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“Guillermo…” Nandor and his vampiric housemates surveyed the carnage of the theatre, the auditorium still echoing with the screams of some of the most highly regarded vampires in existence. Nadja cringed and turned her head away as the stench of vampiric blood assaulted their senses. “Is there something you haven’t been telling us?” his familiar paused, still breathing heavily from the exertion, looking straight at Nandor as he spoke in an oddly calm, controlled voice – so unlike his usual self.
“My name’s Guillermo de la Cruz.” Nadja made a small noise of recognition, which was drowned out by Nandor, who had apparently gotten over the shock of seeing his familiar murder dozens of vampires in cold blood.
“I don’t care what the fuck your name is – we had to pick up our own laundry!”
“Alright, Nandor,” Laszlo began after an uncomfortable silence where Guillermo just continued to stare at the restrained vampires on the stage. “I’m sure Gizmo has a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, don’t you old chap?” he gave Guillermo an oddly nervous smile that was almost certainly directed more towards the weapons in his hands than the familiar himself.
“Yeah, but do you think you could let us out while you tell it? These ropes are not as comfortable as they seem.” Colin flexed his fingers to emphasise his point and Guillermo blinked, suddenly realising that, for once, all of the attention was on him.
“Oh, right. Yeah, of course,” he shook his head, still trying to rid himself of the haze he’d slipped into the moment he’d begun his attack. He freed Nandor first, receiving only a muttered ‘fucking guy’ as thanks, then moved onto Colin, Nadja and finally Laszlo – who gave him a gracious half-bow, half-wave after moving to the other side of the stage in the blink of an eye.
“Now, Guillermo. What the fuck was all that shit, hm?” Guillermo turned to his master, absently flexing his hands at his sides. He still wasn’t exactly sure himself, but he began to tell them about his ancestry results, and the vampiric assassins, and everything he’d been keeping from them for the last year. Well, he was going to, but before he could get much further than ‘the truth is…’; he felt a sudden pain in the back of his head, and the world went black.
“Nadja!” Nandor shouted, glaring at the vampire currently standing behind Guillermo’s crumpled form, holding the chair she’d just been freed from.
“What? He’s a bloody vampire slayer! What did you expect me to do, just wait for him to turn us to dust?”
“You made the right call, my darling. I’ve always said he was a fucking time bomb.”
~
When Guillermo woke up, he was in a bed that was strangely more comfortable than his own. He opened his eyes to see… the inside of a cage. An actual old, rusted cage with spikes on the top.
“Why do we even have this?” he muttered to himself, making Nadja gasp and jump away from the bars, clutching her husband’s arm.
“He’s awake!” Nandor pointed at him as he sat up, rubbing the back of his head. He could feel a painful bruise forming where he’d been hit.
“Why am I in a cage? What happened?”
“What happened is that you’re a big bloody vampire slayer!” Nadja all but spat the words at him, still keeping her distance and remaining behind Laszlo’s outstretched arm.
“Nadja! Be nice! We should at least give him a chance to explain!”
“Explain what? How he killed half of the vampiric council?” Nandor only hissed at her in response, and she hissed back with far more aggression. Guillermo watched them argue, trying to make sense of everything and ignore his pounding headache.
“Would you guys just listen?”
“Not a chance – come along, my darling.” Nadja took her husband’s offered hand and began to ascend the basement stairs, still watching Guillermo as if he could somehow escape the cage and attack her.
“Where are you going? I thought we were going to discuss what to do with him!”
“We are. But I don’t see why we have to do it down here with him watching us.” Laszlo gestured vaguely to Guillermo as he spoke, pointedly refusing to look in the direction of the cage. “You just come up when you’re done saying your goodbyes, alright?” and with that, they shut the basement door – leaving master and familiar alone together. Neither of them spoke, and Guillermo looked at Nandor from where he sat on the bed. The vampire was toying with the edge of his cape and watching his familiar carefully.
“I only did it to protect you. You know that, right, Master?”
“But how were you so good at it?”
Guillermo paused, debating how much he should say. He’d been about to tell them everything back in the theatre, but that was when he’d assumed they’d believe him. Now they’d locked him in a cage and were planning on leaving him to rot while they debated amongst themselves – and he was more than a little preoccupied by what Laszlo meant when he told Nandor to ‘say his goodbyes’. Then he saw Nandor’s wide, shining eyes all but begging him for an explanation, and made his choice. If it came to it, he rationalised, he was fairly confident that he could incapacitate them without doing them any permanent damage. He took a deep breath, and told Nandor everything.
To his credit, the vampire sat and listened to his familiar for the first time in over a decade of service, only interrupting to ask the occasional question or try and correct some small detail pertaining to him or his housemates. Guillermo started with his ancestry test, and moved on to every vampiric assassin he’d bested in the last few months. He explained about the mosquito club, and the truth about the Baron’s death, and even the vampire in the tunnel during the group’s first trial. Finally, he was finished, and he allowed himself once again to look at Nandor, who had pulled up a chair at some point and now sat just on the other side of the bars. So close, Guillermo could have reached out and touched him – if he didn’t know the vampire would leap away if he so much as breathed too aggressively.
“I think that’s everything.”
“So you really were protecting us? All this time?”
“Yes! Of course! I would never hurt any of you!” Guillermo tried not to focus on how Nandor had flinched when he’d raised his voice. He’d craved the vampires’ respect for so long, but having them fear him was almost worse than the degrading way they used to treat him. He lowered his voice, breaking eye contact again as it wavered. “I just wanted you to be safe.”
The silence stretched on for what felt like an age, Guillermo stubbornly refusing to make eye contact while Nandor desperately tried to comprehend everything that he’d heard. Guillermo listened to the sounds of the basement, his attention caught by the uneven dripping of a leaky pipe somewhere in the dimly lit space. Eventually, the vampire came to a decision and stood, replacing his stool at the side of the room.
“Master?” Guillermo tried to ignore the note of panic in his own voice as his head shot up, watching as Nandor began to climb the stairs in silence. The vampire paused as he reached the top, half looking back over his shoulder.
“I trust you, Guillermo. I’ll talk to the others.” And before Guillermo could process the statement, said so calmly and sincerely into gloom, Nandor had shut off the lights and left him there alone.
~
The basement was even worse than he remembered it. The leak had worsened in the months since he’d occupied the space, and now formed a steady stream down the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Nandor looked so small inside the rusted cage, the broken wall Guillermo had used as an exit now secured into place by the silver chains encircling the entire thing, ensuring Nandor couldn’t break out even with his vampiric powers. Not that he was willing to use them anymore, after whatever bullshit his ‘friends’ at the wellness centre had filled his head with. Guillermo could barely breathe as he thought about it. As he tried to ignore the outdated clothes and hair that Nandor insisted cemented his place among humanity, and the gaping holes in his mouth. It didn’t work.
“I demand you take me back this instant!”
“I…” Guillermo took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m gonna go get the others, okay? They’ll know how to help you, and then-”
“I don’t need their help! I was happy where I was!”
“That was a cult! That was clearly a cult!” Guillermo was half-laughing now, a bitter, wild laugh that tore its way from his throat as he tried desperately to think clearly, well aware he was verging on hysteria.
“What do you know? You were only there five minutes before you started trying to slay everybody!”
“Why can’t you see that I’m only doing what’s best for you!”
“How would you know what’s best for me? You’ve been alive for what, two decades? Three? You have no idea what it’s like, to watch everything change and move on without you, while you just sit in a room, waiting for anything good to come into your life. And it never fucking happens!”
Guillermo felt the words like a bolt through his chest. The implication was more than clear – no matter how big of an impact Nandor had had on Guillermo’s life, he was just another familiar to him. Just another useless mortal life, gone in the blink of an eye. He drew in a breath and clenched his fists at his sides before climbing the stairs, focusing only on what he needed to do next.
“I trusted you!” Nandor’s broken shout echoed off the basement walls and stopped Guillermo halfway up, making him turn to look at him. “Even when we watched you murder some of the most important vampires in the world, I trusted you! So trust me when I say that this is who I am now! This is what I want!” Guillermo just looked at him for a long moment, hoping the dim light would hide his unshed tears from his former master. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the words to describe the hollow ache in his chest. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and Guillermo had to tear himself away from Nandor’s gaze before his voice would finally return to him.
“I can’t.” His voice broke, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to have his Nandor back – not this weak, brainwashed imitation.
“Guillermo!” Nandor slammed a fist against the cage bars, deliberately restraining his immortal strength and ignoring the burn of the silver chains. He stared up at Guillermo, now standing in the open basement doorway. The slayer half looked back at his former master over a shoulder, a dark silhouette against the brightness of the hallway, hesitating for only a moment before shutting the vampire inside. “Guillermo!”