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It was a full moon.
The forest was spindly and bare creaking branches set against a black and starless sky. A chilly late autumn night nursing an icy breeze. The absolute cliche of a horror movie.
Lorrimer should have known better, really.
“Where are you, Dracula?” he said to the forest, pointlessly. Tiredly.
He was fed up.
He shouldn’t have come out here, seeking the vampire again. But Count Dracula was a begrudging exception. A creature that demanded his attention, without saying or doing or even being there at all.
And Lorrimer had been informed by Chief Inspector Murray that another man had gone missing in this scrap of woods in the last week.
Lorrimer had suggested it was a missing persons case, or at worst, a murder investigation. But then Murray had come back to him on a pleasant Sunday afternoon for cakes and tea with the news of a body and an unpleasant autopsy photograph that had put Lorrimer right off his cake and had changed everything.
Damn you, Dracula. Can’t you take the hint and stay dead for a little while longer? Or at least until I’m six feet under.
That would have been nice, Lorrimer kidded himself every now and then. But actually it wouldn’t have been nice at all. It would have been a very boring existence.
Not like the thrum of his heart in his throat now, and the excited tension in his limbs as he stepped through bramble, deeper into the undergrowth, following the blood-dotted trail ahead.
Heart hammering from throat to chest to ears, an erratic drumbeat of wild anticipation.
The irony in a creature such as Dracula making Lorrimer feel so much more alive was not lost on him at all.
He heard Dracula before he saw him.
“You’re finally here,” the vampire said. He sounded bored and pleased at the same time. He was probably smiling.
Lorrimer could already imagine his wolfish grin. He’d seen it too many times, in his sleep, in his waking hours.
He’d seen too much of Dracula when he wasn’t there at all.
Now he finally was.
Dracula stepped out of the shadows. His mouth smeared with scarlet blood. He rubbed the back of his hand over it, and then offered the wolfish grin that Lorrimer had imagined.
“About time.”
Lorrimer frowned at the monstrous creature. Scolded it like a child.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Dracula’s grin stretched a bit. “I am.”
“You know what I mean.”
Lorrimer huffed, and dug around in his coat pocket, pulling out the crucifix. He held it out, half heartedly.
Dracula’s reaction was just as half hearted.
In fact he didn’t acknowledge the cross, and just looked to the side, nonchalant and bored.
“I was bored,” he said, confirming his expression.
“What?” said Lorrimer.
“Bored. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come out at all.”
The vampire moved as if he were a part of the shadows, even though his skin was pale as moonlight. He stepped closer, so that Lorrimer could see the familiar black pits of his fathomless and large eyes.
Familiar . Lorrimer hated that. He hated that he was so familiar with so many parts of this terrible creature. He hated that he remembered so much of its pale and beautiful body, and that he still thought it was beautiful now.
Nothing had changed.
“Did you miss me?” Dracula asked. Still with that stupid hungry and appealing grin.
Lorrimer shook his head, but lowered the crucifix to his side. Shoulders sagging. “No.”
“Liar.”
Dracula moved closer. Black pits reflecting moonlight, fanged mouth full of blood. Lorrimer wondered who his last poor victim was.
Well, whoever it was, it would be the last.
“You’re killing people just for my attention now?” Lorrimer snorted. “My, how desperate you’ve become, Dracula. Then again, you always were with me, weren’t you?”
For the first time, Dracula’s grin flickered.
“I haven’t killed anyone,” he said.
Lorrimer laughed. “Now who’s the liar.”
“It is true .”
The vampire’s attempt at earnestness was questionable. Like an alien struggling to fit into a human body, trying to figure out what inflections it was supposed to use when it spoke. When it came to anything approaching actual emotion.
Lorrimer almost found it endearing. Almost.
There was a fine line between horrific and intriguing, and Lorrimer always found himself balancing that line with Dracula, for some reason. Unable to fully commit to either side.
But it was also why he’d found himself too familiar with Dracula’s body. His delicious mouth and skin and the sounds he made…oh god , the sounds…
“It’s the wolves.”
“Wolves?” Lorrimer snapped, thank god, out of his disturbing and wandering thoughts. Looked at Dracula’s expectant face with far more confusion. “What wolves?”
“Werewolves, obviously,” Dracula said impatiently. “They’re having a fine time feasting on the dim humans around here. An entire pack of them, actually.”
It was a lot to process. An impossible amount, really.
Not that Lorrimer didn’t believe in such things. To believe in vampires was to believe in anything, afterall. And Lorrimer supposed that must include werewolves now.
London really was going to the dogs, wasn’t it?
Lorrimer ran a hand through his hair, absently tucking the crucifix back into his pocket.
“But the victims had puncture marks on their necks too.”
Dracula sneered.
“Werewolves are terribly wasteful with their victims, you know. And I don’t like to waste good food,” his sneer moved into a smile. “At least their deaths were not in vain.”
“Oh my. How considerate of you,” Lorrimer rolled his eyes. He thought about getting the crucifix back out again. “Where are-”
And then another sound cut through his words at the same time.
It was a long and decidedly drawn out howl; all as if in answer to the question that Lorrimer had wanted to ask Dracula.
The two of them listened, as the wailing drew out into the night, tapering off into ominous quiet, save for insistent chill of wind through crispy dead leaves.
Dracula’s grin disappeared. “They’re here.”
The vampire seemed to glide toward him, unnaturally graceful as always, his long cloak like a delicate wisp on the breeze.
He was so close that Lorrimer could see the blood stained upon his fangs, and the flecks of red in his black eyes.
His jaw twisted, and he snarled, like an animal.
Lorrimer wasn’t afraid though, because Dracula wasn’t snarling at him.
The first ‘wolf’ slipped through the trees and into sight like a ghost. No warning at all. Lorrimer had expected it to growl or hiss or bark, or do something vaguely dog-like. But it wasn’t anything like that.
It’s limbs were elongated, painfully stretched in ways that made it look and move like a malformed human, until its head came into the light of the moon.
All teeth and yellowed eyes.
Lorrimer audibly gasped and staggered back.
Dracula followed him, but his gaze and snarl remained on the ‘wolf’.
He snarled again, as the next wolf appeared, and the next, and the next.
Oh yes, a pack.
Lorrimer decided it was mildly amusing that, after everything else, he was likely going to die at the hands (paws?) of a werewolf. Dracula would be angry about that too, no doubt.
Lorrimer was his prey, after all. Or so the vampire liked to dramatically proclaim every now and then.
Lorrimer had let Dracula keep thinking that for a while now, if only in hopes of a peaceful life.
If only.
The wolves attacked all at once, and Lorrimer closed his eyes. He wasn’t prepared to die, but then he supposed nobody ever really was. Nobody could prepare for the unknown. Except perhaps Dracula, who’d apparently died at least seven times now, like a damn cat. Not that Lorrimer was keeping count or anything.
Damn Dracula.
Lorrimer waited for his own unprepared death, but instead damn Dracula’s snarl resonated some more.
Guttural and hissing and animal. As animal as the wolves that surrounded them both.
Lorrimer opened his eyes.
He couldn’t see much. Partly because it was so dark of course, but also because the shapes in front of him were moving so fast.
Large dark shapes of limbs and claws and fangs and teeth, and fur flying through the air, sometimes highlighted against the bright and full moon.
The largest shape of them all sounded like Dracula, only it wasn’t.
It was wolf-like, but not. Not very helpful, but in the almost-total darkness, Lorrimer could only decipher bits of it.
Large sharp black ears. A long canine nose, and a jaw full of sharp teeth. Swiping and clawing paws.
Lorrimer was breathless as he watched the fight unfold before him. He staggered into the crispy dead leaves and just sat there, listening to yelps and snarls and cries and whimpers. Watching blood spew from throats, tongues lolling out between last gasps of growling breath.
Three of the wolves fell, motionless on the forest floor. The last limped away, whimpers echoing and falling away into the night.
The largest figure, which Lorrimer knew as Dracula but not really, stood in the middle of the carnage. Its huge jaw hanging open, huge tongue lolling out and dripping blood. Panting hard and fast. Its snarl moving into a rapidly diminishing groan.
Its eyes were a glazed red, as it finally seemed to find focus on Lorrimer.
And it was only then, as the creature sunk to the floor like dead weight, did Lorrimer realise that it actually really was Dracula.
Lorrimer crawled over to it. Him.
Put his hand on fur that felt thick and rough and bristly and too bloody.
“...Dracula?”
The creature that was Dracula was still breathing, as it began to sink into the earth. Lorrimer watched, intrigued and horrified (yes, as he always was when it came to Dracula) as the form changed.
As it writhed on the earth, its growls moving into more familiar sounds to Lorrimer’s ears.
Pained and anguished sounds.
Lorrimer grasped at that bristly fur more tightly. Until it was a piece of cloak draped over Dracula’s shoulder.
The vampire’s body was very still. For a moment Lorrimer thought that Dracula was dead.
And for a moment he was very sad.
Then Dracula made another pained sound, and turned his head.
He looked at Lorrimer and grinned feebly.
“...told you so,” he said, just as feebly. “...werewolves.”
Lorrimer had mind to scowl at him.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” he said instead.
Dracula laughed, but it was more like a cough.
He winced and grumbled, and shifted arduously onto his back.
“...last resort,” he said, as if that explained everything.
This time Lorrimer did scowl at him. “Shape shifting?”
“Mmhm. Did you like it?” Dracula looked strangely hopeful. It was even stranger on his bloodied face.
“I like the part where you saved my life, yes,” Lorrimer cared to admit. He huffed. “I’ve still got to kill you, though. Vampire hunter, and all that.”
Dracula didn’t look put out by the words at all.
He just grinned again, and appropriately wolfishly.
“Something to add to your silly journals then, Lorrimer.”
“I suppose so. Inspector Murray’s going to lose his mind.”
Dracula laughed, and Lorrimer smiled.
He rested his hand on Dracula’s chest.
“I should probably thank you first, though.”
Then he leant down, kissing the vampire on the mouth.
Dracula tasted of blood and earth and things that Lorrimer should not want, but always did. So he kissed him again, and again.
Dracula moaned and whined, indecent in his encouragement. Lorrimer hated him for that. But Lorrimer also didn’t want him to stop making those sounds either.
So Lorrimer kept kissing him, and more, into the night.
Yes, he should have known better, really.
But the wolves were gone, and Lorrimer felt alive again.
Good enough.
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