Too soon, the all-encompassing glow faded.
Blinking back black-and-blue spots, I whispered, “You okay?”
Kieren’s wet nose nuzzled my cheek, and he woofed, soft and sure.
I squeezed my eyes closed as tightly as I could and then opened them again, at first seeing more spots, and then a moment or two later, the landscape came into focus.
The newly freed prisoners had fallen to their knees.
The fog had lifted. The sentries had vanished.
Heaven’s light, emitted by the angel, had burned them all to dust.
Them, but not me. Not me, but Harrison.
I’d never trusted him, never saw in him what Zachary and Freddy did — not until the end. Maybe my fellow neophyte had lived in the service of evil — sought it, embraced it, sacrificed his humanity for it. But when Harrison had died, truly died, he’d done so at the side of his brother and an angel of the Lord, fighting for what was right. Harrison had died like my Uncle Quincey, so many generations earlier — as a gallant gentleman.
With Kieren at my heels, I jogged to fetch Zachary’s holy sword, no longer flaming, from the burned grass. Now the only question was whether it had worked.
As Kieren and I neared, Freddy said, “Aimee, your collar!”
When she lowered it, the burn scar had disappeared from her neck. It was gone. And in its place the tattooed crosses were back again. Freddy let out a whoop, Kieren let out a woof. Aimee started laughing and crying, and Zachary gave her a hug.
Approaching, I ceremoniously held out the sword to him, one palm beneath the hilt and one beneath the blade. “I guess you’ll want this back.”
Zachary returned the weapon to its scabbard and then drew me into a celebratory embrace. “And I know,” he whispered, “that you’re not losing your soul.”
We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming . . .
“This is Maria Davis of Austin News Eleven, reporting live outside San Antonio, where tonight police, firefighters, and EMTs were summoned to a compound where they found over fifty people, some of whom had been reported missing. Several had suffered minor injuries, including bite marks.
“They’ve been telling tales of bloodsuckers, wolves, and werewolves, and — most remarkably — of a visitation from both an angel and what one called ‘the literal and divine presence of the Lord.’
“I’m standing here with Dr. Kerly McNeal, a noted psychiatrist. Tell me, Doctor, what could trigger this sort of mass — hang on. I’m sorry, sir. We’ll get back to you.
“This just in: the roof of a private home in the Fairview neighborhood has just exploded. Owners Meara and Roberto Morales were home at the time, along with their seventeen-year-old son, Kieren; Detective Konstantine Zaleski of the Austin Police Department; and sixteen-year-old Clyde Gilbert, a friend of the family.
“Miraculously, only Gilbert suffered serious injuries, though he reportedly was alert and responsive to EMTs at the scene.”
“Is this straight?” Kieren asked, holding the box-framed kukri and bowie knives against the wall in Sanguini’s foyer.
We’d found them hanging over the fireplace in Bradley’s Victorian mansion at the compound, along with an old book of hand-scribbled incantations (checked out of the New Schwarzwald Public Library by “Bugs” Moran in 1931).
We also came across a handful of pamphlets talking about the coming apocalypse and a new underworld order and calling for the overthrow of Sabine’s Mantle of Dracul. Apparently, Brad had been some kind of revolutionary, and so were the established vamps at the compound who’d followed his lead.
That had been four nights ago, and since then, Kieren had referred to me out loud and in front of other people as his girlfriend — twice. It sounded kind of old-fashioned and clunky and ridiculously possessive, and of course, coming from him, I loved it.
He had also adjusted remarkably well to the idea of my having an earthbound guardian angel, almost as if he’d suspected all along.
“That’ll do,” Sergio said, picking up the hammer and nails from the hostess stand. “Where did y’all find these relics, anyway?”
“Family heirlooms,” I said. The knives looked fierce alongside the photos of my parents, grandparents, and Vaggio. Maybe someday I’d add a photo of Uncle Davidson. For now, we’d scheduled his memorial service for next weekend and planned to scatter his ashes at Hippie Hollow.
“Quincie!” Zachary called from the empty dance floor. “A little help?”
“On my way!” I limped after him to the kitchen to carry platters of sausage lasagna to the private dining room.
I was still a vampire, and the blood would always call. But Kieren had been right. Despite my undead status, the Big Boss (AKA God) and I were on stellar terms. Or at least as good as we had been, back when I was a regular human person.
It was this huge deal. According to Zachary, no vampire before me had ever managed to resist taking a human life and, therefore, remain wholly souled.
Apparently, we’d had our wires crossed since day one. It had never occurred to me that the angel would assume that I’d killed, at least upon first rising, and it had never occurred to him that I hadn’t.
My GA himself looked less beat-up today, though on Miz Morales’s orders, he was supposed to be taking the rest of the week off. She’d stitched his cuts, and the bruises had begun to fade. It would be some time, though, before he flew again. In the meanwhile, he kept muttering and shaking his head, as if pleasantly stunned.
“Do you think it’s big enough?” I asked.
Glancing up from a chafing dish, Zachary said, “It’s miraculous. I’m still not sure where we go from here. You’ve rocked heaven itself, Quincie.”
Talk about a one-track mind. “Um, thanks. But I was talking about the buffet table. It’s too short. I’ll grab another leaf.”
The Morales family, Aimee and Clyde, Mr. Wu and Mrs. Levy, and Detectives Zaleski and Wertheimer arrived minutes later along with Sergio, Mercedes, Simone, Yani, Xio, Jamal, Sebastian, and the rest of the veteran staffers.
Several came decked out to work that evening, but most of the guests — myself included — wore regular clothes, though I’d made a point of yanking on my blood-wine cowboy boots. This was, after all, still Sanguini’s.
Every time I talked to Aimee, she hugged me and started dancing around.
“You have to stop doing that,” I insisted. “You’re freaking me out.”
Aimee laughed. “Oh, I will. Next time you decide to go off and do something stupid, I’ll be all over it. But for now . . .”
Freddy had told me that there had been a few dicey moments in the SUV when she had unwittingly responded to Brad’s call. But then, when he’d tripped, charging up Brad’s driveway, it had been Aimee — despite her sprained arm — who’d come to her senses and his rescue by taking out a wolf-form sentry with her holy-water gun.
I was proud of her. I could tell that she would never forget Travis, but Aimee had fully embraced her own second chance at life.
Before skipping off to grab some lasagna, she hugged me again. “My hero!”
“God!” I exclaimed. “That is so embarrassing!”
“Quincie,” Zachary called from across the table, “watch your mouth.”
Damn. My guardian angel’s tone had been light, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn’t want to have to tell me twice.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked Clyde, crouching beside his wheelchair.
He’d been brought out of his coma by the spell that had cost the Moraleses the roof of their house, but he still looked banged up.
“My whole body hurts.” He gestured. “This, here, the crook of my elbow, it hurts. But I’m here and I’m hungry, and that’s something.”
Whatever tension there had been between the Opossum and the Wolf when Kieren had initially fled for the pack, it was gone now.
As Clyde pointed his wheels at the buffet, Nora and Miz Morales walked up, talking intently. Meara had refu
sed to tell anyone the details of the healing spell, though I did know that Kieren had gotten home just moments before the place blew.
Nora offered me a gentle smile. “Quincie, hon, Meara and I have been talking, and, well, I’d like to personally invite you to move back into your own room.”
“You’re always welcome at our house,” Miz Morales emphasized. “And we’ll remain your legal guardians. But with the roof to replace and Kieren back for good —”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I love you guys, but I was starting to get homesick.”
I could fess up later that I was probably failing Chem.
Dr. Morales made his way over with Meghan. “Quincie,” he began, “I hate to bother you with this . . .”
“Oh, Roberto!” his wife exclaimed. “You can’t possibly —”
Meghan pumped her plump, peach-fuzzy arm up at me, and I saw that she was holding a palm-size bottle labeled HOLY WATER. “Drink!”
“She won’t let it go,” Dr. Morales said.
“Now, Meghan,” Miz Morales began, “how many times have we explained to you that Quincie is not what you think she is? You see . . .” Meara gestured to Kieren’s crucifix, resting against my shirt. “But she has gone through a difficult time lately, and we have to understand that she’s sensitive about the subject of —”
“It’s no big deal,” I replied, reaching for the bottle. “I’ll drink it.” If I could wield an angel’s sword and bask in heaven’s light, a little holy water couldn’t hurt.
As I unscrewed the cap, Meghan’s eyes went wide, and I realized that Zachary had come up behind me. Apparently, his famed appeal wasn’t lost on the next generation.
Meghan was so transfixed by the angel that she hardly seemed to register that I threw back the whole bottle of holy water in one gulp. No harm done.
At almost midnight, Freddy headed out to change into his vampire-chef outfit. He seemed to be taking the loss of his twin as well as could be expected. All he’d say on the subject was “It’s better this way.”
Sabine was considerably less philosophical. Apparently losing Harrison, failing to find a competent event planner, and being almost displaced by Count Dracula had made it a rough month to be queen.
It had turned out, though, that according to eternal law, as Brad’s only known heir, I had inherited the house in Old Enfield, the compound in San Antonio, and a still unfolding but enormous amount of money in various foreign accounts.
When Sabine told me on the phone, I was so flabbergasted that — much to Zachary’s horror — I invited Her Majesty and Philippe to Sanguini’s upcoming Halloween bash, and she said oui.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked the angel, who’d taken a breather from the party to get some fresh air on Sanguini’s roof.
I probably shouldn’t have let him help set up today. Zachary hadn’t broken any bones, but he’d taken a pretty brutal fall back at the compound. Miz Morales had done her best, but her healing power was based in magic, not miracles. I’d all but hid my own injuries but was still battle-sore myself.
“I miss her more at times like this,” Zachary said, looking back at me. “When everything seems okay, at least for now, and I don’t have anything to distract me.”
Suddenly, we weren’t talking about bruises on the outside.
“Still,” he added, “I’ll see Miranda again someday, if I just have faith.”
“The way I see it,” I replied, sitting beside him, “you’ve only traded places. You used to watch over her, and now she’s watching over you.”
Zachary brightened. “You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Finally, after much more chatter and laughter and Italian cuisine, it was time to say good night to family and friends, hand-in-hand with my tantalizing Wolf man.
On our way out, the GA winked at me, and Mrs. Levy gave Kieren a high five.
As we cut through the dining room, Sinatra was singing “Our Love Is Here to Stay.” I felt so light and normal and happy in the midst of all the pseudosupernatural activity. The fan boys and fan girls, the urban cowboys and cowgirls, the button-down types out for a night with wild things.
The frolicking pretend fiends. I admired the hot blonde with the cat o’ nine tails, the redhead in the monstrously huge pearl-and-diamond necklace, the pixie in a cool black felt cowboy hat. Mercedes’s dads dancing, cheek-to-cheek, in matching tuxes . . . the buxom woman in flapper fringe . . . and the beauty with the heavily kohled eyes and a crescent-moon bindi. Deliciously wicked and wickedly delicious.
Sanguini’s: A Very Rare Restaurant was my home.
“What’s with Meghan?” I asked. “She went gaga over Zachary.”
Kieren leaned in. “According to your angel, the pure of heart can recognize him for what he is. Little kids mostly. Mitch, before he was made undead.”
I thought about it. “So, I may have a whole soul, but I’m not pure of heart?”
Kieren waggled his thick eyebrows. “Makes my life more interesting.”
Wrapped around each other on a bench on the pedestrian bridge over Town Lake, Kieren and I stared at the heavens. It was hard to make out the stars, what with all the light pollution from the city. But we watched the black birds swoop and the black bats swirl. It almost looked as if they were dancing. If I someday reached Old Blood status, I’d be able to take bat form and join in their aerobatics. Just the idea of it was dizzying.
“I’ve been thinking . . .” Kieren began. “You’ll always look like you, and Zachary will always look like him. Meanwhile, I’ll grow old and mangy.”
“Mangy?” I glanced at him sideways. “Don’t say mangy. Mangy is harsh.”
“Hmm.” Kieren offered a Wolfish grin. “You don’t suppose my guardian angel is impossibly good-looking?”
“Doubt it,” I replied, and he growled playfully.
“By the way,” I added, taking his hand. “I keep meaning to thank you.”
He nuzzled my hair. “For . . . ?”
“Always believing in me.”
As Kieren leaned in for a kiss, I noticed Mitch shuffling toward us on the bridge. In scratchy lettering, his cardboard sign read:
Abraham “Bram” Stoker first introduced his title character Dracula, the king of all literary vampires, in a famed 1897 novel.
Blessed and my two novels that preceded it — Tantalize and Eternal — are a conversation of sorts between me and Stoker about several of his themes, including the “other,” the “dark” foreigner, invasion, plague, the role of religion, and gender-power dynamics.
Throughout, I’ve made an affectionate effort to honor his classic while still being willing to reinterpret and extend its mythology. Nods to his work abound, not the least of them being the integrated epistolary elements (correspondence, menus, obituary) and aspects of the structure of this third novel. However, Stoker’s world doesn’t, for example, appear to have more than one kind of vampire, and so far as we know, his Count Dracula didn’t transform from one breed of undead to another. Consequently, I enthusiastically recommend studying Dracula yourself rather than relying on Quincie’s rather abbreviated summary and idiosyncratic interpretation of the text. And keep in mind, as Nora mentions, in my fictional world, Stoker’s story is only loosely based on truth.
Readers — both old-school and pop culture — may also spot passing references to the words and works of Forrest J Ackerman, Douglas Adams, Charles Addams, M. T. Anderson, Fred Astaire, Paul Barber (Vampires, Burial, and Death), L. Frank Baum, Jesse Belvin, Pat Benatar, William Peter Blatty, Blondie, Andy Breckman, the Brontë sisters, the Brothers Grimm, Dan Brown, Gottfried August Bürger (“Lenore”), Chris Carter (The X-Files: I Want to Believe), Stephen Chao, David Chase, Children’s Television Workshop, Rosemary Clement-Moore, Montgomery Clift, Gene Colan, Davy Crockett, Don DaGradi, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jean Evans, Bill Finger, Pink Floyd, Katie Ford, Clark Gable, Ward Greene, Doug Hajicek, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gaynel Hodge, Shirley Jackson, Ed James, Billy Joel, Bob Kane, Erich Kästner, Ja
cqueline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Joseph Kesselring, Edward Khmara, Annette Curtis Klause, Noel Langley, Jesse Lasky, Jr., Marc Lawrence, Michael Linder, Jeph Loeb, Susan Lowell, Caryn Lucas, George Lucas, Robin Menken, Richard O’Brien, Ovid, Luciano Pavarotti, I. M. Pei, Erdman Penner, Edgar Allan Poe, Giacomo Puccini, Nicholas Ray, Anne Rice, Joe Rinaldi, Jerry Robinson, Gene Roddenberry, J. K. Rowling, Joe Ruby, Jane Russell, Maurice Sendak, William Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Fred Silverman, Frank Sinatra, John Sinclair, Ed Solomon, Ken Spears, Scott Spencer, Steven Spielberg, Henry Morton Stanley, David Swift, Algernon Sydney, Iwao Takamoto, J. R. R. Tolkien, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Matthew Weisman, Lawrence Welk, Joss Whedon, Curtis Williams, Marv Wolfman, Ralph Wright, and Vernon Zimmerman.
However, The Blood-Drinker’s Guide, A Taste of Transylvania, Demonic Digest, The Gothic Gourmet, Underworld Business Monthly, Eternal Elegance, the Eternal News Network (ENN), and other media references are entirely fictional.
Likewise, I had fun playing with historical figures and events.
Thank you, President Buchanan. Sorry to ruin your inaugural ball like that.
When it comes to setting, Austinites will note that the official name of Town Lake has been changed to Lady Bird Lake, in honor of former first lady Lady Bird Johnson. However, old habits die harder than vampires, and many of us still call it Town Lake.
Furthermore, my novel incorporates a handful of fictional streets, private homes, businesses, and the nonprofit Bat Anti-Defamation League.
My own creations also include Whitby Estates on Chicago’s north shore; New Schwarzwald, Michigan; and — I’m saddened to admit — Sanguini’s: A Very Rare Restaurant in south Austin. And yet I can assure you that the essence of the vampire-themed restaurant is quite real and eternally thirsty.
Thanks to the choirs of angels in the Austin children’s and YA book community, at Candlewick Press, and at Curtis Brown Ltd. Special thanks to Brian Anderson; another Brian (in admissions at the University of Texas); Elson Oshman Blunt; Gene Brenek; Shutta Crum; Ginger Knowlton of Curtis Brown; Shayne Leighton; Tracy Marchini and Anna Umansky; Elizabeth Miller (A Dracula Handbook); Greg Leitich Smith; everyone at Vermont College of Fine Arts; Jennifer Yoon; and especially Deborah Wayshak.