Vlad watched him, wide-eyed, slumping back in his seat. “Why do you sound so angry?”
Otis stood suddenly, and slapped his palms on the table, his eyes fierce. “Because I am! How can you defend him, Vladimir? How can you spare his life when he nearly took yours? He’s nothing, just a slayer, a foolish assassin armed with a wooden stake. They are the ones who declared war on us, and we have every right to defend ourselves when we know an attack is about to happen. That’s all Joss is, Vlad, another casualty of war. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Otis sat down in the chair opposite Vlad, his eyes seething. “If you ask me, the world would be a better place without him and his kind walking around, free to do as they please.”
Vlad shook his head wordlessly. When he spoke, it was in near-whispers. “Listen to yourself, Otis. You’re grouping them all together and plotting their extinction. You sound just like they do. Maybe you’re not all that different.”
Otis clenched his jaw and pointed a stern finger at his nephew. He stood abruptly, pushing the chair sharply back from the table. Vlad instantly knew that he had gone too far, but he didn’t care. He braced himself for the words that were soon to come flying out of his uncle’s mouth. Hateful words. Words filled with venom and justification.
But the words didn’t come. Otis turned and walked out of the kitchen. When the front door slammed, Vlad winced, but only slightly.
The coin lay on the tabletop where he’d left it. Plucking it up in his hand, he spun it once more, and wondered if Joss had noticed its absence, or if he had any idea where it might be now. It had to be his, after all. There were no other slayers in Bathory. It had to be Joss’s coin. Maybe that’s why Vlad had kept it. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t stop looking at it.
3
UNTOLD TRUTHS
THIS ISN’T HEALTHY.”
Vlad blinked up at Nelly from his seat at the kitchen table. He hadn’t been listening but assumed she was referring to whatever it was she was stirring in the saucepan on the stove.
Nelly frowned and sat the wooden spoon on the counter. Yellow goo pooled around the end of it. “You’ve been moping around the house ever since Freedom Fest, Vladimir. It’s not good for you to stay indoors and sulk for so long.”
Vlad dropped his attention to the tabletop. There was little sense explaining how he felt. It seemed that each day was worse than the one before it. First, the situation with Meredith, then he learns that Joss is moving back to town, presumably to finish what he started over a year ago. And to top it all off he and Otis hadn’t been on speaking terms for almost a week, not since Vlad had turned to his uncle for his counsel and compared him to what Otis considered to be the enemy.
Nelly sighed and pulled a couple of twenties out of her purse, dropping them on the table in front of him. “Why don’t you call Henry and go see a movie or something? One last huzzah before school starts tomorrow?”
Tomorrow. Vlad had almost forgotten he’d be starting his junior year in less than sixteen hours. Meredith would be there. He hadn’t seen her all summer. Joss would probably be there too. As if it wasn’t bad enough having to face one of them alone.
Deciding that maybe Nelly was right, maybe he should go out with Henry, Vlad decided to give his drudge a call after dinner. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to ask if his cousin had finished moving in, or maybe changed his mind and decided to move to Alaska instead. He could simply go for a walk to see for himself, but there were two things wrong with that idea: One, he simply couldn’t risk running into Meredith, and two, he didn’t exactly want to be alone out in the open, where a vengeful slayer might be waiting.
He closed his hand over the money and met Nelly’s concerned gaze. “Nelly, do you think I did the right thing by breaking up with Meredith?”
Nelly wiped her hands on a towel and sighed. “I think that’s a question that only you can answer, Vladimir. Do you think it was the right thing to do?”
Vlad thought back to the Freedom Fest. Meredith’s face flitted through his mind, shocked, then saddened. He’d hurt her with his words, and then he’d shoved her. She’d fallen to the ground, sobbing, and all he could do was walk away. He wet his lips and looked at Nelly. “It was the only way I could protect her.”
Nelly sighed, then gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Does your father’s journal say anything at all about how he resisted feeding from your mother?”
Vlad shook his head. Tomas had always told his son that he only fed from blood bags, but lately Vlad was finding that enormously difficult to believe. Personal experience in the form of monthly feeding sessions with Snow had taught him that once a vampire has fed from the source, blood bags were like trading in that brand-new Harley-Davidson for an old scooter. So the question remained, where had Tomas been getting his blood from? The idea that he’d fed from Mellina, Vlad’s mom, sickened Vlad to no end. It had to have sickened his dad too, so it had to be someone else. But who?
Vlad flicked his eyes to Nelly.
No. Nelly would have said something.
She patted his hand. “Well, I’m sure everything will be okay. You just need some time to get over the breakup.”
Groaning, he said, “Yeah, and there’s plenty of fish in the sea too, right?”
Nelly offered a reassuring smile. “Believe it or not, heart-ache doesn’t last forever.”
Maybe not. But it certainly sucked for as long as it decided to hang around.
Vlad’s thoughts turned to Otis. He had looked rather haggard lately, so Vlad had no doubts that he was sticking to their agreement that Otis wouldn’t feed from humans while he was staying in Bathory. But how was he managing it? How was he nuzzling Nelly’s neck without taking a bite? His resolve must have been made of steel. Vlad rightfully felt like such a hypocrite, keeping Otis bound to an act that he himself couldn’t keep to.
Nelly said, “Why don’t you give Henry a call? I’m sure Melissa wouldn’t mind giving him up for one night while you two have some fun.”
Vlad opened his mouth to say he thought that was probably a good idea—even though he didn’t, not really—but then Otis walked in the front door and Vlad snapped his mouth shut again.
He wasn’t mad at Otis; he never had been. But Otis was very upset with him, and Vlad knew why. Otis despised the slayers. Vlad was sure he had his reasons for it, but Joss wasn’t like the rest of them. At least Vlad hoped he wasn’t. Really. Joss was the only slayer that he knew, so he had no real basis for comparison. He only knew that he had hurt his uncle by what he had said, and he felt bad for saying it. But he and Otis both knew that he was right, and that felt worse.
Having his uncle reside in the same town had turned out to be a learning experience in many ways. Initially, they’d been inseparable. Otis had recounted stories about him and Tomas and their adventures together. But ever since the construction on Vlad’s old house had been completed, when Otis moved out of Nelly’s home to stay there, things had been dif ferent. And Vlad wasn’t exactly sure why. They were at odds over the littlest things, and Otis seemed troubled by something that he would not give voice to.
Otis brushed his lips against Nelly’s cheek, whispering his hello in her ear. Nelly blushed and smiled and eventually went back to cooking.
Vlad stood, money in one hand, Joss’s coin in the other, and left the room. His foot had just touched the bottom step on his way to his bedroom, when Otis said, “The silence between us is intolerable, Vladimir. The quiet in my mind ... it’s deafening.”
Vlad paused and glanced over his shoulder at his uncle. “I’m not the one who started it.”
Otis’s eyes shined with hurt. “True enough. Can we talk?”
Vlad shrugged casually, but inside, his muscles had already lost much of their tension in relief. “Sure.”
Then, inside Vlad’s mind, Otis’s voice, warm and welcoming—something Vlad missed more than he would ever admit to. “Not here. I was thinking of your house. You haven’t been by to see it since the renovations were completed. I
have things I’d like to show you, things I’d like to discuss with you.”
Vlad’s initial reaction was to jump at the offer—after all, he missed Otis’s company, and very much longed for the opportunity to sit down and chat. But there was their last conversation to be considered. “First promise me that you’ll leave Joss alone, that you won’t harm him in any way.”
Otis’s jaw tightened. “You know I can’t promise that.”
He met Vlad’s eyes, pleading aloud. “Please, Vladimir. Just a short chat between uncle and nephew. Let me have my say and you can go back to brooding.”
Vlad winced. Maybe he had been moping more than was sensible lately. “Okay But it can’t take long. Henry and I are going to the movies.”
Not that Henry had any inkling at all that they were hanging out. But Henry had proven to be enormously supportive ever since he’d come to the conclusion that being Vlad’s human slave was pretty cool. He had no idea that Vlad had another drudge in Snow, since Vlad had insisted that he’d released the goth girl. It was a lie, but one Vlad had needed to tell. He didn’t want anyone knowing about his continued feeding from a human’s veins.
The problem was ... sometimes he got the idea that Snow wanted to be much more than his drudge.
Vlad shook his head. The last thing he needed to be doing was thinking about Snow when Otis was lurking around in his head. He didn’t block Otis, but definitely changed gears in his thought process, instead mulling over Joss and the ever-looming first day of school.
The walk to his old house was long and quiet. Occasionally, Otis would give him a sidelong glance, but neither spoke. Once they turned down Lugosi Trail, Vlad smiled. His house had been given a fresh coat of paint, and brand-new windows had been installed. Even the shrubs alongside the porch looked brighter, happier now that someone was calling his house home. He’d never asked where Otis got the money to fix the house. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was being given new life.
It made looking at it easier to recall the memories he had of his life there, before the fire, before his parents’ deaths, before everything he knew had disappeared in a whiff of ash and soot.
Otis’s voice buzzed pleasantly in his brain. “It’s so good to see you smile. You haven’t in some time.”
Vlad slowed his steps some, thinking, then he spoke to Otis with his mind. “I haven’t had much of a reason to.”
Otis took on a hopeful tone. “And now?”
They crossed the street, and Vlad cleared his throat. “The house looks nice. Mom would like the color you chose.”
Otis raised his eyes to the house. The siding was a pale yellow—a warm tone compared to the gray that it had been. “Nelly picked it. She said that it was Mellina’s favorite color.”
An image flashed in Vlad’s mind, an unexpected memory from years ago. His mom in a flowered skirt, a pale yellow sweater tied about her shoulders. She was laughing, running across the yard away from Tomas, away from Vlad. Something about them being out to get her, but Vlad couldn’t recall it clearly enough. And just like that, it was gone.
He shook his head, smiling at the memory, and stepped forward onto the porch, following Otis’s lead. Otis turned the knob and opened the door, gesturing with a small nod for Vlad to head inside. With a strangely light feeling of excitement in his chest, Vlad stepped into the house.
On some level, he’d expected that acrid, horrible scent of smoke and ash to assault his nostrils, but it didn’t. Instead, it smelled like Otis had been baking cookies. A glimpse into the new living room revealed the source of the smell—scented candles had been placed on a new mahogany coffee table. The walls were in golden tones, warm, homey. And as Vlad moved from room to room, he marveled that this was his house—the same house he’d been born in, the same house he’d lived in for so long. It looked different. Way different. The furniture, the cabinets, the paint on the walls had all been changed. It looked like an entirely new place.
Vlad wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
On the one hand, he’d assured Otis that a change was definitely needed, that maybe a new look would ease the pain of visiting his once-happy home. On the other, he felt somewhat intruded upon, as though Otis had tried to erase the memories of his parents by redoing the house—a stupid thought, but there it was. He flicked his eyes to his uncle, who was watching him carefully. “Is ... is everything different?”
Otis continued to watch him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his reaction to the changes. Finally, seeming to accept that there was no way he could ease any concerns in Vlad’s mind, he took a breath and said, “Not everything. Come upstairs.”
Otis led the way through the kitchen to the back stairs, then up. Vlad followed, taking in every inch of his renewed former home. The wood floors had been sanded and stained, and the distinct lack of that smoky scent continued throughout the house. It was a missing link in the experience—a bad thing that had been there for years and was suddenly gone. Vlad didn’t miss it, but felt a wave of guilt at its absence, as if by not whiffing that scent, he were somehow trying to forget that awful day, the day he lost his parents forever.
Otis paused on the top step and peered over his shoulder at his nephew. The look in his eyes said he’d picked up on Vlad’s tension, but he couldn’t identify the source, wouldn’t without reading Vlad’s thoughts—something Otis had promised he would only do if Vlad granted him permission. He wet his lips as if to speak, to offer some sort of comfort, but turned his head at the last moment and continued his trek up the stairs and down the hall to the door of Tomas’s office.
Vlad halted on the stairs, wishing for a moment that Otis would read his mind so he wouldn’t have to say the things he was thinking out loud. After exchanging troubled glances with Otis, he followed, hesitant to see what now lay behind the door to his dad’s sanctuary.
“This room was the most difficult to renovate.” Otis waited, gesturing with his eyes to the doorknob.
With a deep, hesitant, hurting breath, Vlad reached out and turned the knob, opening the door.
Inside, the walls were exactly the same as they had been, down to the scrape where Tomas’s chair had rubbed the paint away. His dad’s desk remained, though the chair was new. Everything looked exactly the same as it had been before the fire. Only cleaner.
He turned to Otis with a questioning look.
Otis smiled, his eyes shining. “It was so difficult, in fact, that I left it as it was. Gave it a good scrubbing, of course.”
Vlad ran the tips of his fingers across his dad’s desk, looking around, taking it all in. Finally, he spoke. “Thank you, Otis. This means a lot to me.”
“There’s one more room that I left untouched.” Otis’s eyes moved to the hallway, to the door of Tomas and Mellina’s bedroom. From his pocket he pulled a silver key and placed it in Vlad’s palm. “The room is exactly as it was that day. I merely had workers seal it off to prevent the scent of smoke from pervading the rest of the house.”
Vlad turned the key over in his hand. When he spoke, his voice was raspy, his chest full of gratitude. “Why?”
Otis’s voice was kind and warm. “Because it’s not up to me to decide when it’s time to leave that moment behind, Vladimir.”
Vlad couldn’t help but notice that Otis had used the word when, not if. When it was time. As if there was no question that that time would come.
And he was right. Sooner or later, Vlad was going to have to let go of his guilt and say goodbye to the haunting memories of that day.
But not today.
Vlad nodded and slipped the key into his front pocket. “The house looks amazing, Otis. You’ve done a great job.”
Otis was looking at him, a troubled expression on his face. “You ooze sorrow, Vladimir. What I would do to ease your every pain ...”
Vlad tried to ignore his uncle’s words, but couldn’t. “I really like the floors. Dad always loved mahogany.”
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s troubling you so deeply. Is
it Joss? Is it Meredith? You’ve been so distant since I moved to Bathory. Is it me?”
Vlad swallowed hard. “It’s ... nothing.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly, anyway. The fact of the matter was that it was a combination of all of those things, and more. So much more than he could ever tell Otis.
Images of Snow flitted through his mind, of their monthly sessions in the alley behind The Crypt. Vlad had kept those moments secret, so secret that Henry was convinced that Vlad had a crush on Snow, and that was why he needed to frequent the goth club. He couldn’t have been more wrong. The Crypt was an absolute blast to hang out at, and the only feelings Vlad had for Snow were reminiscent of how a human might feel about a Big Mac.
A really sweet, amazingly understanding, pretty Big Mac. A Big Mac that got what he was saying before he even said it. A Big Mac that listened in ways that Meredith never would have been capable of.
Otis furrowed his brow. “I will not lay a hand on the slayer unless he presents a threat. While I don’t understand your feelings, I will respect them, Vladimir. If that is what it takes to heal whatever is broken between us, then so be it.”
Vlad shook his head. “Thank you for that. But it’s not you, Otis. I’m just dealing with a lot of unexpected stress.”
“I’m not surprised. You haven’t been eating right.” Otis’s voice softened, as did the expression in his eyes. “Nelly says you only manage four or five blood bags a day anymore—significantly less than you were eating.”
Vlad’s entire body tensed. “Yeah, well ... I haven’t been hungry lately.”
“She’s also commented that you have a new group of friends—”
“Your point?” Vlad snapped. He hadn’t meant to, but he did. He was trying to stay calm. Otis knew. He knew about Snow. He knew Vlad had been feeding on a human. But how? Vlad had been so careful to hide his feeding sessions. Even Henry didn’t have a clue. And Otis wouldn’t dare break his trust by reading his thoughts unwanted.