“Whose plane is that? How did anyone know we were here?” Seemingly cemented in that spot, Carter took a tentative step forward.
“Whoever the plane belongs to, they should be proud it took Elodie as long to hot-wire it as it did. She normally does it in half that time. We tracked the four of you here from the high school ... Vlad rest Duncan’s soul. I will gladly answer more questions, and we can play catch up, just as soon as we are safely aboard the stolen vessel. And, I would walk fast if I were you. There’s a thin line between undead and just-dead, and she looks like she’s about to trade Vera Wang for a body-bag.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Inquiry – Diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work.
Lay her down over there,” Elodie commanded. Side-stepping to allow Thomas to take her place in the cockpit, she pointed to a table in the middle of the seating area. A sweep of her arm cleared the makeshift gurney, the mess clattering to the floor as Carter eased me down onto its surface.
Teeth chattering hard enough to chip a molar, my muscles locked to stone. Consciousness came in rippling waves of coherence. It took Carter and Elodie’s combined strength to pry my arms from their rigor state curled against my core. Outside, the engines roared louder still. The jet lurched forward to begin our voyage.
“She was stabbed with her silver nail file.” Carter’s mask of concern floated before my fluttering lids. “But silver doesn’t affect her. I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Silver may not affect her the way it does traditional vampires,” Elodie corrected. Curling her fingers around the collar of my blouse, she tore it open to better assess my wounds. “However, there could still be a sensitivity there. A milder form, but not nonexistent. If, for example, someone were to oh, say stab her in the chest with it, she could still have a reaction. Think of it like a bee sting. If you’re not allergic, it’s just an irritant. Unless, the entire hive swarms and you suffer a thousand stings all at once.”
Wadding up my tattered shirt, she used it to wipe away the excess of blood. Carter hovered at her elbow, brow pinched with concern. “What can I do?”
Elodie peeled one of my eyes open, peering down to evaluate my pupil dilation. Whatever she saw folded her face into a stern scowl. A jerk of her chin gestured to a designer satchel pooled in the corner. “In my weekender, there’s I.V. bags of serum and blood. Grab me one of each, two packages of tubing, and a needle. We’re going to hit her with everything we’ve got.”
“Do you always travel with medical supplies?” Spinning in the tight space, Carter was on the bag in two strides.
Applying pressure to slow the bleeding, Elodie blew her bangs from her eyes. “My employer insisted one among the triplets have those items on hand whenever we traveled anywhere with Rau and Vincenza.”
“The undying loyalty implied Rau was your boss.” Carter offered her the retrieved items.
“I could take the time to explain all that now. Or, I could save your friend. You pick.” Not waiting for an answer, Elodie threaded the stainless-steel I.V. needle into a vein at the crook of my elbow. Attaching the tubing, she connected it to a bag of the serum that made me the undead American I was and ran it wide open. She peeled open the second package of medical tubing, unraveled it, and pinched one end between her thumb and forefinger. “She won’t be able to feed on her own. Open her mouth and tip her head back.”
Doing as instructed with quaking hands, Carter averted his gaze as she threaded the thin tube down my throat and into my stomach.
The chills subsided into an oppressive blanket of numbness, granting me clemency from the pain attributed to the invasive procedure. Matter of fact, I felt nothing at all. It was as if my spirit checked out and floated above my tattered body to patiently wait for a less traumatic time to return. Stabbing the other end of the tube into the blood bag, Elodie gave it a gentle pulse to get the flow started.
The second the first drop of vampire blood settled into my stomach, the fires of hell tore through my gut. Launching off the table, my body seized in spastic convulsions. I clawed at my face, tearing the tube out, gagging as it hurled it from my gullet. Unimaginable pain and torment punched through my core, a scream rattling from my raw and raspy lungs. Slamming to the carpeted floor, I twisted into a tight ball as a fresh onslaught of spasms claimed me.
The intercom clicked on with a sizzle of static. “What’s happening back there?” Thomas bellowed.
“Unless you’re coming back to help, I don’t have time to explain!” Elodie screamed. Leaning over me, she rolled me onto my back. “She’s reacting to the vamp blood. There has to be silver left inside of her. Part of the nail file must have broken off.”
“Do we have tweezers or surgical tools to pull it out?” Carter dropped to his knees and eased my head on to this lap.
“You want to use silver implements to get silver out? Not sure that would help our cause if we had them. Plus, you wouldn’t be able to feel for it. You’re going to need to use your fingers to find it and dig it out.” Crawling across the floor, Elodie claimed a bottle of scotch from the mini-bar. She yanked the cork out with her teeth, spat it aside, and sloshed the amber liquid over Carter’s hands and my wound. Its sting barely registered over the unmistakable feeling of my guts being turned inside out.
Carter’s sapphire eyes bulged to volleyballs. “Me? Why me?”
Shoving him aside to take his place at my head, Elodie stretched my arms out and pinned them to the floor. “Because I have the strength to hold her still and you don’t. All you have to do is stick your fingers into the wound until you feel the fragment, then pull it out. A monkey could do this, a human shouldn’t have too much trouble.”
“You’re coaching skills lack conviction!” Reluctantly positioning himself at my side, Carter’s frantic shout bordered on maniacal.
“I’ll save the coddling moments for when we’re not trying to save your girlfriend. Now, sit on her legs to stretch out her torso.”
Gingerly doing as he was told, Carter yelped at the shriek of pain that escaped my paling lips. “I’m so sorry, Vinx,” he muttered through his teeth. Closing his eyes, he forced his middle and index finger into the oozing gash.
Tissue popped.
Tendons ripped.
Head falling back, I screamed until my lungs ached.
“Don’t fight it,” Elodie whispered, her thumbs tracing circles of comfort on my wrists. “You don’t need to be here for this. If you want to pass out, you go ahead and do it.”
Planting the seed of the suggestion into my mind, it quickly took root. The last of my strength drained from my body, and I escaped into sweet oblivion.
I woke in a world I no longer recognized, and that had nothing to do with the cloud-soft bed and terrycloth robe I found myself in. Thankfully, the sawing pain was gone, and none of my friends had any of their appendages crammed into my guts. Thank Vlad for that small blessing. Untying the belted robe, I parted the plush fabric to assess the damage to my battered core. Only a puffy pink scar remained; my rapid healing had been hard at work to knit me back together.
Easing myself off the bed, I stretched to full height. A slight tug of my stomach muscles injected the reminder to proceed with caution. Securing the knot of my belt, I padded out of the jet’s private quarters in search of my saviors. I found Elodie and Carter one room away, perched on the edge of overstuffed leather recliners. Both of their stares were fixed on the flat screen mounted on the wall. Before my mouth could open to croak out a greeting, my attention was stolen by the somber-faced reporter speaking directly into the camera. At the bottom of the screen, a breaking news banner scrolled.
“It has been confirmed that the footage came from the phone of known reporter Carter Westerly. However, officials have yet to locate the whereabouts of Mr. Westerly. What they do know is that the y
oung woman seen in the footage has been identified as Amber Rawling, daughter of New Haven, Connecticut County Commissioner Lawrence Rawling. Commissioner Rawling has yet to release a statement, however we have received word that he did provide a confirmation that the body recovered from the airplane hangar was, in fact, that of his daughter. A manhunt is now underway in search of Rau Mihnea, the vampire activist who spear-headed the Nosferatu Presumption of Innocence Bill. Mihnea was recognized in the footage leaked by the authorities, in hopes that it will lead to his immediate capture. Before we show this footage, we must warn that this is not suitable for all viewers.”
The footage Carter captured with his phone was patched in to the feed. On screen, Rau paced a slow circle around me. Despite the blood seeping from my gut, I matched his every step to keep myself between him and Amber. A wound far deeper than that inflicted by the file tore open within me. My soul bled to turn back the clocks and change the script of what was about to unfold. Blood-tinged tears blurred my vision as I watched Rau dodge around me to claim his victim. Latching on to Amber’s throat, he was riding her body to the ground when the video cut away.
“What the hell?” Face reddening with rage, Carter seized the chair’s armrests in white-knuckled fists. “Markus and Rutherford weren’t even mentioned! They edited the footage. No one even knows they were there.”
Sitting still as stone, Elodie’s nostrils flared. “They have friends in high places. But they aren’t the only ones.”
“Is that the boss you mentioned?” Trying on my voice, I found it tender with a sandpaper grate. Both their heads snapped in my direction. The matching shock on their faces prompted me to double check my robe was closed. “I … heard you say something about that, right before Carter tried to touch my spine from the front.”
Carter bolted from his seat in a blink. “We didn’t expect you to be up so soon, or to remember any of that. How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?”
“You can explain that hot mess.” I bobbed my head in the direction of the TV.
The suggestion was met by nothing but heavy silence.
With a groan of annoyance, I let my shoulder sag. “I’m fine. I swear. You both did a great job putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. Now, can we get back to the more pressing issue of Rau becoming public enemy number one?”
Lips parting to protest, Carter was cut-off my Elodie’s monotone timbre. “My boss is Father VanHelsing, sentinel to Vlad the Impaler. My brothers and I were assigned to protect Rau Mihnea at all costs. As he is being held captive by the humans he was so desperate to integrate with, I’m sure his father would find this a matter of great concern.” Picking up the polished ivory phone from its pedestal beside her, she typed the number one to connect with the cockpit. “Reroute us to Romania. We need to pay a visit to the home office.” Pausing, she pulled the phone slightly from her ear where Thomas’ rants could clearly be heard. “I don’t care where we have to stop to refuel, just fly the damned plane and get us there.”
“Romania?” Carter squawked, tone bordering on a whimper.
Returning the receiver to its cradle, Elodie folded her hands in her lap. “Castle Draculesti to be precise, birthplace of the Son of the Dragon. It’s situated on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia. Unless you have some reason you can’t travel to the birthplace of the Nosferatu?”
Sinking back into his seat, Carter suddenly seemed to find the carpeting beneath his feet fascinating and fixed his steadfast stare on it. “I just … don’t have my passport with me,” he murmured.
“I assure you, that won’t be an issue,” Elodie replied him, her lips twisting to the side.
The lighthearted moment of reprieve was ruined by a special alert chime from the television. Finger to his ear, the reporter listened with his forehead creased. After a resolute nod of understanding, he addressed his viewers once more. “We’re receiving word that the NPI Bill has been vetoed by emergency executive order. Across the country, violent protests are breaking out in a rash of vampire hate crimes.” Over his shoulder, footage from a chopper camera caught a horde of humans dragging a vampress out into the sunlight. The instant she burst into flames they danced and cheered around her decimating corpse.
“Where is Micah?” I demanded, maternal flames licking up my spine.
“As soon as we got you stabilized, Elodie called Finn. He hustled her onto a plane to meet us. Our pilots have been exchanging coordinates.” Dragging his tongue over his teeth, Carter braced himself for a blow up. “I know you hate Finn, but we needed to utilize—”
“No,” I interrupted, stare locked on the screen, “he needs to bring her. Everyone needs to come together, and run.”
The news footage cut to a vampire refugee camp, not unlike the one I visited. Tents of the displaced were set ablaze. When the inhabitants tried to flee, they were gunned down with semi-automatic weapons loaded with silver bullets. The final scene was outside one of the voting stations, where vials of acid, laced with silver, were thrown at human and Nosferatu pro-vamp picketers alike.
Elodie melted from her seat, crumbling to the ground in a heap as blood-stained tears dripped from her cheeks. “They’re hunting us. We sought acceptance and were answered with the drums of war.”
Sinking down on the armrest of Carter’s chair, the ache of my heart made that nail file to the gut seem like a papercut. “How do we help them? What can we do?” Voice breaking with emotion, I gratefully took Carter’s offered hand, thankful for the warmth of the contact in a world capable of such chilling hate.
“I-I don’t kn-know,” Elodie stuttered, swiping at her cheeks with the back of her wrist. “We … need to wake up Vlad. He’s seen this kind of hate before, when people first learned of our kind. It forced us back into the shadows then, for so very long. He might know of something we could do different. Some way to stop history from repeating itself.”
“To be clear,” Carter pressed his lips together, choosing his words with care, “our master plan here is to unleash a man known throughout history for his panache of impaling the bodies of his enemies on spikes, in hopes he can somehow end the up rise of violence? Are we sure about this? It has a very ‘adding fuel on the fire’ vibe to it.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Stare locked on the screen, my jaw twitched with the threat of battle. “We can stand back and watch more die, or we can go back to where it all began and arm ourselves with the ugly truth. We need to—”
As if to counter my point, the news channel panned back to the apathetic reporter. “With the true nature of Rau Mihnea revealed, victims of the vampire lord are now bravely coming forward with their own stories of his brutality.”
My attention was diverted from those trumped-up allegations by an emblem that appeared at the bottom corner of the screen. Occupying the spot for broadcast sponsors were the letters DG scrawled in a swirling silver font and encircled by a braided vine. Something about them scratched at the surface of a memory. Unfortunately, I was unable to dig deep enough to uncover it.
“Vinx?” Carter ventured, peering up at me with hopeful expectation. “I believe you were saying something about how awakening a man capable of mass genocide would benefit our cause?”
Dragging herself up off the floor, Elodie adjusted her knee-length skirt and smoothed the wrinkles from her blouse. “It will. It’s our only plan, and a sensible one. However, if we’re going to do this, we do it by unanimous agreement. Whatever follows, whatever we unleash, will be on us. I’m in with a venomous passion that makes my fangs ache. What say the two of you?”
“I say, the idea being balls-out crazy, I’m understandably leery.” Dragging a hand over the back of his neck, Carter filled his lungs to capacity, expelling the breath from puffed cheeks. “That said, desperate times being what they are, it seems balls-out is the only way to go … so to speak.”
In the background, the TV rambled on. “The first victim
to come forward, who recently sat down with our in-field correspondent Dean Mason, was left for dead after surviving a vicious attack by Mihnea.”
“Vinx, you want to weigh in on this?”
“He took me from my home after killing my parents.” The voice of a ghost lured my attention to the television screen.
No. It couldn’t be. Blinking hard, I willed the image to change. Prayed my eyes were deceiving me.
“For a year I was held against my will, tortured day and night. In the end … I begged for death. Even that he denied me, turning me into a monster instead.”
“Vincenza?” Carter pressed.
It was no sudden drop of altitude that forced me to my knees, but reality whirling around me in a dizzying tailspin.
Darting to my side, Carter caught my elbow to keep me upright. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Jeremy?” His name left my lips in a hopeful whisper, beseeching the universe to offer an alternative explanation for the nightmare swelling before me.
Elodie’s stare lobbed from the news footage, to me, and back again. “Who is that?”
“If it wasn’t for the efforts of DG Enterprises and the state of the art medical advancements they have access to, I wouldn’t be alive today.” The interviewee, with the face I knew so well, peered into the lens—his sheepish, lopsided grin undoubtedly winning over viewers everywhere. “I owe everything to them.”
Mouth creaking open, terror tied my tongue. “That’s … my brother.”
Scientific Theory
Well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts tested and confirmed through observations and experiments.
The comfortable world I once knew was gone. Stolen from me by vile men committing deplorable acts for what they believed to be the greater good. Yet there, drowning in the despair of icy reality, I found new hands to lift me up.
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