“This is my symbol, my name in Elysian code. When a vampire vows to protect someone, we leave our symbol on something that belongs to them. It’s called ‘marking’ and it serves as a warning to others that should they harm this person, they should expect harm returned to them by the one who did the marking. Vampires are honor-bound. If we bother to mark someone, it is taken quite seriously. Your father marked Mr. Craig as a vow to protect him, by carving his name on his porch, just as surely as I marked you by carving mine on the box in your dresser. Unfortunately, someone ignored your father’s mark.”
“Who did kill Mr. Craig?” Nelly blurted.
“D’Ablo, though I’m not sure why. He could have fed on any number of Bathory citizens—did, in fact, on a young woman. But why he chose a man who’d been marked by your father is beyond me. Perhaps he’d hoped to anger Tomas, bring him out of hiding, which is where all of Elysia believes him to be.”
Otis went to the window and pulled the drapes open an inch. It was already dark outside and there was strange electricity in the air, as if a storm was fast approaching.
“Who is D’Ablo, anyway?” Vlad asked.
The normally mellow Amenti jumped at the glass, hissing at the shadowy figure that was approaching the gate. Vlad jumped too and tried to see out the window. His heart was racing.
“That’s D’Ablo,” Otis said. “The president of the Elysian council. You remember him, Vlad. He was the one I was talking to while you were in the tree the other night.”
Vlad blushed at the realization he’d been caught. Nelly muttered something that sounded very much like “grounded.”
Otis pulled the drapes closed and turned from the window. “We need to hide you. D’Ablo has plans to take you to Elysia to be punished for your father’s crimes—for your very existence.”
Vlad’s heart skipped a beat, and then continued its race. “I can hide in the attic.”
“I’ll come with you,” Otis said. “D’Ablo mustn’t see me.”
They rushed up the stairs to the attic, shutting the door behind them. Otis sat on the attic floor and closed his eyes.
“What about Nelly?” Vlad asked.
“Shh. I’m trying to concentrate, Vlad.”
“But she’s still downstairs.” Otis kept his eyes closed. He didn’t answer, so Vlad could only guess his concerns were being ignored. Stretching his thoughts downstairs, he pushed into Nelly’s mind, but found only a haze of images and general confusion.
Coming back to himself, Vlad looked at Otis. “Are you clouding her thoughts?”
Otis frowned in irritation. “I’m making her believe she knows nothing about you or me—it’ll protect her from D’Ablo. Now hush.”
Suddenly Otis opened his eyes wide and looked at Vlad. “He’s taken her.”
The meaning of his words hadn’t settled in Vlad’s mind before Otis was down the stairs and running toward the front door. Vlad bolted after him, calling to his aunt. When he reached the door, he found Otis slumped against the doorjamb, looking out into the darkness. Vlad swallowed hard. “Where is she?”
“He’s taken her to Elysia, no doubt as bait for you.”
As the anger boiled up within him, Vlad felt his fangs tear through the gums, pushing out to full length in a matter of seconds. He looked past Otis to the darkness outside. His heart rammed up against his ribs. “Come on.” He shouldered past Otis and moved down the sidewalk, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of D’Ablo and Nelly.
Otis approached and placed a calm hand on his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To Elysia. We’re going to save my aunt.”
A look of terrible concern crossed Otis’s face. “Vladimir, that’s exactly what he wants.”
Vlad looked out into the night, determination in his eyes. “Then let’s give it to him.”
14
ELYSIA
OTIS SMIRKED, BUT WITH a glare from Vlad, he stopped. “If you’re serious, we’ll go. Have you mastered your animorphing capabilities yet?”
The young vampire answered this question the only way he could. With a blank stare.
Otis sighed. “Okay, so flying’s out. We’ll have to drive, but we’ll need a drudge to watch the car. Do you have one?”
Vlad blinked again, and in his confusion, his fangs began to shrink. “A what?”
“A drudge.” Otis waited for a spark of recognition in Vlad’s eyes, but when he didn’t see it, he sighed again in frustration. “Do you have a human who you can control? Who you can make do your bidding, follow your will with little effort?”
Vlad bit his bottom lip, not realizing his fangs were still protruding some, and licked away the blood quickly. “Well, I guess that would be Henry.” He was pretty sure Henry wouldn’t be amused at being referred to as a vampire’s human slave, but he was the first person who came to mind. Vlad scratched his head and his fangs retreated fully. “But he doesn’t really do everything I ask him to.”
Otis raised an eyebrow. “Do you ask him or do you tell him?”
Vlad blinked, wondering just what Otis was driving at. “He’s my friend. I ask him.”
“Next time, tell him. Drudges have no will to resist their masters. Call him now. Tell him to meet us at my car in an hour.” Otis looked determined, almost hungry. The sight of it gave Vlad a shiver.
“Why can’t we leave now?”
Otis turned and walked down the sidewalk, and Vlad had to jog a bit to catch up. “Because we’ve got to feed.”
Vlad slowed his steps. “The freezer’s stocked. Where are you going?” He knew the answer, but didn’t want to hear it.
Otis stopped walking and looked at him as if he was the dumbest kid alive. “To look for a human. We need to feed, Vlad.”
“On a . . . person?” Vlad’s stomach lurched as the last word passed over his tongue. It was all he could do to keep from puking. Blood was tasty, but these were his neighbors. And just think of the looks he might get at the next block party if he got caught. Pointing, accompanied by frantic whispers. Isn’t that the kid who ate Billy?
No way.
“You act like you’ve never done this before.”
“I haven’t.” Vlad looked down at the hole in his shoe. He felt embarrassed, but he wasn’t sure why.
Otis seemed to be weighing his options as he watched a woman in a powder blue jogging suit trot by. He looked back at Vlad and then at the woman once again. “You’ve never fed on blood from its source?”
Vlad thought about telling Otis about Henry, but decided against it. “I’ve only ever had blood from a bottle or bag.”
Otis’s eyes widened in astonishment. “So your parents . . .”
“Dad was insistent that we live as normally as possible.”
“That’s not normal, Vlad.” Otis gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “No vampire should live that way, and I doubt that your father followed his own rule. The hunger is undeniable. Eventually, you will feed on a person. You can’t stop it.”
Vlad stepped back, leaving Otis with his empty hand extended and a look of surprise on his face. Otis might be an experienced, worldly vampire, but he had no right to presume to know what had gone on with Tomas once he had left Elysia. Tomas had lived on blood bags and snack packs. Vlad knew. He’d seen.
Vlad narrowed his eyes. “Watch me,” he told Otis. He turned and walked back to the house. At first, he didn’t hear Otis behind him, and he half expected that Otis would run off after the jogger, but then his footsteps were echoing Vlad’s. Vlad smiled triumphantly. They’d dine on bagged blood.
An hour after Vlad rang Henry on his cell phone, Henry walked up to the open front door and greeted Vlad with a concerned glance. “What’s going on? Why’s Mr. Otis in your driveway?”
Otis was placing Vlad’s backpack, full of blood bags he’d insisted they’d need, into the back of his car. He looked up at Henry. “Come here, drudge. Help me get the car ready, and we’ll get going.”
Vlad cringed.
<
br /> Henry threw Vlad a glance. “What did he just call me?”
“Never mind. I’ll explain everything later. Just go help him, will you? Somebody took my aunt. We’ve gotta go save her.” Henry nodded. There were questions in his eyes, but he ran over and helped Otis with the car.
Vlad smirked. Maybe there was something to this drudge thing after all. He had noticed that his schoolbooks seemed to be getting heavier as the years went on . . . plus, there were the mounds of homework to consider.
They piled into the car—Henry in the back, Vlad in the front, Otis in the driver’s seat. As they started out of town, Vlad looked at Otis and cleared his throat. “So . . . you came to Bathory to protect my father, not to bring him back to Elysia?”
Otis gave Vlad a brief smile, then focused again on the road. “Yes, Vlad. The council supported my efforts, as I’m likely the only person your father would have surrendered to. Of course they didn’t know I came to warn him, not ensnare him.”
“How do we get there?” Vlad asked. “To Elysia, I mean.” To his amazement, he could already hear Henry snoring in the backseat. That guy could fall asleep on a car trip to the mailbox.
The dashboard lights cast a cool blue on Otis’s face. He was watching the road intently. “Have you noticed that history books make no mention of whose idea it was to build cities, Vlad? They theorize, yes, and place the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans at the center of their theories, but historians really don’t know who came up with the design for metropolitan areas. Not human historians, anyway.”
Vlad raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying vampires invented cities?”
“Quite. What better place for a superior race to hide than at the heart of an enormous population, where buildings are always busy despite the time of day, where large numbers of people live in a relatively small area, and a dead body is discounted as just another victim?” He smiled, obviously proud of his heritage—of their heritage. “We also invented Latin, chess, and PlayStation.”
Vlad shifted in his seat. He could believe Otis’s story about old stuff like Latin and chess, but PlayStation? Puh-lease. “I thought that was Sony’s idea.”
“Who do you think runs Sony?” Otis raised a sly eyebrow at him in the darkness, and Vlad laughed despite the tension in his bones.
Vlad leaned against the door and dozed until the car came to a stop in front of a thirteen-story office building in downtown Stokerton—about an hour north of Bathory. He rubbed his eyes and reached back, smacking the still-snoring Henry on the knee. Otis opened the glove box and pulled out a small squirt gun. He held it out to Henry, a look of genuine terror in his eyes. “This is pure garlic juice. If anyone comes near the car, squirt them. Don’t listen for explanations or let them get close to you. Just squirt them and then roll the window up. Keep the doors locked until you see either me, Nelly, or Vladimir.” He started to open his door, then he looked at Henry again. “And don’t squirt Vlad or me. It would mean an extremely painful wound, and if it managed to seep into our mouths or an open cut, it would mean death. Be extremely careful, drudge.”
After Otis got out of the car, Henry grabbed Vlad by the sleeve. “Why does he keep calling me that?”
Vlad sighed. This was not a conversation he wanted to have while who knows what was happening to his aunt. “I’ll tell you later. Right now just sit here and watch out for anybody who looks suspicious, okay?”
Henry nodded and settled back in his seat, the small squirt gun clutched against his chest. He looked like a Romper Room Rambo, waiting to take on the world.
Vlad got out and followed Otis to the revolving doors. “Won’t they know we’re coming if we use the front door?”
“They already know we’re here, Vlad.” Otis stepped through the door with a glance behind him at the car.
Vlad had never felt so scared in his life.
The elevator smelled like a weird mixture of cinnamon buns and moldy carpet. An older gentleman and a woman in a dark blue business suit with her hair in a tight bun entered after Vlad and Otis. Otis merely smiled at them as he glanced at the panel of numbered buttons. The elevator shifted, carrying them up several floors before it stopped and the man exited. Otis leaned past the woman with a flirtatious glance that said, “Allow me.” Hidden in the wood next to the panel was a glyph, which he touched, inciting it to glow brightly.
Otis’s eyes didn’t change colors.
The panel of buttons slid down, revealing another set of buttons. Otis pressed LOBBY and the woman pressed 4. The elevator began its descent, and when they reached the fourth floor, the strange woman got out without a word. Otis leaned back on the handrail. “Not what you expected, is it?”
“I was thinking something with bats and an ominous moon floating above.”
Otis raised his eyebrows and chuckled. The elevator door opened onto a posh lobby with a well-polished marble floor, black leather sofas, and a large grandfather clock against the far wall. Vlad followed Otis to the front desk, and after Otis had a brief, mumbled conversation with the receptionist, they settled on one of the sofas and waited—for what, Vlad couldn’t be sure. The Muzak version of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” was pouring out of unseen speakers around them. Vlad rubbed his temples, trying to block out the sound. “Doesn’t this strike you as a bit too corporate?”
Otis folded his hands in his lap and tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
Vlad flashed him an incredulous look, but Otis didn’t react to it. “I mean doesn’t it seem just a little bit strange that we whisk off in the night to a world where vampires are the norm, only to end up in an office lobby drumming our fingers?” Otis blinked at him, clearly not getting Vlad’s point. Vlad sank in his seat and crossed his arms in front of him. “Never mind. It’s just weird, is all.”
“I think you’ve seen too many movies, Vlad.”
The curvaceous redhead behind the desk stood and nodded to Otis. “Mr. Otis, you can go in now.” She sat down again, but not before giving Vlad a wink.
Otis stood and brushed invisible dust from his slacks before gesturing to the large double doors to the left of the receptionist’s desk. “Shall we, Vlad?”
Vlad was quite sure they shouldn’t, but he stood anyway and walked through the double doors.
Behind the doors was a significantly darker, more appropriately ominous room. Large silk rugs covered the floor and tall, thin windows marked their passage across the length of the room, toward the table at the other end. Six men and three women sat facing the door, with nothing but the polished black table between them and Vlad. Behind them was an oversize, glossy black fireplace.
Otis grabbed Vlad’s arm and pulled him toward the gathered group. His fingers pressed brutally into Vlad’s skin as he flung Vlad forward.
Vlad stumbled and fell to the floor. He flashed Otis a confused glance.
Otis straightened his shoulders proudly. “As requested, council, I’ve brought you the son of Tomas Tod.”
The tall vampire at the center met Vlad’s eyes. Vlad instantly recognized him as the man in black. D’Ablo, Otis had called him. “We are indeed grateful for your efforts, Otis. Even though the results took what seemed like ages to come by.”
“My apologies, Mr. President. It took longer than expected to locate the boy. And I had to be certain he was Tomas’s son before bringing him in. I’d hoped to locate Tomas first, to please the council with an unexpected end to our hunt, but the boy is clever.” Otis dropped his eyes to Vlad and shook his head. “Too much like his father. I fear locating Tomas will take even longer.”
Vlad looked up at Otis, frozen to his spot on the floor. What was Otis talking about? Tomas was dead. He knew that.
D’Ablo slid a small stack of papers toward one of the women, who began scribbling notes on each sheet. “We’ll find Tomas soon enough. Quite soon, I’d wager, with the boy’s assistance.”
Vlad parted his lips to speak, but only an inaudible whisper escaped him. “But my dad is dead.”
&nbs
p; D’Ablo offered Otis a nod. “You’ve done well. As reward, see to the lad’s guardian. We have no further need of her, this”—he glanced at one of the papers in front of him—“Nelly.”
Vlad got to his feet. His legs felt like Jell-O. He cast another glance at his uncle, this one full of trepidation. “Otis?”
But Otis wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were fixed on D’Ablo.
Vlad watched in horror as the corners of Otis’s mouth lifted in a smile.
Vlad grabbed Otis’s sleeve, but was shaken off. “What? No! You’re my uncle! You’re supposed to help me!”
Chronicles Vladimir 01 - Eighth Grade Bites Page 12