The other vampires lunged for him simultaneously, intending to grapple him, or at least take away his tomahawks of light. Nosh ducked, slicing off an offending wrist as he crouched. He let the momentum of his strike carry the tomahawk down and behind him, and I gasped as the tomahawk shifted into a long-handled axe as it continued its rotation high over his head.
He brought it down like he was chopping wood, and the axe of pure light split the vampire in half, starting at the point right between the eyes and tearing through past the crotch before it slammed into the marble floor with an explosive crack. It had torn through the vampire with the sound of paper being ripped.
There wasn’t even a drop of blood or gore—the body immediately blackened and smoldered as the two halves began to topple. By the time they hit the floor, they were twin puffs of fine crimson dust.
“Timber,” Nosh snarled, jerking the axe from the marble floor with one hand. His eyes glowed with a bluish-white fire that matched his axe, and I watched as it abruptly shifted back into a tomahawk to match the one still gripped in his other hand. He deftly spun them across his palms, grinning wolfishly at Mina.
The forgotten third vampire kicked him in the back, sending him crashing forward onto his chest. He rolled clear just as the vampire shambled after him, flinging a tomahawk behind his back without looking. The hatchet struck the vampire in the chest, pinning him to the wall. He hissed wordlessly, struggling to remove the hatchet before he disintegrated.
Nosh’s second tomahawk struck him in the throat, decapitating him. Crimson dust collapsed to the ground and the tomahawks crackled and throbbed, still buried in the wall. They seemed to drink up the vampire’s remains, devouring his energy.
Mina made a strangled sound as I locked eyes with her. I stared into her eyes and attempted to enthrall her, but she was too powerful for me in my current state. I was able to keep her neutralized, but not for much longer. Her eyes had widened at my attempt to enthrall her, alarmed that I had even tried. Only the oldest, most powerful of vampires would have dared to try such a thing against her.
Because when an underling attempted to enthrall a superior, he would typically drop to the ground in blinding pain, screaming as his own blood boiled in his veins.
And that hadn’t happened to me when I tried to enthrall Mina, which instantly told her that I was either her equal or higher up in the food chain, which was understandably terrifying.
She also knew that I did not answer to Dracula, which should have been impossible. Despite her standing and age, she hadn’t heard of Sorin Ambrogio either.
“Nosh?” I called out, gritting my teeth. I didn’t want to admit my weakness to Mina, but I could see the sudden realization in her eyes. We were at a stalemate. I knew I was on the verge of collapsing. My only chance was to kill her. I knew I could manage that, but it wouldn’t provide us any answers.
Nosh got the hint and stumbled over, cradling his arm as if injured. “Where is the journal, Mina?” he growled.
She shook her head stubbornly. “The Necromancer will destroy you for this,” she hissed.
“The journal,” Nosh repeated, holding his empty hand up by her head. The crackling tomahawk zipped through the air to strike his fist, slicing off her ear in the process.
She shrieked in pain. “I don’t have it! I sent it off to the Necromancer!” she snarled, still struggling to match her will against mine, and I barely managed to beat her aura back.
“I’m losing my grip,” I growled at Nosh. “We need to end this.” I picked up sounds from beyond the closed doors. “Someone is coming.”
Nosh held the tomahawk up to her face, slowly dragging the blade down her cheek. He smiled as her skin blackened and burned from the magical blade. “I really wish we could draw this out, Mina Harker. I loved reading your story in Bram Stoker’s novel, but I don’t have time for a book club discussion. Where is the Necromancer?”
She hissed and panted as the blade continued to slice from her cheek to her jaw. The smoldering wound continued to radiate outwards like an infection. “The Museum of Natural History!” she rasped, unable to take the pain any longer.
Nosh grunted. “No further questions,” he muttered, turning back to the door.
Using the last of my strength, I shook her. “Where is Dracula?” I snarled.
She shook her head stubbornly, and I sensed her gathering her strength for one last attempt to overpower me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to withstand it—especially not with someone approaching the doors, who might rise up to her defense.
“Keep that door closed, Nosh!” I rasped, licking my lips. “I need a drink before we leave.”
Nosh lifted his hands and I saw chains made of the same light as his tomahawks suddenly whip towards the door, wrapping around the handle three times. “Won’t hold them for long.”
Mina’s eyes had widened with horror at my mention of drinking her. Quick as a snake, I lunged forward and bit into her neck. My teeth shattered through her hardened skin with a sound like breaking glass. I drank deeply, hugging her close to me. Her claws scratched desperately at my shoulders, but they rapidly weakened as I guzzled her blood.
It wasn’t common to drink another vampire, but I felt as though I was about to fall over from exhaustion if I didn’t get at least some type of blood into my system. If she had recently fed, it would give me enough energy to escape the auction without Nosh having to carry me.
Mina Harker was old. Surprisingly so.
Old enough for her many years of life to balance out the bitter taste of drinking my own kind. In fact, her blood gave me a slightly heady feeling, like I was floating. Not wanting to drink too much of her—which could be dangerous—I dropped her body to the ground, panting desperately. I steadied myself, waiting for the possible side effect of drinking a fellow vampire.
A moment later, the room abruptly tilted, and I fell to my knees as one of her memories hammered into my mind with flashes of light.
Her approaching a familiar, foreboding castle beneath the glow of a full moon. A lone candle flickered in the window of my old master suite at Castle Ambrogio as Dracula watched her approach. Her carriage jostled as it slipped into a puddle. A horse screamed as the wheel cracked, tilting the carriage over as it crashed to the ground. Rain poured into the carriage as Mina struggled to climb out. I heard a deep, evil, sadistic laugh echo out from that window.
A laugh I knew all too well.
Dracula.
I grabbed my head, trying to shake off the dizzying effect as I heard the doors rattling violently. Someone was trying to break them down.
Nosh had bent down and was reaching into Mina’s mouth, tugging forcefully with a tool of some kind. He grunted as he pulled out an extremely long fang. He made short work of the other before shoving the prizes into his pocket.
“Get up, Sorin!” he growled, jostling my shoulder. I nodded woodenly as I obeyed. He stood and rushed over to the coat rack behind the groaning guards. He finally grabbed my long black coat from earlier before running back and shoving me towards the exit.
Fists began pounding on the door to the auction. “Open this door right now!” a familiar voice shouted. “I smell blood!”
Victoria.
Nosh flung a hand behind us and a brilliant flash of light erupted between us as the door to the auction blew open. I squinted against the flare in time to see Victoria Helsing and the two Sisters of Mercy recoiling in surprise, blinded by Nosh’s light.
I backpedaled after Nosh—who was already outside—as I struggled to master my dizziness. The three women spotted me, but they didn’t pursue.
I could tell from the looks on their faces that they had definitely heard about me killing Nosh’s parents. And now they watched me flee the auction, leaving behind a dead woman in a red dress. They had no love for Mina Harker, a vampire, but that didn’t mean they approved of the mess I was leaving behind. The friendly vampire from the auction had just killed a very old vampire. Did that make me a worse vampire or a pot
ential ally?
Nosh yanked me into the night and kicked the front door closed behind me. He flung a blast of power at the door and I watched another rope of glowing chains whip around the handles, except much thicker than he’d used on the first door.
He flung my coat over my shoulders, yanked down the hood, and tugged me after him as he began to run from the mansion. “Now that you’re a wanted murderer, we can’t risk anyone seeing you out and about. The murder is already trending on Twitter, and I have no doubt your face will be plastered all over the news.”
Having no idea what the hell Twitter was, I understood the rest of his statement. The picture of me in the hotel would be up where everyone could see—maybe on their phones?
We fled the auction, using the cover of darkness to hide from any cars or pedestrians. I tugged the hood down further as a car drove by, and I fought to keep my balance. Mina’s blood flowed through my body, nourishing me but also disorienting me. Vampire blood could do that—much like alcohol made other people drunk.
Even though no one knew my name, I was now the city’s most wanted criminal.
A new legend had been born.
The original legend of the world’s first vampire was forgotten in the pages of an unwritten history.
20
It took us over an hour to get back to my new subterranean hideout beneath Grand Central Terminal. We’d jogged for a while, avoiding the rare pedestrian or vehicle, not wanting to risk my face being spotted. We also couldn’t risk calling our earlier ride from the Aristocrat, because we weren’t sure who had been in on Mina’s scheme—whether knowingly or not. For all we knew, she had left vampire underlings at the Aristocrat to make sure the employees kept their story straight, threatening the lives of their families if they aided us.
Nosh had tried calling Redford, but he hadn’t answered.
For the same reason of wanting to keep me out of sight, Nosh also hadn’t wanted to risk calling one of the carriages for hire—yellow cars driving up and down the street to pick up passengers who preferred to avoid the misty, chilly streets in the middle of the night.
We also knew we would soon cross into werewolf territory—and vampire territory, for that matter—so we couldn’t continue on foot. Ultimately, Nosh had consented to taking me to a magical place called the subway. Coincidentally, it led straight to my hideout.
I marveled at the mass of humanity crowding to get into the subway station, but kept my head downcast beneath my hood as Nosh bought us tickets and ushered me through the crowds and down a few flights of stairs until we reached a platform that was eerily similar to the one outside my tomb. After following several brightly lit signs, he finally found the one that would take us to Grand Central Terminal, and we settled into a metal tube that had the aromatic stench of piss firmly soaked into the very walls—enough to make my eyes water. Not needing to breathe, I simply stopped, remembering to keep my head down.
Nosh did the same, but the grim look on his face told me he wasn’t happy about our particular ride. “I haven’t ridden the train in years. Now I remember why.”
I stared out the window as we rocketed down the rails. It was stiff and jerky, rattling my teeth until I got used to the locomotion. We were underground, but dazzling murals painted the cavernous tunnel—some were words, others were full canvases, but all in bizarre, artistic portrayals—the likes I had never seen before. It was both primitive and astonishing.
“We should probably talk about—”
“Not here,” Nosh growled, cutting me off. “Keep your head down until we get…home,” he finally said, grimacing at the word.
“Castle. I prefer to call it my underground castle.”
Nosh glanced at me sidelong. “It’s not a castle, and it’s not really yours.”
“I’ve been there longer than anyone else. I lived there before any of this was ever dreamt of,” I said, gesturing at our surroundings.
Nosh grunted, smiling faintly. “Fair point. But you need to stop talking about it. You already told the werewolf. The fact that it’s secret is the only thing keeping us out of jail right now.”
“Keeping me out of jail, you mean,” I growled.
Nosh leaned closer, barely whispering. “If they saw you on camera, they had to have seen me. If I was Mina, I would have a contingency plan that also makes me an accomplice to their murder. For example, the moment I point a finger at her or her cronies, the missing video of you and me suddenly appears in the news. Then it becomes a new headline. Heir to the Griffin fortune murders parents with mentally unstable accomplice.”
I narrowed my eyes as his description of me, but his point was valid. “I had already considered that but had hoped that your generation had moved beyond such levels of depravity.”
Nosh grunted. “I’m pretty sure we dug down a few new levels since you last walked the earth. What you consider depravity is probably considered virtuous by our standards.”
I sighed. “Our only source of information is now…unable to tell us what she had planned. Who this Necromancer is, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. How did they have all of this set up if they didn’t know about me? And if they didn’t know about me, why target you?” I asked, choosing my words carefully. “I don’t believe that it was just to protect the journal.”
Nosh thought about it, his eyes growing distant. I watched him for any signs of emotion, but he was eerily cold. I began to wonder what kind of man I was working with. His parents had just been murdered, and he had barely reacted. Sure, he’d been angry, but no angrier than if they had been innocent strangers.
His parents were now dead, and he had yet to have a breakdown. He was either incredibly familiar with loss—as if he’d been a soldier in his past—or something very strange was going on. The longer he bit down his emotions, the worse the outburst would be. I knew that for a fact, having spent centuries as a murderer.
It was strangely ironic that after all the thousands of men I had killed, I was being held accountable for one I did not commit, against two victims I had never met.
Either someone had known I was back—which made no sense, since Mina had seemed aloof to my identity; she hadn’t even realized I was a vampire—or Nosh had been specifically targeted for reasons yet unknown. With Nosh’s cool sense of detachment, I was leaning towards that possibility more and more.
And to hear he had been adopted really stirred up my suspicions. He hadn’t looked surprised to hear it, but he had looked surprised that Mina had known it, which meant it hadn’t been public knowledge.
* * *
He placed his elbows on his knees, leaning forward so our conversation couldn’t be overheard. “It wasn’t a secret that I worked with Degan Smith, but it also wasn’t anything newsworthy. Up until the journal came into play, anyway. I hadn’t even known his real name until a few hours ago, so I’m just as surprised as you.”
“It doesn’t seem like anyone knew who he truly was,” I said, choosing my words very carefully. “I would have expected the woman in the red dress to admit such knowledge had she known of it. If for no other reason than to brag about it before we showed her our hand.”
Nosh nodded. “I was present during the interview with the journalist. His questions were so derisive that Degan lost his temper and said more than he should have. I honestly think it was just bad luck that all of this happened. The journalist did his job, pushed some buttons, and a story popped out where no one had expected anything of importance. With Mina hinting that they own the news media, I wouldn’t be surprised if the journalist reached out to tell his boss about his unlikely discovery, not knowing he worked for vampires. Or he did know who he worked for and got a nice payment for it,” he muttered angrily. “Either way, here we are.”
I nudged him gently with my elbow. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
Nosh grunted. “Thanks.”
The train came to a stop and the doors whisked open with a grinding sound. Several people got off, but just as many got on b
efore the doors closed again and the train resumed its travels.
A trio of men with matching red hats and colorful clothing were dancing to a small metal device that was playing some kind of loud poetry with a steady thumping noise. They wore a ridiculous amount of jewelry around their necks but seemed to have no fear of thieves. The rest of the subway was a mix of all manner of people. Some in suits. Others in coats and scuffed shoes. All of them minded their own business, and a few of them were even reading newspapers or magazines. Most were staring down at their phones with worried looks on their faces.
I wondered how many were looking at pictures of me as I checked my hood and lowered my face from view.
21
I leaned closer to Nosh, speaking softly. “Why did you take her fangs?”
“They are powerful ingredients to a Shaman,” he muttered dryly. That was well beyond my purview, since I had been the only vampire Deganawida had ever known back in my time. Nosh patted his pocket proudly. “Stubborn little shits, too. Like they were fighting me.”
I nodded. “They were fighting you. It’s not easy to acquire such things. They root down to the jawbone, unlike typical teeth.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Well, that makes a lot more sense. I felt like I was breaking them off.”
I shuddered, imagining such a sensation.
“What’s our next play?” I asked, thinking of Stevie, the werewolf. “We are obviously going to need some allies. What we did back there will have consequences. The women from the auction saw me at the end. All three of them,” I said, hoping he got my point. “The nuns and the hunter.”
He sighed, scratching at his jaw. “The question is whether or not that makes us enemies or allies in their eyes. They had no love for the woman in the red dress, but that probably only makes us the lesser of two evils, not allies. And I doubt anyone wants what looks like a vampire civil war in their city—when they don’t want any vampires here at all.”
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