Year of the Vampire

by Sakurapu

  "Glenndale High Steampunk Romeo & Juliet Shines," had been one headline.

  Ivy had saved five Sunday editions of each newspaper. Both had good reviews, by anyone's standards. She couldn't wait to see the county paper review.

  "Well, the bumps are all worked out," her dad said from her side as the audience clapped. "Worth the trouble, don't you think?"

  "Absolutely." Ivy smiled back at Lornie, who beamed beneath her heavy stage makeup. They'd watched the first performance video together that morning, and Lornie was right: it was a disaster. The matinee had gone off better the day before, but Ivy could remember little of what Lornie had told her of it. Her mind was still spinning with vampires and stories behind the Zodiac woodcuts.

  Her father's arm came around her shoulders, his eyes still on the stage. "Why didn't you try out for the play this year?"

  His wrist rested on the scratches beneath her shirt, but she didn't flinch. They were cleaned and bandaged, barely hurting anymore with the numbing analgesic spray she'd used. Even her side was only bruised, the metal stays leaving impact lines on her stomach and ribs, but no real injuries. "I might next year. The Welcome Wagon takes up a lot of time."

  He nodded. "Got time for dinner tonight? I thought we'd swing over to Bridgewater and see some of the old buildings before they're torn down for the new project and grab something to eat."

  She smiled up at him. Last night her first thoughts had been to save her friends, but as the sun came up over the town and she saw it still standing, she knew she could never leave her dad. As much as she understood the Brylinden Hall vampires' need for new companionship, and as seductive as their offer was to be thought of as a muse, she couldn't leave.

  "Sounds great, Dad." She leaned to his side, hugging her arm around him.

  The crowd dispersed into the lobby area and the cast and Ms. Decker met fans to sign programs and take photos. Ivy watched from a distance, seeing Lornie pose for a group photo with half of her needlecraft class. She wished that Dred could have seen the full play.

  It reminded her that she needed to restock her knitting needles. The largest sizes, all wood.

  * * * * *

  There was no sign of the trauma from the previous night at Brylinden Hall when Ivy got there an hour later. It stood solid and silent in the bright sunlight, the chill air around it holding a decided nip. Ivy pulled her jacket closer, feeling every bit of early November's bite. She opened the gate, this time with little creaking.

  The right double-door to the Hall was unlocked and she opened it easily, stepping in. The ballroom before her was cleared, with no fire in the hearth, the chairs covered with sheets. The mammoth marble statue of her was even gone. To her left, the piano was covered with a sheet, looking mute in the large room. She took the few steps down to the floor, her footsteps echoing in the stillness.

  Above her the balcony running to either side of the ballroom was devoid of shadows and sound, not even the faraway melody of a violin lingering. She looked to the staircase, still in awe of it. The front entry to the side hall was open partway, its door allowing a stunted view inside. There was no sign of the long mirror Mortifal had stepped through.

  Ivy slowly approached the side hall, uncertain if she was trespassing in the fullest use of the term. The wall where she'd stabbed Vohn was clean, showing no stain. The floor was also clean.

  Maybe nothing had happened.

  Maybe she'd fallen with the rest of her classmates at Camille's party, hit her head, and woke up with a strange, wild dream with the rest of them. And maybe, the red on her dress was really spilled punch from knocking into the snack table.

  That was the story she'd told everyone last night when they roused, fully healed, and barely within the fourteen minutes Evandis had given her.

  No one questioned her excuse. Not Lornie, whose balloons were re-inflated, not the blue and orange pirates, not Fritz or Carlie, not Jeremy, and not Camille's mom, whose windows were all intact.

  Maybe it wasn't real.

  The dress, however, bloodstained and torn, was very real. Unsalvageable. A frightening memento of how close her town had been to complete invasion by Mortifal Mottknight, thanks to Vohn Lugori—Vosporos Mottknight.

  Ivy pushed the door open. The side hall was empty. She had a clear view to the spiral staircase at the end of the room. Bright sunlight poured in from the tall windows, lighting up the ten wood panels. She went closer to them.

  They were now only dulled brown wood, squares of barnwood by all appearances, without carving or story. She touched the first, summoning the Year of the Bone to mind. She remembered every line cut into it. She stepped back and looked up at the empty picture frames.

  They were no longer empty.

  There were six in all, each with a progressively older painting.

  The first was from Victorian times, of a young woman in full bustle, her wasp-waist pulled tight, her hair up in false curls beneath a wide silk hat with rosettes, a small smile on her face. Ivy knew it was Rockfort's work. Instead of his signature, the Year of the Stone image was etched into the bottom right.

  The next was an older style, still a young woman, Austrian, Ivy guessed, from what she'd seen of Marie Antoinette images, with a high-piled wig of silvery-blonde hair and modesty scarf over her ultra-low neckline. Her dress took up nearly the entire canvas. On her face was a young, sheepish smile as she looked back at the artist—again Rockfort. The paintings continued, each older by about a century, each of a young woman.

  Ivy halted at the end of the portraits. Her gaze fell naturally to the woodcut block below. It was just wood now, but even recalling the vampire carved there before sent a chill up her spine. So that was Mortifal Mottknight.

  Dred's uncle. Vohn's uncle.

  Moon twins, sharing the same father, born under the same full moon.

  And very different, she thought.

  She turned and walked back down the room, pausing where she'd seen the tall mirror before, the first time she had been in the room—the gateway to Neverfall. It was gone, but a covered easel stood in its place. She knew what it held. Her portrait, by Rockfort.

  She hadn't gotten a very good look at it the night before, preoccupied with fear as she was.

  She lifted the sheet corner and looked at the portrait.

  The woman on the foggy pier stared back at her.

  Ivy frowned in confusion. The pull of the woman's expression was just as strong as the first time, the day at the Autumn Fest where she'd lost three hours of time.

  "We couldn't keep your portrait," Maeve's voice echoed down the side hall.

  Ivy flinched but didn't drop the covering. She turned, watching Maeve walk from the opposite end of the room. "I thought you were all gone."

  "We are." Maeve smiled, not quite happily. "We can't keep portraits of innocents unwilling to stay."

  "What happens to them?" Ivy gave the portraits on the wall a quick glimpse. "Once the vampires are tired of them."

  "Nothing."

  Ivy looked back to her. "How?"

  "Most stay for ten or fifteen years, then get bored. A few have stayed their lifetimes." Maeve's tone took on an unusual delicateness. "They told us they were done being here, wanted to move away, and so we helped them settle, take on a human life, and then they walk out the East door. And forget us."

  A stinging sadness went through Ivy.

  Maeve looked at the painting on the easel. "Mesmerizing, isn't she?"

  "Yes." Ivy hitched the cover over the easel and admired the woman in the fog. "Who is she?"

  "No one. Just someone Rockfort created to let Evandis stop time when he wanted to watch someone. Of course, Scarlet and Berella both sat for him." Maeve laughed a little, holding her side as she did. "Time is a funny thing, Ivy. Pausing, slowing, reversing, jumping ahead; all in different spots in the world, for different people. Evandis is good at mastering it, but even he needs a little help capturing a moment." She stepped closer to Ivy. "As you watched the woman, Rockfort could see yo
u, draw you, show the rest of us here who don't leave what the woman in the fog saw. You."

  Ivy felt a fleeting moment of deception, but it didn't remain. "Part of me wanted to stay last night."

  "I know." Maeve sighed slowly, the rhinestone-spattered raven on her black T-shirt rippling as if in flight at her movements. "It's enticing, to be desired, chosen, spirited away by so many."

  "I didn't quite think of it like that," Ivy said, not examining the words too closely.

  "Mandrake can be quite convincing. Jovan, too. Evandis," Maeve said with a smaller smile, "has his own charm."

  Ivy covered the painting. "I'm sorry if Dred got in trouble."

  "Drexor got himself in trouble. Flirting with the idea he could bite and still stay in school, that I wouldn't find out. Don't feel guilty about him, Ivy."

  "But he didn't bite me," Ivy said quickly.

  "No, but he planned to. He's still got the culture stuck in him. Halloween is too strong for some. Especially those born in Year of the Vampire. He'll take more time."

  "What will happen to him?"

  Maeve ushered her into the ballroom. "He'll be reprimanded and then sentenced by Sir Normander. He's the final word on vampire and human issues."

  Ivy stopped, staring at her. "Sentenced?"

  "Just a few years in Neverfall. This is his first offense. He may even get pardoned, but he won't have a chance to be tested again for a while." Maeve raised an eyebrow. "Maybe Branard will get him next time. That would keep him in line."

  "Did he really kill his family in Oregon?"

  Maeve laughed. "Who told you that? Vosporos?"

  Ivy didn't want to admit it.

  "Of all the stupid Dred has done, he's not killed anyone in the Human world, Ivy."

  "Oh." Ivy felt a sudden hollowness in her soul. "I'll miss him."

  "He'll be happy to hear that."

  Ivy nodded slowly. "And I'm sorry I killed Vosporos."

  "You didn't."

  A new fear spiked in Ivy. "I didn't?"

  "No. The knitting needles you brought last night were actually bamboo, not wood. Bamboo, being a grass, only slowed them down. It didn't kill. But it was enough of a break to let us get them out of here and back to Neverfall. It was enough to stop Mortifal Mottknight from emptying Neverfall's unrepentant into the Human world." Maeve's voice grew crisp. "And Dred took a real chance breaking the mirror. There was a possibility it would have trapped the unrepentant here. It sucked them back only because Mortifal decided he'd rather heal in Neverfall than here."

  "But they're trapped there, right?" Ivy felt queasy at the thought of the tall vampire leader returning. "They can't come back, right, Maeve?"

  "Well, in theory, yes." Maeve checked her wrist watch. "But only after fully healing and recruiting help from this side. And only with one of the remaining mirrors. There were seven in all; six now."

  Ivy swallowed, feeling only slightly more composed. "How long will that take?"

  "A few years, a decade," Maeve said. "A century. I can't really tell you that, Ivy."

  Ivy stared at the spot she'd last seen Evandis' statue of her.

  "It was too big to move," Maeve said, following her gaze. "But Evandis made something else out of some of the pieces." She stuck her hands in her back jeans pockets and took a deep breath. "I've got to go. We weren't sure you'd come back, but since you didn't leave out the East door, well," she smiled wryly, "some of us kind of felt a little hope in not being forgotten."

  Ivy sighed. "I don't want to forget, Maeve. Any of you."

  She nodded. "I'll tell them that."

  Ivy stepped back as a pair of dark, sleek wings sprouted from Maeve's back, and when she smiled, this time there were two fangs beneath her upper lip.

  "Take care, Ivybelle," she said, vanishing.

  Ivy stood frozen, watching the thin air before her.

  She wasn't sure how much time passed as she stood there until she realized the afternoon light had fallen on the covered piano. Now she saw a few small objects there.

  She moved to the piano and stopped, staring at the largest of items.

  Evandis had chosen the finest-veined parts of the green and white marble to create a miniature statue of her in the Scarlett O'Hara dress, an exact replica of his large carving, small enough now to hold on her palm. She touched its skirt that was carved as if caught in a twirl. Beside the figurine lay a dried red rose, and a sheet of music. Her eyes skimmed the page, taking a moment to realize the notes were ones embedded in her memory—ones she found herself humming without prompting.

  "Night of the Ivy," she read Mandrake's title. "For piano, harp, cello, and violin."

  One last object lay on the piano sheet, this one turned away from her. She picked it up.

  Dred's fake vampire teeth.

  "Yuck," she growled, nearly dropping them. "Some contribution, Dred."

  At least they were dry. She turned them so the fangs faced her. He hadn't been in vampire mode when he showed up at Camille's house. He'd used fake fangs.

  She sighed, gathered the items and left, closing the front door behind her. It resounded with a final, hollow thud. She glanced to where the East door led to the side porch. She recalled very few times leaving out it—as was its purpose. She headed to the front path.

  Evening was encroaching on the street. The tree branches were bending in a light breeze, their shadows seeming to paw at her steps as she took the stone walk.

  A clatter of twig rolling before her made her stop and look down.

  A bamboo wood knitting needle, size eleven, lay on the flat stone, its narrowest end blackened and scorched.

  She stepped aside, then looked up.

  At the top of the mansion, a gargoyle stood atop the highest roof line.

  Ivy squinted. No, not a gargoyle.

  It was a vampire, crouched to one knee, watching her, its wings opened, the leathery wingspan torn and frayed, the ribs spanning to expose the sky behind it.

  Ivy stared at it, half wondering if it was real or a stone fixture, and half-tempted to grab up the knitting needle.

  A sound breathed from the Hall, her name in a whisper.

  Ivy glanced to the door, finding it closed. She knelt to pick up the needle, but it was gone. She slowly stood, looking back up at the vampire.

  This time it was stone, marble and slightly smaller, standing immobile against the evening sky, its wings now slumped to its sides, pressed to its body, head lowered, making it almost appear an angel bent in sorrow. A quick flap of large wings passed overhead, but Ivy turned too slowly to see it, and only the trees rose above her when she looked.

  She took a deep breath, clutching the sheet of music, marble figurine, dying rose, and fake fangs to her chest. From her jacket she took the pocket watch Evandis had given her. Its glass was cracked and the gold case dented, but it had worked, the black hands stopped at 11:57 on the ivory face. It had worked when she needed it to, leaving her a tangible keepsake of the night.

  She turned and left Brylinden Hall.