Every hundred years Count Dracula makes his return to the Earth Realm. And every 100 years the Belmont clan sends its current champion to fight him.
There was Simon, Richter, Trevor, Reinhardt, an a bunch of forgettable ones.
And me, Pete Belmont.
Most of us mastered the use of the whip, despite a whip being a very silly weapon to use for fighting evil vampires, mummies, and so on. I mean, it hurts like a bastard to get hit by a whip, but to knock a guy’s head off with a whip is almost impossible. But hey, the whip has done right by us with the possible exception of a brief period in American history when it was put to very dark and devious use, when our cousin, Randolph Belmont used the power of a whip to force people to row shit. But we don’t talk about that, and from what I know all of Randolph’s paraphernalia is buried in a basement somewhere in Kentucky.
Anyway, it had been about 105 years and no sign of Dracula. Which was great because, to be honest, I hadn’t been taking my training very seriously. I’d pretty much been using the whip only to start my car from the bedroom window on cold mornings. And I was pretty bad at that, too.
So, you can imagine my disappointment when Dracula showed up. In the middle of goddamn winter, too.
I had to get out all of my old Dracula shit and study again. I had this owl friend who was supposed to help me, but I whipped him to death. I know, stupid. But he was so fucking annoying, and the only way I could figure out to turn him off was to finish him. The thing about killing a magic, talking owl with round professor glasses is that nobody comes looking for the body or asks you, what happened to your magic owl? It’s not like a baby, or a sociable roommate.
I knew I could do it, though. I never studied for the SAT’s, or the AP History Exam. Granted, those were tests where you sit down and think about shit whereas this was a situation where I would be wandering around a haunted castle for a few days, trying not to die. But the principles are similar, somehow.
To Be Continued…