Thump, thump, thump.
"Help! Open up!"
Melina opened the door for the three who'd fled the vampire castle in blind panic. She noticed a chunk of green paint had been knocked clean off the door—whoever was screaming for help had been pounding hard.
Andrei led the way, ducking into the tavern first. Sanguini hurried in after him and pulled the door shut, while Eldred kept bowing to the room over and over.
"Sorry, sorry—we're barging in uninvited."
They looked around. Everything about the tavern felt cozy in a very deliberate way: the tables and chairs were pleasantly chunky, all soft edges and sturdy legs, with plaid tablecloths spread over them. Candles burned bright. The fireplace roared. The air smelled like smoked bacon and sweet wine. The waitress and the bartender were both drop-dead gorgeous. And the guests… the guests were a parade of the bizarre—nothing like people from modern life, more like a cast that had just stepped off a fantasy-show set.
The place was loud and merry, and nobody seemed surprised that three strangers had just burst in.
Andrei stood there with his mouth half open, staring at the patrons—dwarves, halflings, elves, and an old wizard who looked exactly like Gandalf… except it wasn't just one. There were two of them.
His staring drew a dwarf warrior's annoyance.
"What are you looking at?" Bombur glared at Andrei. He was speaking plain English. Somehow, the tavern itself seemed to come with translation magic—people from different worlds could talk without any trouble.
Andrei forced a grin, then turned to his companions and muttered, "Eldred, something's off. I just saw Gandalf. We didn't accidentally stumble into another world, did we? Like The Chronicles of Narnia or something?"
Eldred didn't answer. Instead, he blurted out in delighted disbelief, "Professor Dumbledore! Merlin's mercy—what are you doing here?"
Dumbledore blinked, uncertain. "Eldred? Eldred Worple?"
"That's me, yes!" Eldred stepped in warmly and shook Dumbledore's hand. Back when he'd attended Hogwarts, the Potions professor had still been Slughorn. "These are my friends. This is Sanguini—a vampire. And this is Andrei, a witcher."
A wave of low chuckles rippled through the room. By the bar, a Polish man laughed and said, "A witcher? My main character is a witcher."
Eldred turned at the voice, saw who it was, and went wide-eyed. "Andrzej! What are you doing here?" His expression wasn't happiness—it was pure horror.
The missing Polish author threw his head back and laughed. "Long story, Eldred. I found this tavern in the castle courtyard. The moment I did, it was like I'd tripped some kind of magic—sky turned blood-red, and bats the size of storm clouds came swarming after me, diving to bite. Right when I was about to die, I slammed into a door—this little adorable door that led straight into this place."
Andrei watched the Polish man calmly chewing smoked bacon and sipping his drink, and the image of his impaled comrades in the castle flashed through his mind. His fury surged up like fire.
"Hey! You bastard! Because of you, fifteen good men died in that damned castle!"
"What are you talking about? Who are you?" the author snapped back.
"I'm with the Human Union Department. I was sent to rescue you."
"But I've been in the castle less than half an hour," the Polish author said, baffled. "How could anyone already be coming to rescue me?"
"Bullshit!"
"And who the hell are you, jackass?" Andrzej barked, slipping into sharp, familiar-sounding curses from his homeland.
Andrei answered with a sweet, equally "friendly" greeting of his own. The mood got hot fast—one more breath and they'd be introducing their fists to each other's faces.
"Do you remember what day it is?" Eldred cut in suddenly.
"The 16th," Andrzej shot back, distracted but quick.
"No," Eldred said. "It's already Christmas. December 25th."
In the clinking, laughing tavern noise, the three of them went silent. The missing Polish author's face tightened with panic.
"You mean… nine days passed outside?"
"You've been missing for nine days," Andrei said, just as confused. "You seriously don't remember anything?"
Eldred lightly grabbed Andrei's arm and gave him a small shake of the head.
"What?" Andrei mouthed.
"He's dead. Absolutely dead," the British wizard whispered into his ear. "I saw his corpse. This Andrzej is a ghost."
"What?!" Andrei's skin crawled. He glanced around the room. "So what is this—some haunted tavern?"
"Professor Dumbledore is very much alive," Eldred said quickly, trying to steady the Muggle. "Relax. This place is strange, sure, but it isn't dangerous."
Sanguini went to the window and looked outside. Before long he came back and told them, "My relatives have left. They can't find this tavern."
Andrei's guilt twisted in his gut. "Did they go back to the castle? Are my companions going to—"
"Yes," Sanguini said calmly. "They'll be drained dry. The vampires in the Carpathians have always had a 'herding' tradition. They usually don't feed on outsiders—they prefer to raise willing thralls, passed down generation after generation. But intruders get no mercy."
The Polish author sidled up eagerly. "Tell me more about your people. I want to create a vampire clan in my novel, but I've never had good inspiration."
"And that's why you caused all this trouble," Eldred said, exhausted. "As a fellow writer, I understand the urge, I really do—but you were an ordinary man. You knew vampires meant harm. Why risk it anyway?"
"I thought modern vampires had civilized a bit," Andrzej said defensively. "At least Sanguini is reasonable."
"You went around the village asking questions," Eldred said. "The vampires hiding among the villagers felt threatened, so they lured you up the mountain. Andrzej… in the future—" He stopped, swallowed the rest, and sighed. "Forget it."
Andrei was still seething. "All for your damn book. People died."
"What do you mean, 'damn book'?" Andrzej snapped. "What I write is real. The worlds in books are real."
"Yeah, sure," Andrei scoffed. "By that logic, The Hobbit is real too. I've never met Bilbo Baggins."
A halfling in the crowd, already halfway to blackout drunk, answered at once. "Who's calling me? Master Bilbo's right here."
Andrei froze. "You're Bilbo… then where's Gandalf?"
An old man chuckled. "Gandalf's here."
"And Thorin Oakenshield?"
A dwarf with a king's presence lifted his chin. "Commoner, why do you summon the King under the Mountain?"
Andrei's voice rose, frantic now. "How do you prove it?!"
Nobody bothered. They went right back to their own conversations.
The Polish author smiled pleasantly. "Bad timing—you just missed Tolkien. He left not long ago. Said he was Ilúvatar. I'm going to create a world of my own, then go there and be the creator god. Heh."
"Books are fiction!" Andrei insisted.
"Life is fiction first, young man," the author said, and began telling Andrei a story about a witcher named Geralt. "That's my novel. If I ever get the chance to visit that world, I'd want to be a witcher too."
Andrei's face flushed, half rage and half desperate hope. "Wizards are real. Vampires are real. Novels are real. God—make me, a fake witcher, into a real one. I want to avenge my friends!"
"No problem."
A young man stepped up to the bar and joined in. He looked completely ordinary—nothing about him stood out—but his tone was bright with certainty.
"This tavern gives every group three drinks," he said. "There are three of you, so it's one each."
He nodded toward the counter. "Marika. If you would—one lime vodka."
Andrei took the glass, blankly.
"Drink," the young man said. "Down it in one. Carry this author's wish with you—go slay the vampires and carve out a legend."
Andrei drank. It was sour and hot, sharp as a knife's edge, and clean as a dream.
When he opened his eyes again, witcher armor had surfaced over his body like it had always been there. Two longswords rested crossed on his back. His eyes had gone amber. And a pendant on his chest trembled faintly.
"My medallion's vibrating… that means there has to be a sorceress nearby—" Andrei clicked his tongue. "No. Something abnormal."
He ran a hand through his hair, slicking his messy locks up and back like they'd been hit with gel. His expression sharpened, eyes cold and focused.
"I'm going back to that castle and wiping out those vampires. Who's coming with me?"
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810