The Reluctant Vampire Omnibus

‘Blood oranges?’

‘Yes Father. From now on I have only to eat blood oranges. Isn’t that correct, Doctor?’

Doctor Plump half smiled and half nodded.

‘The Doctor said that blood oranges would be better than real blood if I want to stay cured of the dreaded Vampire vapours, and you know how contagious they are, Father.’

‘Blood oranges are contagious?’ asked his Father.

‘No Father, the vapours are contagious,’ Valentine corrected.

‘I see,’ said Victor, almost to himself. ‘Vell, iff you haff to haff blood oranges, then blood oranges it vill be.’ He looked at his wife, who knowing Valentine’s feelings about blood, nodded her head in agreement.

‘But I’m tellink you this, mine son. Blood oranges vill eventually rot your teeth. Come everyvon. Ve vill all go into the village to celebrate Valentine’s recovery.’ He led the way to the window.

Valentine didn’t want to go out of the window and neither did the Doctor. Nor would Ronnoco Sed when he came round.

‘Er … Father.’

‘Yes, mine son.’

‘Maybe I should take the others out by the front door.’

‘Vy?’

‘Well, they are not like us. They can’t turn into bats and fly out of the window.’

‘Throw Igon out of the window. Please let me throw Igon out of the window, Father,’ Vernon begged.

‘There, there, dear,’ his mother said. ‘Not tonight. Maybe some other night. Now do as your Father asks.’

Victor fixed his eyes on his wife. ‘Asks?’ he said loudly. ‘Asks,’ he said even louder. ‘Do as your Father tells him, not asks. I am the Kink ant you all do as I command. All off you. Unterstant?’

Vernon and the King of the Vampires looked at each other. The air in the room crackled with electric hate. Vernon backed down under his father’s gaze. Victor, knowing he had beaten his son, gave a smile that could freeze two flames together. He looked around the room, his gaze resting on his other son, Valentine.

‘Very vell, you take the others out through the front door.’ He looked at the Doctor and the servant. ‘I vould take you out that vay mineself, but I’m afraid I don’t know vere the front door is.’

With that he gathered his wife and Vernon close to him, put his hand inside his cloak pocket, bringing out the ex-mayor of Katchem, and put him on his shoulder. He led them to the window, saying before they all jumped.

‘Ve vill see you in the main street, in the doorvay off Motherscares, ya?’

It took Ronnoco Sed a little while to come round fully. The three of them then made their way to the door. Then Valentine looked round and saw Igon huddled in a corner of the room with tears of sadness welling up in his eye.

‘Come on,’ Valentine called. ‘We can’t go without you, can we? You are the only one who knows the way.’

Igon wiped the tears away from his eye with his sleeve and ran after his hero, Valentine.

It took them forty minutes to get to the front door and that was at speed. It took Igon forty seconds to get to the same door. He had found a shortcut. To be perfectly honest, the shortcut found him.

He was leaning against a wooden panel along the corridor, trying to get his breath back, when suddenly the panel opened and he fell straight down, landing on the stone flags below, just outside the front door.

Lady Luck continued to be with him that night and luckily the fall was broken by his legs. He didn’t cry out in pain, having been taught from the beatings given to him by his lovely and much-missed Mummy to be impervious to pain. He always used to say she had the best left hook he had ever felt and she could have been the world champion heavyweight boxer if she hadn’t been disqualified in the tenth for consistent butting.

Igon lay there, thinking of Mummsy and what the other lads would think of him being there before them. They were quite surprised.

Meanwhile, King Victor, Queen Valeeta and Prince Vernon stood in the doorway of Motherscares, sheltering from the rain. They were huddled together, trying very hard not to attract the attention of Wilf the Werewolf who was across the street, also sheltering from the rain in the doorway of Boots the Cobbler, whose son was in England learning to be a chemist. Of course, everyone wondered what good that would do him.

Wilf stood there, leaning near the window, loudly eating the last of his smokey bacon crisps. It was two in the morning and the rain was still pouring down. Wilf normally wasn’t bothered about rain but tonight he wasn’t too happy as it was affecting his hard pad and as most of you realise, there’s nothing worse for a werewolf than a wet hard pad.

A lonely, huddled figure walked nervously along the pavement. Wilf squeezed back against the shop doorway, trying to press himself against it so as to be almost invisible.

The lonely figure looked round to see if it was being followed and as it passed the entrance to the shop where Wilf was hiding, a parcel fell on to the ground. The figure stooped down to pick it up at the same time as Wilf sprang out to grab the figure.

Victor, Valeeta and Vernon all watched Wilf sail over the top of the bent figure and land in the middle of the road. In all his years (over two hundred of them) Victor had never seen a werewolf with such a surprised look on his face. Its face had the same look a midget would have who had just been told he had won the long jump in the Olympics.

The huddled figure stood up and looked across the road to see Wilf sprawling in the gutter. Instead of running off while it had the opportunity, it walked towards Wilf and helped him out of the road.

‘Are you all right, Wilf?’

‘Fine thanks, Mum,’ Wilf answered back. ‘I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing out at this time of night?’

‘Well dear, I thought you would be about the village, what with it raining so hard and your corns …’

‘Hard pad, Mum.’

‘Oh yes. Well, like I was saying, I thought you’d be around on account of the rain. I thought you wouldn’t be going off into the woods and all that scaring the children stuff …’

‘And grown-ups as well, Mum.’

‘Of course, dear … in the pouring rain.’ Wilf’s mum smiled at her son. ‘So I’ve brought your favourite; a toasted cheese sandwich.’

‘Aw Mum. Who ever heard of a werewolf eating a toasted cheese sandwich? I mean to say, Mum. Couldn’t you have brought something like a pork chop?’

‘A pork chop? Why, Wilf Igrate.’ She called him by his full name. ‘You don’t like pork chops. You always say “I don’t like pork chops” and here you are in the middle of Katchem, actually asking for pork chops! Well I never. Wilf, you worry me the way you never know what you want. Lord knows, I’ve accepted the fact that you’re a werewolf, although what your father would say if he ever came back I shudder to think. But I honestly cannot get used to your not knowing what you want.’

‘I tell you what, Mum,’ Wilf said, trying his best to get back into her good books. ‘I tell you what.’

‘What?’ she said sharply.

‘Leave the sandwich and I will eat it, I promise. Cross my heart.’ He drew a cross on his body.

‘That’s your liver, you big oaf.’

‘Well, you know what I mean, Mum.’ He put a paw around her ample body and tried to lick her face. She pushed him away gently, saying:

‘Stop that, you big soft thing. I’m going home now so if I don’t see you, be a good boy and don’t forget when you come home I want a loaf. Fresh, mind you.’

Wilf nodded and gave his Mum another quick lick. She walked back up the street, glad she had made the effort and seen her boy.

All through this mother and son reunion the royal family of Vampires stood stock still and watched them from the doorway of Motherscares. Wilf had no idea they were there, and the Vampires were happy to keep it that way, especially Valeeta who really didn’t like Wilf on the rather selfish grounds that he could grow his own fur coat, while she had to beg and pray to her husband to get her one. In all fairness he did so, even though the first time she wore it two dogs chased her up a tree.

Wilf would never have seen them at all if it hadn’t been for Ronnoco, Doctor Plump, Valentine and Igon coming noisily down the street and stopping in front of Motherscares.

He limped across the street to them, kicking his rolled-up smokey bacon crisp packet in the style of Gotcha’s most famous footballer, Cruft, whom Wilf had a tremendous admiration for. Valeeta spoke in a vicious whisper to Victor.

‘Get rid of him.’

Victor looked at his wife in surprise. ‘Eh?’

‘Get rid of him.’

‘Who?’

‘Him.’ She nodded towards Wilf playing football in the middle of the road.

‘Vilf?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Vilf … I mean Wilf.’

‘You mean kill him?’

‘If you have to.’

‘But I can’t do that.’ He spoke quickly and softly out of the corner of his mouth. He always found this difficult to do on account of the rather large teeth on either side. ‘He is von of our biggest tourist attractions. He brinks in thousands of gripples a year. It’s through him that ve haff vater runnink out off the taps.’

Wilf kicked the rolled crisp packet towards them with all his might and shouted ‘Goal’. The ‘ball’ hit Vernon in the face. As it bounced off his face it left a small piece of crisp on the end of his nose which Wilf licked off. Vernon stood there and fumed.

‘Hello everybody,’ Wilf said, offering his paw to be shaken. Valentine spoke first.

‘Hello Wilf. The way you’re playing you’ll soon make the national team.’

‘Thanks Val. I thought you had the dreaded vapours.’

‘No. Er … not now. Doctor Plump cured me.’

‘Well done, Doc,’ Wilf said, walking over to the Doctor and shaking his wet fur all over him. Ronnoco looked at Wilf and passed out on the shop door entrance. Everyone ignored him.

Queen Valeeta was starting to get a little angry with all the noise and the confusion. It was a mite too much for her. She asked rather loudly what the time was. No one had a watch with them and the village clock was broken because someone kept sitting on the long hand at a quarter to twelve every night. But Wilf told her not to worry about the time as he could easily find out for her.

He went over the road and under a closed, curtained window he began to howl at the top of his voice. After about a minute of howling, the window opened and a voice shouted down to Wilf:

‘What are you doing, Wilf? Don’t you know that it’s almost two thirty in the morning?’ and with that slammed his window.

Wilf thanked him and skipped back across the road to Valeeta to tell her the time was two thirty. She was quite impressed with Wilf’s guile.

They all stayed there in the shop doorway until it was almost dawn and then, of course, the Vampire family had to go back to the castle to sleep for the rest of the day.

But Valentine wasn’t happy. He wanted to get away from all this Vampire business and to live a normal life with a pretty wife and roses around the door of a cottage and the patter of little children’s feet, and not the patter of little rats’ feet like at the castle. But, sadly, he thought, ‘That can’t happen. Not for me. I’m a Vampire and that’s it. It’s the old saying of Vampires: “Home is where your artery is.”’ Sadly he pulled down his coffin lid and went to sleep.

Vernon thought of diabolical ways of getting rid of Igon before pulling his coffin lid down for the day. King Victor had a daymare, dreaming of living on blood oranges while Queen Valeeta softly smiled to herself in her dream of Wilf.

Wilf stayed in the doorway of Boots and scratched himself to sleep. Ronnoco was left in the doorway of Motherscares, while Doctor Plump went back to his horse and buggy and fell asleep driving home.

Igon sat in the corner of Valentine’s room and thought of his dear, old, kind, generous, heavy-fisted Mother. The wry smile on his face was put there by that same fist!

CHAPTER 4

Valentine’s shocked at his own reflection.

Vernon wants Igon for closer inspection.

Valentine jumped up quickly and hit his head on the coffin lid. Igon awoke instantly and slid over to Valentine’s coffin.

‘What can I do, my Prince?’ he asked through the closed lid.

‘Open the lid, please, Igon,’ came a muffled reply.

‘Pardon?’ asked Igon.

‘Open the lid please, Igon,’ Valentine’s voice said softly but with urgency.

‘I’m sorry Sire, but I can’t hear you properly. I’ll open the lid so that I can hear you.’

Igon opened the lid but hardly more than a crack.

‘Thank you, Igon, but could you just open the lid a little more, please?’

‘I mustn’t, Sire. It’s daylight and it’s dangerous for Vampires to be abroad in daylight.’

‘Just open the lid. It’s too heavy from the inside.’

‘No, Sire,’ Igon was at a loss. Although not a Vampire himself, he knew all the laws and rules of the Vampires’ needs and ways.

‘Igon,’ Valentine nearly shouted. ‘Just for the moment I want you to forget all that rhubarb and list …’

‘You want some rhubarb, Sire? I’ll fetch some immediately.’

‘No, Igon.’ This time Valentine did not shout. ‘Don’t get any rhubarb.’ He spoke very precisely and slowly. ‘Look, the only thing I want you to do is to open my bed lid. That’s all. Just open my bed lid. Now that’s got to be simple, Igon, hasn’t it.’

‘Oh yes, Sire. But it’s daylight and what would your father say if he found out I’d let you out in the daylight? You might die and I definitely would.’

‘I won’t tell him, Igon. Honest, I won’t tell him you let me out,’ Valentine pleaded through the crack of light. ‘Igon, haven’t I always been kind to you?’

Igon nodded at the coffin where the sad voice was coming from.

‘And haven’t I always been on your side and stuck up for you? Haven’t I, Igon?’

Igon blinked as a tear rolled down his left cheek. He also looked at his glass eye to see if that was crying, but it wasn’t.

‘Yes, Sire, you have been the only one,’ he sobbed.

‘So trust me, Igon. Trust me. Lift the lid and I promise you that nothing will happen to me and nothing, my little friend, will happen to you. I give you my word.’

That was good enough for Igon. Not because Valentine had given his word, although that in itself was enough, but because he had called Igon his little friend. And he had called him little friend without putting words like ‘ugly’ or ‘stupid’ in front of it.

Within a few seconds Valentine was sitting up, shading his eyes against the sunlight that was filtering in through the dark, heavy curtains.

‘Open the curtains, Igon.’

‘Should I, Sire? I don’t want you to die, Sire. You are the only friend I’ve got. If you die, Sire, I might as well die too.’ Here Igon looked as sweet as he could, rather like half a lemon that had been squeezed two weeks ago. Valentine gave a smile of thanks and true affection.

‘I promise you, Igon. The daylight will not kill me,’ he said, and at the same time sprang to the floor. ‘Come, let’s get some wonderful hot sunlight into this musty old room.’

Valentine strode boldly over to the curtains and with one swift movement threw them apart. Igon ran around the room like a demented gerbil. The entire room was bathed in hot, bright, beautiful, life-giving sunshine.

Igon covered his eye and face with his hands while Valentine looked down on the village below and watched happily as the heat of the sun warmed his body. For the first time he could remember, he felt not only well but good. He wanted to do someone, somewhere, some good. He wanted to share his happiness with someone. He looked at Igon and, still smiling, said:

‘It’s all right, Igon. I’m still here. You can look at me. I’m not dead. Look at me.’

Igon nervously took his hands away from his face and through a squinted eye looked at Valentine who was fully bathed in sunshine.

‘This can’t be right, Sire,’ Igon said with a shaking voice.

‘Ah, but it is, Igon, it is,’ said Valentine, taking a huge, deep breath.

Igon sat in the middle of the room on the floor, looking quite lost and befuddled.

‘Come, Igon,’ Valentine continued. ‘Let’s go to the village and meet some real people. People who we’ve never seen before. Maybe even a pretty girl.’

‘For me?’ Igon asked, his eye brightening up.

‘Who knows?’ Valentine laughed.

They left the castle, Valentine hoping it was for good. He intended to send the King and Queen a night letter thanking them for all they had done for him, but somehow things don’t always work out the way you plan.

The first thing they heard when they got to the village was the gossip that Ronnoco had been put in the only cell of the jail for being found supposedly drunk in the doorway of Motherscares.

To both Valentine and Igon the village seemed packed. They had never seen so many people at once. Valentine was very excited at seeing things that he had never seen before. Things like birds in a cage, all singing; beautiful, bright little things. He had never seen birds at the castle. Only once he remembered seeing a vulture flying over the castle when his old Uncle Vermillion had died. It was said that he had fallen down at night on to a stake that somehow had pierced his heart.

Igon, as a boy, had been taken to the village, but he had almost forgotten the things he’d seen. Today the thing that caught his eye was a monocle which he thought he would save up for, then put in his eye pouch for his glass eye.

The whole day for the two of them was spent looking at everything. Igon soon got over the fact that Valentine was still alive and that the daylight hadn’t killed him or even slowed him down for that matter. It seemed to make him stronger although it worried Igon slightly that Valentine’s skin was starting to turn a little on the red side.

It was now late afternoon. Both of them were starting to feel a little hungry, particularly Igon who was one of those people who could eat a lot of anything at any time. But they had no money and they both knew that in the outside world money was the most important of things and that humans would kill for it.

They stood looking wistfully into the window of Ari Hovis the baker at the hot bread and the beautiful cakes and scones. It was then that Igon noticed his reflection.

His heart missed a beat, if not two or three, not at his own ugliness but the fact that standing next to him in the reflection of the window was Valentine. A thousand thoughts raced through Igon’s tiny mind.

‘Vampires have no reflection. Should I tell him? Should I tell his father, the King of all the Vampires, that one of his sons had a reflection? What should I do?’ He was so agitated he started to jump up and down, so much so that people stopped to watch him doing his jig in the middle of the main street. This ugly little man with a tall, handsome fellow in full evening dress.

But, the people just thought they were from the circus, always due around this time of the year, and that these two fellows were here to advertise it. No one considered it would be anyone from the castle. Why, the only person to be seen from the castle was the King and he was only ever seen at night and very late at that.

Valentine realised they were being stared at, so, in a nice, gentle way he tried to stop Igon from doing this foolish jig. Igon couldn’t be stopped and still carried on with his dance, pointing towards the window. He was so excited he couldn’t speak.

Valentine looked in the window, saw their reflection and thought they looked like a circus ringmaster and his performing monkey. It was almost a full minute before Valentine realised why Igon was so excited and kept pointing to the window. For the first time, Valentine saw his reflection!

He raised an arm above his head to see if the other person who looked like him would raise his arm. He did. Valentine then lifted his top hat. So did the other fellow in the window. Igon and Valentine walked to the next shop and looked in their window. Yes, they could still see each other. They ran along the street, looking in all the windows, still seeing themselves. They were now shouting with joy, pointing to themselves in the window and to passers-by, who thought it was some crazy publicity stunt thought up to attract them to the circus.

At last, Igon and Valentine threw themselves down on the grass just outside the village, almost completely exhausted. Sweat was running off Valentine’s forehead. This was also a new phenomenon to Valentine. Vampires do not perspire or even sweat under any circumstances.

‘What does it all mean, Sire?’ Igon asked.

‘I don’t fully understand yet. It started when I bumped my head in my coffin this morning. I somehow knew that I had to get up, no matter what time of day it was. I knew something was that little bit different. I’ve really felt it since it was thought I had the dreaded Vampire vapours and yet, you see, I knew I didn’t have the vapours. I knew I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, catch the vapours. I couldn’t catch the vapours for one very good reason.’

‘What was that, Master?’

‘Because, my faithful little friend, I’m not a Vampire. I can’t be. Have you ever seen a Vampire’s reflection?’

Igon shook his head.

‘Have you ever seen a Vampire perspire the way I am right now?’

Igon shook his head again.

‘And last, but by no means least, have you ever seen a Vampire walking about in the daylight as I am now? Have you? In all your years of living in the castle, have you ever seen a walking-about-in-the-daytime, perspiring and looking-at-himself-in-the-mirror-type Vampire?’

‘Never,’ said Igon, a glimmer of understanding coming through. ‘Never, never, never.’ He was shouting now.

They both stood up and looked at each other with love and understanding.

Igon asked, ‘Does this really mean then that you’re not a Vampire?’

‘I’m sure it does,’ Valentine said with a smile a mile wide.

‘Then, could the same thing happen to me?’ Igon asked, slowly and seriously.

‘How could it? You’re not a Vampire.’

‘Forget about the Vampire bit. I mean, like you, could I … me … wake up one morning and find out that I’m not ugly any more. Could that happen to me? Like waking up and finding you’re not a Vampire. Could that happen?’

Not for the first time Valentine saw the sadness in Igon’s squat, dirty face.

‘Well … er … I don’t see why not,’ Valentine answered a little too glibly for the truth.

‘I’d like that,’ Igon said with a sigh. ‘So. What next? What are we going to do now. Go back to the castle and tell the King and Queen that you’re not a Vampire?’

‘I think not, Igon. I think not. You see, I have a feeling and I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that that would not overplease them.’

Igon looked at Valentine and although not really understanding, nodded wisely. It was all too much for him but as he looked into the distance he saw a figure walking along the footpath about a half a mile away, towards the forest.

‘That’s Wilf. Wilf the Werewolf,’ Igon said. ‘Should we tell him? Should we shout and tell him you’re not a Vampire?’

Valentine put his hand over Igon’s mouth. ‘No. If that’s Wilf, then it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.’

They both laughed out loud, almost loud enough for Wilf to hear.

That night they stayed out of the village and went deep into the forest to sleep and work things out. Valentine had the sneaking feeling that King Victor would soon find out about their disappearance from the castle and would not be too happy about it. He would almost certainly send out the Vampire guards to search for them. If the guards found them they would be taken back to the castle and Valentine would be heavily chastised and punished while Igon, in all probability, would be given to Vernon to play with and do as he wished.