There was a knock at the front door, and Max immediately jumped up to get it, pausing only for a shortHelsing home might or might not be a vampire, and Max was going to be sure he or she wasn't some one he already knew. She was not.
At least, he didn't know of any blood-sucker with such long, deep-red hair or pine- green eyes.
Max flung open the door with child-like enthusiasm, one hand going to the small blessed crucifix at his throat, just in case. "Hello?" He said, a little suspiciously, "Can I help you?"
The stranger gasped, visibly shocked, then pulled back a small decorated box clearly marked with the name, 'Gustav'. She smiled a little sadly and turned to go.
"No, wait." Max kept her from turning around and leaving, "I think you want my Uncle Gustav. I'll-- I'll go get him." He was just about to invite her in, but quickly thought better of it. She hadn't yet said who she was, or why she wanted to see his uncle, but neither had she moved over the threshold. He stuck his head 'round the door frame into the room where the old man was dottling with his note book. "Uncle Gustav, there's some cute girl here to see you. Is she your girlfriend?" he teased.
"What?" Gustav looked up from his scribblings, "My heavens, no. Who is she?"
"She didn't say. Don't worry, I didn't invite her in!" He beamed, happy that he had done a proper vampire-hunter thing.
"Good for you, Max." Gustav patted the boy on the head as he went to the still- open door. "My word! Lita?!"
The young woman smiled and nodded. Gustav immediately stepped out of the doorframe and onto the porch to encase her in a giant bear hug. Once they parted, he turned to see all three children staring in quiet shock and amusement. Amused because of the old man's behavior, shocked because he had left the safety of the house after dusk. Gustav quickly stepped back into the house, leaving Miss Lita on the steps, absently twiddling her thumbs and twirling a silver band that circled her left ring-finger. When Gustav turned to talk to her once more, she smiled sheepishly and he gave his head a quick shake,
"Oh! Dear me, I've quite forgotten! Enter freely and of your own will."
Lita gratefully walked into the cozy house, rubbing her shoulders slightly, as if cold. She smiled once more, then froze in her tracks, staring bug-eyed at the Cross-Of-The-Magyars. All four Helsing descendants followed her line of sight, three trying to comprehend why she should be so frightened, one cursing himself under his breath for his lack of hospitality and stupidity.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Gustav said immediately, running up the stairs and pulling the cross off the wall. He came back down, and handed the heavy metal to Max, who happened to be standing the closest. "Go put that under the sink please Max."
"But, Uncle Gustav--!" He started to protest. Chris and Sophie looked on with genuine amazement.
"Do as you're told, Maximlillon!" Gustav hissed.
The boy was too confused to do anything but obey. But secretly, he wondered just what his uncle was up to, for every time he approached the visitor, he felt the cross grow warm in his hands. This lady must surely be a vampire! Yet Uncle Gustav allowed her, no, invited her into their home.
What was wrong with him, was he under a spell?
Gustav, meanwhile, had led Lita to the soft and worn couch before the TV, gesturing for her to sit. She did, and he took a seat across the coffee table from her, smiling mightily. Chris and Sophie tentatively took seats elsewhere, perching on the arm of the couch and swinging a seat in from the dining-table, respectively.
"I don't suppose I can offer you any... refreshment?'" Gustav smiled, and Lita shook her head and grinned back.
"Who are you?" Chris asked rather rudely, annoyed with all the European pleasantries.
Lita turned to him, wide-eyed, then back to Gustav for help. "Oh, Christopher!" The old fellow scolded, and Sophie swatted his arm.
"What? All I did was ask!"
"You were rude!" Sophie hissed.
"I'm sorry! I just want to know!" He looked to Lita for understanding, and saw her knowing and forgiving look. "See! She understands!" he chided the other girl.
"I'm sorry, Lita." Gustav apologized, "This is Chris, my nephew, and Sophie, she's staying with me for now. And the other one was Max, Chris' little brother. Oh! There he is." He paused as Lita nodded, understanding, "This is Lita, Chris, Lita Lamont. An... old friend of mine."
The visitor's eyes narrowed as she looked back to Gustav.
"Oh, they know." He said off-handidly. "For a while now."
Lita nearly choked on her teeth.
"Don't worry! They won't try anything, will you children?" Gustav had a look in his eyes that told all three of them that the better say 'yes' or else.
They said yes.
"Uncle Gustav...?" Max started tentatively. "She's a.. she's one of.... she's like Lucard, isn't she?"
"Yes, Max." Gustav reluctantly agreed. "You're very smart."
"Then why did you let her in?" Chris asked, more than a little alarmed.
Lita tried to reach out to take his hand, to comfort him, but Chris quickly stood and backed off, scared stupid and making the sign of the cross. Lita immediately went stiff, and clutched her head between her hands, her mouth opening to scream, but no sound emerging.
"Christopher, stop it!" Gustav ordered.
"But Uncle Gustav--!"
"Stop!!"
Chris stopped. Lita relaxed, and flopped back onto the soft throw-cushions on the couch.
"How do you feel?" Gustav asked her as he tenderly helped her lie back, then re-retreated to his chair. She gave a weak smile.
"Uncle Gustav...?" Sophie whispered, horrified.
"Please, children, sit down. I'll tell you the truth." Gustav sighed, fingers holding the bridge of his nose, then flopping away. "Yes, Lita is a vampire, but she is also my friend."
"But," Max spoke up, "I thought all vampires were... evil." There was a half-hearted laugh from the couch.
"No, no Max. Only vampires born from evil are evil. Lita died in an act of heroism, and was reborn in and act of love. " Gustav's eyes got a bit glazed over as he thought back to that night so long ago, and Lita's head drooped a little, her posture taking on the look of a road-weary traveler. Slowly, Gustav began his narrative:
Years and years ago, it had been, when Klaus was just a boy, younger than Max. He was cute then, in little boy terms, and a regular Denis-the-Menace. No disheveled mop of wavy blond hair, muck-swiped face, or sea-blue eyes could disguise the little terror that he was. And poor Uncle Gustav! Klaus ran him ragged. He had very little time to work on his true 'Helsing Calling', let alone date or go out! Social lives were quite out of the question!
When Gustav finally did have a free moment, he hastily hired a baby-sitter and escaped for the evening. The poor unfortunate this time was a new girl, just moved into the area a few months earlier. Just as Gustav was tightening his tie, he heard the door-bell ring and quickly picked his way around young Klaus' various toys and trucks to the front door. Breathlessly, he yanked the door open and startled the teen-ager waiting there. "I'm sorry!" He apologized, "I'm just in such a hurry, Miss...?"
"Lamont, Lita Lamont." She offered her hand as they hobbled through the rubble that was the living-room.
Gustav took it and said, "I'm Gustav Helsing, and this is my son, Klaus." He gestured to the little boy who was merrily smashing tin cars nose-to-nose as he sat cross- legged on the carpet. By the time Gustav had pointed out all the various first-aid supplies and the kitchen and fridge items, Klaus was holding an Indy Grand Prix on the wall. Once his father was out the door, Klaus dropped his little racers noisily and tugged on Lita's shirt-sleeve.
Lita looked down into his cute seven year-old face. "Hello, Clause. What would you like to do?"
Klaus laughed, "Not Clause!" He giggled, "Klaus! You talk funny!"
"Well, Klaus," she said, pronouncing it properly and scooping him up to sit on the steps by the door. "That's because I have an accent."
"A what?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"An accent. I say things differently than you. You see, people from different parts of the world speak English just a little bit different."
"Where are you from?" He was beginning to understand the concept.
"Scotland, dear. In the Highlands."
"Oooh!" His eyes glittered and he clapped his hands excitedly. "That's far!"
"Yes," she laughed lightly, "It is far."
"Did you come all the way here to see me?"
Lita laughed merrily, her eyes subtly changing from pine green to electric green in her amusement. "Yes, yes I did." She took a quick gander around. "My, what a mess! Did you do all this?!" Klaus nodded vigorously.
"Well, then! What say if we made a deal?"
Klaus regarded her with suspicion. Did he want her to go to bed? His bedtime was hours and hours away!! "What do you want? Will you make me go to sleep?"
"Oh, my no!" Lita laughed, "Why would I do that? You're only eleven years younger than me. I think you get to stay up to at least nine o'clock!"
Klaus' eyes widened at the news. That was nearly half an hour later than his usual bed time! Excited he exclaimed, "Ooooh, really!?" He clapped again as she nodded.
"But," she said solemnly, "Only as long as you clean up this mess while I go get the ice-cream. Does that sound good?"
Klaus' eyes nearly popped right out of his head. He'd get a later bedtime AND ice-cream!?! For an answer, he jumped to his feet and rushed to scoop up his toy trucks. He barely looked up as the baby-sitter strolled into the kitchen.
When Lita finally came back into the living room with the cones, the floor was still a mess, and Klaus was missing. "The little rat!" she swore under her breath. The draft from the open front door fluttered her long red hair. Not only did he vamoose, but he left the door open!!
WHAT? He's gone OUTSIDE!?! Now, Lita was worried, as well as upset. She set the two ice cream cones down on the table, not caring that the chocolate would melt down onto the polished wood. "Klaus?" she called out the open door, "Klaus?!" She poked her head out the frame.
Unexpectedly, she heard a high-pitched and terrified scream. "KLAUS?!?" Uncaring that she was leaving the relative warmth and safety of the house when Mr. Helsing had quite implicitly told her it was unsafe after dark in this neighborhood, Lita rushed out and down the street in the direction of the outcry.
She stopped dead when she saw the sight before her. "Klaus...?" She whispered raggedly. No, no, no! What she was seeing was just not possible! "Klaus!" She yelled again, dispite her unbelief. She was really beginning to sound like a broken record.
The golden-haired, black-clad figure that was holding the little boy off the ground by his shoulders looked up from his gnawing at the child's throat. His chin was absolutely dripping with blood, and his eyes...!
Knowing she would regret her actions, Lita bounded towards the flailing and crying Klaus, trying to pull him out of the monster's grip, and cursing to herself. "I.. should... have... stayed... in... Scotland!" She grumbled disjointedly as she tugged at the boy. Unknowingly, Lita had said her final words.
The attacker just swung a clawed hand in her direction, slicing an arc in the air and sending her stumbling down onto the pavement. He then attempted to finish what he started, but by then, young Klaus had gotten wise and booted him where it hurt most.
The stranger yowled and dropped the kid, who ran directly back to the house the stranger could not enter. Frustrated and upset that this opportunity had slipped through his fingers, he rounded bitterly on the young woman who had interrupted him.
She was laying on her side in a fetal position, her back to him, breathing raggedly and in large gasps, and her hands clamped tightly to her throat. Unexpectedly, he caught a whiff of a most pleasurable smell.
Rich, young, sweet, and above all else... FEMALE. The stranger tugged roughly on one of the girl's arms and pulled her towards him. In doing this, he yanked lose one of her hands, which released the pressure hold on her neck and let the thick lifeblood seep out of the giant gash his sharp nails had unwittingly made. Mmmm, what a smell. And she was a foreigner too!
Knowing that an opportunity such as this would not be likely to arise in the near future, and that she was most definitely going to die anyway, the stranger wrenched her up and pinned her against his chest, and began to drink with delicious slowness from the huge wound that he had accidentally opened with his hands rather than his teeth, allowing her to dangle flaccidly from his powerful arms.
Just as he was drinking, he heard a car engine come roaring over the hill. This reminded him that this place was far too public, and so both vampire and victim vanished from sight, only to re-appear very far away in a warm and well-lit parlor.
There, the attacker cradled the young foreigner in his arms, clumsily dancing to the unheard music of the dying heart until both music and heart ceased to feed his brain.
Klaus ran back to the house as fast as he could, the tears of fear coursing down his cheeks. That had been one of them, one of the Bad Men!! Klaus was very scared, and he slammed the door shut and began to cry even louder. Oh, he hurt! His neck and his shoulders hurt! He wanted his Daddy!
His Daddy? What would his Daddy say if he knew that he had been out after dark? He was never allowed out after the street lamps came on! But that man had been so nice, so nice... He couldn't see him, not his face, but he had promised candy! And Klaus loved candy, even better than ice-cream! But the Nice Man had been a Bad Man! What did his Daddy tell him to do if ever was hurt by one of the Bad Men? 'Find the bottle of water in my desk,' his Daddy had said, 'Pour it on a cloth, and wash your boo-boo. Never take it off until I get home, only if you need to put more water on it can you take it off. Okay?'
"Okay, Daddy... " Klaus whispered, and did as he was told.
Later that evening, Gustav returned home to the sight of two melted ice-cream cones spoiling his good dinner table, and a pale, trembling, and frightened son huddled in the corner of the hallway, a wet cloth pressed to his neck with one hand, and a vial of Holy Water clutched in the other.
Needless to say, it was not the polished mahogany he was worried about. Gustav dropped his coat in the hall and rushed to the boy's side.
"Klaus! What happened, are you all right?" Klaus only began to shake his head, his lip trembling and the tears starting anew. Gustav hastily looked at his son's now -healed wounds and blessed his foresight to tell the boy about the Holy Water. "Klaus, honey," he asked patiently, "Where's Lita? Where's your baby-sitter?" Klaus only shook his head again.
"Gone.... gone..." he hiccuped.
"Gone...? Did one of the Bad Men take her?"
"Don't... don't know..." Klaus began to wail.
"Shhh... honey... shhhh." Gustav cradled his son on his lap. Lita was gone, and it was his fault. He would find her, he swore he would. But right now his little boy needed him, and as strong as the urge to go out and push a few stakes into a few hearts was, he couldn't leave Klaus alone.
The attacker turned away from the carrion on his latest meal, wiping his lips daintily with a brocade-lace handkerchief. Oh, she had been a grand lover, this one!
Sweet, and innocent.
They had danced under the street lamps of her mind together, she had a name for him, and the sweeping passion brought them to the very verge of ecstasy before violently shoving them over. Surely she had felt the bulge of his desire pressed against her soft thigh as he lay on top of her by the fire, just as surely as he had felt the sweet swell of her breasts against his chest.
But now she was dead. He was unsure for how long, for such things varied from person to person, but he was resolved that it would be indefinitely. He did not want this one coming back, wonderful as the experience had been. He didn't really need another, not right now. Disappointed though, he had hardly returned to the room with a wooden stake when she began to stir. Damn it all, but she was fast! He set the deadly tool down, and instead went to a drawer and pulled out a spell-woven band of purest silver with the emblem of the chess-rook emblazoned on it. He knelt by the girl's side and slipped the ring onto her left-hand ring-finger.
His wedding band, as he called it, was now in place, and nothing, save for the death of the vampire fledgling could destroy or remove it. The spell prevented this. Now all the vampire world would know she was his conquest, even though he wasn't certain he'd let her live out the night.
Each of his children got such a ring, regardless of gender. 'Twas a way to keep track of them all. And this one, entertaining and tempting as she was, was no different.
Settling back into a nearby chair, he wondered just what to do with her. Lita's eyes snapped open, and she flew to her feet at the sight of her attacker. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. None! Lita clutched at her throat and tried to speak again. Nothing! The attacker just smiled. Apparently, his cut had destroyed her voice-box. There would be no more screams from this one, no curses, no prayers. Absolutely nothing.
He was delighted.
The following day's paper read: "Boy Attacked, Baby-Sitter Kidnapped"
The next day: "Baby-Sitter Still Missing"
And the next: "Cops Baffled in Disappearance."
The cops were baffled all right, that is, until Lita's body was found laying in a roadside ditch at noon. Then the headlines read: "Slain Sitter found in City!"
The evidence suggested forced confinement, rape, and most definitely death. Her tattered clothing showed her hurried and difficult escape, and her effort to return to the last place she was seen. Poor, poor, Lita.
And poor, poor Gustav had believed that she was truly dead, for he had not seen any bite-marks on her when he briefly glimpsed her body as it was being hauled away on a stretcher. That is, until she showed up on his doorstep that night, weeping her apologies, though she spoke not a word.
Gustav didn't realize at first, but it soon hit him that Lita could no longer speak. She trembled just outside of his door step, moaning gutturally and shaking her head.
Finally, he handed her a note pad and a pen.
She hastily scribbled half phrases, repeating that she was sorry that she couldn't help Klaus, and that she wanted to, but she couldn't get out. She disjointedly re-told the story of that evening, and apologized some more.
Gustav was amazed with her sincerity, for he had never seen such in a vampire before! She cared not for an invitation to enter, nor seemed to harbor any thoughts of hate, revenge, or death. Only guilt! This was the first and only vampire that Gustav had ever pitied, and she was also the only one he had ever consciously invited into his home. The only one he had ever befriended.
Sophie stared for a long time at Lita, then amazed, whispered, "So that's why she hasn't said anything."
"Yes." Gustav agreed softly. "That is why. Now do you understand why I told you to hide the cross, Max?"
Max just nodded.
Then Chris, ever the one with his feet on the ground, asked, "So why are you here now?"
Lita looked up, her pine-green eyes flashing eclectic-green in her remembrance, and reached into her pocket for the package clearly marked 'Gustav'. She handed it to the old man, and he smiled, then pulled a similarly wrapped package out of the cupboard beside him and handing it to her as well.
"What's that for?" Max asked, confused.
"Today is the anniversary of the day when we became friends." Gustav explained, tearing at the coloured paper, "Twenty years, tonight!" He succeeded in opening the little cardboard box and gazed in joy at the tiny crucifix medallion looped onto the strong silver chain.
He pulled it out, and clasped it around his neck. "Oh, Lita! It's wonderful, thank-you!"
Lita smiled and leaned forward a little bit. The little cross flashed and a thin streak of lightning jumped from the metal to Lita's outstretched finger.
"Oooh! It's blessed too!" Gustav exclaimed happily. Then he gestured for Lita to open her gift.
Her eyes grew wide at the sight of the mint-condition copy of Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Even better was the sight of her face when she found it was signed by the author himself! Lita looked as if she wanted to fly on up, right through the roof of the house itself, but instead, she jumped forward and embraced Gustav enthusiastically. Needless to say, Lita made three other friends that night too.
Lucard looked on in disgust through the window as his vampire child, his creation, hugged that accursed vampire hunter!
Hell be damned!
For more than thirty years, he had tried to get into that house, and somehow, every year on the exact same date (except for last year, of course, for he had had her effectively and forcefully 'detained' in his castle), she went bounding in there like she owned the place!
Hell and all it's devils be damned!
He angrily retreated to his castle, pouting before the merrily crackling fire. If only she could invite him in! But he had efficiently seen to the fact that she would never speak again.
That, and she hated his guts! Well, after spending days on end trapped in his castle, in his bedroom, tied up or not, depending on his mood, who could blame her?
The pout got bigger, and Lucard nearly smashed his fist into the arm of the sofa.
Hell, Heaven, and all their souls be damned!
Quietly, Klaus walked up and stood behind his master. "What is it, Vlad?" He asked.
"That stupid, mute bitch is in the Helsing's place!"
Klaus balked at the string of profanity that followed, and absently twirled the silver band that encircled his left ring-finger, wishing that Lucard would stop insulting the young woman who had once given her life for his own.