When Robert returned, the senior vampire retrieved an IV from his cloak, stuck one end into the bag and the other into his mouth, then held the bag aloft as he sucked. “This is the stuff right here!”

“Sakes alive!” Adam gasped through a lemon sip. “Even icicles form in cubic shapes nowadays.”

Adam settled on the couch, across from Dracula, as Robert claimed the reclining chair. Beside them the television babbled.

“Know, why, here,” Robert stated seriously. “Not, interested, in, join, any, thing, ridiculous.”

Dracula settled the empty blood bag on a TV-dinner table. He folded his hands. “My futurephone message-o-gram to you was brief,” he expressed. “You have no idea what my proposition to you will be...only that I intend to discuss it face-to-face.”

“Not, doing, this,” Robert declined with delicate firmness. “It, been, millions, of, years. Me, lived, since, Devonian, period. Me, see, rats, size, of, sheep. Centipedes, foot, long. Now, see, man, that, become, wolf. Change, just, part, of, life. Me, want, no, part, of, this. Me, respect, you, Dracula, but, want, just, live, apart, from, humanity.”

“I know well the story of the last time you fought man,” narrated Dracula. “Scientists invaded your Amazonian territory time after time. Shot harpoons at you, set you aflame...as happens to myself in every motion picture. In their last assault, you were taken into captivity and made to mutate, to grow the lungs of a human. Now, not only do you swim in the water and run on the land—you have expanded your culture, learned of man’s creations. You have adapted to the experience! This fine home would not be yours without that mishap. You have even taken the time to learn all languages!”

“Every tongue known to man?” said Adam, impressed.

“And, every, known, to, animal,” added Robert. “Plus, became, vegetarian. Tofurky, amazing.”

“Would one last odyssey into the world of man not expand your horizons further?” said Dracula. “At least give me the honor of stating my mission, old friend.”

Robert groaned and begrudged, but he breathed, “Go, on.”

“I plan to arrange a group of five, maybe six individuals outside the scope of werehumanity to stage a revolution in the coming days. Well, not a revolution, per se. We are not taking over the government, though one may think I desire to restore the world to its olden human shape. That would be as inconceivable as rolling back the rock to the Cambrian era of your childhood, or to the icéd ages of the Ice Age. I have made peace with this wolfy world, formed though it was by the forcing of werewolf disease upon almost every living soul.

“But there is still a world to save.

“You know what has befallen our beloved moon.”

“Me, weep, every, time, me, see, her,” mourned Robert as he sniffled through his gills. “Mankind, destroy, millions, years, moon, just, for, resources. So, sick, me, plant, trees, just, so, block, it, from, sight.”

“And that is far from the only resource farm in space, Robert, but what I came to discuss is sadder by far,” Dracula spat, becoming unnaturally, over-and-above-supernaturally heated. “Tremendous changes are coming. Changes that could affect yet more billions of innocent souls.”

In the wake of these words, Adam shivered terrifically. He felt himself sucked in like blood through a tooth.

Then issued from Robert a hushed gasp. “Don’t, mean, tell, me,” he stammered.

“That’s right! We have to save the world! The other world!” The Count leaped to his feet and hurled a manuscript from his cloak onto the coffee table. The cover page read, “GOVERNMENT PLAN TO TURN ALL ALIENS INTO IDENTICAL WEREWOLVES.”

“It appears," proceeded Dracula, "that extraterrestrials have long noticed the ever-scattering light of the moon and its ever-changing mining practices. Like a twisted beacon, it is summoning them! Recently they decided to send delegates to meet with Igor and his cabinet to establish relations between planets—but the World Government is plotting to infect the visitors with the werewolf virus! THE EARTH GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO MAKE THE AMBASSADORS INFECT ALL THE ALIENS AND TURN THEM INTO WEREWOLVES TOO!”

Adam cried, “Oh my God!”

Robert clutched his chest in shock—for right then and there, he suffered a heart attack! Fortunately, he had five hearts. He sputtered, “Th-this, truth?”

“Examine the ledger if you wish. Every word in there was pilfered, but the contents are complete and utter fact, signed off by the president himself. As I said, I have come to terms with the way this world has changed. I dearly miss the ways in which mankind used to appear in all shapes and sizes, and find the identical wolfshapes to be immensely dreary. But this is what humans wanted. It is a crime to force this change onto a world that may not even contain wolves!”

Robert flipped through, skimming it all at hyper-speed with his superior fishman reading ability. When finished, he picked the pages up and crunched all three hundred and fifty of them in his palm like a napkin.

“This, legitimate,” he concluded. “Plans, in, making, many, years. Don’t, like.”

Dracula settled his arms behind his back and cooled off. “You still have your old sense of justice,” he said with heavy admiration. “We have approximately five days to gather our forces. All I need to do is meet with Igor and convince him that what he is doing is unsavory. We drifted apart many, many years ago. I am still the most wanted man in the world because he fears what I could do to his empire. But he is still like to me my son, and to him I pray I am a father.”

Robert chuckled grimly. “You, pray?”

“Every man does when he truly needs to,” came the reply.

Then Dracula turned to his mummified accomplice. “That is the true purpose of my quest to revive you! I am guilty of not having revealed this in a timely manner, but as an apology, I offer a route to safety. If you wish, you may leave this dire plot behind; I will deposit you anywhere in the world you desire. I will educate you about vampirism, about how to endure an immortality submerged in darkness without ever sacrificing the high life. (Now that I think of it, with your sunny mummy powers you may tolerate sunlight...)

“But should you resolve to come with us, and protect a world you have never seen from a world you do not know, I shall protect you as leader until my last blood-soaked breath!”

Had Adam stayed awake the night prior to hear about Igor, to learn how seamlessly he navigated life as dual werewolf and vampire—and as president, no less! —he may well have asked Dracula to set him up straightaway in the same way. All he knew, however, was that society had never meant hospitality.

He laughed uproariously! “Ah, you old bat, you forget!” he cried. “Indeed I could leave your service—and run in fearful flight for all my days. I have drunk deep of that life. No more. Here in this home, I feel more accepted than I have anywhere else in my storied history. Even the blind fled me, tripping over their foreign objects! I sit before you thinking of the world’s perception of me, scrawled second-hand by the sailor-adventuress Mary Shelley. Yet by week’s end,” he said with great warmth, “I may not be merely in 'fiction.' We all may land in the history books.”

“So it is settled, Prometheus!” Dracula deemed. He whipped an arm from his cloak and pointed two fingers to the two figures. “So we have here assembled two braves renowned the world over for strength...that is, if you still possess, fair Robert, the muscle to overturn automobiles?”

“Most, prodigiously,” the manfish confirmed, curling a bicep.

“I shall fill out the team with two specialists: one with knowledge of the arcane sort, the other with a speed yet unmatched in all the world—this world, at least!”

And the castlebat was off, his sights set for bully England!