Beauty Never Dies (8 page)

Dracula looked puzzled, totally shocked. If you had seen the look in his eyes, you’d have thought that he'd just been punk’d on live TV. I didn’t blame him. He was trapped in the Dreamworld for a hundred years. The last time he was here in the real life, people feared him, and considered him the lord of darkness. He had no idea that the best he could do in the real world now was becoming some kind of an amusing tourist attraction. He’d sit back in a throne in his castle, and little kids would play with his face and gush about how this dude really looked
like
Dracula.

“He needs to fix his teeth.” Hunchy commented.

“Look who is talking,” I eyed him. “You two definitely need a dentist. Come on Draco,” I said to the count. “You don’t mind me calling you Draco, right?”

Hunchy sent out another one of his evil chuckles into the night. Dracula looked like he’d preferred to dig up his gave again and die, rather than being ignored and humiliated.

“I am Count Dracula,” He spat out on me. The smell of his breath was unbearable. I forgot that a hundred years in a grave caused bad hygiene. “How dare you order me around?”

I wiped the spit off my face and sighed. “Oh boy.” I mumbled, looking up at the full moon. I lowered my head, turned around, and ripped out his heart with my bare hands. It was a swift move, one of my endless talents.

Dracula arched forward, looking at his small heart throbbing in my hands. He didn't know he had one, I believed.

“Now we know who is who in this conversation.” I said.

“How did you do that?” Dracula moaned. “Who are you?”

“My friends call me Peter,” I said with a smug on my face. “But you can call me Pan.”

“Why should I call you Pan?”

“Because Pan is a god, and I practically own you.” I pointed at his heart in my hand. “And how come you have such a weightless heart? If you want to be effectively resurrected, we will have to feed you until this heart grows heavier. You can’t survive with such a small one.” I plunged his heart back into his chest, watching it wiring itself to his blue veins while his chest mended the wound. I loved how vampires healed so quickly.

“We’ll have to feed him.” Hunchy offered – as if I hadn’t said that.

“Bring him a boar,” I said. “As many boars as he likes. Let him suck their blood.”

“I thought you’d say we’d bring him one of the kids from Neverland.”

“Not now,” I explained. “I don’t want to quench his thirst for humans. I will need him to bite someone for me tonight. And he has to be craving for human blood to do that.”

“As you wish, Pete,” Hunchy bowed his, and whipped Dracula with a silver snake that was dipped in holy water an hour ago. Count Dracula screamed in pain. I could see smoke fuming out of his heated body. “Oh. Sorry. Did that hurt?” Hunchy mocked Dracula.

Those two were bad company. No future for their relationship. How did I end up with such annoying crowd?

I am Peter Pan, the prince of Neverland, the sixteen-year-old, beautiful boy who never grows up. If the Grimm’s hadn’t just messed things up, I wouldn’t have ended here with those old bastards. Even though I have nothing to do with the Brothers Grimm cursing their own characters, I found myself involved in all this mess. It was the price I had to pay, being in love with one of them.

“Why do you need to be so violent, Hunchy?” I wondered. “If you behave tonight, I’ll make you watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre when we get back to the castle, so you can feed on the pain of others like you want.”

“The 1974 version?” Hunchy’s eyes widened eagerly.

“Yeah,” I murmured. “With DVD commentary, deleted scenes, and extra blood—I mean ketchup and pizza—on the side.” I kicked the grass as I walked to my red Corvette. “Come on Draco. We’ve got work to do,” I said over my shoulder. “You know, I have second thoughts about calling you Draco because there is another more famous Draco than you.”

“More famous?” Dracula grunted. Even while in pain, fame mattered more than fangs. He was certainly an airhead.

.”“Draco Malfoy,” I said as I opened the back door for him and Hunchy. I wouldn’t let those two vulgar creatures ride next to me. My passenger seat is reserved for beautiful teen girls. “It’s a Harry Potter thing, and what’s ironic is that his name was probably inspired by you

Starting the engine, I pushed the gas pedal forward, and sent the Corvette into the night. Dracula was sucking the blood of a small dead boar in my backseat like a homeless beggar. The more I watched him in the rear-view mirror, the more he shattered all I knew about him being a child who loved scary movies.

I considered it funny when I talk about
childhood
. To describe a period of your life as your childhood, you must be a grown up. And that’s the one thing I never did.

On the way, Dracula described my Corvette as a fancy carriage. He wondered how it wasn’t pulled by two horses and still moved. I had to persuade him that my car was possessed by invisible demons. He said that he wanted two of them in his carriage in the future.

Arriving at my castle, I found her majesty waiting for me. Why would the Queen of Sorrow ever want to visit me? I hope the situation with Snow White didn’t get out of hand – or rather, out of apples.

Since I didn’t want her to know about Dracula, I let Hunchy usher her to the main hall over the bridge leading to the castle while I drove around and entered with Draco through a back door.

“May I ask who that woman is?” Dracula asked after entering my private chamber.

“The Queen of Sorrow,” I sighed. “You two are family, by the way.”

“Family? I have no family. I have been searching for my family and who, or what, I am since long ago.” Dracula said as he wiped the boar’s blood from his lips. Now that he fed, he seemed a bit more confident.

“That’s part of why I brought you back to life, Count Dracula,” I said, picking up an apple then cutting it with my knife. “I do know where you come from and who you really are.”

“You do?” he asked suspiciously.

“Here,” I showed him some pictures and ancient books. “This is your family. These are your ancestors. Some of them, you know. Some of them, you don’t.”

Dracula flipped through the pages and pictures with longing eyes, but then he threw it all away and got back to me. “What is this? This is absurd.” He claimed.

“Absurd and true. Perfect synonyms.” I cocked my head, as I slipped in comfortable white trousers and took off my shirt. If it were for me, I’d run naked all around, showing off my young and attractive body, but I had a reputation to keep.

“These people don’t even exist,” Dracula protested. “They are fictional characters in fairy tales.”

If Dracula was aware of fairy tales, how come he didn’t recognize the famous name of Peter Pan? I had to assume that he wasn’t much of a reader in his time. Sucking blood and intimidating virgins didn’t really fit with being a bookworm. Can you imagine Dracula sitting by a fireplace, covered in a blanket with a pipe in his mouth, reading a book? What would that book's title be? 10 Ways to Suck Blood Without Making a Mess? Change Your Life and Become Scarier than Frankenstein in Seven Days? The Four-Hour Coffin Nap? The Hunger Games. ( Not the one about the future. The one about how to deal with hunger for blood )

“They are your ancestors, Draco,” I said firmly. “I don’t expect you to believe me right away, but this woman out there in the hall is your flesh and blood.”

“Absurd,” Dracula said the word three consecutive times. Each time he roared the word, he shattered the glass in the windows, and vases flopped in the air.

Interesting. I didn’t know he could do such things. So he wasn’t just a shallow
fanghead
after all.

“Ok.” I gave in. I was never fond of educating those who didn’t want to be educated.
Let the chips fall where they may.
I was a casual boy. I liked fun, faeries, food fights, and folklore dances. Add a little mayhem here and there, and you got me by
Hello
. “We could discuss this issue later. Right now, I need you for something else. However, I’ll have to get rid of the Queen outside first. Please feel free to enjoy the chamber while I am away. Just break no more vases please.”

“You’re going to leave me alone in here?” He stopped me by the door.

“You’re not going to whine like babies and want me to leave the lights on, are you?” I said impatiently.

“Of course not.”

“And you’re not afraid of other vampires, I assume.”

“Of course not.”

“Then what the fang is your problem, Draco?”

“I get bored easily.”

“Oh. That,” I turned around and switched on my Xbox. “You know what we children do in the real world whenever we get bored?”

“I have no idea. What do you do?”

“We kill zombies.”

“Zom—“ He squinted as he pursed his lips, stuck at the
M
in Zom.

“bies.” I stressed in an educational way.

“What kind of bees are those?” He wondered.

“What?” It took me a second to register his confusion. “Oh. No. It’s not like queen bees and
zombees
.”

“Then what it is?”

Now, I looked puzzled. How was I supposed to explain that? Why were they even called zombies? Were they bees that got zombed, or zoms that got beed.
To bee or not to bee, that’s is the question.

I threw a controlling device at Dracula. He caught it with his fangs.

“Don’t bite it, please. It’s really expensive. There is a red button. Put your thumb on it.”

The screen showed the zombies coming toward us, looking for
braiiiins
. I was surprised when Dracula winced.

“These are the zombies we kill for fun. It’s also a nice way to bury dark psychological childhood issues...like yours.” I said, watching him drawing his fangs out at the zombies in the screen. Had I told him that they were stuck inside this screen, I would have spoiled the fun, so I shut up.

“Push the button, Draco,” I said enthusiastically. “Or they will get you. They love to kill vampires.”

An incredibly victorious and pompous smile drew itself on Dracula’s face when he pushed the button, decapitating his first zombie.

“Feels good, eh?” I said. “Just like your first—“ I was going to say
kiss
, but didn’t know if her were capable of that.

“Off with their heads!” He yelled at the screen.

“Don’t say that, please,” I shook my head. “That’s not your department. These words belong to the Red Queen.” I followed, wondering if there were zombies in Wonderland. Why did the Red Queen repeatedly say:
off with their head
? Hmm.

He didn’t comment. He was so into the game as if I weren’t in the room anymore.

“I thought so,” I said under my breath as I walked out. “Every child’s dream is to push a button and kill imaginary friends.”

Out in the hall, the Queen was tapping her glass shoes on the marble floor of my castle. Those must have been Cinderella’s shoes, but I didn’t want to know.

As arrogant and evil that the Queen posed, she still took my breath away with her beauty. Even though I knew her beauty was fed with young girl’s blood, the Queen was one of the few reasons that made me consider growing up.

“My Queen,” I nodded as I approached my desk in the hall. It was cut from the most precious oaken trees, the shape of a liver. The Lost Boys liked those tables when we used to have food fights in Neverland. “What an unpleasant surprise.” I greeted her with a big smile on my face.