A Vampire Christmas Carol Read Online Free PDF Page B

following him at a distance, one of Griselda’s favorite pastimes, for two blocks. “Just a peek, my darling,” Griselda begged from ruby lips.
    “I have business to attend to,” Wahltraud argued, but even as he spoke, he slowed his pace so that she might catch a glimpse of his wife’s protégé through the streaky window as they passed the shop. “He should not see us watching him,” he warned.
    Griselda plucked a slender, pale hand from her rabbit-fur muff to stroke Wahltraud’s cheek. “He will not see us because he is like all humans,” she murmured. “He does not see what he does not wish to see. I do believe we could walk right into his counting house, devour both his clerks before his very eyes, and throw their carcasses upon his hearth, and he would not notice.”
    “What a foolish thing to say, my love. If we devoured Disgut, we would have to replace him. You know how difficult it is to find a human who will turn on its own, especially during this syrupy season.” He leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek, and the cold of his breath made her shiver with pleasure.
    To any human who passed Wahltraud and his queen on the street, the couple appeared to be a pair of discreet lovers, exchanging mellifluous words in the fog that lingered particularly thick and vaporous in front of the bake shop. Only those poor humans who had the misfortune to meet them in a dark alley or come face-to-face and have those dark, haunting eyes stare into their own would ever realize what they were. Then, fear would descend upon the unfortunate, but it would be too late, and the knowledge they had gained would be short-lived.
    “Do you see your Scrooge, my precious?” Wahltraud whispered, nipping at her ear tucked inside a velvet hood, encircled with black rabbit fur.
    “I cannot.” She pouted her full lips. “The window is too streaked with soot and the inside foggy with condensation,” she complained. “But the baker’s to flavor the bread with a drop of his own blood. Everyone on the street knows what Mr. Scrooge gets with his nourishment.”
    “There, there, we can see him later as he enters our abode, if we hurry, my love. I still have a matter to attend to.” He gently guided her away from the shop and its human stench of burnt butter, scorched flour, and despair. Human despair de profundis , was quite a gloriously revolting scent, better than sadness or fear. It filled a vampire’s nostrils quite to capacity, thick and cloying, intoxicating, for it was the unhappiness of human beings that the vampires thrived upon.
    “You do not think we need to keep an eye on him?” Griselda questioned. She had the blackest eyes, eyes that could see through him to the very depths of his black soul, eyes that could freeze humans in their tracks and bring them willingly, step by step, to their own undoing.
    “Keep an eye on him?” Wahltraud opened the top button of his greatcoat, enjoying the chill of the night that slipped through the gap in the wool like icy bones.
    “So no one might assuage his sour countenance with their gelastic wishes of happy Christmas and such.” She hissed the words, despising the taste of them. “You know how these humans are with their wishes of good health and prosperity in the new year, and other such piffle.”
    “He’s already yours, my darling. I swear to you on the rotting carcass of my beloved mother. You have done an excellent job with him. Nothing could persuade him to see any goodness in his human world. He is long past that.”
    “I suppose you are right,” she conceded, allowing him to bustle her along. “But we might send one of those disgusting creatures to watch over him just the same.” With a rise of her lovely chin, she indicated one of the stinking urchins hanging back a reasonable distance from the king and the queen. Some were vampires; others, humans who, like Disgut, had acquired, over time, a taste for human blood and were willing to do whatever was asked of them to