The Family Tale

The gargoyle wagged its tail and bounced up to Victoria as soon as she stepped out on to the roof. She petted the rough stone absentmindedly reaching for a cigarette and striking a match against the thing’s forehead. The night was really too cold to be out on the roof but staying inside would have been even worse. Why she bothered with family she would never know… The only reason she was even there: in a drafty old castle hanging unsteadily over a cliff and suffering her family members was… Blowing out a whiff of smoke and taking care not to singe the cigarette when in her irritation she also breathing out a small flame Victoria stalked over to the edge of the roof to look out over the mountains.
She was lucky really the reunions only came every half a century and at least nowadays there was plumbing and women finally had rights. She was out from under her mother’s thumb and making damn sure she didn’t cross the old bat more then strictly necessary. The first thing out of her mother’s mouth had been a comment about the fact that she was wearing jeans when they had met two days ago after not seeing each other for over fifty years. Victoria had been raised as a lady and according to her mother she was to act like one. Her mother, hell her whole family, had a lot of delusions that way. Having lived for centuries had distanced them from real life too much and sometimes Victoria wondered if she was going to end up like them too in a millennium or so. The thought discomforted her greatly every time it came up and she pushed it away as soon as it came. There was time still to deal with that particular problem.
A scream shook the ancient castle walls and with a sigh and a last pet for the gargoyle Victoria drifted back inside. The banquet hall was full of too pale people and strange creatures who talked, argued and schemed. She walked over to a dark corner where the youngest of the gathering were holed up hoping to go unnoticed by their elders. There were but a few of them the family not able to beget children easily. Arcadie smiled gesturing for her to sit and Victoria accepted the space snarling at another one of their circle. Sebastian snarled back baring his fangs before settling for ignoring her. Having to deal with the elders for a full month made all of them forget the little differences for a while.
“How were the gargoyles?”
“Gone all except the youngest.”
“Then why go visit?”
“Because they don’t talk.”
“Ah…”
Arcadie purred his cat-like eyes watching the gathering without blinking. Victoria leaned against him safe for the moment in the knowledge that he meant her no harm. That could change at any instant of course yet she didn’t mind Arcadie wasn’t the most dangerous in the lot. Sebastian watched them with hooded eyes, Victoria could sense that he wanted something, perhaps from her or from both of them she wasn’t sure of that.
“Sebastian?”
“Yes?”
A deep growling voice giving a hint of his ancestry. He was one of the older children and one of the dangerous ones, at least to Victoria. Arcadie might not have a problem with him but Sebastian had a problem with her.
“Nothing.”
Getting itchy again she rose chancing making her way through the crowd to the opposite end of the hall and the food. Some of it Victoria tried to ignore guts and gore not being to her taste. Some of it could be considered ’normal’ and couldn’t sustain her at all if she would try to live on it. In a discrete corner there stood crystal bottles of crimson fluid. Victoria grabbed one taking it along in to the dark and damp bowls of the castle.