In moments the foursome, snowcoat-clad, stood in a storm so thick with gales and icy clods that to mortals and vampires alike the sky was scarcely perceptible, the Cape’s boulders mere spectres. They had walked not ten footsteps from the Castle Dracula’s front gates when, disturbingly close by, lightning struck! They dove into snow mounds in hopes of avoiding soaring debris, which included a puffin, launched head over heels like a scorched and misthrown football.

“Egad!” pipped Adam. When he raised his head and wiped the snow-crusts from his eyes, however, he changed his tune, for before them was their destination. “Oh, I mean…I am glad!”

There it was: a grand and lonesome estate, which not only towered above, but spread its girth wide. How Dracula could have missed such a monumental thing, could have led Bistritz astray for hours, is explained by the confounding nature of Cape Agulhas’ weather and terrain: landmarks blend together, radar signals bounce.

In front on their right was a mansion, an egregiously oversized mansion. Its walls struggled to maintain snow white, but the color was washing out, beaten by decades of snow and earthy dirts. To the left of the mansion stood its means of self-sustainment: a barnhouse and silo worthy of Old Macdonald, sitting atop grass, the cherry red and emerald green of them visible through a translucent dome. There must have been half an acre in there! It teemed with thick grasses which waved gingerly despite the tundric craze outside; it fostered animals of the domestic sort, and the party, moving closer, could actually see pink pigs as specks roaming the inner expanse.

“Owner, must, be, rich,” Robert hazarded, raising his voice in the blasted snow.

“You may actually be the one to recognize him. Come,” urged the Count, “we cannot keep our final teammate waiting.”

“Yeah, let’s hurry this up,” remarked Trials. “I don’t wanna end up as someone’s catcicle, if you catch my snowdrift.” She had removed her cat-coat many steps ago, citing it as “too itchy”; Robert ached to call her out on this hypocrisy, but restrained himself.

Dracula banged the doorknocker. It was shaped like a tennis shoe filled with a foot, all molded so perfectly that it seemed liable to take off sprinting right then and there. Who could this new enigmatic figure be? A descendant of the remarkable Jekyll or Hyde? Jack the Ripper’s grandson twenty times removed, Mack the Dipper? George Washington’s ghost? The possibilities were restricted only by the imagination. Maybe a troll, I don’t know. That’s a kind of monster, I think.

“What’re ya sellin’?” grunted an angry eye behind the cracked door.

Dracula stated, “Freedom.”

Eight locks were heard twisting loose and falling away. The door was opened by the mansion’s sole occupant: nothing but a frumpy man. His brown hair was frosting grey, which, in concert with fat and wrinkles, betrayed lost youth and fortitude. Yet his eyes retained a spark—and transmuted that spark into an unnerving, even depressing, look. Clearly, though he was no vampire, he had his own power to hypnotize.

“Drac’s back, eh?” he muttered derisively. “And I see you brought the whole monster squad with ya.”

The Count persisted. “May we please come in? It is dreadfully cold out.”

“Do whatever. But I know what you’re gonna ask, and I ain’t interested, mate.”

He opened the door with a careless swing and said, “Here, walk this way.” Then he shuffled inside on fluffed slippers, moving mechanically, straight ahead. The four followed suit, shuffling inside on fluffed slippers, for there were many pairs beside the door. They searched for a coat rack, but there was none. The mansion owner gestured weakly to the floor, where a parka of his own had been flung. The foursome shrugged amongst themselves and did the same. Already this place, and his glare, infected them.

On their way to the lounge, they passed the open doors of a closet and a kitchen. The proportions of the two-story fridge, the basin sink, the closet bar devoid of hangers that stretched as long as a firehouse pole is tall, were outrageous, worthy of kings—large kings.

They entered a lounge so grand that the doorways studding its walls were like holes on a thimble: negligibly small. Against the vaulted glass ceiling which shined and slanted like a diamond, the battering snow was a mere drizzle. Ancient English tapestries, original paintings framed in gold, and countless amphorae lined the walls, their glister hinting coyly at secrets none alive could ever know…

Yet with all their splendor, there remained one fact no opus in an eighty-square-foot guest room could hide: the man was sad. The furnishments told that story. There in the very very center of the room, upon a sumptuous recreation of the fifth scene on the Bayeaux Tapestry, sat a single lamp and two folding chairs. The lamp was off and the chairs remained folded.

The mansion’s master made the long shuffle in, the visitors close behind, all in a line, unbreaking, unturning. He picked up the first chair. It collapsed into parts, destroying itself in his very grasp. He picked up the second chair. It disintegrated, atomically blowing away in the sudden chill that wandered through this warehouse-sized guest room.

The man stared at his empty hands.

Then, without a word, they all sat criss-cross on the tapestry (except Trials—reader, don’t be a smart-apple). They used the ceiling’s snow and moonlight to illumine their conversation, since their host did not bother to turn on the light.