Dracul

by Finley Aaron

  Everything’s going great until I realize I need more sticky tabs and my fridge is nearly empty, so I take a quick shower and run to the store.

  I’m hauling bags of food and office supplies up the sidewalk while trying to keep steady footing on the new, slick snow, when I glance up at my house and notice, not for the first time, that when the sunlight hits the front picture window just so, I can see clear into the living room, even through the sheer window curtains.

  And it is through those sheer curtains that I see a person.

  Inside my house.

  Sitting on my sofa.

  My foot slips and I scramble to stay upright.

  Once I have my footing back, I look again.

  No one is there.

  No, wait.

  Is there?

  I walk closer, careful not to fall, my eyes riveted on the back of the sofa. It wasn’t an out of place throw pillow or a backpack sticking up over the back of the couch. I clearly saw the outline of a head, neck, and shoulders.

  Just as clearly, it’s no longer there.

  Did the person duck away? Lay down? Teleport out of sight? Change into a bat?

  Too many crazy things have happened in my life lately. The possibilities are endless.

  It’s way too bright out for Constantine to visit, isn’t it? Or can he teleport in spite of the sunlight? I’d check my phone for a call, but my hands are full of bags.

  Cautiously, I climb the front stoop and try the door.

  Locked, just as I left it.

  I set the bags from my right hand near my feet, pull out my key, and slide it into the lock, while craning my neck around to peer in through the front window.

  Movement. On the couch. From this angle, I can’t really see who or what, but—

  The door flies open, and Felix is standing in my entryway, his smile eager.

  “Rilla! Let me help you with your bags.” He grabs the ones I’d set by my foot. “Is this steak? I’m starving after that flight. Barely stopped to rest. Haven’t eaten anything since tuna in the Atlantic.” He’s headed to the kitchen, but glances back over his shoulder long enough to give me a look that clearly says he prefers Pacific tuna to Atlantic.

  Yup, we siblings can read each other.

  I pull the door closed solidly behind me before I choke back my startled sob. This is the worst possible thing. Of all people, he should have stayed furthest away. Ugh! “What are you doing here?”

  “Dad said you needed someone to stay with you—somebody stole your backpack, weird things, and whatever, Mom gave me her key.”

  “Were you on my sofa just now?”

  “Yes. Waiting for you. I let myself in not five minutes ago. I had just put my head down to rest when I heard you at the door.” He starts unpacking the grocery bags in the kitchen. “Do you realize your fridge is empty?”

  “That’s why I went to the store,” I murmur, trying to think how I can explain to Felix that he needs to run away home as quickly as possible, although would he mind taking a circuitous route in case the vampires try to follow him? And to convince him to trust me, instead of stubbornly opposing me as dragons so often tend to do.

  “Mind if we cook up some of these steaks? I really am famished. I don’t think I’ve ever flown so far so quickly before. And in this cold. It was exhilarating, but I’m spent.”

  He plants the packages of meat on the countertop and looks at me expectantly. “I haven’t even gotten a hug.” His eager grin turns serious. “What’s wrong?”

  “You can’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”

  “If it’s too dangerous for me, it’s too dangerous for you.” Felix crosses his arms in a pose that says he’s already digging in his heels.

  How do I make him understand? “There are these vampires, and they want to know how to make gold. They followed me home from the British Museum, and they tried to steal my backpack, and then they did steal my backpack—”

  “Is that the slashed-up bag by the stairs?” Felix unwraps the steaks and plunks them on the griddle, shoving the rest of the groceries down the countertop, away from where there will soon be fire.

  “Yes. A friend of mine got it back for me, but they impaled him with a stake.”

  “With a stake?” Felix places the last steak on the pan. “What kind of stake?”

  “A wooden stake. Sorry. It’s a long story, but the main thing is, you can’t be here. They torture people who they think might know how to make gold. I fought these guys. They’re bad news.”

  While Felix blows a long blast of flame at the steaks, I try to organize my thoughts. Mostly I’m wondering how I could have prevented Felix from coming here in the first place, and worrying about what will happen if the vampires find out about him. But those concerns aren’t helpful. I need to focus.

  Felix turns the burner on and lets the meal cook. “So, who is this friend of yours, and why did they impale him? Did he die?”

  “His name is Constantine. He didn’t die. They missed his heart. He’s immortal. He’s a vampire.”

  “I didn’t know vampires were real.”

  “Neither did I, but clearly they are. Anyway, I don’t think he realizes dragons are real, or if he does, he doesn’t know I’m one or you’re one. He doesn’t know you exist, and I’d like to keep it that way. Especially we can’t let any of them realize what you’ve done or they’ll torture you.”

  Felix frowns. “I don’t want you mixed up in this. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “I can’t leave. This is my last semester. I’m going to graduate in May. Besides, the vampires followed me here. Who’s to say they won’t follow me when I leave? So where can I go? I don’t dare expose anyone else to danger.” As I’m talking, Felix flips the steaks, and I notice the gold rings on his fingers.

  “You’re wearing your rings? You need to take them off.”

  “Why?”

  I give him an exasperated look.

  “You think they’ll figure out I made this gold?”

  “Shh! Don’t say it out loud. You don’t know who might hear you.”

  “I think it’s a good thing I’m here. It hasn’t been good for you to stay by yourself. You seem…overwrought.”

  I shoot him another exasperated look, this one loaded with warning that I might have to tackle him like I did when we were little.

  Even though he’s bigger than I am now.

  Still.

  “Tell you what,” Felix continues, ignoring my glare. “Let’s eat. You can tell me all about what’s been going on, and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  So I clear my papers and sticky notes from the dining room table, and we eat. He eats five steaks to my one, which might not seem fair, except if he really did just fly all the way to Montana from Azerbaijan, then five steaks is not nearly enough. He could probably eat a moose.

  I should check to see if they’re in season.

  Anyway, I don’t have time to eat much, because I’m telling Felix everything from the first bat and Constantine’s arrival Monday morning. I spare him the details of the Viața, because that would take forever to summarize and frankly, I’d want to look at my notes to be sure I got everything right. But I tell him all about my stolen backpack, the gambling deal, and most importantly, the vampires’ quest for gold.

  “What has he told you about making gold?” Felix asks when I get to the part about the verb forms.

  “Just that it’s not made or created, it’s, I don’t know, crystallized or isolated or something. I honestly don’t understand the difference, but Constantine made a big deal out of the verb forms and why they’re weird, or something.”

  Felix has finished eating by now and is sucking the marrow out of a T-bone, using one sharp tip to pick his teeth while he frowns thoughtfully. “Transmuted?” he offers.

  I shrug. “Congealed?”

  “Makes it sound like old blood.”

  “Maybe it is. What is gold, anyway? And why is it so valuable? Because it’s rare?”
<
br />   “I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject since my adventures.” Felix spins one ring absently on his pinkie. “Do you know, if all the mined gold on earth—that is, all the gold that has ever been in human hands—if all the gold were to be collected together, it would fill two or three—guess.”

  “Guess? It would fill two Versailles palaces?”

  Felix shakes his head.

  “Two of Mount Everest?”

  “Smaller.”

  “Two of Pikes peak?”

  “Smaller.”

  “All the gold in the whole world?”

  Felix leans forward. He’s done letting me guess. “Two or three Olympic-sized swimming pools.”

  “That’s not very much.”

  “I know.”

  “So, it’s valuable because it’s rare? And pretty? And doesn’t tarnish, or whatever?”

  “I think it’s more than that.”

  “An emotional thing? Symbolism? Gold represents purity and value and…rareness?”

  Felix pulls off the ring he was playing with and sets it on the table. “Remember last summer, the magnetized shackles?”

  “Yes.” I cringe at the thought of them. If dragons are put in magnetized shackles, they can’t take on dragon form. Something in the magnets physically—or perhaps, molecularly—prevents them from embodying their dragon shape.

  Felix explains, “I was talking to Dad and Grandpa Elmir about Grandma Faye. Ever since I learned that magnetized shackles can be used to force a dragon to take human form, I was confused, because we were always told that when Eudora captured Grandma Faye, she was trying to turn her into a human.”

  I haven’t thought about that story in a long time, but suddenly, Felix’s point is obvious. I realize aloud, “All Eudora would have had to do, was use magnetic shackles on Grandma, and she’d take on human form. Eudora could have stuck her with her serum easily, then, because she wouldn’t have had armored scales.”

  “Precisely. Dad and Grandpa and I have talked about this. Keep in mind, we don’t know what Eudora knew, we don’t know what Grandma knew—there are a lot of things about dragon history that have been lost with the keeping of secrets and the untimely deaths of those who knew those secrets.”

  “You think Grandma Faye had a way of keeping the magnetized shackles from turning her human?”

  Felix nods. “Grandpa recalls specifically that Grandma Faye was wearing gold cuffs on her wrists and ankles when he rescued her.”

  “Gold bracelets?”

  “Cuffs. Like you see in pictures of Egyptian Pharaohs, or super heroes, or whatever. Wide gold cuffs. Ever wonder why they wore them?”

  “You think maybe the Pharaohs were dragons?” I may be starting to pick up on what he’s saying. Many rulers in ancient times were dragons.

  “Or trying to dress like dragons to make themselves seem more powerful.” Felix shrugs. “Either way, I think the gold cuffs served a purpose.”

  “To deflect the power of magnetized shackles?”

  Felix places his ring on his fingertip and studies it in the sunlight that’s still pouring through the windows. “It came from a dragon. Could it help a dragon remain a dragon, even under circumstances that would otherwise force a dragon to lose her form?”

  “Could it?” I repeat the question.

  Felix smiles. “We tested it out with the shackles we had at home. It worked. Gold cuffs blocked the power of the shackles, allowing us to remain dragons even when shackled.”

  “But, in the pictures you see of Pharaohs—they’re human. If the cuffs are there to enable them to retain their dragon form, why wear them in human form?”

  “Gold is highly malleable.” Felix shoves the ring onto his finger and changes his hand into a dragon hand, which stretches the ring. Then he tips his hand, and the ring, larger now, slides to the curved tip of his talon.

  With a precision that hints he’s practiced this move before, Felix breathes a slender flame directed at the band, which he spins on the tip of his talon until it is perfectly smooth again. Before it cools completely, he changes his hand back into a human hand, and the ring falls into place.

  “Congealed,” I repeat, my breath catching in my throat. “Distilled essence of dragon. Concentrated dracul. It’s not just valuable because it’s rare.”

  “It’s valuable because it has power. The power of a dragon.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It’s exhilarating to think that my brother made something so powerful—that the rings on his fingers could actually form a defense against any enemy that might seek to enslave us.

  But more than that, it’s terrifying.

  The vampires are after gold, or more precisely, the secrets of how to make gold. They’ve been hunting down information for centuries with the kind of dogged determination that says they understand the importance of what they’re looking for.

  They know gold is powerful. They probably know more about it than we do.

  We can’t let them have any more advantages over us. Most certainly, they can’t learn what my brother has done.

  “You still don’t know how you did it?” I clarify as everything else sinks in.

  “Made this stuff?” Felix spins the re-formed ring on his finger. “I can tell you exactly what happened. I’ve even tried to recreate the circumstances, but I’ve never achieved the same result. It was almost like a freak accident.”

  “Except accidents usually break things, not make things.” I gather our plates and return them to the kitchen. “Either way, the only thing that matters is keeping the vampires from finding out about you.”

  “What do you propose I do? Run and hide?”

  “Hide where?” I stick the plates in the sink. “You can’t hide with any of our family members, or you risk drawing the vampires to them. If you go hide anywhere alone, none of us will know if anything happens to you. If they catch up to you, and you’re alone...” I shoot the dishes with the sink sprayer. Water blasts against them, splattering red meat juices in a circle around the sink.

  Not pretty.

  Felix frowns. “I don’t like the idea of you facing them alone, either.”

  “We’ve got to stick together, then. I hate that I’ve dragged you into this.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Felix is grinning.

  “There is nothing good about this. Nothing.” I fill the sink with soapy water and start hand-washing.

  “Isn’t there? Why are you so glad to learn about the history of Vlad Dracula?”

  His change of subject seems to have come out of nowhere. “Because I want to know why he was called the son of a dragon.”

  “It’s the same with me.” Felix pulls a dish towel from a drawer and dries the clean plates. “I want to know about this gold I made. Now maybe being chased by vampires isn’t the most pleasant way to learn something new, but if these guys really are after information, if they really do know things we don’t know—”

  “You want to find out what they know before they learn your secrets? Beat them at their own game?”

  “It’s better than sitting around at home while Mom frets about her grandbabies.”

  “It’s also dangerous,” I remind him. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Me?” Felix gives me his biggest, most innocent grin—the one he often sports right before diving off into trouble. Then he snaps the dish towel playfully. “Now tell me—why was Vlad Dracula called the son of a dragon?”

  “His father, Vlad Dracul, was inducted into the Order of the Dragon. It was an ultra-selective secret society for princes, nearly all of whom ruled far bigger and wealthier kingdoms than Vlad’s. He was proud of being included in the group. That’s why he made it part of his name.” We’ve finished washing the dishes, so I lead Felix back into the dining room and spread out my notes again, looking for the parts about the Order.

  “Does any of your research address the fact that dragons are real?”

  “No. Everything I’ve read talks about it as th
ough it’s simply a symbolic title.”

  “So we have no way of knowing which of the princes in the order were actually dragons?”

  I pinch my lips together and shake my head. Felix has hit upon the question that burns hottest inside me, the one I can’t seem to answer no matter how hard I try—the one I haven’t been able to voice aloud to anyone since I’ve been living alone.

  Felix crosses his arms. “Do you think they were all dragons? We know many rulers throughout the world were dragons, from ancient times well into the Middle Ages. Their true identities were often hidden, the facts were passed off as myths, but we know dragons are real. And if they were real, doesn’t it make sense that these rulers in the Order of the Dragon—”

  “Yes!” I throw my hands into the air in exasperation. “It makes sense—either that all or some of the men in the order really were dragons. But I don’t know which ones. I can’t find any proof or even solid clues.”

  “What about Constantine? Didn’t you say he wrote Vlad Dracula’s biography? If he was alive back then, can’t you just ask him?”

  “I want to. So much. But Felix, how can I ask him that? No rational person actually thinks dragons are real.”

  “You believed him when he told you he was a vampire.”

  “Not at first. He showed me his fangs, he disappeared—”

  “He can teleport?”

  “Yeah.” I must have left out some of the details—it was an abridged version I shared with Felix.

  “Can he turn into a bat?”

  “I’ve never seen him do it, but I’m assuming so. That seems to be a thing with the vampire crowd.”

  Felix slumps into one of the dining room chairs and stares at my papers as I lay them out across the table again. “They tried to kill him?”

  “Nearly succeeded.”

  “They might succeed the next time. We can’t risk losing what he knows. We have to ask.”

  “Asking assumes we believe dragons are real. What do we tell him when he asks why we would think that?”

  “I’ll ask, okay? You can still be the rational one who takes all this research seriously, and I’ll be the crazy little brother who thinks maybe dragons are real.”