“Where’s my hasenpfeffer!”

The emperor had been hibernating in his room for a while. He was obviously hungry—he always got cranky when he was hungry.

“Coming, my liege!”

Of course, he knocked me to the floor with a teeth-rattling backhand as I entered the room. I scrambled to my feet.

“Many thanks, my liege. I’ve sent a footman to inform the cook. I’m sure we‘ll have your hasenpfeffer in no time.”

“That’s not soon enough!”

I cowered, expecting another backhand, but luckily for me his almightiness had distracted himself before the royal full-length mirror, turning this way and then that.

“You know, Carson,” he nasaled, “it’s been a long time since I graced my peasants with the showing of a new royal outfit. What do you think of this one?”

Of course, he stood before the mirror buck naked, every crease and crevasse and fold of flesh in plain view.

“Yes, my liege, it has been quite some time—maybe a year or more.”

“Perhaps I should grace them with a showing now. What do you think of this one?”

“Well, it looks familiar—”

“Who gives a rat’s ass what you think? If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you. Call the peasants to the royal courtyard!”

The peasants were all soon gathered into the royal courtyard, and the emperor strolled onto the royal balcony like a peacock, posing this way and then that.

Oohs and aahs filled the air, raining up and over the balustrade and onto his highness’ royal girth, lavishing him with the adulation he so desperately craved . . . all save one. An urchin of a young lad covered head to toe with filth of indeterminable origin burst into the most earnest giggle, his scrawny finger pointed directly at the emperor.

“He’s naked!” the boy declaimed, “and he’s fat!”

A collective gasp rose from the royal courtyard as everyone near the urchin backed away, leaving him standing alone in a circle of craven humanity. Paradoxically, the boy continued to giggle.

“How dare you insult the royal wardrobe!” the emperor bellowed. “Guards! Bring the little guttersnipe to me!”

Two guards lifted the boy by the elbows and hustled him to the balcony (he couldn’t have weighed more than three stone) and dropped him at the emperor’s tiny royal feet. No sooner than they’d let him loose, however, the boy, whom I recognized as a vampire, launched himself at the emperor’s throat and latched on. The emperor fell with a gurgling sound, and before you could say Jack Robinson, the boy had drained him of all his blood.

The peasants were elated, and to a man, woman, and child, immediately thought the boy a hero. They didn’t even care he was a vampire. As for the emperor, being a frugal people, he was divvied up amongst their number and eaten; for though they didn’t know why, they all admired the emperor at some level and wanted what part of him they could get.