Vampire Dragon

by Annette Blair

  FORTY-TWO

  Darkwyn opened every casket in Drak’s, and destroyed every sofa in his growing panic that the mobsters had stuffed Zachary beneath the seat of one.

  He evaded firemen giving the smoking carcass of the Phoenix a final hose down and slipped out the Fangs exit to the fairgrounds, from concession stand to amusement park ride, and on, until he ended up in the cemetery, an ironic place to seek respite.

  Darkwyn turned toward a scrabble in the woods behind him, broken twigs, a clumsy step, unsure of what to expect, and his survival instincts kicked in. More than anything, he wanted Zachary and Bronte to step out of those trees, but he prepared himself to face the worst, his heart beating with both high-rising hope and deadly purpose.

  A figure appeared, and his heart jumped with joy and disappointment that she was alone. “Bronte, thank God you’re safe.”

  She walked straight into his arms.

  One loved one safe, one to go.

  Bronte’s chin came up as she pulled from the embrace. “We have a problem.”

  “I know,” Darkwyn said. “Zachary is still missing.”

  “Worse. I found a note pinned to his superhero backpack, here.”

  Darkwyn stepped away from the possibilities. “What? A ransom note? A mob threat? Did those somebitches threaten Zachary’s life?”

  “They’re son-of-a-bitches. Never learn vocab from a thug. It’s a note from Zachary. I recognize his handwriting.”

  “Read it.”

  “ ‘Bronte,’ it says. ‘No matter what, go to Montreal, and DO it. For Mom. You promised.’ He capitalized DO, and the stinker’s trying to guilt me into it, the same way I guilt him into cleaning his room.”

  “Do what?”

  “Get the evidence out of hiding and hand it to the police up there.”

  “How risky is that?”

  “I know Castello Sanguedolce like the back of my hand, or the front of your—”

  Darkwyn kissed her. “I’m afraid for you, not me, sasspot.”

  “Face it: you can’t do it without me. Zachary signed ‘Zachary times two.’ He’s reminding me that he’s had two lives.” Her breath shuddered. “He’s ready to let go of this life, if he has to, but he wants Sanguedolce out of business.”

  “Or,” Darkwyn said. “ ‘Zachary times two’ could mean that both young and old Zachary want you to do this. Our boy is smarter than the average genius, Bronte. He can take care of himself.”

  “Sure he can. Until he can’t.”

  “I don’t know,” Darkwyn said. “I’m still thinking he’s around here somewhere.”

  “He is resourceful. If he’s here, and playing us like puppets, and if we go to Montreal, he’ll probably go to Vickie and Rory’s, or to Jaydun, or Bastian. Even Vivica when she gets home from the hospital would take him.”

  Darkwyn lowered himself to sit on a cement burial vault and pulled her against him. “If the mob took Zachary, Montreal is the place for us to go.”

  “Right, and I promised to do it for my sister, Brianna, Zachary’s mom, and for countless others. Don’t look at me like that. You’re not going without me. Besides, you couldn’t find Sanguedolce or Montreal, and you sure wouldn’t recognize Castello Sanguedolce, itself, because the mansion/castle, whatever, doesn’t look anything like a slaughterhouse.”

  “Bronte,” Darkwyn said. “Going seems destined to me, but how does it feel to you?”

  “I’d rest easier if we knew where Zachary was.”

  “Which goes without saying, but while you were out here hiding, did you see anything, or anyone?”

  “Oh good grief, yes. I almost forgot in my panic over the note. I think one of your brothers tried to help. A dragon leapt from Drak’s and took off over Cat Cove—I can’t believe I can say that so easily—then a claw of lightning grabbed the roof until it smoked. That happened right before you jumped from the second floor, also before you rescued the cop.”

  “Calamity,” Puck said. “A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering.”

  “Bronte, I think you saw Killian strike the building.”

  “I saw a rather determined bolt of lightning strike, and not let go, until a fire started up there. Did you think you had?”

  “Yep, I sure did,” Darkwyn said. “Puck’s quote holds true. I may not have started the fire alone, but I am partly to blame. I talked about my past, which turned the world’s attention, including the mob, to Drak’s. And now, Zachary is—hey, maybe Jaydun has Zachary. Bronte, do you still have your cell phone? Call him. Ask him if Zachary is with Vivica. Or if he knows where the boy is.”

  Bronte called, asked the question, listened, and hung up.

  “That was fast,” Darkwyn said.

  “Your brother is all healed and at the hospital waiting for a minute alone with Vivica so he can heal her.”

  “I didn’t know she needed healing, or I would have done it.”

  “Broken ribs. She didn’t let on.”

  Darkwyn growled low. “That’s why she had trouble sitting up. Damn. Any sign of Zachary?”

  “Jaydun hasn’t seen him but he’ll join the search as soon as Vivica’s set. Bronte swiped at her eyes. “Zachary, damn it, where are you?”

  FORTY-THREE

  “Bronte,” Darkwyn said, “you and Zachary have a soul connection. You’d know if the worst happened. You might be worried right now—all right, scared to death—but he’s okay. You know that, do you not?”

  “I suppose I’d know if something happened to him.”

  “Good, so, Montreal? In case he’s there, and because you promised?”

  “We don’t have passports.”

  “Sweetie, no formalities, which I assume a passport is. You’re taking the Vampire Dragon express, but you have to ride up back this time; it’s hell on my balance flying with you in my arms, though I love looking at you.”

  “I’ll ride you, dragon boy.”

  “Don’t go getting saucy while I’m in the air. And you have to speak telepathically after this.”

  “Will do. Darkwyn?”

  He stopped in his tracks. “Yes?” He turned for a spontaneous embrace, both of them seeking comfort, holding tight for a long minute. He rested his head on hers, a comforting gesture. “We’ll find him.”

  “Thank you for being here.”

  He kissed her before he went into the woods to shift. Too soon, he returned as a dragon, determined to let hope sustain him. He lowered his wing for Bronte to climb on, Puck, too, it turned out, and roared his way up into the air headed toward Canada and the man who threatened Bronte’s and Zachary’s lives.

  Bronte, I need directions.

  Montreal, Canada, the Mount Royal section. Big mansions. Rich people. Fly over Cat Cove and hook a left. Stay north until I say west. She repeated the directions in English for the bird’s sake. “That sound right, Puck?”

  “Bien, oui, mon cherie.”

  Darkwyn looked back. Puck the cock made Bronte laugh. Normalcy amid chaos, like the eye of the storm, deceptively calm, death and destruction pulsing just out of sight.

  “I’m glad we don’t need to worry about a passport, Bronte said telepathically.

  No, but keep an eye out for Killian.

  Don’t think of her. It’s probably like calling her.

  Wise woman.

  I don’t feel the least bit wise. I misplaced my nephew, don’t forget. Darkwyn, suppose Zachary’s on his way to look for the evidence, himself?

  He can’t be, unless he found a dragon of his own to ride.

  Right, because he doesn’t have a passport, either.

  “Passport.” He really did have to look up that word. But right now, he had to concentrate on not letting himself get blinded by the city lights. Flying by night could be a challenge when approaching a place like Montreal. They would be too visible, so Darkwyn found himself seeking cloud cover.

  The mansions in the Mount Royal section, castles nearly, surrou
nded by well-groomed grounds in highbrow walking distance of Montreal proper, screamed money.

  At the Sanguedolce mansion, where the roof would make for a perfect dragon landing, Darkwyn had to dodge a series of moving security cameras. He needed an eye-of-the-storm type moment, now, when all cameras pointed toward gates, walls, driveways, doors, anywhere but at the roof.

  It happened, not magickally, but for a natural second. He moved toward the roof fast, landed, and crouched low so Bronte could slide off.

  “Here,” she said, dropping Zachary’s backpack beside him. “I stuffed a couple pairs of jeans and shirts inside that I found below your balcony, but shape-shift twice without thinking, and you’re nothing but naked in Canada.”

  He waved her away so he could turn back into a man without creeping her out.

  She stood with her back to him near a small rooftop dwelling. His wife. He couldn’t quite believe that.

  It took him only a few minutes to shift and dress. He felt almost normal in a shirt and jeans. If only he’d thought of tossing out a pair of shoes.

  “Listen, Darkwyn, I’m suddenly sure that Zachary can’t be dead. I sense his living spirit with a whole heart, as surely as I sensed his worry that night you climbed my building, and you and I got to know each other, in the biblical sense. Zachary thought you were using me. He couldn’t accept that I was using you.”

  “You were?”

  “Best sex ever. I’m not stupid.”

  “Fine time for you to tell me. Now I want to demonstrate, and I can’t.”

  “You bet you can’t, not here. Think of something else.”

  He looked around. Something else, something—“What is painted on the roof, there?”

  “It’s a helipad. To land a helicopter? Flying machine,” she added when he didn’t seem to understand. “Big whirlybird. No wings, or sarcasm, like a certain dragon I know, just a motor and twirly blades?”

  “If you say so.”

  “What’s big and black and flies straight up?” Puck squawked. “A dragoncopter! What do you get when you tickle a dragon?”

  “Eaten!” Darkwyn snapped. “The bird stays out here!”

  “I agree.” Darkwyn followed his wife to the small rooftop dwelling, which opened to a stairway used presumably by the family to get to the copter thingy.

  “You grew up here?” Darkwyn asked, pulling her up short at the top, before they took the stairs, and he kissed her because he needed to, really kissed her, and she returned his kiss with the same desperation, like it might be their last.

  No, he thought. That wasn’t a last kiss, it was a kiss to hold them until they found Zachary and could take him home. They couldn’t give up, especially not in spirit.

  “Nice,” she said, when their lips parted.

  “I want you to understand,” he said, “that my life is better, now, with you. I care a whole hell of a lot. You can put your trust in me, though you might not believe it, and Bronte?”

  “What?”

  “I’d give my life for you and Zachary.”

  “I think I knew. It’s just so hard to believe that anyone would do that for us.”

  “Believe it. Learn to trust.”

  She looked over at the lawns sprawling for miles, the indoor pool beneath a glass dome, the outdoor pool, tennis courts, the greenhouses, and crossed her arms in front of her. “Trust comes hard. I know this looks like privilege, Darkwyn, but with a murderous stepfather and the RCMP breathing down our necks—with good reason—it was hell. You’ve heard of pop quizzes; we had pop searches, not that Sanguedolce didn’t leave the police some prime evidence now and again, to throw them off the trail.”

  Darkwyn took her hand and squeezed. “Doesn’t sound pleasant.”

  “Rival mobsters often tried to show the world they were better than Sanguedolce by trying to kill him, though they usually died themselves. This house has bulletproof windows, a tunnel that leads to a garden shed on the next property, and one to a municipal building in the city. Yeah, Sanguedolce has highly placed friends.

  “This is where my sister died at Zachary’s birth while the body that previously housed his soul bled out on the floor beside her. That, Darkwyn, was life here at Castello Sanguedolce.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Darkwyn started to shut the bird out of the stairwell.

  “Fair warning,” Puck squawked. “ ‘Alone,’ means ‘In bad company.’ ”

  “One of these days,” Darkwyn said, “I’m gonna get one bird with two stones.”

  Bronte smiled. “That’s two birds with one stone.”

  “Yikes!” Puck squawked. “I resent that.”

  Darkwyn shut the bird out. Annoying cock. “Where to?”

  “To the attic and back out again,” Bronte said. “Three minutes, if we’re really lucky.”

  Inside, they heard a muted voice talking nonstop and identified the sound in a small but large-windowed room, facing the stairs, off a landing six steps down. A guardroom.

  Inside, the guard, with his back to them, nodded off in front of a television, an empty gallon bottle of cheap whiskey beside him. “This, out of Salem, Massachusetts,” the newscaster on the TV screen said. “A follow-up to the viral newscast where journalist Roger Rudder claims to be interviewing a Vampire Dragon. There he is on your screen—the reporter, not the Vampire Dragon.

  The Vampire Dragon is clearly in disguise, and we won’t insult your intelligence by showing the interview.”

  Darkwyn kissed Bronte’s ear and communicated the only way they could in here, telepathically. They think I’m a fake.

  You are. She nuzzled his neck. Well, half fake. True dragon, fake vampire. And do you really want the world to know it?

  Darkwyn sighed. He didn’t like being a fake. It occurred to him that none of them were who they said they were—not him, Bronte, Zachary, his brothers, the vamps, the role players. It’s a fake world after all. He could practically hear the words put to music. Where had he heard that tune?

  “Behind me,” the reporter continued after a commercial, “is the Salem vampire spot known as the Phoenix, which houses an eatery and pub appropriately called Bite Me, and a vampire nightspot known as Drak’s. After the national attention started by Rudder yesterday, the Phoenix was set ablaze last night, under suspicious circumstances. An investigation reveals bullets embedded in walls, inside and outside, everything scorched around the edges. On the roof, the popular tourist spot seems to have been struck by lightning—talk about the wrath of the gods. The sad turn is that the owners, Bronte McBride and her twelve-year-old nephew, Zachary Tucker, were found in the rubble. They did not survive.”

  Darkwyn’s legs gave, and without choice, he sat on the stairs.

  Bronte sat beside him. I always aspired to be found in rubble. But, of course, I’m not dead. She rubbed her cheek against his sleeve. Darkwyn, what about Zachary?

  He smoothed the lines of panic from her face with a finger, one by one, to soothe and reassure her. Zachary is no more dead than you are. Get with the television show.

  I think you mean program. You believe it can’t be him, right? she asked, seeking reassurance. I mean, like you said, Zachary and I have a soul connection. A living bond, she repeated for her own sake. I believe that . . . when I’m not scared to death. Bit of a pun that.

  Look, Darkwyn said. Cameras panned bodies being wheeled out of Drak’s on stretchers to the coroner’s wagon.

  Dumbfounded beside him, Bronte raised her hand to touch her face. Yep, I’m alive.

  You look damned good for a dead woman. He kissed her, quick, given their location. Shouldn’t we get out of here before the guard snaps out of it?

  He only gets sober on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But yes, let’s get out of here so I can collect the evidence and slay our past for Zachary, and everyone else I cared about who suffered or died here.

  You cannot admit you loved any of them, Darkwyn said. Are you hiding shame behind that mask? No, don’t answer. I’m trying to figure this out. At first
I thought hiding was a gimmick to promote Fangs and Drak’s. Then you told me about your past, and I realized it was a device to avoid being recognized by the mob. Later, I thought maybe you wore a mask to hide your guilt for not saving Zachary’s mother, or you couldn’t look at yourself in the mirror because you didn’t save her.

  Bronte huffed. Your point?

  You’re hiding from yourself. You’ve got to take off the mask and give yourself permission to be you. To love yourself.

  She stood, spine straight. Too straight. Not today, thanks. Today, I have to avenge my sister and find her son, or die trying.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Bronte left him reeling with that jarring thought and went to the landing at the turn in the stairs, a landing as wide as the huge Gothic door beside it.

  Shaken by her readiness to die in this attempt, he followed and saw her press a series of numbers on a keypad by the door. The tiny light on the keypad turned green. She scoffed. “Sanguedolce is so sure of his invulnerability, he didn’t even think to change the code after we left.” The door clicked, and Bronte went in.

  Darkwyn could now safely assume that attic was a vast expanse where unwanted furniture and ugly statues went to die.

  Cameras, she communicated, and covered her lips with a finger. One by one, she clicked switches, and covered each camera lens with flat paper caps well-hidden around each camera. “All done,” she said out loud. “The sound’s off and the cameras are covered with the exact photos of the angle in the room each camera would view. Whoever’s watching the security screens will see and hear an empty, quiet attic, as usual.”

  “Zachary’s idea, I presume?”

  “Of course. He was ten; the year before we left. He played up here for hours. Nobody ever comes up, though we forced it once. For the longest time, we let them see us playing with some old non-digital cameras we found. One goon finally came to check, and saw they were empty of film. After that, I managed to sneak a digital camera in. For some reason, Zachary knew how to use it.”