The Queerier Service: 1.3

"Wunderbar!" Dracula cried. He grimaced and cleared his throat. "I mean, good, yes. That should be fine."

Friedrich's lips twitched slightly, and Dracula wished he could have told him he could laugh as much as he liked. But that would probably just spook him more. Instead he led him onto the landing, which was a long narrow hallway with stairs on one side, and a few hanging pennants on the other. There was a room tucked around the back behind the pennants, one of the many sub-libraries of the house, but you couldn't see the door to that unless you knew where to look.

Dracula led Friedrich downstairs and along a narrow flagstone corridor to the main entrance of the castle. It was a wide, high-ceilinged chamber, with a curved wall at the entrance. The door was about four inches thick and did itself slightly curve. It creaked from lack of use as Dracula eased it open, ushering Friedrich out into the snowy path.

The howling wind whipped at the bottom of Dracula's cape, getting it caught between his legs. Friedrich wrapped his cloak so tight around himself that it actually abbreviated the length of his stride. The night smelled cold, or maybe that was just the freezing air whooshing up Dracula's nose as he took a big deep breath. He expelled the air a moment later, knowing it was doing nothing for him.

He shook his head and looked round at Friedrich. "My cab is at the bottom of the hill."

"Okay," Friedrich said, his voice so quiet that the wind nearly drowned it out.

They descended the path quickly, without much conversation. Though at one point Friedrich did point to the little black shadow just this side of the towering main gate.

"Is this the cab?" he asked, squinting in its direction.

"Ja," Dracula said.

"You have no driver?" Friedrich asked.

"No," Dracula said. "Kein driver. No family at all, remember?"

"Yes," Friedrich said. "I will give you Miss Clarke's address for sure."

"Danke, again," Dracula said.

When they reached the cab, Dracula gestured towards the passenger door and made his own way to the driver side. But when he hopped into his seat, nobody joined him. He leaned over and peered out the passenger window. There, on the rough gravel of the bath, was a tiny little spider. It jumped when it saw Dracula and sprang towards the cab, hiding in the shadows of its underside.

Dracula dismounted and lowered himself onto his knees. He pressed the side of his face to the ground.

"Friedrich?" he called.

The spider was suddenly right in his face, scurrying up the side of his head onto his horizontal neck. Dracula smiled and placed his hand in the air a few inches away from Friedrich, just in case he dislodged him as he stood.

Once he was back in the cab, he deposited Friedrich in the passenger seat and grabbed the reigns. One of the large brown mares glanced around at the spider and whickered, but Dracula put his hand up in the air. His slow hand movements up and down in the air soothed it, and it started to move.

They travelled along a dark, windy country road until they reached the town itself, at which point Dracula realised that he didn't quite know where he was going. He directed the horses towards the slums, which he assumed was what Friedrich had meant by the "narrow streets". That wasn't even a language barrier issue - that was what the people down here called their disease-ridden catacombs. The stench of communal privies snuck in through the joins of his cab's windows, causing his hands to tense around the reigns.

He was slowly rumbling down the main street of the neighbourhood. It was the widest street, though still barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. Its surface was made of broken cobbelstone and briny sludge. But there was no way he could get the cab dwon any of the even narrower alleys that branched off it.

He sighed and held out his palm. "Friedrich?"

Friedrich ran up his arm and onto his shoulder.

"Tug at my collar when I'm going the right way, okay?"

The spider tapped one of his legs twice against the shiny black fabric of Dracula's cape. Dracula assumed that was agreement. Forcing himself not to take any more unnecessary breaths, he stepped out of the cab, right into something that squelched. He groaned as he moved his foot away, but not loud enough to drown out a squeal as whatever it was sped away.

"Oh hell, I thought it was dung," Dracula murmured, notionally to Friedrich. "Dung would have been bad enough."

Continuing to grumble, he pivoted towards the nearest alleyway. It was lined by three storey blocks on either side, with a strip of rough stone paving the space between. Most of the stone was drowned out by grimy puddles, but Dracula could see it was there as he took a step into the filth. He craned his neck round to see Friedrich.

"This one?" he asked.

The spider was still.

Dracula sighed and backed out of the alley, drying his feet off between the cracks of the main street's cobbles. He got no response for the next three alleys either, but on the fourth try Friedrich started yanking at the cord that drew his cape together.

"Ah! Hey, careful with that. You'll strangle the breath right out fo me, you know," Dracula exclaimed. He grinned at the spider, but got no response to his joke. "I am giving you a free ride through this cesspit. The least you could do is humour me." But he kept smiling so Friedrich would know he wasn't actually annoyed.

He faced the alley he was about to go down. It was as pungent, dark and damp as all the others he'd shown Friedrich - it was a wonder that the spider could tell them apart.

"Let me know when I'm at the right house, okay?"

He walked swiftly, barely paying attention to his surroundings. There was shouting, the slosh of something foul from upper windows. He was just managing to block it all out when Friedrich almost choked him with the collar again.

"Okay, okay," he muttered, turning to his right. There were a few stone steps lined by low walls leading up to a windowless black door. "This one? Squeak now or forever hold your peace." Friedrich stayed silent, so Dracula knocked on the door.

After a few moments, the door opened a crack, revealing dim light within. A face appeared behind the crack, blocking out most of the light.

"Who's there?" the voice growled in Romanian. Or something to that effect - Dracula's Romanian wasn't the strongest. The one eye he could see was narrowed at him.

"I have your Testosteron," Dracula said, figuring that would cut through a lot of the formalities.

"Quiet!" the person hissed. They grabbed Dracula by the cord of his cape and tried to drag him inside.

He froze, bracing himself against the door frame. "You have to invite me in."

By now the door had opened wide enough that Dracula could see the whole of a pale, square-ish face, with dark hair that stuck up in all directions. Dracula assumed this was Erik.

"Invite?" Erik repeated, which was when Dracula realised he had spoken in English.

Dracula screwed up his eyes and repeated the sentence in the best Romanian he could. Erik's eyes widened and he started to shut the door again.

"Wait, wait! I lied. Sort of. I don't have your... product. But the spider does!" He flicked his fingers against each other but couldn't remember the words for any of that in Romanian. The best he could muster was spider in German. "Die spinne." He pointed at his shoulder.

Erik squinted. "Du... du bist Dracula, ja?"

"Ja," Dracula said, pitching his voice as low as he coudl. "Herr Dracula."

Erik glanced up and down the alley, but nobody seemed to have looked up from their own business. But when he looked back up at Dracula he was glaring at him. He said in English. "Wait here. Tell me when he has two legs. Quiet."

The door swung shut, and there was a clunking sound of a key in a lock. Dracula sighed and perched on the edge of the low wall. It wasn't the first time someone had refused to let him in somewhere, not by a long shot, but it hadn't hurt this bad in a while. He held out a hand for Friedrich to hop onto, then lowered him down onto the wall beside him. Hopefully that would be a good spot to turn back into a human in.

Friedrich dropped off the wall and onto the steps, pressing himself into the join of the two. Dracula could barely see him, but he supposed that made sense. Perhaps you didn't want to be right out in the open when you found yourself shape-shifting. Dracula lowered himself down beside Friedrich, making sure there was no spider directly beneath him. He didn't spot Friedrich for certain in the murk until he saw a flash of movement as Friedrich sidled up to him. He sat in Dracula's shadow, and they both waited.