by Mari Mancusi
I mean, what if I make the wrong choice? Go with my feelings and decide something stupid, like staying vampire forever? Then what if after a few months we start not getting along so well? He’s staying out late and partying with the boys. And I’m stuck in the coven kitchen, crying in my bowl of blood. He comes home drunk and tells me that his feelings have changed. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he’ll say lamely. And then he’ll leave again. And I’ll be stuck, alone. A vampire without a blood mate. And I’ll wish I’d never given in and sacrificed my humanity, all because I thought a vampire looked yummy without his shirt on.
Okay, I’m projecting a bit here, but you get the point.
“Can’t we talk later?” I plead. “I really want to see about getting the Grail first.”
Magnus’s face falls. I can see his disappointment clearly. But all he does is nod. “Fine,” is his single-word answer.
He gets out of bed, slamming things around as he gets dressed. Letting me know, in not so many words, that he’s ticked off about my avoidance issues.
Well, tough. He’ll have to deal. I need that Grail blood. That’s my number one priority right now. Relationship talks can come later.
Soon, after showering and dining (don’t ask, I don’t want to talk about it!) we find ourselves once again making our way to Glastonbury in a speeding limo driving on the wrong side of the street. We’re both silent. Both staring out the windows to avoid looking at one another.
We approach the town limits. This time, however, there are no roadblocks or crazy drunken teens to keep us from our mission. This time we can drive right up to the main street of the once-again sleepy little hillside town.
We step out of the limo and instruct the ever-patient driver to wait. I look around. The place is utterly charming—your stereotypical little English village with pubs and art galleries and cozy tea shops that are spelled shoppe. Of course, everything’s closed for the night (except the pubs, which are packed with locals, most likely celebrating the fact that the damned festival is over for another year).
I whirl around, taking it all in. “This is so adorable! I love quaint little towns like this.” I peer into a darkened window. “It’d be so cool to come here in the day and really explore the place.”
“Well, if we don’t get moving, you won’t have that luxury ever again,” Magnus reminds me in a completely unwarranted grumpy tone. Ugh. What crawled up his butt and died?
“Okay, okay,” I say, abandoning the shop window to follow him down the road, which is lined by tall, skinny town-houses. “Where are we going, anyhow?”
“Here,” Magnus says, stopping abruptly in front of one of the nondescript townhouse doors.
“Here? How do you know it’s here?” I scratch my head. “It looks like every other house we’ve just passed.”
Magnus points to the brass knocker on the door. “The door bears the sign of the goddess,” he informs me. “Druids live here.”
“Oh. Okay.” Just shut up, go along, and don’t ask dumb questions, Sunny. “So are we going to just knock and ask whoever comes to the door about the Grail? Do you think they’ll know? Do you think they’ll tell us if they do?”
Magnus gives me a look. Shut up. Dumb questions. Right. I’ll just go check out this lovely flower box.
The vampire grabs the brass knocker and taps out a couple of short, then long knocks. I want to ask him if it’s some secret druid code he’s tapping, but I’ve learned my lesson on the dumb questions thing.
Moments later the door creaks open and a wizened old man with a long gray beard sticks his head out. I stare at him. He looks exactly like Gandalf the Grey of Lord of the Rings fame. How cool is that? Finally, after the disappointing images of the Slayer and the vampire leader Lucifent, someone who actually looks the part.
“Can I help you?” he asks in a deep, rumbly English voice.
“We seek audience with the Pendragon,” Magnus answers. “Can you help us?”
Gandalf’s eyes narrow. “What would one such as yourself seek with our Order? You are not of this world.”
Wow. He can tell that just by looking at Magnus? I wish I’d had that ability when I first met the guy. Then I wouldn’t be in all this mess.
Magnus bows his head low. “I am quite aware that I am a damned creature of the night, my lord. However, I have a great need that I hope can be addressed. And may I remind you, ’tis not the first time our two faiths have joined one another in noble purpose.”
“You speak true.” Gandalf opens the door wide. “Step inside, my son.”
Hmm. So the druids and the vamps have hooked up in the past? I wonder what that was about? I mean, you’ve got your druids, who are nature-loving tree huggers. Then you’ve got your vampires, who like to drink blood and lavish themselves in luxurious underground palaces. Not a big common bond, as far as I can see. But hey, what do I know?
We step inside the house and walk down a narrow corridor and into a quaint little parlor. Gandalf (who introduces himself as Llewellyn the Pendragon, which is evidently some kind of leadership position in the druid world) invites us to sit down and asks if we’d like a “spot o’ tea.”
“Though I understand it is not your drink of choice,” he says to me with a wink. Ugh. Grandpa Druid isn’t trying to hit on me, is he?
After we tell him we’re cool with the whole tea thing and would just prefer to get down to business, the old druid sinks into one of the parlor chairs and leans forward, elbows on his knees, saying he’s eager to hear our request.
So Magnus goes through the whole spiel. My accidental bite. How he’s been trying to reverse the transformation. How only a drop of pure blood from the Holy Grail can do the trick, yada, yada, yada.
“I see,” Llewellyn says when he’s finished. “And you are under the impression that we know where the Grail is buried.”
“I had hoped,” Magnus agrees, “that you would be so kind as to lead us there.”
“We have been chosen by the Goddess herself to be the Guardians of the Grail for millennia,” Llewellyn says, his voice cold and formal. “’Tis a task we take seriously. Allowing an unpure, undead being near the holy chalice would be blasphemy.”
My heart sinks at his words. Oh great. He’s going to be difficult about this, isn’t he? Figures. We get this far and then we’re totally shot down. I just know I am doomed to walk the earth as an undead forever. Perfect.
“I understand,” Magnus says. “Though perhaps a tithe, made to the Goddess, the great Earth Mother, would ease her mind about such a trespass.”
Llewellyn frowns. “Do you dare bribe me, vampire?” he asks, angrily. “You should know better than that. Our Order is based on love and nature and purity. We are not mercenaries, able to be bought with something as common as coin.”
“A tithe of one million pounds,” Magnus adds in an even voice.
My mouth drops open. So does Llewellyn’s, though he quickly shuts it again.
“Let me . . .” He clears his throat. “Let me consult with the Goddess in our Sacred Grove. I shall return with your answer.”
He rises from his seat and exits the room. Once he’s gone, Magnus turns to me.
“Lesson number one. Everyone has their price,” he says. “Even those who commune with nature must still pay rent and buy food at the market.”
I giggle. “But a million pounds, Mag?” I ask, remembering the amount he offered. “That’s a lot of money. Almost two million American dollars if I’ve got the conversion right. Are you sure you want to give a million pounds?”
“You are worth it.”
Gah. What do I even say to that? I can’t deal when he says stuff like that. I mean, in one sense I like it. It gives me that whole chills-tripping-down-my-spine thing. But in another, I realize it’s dangerous. I can’t succumb to his charm. I must move on with my life.
“Yeah, yeah,” I reply at last, using sarcasm to deflect his sentiments. “Whatever.”
Eager to change the subject, I bounce up from my se
at and head over to the door that Llewellyn has just exited. I put my ear to the wood. (Aren’t druids supposed to be one with the trees and thus against objects created through their demise, like wooden doors? It’d be like a Hindu chowing on cow or my vegetarian mom wearing leather pumps.)
“It’s a million pounds, dude!” a voice on the other side is saying. A voice, in fact, that sounds remarkably like Llewellyn’s, were he to use words like dude, which before now I would not have guessed him to do. “Is that bleeding fantastic or wot?”
“Yeah, but wot we’re supposed to be is Guardians and stuff,” another male voice argues. “You know. Sacred Mission and all that?”
“Eff that, mate. Do you know what kind of flat in London we could get for a million pounds? We could spend every night at the pub downing Stella, watching footy on the telly, and picking up fancy birds. It’ll be brilliant.”
Hm, somehow I’m thinking he’s not talking about blue-jays and robins here. So much for Nature Boy and his Holy Orders. I’m actually a bit disappointed. But if I’ve learned one thing on this crazy vampire journey, it’s that no one is really like you’d imagine them to be. And, of course, in this case, the old leader of an ancient druid order turning out to be a money-grubbing hooligan greatly works out to our benefit.
“A’right,” the other voice agrees. “But let’s show ’em the Grail real quick. In-and-out like, before the rest of ’em wake up from their festival ’angovers and we have to share the quid with those tossers.”
“Too right.”
I leap back to my seat, just in time for “Llewellyn” (BTW I’m pretty convinced now that’s a fake name; he’s probably really called Bob or something) to walk through the door in the most regal, ceremonial manner. Heh.
“Good people of the earth,” he begins, back to speaking like he’s a cast member from Lord of the Rings. “I have returned from my consultation with the Good Mother, who once bore the very earth from her womb.”
I stifle a giggle. Yeah. Good Mother, a.k.a Cockney friend in the kitchen, same diff.
“And?” Magnus prompts.
“And she has—” He pauses for dramatic effect. Honestly, these druids are almost as bad as the Goths. “—decided to grant your request. On the account that your mission is to purify and redeem the blood of a virgin who has been cruelly ripped from innocence by a damned creature of the Other World.”
Okay, I know his speech is total BS, but excuse me, how the hell does everyone know that I’m still a virgin? Really, I want to know. Is there some stamp on my forehead I can’t see? Some secret handshake I don’t know?
“Please tell the Good Mother that we are eternally grateful for her extreme generosity,” Magnus instructs, before I can tell the druid to stop casually throwing around the V-word. The vampire holds out a briefcase I hadn’t noticed him carrying. “And that I hope this tithe will further the good work that she pursues.”
Or allow two local guys to drink and get laid, in this case, but hey, it all works for me.
Llewellyn accepts the briefcase, his eyes shining with his greed, and opens it. Inside lie stacks upon stacks of high-numbered bills.
“Holy fu—” he starts, then catches himself. “Yes, this tithe will be most pleasing to Her Goodness.” He closes the briefcase and tells us he will return. Then he exits back into the kitchen.
Magnus and I exchange amused glances. “I still think he would have taken much less of a . . . donation,” I say.
The vampire shrugs. “I would have given him much more.”
I blush again. He’s been so good to me. “Thank you, Mag,” I say. “It really means a lot to me.”
“I know,” he says in a very serious tone. “It means a lot to me as well.”
23
Grail Hunting
About fifteen minutes later we’re climbing down a dark spiral stone staircase, deep underground, with Llewellyn as our guide. Still holding on to that false nature image, he insists on using a torch to light our way. But whatever. As long as we get there, I guess.
“This passageway leads underneath the mighty Tor,” our druidic tour guide explains. “It was dug a thousand years ago by our Order’s ancestors.”
Wow. Real fascinating. You know, this guy could get a job as a tour guide for the Tower of London, once he blows his million on booze and chicks.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and come to a wrought-iron gate. Llewellyn reaches into his robe to pull out an antique-looking key, made of gold. No high-tech key codes for these guys, I guess. He fits the key into the lock and the gate creaks open, revealing a low ceiling over a cobwebbed passageway, leading into the darkness.
In other words, my worst nightmare.
“This way,” Llewellyn commands, beckoning with a longfingernailed hand.
I stare down the passageway, trying to control my breathing. I’d kind of forgotten how claustrophobic I am. My heart starts pounding in my chest as I watch the torchlight dance off the low-hanging earthen walls. I’d give my left arm, firstborn—anything—if only I could get a halogen headlamp or something.
“It’s okay,” Magnus whispers in my ear. He grabs my trembling hand. “Relax.”
Easy for him to say. Harder for me to do as the walls seem to close in around me. My mind plays out scenarios of earthquakes and floods and other natural disasters that could cause the tunnel to collapse and bury us alive.
I realize I’m digging my nails into Magnus’s palm and I loosen my hold. “Sorry,” I whisper.
“It is said that Joseph of Arimathea once traveled these passages,” Tour Guide Llewellyn presses on, completely oblivious to my stress. “Wanting to discover a safe place to store the cup of his cousin, Jesus Christ, whose blood he had collected as he lay dying on the cross. He felt that blood this pure and holy could be put to good use someday.”
“Good thinking, Joey my boy,” I mutter.
“He did not feel that, with the persecution of the Christians in the eastern lands, the artifact would be safe. So he entrusted it to our Order. And we have guarded it since.”
Yeah, until today, when you sold out poor Joey for a million bucks.
“The cup itself is affixed to a massive stone and cannot be moved. But I have prepared two vials made out of the purest crystal, for you to fill.”
“You must wait for Saturday night to actually drink,” Magnus whispers. “According to what I have read.”
Darn. So it’s not an instant reverse-o-matic kind of thing. Figures. But still, I finally have hope. And that’s what’s important.
We reach a massive door made out of stone. Using another ancient-looking key, Llewellyn unlocks it and the door swings silently open.
We step inside and I draw in my breath, all thoughts of claustrophobia disappearing in an instant.
I don’t know how many of you have seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but in that movie, he gets to the room where the Holy Grail is stored and there are a million different ornate cups and he has to figure out which one is the real one, ’cause if he drinks from the wrong one he’ll die. And it turns out to be the plainest cup of them all.
Well, let me tell you, that’s just another one of Hollywood’s misconceptions.
For one thing, the room we enter appears to be made entirely of gold. Gold floor. Gold ceiling. Gold walls. And there’s only one cup. One Holy Grail. And it’s certainly not plain by any stretch of the imagination. It sits front and center, affixed to a massive boulder as Llewellyn mentioned, and is the most ornate cup I’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s gold. There are jewels affixed to it. It’s darn fancy, this Holy Grail.
“The Grail,” Llewellyn says with a flourish of his hand.
I look over to Magnus to voice my excitement. I notice he’s suddenly sweating bullets. Actually sweating blood, if you want to be literal about it. He’s also breathing hard and his face is corpse white.
“Are you okay?” I ask. I haven’t seen him this affected since I teased him with the cross the first night—
; That’s it! Being so close to such a religious artifact must be driving him nuts. Poor guy.
“I’m . . . fine,” he says in a tight voice. “Just . . . get . . . the blood.”
Llewellyn pulls out two clear vials from a pocket in his robe and walks over to the Grail. Magnus makes a soft choking sound and I reach over to squeeze his hand. If I’d known how much this would bother him, I would have suggested I go alone.
I turn back to Llewellyn and watch him dip the vials into the cup, filling them with a dark, crimson liquid. Then he seals each vial and hands one to me and the other to Magnus.
“Wait, Magnus can’t—” I start. I don’t want the vial to burn his hand or something.
“I’m fine, Sunny,” Magnus says, accepting the vial. “It’s sealed.”
Oh. Well, who knew? I turn the vial in my hand. “This thing isn’t very breakable, is it?” I ask. “’Cause it would suck to get all the way home and have some kind of carry-on luggage accident.”
Llewellyn shakes his head. “It is made of crystal and is thick and strong. However, I gave each of you a vial, in case some unfortunate incident should occur.”
Well, that was nice of him to think of a contingency plan. But hey, we just gave the guy a million pounds, so we should be expecting good service, I suppose.
“Great.” I stuff the vial in my shirt pocket. “Then are we all set here?” I take one last look at the Grail, wishing I’d brought my camera phone. I could have sold the photo to some museum and recouped the million we spent. Um, that Magnus spent, anyhow.
“Come, let us leave the sacred place,” Llewellyn says, heading to the door. “It looks as if it is causing your friend much pain.”
He’s right. Poor Magnus. We should get the hell out of here ASAP before the guy has a seizure or something. So I follow Llewellyn out and we head back through the passageway. I realize my heart is pounding again. But this time, it’s not pounding with claustrophobic fear. This time it’s pounding with joy.
“We did it!” I whisper to Magnus, reaching over to give him a hug. “I’m going to get to be human again!”