Dilapidated wooden house stands on the outskirts of a grim village. A thin, pale man sits on the porch, scratching his scraggly beard, lost in thoughts. He wears a black cloak that has seen better days, now stained and covered in patches. He takes a gulp from a dark, dirty bottle.

An equally pale woman comes out of the house. Once strikingly beautiful, she now looks sickly, with heavy bags under her eyes. She's holding a baby, and a little boy with red eyes holds onto her skirt. "Ah, why am I not surprised," she complains, "the great Crimson Count, back to sitting on his ass, getting drunk. You won't find us a new castle at the bottom of the bottle, Reginald!"

"Leave me alone, Valeria," Reginald takes another gulp, "you don't think I'm trying?"

"That's not what trying looks like! Have you seen your brother? He was evicted along with us, and now he lives in a new castle, his family are back striking fear into the hearts of mortals!"

"Bah! You call that a castle? It's just some dusty old mansion!"

"The old mansion with hot water. With servants. With peasants his children can feed on."

"My brother got lucky, he just found a dying aristocrat he could turn, now the aristocrat serves him as vampire spawn. All he had to do was to bite some old rich dude. Where am I supposed to get one?"

"Figure it out! When I married you, when I gave you my innocence, I was promised a certain standard of living. When a maiden promises to love and obey an immortal vampire, she doen't expect she'll have to do that while living in a hovel. So find us a rich duke somewhere, or get a job."

Reginald gasps. "A job? Like a mere mortal? How can you even suggest such a thing! I will not debase myself by working, I am not a peasant. Money is not the most important thing in the life, you know. Maybe I'm above the material posessions now, maybe I want a simpler life."

Valeria slaps him. "Get it together, Reginald, I can't keep sucking blood from a cow. Fix this, or I'm leaving you and marrying your brother."

Reginald throws his bottle, it smashes against a wall. His face contorts, his eyes flash red, he bears his fangs. "Don't you dare! Not my brother! That's what my last wife did." The last sentence comes out as a furious roar, he looms over her, breathing heavily in her face, and threateningly hisses at her.

Valeria rises her eyebrow, impressed. "Now that is the terrifying monster I fell in love with! Go rampage through the world of mortals, and don't return until we have a new castle. And some expensive jewelry!"

Reginald roars, and, in a puff of smoke, turns into a bat and flies off.