they were a bit pale. Their dress was not dissimilar from my own, though a bit more colorful. Absorbing all this in a glance, I decided to make my first try for information. I mean, after all my fears, they were so familiar it was almost a letdown, so why not bull ahead? Compared with some of the beings I've had to deal with in the past, this looked like a piece of cake.
Signaling the others to stay put, I stepped out onto the road behind my target couple.
'Excuse me!' I called 'I'm new to this area and in need of a little assistance. Could you direct me to the nearest town?'
Translation pendants were standard equipment for dimension travel, and as I was wearing one now, I had no fear of not being understood.
The couple turned to face me, and I was immediately struck by their eyes. The 'whites' of their eyes glowed a dark red, sending chills down my spine. It occurred to me that I might have studied the locals a bit longer before I tried to pass myself off as a native. It also occurred to me that I had already committed myself to this course of action and would have to bluff my way through it regardless. Finally, it occurred to me that I was a suicidal idiot and that I hoped Massha and Guido were readying their back-up weapons to save me from my own impatience.
Strangely enough, the couple didn't seem to notice anything unusual about my appearance.
'The nearest town? That would be Blut. It's not far, we just came from there. It's got a pretty wild night life, if you're into that kind of thing.'
There was something about his mouth that nagged at the edges of my mind. Unfortunately, I couldn't look at it directly without breaking eye contact, so, buoyed by my apparent acceptance, I pushed ahead with the conversation.
'Actually, I'm not too big on night life. I'm trying to run down an old friend of mine I've lost touch with. Is there a post office or a police station in Blut I could ask at?'
'Better than that,' the man laughed. 'The one you want to talk to is the Dispatcher. He keeps tabs on everybody. The third warehouse on your left as you enter town. He's converted the whole second floor into an office. If he can't help you, nobody can.'
As vital as the information was, I only paid it partial attention. When the man laughed, I had gotten a better look at his mouth. His teeth were…
'Look at his teeth!' the girl gasped, speaking for the first time.
'My teeth?' I blinked, realizing with a start that she was staring at me with undisguised astonishment.
Her companion, in the meantime, had paled noticeably and was backing away on unsteady legs.
'You… you're… Where did you come from?'
Trying my best to maintain a normal manner until I had figured out what was going on, I moved forward to keep our earlier conversational distance.
'The castle on the hill back there. I was just…'
'THE CASTLE!?!'
In a flash the couple turned and sprinted away from me down the road.
'Monster!! Help!! MONSTER!!!'
I actually spun and looked down the road behind me, trying to spot the object of their terror. Looking at the empty road, however, it slowly began to sink in. They were afraid of me? Monster?
Of all the reactions I had tried to anticipate for our reception in this new land, I had never in my wildest imaginings expected this.
Me? A monster?
'I think we've got problems. High Roller,' Massha said as she and Guido emerged from the brush at my side.
'I'll say. Unless I'm reading the signs all wrong, they're afraid of me.'
She heaved a great sigh and shook her head.
'That's not what I'm talking about. Did you see their teeth?'
'I saw his,' I said 'The canines were long and pointed. Pretty weird, huh?'
'Not all that weird, Hot Stuff. Think about it. My bet is that you were just talking to a couple of vampires!'
Chapter Five
'To survive, one must be able to adapt to changing situations.'
'VAMPIRES,' I said carefully.
'Sure. It all fits.' Massha nodded. 'The pale skin, the sharp fangs, the red eyeliner, the way they turned into bats…'
'Turned into bats?'
'You missed it. Boss,' Guido supplied. 'You were lookin' behind you when they did it. Wildest thing I ever saw. One second they was runnin' for their lives, and the next they're flutterin' up into the dark. Are all the other dimensions like this?'
'Vampires…'
Actually, my shock wasn't all that great. Realizing the things Aahz and I had run into cruising the so-called 'known and safe' dimensions, I had expected something a bit out of the ordinary in this one. If anything, I was a bit relieved. The second shoe had been dropped… and it really wasn't all that bad! That is, it could have been worse. (If hanging around with Aahz had taught me anything, it was that things could always be worse!) The repetitive nature of my conversational brilliance was merely a clever ploy to cover my mental efforts to both digest this new bit of information and decide what to do with it.
'Vampires are rare in any dimension,' my apprentice replied, stepping into the void to answer Guide's question. 'What's more, they're pretty much feared universally. What I can't figure out is why those two were so scared of Skeeve here.'
'Then again,' I said thoughtfully, 'there's the question of whether or not we can safely assume the whole dimension is populated with beings like the two we just met. I know it's a long shot, but we might have run into the only two vampires in the place.'
'I dunno. High Roller. They acted pretty much at home here, and they sure didn't think you'd find anything unusual about their appearance. My guess is that they're the norm and we're the exceptions around here.'
'Whatever,' I said, reaching a decision at last, 'they're the only two examples we have to work with so far, so that's what we'll base our actions on until proven different.'
'So what do we do against a bunch of vampires?'
As a bodyguard, Guido seemed a bit uneasy about our assessment of the situation.
'Relax,' I smiled. 'The first order of business is to turn on the old reliable disguise spell. Just a few quick touch-ups and they won't be able to tell us apart from the natives. We could walk through a town of vampires and they'd never spot us.'
With that, I closed my eyes and went to work. Like I told the staff, this was going to be easy. Maintain everyone's normal appearance except for paler skin, longer canines, and a little artful reddening of the eyes, and the job was done.
'Okay,' I said, opening my eyes again. 'What's next?'
'I don't like to quote you back at yourself. Hot Stuff,' Massha drawled, 'but didn't you say something about disguises being the first thing before we went any further?'
'Of course. That's why I just… wait a minute. Are you trying to say we still have the same appearance as before I cast the spell?'
One of the problems with casting a disguise spell is that as the caster, I can never see the effects. That is, I see people as they really are whether the spell is on or not. I had gotten so used to relying on the effects of this
