Free I’m a Vampire…In Charge of Draculacare by Jackie Rose Page A

she waited for him to assure her that he was just as happy to have her on his show. Her grin faded as he kept staring coldly back at her.
    “Don’t try to butter me up,” he warned. “I know that you are here to push Draculacare…and just like your liberal friends who came here to defend Obamacare, I am going to push you right back.”
    “I am sure you are,” she answered defiantly, shaking her head of curly red hair. “You spent enough time attacking Obamacare, so I suppose you will do the same for us.”
    Leaning forward, she added in a higher voice, “But you must know that the program is strictly consensual, and all candidates can choose their own Sires or Brides, just as I chose…”
    “I know, just as you chose Count Victor Vyrdelek and he chose you,” he interrupted her…as he usually did with any guest who disagreed with him. “But that was before this national program started. Now, the Sires cannot even choose their own victims…”
    “Their own brides!” she cried. “Believe me, I have never been a victim for anyone, especially Count Victor!”
    “No, but your first Sire was none other than Congressman Zagorsky, who seems to be in charge of this disaster! And you were the one who got him elected with your rallying cry, ‘I’m Undead and I Vote.’” Triumphantly, Mr. Bill swept on, “But I don’t think his attack on you was consensual, either.”
    Lowering her head, she murmured, “It became that way very soon. But when I met Count Victor, I became both an Undead American and a Transylvanian noblewoman.” Proudly, she fingered the American flag pin she always wore in her navy blue lapel, right beside her yellow, red and blue Transylvanian badge. Bill ignored the gesture.
    “You chose him as your Sire!” he accused. “You were free to do that, weren’t you…because you did not have to fill out all those on-line forms regarding your new relationship, the way both Sires and victims must do nowadays? And I hear they are all as angry as I am!”
    “Well, every new program has its problems,” she feebly replied, squirming uncomfortably on her chair. “But they are all being ironed out.”
    “And you are lucky that you have all the time in the world to do it! You and your people, I should say…and I use that term loosely, since they are technically no longer people at all.”
    “They are loyal Undead Americans!” she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.
    “Yes, loyal to President Felix O’Neill and his followers, like his wife Evelyn the Witch and their daughter Maeve the Banshee and their son-in-law, Congressman Zagorsky the Vampire!”
    “They…we…are as patriotic as anyone!” she cried. At that point, tears would have been running down her freckled face, if she had had any of them to shed.
    In his coldest tones, he leaned forward to sneer, “And I suppose that includes the vampire prostitutes who are selling themselves to the Draculacare applicants…with a sexy setting included.”
    “That isn’t true!” she gasped. But she had already heard the rumor that told her it was all too true indeed. Even worse, one of those ladies of the (perpetual) evening was among her own Count Vyrdelek’s former Brides, who had gone off on their own after he had married the current Countess Tiffany. They had done very well for themselves on their own, and she was glad about that…although she wished that Simona had done it some other way.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    But perhaps prostitute is much too strong a word. Draculacare providers like Simona Vyrdelek saw themselves more as professional Eternal Care specialists, offering a pleasant way of ushering their clients into their new lives…or new existences, anyway. Their on-line advertisements showed their photos, as a way of illustrating how pleasant the entrance could be.
    Needless to say, their personal Web sites were soon overloaded with would-be clients, because the government sites were much less efficient…to the point of being