Party Monster

It had gone 3am and still Dora wasn’t home. It wasn’t of much concern, as she had been known to stay out until morning a time or two, but Pansy had woken up in the middle of the night calling for her mummy and was instead greeted by Ollie who’d been sleeping in the spare room across the hall. “Mummy will be back soon,” he said as he rocked the babe and gave her a bottle. It took nearly 20 minutes to get her to fall asleep enough to set her back into her cot without waking her up again, then Ollie went to Dora’s room to check that she hadn’t come home and somehow made such little noise not to wake the half-vampire. There was no answer at her door and he peeked inside. She wasn’t in her bed. He headed downstairs, thinking she might have fallen asleep at the breakfast table trying to make herself another drink, but she was nowhere to be found. She was having a late night, which meant Ollie would be too. He sighed and sat on the sofa flicking through one of Dora’s novels until he fell back asleep.

Sunlight peeking through the crack in the curtains woke him first, then the sounds of Pansy fussing upstairs. He stretched and yawned as he rose from the sofa and called for Dora. She had to have been home now, surely she had heard the baby crying. The only answer came from Pansy who wailed uninterrupted, summoning Ollie with vampiric speed. “It’s okay, sweetie pie. Mummy’s just...” He had no idea where Dora might have ended up last night, he had never known her to stay out past sunrise while he was watching Pansy and instead of lying to the little girl he simply changed the subject. “Let’s get you a clean nappy and then we’ll look at breakfast. That’d be good, eh?”

Baby changed, fed, and dressed for the day and there was still no sign of Dora. Ollie had even checked the back garden in case she’d locked herself out and had to sleep in the porch swing but all he found were some unkempt rose bushes and two fluffy bunnies which Mimi happily chased off into the wood behind the house. Ollie was worried now, and he did the first thing he always did whenever he got worried. He called Kit. Scribbling a note to his brother on a scratch of parchment he found in Dora’s kitchen.

Need your help. Probably overreacting but come to Dora’s anyway. Hurry.

Ollie held the message up and watched as it burst into flames, leaving no sign of ash anywhere to be found. “Who wants to read a story?” he said, turning toward Pansy who was pulling herself up to a chair and cruising along the seat before falling onto her bum and looking dumbfounded.

Pansy sat in his lap, patting the pictures in the book as Ollie read her her favorite story. She was easily entertained this morning which made it that much easier for Ollie’s brain to go over possibilities of where Dora might have ended up. He paused in his story telling to fetch the quill again and this time sent a letter to Dora’s friend Fin Avery, who owned a nightclub and likely plied her with enough liquor every night to keep the alcoholic witch satisfied. He waited for a response as he picked up the storybook once more and continued reading about the Prancing Pony and her missing ballet slippers.

The doorbell rang not much later and Ollie set Pansy on the floor to play with her toys as he went to answer the door. Kit didn’t look half pleased at the early morning call but Ollie wasn’t bothered. He’d seen that disapproving look a hundred times over and was sure to see it at least a hundred times more. “Sorry to make you come all the way out here. I thought it’d be easier than me and the baby traveling.” Ollie turned to head back into the living room where Pansy was taking a few wobbly steps away from the sofa before falling in her bum and looking dazed again.