Tales of the Vampires, Issue #3

* Part 3 of 5 of the Tales of the Vampires limited series *

Welcome to Buffyness and Nightlurkers Presents: Tales of the Vampire, Issue #3! In the previous installment, Roche regales the prospective Watchers with another couple of tales. The first one wasn’t much, just a poem about a mall shown in a mirror that speculated about which of the clientele was a vampire (it’s the one you can’t see in the mirror!), and the second one was about how Jack the Ripper was a vampire that got killed by a police detective vampire because Jack was hamming it up too much for comfort.

While Roche tells these stories, a young girl named Edna starts to get suspicious about this whole dang operation…

What kind of yarns will Roche spin next? Perhaps a story about how Marilyn Manson is a vampire who got his ribs removed so he could suck his own vampire dick

Tales of the Vampires, Issue #3 [February, 2004]

“Tales of the Vampires, Part III” – Joss Whedon

Hello, Issue #3! The day ends with Roche looming in Edna’s memory as she furiously pens in her journal. “An entire day locked in a cellar with our first real vampire, and they expect us to sleep!”

Sure, it’s exciting to be talking to this dead Abe Vigoda-looking motherfucker, but something isn’t quite right. “Something in his eyes, his voice, he speaks as though he knows us…” Edna thinks this is almost comforting! Maybe she’s getting caught in the ALLURE of the stinkin’ corpse that’s was talking to them all day.

“He makes me feel as though I should like him to know me. To be his equal even as an adversary. I should like to walk about his world.”

Sounds like Edna’s on the fast track to getting a neck full of teeth, that’s what I think. Cruisin’ for a jugular bruisin’.

She’s looking forward to the next day. Roche is gonna tell more Tales of the Vampires! He claims to know hundreds. Millions! “It’s wrong somehow. What we’re doing… the way the Watchers, even Mr. Dunworthy, are acting. The way Roche looks at us. There is a darker purpose here. I’m afraid to go back into that cellar…”

“And I long to.”

The next day, Roche makes a show of jubilating about tearing off little children’s heads, of which Dunworthy tells him to knock off the monkeyshines. Roche claims that the new Watchers must hear the truth about reality, and Edna agrees. “You tell us vampires are more than monsters. You speak fables, riddles, even rhymes. But you’ve yet to convince me that the lot of you are anything but–”

Roche cuts her off there. Certainly, he hasn’t said anything yet that can’t be found in journals, articles, features, filmstrips, internet websites, and fortune cookies. He agrees. “You will understand everything, Edna. Soon,” he rasps. Edna, however, is antsy. She gets so blunt with the vampire that her classmates beg her to stop angering the beast further.

“He’s not begun his tales, and already I’ve learned one thing this day,” Edna thinks.

Uhhhh, because busting balls is fun as shit??

“Father” – Jane Espenson

Hollywood, 1922. A sultry young woman with long, red fingernails – possibly a flappery flapper – bites some dude’s neck. He wears a fedora and a trench coat like he’s about to show his bits and pieces to a playground full of children. He yells in agony, grasping the side of his neck, while the woman slices a bit of her own wrist and presents the blood to the man.

“Something very bad happened to my father once.”

The sultry young woman walks away from the scene of the grisly vampire crime while the man lies in a pool of blood.

The man was named Tom, and he leaves one now-orphaned child. The funeral ends, the people go home. At night, two underground arms scrape their way to the surface…

The monster, the ogre, the devil himself, Vampire Tom, he stumbles back to his house. He enters through the front door, makes his way to his kid’s crib, and stares down. The kid smiles up at him.

Vampire Tom smiles back.

Santa Monica, 1930. Tom’s boy is now nine or ten. “He used to take me out some nights. He was a good musician, a good trumpeter, and we were doing ok, considering the times. He worked nights, but sometimes we’d go to the pier. He’d buy me corn dogs, but he never ate. I never saw him eat.”

We see Tom’s boy sleeping in the car while Tom feeds on a young woman.

Los Angeles, 1945. Tom’s boy is named Cyrus, and he’s coming back from that durned pesky new World War. “I knew what he was before I went off to fight, of course. But seeing him again, it seemed like maybe it didn’t matter.”

Cyrus is gonna get himself hella married! A 5pm winter wedding. “Marcie understood I wanted that, even if she didn’t know why.”

You’re looking a little stringy there, Mother.

Pasadena, 1950. Cyrus and Marcie have a newborn baby. Tom cradles the child in his arms while Cyrus stands behind him laughing. Marcie’s mother is a sourpuss.

“Look how happy they are together!” exclaims Marcie. “I don’t understand what you have against Tom, Mother.”

“I just don’t like that man, Marcie,” says Mother, not liking that man. “I don’t think he should be around the baby.”

Tom didn’t like hearing from Cyrus that Marcie didn’t want him around the baby anymore. Cyrus has the glint in his eye. Oh, it’s biting time. Not Marcie, no no no. We ALL know who the real problem here is…

So Marcie’s mother goes missing like the obnoxious, meddling tramp that she is!

“I raised my family and I didn’t see my father for fifty years.”

…

“And then I did.”

Santa Monica Pier, 2000. Cyrus is an old, old man now. Tom hasn’t aged a day, obviously. He’s a vampire, remember? I can’t believe you didn’t remember that! They sit together on a bench, just like old times.

“I was surprised to hear from you, son.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting it myself, but it seemed like time to talk.”

They walk together, Tom holding up Cyrus a little bit. Cyrus senses his father tensing up when he caught the eye of a young woman, but he thankfully restrained himself. “I don’t drive anymore, so he took me home. Acted like I was made of glass.”

Los Angeles, 2003. Cyrus is on his death bed while Tom sits in an adjacent chair silently.

“This is how we were right before the door was kicked in.”

KICK! SLAYER! STAKE! GUT! WEDGE! SCREAM! DUST!

This’ll teach you be a loving father for over 100 years, even without your soul! Take that!

“Was he going to hurt you?” asks the young Slayer, putting her hand on Cyrus’. “I said no. I said he took care of me.”

“I’m sorry, was he your son?”

…

“I said yes,” Cyrus says, eyes closing heavily. “It was close enough.”

“Antique” – Drew Goddard

Dracula himself sits in front of a fireplace! I vant to suck your dick! Bluhh!

Mr. Dr. Acula is going to start spinning his own yarns Roche-style, and urges his captive audience to COOL DOWN THE TERRORS lest their fears get in the way of actually enjoying the meeting. Dracula’s off-panel visitors are not afraid, which peeves the seasoned vampire to no end!

“How about now?” he asks, poofing into a bat. The answer is no.

“How about now?” he asks, poofing into a werewolf. The answer is no.

Dracula (?) keeps on poofing and nobody is scared. “Something funny?” one asks while Dracula snickers. “Your lies amuse me,” he responds. “Three helpless young women, unafraid of the Prince of Darkness.”

It’s because it’s Buffy and, like, two other Slayers. They don’t frighten that easily, AND they’re not exactly helpless. They’re not exactly helpful either, if you ask me.

“Oh yes… Miss Summers and her Slayers. Heroes such as yourselves would never be frightened by something as commonplace as…”

Dracula conjures up a swarm of bees.

“…a SWARM OF BEES!”

Yawn.

“Surely you’re quite comfortable around something as humdrum as…”

Dracula conjures up a night panther.

Buffy asks what even is a night panther?

One Slayer has a question for Dracula, but Dracula entrances her to hold all her questions until they’re all dead! Buffy is starting to get very annoyed. “You know why we’re here. You have something of mine. I want it back. Now.”

Oh… you mean THIS? *pulls out thirty glass bongs*

Daddy’s doing the talking right now, you little shit!

After assuring Buffy that he certainly does not have anything of hers and that she should go, the thing that she came for saunters into the room. “Master… Master, have they gone yet?”

A hunched-over eye-patched nerd walks expectantly up to the Dracula-ed One, who tells him to get the fuck back into the dungeon with the rest of the harpies! “Xander… get over here!” Buffy demands before he growls and spits in her direction. “Never! I will perish in a rain of blood and death. And blood. My Master will destroy you.”

Dracula looks embarrassed, but he presses on. “Well, Slayers. I’m sure we can work out an arrangement. You have your needs, I have mine.”

Sounds good, Chief. We can take the creepy Eyepatch Man off your hands, then w–

“What I propose is this – you allow me to keep my faithful manservant, and in exchange I will make your deaths as painless as possible.”

…hmm. That doesn’t sound like a very fair arrangement at all, you big baby.

Xander runs away while Buffy puts Dracula in a full nelson. One of the other Slayers runs after him while Dracula uppercuts Buffy. This kind of goes on for a bit. Picture some of that good, good choreography from the show.

Buffy knocks both herself and Dracula out the tower window, and he imparts some wisdom on her as they both fall: “These children follow you because they perceive you as powerful. Mysterious. As time passes, they’ll come to resent your experience. They’ll view you as antiquated. Obsolete. Before you know it, you’ll be a joke.”

They land, they fight, he keeps saying stuff and missing the irony. During the fight, Xander slaps Buffy and is proud of himself.

“Did you teach him to slap?” Buffy asks, sneering at Dracula.

“No, I believe that is his natural instinct.”

With Buffy’s shoe on Dracula’s throat, she again demands her friend back.

“Please…” Dracula frowns. “He’s all I have left…”

“Well…” he continues. “Him… and my mansion… and my harpies… and my carriage… and my garden and my shipping company… okay fine you can take him.”

Huzzah!

Dracula asks for a moment alone with Xander, which he gets. “I’m going to release you from your trance now. Please know, I have very much enjoyed your company. This past year has been one of the best years of my life. Thank you for your camaraderie. Thank you for listening to me when nobody else would. Thank you for teaching me how to ride a motorbike.”

Then Xander leaves with the girls. Dracula dies old and friendless.