Page 6 of Your Coffin or Mine
Doyle stands there staring down at the silly contraption in his hand, his expression full of worry and dismay. “How should I know? We weren’t supposed to open for another week. The east wing isn’t done yet.”
“So, get rid of her.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?” He crosses his arms over his chest.
I scoff. “This wouldn’t be an issue if you hadn’t decided to turn the castle into an inn.”
“For the last time, you are looking for the wordhotel, as in a bougee suite, not an inn.”
“Boo jee? I suddenly regret not throwing her bag in the moat,” I mutter.
“You what?”
“Never mind.” The thought that I could send him away—and her with him—comes to mind, but it only serves to annoy me further. “She cannot stay. I can smell the stench of her from here.”
Her blood calls to me even now, the scent of her still invading my senses. It has been longer than I can count since I have beenin the presence of a woman, much less one of true flesh and blood.
Even her sweet, flowery perfume can’t hide it, making my fangs ache.
Doyle begins to pace in front of me while I settle into what he calls my “old man chair.” It’s a fantastic chair, has lasted me decades. Sure, the red plush backrest is a little sunken, but it just fits around my weathered form better.
“Vlad, we open in two weeks. There are going to be human guests here. If you would only eat, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“I wasn’t going to be around any guests!” I seethe, my claw-like nails biting into my hands as I ball them into fists. I don’t even have the energy to retract my claws. This was not part of the plan, and no one said there would be aher.Her scent is so... tantalizing.
“I should hope not. You’re falling apart. I can just hear the ‘ewww’ now.” He wrinkles his nose for effect.
“I’m in mourning.”
“Me too. Mourning the fact that you’re content to waste away. Eventually you’re going to look like Hilda,” he mumbles, shivering.
I glare down my nose at him as if I’m wearing nonexistent glasses. “Hilda is a wonderful woman.”
“She’s literal walking bones and hasn’t spoken a word for two hundred years now. It’s unnatural.”
“What would you have me do? She loves the place.”
Rolling his eyes, and ignoring the topic of Hilda, Doyle shakes his head. “You could eat, for starters, which reminds me—we need a fucking chef.”
“What?” Why in the hell would we need a... oh.
“Humans, Vlad. We invited humans to stay but we have no food. Granted, she’s only a few days early, but what are we to do? If we turn her away, it would give us a bad review, and thenwhat? Are we going to have Hilda be a character witness? Oh my god, this is terrible.”
A memory of sitting with Hilda when I was a boy, waiting as she cooked breakfast flits through my brain.
My fist lands on the worn leather of my chair arm. “I will cook.”
Doyle whirls around, his eyes bulging comically from his head, and I imagine them falling from his insipid skull. “You haven’t set foot in the kitchen for almost a hundred years. How in the hell are you going to cook?”
I sigh heavily and pin him with a glare. “Calm down,Dracula. It is one measly human. I will cook. And stop pacing—you look as if you’re going to wet yourself any moment, you idiot.”
He huffs. “Me, an idiot? If only you could look in a mirror.” He starts laughing, and I wish I had the energy to punch his face just to make him stop talking.
“Who would have thought she would name me Dracula of the two of us? It must be the suit, eh?” He fixes it over his torso. “We also need the internet.”
Thewhat?
My eyes widen at the thought of that new-aged internet claptrap within these walls. Of course, I know about technology—I haven’t remained completely ignorant of the digital age—but I have no illusions that I would ever enjoy something so frivolous and distasteful.Booksare where real knowledge comes from.
