Chapter Text
The great tragedy of Guillermo’s life is that he is an excellent baker and he is in love with a man who can’t eat. If Nandor was human, he wouldn’t go a day without fresh bread, cookies, scones, apple pie with ice cream. And maybe, if he just ate enough brioche buns, he would understand that he is cherished and adored.
Nandor is lying on the couch in the fancy room, one foot on the armrest, the other dangling. He’s drinking hard-won virgin blood out of a reusable Starbucks cup, green straw and all. He has been like this for days: bored, listless, and unwilling to try anything that might cheer him up.
Laszlo, meanwhile, appears to be doing yoga.
‘What exactly am I looking at?’ Colin Robinson says.
Laszlo stretches his right arm up above his head and leans over sideways. ‘Just loosening up the old muscles, my good chap. The coffin in the basement isn’t particularly comfortable.’
Colin grins with too many teeth, settling into his usual armchair. ‘Trouble in paradise?’
Nadja is sitting at the desk, seemingly absorbed in the taxidermy beaver she’s making, but she looks up. ‘Laszlo is getting on my tits,’ she reports.
You could almost call nights like this domestic. Cozy, even. Guillermo is dusting the bookshelves but it’s not exactly taxing work – he almost feels like they’re all just hanging out.
‘He won’t stop whinging,’ Nadja says. ‘Ooh, someone is trying to kill me.’
‘Someone is trying to kill me,’ Laszlo says, windmilling his arms.
‘See! It’s just this, all the time!’
‘Oh yeah,’ Colin says, to nobody in particular. ‘That’s the good stuff.’
‘Nobody every tries to kill me,’ Nandor says, sadly.
‘That is not something to complain about!’ Nadja says. ‘You know, sometimes I wish someone would try and kill me so I wouldn’t have to put up with you both.’ She rises from her seat, swirls her skirts round her and transforms into a bat before fluttering from the room.
‘Who – who’s trying to kill you?’ Guillermo asks Laszlo, who is now standing on one leg.
He shrugs. ‘Could be anyone. An ex-lover. Someone I owe money. The Danish prime minister’s always had it out for me.’
‘Right.’
‘It must be nice to be so wanted,’ Nandor says, to the ceiling.
I could try and kill you, if you want, Guillermo thinks, and remembers Nandor holding the tip of a stake against his own throat, Nandor on his knees at the Night Market, Nandor backed up against the wall of his crypt. But he knows he’s kidding himself, imaging violence because it’s easier than thinking about what he really wants, which is to gather Nandor into his arms and never let him go.
After everything, Guillermo just wanted to feel normal. So he cleaned his room under the stairs, swept up the feathers from the pillow Nandor destroyed, put fresh sheets on his bed. And the cleaning helped, so he vacuumed and mopped the hall and stairs. And then he replaced a broken lightbulb. And after that it was nothing to fall back into his old habits of tidying up after the vampires, burying bodies in the garden, brushing Nandor’s hair every morning and evening. It’s not that everything has gone back to the way it was – how could it? But, for now, they’re all pretending.
‘How are you feeling?’ Guillermo doesn’t know if he should say Master or Nandor, so he says nothing. He pulls the brush through Nandor’s thick hair.
‘The Djinn is being a dick,’ Nandor says. ‘He will not give me any more wishes.’
He’s been like this since Guillermo came home: moody and quiet. It’s been a while since he got this bad. Guillermo can only assume his betrayal is still stinging, even though he changed his mind, even though he gave it up.
When he came home, he let Laszlo cut his hair. Turns out he’s the one who does all of Nadja’s fancy hairstyles. The intimacy of it was almost unbearable, and now Guillermo thinks about it every time he does Nandor’s hair for him.
‘What do you want to wish for?’ he says.
Nandor sighs. ‘I don’t even know anymore.’
Guillermo understands.
He makes himself Super Noodles for dinner at three in the morning. The garden is dark outside the small window, lit only by the distant orange glow of street lights. The kettle whistles.
He shouldn’t miss the fangs. He only had them for a night. But still, his mouth feels empty without them.
There’s a movement outside. For a moment Guillermo thinks it’s a racoon, but the shadow that crosses the window is way too big. Adrenaline tingles up his spine. He waits for a moment, listening, and then walks into the hall. Silence. He checks the locks on the front door, listens but hears nothing. Turns, and walks back to the kitchen. He’s hungry, and he wishes he had the time and energy to make something better, but noodles will do.
There’s a man halfway through the kitchen window.
He’s wearing what looks like old-timey uniform, red and white, with a silly little hat. His facial hair is neatly trimmed into a goatee and an enormous moustache. Vampire.
‘Hey, we’re actually closed at the moment,’ Guillermo says, reaching automatically for a weapon. He grabs the first thing he finds, which is a huge brass candlestick.
The stranger tumbles through the window and hisses something in a language Guillermo doesn’t understand. All he catches is Laszlo.
‘Um, English, please?’ Guillermo says. They begin to circle each other, separated by the kitchen table. ‘Or – or Spanish is good.’
‘Where is that pilfering bastard Laszlo Cravensworth?’ the man says.
‘Yeah, he’s not actually here right now, maybe you should come back when –’
The man evidently decides the table isn’t an issue, because he lunges at Guillermo anyway. Guillermo swings the candlestick at his head and they tussle, rolling over the table and crashing to the floor. Something’s not quite right – Guillermo’s instincts are off. But everything has felt like that lately.
The man pulls a dagger from somewhere and Guillermo clutches his wrist, forcing the blade away from his throat. With the other hand he reaches up, fumbling for the handle of the cutlery draw. He’s sure he has a spare stake stashed in there. The dagger catches his neck, nicking the skin, but he grabs the stake and rolls his assailant over.
It’s only as he drives the stake into the man’s chest that he realises that his skin is warm and pink, and then a spurt of hot blood hits him as the man lets out a final choking breath. As it turns out, a wooden stake with enough force behind it will kill a human just as well as a vampire.
The man goes limp. There’s a lot of blood. Guillermo recalls the glass of virgin blood that Nandor poured for him, how it tasted like coffee and maple syrup and burned like whisky, how it felt like everything Guillermo had ever wanted. He remembers having a mouth full of fangs.
His stomach lurches. Blood is starting to dry on his hands, sticky and pungent. He turns and stumbles down the hall until he finds himself outside Nandor’s crypt, and pushes the door open.
‘Someone’s trying to kill Laszlo,’ he gasps out, and then realises what he’s looking at.
Nandor is sprawled on the chaise longue, with Laszlo on top of him. They’re both still dressed, thankfully, but dishevelled, shirts unbuttoned, hair tangled. Oh god.
Laszlo sits up, dislodging Nandor’s legs, grinning triumphantly. ‘I fucking knew it!’