Blueblood 4: Dracula - 3. First Night On The Town

The flight was a long one. We did stop for refueling. We weren’t a big plane. Well, it was not the size of one of those big passenger planes, but it was bigger than most there. We landed at the Targu Mures Airport which was a smaller airport just north of Sighisoara in the morning. So, we had no problems. There was one person that met us at the airport from customs. We had to show our passports, but when he saw what we brought into Romania, all documented with paperwork for both equipment and medical supplies. The customs agent held up one of our translators.

“What’s this for?” He asked in accented English.

Colin chuckled as he picked up a translator and earpiece. “Our CPU is on, so…” he said putting one of the earpieces in his ear, “say that again, in whatever language you normally use.”

The man nodded. “Ce este acest lucru pentru?”

Colin nodded. “Does this answer your question?” He asked back and we heard, “Aceasta răspunde la întrebarea dumneavoastră?”

“Traduce din engleză în Română?”

“That’s why we’re here. We want this to translate everything.” Colin smiled and we heard. “Thats de ce suntem aici. Vrem ca acest lucru sa traduca totul.”

The man’s smile grew even more. “Asta e uimitor!”

Colin nodded and held up his hand. “Yes, it is amazing. Stick with English for now for the others who don’t have one on.”

“Can anyone have one of those?” The man asked happily marveling at the devices.

Colin nodded. “Yes, but the problem is, in order to translate so many languages, we need a computer with a lot of memory. The computer we use is…kind of connected to the one in Manhattan.” He grinned as Stan walked off the plane with Mark. “My friend Stan here is the computer man. A genius, really. He named the computer Buddy. Buddy works well and is connected by satellite. Buddy hears what you say and tells me in English what you said. I speak in English and you hear Romanian from this!” He lifted the device with the speaker on it. “We are creating something you can install on your laptop to translate one language and wear one of these and do it with this.” He smiled. “We’re trying to make one smaller and have all languages.” He held up the small scanner. “And this…will read all languages…when we’re connected.” He looked at Stan. “Let him take one set.” He waved at the customs agent. “We’ll be here a while.” He handed the agent one of the scanners and translators. “This will work while we’re here.”

The man was thrilled instantly putting the earpiece in his ear. “And this will translate all I hear to English?”

Colin shook his head. “No, this will translate anything to the language you choose. If you want Romanian, it will translate anything to Romanian.”

I chuckled as now I believed we could come in with anything and he’d let us in; nothing better than a boy given a new toy to win his favor.

We rode toward Sighisoara. My first impression of this country was…old. Not ancient like Egypt, but it was old. There were a lot of hills and thick forests. I had a good imagination, so I could see how it would look at night. The road to Sighisoara was a highway, but when we arrived in the town, I got a slight…German opinion of this beautiful town. That wasn’t quite right. It was European construction. No wooden houses, but stone covered in a smooth covering of mortar maybe stucco? As with most towns established, Sighisoara was on the Tarnava Mare River. Most of this town was level…sort of. There were hills on which they built many homes and businesses. There were no colossal skyscrapers or metal and glass constructed buildings. Many buildings were the color of stone, but as we came in I noticed that there were peppered throughout the town were various tones of that stone color, some were white, but there was the occasional green, blue and one eye-catching orangey-red! It caught my attention. There was the central clock tower that stood higher than any other. We hired a couple of transport vans to pick us up and another to carry our equipment. If we hadn’t had drivers, I wondered if we’d find it. The house was on a town corner and the front door was in the center or that corner. The house spread out behind on both sides. The house was two floors but we were driven around toward the rear and I saw the house was pretty big. I found out it was large L in shape spreading out on those sides, as I said. The back road was…well, they had to fill in land to make it and barely one lane and built a wall to keep the earth they moved there to stay. There was a short wall that kept you from rolling down the hill that fell drastically from that road. We parked in the parking area. We walked to the entrance from the private garden that had a long stone path edged with shrubbery. The house was like the town, old, but well maintained. The going theme was earth tones. There was a dining room, eat-in kitchen, the den where we thought the CPU for Buddy would go along with Stan and Mark. Stan insisted he stay with Buddy. Mark insisted he stay with Stan. It made sense. There were the few bedrooms, some only had two beds…and I mean two beds as in twin beds.

I shrugged. “It is a family home. There had to be room for the children.”

Then we met Eva. She was in her mid-forties whose hair was blonde and white, blue eyes and had a few more pounds than she needed and greeted us with some English, but it was very accented as she probably didn’t use English often.

I smiled at her. “What language do you prefer?”

“I…raised…Hungarian.” Eva said. “My parents…move here…I was child.”

I did some adjustments to my translator. “How about this? Is this better?” We heard, “Mit szólsz ehhez? Van ez jobb?”

Eva’s eyes grew. “Hogyan tett csinálsz ez?”

I smiled. “That’s why we’re here,” I said and it was translated into Hungarian. “The easiest thing is for you to wear this earpiece and always wear the translator. You will hear Hungarian and can speak back in English.”

She smiled and showed us the rest of the house. There was a room that led to the back entrance we would come in and out. A salon? It was long and had a stone floor. And like England, who didn’t make the rooms too big to heat, these were a little smaller to just sleep in, but each had either a stove or fireplace in them for when it got cooler.

That day was pretty much used to unpack. We got Buddy’s CPU powered up and Stan sighed and switched from his laptop to this CPU for Buddy.

“There we go, now you can do it much easier.” Stan smiled patting Buddy affectionately. “Running the program off my laptop worked, but now with Buddy, it will work faster and better now.” He grinned. “The customs agent and Eva won’t have any worries.” He sighed. “With the satellite connection, we’re all connected.”

I waved at the computer. “Can I?”

Stan looked surprised. “It’s your computer.”

“But he’s your friend!” I reminded Stan which made Mark chuckle and Colin smile. “I just want to check the messages,” I said and hit a few keys on the keyboard display on the black glass part of the CPU. I brought up my email. “I sent Andrei a message before we left. I’ve gotten nothing back from him.”

Colin gave a shrug. “We can still begin looking, even if he won’t help.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t add up. In his email messages, he was begging us to come and give the serum. I don’t understand the lack of messages now. He wants us here, and then doesn’t answer.”

Colin nodded looking over my lists of emails. “Well, he is a vampire lacking trust and all that.”

I sighed and nodded. “Right.” I grinned. “He might, like all the others will send someone like Edwin and Amasis did or just show up!”

Colin nodded. “Probably.” He sat down next to me. “What do you think our first thing should be?”

I sat back a little when he asked me that. “I’m not in charge.”

Colin chuckled. “Yes, you are. This was your idea.” He reminded me.

I gave him a look that wasn’t so certain I liked all this thrust on me. “Well, it might be that whoever this vampire is, is Vlad Dracul.”

“Oh?” Colin asked.

I gave a shrug. “There are stories…some think he is buried in Naples. There is also documentation he was buried in a monastery in the middle of Snagov Lake. It was recorded that Vlad Tepes in 1476 disappeared during battle and was never seen again.” I shook my head. “In Naples, they have a headstone they say could be his…the tomb is covered with symbols representing the House of Transylvania. The Carpathians. What made them think it was his grave is the dragon on it and the sphinxes. The dragon and sphinxes are for Dracula, the dragon and Thebes, also known as Tepes. The symbols are his name!” I shook my head.

“When did you find out all this?” Colin asked in shock.

“We flew for almost a day, Colin. I couldn’t sleep and what else was there to do?” I grinned. “I did research. There are just too many things that I read…and what you told me…you said the battlefield was almost fair game. You helped a number of men die during the Civil War. Vlad disappeared during a battle. No one knows if he’s in the monastery or Naples or anywhere.” I frowned. “I hope it isn’t Vlad.”

“Why?”

“He did a lot of things…” I gave a somewhat of a shrug, but it was wary. “…like strangulations, burning, cutting off noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs, scalping, skinning and his famous way…impaling his enemies on stakes. It was said he drank the blood of his enemies.” I shuttered. “That was while he was human!”

Colin frowned but nodded. “I take it back. Having a former pharaoh at the table is a good thing. I don’t think I would want him to be if he is Vlad.”

I smiled. “Well, if this vampire is the inspiration of Count Dracula…there are just too many variables for Bram Stoker not to have someone he modeled his character after.” I looked at the CPU and read through the emails. “We can begin this trip by patrolling. We have two very good trackers with us. There are vampires here. Maybe they can sense one and we can get some answers.” I smiled and stretched. “I sent Andrei the address we are staying, maybe he’ll just…show up.”

“There is seven hours difference between where we left and where we are now.” Colin grinned. “You might want a nap before we go patrolling.” He reached over and pulled me up.

“I won’t fight you on that.” I grinned. “But we might be busy later. I need to adjust my biological clock.”

I was a bit worried about how Eva would react to the fact that Colin and I were married. We also had Stan and Mark, George and Burke who were same-gender relationships. Romania did not criminalize us, marriages were not allowed for gay couples, but unions were. Semantics. When we told her, she shrugged.

“I don’t know why people get upset about it.” She said. “It’s everywhere around the world. It doesn’t bother me.” She waved to my mother. “She said she was at your wedding. She could have objected, but didn’t. Who am I to say otherwise?”

I did lay down a few hours and did fall asleep with Colin. After we got up, Eva had dinner ready for us. It smelled wonderful. Eva had help come in with a young woman named Greta. Blonde and about her mid-twenties and not unattractive, but you know about me. I’m gay. My head wasn’t turned.

“A word of warning Eva,” I said sitting at the table patting Colin on the back.

Her eyebrow went up. “Warning about what?”

I patted Colin’s arm. “He and Amasis eat.” There were chuckles at the table from the others. “I mean they eat a lot!”

Rather than being upset, she seemed delighted. “Of course, look at them. Two big strong men that work hard need big meals. I have plenty and if needed, I’ll make more.” Eva said proudly revealing what she cooked. “This is Musaca cu patlagele vinete, that’s Moussaka with Eggplant in English. Ground beef and eggplant and spices…my late husband loved it when he was alive.” She laughed. “I had to make it every week.” She waved a spoon at Colin. “He was a big man, too.” She smiled. “With this many people, if there’s anything you want or something you don’t want, let me know.” She smiled holding her translator. “I love this! It makes my work here so much easier. It works already, what more are you searching for?”

Colin smiled. “Our computer, Buddy, is like any person who uses a language,” Colin explained. “The more you use it, the better he gets. We’re trying to work out a way that whatever language the earpiece hears; is the one it translates back. It should be automatic but isn’t yet. We still have to choose. We want our Language Buddy to work more autonomous. This is country a lot of varied languages, we need to have the program used to dealing with that. This is the best place for that.”

I added. “You have a nice mixture of both Indo-European; Italic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, and others…and you have the Uralic; Hungarian like you use, Finnish and Estonian and even the Kalmyk. That’s Mongolic.” I smiled and watched Colin’s eyes widen as he looked at me surprised. “What? I don’t know why we’re here?”

Colin grinned. “I married a very smart man!” He shook his head. “Anyway, in order to work well, we need all languages, accents, and dialects. This is a good country to do that in.” Colin smiled and shrugged. “And this is a great town. We thought we’d look around.”

Stan smiled. “I’m asking this to get more information only.” He said carefully to Eva. “One of the reasons we chose this town, was Vlad Dracul.”

Eva frowned. “What about him? He was a great man.”

Stan nodded. “He was. He was; he did what many would never have considered doing. He dealt with those hostile Ottoman Turks. People only seem to remember what he did, not why he did it.”

“What do you mean?” Colin asked.

“The size of those Ottoman forces was huge. He came up with a plan that…” Stan nodded. “…was pretty gruesome,” he looked at me, “you read it, but effective. Vlad’s forces were small, but he kept those Turks away. He himself was taken as a child into bondage to the Turks. As was his brother.”

Eva smiled now. “You know our past?”

Stan nodded. “Oh, I was fascinated by it.” He said emphatically. “Granted, I did it after reading Dracula the novel.” He shrugged. “I wanted to know about the real man they said was Dracula. Not the character in that book. They are not the same.”

Eva nodded smiling now. “My husband was born and raised in Sighisoara.” She smiled. “It’s been my home for over forty years. It’s nice a Westerner appreciates what Vlad did, rather than find the monster they made him out to be. There’s plenty to see about him here.” She said and went back into the kitchen.

I looked at Stan. “You think what he did was okay?” I asked.

Stan frowned. “I think he did what he did because he had no choice.” He said sadly. “To protect his country and his people…he did what he did to keep those horrible people away.” He shrugged. “It worked. It was horrible, but it worked.” And then Stan looked at Colin. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. This is a search trip. My opinion wasn’t needed.”

Colin smiled. “You’re wrong, Stan. Your opinion is needed.”

I nodded. “That’s also why you’re here, Stan; to keep us on track.”

Stan smiled and nodded. “If there is a vampire out there that was used as a model for Count Dracula, that’s scary. If he’s Vlad, he could really be an ally.”

I shook my head. “Why do you say that?”

“He was willing to do whatever it took to protect his family and his people,” Stan said. “No matter how terrible it was, it worked! He kept these people safe!” He was started to pound the table and Mark reached over and put his hand on Stan’s.

“Down, boy,” Mark said softly. “We’re all here on the same side.”

Stan looked at Colin and me. “If someone threatened either one of you, is there anything you would not do to protect the other? Colin would kill and I know he would for you. Or if I was threatened, or Mark, or Wayne…”

I held my hands up. “I get it.”

“You would kill!” Stan said. “And if there was another threat out there, you might do something so horrible to that one you killed to literally scare the shit of them!!”

You had to admire his conviction. “I was influenced by the book and what I read. We need to find out.” I nodded with a smile at Stan. “I’ll try to keep an open mind.”

Stan chuckled and was comforted by Mark who was saying it would be alright and calm down. Stan grinned. “Sorry.”

I grinned back. “No problem. You’re family and should feel free to say what’s on your mind. We’ll find this person.”

Colin smiled. “Which means, we just need to look.” He said. “There is a vampire at work here. Who it is…we’ll see if he’s got enough control of the vampires here. Is he good or bad? We won’t know until we find him.”

Mom gave a sigh. “You know, he may not want to be found because of all this…” she said. “He has more power being mysterious. Bringing him into the open he may see as a way of…dethroning him.”

“We don’t want to dethrone him, but there are vampires here that will benefit being on the serum,” George argued. “If Dracula is a real vampire, would he pass up the chance to go in the sun and have a somewhat normal life after all this time?”

“Slow down, guys,” Colin said. “First, we have to make contact with our first vampire here and then we can go from there. If he is Vlad, we offer options, if he's not but inspired Count Dracula, we offer options. We need a vampire to start. Let’s do that first.” He sighed. “We’ve sent a message to this contact here, this Andrei; if he comes here…or if we find another out there. We start there.”

“So, we’re patrolling tonight?” Mark asked.

I nodded. “We are. We make our presence known and hope Andrei comes to find us.”

George brightened. “And the perfect time to field test my detector.”

Colin grinned. “You finally got it working?”

“You knew I would eventually.” George laughed. “We’ll see. I’ll give it to Mark, Chuck or Shelly. If Gabriella or Alex finds one, we’ll know if it works!”

Colin nodded and dug into his Musaca cu patlagele vinete. He chewed a second and nodded. “This is GOOD! No wonder her husband wanted it once a week. I will, too!” He said and dug in for some more.