Chapter 1. Business in Country Pub.
Dr. Thanatos Schiffer was a learned man. He was on the younger side of middle age, tall and thin with slumped shoulders that gave the impression of a wilting plant. The doctor currently wore a battered old 19th century frock coat covered in dust and what could have been dried blood. His face was hard and gaunt. He had high cheekbones, a sharp nose, and jutting eyebrows, with little extra skin to flesh it out. His eyes, placed behind wirery spectacles, were a mysterious blue; like the blue seen in the sky just before night.
The doctor currently stood, as we describe him, at the threshold of a shady old country pub, taking a last few desired breaths of fresh air before entering the smoggy biome. His large buckled boots hit the wood floor stridently as he made his way inside, the rotten timbers whining and groaning with the introduction of yet another heavy-booted stranger. Dr. Schiffer presently moved towards the bar, weaving his way carefully through the scattered and upturned tables and chairs, and whispering several apologies after interrupting a rather dazed old man who seemed to be walking around in a determined hexagonal pattern.
“Watch it, boy!”
“Sorry, sorry, pardon me.”
The bar was pretty crowded, but Dr. Schiffer managed to squeeze in between two burly warlocks with tattoos on their arms. He smiled at them good-naturedly, but the two hardly returned the favor.
Dr. Schiffer, snorting a bit, knew that by this time of night the smoke, which had been collecting on the ceiling, had built up enough to reach the food level, and it was starting to seriously affect his allergies. He felt his eyes beginning to water as he waited for the bartender, and he blew his nose into a handkerchief that he conjured with a flick of his wrist.
“Would you like a firewhiskey to clean out the sinuses, stranger?” said the bartender, a young but tired-looking woman with humorless eyes.
“Yes, please,” said the doctor, “a firewhiskey would hit the spot nicely.”
Once he had obtained the whiskey, he moved deeper into the pub, looking around for his business partner, Mr. Cardei. The bar was too dark to identify distinct features, so Mr. Cardei would probably have to spot him first.
The back of the pub was choked with more smoke and dust that anywhere else in the entire pub, and Dr. Schiffer managed to turn a rough cough into a rattling sneeze. He supposed that this part of the pub had the worst air circulation anywhere, and not because of a lack of windows as one would assume—the windows of the bar were usually kept closed anyway—but because of the evident lack of a routine change in occupants. The gentleman in the far corner, for example, hardly seemed to have moved since Dr. Schiffer first entered the bar three weeks ago. The doctor guessed that he was probably dead; the bartender would have been glad to find any excuse not to clean the tables.
On the opposite corner, Dr. Schiffer saw two figures sitting, and one of them was waving his hand, beckoning our hero closer. The man’s moon-pale skin was visible even in the pubs engulfing darkness, and his black eyes made him look like a hollow shell of skin. The man’s companion was a witch that Dr. Schiffer didn’t recognize. She was old, ugly, and gray, with plenty of large warts on her crooked face. She wore her shirt with a low neck cut, and red lipstick that horribly clashed with her pallid gray skin. Ugly must have come back in style.
Dr. Thanatos Schiffer frowned at his business partner. This was supposed to be a rather secret meeting. Just pure business. He wasn’t sure why she was here.
“And the…and then…you know what I said to ‘em?” wheezed the wrinkled witch, her voice as hoarse as any the Doctor had ever heard.
“No,” said the pale man.
“I says… I says… You don’t know nuthin! I says, wait till you taste the young ‘uns, they like a good sherry when you’re under aged!”
At this point, the witch let out a hacking laughs that quickly turned into gagging coughs, and the witch looked like she might have choked to death. The doctor looked at his business partner in concern, but the pale man made no movement to help her. Suddenly, a particularly horrendous cough released a slimy ball of spit and tobacco that landed in the middle of the table, next to the sherry, with a sickening splat.
The old woman, to the disgust of the table’s two other inhabitants, reached towards the ball of goo and pulled from it a little shoe. It was pink with white floral pattern and white laces and soles.
“Gosh, I feel like that’s been stuck in my throat for ages,”
Dr. Schiffer realized that the witch wasn’t a witch. She was a hag.
“Good morning, Doctor,” said the pale man. He had turned impossibly paler, almost translucent, at the sight of a haggish spitball. He was so pale, Doctor Schiffer was quite sure that he could see Mr. Cardei’s entire inner workings; but it was too dark to tell for sure.
“Good morning, Mr. Cardei.”
“Did you bring my substance?”
“Yep,” said Dr. Schiffer, pulling a bottle of red liquid from the inside of his coat and setting it down on the table in front of Mr. Cardei. He took special care to keep it a good distance away from the spitball, which now seemed to be wiggling of its own accord.
“That’s not much,” said Mr. Cardei, eyeing the bottle with disappointment.
“It’s magic,” said the Doctor, “That’s a dozen gallon pint. It’s charmed to hold a dozen gallons, if need be. That’s really half-empty. Only ‘bout six gallons there.”
“Magic?” said Mr. Cardei, his black eyes becoming more cavernous with greed. “Really? Magic you say?”
At this moment, the slimeball began to gurgle, disrupting the conversation. Dr. Thanatos Schiffer drew his wand in a flourish from his coat and pointed it at the gurgling, giggling slimeball, and muttered “Scourfigy.” Instantly, the table was wiped clean, and the slime ball disappeared in thin air.
“Magic, Mr. Cardei,” he said after a brief pause.
“Well, I’ll be,” said the hag, “You never had any magic, Mister?”
“No,” said Mr. Cardei, looking put off.
“Well, I’ll be,” said the hag again. She scratched herself, and then continued “I dabbled with magic stuff myself you know. Little things mostly. Thought I’d make me life a little easier, yah know?”
“Like what?” said Dr. Schiffer “I thought hags weren’t allowed.”
“Not wands or nuthin,” the hag replied, “Just charmed things and the like. Most of it was nice. I got a good self-dirtying rug for a good price. And one of them candy ovens. Ever heard of
those? Children come from miles around just to jump in.”
“Really?” said Mr. Cardei.
“Sure as I’m sitting before you today.”
“About that,” Dr. Schiffer began, moving uncomfortably in his seat, but he was cut off.
“Worked a little too well, as a matter o’ fact. I actually had to get one of them fencings to keep the buggers out, yah know.”
“You mean a fence? You had to get a fence?” asked Mr. Cardei.
“By gosh, you’re more of a tîmpit than I knew yer to be!”
The hag shook her head, letting her greasy hair flop about slimily. “A Fencing. I mean a fencing. It’s like a fence, but it’s really aggressive, see, and it challenges any old passerby to a duel. Can’t fight much, but has an annoying habit of locking itself when it feels like it has bested you in personal combat.”
“I’ve heard about those,” said the doctor, “There was a wizard in Germany who got a hold of one. He lived in this non-magical neighborhood, wouldn’t you have it, and the fence locked itself to him. Poor bloke was electrified with 1000 volts of electricity when he tried to force his way through. Burnt him to a crisp. Nothing left of him but ashes. Authorities did an investigation, and it looks like the fence attached itself to an underground cable of some sort.”
“Blimey,” said the hag. “Never knew it could be deadly.”
“Fencings are marked under the non-tradable goods clause. You’re actually not supposed to have one.”
The hag blushed a sickening shade of green.
“Well, I, well…I have my sources.”
The hag looked a little nervous for a moment, and then scuttled off towards the bar. Breathing a sigh of relief, Thanatos Schiffer turned towards his business partner.
“I wouldn’t have guessed vampires would keep such good company,” he said with a small grin.
“I didn’t invite her,” he said, a little indignantly. “She followed me back here, started going on and on about all sorts of hullabaloo.”
Mr. Cardei looked at the bottle of red liquid, picking the bottle up in his pale hands. His face seemed to glow red against the light reflected from the bottle.
“Magic, eh…” said Mr. Cardei, turning the bottle over in his hands. He looked up at Dr. Schiffer, catching the doctor with his bottomless black-eye stare. “What kind is it?”
The doctor frowned.
“Cow. Got it from a somewhere outside Napoca. But you’ve got to…”
“Uphold my end of the deal? Yes, Dr. Schiffer, as always.” Mr. Cardei placed the bottle back down upon the table, and clasped his fingers together. “Now, where did we leave off the last meeting?”
“You were talking about how vampires are able to move even though they are technically dead.”
“That’s right. Vampire mobility, as you called it.”
“Yes,”
“Well, I don’t know all the facts, but we vampires move about on an energy of sorts.”
“Energy of sorts? Like electricity?”
“I dunno. An energy. Don’t ask what kind, I don’t know. But it’s some form of energy. I think we may get it from drinking blood.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Drinking blood? Oh, the energy. Well, I dunno. It comes quite naturally to us. I barely knew the difference after my blood initiation. Blood initiation is, of course, just another fancy word for being bitten. I don’t think I regret it though. I sometimes wonder…”
“Back again!” shouted the hag in the ear of Mr. Cardei, who flinched at the noise.
The hag moved towards the seat that she had occupied previously, sitting her plump self down and setting a glass of firewhiskey on the table.
“I says, well, if the Doctor had one, they musta be healthy! So, I didn’t mind if I did.”
“Since when have hags ever been worried about their health?” said Mr. Cardei.
Doctor Thanatos Sciffer frowned. He was very near the end of his discussions with Mr. Cardei before he moved on to other research, and the hag was providing to be a very annoying distraction. All the while, starlight was burning, and it wouldn’t be long before Mr. Cardei would have to head home. The doctor was beginning to think that Mr. Cardei had arranged for their guest to attend this night’s meeting, just for the very purpose of extending his supply of blood.
“Who’s to say we don’t?” said the Hag indignantly.
“Well, I only assumed—”
“Can I speak to you a moment Mr. Cardei?” interrupted Doctor Schiffer.
“Uh, certainly,” he said, standing up to follow the doctor.
Thanatos Schiffer led the vampire to the opposite corner of the bar, where the presumably dead man sat slumped in his seat, and accosted his partner.
“This is another strategy, isn’t it, Mr. Cardei.”
“What strategy?” he said in a tone of surprise.
“You know what I mean. Just like the allergic reaction to sheep’s blood. I bet that was a complete scam. You aren’t allergic to sheep’s blood.”
“Of course I…”
“Listen to me, Mr. Cardei. I’ve spent the last three weeks as your supplier, doing all your dirty work, and now just as I’m approaching the end of my questioning, you decide to invite a hag over.”
“How dare you accuse me…”
“And last night, right, when you were an hour late for our meeting? That was it too, wasn’t it?”
Mr. Cardei grimaced, barring his white fangs for the doctor to see clearly.
“I see right through you now. Playing the stalling game, eh? Well, you’re going to stay with me the rest of the night and finish our questioning. You can sleep in the inn upstairs.”
“No, I can’t tell you tonight!” Mr. Cardei hissed. “I can’t be finished tonight. You promised…”
“I’ve upheld my end of the bargain,” said the doctor, pulling out his wand and tapping Mr. Cardei on the nose “Now it’s your turn.”
Mr. Cardei nervously eyed Dr. Schiffer’s wand, a long but cruelly twisted piece of black wood. One might think it resembled an old root, but the doctor held it as if he was holding a long dagger. Mr. Cardei gave the doctor a look of sour contempt.
“You think you’re all big and bad, swinging that thing around,” he said, not able to hide the hint of fear in his voice “But truth is—I can’t tell you tonight. I can’t tell all of it to you tonight.”
“Why?”
Mr. Cardei shuffled his feet.
“I can’t.”
“Don’t tell me that. Why can’t you?”
“I…I haven’t…”
The end of the sentence hit Doctor Thanatos even before Mr. Cardei had finished speaking it. He grabbed Mr. Cardei by the scruff of his shirt and threw him against the wall, pointing his wand directly at his neck. It wasn’t Mr. Cardei who was the only one scared anymore.
“Who…” he said, breathing heavily, “who has been giving you the information?”
Mr. Cardei tried to struggle out of his grip.
“WHO?” Dr. Schiffer bellowed, sending hot sparks flying from his wand. “WHO?”
“Yeah, who?” the hag chimed in.
Mr. Cardei glanced at the rest of the bar, whose inhabitants had all turned to watch the scene with interest.
“Not here,” he said.
Doctor Thanatos lowered his wand.
“Upstairs, now.” he said to Mr. Cardei. Mr. Cardei obeyed, scuttling quickly away. The doctor turned to the hag, pointing his wand at her, “You too.”
“Whatevah you say, Mister,” the hag frowned.
Putting his wand back in his coat sleeve, the doctor straightened his hat and followed the odd couple upstairs, his blood-stained coat billowing in his wake.
END OF CHAPTER
