Oh Unholy Walpurgis Night

Edgar had to make the manor tidy for Walpurgis Night. That meant he had to mop the dried out blood off the stairs from dragging victims up and down it, clear the chimney and basements and any other open cavasses where bats can freely fly in and out of them, and dust the candelabras littered with spiders, dust, and webs. Edgar strung the apron tighter around him, really, what insidious thought made him want to murder his only servant the night before a momentous event that would shape all their centuries to come? He had to be mad, delirious…

Oh right, he was anxious and hungry. And his new bride was arriving shortly. Edgar dusted the hallway in a worried frenzy. He made it into his son’s Nathanial’s room and was fuming.

Edgar made a run to the closet door before Nathaniel could protest, and when he opened the door a dozen or so corpses fell out. The smell made Edgar want to throw up his last servant. Nathanial was a closet vampire. So that meant he kept his dead in the closest. Of course, that may have been endearing when he was only 84 years young, when he didn’t know better and all problems could be avoided with an innocent smile, but now he was a young gentleman of 200 years! In all pretenses, he was as rebellious as teenagers could be. What was the next criminal act he was going to commit? Raid a mausoleum? Party with werewolves? Bring Christians into their home?! Edgar shuddered at the latter thought. Surely, things must change before they worsen.

Edgar shook his head in disappointment, fangs gleaming. “Aren’t you ashamed? We have guests coming over!” He sprayed a whole can of aerosol over the rotting corpses. There was no time to bury any of them in the forest, or in the sewers, or a celebrities’ backyard.

Nathaniel indiscreetly pushed the hand of a dismembered body underneath his bed with his boot. 

Edgar saw the trail of blood it left behind.

Nathanial looked away from it and then at his enraged father. Smiling innocently.

….

“Everything needs to be perfect.” Edgar said, fixing his bowtie in the mirror.

“You can’t even see yourself in the mirror,” Nathanial whined, “who cares what things looks like.”

The floating bow tie in the mirror halted. Edgar turned around towards his son. “My little boy—”

“I am not a little boy.” Nathanial growled.

Edgar cupped his son’s pale cheeks and looked into his soulless, dead eyes. “Ever since you were born into the unholy night, you will always be my little boy.”

Nathanial bit his hand.

Edgar shrieked. “You better not bite your new sister’s arm off!”

Dark red liquid dripped from Nathanial’s lips, “watch me!”

The flames of hell enraptured Edgar, demons yowled unholy curses in the fireplace, and Nathanial immediately regretted biting the hand of his father. He should have bit the whole thing off to make his point about the disapproval of his father’s marriage. Edgar took in a breath, in and out, in and out, just like his therapist had instructed him.

Grandfather Otto, 2000 years old, smacked the demons in the fireplace with a coal shovel back into the bowls of hell from whence they came. When that didn’t work, he used a fire extinguisher. And smote the rest with the bottom of his leather shoe. One pesky demon escaped up the chimney and flew off into the midnight sky. Screams could be heard in the distance. “Shit. The fire department already doesn’t like us. Maintain yourselves. If not for your sake, then mine.”

“Would it LIVE you to behave properly for your new mother!?” Edgar howled.

Tears pooled in Nathanial’s eyes. “I already told you, I don’t want a new mother! Our family is wretched enough without anyone else interfering. It’s not my fault you couldn’t keep it in your pants!”

Otto gasped at the impropriety, whilst clearing torture devices out of the closet to make way for other torture devices.

Nathanial hissed. “And it’s pathetic that you tried to summon Satan for dinner, but summoned grandfather instead.”

Grandfather Otto waved in the background.

“Close enough, really.” Edgar chuckled.

Nathanial cried, harder. “You never even did that for mother when she was still with us. And none worshipped Satan more than her.” In a burst of tears, Nathanial changed into a bat and flew high above and plummeted into the mouth of a gaping, screaming stuffed bear. Little sobs could be heard from the little bat in the big bear. Edgar frowned; he knew Nathanial missed his mother terribly. It was all so tragic. It was an unfortunate evening in 1888, the year of Jack the Ripper, Victoria wanted to meet him and get his autograph. But instead of meeting the serial killer of her dreams she was met by an angry mob. Victoria was dragged through town square, burned at the stake, staked through the heart, heart gutted out and burned at the stake again, then drowned in a lake. Of holy water. That mob was merciless, and well researched. One couldn’t help but admire their tenacity.

Edgar burned the village down to ashes in one night.

Then drowned himself in bottles of blood for at least a decade after.

Edgar floated underneath the stuffed bear and assumed if his son were alive, then he would hear the sound of a heart breaking. But Undead hearts lay still and silent for all eternity. Today was no different than yesterday’s or a century ago. “Oh, Nathanial—”

“I’m not coming down!” Nathanial miserably sobbed in his black wings, now covered with teardrops and snot.

“It’s been years…and I’ve been so lonely.” Edgar said, softly. “Eleanora is the one for me.”

Nathanial whipped his head up, “You’re not lonely. You have me and grandfather.”

Grandfather Otto, oblivious to his son and grandson, hurried to the coat closest and flung on his tattered cape and grabbed what looked like a bible locked in a metal cage, along with a steel net. “I might be late for dinner. Don’t wait up.” He ran out the door and charged down the street where the screams were the loudest. “There’s nothing to be alarmed of, my fellow human neighbors, it's just my cat! Come here Mr. Whiskers. Would anyone like to read revelations to him? He finds it quite soothing.”

The neighbors’ screams and Otto’s melded into one, neither one more distinguishable from the other. Nathanial furrowed his brows and shook his head. “Never mind. You have me, and that’s enough.”

Edgar looked away; his voice was low. Hurt. “Sometimes one needs a little more.”

Nathanial’s eyes stung, he desperately tried to blink away tears. Still, there was nothing he could do to stop them from pouring out of his eyes. His throat was sore, and the doorbell chimed a menacing note before he could mumble a retort, a lie, when faced with the dead truth.

….

“This is my daughter, Esther.” Eleanora said, Edgar’s bride to be. She was also a witch. The fact alone revolted Nathanial. He did not try to stifle his yawn in front of his new family. Eleanora was tall, for a witch. He assumed she would be hideous and possess the grotesque features of a gargoyle, for no one was more beautiful than his mother, especially not this witch. She was tolerable, but there was nothing at all exceptional about her, nothing he saw that could have captured his father’s un-beating heart. He thought all witches were hunchbacked and walked with canes, but this woman’s back was as straight as an arrow and her silk black hair flowed behind her back and down to her waist. Every hair perfectly in place. It was disappointing that the image in his head wasn’t the one standing in front of him. That would have brought Nathanial some joy during this unbearable Walpurgis Night. Unlike her mother, Esther wore hers hidden behind a black and white habit. Maybe the daughter was bald, and her scalp was oozing with pus. Maybe she was more gargoyle like than her mother.

Nathanial felt a little better. Until he saw the silver cross with the nailed man hanging below her neck when she removed her evening coat. He hissed.

Eleanora was all sugar and smiles, “My daughter. She’s catholic. But I assure you it’s just a phase.”

Esther, garbed in a despicable nun’s attire, folded her hands in front of herself, piously. She lifted her black veil and revealed eyes that were red like the blood moon. “Praise Jesus.”

A catholic witch? Now Nathanial has seen everything. He was about to pounce and evict this vile heathen from his home, until his father held a tight grip around him, and smiled. Feigning a friendly and not at all blood constricting hug. “Welcome, ladies. We’re ov—” Nathaniel thrashed harder and his father held on tighter, “overjoyed having you both over for Walpurgis Night so that we may celebrate it together as a family. Esther, Catholics spread their religion throughout the new and old world by sword rather than good will, contrary to what they proclaimed, and were responsible for some of the deadliest crusades ever to plague humanity. Dare I say, are just as wicked as vampires and witches.” Edgar winked, fangs glinting over his blood red lips.

Esther gently bowed her head and curtsied in thanks. Nathanial rolled his eyes.

Nathanial’s stomach churned at the steaming feast spread out on the dining room table in front of him. There were roast turkeys and stuffed pigs, mashed potatoes and yams dolloped with roasted marshmallows. Carrots seared with honey and butter. This is a traditional Walpurgis feast for them, for witches… not us. Nathanial thought, scowling at the inedible food sloshed on his plate against his will. Where were the pitchers of blood? Disappointingly, there was only a pitcher of apple cider, the emptiness of not one single pitcher of blood on the table felt like a stake right through his heart. O+ was his favorite and not even that was on the table. First, he had to stomach the witches’ presence and now starve on top of it? He might as well drop dead in a grave.

Nathanial pushed his chair back and was about to walk out, and hopefully find a leftover blood bad in the refrigerator. He loathes a cold meal, but it was better than gagging here at the table. Suddenly, an invisible force pushed his chair back in, vigorously. Nathanial clawed at the arms of his chair and his eyes shot to his father who was generously pouring gravy over Eleanora’s turkey. How dare his father use telekinesis on his own son!? He felt an urgency to scream, cry, curse, or all three combined until Esther started reciting the Lord’s prayer. He thought something entirely impossible up until this exact point in his life. He wanted to die.

Surrounded by witches and vampires alike, Esther prayed. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name—”

Nathanial pressed his hands over his ears and planted himself face first into his dinner plate. Turkey flew up his nose. Neither fully muffling out those damned words. Now his ears were bleeding, his stomach was growling, and he was suffocating himself on Walpurgis Night. Satan certainly had a sense of humor.

The same invisible force pulled his head back up to face his family. Squashed green peas stuck to his flushed cheeks. Hands firmly planted over his ears, Nathanial hissed out words, “What. Is. She. Doing.” Not a question. An accusation.

Esther answered instead, her voice was firm and loud. Confident. “I’m praying, brother. Matthew 6:9.” The look in her eyes said she wasn’t going to stop either. 

Nathanial pounced from his chair and bared his fangs toward his soon to be stepsister. An invisible force pushed him right back.

Esther smirked.

Nathanial growled.

“Father,” Nathanial barked. “I hate it when you do that.”

“I wouldn’t need to if you’d behave yourself.”

“But she—”

Edgar interrupted, “In this house, we respect one another’s choices, and if Esther wishes to speak to God then she has the right to do so. And it is our obligation to let her finish.”

Nathanial’s jaw dropped. The witches have poisoned with father’s mind, there was no other logical reason to explain his father’s stupidity. It was shut by the same invisible force by his father. “You’ll catch all the flies, Nathanial. Be kind and save some for the spiders.”

Nathanial clacked his fangs.

Eleanora turned towards Nathanial than at Esther, “Maybe she should say her prayers silently.”

Edgar waved his hands, “No no no. Don’t mind Nathanial. Please continue. Heck, I could talk to God as well if I wanted to.” He laughed and mimicked a prayer. “Good evening, God—”

The heavens roared as lighting struck through the ceiling and flambéed the vampire.

Nathanial wanted to say his father deserved it, but…no his father definitely deserved it.

Edgar coughed out a black cloud of smoke. “I’ve been smitten before. This is nothing.”

“Thou shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” Esther finished her prayer and did the sign of the cross.

“But I just said hello.” Pieces of charred flesh cracked off Edgar’s skin. Eleanora snuffed out the fire still lingering on his beard with her napkin.

“Maybe God just doesn’t want to talk to you.” Esther paid no mind to her charred stepfather, pierced a carrot and began to eat her dinner. Thanking the Lord for every delicious bite that was prepared by the devil’s hands.

Soon the door burst open, letting in the savage storm wind. All eyes turned to Grandfather Otto, and to the demon gnawing its way through the bares of its cage. The bible inside the cage was shredded into clumps of holy confetti, burning the demon with a thousand burning paper cuts.

Grandfather Otto, panic stricken, shut the front door and then the curtains. The demon rattled in the cage, Otto held onto it tight, and ran towards the basement. Sirens were blaring down their street. “You didn’t see me. Whoever knocks on the door, tell them we don’t know anything or have a screaming demon—cat, or any pet!” The demon broke through the cage and pounced at the roast pig and dunked its head in the bowl of mashed potatoes. Food flying everywhere.

Edgar slouched in his seat, rubbing his temples.

Esther recited a verse from the bible. Something about good will and a swarm of locusts to avenge the meek hearted.

Grandfather Otto went on about how the cops weren’t supposed to know that he’s here or that he’s left Arizona without alerting his parole officer.

Eleanora suggested that they all go around the table and suggest something they were all thankful for.

Nathanial, still stuck to his chair and surrounded by idiots (his old and new family alike), hopped to the kitchen in search of an actual meal. Edgar’s telekinesis wore off when he got to the fridge allowing him to poke a straw through a blood bag. Edgar smiled a toothy grin, revealing his pearly white fangs. O+. The universal blood donor. His favorite. He rose the meal to his mouth, straw between his lips…he heard a demon screaming, a witch praying, and a witch and a vampire falling more deeply in unholy love. The straw fell from his mouth. He refused to take a sip. He set the bag down and listened to the incessant noise coming from the dining room. Teeth grinding, anger pooling. He gripped the bag tighter and tighter until blood burst.

Nathanial threw the bag on the ground and cursed. A demon may be destroying their house, the police may be after Grandfather Otto, God may have struck his father, he may have a new witch mother and a despicable Jesus adoring witch stepsister, but Nathanial knew for certain that he was going to feed tonight, as was customary vampire tradition for Walpurgis Night. With or without his family.

The little vampire fled into the night and began his hunt.