When Vlad glanced at Otis, he too was watching the happy couple. After a moment, he met Vlad’s eyes. “I think that’s a very healthy attitude. Just make sure you only let go and don’t forget the past entirely.”
Meredith and Joss disappeared into the crowd. Vlad watched the glowing balloons for a while before breaking the comfortable silence between him and his uncle. “Otis?”
“Yes, Vlad?”
Vlad wet his lips. Tonight was a night for change. A night for honesty. A night for closure. “You know I was feeding on Snow ... don’t you?”
“Yes, Vlad.”
“But you didn’t say anything, didn’t tell me you told me so, didn’t point out all of my lies.”
Otis paused briefly, as if weighing whether or not Vlad really wanted him to answer. “No ... I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if all I had to do to see you eating right was listen to a few fibs about it, then so be it.” He shrugged, and it occurred to Vlad that he’d kept his secret needlessly. Otis would have understood. Otis quieted his voice some, speaking gently, as if sensing the subject was a sensitive one. It was. “Of course, you weren’t always feeding on her. There was a time midwinter that you looked completely ravenous. Was it a crisis of conscience?”
Vlad scanned the crowd, looking for any sign of Henry or October, but the faces all blended together. “Yeah ... kinda. Snow was starting to develop feelings for me.”
Otis clucked his tongue. “That’s why I never feed on drudges. It’s too easy for them to mistake the closeness of feeding sessions for romance.”
An image of Snow’s face flickered through his imagination, and Vlad felt something hard and hollow at the center of his being. He recognized it instantly as longing, but couldn’t really explain where it had come from. He missed Snow. More than he would admit. Absently, he said to Otis, “You must have had thousands of drudges by now.”
“Why would you get that impression?” Otis shook his head. “I have none, actually. Never have. I’m not comfortable with the attachment, and I’ve heard the temptation to create many is overwhelming. It’s against the law to have more than two, you know, and like the rest of Elysia, if I don’t kill them, I release them immediately.”
Vlad gaped openly at his uncle. “Is that such a common practice? To release them so soon?”
Otis looked more than a little confused. “Of course it is. I assumed you’d read that in the Compendium of Conscientia.”
The book. Oh crap. Vlad knew he’d forgotten something. He’d spent all of last night searching but couldn’t seem to find the book anywhere. He’d hoped to take it with him, but apparently that wasn’t an option. “About that ... I kinda lost it.”
Otis’s eyes widened. He didn’t appear the least bit happy. “Lost it?”
Vlad cringed. “Yeah. Sorry.”
To Otis’s credit, he didn’t yell. But he did get quiet for a really, really long time. After a while, he released what seemed like a very tense breath. “I’d bet that your good friend Joss knows where the book is. You understand, of course, how crucial it is that we retrieve the Compendium, yes?”
“Of course.” Vlad did understand, though it had never occurred to him that Joss might have taken the book, which made him feel more than a little stupid. It could have been part of Joss’s reconnaissance, after all. Maybe he could just ask Joss for the book, before Otis had a reason to attack him. If Joss had it, he’d hand it over. Unless ... unless D’Ablo took it, for some reason. Anxious to drag Otis away from that line of thinking, Vlad said, “Will you keep feeding on humans after you and Nelly are married?”
It was an innocent question, but something about the look in Otis’s eyes said that the answer would be anything but innocent. “I’d give up anything to be with your aunt. Even if it meant starvation.”
Vlad inhaled and against his will he took in the scent of human blood from the gathered crowd, a delectable potpourri that Vlad found almost irresistible. Strangely, he didn’t feel guilty for feeling that way. It seemed right, somehow. It seemed ... normal. “Can I tell you something, Otis?”
“I would hope that you’d feel comfortable enough to come to me with anything.”
He inhaled the scent again, enjoying it. “I don’t really feel human anymore. These days, I feel much more like a vampire.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” Otis raised an eyebrow, a smirk planted firmly on his lips. “You are a vampire, Vlad. There’s no shame in it.”
Vlad nodded down the hill toward the crowd. He spotted Henry near the cotton candy machine, his bottom lip covered in fluffy pink. “What do you see when you look at them, Otis? Do you see people, or do you see warm meals?”
Otis laughed warmly. “That depends on how hungry I am.”
And there it was. The guilt. Vlad moved his eyes from Henry to a girl he’d once sat behind in algebra to Eddie Poe to Mr. Hunjo. People he knew. People. He swallowed hard and asked, “And if you’re hungry when you look at Nelly? What will you see when you look at her?”
The expression on Otis’s face became haunted.
Vlad shook his head, berating himself for tolerating the monster within him, even for a moment. “There is shame in it, Otis. It’s just not a shame anyone talks about.”
As Vlad turned to walk away, Otis called after him. “I’ll never hurt her, Vlad. I swear that to you.”
Only it wasn’t just Nelly that Vlad was worried about. It was everyone. Every human he had ever known. But Otis had no way of knowing that. He peered over his shoulder briefly as he made his way to the sidewalk and spoke to his uncle with his thoughts. “I know you won’t, Otis. But I’m not as strong as you are.”
Bathory was quiet as Vlad moved down the sidewalk in the direction of Nelly’s house. She wouldn’t be there, as she was working another late shift at the hospital, a fact that made his journey even quieter, even longer.
Darkness surrounded Vlad and with it, a silence that he took great comfort in. For the first time in a long time, Vlad felt at peace. It was time to clean out his parents’ bedroom, and then ... it was time to leave Bathory forever.
Out of the darkness came a sound. It was soft and breathy, a whisper that had only barely escaped the speaker’s lips before it raced to Vlad’s ear. “For you, Cecile.”
Vlad turned quickly, remembering those words from the night Joss staked him. Terror enveloped his entire being as he scanned the dark. Joss was nowhere to be found.
Then another sound. A low whistling. Vlad stepped back quickly, ready to run, fearing the worst. To his left, someone said, “No!” Their tone was a mixture of surprise and fear. Then, before he could blink, a dark figure stepped just in front of him. The figure staggered back, turning toward him, and Vlad recognized him instantly.
“Dorian?”
Dorian’s lips turned up in a semi-smile before he collapsed into Vlad’s arms. Vlad managed to catch him, but half fell, easing Dorian onto the ground. Vlad’s eyebrows were drawn together in concern and confusion. He was about to ask what was wrong, when he noticed the stake—Joss’s stake, Vlad would have recognized it anywhere—sticking out of Dorian’s chest.
Dorian had saved him. What’s more, he’d saved him from someone that Vlad had begun to trust once again. Quickly—quicker than Vlad thought was possible—blood seeped from Dorian’s back onto the ground, soaking Vlad’s jeans. A lump formed in Vlad’s throat and tears welled in his eyes. Dorian—the only vampire in existence who knew the truth of the Pravus prophecy—was going to die in his arms. He swallowed hard. “Why are you here?”
Dorian coughed, blood spattering his lips. “I came ... to tell you my secret.”
In the distance, Vlad heard movement. Feet moving over grass. He searched the darkness but couldn’t see Joss anywhere. If he didn’t get him and Dorian to safety soon, they’d be in real trouble. But there was no way Dorian was going to be able to move like this. He met Dorian’s eyes. “This stake has to come out, Dorian.”
Dorian
closed his eyes briefly. “No.”
Vlad thought about the night he’d been staked and how Otis and Vikas had saved him. He gripped the stake and pulled hard.
Dorian screamed, but once it was out, he looked much more comfortable. Vlad flung the stake behind him and put his wrist to his mouth. He was about to bite the skin open and feed Dorian, when Dorian grabbed his arm and spoke sternly. “No, Vlad. No. I’m ... dying. Drink from me. Quickly. Drink deep.”
Vlad furrowed his brow, darting his eyes about their dark surroundings for any sign of the slayer. “Why?”
“Because of my secret. I told you that four vampires can know the prophecy, but I only told you about the Foreteller, the Transcriber, and the Keeper. Do you recall?”
Vlad did. It had been that day in New York, the day before Otis’s pretrial. That night Otis had changed. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Vlad was only seeing the real him for the first time. He shook his head, clearing his mind, and listened.
“There is one more. You, Vladimir. You are the Subject of the Prophecy. Therefore, it is yours to carry. As the Pravus, if you drink my blood, you will begin to understand all that was foretold about you. I couldn’t tell you before, because you weren’t ready. But you are now. I can feel it. You’re ready to know the truth. The truth of everything.” Dorian gasped, then settled again and spoke with urgency. “The knowledge will come slowly. Drink, and you will know much of it, but over time the parts you do not understand will become clear. It is a lot of knowledge. It will take time to become known to you.”
“No. Dorian, I—”
A twig broke behind him. Just yards away.
Dorian grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him close, so close that Vlad could feel his heartbeat weakening. His eyes were narrowed, his words forceful, desperate. “Drink, before I die. This is the duty which I spoke of—my duty—to pass this knowledge on to the Pravus. Now drink. Quickly.”
After a pause, one filled with thoughts of how Dorian’s blood had infected Otis, Vlad nodded slowly and leaned forward, biting into Dorian’s neck. He swallowed mouthfuls of blood and with each, he felt a strange surge of power. He pulled away, unwilling to take Dorian’s life. Dorian stared up at him, an odd smile on his lips. “How strange. It’s true about your eyes ... that was the one thing I doubted.”
Dorian stretched out a hand, his skin paling drastically, and brushed the tips of his fingers against Vlad’s Mark. In an instant that took Vlad’s breath away, Dorian’s eyes flashed iridescent blue. Vlad gasped. Dorian smiled. “Foolish of me to doubt, or perhaps arrogant. The other two, the Transcriber and the Foreteller, their eyes were the same as ours, but orange and red. We were chosen, the four of us, by something much larger than any of us, for a purpose that must be served at any cost.”
“But why? Why do our eyes do that? Why were we chosen?”
A knowing smile, full of wisdom that Vlad couldn’t comprehend, knowledge of the ages. “You’ll know that soon enough.”
Vlad spoke, his voice gruff, the weight of the world on his shoulders as Dorian’s life slipped helplessly through his fingers. “Why now? Why didn’t you come to me when I was ten or thirteen? Why did you wait?”
“You were a boy before, but with this—” He sucked in his breath, the pain on his face intense and real. “—all of this, you’ve become a man. You’ve finally become the vampire I see in my visions. The timing of our introduction was never up to me.”
Fresh blood, warm and heavy, drizzled from Dorian’s back. Vlad tensed, realizing that he could see the end. His voice grew hoarse. “I wish we’d met sooner. There’s so much I need to ask you, so much I don’t know.”
A look of fear washed over Dorian, and astonishment at feeling that fear, as if he’d never been afraid before. “Our time together draws short.”
Vlad clutched Dorian to him. He heard the slayer closing in but couldn’t bring himself to face him just yet. He whispered, “Don’t die, Dorian. Don’t die.”
It was odd, but he’d come to feel a strange sort of connection to Dorian, a connection that felt even stronger now. Dorian was a lost soul; so was Vlad. Freaks, in every sense of the word. And now Dorian was dying.
Something strange and terrifying raced through Vlad’s veins. He got the oddest impression that the same brilliant madness was rushing through Dorian. A moment later it felt as if his insides were on fire, as if the prophecy itself was being burned into his very soul. In his mind’s eye, he saw a vision—it was the only word he could think of to describe it. It was like a movie image, but more, as if he were standing on set while they filmed. He saw himself standing on the steps of Bathory High, his arms raised. The ground was littered with bodies. Dead bodies. People Vlad knew. People he’d known his entire life, right alongside those he’d only met in recent years. Blood and carnage surrounded him, and his only reaction was immense control over the situation. His face lit up with power. Vampires and humans were everywhere, on the steps, in the parking lot, in the street, engaged in combat and defense. Vlad watched in horror as his eyes flashed that iridescent purple, much more brilliant than ever before. Everyone froze at his command.
He was controlling them. He was ruling their every move. He was the Pravus, reigning over vampirekind and enslaving the human race. Vlad’s thoughts shrank back, terrified of the thing he’d become, or would become.
Then the vision was over. End scene.
Vlad gasped, his heart sinking. It was true. The prophecy was true. And it was going to happen right here in Bathory. There was nothing Vlad could do to stop it, nothing at all.
Dorian gasped for air, the blood from his wound slowing at last. “I have foreseen the comings of kings and the crumbling of empires. But I never saw ... this.”
Then Dorian went still.
Vlad watched him, waiting for him to move, but he didn’t. He felt Dorian’s weight grow heavy, felt the life ebb from him as his flesh settled into a dead state. And rather than feel sorrow, rather than feel a sense of mourning, Vlad felt an enormous amount of anger and fury and want of justice welling up from inside of him.
A whisper behind him. “For you, Cecile. And for me.”
With an infuriated roar, Vlad slipped from under Dorian and turned with vampiric speed, landing on his feet just inches from a very surprised Joss, who held the stake in his hand. It was still covered in Dorian’s blood.
Vlad grabbed Joss by the shirt, picking him up in the air, and threw him against a tree several yards away.
On the ground lay Joss’s messenger bag. Sticking out of the open flap was Vlad’s father’s journal.
Before Joss could recover, Vlad moved as fast as he was able to stand in front of his once friend, his ultimate betrayer, the lying fiend, throwing punch after punch after punch until Joss’s face was bleeding, his body trembling in pain.
But still the slayer gripped the stake.
Vlad ripped the wooden instrument from Joss’s hand and pulled back his arm, ready to end this, ready to stop Joss forever, ready to send a message to any slayer who dared enter Bathory with blood on his mind. It would be easy. And the price would be worth it. He gripped the stake tightly in his hand and pulled back farther, aiming for Joss’s heart.
And then ... he heard a familiar voice. A voice he would have known anywhere. “Stop, Vlad. Let him live.”
Suddenly, Vlad couldn’t breathe. It was as if all the air that surrounded him refused to enter his lungs. His mouth fell open in utter shock. His fingers trembled. He released Joss, who slid down the trunk of the tree, and turned to face the speaker. He grasped at words, but at first nothing came. Then he met the eyes of the intruder and all he could think was a single word—a word that would change his life forever, a word that shook as it left his lips and shattered everything that he ever thought he knew about his life.
“Dad?”
Heather Brewer, Eleventh Grade Burns
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