Flesh turned inwards as mechanisms rolled outwards, the hiss of steam and the clank of metal plates resounding as the thing transformed from a human being into a hulking, hunched hunk of pipes and steel. It lurched over, its legs bent at unnatural angles, arms holding it aloft from the ground like some sort of mechanised gorilla. A second, lower pair of arms trailed metallic whips across the earth, and its eyes were great lamps shining out of a blank face.

“I must admit, that was a valiant attempt to convince it, my friend,” the vampire said to me cheerily as the thing began skittering towards us at speed, arms slipping and sliding over the frost-coated loam. “Unfortunately, it’s incapable of thought, and thus your venture was doomed from the outset.”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked as the vampire slid to the ground. A bolt flew overhead, blasting a hole in the earth three yards before us.

“It’s an automaton- it may look like it thinks and breathes and lives and feels, but it’s just hollow inside; it’s only a shambolic heap, rumbling forth under a life force that is not its own.” The vampire thought about this. “A bit like how the princess described humans, really.”

By now we were running again. The vampire suddenly switched directions, dashing to the side - a prescient decision, for a moment later the machine landed where he would have been, gouging a hole in the ground before scrabbling to turn about and propel itself forwards. It made no noise, merely continuing the chase in a hellish silence.

“Perhaps it’s best to stay away from the graves,” the vampire mused, heading towards a quiet grove that had not yet been settled. “That will keep us from disturbing anyone who would, shall we say, be better off asleep.”

The vampire jumped, a bolt of fire passing inches under his feet, and landed in a roll. He rose perfectly back to his feet inside the clearing, propping me up against a tree and turning to face his foe. He spit on the ground and rolled up his sleeves, his fangs seeming to lengthen as he grinned wickedly. “Speaking of things that don’t exist - this should be fun. I enjoy a good tussle with an impossibility.”

The automaton swept into the clearing. Up close it was huge - easily well over nine feet - its steel screeching hideously as it clambered forth, gazing upon the vampire in silent condemnation.

“Well met. You’ll have to excuse my silence earlier - I didn’t want to interfere in a policeman’s duties,” the vampire blithely observed. “After all, obstruction of justice is a major crime.”

A creak, some kind of screech, and the automaton went for his head. To my surprise the vampire took him head on, grabbing the thing’s arms and trying to force it into a grapple.

“Now,” he said casually, as he wrestled the much larger abomination into the earth. “I think we can learn an important lesson from this, one which is not unrelated to my tale.”

“Is this really the time?” I snapped in a panic, hurriedly searching my body for anything that might help him in his struggle against the machine.

“Of course it’s the time. I told you, dead men tell the best tales - and the best tales are those you hear when you’re sad and heavy, and which lighten your hearts again. I believe it was something the princess said to me when I was on the moon…”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Again, stop telling your story backwards - you’d only just arrived in Loomingdale.” I observed, the inanity escaping my lips in my anxiety over the moment.

With a pump of his supernatural muscles the vampire forced the robot to the ground, bringing it to its knees and continuing to exert force on its arms. Nonetheless, his voice was entirely normal and even cheery as he continued. “No, no, you won’t get me this time - the other times I skipped, by mistake, important details, but this time I can assure you it was intentional. My journeys in Loomingdale were entirely uneventful, other than my meeting with the princess and my fight against the dread demon Kruller, who wanted to replace wholesome healthy breakfasts with donuts and bacon.”

“Don’t you think that might be important?” I had stopped digging through my pockets and turned to the ground, looking for tree branches or poles or anything else I could use.

“To me? Sure. As its own narrative? Sure. To our narrative? Not in the slightest. So, as I was saying: I believe it was something the princess said to me when I was on the moon-”

“Can you at least tell me who the princess was, and where she came from?” I begged desperately, half beside myself.

“Oh, the daughter of the mayor was the princess.”

“See! That’s totally like a king!”

The vampire didn’t immediately respond; he was bending the automaton over backward, using his body like a lever to stretch its spine in directions it was never meant to go. The robot screeched and started to thrash, trying to dislodge him before he shattered its mechanical bones.

At last the vampire remarked, “Shovel.”

“Shovel?” I repeated, failing to comprehend the remark.

“The shovel,” the vampire repeated, nodding his head towards the shovel which, all forgotten, I still held in my hand. “I’ve never seen it in action, but Gertrude - ah! You’ve not met her yet - the Great Dame - says that the gravekeepers had it built for precisely this kind of situation.”

“This happens often?” I said inanely, before the automaton succeeded in escaping the vampire’s grasp. It spun about at its hips, dislodging him and throwing him against a nearby tree. Steel whips cracked against the earth, its upper arms breaking apart to reveal claws a foot long.

“I appreciate the alacrity,” Joseph wryly remarked, as he pulled himself from the wreckage of the tree. I blushed. “Ah-”

And then I had to duck myself as the chains flew for my head, striking the vampire instead and sending him hurtling once more into the tree.

“It’s okay. As my master always said, ‘Often, the forces of good will lose; sometimes, this is because they’re led by idiots’ - and I was the leader here.” The vampire cheerily remarked, not from within the rubble but from the thing’s back. He had moved at speeds far faster than I could see, and was straddling the thing, its neck locked in between his arms.

“Now, if we could do that a little faster,” he cheerily observed. I dashed forwards, nearly tripping over myself in my nervousness, and uttering something that could have been a war cry and could have been a squawk I hit the robot over the head.

Light burst from the shovel, an insidious blue glow enveloping me, its touch a warm tickle, and in the distance I heard the sound of bells.

The thing’s head fragmented, bits and bobs and cogs flying every which way, and after an agonising moment the shambolic heap stilled. Slowly, the vampire unwound his arms, letting it slump to the floor.

“I see they still haven’t installed a backup generator. A bunch of cheapskates, if you ask me - imagine failing in your plans of dastardly darkness because you skimped out on safety protocols, all to save a few pennies.” And the vampire slapped his palms together.

“Now, for our next problem.”

“We have another problem?” I asked in confusion.

“Of course. It said it had a partner, now didn’t it?” The vampire asked, and then he leaned backwards - his knees not even bending - as an eight-inch spike passed through where his head had been.