The Count and The Psycho

As quickly as his eyes open, sensing his coffin being prised open by his enemies, the great count fears his time has come. However, just as Van Helsing is about to stab a stake through his heart and decapitate the wretched bloodsucker, a strange mist surrounds them all, much like the strange mist that the Count transforms into, though not of his doing this time.

He is whisked away to another dimension, astral plane. One that feels familiar, but so foreign at the same time. Transforming back into his human form he looks around, the dreamlike grounds of a huge and majestic building. "This is even bigger than my castle back home in Transylvania" he marvels, looking up at the sign that reads "The Great and Auspicious Library of Living Tales".

****

"This is not an exit."

Patrick was at first surprised, and more than slightly irritated that his crimes were dismissed so easily by his friends, colleagues and the police who investigated them. He knew he was not delusional, and his grand acts of brutality and joyous torture had been written off as hallucinations of a strained businessman. As he sat in another new club with his colleagues, he pondered over the absurdity of existence and what the point in everything was. As he engaged in the boring conversation with the others, he wondered if he would ever be caught or indeed meet his match. Morality, it seems, for the average white man, was irrelevant.

Just as those thoughts flew through his mind, he felt a strong mist surround him, laughing at the ridiculousness, as he thought it must be the newly opened club's way of adding some atmosphere with one of those stupid dry ice machines that Bono or Phil Collins may entertain. As the mist surrounded him and entered into his lungs, he noticed that the room went quiet, and he couldn't see his cohorts. Standing he realised he was no longer in that swanky new nightspot and somewhere different.

Trying to find his bearings, he felt his newly bought Thorn Browne black leather wingtip brogues bump the bottom step of a large set of stairs that led to the largest building he had ever seen. He checked that his shoes were as immaculate and shiny as they were when he first bought them. Admiring the punch-hole detailing, pebbled leather texture, a round toe and a pull tab to the rear with lace-up fastening, low heel and rubber sole, his eyes were distracted from the footwear to the door as it opened and then caught sight of the sign shimmering above that reads "The Great and Auspicious Library of Living Tales".

Perplexed, and a bit out of sorts, he realised there was nothing else he could do, but investigate the strange structure before him.

****

"Has Halloween come early?" Patrick asked, catching the sight of the count in his dark cloak and old-fashioned attire. "Do you work here?" he asked, as the Count turned to face him. Patrick could not hold back his laughter, fuelled by a mixture of disdain and curiosity. "I do not work here; I am a great nobleman in my home country and one who is feared. Do you not know who I am?" he replied, looking at the smart man that stood before him up and down, weighing him up as a predator does his prey.

"You look like a guy I knew from Manhattan. An older guy who dressed as Dracula for a Halloween party, during the 80s. I despised that guy. The girls loved him, the sleazy old pervert. He really thought he was something special in his Armani suits and BMW with a house in the Hamptons. I killed his wife and the au pair. Left their spleens in the fridge for him and took their heads home with me. They were not the most attractive, it's fair to say, but they were functional nonetheless."

"You look just like him, hopeless and decrepit. Why would you even dress up as Dracula, the immortal shape-shifting beast is a tired horror trope if ever there was one. Are you going to sucka my blooda?"

As Patrick stops for breath from his monologue, laughing at his own terrible Romanian accent, the Count has a distinct look of disgust on his face. Not by the gore or even the excitement and revelry that Patrick displays, but more at the insinuation that he was not the real thing and just some "old pervert". Patrick admired his reflection in one of the many glass cabinets of the library's shelves that held what the sign suggested were "Protected and Sacred Writings" and featured Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, Nineteen Eighy-Four by George Orwell, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, to name a few.

"Listen, boy, I'm not interested in your poor man's Ted Bundy schtick. I've seen, experienced and committed more terrifying and atrocities than your preppy, narcissistic mind could ever contemplate.

I've been reading about you. Mr Easton does not seem to have a very high opinion of you. How does that feel? To be dismissed so harshly by your own creator? You seem like a lost child looking for attention. It's clear you have serious issues."

Patrick seems shocked but does not shrink back if anything the Count's cutting words and accurate character assassination enrages him.

"Wait...do you actually believe you are the Count? God, you're more delusional than I first thought. You're not the only one that can read, old man. According to your creator, Bram Stoker, you die in the end, whereas I thrive and survive."

Patrick can't help but laugh, while looking in the mirror to check every strand of hair is in the right position. "Don't suppose there is a comb in this dusty old place" he mutters as the Count's own anger rises, raising his hands up and flapping his cloak behind his body.

"You call your existence - survival? Being alive? Do you want to know the difference between us, Mr. Bateman? You use and discard people for your own sick gains. Whenever you have a psychotic itch to scratch, you get yourself a woman and do with her as you please. Whenever someone bests you in life, you remove the competition because you can't cope with the thought of anyone being better than you.

I, on the other hand, kill out of necessity. I am like a lion or a tiger and you, my dear fellow and the rest of the human race are all cattle to me. Cattle waiting to be slaughtered to give me sustenance and life. It is selfish, but not out of arrogance or that burning desire inside of you that needs to see human suffering, that needs to be the cause of human suffering, that requires gratuitous violence to keep you interested in life. I am a survivor. I did, at one point, as I read your book, want to transform you, and enslave you to become one like me, out of pity and because you lack any real conscience...but no."

In a flash, he had disappeared into a mist, putting Patrick on edge as he looked around him, before reappearing behind him and grabbing him.

Surprised by how strong the old man was, Patrick couldn't fight him off. "Instead, I'll have the one thing you have that is of any use to me now...your blood."

As the Count sunk his teeth into Patrick's neck, he felt a strange release as his body succumbed to the damage inflicted by the fatal bite.

As Patrick's body fell to the ground, unceremoniously, the count transformed into a mist, his strength revived and renewed and returned to his own timeline to face his enemies. Taking Van Helsing and the hunters by surprised, he overpowered each of them and enslaved them as the first members of his new race.

No-one missed Patrick and his body was left motionless and pale on the floor of the great and illustrious library. The words "This is an exit" appeared on the wall in front of his bloodless corpse.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is my first entry into Celia in Underland's awesome little series/prompt called "The Great and Auspicious Library of Living Tales"

This may be the closest thing I've ever done to fan fiction. I decided that Patrick Bateman and the old Count might make for an interesting meet-up. I hope you enjoy it!