And he was in the hospital . . . where doctors and nurses would surely notice his hunger for blood and his sharp-as-razors fangs.
Vlad turned his head, feeling less heavy, and looked at the nurse, who was checking the graph that was being printed by machine next to his bed. His lips were dry when he parted them to speak. “Where am I?”
The nurse looked up at him with surprised eyes. “You’re in Stokerton General Hospital. Are you in pain?”
Vlad licked his lips. “No. Just thirsty.”
Without a word, the nurse moved out the door. When she returned a moment later, she had a cup of water. Vlad sipped it slowly through the straw. He cleared his throat and asked, “Is my aunt here?”
The nurse smiled and patted his arm. “She just stepped out for a moment. I believe your uncle is in the waiting room. Would you like me to get him for you?”
Vlad blinked. “Otis is here?”
Without answering or waiting for Vlad’s reply, the nurse disappeared out the door again, leaving Vlad alone in his hospital room.
On a small panel to his left there were several buttons. Vlad tried a few until he found the one to help him sit up. After he did, he lifted the sheet and noted with great disgust that he was wearing one of those ugly blue-checkered hospital gowns. With any luck, the nurse who dressed him had been male, but Vlad doubted it. He ran a hand gently over his chest and noted the lump of bandages wrapped snugly around him.
In the hall, he heard someone running, followed shortly by a warning from one of the staff. Vlad’s door flew open, revealing a very relieved-looking Otis. When he met Vlad’s eyes, he sighed. “Thank goodness. I thought you might not make it.”
Vlad winced at the pain in his chest. “That makes two of us.”
Otis closed the door behind him and moved to Vlad’s side. “How do you feel?”
Relieved. Relieved he was looking once again at his uncle’s face, after he’d already said in his mind good-bye to Otis forever. That was the first thing that came to mind, but he didn’t say it. Vlad choked back tears but tried hard to keep his voice calm. “Tired. But otherwise, okay. The nurse said Nelly is here.”
Otis nodded and cast a longing glance at Vlad’s blood bag. His eyes look sunk in, as if he hadn’t eaten in days. “She and Henry just stepped out for some lunch. They’ll be back momentarily.”
The calming effect of the morphine released Vlad for a moment and he clutched Otis’s hand. “Uncle Otis, D’Ablo’s alive. I don’t know how. He drank some of my blood. And . . . Joss . . .”
Otis held up a hand. “We know everything, Vladimir. I’m just ashamed we couldn’t get there in time.”
“Joss staked me. He’s the slayer.” Vlad fought back tears at the memory.
Otis’s forehead creased. “We know.”
“We?”
Otis offered a nod. “Vikas and I. The moment I received your letter about Jasik’s attack, I boarded a plane for the Americas. But I was arrested in France by the Parisian council. Vikas managed to aid in my escape from Elysia just days ago, after he obtained proof that D’Ablo was still very much alive. We were in the car and minutes from Bathory when I heard your telepathic cry for help. We each tried to reach you, but D’Ablo must have been blocking your mind after that. I suspect a Tego charm but can’t be certain.”
Tears escaped Otis’s eyes. “When I saw you there, with that hunk of wood sticking out of your back, and all that blood . . .” He swallowed hard. “I just never thought I’d get the chance to teach you all of the things that I want; to show you all that I can. There’s so much I have to tell you, so much time I want to spend with you.”
Vlad took a deep breath and coughed some at the odd tickle in his chest. “I’ve never been to the hospital before. Won’t they know I’m . . . different?”
Otis dried his eyes. “It took us a while to convince Nelly that you had to come to the hospital in Stokerton. We have doctors on staff here, nurses, too. You’re under their care right now, so as not to raise suspicions.”
Vlad blinked. “So that nurse . . . ?”
“One of our kind, yes.”
There was a soft knock on the door, and then it swung open, revealing Vikas. He was still wearing his fur jacket, and on his brow glistened small beads of sweat. “It is warm here in your country, Vladimir.”
Vlad smiled. “Yeah, you might wanna lose that coat.”
As Vikas was slipping off his jacket, Vlad glanced at Otis. “When Jasik bit me, I felt really strange. Hot, dizzy, heavy. But I didn’t feel like that at all when you gave me my mark. Was it because Jasik was trying to kill me?”
A strange silence fell over the room for several moments. Then, clearing his throat, Otis said, “No, Vladimir. Jasik wasn’t trying to kill you—that would be against Elysian law. However, just as some vampires believe that the blood of the Pravus has great healing capabilities, some believe that if you were to drink enough of his blood, you could strengthen yourself completely against sunlight. Likely, Jasik believes that you are the Pravus. Or perhaps he drank so much just in case you were.”
Vlad thought about the healed hole in D’Ablo’s stomach and emitted a shuddering sigh. He wet his lips. “So, what happened to Joss?”
Otis and Vikas exchanged glances before Otis said, “By the time we arrived at the clearing in Bathory, having searched the town, we found you on the ground, slumped over. Joss was standing over you, his hands covered in your blood. D’Ablo and Jasik were nowhere in sight. Vikas checked your pulse.”
Vikas laid his jacket on a nearby chair. “It was very weak, but you were still alive. Your uncle examined you closer while I questioned the boy. He said nothing, but his thoughts gave away his crime. I offered to destroy him, but Otis refused me the pleasure. Instead, Nelly took him back to her home and telephoned an ambulance. She was very upset.”
Otis nodded gravely. “Vikas and I decided to take what precautions we could. I held you while he pulled the stake out. Then I cut my wrist and gave you as much blood as I could bear to.”
Vlad’s eyes welled with tears at Otis’s generosity. He shook his head. “But how did I survive? I mean, fairy tales aside, shouldn’t a stake through the heart kill just about any living thing?”
Again, Otis and Vikas exchanged glances. But this time, neither opted to reply.
Vlad looked at each of them for a moment before speaking. “What? He did miss my heart; otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Otis glanced at the floor and then back at Vikas before meeting Vlad’s eyes. “It’s possible he missed your heart and pierced a lung, but with as fast as you were healing after I put my wrist to your mouth . . . there’s no way to tell for sure.”
Vlad looked at Vikas and found no question in his eyes. He looked back at his uncle. “You do think I’m the Pravus, don’t you?”
Otis’s face grew white at the word, but he didn’t speak.
“Otis.” Vlad’s voice cracked. “Look at me.”
After a moment of hesitation, his uncle complied.
“Do you believe I’m the Pravus?”
Otis closed a hand over Vlad’s. An intense hope flickered in his eyes. “I believe that one day you will be a great man, Vladimir. And that prophecies and heritage count for nothing—it is our actions that decide what kind of men we are.” He squeezed Vlad’s hand, determination set in his jaw. “Let your actions speak to the world, Vlad.”
Vlad nodded, unable to speak.
Vikas squeezed Otis’s shoulder. Otis looked at him and gave an assenting nod, as if they were carrying on a conversation that Vlad couldn’t hear. Otis looked once more to Vlad and cleared his throat—the fear still lingering in his gaze. “I’ll go call Nelly. She’ll want to see you right away.”
Vlad swallowed the lump in his throat. “What about D’Ablo?”
Otis paused with his hand on the door and cleared his throat. “He’s returned to Elysia to continue his presidency.”
Vlad couldn’t speak. And if he’d b
een able to, he wouldn’t have. Some moments call for silence.
After Otis left the room, Vikas closed the door and turned back to Vlad. His dark eyes were brooding. “The boy is here. He wants to speak with you.”
Vlad furrowed his brow. “Joss?” His hand went instinctively to his bandaged chest.
Vikas nodded. “I will stay in the room to prevent incident.”
Vlad shook his head. He didn’t need a babysitter or a guard. Joss, despite all this, was Vlad’s friend. But when Vikas looked at Vlad, Vlad knew there would be no convincing him of the friendship he’d shared with the slayer. He took a sip of his water and sat it down on the table next to his bed. “When can I see him?”
Vikas stood very still, eyeing Vlad, as if there were something he wanted to share with him. But when Vlad raised an eyebrow at his Russian friend. Vikas merely moved to the door and opened it without saying a word.
Joss was standing out in the hall, staring intently at the floor between his feet. He walked into the room with hardly an upward glance. Vikas closed the door and stood protectively behind Joss until Vlad shook his head. Then Vikas chose a seat nearest Joss. It would have to do.
Vlad kept his tone clipped. The guy did stab him in the chest after all. “Why are you here, Joss?”
Joss looked up at Vlad but only for a moment. “Not to apologize, if that’s what you’re expecting.”
Vlad pursed his lips together. “You tried to kill me and you can’t even manage a feeble ‘I’m sorry’? Don’t you think I deserve at least that?”
Joss shook his head. The floor had apparently lost its interest, as he was looking into Vlad’s eyes. “It wouldn’t mean anything, because I wouldn’t mean it.”
“You don’t have to mean it, Joss.” Vlad took a breath— not too deep, as the pressure of the bandages prevented him from doing so—and quieted his tone. “But it would be nice to hear. At least pretend you care that I’m lying in a hospital.”
Joss winced. His eyes grew moist, but no tears fell. “I do care.”
Vlad met Joss’s gaze. “Then why? Why did you do it? Money? Sport? Because I’m a monster?”
“Because it’s my job, Vlad.” A tear betrayed Joss’s stern expression and rolled down his cheek. It hung briefly from his jaw before letting go and free-falling to the floor.
“You know virtually nothing about us, Joss. You fear what you don’t understand, and you react violently to what it is you fear. Have you ever thought of getting educated on the people you’re killing? Don’t you think you owe them that much?” The tickle in Vlad’s chest returned. He almost coughed but managed to suppress it.
Joss’s eyes were no longer shimmering. “Who am I supposed to learn from—one of you? My beliefs have been passed down to me from generation to generation. Centuries of knowledge and opinion.”
“Did you ever once try to think for yourself?” Vlad glared. His fangs threatened to push out of his gums at the scent of Joss’s blood pulsing through his veins, but he willed them to remain hidden. “I’m just lucky you missed and hit a lung. Why exactly did you come here? To finish the job, maybe?”
Joss glanced at Vikas. “With your bodyguard here, that would be incredibly stupid of me, wouldn’t it?”
Vlad smirked. “You gotta admit, it’s pretty stupid for an unarmed slayer to enter a closed room with two vampires, wouldn’t you say?”
Vikas’s deep laughter rolled through the room.
Joss slanted his eyes at Vlad. “Who says I’m unarmed?”
Vikas’s laughter ceased immediately. He stood and took a step closer to Joss before Vlad held up a hand to stop him.
The room was quiet for many minutes.
“Listen,” Vlad began. “Watch out for D’Ablo. He’s devious, evil—gives vampires a bad name, the way I understand it. You should be careful. Take whatever protective measures you can.”
Joss tilted his head. “Why are you telling me this?”
Vlad’s voice cracked. His cheeks were moist before he realized he was going to cry. “Because you’re my friend.”
Joss’s bottom lip trembled until he bit it back into submission. He turned to the door. His fingers had just brushed the handle when he glanced back at Vlad. “I came here to tell you I’m going back to Santa Carla.”
Vlad furrowed his brow. “What about finishing your job here?”
Joss shook his head. “The Slayer Society didn’t send me here, remember? It was a private job. As far as they know, and as far as I’m telling them . . . there are no vampires in Bathory.” Joss held Vlad’s gaze for a moment, then pushed the door open and stepped through it. He paused and glanced back over his shoulder. “By the way, I may have nicked a lung, but I didn’t miss. I never miss.”
Vlad pressed the button on the bed panel until he was lying down. Hot tears rolled from his eyes to the pillowcase.
There was no doubt now. He couldn’t fight it any longer. He was the Pravus, after all.
Vikas moved closer. “Are you in pain, Little Devil?”
Vlad shook his head slowly.
Vikas sighed. “The worst pain in the world goes beyond the physical. Even further beyond any other emotional pain one can feel. It is in the betrayal of a friend.”
Vlad closed his eyes, and despite his effort not to cry, more tears escaped.
“I have been betrayed as well by a friend, Vladimir. Perhaps one day we shall share these tales of pain and find a moment of laughter in them.”
Vlad gave up his effort and let the tears come. He wished that Vikas would leave him alone, so he could get all the pain out by crying into his pillow, but it seemed Vikas refused to leave.
Vikas was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “You should rest. Your aunt will be here soon, and no rest will come when there is mothering to be done.”
Vlad swore he could hear the smile in Vikas’s tone. It was followed by the click of the light switch and a closing door.
Vlad clutched his bandaged chest and cried.
Though Vlad couldn’t recall having slipped away into unconsciousness, he must have slept for a while, because when he opened his eyes again, they were crusty with sleep. He reached up and rubbed the crunchy gunk away. The only sound in the room was the heart monitor to his left that blipped and beeped occasionally. He hovered his finger over the nurse’s button, but the door to his room opened, so he relaxed his hand.
Nelly stepped in, wearing tear-smeared mascara with dark circles under her eyes. When she saw Vlad, she started crying again and hugged him. Vlad hugged her back and nudged her gently away from his shoulder so that he could understand what she was saying through her sobs. “You’re okay. Otis said you would be, but I just didn’t know. I thought . . . I thought I’d lost you!” She buried her face in her hands again, and Vlad hugged her close and let her cry.
He fought the tears but lost, weeping softly into Nelly’s shoulder for everything to be normal again. For all the pain and loss that he’d suffered from, that they’d suffered from, to be gone. At last his tears subsided, and he tried to sit back in a more comfortable position, but Nelly clung to him.
Vikas held the door open for Otis, who managed to coax Nelly away from Vlad after several minutes and substitute his own shoulder. Henry was in the hall, a bandage on his forehead, looking more than a little concerned. His eyes were puffy and red. With a shaking sigh, Henry entered the room and closed the door behind him. His expression shifted from upset to relieved when he met Vlad’s gaze.
Vlad smiled. He wanted to say something to ease their tension, to take away their sorrow, but he couldn’t think of anything, so he merely shrugged and asked, “So when can I go home?”
Over Nelly’s sobs, Otis said, “The doctors say a month, at the least. Despite how quickly you heal.”
Vlad sighed. “And how long will you be staying, Otis?”
Otis met his gaze. A glimmer of determination crossed his eyes. “Until late summer. And then I’m going to go find the ritual passage D’Ablo is so desperate for. A
fter all, without it, your life is safe.”
Vlad nodded, relieved Otis was staying for at least a little while, and pursed his lips, trying hard to push down the anger and sadness that he was feeling, but they refused to leave him, so he lay back and closed his eyes again.
"Don’t you think you’ve slept enough?” Henry was next to his bed, and probably wearing a smirk.
Vlad opened his eyes. Sure enough, Henry was smiling. After a second, so was Vlad. "I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Nelly shot him a wide-eyed look. "Vladimir! That’s not funny!”
Vlad grinned. “Okay, so I’ll sleep when I’m undead.”
Henry didn’t miss his cue. “Too late.”
Otis calmed Nelly’s protests by leading her out the door with promises of hot coffee, and Vikas followed, after exchanging smiles with Vlad and his rather amusing drudge.
After they were gone, Henry said, "Well, if the stake-through-the-heart stereotype isn’t true, I wonder what else is a myth. I mean, where’s your superhuman strength?”
"Don’t lose hope.” Vlad chuckled and winced at the pain in his chest.
Vlad pointed to the bandage on Henry’s head. “What happened?”
Henry’s fingers found the bandage, and he frowned. "Oh, that. It was the weirdest thing. I got this feeling, like I should find you, like you were going to be in trouble soon if I didn’t. And this guy came outta nowhere and clocked me over the head. I woke up a few hours later and just knew you’d been hurt. Your uncle said that that Jasik guy had taken me temporarily out of commission, something about getting your drudge out of the way long enough to get a stake into you.”
“Holy crap, Henry.” Vlad shook his head in astonishment. Apparently, D’Ablo and Jasik had all the little details ironed out.
Henry took on a more serious tone. “So about Joss . . .”
Vlad glanced at the door. “I don’t want to talk about him, Henry. In fact, I’d rather forget the whole thing ever happened.”
Henry nodded, and the room fell silent for a moment. Then, in an act of complete normalcy, Henry grinned and said, “Hey, did you see the cute nurse out in the hall?”