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A gust of wind rustled the last few resilient leaves on the barren trees, and Guillermo let out a shiver.
"Shouldn't you be inside?"
"JEs-" Guillermo must have jumped 8 feet in the air. How long had Nandor been standing out here?
"It must be very cold for you out here. Why do you stand in the snow like this? You are a person, not a creamy ice!"
"I was just shoveling the stoop." Guillermo gestured to the shovel with a mitten. "You know. To make it easier to walk through."
Vampires, especially vampires from warm and exotic locales, did not mix well with the snow. The way they trudged through it, when they had to-- it took everything in him not to crack up-- Guillermo put it best to close friends as the way the family cat walked if it had socks put on its feet.
Nandor frowned. "I hear that some humans if they are too much in the cold, they can die from this? I will not have you out here alone at night. You could get bitten by the frost and lose all your fingers and toes!"
Nandor's tone was so familiar it made Guillermo chuckle.
"What, what is it? It is very rude for a familiar to laugh at his master you know."
"Oh, it's nothing master. You just sound like my Abuela."
Nandor's brow furrowed. "Guillermo. You are using one of your strange Mexico words at me again. You will tell me what it means this instant."
"It just means my grandmother. She used to never let me leave the house without wearing a big coat and gloves and ski pants. She was worried I'd catch a cold or something."
"Mm" Nandor looked like he was concentrating for a moment. "Like the film with the bunny and the lamp that looks like a leg."
Guillermo lit up. "Yes! Like A Christmas Story --"
Nandor winced and sucked through his teeth.
"Oh, sorry, sorry. I mean. Like 'A mm-mm Story'."
"Your grandmother sounds like a very smart person. It is strange that your family turned out to be so ordinary and unremarkable in general."
Guillermo ignored this, in favor of another burning question that had just popped into his mind.
"Did you have, you know, a grandma?"
Nandor balked. "Of course I did. Everyone has a grandparent, stupid! And great grandparents and great-great grandparents before that. And before that of course my family was forged in clay to be warriors and rulers of the realm. My goodness, Guillermo, this is very basic knowledge."
"No, I know-" Guillermo rolled his eyes. "I know you HAD grandparents. I meant, like, did you know them? Well?"
Nandor nodded solemnly.
"In my days in Al Quolanodar, the elders of my family were treated with deep respect. When greeting them we would kneel and kiss their hands and feet, and consult them before affairs of the state."
Nandor continued.
"Of course, in our lands, it was equal opportunity, we had male and female leaders, very progressive." He said, with no shortage of pride. "Our matriarchs were regarded as very sacred. My mother's mother had twenty-seven babies."
Guillermo grimaced. "I...don't think that's even possible."
"Don't interrupt!" Nandor snapped. "She had twenty-seven babies, and many lovers, which she gained with her magnificent beauty. And her hair was as long as the Tigris and black as the night, and she lived until she was three-hundred years old."
"I don't-"
"And she could see the future!" Nandor finished. "She always said I was a very handsome young man. And I would have many lovers. And I did. And I am. So there!"
He sat down on the steps and folded his arms in a huff.
Guillermo smiled into his scarf, looking back out over the already snow-covered lawn.
"It sounds like your grandma was pretty cool too."
"Yes. Probably much cooler and more powerful than your ab whale, or whatever it was that you said."
A beat. "She never saw any snow. Nobody in my family did. I am the first."
They fell into silence again. Inside, voices had started to erupt, candlelight flickering to life in the windows.
Guillermo eyed the door.
"I...should go back in. But hey." He shrugged tentatively. "If you want to start rising earlier to see the snowfall, you can let me know. You don't have to sneak out and be a bat."
Nandor hummed. "Yes. I will do this." He paused. "I am just going to stay out here for a little while though. Can you... make sure the others do not come out?"
Guillermo felt a warmth bloom in his chest. "Of course master."
"Thank you." Nandor turned back towards the street.
Guillermo lingered at the door a little longer. Watching his master's still silhouette... The two of them, bathed in moonlight, surrounded by the endless white.
"Gizmo you fuck, stop letting the cold air in. My wife will catch the Woman's Chill and need the fainting couch!"
"Alright, alright." The door shut with a solid slam against the icy wind. But not before Guillermo caught a glimpse of Nandor, fangs bared, leaning to catch a snowflake on his tongue.