"Well, it's the truth!" Javier Vachon adopted his very best wide-eyed innocent look and delivered the next line to Nick Knight with a completely straight face. "I _coulda_ been a contender!"

"Get outa here." Knight leaned on the Raven's polished bar and exchanged dubious glances with LaCroix, who stood watching them from the other side. "You, a Hollywood screenwriter? Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously," Vachon insisted. "Don't bother denying it, Knight, 'cause I happen to know you've got your own collection of schlocky old vampire flicks. Ever see one called 'Castle of Blood'?"

Nick's tone came close to derision. "No kidding? You wrote _that?"_

LaCroix's blond eyebrows climbed toward his equally pale hairline. "Doubtless a veritable paragon of classic film noir."

Vachon turned his liquid brown gaze to the elder vampire and grinned impishly. "Thanks."

At this indefatigable response, LaCroix snorted and pointedly walked away.

Knight hid a laugh in the glass of cow's blood he'd been sipping.

"What?" Vachon stared after LaCroix's retreating back. "Was it something I said?"

Knight nodded. "Let's just say he's not exactly a fan."

"Shame. He'd be a natural."

Rolling his eyes, Knight put down his glass and turned to go. "Good night, Vachon."

"Night, Knight."

That got him one last over-the-shoulder glower before Knight disappeared into the crowd. Pleased, Vachon finished his own drink, then made his way to the Raven's deserted back alley and took flight for home.

If he lived to be a thousand, he doubted he'd ever figure out Knight and that downright creepy (even by vampire standards) sire of his. Maybe it was better not to try...

But leave it to those two to rain on his favorite parade. Recalling his too-brief Hollywood career usually made for pleasant reminisces. On this day, however, as he slumbered in the basement of his abandoned church, Vachon's dreams took a twist into la-la land. He was, inexplicably, mortal again, and the humans he'd worked with all those years ago suddenly acquired new - and familiar - faces...

* * *

"Two minutes!"

The director had to shout over the rest of the studio din, and Vachon's head throbbed in rhythm with his every word.

"Okay, get the boom in tight. Tighter, George, tighter! That's it. Somebody go and tell Tracy we're ready? She oughta be here by now."

Vachon rubbed an aching temple, careful not to muss the nineteenth century hair style make-up had just spent two hours grooming to match his period costume. He figured he'd had one champagne too many at last night's cast party, and he knew he should have known better. But then, he'd had good reason to celebrate. Not every up-and-coming screenwriter got to play a bit part in the production of his work; and opposite the actress he'd suggested for the lead role, too.

Not bad, Javier ol' buddy. Not bad at all.

"Cue the fog. Okay, one minute!"

Dry-ice mist began nipping at his polished costume boots and curling up the foam rubber stones of Castle Dracula's walls. Vachon watched it creep, snake-like, under the balsa wood doors. When the klieg lights switched on and flooded the set with eerie blue and gray, a shiver ran up his spine. 'Castle of Blood' was going to be unequivocal B-movie schlock. But it would be precisely the kind of schlock he'd always loved.

And so had Tracy Vetter. She'd said so in that interview with Rolling Stone. The minute he'd read it, he'd called 'Castle of Blood's' casting director and requested that she be considered for the part.

_But you never thought they'd go for it, did you?_ he chided himself. You never thought they'd seriously consider an up-and-coming starlet like her for the role of Clarissa. But they did.

He was sure they'd awarded her the role in part because this boob of a new director (what was his name? deBarbent, deBravaunt, something like that) thought he was making another 'Young Frankenstein' here.

_Not MY picture, deBroadbone. This is serious stuff!_

"All right, let's go. Where the hell's Tracy? She's late."

"I'm right here, Nick. And don't rub it in."

Vachon jumped. She'd come, unexpectedly, through the door of the set, from the incomplete interior of the castle, and the Hollywood fog, like spectral fingers, was crawling up the velvet folds of her gown toward the V of a plunging neckline. The dress was blood red, of course. The exact same shade that her lips had been painted.

"Hi, lover," she joked at him. "You ready for the big scene?"

He managed a nervous smile and replied meekly, "Sure."

_Oh, wonderful. The lady you've been waiting all this time to meet, and all you can say is 'sure.' Javier, you're an idiot._

The starting buzzer sounded, a strident, adenoidal foghorn that effectively silenced all the clatter around them. deBreadbox said, "Places, please. Okay, roll it."

The beep of the electronic clapboard was followed at once by two voices in rapid succession.

The first one said, "Castle of Blood, scene 86A, take one."

The second shouted, "Action!"

And Tracy -- Clarissa -- struck a fetching pose in front of Castle Dracula's balsa-wood door. "Come on, Nathan," she recited in perfect keeping with the script. "Let's go inside."

"You're sure the castle's empty? They said down in the village that someone was up here. A count."

She laughed, red lips framing perfect white teeth. "Nathan, darling. The count is a friend of mine." One of her slender hands reached out to invite him; the other depressed the door latch. "Come on. Come inside."

Vachon took the hand she offered, gently closing his own fingers over the crimson nails, and fixed her with what he hoped was an appropriately rapt gaze.

"Clarissa," he said. "You know I'd go anywhere with you."

_Geesh, Vachon. Did you really write this crap??_

She led him through the open door with fog and cameraman both coming after. "And I'd take you, Nathan dear. Anywhere at all."

_She has the most intriguing eyes. So beautiful. They aren't Tracy's at all anymore, but Clarissa's. All Clarissa's._

The castle door closed with a hollow thud that seemed far too loud for the flimsy stage construction that it was. The scene was supposed to end here, and Vachon wondered why deBrabonnet hadn't yelled "cut" yet.

"Come downstairs," Tracy/Clarissa offered. "I'll introduce you."

Vachon said, "What?" That line had not been in the script. In point of fact, there was no "downstairs"; no more of the castle set at all beyond these partial foyer walls. At least, there wasn't supposed to be...

He turned a confused circle, searching for the point of the false wall's juncture with the overhead lighting framework. The lights weren't there. Vaulted ceiling stretched above him now instead, shadow-lit by torches set in wrought iron sconces on the walls.

"What the --?"

"Why, Clarissa," said a deeply accented voice. "How good of you to come."

More lines he hadn't written. Vachon spun to find a man standing on the broad, curving stairs in full Dracula regalia. Not the actor they'd cast in the part. This was someone else -- a tall, pale fellow with close-cropped blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Where'd he seen this guy before, anyway? He looked familiar..

"Haven't I always come when you called?" Tracy/Clarissa asked solicitously. "I've even brought a friend -- to meet your lovely wives."

"Okay," Vachon said, and a nervous laugh accompanied the word. "It's been a real scream, fellas, really, but the gag's over." He turned on the double doors and shoved them open, surprised at how heavy they suddenly were. "Hey deBroblunt! Where's the-?" He stopped, having stepped out into a cold wind, night air, real fog. Dead trees loomed in shadow beyond the door, and a shriveled half-moon lingered in the clouds. No camera, no lights. No film crew.

"So very thoughtful," the count's voice intoned behind him. 'Clarissa' had joined him on the stairs, and Vachon, coming back through the open doors, noticed for the first time that there were clearly-defined marks on the side of her throat. Fang marks.

Funny. That hadn't been in his script either.

"We shall give your friend a royal tour," the count promised. "But first..." His lace-cuffed arm had snaked around her waist with very clear intent, and he began to lead her purposely up the wide stone steps.

"Now wait a minute!" Vachon started forward. "If this is the frigging Twilight Zone, I'm not-"

He was interrupted by a feral snarl, and spun to come face-to-tooth with six very hungry-looking shaggy timber wolves. Their eyes glowed red in the torch light, and amber-grey saliva dribbled from their bared teeth.

Vachon stumbled backward. "Tracy!"

He heard her laugh again, but her footsteps had receded up the stairs. Somewhere above, the sound of a door closing echoed through empty halls.

The wolves snarled at him again in unison. He circled away from them, aware they were matching him move for move, and promptly found himself backed onto the brink of a different stairway -- this one leading down.

With six pairs of red eyes closing in on him, Vachon forsook all semblance of bravery and ran. He ran in the only open direction -- down the stairs into utter blackness, expecting that at any moment, twenty-four sets of well-honed claws would be pouncing on him from behind, knocking him to the grimy flagstones and...

His hands, held instinctively in front of him, collided with the rough granite of a wall. But the only sound he could hear was his own ragged breathing, and the scuff of his costume shoes on the floor. No growling, no snapping jaws. Just cold, dead silence and the pitch black.

"Well, my dears. Who have we here?"

The voice was fluid, lilting. Feminine. There came a snap and a scratching sound from somewhere, and immediately the darkness fled from a single torch that had illuminated part of a basement vault. The twelve red eyes that stared at him now belonged not to the wolves, but to six incredibly alluring women.

_Come downstairs,_ Clarissa had said to him earlier. _I'll introduce you._

"A handsome one, isn't he?" one of the beauties said through lips the color of raw meat.

"Yes. Very," another breathed, and the circle tightened around him.

"He has a handsome throat, too."

"And such very attractive eyes..."

Milk-white hands reached to stroke his hair, to caress his forehead, cheeks, throat, chest. They strayed inside the thin black fabric of the costume, exploring, probing.

Vachon felt himself melting beneath them, giving way to their lure.

And the eyes...

The eyes held him, burning, consuming. Eyes that, like the hands, were somehow both hungry and pleading.

"Here."

The one who had spoken first pressed close, and the swell of her breasts, half-visible beneath her filmy gown, met the exposed flesh of his chest.

"Kiss me."

He would have found it impossible to refuse the request under ordinary circumstances: at the moment, he had no desire even to try.

Red lips brushed his own, lingered, then wandered to his ear and tasted there before moving to the point just below...

He didn't know how many minutes (or hours, or days) might have passed before he opened his eyes to the total darkness once again.

He felt cold hard stone beneath him.

He smelled the acrid odors of lichen and damp mold.

And something else. Something vaguely familiar.

He sat up in the gloom, one hand rising to touch a sudden twinge at his collar bone. The fingers reached inside his open shirt, pressed the spot...

...and came away sticky.

Blood...

Throat... Chest... Arms... Wrists... He found the stickiness in all of those places, and finally forced himself to curtail the search.

He struggled to his feet instead and groped his way to the stone arch framing the stairway. Weak-kneed, he stumbled up the steps, emerging at long last into the castle foyer and the dim yellow light of its guttering torches.

"Ah, there you are," a soft voice said. "Clarissa' s been waiting so awfully long for her Nathan to wake up and come to her."

Clarissa.

It was Clarissa.

Floating toward him from the curving stairs. A blur of red velvet and deep crimson eyes.

Her eyes.

"They saved you for me, you know," she said, and her fingertips traced patterns on his lips, then on his chin, and then on...

"So very caring and considerate, my new sisters."

Her lips touched his cheek and meandered down from there, the soft tip of her tongue seeking, following the veins of his throat.

He tried to command his arms to move.

_Push her away. Run!_

But the arms defied him. Instead, they returned her embrace. Eagerly. His feet were rooted to the stone floor, refusing to obey the diminishing part of him that still wanted to run from her; to escape the castle and this whole insane nightmare.

"Hold me," she whispered just under his ear, and the strangely chill curvature of her body seemed to mold itself into his own. "Give me..."

Something cold and needle-sharp pierced the flesh of his throat, and began slowly to drain a part of his life away. More of his life. They had already taken so much from him...

"All right, love birds. I said 'cut' twice already. You two bucking for next year's clinching Oscar or what? Come on, break it up!"

The set buzzer burped twice, signalling all clear, and mundane pandemonium broke loose again on the soundstage.

Tracy/Clarissa released Vachon, coming back for one fast kiss on the lips before she said, "See you later, lover," and disappeared behind a break in the partial wall of the castle set.

"You wanna move it?" deBlofeld shouted at the still-rooted Vachon. "We got a master shot to do here in twenty minutes and I gotta get... Vachon? Hey, Vachon! What the hell's with you?"

Vachon's feet moved. One in front of the other, half-stumbling, they carried him off the set, through a maze of narrow studio corridors, back to the dressing room with his street clothes draped neatly over the chair and the mirror with the neon lights overhead.

He tore the top half of the costume away; searched his neck, arms and torso for the marks he knew had been there.

But there were no marks. No blood.

He jumped at the sound of the door coming open; whirled to see Tracy, still in Clarissa 's costume, standing in the hall.

"Hi, lover," she said, and the perfect white teeth smiled at him. "See you in my dreams?"

"Uh, sure," he said.

Then, deliberately, he turned his back on her and to himself muttered, "As long as that's the only place."

He heard her laugh softly.

In the neon-bright glass of the mirror, the dressing room door appeared to close itself.
 

The End