Dracula's Mall Cop Part 1

Since the first one got chopped by Minds, here is the crossover with @molly_b involving her Vampire Mall Cop (stories here: https://mollybdotblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/10/vampire-mall-cop-short-story-extravaganza-v/) and my version of Dracula from my book (https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1312516935975440385)

Here it is again!

                It’s a nice, surprisingly peaceful though busy afternoon. Surprising, since busy and peaceful don’t usually go hand in hand. I haven’t seen this many people at a mall since the 90s. But business being good is technically good for me so long as I don’t have to break up some sort of weekend family dispute over soft serve. It was a little drizzly today; maybe the weather cooled everyone off a little and they’re just in here to wait in case the sun comes back out. 

                I happen to spot a bald guy in glasses talking to a group of teenage girls. They’re exchanging glances like they’re uncomfortable, and at least one is trying to pull the nearest friend away by the elbow. 

                I know a creep when I see one, and sure, the guy hasn’t done anything overt yet, but if he’s up to something, the sight of me in uniform ought to scare him off. 

                I’m about to head over there when I hear someone say, in perfect Russian, “Good day, Comrade. Fine weather, isn’t it?”

                I turn to see why anyone in Portland would 1) be using Russian, and 2) using that particular word that sets my teeth on edge, especially when used by someone speaking Russian. 

                What I see is some guy who is way overdressed—very expensive-looking rain coat, with a nice vest and dress shirt underneath, dress shoes, gloves, the works—talking to some unimposing-looking bald guy with glasses who was putting a tray from the food court away on a trash can and is turning to look at the Russian-speaker. 

                “My mistake,” says the well-dressed guy. “I thought you were someone I knew.”

                “Hey, no problem,” the bald guy replies. “What language was that? You visiting?”

                “Excuse me.” The well-dressed guy gives him the cold shoulder and walks on past, scanning the crowd with purpose. From that ice-cold look, I can tell he’s not looking for a friend. When I turn back to check on the creep and the girls, I don’t spot any of them. Blin. I shouldn’t have let myself get distracted. Still, what’s some rich guy in a suit and overcoat doing talking like he’s a Russian Soviet? Portland may be weird, but I don’t think it’s that weird. 

                Overcoat is about to pass me, and I can’t help but stick my nose in. This sounds like the kind of thing that eventually leads to something like ghosts or other entities. Might as well get a head start in case it’s a problem.

                “Hello to you, Comrade,” I say to him in Russian. 

                This draws his attention, and he stops in his tracks to look me over. He doesn’t look like or smell like anything dangerous—he does have some sort of expensive cologne on, though—until I spot what looks like the hilt of a sword just poking far enough at the inside of his overcoat to get a peek at the outside world. 

                OK, whole new ball game. 

                “This is a family establishment,” I tell him, still in Russian. He hasn’t replied, but his accent was good enough I figure he probably knows the language. “We don’t allow weapons.”

                Overcoat goes big.

                “Sorry, I don’t understand you,” he curtly informs me—in English—and turns to go on his merry way.

                “Hang on there,” I say before he’s taken two steps. “No weapons. Family establishment.”

                He just keeps going. OK, we’ll play it your way. 

                “Hey.” I start after him. I figure, given how he’s been playing this so far, he’s going to pretend he doesn’t hear me and just hurry up, but he stops and turns to confront me. 

                “I am in a hurry,” he tells me. Now I can see that every time he talks to me, he does his best to hide the fact that he finds my ears spellbinding. Well, I spin it that way. In reality, he’s got a pretty strong shadow of disgust in his eyes when he’s looking at me.

                “Well, I won’t take long,” I promise. I sure don’t plan to. I’d like to have this fellow on his merry way out of my mall and back into whatever Soviet era he thinks he’s living in. “If you’d just like to explain why you’ve got a sword with you, I think we can wrap this up in record time.”

                “I don’t talk to freaks in costume.”

                “Who’s in costume, debil? I’m in uniform. You look like you’re dressed up to step into a multi-million dollar casino!” I know what he’s talking about, so I add, “Plus these are authentic. I’m a vampire.”

                His face doesn’t really change, but somehow I can almost hear the gears stripping in his brain when I say that. 

                “Vampires are real,” I amend. Got to be a little gentler about revealing mind-bending truths to the unsuspecting. “Surprise!” I add, hoping that helps.

                In response, Overcoat scans the crowd again. 

                “If I assume that you are not telling a very poorly thought out and executed joke, how is it a vampire is out and about so brazenly in the public square as it were?”

                “We get a lot of entities and such out here. Being a vampire while dealing with those is a perk. Now, let’s talk about you, Mr. Sword-Under-His-Coat? Who are you, and why do you 1) speak Russian, and 2) what are you trying to do by doing that?”

                Overcoat considers the crowd again for a moment.

                “Very well, I suppose it shall be clear enough in a moment if you are telling a joke. I am Vladislav Dracula. I work for the enemy.”

                This fellow just stripped gears in my brain.

                “Huh?”

                He frowns, one eye slightly squinting.

                “You heard me. If you don’t know what I mean, then I have to be on my way.”

                “Hang on there, you. All you just told me is you’re Dracula and you work for my enemies?”

                “Enemies of you and things like you, if you’re supernatural. And I shouldn’t need to explain that if you are.”

                “Look, friend, you don’t tell me about the supernatural. I eat it for breakfast—err, metaphorically. The only enemies I have are people who threaten my mall and my friends. That brings us back to you and what you are up to. Because it seems to me you’re looking for someone.” 

                “I am, and as I said, I am in a great hurry to locate him.”

                “And you need a sword to do that?”

                “Not to locate him, no.”

                “Then maybe you let me hang on to that?”

                He turns and walks off. So much for peaceful. Some people just have to learn the hard way. 

                I powerwalk after him, hoping he’ll run or take a swing at me, or something I can use. Instead, he hears me coming, comes to a stop again, levels a cold look over his shoulder at me, and once I catch up, swings around. 

                “I won’t be harassed by a fake police officer,” he tells me. He tilts his head just a little back to look “down” at me, and something about the movement strikes me as nostalgic, though I’m not sure why. “But you speak Russian. Are you from that country?”

                “…Yeah?” I say, confused at this change in subject.

                “You don’t look old enough to remember, but most folks from Russia in the last several decades have no particular love for Communists, having survived under their rule.”

                This is not a direction I thought we’d take.

                “Not a fan of Commies,” I agree, confused.

                “Then we are of one mind in that regard. The man I seek is one.”

                “Well, we are in Portland…”

                “No. An old guard Communist who escaped justice for crimes.”

                “Really,” I say, doubtfully. “Who? Maybe I know about him?”

                Overcoat—not calling him his funny name—deliberates for a moment before saying, “Lavrentiy Beria.”

                I do know that name. He was a very high-ranked KGB scumbag. He did a lot of elbow-rubbing with the man of steel himself. Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria helped make the gulags what they were—an industrial meat grinder for getting Stalin the slave labor he needed and a dumping ground for countless innocents for the state to suck the life out of. He also liked to prey on young women and girls as a hobby. If you needed a picture for the dictionary under “evil” he’d be a top candidate. I unconsciously bared my fangs, and think how CLOSE I got to getting this guy before the Iron Curtain fell. He got wise to me wandering around hunting KGB agents and ordered me caught. Came down briefly to see who I was, then marched right out of the interrogation. If I’d been in better shape for that, I might have been able to get free and free this monster of his very valuable blood. 

                “It seems you do know who I mean. That being the case, then I suggest you leave me to hunt him down. I doubt I need to explain why I should be on my way.”

                “There is no way—if this guy is really running around my mall—that I’m going to let you have all the fun taking him down. I’m coming with.”

                “Fine. But stay out of my way. I don’t want to trip over you,” Overcoat tells me. 

                “Hey, this is my mall—”

                “And you have stakes or other vampire-hunting weapons, do you?” Overcoat snarls. “All I see is non-lethal modern nonsense.”

                “Well, if he’s a vampire, I got loads of stuff,” I inform Overcoat. “Silver handcuffs, silver-lined gloves—”

                “This is not some stupid movie, and I’m not about to hear more idiocy. Come along, if you insist, but if I hear more of this puerile nonsense I’ll let him eat you.”

                “…Eat me—? Debil, do you hear yourself? I’m the resident vampire here, and the resident monster-beat-upper. You’ve got…a name.”

                He turns and marches off. I come after him. He probably hears me, but he pretends he doesn’t, and goes back to scanning the crowd of mallgoers. Maybe he’s pulling my leg. He saw my ears and my complexion and figure’d I’d buy his stupid name and his stupid story? Not very likely! I pull my radio.

                “Hey, Ben,” I say.

                “Hello there, Damien. Something the matter? I’m currently boiling flying frogs. For science—”

                “Just hoping you’ll back me up here. But it’s not possible for someone to come back as a vampire after being executed, right?”

                “Huh? No, of course not. Wha—”

                “There you go,” I tell Overcoat. He grunts in answer.

                “Boiling frogs? Is your friend a fan of Shakespeare?”

                “People don’t become vampires after they die.”

                He frowns at me. 

                “Violent deaths can turn people into vampires on occasion. Beria seems to be one example. Some of his grisly handiwork turned up in Seattle, so I have been after him since.”

                “Well, I don’t see how you know it’s the same guy. He—”

                I suddenly think of the bald creep talking to the girls. Bald. Glasses. Creepy-looking. Not just any creepy-looking. It takes me a second, but my memory of the guy’s face surfaces. Sure, it was dark, but it’s not like that bothers me. Same creepy-shifty eyes behind those glasses.

                That was him!

                I whirl around. He’s long gone in the crowd. No. Oh no. This is bad. It can’t be that the guy is back, but if he is, then I can’t let him get away. I rush back the way I came, bursting into the middle of the food court. No sign of him.

                “You saw something?”

                Overcoat can move like a cat. I didn’t so much as hear him coming behind me, but when I turn, there he is. 

                “I saw him.”

                He grips the hilt of his sword.

                “Where? I’ll end him straightaway.”

                “No, before. Before I saw you. He was talking to these girls…” This is bad. Sure, the Soviet Union is history, but I doubt that the guy who got kicks out of torturing people is going to let something like the Iron Curtain being down stop him from engaging in his hobby. He’s out of a job, after all. 

                “Girls. Did you see where they were heading?”

                “I didn’t…hang on. If they didn’t head home, there’s a sale over at the Crevasse.”

                “The...?”

                “It’s a big store chain. Been around for ages. Very popular with the young people. Sells clothes. Maybe they headed over there.”

                Off we head. On the way, we pass by the recently re-named “Raw Wood” store—now Columbia Furniture Gorge. They’re having a sale on bedding and such. I happen to glance over, since the store is pretty busy. I see a shiny, bald head. 

                “Hold up.” I shoot out an arm and stop Overcoat in his tracks. He spares a glare at me, but follows my eyes. We stare, waiting to see if he turns so we can confirm he’s our man. After a few moments, he casts a furtive glance around at the other shoppers. 

                He’s our man. Shifty little creep. Gulag Ghandi himself. I don’t know how it’s possible for him to be here, but I recognize that little face. 

                Overcoat reaches into his namesake and pulls out—a magnum. And storms forward.

                “Whoa! What are you doing?!? You can’t open fire that in the middle of a busy mall! Are you insane? You’ll punch right through him and hit someone!”

                Overcoat looks at me. 

                “I’m going to shoot low. Hit him in the foot. That way he can’t run.”

                “You cannot fire that gun in my mall.”

                “I’m going to use the weapons I have at hand, because you will like what happens if I don’t far less.”

                “No guns. Period. I’ll—”

                Overcoat storms back over to me and thrusts the barrel of his giant gun under my chin.

                “Listen, and well. I’ve been dealing with vampires for longer than you’ve been alive. I’m close to six hundred years old, and that’s about six hundred years too many to have the patience for some cosplayer in the most proudly and profoundly weird town in the United States tell me what to do. Now keep out of my way.”

                “Six hundred? Friend, try being from the 1300s.”

                He hesitates, narrows his eyes at me.

                “I don’t take talk-back from peasants.”

                “Well, here in this mall, I’m the rules, buddy.” I pull my unlimited food and smoothie pass. “Read ‘em and weep, voivode.”

                He blinks, I suppose surprised I used the right title. If he is the guy, that’s what he was called back in the day.

                “Yeah, I’m older than you. I got to hear about you, though. Tsar Ivan Grozny sure was a fan. I got to see what it looks like for someone to take lessons from your school. Not pretty. And not something I want all over my mall.”

                “Right now you have a Communist-turned-vampire in your mall sizing up your patrons for a meal and far worse. And you have me. At this point, you can have me before you or behind you. And believe me, you want me *before* you.” 

                “We are not going Medieval on someone in the middle of a bunch of families having a nice weekend.”

                “On the contrary, is there anyone who more deserves such justice? This man committed *genocide*.” 

                Well, when you put it *that way*…

                “No guns!” I say. I get the impression I’m going to have to act fast. If he’s the guy—the real guy—and not just using the name to be funny, then it’s probably a good idea not to let him get rolling. It might spook anyone who catches a glimpse, but I’ve got TWO problems in my mall, and I can only be in one place at a time. I turn into a bat and fly right over Dracula’s shoulder—I guess I can call him that. He’s got too many screws loose to keep calling Overcoat. I zip over a few nicely decorated beds with flocks of pillows on top, and change back just in time to smack straight into Beria and knock him to the floor, me on top.

                Easy peasy. 

                I’ve got out my silver handcuffs and get one around one of his wrists when he punches me right in the chest.

                I’m not prepared for anything to still have kick in it after getting silver on it, so he manages to actually knock me off of him. 

                While I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do next, the Gulag Ghandi pulls out a gun.

                Oh nooo…..

                He points it at me at first, then spots some sort of movement from the corner of his eye and raises it to someone else. Oh, Dracula was coming behind me. Not as a bat, though. Is he even trying? 

                They aim their guns at each other and I expect the mall to end up on the evening news—the last thing I want—but Dracula doesn’t fire. It takes me a moment to realize Dracula is calculating collateral damage. Some people have noticed the danger and are squeaking and mincing out of the way. 

                Beria doesn’t bother worrying about hitting someone else and fires twice. That gets the mallgoers going! Lots of screaming and people running. People always scatter in the same, unconscious way, moving like rolling marbles bumping into everything in a blind search for safety. I check to see how Dracula did with getting shot at. He’s not wearing a bullet-proof vest, and if I’m any gauge, he won’t do incredibly well getting shot.

                One of the shots missed, and I hope it didn’t catch anyone else, but the second got Dracula just about dead center just under his shirt collar, nearly cutting off his tie. He grips at the wound and sinks out of sight behind a bed. So much for that, I guess. I scoot behind a nearby bed when Beria remembers that I tackled him and swings the gun around. Obviously display beds won’t stop bullets, but he shouldn’t be able to see through it anyway. 

                I pull my radio to call Ben for advice on what to do about some kind of zombie-commie-vampire who doesn’t seem to mind silver when I hear a BANG like a car just smashed through a concrete pillar in the parking garage—only here in the middle of a bunch of beds and piles of fancy pillows. Beria jolts and falls—or I think he does. It sounds like it to my ears. 

                I pop back up to see what happened. Looks like he fell, sure enough, and I see his crawling away, one leather shoe partly exploded. Exploded? 

                Oh. Shot. Big caliber. 

                I look over my shoulder. Sure enough, Dracula has actually crawled past a bed and fired his gun at Beria’s foot. 

                He’s tenacious for a man who’s been shot in the chest, I’ll give him that.

                Another look at Beria reveals he’s following my example and trying to hide from sight. It seems Dracula-coat is only going to shoot if he has a clear line and no collateral, which makes Beria safe for the moment.

                Not if I have anything to say about it!

                Over the bed I go, rolling off the far side and ready to pounce on Gulag Ghandi only to be confused for a moment when a bat comes fluttering up from behind the other bed and goes flippity-flapping across the store. Turns out Beria can do that, at least. I’m not sure I want to chase a bat as a bat, but I’m worried I’m going to lose him if I don’t. Before I change, I see the other bat go flap-SMACK straight into a shower curtain and flop down on the floor. 

                Well. 

                I sprint over to the bathroom stuff, only to find the shower curtain is actually a reclaimed chain-link fence covered in plastic.

                Dracula-coat comes up beside me.

                “HA! The Iron Curtain stopped him!” I say.

                Dracula-coat glares at me.

                “Are you a child? This is serious.”

                “Yeah, but…well-timed joke…” I mutter. All right, Kill-joy. 

                No sooner have I said that than Beria scoots under the shower curtain and crawls to the other side. Dracula-coat growls something that sure isn’t Russian and sure isn’t English, and backtracks around the nearest bed to head the guy off on the other side. Nice! We’ll box him in, then. No sooner have we taken up positions on either side of him than he bats on us again and Dracula-coat snaps in whatever language he was speaking and we both watch the little flying rodent go fluttering towards the registers.

                He can’t want to get outside. The sun is setting, but even so, he probably wouldn’t get very far. I sure wouldn’t, anyway. I wonder what his plan is as Drac’ and I rush after him. Turns out his plan was to dive behind the register to hide. Not a fast thinker, this guy. 

                Only it turns out the cashier was hiding back there, because Beria pops back up from behind the register with one arm around her neck and the other holding his gun to her cheek. 

                “Keep back!” he shouts. “She dies!” I can cut his Russian accent with a knife. The cashier sobs through her teeth, her breath ragged and wheezy. Beria grips her so tight he cuts off her air and starts dragging her towards the doors. Dracula has his magnum leveled despite Beria glaring at him from behind the cashier’s frizzy yellow hair, but he only tracks the guy moving. The cashier’s got to be seventeen or so. I see tears tracking down her face, now turning red because of how this Soviet monster has got her. 

                What do I do? I can’t possibly let this escalate, and I DEFINITELY can’t afford to let this go until it’s dark outside so he can escape and probably take his hostage with him. If I turn into a bat, he might be able to shoot me. That’s bound to be way worse than being shot at my current size. Dracula can take a shot himself, but can’t take one at Beria. He’s hiding behind the girl pretty well. 

                I have an idea. 

“Ever see Cyberlawenforcementofficer?” I ask. “That 80s movie about the cop who gets turned into a cyborg by a corrupt corporatist…well, corporation?”

                Dracula frowns and arches an eyebrow at the same time. Neat trick, but also I have a sinking feeling he hasn’t. I check the commie-scum to see if he’s seen the movie. He looks confused, and concerned that I might have successfully shot a winning strategy past him. He tightens his grip on the girl’s throat and hunkers down behind her. 

                We’re in a bad spot. This creep’s going to get away unless one of us can get the girl out of his grip, so in desperation, I hold one hand with two fingers to show legs and play charades to explain what I mean, hoping the ex-KGB-turned vampire doesn’t get what I’m saying.

                Dracula’s pretty quick on the uptake, and frightfully cold-blooded in execution. He raises the magnum, aims, and fires.

                The gun kills all sound for a moment.

                The girl screams and she and the KGB guy topple backwards. Mall goers scream and start running in all directions.

                “What’s going on?” Stace asks over the radio. “What was that??”

                “Uh, a gun.”

                “Don’t tell me we have someone shot over there!” she says. “Also, what do you mean, ‘a gun’? Is there a shooter in here?”

                “I’ll get back to you. Get everyone under control though. Also, we may need a medic.”

                “That we might,” Dracula agrees. He has wasted no time striding towards the two flailing on the floor. The girl has rolled off the commie-vamp and is crawling away, the back of her skirt splattered with blood, but she seems unharmed. Commie isn’t so good. That bullet nearly blew one of his legs off. He’s crawling away, leaving a trail of gore behind him. Dracula actually ignores him and goes to the girl. I don’t believe for a second he’s going to do something gentlemanly, so I rush to intercept but not before he reaches down and rips her skirt clean off, earning him another scream.

                This man’s stone cold.

                “Go get cleaned up,” he tells her, and points to a bathroom. “Here.” He pulls out a portfolio wallet and drops some bills in front of her face. “Get something else to wear. But wash this all off.” He straightens, looks at me. “Your medics know about monsters like Beria?”

                “If there’s something special about his blood, then no.”

                “It may be that his blood is infectious, though not a guarantee. He was a man of the 20th century, after all. Have this young woman seen to.”

                He ignores the fact that she’s wailing and barely able to crawl away. This sort of cruelty takes me back. I guess it’s not a surprise to me any longer than Ivan the Terrible was a fan of this guy. 

                “Here.” He hoists the girl to her feet, then while she cowers and shivers beside him, he strips off his thousand-dollar coat, checks it for a moment for who-knows-what, and nearly gently drapes it over her shoulders. Then he points to the bathroom and ignores her. 

                He turns instead to me. 

                “Well, this is your establishment,” he says. “What do your superiors think we should do with this monster?”

                For a moment, I wonder how it is he doesn’t mean himself. But I know about Beria. This guy got away from me once. He’s not going to get away a second time. Dracula walks up to him as he’s crawling away and steps on his obliterated leg. He keeps crawling and rips the leg free. Dracula *tsks* and then grabs the guy by the back of the coat collar and lifts him from the floor. He carries the man back to me. Beria screams incoherent Russian curses all the way. 

                “I have to honest, I like your idea of going Medieval on ‘im,” I say. “But I don’t think knouts are going to hurt him, right?”

                “How very Russian of you,” Dracula says. “And no, I doubt it.”

                “What do you recommend?”

                He looks at me.

                “I have *one* suggestion,” he says, and tries not to smirk.

                I tilt my head.

                “Look, I’m not gonna lie, he doesn’t seem like any vampire I’ve ever encountered, but are you saying that will kill him?”

                “A stake through the heart is likely to kill him. He was a fairly modern man in life. But you can reach the heart from anywhere so long as you have a stake that’s long enough.”

                “Yeah, well, where are we gonna..?”

                I shift my gaze and my eyes settle on a reclaimed wooden fence that someone must have broken. It’s got pallets nailed to it, with little shelves and pot holders for a vertical garden, but the base of it is a bunch of REAL tall 2 by 4s, with one end sort of sharp for sticking in the ground. Dracula follows my eyes, sees the fence, and turns back. He nods with approval. 

                Not gonna lie, I’ve never done an operation quite like that before. It was dark by the time we got the piece of wood we wanted, and I took some time to figure out where we going to put the guy, but the mall is closing by the time we’re done. 

                “Well, that was one of the most tense, least sane things to happen here in a while,” I say. “So thanks for your help, but next time you’re after a weird vampire like out of a movie, maybe just tell me first before you plan to fire a gun or…revisit old habits?”

                Dracula eyes me. 

                “If you like,” he says. “Though for my part, I pray that I never have cause to come here again. I am more adrift amidst a pack of lunatics here than in Seattle.”

                “Hey, that’s not fair,” I say. 

                “Man, this town sucks,” I hear from behind me. I turn to see a young man—a barista by the looks of the logo on the apron he’s stripping off—“I’ve had it with these capitalist pigs sucking us dry.”

                Aw man, this sort of talk. Right after what we just did. 

                “Hey come on, kid,” I say. “Things aren’t as bad as all that.”

                He looks up at me and his lip curls in a little sneer.

                “Sure, you’d say that. You’re a wannabe pig.”

                “When I was a young man, I knew to speak with respect to my elders,” Dracula cuts in. “You live in a land of prosperity. Be grateful for it.”

                “Whatever, Boomer. You guys had it so easy. I have to live paycheck to paycheck while some corporate bigwig keeps everything. I swear, capitalism is the worst system on planet earth. It treats all of us like slaves.”

                This is getting me a little hot under the collar. I can’t totally blame him; he’s just a dumb kid from Portland. Not someone who ever saw things behind the Iron Curtain. Not someone who ever saw feudalism in its various forms. He’s never had to watch anyone actually starve to death. So is he wrong? Do bears do you know what in the woods? But I have no idea what to say to him. He’ll just ignore me. 

                “The worst?” Dracula says, and I have a sinking feeling. There’s some sort of unpleasant glint in his eye.

                “Hey, whoa, no need to get Medieval here,” I say. He deliberately and obviously pretends not to hear me. The barista kid sneers back at him.

                “Yeah.” The kid glances at Dracula’s clothes. “Looks like you wouldn’t get it.”

                “Capitalism has made me quite wealthy,” Dracula informs him. 

                “Then you’re a bad person. Only people who exploit others get ahead in this stupid system.” 

                Dracula nods to himself, but he’s not agreeing. He’s decided on something in his mind.

                “Hang on there—” I say.

                He hauls back and slaps this kid so hard he hits the pavement. Dracula stands over him.

                “Well, if that is so, then you should not be surprised to be treated like a slave.”

                “Hey!” I say. Dracula glances at me. Then he deliberately fixes a cufflink. 

                “Considering he can clearly see that I am well-armed, I would argue he should have been wiser in who he insulted, *and*that he got off quite lightly,” he says. I can’t argue about the armed thing. Sure, he’s well-dressed, but without the coat, the magnum and sword are in plain view. He’s going to have an adventure getting home with all that hardware on. But still…

                “I would argue my work here is done,” Dracula says, turning his back on the kid who is scrambling to get away from him, his eyes tearing up, groaning incoherently in shock and pain. “Fare well, officer.”

                “Bryant,” I tell him. “Damien Bryant.”

                “Bryant,” he repeats, and nods to me before striding out into the night. 

                “Welcome back,” Malcom said as Dracula strode in the front door, uncharacteristically wearing only a dress vest and dress shirt. His coat was nowhere to be seen. Cammy could plainly see the magnum holster, and he began stripping it off the moment he closed the door behind him.

                “How’d it go?” she asked. “You said it was someone serious? That’s why they sent you out of town?”

                He paused on his way towards his study.  Rather than answer, he gazed out the window.

                “What do you know about Portland?” he asked, turning towards them.

                “Bunch of tree-hugging hippie weirdoes,” Malcom said.

                “Aren’t they basically Seattleites?” Cammy posed. “You know, they like coffee, and their dogs, and recycling, only they’re actually nice? Also, they get way more sun.”

                At this comment, he chuckled and shook his head. 

                “Maybe next time you go, I could come with,” Cammy volunteered. “It might be fun—”

                “No sane person should visit—much less live in—such a place,” he said. Then turned and entered his study. Before closing the door, he did add, “They are, by and large, far nicer than you people are.” And shut the door. 

                Mr. Cuddles, as ever.

                “So how is it that vampires are so different in Seattle?” I ask Ben. “I mean, it’s like they’re from a different universe.” 

                He’s wearing some sort of colander on his head that looks like maybe he’s just stuck Christmas lights on it, but I’m pretty sure it’s something more than that. He hasn’t bothered to explain, and I figure he will and I won’t understand anyway. 

                “Probably some sort of field effect,” he mumbles to himself. “Portland culture embraces this sort of thing. Probably there’s some way to reach different histories or something—say, how did you get that guy up on the roof?”

                “Oh, that.” I scratch my temple. “I flew up there.”

                “You couldn’t have carried a whole human up there.”

                “I flew up a long string with a rope at the bottom. Then stood up there and helped haul everything up.”

                Ben looks at me. 

                “That was pretty gruesome.”

                “That man was more or less the architect of the gulags,” I pointed out. “Among other disgusting….” 

                Ben nods absently. 

                “I guess they do things different in Seattle,” he says.

                “Yeah! I always heard they were rude, but this was way more than I expected.”

                I get a call over my radio. It’s Gar’roth. *Oh no.* 

                “I’ve been getting reports there’s some sort of scarecrow on the roof?” he says.

                “…Yeah,” I say. “There were a lot of birds lately.”

                “Well, ask me first next time. Apparently it’s really scary.”

                “It *is* a scarecrow, Sir.”

                “Hmm, well, just clear it next time.”

                “Absolutely.”