“This is all about power for you? How selfish…”
Nico shook his head. “You’ve always thought the worst of me. I can’t say I blame you. I can be a bit rough around the edges. But hear me out. Brigitte and Erzulie cast something on the Baron before he went into the gate.”
“A love spell of a kind,” I said. “From what I understood, it was meant to bring him back to them.”
“The Baron himself would prefer to stay in the otherworld, in that place between life and death. But this spell, this love spell to bring him back to Maman Brigitte, it compels him to find a way back. And when he comes back in his red aspect alone, he’ll control me and all whom I’ve made. He’ll control however many thousands of others possess his dark aspect… the vampiric seed, now dormant. He’ll literally suck life out of the world until all of humanity is one with him, until death infects life so that there is no more difference between life and death. All will be… undead.”
“And you, the Vampire King… that’s what Ramon called you, right? The King, his ‘Lord’? You’ll be the one in charge instead. But you mean to tell me that you’re doing all of this out of some noble cause to save humanity?”
Nico sighed. “When I came back, when the Baron allowed me to return, he sent me to an acolyte of the Queen of the Damned, one who would become a gatekeeper herself. But her abilities were imperfect. She sent me back, no doubt, but she sent me back to the middle of the swamps, a hundred years before Columbus ever sailed the ocean blue.”
“So you were here with the tribes?”
“You should have seen their civilizations—before European disease wiped them out. It was marvelous. I came to love them. And I knew what was coming… I remembered my history.”
“Thank you, Social Studies,” I said.
Nico nodded. “So I sought to strike at them preemptively. I made my own way to Europe… not by boat or by ship. I went north and swam the Bering Strait. No mortal could have made it, but I was no mortal. I infected the old continent. My new creations became nightmares of legend. Vlad Dracula among them…”
“You’re telling me that you created Count Dracula?”
Nico chuckled. “Niccolo the Damned… that’s what they called me. I have to admit, I’d grown up reading vampire stories. To think that I was the one who inspired them all.”
“All of them?” I raised my eyebrows. “There is Kalfu, too… his aspect.”
“He’s not a Ghede Loa,” Nico said. “But yes, his aspect could certainly result in a kind of vampirism. Speaking of which, after I used the Baron to save your friend, how’d that turn out?”
I don’t think he knows that Pauli is in his house. That means Pauli is safe.
“Kalfu is stuck in his head. Needless to say, he’s struggling. But he’s alive. I suppose I should thank you for that.”
“Let’s just hope he’s strong enough to keep Kalfu restrained. If he isn’t, what he could do would make me look like a Care Bear.”
I bit my cheek, eager to change the subject. If Pauli was still in there, and I had Nico distracted, maybe this was giving him the time he needed.
“So let me get this straight, you came back from Guinee, hung out with the Indigenous for a while, but you didn’t feed on them at all?”
“Oh, they had their legends about me, too. I was hardly a saint, though I did love those people.”
“And then you went to Europe, made Dracula himself and who knows how many other vamps, and then what?”
“Eventually my compulsions to feed waned. The older I’ve gotten, in fact, the less regularly I require it. When we feed, we do not use the blood as food. Not as normal humans do. The blood contains a remnant of the soul. We don’t digest the soul…it fills the void left by our own. Strangely enough, the more we feed, the more human we become, we require something of a soul. But it is not our own soul. It’s a mingling of souls, a melting pot, if you will. It’s why I can compel those who turn after I feed upon them. I possess a part of their soul. Gather enough souls, fill whatever void is left by the soul that was lost, and eventually the craving for more ceases. I suppose I could last nearly a decade between feedings at this point. Mercy, here… she might make it a few months. But a new vampire, a neophyte… at first they feed two or three times a day. They’re reckless. Over time, that fades, but most won’t survive for long. Feeding that often creates quite a terror.”
“Those vampires you sent to my house the last few months?”
“All neophytes.”
“And you killed them, just to waste them on me. That’s—”
Nico raised his hand to interrupt me. “I didn’t kill them. They were an unfortunate consequence of Ramon’s… excesses. I simply put them to use and gave them a chance to rest.”
“How noble of you,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Virtue is a hard thing to come by amongst my kind,” Nico said. “But that’s precisely the matter at hand. I never lost my own soul. Not entirely. No vampire does, in truth. Before I was born, I had to put myself to rest. Mercy and Ramon tended my corpse, lingering here in this very mausoleum, until the day of my disappearance. I simply could not exist twice in the same time and place, even if my soul be warped and damned.”
“And what would have happened if you didn’t stake yourself?”
Nico shrugged. “Hard to say, but I wasn’t going to test it. Maybe I wouldn’t have been born, never given a soul to begin with. If that happened, would I disappear entirely? I don’t know. Or perhaps I’d cease to exist in this form so my earthly life could proceed as before… until I lived out my days and found myself again the victim of my own birth. These are all conjectures, mind you. As I said before, time is what it is—there is no alternate existence, no parallel dimension forged by rips in the fabric of time. At least not that I can tell. I was always going to stake myself. And that is precisely why I preserved Mercy. I needed her to awaken me after my earthly form disappeared. After you left me in Guinee.”
“How many of your progeny are out there, ready to wreak havoc on the world?”
“Not many,” Nico said. “I’ve staked most of them myself. Those who could not control themselves… like Ramon. I only allowed him to awaken for Mercy’s sake.”
“And then you sacrificed him to test me?” I looked at Mercy. “Girl, you must be pissed.”
Mercy looked at me, her red beady eyes meeting mine. But she remained silent.
“Mercy understands my purpose,” Nico said. “She knows it is for the greater good. She knew his return would be temporary, that he’d be gone once his purpose was served.”
I nodded. “All right, so what the hell do you need from me, Nico?”
“I need you to confront the Baron, to recover the part of my soul that he stole. It is just a matter of time before he returns of his own accord. I’m not sure how he’ll do it, but I can sense it. He’s close. He cannot resist Erzulie’s compulsion forever. And when he does, did he not tell you how to defeat him, before?”
“He said that I’d have to balance out the fear that his presence causes with hope, that would bring back the green Baron’s essence.”
“Sounds very… inspiring,” Nico said sarcastically. “But it is something.”
“And you want your soul back… why?”
“I want to be human again, Annabelle. I want to recover what I lost.”
“How would I even go about doing that? I don’t know how to collect souls, much less from a Loa.”
“If you can bring back the green Baron, not allow the red Baron free rein, I have to believe he will fulfill his side of our bargain. He’ll gladly return my soul, restore my life.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know… What if I can’t do it? What if I refuse?”
“It would be a tragedy to see a daughter killed by her own parents, don’t you think?”
“They couldn’t kill me,” I said.
“I admit, you are formidable, but you do have a sister.”
“You fucker… you wouldn’t!
”
Nico looked at me intently, his red eyes piercing me like a syringe. “Do you intend to test my resolve?”
My head sank. “No, I don’t. And if recovering your soul makes you at all human again… I don’t think you deserve it, all the shit you’ve done.”
“Shit I did because you abandoned me!”
“Fair enough, but you know it was not my intention.”
“Intentions be damned!” Nico shouted, in a rage. “Your carelessness, your hubris, to use me to fight your battle to begin with. You never gave me a choice! But I do better than that. You have a choice. Continue to fuck with me and see your sister join me with your parents. Or help me get my humanity back. I cannot guarantee that it will mean your parents will be restored, but at least they’ll be free.”
I had to admit it—the right choice here was obvious. But could I trust him? Probably not. And the idea that I’d be able to restore the green Baron… that plan was always a long shot, even when the green Baron proposed it to begin with. Not to mention, when the red Baron returned… there was a good chance he’d have Nico enthralled and every vampire he ever made all working against me.
“You realize, Nico, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to bring Baron Samedi back green. If he comes back red, and stays red… if he hasn’t already returned your soul… ”
“That’s why I had to test you, Annabelle. I had to test both of you, you and Isabelle.”
“But you almost had me. You could have killed me before… Mercy could have…”
Nico laughed out loud. “Only because you were going to let her, only because you felt the burden of your guilt. You could have stopped her. Isabelle could have stopped her, and you know it. This, too, was a test… one you passed. Seeing your guilt, for what you’ve done, what you did to me, now it is compounded by the blood of thousands throughout history… all because you left me behind. I’m giving you a chance to atone for your guilt, Annabelle. End the monster you released upon human history. Make me human again.”
He’s right, you know… we could have stopped Mercy. We could have staked them both.
“Fine,” I said, choosing to ignore Isabelle’s statement. “I’ll do it. We will do it. But I need to know how to find the Baron, how he might be coming back already. I need every advantage possible.”
Nico was about to speak when a flash or color filled the room. Pauli gripped me by the shoulders and quickly looked around the room.
“Shit balls!” Pauli shouted.
A split second later I found myself standing back on the street, in front of my Camaro.
“Damnit, Pauli… he was about to tell me what I needed to know.”
“Damnit, Pauli? No ‘thank you for risking your life, Pauli’? No ‘thank you for saving my life, Pauli’? Just… damnit, Pauli?”
I smiled. “Thank you, Pauli.”
“Nico is the Vampire King? How the hell did that happen?”
“Long story… I’ll tell you in the car. But first, what did you find out inside? What about my parents?” I noticed something black dripping down his chin. “And what is that… around your mouth?”
“About that… don’t freak out. Your parents are fine. The other vampire in there, though…”
“What happened?”
“It seems that Kalfu has given me… a taste… not for human blood but—”
“For vampire blood?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
Pauli nodded.
“Gross!” I said. “And you said you didn’t bite my parents, right?”
“I might have, if that other vampire wasn’t so damn sexy and got my attention first. He spoke French and everything. Took off after I bit him. Who knows what happened.”
“Yeah, that was Ramon… I sent him to hell. You’re welcome.”
“You’re a badass bitch, Annabelle Mulledy!”
“True that. Now my parents?”
“Well, your father wouldn’t give me permission to marry you.”
“You didn’t!”
Pauli smiled wide. “I’m serious! I asked! I was just fucking with them. They are totally fine. Great peeps!”
“Totally fine? That doesn’t sound like them…”
“Their memories… totally intact. They have a bit of a hunger, but they said the Vampire King was feeding them donated blood.”
“Stole from the blood bank?”
“I guess, I didn’t ask. Whole fridge was full of the shit.”
“But they’re fine? Why wouldn’t Dad answer his phone?”
Pauli shrugged. “Doesn’t have a clue how it works. He thinks you’re still nine, Annabelle, which is probably why he didn’t take it too well that I was asking about marrying you.”
“He thinks I’m nine?”
“They both do. They don’t remember anything before they were bit. They didn’t seem to believe me when I told them you were almost nineteen.”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know what to think about that… and I still can’t believe you asked him that! He probably thought you were some kind of pedo!”
Pauli laughed. “Yeah, not so funny in hindsight.”
“Why would you even ask that anyway?”
Pauli shrugged.
“You can’t be serious!”
Pauli took a deep breath. He quickly masked a wince with an eye-roll and a fake grin. “You know me, bitch! I’m never serious!”
Told you… he’s in love with you.
“Shut up!”
“What?” Pauli asked.
“Sorry, it’s nothing. Wasn’t talking to you.”
“Ghost in your head, again?”
“Not sure she likes being called a ghost, but yeah. She thinks you’re in love with me. I mean, I told her that’s crazy!”
“Yeah,” Pauli said, his voice soft. “Crazy…”
Chapter Ten
I pulled up to my family home—we had more than enough space for Pauli, and I wasn’t about to force him to go back to his mom’s basement. My driveway, though, had turned into a parking lot. Oggie’s Hummer, Roger’s Jeep, and Mikah’s moped were all parked on our circle drive.
I quickly spotted Oggie, who was standing outside on my porch.
“Hey there!” I said. “What brings you by?”
Oggie glanced at Pauli. “Is he doing well?”
“I don’t speak for him,” I said, rolling my eyes. It was not customary for another student to converse with a Loa of another college. I’d done it, of course. But I sort of had a pattern of rebelling against tradition. Growing up in Catholic girls’ schools, I suppose I’d had enough tradition in my eighteen years to last a lifetime. “But yes, Oggie, he’s fine. More or less.”
“You went back to Casa do Diabo? Mikah called me. He was freaking out. Your sister apparently wasn’t thrilled either.”
“Pauli busted in, checked on my parents. They’re fine. Don’t remember much, nothing since I was a kid, since before they were bit. But they have a supply of donated blood to pacify them.”
“And who is running this coven?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I lied. It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust Oggie—but if he knew what I was doing for Nico, he’d try to stop me. He’d get involved… might get other Loa involved, too. And if Nico got any idea that I wasn’t following through with his plan, I was reasonably sure he’d stick to his threat. He’d enthrall my parents to kill Ashley. It wasn’t something I wanted to risk.
“You took a risk going there,” Oggie said. “I assume you used Pauli to get in?”
“He went in, checked on my parents. Confirmed they are alive and not a danger to anyone.”
“And is there any evidence that the Baron has returned?”
I shook my head. “He isn’t there. Not that we could tell.”
“Very well,” Oggie said. “We’ll discuss this matter later. There is actually another matter that brings me here. Would you invite me in?”
I smiled. I forgot that, like vampires, a Loa required an invitatio
n to enter. I’d already invited Pauli, by effect, when I told him I’d have a room for him. I wasn’t sure if the same rule would apply to him, given his unique condition, but I had it covered no less.
As I walked through the door, my sister lunged at me and wrapped me in her arms.
“What were you thinking? You had me so worried, going there alone.”
I smiled. “I wasn’t alone. I had Pauli. And we handled ourselves just fine.”
“What did you find out, about Mom and Dad?”
“They’re fine… better than fine. For some reason when their vampirism was awakened it restored their memories. Sort of. Everything prior to when we were attacked.”
“So they think we’re still kids?”
I nodded. “They didn’t see me. Pauli talked to them.”
“They’re fabulous,” Pauli said. “A bit bloodthirsty, but not at all murderous.”
“Why wouldn’t Dad answer his phone?” Ashley asked.
“They think it’s nine years ago. They had no clue what that contraption was, much less how to answer it.”
“Hello, Isabelle,” Mikah said, looking into my eyes.
Tell him I said hi!
“She says hi.”
“You’re both okay?”
I nodded. “I invited Oggie inside. He said he has something he needs to talk about.”
“It impacts all of you,” Oggie said. “Except for the Shaman.”
“Don’t mind me,” Roger said, lifting his bottle of Budweiser toward us as a sort of toast.
Oggie nodded at him, then looked at Mikah and then me.
“I have good news and bad news, but I’ll tell you the good news first.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Marie Laveau is reopening the Academy. All of you, Ashley included, may resume—or in her case, begin—your studies starting tomorrow.”
Grim Tidings Page 8