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The first time Guillermo learns about Nandor’s previous familiars is when Laszlo calls him the wrong name.
“Herschel, fetch that book for me, would you?”
Guillermo stops dusting the taxidermy in the library. He turns, slowly, to face Laszlo. The vampire is sitting in a chair, an extremely out-of-date copy of Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition on his lap. He’s pointing at a high shelf to his left, a concentrated stare on the centerfold. Guillermo’s brow furrows. Confused, he looks around the room, briefly wondering if there’s been a secret fifth vampire this entire time and he’s just been missing him for nine years.
“Well?” Laszlo says, impatient. He’s staring at Guillermo now.
“Are…are you talking to me?” he asks.
Laszlo looks at him like he’s the dumbest person he’s ever met. “Of course I’m bloody talking to you. Who the fuck else would it be?”
“Sorry,” Guillermo mutters. Even though it’s been a decade, he’s still a little nervous that Laszlo’s just going to decide to eat him one day. “Did you call me Herschel?”
The vampire squints at Guillermo. Then there is a moment of realization. “Ah, yes, of course. You’re Gizmo. Herschel was the other one.”
This does nothing to clear up things. “The other one?”
Laszlo waves a hand, like he’s already done with the conversation. “Nandor’s old familiar.”
A wave of strong emotion grips Guillermo. He doesn’t know what the feeling is, but he doesn’t like it. He knows vampires tend to have multiple familiars throughout their endless lives. Laszlo and Nadja had gone through several during his tenure under Nandor. But for some reason, he’d liked to hold on to a little hope that he was Nandor’s first familiar, picked special. It embarrassed him to think this now. His master was well over seven-hundred years old - of course he’d had other familiars.
This didn’t make Guillermo feel any better.
“Nandor never told me he’s had other familiars.”
Laszlo’s expression sours. “Of course he bloody hasn’t. Why would he? Now can you make yourself useful and get me that book? I need to compare this woman to one from a similar tome printed in 1746. I think it may be the same person - I’d recognize these tits anywhere.”
Guillermo presses his lips together and does what he’s told. But he can’t help but let one last question slip past his lips: “What happened to Herschel?”
What he really wants to know is whether or not he was made into a vampire. Because if Nandor turned his old familiar, he’d turn him as well, right?
Laszlo doesn’t look up from his page flipping. “Nadja killed him.”
…
Later that night, Guillermo is helping Nandor perform his nightly bedtime ritual. He’s had a strange lump in his stomach ever since he’d learned about Herschel. It felt like he’d found out about something that was supposed to be a secret. He also felt a bit uncomfortable around Nadja.
“You’re very quiet tonight, Guillermo,” Nandor comments. He’s standing next to his coffin. Guillermo is behind him on a stepstool, brushing his master’s hair.
Guillermo bites his lip. He wants to say a lot of things. He has a thousand questions. The one that comes out is “Would you let Nadja kill me?”
“No.” His answer is immediate, and Guillermo’s shoulders sag in relief.
“Thank you, Mast -”
“Unless she had a good reason,” Nandor finishes.
There it is . Why he’d expected anything different, he’d never know. Guillermo goes back to pulling the brush through Nandor’s long hair. There’s only a little bit of bitterness when he says, “Did she have a good reason for killing Herschel?”
Nandor tenses. When he turns to face Guillermo, his face is guarded. “Who told you about Herschel?”
Guillermo curses the fact that not even the step-stool is enough to put him eye-to-eye with the undead warlord. He has to tilt his chin to meet his piercing gaze. Still, the feeling of standing up to Nandor is enough to make a shiver run down his spine. “Why don’t you want me to know about him?”
Nandor searches Guillermo’s face for a second. Five years ago, the intenseness of the vampire’s stare would have been enough to make him back down and apologize. But he isn’t afraid of Nandor anymore - he’s been in the business too long. Nandor breaks the stare first, and Guillermo tries not to outwardly celebrate.
“Herschel was my familiar a hundred years ago,” he mutters, clearly displeased to be giving up the information. “And yes , Nadja had good reason to kill him. Are you happy now?”
“I didn’t know you had other familiars,” Guillermo says, stepping down from the stool.
“Obviously I have,” Nandor says, defensive. “I am a great vampire. You are lucky to have me as your master.”
Guillermo realizes that if he continues backing Nandor into a corner, he’s never going to get the information he wants. So, he tries a different tactic.
“Of course,” he soothes. “I couldn’t have asked for anyone better.”
Nandor begins to relax under the praise. He allows Guillermo to unclasp his cloak and remove it from his shoulders. He turns to hang it in the wardrobe. Keeping his voice casual, he asks, “How many have you had, anyway?”
“How many what?”
Guillermo tries not to let the frustration show when he faces him again. “Familiars.”
“Oh.” Nandor’s face scrunches in concentration. He pulls his hands up and begins to count on his fingers. Guillermo wonders, not for the first time, how Nandor has managed to live as long as he has. The vampire eventually settles on a number. “Ten. Including you.”
Compared to Nadja and Laszlo, it’s a very small number. Still, Guillermo can’t help but feel weird about it. He’d wanted to think that his relationship with Nandor was something special, something different than the usual vampire-familiar dynamic. But if he was just another face in a long line of servants, how special could he be, really?
…
Even though it bothered him to think about it, Guillermo could not take his mind off of the idea of Nandor’s past familiars. Had they stuck around for as long as he had? Were they as devoted? Did they deserve to be vampires, as much as he did? Nandor was reluctant to talk about it. He dodged much of Guillermo’s open-ended questions, and flat-out ignored the more pointed ones. Guillermo quickly realized that if he wanted answers, he’d have to get them elsewhere.
He managed to catch Nadja and Laszlo in relatively good moods, after a night out stalking the bars. Nandor was still out hunting. They sat in the Fancy Room, giggling in each other’s laps while Guillermo put on the old record they’d requested.
“Gizmo,” Nadja says, draping herself over one end of the loveseat she shared with her husband. “Would you be a dear and bring me one of those freezing bloods?”
She’s referring to the blood popsicles Guillermo has in the freezer. It was his best method yet for storing leftover human blood, and the pride he felt for figuring this out made him question how he’d gotten to this point. In any case, they’d been a household hit. He retrieves the snack for Nadja, and tries not to think about the clots visible in the dark red ice.
“I think it’s safe to say I’m a pretty good familiar,” he says. Nadja is running her tongue up the popsicle, and Laszlo is watching her way too closely. “I mean, compared to Nandor’s other familiars. I’m probably pretty great, huh?”
“You’re adequate,” Nadja allows. It’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to a compliment.
“How many of his familiars did you know? Nandor’s, that is.”
“Why don’t you ask Nandor all these bloody questions?” Laszlo asks.
“Darling, he probably still feels so sore about it,” Nadja says. “You know how Nandor is. Picky bastard.”
“He’s picky about his familiars?” Guillermo pushes, a flicker of hope rising in his chest.
“Keeps them for way too long, if you ask me,” Laszlo says. “As I’ve always said, when it comes to familiars, you have to ‘hit it and quit it’. Else they get their hopes up, the poor fucks.”
“Yes, you really shouldn’t be getting attached to those things,” Nadja agrees. She takes a sudden, vicious bite of her frozen blood, making Guillermo flinch. “Or it breaks your heart when they die.”
“At least for a little while,” Laszlo adds.
“You know who my favorite was?” They all turn to the voice at the entrance to the Fancy Room. Colin Robinson stands there, hands in the pockets of his khakis and his characteristic shit-eating grin on his face. “Benjy. That guy was a hoot! Taught me everything I know about golf stats.”
“No one asked you, Colin Robinson,” Guillermo growls.
“My favorite was Elizabeth,” Laszlo says, unprompted. “Lovely lass. Excellent purveyor of virgins. Too bad she was British.”
“Oh, yes, she was very good.” Nadja nods. “Would have made an excellent vampire. Sometimes I think I should have turned her.”
Guillermo was starting to regret ever starting this conversation. “She couldn’t have been that great.”
“They don’t make them quite like they did in the 1890’s,” Laszlo sighs. Guillermo bites down on the rude words that come to his lips.
“What happened to her?” he says instead.
Nadja makes an exaggerated sad face. “We left her behind when we traveled to the New World. She would not have survived the journey with us in the cargo hold. Simon most certainly would have eaten her dead.”
“Poor girl thought for sure she was coming,” Laszlo says, shaking his head. “But instead Nandor took her to the other side of London and erased her memory. Never saw her again after that.”
Guillermo blinks. “You can erase people’s memories?”
Laszlo gives him a lazy shrug. “With enough hypnosis you can erase a lot of things.”
“That’s kind of his M.O., isn’t it?” Colin Robinson cuts in. “Wiping their memory and dumping them somewhere?”
“I suppose it is. Fucker’s done it three times now, hasn’t he?”
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just kill them,” Nadja says. She’s finished off her blood pop, and is now twirling the stained stick in her fingers. “It’s so much easier.”
Guillermo feels ill. “Excuse me,” he mutters, and leaves the room, pushing Colin Robinson out of the way.
“Ah, don’t worry, Gizmo!” the energy vampire calls after him. “He’ll probably keep you around for at least another five years!”
…
It’s still on his mind the next night, when he’s playing chess with Nandor. His master is not very good at chess, but Guillermo has always let him win. He likes to see loud, over-the-top celebrations Nandor puts on whenever he ‘beats’ him. But tonight, Guillermo is showing a lot less mercy. He’s captured almost all of Nandor’s pieces, and is getting dangerously close to checking him.
“You must be practicing,” the vampire says, appraising the board.
Guillermo taps one of Nandor’s captured pieces on the side of the table. He can’t stop thinking about the fate of Elizabeth, abandoned like garbage after faithful service. Would he someday share her end? Years of his life stolen with the swipe of a hand and a few murmured words? Just a footnote in Nandor’s past?
The vampire’s dark gaze moves from the board to Guillermo’s face. He frowns. “Something is upsetting you.”
There’s no point in hiding it. He probably wouldn’t be able to live with himself, otherwise. “The others told me what you do with your familiars.”
Nandor’s brow furrows. “And that is…?”
He feels a stab of anger at that, and struggles to keep it contained. “How you erase their memories and leave them somewhere. Laszlo said you did it three times.”
Nandor sits up straight in his chair. His face looks like it’s carved from stone. “That is not true. I did it four times.”
Guillermo wants to flip the chessboard over. “Seriously? Four times?”
“Who the fuck cares?” Nandor says, throwing his hands in the air and nearly flipping the board himself. “It is none of your concern what I did with my familiars hundreds of years ago. Yeesh.”
“It is my concern,” Guillermo says, standing up. “How do I know that that’s not what you’re going to do with me? Are you just going to get bored of me and drop me off in the Bronx and make me forget my own name?”
“Guillermo…” It’s a warning. A warning that he’s going too far. Guillermo ignores it.
“Or maybe you’ll kill me. Or let Nadja kill me. I honestly don’t know which one I’d prefer.” His voice is raising. If he’s unlucky enough, the fight will attract Colin Robinson to their location. “Have you turned even one of your familiars? Because I’m starting to think this whole thing is one huge God-forsaken scam.”
Nandor hisses at the religious phrase. He stands to his full height, towering above his familiar. “This insolence will not be tolerated, Guillermo!”
“Whatever.” He turns and walks away, before his nerves get the best of him. He’ll definitely have to make up for this later if he wants to get off with a light punishment, but for now, all he cares about is getting as much space between him and Nandor as possible.
He sits in the locked upstairs bathroom for three hours, ignoring the pacing footsteps outside the door.
…
Interactions between Nandor and Guillermo are tense for several days following the fight. This isn’t terribly unusual - they get into a fight at least once a month. But this stalemate was the longest one they’d ever had; lasting almost an entire week. Colin Robinson is very clearly enjoying it. Laszlo and Nadja are not.
Guillermo comes back from the dry cleaner one night, a large collection of Nadja’s lavish gowns in his arms. The house had been quiet when he’d come in, and he’d assumed that everyone was out. He knew for a fact that Nandor was. They’d endured their stubbornly silent ‘morning’ ritual a few hours earlier, and Nandor had finished it with a clipped “I’m going out” and left the room with a dramatic swish of his cape.
He goes upstairs to Laszlo and Nadja’s room. Before pushing the door open, he knocks very loudly and shouts, “Nadja? Laszlo? I’m coming in with laundry.” Under his breath, he adds,
“Please be decent.” The vampire couple thought it was incredibly hilarious to have Guillermo unintentionally walk in on them fucking. They loved to laugh at how flustered he got. It sucked every time, and Guillermo desperately hopes that the joke will someday lose its luster. Something tells him it never will.
To his immense relief, the room is empty. The fireplace is blazing away, casting the room in its usual eerie shadow. He’s going to have to light some candles before he kills himself tripping over a taxidermied animal or stack of pornography. Guillermo opens Nadja’s wardrobe and begins to pile the intricate dresses inside.
“I wonder if she organizes by year or shades of black,” he jokes to himself.
He nearly shits himself when Nadja answers. “Years, obviously. Do you know how fucking annoying it is to reorganize my closet after you’ve thrown your little pig hands around in it?”
Guillermo turns around. Nadja is sitting in an armchair in front of the fire, so still that he hadn’t noticed her in the darkness. “Nadja. I didn’t realize you were home.”
Her face turns slowly to focus on him. She doesn’t look like she’s in a very good mood. It makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck. A little voice at the back of his brain decides now is a good time to think about Herschel. “I needed a break from that asshole,” she says. Then she goes back to staring at the fire, like that was all she needed to say.
“Did you…have a fight with Laszlo?” Guillermo feels awkward about asking. Usually, he knew when Nadja and Laszlo were having a spat, because it tended to be very loud and very public. It feels weird to ask her about it, like they’re friends or something.
“I don’t mean Laszlo,” Nadja snaps. “I’m talking about bloody Nandor .”
Guillermo blinks. “Oh.”
“Ever since you had your little piss baby fight, he’s been insufferable.” She bares her teeth. “Such a whiny bitch-man. Guillermo this and Guillermo that, just shut the fuck up already .”
His traitorous heart does a little leap at that. “He’s talking about me?”
“Yes, and it feels like I’m hunting with Colin fucking Robinson. I’d rather take a nap, thank you very much.”
Guillermo turns back to the closet before Nadja can see the grin on his face. It feels like a win, to have Nandor thinking about him. It’s a low bar, but it’s there.
“What was your stupid fight about anyway? Is it a sex thing? Because if it’s a sex thing, then this bullshit might be worth the headache.”
The grin is wiped from his face. “It’s not a sex thing,” he insists, whipping around. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you are a sad, horny little man,” Nadja calmly explains. “And Nandor is just as sad and horny.”
Guillermo sighs through his nose. “We fought about his old familiars.”
“Are you kidding? Still?” Nadja makes a frustrated gesture. “What is the big bloody deal?”
“The deal is that I’ve worked for him for ten years and I just now find out that he doesn’t even make his familiars into vampires,” Guillermo snaps. “So forgive me if I’m a little upset with Nandor right now.”
Nadja makes a face. “What? Yes he does.”
Guillermo’s heart practically stops in his chest. It’s all he can do to choke out, “He…does?”
“He turned one,” Nadja clarified. “I’ve met her once or twice. Pretty decent vampire. Threw a great orgy in 1895. Nandor didn’t go, of course. He is too soft in the heart.”
“Do I know them?” Guillermo asks. He doesn’t know whether he wants to find this vampire and beg them to tell him how they managed to convince Nandor to turn them or kill them for the crime of having something he wants.
“Nandor doesn’t much like interacting with her so no, I suppose not,” Nadja says. “I haven’t seen her since we left Europe.”
“Why doesn’t he like interacting with her?” Guillermo is torn between feeling some sort of ‘win’ for being involved in Nandor’s life when this old familiar wasn’t and feeling intensely jealous that this woman was able to achieve what he apparently could not. Wasn’t getting away from Nandor the end goal, in the grand scheme of things? He shoved down the discomfort rising in him at the thought of parting with his master. He didn’t feel like unpacking that right now.
Nadja rolls her eyes dramatically, her head lolling backwards against the back of the chair. “ Ugh . How have you not heard this story? I feel like Nandor tells it every fucking day, having himself a sad little pity party.” She pitches her voice down, hunching her shoulders forward in a surprisingly accurate representation of Nandor’s posture. “She left me behind, even though I loved her so. Just like my thirty-seven wives!”
Even though she’s clearly making fun of him, Guillermo’s stomach still does a flip halfway through her sentence. “He loves her?” His voice comes out with an embarrassing squeak. He clears his throat to try and cover it.
“Nandor falls in love all the fucking time,” Nadja says, sneering. Guillermo can barely hear her over the rush of blood in his ears. Nandor had once fallen in love with one of his familiars.
Was that even allowed? He’d never even considered it as a possibility. Sure, he was attracted to Nandor (you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wasn’t), but there’d always been this unspoken rule that that sort of thing just wasn’t going to happen. Guillermo wasn’t an idiot - he knew he was getting the short end of the stick in the whole vampire-familiar relationship. There wasn’t mutual respect between them.
But now that he knew Nandor had been the exception in the past, Guillermo couldn’t stop thinking about it.
…
He swallows his pride and extends the olive branch first.
“Do you have plans tonight?”
Nandor turns slightly to look at him out of the corner of his eye. Guillermo is dressing him for the evening, adjusting the epaulets of his robe. The edges of his lips are turned downwards. “Oh, so we are talking again?” He’s obviously still sore about the situation. Guillermo isn’t sure if Nandor even remembers why they fought, just that he’s angry at Guillermo for being angry. He keeps his voice gentle when he replies.
“I was just thinking, if you weren’t too busy, we could go to the dollar store.” He pulls at the bottom of Nandor’s sleeve, straightening a wrinkle in the velvet. “They’ve probably restocked the glitter paint…”
He can see Nandor’s resolve to be angry waning. The promise of arts and crafts tended to do that. “I am almost out of red,” he says, slowly. Guillermo fights the smile that threatens to cross his face. He’s won him over.
They walk to the dollar store. Neither of them say much, but the silence is a lot easier than it had been for the past week. The fight is over for now, all grievances pushed under the rug, never to be dealt with again. That’s how it had always been in their relationship. It kept things the same. It kept things safe.
The dollar store is thirty minutes away from closing. The exhausted looking man at the register barely gives them a second look after answering their “can we come in?” with a half-hearted nod. Nandor makes a beeline for the arts and crafts section - it’s a place he knows well. Guillermo picks up a basket and follows him.
The glitter paint had been a somewhat recent find. The second Nandor had first laid eyes on it (about a month before), he had exclaimed, “They made paint shiny , Guillermo!” and had put every single bottle on the shelf into his basket. He loved to paint - mostly pictures of animals and extremely graphic beheadings. Guillermo still wasn’t sure how to feel about these images now done entirely with glitter.
Nandor appraises the paint selection, one hand poised in the air curling and uncurling his fingers in what Guillermo has come to know as a thinking gesture. He begins to pick out particular colors, placing them gently in Guillermo’s basket.
“Are you planning to paint something specific?” he asks. It’s rare to see Nandor in a state of single-minded concentration.
“Maybe,” he says. He pulls a second bottle of gold glitter paint off the shelf and puts it beside the first. “We shall see.”
Cryptic fucking answer , Guillermo thinks.
They pay for their paint with five minutes to spare and begin their trek home. For some reason or another, Nandor has silently decided to walk with him, instead of turning into a bat and abandoning him. He still doesn’t offer to carry either of the heavy plastic bags, though.
“So,” Guillermo says, picking up his pace so he walks shoulder-to-shoulder with the vampire. “I guess I owe you an apology.”
Nandor looks slightly confused for a moment, but covers it quickly. “Yes, of course. I have been waiting.”
Guillermo resists the urge to roll his eyes. That was all the confirmation he needed that Nandor didn’t remember why they’d fought. He decides to be kind and give him a refresher. “From when I said being your familiar was a scam because you’d never turn me.”
Nandor’s face darkens as he recalls. “Yes, I do think that needs an apology,” he grumbles.
“I just didn’t realize that I was wrong,” Guillermo says. “I had no idea you turned one of your familiars.”
Nandor stops suddenly. Guillermo almost trips over himself trying to put on the brakes. He’d been walking quickly to keep up with his master’s long strides.
“Who told you?” Nandor’s voice is low and quiet. His face once more looks like it’s been carved from stone. Guillermo’s shoulders sink as he realizes he’s hitting yet another wall.
“Why do you want to hide it so bad? It’s not like -”
“Who?” It’s less of a question and more of a demand.
“Nadja,” Guillermo says after a moment.
Nandor grimaces, clearly annoyed. He mutters something that sounds like “ no respect for authority ”. When he looks at Guillermo again, his face is more tired than anything else. “Which one did she tell you about?”
Guillermo’s eyebrows shoot up, and too late Nandor realizes his mistake.
“What I mean -”
“Which one ?” Guillermo cuts him off, his voice almost shrill. “What do you mean which one ? How many of your familiars have you turned?”
Nandor throws his head back and groans. “ Must we keep having this stupid talk about familiar shit? I am so tired of it .” He swipes out his arms, briefly flaring out his long robe. “I just want it to go back to normal now.”
“Master, I need to know.” Guillermo is practically pleading. “I need to know if I really have a chance.”
Nandor’s stern expression begins to soften at the somewhat pathetic tone. He sighs, laying one large hand on his familiar’s shoulder. “If I tell you,” he says, “will you finally shut the fuck up about it?”
“Yes,” Guillermo promises. He doesn’t think Nandor knows it, but whenever he touches him like that Guillermo becomes acutely aware of the fact that he would do literally anything for his master. It disturbs him a little bit, this devotion. He tries not to think about it too hard.
“Good.” Nandor removes his hand from Guillermo’s shoulder, and restarts his brisk walking pace. “Two.”
Guillermo jogs to catch up, the bags of paint making loud crinkling sounds at his sides. “Only two?” he puffs, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
“Yes.”
That’s not very many. But it’s still better than zero. “How long were they your familiars for?”
Nandor shrugs one shoulder, a bit dismissively. “I don’t know. Thirty years, I guess?”
Guillermo suddenly finds himself getting a bit nauseous. “Thirty…years?” Is he seriously willing to wait that long? He’d thought ten years was a bit much. The idea of only being a third of the way done with his familiarship made him feel like he needed to sit down for a minute.
Nandor glances back at Guillermo, curling his lip when he sees his face. “Yeesh, Guilllermo, are you going to throw up or something?”
He honestly isn’t sure about the answer to that.
…
“You never asked if they were good familiars.”
Guillermo pauses in his cleaning of the bathroom tile, looking up at the towering form taking up the doorway. When they’d gotten back to the house, Nandor had taken his glitter paint and squirreled himself away, telling Guillermo that he was working on something and under no circumstances should he be disturbed. Guillermo decided to use that time to get some of his chores done. Nandor had apparently become bored and had chosen to distract him from his cleaning. As usual.
“I mean, I assumed they were.” Guillermo sits back on his knees, letting his gloved hands fall into his lap. “Good familiars. Since you turned them and all.” He’s still internally grieving over the fact that it apparently took them thirty years to achieve that. He hadn’t exactly imagined being forty-nine forever, but he could get used to the idea eventually. It’s not like he was enjoying his current youthfulness, anyway.
“They were both quite dedicated,” Nandor says. He’s leaning against the doorframe and staring into the middle distance. Guillermo briefly wonders what it’s like to have hundreds of years worth of memories in your mind. “And worked hard enough to earn my trust and friendship, even though they were humans.”
Guillermo feels a stab of jealousy. He’d long coveted Nandor’s respect and friendship. It seemed almost impossible to achieve. In the moments where he was certain he’d found a chink in his master’s armor, Nandor would swiftly and fiercely block it off. Maybe it had been easier to get to know the vampire three-hundred years ago, but nowadays he was as yielding as a concrete pillar.
“They sound great, Master,” Guillermo mutters. He returns his focus to scrubbing the tile and hopes Nandor is too lost in his reverie to notice the twisted frown on his face.
“I should never have fucking turned them.”
He freezes. “Wait, what?”
Nandor scowls at the wall. His arms are crossed protectively over his chest. “It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have made them into vampires.”
While Guillermo had previously detested these other familiars, he now began to feel upset on their behalf. “You just said that they were super dedicated,” he argues, standing up to face him. “That you trusted them and they were your friends.”
“Yes,” Nandor says, turning his glare on his current familiar. “And when I turned them into vampires, it was like none of it even mattered! They stabbed me in the back as soon as they were able. I don’t know how they turned so cruel and heartless!”
Guillermo thinks this is pretty par for the course as far as vampires go, but decides to give Nandor the benefit of the doubt. “I’m sorry, Master. What did they do?”
Nandor suddenly looks very tired. All traces of anger leave his face, making it look drawn and pale. “They left,” he says, simply. “After they promised they would stay.”
Guillermo doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s an uncharacteristic sadness to Nandor’s words. It’s like he’s opened the door to his emotions just a crack, allowing Guillermo a peek inside. But it never stays open for long.
As if realizing he’s said a little too much, Nandor makes a frustrated noise and turns away, walking down the hallway at a clipped pace. Guillermo watches him go, thinking of a million things he could have said.
…
“Now, see, a lot of people like to have their contact lists in alphabetical order, but that’s just not how I like to do it,” Colin Robinson says, scrolling very slowly through his email. “I sort mine in the order with which I receive them. That way I can keep track of how many messages I need to send them a day. I feed the most off the newbies because they get the most baffled, but sometimes I like to throw in someone from a while back just to remind them that they’ll never be truly free of me.”
Guillermo leans against the wall in Colin Robinson’s bedroom, fighting to keep his eyes open. He should’ve known asking the energy vampire for contacts to Nandor’s old familiars would be a bad idea. Now he’s down here listening to Colin prattle about his email. For the third time this month. How does this keep happening?! “You said you had their contact info,” he grits out.
Colin Robinson pauses his scrolling to look Guillermo dead in the eyes. “I didn’t say I had it,” he clarifies. “I said I’d look for it.” He returns his gaze to the screen. “Shit, Gizmo, you made me lose my place. I’ll have to start over.”
Guillermo wonders, not for the first time, if energy vampires can be killed.
“What do you want with it anyway?” Colin asks, loudly spinning the scroll wheel of his mouse. “Do you want a penpal? ‘Cause I can point you in the direction of a few websites.”
“I don’t want a penpal,” Guillermo says. “I just need to ask a few questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
Guillermo knows Colin’s being nosy on purpose, but can’t help but answer anyway. “Like who they were, what their familiar experience was like…” He trails off with a shrug. “Why they left Nandor.”
“Oh, I could probably tell you that.” Colin Robinson doesn’t pause his searching this time, just speaks toward his screen. “Nandor the Relentless is a stubborn, entitled, whiny idiot who is entirely out of touch with everything around him and has the emotional maturity of a brick. He can’t wrap his head around the concept of color television and sets things on fire when he’s mad. The guy’s best friend is a horse that died almost eight-hundred years ago.” Colin chuckles to himself. “I don’t really get why you familiars stay around so long. I mean, I’m glad you do. More meals for the C-man.”
Everything Colin Robinson just said is a fact. Still, it rubs Guillermo the wrong way to hear his master talked about so flippantly. “Okay, some of that might be true. But it isn’t all bad. He’s fearless. He’s the one who keeps everyone in line and all together. He likes to feed birds and pet cats. He paints and tells stories and wants to teach everyone proper sword techniques. And compared to other vampires, he’s actually a pretty decent one to be a familiar to.” He’s mostly thinking about Nadja and Laszlo, but also about the stories some of the other familiars have told him. About masters who were cruel and cold and terrifying. Nandor might be frustrating to be around, but Guillermo wouldn’t give him up for anyone else.
Colin Robinson’s eyebrows are raised. “Jeez, what are you, in love with him?”
Guillermo smacks a hand over his face. “You know what? Forget it.” He turns and leaves without sparing Colin a second glance.
“Love our visits, Gizmo!” Colin Robinson calls down the hall. He turns back to his laptop. “Hm. I wonder what [email protected] is doing these days.”
…
Guillermo realizes not too long after his experience with Colin Robinson that he will simply have to give up his quest for information about Nandor’s old familiars, because there was no fucking way anyone in the house was going to willingly give it to him. Laszlo ended any conversations before they began, Nadja thought the whole topic was a waste of breath, and Colin was…Colin. And the idea of asking Nandor again made Guillermo feel guilty in a way he wasn’t ready to examine too closely, so he didn’t. He was just going to have to live with the reality of not knowing the truth about these familiars, and find his own way into getting Nandor to turn him. Which was the original plan anyway, so it’s not like things changed too drastically.
It still puts him in a sullen mood.
Guillermo is sitting on the roof next to the open attic window, looking up at the sky. It’s a spot he likes to go to when he doesn’t want to be found or bothered. He’d gone up there under the pretense of sorting through some of the attic junk, then pulled loose the boards on the window and climbed through. As far as he knows, none of the vampires are aware of the spot, which suits him just fine. He’s getting kind of sick of them anyway.
The sky is black, with only a few pinpricks of stars and the occasional airplane. Guillermo wonders if it would look different without the light pollution of the city. He wonders if vampires can see the stars just fine, or if they’ve spent long enough under them that they simply didn’t care anymore. “Maybe when I’m forty-nine I’ll get to find out,” he mutters darkly.
“Find out what?”
Guillermo startles so hard he nearly falls down the roof. He turns to find Nandor sticking his head out of the attic window. “Sorry,” he says, taking in Guillermo’s agitated expression. “I know you don’t appreciate my sneakiness.”
“Why are you here?” It comes out a little harsher than intended, so Guillermo’s next words have a softer tone. “I thought you and the others were going to the nightclubs.”
Nandor doesn’t answer him at first. Instead, he maneuvers his considerable bulk through the window and takes a seat on the roof beside him. The way he crosses his legs and leans back on his hands is so fundamentally human that it almost makes Guillermo laugh. “It’s a very nice night, no?” Nandor says, turning to his familiar with a fang-y smile.
He’s being suspiciously nice. Guillermo wants to enjoy this rare moment with his master, but can’t help but remain guarded. “Yeah, I guess.”
Nandor’s smile falters, and he lets out a weary sigh. “I know you are in a soggy mood, Guillermo.”
His eyebrows come together in confusion. “I’m sorry, did you just call me soggy ?”
“Yes. The soggy towel.”
Guillermo thinks for a moment, then says, “Do you mean wet blanket?”
Nandor waves a hand. “Yes, yes, whatever the idiom is.” He turns to look directly at Guillermo. “Your sadness is making the whole house sad.”
Guillermo feels oddly touched by that. “Really?”
“Yes. That is why no one wants to be around you.”
Nice . “Oh. Sorry.”
They sit in silence on the rooftop for a minute or so, staring at the sky. It’s a little weird. Guillermo wants to ask Nandor why he was there at all, but also doesn’t want him to leave. He’s acutely aware of the small space between them, of Nandor’s splayed hand only inches from his own. Say something , he tells himself. Just fucking say something.
“Uh, Master…”
“How long have you been my familiar for, Guillermo?”
Guillermo blinks. “Almost ten years, Master.” It’ll be exactly ten years next month, actually.
“Really?” Nandor doesn’t take his gaze off of the sky. The full moon is reflected in his pupils. “That’s a long time.”
He can’t help the words that come out of his mouth next. “Not as long as thirty.”
Nandor closes his eyes. “So you are still thinking about it.”
Guillermo says nothing. He can feel himself blushing, and hopes Nandor keeps his eyes closed and doesn’t notice.
The vampire lets out a world-weary sigh. At first, Guillermo thinks he’s about to be chastised again. Then he thinks Nandor might just get up and leave, tired with the argument as he is. Instead, he begins to tell a story.
“When I was a very young vampire, I was very lonely. I had been driven from my home, Al Quolanudar, by the very people who used to kiss my feet. All of my wives had left, taking all of my children as well.” Nandor pauses, making one hand into a fist before relaxing it again. It’s obvious he doesn’t like to talk about this part of his life, but Guillermo rarely gets to hear it, so he stays quiet. “I was alone, and I was very confused. I had not realized yet what was so great about being a vampire. I thought a curse had been placed upon me.”
Not for the first time, Guillermo wonders about Nandor’s turning. All of his stories from his past seemed to dance around it, like it was just an unpleasant occurrence and not the turning point for the rest of his eternal life. One day, Guillermo would ask about it, but today was not that day.
“I met Kurush three years into my exile. I tried to kill him and eat him first, obviously, but…” Nandor clears his throat. “He was the same age as my eldest child. I let him go, but he was fascinated by me. He followed me for two nights, asking me all kinds of inane questions like what I was or if I was a demon or why I looked so familiar. I tried to scare him off, but he was very persistent .” The vampire turns to Guillermo, a slight smirk pulling at his lip. “You remind me of him in that way.”
Guillermo has no idea how to take that, so he just lets out an uncomfortable laugh.
“Eventually, I let him stay. Kurush was useful in many ways. He helped me find places to slumber in the daylight hours, and disposed of the people I had eaten. He allowed me to start rebuilding myself to my former glory. In return, I gave him my protection.” Nandor looks down at his hands. “Truthfully, I was grateful for his companionship.”
“So…Kurush was your first familiar?” Guillermo asks.
“I did not realize until later, but yes. He was.” There’s a strange expression on Nandor’s face, and it takes Guillermo a moment to realize it was fondness. “I did not want to be involved with the local vampires at first, so Kurush was my only…friend. He helped me realize how great being a vampire was. How it was a gift, and how lucky I was to have eternal life and the strength of ten men.”
It’s strange to think about the idea that Nandor hadn’t always loved being a vampire. For as long as Guillermo has known him, he’s lauded it as the greatest thing in the world, that humans could simply never compare. Nandor was more proud of being a vampire than he was of almost anything else.
“I always knew that Kurush wanted to be a vampire. He was not very subtle about it.” A side eye towards Guillermo, which makes him blush again. “But he never asked me directly. He was my loyal familiar for many years. And then one day…” Nandor’s jaw tightens. “He asked.”
The silence that follows is heavy, and Guillermo starts to feel a little uncomfortable. They’ve reached a pivot point in the story, taking it from a rose-colored memory to something rarely spoken or thought of. Guillermo doesn’t say anything for fear Nandor will stop and change his mind.
“So of course I said yes,” he says after a moment. “Kurush was my closest friend. He respected me, treated me like the leader I was, even when I thought lowly of myself. I thought, ‘this is the moment where our fates are sealed. We shall rule the world as one unit, for all of eternity.” His fist clenches again. “I turned him. And by the time he was able to hunt for himself, he was gone.”
Guillermo knew this was the inevitable end to the story, but it still took him by surprise. “Wait, he left?”
Nandor’s face hardens. “He got what he always wanted. And he no longer needed me.”
There’s an unspoken implication that goes with those words. Guillermo decides now is not the best time to pursue that particular argument. “I’m sorry, Master.”
“Yes, well.” Nandor adjusts the sleeves of his coat, like this was just a fact of life and not something that had upset him enough to remember it clearly seven-hundred years later. “That’s what happens.”
“Not every time,” Guillermo argues. “Laszlo and Nadja stayed together.”
Nandor waves a hand dismissively. “That’s different. They’re in love .” The last words come out with a scoff.
“You can turn someone out of love,” Guillermo says. For some reason, saying this makes his stomach flip-flop. “In fact, I’d argue that’s the case like…more than fifty percent of the time.”
Nandor scowls. “I did that once. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
Guillermo feels like he can argue that point with several citable examples, but chooses not to. “What happened?”
He heaves a long, dramatic sigh. “She was my fourth familiar. Juliska. I tried to resist her charms, but she was so beautiful and so dedicated. Many other vampires thought I was foolish for falling for my own familiar. At the time, I thought they were being closed-minded.”
Guillermo’s heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest, and he can’t for the life of him understand why. He considers asking Nandor if he still feels that way, and then realizes how that might be taken and decides against it. It’s not like he fantasizes about it or anything like that. Not at all.
“I was so in love with her that I promised to make her a vampire,” Nandor says. His tone is bitter. “It was supposed to be different than it was with Kurush. I was certain we would rule the world together - a king and queen of darkness.” He deflates a little. “But after I turned her, she…broke up with me.”
It’s a little pathetic sounding, but Guillermo tries to remain sympathetic. He hesitantly pats Nandor on the shoulder, barely touching him before pulling his hand back. “That’s…very unfortunate, Master.”
“It is,” Nandor agrees, miserably. “She told me that now that she was a vampire, she saw us more as friends. Can you believe that shit?”
Ouch . “Did you stay friends with her?”
“Of course not. She broke my heart.” Nandor straightens up slightly, like he’s shaking off his saddened mood. “After that, I became very, very picky about which of my familiars should be turned into vampires. So far, no one has proven themselves worthy.”
Guillermo chews his lip. He really, genuinely hopes that he can somehow meet Nandor’s vampire standards, but he’s beginning to understand his reasoning. He’s been deeply hurt by his experiences, and is hesitant to trust again. And while that’s frustrating, he can at least commiserate a little bit. The idea of being abandoned by someone who you thought loved you is upsetting for anyone.
Nandor finally turns to look at Guillermo. “Now that you know, will you cease being a wet blanket?”
The corner of Guillermo’s mouth twitches into a smile. He can’t help it. “It was nice of you to tell me about them, Master.”
He sniffs. “I’m not nice . But you’re welcome anyway.”
Guillermo wants to say that Nandor wouldn’t have to worry about him leaving if he was turned. Even if it pained him to admit, he felt tethered to the vampire. After ten years, where else could he possibly go? Looking at Nandor now, he feels a lot of things. Frustration is a big one. But so is devotion, so deeply rooted that it frightens him a little. Maybe someday he’d be able to explain it, but today was not that day.
“Can I ask one more thing?” he says.
“If you must,” Nandor huffs.
“Why did Nadja kill Herschel?” It’s been bothering him for as long as he’s known about it, and Guillermo figures if he doesn’t ask now he’ll never find out.
“Ah.” Nandor bares his teeth in an uncomfortable grimace - something he does when he’s embarrassed. “I may have made a…poor hiring decision when we first came to America.”
Guillermo imagines someone who was lazy or talked back or something else inconsequential that the vampires would have killed over. “In what way?”
“Well,” Nandor says, “he turned out to be a vampire slayer.”
Guillermo almost can’t help the laugh of surprise that follows Nandor’s statement. “Oh,” he says. “I guess the killing makes sense, then.”
“Yes. It took me a very long time to live that down, actually.” Nandor stretches, then grins at him. “So you see, Guillermo? You don’t have to worry about being my least favorite familiar.”
Guillermo opens his mouth to say that he wasn’t actually worrying about that at all, but decides he’s too tired to argue that point. “Thanks, Master.”
Nandor stands up. After a second, he does the strangest thing he’s done all night: he extends a hand downwards toward him. Guillermo stares at it for a moment, surprised. Then, before Nandor can take it away, he reaches up and grabs it. Nandor’s hand is as cold as the roof’s shingles, and the upper part of his palm is surprisingly callused. He tugs him to his feet like he weighs nothing at all, and then just as quickly pulls his hand back. It’s small, but it’s something.
“I hope I’m doing a good job,” Guillermo says. “As a familiar.”
Nandor looks back over his shoulder at him. He smiles. Then, “You are at least in my top five.”
Guillermo supposes it’s better than the alternative.