by Finley Aaron
For a moment, Constantine hesitates. His face says he’s fighting the urge to teleport away. Even his voice holds reluctance as he answers my question. “There are many bats at my castle. The vast majority of them are mere bats. Just regular bats. Because I am a vampire, I understand their language—it is not a language of words like ours, but a communal form of bodily communication and physical signals. Three weeks ago we had an unexpected visitor, and the bats became unusually distressed.”
Three weeks ago, after traveling to the British Museum to check out The Life of Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, and being disappointed to find the book inexplicably missing, I’d stopped at the castle in Romania. It’s not exactly convenient to Great Britain, but it’s a lot closer to where I was than Montana, and I wasn’t ready to leave Europe yet, not empty handed. I’d thought about going on home to Azerbaijan, but then realized I should probably get back to school. I wasn’t at the castle long, just long enough to get some sleep before flying on. “The visitor was me?”
“You were there, yes. I had no intention of going near you, but the bats communicated fear to me. Fear, danger, an unwelcome intruder.”
“Unwelcome?”
“You and your family are always welcome,” Constantine clarifies. “The bats know you. They like you. No, there were other bats—vampire bats.”
“Vampires?”
“Yes. I didn’t know what they were doing there, but my bats were concerned for your safety, and I took their concern seriously.”
A memory I’d all but forgotten returns with sudden clarity—of feeling alone and uneasy. And then, though mostly asleep, realizing someone was there, and feeling protected. “You stood watch over me while I slept.”
Constantine looks distinctly sheepish. “I did not know what the vampires were after, or why they were there. The bats feared they might harm you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I didn’t realize you…” Possibilities skitter through my thoughts like fallen leaves driven by the wind. If I’d realized who he was, I’d have trusted Constantine sooner. If I’d known he knew me, I could have spoken with him freely. I wouldn’t have tried to hide who I really am.
I could have been my true dragon self around him.
But now it’s too late.
“The vampires followed you when you left,” Constantine continues. “Out of concern for your safety, I followed them. They kept their distance, I kept mine, but when I saw one enter your house and not come out again, I knew I had to alert you. I rang your doorbell. You know the rest.”
Sensing he’s finished answering the question, and fearing he’ll leave any second, I try to unscramble my thoughts and ask one of the other many questions that plague me. “Can you please translate the rest of the book for me? There’s still so much I don’t know.”
“The book.” Constantine frowns. “It has caused this trouble. I regret ever writing it.”
Felix has been hanging back politely, but now he asks, “What about the gold? Didn’t you say there was information about that in the book—information you wanted to impart to someone you trust? Like us?”
“It matters very little what I tell or don’t tell. They’re only pieces to the puzzle. No one has the whole picture.”
“Yes, but with enough pieces—” Felix begins.
Constantine shakes his head. “I have seen more atrocities committed on the quest for gold than any other pursuit. These vampires have a history of torturing innocents to get what they want. They’re after you because they believe you have information. I must convince them you do not.”
I remind him, “Earlier, you said you wanted to tell me.”
“That was before I realized how high the stakes had become. No. I will not tell you anything more—to do so only increases the danger to you. I must be going.”
Before either Felix or I can say anything more, or even thank him for what he’s done for us, he’s gone.
Felix lets loose a frustrated roar. “Where did he go? We don’t even know his room number, do we?”
“We don’t. Even if he went to his room, it’s only to get his things so he can leave for real.”
“I need to follow him. How can I follow him when I don’t know where he teleported to?”
“He’s going to face the vampires, Felix. It’s not safe for you to follow him.”
“But they want to know how to make gold. They already know some things about how to make gold. They have pieces of the puzzle. He has pieces of the puzzle—maybe, if I can gather enough of their pieces—”
“Didn’t you hear what he said?” I’m emotionally raw right now, so I struggle to keep my voice down. Who knows who might be listening? “Atrocities committed in the quest for gold? Torture? It’s not worth it.”
“He said it’s not worth it to him. Who says it’s not worth it to me?”
“It’s too dangerous, Felix. You have too much to live for.”
“Do I? Maybe this is what I’m supposed to live for.”
“No. No. We need to repopulate the race of dragons before our kind go extinct. That’s our purpose. Not chasing gold.”
Felix makes a sound that’s half sigh, half sad laugh. “I would love to repopulate the dragon race, but last I checked I don’t have a mate.”
“You’re only nineteen. Give it time.”
“I have searched the world over.”
“For someone who’s biologically immortal, you’re awfully impatient.” I grab my bag and head for bed. “Get some sleep. You’ll think more clearly in the morning.”
*
Come morning, I wake to discover Felix has thought far too clearly.
“He’s going to Europe,” Felix announces as I roll out of bed and stumble toward the bathroom. He’s sitting on the loveseat of the suite sitting room, showered and dressed and way too bright-eyed after the night we had.
“Constantine is?” I’m awake now. News like that is stronger than coffee.
I much, much prefer coffee.
“He said you can’t call him because his phone won’t work in Europe anyway. He said he thinks he knows who Gane is working for, and he’s going to track him down. Those vampires started following you in Europe. He’s going to Europe.”
“So you want to go to Europe? You’re not going to be able to find him. It may be one of the smaller continents, but there are still like a billion people there.”
“It’s only like three-quarters of a billion.” He makes one of those duh kinds of grunts little brothers are famous for. “Besides, he has a castle there, remember? And he finally has enough money to buy it, so there’s a good chance he’ll go there. I’ll just fly to the castle, find him or wait for him to return or whatever, and then follow him when he leaves again.”
“You’ll follow him when he leaves? You don’t teleport. None of us knows how to teleport,” I remind him. My brother-in-law knows how, and he’s tried teaching my sister (his wife), but it’s one of those skills you really need to start learning when you’re young, apparently, because even after lots of practice my sister Zilpha can only go short distances, and then only when she’s holding on to her husband, who’s skilled at the art.
Teleporting is a super-high-order function, which we’re assuming is a major reason why our line of dragons lost the skill (unless there’s another reason my family can’t do it—which is totally a possibility we haven’t ruled out yet).
Felix doesn’t fixate on the teleporting issue. “Constantine is going to track down whoever Gane works for. I’m guessing he doesn’t have a significant personal connection to the guy, so he’ll probably have to go there physically.”
“But in what form? There are no roads leading to or from Constantine’s castle. He’s not going to travel in human form. And if you’ll remember, he specifically said he doesn’t take on bat form.”
“He’s a vampire. What other form could he possibly take?”
“I don’t know. I was headed to the bathroom. Give me a minute and I’ll think about it.”
“Fine.” Felix shrugs. “I was going to get breakfast. Want me to get you something?”
“All the scrambled eggs and bacon you can find. And coffee.”
While I shower and dress, I’m mulling the question we don’t know the answer to—does Constantine turn into anything? He said he can’t turn into a bat. But he has fangs and he’s cold to the touch and he can teleport. He’s sensitive to sunlight and almost completely immortal—I witnessed that last part in person when he pulled the stake from his ribs.
He’s a vampire that can’t turn into a bat. What does that make him really?
Fifteen minutes later, I don’t have any answers, but I do have breakfast.
Felix also has a theory. “He had to have been lying to you when he said he can’t turn into a bat. He’s a vampire. Of course he can turn into a bat.”
“Why do you think that?” I’m munching bacon and sipping coffee, which puts me in a more amiable mood.
“He said he followed you and Mom and Wren and Zilpha back to Montana years ago, and he followed you again when the bats were following you three weeks ago. You flew across the ocean. He couldn’t have followed you in human form. He has to be able to fly. He must be able to change into a bat.”
“Can a bat even fly fast enough to keep up with a dragon? We flew over the Atlantic Ocean. That’s a long way. Even dragons get ravenous after flying that long. How could a bat—”
“I don’t know. They turn smaller instead of bigger. Maybe that conserves energy. Anyway, the other vampires followed you, so…”
But I’ve already thought of something else. “What about the vampires that came over the fence last night? They had wings. They were in human form, but they used their bat wings to get over the fence, then they folded them up and I don’t recall seeing them again.”
Felix narrows his eyes. “We can do that, too—change one part of our body into dragon form for a brief time, sprout wings or extend our claws without changing our whole bodies—but I’ve never tried to maintain that form for any length of time. Do you think Constantine could really fly across the entire Atlantic in winged human form?”
“Just because you’ve never tested the boundaries doesn’t mean he’s not skilled at it. He’s had way over five hundred years to practice. Besides, he’s supposed to be one of the higher order types of vampire. They have more dragon blood in them—it gives them stronger abilities.”
Felix chews a mouthful of bacon thoughtfully. “Why can’t he change into a bat, anyway? Can’t all the other vampires change into bats? What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” I stab scrambled eggs with my fork. “Maybe all those months he spent buried alive, almost dead but unable to die. Maybe it changed him.”
“I’m still going to Europe to try to follow him.”
“They bury people alive over there.”
“That was hundreds of years ago.” Felix sips his coffee. “I’m not afraid.”
“That’s what scares me.”
Chapter Nineteen
In spite of all my protests, Felix insists on traveling to Europe to track down Constantine and follow him. He’s obstinate and driven by his desire to learn how to make gold, which is the same desire that drives our enemies, a fact that is blatantly clear to me, though Felix can’t seem to grasp why it’s relevant.
“I don’t want you becoming so gold-hungry you lose who you are.” I’m still trying to argue him out of his quest.
“Dragons hoard gold. It makes us who we are.”
“Does it?” I’m not convinced.
“If it makes you feel better, I will err on the side of safety whenever possible.”
It doesn’t make me feel much better, but I’ve tried everything I can to get him to stay. He’s a dragon. We’re free-willed creatures, highly independent and infinitely stubborn.
“Besides,” Felix reminds me, “if this works, I’ll reconnect you to Constantine. You want that, don’t you?”
And what can I say to that? I want to see Constantine again. It’s strange how much I care about him, about seeing him again and learning more about all the mysteries that surround him. Still. “I don’t want you risking your life for this. Constantine and I can’t be together anyway, remember?”
“You shouldn’t have kids together,” Felix acknowledges, “but I don’t see why that means you have to spend the rest of your immortal lives avoiding each other.”
I can’t help smiling. For being a smarty-pants kid brother, sometimes Felix really gets it right. “You tell him that next time you talk to him, okay?”
“I plan to.”
So Felix leaves and I hunker down and work on my thesis paper and the rest of my schoolwork, because even though it’s gotten overshadowed by all this vampire drama, finishing this paper is still the primary goal of my college career.
Spring Break starts in less than two weeks. We get a whole week off from classes. Combined with weekends on either side, that leaves nine full days—plenty of time for me to fly to Romania and back again if I need to.
I gave Felix explicit instructions to call me if he needs anything or has any updates to give. He knows about Spring Break, and knows I have every intention of flying to that castle to see him if I don’t hear from him before then. And Felix has cell phones that work on both continents (it’s crazy how many phones we carry anymore, but with family stretched from Africa to Siberia, North America to northern Scotland, we have phones that work wherever we’re visiting), so he has no excuse for not calling.
I get a text from him in the morning of the Friday before Spring Break, the very day I’m planning to leave for Romania as soon as I’m done with my last class.
So I’m thrilled to see the text, even if it doesn’t tell me a whole lot.
Lots to tell you. Too much to say over the phone. Can’t wait for you to get here.
Which is encouraging, at least, though he doesn’t specifically mention Constantine or any of what’s happened. Still, it keeps me flying at top cruising speed the whole way to the castle. By leaving Friday after my last class and resting a couple of times, floating on my back on the Atlantic Ocean for some tuna and a nap, I arrive in the bright sunlight of early Monday morning (I lose nine hours flying east across the time zones—the trip has fewer effective hours going home with the sun, and thus it seems “shorter” on the westward haul).
Even if Constantine is home, he should be asleep or at least hiding out in his tower.
Still, his tower has windows, so I try to stay hidden behind the well as I quench my thirst after my long flight, and then I dart stealthily toward the castle room which Felix always preferred.
He’s in there, sitting on a chair, eyes closed, wearing headphones, softly muttering something incomprehensible. I dump my heavy backpack on the floor and walk tentatively toward him.
“Felix?” I’m immediately concerned he’s gone mad. “What are you doing?”
He lowers the headphones and smiles at me. “I’m learning Romanian. It’s a podcast. Thought it might come in handy.”
That’s right. My brother has a thing for learning languages. He taught himself Russian and French in the last year, after visiting Russia and France and feeling ignorant for not knowing how to communicate with the locals. It only makes sense he’d want to learn Romanian now. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Felix rises from the chair. “You’re just in time. Constantine should be back any moment. He went out to hunt for breakfast.”
“So, he knows you’re here?” I pull clothes from my backpack and slip them on over the bikini-like garments I wear when I’m in dragon form. March in the mountains of Romania can be chilly, especially in the early morning.
“I don’t think he’s seen me. He stays in his tower most of the time, when he’s even here. I only know what he’s up to this morning because I’ve watched him do this several times now—fly off for breakfast and return with food.”
My stomach grumbles at the mention of food. As usual after a l
ong flight, I’m famished. “Are you sure the bats haven’t told him you’re here?”
“He said our family is always welcome, so I don’t think they’ve raised the alarm. If he knows I’m here, he hasn’t given any indication. He was gone for all of last weekend and this weekend. He must have teleported away, because I didn’t see him leave. Didn’t see him at all from Friday morning until he went for breakfast this morning. Anyway, I want to explain a few things before you see him.” Felix takes my arm and leads me to the door, where we peek through the slightly-ajar doorway into the open courtyard.
“Explain away. I’m eager to hear.” I try to encourage Felix to speak, but he’s just standing there with a perplexed expression on his face, like he doesn’t know where to begin.
Finally he asks, “How do we know Constantine is a vampire?”
“Well, let’s see. He has fangs.”
“So do we.”
“Not really. Dragon fangs are way bigger than vampire fangs. And anyway, he got impaled by a wooden stake—I saw the wound—it would have killed a mere human, but it missed his heart so he’s still alive. Also, he can talk to bats.”
“Have you seen him talk to bats?”
“They don’t use words, you know. Communal communication, or something.” I try to recall the exact words Constantine used.
“What else?”
“He’s cold to the touch. Ice cold. Have you ever touched him?”
“I brushed his hand a couple times playing cards, and then he helped us over the stone wall. But it was cold outside that night, so maybe his skin was just cold. And lots of people have cold hands.”
“What are you saying? You’re saying you don’t think he’s really a vampire? He already admitted he’s Vlad Dracula’s older brother.”
“His dad was a dragon, right?” Felix asks. There’s something more on his face, meaning his words can’t begin to convey, though I’m not clear what he’s telling me.
“That’s what he told us.”
“What do we know about his mother?”