"What's going to happen to us now?"said one of Justin's little friends; he didn't like them as much as he liked Justin, but they hadn't made him discover pizza and they had just woken up, so Dracula supposed he was being a little unfair. "We'll have to drink blood? And stay in the dark forever?"

"What?" He laughed, "No! That would be very inconvenient. Justin can confirm that I attacked him in broad daylight and he led me here with no trouble."

"Oh. I thought vampires couldn't stand sunlight."

"I'd explain it to you, but I'm still confused how you say you didn't know vampires existed until I came into your lives, but at the same time you have weirdly specific ideas about us. Why would garlic do anything to me? I mean, I don't like it, but it's just gross. I'm allowed to have tastes without making it a fatal weakness, right?"

"What about blood?" said another. He'd have to strain to remember their names, or give them numbers. This would be Idiot Number Two, for the moment.

Or not. It was too long.

"Will we have to drink human blood to stay alive?"

"That part is true."

"Also that bloodlust can turn us into beasts?"

"If you haven't eaten properly for too long, yes, of course. But the same can be said of any human, can't it? Put a piece of raw meat in front of a guy who hasn't had a decent meal in over a month and you'll see how savage he becomes." He shook his head, "You humans think you're so special. Better. Well, you're not human anymore, but you know what I mean."

"Why am I here?" Joachim asked.

"To make me pizzas, of course. All the time."

"Okay." He seemed to relax. At least there was someone with a good head among his new servants, as was to be expected from someone so intelligent and tasteful as to devote himself to making pizzas.

"In short, you are free to return to your normal lives," Dracula continued, "just with a little murder on the side. At least until I establish my castle and you have to come and live in it. Whether you like it or not."

There was silence, where they should have been processing his words and making the most sensible decision, that is, the decision he wanted them to make. But an idiot had to go off script.

"I'd rather die than live as a monster, killing innocent people," said Idiot Number... Three? Maybe.

"Then don't do it."

Idiot Number Three looked at him as if he didn't know what to think, but in general thinking was beyond him.

-What are you looking at? It's as simple as that. If you don't want to kill innocents, then don't do it, no need to get melodramatic. There must be plenty of criminals you can sink your teeth into. Go to a jail or wherever our politicians are nowadays and feast on them once in a while. Issue solved, you melodramatic piece of shit. Jesus.

Idiot Number Three opened his mouth as if to say something, but just left it that way for quite some time, upgrading his appearance from idiotic to incredibly idiotic. And then he shut his fat mouth before he could screw up again.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Great. Great. Everything was going fabulously.

"Now Justin, back to the important stuff, really, where do you and your friends get your ideas about vampires from? When at the same time you thought we didn't exist? I can't get it through my head."

"Well, you see, uh..."

What the hell was the mystery? He didn't have to drag it out that long. Justin rummaged through a black bag near the couch and pulled out a gray metallic circle, another TV but smaller, maybe, for some reason?

Dracula didn't want anything to do with the damn TV, there was nothing but crap on it. Though he supposed that was more the fault of the species that had invented it than the device, it didn't change the way things were.

Justin put the metal box in front of him, specifically on the table in front of the television, and opened it.

It had another glass screen, though it was dark. So he had guessed right after all. Dracula felt strangely pleased, even though it meant he was in for just another string of nonsense, because at least he was coming to understand the modern era.

It was important to understand things before destroying them, he had asked Jonathan Van Hellsing what his name was for a reason.

Okay, that wasn't a good example because he hadn't destroyed him, rather the other way around, but well....

Matter of principle or something.

Justin made something appear on the screen. It was now blue in color and demanded that he put in the password. What password? Well, it looks like Justin had everything under control. He did a few things that he didn't understand at all and then backed away.

Was this the answer?

It was like a newspaper article and the title was his name.

"What the hell is this?"

"A summary of a novel."

"No, I mean, what the hell is this?"

"You move it with this?" Justin said, sliding his finger over a smaller square and causing the image on the screen to move.

"Oh. Okay."

So Dracula read it, moving the images around on his own, and discovered that it was more or less a summary of his friendship with Abraham Van Hellsing, although the author of the novel had taken some liberties and made it sound more serious than it really was.

He then asked Justin to teach him how to look up information on this thing he called the Internet (they kept making up words that made no sense, what was the root?).

So he found out more about fictional vampires, a trend that had started when that jackass wrote a novel about him, and he read more. Maybe too much. However, he never did figure out how exactly vampires had gone from being something humans actively feared and hunted with stakes to being "fictional."

That was a big, fat, unexplainable mystery.

But he didn't have the mind for that right now, really. His thoughts were occupied, whether he wanted them to be or not, by a rather poorly drawn picture, but not enough to keep him from seeing what was going on in it. Two "vampires," who for some reason glowed like fairies, kissing.

"What the hell is this?" He'd been saying it too many times lately, but felt it was justified, because this was too much, whatever it was. "We don't sparkle."

"But you kiss other men?" Justin asked.

"If you get to live even five percent of what I've lived through, you'll also get bored with women and decide to experiment a little. Yeah. Don't look at me like that. It'll happen to you. And you'll like it. Besides, some vampires are just plain gay from the start. Are you gay?"

"No. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Well, you will be. And then both. Bisexual." Dracula paused. "Don't you wonder what that word means?"

"We've already invented it."

"No, I've already invented it, but I'm glad mankind has finally caught up. Anyway, I don't... I don't know what to say about all this, really."

At least Justin and his friends had the decency to look embarrassed. Joachim didn't, first of all because that amazing human (the exception that proved the rule) had nothing to be ashamed of, secondly, he was too busy making him a pizza.

"I guess deep down I was never the bad guy here. You deserved to be slaughtered. I'm sorry, but it's true."

Silence descended on the darkness of Justin's house. No one seemed to know what to say and there was no need to say anything, Dracula had already made things quite clear.

"And by God, when is someone going to clean up all this blood? Or do you expect me to do it with my tongue? Well, no! I don't drink blood unless it's straight from a neck or in a nice glass, just so we're clear, you bunch of lazy bums."

The Prince of Darkness Walking Down Fifth Avenue (8): END