Blessed

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  In England, Mina worries that she hasn’t heard from Jonathan and frets over Lucy’s sleepwalking. A ship carrying fifty boxes of soil wrecks onshore. A dog, which goes missing, is the only survivor.

  One night, as Lucy is sleepwalking at a nearby cemetery, Mina follows and sees something shadowy hovering above her friend.

  When Mina reaches Lucy, it’s vanished, but Lucy’s neck has been punctured. The two wounds are tiny. Mina writes them off as pricks of a safety pin. (Really.)

  Over time, Lucy’s health gets worse. Dracula is obviously “visiting” her. (By obviously, I mean to me, not to the characters.)

  Then Mina is called away to nurse Jonathan after his ordeal at the castle, and Jack contacts Dr. Abraham Van Helsing to request his help with Lucy’s condition.

  Van Helsing, who’s a total windbag, is upset about the wounds on Lucy’s neck and the fact that she needs several blood transfusions. The donors are her former boyfriends, Quincey included, and also Van Helsing himself.

  The transfusions have an oddly sexual vibe. Like all the men have become Lucy’s lovers because their blood flows in her veins.

  Each time, Lucy improves for a while and then weakens again. Van Helsing seems to get what’s happening and tries to protect her with garlic flowers to ward off the monster, but he doesn’t tell anyone else.

  One night a wolf smashes through Lucy’s window, and her mama, who’s also been sick, dies of a heart attack.

  Finally, Lucy’s fiancé, Arthur, is summoned to her deathbed, and when he bends to kiss her good-bye, Van Helsing tears him away. “Not on your life!” Van Helsing says. “Not for your living soul and hers!” And then: “He stood between them like a lion at bay.”

  At first, Lucy doesn’t take that well. “A spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face. The sharp teeth clamped together.” But later she’s thankful.

  Before death, Lucy’s gums have already begun to retract, and her teeth are noticeably sharper.

  It hadn’t been that way for me, or at least I hadn’t noticed any changes in my smile before I’d died. I hadn’t been weak, either, just moody. One moment I’d felt emotionless, the next euphoric.

  Not long after Lucy dies, news reports begin to appear about a “bloofer lady,” who’s been attacking village children.

  Finally, Van Helsing tells Jack, Arthur, and Quincey that Lucy has vamped out (he really should’ve mentioned it earlier), and the four of them confront her in her tomb.

  As a vampire, Lucy is no longer sweetly high-spirited (and kind of a bubblehead). Instead, she’s as wanton and voluptuous and evil (or so she’s described) as the female vampires at Castle Dracula. “Never did I see such baffled malice on a face, and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful color became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of flesh were the coils of Medusa’s snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese.”

  What’s more, “the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own,” can “pass through the interstice where scarce a knife blade could have gone.”

  Plus, in keeping with her early fangs and blood-lusty behavior, she’s been working her sultry thrall for a while. Quite the undead achiever, not that it helps her.

  The men stake Lucy, cut off her head, and fill it with garlic.

  It’s Arthur, her fiancé, who hammers home the stake. (How romantic.)

  That’s when they decide to hunt down the count. (About damned time.)

  Along the way, Mina and Jonathan, now married, return to England. He’s still shaky from his ordeal at the castle.

  The heroes study one another’s journals, correspondence, and whatnot. Mina — who gets bonus points for being able to work the newfangled gadget that is the manual typewriter — compiles and organizes all the information for them. She also pulls the sobbing mess of guys together despite their grief over Lucy’s death.

  The men spend quality time tracking down the count’s fifty boxes of Transylvanian soil, purifying them with holy wafers. Meanwhile, Dracula moves on to Mina, who looks “too pale” for a while before anyone figures out what’s going on. (Didn’t they just go through all this with Lucy?)

  One night, Mina and the count are discovered together. “Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast, which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.”

  White nightdress . . . like the one Bradley had chosen for me?

  Beyond that, hmm. I didn’t get it. Van Helsing suggested that anyone preyed on by a vampire would turn into one, but he also tried to protect Lucy with the garlic flowers. He didn’t immediately give up hope for her.

  With Lucy herself, the transformation process seemed to be triggered by the count’s bite (I thought), but I also knew some kind of transfer of blood was required, and Mina apparently did drink. Like a kitten.

  Kieren had labeled “Dracula and his spawn” as Carpathians, a whole other breed of undead. Modeling my notes on Kieren’s cheat sheet, I compiled a list of the count’s unique qualities.

  What Makes Dracula Special

  Dracula: unattractive, undead Transylvanian count

  Origin: “They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.” — Van Helsing

  Allies: Renfield (bug-eating madman in Jack’s care), three female vampires

  Qualities: no reflection or shadow; bad breath; can’t eat at all; victims show physical signs of vampiric infection prior to undeath

  Powers: the usual (the full gamut, and immediately after rising) plus:

  Can vanish and “become unknown.”

  Can change size (dramatically).

  Can enthrall victims and control minds. “When my brain says ‘Come!’ to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding. And to that end this!” — Mina Harker quoting Dracula

  Can affect the weather (fog and thunderstorms).

  Can command the rat, owl, bat, moth, fox, and wolf.

  May look younger after feeding.

  Weaknesses:

  Can’t enter a household unless initially invited.

  Can only change form at noon, sunrise, or sunset; loses powers during daylight.

  May only cross running water at low or high tide.

  Must sleep on soil of his homeland.

  Holy wafers, crosses, crucifixes, wild-rose branches, garlic (huge turnoffs).

  Methods of Destruction: sacred bullet, the usual (stake, beheading). Fire?

  Spiritual Status: damned. The staking, beheading, garlic-mouth ritual is in play.

  I twisted Kieren’s crucifix on its chain. He’d written off the Carpathians as myth. Just like he’d written off several undead attributes that appeared in the novel — the ability to enthrall or control human minds and those of some animals, weather-related powers, the need for homeland (and/or unhallowed) soil, throwing no shadow or reflection (my reflection and shadow weren’t sharp, but they were visible), and so on.

  The way I figured it, either Stoker had decided to use his creative license to weave in several well-known misconceptions, or the count and his fellow Carpathians had been both real and a more powerful breed of vampire, created with a different spell from the one that had transformed me, Mitch, the vice principal, Uncle D, and even Brad.

  A different spell from the one I hoped to break.

  It was sort of interesting in a goth-lit geek kind of way, but it didn’t help in my quest to save the baby-squirrel eaters.

  Rubbing my eyelids, I decided I was wasting my time. Besides, anyone could tell from the exhausting foreshadowing where the story was going.

  “You would not kill yourself?” Van Helsing asks.

  “I would,” Mi
na says. “If there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!” Then: “She looked at him meaningly as she spoke.”

  So Mina would die, and the men would destroy her the same way they had Lucy, only this time it would be her husband Jonathan’s turn to drive a stake into the heart.

  Forget that. I had more important things to think about. I tossed the novel aside.

  Bradley glanced at both dress watches on his wrist. “He’s running late.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Who’s late?”

  I was in his 1920s parlor, seated in a leather club chair, wearing my black leather bustier with a matching miniskirt, sheer thigh-highs, and my red cowboy boots. My curls had been pinned up, and a glass of Cabernet was perched in my gloved hand.

  Brad lounged across from me in his toasting suit, accented by a red lily boutonniere. I could detect a hint of eyeliner and lip liner, a dash of blue-gray blush on each hollowed cheek. I hated to admit it, but he looked magnificent.

  Brad laughed. “You might say I’m in my prime.”

  How annoying that he could read my mind.

  Black candles burned in the fireplace, and two more blazed on the mantel, illuminating the box-framed bowie knife, again hanging above. He’d previously displayed clocks up there, three of them, all antique. Now they were gone.

  “You’ve found a new boy,” he added, shaking his head. “A golden boy. And to think, I just got rid of the other one. That inconsequential fur-ball.”

  “Zachary?” I asked. “Is Zachary late?”

  “Too late,” Bradley answered. “They’re all too late. You’re my doll now.” The doorbell rang, and he rose. “Finally!”

  I set my untouched drink on a side table and twisted to see who it was, surprised when Mitch walked in, dragging a large burlap bag. “Special, it’s special. I’m special delivery, delivering, just like you asked, master.”

  “Don’t call him that,” I scolded. “You don’t have to call anyone that.” I certainly wasn’t about to.

  Then I heard a soft moan come from the bag. It sounded like a smothered puppy. I recognized the image from Stoker’s story, the count bringing a child to feed his three thirsty women. I heard laughter. Tinkling, inhuman. Mine?

  The ring of my cell phone, recharging on the nightstand, jolted me awake. It was Freddy. The Chicagoans had decided to rent my house.

  I slipped into the noisy high-school cafeteria and met Aimee and Clyde at a long, empty table toward the back, behind the band kids’ table.

  Both of them had a series of new tattoos circling their necks — a repeated half-inch design of a cross. They didn’t mention it. I didn’t mention it. I didn’t blame them, either. I knew I could be dangerous. Plus, those two bloodsuckers who’d shown up at Sanguini’s last Friday night were still out there. That said, I wore Kieren’s crucifix against my skin. Hopefully, if the need arose, the sophomores’ tattooed crosses would be more effective on other vampires than they were on me.

  Clyde had brought his lunch. Given his taste for insects, I decided not to ask what had been rolled into his corn tortilla. In the cafeteria line, Aimee had grabbed chicken fingers for herself and a Dr Pepper for me.

  After filling them in on Stoker’s Quincey P. Morris, I added, “Which is kind of nifty, if you’re me, anyway, but I don’t think it’ll help us save the infected. I didn’t see anything in the novel that —”

  “We can’t give up,” Clyde insisted in a low voice. “Shouldn’t we at least warn people? The media or the government or —?”

  “The media?” I said. “Can you imagine how fast word would spread? Do you want to see the words ‘vampiric pandemic’ in a headline?” I leaned forward. “Do you have any idea how Sergio would react if he found out? Or Mercedes? We served at least one little kid the chilled baby squirrels, a five-year-old boy.”

  “Besides,” Aimee said, waving a chicken finger, “the infected are still human beings. They don’t deserve to be rounded up or persecuted.”

  At that, Clyde looked ashamed, and I realized Aimee had finally told him.

  “I haven’t given up,” I assured them. “I’ve already tried to talk to Nora about it once without, you know, really letting on, and I’m getting to know —”

  “Try speed dating,” Clyde said. “We’re running out of time.”

  “And we can’t afford to make things worse!” I exclaimed. Lowering my voice, I added, “I know what’s at stake. I know we’re getting desperate. But aren’t you the least bit suspicious? Think about it: I need a chef, a waiter, and someone to play Chef Sanguini. Voilà! I need to rent my three-bedroom house, and they’re looking for a three-bedroom house to rent. I’m a brand-new you-know-what, and they’re savvy about —”

  Across the multipurpose room, someone dropped a tray, and everyone applauded.

  “You rented them your house?” the Possum asked.

  “Clyde,” Aimee said, handing him my cup. “Go refill Quincie’s Dr Pepper.”

  “It’s still full.”

  “Go!” she insisted.

  He took his time getting up, moving away from the table.

  “Maybe it’s not my place to say so,” Aimee began, “but from what I hear, you’re a walking tragedy. You parents died in a car accident a few years back, and then last month that Vaggio guy —”

  “He was my grandfather,” I explained. “I mean, not really. Not like —”

  “I get it.” Aimee sipped her chocolate milk. “Your honorary grandfather is murdered, and it turns out that your uncle was at least partly responsible, and then he dies.” She paused. “Twice, technically. Plus, there’s your own . . . situation to deal with. And finally, Kieren hightailed it to —”

  “That fancy prep school up north,” I supplied.

  “Not to mention the burden of trying to save everyone like me.”

  “You’re not a burden.”

  “I’m just saying,” she went on, “the universe has to balance out. When bad things happen and happen and happen, well, good things have to start happening eventually.”

  I could tell she was thinking about herself and Travis, too.

  “The karma owes you new people to care about,” she concluded. “Your heart already trusts Nora and the new guys, or no way would you let them live in your home. Believe me, Quincie, it’s your own thick head getting in your way.”

  I didn’t know much about karma, and I doubted that Aimee did either, but . . . “You’re saying that the universe owed me Nora, Freddy, Zachary, and you.”

  She grinned up at the Opossum, who was back from the soda fountain. “What about Clyde?”

  “What about me?”

  I took a long drag of Dr Pepper. “Let’s not go crazy.”

  Aimee laughed. “What do you think he is?”

  “Clyde?” I asked.

  “Zachary.”

  With a mouthful of who-knew-what, Clyde replied, “Werelion.”

  Aimee nodded. “I was thinking Lion, too.”

  “The hair,” we all said at the same time.

  Due to a clothes-shopping trip with Miz Morales, I didn’t make it to Sanguini’s until almost sunset. She dropped me off in my newest work outfit — a classic little black dress with sheer black hose, black-and-white checked pumps, and a pillbox hat that Miz Morales had said reminded her of Jackie Kennedy.

  In the kitchen, Nora’s staff was in full prep mode, and she’d put Zachary to work churning vanilla ice cream. The chef exclaimed, “My, don’t you look spiffy!”

  “Freddy around?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I expect we won’t see him until after ten.”

  Maybe Freddy or Zachary knew more about demonic magic than Nora did. But I’d have to wait to catch one of them alone later.

  The chandeliers sparkled, Sinatra crooned, and the staff looked succulent, but so far at a half hour past sundown, Yani had seated only four tables, including the six-top dressed as the Sopranos. According to the reservations roster, we were booked solid. />
  “Where is everybody?” I muttered, wandering into the foyer.

  “Surprise!” exclaimed a guest with long black hair, wearing a long black dress with a plunging neckline accented by a simple pendant.

  “What do you think?” asked her date, turning to greet me. He sported a pin-striped suit, white shirt, black tie, and a vaguely familiar dark mustache. With his hair combed down and over —

  “Gah!” Meara and Roberto! “What are y’all doing here? Like that?”

  “We’re Morticia and Gomez,” she replied. “From The Addams Family.”

  “It’s supposed to be ironic,” he added, which did not help at all.

  They were here. At Sanguini’s. For dinner. Which technically would’ve been fine, fine, fine, except that werewolves hated vampires and something at Sanguini’s was wacky tonight and Kieren’s parents should not dress like that. It was almost worse than seeing Meara naked in the kitchen. Almost. “Oh, too bad! We’re all booked up.”

  Dr. Morales leaned to peek into the dining room. “I see a few free tables.”

  There had been a big question mark in that statement. Even though only one of them was a shifter, they were both parents. They could both smell trouble.

  Yanira glided back in. “Welcome to Sanguini’s! Are you predator or prey?”

  From the she-wolf and the king of the grill, their “predator” answers came as no surprise. “Zachary’s section?” Yani asked me, leading them into the dining room.

  “No, are you kidding? Give them to Xio. She knows what she’s doing.”

  With that, I waved cheerfully at the Moraleses and made a beeline to the bar area. “Xio?” She was flirting with Zachary, who looked politely bored. “Xio!”

  As they turned toward me, I said, “Xio, the restaurant is practically empty. My new guardians were just seated, and you have to go out there and be perfect so that they don’t think I need any more of their ‘help’ here at Sanguini’s.”