Dracul

by Finley Aaron

  “Hmm, Blackjack for Total Idiots,” I read the title as he pulls out the books and sets them on the dining room table.

  “You can keep it for as long as you need it.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I murmur sarcastically as I assess the collection. “These are all about blackjack.”

  “It’s the only game in which a skilled player can turn the odds in his favor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you learn the techniques outlined in these books, you can acquire the skills necessary to beat the house. You can consistently win, and win large sums in a relatively short time.”

  His prediction doesn’t fit with what I learned in my How to be Successful in College and in Life freshman seminar. Of course, gambling was only a footnote in the financial strategies lecture. The idea of actually winning money by gambling was dismissed as a foolish hope that would lead to certain failure.

  “The house always wins.” I repeat what we learned in class.

  “Read the books.”

  I shake my head. “If it’s so easy to beat the house at blackjack, why doesn’t everybody do it?”

  “It isn’t easy. Simply possible. Read the books.” Constantine pulls what looks like an ordinary insulated lunch bag out of the backpack.

  “I have a lot of legitimate studying to do. There’s a major thesis paper I may have mentioned—”

  As I’m speaking, Constantine unzips the lunch case, revealing a very old, leather-bound volume.

  My breath catches in my throat.

  Is it the book?

  There isn’t any title on the cover, but then again, he said there was no print run, just a single, handwritten volume.

  It has to be the book. The book I flew to London for (or at least, the original of that translation). The book I feared I’d never find. The book that could make or break my thesis paper—more than that, my entire college degree. It could also explain certain mysteries that have haunted me for years.

  “That’s some pretty old leather.” I try to make my voice sound casual.

  “It’s human skin.”

  “What?”

  “The binding is human skin, tanned like leather. Not an uncommon practice at the time when I wrote this. And it seemed a fitting choice, given the content of the story.”

  Sure, I’ve heard before of the practice of tanning human skin like leather. Seems to me I’ve even seen a book or two made of the stuff, behind glass cases in museums. Very medieval. Very morbid.

  Very apropos.

  Just not exactly something I expected to see in a lunch cooler on my dining room table.

  In the next room, the coffee maker gives off the sizzling, steamy sound that means the last of the water is passing through the coffee grounds. Constantine and I both turn to look at the pot of hot brown liquid.

  “The blackjack books you may keep to read at your leisure,” Constantine offers. “But this book is safer with me.”

  Based on the trouble I’ve had with the bats, I admit, “I think I’ll be safer if that book stays with you.”

  “Indeed,” Constantine agrees with a frown. “I know it is late. If you prefer, I can take my book and go. Or if you would like, I could start reading and translating Viața.”

  “You said you’d translate it on the condition that I help you boost your bankroll.” I hold up Blackjack for Total Idiots emphatically.

  “Are you ready to agree to those terms?”

  I stare at the pile of blackjack books and blow out a long breath. “You said it isn’t easy?”

  “It is not so very difficult, either. Certainly not for a person of your intelligence and determination. I will make you a deal. Tonight, I translate for you a bit of Viața. When you have time in the next day or two, you look over the blackjack books and decide if you want to commit. In exchange for the translation of the entire book, you come with me to Vegas five weekends. It is all very straightforward, no strings attached. I will pay all your expenses, airfare, meals, your own hotel room in a five-star hotel, front money for gambling—everything you need. You get your primary source, I boost my bankroll. We are all very happy, yes?”

  For the first half of his speech, I watch Constantine’s face. Then I realize his charming manner is far too persuasive, so I stare at the human-skin book instead.

  I’m not going to lie. It does occur to me that I could steal the book. Constantine may be a vampire (or not, I’m still not convinced), but I’m pretty sure my alter ego can take his.

  But I’m an honest person, or at least an honest dragon. I’m not a thief.

  And even if I did manage to successfully wrest the book away from him, I’d still have to keep it from falling into the hands of the other vampires. I’d have to find a translator—but who could possibly translate it better than the man who wrote it in the first place?

  Assuming Constantine actually is the author, which would mean he actually is a vampire, which I’m still not sure about.

  “Coffee first.” I head to the kitchen with a sigh, and Constantine follows me, thoughtfully bringing his empty hot cocoa mug from earlier.

  “And then I read a bit for you?” He holds out his cup while I pour coffee for each of us.

  I switch off the coffee maker with a decisive flourish. “You read me a sample of Viața, then I decide.”

  We settle in with our mugs of coffee at the dining room table. I pull out my phone.

  “What are you doing with that?” Constantine asks.

  “I’m going to record everything you say.”

  “Why?”

  “I need a record of the translation. Or were you planning to type up a translated edition of the book for me?”

  Constantine scowls. “Perhaps this was not such a good idea.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want another copy of this information to exist in any form. It’s too dangerous.”

  “But I have to have a copy of it in some form. My professor expects me to use a real, tangible source. If I don’t have an authentic link to this material, how can I prove I didn’t just make everything up? What if she asks to see the book? I’m already on shaky ground because my bibliography listed Melita Thorne’s translation, not the Romanian original.”

  “If she asks, tell her the library didn’t have the translation, so you had to revert to the original. I will even go with you to let her look at the original, and read to her the translated material. Tell her you took notes as it was translated. That is the best I can do.”

  “You want me to take notes instead of recording you?”

  “If you want me to translate, yes. Frankly, I don’t understand why you’re resisting my terms. I can find anyone to go to Vegas with me, yet this is the only copy of the book you need. You should be begging me to agree to this deal, not the other way around.”

  So I stare at my phone and think about it, my over-tired thoughts spinning with caffeine-fueled confusion. What are the odds that the lone copy of this book would show up on my doorstep just when I needed it? If Constantine’s theory is correct, the vampires followed me home when I went in search of Melita’s translation.

  And Constantine followed the vampires.

  So he kind of is a stalker, but he wasn’t stalking me, not directly. He was stalking the vampires…who were stalking me.

  Super creepy.

  “Fine.” I pull out a notebook and a fresh pen. “Translate. I’ll take notes.”

  So Constantine starts reading in old Romanian, and for a few seconds I’m transfixed as a shiver ripples up and down my spine. Sure, I’ve been to Romania plenty of times and heard the people speak the modern equivalent of the tongue. But this?

  This is like jumping back in time. Call me gullible or overtired, but it doesn’t take much imagination to believe the guy sitting across the table from me actually lived hundreds of years ago, as he claims.

  I shake off my stupor and gulp a long draught of coffee.

  The words are mostly for
eign, but I can pick out a few recognizable Latin cognates. Most noticeable, though, are the names. I recognize Vlad. And every time Constantine says, “Dracul,” I flinch internally, almost as though I’ve been struck. Vlad Dracul was Vlad Dracula’s father. In my research, I’ve had to take pains to keep track of which one was which one.

  Dracul means dragon.

  Dracula, son of the dragon.

  Dracula was Vlad Dracul’s son. What a family.

  After several long sentences, Constantine switches to English. “Shortly before dawn on February 8th, 1431, Prince Vlad of Wallachia, the son of Mircea the Great, was inducted into the Order of the Dragon at the imperial fortress in Nuremberg. This secret society, founded by the Holy Roman Emperor, was highly selective. There were only 24 members from all of Europe, most of them princes of larger, wealthier lands. Vlad was included largely because of his (and his father’s) success in ruling a tumultuous country. Their land was geographically pivotal, lying at the crossroads of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but also, as would soon prove crucial, in the path of the advancing Ottoman Turks.

  “Though Imperial Rome did not esteem Vlad or his people very highly, nonetheless, they realized Wallachia was a critical outpost, both geographically and politically, and a decisive point of defense against the surging Turkish forces. If Wallachia were ever to fall, war would come to the rest of Europe, and all of the Holy Roman Empire would be in grave danger.”

  Constantine pauses to switch back to Romanian, and I jot down hasty notes, well aware that nothing he’s said so far is new information. I probably could have given the same summary from the rest of my research, though not in such a chilling accent or rumbling voice.

  After reading a Romanian passage, Constantine continues in English, “As part of his induction into the Order of the Dragon, and to bind himself irrevocably to the Empire, Vlad took a new bride from the Imperial royal family. Thus was born to him on December 13, 1431, a son, Vlad. The elder Vlad, in keeping with his membership in the Order, was known among his people as Vlad Dracul. His son, then, was referred to as Vlad Dracula, or Vlad, the Son of the Dragon.”

  Some of this stuff I knew, but elements of it are new information. I’m jotting furiously, but I drop my pen as Constantine takes a deep breath, about to continue in Romanian.

  “Wait. Vlad Dracul already had one son at that point. He took a new bride? I—I was aware from my research that he had a number of wives and mistresses over the course of his lifetime. It was common practice then, death rates and life expectancies being what they were, and heirs being so important. But I’d never heard who…”

  “Her name is not recorded. She did not last long. None of them ever lasted long.”

  “None of them?” I cringe. Sure, because of my research, I’m fully aware that females were poorly treated in medieval society. But still, the way Constantine dismisses these women as though they didn’t matter…as though they were disposable…not even worthy of being named…

  “I tried to learn their names.” Constantine’s eyes hold something that looks like regret or apology—or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see. “There has been scholarly speculation into the identities of Vlad Dracul’s wives, but the sad truth is, the women who lived long enough to bear him children, often died in childbirth. None of them ever lasted long.”

  I flip open another notebook to a page where I’ve copied the family tree. “He had three sons born to him in his youth, in addition to those born in his later years. Mircea, born in 1428, named after Mircea the Great, Vlad’s father. Vlad Dracula, born 1431. And Radu the Handsome, born 1435.”

  “They were born of three different mothers,” Constantine clarifies. “And his later children, different mothers still. So you see, though Vlad Dracula had many brothers, none of them were full brothers. But your research paper is about Vlad, not his father or brothers.”

  “His family of origin is important. It helps us to understand who he was.”

  Constantine frowns. He’s silent a moment, then offers in a still, almost foreboding tone, “We understand who Vlad Dracula was through his actions. His actions were shaped in part by the values of the cultures in which he was raised, as well as by his early life experiences, which were, as I’m sure you are well aware, quite trying. But do not confuse him with his brothers. Ever. Mircea, Vlad, and Radu were all very different people. Very different.” Constantine’s words snap with an energy like anger, which he seems to be struggling to restrain. “They carried their father’s name and blood. That is where their similarities ended.”

  In the wake of his speech, waves of silence pulse palpably through the room. Or maybe it just feels that way because my heart is slamming inside my ribs.

  Did this guy know Vlad Dracula personally?

  And is he trying to defend him?

  Or condemn him?

  Constantine is staring at the light fixture as though he expects the bat to rematerialize there. Or perhaps that’s just the direction his face is turned, and his thoughts are hundreds of years away.

  I don’t even know what to say. Maybe Constantine really is a vampire. Maybe he is hundreds of years old.

  Though I’m not sure I believe his wild identity claims, at the same time, I can’t deny he has strong feelings about Dracula’s family. Finally, I confess, “I still don’t understand where you fit into this picture.”

  Abruptly, Constantine closes the book and stands. “It is getting late. You need your sleep. I have given you enough of an introduction. You have the information you need to make your decision. I will let you sleep on it.”

  Desperation flashes through me. I want to hear more! I need to hear more. I’ve been searching for answers for so long, and now the answers are here, in my house, in that creepy skin-bound book I cannot read.

  I stand as well, ready to ask him to stay a little longer.

  The room shifts slightly, and I slap my palms against the table to steady myself.

  It is late. Or perhaps more accurately, it’s early morning, and I haven’t slept yet. I’m already behind on sleep from dealing with the bats in recent nights, so my exhaustion has reached the point where I can’t ignore it any longer. Coffee or no coffee, Constantine is right. I need my sleep.

  By focusing on each step, I’m able to walk steadily as I follow Constantine to the front door.

  “I will call you tomorrow afternoon,” he promises. “Tomorrow the sun is supposed to shine, so I won’t be able to come over until the sun has gone down, but this time of year in Montana, that is before six o’clock.”

  Right. The vampire thing. He’s still sticking to that story.

  “I’ll keep my phone close so I don’t miss your call.” I hold the door open for him, then close and lock it once he’s gone out.

  Then, tired though I am, I step sideways to the front window and peek out past the blinds.

  Constantine is headed down the sidewalk in the same direction he went when he left to get the book. The street lights illumine his tall, broad-shouldered form. He steps behind a tree…and that’s the last I see of him.

  There’s a patch of well-lit sidewalk on the other side of the tree, but he never emerges, no matter how many times I blink to clear my eyes.

  He’s just gone.

  Hmm…that vampire story of his?

  Either there’s something to that, or he’s going out of his way to make me believe there is.

  Chapter Six

  The next day I’m crazy tired, and run home to grab a nap between classes, heading back to campus with the blackjack books in my backpack. After my last afternoon class, I retreat to a quiet corner of the library to find out how hard it’s going to be to hold up my end of the bargain.

  Let’s not forget, I’m a student. I have a pretty light load this semester, since I’d strategically planned it so I’d already finish up most of my coursework prior to my final semester, leaving me time to focus on my thesis, but still. I have a lot of information I need to cram into my brain every day.r />
  Information my grades depend on.

  I don’t need to be taking away brain power learning something that has nothing to do with my degree.

  Except if I don’t learn it, I won’t be able to hold up my side of the deal, and Constantine won’t translate any more of the book for me.

  One thing’s for certain: the book is legit. I don’t really know Romanian, certainly not Old Romanian, but I recognized enough of the words to know that was the real thing. And Constantine read way too smoothly to be making it up as he went, never mind that he wouldn’t even be able to make up something like that if he didn’t already know what he was talking about.

  So even if his story of writing it isn’t true, the resource is solid, no doubt about it.

  And there’s no doubt I need it.

  It would seem I have no choice but to cram my already-brimming brain with this not-very-easy blackjack strategy, hopefully learning it well enough to be able to play in a real-life, high-pressure casino setting.

  And, as I quickly learn in the blackjack books, I’ll need to be able to use these techniques without letting on to anyone what I’m doing. In fact, the real trick of counting cards in blackjack isn’t learning the techniques—yes, it’s time-consuming and complicated, but it’s not that hard.

  No, the real trick, and the reason why more people don’t do it, is that you have to be able to do it without getting caught.

  While there’s no rule against counting cards, the casinos hate it, because it tips the odds in the favor of the player.

  When players count cards, casinos lose money.

  They despise that.

  So they put a lot of pressure on people who they suspect are counting cards.

  One way some players try to disguise their card-counting activity is by playing with a partner or even a team. The way it works is, everybody hits the tables and plays low bets, counting cards until a table gets hot (a gambling slang term for a table that has a card count favorable to winning lots of hands—there’s some complicated math and card-playing involved here, but the bottom line is, a hot table is where a player wants to be to win big).