,” Anatole said. “Just because you swapped your evening dress for a furry hat and an Opoczno jacket doesn’t suddenly make you Voivode of Wallachia.”
Dracula stood, his expression stern.
“When did he change clothes?” Seth asked.
“Hey, the moustache is coming in nice,” Trenchant added, “Gotta be excited about that.”
“But I am Voivode-”
“Tell that to the Ottoman Turks,” Anatole said.
“I’ll nail hats to both your heads if you don’t sit back down.”
“I’ve got a solution for your woes, Fenrir Jarl,” Seth said after Dalla Arnessen handed him a different book. The cover featured a pale individual in a baroque outfit holding a candelabra.
“Aaw, he’s got a shirt on,” Anatole said.
“Interview with the Vampire,” Fenrir stated
“A book that apparently changed the genre. It’s about a vampire that narrates his life to a reporter,” Dalla said.
“That’s a breach of our lore,” Fenrir said, mollified.
“Different world, different rules,” Dalla added.
“At least he gets a say,” Fenrir said. “We’ll do this one.”
“What about my book?” Dracula said. “My book came first.”
“We’ve already covered your book,” Trenchant said. “That’s how we got into this mess.”
“No, no, the book where I got to tell my story. Bram Stoker’s is from bloody everyone else’s perspective, not mine! And didn’t I do the recording thing first?”
“What the hell are you on about, man,” Fenrir said.
“I think you may be confused,” Seth said.
“And we tire of you insisting that all of vampire literature is somehow about you.”
“Your tiredness doesn’t change the fact that they are all just telling my story over and over again. You’d think people would generate a new idea or two.”
“There is no book where you get recorded, Dracula, so let’s just do Interview.”
“Actually,” Dalla interjected with a smirk. “Dracula is partially right. There is a book by Fred Saberhagen called “The Dracula Tape.”
“Hah!” Dracula said. “Anne Rice copied my book, I mean, Saberhagen’s book.”
“Are we just going to go with that Dracula here went and got himself recorded, and someone turned it into a novel?” Seth asked.
“Both books came out around the same time, I believe,” Dalla said. “I’ll check the copy I have.”
“Has she been stockpiling books for us? How becoming,” Trenchant said with a smile.
“1976,” Fenrir said, flipping to the editions section of the book. “That’s the first edition date for Interview.”
“And 1975 for The Dracula Tape,” Dalla called from a nearby bookshelf.
“Aha!” Dracula crowed. “See? I’m first again.”
“Doesn’t mean much,” Fenrir said. “Books take a lot of time to go from written to published. Two years, conservatively.”
“How do you know that?” Seth asked.
“I was told,” Fenrir added, with a warning to drop the line of enquiry in his tone.
“Let’s read both,” Anatole said. “They are both the same-ish, right?”
“No need to read Tape,” Trenchant said. “Since we already know what happened between our reading of Dracula and the fact that Dracula is standing here scowling at us.”
“Aha, but there’s a twist! You’ll have to read my book to find out what it is!”
“Is it that Mina is a vampire?” Seth said.
“What? No!” Dracula exclaimed before forcibly pretending nonchalance. “How could you possibly?”
“Oh, so that’s the nice lady who dropped you off earlier tonight’s name,” Anatole said. “Yes, you are being followed. No, it’s not unique. Everyone needs a hobby.”
“So reading Interview,” Trenchant said. “And then pretending to have read Tape for Dracula’s benefit.”
“I’m right here!” Dracula said. “You’re so mean.”
The next meeting…
“So I see we’re all wearing ill-fitting puffy sleeves today,” Seth said, very obviously wearing his usual dark patterned suit.
Trenchant quickly interposed herself on the conversation. “And before you make a case against making a child vampire, Fenrir Jarl, I believe the story itself was a caution well made.”
Fenrir grumbled under his moustache and adjusted the collar of his puffy shirt. “Can’t breathe in this thing,” he mumbled.
“Wasn’t aware that was a prerequisite,” Anatole said.
Fenrir scowled, then summarily tore the garment off his bare chest, tugging the remaining sleeves from his hands, and dropped it in a pile on the table in front of him.
“Better.” He settled back.
“I thought they looked dashing in the film,” Anatole said, bemused. “I had my people running all over New Babylon to find those, you know?”
“We’re a book club, dear,” Trenchant said. “No point watching movies and pretending that you’ve read the book.”
“I did read the book! And for once, the film was a bit too modest with the source material.”
“Oh, more sordid love affairs?” Trenchant said. “Between who, this time? Louis and a rat?”
“Surely not Claudia and anyone,” Fenrir grumbled, still eyeing the torn shirt.
“Ever had rat? Or chicken?” Trenchant asked, aghast. “To subsist on? Is that even possible?”
“Can’t be very satisfying,” Anatole said.
Trenchant nodded to herself. “At least this time, there was nothing as base as carnal desire as the fuel between characters. I found it refreshing that vampires showed a healthy disdain for the animal instincts that so fascinate mortals. The vampires were looking for real love for a change; a love eternal.”
“Main reason why Lestat was so damned worried over Louis was the trail of dead birds,” Fenrir said. “Can’t help but hope the one you love is eating enough.”
“So you did see the film!” Anatole said.
“Didn’t that happen in the book?” Seth said. “Could have sworn it did.”
“Your view, Draccy?” Anatole asked.
Dracula merely grumbled, earning a look from Fenrir.
Anatole leaned closer to Dracula. “You’re a bit quiet today. Have you ever had rat?”
“No answer? Chicken got your tongue?”
“He’s not going to talk until we mention his book,” Seth said.
“My book was first!” Dracula exclaimed.
“Oh, nice ruining it, Nine-Pence,” Anatole said.
“I was so looking forward to seeing what would happen first, whether he’d explode or break the armrests off his chair.”
Dracula deliberately removed his hands from the armrests, leaving divots behind.
“He was turning a rather strained shade of pale,” Fenrir said. “That was the main reason I kept that damned shirt on as long as I did. The movie was amusing, though.”
“You saw it, Fenrir Jarl?” Seth asked.
“Queen Anatole had a screening, and don’t you pretend you didn’t see it too.”
Seth sat back with his eyes closed, arms crossed. “I, in fact, showed great restraint. I was going to wait until after our meeting but decided in case there were spoilers. I should make sure that I at least saw it before we started.”
“You heard about the screenings and couldn’t resist, could you?” Anatole said.
“Might I remind all of you,” Trenchant added. “That we are a book club. Let’s keep it to the book, shall we?”
“Too bad there’s no movie about my book,” Dracula sulked. “Then all of you would have seen it by now.”
“There is,” Anatole said.
“Several, most terrible,” Trenchant said.
Dracula’s eyes widened in wonder. “There are?”
“There’s one where Scooby-Doo kills you,” Fenrir said.
“What’s a Scooby?” Dracula asked.
“And Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Seth said.
“To be fair, he turned to mist and got away in that one.”
“Like in my book, both of them,” Dracula said. “Van Helsing, the so-called expert, wasn’t even a little suspicious of the mist.”
“I thought the Francis Ford Coppola was quite nicely done,” Anatole said.
“Some of the casting, though?” Trenchant said.
“A good movie?” Dracula said, scribbling notes.
“But he does die in that one, too,” Fenrir said.
“Drat,” Dracula said, scratching out his notes.
“So back to the book,” Trenchant said.
“Hold on a minute. You said there were good movies about me?” Dracula said, his voice only hinting at pleading.
“Which relationship did you mean, Anatole?” Trenchant asked.
“Louis and Lestat, they’re obviously a couple in the books, but the film prances around the fact like it’s on fire.”
“I wouldn’t call it obvious,” Seth started but then stopped as he pondered the implications.
“Seriously? You obtuse, love hating mongrel?” Anatole said.
“Steady on,” Dracula said.
“Lestat makes Louis a vampire, then happily neglects to say that one needs a coffin? But hey, you can share mine?”
“Anatole,” Fenrir said. “This is not in contention. Lestat refers to Louis as his lover. So I do not doubt the fact. Like us, I don’t think they are interested in the carnal, so the interest must be purely emotional.”
Seth furrowed his brows. “I believe Louis would doubt that fact. He was repulsed by Lestat, quite resistant to almost everything Lestat represented. Hence, the chickens, the moping, and the burnt down the theatre.”
“How dare you,” Anatole said. “Lestat and Louis were made for each other!”
“You are wrong, Anatole, your heart is blinded by Lestat’s shiny eyes,” Seth said.
“Louis and Claudia did try to murder Lestat, so D’Asur may have a point,” Fenrir said.
“A crime of passion!” Anatole said.
“You’re missing the obvious,” Seth said. “And that makes you but a rat to feast on in my contempt!”
“…What,” Dracula said.
Seth stood, palms pressed on the table, fire in his eyes. “There is a pure burning love in the book, one your cold, dead, sensation-seeking heart can’t fathom! Team Louis and Armand forever! Armand let Louis burn all his silly theatre friends to death so that they can be together! They walked the world hand in hand for almost a century.”
Silence followed this proclamation.
“By that logic,” Fenrir said. “Armand also orchestrated the death of the only person Louis cared about.”
Anatole rose slowly. “Lestat’s love is so great that he let his children kill him! And they love him so much that they stopped themselves from the killing blow! They were a family and loved each other! And how did that relationship end? Why aren’t they together now?”
“Lestat just made Claudia to force Louis to stay with him!” Seth said. “How is that not gross manipulation? When did a new child ever improve a failing relationship?”
“My guess was that there was guilt and an inability to forgive regarding Claudia that-” Fenrir said before being interrupted by Anatole.
“How dare you! Who was it that came from the dead to save Louis from being buried alive in a wall? Hmm? Was it Armand?”
“Yes, actually,” Seth said.
“Well, yes, but Lestat made him do it! Out of love!”
“Lestat told Armand-!”
The argument heated up, the others retreated to the bar where Mr Cavendish was just finishing up a pot of rose tea to sweeten the air.
“Good thing we never read the Twilight series,” Trenchant said.
“Quite,” Fenrir added.
“There is something about this book, though, something chilling and mournful.”
“Hmm,” Fenrir added pensively. “I think that this book shows how we could end up if it weren’t for our bloodlines. An eternity of loneliness is a daunting prospect.”
The silence grew leaves.
“So, any real good Dracula movies?” Dracula asked, a cup of rosewater warming his hands.
“Looking for ones you don’t die in?” Trenchant asked.
“Yes,” Dracula said.
“Then no.”
“Oh.”
