Tail of the Devil

  He lay down on his bed, arms crossed behind his head. Part of him wished he could help the kid he’d heard, but he had his own problems and no answers for them.

  * * * * *

  Vlad paused in the hallway near Nosferatu’s rooms. He found it amusing that the kids at the school used Nosferatu as a scary story to spook each other, but the fact remained that Nosferatu was an odd creature and it was this oddness that made him valuable. The kids really knew nothing. Nossy, as Vlad preferred to call him, was a bit self-conscious of his bat-like features. So rather than bringing attention to himself, he chose to stay to the shadows.

  Some of Nosferatu’s actions could be blamed on his irritation at the common mistake the human race made by believing that Count Dracula and he were the same person, but things were much more complicated than that.

  Before Mathias had been killed, over three centuries ago, Nossy had been close to him. Vlad knew that if anyone had a chance at reaching the boy, Nossy would.

  Vlad strode through the darkness until he found the door that always seemed cold to the touch. On it, he knocked once.

  * * * * *

  Vlad heard various bumps and noises coming from inside the chamber. And finally, Nosferatu, muttering to himself, answered the door.

  “Vlad, why do you always have to come see me when I’m in the middle of something?” he asked, his wings were quivering. Probably, in frustration.

  Vlad shook his head. “Don’t be so pedantic. I need your help.” He carefully stepped his way into the room and plopped himself down on a worn sofa. Nossy’s chambers were probably the messiest rooms in the entire castle. Not only was it cluttered, but it was all covered in a layer of dust.

  Nosferatu closed the door and stood with his arms crossed. His wings were still quivering.

  Vlad knew something was bothering his old friend, but what, he could not tell. The old bat didn’t seem just frustrated at him. Maybe Lilith was giving him problems again.

  “All right, you need my help...what did you do this time?” Nossy asked.

  Vlad scratched his head. “Well, I know that you know I’ve found him.”

  Nossy nodded. “Yes, so you’ve told me. Go on.”

  “I had an argument of sorts with the boy... and I am ashamed to say, lost my temper.” He rubbed his hands over his face.

  “Umm...” Nossy motioned for him to continue with a claw.

  Vlad could tell he was getting on his friend’s last nerve. He better be out with it before he ended up sitting here for hours while Nossy rambled for hours about whatever it was that had him in a state. “Nossy, I scared the child...he won’t even come near the door.” He sighed and sunk down into the sofa.

  Nossy rolled his eyes and chittered at Vlad. “Tsk, tsk. Vlad, I would have thought you better than that. So, how does this concern me?”

  “You...you were the only one who could reach him before.”

  “Ah, yes. Here we go all over again. Why is it always, ’Nossy, help me.’ or ‘Nossy can you...’ Why is it never, ‘Hey Nossy, let’s go flying.” Nossy flapped his wings and smacked them against his back.

  Vlad took a deep breath. “Nosferatu, you know damn well I ask you to do things with me. It is you who always says that you are too busy.”

  Nosferatu chittered in a way that could be considered a laugh. “Yes... I know. But I have to blame it on someone, don’t I?”

  Vlad laughed. “Yes, Nossy. You do. So, will you help?”

  “Maybe,” he said, already moving through the door and down the hall.

  Vlad couldn’t help it, he loved the old bat. Without Nosferatu, he’d be a very bored vampire.

  * * * * *

  Mathias sat on the bed, holding his legs to his chest. “Damnit.” He punched the pillow beside him. He’d done the unthinkable, the one thing you don’t do on the street- he’d shown his fear.

  He’d already taken a shower, took one when he first ran into his bedroom. He had to get the piss off and he couldn’t risk dirtying anything that wasn’t his. Tepes had made his point. He was weak. And, not only weak, but a worthless piece of shit.

  There was so much he could have done. He didn’t get up off his ass to try to save that kid in the hall, he’d pissed himself, and now he was sitting there, feeling sorry for himself. The shower might have gotten rid of the smell, but it had done nothing to get rid of his embarrassment. If he’d been on the street and done this shit, he’d be dead. Maybe he wasn’t as tough as he thought he was.

  He didn’t let himself cry. Crying would do nothing for him except make him feel worse. He’d already wet himself, he didn’t need to add being a complete wimp to the mix.

  Soon, he heard voices coming from the other room. He took a deep breath. At least he knew Tepes wouldn’t kill him. If he’d wanted to kill him, he’d have already done it. Doing it now made no sense. The only plausible explanation Mathias could come up with was that now that Tepes knew what scared him, he’d use it to his advantage. And he would also probably use that knowledge to make Mathias do things he didn’t want to do.

  A knock sounded on the door. Mathias stayed on his bed.

  “Hello,” said a tenor voice from the other side of the door.

  Mathias didn’t recognize it. Vlad’s voice was deeper than that. “Who is it?”

  The person on the other side of the door cleared his throat. “You would call me... a friend of the family.”

  “Yeah, friend... right,” Mathias muttered. He stretched his wings and let them fall back down. Then, he got up off the bed and crept over to the door. He didn’t feel safe. He stood pressed against the wall next to the door. “That still doesn’t tell me who you are.”

  “I have been called many things, but the most common has been Nosferatu,” the voice said.

  Nosferatu, huh. Guess I’ll find out if he’s so scary after all. He stepped away from the wall, took a deep breath, and then opened the door. Standing in front of him was a tall thin creature thing with an almost bald head, skin the color of newspaper, pointed ears, and long, sharp front teeth. “What do you want?”

  Nosferatu scratched at his head with his claws and straightened his black velvet jacket. “To talk.”

  All right, talk was safe. “Okay.” He said aloud and stepped back from the door, allowing Nosferatu to enter his room. He didn’t bother to try to do anything for the creature and slumped down on the floor with his back against the wall. At least with his back against the wall, no one could sneak up on him from behind.

  Mathias watched Nosferatu close the door, walk across the room, and sit down in a chair opposite of him. After a moment, the bald creature stared at Mathias and seemed to be sizing him up.

  Mathias hated being this scared, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He pressed his back further into the wall. His wings were starting to hurt from being crammed against the wall.

  Nosferatu’s eyes flashed red for a moment, and then turned back to black.

  “You know, for the most part, Vlad’s bark is worse than his bite,” he said.

  Mathias stopped pressing himself into the wall, let his wings relax and leaned forward. He stared into the vampire’s eyes. “And what the fuck do you know about it?” He had to try to look strong.

  Nosferatu took a deep breath and scratched his arm with one of his wings. “Well, if I don’t know Vlad by now, I’ve got problems. Last time I counted, I’d known him for... well over... let’s put it this way, my mother is so old, even her genes are out of style.”

  Mathias couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Nosferatu was probably the weirdest man he’d ever met. His looks, the way he did things, it was so over the top.

  “See, now isn’t that better?” Nosferatu asked.

  Mathias shook his head. “You are strange, you know that?”

  Nosferatu smiled. “Yes, I know.” He then proceeded to adjust himself, popping out his wings and letting them gently graze the floor. His wings were different too, somehow pointier than the others Mathias had see
n.

  Mathias was starting to think he was going to like this one.

  “Now, we might as well get down to business. Vlad, you see, is a blunderer. No other way to put it. This is just one of many.”

  Mathias raised his eyebrows. Wasn’t Dracula supposed to be like this elegant vampire god or something? Guess that’s why they say not to believe everything you read. “Like what?”

  Nosferatu chuckled to himself. “Well, the best one was the first. Vlad also has been known by many names. The earliest was Lucifer.”

  Wait. Dracula really is the devil? Nah. “You can’t be serious,” Mathias said.

  “I am completely serious. For you see, Lucifer did not fall the way you have been told he did. In the beginning, Mathias and Lucifer were the first angels that the Father created. He made them special, black feathers, pale features, the works. We were told that the father had even given them each a part of himself, so that they were able to do things that the rest of us just weren’t capable of.

  “Every angel created after them was different, nowhere near what Mathias and Lucifer looked like. Even our Queen, my own mother, had white feathers.”

  “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that.” Mathias rolled his eyes.

  “Mathias, listen. If you don’t want to hear the story, fine. Tell me now. But if you do, I expect no interruptions.”

  Mathias was quiet for a moment. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do. He motioned for Nosferatu to continue.

  “Very well then... As I was saying, even my mother had white wings. The Father had intended his special children to come to earth and pave the way for the human race. He had planned for Mathias and Lilith, our Queen, to go down and populate, but Adam destroyed it all. Before they were set to leave, Adam lied and told Mathias that the Father had something to tell him. So Mathias left the portal area and Adam went down instead of Mathias. That is how it all began.”

  Nosferatu stretched his wings and let them gracefully fall around his shoulders. “The Father never intended for Adam to be a vampire. So, although his chosen one did not get to go down, he created Lilith in the form of a vampire and later put Adam to earth as a human. Lucifer’s fall came a few years later.”

  Nosferatu waved his hand and a stone goblet appeared in it. He took a sip and settled the goblet between his knees. “Mathias and Lucifer felt unloved, mostly because Adam had gone down instead of Mathias. To make matters worse, Mathias and Lucifer did not believe that the Father had nothing to do with the change in plans, and they chose to believe what they wanted to believe— which was that the Father no longer loved them. Because they thought they had fallen out of favor with the Father, they spent most of their time complaining and whining all over Heaven.”

  Nosferatu smiled and his eyes seemed lost in the mist of the past. “While they were in the middle of their daily walk and whine, Lucifer missed the cloud he’d been walking on, and literally fell. Mathias tried to catch him, but only ended up biting Lucifer on the ass.” Nosferatu snorted. “Why he tried to bite him to catch him, I’ll never know, but Mathias was always weird also... So the fall wasn’t a “fall from grace”, but when, in fact, Lucifer fell off a damn cloud.”

  Mathias rolled around on the floor in hysterics. “He bit him on the ass?”

  Nosferatu laughed. “Still bears the scar to this day. But he tries to blame it on some old sorry story about a fire monster.”

  “What the hell is a fire monster?” Mathias asked.

  The bald vampire rose from his chair, walked over to the bed, and turned it down. “That is a story for another day, and is best told by Vlad himself.”

  “Why do you call him Vlad, and not Lucifer?”

  Nosferatu snorted. “He prefers it that way. Seriously, how would you like to be called “The Prince of Darkness”?”

  Mathias laughed. “Well, unless I was Ozzy Osbourne, I guess it would get kind of old.”

  “Get some sleep. I’ll be here at breakfast. Vlad thought it best that the two of you spend some time apart. For now, I will be staying with you in his chambers.”

  Before Mathias could protest, Nosferatu waved his hand in front of the boy’s eyes and Mathias collapsed onto the bed, fast asleep.

  * * * * *

  Click. Click. Click. CLICK. Click. Click.

  Mathias jerked up in bed. “What is that?”

  Click. Click. Click. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

  He threw back the covers, got out of bed, and stepped closer to the door. He stood for a moment, listening. Then, he pressed his head against the door. The rapid fire clicks continued. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he threw open the door. There, sat Nosferatu sitting in a chair at the table. He closed his mouth and the clicking stopped.

  Mathias rolled his eyes and stepped into the room. What a way to wake up. “What in the hell were you doing?” Mathias asked.

  Nosferatu smiled. “Come get some breakfast. You look positively famished.”

  Mathias felt amused that his question was ignored. The bat was weird anyway. Maybe he figured that his noise made the perfect alarm clock or something?

  Mathias walked over to the table and sat down in his usual chair. Then, he looked at the food covering the table. He’d never seen a spread like this. Various types of expensive fruits were scattered around the table. There were no plates or silverware. The only bit of normalcy Mathias had come to expect was a crystal goblet filled to the brim with blood.

  “What’s all this?” He asked.

  Nosferatu motioned for him to dig in. “I have...some different dietary requirements, and I thought, that maybe, you would enjoy it for a change.”

  It had been a long time since someone had thought something so...simple in regards to things that he might like. He realized he missed that. He grabbed a pomegranate from the table, never having seen one before and leaned down to bite it.

  “No!” Nosferatu grabbed the pomegranate from him. “These you don’t eat the flesh. The flesh is poisonous to humans, and the taste is very sour to us.” He used his thumbnail like a knife and cut the fruit in half. Then, he handed the fruit back to Mathias.

  “You see, with pomegranates, you eat the seeds. No other part. Go on, try it.”

  Mathias carefully pried a seed from the fruit and dropped it after realizing that his fingernails had grown quite long.

  “What is the matter?” Nosferatu asked.

  “My nails...”

  Nosferatu produced a few clicks, much like the ones he’d heard earlier. “It’s normal. If they bother you, you can always file them. But remember, they do have their uses.”

  Mathias nodded. It was hard for him; there was so much to get used to. He picked up the seed and popped it into his mouth. He bit into it, and pleased by the taste, smile. “This is pretty good.”

  Nosferatu smiled back. “I am glad you think so. Pomegranates are one of my weaknesses.”

  Mathias wondered why Nosferatu was so different from Vlad, but he kept his mouth shut. Vlad was always so serious while Nosferatu, well, he was just something else. This wasn’t the time to pry. Then, he remembered, the bald vampire hadn’t answered his question about the strange noise. “What is that sound you make?”

  Nosferatu sighed. “It is called a chitter.”

  “A what?” Mathias asked.

  “A chitter,” he snapped, “I’m part bat.”

  It was kind of interesting to hear him say it. It wasn’t like he wanted to be rude, but it was probably better to hear the story from Nosferatu himself instead of believing the story he heard. “How does that work?”

  Nosferatu rolled his eyes. “Surely, you aren’t that ignorant. My mother, to put it in language you would understand, screwed a bat.”

  Mathias tried not to smirk. It was kind of funny, but probably not very funny to the other vamp. Nosferatu did seem a little off, so what he’d heard wasn’t entirely wrong. “Why did she do that?”

  “I have no idea. She said she recognized a soul mate or some such nonsense.
So here I am, a freak. She always tells me that I shouldn’t worry about it, but people, even vampires, still stare.”

  It was odd. Nosferatu felt more with it than Vlad Tepes did. In a way, that scared the crap out of Mathias. His sire had been the crazy one. Not good. And, with the way Nosferatu seemed, maybe his craziness wasn’t all that crazy. “If it helps, your mother is totally nuts, but it’s not your fault.” Mathias said. Then he thought about it. What business did he have consoling a vampire that was that old?

  Nosferatu smiled. “It’s all right. It is nice of you to try to understand...I knew him, you know.”

  “Knew who?” Mathias asked.

  “Him. The original Mathias.”

  “Wow, you really are old.” Mathias said.

  “One day, some young one will call you ‘old’ too. But yes, I knew him. Probably better than the rest of those who claimed that they knew him. He was my best friend.”

  “Vlad said Mathias was his best friend.”

  Nosferatu chuckled. “We knew him in different time periods. Both of us have fond memories of the man. I think if Mathias were around today, we’d all get along quite famously.”

  Mathias was now so engrossed that he forgot to drink his blood. “What was he like?”

  “I didn’t know him until his final lifetime, which is memorialized by that statue in the courtyard. He would have hated that.”

  “Why?” Mathias asked.

  “Believe it or not, Mathias was a private person. He was really rather humble.”

  Nosferatu pulled an old and tattered book from his robes. Its cover was spotted with age and mold. It was brown leather, at least that’s what it looked like. The pages were yellowed and kind of uneven. “Mathias, I entrust this to you. It is part of my memoirs. It is the volume that I stopped working on after I knew the truth about what had really happened to Mathias. I think, perhaps, that it is easier that you read this, rather than for me to tell it. I’m not sure that I could.”

  Mathias carefully took the old book and gingerly placed it on the table in front of him. He opened it and was surprised to find that it was written in English. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Nosferatu expectantly.