The Vampire Prince

I’m not sure what I’m doing here.

I’m just down from the convention center. I was wandering around Tucson and found myself inside the Cathedral of St. Augustine.

Palm trees outside. Cactus.

Candles in here.

[footsteps]

—no sign of monsters, Fred.

Although I’m quite certain this would be the place.

—

Prince Dracula.

—

no. Prince Dracula.

The real one.

Vlad III. Fifteenth century. Wallachia.

—

well, apparently he did quite a bit of impaling.

Impaling. Driving stakes through people.

Yes. I think there is a German account that says he roasted people. Boiled them. There’s something about four hundred boys being burned alive.

—

I don’t know if it’s true.

That’s the problem.

Some of these accounts were written by his enemies.

—

no, I don’t think being falsely accused of boiling people makes you a good person.

He definitely impaled people.

—

yes. A great many.

Left their bodies skewered to bleed out on wooden poles.

[bell]

Funny thing.

You can get yourself pretty far into Dracula before you find a vampire.

[organ begins distantly]

[aside] Another dispatch from Scott Evers. Read for you by Geezer III.

—

all right. Let’s establish the rules.

Dracula versus the werewolf.

—

well, first there’s the vampire bat versus the human wolf.

—

pound for pound?

The wolf.

More than one bat?

—

fine. More than one wolf.

Still the bats.

Aeronautics.

—

no, Fred, Superman is not horror.

—

because then we have to establish whether there’s kryptonite in Transylvania.

We did this last time.

—

Dracula.

It’s Dracula.

None of the others come close.

—

Frankenstein?

Doctor or monster?

—

you’re the one making rules.

King Kong is interesting.

—

I don’t know.

I suppose he’s horror.

But then you get The Exorcist. The Sixth Sense.

Nope. ...wasn't that a film.

No slashers.

—

because I said so.

We need boundaries.

We’re talking about Dracula.

—

sunlight.

—

wrong.

—

no. He can go out in daylight.

It limits him. It does not turn him into a little pile of Count Dracula.

—

I know.

I thought so too.

Stake through the heart? [when we put stake before garlic it might be heard as steak.]

Yes.

Garlic?

Yes.

Crucifix?

Very much.

Invitation?

Surprisingly, yes. They must be invited across the threshold.

Coffin?

Sort of.

It’s the earth that matters. His own earth. He brings boxes of it to England.

—

yes.

That’s better, isn’t it?

Fangs?

Yes.

Moustache?

—

moustache.

—

substantial.

Castle?

Oh, Fred.

The castle is magnificent. Probably more ornate than this cathedral.

Harker looks out the window one night and sees Dracula crawling down the outside wall.

Headfirst.

—

not like Batman.

Like a lizard.

His cloak spreading around him.

And down he goes into the darkness.

—

bat?

Yes.

Dracula can become a bat.

But here’s the peculiar thing.

The vampire bat is named for the vampire.

—

yes.

We had vampires first.

Europeans encountered an animal in the Americas that lived on blood and thought—

Well.

Obviously.

Vampire bat.

—

no. Three species.

Lauren established that.

Keep up.

[footsteps]

Now here’s where it gets unpleasant.

People actually dug up vampires.

Not Dracula.

Their neighbors.

Their children.

Someone would die of consumption. Then someone else in the family would begin wasting away.

Then another.

They didn’t understand tuberculosis.

So they opened the grave.

And sometimes the body wasn’t what they expected.

Bloated.

Blood around the mouth.

Skin drawn back so the hair and nails appeared to have grown.

Sometimes gases escaped when they drove something through the body.

—

yes.

A sound.

Imagine hearing that when you already believed the dead person had been getting out at night.

[pause]

Mercy.

—

so the rules weren't always a game.

People were frightened.

They were trying to stop something.

—

anyway.

Back to Dracula. I know the history.

Vlad Dracula wasn't a vampire.

Stoker apparently found the name Dracula and borrowed it.

His Dracula had been a warrior. A statesman. An alchemist.

But Stoker never tells us who bit him.

—

no.

No vampire bites Dracula.

—

I don’t know how he became one.

That’s what I’m telling you.

—

Alucard is Dracula backwards.

Movie.

1943.

—

I know. We’ve accumulated a lot of Dracula.

Lugosi.

Christopher Lee.

Anne Rice.

Coppola.

—

yes, Twilight.

They can go in the sun.

They sparkle.

—

Fred, I didn’t write it.

[organ swells]

But wait.

The wife.

The one he crosses the ocean of time for.

—

I know.

That’s not Stoker either.

[pause]

Huh.

—

no, I’m thinking.

All these years I thought I knew exactly who Dracula was.

Turns out I know several people named Dracula.

[footsteps]

—

so we agree, then.

Dracula was a fifteenth-century prince who wasn't a vampire, followed by a vampire who may have been a prince, who could go out in daylight, could turn into a bat, slept in his native earth, had a moustache, and nobody knows who bit him.

—

yes.

I suppose that means Dracula wins.

[door opens]

Red velvet. I found a stairway. Should I venture down.

Come on, Fred.

There was never a contest.

Pretty dark. Let's see what's here.

Darkness.