Vikas sighed and patted Vlad on the shoulder. His eyes sparkled with encouragement and support—nothing like what Otis had been offering. “Perhaps with time.”
Changing the subject to a more comfortable one, Otis said, “Any luck with your search for Tomas, Vikas? We haven’t had much luck here in town at all.”
Vikas shook his head and took a seat at the long plank table, eyeing a bottle of bloodwine. “No luck as of yet, my old friend. Dyavol is nowhere to be found. For a moment I thought I found a trace, but the trail has gone dead, it seems.”
Vlad’s eyes shot to meet Vikas’s, hurt and anger warring inside them.
Dead.
How could he use that word?
Vikas clucked his tongue and flashed him an apologetic glance. “Forgive me, Vladimir. I have forgotten my candor. I am a fool.”
Vlad sank back in his seat. “You may not be the only one, Vikas. If I don’t find my dad soon ... then maybe Otis is right. Maybe I am crazy.”
They all looked at Vlad then, wordlessly, as if gauging his sanity level. After a moment, Vlad stood and headed for the front door, Henry in tow behind him.
Otis stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Quietly, he said, “Whatever you decide to do, we will support you. If you decide to run, we’re prepared for whatever comes. But please, tell us before you go so that I can make arrangements to hide Nelly from Elysia.”
Vlad cringed at the very idea of bringing down Elysia’s brand of justice on his family, his friends, but he met Otis’s eyes and nodded. Then he was out the door. He had a lot to think about, and there was only one place to do it. With a brief goodbye to Henry once they were outside, Vlad was on his way to the only place he could truly be alone to think.
The belfry. His sanctuary. The only place in the world he felt safe.
Vlad moved through Bathory effortlessly, his mind clouded with troubled thoughts. A slight breeze danced through the air, bringing a bit of cool to the lingering summer heat. He was grateful for it. Too much of his summer had been spent outdoors, in the sticky heat. So he slowed his steps and allowed himself a moment to enjoy his walk—something he hadn’t done in months.
Once he reached the school, he floated effortlessly to the arched windows of the belfry and stepped inside.
Only...
The room wasn’t dark.
The room wasn’t empty.
Vlad wasn’t alone.
A candle was lit on the small table beside his father’s chair, illuminating the space with a flickering warmth. The photograph of his father was no longer in its space on the wall.
It was being cradled by hands.
Familiar hands.
Hands that had caught Vlad when he fell off the roof. Hands that had bandaged his elbow when he tumbled from his bike. Hands that he knew well.
Tomas Tod was sitting in his chair, holding his framed photograph, looking up at Vlad with an expectant, albeit worried, smile. “Vladimir.” He breathed, standing. “Son. It’s been too long, and this meeting is overdue.”
6
UNEXPECTED COMPANY
HIS DAD.
Alive and in the flesh and standing less than ten feet in front of him.
Which meant Vlad really was crazy. After all, he only seemed to see his dad when no one else was around, and all other evidence pointed to no additional vampires being in Bathory. Even now, he couldn’t sense Tomas’s presence when he reached out with his blood. It was as if his father wasn’t really there.
Vlad was insane. He was off his rocker, for sure.
“No, you’re not, Vlad. You’re perfectly sane, I assure you.” Tomas—the man who looked like Tomas, anyway—shook his head. He set the photograph down on the table next to the candle and met Vlad’s eyes, his gaze pleading. “Trust me. The reason you can’t detect me by reaching out with your blood is because I burned my Mark away. I’m not surprised Otis or Vikas didn’t realize that would be an effect of having removed my Mark, as so few vampires have survived the task. Doing so hasn’t seemed to harm my abilities, though. Telepathy, speed, mind control—all intact, it seems. I suppose I should count my blessings.”
Vlad jolted at the sound of that voice. He swallowed the growing lump in his throat. Either it was his father, or his imagination was brilliantly creative.
They watched one another for a moment but as Vlad started to speak, Tomas held up a hand, his eyes kind, sympathetic, full of an immense, overwhelming guilt. “As for my disappearance ... son, I owe you an explanation—”
As the words began to leave Tomas’s lips, Vlad’s eyes snapped to him in a glare. “You owe me a hell of a lot more than that. If you’re real, that is.”
Tomas lowered his eyes apologetically, “Indeed. And I’d meant to come forward sooner. But I had to wait until I was certain we’d be alone. I am being hunted, as it were.”
Vlad tightened his jaw, his heart racing—racing with fear and panic and upset and doubt and something else too. Anger. Immense and immediate anger.
Through clenched teeth, he growled, “I don’t give a damn if you’re being hunted. I don’t care if the entire Slayer Society is on your heels and all of Elysia is thirsting for your blood. All I care about is where you’ve been for the last eight years. What happened the day of the fire. What happened to you, what happened to Mom, and why. And you’re going to explain everything to me. But first ... before you say another word, before you refer to me as your son again, before you take another breath ... prove to me that you’re really my dad. Prove to me that you’re really ... here.”
Tomas nodded and furrowed his brow, his features almost too similar to what Vlad saw in the mirror every day. After a moment, his apparent distress eased some—if only a little, and he met Vlad’s guarded eyes. “Did you get my note? The one I scribbled in the margins of the Compendium of Conscientia, directing you to my journal?”
That was something only Tomas would know. But it was also something only Vlad would know, so he still had no real evidence whether or not the man he saw before him was flesh and blood, let alone his father.
He couldn’t trust his possibly poisoned mind.
Not one bit.
Vlad stood there, looking at the man who’d created him, the man who’d taught him to read, who’d been there for him every day until a fire had torn them apart. Let the madness take him. At least he’d see his father again. At least he wouldn’t be alone anymore.
His bitter anger remained, but it was instantly overshadowed by a mingling of both immense relief and dire need.
Need for family. Need for his dad.
Without warning, he grabbed his dad and gripped him tightly in an embrace. His dad was warm, solid, real. He was back. His dad was back. Somehow, against all the odds and everything that Vlad had understood to be reality, somehow his dad was back from the dead.
And if he wasn’t, Vlad didn’t want to know.
If he was crazy, Vlad wanted very much to stay that way, to enjoy every single moment of his insanity.
Tomas hesitated—as if taken aback for a moment—then put his arms around his son. He breathed words into Vlad’s hair, words that Vlad very much needed to hear. “It’s all right now, Vlad. Everything is going to be all right. I’m here now And I can explain everything.”
7
EVERYTHING
VLAD SAT ON THE COUCH, but he couldn’t sit still, no matter how he hard he tried. So instead, he stood and paced some back and forth across the living room of his old house—Otis’s current house—his eyes expectantly on his father the entire time.
They’d left the belfry at Vlad’s insistence and after an argument—Tomas had been reluctant to go somewhere he might be seen by someone other than his son. But Vlad had dug his heels in. If he was going to hear details of his mother’s death and his father’s miraculous escape, he wanted to hear them where it all happened, in the place where his life had taken a dramatic, downward turn.
Home.
He was waiting for answers, answers that his dad
had assured him were coming once they got there. And the waiting was killing him.
He’d lived for years not knowing what had transpired the day of the fire. Now he would know. Now he would know everything.
Tomas looked about the room, his eyes somewhat troubled by what he saw. “I see Otis redecorated.”
“It needed a lot of work after staying empty for so long.” Vlad’s words were curt, but he didn’t mean for them to be. He was just so angry that all of this time he’d been led to believe that his dad was dead, and yet here he was, alive and in the flesh. And it didn’t help that his dad just wouldn’t get to the point. “So about that explanation ...”
Tomas met his eyes before releasing a troubled sigh. “I suppose I should begin with the day I disappeared, and your mother ... your mother ...”
Vlad swallowed hard, tearing his gaze away from his father’s eyes. The sorrow there was almost too much for him to bear. “So Mom really is dead?”
His dad nodded, a heavy air about him. After he did so, Vlad nodded too, a familiar ache forming at the center of his chest. He’d known for years that his mom was gone forever, but seeing his dad again had sparked the hope that maybe, just maybe, it had all been a horrible misunderstanding. Foolish, he knew, but no amount of reason or good sense could have doused the spark of hope within him.
“I awoke that morning to find that my alarm clock had been turned off, as had your mother’s. That was good of you, Vlad, to want us to sleep in, to show us that you were more than capable of getting yourself off to school on your own.” He looked at Vlad, an apology lurking in his eyes that would not leave his lips, not until he’d explained everything he needed to. Still, Vlad appreciated seeing it there, knowing that it was coming soon enough. “I slipped out of bed, leaving Mellina still resting, and stole away to Stokerton. It had become common for me to spy on Elysia, you see, and more common still for me to do so without telling your mother. So I left. Unable to resist the urge of being near vampirekind. I’m sure you’ve realized since you’ve come to know Vikas and your uncle that being away from our kind for too long is painful.”
It was painful. Vlad hated being away from his uncle for very long, and it hurt beyond hurt to leave Siberia a few years ago. He absolutely understood the loss of Elysia.
“So, I left. When I returned home hours later, my need for vampire contact satisfied for the moment, I saw smoke billowing out of my bedroom window and Nelly cradling you in her arms in the front yard. I knew that what had happened could only be my fault.”
It was his fault. He’d said it. Whatever it was that had happened, whatever it was that had taken his mom away from him, it was his dad’s fault. Not Vlad’s.
Not Vlad’s.
Vlad watched him, waiting, a strange sense of relief filling him.
Tomas sat on the arm of the couch, his forehead lined with tension and guilt. When he finally resumed speaking, it was with a hushed tone. “It’s no secret that I am a wanted man in Elysia, or was, before my presumed death.”
“You were after too.” His dad shot him a glance, and Vlad said, “I mean, lots of vampires didn’t believe you were actually dead.”
Tomas sighed. “Ahh... This is true, son. But what you may not know is that I am also wanted by another group, though they are also vampires. A secret society who believe that one day a vampire will be born, not made.”
Vlad tensed. His voice was gruff. “You’re talking about the Pravus.”
With a nod, Tomas said, “This group believes that he—you—will lead them in a revolt against the nonbelievers and that you will lift vampirekind to its proper place, where we live openly amongst the humans and feed on them at will. These vampires ... they are the reason your mother is dead, and they are the reason that I disappeared that day and have stayed hidden for these seven years. They were there watching when I got home that day, among the crowd. That is why I couldn’t come to you until now. That is why I had to leave the moment I did. I had to run, Vlad. I had to hide. If there was any hope of my keeping you alive, it was in my keeping my distance from you. If I’d stayed in contact with you, I shudder to think of the painful death it would have brought you.”
“Why did you come to me now? And why wait for so long after that night in the clearing? You could have told me all of this then? Why wait? Why make me wait?”
Tomas paused then, a look of trepidation crossing his features, as if what he was about to say next was difficult for him. “Every vampire I have come into contact with since that day has been killed, and I myself have only barely escaped death by their hands a number of times. After seeing you that night I questioned whether or not I was doing the right thing. By the time I’d decided that I was, you’d begun searching for me with other people. I really wanted our first conversation to be just between the two of us.”
Vlad took this in and then nodded slowly. It made sense, he supposed. In a really stupid way. “That group you mentioned? I’ve heard of them, actually.”
Tomas raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Vlad cleared his throat. “Why do they want you dead?”
“When you were born, I knew something was amiss. Vampires don’t bear children. It just doesn’t happen. There have been others who have broken the law of separation in the hopes that they might be able to bring about the Pravus. I broke the law for love. Perhaps that is what made your birth possible. However, we knew that your very existence would give that group special interest in you. That’s why your mother and I stole away to Bathory—so that we could raise you in peace, and so that I could discover the reason for your existence. Through spying on Elysia and stealing away into their libraries, I hoped to know everything I could about this prophecy. While the word Pravus is spelled simply enough, its meaning is far more complex. There were theories in the books I read, but they were just theories, nothing concrete that stated exactly why the Pravus would come.” A far away expression came into his eyes. Then, as if coming back to the present, he continued. “Through my trials, I learned the truth. The Pravus—you. my son—will bring peace to the world. You will unite us all and rule over all with your good sense and generosity traits that I know you are well acquainted with. But the members of this group ... this secret society ... they seek to use you for their selfish gain. They tried to kill me to stop me from revealing what I know to the world and to you. They will try again. We can trust no one, Vlad. Their group is full of liars and con men.”
Vlad listened for a moment, filled with so many questions, but first, he had to know. “Who was in the bed with Mom? How did the fire start?”
“I don’t know. I can only assume it was one of the vampires who were after me. And I don’t know how the fire started.”
“This group. D’Ablo was part of them.”
“Was?” His dad raised a sharp eyebrow, curiosity ebbing from him.
Vlad shook his head. “Dead now.”
“D’Ablo ...” Tomas rolled the name over on his tongue, as if he hadn’t spoken it in years. Something crossed his eyes that looked like regret, or maybe loss. “I’ve known D’Ablo for nearly two centuries. He may have been ambitious and at times a fool, but I didn’t think he’d be involved with a group like that. You’re certain?”
Vlad nodded. “Positive. And Em.”
“I’ve known of Em’s involvement for some time. However, hers is more of a position to guarantee that she is not supplanted as leader. She wants to prevent the coming of the Pravus more than anything. Anyone else?”
Vlad searched his memory, but no one else in his life came across as suspect. “Not that I know of.”
Tomas leaned closer and spoke with his thoughts—even though his words were locked safe inside Vlad’s mind, he whispered. “Listen, Vlad. These vampires are sly and underhanded They could appear to be your best friend and you wouldn’t even know they were plotting against you. I need to know every vampire you’ve been in contact with since I left.”
“Besides D’Ablo and Em, there was the rest of
the Council of Elders, a small group that met here at the house—I don’t know their names—and Jasik, but he’s dead now. There was Ignatius ...” Vlad flicked his eyes to his father, guilt filling him. “I mean, my ... my grandfather. He’s also dead. Otis ... killed him. He had no choice. I’m sorry.”
“No need for guilty feelings, Vlad. He was an abysmal monster.” His dad squeezed his shoulder and smiled a small smile. Vlad relaxed some at the sight of that smile. “None of those sound like members. Hmmm ... perhaps they haven’t infiltrated your life. Can you think of anyone else? Someone close to you, perhaps, someone you feel you can trust?”
Vlad searched his memory, sighing. “Let’s see. There’s Vikas, of course. And the vampires in Siberia.”
“I trust Vikas completely. But others in Siberia ... well, let’s just keep an eye out for familiar faces, shall we?” Tomas looked troubled, but determined. “Anyone else?”
Vlad chewed his bottom lip for a moment before answering. “There was Dorian ..”
His dad’s eyes widened in instant shock. “Dorian? You ... met ... Dorian?’
Flashing through Vlad’s mind was every encounter that Vlad had ever had with Dorian. From their initial meeting, where Dorian had tried to force him to give his blood, to the strange conversations in the oddest places, to their last meeting, when Dorian had saved his life by sacrificing his own. Try as he might, he could not block out how Dorian’s blood had tasted on his tongue. He wet his lips and met his father’s gaze. “Um ... yeah. You could say that. You didn’t see him in the clearing that night, the night you came back?”
Tomas shook his head, filling Vlad with dread. Dread because he had to be the one to share the news—news which pained him and would forever. “He’s dead too.”
So much death, all surrounding him. Vlad’s heart sank as he wondered if those vampires would still be alive had they not come into contact with him.