Blessed

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  “It’s key,” I said, remembering that he’d had fifty boxes shipped to England, traveled with them, taken refuge in them. Van Helsing’s men had chased all over, purifying the boxes with holy wafers before Dracula shipped himself home in the last. “But since when is Vlad tech-friendly?”

  Harrison keyed drac3 into a form. “Vlad Tepes was most certainly not the human aristocrat who became Dracula Prime, though he nevertheless has something of a cult following among eternals.”

  To his credit, Kieren tried to answer my actual question. “Brad probably realized that the Carpathian powers would come with their limits, like the need for homeland soil, and put in the order himself. I’m not sure if he’d theoretically want it shipped from the count’s lands in Eastern Europe or from his own hometown. . . .”

  “Kansas City,” I said, feeling optimistic. “If it were me, I’d order both to be safe.”

  “Both!” Harrison exclaimed. “Here we go. I’ve got the delivery address outside San Antonio.”

  “You found him?” Kieren exclaimed, leaning over to look.

  As he and Harrison did more research on Brad-Dracula’s lair, I took a moment to digest the news. With any luck, this time we’d be the ones with surprise on our side.

  “We should wait until daylight,” I said, pushing up to sit on the table. “He’s —”

  “According to the proprietor,” Harrison interrupted, “twenty boxes should arrive at this address tonight. If we don’t move fast —”

  “Tonight?” Kieren exclaimed. “Make him cancel it!”

  “He’s trying, but his driver is one hundred and thirty-two years old and always forgets to turn on his cell phone.”

  Our deadline had just been moved up. Before we could act on it, though, Aimee burst through the drapes, waving Stoker’s novel. “Is this book all true?”

  Harrison reached to take it from her. “Yes, no, sort of. Even if you accept it as gospel (and you shouldn’t), the text itself is inconsistent. Besides, Van Helsing is a terribly vague fellow for someone so fond of hearing himself blather on. Why?”

  Aimee raised her upper lip, showing that her gums had begun to retract around the incisors. “Like Lucy.” Then she lowered her collar to reveal a swollen, angry burn mark circling her neck where the tattoo of crosses had been. “Like Mina.”

  “When did this happen?” I hopped off the table for a closer look. “I mean, when did you first notice —”

  “Michigan,” she admitted. “The pain woke me up at the inn.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Kieren wanted to know.

  I moved to rest a hand on his shoulder, remembering the shame Mina had felt when Van Helsing had inadvertently singed her forehead with a holy wafer. “What were you saying, Aimee, about the novel?”

  “Why didn’t y’all tell me that destroying the count saved Mina?” she asked.

  “By destroy —” Harrison began at the same time Kieren said, “Harker —”

  They glared at each other, and then Harrison said, “All right, boy, you unravel the vast mysteries of the demonic.”

  Kieren folded his hands on a closed book, every inch the future valedictorian of this year’s senior class at Waterloo High. “Here’s what we know: Harker and Morris destroyed Dracula Prime’s body but not the count himself.

  “Using sorcery, the über-vampire arranged it so that his essence, including his powers, could take refuge in any weapon that felled him, at least until he could find another host. Or maybe he couldn’t free himself but left a restoration spell in the hands of his most loyal followers, trusting that they would bring him back.

  “Regardless, the count hadn’t expected a nearly simultaneous attack with two weapons — Morris’s and Harker’s — or to be split between them, leaving his will dormant.

  “The upshot was that with Dracula temporarily out of the game, his Carpathian powers also seemed to have vanished from the world — at least until Brad, using spells of his own, began accessing those abilities from Morris’s knife.

  “Then Brad went after and obtained Harker’s knife, too.

  “Problem was,” Kieren continued, “Brad hadn’t realized the Carpathian capabilities still came attached to their original owner. When he reunited the knives in the blood rite at the lake, his goal was to make the transfer of powers permanent. But — surprise — the count’s essence also became whole again.

  “Like Ivo said, the newly resurrected will of Dracula, though disoriented and confused, was eager to claim a new body. And guess who had accidentally invited him in? Brad and the count have already begun to merge — in terms of their abilities, the respective sorcery that animated them, and the individual monsters themselves.”

  Damn. Smart was sexy.

  Harrison, less impressed, yawned. “Didn’t we already know all that?”

  “I didn’t,” Aimee said, adjusting her sling.

  “We didn’t know how far along the merger was,” Kieren said. “But now, given what’s happened to Aimee, we’re out of the gray area.” He shook his head, seemingly astounded by what he was about to say. “I have good news and bad news.”

  “The bad news?” Harrison asked.

  “When Bradley’s victims begin to die toward the end of the week, they’ll rise as the much-scarier Carpathian variety of vampires.”

  As terrifying as it sounded, that tracked. Like Mina, Aimee suffered from a horrible burn triggered by a holy symbol. But at that very moment, a decidedly non-scalding crucifix was resting against my decidedly non-Carpathian skin.

  And what was it Nora had said about Sergio snapping at Jamal? Like Lucy had lunged for Arthur on her deathbed. In my last days of humanity, I’d been emotionally erratic. But it wasn’t until after I’d died that I’d been tempted to take a bite out of anyone.

  What was happening to the infected was worse than what had happened to me.

  “Unlike most vampires,” Kieren added, “who build strength and skills from the time they’re neophytes to the time they’re Old Bloods, Carpathians rise fully juiced but without so much as a remaining drop of soul to temper them.”

  “No soul?” Aimee and I repeated at the same time.

  “It doesn’t gradually fade like the souls of other vampires,” he explained. “It’s just gone. Immediately. We’re talking about a much bigger, much badder magic.”

  So there’s a bigger, badder price . . . for the baby-squirrel eaters, for everyone.

  “Why isn’t Quincie a Carpathian?” Aimee asked, taking a seat. “Brad made her.”

  “When one eternal blesses another,” Harrison began, “the magic flows from the parent to the . . .”

  I rejoined them around the table. “We’ve just decided to go with spawn.”

  Kieren reached for my hand. “During the month-long infection period, a connection exists between vampires and those they’ve cursed with their blood.”

  The invisible, preternatural umbilical cord. I remembered Freddy mentioning it.

  “In Quincie’s case,” Kieren continued, “Brad had acquired some of the count’s powers — those in the Morris knife — during her transformation period. The psychic skills at least. But she still became the relatively weaker kind of vampire that he was originally. However, with the newly infected, the essence of Dracula must have slowly overtaken the connection between them and Brad, altering the transformation magic in some critical way so that they are becoming Carpathians instead.”

  “Or,” Harrison put in, “it’s equally likely that the power to create new Carpathians had simply been one of the powers embedded in Harker’s knife and came into play — through the same connection — only after the blood-sacrifice ritual.”

  Kieren nodded. “What matters is that the game has changed.”

  “For Quincie, what’s done is done,” Harrison added. “But looking ahead, we must face the reality that our opponent is on the verge of raising an almighty army of Carpathian hellions.”

  I desperately wanted to know, “And the good news?�
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  Aimee answered, “Now that Carpathian magic is affecting my transformation, it may mean that the rules of Stoker’s novel apply. And according to the book —”

  “If we can take out the count,” I exclaimed, moving to hug her, “you’ll be saved!”

  “They all will.” Kieren broke into a huge grin. “All of those that he infected —”

  “Or at least the ones who aren’t already elevated,” Harrison muttered.

  Already undead, he meant. Like me.

  “Everyone,” Kieren went on, “who tasted the chilled baby squirrels will live on as human beings.” He paused. “Possibly.”

  “But there’s nothing we can do to help Quincie?” Aimee pressed.

  Or Mitch, I realized.

  Harrison stood and put a firm arm around my shoulder. “Really, children, there are far worse fates than ending up like me.”

  What was it that Mina had said about euthanasia?

  “We’re going to annihilate Drac Prime for good,” declared Zachary as we burst out of Sanguini’s back door and into the parking lot with Kieren, the twins, and Aimee. “My sword is a holy weapon. He can’t hide out in it like he did with the knives. I’ll handle the strike. Everyone else stay clear.”

  “Stay clear?” Harrison echoed. “I’m happy to wait here at the restaurant.”

  “I’m sure your queen would be wowed by your bravery,” I said.

  “Her Majesty is —”

  “Can it, you two,” the angel scolded, opening the driver’s door to the Impaler. “I’m serious. Touch the sword, and the metal will begin burning your skin almost instantly. You’ll have a second — maybe two. Then you’ll be obliterated.”

  As we piled into the SUV, he explained, “There’s nothing the rest of us will be able to do. A holy fire doesn’t stop burning until it’s totally destroyed the demonic. Then we’d have one fewer supernatural soldier on our side.” Turning in his seat, he said to Kieren, “If something happens to me, you take the weapon.”

  “Your sword was blessed?” Kieren asked, and I realized he was the only one who didn’t know what Zachary really was.

  At my GA’s nod, I followed up. “You’re sure the sword won’t hurt him? Because he’s alive, or because he’s half Wolf?”

  The angel started the engine. “It won’t hurt him because he’s wholly souled.”

  As opposed to me and Harrison. I remembered how the weapon had smote Sabine’s enforcers, and smote wasn’t a word I thought of often.

  I realized, too, that, however much Zachary hoped I’d seek redemption and surrender my vampiric existence for “true eternal life,” he wasn’t expecting this to be the night I died for good. Ditto for my fellow neophyte.

  “What are you doing?” Kieren demanded. While everybody else waited in the Impaler, he’d followed me inside my house, up one staircase and then another.

  “I told you to stay in the car!” I exclaimed.

  Half of the stale, musty, low-pitched attic had doubled as Daddy’s retreat. Dust covered his papers and journals, the tiny handmade clay pots, rough-hewn dolls, and other treasures. Of late, alongside a wedge-spaced window, Zachary had set up a futon and lamp but appeared to be far from having really settled in.

  The rest of the space still served as makeshift storage for family pieces that didn’t fit into the décor — my great-grandmother’s rocking chair, a stack of quilts, a large, antique wardrobe. . . . I opened it and drew out Mama’s wedding dress. A long, bone-white gown with a bloodred sash and red ribbon shoulder straps. The color had matched her rose bouquet and the bridesmaids’ gowns. I’d seen the pictures.

  “What are you planning to do with that?” asked Kieren from behind me.

  This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. I’d already told him that Bradley had taken me prisoner on the night I’d died. But I’d spared him the details of the ordeal. Like the red calla lilies and the gauzy, long white night-gown. This was what Bradley wanted me to be. Virginal, vulnerable, corruptible, and most of all, his. “I’m going to put it —”

  “For him?” Kieren pressed. “No. No, forget it. Let’s just go.”

  I reached into the bottom of the wardrobe for my mother’s white ballet-style shoes and turned to face my Wolf man. “Look, I’ve tried flat-out tackling the opposition, and it’s gotten me nowhere. It’s time to be more subtle. I can create the distraction we need.”

  At that, Kieren rocked back on his boot heels. Then he composed himself and moved to rest his hands on my shoulders. “Quince, I know we’re running out of time, and to be honest, I can’t think of a better idea. But that’s not a good enough reason for whatever you —”

  “I’m our best hope of —”

  “I know what you’re thinking. I know what the books say, and I know what your buddy Zachary has been preaching. But you have to promise me that this is no suicide mission, that if something goes wrong, you won’t —”

  “I’m already dead, so technically —”

  “You know what I mean.” He looked up through the skylight at the sliver of moonlight, as if for strength, and then into my eyes again. “I promise you that you’re one hundred percent vintage Quince. You’ve had a hellacious couple of months. You’ve taken losses that would’ve crippled anyone else. But, so help me God, you’re still Quincie P. Morris.”

  I could tell Kieren had practiced that, and it broke my heart a little. Still holding the hanger in one hand and shoes in the other, I whispered, “I love you, too.”

  But no promises.

  At nearly midnight, I crept through the dense fog alongside the long, private gravel drive. I pointed at the second sign we’d seen that read HIGHWAY TO HELL over an arrow pointing the way. “What do y’all make of that?”

  “Bait,” Harrison whispered. “A lure for impulse thrill-seekers, easy prey. He’s probably keeping a stable of human bleeding stock.”

  Zachary, in the lead, said, “If that’s true, we’ll have to get them out.”

  “I’ll do it,” Harrison offered. “Yes, I’ll free the prey. You fight the Carpathian.”

  I couldn’t help thinking of the old saying about the werefox and the henhouse.

  “I’ll help you,” Kieren put in, probably thinking the same thing.

  I suspected that he would’ve rather stayed by my side, but our whole plan depended on the appearance of my approaching Brad-Dracula on my own.

  Which didn’t mean Kieren wasn’t armed. He had brought the battle-axe that he’d used against the vice principal. Harrison wielded a far fancier, bejeweled axe that he’d brought down from Chicago (Miranda’s, he’d said), and Zachary had his holy sword, which at the moment was not on fire.

  My only weapon? Mama’s wedding gown. Not that it mattered, but the hem needed to be let down. I hadn’t realized it before, but over the last few years, I’d grown taller than my mother.

  Kieren cocked his head, listening. “Get back!”

  We drew away from the road, crouching behind dry scrub along the drive.

  A minute later, an unmarked white delivery truck passed by.

  “That’s it!” I exclaimed. “The count hasn’t left yet.”

  As the truck rounded the bend, a howl rose into the night, only to be joined by another, another, another . . . Bradley had made a lot of friends. Minions. Spawn.

  “Sentries,” Harrison hissed. “I warned you.”

  “Any chance that they’re real wolves or werewolves?” I asked.

  Kieren slowly shook his head. “No, I can smell the difference.”

  They could even be Carpathians, I realized, if they’d died not long after being infected. We didn’t have a fallback strategy for that.

  Aimee and Freddy had agreed to wait in the Impaler, which was parked down the hill. They weren’t defenseless. In Chicago, Freddy had picked up a couple of motorized, double-barreled holy-water rifles. But especially after what had happened to Clyde, I fretted that if we didn’t return to the SUV soon, our human friends would come after us.

/>   “There!” Kieren whispered, pointing through the trees.

  At first, with the leaves, the fog, I couldn’t see. Then a breeze wafted by. The drive wrapped around the front of a two-story Victorian, pale yellow with dark trim. The porch light had been turned on, but I couldn’t see any lights in the windows.

  From the online aerial view, we knew that the house stood at the front of a quad, its rear opposite what looked like a barn, with two rectangular buildings — barracks? — arranged parallel to either side. Sort of like the castle courtyard.

  “Quincie,” Zachary cautioned, “don’t let Brad lure you in too close. Remember, if any vamp has even the slightest contact with my sword —”

  “Got it,” Harrison and I replied at the same time.

  “Don’t forget,” my GA added, “other vamps we run into may be typical neophytes like you two. Salvageable souls. We’re not on a killing spree. We go in. Destroy Drac. Get out.”

  Harrison coughed. “You don’t suppose it will be that easy?”

  Brad-Dracula had probably gone around back to meet the truck, so I left my angel, my true love, and Harrison behind as I started off to do the same.

  “Quince, hang on,” Kieren called in a low voice, jogging to my side.

  “We’ve been over this,” I whispered. “I have to go now.”

  Ignoring me, he crouched to grab the hem of Mama’s wedding dress. Before I could wrench it away, Kieren purposefully turned his other hand palm up and extended the nail of his index finger — like a switchblade — into a curved Wolf claw.

  “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “Ivo showed me. That’s as far as I’ve been able to get and stay in total control.”

  Still, it was a significant step forward.

  Kieren used his claw to rip a slit up one skirt seam, stopping midthigh. “In case you need to run.” Then he gestured for me to turn, and when I did, he ripped open the seam on the other side. “Or kick.”