On or about the Fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
...Four weddings (and a funeral).
Shotgun Wedding
Firefly
Drama, Vignette
FR-T
“All I’m saying is that they might have waited,” Wash said. “At least until we had a chance to change for the first dance; this is a rented tux.”
The altar at his back shivered under the weight of fire.
“This is a good altar,” Mal noted approvingly. “Very solid.”
“Didn’t do the Shepherd much good,” Zoë pointed out, nodding to the wounded man. She leaned out to the side of the altar and fired three times; one shot hit and there was the sound of a body falling.
“You’re a very negative person,” Wash noted. “I’m not complaining,” he hastened to point out. “I mean, I guess I always noticed your tendency to see the black side of things.”
“I do not see the black side!” Zoë protested.
“Not wishing to get into an argument about this,” Mal said, “but you were the only one of us to bring a gun to your wedding.”
A burst of automatic fire rattled out from behind the font.
“Besides the obvious, I mean.”
“Mal!” The woman’s voice rang around the small chapel. “You still in there, Mal?”
Mal paused for a long moment. “No!” he called back.
“We come for the money, Mal; the money you owe us!”
Mal struggled to place the voice. He looked to Zoë for help.
“Carmelita,” she whispered.
“Carmelita?” Mal asked, baffled. “Carmelita? I don’t owe you any money! We sell to you.”
“And what you sold weren’t worth a damned thing!” Carmelita hollered. “That food you sold us was rotten!”
“We warned you it was sold as seen!” Mal replied. “And also, this is a wedding! You don’t come shooting up a wedding ‘less you got a blood feud on.” He paused. “We ain’t got a blood feud; right?”
The only reply was another burst of gunfire.
“Okay,” Mal sighed. “I reckon we can make it out the back way. Carmelita’s mad as hell and never was too smart; she won’t have the back covered and we can sort this out later.”
“Right,” Zoë agreed. “Only, bring the Shepherd.”
“Why bring the Shepherd?” Wash asked.
“Because I ain’t married yet and I don’t propose to let that stand.”
---
Christian Rosencreutz was Here
Skulduggery Pleasant
Drama, Vignette
FR-C
Valkyrie Cain squirmed uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the Bentley. “This dress was not made for someone with shoulders like mine,” she complained.
“You make it sound like that’s my fault,” Skulduggery Pleasant commented.
“It is your fault,” Valkyrie told him. “You and Tanith. After all the workouts you’ve given me, I don’t fit in anything off-the-peg anymore. I’d get something made, but following my mentor’s fine example got me kicked out of my job with the council.”
“Yes, Valkyrie,” Skulduggery sighed. “I know, and that’s why we have to take odd jobs like guarding a wedding; there’s no point complaining about it.”
“That’s easy for you to say; you already own your own tux.”
“I might grow out of it.”
“What are you going to do? Put on weight? You’re a living skeleton,” Valkyrie reminded him.
Skulduggery pulled into the drive of a large, country manor. After almost another mile they reached the front of the house, but they drove on to the back of the house.
“The tradesman’s entrance,” Skulduggery sighed. “This is humiliating. I’m going to have words with Tanith.”
“For getting us a job, you mean?” Valkyrie asked.
“For getting us this job, yes.”
Skulduggery parked the car and they got out. Valkyrie straightened her skirt while Skulduggery got his jacket out of the back of the car. The back door of the house opened while they were getting ready and Tanith Low came out to meet them. She was wearing a pair of jeans and her usual sleeveless tunic.
“Look at you!” she declared. “What are you all dressed up for?”
“Well, we didn’t want to look all out of place,” Valkyrie said.
Tanith looked at her with an amused smile.
“At the wedding,” Skulduggery explained.
“At the… wedding?” Tanith asked.
“Yes. The wedding you asked us to help provide security for,” Valkyrie said impatiently. “Why? What’s so funny?”
“You’re late,” Tanith told them. “The alchemist is already heating the crucible.” She turned and led the way into the house.
Skulduggery took off the jacket and dropped it across the back seat. His teeth ground together. “Valkyrie,” he said softly. “When you took the message from Tanith, did she mention that this was a chemical wedding?” he asked.
“Um… maybe,” Valkyrie admitted. “Is that important?”
---
Runaways
Harry Potter
Drama, Romance
FR-T
The signal went out by owl and they came to the Burrow that same night. They came swiftly and in secret, flitting through the night on brooms, Apparating from the shadows or materialising in a viridian flash of Floo Powder. The most important were the last to arrive, stepping out of thin air as they let the invisibility cloak slip from their backs.
“Is everyone here?” Harry asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” Hermione replied; she was almost breathless with excitement as she held out her hand. “Come on, Ginny! Your mother’s waiting.”
Ginny grasped Hermione’s hand tightly and they hurried into the house.
“Girls, eh?” Ron quipped. “They always take these things so seriously. Not like us; right, H…?”
“Don’t say it!” Harry cautioned him. “Don’t say my name; not out here.”
Ron clapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, mate,” he mumbled through his fingers.
“Anyway; speak for yourself,” Harry went on. “The butterflies in my stomach have butterflies in their stomachs.”
Ron dropped his hand and grinned. “Come on, then. George has brought a bottle of thirteen year old firewhiskey. A glass of that should settle your nerves.
“Settle them? Pickle them, more like,” Harry laughed, but he let Ron lead him into the kitchen of the Burrow. “And you managed to get everything?”
It was George who answered. “Firewhiskey, butterbeer, rumblerum, gigglegin; everything.”
Angelina slapped her fiancé on the arm and then enfolded him in an affectionate headlock. “We got everything,” she assured Harry. “And I do mean everything; we cleaned out the Black Room. Every cloaking charm and piece of sneakery or counter-sneakery that Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes ever produced under contract to the Ministry.”
“And some that weren’t,” George added from his wife’s armpit.
“There are parts of the Department of Mystery which aren’t as well-shielded as this house tonight,” Arthur Weasley assured Harry. “And I should know; I’ve been in most of them.” He strode forward and shook Harry by the hand. Harry was pleased to feel something of the old firmness in Arthur’s grasp; he had taken a long time to recover from his injuries at the Battle of Hogwarts.
“And the priest?”
Arthur shook his head.
“How many times, Harry,” Ron laughed. “We don’t have a priest, we have a lector, and yes, we do have a lector. She’s getting set up with the others in the garden. If you’re happy with the arrangements and you’re sure you don’t want that firewhiskey, we’ll go out and wait for Ginny to finish getting ready.”
“I think if I go out there smelling of firewhiskey then Ginny will just turn around and head straight back up the aisle,” Harry said. “I’m ready; let’s go.”
The marquee was a simple affair and the congregation was small; just the Weasleys and a few close friends - including Luna, Neville and Hannah, and the other survivors of Dumbledore’s Army.
“Just think what you could have had,” Ron whispered. “St Paul’s Cathedral, the Grand High Lector of Britain, Ambassadors and Ministers and…”
“And every reporter from here to China,” Harry finished. “I know what we could have had; that’s why we’re here. Compared to that, explaining to Kingsley Shacklebolt that the wedding of the year has already happened will be easy.”
George and Angelina took their seats alongside Molly Weasley, while Arthur went up to wait for Ginny and Ron accompanied Harry to the front of the marquee.
“Honestly, Ron; I just couldn’t bear it,” Harry went on. “It felt like everyone was going to have a say in how we got married except for Ginny and me. And you should have seen Ginny; she was tearing her hair out every time they asked her to come for another dress fitting.” He looked around at the coarse, gnome-filled grass and rough canvas around him, and back at the ramshackle Burrow. “This is what we want.”
“This?” Ron asked.
At that moment a small band - a group of Bill and Fleur’s friends - struck up a simple wedding march. Arthur Weasley stepped out of the house, but Harry saw only Ginny. She walked with one hand on her father’s arm, wearing her mother’s snow white wedding dress. Her hair was coiled on top of her head and topped with a simple silver band. She looked radiant.
“Oh yes,” Harry breathed. “This is what I want.”
Ron looked past Ginny to Hermione, looking quite splendid in her lilac bridesmaid’s dress. He rubbed his wedding ring like a good luck charm. “Amen,” he murmured.
---
Forever Hold Your Peace
Dracula
Drama
FR-T
The Wedding of the Dead was an ancient custom with a long and somewhat macabre history. The death of a young man was a tragedy for the whole community, especially the death of one who was no longer a boy, but not yet a father. The death of young Radu Balcescu was just such a tragedy.
Radu was the last surviving grandson of Elder Balcescu, and while there remained a gaggle of granddaughters to care for the old man in his dotage, there was now no male heir of the noble line of Balcescu, who had led the village with such wisdom for so many generations. Had Radu lived just a few more weeks he would have been wed to city-born beauty Dominique Ruicu and perhaps there might have been a son, a posthumous son but an heir nonetheless. But the sickness that overcame him had come too quickly, and now there would be nothing.
There was a shame in sending an unwed youth to the grave. For the last of the Balcescus this shame could not be borne. Thus it was that Elder Balcescu and Father Andrei declared that there would be a Wedding of the Dead, and that the body of Radu Balcescu would be married before its interment.
But not to Dominique Ruicu, of course, her father would never stand for that and the question of her sizeable dowry would merely complicate matters. No, for the deceased Radu it was only important that he be wed to a virgin of a respectable house whose personal charms would not disgrace him. The tanner’s daughter, Iulia Lupesca, fit every criteria, and if she was reluctant, well that was no bar to her participation.
Iulia begged and pleaded with her father, but to no avail. She wept on her knees before Elder Balcescu, but the old man hardly seemed to hear her and Dominique Ruicu actually laughed. At last, Iulia fled to the church and prayed to God and begged the priest to grant her sanctuary. All to no avail. The Balcescus were powerful and the Ruicus were rich, while the Lupescas were poor and their arms could be twisted.
Thus it was that Iulia Lupesca, poor, pretty, virtuous Iulia, found herself stood at the graveside of her childhood friend Radu, swearing to honour and obey until death did them part. Her wedding dress and veil were as black as pitch, and beneath them her face was as pale as chalk.
“And if there be any person here present who knows of any just cause or impediment why this man and this woman may not be joined in matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”
There was a short pause, for form’s sake, but no-one really expected any protest. Even Iulia had no hopes of an interruption, although she had prayed for such and even now did so still in the silence of her heart.
“I object.” The voice which spoke was cold, hard and powerful. The speaker was a tall, imposing man in a long, black cloak. His hair was iron grey and long moustaches hung down beside his full, dark red lips. His skin was as pale as ash and his eyes flashed like flames in the light of the setting sun. He stood by the door of a great coach, drawn by four mighty horses, but none had heard him arrive in the cemetery.
He strode forward through the crowd of mourners and all fell back at his approach. Iulia heard the elders whisper as he passed: “The Count. It is the Count himself!”
Father Andrei stepped forward. “Go from this place, fiend,” he commanded. “This is a sacred rite!”
“This is a travesty,” the Count declared. “This boy has no right to wed, in life or in death. He dared to challenge my authority and for his temerity I struck him down. Now all that was his is forfeit to me, including his bride.” He stepped forward and held out his hand to Iulia, his eyes burning into his.
Iulia felt a wave of horror wash over her as she realised that this was the thing that she had prayed for. Powerless to resist, she found herself moving towards the Count and taking his proffered hand. It was as cold as ice, and when he lifted her veil and kissed her lips, his breath was as cold and rank as Radu’s grave.
*
Dominique Ruicu left the town that night, ordering that a coach be made ready for her at once, despite the pleas of Elder Balcescu and Father Andrei. “I was brought here under false pretences,” she declared, “and I will not stay a moment longer in this den of madmen and monstrosities.”
She did not glance back even once, glad to be leaving behind the town and all its long, sinister shadows. As the coach crested the low rise above the town, however, she heard a crash in the undergrowth beside the road and turned to look from the window. She felt a breath of cold wind on the back of her neck.
When Dominque sat back in her seat, she saw that she was not alone. Two women sat opposite her, tall, slim and pale.
“Who are you?” Dominique demanded in a high, frightened voice. “What are you doing in my carriage?”
One of the women gave a soft, chilling laugh. “Go ahead, my dear. You have that right.”
Slowly, the second woman leaned forward until Dominique could clearly see her face. “You also were pledged to Radu,” Iulia said. “Therefore, you also belong to the Master now.” Her red lips parted in a cruel smile, and the tips of her razor-sharp incisors gleamed in the moonlight.
And the driverless carriage thundered up the path to Castle Dracula, with not a living soul within it.
Day four arrives early as I'm heading home tomorrow and don't want to risk leaving my memory stick in Mum and Dad's machine.
Disclaimers: Firefly, Serenity and her crew belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. Skulduggery Pleasant, Valkyrie Cain and Tanith Low belong to Derek Landy. Harry Potter, associated props and extended family belong to JK Rowling. All that Dracula jazz is open season.
I always knew I wanted to get a funeral into this set, but an extra fic seemed a) cheating and b) a waste of already short time. The HP was an excuse to do a more-or-less straight wedding scene, while the Skulduggery Pleasant story was of course based entirely on that one misunderstanding. Finally, the wedding of the dead - a Transylvanian custom for which I must thank Marcus Segewick, who intrduced me to it through his magnificent vampire novel My Swordhand is Singing - gave me the excuse for a wedding which was also a funeral. It then only took me a week to force myself to kill the nice girl as well, because this is Gothic horror and there really isn't an allowance for pluck, nerve or good behaviour.
Shotgun Wedding
Firefly
Drama, Vignette
FR-T
“All I’m saying is that they might have waited,” Wash said. “At least until we had a chance to change for the first dance; this is a rented tux.”
The altar at his back shivered under the weight of fire.
“This is a good altar,” Mal noted approvingly. “Very solid.”
“Didn’t do the Shepherd much good,” Zoë pointed out, nodding to the wounded man. She leaned out to the side of the altar and fired three times; one shot hit and there was the sound of a body falling.
“You’re a very negative person,” Wash noted. “I’m not complaining,” he hastened to point out. “I mean, I guess I always noticed your tendency to see the black side of things.”
“I do not see the black side!” Zoë protested.
“Not wishing to get into an argument about this,” Mal said, “but you were the only one of us to bring a gun to your wedding.”
A burst of automatic fire rattled out from behind the font.
“Besides the obvious, I mean.”
“Mal!” The woman’s voice rang around the small chapel. “You still in there, Mal?”
Mal paused for a long moment. “No!” he called back.
“We come for the money, Mal; the money you owe us!”
Mal struggled to place the voice. He looked to Zoë for help.
“Carmelita,” she whispered.
“Carmelita?” Mal asked, baffled. “Carmelita? I don’t owe you any money! We sell to you.”
“And what you sold weren’t worth a damned thing!” Carmelita hollered. “That food you sold us was rotten!”
“We warned you it was sold as seen!” Mal replied. “And also, this is a wedding! You don’t come shooting up a wedding ‘less you got a blood feud on.” He paused. “We ain’t got a blood feud; right?”
The only reply was another burst of gunfire.
“Okay,” Mal sighed. “I reckon we can make it out the back way. Carmelita’s mad as hell and never was too smart; she won’t have the back covered and we can sort this out later.”
“Right,” Zoë agreed. “Only, bring the Shepherd.”
“Why bring the Shepherd?” Wash asked.
“Because I ain’t married yet and I don’t propose to let that stand.”
---
Christian Rosencreutz was Here
Skulduggery Pleasant
Drama, Vignette
FR-C
Valkyrie Cain squirmed uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the Bentley. “This dress was not made for someone with shoulders like mine,” she complained.
“You make it sound like that’s my fault,” Skulduggery Pleasant commented.
“It is your fault,” Valkyrie told him. “You and Tanith. After all the workouts you’ve given me, I don’t fit in anything off-the-peg anymore. I’d get something made, but following my mentor’s fine example got me kicked out of my job with the council.”
“Yes, Valkyrie,” Skulduggery sighed. “I know, and that’s why we have to take odd jobs like guarding a wedding; there’s no point complaining about it.”
“That’s easy for you to say; you already own your own tux.”
“I might grow out of it.”
“What are you going to do? Put on weight? You’re a living skeleton,” Valkyrie reminded him.
Skulduggery pulled into the drive of a large, country manor. After almost another mile they reached the front of the house, but they drove on to the back of the house.
“The tradesman’s entrance,” Skulduggery sighed. “This is humiliating. I’m going to have words with Tanith.”
“For getting us a job, you mean?” Valkyrie asked.
“For getting us this job, yes.”
Skulduggery parked the car and they got out. Valkyrie straightened her skirt while Skulduggery got his jacket out of the back of the car. The back door of the house opened while they were getting ready and Tanith Low came out to meet them. She was wearing a pair of jeans and her usual sleeveless tunic.
“Look at you!” she declared. “What are you all dressed up for?”
“Well, we didn’t want to look all out of place,” Valkyrie said.
Tanith looked at her with an amused smile.
“At the wedding,” Skulduggery explained.
“At the… wedding?” Tanith asked.
“Yes. The wedding you asked us to help provide security for,” Valkyrie said impatiently. “Why? What’s so funny?”
“You’re late,” Tanith told them. “The alchemist is already heating the crucible.” She turned and led the way into the house.
Skulduggery took off the jacket and dropped it across the back seat. His teeth ground together. “Valkyrie,” he said softly. “When you took the message from Tanith, did she mention that this was a chemical wedding?” he asked.
“Um… maybe,” Valkyrie admitted. “Is that important?”
---
Runaways
Harry Potter
Drama, Romance
FR-T
The signal went out by owl and they came to the Burrow that same night. They came swiftly and in secret, flitting through the night on brooms, Apparating from the shadows or materialising in a viridian flash of Floo Powder. The most important were the last to arrive, stepping out of thin air as they let the invisibility cloak slip from their backs.
“Is everyone here?” Harry asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” Hermione replied; she was almost breathless with excitement as she held out her hand. “Come on, Ginny! Your mother’s waiting.”
Ginny grasped Hermione’s hand tightly and they hurried into the house.
“Girls, eh?” Ron quipped. “They always take these things so seriously. Not like us; right, H…?”
“Don’t say it!” Harry cautioned him. “Don’t say my name; not out here.”
Ron clapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, mate,” he mumbled through his fingers.
“Anyway; speak for yourself,” Harry went on. “The butterflies in my stomach have butterflies in their stomachs.”
Ron dropped his hand and grinned. “Come on, then. George has brought a bottle of thirteen year old firewhiskey. A glass of that should settle your nerves.
“Settle them? Pickle them, more like,” Harry laughed, but he let Ron lead him into the kitchen of the Burrow. “And you managed to get everything?”
It was George who answered. “Firewhiskey, butterbeer, rumblerum, gigglegin; everything.”
Angelina slapped her fiancé on the arm and then enfolded him in an affectionate headlock. “We got everything,” she assured Harry. “And I do mean everything; we cleaned out the Black Room. Every cloaking charm and piece of sneakery or counter-sneakery that Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes ever produced under contract to the Ministry.”
“And some that weren’t,” George added from his wife’s armpit.
“There are parts of the Department of Mystery which aren’t as well-shielded as this house tonight,” Arthur Weasley assured Harry. “And I should know; I’ve been in most of them.” He strode forward and shook Harry by the hand. Harry was pleased to feel something of the old firmness in Arthur’s grasp; he had taken a long time to recover from his injuries at the Battle of Hogwarts.
“And the priest?”
Arthur shook his head.
“How many times, Harry,” Ron laughed. “We don’t have a priest, we have a lector, and yes, we do have a lector. She’s getting set up with the others in the garden. If you’re happy with the arrangements and you’re sure you don’t want that firewhiskey, we’ll go out and wait for Ginny to finish getting ready.”
“I think if I go out there smelling of firewhiskey then Ginny will just turn around and head straight back up the aisle,” Harry said. “I’m ready; let’s go.”
The marquee was a simple affair and the congregation was small; just the Weasleys and a few close friends - including Luna, Neville and Hannah, and the other survivors of Dumbledore’s Army.
“Just think what you could have had,” Ron whispered. “St Paul’s Cathedral, the Grand High Lector of Britain, Ambassadors and Ministers and…”
“And every reporter from here to China,” Harry finished. “I know what we could have had; that’s why we’re here. Compared to that, explaining to Kingsley Shacklebolt that the wedding of the year has already happened will be easy.”
George and Angelina took their seats alongside Molly Weasley, while Arthur went up to wait for Ginny and Ron accompanied Harry to the front of the marquee.
“Honestly, Ron; I just couldn’t bear it,” Harry went on. “It felt like everyone was going to have a say in how we got married except for Ginny and me. And you should have seen Ginny; she was tearing her hair out every time they asked her to come for another dress fitting.” He looked around at the coarse, gnome-filled grass and rough canvas around him, and back at the ramshackle Burrow. “This is what we want.”
“This?” Ron asked.
At that moment a small band - a group of Bill and Fleur’s friends - struck up a simple wedding march. Arthur Weasley stepped out of the house, but Harry saw only Ginny. She walked with one hand on her father’s arm, wearing her mother’s snow white wedding dress. Her hair was coiled on top of her head and topped with a simple silver band. She looked radiant.
“Oh yes,” Harry breathed. “This is what I want.”
Ron looked past Ginny to Hermione, looking quite splendid in her lilac bridesmaid’s dress. He rubbed his wedding ring like a good luck charm. “Amen,” he murmured.
---
Forever Hold Your Peace
Dracula
Drama
FR-T
The Wedding of the Dead was an ancient custom with a long and somewhat macabre history. The death of a young man was a tragedy for the whole community, especially the death of one who was no longer a boy, but not yet a father. The death of young Radu Balcescu was just such a tragedy.
Radu was the last surviving grandson of Elder Balcescu, and while there remained a gaggle of granddaughters to care for the old man in his dotage, there was now no male heir of the noble line of Balcescu, who had led the village with such wisdom for so many generations. Had Radu lived just a few more weeks he would have been wed to city-born beauty Dominique Ruicu and perhaps there might have been a son, a posthumous son but an heir nonetheless. But the sickness that overcame him had come too quickly, and now there would be nothing.
There was a shame in sending an unwed youth to the grave. For the last of the Balcescus this shame could not be borne. Thus it was that Elder Balcescu and Father Andrei declared that there would be a Wedding of the Dead, and that the body of Radu Balcescu would be married before its interment.
But not to Dominique Ruicu, of course, her father would never stand for that and the question of her sizeable dowry would merely complicate matters. No, for the deceased Radu it was only important that he be wed to a virgin of a respectable house whose personal charms would not disgrace him. The tanner’s daughter, Iulia Lupesca, fit every criteria, and if she was reluctant, well that was no bar to her participation.
Iulia begged and pleaded with her father, but to no avail. She wept on her knees before Elder Balcescu, but the old man hardly seemed to hear her and Dominique Ruicu actually laughed. At last, Iulia fled to the church and prayed to God and begged the priest to grant her sanctuary. All to no avail. The Balcescus were powerful and the Ruicus were rich, while the Lupescas were poor and their arms could be twisted.
Thus it was that Iulia Lupesca, poor, pretty, virtuous Iulia, found herself stood at the graveside of her childhood friend Radu, swearing to honour and obey until death did them part. Her wedding dress and veil were as black as pitch, and beneath them her face was as pale as chalk.
“And if there be any person here present who knows of any just cause or impediment why this man and this woman may not be joined in matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”
There was a short pause, for form’s sake, but no-one really expected any protest. Even Iulia had no hopes of an interruption, although she had prayed for such and even now did so still in the silence of her heart.
“I object.” The voice which spoke was cold, hard and powerful. The speaker was a tall, imposing man in a long, black cloak. His hair was iron grey and long moustaches hung down beside his full, dark red lips. His skin was as pale as ash and his eyes flashed like flames in the light of the setting sun. He stood by the door of a great coach, drawn by four mighty horses, but none had heard him arrive in the cemetery.
He strode forward through the crowd of mourners and all fell back at his approach. Iulia heard the elders whisper as he passed: “The Count. It is the Count himself!”
Father Andrei stepped forward. “Go from this place, fiend,” he commanded. “This is a sacred rite!”
“This is a travesty,” the Count declared. “This boy has no right to wed, in life or in death. He dared to challenge my authority and for his temerity I struck him down. Now all that was his is forfeit to me, including his bride.” He stepped forward and held out his hand to Iulia, his eyes burning into his.
Iulia felt a wave of horror wash over her as she realised that this was the thing that she had prayed for. Powerless to resist, she found herself moving towards the Count and taking his proffered hand. It was as cold as ice, and when he lifted her veil and kissed her lips, his breath was as cold and rank as Radu’s grave.
*
Dominique Ruicu left the town that night, ordering that a coach be made ready for her at once, despite the pleas of Elder Balcescu and Father Andrei. “I was brought here under false pretences,” she declared, “and I will not stay a moment longer in this den of madmen and monstrosities.”
She did not glance back even once, glad to be leaving behind the town and all its long, sinister shadows. As the coach crested the low rise above the town, however, she heard a crash in the undergrowth beside the road and turned to look from the window. She felt a breath of cold wind on the back of her neck.
When Dominque sat back in her seat, she saw that she was not alone. Two women sat opposite her, tall, slim and pale.
“Who are you?” Dominique demanded in a high, frightened voice. “What are you doing in my carriage?”
One of the women gave a soft, chilling laugh. “Go ahead, my dear. You have that right.”
Slowly, the second woman leaned forward until Dominique could clearly see her face. “You also were pledged to Radu,” Iulia said. “Therefore, you also belong to the Master now.” Her red lips parted in a cruel smile, and the tips of her razor-sharp incisors gleamed in the moonlight.
And the driverless carriage thundered up the path to Castle Dracula, with not a living soul within it.
Day four arrives early as I'm heading home tomorrow and don't want to risk leaving my memory stick in Mum and Dad's machine.
Disclaimers: Firefly, Serenity and her crew belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions. Skulduggery Pleasant, Valkyrie Cain and Tanith Low belong to Derek Landy. Harry Potter, associated props and extended family belong to JK Rowling. All that Dracula jazz is open season.
I always knew I wanted to get a funeral into this set, but an extra fic seemed a) cheating and b) a waste of already short time. The HP was an excuse to do a more-or-less straight wedding scene, while the Skulduggery Pleasant story was of course based entirely on that one misunderstanding. Finally, the wedding of the dead - a Transylvanian custom for which I must thank Marcus Segewick, who intrduced me to it through his magnificent vampire novel My Swordhand is Singing - gave me the excuse for a wedding which was also a funeral. It then only took me a week to force myself to kill the nice girl as well, because this is Gothic horror and there really isn't an allowance for pluck, nerve or good behaviour.