Castle Heights: Crown of Glass

by Sasha McDaniels

  “They’re holding up fine. Now, shall we go?”

  “If I cut my hair then I’ll lose my power.”

  “If you don’t cut your hair, you’ll lose more than that. Your blood. Maybe a limb or two. Your maidenhead. Pick your poison.”

  I huffed. “Hand it over,” I said.

  I sawed my braid off with great reluctance. It proved difficult, so Ben moved to help me. But as soon as he touched my braid with the knife, he flew across the room and slammed into the wall.

  I moved to help Ben up, to tell him that I was sorry, but he waved me off. “No, no, you keep working, Bruce Lee. A little self-protection, huh?”

  I shrugged. I had no idea that I’d lose control of my powers when someone else tried to cut my hair. I worked in a frenzy. Finally, the braid dropped loose from my head.

  “Now, let’s tie it to something,” Ben said.

  I looked around. There wasn’t anything to tie my braid to. At least nothing I could see until I noticed the door. “How about that ring over there?” I asked, pointing at the door ring.

  “That ought to do it. Maybe by the time the door comes off of its hinges, you’ll be out of here, and low enough to fall to your death. Best case scenario you break an arm or something, and you can still get away.”

  My eyes grew wide with horror.

  “Listen, I have no idea how that fight is going outside, and this is all we’ve got,” Ben said. “They must be doing decently well. None of those guys are up here yet.”

  “Unless Dracula is finishing them off,” I said.

  “Don’t be a Negative Nancy,” Ben said. He worked to tie my hair around the ring on the door, and we threw my braid out of the window. It uncoiled like a water hose. “Go on,” he said.

  “You should go first. Dracula’s is after me, not you.”

  “Why does Marcia always get all of the attention? Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”

  “I don’t have time for this. Go.”

  “Nonsense. You go, now!” Ben said.

  I could tell by the look on Ben’s face that he was serious. He wanted me to go first.

  To avoid a stalemate that would cost us both our lives, I threw my leg over the side of the window while grabbing ahold of my braid. My braid was strong, probably stronger than any rope one could buy. I descended down my braid as fast I could. I tried not to think too hard, and I was relieved when my feet hit the ground.

  Too bad I had to get tangled up in a bed of thorns. The thorns tore at my skin and poked me in places I’d rather not mention.

  “The door is almost off of the hinge. Run,” Ben shouted.

  “What about you?” I yelled.

  “Just go. Run to the closest neighbor’s house.”

  That was the last thing I heard. I made my way out of the thorny naked bushes. I couldn’t feel the cold. When I got clear of the bushes, the only thing left to do was run.

  But I couldn’t.

  2

  What sort of daughter would I be if I left my mother behind? I ran around the side of Dracula’s manor. I watched as my Aunt Jennifer stood with her legs far apart and her arms up in the air. She was conjuring some sort of orb. The orb was pink, and it slammed into who I assumed was Dracula. Nikolai held his father around the neck from behind, and Alexi and Dimitri held each of Dracula’s arms outstretched.

  A quick aside: Dracula was way more handsome than his movie counterparts—no offense to Gary Oldman.

  My mother was the first to notice me out there. She grabbed me and pulled me aside, lowering me down with her next to a bare bush. More thorns scratched my arm. It was as if the place was fortified with thorny bushes.

  Ben appeared. He stooped down beside my mother and me. “The lycans are on their way back. I heard them howling.”

  “Go, I got this,” my Aunt Jennifer shouted as she threw orb after orb at Dracula. Dracula bared his teeth and his body singed with smoke. My aunt Jennifer and I made eye contact. “What? I don’t do pyrokinetics. This is the best I’ve got.”

  “You mean you can’t do pyrokinetics,” my mother muttered. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.

  “Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here,” Ben agreed.

  I placed my hand on my arm. The sleeve of my Aunt Jennifer’s red cashmere sweater was torn in different areas. A bit of blood had escaped the screaming cuts caused by the thorns.

  I winced. “Ben, you can’t leave your mother,” I said.

  “But she’d want me to,” Ben said. “She’d want me to be the best version of myself that I can be, and that’s me running.”

  “Ben,” I said, frowning.

  “Ben, you take Reagan home. I’ll stay here and help Jennifer,” my mother said. “Even though I’d rather she die here.”

  “I can’t leave you, Mother,” I said.

  “Reagan! What in the world happened to your hair?” she asked, late to the party.

  “Don’t look at me,” Ben said.

  “We’ll talk about my hair later, mother,” I said.

  My mother appraised me before she doled out a look of intense disapproval. “Go on you two. Now! Ben, you know how to fortify the house.”

  A lycan leaped over the bush in front of us. The lycan opened its mouth, revealing massive sharp teeth. Hair stood up on its hunched muscular back. Its gray eyes watched me intensely. I was thankful that the lycan decided to make an entrance instead of simply tearing us limb from limb.

  “Oh shit,” Ben said.

  “Go that way,” my mother shouted pointing east.

  “I’ll kill you myself if you don’t protect those kids,” Jennifer said as she continued to throw her orbs.

  “Do I always have to do everything?” my mother asked.

  Ben grabbed my hand and we ran. My mother flew overhead on a broom.

  The lycans couldn’t catch her if she was in the air, but the lycans could catch us. It felt like there were at least three lycans behind us. I kept running, waiting for the moment that I would feel either teeth or claws slashing into my back.

  That moment never came. Ben stopped first. We stood together alone in the middle of an empty street.

  “What happened to the lycans?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking around. I was on edge. I expected a lycan to come out of hiding any minute.

  “Should we go back?” Ben asked me.

  “No, go home!” I heard my mother’s voice echo through the night. But I couldn’t see her.

  “Mother?” I asked, peering up at the sky.

  “Go home,” she said again.

  “But mother!“

  There will be no buts. Go home!” she yelled.

  Ben and I started running again, but I had to keep stopping. I felt weak.

  During one of the stops to allow me to catch my breath, Ben huffed. “Climb on my back,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You lost your hair. Did you lose your hearing too? Climb on my back.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll give you a piggy back ride the rest of the way.”

  “No, I can keep going,” I said. “I just have to stop to rest.”

  “Come on, woman, get on my back,” Ben insisted.

  “Ben?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “How come you never have your car?”

  “I drove my car to the Dracula mansion, but I had to park it down the street in order to remain inconspicuous. Then your mother said we ought to go east, and my car was west.”

  “We may have had a better time taking your car instead of running, Ben. We had to go in a circle on foot anyway.”

  Ben scratched his head. “Picture this,” he said. He held his hands up in the air and made a frame with them, like a movie director describing a shot, “Lycans trail behind my car until they catch up to it. Then wham!” Ben clapped his hands so loud, I startled. “Have you ever seen a lycan ram its body into a car?” He asked me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, I
have, and it isn’t pretty.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not getting on your back. How far away is the mansion anyway?”

  “Over my back and around my waist,” Ben answered.

  “Funny,” I said with a smirk.

  “It’s about two more blocks.”

  “Two blocks, Ben? You made it seem like we were miles and miles away.”

  Ben shrugged. “Hey, everyone else got to be a hero today. I just wanted in on the action.”

  “You were a hero,” I said. “My hero.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll give those three brooding vampires all of the credit tomorrow.”

  “What three brooding vampires?” I asked.

  “You know the ones,” Ben said. “I bet you’re already in love with all three of them.”

  “That would be a lot to take on,” I said.

  Ben glowered at me before he charged ahead.

  The house was deathly quiet when we entered it. Ben was cautious, placing his arms in front of me. “D. doesn’t have the following of lycans he used to. If he did, we’d probably be toast. Even though we’re home now, we still need to be careful.”

  “Okay, Van Helsing!”

  “So what? So I have a famous last name.”

  “Is that all?”

  Ben finished locking up the house. He pressed some buttons on a panel, setting the house alarm.

  “Do you think our mothers will be all right?” I asked Ben. I was happy to be in out of the cold. I needed to thaw out. A hot shower seemed like the best course of action for such an enterprise.

  “Those old ladies have fought a lot of beasties in their lives, so I’m guessing they stand a good chance of making it home. Want something to eat?”

  “I’d rather have some information.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “So we’re back to that again.”

  “Come on, Ben. Listen, if you don’t tell me what I am or who I am, I’ll be forced to make that trade with Dimitri.”

  “What trade with Dimitri?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I would,” Ben admitted.

  “Dimitri said that if I went out on a date with him that he’d tell me what he knows about me and you, and everyone else in this town.”

  “He did, huh?”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “You’re like the female equivalent of Tarzan,” Ben said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, frowning.

  “You’re fresh and naive. Don’t fall for anything a Dracul tells you. Deception is in their blood.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “You know, those guys didn’t treat me so bad when I was with them.”

  “Are you serious, Reagan? One of them snatched you out of school by your throat.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “There was that.” I touched my neck. There wasn’t any soreness there.

  “When I threw them around using my telekinesis, they didn’t retaliate.”

  “How much damage did you do?”

  I smirked.

  Ben turned on every light in the house, and afterwards he reached past my head and flipped a strange switch on the wall behind me.

  “What’s that for?” I asked him.

  “Dog whistle. Keeps the wolves at bay.”

  “Ben, please tell me what am I. Also, tell me what my mom and Jennifer are. Jennifer was striking Dracula with a pink orb for goodness sake.”

  “Like I said, it isn’t my place to tell you these things. This is a conversation you’re going to have to have with Elise.”

  “Fine,” I huffed. I sat down on the nearest couch. My eyes scanned the great room we were in, which was located near the kitchen. The ceilings were high. Old paintings hung on the walls.

  “Who are the people in these paintings?” I asked Ben.

  “Can’t say,” Ben said. He was out of sight in the kitchen, digging for food.

  “Well, then maybe you can tell me about this prophecy made by Nostradamus.”

  I heard Ben unwrap something. I wasn’t hungry. As a matter of fact, my stomach felt a bit queasy.

  Ben came back into the great room and plopped down on an expensive looking antique sofa. He took a bite out of his sandwich. He chewed sharply. Then swallowed. “How about this,” he said, “wash off the vampire stink, get a nice haircut, then talk to your mother.”

  I pressed my fingers to my temples and tried to massage out the sudden onset of a headache. And then my eyes started to burn. I ran to the kitchen sink and switched on the faucet. I splashed water in my eyes. Then I screamed. It felt like my eyes were on fire.

  “What’s wrong?” Ben asked.

  By the time I came away from the sink, Ben was standing right behind me.

  “My eyes are burning,” I said.

  “Let me see,” Ben said.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, fanning myself. “My vision is blurring. Something is wrong with my eyes!”

  “What do you mean something is wrong with your eyes?” Ben said. I felt Ben’s fingers spreading my eyelids apart.

  I tried to explain what I felt. There was a cloudy haze where everything once was.

  Then suddenly, it felt like I was being stabbed in the eyes. I collapsed. Then it was like all the lights had gone out and everything was pitch black.

  “Thank goodness you kids are all right,” I heard Aunt Jennifer say, but I couldn’t see her.

  “I can’t believe you cut your hair, Reagan” my mother bellowed.

  “There’s something wrong with Reagan,” I heard Ben say.

  And that’s when I panicked. “I can’t see. I’ve gone blind!” I shouted. I scrambled around on the floor on my hands and knees

  “Blind!” my mother yelled. I felt her hands touch my cheeks.

  “Get her upstairs. Take her to my room,” my Aunt Jennifer said.

  Strong arms swept me up in the air. Ben was carrying me.

  “What about Dracula?” I asked. Despite being blind, I had to know whether he was still after me.

  “Don’t worry about that now,” my mother said. “Did something happen to your eyes? Did the Dracul brothers give you something?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And where did you get these lacerations on your skin?” she asked.

  Ben laid me down on something soft. I sensed immediately that it was a bed.

  Soft fingers spread my eyelids apart again. “I called Dr. Olsen, but he’s delivering a litter of werewolves,” my Aunt Jennifer said. “He won’t be able to make it anytime soon. Can you see anything?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Ben, call your father. Tell him it’s an emergency.”

  “On it,” Ben said.

  “But don’t tell him about Dracula,” Jennifer added.

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t, Ben.”

  “Stay calm,” my mother whispered in my ear. “We’ll get you fixed up good as new.”

  There was a lot of shuffling around the room. I heard whispers.

  “Thorns!” Ben shouted.

  “What?” I heard my Aunt Jennifer and mother ask at the same time.

  “There was a bunch of thorns down on the ground below the window of the room the Dracul brothers kept Reagan in. Those lacerations are from being scratched by those thorns.”

  “That sneaky devil,” Jennifer pronounced.

  “Hang on Reagan. We’ll take care of this. Ben send your father a message and let him know I can take care of this one on my own. He needn’t come home.”

  “This one?” I asked. “What do you mean this one?”

  “Just relax, honey,” My Aunt Jennifer said.

  “Where’s Dracula? Is he still coming for me?”

  “Don’t you worry about him. We took care of him.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “We did all we could, we immobilized him, but we left the rest to his sons. I don’t know what the Dracul boys plan to do to their father,” my mother said. She smooth
ed my forehead with her hand. I heard her sniffling. I had never seen my mother cry.

  I sat up. “What’s happened to me, Mother?” I asked her.

  “Those thorns were Pernuculus Particulus. Their scratches transfer special bacteria that are fast acting. The bacteria travel right to the eye and cause blindness.”

  “Eww,” I said.

  “The Draculs must have had the Pernuculus planted there on purpose. To incapacitate their victims should they try to escape the grounds. You had late onset because of well—”

  “Because of what?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about it. Thank goodness you were able to escape.”

  I was very thankful for the fact that I escaped.

  “There is one particular Pernuculus strain which causes permanent blindness,” my mother continued.

  “So I could be blind for the rest of my life?” I asked.

  “We’ll test you for it,” my Aunt Jennifer said. “Hopefully, you’re just carrying the basic strain, and your eyesight will return once we dose you with antibiotic.”

  I crossed two of my clammy fingers.

  I listened to my Aunt Jennifer tell Ben to go and retrieve her kit. By kit, I had no idea what she meant.

  “Will somebody please tell me what I am?” I asked, still staring into the blackness.

  My mother’s hand landed on my shoulder. “You’re Reagan,” she said. “That’s all you need to know.”

  “And what are you? I just saw you flying around on a broom.”

  “I’m also me. Your mother.”

  “Aunt Jennifer, please tell me what I am?”

  My Aunt Jennifer said nothing for a while, and then she said, “Lie back.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to lie to you honey, this is going to hurt.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked again.

  “Should I tell her, Elise?” My Aunt Jennifer asked. She sounded resigned.

  “You might as well tell her,” my mother said.

  “Yes, please, tell me something. You know, I’m eighteen years old and wanted by the most infamous vampire in the world. I think I deserve to know some things.”