by Ilana Waters
Have you even swum in the ocean and had a wave come up from under you? Do you recall the way it buoys you up? Well, that’s sort of what the blast was like, only this was a wave of air and heat. In fact, the heat was so intense, it was as if we were being baked in an oven. I was overcome with horror at the memory of how our ancestors must have died in places like Auschwitz and Dachau. I prayed we wouldn’t end up the same way.
Please, God, any gods . . . I don’t remember exactly who or what I prayed to. But at that point, I’d have made a deal with the devil if he’d have delivered us from there.
And maybe he did. We shot out of the underground like we were fired from a cannon. That was rather how it felt, too, though I admit I’ve never been a cannonball before. The noise was deafening, both from the actual blast and the way it blew the earth apart. I held onto Abigail as tightly as I could while walls of rock around us disintegrated, and we burst into the sky in a vertical tunnel of flame.
I squeezed my eyes shut as we came up. But when I looked back down again, I saw we’d emerged a few hundred yards next to the barn with the secret entrance—and our truck. Rocks, debris, and dust rained down over us for several minutes, pinging off the spell. The field below looked like a giant, bottomless crater. We could see the last wisps of smoke rising from the edges, acrid air burning our noses and lungs. Our faces were smudged, our hair and clothing slightly burned. Neither Abigail nor I spoke for a few moments.
“We’re alive,” she mouthed, hardly any sound coming from her lips. “We’re alive!” she gasped, louder.
“I’m just as surprised as you are,” I coughed, still holding her up.
“I can’t believe a protection spell did all that!”
“Ah, actually, it didn’t,” I confessed.
Abigail’s eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I didn’t just help you do a protection spell back there. I also used the force of the blast to magically propel us out of the earth. At the same time, I made the air around us impenetrable so we wouldn’t be killed.”
Abigail stared at me with her mouth hanging open. “That was your plan the whole time?”
“Well, it wasn’t until I realized there was no other way—” I stopped short when Abigail reached up and slapped my face.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For not leaving me behind when I told you to, that’s what for! And for making me think I was going to die.”
“I know.” I let the detonator drop so I could rub my burning cheek. “But it was the only way I could get you to hold onto me tightly enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I only worked a similar spell on one person before, namely myself. Look, it’s a long story,” I said before she could interrupt. “I wasn’t sure what would happen with two people. I had to get us as close together as possible, or there was a risk we’d both be blown up.”
“So for that, you had to lie to me?”
I shrugged. “There’s no embrace stronger than that of the damned. You never hold onto someone more fiercely than when you’re about to lose them.” She slapped me again.
“Ow! Okay, you have a right to be upset, but any more of this and I’m signing you up for anger management.”
“You’re telling me you essentially got us out of there on an invisible rocket held together by spit and a prayer?” Abigail demanded.
“Well, not exactly, but . . . yes. Exactly.”
Abigail blew a puff of air out of her cheeks, which sent some of her forehead curls flying up. “I still think you should have told me what you were going to do,” she muttered.
“What, and take all the fun out of it? Besides, you were never in any real danger.”
“Oh, really?” She raised her eyebrows at me, then glanced down at our partially melted shoes.
I sighed. We turned our heads to the east, where the sun was beginning to rise. Pink, blue, and yellow slowly spread towards the clouds above and unfolded onto the fields below. Never had I been so glad to see dawn in my life. After a few minutes, Abigail spoke.
“I think we should get out of the sky now.”
“Good idea.” And I lowered us gently to the ground.
Chapter 25
“—yet another bizarre earthquake in the farming country just outside of Rome,” said the newscaster, staring very seriously into the camera. “Scientists say more studies are needed to determine the cause of such unusual plate-tectonic phenomena. Meanwhile, police are urging citizens to stay away from the area until—” Titus blinked at the television, and it switched stations.
“But in better news,” a different reporter was saying, “the recent rash of thefts from various companies and institutions around the world seems to have subsided.” He stood outside a building with a sign on it that read GroGlobe Headquarters, smiling at the viewer with blindingly white teeth. “Organizations report that after having replaced the majority of their equipment, none has gone missing again, and production schedules are back on tra—” Titus blinked again.
“Local investigators have sifted through remnants from the quake,” said a journalist in Italian, “but found nothing unusual except part of a large wooden chair with a burned, scarlet cushion. Historians say it might have belonged to a noble during the Tudor era. However, they could offer no theories on how it came to be buried so far underground—”
“It’s just as well,” Titus said, blinking hard one more time and shutting off the television. He leaned back on the largest couch in Hassler’s penthouse, his heels crossed on a footrest.
Normally, he was not given to such repose. However, the electrocution had left him weaker than normal, and taking longer to heal. His face was littered with cuts from when the store’s window shattered around him. A large bruise decorated his forehead where it hit the steering wheel. Abigail probably could have helped heal him. But after taking one look at her leg when she returned last night, Titus insisted she use her magic for herself. She still walked with a bit of a limp, but the welts and scratches on her face were already fading.
“I’m surprised the mortals didn’t at least find evidence of the C4,” I said, taking a seat beside Titus. The soreness in my gut from where Rattler had punched me felt even worse than yesterday. It made it difficult to do things that required stomach muscles, like sitting. Not to mention my throat felt like one gigantic bruise from when he tried to strangle me.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Joshua,” said Titus. “George is far too clever to get caught like that. No doubt he magicked the bombs’ fragments to disintegrate when they went off.”
I supposed I could have asked George about that earlier when I phoned him in Sweden. But instead, I’d just let him know we were all safe and that Ferox and his lot were all dead. Plus the part where I’d had to modify our escape plan.
“Jolly good,” he replied over the sound of clinking coffee cups. “Glad to hear it. Remind me to pull a disappearing act every time you muck up a mission.”
“Yes, yes, and have fun on your never-ending Swedish excursion,” I said wryly. “Is Philip giving you any trouble up there?”
George laughed. “Well, he might if he could work around the language barrier. I saw him following me a few times, but I always managed to duck away as I heard him asking for directions. It usually ended in him going ‘Bloody Swedes!’ ” I couldn’t help but laugh along with George.
“Give my best to everyone there,” he said. “Hej då!”
“Good-bye to you, too, George,” I replied.
Upon my return to the Hassler with Abigail, I was relieved to find that Titus had not, in fact, eaten Arthur in our absence. Not that I truly thought he would. I also explained to everyone how Ferox hadn’t been as concerned about the mega killer vampire as he pretended to be.
“He just wanted an opportunity to recruit me,” I said. “Guess he sensed something was off about yours truly, probably owing to the crystal’s connection with my mysterious birth. He thought I might be
useful when it came to ruling the world.”
“Speaking of which, you did retrieve the crystal from the hotel manager, yes?” Arthur was taking notes at the table, presumably writing up our latest adventure for the PIA.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m not going to let it out of my sight now. Not after what happened.”
“Speaking of things happening,” said Abigail, “I’m still angry with you for driving that Lamborghini into a store.” She stood over Titus on one side of the couch, her eyes boring into him.
“Really?” He looked up at her. “In ancient Rome, a brave act that wounded a warrior thus would be met with laurels and orgies.”
Abigail folded her arms. “Well, in the twenty-first century, we just call you a putz.”
“And what were you thinking, taking on three vampires?” he demanded. “By yourself? In their lair?”
“That those were the actions befitting a wife whose husband drove a car through a storefront,” Abigail replied.
“You do both have a son who knowingly ran into a room full of live C4,” called Arthur.
“Hey, that’s different,” I protested. “I needed to do that.”
“And I think you need to have your head examined,” said Arthur.
“For once, I agree with the mortal,” Titus said.
“What about the amazing and daring rescue spell I performed?” I turned to him. “No one seems to be jumping up to give me credit for that.”
“Is that the one that barely worked because it consisted of sheer impulsivity and outright recklessness?” Titus started to rub his forehead, then stopped when his fingers touched the large bruise there.
“Ignore him.” Abigail patted my shoulder. “What he meant to say was that you are a mage of astounding skill, and he has you to thank for his wife being alive.”
“Thank you so much for translating, dear,” Titus muttered.
“And you.” Abigail turned back to him. “Should we worry you’re going to be brought up on charges of stealing and totaling a Lamborghini?”
“Only if the authorities find out it was me.” Titus switched his crossed legs on the footrest. “I hope I can trust my own wife and son to keep a secret. Though I’m not certain of the latter’s trustworthiness, since he did manage to practically place my beloved in the hands of my worst enemy.”
“I think we both know that isn’t true, Father.” I opened a magazine and started flipping through it.
“How do you figure?” asked Titus.
“Because you’re your own worst enemy,” I said, and Abigail let out a snort. Titus pointed two fingers at the side of my neck, and I cried out at the burst of stinging pain.
“What was that?” asked Arthur, looking up. His reading glasses slipped down the end of his nose.
“Static on steroids.” I rubbed my neck and gave Titus a dirty look. Electricity is also a fire witch’s forte. “Speaking of things that are a pain in the neck,” I said to Arthur, “Philip is fully occupied trailing after George in Sweden. He still has no clue that you helped us with Ferox.”
“For which we cannot thank you enough, Arthur.” Abigail walked over to him and placed her hands on his shoulders.
Arthur pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. “Me? I hardly did anything. I mean, I did help fend off a gang of vampires with a crossbow, conduct crucial research, et cetera. Philip really ought to have more confidence in my mental state. The last time we spoke, I couldn’t tell if he was encouraging me to take a vacation or undergo a test for Alzheimer’s.”
“Clearly not the attitude of a man who thinks you’re capable of helping foil an arch villain,” I said.
“Well, we know better, don’t we?” Abigail gave Arthur a peck on the cheek, and he turned bright red.
I looked around the suite. “And yet, after all that, everything’s the same. The world was saved, we feel like death warmed over, and no one will ever know.”
“It’s a shame you have to fight like hell just to keep the status quo,” agreed Titus.
“If you two boys are busy feeling sorry for yourselves, I’m going to try that spell Arthur was talking about,” said Abigail.
“What spell?” Arthur asked.
“The one to detect the presence of a demon,” she said, rifling through his books and papers. “Which one . . . ah! Here it is.” She picked up the book I’d gotten from the Angelica Library.
“Oh, do be careful with that!” Arthur reached for the book as she was walking away. “It’s very old, and I still have to return it.” Abigail disappeared into the master bedroom.
“Don’t bother, Hartwood,” Titus called from the couch. “Once that woman gets a hold of your things, she never lets go.”
“I heard that!” came a muffled cry from the bedroom. Titus closed his eyes and sighed. I kept flipping through my magazine, not really reading it.
“So we almost went back to the Dark Ages,” I said, not looking at him. “Like when Rome fell.”
“Hmmm,” Titus murmured. “A postapocalyptic world, you might say. In truth, it would be an ideal one for vampires. No more hiding, no more tiresome attempts to disguise our need for blood.”
“Yes.” I paused as I turned one of the magazine’s pages. “It would be a lawless, feral, Wild West situation that would certainly offer the challenges you crave. But, Father, is that ultimately the world you want to live in? I mean, I can see how fighting for Rome appealed to your aggressive side.”
“But don’t forget that our eventual goal was to create a global, civilized society,” said Titus. “After all, we did invent democracy, aqueducts, the capstone, and so forth. Although I’ve been told that doing this all at once is . . . how shall I say? Unfashionable?”
“Just like Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini were unfashionable?” I prompted. “And Ferox, most recently.”
“Yes, well . . .” Titus looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I suppose we must take a more gradual approach in becoming civilized, whatever that means for this millennium. But if one like Ferox stands in the way of progress on that front—make no mistake—count me among his enemies.”
He paused before speaking again. “I have to admit, once I realized how Ferox could accomplish world domination, it was a little tempting.”
My head turned sharply towards Titus. “I knew it!”
“Still,” he sighed, “ ‘I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, et cetera, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, and so on.’ John Quincy Adams.”
I closed the magazine and put it aside. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you for years. Your aggression, your protective instincts, this is what they’re for. They are not ends unto themselves; they’re to see that all that John Adams stuff comes into being. You can still be who you are: strong and hard. Only the reasons have changed. ‘Courage without conscience is a wild beast.’ Robert Ingersoll.”
“That may be true,” said Titus. “But in regards to reining in my ambition, I found that your argument about losing indoor plumbing was the most convincing. Though I don’t know what good my instincts are if I can’t use them to protect my family. With all my strength, I still couldn’t save my own wife by myself—either when she was kidnapped or nearly blown up. In ancient Rome, a woman would never have loved such a weak man.” Titus’s last sentence was barely audible, and for a moment neither of us said a word. I would never have believed he’d admit such a thing.
“Fortunately, Father,” I finally said, “as Abigail pointed out, this is the twenty-first century. People should no longer be expected to take on every burden by themselves. But you’re right that my mother would never love a weak man. Only a human one.”
“I think you’re being awfully loose with the term ‘human.’ ”
I ignored him. “Besides, if you hadn’t killed Perdita and those other vampires, they’d have gotten that message to Ferox about the crystal much earlier. He and his mini
ons might have killed us on the spot when we arrived.”
“I suppose,” said Titus. “Still, it was a waste of a beautiful Lamborghini.” I gave him a tiny smile. We sat in silence for a few more moments before I spoke again.
“So, are you sure you don’t regret not going over to the dark side, Darth Vader?” I asked. “You don’t think life will be too boring from now on?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Joshua.” Titus leaned back even further on the couch. “Saving middle-aged maidens, searching for magic crystals, defeating two-thousand-year-old adversaries. I’m finding life with you quite exciting enough.”
Indeed, I was grateful Titus wasn’t quite the bloodthirsty tyrant he used to be. Two thousand years in mortal company seemed to have mellowed him somewhat. I’d like to think that meeting Abigail and having a child contributed to that, though I’ll never know for sure.
“And are you not disappointed you can’t announce your true nature to the world, as Ferox intended?” Titus asked. “I do understand the impulse, you know. Pretending to be human is harder than it looks.”
“That assumes the world would welcome the revelation, which of course it wouldn’t. No, Father, I think things are probably better the way they are. It’s safer for everyone.”
It was a shame, but I knew my words were true. And yet, sitting here with my family—even Arthur, and George in spirit—I felt less like an outsider by the moment. I’d be tempted to quote Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul selects her own Society,” but I’m afraid, dear reader, you’d find it far too maudlin.
As for the immortality Ferox promised me, who knew what the future would bring? For now, I was content to let my deeds echo through the years, if they would. With the demise of a tyrant, hundreds or even thousands of mortals would go on to lead full lives, and perhaps have children who’d do the same. Let stopping Ferox from slaughtering countless people be my immortality. It was good enough for me.
My short reverie was interrupted by banging and crashing from the master bedroom. I heard Abigail gasping for breath as she stumbled out of the bedroom. She emerged wild-eyed, clinging to the door frame for support.