DRACULA'S SERVANT!

He stared out the window at the sky. It was a full moon, and he didn't feel like venturing out. He could hear the sounds of the city; car horns,music, people chatting and a couple having sex half a mile away. The girl was noisey. She was screaming profanities like a meth-head.


He sighed and leaned against the windowsill. It was getting harder to get through this time.


He wished he could go to sleep and wake up in the dark ages again. He felt so....disconnected, so alien in this time.


"Bros,"
He hated these interruptions. He really assumed he was alone.




"Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"Dracula asked without turning around.


"Bros," Igor said. "Na dis my girl with mid-night call oh."


"Wait," Dracula turned around. His cloak whooshing through the air as he did. "YOU, have a girlfriend?"




"Hian," Igor exclaimed. "Bodi na fire wood?"




"How's that even possible?"




"So becus I dey do Gate-man for Winsh make conji kill me?"




"You are not a 'Gate-man, Igor." Dracula sighed. "And please stop calling me that, its racist."




"Pesin wey dey suck-blood for night na wetin dem dey call am?"




"Whatever," Dracula said. " What is this talk about a girlfriend?"




"Oh," Igor said with some excitement. "Her name na Halima."




"She's a muslim?"




"No ,...she b born again oh. Na accountant she b for---."




"...... born again?"




"Wetin happen?"




"Is she like Born Again-Born Again, or just ...Born Again?"




"Which one b all dis question ?"


"Christians have access to holy water and crucifixes. You do realise those things can hurt me, don't you?"


"Na me tell u to b Prince of Darkness?"


Dracula turned to the window again. He hated being called that. He hated being reminded of what he was. The old Igor was better, he thought. The man was obedient and predictable. Above all, he didnt talk back to his master. This new Igor was an Idiot. Enough said.


"Why do you have to always have to be this way when I try to give you advice?" Dracula said.


"I like d girl ," Igor said. "Na bad belle dey worry u."


"Don't say that," Dracula frowned. "I've always been supportive of your relationships."


"But u kill my last girlfriend."
"Because she was too nosey...what was she doing snooping around my coffin at night?"
"To take selfie na bad tin?"
Dracula stared at his hunch-back servant in silence. He dreaded asking but had no other choice.
"Have you brought her here....during the day....while I slept?"


Long silence.


Igor turned away from his master's gaze. He stared at the floor, then at the cieling--- then back to the floor  again.


"SERIOUSLY?"


"Oga Dracs cool down," Igor said waving his hands. "Na juss near ya coffin wey I nack am!"


"Jesus!"


"Shoo," Igor exclaimed. "U sef b Christian?"


Dracula contained the rage inside him.


"What if she had seen me? What if she'd seen----?"


"U too fear!"


He couldn't take it any longer. He let his claws extend from his fingers. He slowly bore his fangs at his servant and growled.


Igor picked up what  looked like an  empty coke bottle. With a quick flick of the wrist, he smashed it against the wall.


"U dey crase?" He snapped. "Na me u dey show teeth?....u wan try Waffy boy?"


Dracula composed himself and looked away.


This Igor had been with him for less than five years. Good help was hard to find for a vampire. He still knew very little about this century. So he had to tolerate him. But the guy was a real piece of work; he was always drunk.


Even now he could smell the gin on his breath.


 But for all his short-comings, he was a good day-time protector.


"Come na," Igor said waving the bottle. "u dey fear?"


Dracula returned to the window again. So much had changed since he last  walked the earth. In the old days, he was feared; his very name struck terror in the hearts  of those whom heard it. He didn't understand this world; Twitter, Facebook....and the other one with too many pictures. Even the blood tasted different. Two  months before, he'd feasted on a girl whose blood caused made him so sick, he couldn't leave the house for nights. This one time, he stalked a woman to a quiet parking lot.


When he was certain no one would hear her scream, he materialized in front of her. He expected her to run, scream or pass out.


Instead, she took one look at him, whipped out her cell phone and took a selfie with him.


"Awesome cape," she said delightfully as he watched her tag the picture on her phone; 'Winsh-tins'


That's what this era was like; dumb, disrespectful and immoral. He missed the old days.


"I apologize Igor," he said. "I didn't mean to be....aggressive--."


"Abeggy," Igor said. "No juss try me again o...I go juss open ya coffin for afternoon....Nshi-man!"


Then he heard it.


At first it was just one, but soon he heard the other two.


Heart-beats.


There were people in the compound.


"U tink say I dey fear u?" Igor was ranting. "U b toy for where I dey----!"


"Ssssh!" The hunch-back's yapping was distracting.


"Na me u dey talk to?....u dey craze?"


"There are people in the compound!"


"Mtcheeew! Abeg go sleep, the work sef don taya me....u no b pesin wey I suppose respect!"


Long silence.


The last sentence hurt him. At one time, he had hundreds of servants and friends. People adored and feared him. No one had ever spoken to him like that.  In a blur, he put up his hood, opened the window and jumped out. He assumed bat form almost immediately. He didn't care about the three men breaking into his home. He didn't care about any thing. All he wanted was to fly far far away. He ignored Igor's voice.


"YES RUN, NA D ONLY TIN U SABI DO," Igor screamed after him. "Nonsense!"


He turned away and went downstairs. No one was going to tell him whom to date. Not Dracs, not anyone.  He felt good about himself standing up to his master.


"Khaki no b leather," he chuckled as he got to the bottom of the stairs. In that moment, he resolved to drag his master's coffin into the sun the next morning---not to kill him, but to teach him a lesson. It was time for the balance of power to shift. Dracs was nothing without him, he thought.  He wouldn't last two weeks.


It was time for a new master; Igor.


"Don't move!" He had just reached the centre of their immense living room, when he felt something cold and hard pressing against his hump.  Igor didn't know alot about guns, but he knew the sound of a 'Pump-action' when it was cocked.


He raised his hands.  From the sounds, he knew there was more than one person behind him.


"Una pick d wrong house to rob oh!" He said trying to keep the fear from his voice. As a servant of Dracula, he was imbued with unnatural strength; which came in handy in case of intruders. The only draw-back to his powers were: They were only active during the day. At night he was like any other man. Like Dracula, he was immortal but unlike his master Igor could be killed by mortal weapons. Which meant, he was fucked.


"is this the....guy?" He heard the same voice say. 


"Yes," a female voice said.


Igor felt his heart sink. He spun around.


"Halima!"


A sharp blow to the head sent him to the ground. But the assault came a split second after he saw the love of his life smiling at him.
His ears where ringing, and his vision was hazy.


"Did you have to hit it so hard, Halima?"


Another male voice chuckled.


"Do you know how long I've been waiting to do that?" Her voice said.


"Can't believe you slept with this.....thing." The first voice said.


"With the kind of gold I saw in his master's basement, would you blame me?"


Igor tried standing up, a brutal kick to the ribs sent him to the ground again.


"Hope you don't get an infection or something." The Second man said.


"The book said Igors don't carry diseases....so I'm safe."


"Lets hope so."


"Stand him up," Halima ordered.


Igor felt himself being yanked to his feet.


Halima looked different; her hair tied pony-tail style, and she had dark paint smeared on her face.


"Bae," Igor said. "Wetin dey happen?"


"Did he just call me Bae?"


All three of them laughed. The sound hurt Igor's ringing ears.


Halima was holding a handgun.


"Did you really think...I gave a crap about you?"


Igor couldn't believe his ears. He desperately wanted to believe that this was a joke of some sort. He wanted to believe that it was a lie.


WHACK! went the butt of her gun across his face.


"Filthy hunch-pig," she spat. "Who could love a monster like you?"


"Why...?" Igor winced. The side of his mouth was bleeding.


"Do you know how long my family has hunted for your master and his gold?...centuries...my ancestors gave their lives for that treasure."


"U no go find am," Igor said fighting back tears. "Dracula go----"


"The treasure's kept in the basement, isn't it?" She said leaning into his face. She traced her lips across his forehead. "Just under the 'Coffin-room' where we fucked."


He struggled but the arms that held him were too strong. He'd have given anything to snap their necks.


"Chei, dis girl don fall my hand."


"Don't bother screaming," she said. "I laced the sides of your master's coffin with garlic...he's not coming to save you."


Igor stared at all three of them then exploded with laughter.


It was their turn to look confused.


So intense was his laughter that he bent over, his hump trembling with chuckles.


"What's so funny?" Halima said.


Igor was still laughing. The sound echoed in the room.


"Stop it!" She sounded more scared than angry.


"....una b reeeeal mumu," Igor chuckled. "Garlic wey Dem dey take cook......naim Una wan take kill vampire....."


"What..is he saying?" The man to his right asked.


"Don't listen to him," Halima snapped. "He's bluffing."


"...garlic go only kill him moral....no wonder oga Dracs been dey behave wan kine."


"SHUT UP!" Halima hit him as hard as she could. But he didn't stop laughing.


".....if my oga reach here eh?....na die Una dey....."


She pressed the gun into his face and cocked it.


"So....where is he?" She hissed. "Where is this master saviour of yours, huh?"


Igor winced at the pressure of the nozzle on his skin.


Halima looked around expectantly, and smiled.


"Looks like he isn't here," she said. "Looks like you're all alone, Igor."


"Halima.....cool down," he said with a gulp."No kill me abeg----."


"GIVE ME THE FUCKING SPELL THAT OPENS THE TREASURE VAULT!" She pressed the weapon further into his flesh. Igor was heart-broken, Igor was pissed. He should've listened to Dracs. Dracs was the only person who really cared about him. He felt bad for threatening him with the bottle. But one thing was certain; he wasn't going to give them the spell. He owed his master that.


"If u like....kill me," he said. "I no go give u.....I B DRACULA SERVANT!"


The rage in her eyes was intense.


"So be it," she snarled, repositioning the weapon against his groin. "We'll start slowly."


"Well done Igor," came a voice that brightened Igor's heart.


Dracula!


The two men let him go, their eyes scanning the interior of the large room  in fear.


"Where is........is he?" One of the men said.


"Behind you." Came a whisper close to his ear.


In panic, the man spun his gun around. But claws as sharp as razors slashed through his throat, then across his chest spraying dark crimson into the air. His finger-trigger squeezed, unleashing a shot-gun round into the other man's face. On impact, the man's head exploded off its shoulders sending chunks of bone and brain matter into the nearby wall.


Frantic, Halima fired several rounds into the area she assumed Dracula was. The room exploded in a series of loud blasts and violent sparks.


CLICK!


CLICK!


CLICK!


Halima's hand squeezed the trigger over and over again as the thick smoke cleared.


CLICK!


CLICK!


Her face was a strange mixture of dread, panic and confusion.


Long silence.


Igor was crouched on the ground, his hands covering his head. He had a triumphant expression on his face.


Halima's eyes scanned the room frantically. But Dracula was no where in sight. Her heart was beating faster than she thought possible. Her hands were shaking.


Igor slowly rose from the ground.


"So...u wan fall my hand abi?" He said walking towards her. "After I buy u new phone, flex u well for dis town."


"Igor....please," she said retreating. "I didn't ....mean---."


"You want to kill her or should I?" Dracula's voice said.


Igor paused a few feet away from the trembling girl.


Long pause.


"No need Oga," Igor said. He swiftly closed the distance between them and snapped her neck.


Her face still wore the shocked look as she fell to the ground.


Long silence.


Igor stared at her body for a long time and wiped a single tear from his cheek.


Dracula put a hand on his servant's shoulder.


"She fall my hand," he said softly.


"I'm sorry, Igor."


"No....na me dey sorry," Igor said. "U b my oga, I suppose respect u."


"It's okay Igor, you will find love again."


Another long silence.


"This place needs to be cleaned up," Dracula sighed.


"U b my Oga," Igor smiled. "I go do am.


I'M A WRITER
MY MIND IS MY WORKSTATION
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ENOUGH SAID.