glass to his lips with the Vampires’ toast:
A soldier’s in love with his rifle,
A sailor’s in love with his deck,
A Vampire’s in love when he kisses a girl
And leaves two holes in her neck
He swallowed the blood red liquid in one fast gulp. The other two customers kept their eyes averted from Victor, not wanting to antagonise him in any way and not wanting to be noticed by him either. Victor smacked his lips and said:
‘Excellent. Really very gutt. Eighteen years olt, I vould say, ya?’
The landlord picked up the bottle and looked at it before answering. ‘Nineteen,’ he said.
‘Nineteen? Vos she really? I vould haff said eighteen. Maybe, mine bar-keeping frent, you are keeping it too cool. I don’t like it ven it’s too cool. Unterstant, Grabbo? I don’t like it ven it’s too colt, ya?’
‘Yes, Sir.’ Grabbo grovelled. Areta continued to clear the tables although she had done them twice already.
Victor watched her, a smile coming to his lips. ‘You know somethink, Grabbo?’
‘Sir?’
‘You daughter has become very beautiful, ya?’
‘Er … thank you, Sire.’
‘Ya, very beautiful inteed. Giff me a drink off the twenty year olt.’
Grabbo filled the waiting glass from another hidden bottle.
‘Vill you join me, mine frent?’
‘Er no, Your Greatness. Er … I’m off it at the moment. I’m … er … trying to lose weight,’ Grabbo quickly lied, not wanting to offend a customer.
‘I haff the perfect vay off losing veight. Vot you do is simple like your two customers over there.’ Victor looked very hard at the two other customers. ‘You eat nothing but roobs, ant then …’
‘Roobs?’ questioned Grabbo.
‘Yah, roobs.’
‘What are roobs, Sir?’
‘Roobs are a special fruit. They are very rare ant are only to be fount ten feet unterground.’
‘But, how will they help me to lose weight, if I may ask, Sire?’
‘It’s obvious. The exercise vile you are diggink for them. And then, ven you haff fount them you von’t eat them because they have such a horrit taste. That vay you vill lose even more veight, ya?’ Here Victor burst into almost uncontrollable laughter; laughter so chilling that the mirror behind the bar cracked.
Grabbo looked into the mirror. He could see his own reflection and the look of terror on his own pale face. He could also see the entire room. But he could not see Victor who was stood next to him because, being a Vampire, Victor had no reflection.
‘I’m sorry, mine frent,’ Victor said, looking at the cracked mirror and although Grabbo couldn’t see the reflection of Victor, Victor looked towards the mirror and straightened his tie.
A long scratch at the door of the tavern made everyone, including Victor, turn their heads. No one moved. The door slowly creaked open. There stood a smiling werewolf, a man covered in long, shaggy wolfhair looking a bit dishevelled on account of the rather strong wind. He had the werewolf’s almost red, fiery eyes and long, canine teeth. He stood erect in the doorway with the wind blowing his long hair as a woman blows on a fur coat. King Victor looked at him and thought he looked like a rather untidy crow’s nest.
‘Come in, Vilf, ant close the toor,’ Victor said.
Wilf the Werewolf, as he was known, walked into the tavern, shutting the door behind him.
‘Hello Victor,’ he said in a rather sing-song voice. ‘How’s the wife and kids?’ He was pleased to be indoors on such a night as this and he showed it by wagging his tail.
‘They are all very vell, thank you, mine covered-in-hair frent, and it vos very nice of you to ask.’
‘Not at all,’ Wilf smiled. ‘You know me. I’m very fond of your brood. How’s poor Valentine? Is he any better?’
‘Whom tolt you he vos ill?’
‘Dick.’
‘Tick?’
‘Yes, Dick. You remember Dick … Dick the big, daft dwarf,’ he almost barked.
‘Ah yes, Tick. Tick the bick taft twarf. Ya, I remember him. Ya.’
‘He told me Val wasn’t too good,’ Wilf continued. ‘I met him in the forest and we went for a walkies. That’s when he told me.’
‘Vell, Valentine’s a lot better I think. The Doctor’s vith him now. Doctor Plump.’
‘Plump?’ Wilf thought a while. ‘Doctor Plump?’
‘Ya.’
‘Yes, I think I used to go about with his alsatian. I’m not sure.’
‘Very tall.’
‘No. Short, rather fat with a scruffy tail.’
‘I mean the Doctor.’
‘Oh!’ Wilf snarled sweetly.
Areta had joined the other two customers while her father was once more behind the bar. Wilf joined Victor at the bar.
‘Can I get you anythink?’ King Victor asked Wilf.
‘No. No thank you, Victor. I’m off it at the moment. The hard stuff, that is. The vet says it’s best if I keep off it for a few more days. I’ve got a touch of hard pad.’ He showed Victor the sole of his left foot. ‘That’s why I’m limping a bit.’ He put his hind foot gingerly back on the floor.
‘I vould think you get the hard pad from all the runnink you do, ya?’
‘Never stop. I’m always running,’ Wilf said proudly, turning and leaning his back on the bar.
‘Ya, you run a lot, Vilf.’
‘I’m always running. Well, you see, farmers are always after me for frightening their sheep and enraged parents and all that, and bears and the like. Bears don’t like us much so they chase us a lot. Parents, farmers, bears … That’s why I do a lot of running, you see. I’ll tell you what …’
‘Vot?’
‘If you were to throw a stick now, across this floor to the other side
