“What do you mean?”
“From what you’re sayin’, amber was jewelry, so don’t it stand to reason—if reason got anything to do with this—that Edna had her boy wear a necklace around his neck—”
I got where he was going and filled in the rest. “Like a garlic necklace wards off Dracula.”
“Yeah. But I still got a problem.”
“What?”
“Are you tellin’ me we’re gonna kill Drakho with static electricity?”
“No—not static electricity. The key thing here is that he’s susceptible to electricity, period.” I looked at the battle maps on the war room’s walls. “Let’s say that hundreds of years ago, it took only a small amount of electricity to ward him off, so static electricity did the job. But as we became more industrialized, Drakho gained more tolerance. He had to. Electricity is now everywhere, and to survive, to interact with his environment, to interact with us, he had to be able to tolerate stronger electrical fields.”
“We all adapt or die,” Buck said.
“I’m living proof of that,” Harry grunted.
“The bottom line is you’re right, Harry,” I said. “We’re going to need more than static electricity.”
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” Buck said, and chuckled.
“Especially if we’re gonna kill him,” Harry added. “And if I remember right, in Jaws, they never did get a bigger boat—they killed the shark with an explosion.”
“Yeah,” Buck said. “They stuck an oxygen tank in its mouth, shot the tank, and blew that fish to smithereens.”
Was warding Drakho off a better strategy? Harker hadn’t been able to uncover whether Edna and her son had survived the Starvation Time or not. If she had survived—if she had withstood Drakho’s onslaught of Jamestown—then she had probably succeeded by using her amber weapon to keep Drakho at bay.
But could Nate and I spend the rest of our lives next to a strong electrical field? I supposed it was possible. We could move to a house or an apartment that abutted a substation. And then what? Would Nate only attend schools that were near substations? Would he only visit friends who lived near power plants? How would he travel from place to place? It was clear that no matter what, Nate would eventually find himself vulnerable to attack. It just wasn’t possible to make sure he’d spend every minute of the rest of his life in close proximity to a strong electric field.
“We’re going to have to use electricity to kill him,” I said.
Harry shook his head. “How are we gonna do that? We can’t just cut down a power line, hand it to the fella, and say hold on to this.”
“No, but there has to be a way to do this.”
Harry’s brow furrowed, and he leaned back in his chair. Buck nodded like he was thinking this through.
I got back online.
“What are you lookin’ up now?” Harry said.
“How strong the electrical fields are around those substations.” That information was easy to find. People didn’t want to live near substations, and the power companies wanted to show it was safe to do so, so there were plenty of studies that measured these electrical fields.
“Harry, when you lived off Columbia Pike, you said Drakho stopped following you when you were about a hundred yards from the power plant,” I said.
“Yeah.”
That turned out to be good news. The electrical field from a substation was relatively weak at that distance, which meant a portable generator might be powerful enough to inflict damage on Drakho—if we could get him close enough to it. I looked up generators and found a few models that could do the job.
I filled Harry and Buck in, and Harry said, “Just how are we going to draw him to a generator?”
“We meet him in his favorite place—a cave,” I said. “And this is the part you’re going to like: we trap him inside by dynamiting the cave shut.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I do like it.”
“Good—then maybe you can come up with a way to get a generator into a cave that Drakho considers sacred, then rig the cave with dynamite without him catching on.”
“Maybe I can,” Harry said.
“I’d like to come along and help,” Buck said. “Since I’m donating the dynamite.”
Harry glanced at me, and I could tell he didn’t like that idea. He took a beat, then turned to his friend. “We could use an extra pair of hands, Buck, but if you get into this, and we can’t kill the bastard, I guarantee you’ll become part of this. I know you don’t worry about yourself none, but your family becomes part of this guy’s game, too. The Nightman takes a liking to bloodlines. I know you got your daughter, Beth, and her family, and your son, Henry, and his family. If you come with us, you’re riskin’ their lives, too. And their kids’ lives. I mean, you’re lucky your great-grandpa only wrote about the fella and didn’t tangle with him.”
Buck took this in and then looked over the memorabilia in the war room.
Everything Harry had said applied to me, too. It reinforced that I was doing the right thing. Warding off Drakho wasn’t enough. The only way to save Nate, and the family Nate would someday have, was to kill Drakho.
“It ain’t worth the risk,” Harry said, adding a coda to his speech. “If you want to help, go ahead and add the Nightman to the war room. So when others come looking for what’s after them, they got someplace to go to find some answers. They’ll know they’re not crazy.”
Buck nodded, though he didn’t look happy with his decision.
I went back online for one last bit of information. Something we’d need to know if we wanted to trap Drakho: the area in Northern Virginia that was the least touched by man-made electromagnetic fields. Sacred land may once have meant land untouched by humans, but I was sure it now meant land untouched by these fields.
I tracked down an environmental watchdog site with a special set of maps. Each of the fifty states had an overlay of man-made electromagnetic fields. I magnified the Virginia map until Northern Virginia filled the computer screen. The areas with the most powerful electrical fields were covered in a red hue, a brilliant red like tonight’s sunset. These parcels of land featured power plants, factories, manufacturing parks, TV stations, arrays of satellite dishes, and medical complexes.
Next came areas covered with orange hues, where the electrical fields were strong but not overwhelming. These were the densely populated parts of suburban Virginia which included townhouses, apartment complexes, and all the business districts.
Then came areas covered with yellow hues. These were the wealthiest parts of the suburbs, where the homes were on huge lots and where there were plenty of parks, including a few lakes.
White hues indicated the weakest levels of electrical fields, and that was what interested me. These were the rural areas with few homes. It included the wilderness areas along the Potomac, Northern Virginia’s state and national parks, and a good chunk of the Shenandoah Valley. These were the places where Drakho felt the safest. They included Cold Falls, Prince William Forest, and Hadley Cave.
But I was hoping to narrow it down much more. I wanted to find Drakho’s sweet spot. An electromagnetic-free zone. If it existed. Drakho hadn’t been able to keep mankind from touching every inch of his homeland, but was it possible that mankind hadn’t yet infected every inch with an electrical field?
I magnified the map as much as the website would allow, then scrolled through the regions overlaid with white—through national and state parks, through wilderness preserves, and through the Shenandoah Valley. I was ready to give up, to settle for another trip to Front Royal and Hadley’s Cave, when it appeared—a small patch of land untouched by an electrical field. An area in the middle of the Bull Run Mountains, not far from Paspahegh Falls. It wasn’t covered in red, orange, yellow, or even white hues. This was the last untouched part of Drakho’s homeland.
I was reminded of Dracula. At the end of Bram Stoker’s tale, Dracula retreated to his homeland in the Carpathian Mountains. But in
Drakho’s story, Drakho wasn’t retreating—it was his homeland that was retreating.
I googled maps of the Bull Run Mountains, trying to scope out more topographical features about this specific patch of land. It turned out to be a valley between two shallow peaks, but it still wasn’t clear exactly what was there—caves, woods, marshes? From one map, it appeared there was a col—a small pass—between the peaks, so I plotted out the best way to access this col: Route 66 to Fauquier County, then a series of small rural roads.
The last of these roads led to a trail that would take us close to this spot. But to get to the col, it looked like we’d have to go off-trail. I downloaded a GPS app to my phone, since getting lost in that remote area was a real possibility.
While I called Home Depot and placed an order to rent a generator, Buck retrieved the dynamite from his garage. Then we loaded the sticks of dynamite, along with blasting caps, into the trunk of my car. Buck gave me a crash course in explosives, from how to prepare the blasting caps using a mechanical match, to where to place the dynamite so the explosion would dislodge enough stone to seal the cave.
As we all said our goodbyes, I again considered my other option: warding Drakho off for the rest of my life, then passing that burden on to Nate. And again I couldn’t see that as a viable option. Maybe it had worked for Edna and her son.
And maybe not.
Chapter Nineteen
At Home Depot, I picked up the generator, a couple of empty gas cans, and a cart for hauling the generator through the wilderness. It was a quick trip this time. The river Acheron wasn’t flowing through the store.
After filling up the cans at a gas station, Harry and I headed to Fauquier County.
“Why doesn’t Drakho just leave this area—get the hell out of Dodge?” I said. “Why doesn’t he go to a place that’s totally free of electrical fields? There must be a few of those spots left somewhere on Earth.”
“The same reason any man wouldn’t leave,” Harry said. “This is his homeland.”
Of course, I thought. Some things aren’t that complicated.
Harry glanced at me and said, “I never got to ask you something.”
“Better go ahead then—this might be your last chance.”
“How did you and Lee get to be friends? I know you were just kids, but it still don’t seem like you two would be hangin’ out on the same side of the tracks.”
That was an easy question to answer. “He made me cool. I was a nerd and got picked on a lot. Lee, on the other hand, was a mean kid—but not the kind of mean kid who was a bully. He didn’t need to pick on kids, because all of us were already scared of him. We saw that if you crossed him, he’d get angry.”
“Yeah, that boy had a temper.”
“I guess it came in handy sometimes, because that’s how we became friends. I was waiting my turn to play four square, and Lee was in line, too, ahead of me. His turn came up and he went in. And when the next kid fouled out, I went in, too.
“But no one liked to play with me, the nerd, and I didn’t really want to play, either, but Mrs. Baxter, our teacher, forced us to do group activities during recess. She said it built character. So for me it worked like this: to get rid of me, the kids made sure I fouled out as soon as I got in. You know, for carrying the ball or double bouncing or whatever, even if I didn’t actually do it. And I never argued.
“And that’s how it went down this time, too. At least that’s the way it started to go down. I hit the ball, and one of the kids called it out and told me to take a hike. Of course, it wasn’t out. It hit inside the line, but like I said, I never argued. Well, Lee argued. He said it wasn’t out. And for some reason the other kid insisted that it was out. Maybe the kids were all used to getting rid of me, so it was a habit, or maybe he hated me so much he thought it was worth the risk of crossing Lee.
“Anyway, it was a big mistake. Lee got in his face and yelled, Are you saying I’m blind? Or a dumbass? Is that what you’re saying? And he punched the kid. Just like that. The kid started crying and Lee told him to shut up. If Mrs. Baxter came over, he’d punch him a hundred times. So I stayed in the game and we all kept playing. Lee didn’t say anything to me. And I didn’t foul out until I really did hit the ball out.
“Later, after school, I went up to him, to thank him, but before I said anything, he asked me to explain a math problem to him. He didn’t say anything about defending me and neither did I. But that was it. We were friends from that day on.”
“You know what?” Harry said, “You’re pretty good at telling stories yourself.”
I laughed.
*
After that we didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much left to say. We both believed Drakho would show up. He’d damn well know humans were in his pristine lair.
I saw this trip to the Shenandoah Valley with different eyes this time. It wasn’t just a journey from the densely populated suburbs—beleaguered by housing developments, shopping malls, and office parks—to the rural areas of Northern Virginia. It was a journey through electrical fields. Angry red fields, then buzzing orange fields, then mellow yellow, and finally calm white.
When I reached the Bull Run Mountains—a lush expanse of peaks and valleys, thick forests, and rocky cliffs—I pulled off Route 66 and headed down the rural roads that would carry us to the most sacred of lands.
The first few roads were paved. We passed picnic areas, trailheads, and turnouts with scenic views. Then we hit a series of dirt roads, each narrower and more desolate than the last.
A metal cross bar blocked the last road. The cross bar was locked in place with a padlock and chain; both were covered in a thick coat of rust, as if they hadn’t been touched in many decades.
We were way too far from our destination to start hiking, so I grabbed a rock and started pounding on the padlock. On about the twentieth blow it broke open. I unraveled the chain and began pushing the cross bar. It creaked and groaned, trying to resist, but eventually it gave way.
After driving a couple more miles, it became obvious that not only had the padlock not been touched in many decades, neither had the road. The forest was encroaching on it from both sides, threatening to take it over; saplings were even growing from the road itself. I had to stop the car several times to get out and yank the saplings from the dirt in order to clear a path farther into the wilderness.
Then we reached a point where the forest had almost completely taken over. Vestiges of the dirt road were still there, but instead of saplings springing from it, larger trees had taken root, and the underbrush here was as thick as in the bordering woods.
The only way forward was on foot, and that meant roughly a four-mile hike to the col.
“You ain’t gonna be able to haul the generator and carry me on your back,” Harry said.
“What about trying to use the wheelchair?” There was still the hint of the dirt road.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“I’ll alternate between the generator and pushing you.”
“And when you get to the trail?”
“The hike to the col is short.” But what I didn’t say was that we’d have to go off trail to get to the col.
“Listen, I wanna help, but I don’t see how I can,” Harry said. “Last time I’m guessing I was good for moral support—kinda.” He grinned, then turned serious again. “You had doubts then. But you ain’t got doubts now, right?”
I did have doubts. I didn’t doubt Drakho would be at the end of the trail, but I doubted we’d be able to trap him. He might even have been tracking us already, and was busy preparing for our next move.
“You go alone and you go faster,” Harry said. “And you’re in better shape when you get there.”
It was in that moment that I realized why Harry had to come with me. Or maybe I’d known it all along, but it wasn’t until now that it finally crystallized into the right words.
“Someone has to tell the story,” I said.
“What?”
“Y
ou’re Edna Grayson. You’re Bram Stoker. You’re Jonathan Harker.”
“And you’re off your rocker.”
“Stories tell you all you need to know, and you have to tell this story, Harry. Without stories, the Hatfields never have a chance. The McCoys—the real McCoy always wins. It was your story that gave me a chance.”
Harry leaned back and stared at the peaks in the distance. His face looked resolute. This was about as serious as I’d seen him, as if he was weighing my words carefully and considering the journey ahead.
“Your story will fill in those missing pages,” I said.
Harry looked from the peaks to me. “If you don’t make it and I do,” he said, “I’d have to crawl back on my own. Now that would be a story worth tellin’.”
“One you’d want to tell?”
“Hell yes.” He smiled. “But I’ll settle for the one where we both make it back.”
*
After filling the generator with gas, then strapping it to the cart along with the dynamite, blasting caps, and flashlights, I pulled the cart about a quarter mile down the road, navigating through the underbrush. Then I went back for Harry and the wheelchair. The path wasn’t smooth, but pushing him was better than carrying him.
Still, after a mile or so, the forest had done such a good job of reclaiming the land that it became tougher to drag the cart, and pushing the wheelchair forward was altogether impossible. So from that point on, I alternated between carrying Harry on my back and dragging the cart—two trips every fifty yards or so.
The closer we got to the trail, the lusher and more wild the terrain became. It was possible that hikers had trekked out this way, but this land was so isolated—nestled and lost between the shallow mountains—that it was more likely that Harry and I were the first to come this way in a long, long time.
It took about four hours to make it to the trail, which was so overgrown it was barely visible. Here, I tried to use my GPS app, but it wouldn’t work—no reception. I knew that our final destination, the col, was about a half mile away, so I left Harry and the generator behind as I went on to scout.
The Origin of Dracula Page 25