by Aiden James
He picked up the hotel phone book in preparation of booking the connecting flights back home, as well as the ones retuning to Budva again. Meanwhile, he kindly deferred the bad news about my wife and kid’s immortality being curtailed for me to handle. That could be double the fun if Amy Golden Eagle and her brother Jeremy were in the same room at the time. I pictured blindfolds and a long narrow plank to step out over shark-infested waters.
“But, Alistair and Beatrice will be gone long before he comes to look for us. I will cherish such an end if life is without them!” I admit, at the moment I was distraught. My dreams of unending happiness had been dashed.
“So, you’ll revert to your selfishness and forget about me?” said Roderick, shaking his head wearily. “I love Alistair as my own flesh and blood, as I do Beatrice…but they will simply return to their natural aging process. Alistair will have damned near a full lifetime with you, and the time you lost with Beatrice, you’ll now have back. You get a full natural lifetime with them both. And who knows, you may have collected all of your coins by the end of their current lives, my brother. Lives that will in effect last far longer than the standard human fare.”
The imploring look he gave me cut me to my core, and his silent accusation was worse than anything he had uttered. Whether it was in response to his druid influence, or not, I suddenly thought of my coins. Six left to recover, and then….
“And, then what?”
He finished the question I loathed to ask.
“Don’t you have plane reservations to make?”
“Why detest me for broaching the truth of the matter? You’ve said so many times over the past year, how it is imperative for you to be diligent in collecting the remaining coins.”
Yes, I had said this, and even used the word ‘imperative’. But, that was stated in the belief the inspiration to actually search for the last coins would mimic the previous recovery patterns, where a coin might show up on the radar every few years. Sometimes the gap was more than five years between coins—and that was only considering the patterns Alistair and I had encountered since I re-entered his life nearly thirty-five years ago. In the past, I could easily go a century without so much as sniffing one of my blood coins.
“You shouldn’t shirk your obligation to The Almighty,” he cautioned, while paging through the phonebook. “Diligently searching for your coins is what you should be doing.”
“Including the one I didn’t sense tonight?”
That got him, at least at first. Then his surprise morphed to sadness, and the little needles pricking my soul returned.
“It’s there…somehow cloaked,” he advised. “Five hundred years gives one plenty of time to get creative in that regard. But getting back to the island after our business with Dracul is finished might be a challenge.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked, guardedly.
“It might be best to put this one on hold for a few years, until we have a better idea where he is hiding the damned thing,” he replied. “Otherwise, our only chance to get anywhere near it will be two nights from now, when we bring the crystals to him.”
“Who says I’m giving him any crystals?”
“Judas, you saw what he did tonight. Do you want the same agonizing deaths for Beatrice, Alistair, or Amy?”
“No! Of course not.” I began to feel constricted, as if the hotel room was shrinking. “But, what makes you believe Dracul will keep his end of the deal? If we give him the crystals, we’ll have nothing left to barter with. And, if we want any chance at finding the coin you think is hidden in his castle, we’ll definitely need something. If not to strike a deal, perhaps to distract him long enough to gain a clue on where he’s hiding the coin.”
“You may not feel the coin’s call yet, Judas, but I sense its presence inside the castle. As for the other, I fail to see how stonewalling him will enhance our chances of survival,” countered Roderick. “Logic says he could bypass us altogether and take the crystals from everyone that has them, including Jeremy Golden Eagle. So, why else would he strike a deal to have us bring the damned things to him?”
Although he would be unwilling to admit it, terror lurked behind Roderick’s eyes. It was different than the agitated mixture of gold and blue I’d sometimes see when my antics pushed him to the limits of his tolerance. His eyes were dark, and the gold flecks were nearly impossible to detect. It brought back the image of Krontos Lazarevic, the sorcerer who saved Vlad’s life, or more accurately, enhanced the warlord-king’s diabolical nature. Lazarevic’s eyes would turn as dark as Roderick’s were right then, and I must say the sorcerer’s fear of the afterlife was likewise comparable to Roderick’s. Lazarevic had designs to become chief advisor to whoever ruled the Order of the Dragon. An honor never bestowed upon him, despite his relation to Hungarian royalty, he grew more and more fixated on becoming a member of the Order and then desperately sought its revival after it was disbanded in the mid fifteenth century.
It isn’t known how Lazarevic came into knowledge of the blood coin, carried for centuries by his ancestors. However, as this disgruntled former nobleman became older and progressively embittered, he was said to have developed a fondness for the black arts. One record I reviewed back in the early seventeenth century spoke of his pact with Satan. An outrageous claim symbolic of the superstitions running rampant at the time, the only reason I considered it as authentic was the storied immortality the old man had gained at his deathbed through similar human sacrifice to what he later performed for Vlad Tepes. The fruits of this legend are verifiable, since Roderick and I had seen the bastard alive and well on several occasions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reliable eyewitnesses from long ago had seen Vlad’s severed head intercepted and delivered to Lazarevic on the way to Constantinople. Someone qualified, skilled in the dark arts, would’ve been the only one to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
“Why does Dracul do anything? Certainly not from the goodness of his heart,” I said, struggling to keep my tone compassionate, as it needed to be. “He’s playing on your natural fear of him, Roderick. You’re not listening to the truth held within your heart, and worse yet, your mind is rationalizing around false hope. He will kill us all. As for a reason why he hasn’t already claimed the crystals from us? The bastard can’t do it. He will fry in direct sunlight…you know this. So, unless he chases the moon in a jet, he is very much a prisoner on his island, relying on his second sight for knowledge and upon others to do his bidding.”
“You know, he could actually do that.”
“What?”
“Chase the moon in a jet,” said Roderick, wearing a wry grin. “Other vampire breeds do that sort of thing. Even before modern times. Racco and Comte have spoken of how Gustav Domnul-delael and his brood travel in similar fashion.”
“What in the hell is your point?”
“My point is he could certainly travel without much trouble if he truly desired a hands-on approach. Which means….”
“He could be toying with us,” I said, following the flow of Roderick’s course of thinking. “And if that’s the case….”
I reached for my cell phone, and once I confirmed I had a clear signal, I placed a call to the landline in Alistair’s condo. There was no answer, which could be a good thing. But not getting through to his and Amy’s cell phones, as well as the one I bought for Beatrice at Christmas, I began to worry.
“Don’t panic yet,” he advised, setting his phone book aside to join me where I stood, as if the two of us could make the damned phone connect to my beloved family any easier. “Remember, it’s just after nine o’clock back home, and by now, they should be safe and sound at the Abingdon place, preferably in the fortress down below.”
“Did Louis ever call you back to confirm the pickup?”
Roderick’s confident smile faded. Here was another clue that the reemergence of Dracul had thrown him off his game. Details were almost as defining to Roderick’s persona as his unusual appearance.
> “No, he didn’t,” he confessed, checking his cell phone as if to make sure he hadn’t missed a call. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t pick everyone up and drive them to Abingdon. Who are you calling?”
“Your place.”
It seemed absurd we’d allow a supposition to sway us like fact. After all, we had just seen the vile vampire less than an hour ago, and it would take him hours to reach the states if he had decided to procure the crystals without our help. Impossible, until I thought of the vast network of kidnappers under his employ. Miscreants like that could already be in the States. After four rings I started to get nervous, until a familiar voice answered my call.
“Margolise?”
“Yes. William, it’s good to hear from you,” she said, her island accent warm, carrying the smile Roderick’s assistant is famous for. “What can I do for you?”
“By any chance is Alistair and Beatrice there?” My heart was a relentless drum as I awaited her response.
“Yes,” she said, bringing immediate relief. “I mean, no. All three are gone. They left soon after the officers dropped them off here.”
“What?! Where’d they go?”
She coughed nervously. “I’m sorry, William, I thought you knew,” she said. “They said you and Roderick would be waiting for them. They took a taxi to Blountville to catch a plane to Dulles. That was four hours ago. By now, they should be well on their way overseas to Rome.”
Chapter Eight
The decision to travel across half the world to join us was a terrible idea. Since discovering the unique age-reducing qualities from the Tree of Life’s crystals, nearly three years earlier, my son had gone from being a careful academic known for his keen common sense and seasoned wisdom to a foolhardy young man. More like an impulsive, hormonal teenager.
“What do you intend to say to Ali when we catch up to him and the others?”
Roderick posed this question shortly after our flight across the Adriatic Sea had reached the optimum altitude and we had adjusted as much as possible to our cramped quarters. It was the first time I had flown coach or ‘business class’ since JFK was president. I daresay Roderick had never flown anywhere in this manner, as the irritated look on his face told me the sensory bombardment of travelers packed like sardines into non-conforming chairs threatened to unsettle his stomach. Unfortunately, this was the best we could do on such short notice. The next flight from Budva to Rome with first class accommodations wouldn’t leave until shortly after 10:00 a.m. Leaving Dracul’s favored city at the crack of dawn became the deciding factor on what flight to take.
“Well, it certainly won’t be the warm greeting he’s expecting,” I said, noticing Roderick’s long fingers had fished out the vomit bag from the folders inside the seat pouch in front of him. “But, then again, he might be traveling ten hours to deliver a face-to-face condemnation.”
“Perhaps. That would be my expectation,” he said, smiling weakly, once the little bag rested upon his lap, ready and waiting. He arched his back while glancing warily around us. I had deferred to his request for the window seat, and an older woman sat to my left, next to the aisle, seemingly lost in an Italian version of the latest David Baldacci novel. “You really should lighten up on him, William. Remember how it was in the old days when you would take offense easily, and were often suspicious of others’ intentions.”
“Meaning what?” I knew what he meant, but wanted him to spell it out clearly just the same.
“He gets his impertinence from you. It’s in your DNA, as you know,” he said, soft enough to where only I could decipher his clipped words. “Quite frankly, I have higher hopes for him shedding this irritating trait quicker than you have. And, the same quirk isn’t fully eradicated from you yet, as you are also well aware. You should cut him some slack based on what he can become.”
“Well, as you’ve also pointed out, he should work harder to keep it in check, like me. Christ, he had it mastered before, so using the excuse of age regression doesn’t really cut it in his defense!”
The woman next to us gave me a surprised look when the anger caused my tone to briefly escalate. Even though in all likelihood she had just been pulled from her world of espionage and hot sex, and hadn’t been privy to anything else we discussed, I silently vowed to maintain our usual discreetness for the flight’s duration. Meanwhile, Roderick held his cell phone to where the camera was directed at my indignant expression. Before I could deter him, he snapped my photograph.
“I rest my case,” he said smugly, and to where our new unwanted friend couldn’t hear the words.
“Very clever.” For a moment, I wanted to pull off his glasses to even things up with a moment of embarrassment. But instead, I glanced over at the woman. She gave me a cursory look before plunging her attention back into her novel. Pretty eyes, more gray than blue, and lots of pain. Prematurely aged, she had her own novel to tell. “You win,” I said to Roderick, returning my attention to him.
“It’s never about being right or wrong between us, you know this,” he said, chuckling. “But it’s good to get the anger directed at Ali out of the way now, since we might not have long to locate their whereabouts. I won’t know until we land if they are staying in Rome for the day before continuing to Montenegro, or if they will have a short layover in the airport.”
“Well, what in the hell are your gifts telling you?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m getting nothing at all,” he said, pausing to look past me to ensure Lady Gray-Blue Eyes remained lost in her literary revelry. “It happens, as you know. I’m hoping my senses are back on track when we land. But….”
“God, I hate it when you do this,” I said, making sure my tone remained light and sweet. “Just spit it out, my good man.”
“I fear Dracul has done something,” he confessed, sounding defeated, as if he expected a serious rebuke in response. I said nothing, and motioned for him to continue, praying my blank look would hide the dread building inside me. “Everything in my head feels dulled, like someone is diluting my sensory perception on all levels. It doesn’t help matters that we’re cramped into this tiny plane, but the deterioration had already started when we reached Budva yesterday afternoon. Maybe, as you advised, we shouldn’t have come.”
Part of me wanted to tell my dear friend it wasn’t his fault and everything would work out for us. However, the bigger part of me already distressed, and on the verge of serious anger, begged to lash out at him. My gut had told me, at the very moment Margolise advised of my kid’s impulsive move to come find us, things were about to get bad…really bad. I hadn’t felt Dracul’s presence peering into my thoughts previously on our trip, but the very moment she advised that Alistair, Amy, and Beatrice were on their way to Rome, I felt a surge of elation. The feeling obviously didn’t belong to me.
“We both sense the same thing, don’t we? He knows.” I watched Roderick’s response, looking for clues as to what he kept hidden from me. I mentioned the terror earlier, but something else was now taking place within him. He seemed to be shutting down emotionally, his natural defense when unsure of what was coming next. “Dracul knows Alistair, Amy, and Beatrice are on their way to meet us…does he not?”
“Yes, I believe he does,” he whispered, turning his attention to the view of Italy’s coast, just beyond the wing’s edge outside his window. “I don’t know how he did it this time, but it appears his focus has been on stealing my ability to see the future, rather than pilfer your physical senses, as he has done in the past. If I’m right, then he sees what I would normally be able to foretell. And I see nothing.”
What could I say in response to that? The implications were many, and all ominous. Dracul surely knew my beloved son and wife were on the way, and despite only possessing a handful of the crystals they owned, along with Amy’s, there would be enough shards for him to know if they could make a difference or not. The vampire would soon learn if he’d once again walk among mankind in broad daylight.
If
his experiment were successful, his henchmen would likely recover the rest of the crystals from my American home before Roderick and I could ever make it back to the States. But, if the crystals failed to make life easier for Dracul, then his anger would be fueled beyond the reach of mercy. I would lose everything. My beloved wife, son, and his cherished fiancée would face an excruciating demise before I could save them.
Roderick wept for the duration of our flight to Rome. As for me, I sat in frozen silence. Too numb to comfort my immortal buddy, or even acknowledge the flight attendant’s offer of beverages to us. It wasn’t until the plane touched down that I managed to shake myself from my stupor as a myriad of appalling ‘what ifs’ floated through my terrified mind.
Despite the urgency to get moving, we were forced to wait on our aged seat companion, who seemed to have all day to collect her book, travel pillow, and carry-on luggage. By then, nearly half the plane had emptied.
As she gathered the last of her things, she smiled compassionately at us both and stepped into the aisle. But then she regarded us again while pulling out the handle to pull her bag behind her.
“Well, it has been enjoyable listening to you two blubber on about your personal problems,” she said, her Italian accent thick as she addressed us in English. “But, you can take heart in learning one thing.”
Her smile steadily widened.
“He knows.”
* * * * *
The urge to strangle this woman was damned near overwhelming. Only Roderick’s determined grip kept me from going after her, and to our further amazement she carried a spring in her step to where she deboarded the plane before we could catch up to her. When I finally freed myself, I gave chase, nearly knocking over several people, including two flight attendants seeking to detain me, as I pursued her down the tunnel to the terminal.
But she was nowhere to be found in the sea of humanity traversing in either direction along the concourse.
