The Reluctant Vampire Omnibus

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‘I’m not sure. I think he’s making someone. Go and see if Valentine is out and about. As a matter of fact, I’ll come with you.’

The Queen, as beautiful and elegant as ever, rested her arm on that of the beginning-to-pong-a-little King, and together they walked along to Valentine’s room.

King Victor softly opened Valentine’s door. They crept towards the coffin, expecting him to be asleep. When they discovered the coffin was empty they at first didn’t know what to think.

They looked at each other over the open, empty coffin. The Queen looked back into the coffin, not really wanting to look at Victor, while Victor stood there in his now almost green suit, a blue vein quickly pumping on the left side of his white face, his black eyes staring almost unseeing into the coffin. He drew his purple lips back to show his pearl white teeth biting into his pink tongue.

‘He’s gone,’ he hissed. ‘He’s escaped.’

‘How can he escape?’ the Queen asked. ‘And why should he escape? He’s been with us all these years. He knows nothing. Only you and I know how he came here.’

‘And Igon?’

‘Why should Igon know?’

‘Because a fool like Igon knows everythink.’

‘Then we are safe. If Igon is a fool who will believe him?’

‘Don’t spout your female logic at me. The only thing I know is that mine son has escaped. I know he has. I haff a feelink.’

The Queen was not to be intimidated.

‘Nonsense. You are talking nonsense. He’s probably in his playroom listening to his musical boxes. He’s got all the latest ones. Only last week he sent away for Mick Jugular and the Rolling Tombstones.’

‘Vy do you prattle on so? Valentine has gone. Vy has he gone? I vill tell you. Somevon in the castle has told him he is not a Vampire. He knows he is not a Vampire. So beink a human child he wants to fint out whom his real parents are and you prattle on about … er … Tick Tracular ant the Writhing Twobones.’

‘Mick Jugular and the Rolling Tombstones, dear,’ his Queen corrected.

The King looked at his wife for a long time before he spoke, as if he was trying to recollect the past events. ‘You remember the night I brought him to the castle?’

‘Of course,’ the Queen said.

‘I found him, a small, little thing, not much more than a day old. He vas wrapped up in a blanket vit the vords on a piece of parchment sayink “Please somevon vill you take care off mine little boy,” ya?’

‘Yes. Look dear. I know all this.’

‘But dit you know whom his parents vere, eh?’

‘No one did.’

‘You are wronk. I dit.’

‘How?’

‘Because I made it mine duty to find out.’

‘Who? Tell me who.’ The Queen stared at her husband.

‘The Mayor. Ya, Mayor Goop. He vas his father. That is vy I turned him into a bat.’