Memoirs of a Garroter by Steffanie Holmes

Author:Steffanie Holmes [Holmes, Steffanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bacchanalia House
Published: 2019-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

I burst out laughing. “Okay, now I know this is a fucking joke. Dracula is just a character in a book, inspired by Vlad the Impaler but not even historically accurate. He’s not real—”

My laughter died in my throat. Because briefly, for a moment, I’d forgotten where I was standing. Nevermore Bookshop had brought my three boyfriends to life – Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s James Moriarty, and Edgar Allan Poe’s raven. All flesh and blood and bone, and all borne not from a womb but from the waters of Meles and the mind of a brilliant writer.

If they could be real, then any character could also be real. And if Heathcliff and Morrie and Quoth and Lydia Bennett had walked out of the pages of his book and into the real world through Nevermore Bookshop, then…

…then so too could beasts of myth and horror, like Dracula.

Stoker’s words came back to me a flash, as if I’d read them only yesterday. “‘…he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow… water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless’.” If Dracula came to our world from Bram Stoker’s book, then he came with centuries of knowledge and power. No wonder my father – Homer – was worried about my safety. But then, if he was so worried, why did he up and leave? Why did he gift the shop to Heathcliff?

“Where is Dracula now?” Heathcliff growled, obviously wondering the same thing.

“Who knows?” Grimalkin rolled onto her side, stroking the edge of her breast. “Hanging upside down in a cellar somewhere? If my son has his way, he’ll be burning in Hades with a stake through his heart.”

“What of my father?” I demanded. “Have you heard from him?”

She gave a cat-like shrug. “He has no idea who I am. To him, I was just a stray cat who refused to leave the shop. As soon as he knew that beast was free in the world, he walked out of Nevermore and has never returned. He didn’t even have the decency to put out a saucer of cream.”

The shop bell tinkled. Heathcliff leaped to his feet. “We’re closed!” he boomed. “Can’t you read the bloody—”

“Is that any way to treat the person who comes bearing strange delicacies from far-off lands?” Morrie stepped into the room, carrying his laptop bag in one arm and balancing a large bakery box under the other. “I queued for hours to get these cronuts. They’re supposed to be the best in England and… oh, we have a visitor.”

“Mr. Moriarty.” Grimalkin turned her head. Morrie’s eyes widened as he took in her… display. A wicked grin spread across his face.

“And to whom do I owe the honor?”

“That’s Grimalkin,” I said. “And she’s my grandmother, so maybe stop looking at her like you’re the cat the got the cream.”

“There’s cream?” Grimalkin’s long neck extended. “Where?”

For the first time since I’d known him, Morrie was utterly speechless. He stared from Grimalkin to me and back again.

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