by Anna Katmore
“No, I’m from Norwich.”
“What?”
“I’m from Norwich. England. I’m here for summer vacation, and I’m not going to be a doctor. But I’m not a complete idiot either.”
I was right then about Britain. It explains her noble English. I quite like it when she talks. “So, what’s your explanation, if you don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know.” She stands up and starts to walk away from me, toward the barrier again where I can’t follow her. And I haven’t fed from her yet. “Maybe you’re just a weirdo.”
Jumping to my feet, I follow her and grab the first thing I can get a hold of to stop her. When I pull something out of her back pocket, she whirls around and snaps, “Hey!”
“Ah, so I’m a weirdo? But I’m not the one carrying a”—what is that?—“an air horn.”
“Give it back. My gran gave me that for protection.” She holds out her hand, waiting, but if I return the item to her now, she’ll be crossing the line the next second without me. I have a better idea.
I play with the horn, turning it over in my hand, inspecting it as I take a few steps back. Abigail follows me. Good girl. Come away from the barrier... Maybe I should lure her up to the castle and lock her away in the dungeon, then I can feed on her whenever I get hungry.
Right. Did I mention the bus before? It must have hit me harder than I thought because I’m very obviously losing my mind.
Walking even farther away from the invisible wall, I ask her, “What do you need protection from?” Other than me, of course.
“A wolf.” She snatches the air horn out of my hand and stops. “Apparently, one has been seen around here, and Nana doesn’t want me to get eaten.”
Oh, Abigail Potts, there are more creatures than just wolves in this area that would love to eat you tonight.
If only I could find the damn trigger for mind control somewhere in my brain. According to Uncle Vlad, it’s something every vampire can do. They just need to train and build up the ability like a muscle. But how am I supposed to do that if I don’t even know where that muscle is?
To keep Abigail with me, I make casual conversation while trying in vain to mentally command her to sit down. “So, your gran thinks a tiny horn will scare away a renegade wolf?”
Rather thoughtfully, she turns the noisemaker over in her hand and examines it. “I suppose there’s a fair chance with this. They are usually quite loud.” She holds it up and pushes the red button on the top.
The next thing I know, my eardrums explode with excruciating pain, and it feels like a ship is blowing its horn right next to my head. I clap my palms over my ears and bend over. “Stop it!” When I look at her through squinting eyes, she stares at me as if I’m suddenly speaking a different language, holding up the horn demonstratively at her side.
“I’m not doing anything,” she explains with confusion written all over her face. Her voice sounds cottony, like a pillow pressed against her mouth, muffling the sound. “It was only a millisecond. And really, it wasn’t that loud.”
Slowly, I put my hands down. My ears are still ringing, the noise rattling my skull, but Abigail’s right—it’s not the air horn any longer. I suppose she just deafened me for good with her brief demonstration. Intending to take the damn thing and toss it as far away as I can, I make a grab in thin air, missing the target by half a foot. More, I stagger to the side like a drunken bat, having trouble keeping my balance.
“Quentin?” Abigail comes forward, cupping my elbow. Her face right next to mine, her worried brown eyes search mine for answers, and all I can think about is how much I’d love to take a bite out of her neck.
“I’m all right.” Reeling away, I shake my head, but the dizziness doesn’t ease. Boy, what a day. “I better get back to the castle. For all we know, there really is a wolf causing trouble, and I don’t have a siren such as yours to scare it away.” I lift my head, nailing her with a sharp look. “You should go home, too, if you don’t want to get eaten.”
Totally missing my point, Abigail narrows her eyes. “Are you sure you can walk the road up to the castle alone? I can escort you if you want. You look quite miserable, you know.”
Yeah, and half of it is her fault. I’ll be damned if I let her near my eardrums with that horn again. Once she’s gone, I’ll just sit down for a minute and then go find someone else to eat tonight. “Just a bit dizzy. I’m fine. Goodbye, Abigail Potts.”
“You can call me Abby.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Stumbling in the direction of the castle, I don’t look back at her. With the ringing in my ears, it’s impossible for me to tell if she’s walking away, but the spearing look I feel stabbing my neck says no.
“Maybe I should give you my number so you can call me in case you start feeling worse,” she shouts after me.
She wants me to call her? And then what? Ask her to come to the castle so I can nibble on her neck? Because I’m feeling really, really bad right now…from hunger. But with her worry, she reminds me of something else. I stop and draw in two deep breaths to ensure I’m standing straight when I face her again.
Pulling my dead phone out of my pocket, I turn around and hold it out to her. “My battery died, and there’s no electricity in the castle. Do you think you could maybe take it home with you and charge it for me?”
“Sure.” Abby hurries forward and reaches for my phone. Once again, I’m tempted to grab her hand and sink my teeth into her wrist to suck her vein there. But I resist. “Do you want to meet again here tomorrow at twilight?”
Sounds like a plan. I nod, losing focus of her as I stumble back to my mighty, empty, temporary home.
*
It’s almost ten o’clock when the ringing in my ears and the carousel inside my head finally stops. I’ve been lying on the dusty bed and fighting against sleep the entire time. Chances are slim that I’ll find another human cookie to eat tonight, yet I want to run the perimeter and check out the strange invisible barrier before the sun forces me to stay inside the castle for another day. This time, however, I don’t run down the path at vampire speed, but I set off at a casual jog. A few feet in front of the blockade, I stop and test the waters with one cautious step after the other.
I feel the barrier with my outstretched hands, right where it was earlier. Surely, it’s nothing but compressed air, but it feels rock-hard and cold. Like one of the castle’s very real stone walls.
I explore it on all sides and follow the invisible barrier, always keeping a hand on it. It leads me across the meadow and into the woods to the right, then on through it endlessly. I can’t be sure yet but, unless I’m very much mistaken, the air wall circles the entire hill with the castle situated on top of it. Twigs and leaves crackle under my shoes as I jog through the underbrush, sending mice, rabbits, and owls fleeing from me. Twenty minutes later, I reach my starting point on the dirt road again, approaching from the other side.
Yep, all the way around. And in that mile-long barrier, there was no exit and no porthole. Not even climbing up a tree took me over it. It’s a solid and sealed dome around Castle Dracula.
Holy bat shit, I’m imprisoned!
But why can Abby cross the line back and forth and not get her head dented like I did? Is it a vampire thing? My body isn’t much different from a human’s—minus the heartbeat while we sleep—so what exactly keeps me trapped on this side of the barrier?
Now would be a good time to call Uncle V and, after venting my anger about being sentenced to Romanian solitude, ask him a few basic questions about survival. Since my phone is dead and currently not even in my possession, unfortunately, that’s not an option. All I can do is wait out the time until Abby comes back. Maybe I can practice mind control in the meantime and finally get a nice drink out of her when I see her next. Just…where to find an object for training?
Wandering through the silent castle with a candle in hand, I entertain the idea of opening the iron door again and letting out a rat. But what if I fail to control it? T
he creepy little shit would run free in my home and—ugh, I really hate vermin.
After five minutes of staring at the still-shut door to the tunnel, I decide to leave it closed and find some other dummy. Spiders and moths loom in almost every corner of this goddamn place. They have small brains. They should be easier to control than big, complex ones, right?
I kneel on the cold floor and set the candle aside. Carefully, I cup a spider out of its web and try to find the link between our minds. There’s no way of telling if we click or not. Nothing feels different. When I slowly open my hands, with all the power in me, I order the spider to freeze on my palm.
Yeah, the hell we clicked. The tiny crawler takes a run right up my left arm. I shake it off with disgust before it can slip under the sleeve of my t-shirt. Of course, ordering it back to me works as well as ordering a frog to bark. Failure apparent, I sit alone again in the candlelight. Fricking great.
I draw in a long, frustrated breath and rise, picking up the candle. In that moment, the howling of a wolf drifts through the open windows. I jerk around, and the flame goes out.
Chapter 7
Garlic for super brains
Abigail
Chin resting in my palm, I sit in front of the open window and stare at the full, bright moon above Nana’s apple tree. The orb is so close, it almost feels like it’s begging me to reach out and cuddle it to my chest.
I wonder if Quentin looks up at the sky right now, too. Must be a bit lonesome up there in that cold castle all by himself. Meeting someone in the ruins was the last thing I’d expected this morning. What a weird, unhealthy…and fascinating guy. I didn’t pay much attention during our first encounter, but when we met again at twilight—after I calmed down from the second dead-people experience of the day—I couldn’t help but notice his beautiful, deep blue eyes or how they gleamed with mischief every time he smiled.
And that kiss… Boy! A dreamy sigh escapes me. It was completely unexpected. And oh so sweet.
So the guy constantly walks the line between scaring me half to death and making me swoon. What’ll I feel the next time I see him? Maybe we can talk a bit longer tomorrow evening. Turning my head, I cast a look at the black iPhone on my nightstand. American plugs don’t work with European sockets. Lucky for him, neither do British, so I brought the whole set of power adapters with me, and his cell is now happily charging. A natural-born nosy cat, I would love to snoop around in his phone to see what pictures he keeps there. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me the code to unlock it.
My gaze wanders back to the bright orb in the night sky. And then, somewhere in the distance, I hear it. The howl of a wolf. I’ve never heard anything like it in real life before, but it’s not at all like I expected. Not a scary yowl that causes goosebumps on my skin. In fact, it’s so sad and sorrowful that my heart nearly breaks for the animal. I lean farther out the window and try to determine which direction it’s coming from. Must be somewhere deep in the woods.
Thank God I’m safely up in my room on the first floor. Farmer Olson’s sheep probably aren’t as lucky. But from the sound of it, the wolf isn’t on a sheep hunt. I hope it didn’t get caught in one of those nasty iron claw traps. Yes, I know it’s ridiculous to feel sympathy for such a dangerous creature, but in the end, it’s just trying to survive like we are. Most people wouldn’t reject a hamburger if it were dangled in front of their noses, so who can blame a wolf for grabbing a quick bite from the pasture?
But even through the closed window, the yowling is eerie and keeps me awake until three in the morning. Then it stops as suddenly as it started. Did the poor thing die? Or maybe it just got tired of howling at the moon. Whatever. At this point, I don’t care. I just want a few hours of sleep. Closing my eyes, I snuggle deeper into my pillow and enjoy the silence that finally takes over the night.
Way too early in the morning, I wake up again, this time with a massive headache. Lack of sleep surely doesn’t become me. On the plus side, my gran has already prepared a nice breakfast for both of us. Warm goat milk and freshly baked bread with cheese. When I sit down, and she notices me rubbing my temples, she asks, “Did the howling keep you awake, my dear?”
I look up. “You heard it, too?” What a stupid question? You’d have to be deaf not to hear that noise last night.
Chewing some dry bread, Nana nods. “Did it scare you?”
“A little. At first. But then it became more annoying than frightening,” I admit.
“You should sleep better tonight. The howling has been going on for a few days now, but it usually stops after the full moon.”
I smear some butter on my bread and put two slices of cheese on it. “Really? Why do you think that is?”
Nana shrugs and then hides her face behind a wide cup of milk as she drinks. Her gaze is lowered when she mumbles, “Wolves and the moon. They always come in pairs in Romania.”
Do they? I don’t remember ever seeing a wolf around when I came here for my vacations, and neither do I remember hearing one howl. “How long has this one been around?” I want to know.
“For a while.”
“Is farmer Olson going after it?”
Her face suddenly ashen, she lifts her eyes to mine. “Why? Did you see him with a gun?”
“I didn’t see him at all.” A confused chuckle makes me choke on my cheese bread. Several hard coughs later, with the crumbs out of my windpipe, I ask, “Don’t you want the wolf shot so everybody’s safe again? Yesterday, you gave me an air horn because of it.”
“Yes. To scare the animal away. Not to kill it. We don’t shoot wolves here in Ardeal.”
How strange is that? A wild animal frightening the village, and nobody wants to take it out. I wonder if wolves are under wildlife protection in this area or something. My returning headache keeps me from asking more questions, and I bend forward to rest my head on my folded forearms.
The scraping of Nana’s chair on the stone tile floor feels like an iron rake grinding against the inside of my skull. At my wince, she pats my shoulder. “Before I go muck out the stable, I’ll find something for your headache, my dear.”
“Thanks.” Some painkillers would be great.
There’s a limited amount of hot water in this house every day, so I take a quick shower and try to be done before the revitalizing spray turns ice-cold on me. Nana is already outside when I get back into the kitchen—the goats happily bleating as she milks them—but there’s a pack of pills on the counter. They must be the painkillers. The description is all in Romanian, so I have no idea what I’m actually swallowing, but Nana also put a glass of lemon sherbet next to them, so I’m sure it’s for me.
Fifteen minutes later, my headache is gone. Since my gran is busy outside, I start cleaning the house, airing the rooms, and washing the floor. Well, I would scrub it if there was a mop anywhere. Where in the world does Nana keep the floor cleaning supplies? Definitely nowhere on the ground floor. Maybe there’s something useful in the basement.
Walking down the narrow stairs and sliding my hands along the loam walls for balance, I remember how scared of coming down here I used to be. As a kid, the place always gave me the creeps for no obvious reason. Today, it seems funny that I never made it past the door at the end of the stairs. At seventeen years old, stories of the cellar monster don’t frighten me any longer, so I reach out for the brass doorknob and twist.
“What are you doing down there?”
Whoa, forget what I just said. At Nana’s demanding voice behind me, I jump like a lamb in the meadow.
“Uh, looking for a mop.” I stammer as I turn around on the bottom stair.
Her silhouette fills the entrance above. She cracks a wrinkled smile and reaches to the side, grabbing a mop from the devil knows where.
“Oh.” Eyes narrowed with wonder, I jog up the stairs again, and Nana closes the door behind me. “I couldn’t find one anywhere in the house.”
“I keep it behind the fridge.” She places her hand on the small of my back and leads m
e into the kitchen, where she puts the empty glass away. “Is your headache better, my dear?”
“Gone. I’m feeling totally fine, thanks.”
She smiles. “The potion works wonders, doesn’t it?”
What potion? My gaze skates to the glass in the sink. Holding the handle of the mop with both hands, I lean heavily on it and scrutinize my grandma. “You mean the lemon sherbet was the painkiller?”
“Of course.” Now, her bushy gray eyebrows draw together, and she purses her lips. “What else would it be?”
“Well…” My face scrunches with a grimace. “I thought it was just to wash down the pill.”
“What pill?”
“I pressed one out of that package.” I point at the white and brown pack on the counter. If they aren’t for headaches, what the hell did I take?
Nana grabs the package, examines it, and then starts laughing with a rich, deep, old, grandmotherly sound. “These are garlic pills, my dear. Not for headaches.”
“Garlic?” I swallow and already feel a little sick. “What will that do to me?”
“Nothing at all.” She puts the pack back and pats my hand, still chuckling—probably because my face just turned pale or green or something. “I take them every morning. They are supposed to help me stay quick and bright.” With a sly look, she taps her right temple. “You know, in the brain.”
Uh-huh. So, the worst that could happen from me taking the pill is that I’ll become a genius. That’s comforting. Eventually, I start mopping the floors while Nana busies herself in the kitchen, preparing lunch for us. Before we eat, I quickly check on Google to make sure there’s really no danger of me taking the garlic pills. Nana seems to have told the truth. Apparently, garlic is renowned for its aid with heart issues, blood pressure, and cholesterol. A well blood-supplied brain is a good working brain, or so they say.
