Rubber Bats

He’d tried. He’d tried so hard, schemed for so long, done everything he could think of, and still, after all this time, all of his planning, he’d failed again. It seemed that, no matter how patient, how careful, he just couldn’t die.

He hadn’t always longed for death, of course. In the beginning, when the change had first come over him, he’d relished the feeling of power, of control. He almost didn’t believe he’d been one of them, one of the damned cattle that seemed to fawn over him, to obey his every whim, to give themselves freely to his embrace whenever he asked. However, that had been almost too many years ago to remember, and now he was just tired, and soul-crushingly bored, and so he’d decided that it was time to die. The trouble was, he had no idea how to do it. Vlad paced across the top of the ruined tower, pausing at the edge of the parapet and lamenting that he couldn’t just throw himself into the gorge below. It wouldn’t have worked, of course. Nothing ever did. When he’d first made the decision, he’d tried everything he could think of; he’d drunk holy water, eaten garlic by the handful, stood and greeted the morning sun. All had hurt like hell, but here he still was. He’d even tried to impale himself, but even with his great strength, he just didn’t have the right angle to punch the wooden stake through his ribs and into his heart. Of course, none of his servants would help; they all loved “the master” far too much to ever see him come to harm, and on the single occasion where he’d gotten that Renfield to swing the hammer, he’d barely tapped the end of the stake. Useless.

He’d finally decided that the only way it was going to happen was if he got a human to do it for him, to take his death from them, just as he’d taken his life from them for all of these years. He had thought, at the time, that it would be exceedingly easy; the local legends spoke volumes about his kind. These people knew about vampires! With high spirits, he’d set himself up in the castle and started blatantly feeding on the population of the nearby town, leaving bodies in gutters with their necks cleanly pierced. He’d imagined it would only be a matter of weeks before the peasants rose up against their monstrous Count and put an end to him. Instead, they’d told their children to stay away from the castle and gone on about their lives. He turned his head toward the town and offered them a silent curse.

He decided he’d have to be more subtle about it. He’d gone to England and set himself up under an assumed name as an aloof but charming figure, looking for just the right man to carry out the job. He thought he’d found him, too, and so he’d dragged this Aubrey halfway across Europe over a period of months, ruining men and ravishing women to show the youth exactly what kind of man he was, and finally spying on the boy and killing a mussle-woman he seemed to be falling for. Finally, he’d gotten himself “killed” in front of the young man and then shown up a month later back in England at an event at which he knew the other would be. For a moment, Vlad had hoped that his work had paid off, but then he’d gotten impatient at waiting for the boy to strike, and so he’d applied too much pressure, pushed too hard by threatening to run off with Aubrey’s sister. Instead of striking, the boy had cracked, succumbed to the mental strain, and there was nothing for it but to drain the girl dry and return to Moldavia.

He’d sulked for a long time, then, just as he was doing now, but he hadn’t lost his resolve. He just needed to play a longer game. The new boy, Harker, had been something of a surprise; he’d expected an older solicitor, one of those crusty old bastards that wouldn’t stand for any sort of funny business. Still, he’d attempted to make the best of it. It was painfully slow going.He’d decked the castle in all the ghastly materials he could find, down to making sure that there were rats in every corner and spiders in every web. He’d stared longingly at the boy’s throat all through their meals together, only came out at night, locked the boy in so he felt confined and claustrophobic. He’d stood right behind Harker as he was shaving and breathed as heavily as he thought he could get away with, so that the man couldn’t help but notice his lack of reflection, and then, rather convincingly he thought, he’d flung the mirror away as though he hated the thing. He’d even sicced his wives, remnants of his younger days, on the youth, to make him fear not only for his life but for his very soul, and then he’d let the man escape and pursued him back to England.

Vlad’s jaw clinched, and he stamped his foot on the stone roof. It had all been going so well! Harker had hired a damned vampire hunter, for Christ’s sake! The man knew how to kill him! He’d proved that when he put down the other one he’d created, that Lucy Something-or-another. Staked her and cut off her head! Thorough and precise! And yet, after everything, after leading a wide trail back here to his castle, after paying the gypsies to kill one of them just so they’d be sure to be mad enough, even after all that… what had they done? Slashed his throat and stabbed him with a knife, as if such pitiful wounds would even keep him down for long. Damn damn damn!

The Count’s fist struck the stone of the parapet. For a moment he seemed frozen, and then he breathed in deeply, more from habit than anything else even after all these years. Yet another failure. He let out the breath in a long sigh, then composed himself and straightened the collar of his cape. There would be other opportunities, other places and times. He was nothing if not patient. He gripped the edge of the cape, twirled it up in front of his face, and mustered his best soul-piercing gaze. Some day, he’d figure it out.