“Her?” shrieked Margaret. “No! You promised Vanessa will be your goddess, and I her handmaiden!”
Ruthven swept its hand out with a cry of rage, and Margaret was flung away, up against a mirror standing in the corner. It shattered around her, and she fell among the shards, unconscious and bleeding.
The sound of running footsteps came from the hallway behind me, and I knew Eustacia was back. Ruthven knew it, too. It chuckled, and before my eyes, as it swiped the back of its long-fingered hand across its mouth, erasing the last trace of blood, it transformed into a beautiful youth. The face beyond lovely, with a serene smile and penetrating blue eyes, all capped with a halo of perfect gold curls.
Stretching out its arms, it flew up toward the ceiling, a vision of beauty neither male nor female, as transcendently awesome as Michelangelo Buonarroti’s finest painted masterpiece.
It held its hands out, a smile shining from its face. “I am the Cyprian Queen, god and goddess of love beyond imagining, and ecstasy beyond any human touch.”
A movement on the ground caught my attention, and I saw Vanessa had risen. Holding her hands out to the vision of youth, her blood-soaked hair clinging wetly to her body. She cried, “Her lips suck forth my soul!”
With a tinkling laughter, the angel came to stand before her. I moved quickly to intercept them, ready to fight for Vanessa. But she caught me off guard with a strength I didn’t expect. Her shove sent me back wheeling, giving her time to fling herself at Ruthven.
The beautiful vampire’s eyes shifted to me as it gathered her into its arms. “You will be very sorry,” it promised, and then it soared into the air, Vanessa in its arms.
The sash of the window flew open, and a frigid gust of wind blasted into the room. Then the fiend dashed out into the night.
“Vanessa!” I called, rushing to the sill. But it was too late. She was gone.
“Mrs. Andrews!” Eustacia cried from behind me. I felt her press my bag into my hand. But I could not tear my gaze from the window. The wind blew into my face, leaving me gulping desperately for air, but I barely felt the cold as it bit through my nightdress. The night was brilliant with moonlight, alive with the movement of the wind as it thrashed the treetops.
I watched helplessly as Ruthven hovered outside the window, chuckling as it clutched its euphoric prize. The maniacal look of its evil intent, somehow incalculably worse when written on such heavenly loveliness, was horrible to behold.
I fumbled in the bag, my fingers closing around the shaft of the stake. Even as I extracted it, I knew it would do no good.
“Eustacia, do not look,” I mumbled.
“But—”
“Do as I say. Close your eyes!”
I did not close mine. I watched Ruthven’s victorious glee as it dropped Vanessa Braithwait. The sound of her scream as she fell four stories, the sound of her body hitting the ground below, the immediate silence after, was beyond dreadful.
I cried out, my wail of frustration and rage echoing in the night. The vampire whirled to leer at me, cackling an evil laugh as it did so. Its golden head caught the moonlight for an instant before it flew off into the night, and was gone.
I held Eustacia in my arms, rocking her back and forth as she screamed and cried in horror. I wished I could do the same, but all of my emotions were choked by the bitter knowledge that I had failed and a beautiful child was now dead.
I found myself staring at the puddle of Vanessa’s blood seeping into the floorboards. It was on me, on my hand, on all I touched. I felt a wave of sickness and regret, making me sway on my feet.
“Mrs. Andrews,” Eustacia pleaded. “We must go.”
I knew she was right, but as she led me from the room, I stopped her. “No. Wait.”
Margaret still lay on the floor, surrounded by shards of broken glass. I bent over her to see if I could find a pulse. I did, and it was strong enough, but she was still unconscious. “She needs tending,” I said to Eustacia.
But she pulled at my shoulder. Her voice was filled with panic. “Come away. If they find you here they will suspect the worst. They already do not like you.”
“I . . .” She was right. I had no way to explain the carnage all around us. As we left, I wondered why no one had come yet. Then I thought of my own foggy head and realized everyone must have been drugged. I wondered how this was achieved, and thought of Margaret. “Eustacia, could Margaret have done this?”
“Margaret can do anything,” she whispered fearfully. “You do not know her. She is obsessed with the Cyprian Queen.”
“She has been learning about witchcraft,” I mused aloud.
Eustacia peered curiously at me. “You think she cast a spell?”
“No, of course not. I was thinking more that she might have used herbs to make everyone sleep.” We made our way out into the hallway. “Do you know what you saw tonight?”
“No,” she answered quickly, “and I do not want to. I am writing to my father and telling him that if he does not take me out of this school I will run away. Perhaps now that Vanessa is dead, he will believe what I have been telling him, that something terrible is happening here.” She looked at me fiercely. “But I swear I will run away if he makes me stay.”
“I do not think you will have trouble convincing him. Now that Vanessa . . . Well, it cannot be hidden or covered up any longer.”
“You knew all along there was danger. You knew about that . . . that monster.”
I sighed. There was little purpose in hiding anything now. “I did know. But I did not know enough. I should have done more.” The words were empty, fed by emotion rather than rational thought. I knew I could not have saved Vanessa. The knowledge was bitter.
Eustacia shook her head, her face haunted by fear. “I cannot imagine what would have happened tonight if you had not come. I could have been killed, too.” She swallowed, her fingers touching quivering lips. “I am sorry for Vanessa, but it was her own choice. Margaret and the monster poisoned her, but she wanted it.”
“She didn’t know,” I said quietly. “It deals in lies and deceit. It changes itself to what its prey desires. An angel, a demon, a god. It is some kind of evil chimera.”
What I’d just said hit me. Chimera—that was the name of the grotesque orchid Suddington had shown to me. Dracula chimaera.
The plan Eustacia and I laid out went flawlessly. She raised the alarm at dawn, and told the story that Vanessa had thrown Margaret into the mirror when Margaret tried to stop her from leaping to her death. Once Margaret was subdued, Vanessa had carried out her plan to kill herself, presumably due to being distraught over an unrequited love. It was inevitable the Irish boy would be named as the reason. My presence was never mentioned and the other girls who had been sent out by Ruthven had succumbed to the sleeping potion with which Margaret had doused the rest of the school. They awoke disoriented and confused, remembering nothing to contradict our story.
I impressed upon the headmistress to summon Serena to see to Margaret’s injuries. Sloane-Smith was dazed with the aftereffects of having been drugged and so she granted my request and my friend was called, bringing with her an urgent message for me that Valerian wanted to see me as soon as possible. There was much that required my attention at the school, however, both in my official capacity of teacher and in my unofficial one. I had to put the protections back in place, a task which proved a significant challenge as regular classes were suspended and the girls had free access to their dormitories. At last, during dinner, I was able to get inside and do what was needed.
I found something very curious in the execution of this duty. Small bags of seeds and some dried leaves or herbs were tucked into the coven girls’ beds. Uncertain what they were, and taking no chances, I burned them.
Fire purifies—that was why witches were burned. But the smoke from evil burning is toxic. As the tiny fire I had made with the bags in the brazier in my bedroom ignited, I nearly choked, recoiling from the potent aroma. And I saw in the flames tiny figures w
rithing—as if something malevolent was dying an agonizing death.
I felt a sense of deep satisfaction as the spell on each bag was broken.
In the quiet of Serena Black’s cottage, I sat wrapped in a blanket, hunched over a cup of coffee made strong and sweet (in the Turkish manner, Serena informed me, learned from her grandfather, the son of an Ottoman sheik).
“Rather an exotic past,” I had commented weakly when she’d handed me the brew.
“No more so than yours,” she’d replied. “Now drink. It will soothe your nerves, and you need it.”
After taking a sip, I gave her a questioning look, for I could taste the alcohol strongly. She merely shrugged and went about her kitchen works.
“We cannot stop him,” I said without emotion. The addition of spirits to my coffee had been a good idea; I wanted to dull the feelings of despair inside me. “Ruthven has crossed over into the phase of his game where he is compelled to destroy each and every one of them. And I cannot do a thing about it.”
“But he had a connection with you,” she reminded me. “He called you sister.”
“Where I was once his most desired object, he now reviles me for my betrayal. He will come for me as well. He drugged me. I did not anticipate that. And I suspect he has been doing something to me for a while. I have not been feeling well. I can’t sleep. I have the most awful dreams, and I feel . . . weak in a way I can’t describe.”
Serena’s soft hand closed over my shoulder. “Your man will be here soon. He will have some ideas, and a plan. Oh, and the priest has come back, you know. He and Sebastian are anxious to speak with you, I am told.”
“Did they learn something in Rome?” I inquired anxiously.
She shook her head. “I do not know. But I know your man wants you to leave the school. He told Sebastian, and I believe they are preparing to speak to you together on this.”
“It is out of the question,” I said quickly, then stopped to consider it. If I did not find a remedy for my recent malaise, there was not much point to my being there. “What do you think?”
“You cannot stay to fight the vampire if your powers are weak.” She brought her cup of coffee to join me at the table. “I made Sebastian tell me the story of what happened, how you all met, what you did to save that little girl. You who have never been trained killed an ancient vampire. That is no small thing.” Sliding a plate of sandwiches toward me, she gestured for me to take one. “There. You eat.”
They looked like an assortment of traditional finger sandwiches, but when I nibbled one, my mouth was treated to an interesting and exotic spice. She smiled at my obvious pleasure.
I realized how hungry I was, and she laughed when I immediately took another. “Why do you take such good care of us?” I asked.
She had been smiling, but the expression faded. Then she shrugged and turned away. I felt as if I had unwittingly broached a forbidden topic.
It was not a full minute later that Valerian slammed open the door and swept into the cottage amidst a whirl of cold wind. He did not even remove his cloak or shake the mud from his boots before coming directly to me. “What the devil happened last night?” he demanded.
He made me repeat every word the vampire had spoken, made me describe in exhausting detail every thought I had, every sensation I felt. The intense interrogation was both irritating and endearing. I did not take offense as his peremptory manner. I knew it was out of concern. Had the situation been reversed, I would have been just as impatient.
“I want you to stay here with Serena,” he announced when I was finished. “Or with me, in the village. You cannot go back to the school.”
I prepared for an argument. “I have to go back. I will only eat and drink here, at Serena’s cottage, or at the inn, to prevent being drugged again.”
He shook his head. “It was not something you ate or drank. I daresay that had a deleterious effect on your ability to exert your will, but a drug would not dilute in any way the strength of your talents.”
I stared at him. “Of course it did. I felt like I was reaching inside myself for something I knew to be strong and sure, only to find dust in my hands.”
“I believe what you felt. I only tell you, it was not Margaret’s sleeping drug.”
“Then what?” I snapped, my nerves frayed by the frightening possibility of something else at work here that I did not understand.
“I believe I have a theory,” he said soothingly, seeing my consternation. “It has to do with what I told you about the alchemist of Santorini.”
My head snapped up in shock. “What? But how?”
“Consider that the alchemist’s quest was—is—to restore the strigoii vii to humanness. A cure, in effect.”
His eyes were hot, and I knew he was thinking of himself, of being fully human again. My heart wrenched, for I had no doubt there was no such thing as a cure for the poison in his blood, and there never would be.
“In Naimah’s journal, she posited a theory that the basis of the alchemist’s cure was in the exchange between humans and vampires. The vampire would regain some of its human nature once again and in return a human would acquire some of the qualities of a vampire, namely immortality.” He paused to thank Serena as she handed him coffee.
I didn’t trust Naimah. After all, we still did not know what she had bartered in order to live an unnatural lifespan. What had persuaded the secretive and reclusive alchemist to give her the power of long life?
But Valerian was animated as he continued. “Imagine if this should be the case, that it is possible for vampires and humans to trade in kind.”
“This is interesting, yes,” Serena broke in, “but what has any of it to do with Emma?”
Folding his hands in front of him, he bowed his head. “Whatever effects the alchemist might have discovered to extinguish the vampire living in his daughter, these might extend, to a lesser degree, of course, to having an effect on the Dhampir.” His eyes cut to me. “The source of your capabilities come from the blood of the vampire in the strigoii vii. It is, at its essence, vampire blood.”
I saw his meaning, and had to admit it seemed to have merit as a hypothesis. “Therefore, if there is such a thing as an elixir to lessen the powers of a vampire, it would dilute those powers in me as well.”
“Why not?” His eyes were intense. “If there is such a thing as an elixir, that is.”
I knew Valerian wanted to believe in this elixir desperately. A cure for him. And for my mother—if she still lived, if she had not passed on to the true undead, the powerful and terrible strigoii mort. I shook off the implausibility of it as questions arose in my mind. “Why would this alchemist give such a tool to a vampire? He’s dedicated his life to curing his daughter, saving her from their number. Why would he ever lend aid to one?”
This, I saw, deflated Valerian’s theory. He nodded, agreeing with my logic. “That I do not know.”
Serena leaned forward, hands braced on the table between us. “Still, let us focus on our problem. Ruthven had some way to weaken Emma’s powers. Where else, but from this alchemist, could he get such a means?”
“And more importantly, if he weakened you last night he can do it again,” Valerian said with a meaningful look at me.
“I cannot simply retreat,” I protested. “He is starting his rampage—he will kill all the girls and then he will disappear. You know he will go elsewhere, to another of his hunting grounds, and pick up the same game again. We have to fight.” I knotted my hands together in frustration. “If we can figure out how he is weakening me, we can stop it. It must have some source, something I know somehow, something out of the ordinary. What is out of place, uncommon, even odd in the school?”
The cottage door opened and in walked Sebastian. He looked miserably windblown and exhausted. “Thank heavens, you are all still here. If I have to spend one more moment in the company of this priest I swear I’ll—”
Father Luke stepped inside, filling the interior of the cottage with his b
ulk. He seemed larger, stood taller, shoulders thrown out wider. I noticed he was once again wearing his Roman collar. Something unfurled in my chest, a pride and love of the man I had known him once to be—strong, a leader, a man of conviction and purpose.
“Uncommon indeed,” he said. He had apparently overheard our conversation as he was about to enter. He removed his cloak with a flourish, his movements fluid, almost graceful, as if a ponderous weight had been thrown off.
“I believe the power comes from the Dracula himself,” he said as he sat at the table. “Let us put our heads together. The hand of the Great Dragon Prince is at work here.” He grinned. “I have something to show you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
A ripple of excitement went through the room as we watched Father Luke lay a cloth-wrapped package on the table. He motioned for me to take it. When I picked it up, I was surprised at its weight, which might have been as much as a full stone.
“From the Vatican archive in a Carmelite convent outside of Pompeii,” he said. “A secret one, not official. Go on, open it.” He waved his hand. “It is a gift.”
Inside was a gold disk, large enough to cover my entire palm if I held it in my hand. It was very thick, and pierced in a pattern on the top. I could make out carvings on it, words in a different language—Latin, I would guess, but the light was too dim to see it clearly. I detected only one thing clearly—a single bold, deeply inscribed word: Draculea.
I lifted an awed gaze to the priest as I passed the disk into Valerian’s hand. “They gave this to you?”
One corner of Father Luke’s mouth lifted. “No,” he replied blandly.
Valerian and I exchanged a look. “Perhaps you should explain,” I said gently.
He seemed well satisfied with the effect of his pronouncement. “You already know the men in the Order of Saint Michael kept secrets from me. I have always maintained that the Church of God is not bad in itself, but men can be, perhaps without knowing it. Even men who mean well can make terrible mistakes.”
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