by Aiden James
“Stop, Judas!” called Roderick as he ran to me, while I continued to look wildly around for any trace of her. “She’s just a tool for him, and surely won’t know a damned thing about what just happened if you were to find her! He’s already moved on. The smartest thing to do now is regroup and figure out his next step and where to look for Ali, Amy, and Beatrice. Let me get in touch with my Washington contacts and see what we can find out about their travel plans. I’ll have them check the hotels in the area, too.”
I didn’t want to listen to him, as that angry part of me wanted to find the old woman and shake Dracul out through her giddy mouth. But I knew Roderick was right, and time was certainly of the essence here. We could ill afford to waste what little of it we had left.
“We need to get out of here, I guess,” I told him, as one of the flight attendants I bowled over conversed with an airport policeman. “Time to be invisible.”
“And yet another example of how you are not any more evolved than your son,” he chided me, though mostly playfully.
We moved into the mass of humanity before the attendant could point us out to the cop, and as we navigated through the terminal to the passenger pick up area, Roderick made his calls to the folks in D.C. All the while, I kept an eye out in the off chance my boy and my wife were still in the airport. I wanted to visit the baggage claim area, despite the fact we had brought along only our carry-on bags.
“We’re in luck,” said Roderick, as we hurried past the baggage claim escalator. “I’ve got a tag on a reservation at the Flumicino Hilton. We can get there in five to ten minutes by taxi.”
Fortunate to land a cab quickly, Roderick gave the driver the address since his Italian is slightly more fluent than my own, and would save us having to re-explain the directions. Honestly, I prepared myself for another body-takeover of the driver by Dracul. But we arrived at the Hilton without incident.
“We are here to meet with either Alistair or Beatrice Barrow,” I announced to the lone clerk working the front desk.
Just after eight o’clock, according to Roderick, they had arrived at the hotel two hours earlier. My only worry was waking them up as I waited impatiently for the clerk to ring the rooms. After two unanswered attempts apiece, she shook her head.
“I’m sorry, sir, but there is no answer,” said the girl, named Maria. “Would you like to leave a message?”
“No. I would like you to try again.”
“But, sir, I tried twice and there was no answer—“
“It’s vitally important that you try again—”
Roderick grabbed my shoulder and led me away, apologizing to Maria for yet another outburst from me. She nodded and smiled worriedly before moving on to the next customer in line behind us.
“Shhh! Just trust me, Judas,” he advised, dragging me toward the exit, and then discreetly veering back to the elevators when Maria no longer watched us.
“What in the hell are you doing?” A needless question by me, since it was quite obvious we were going to try and find their rooms.
Roderick waited for the elevator car door to close. “My sentient abilities are steadily returning since we lost sight of Dracul’s mole. I picked up the numbers 315 and 317 from Maria’s head when she told you the rooms weren’t responding to her calls.”
“Well, I guess that’s a good thing—if Dracul hasn’t somehow managed to impale them all in their beds.”
“You really need to work on your perspective, my brother,” he cautioned. “Don’t borrow trouble until your ready to pay for it.”
“Oh, does that adage have a brother that goes something like, ‘and don’t turn chicken shit frightened until you’ve got a sharpened spike halfway up your ass?”
He sighed heavily, and shook his head. Fatherly lesson successfully aborted. Or maybe it was the fact the elevator reached the third floor.
“Let’s go,” I urged, taking the lead. Didn’t know if I was borrowing more of Roderick’s trouble, but the feeling of dread on the elevator had multiplied tenfold once we hit the floor. I ran to Room 317. “Hurry!”
I didn’t wait for him to catch up, and pounded on the door.
“Beatrice? Alistair?!”
There was no answer, and Roderick stopped me from pounding again and motioned for silence while he closed his eyes. I assume he concentrated his focus on what lay beyond the door. Then he shook his head again.
“Empty,” he advised.
We both scurried to the next room, as some of the floor’s curious patrons peered cautiously at us from their doorways. Fortunately, the door to Room 315 was slightly ajar. Unfortunately, as soon as we stepped inside, we discovered the room sat empty. But what made my heart threaten to drop through my ribcage was my wife’s purse sitting on the desk, and her unzipped suitcase lying on the bed.
She was here…and now she’s not?
“Judas….”
Roderick couldn’t finish his words, and merely motioned for me to join him by the nightstand. Something familiar from centuries ago sat next to the telephone. Something far more ominous than a red rose bleeding upon a marble-top secretary inside Roderick’s D.C. townhouse.
A single black rose. One with enough blood dripping from it to obscure all but the last two words written on what had once been a white parchment note.
“Too Late.”
Chapter Nine
I’m not sure how long I actually stood and stared stupidly at the note and the venomous rosa beberifolia resting next to it. But until Roderick finished calling in a favor from an old friend residing in Rome, I wasn’t able to pull my gaze from the spot I felt certain contained the corpuscles of my beloved wife, our only child, and his fiancée despite Roderick’s repeated assurances to the contrary.
“Benevento has agreed to meet us at Ciampino Airport, where he keeps his Cessna,” Roderick advised, moving around the room while studying each corner as if cautiously observing an invisible spider weaving its web. “He looks forward to seeing you again, Judas, but wants no part of Dracul. Once he drops us off in Montenegro, he will return here.”
“He hasn’t changed at all, has he?”
Images of my last encounter with this particular alchemist came to mind, when Benevento Vitorio refused to risk his neck in 1524 by interceding on our behalf with Pope Clement VII. As one of the pope’s closest confidantes, he could’ve done it but he feared the wrath of Dracul. Still does, apparently.
“I’m afraid it will be like this no matter who we try to recruit,” Roderick advised, continuing to study the room’s ceiling. “None of our brotherhood wants to deal with Dracul at the present time. He’s far too dangerous, and unlike you, the rest of us can only look forward to excruciating pain and prolonged agony as we’re tortured to death. Not everyone gets a free ticket out of here when the going gets rough.”
“That’s unfair,” I said, as my anger rekindled. “How quickly you forget my terrible bouts of sorrow, after suicide failed to take me to Shimayim.”
“I remember, but this is not the time to rehash old wounds,” said Roderick. “He’s watching. It’s time to get the hell out of here.”
He headed for the door, motioning for me to follow. We moved quickly past Room 315, this time eyes forward while ignoring the invisible presence pursuing us down the hallway. Roderick picked up his pace and we soon were running, and didn’t slow down as we passed the elevators.
“Isn’t he supposed to be sleeping?” I asked, sarcastically, while glancing over my shoulder. The wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t resist the urge, spurred on by fear and loathing. The presence grew stronger…closer. “If anything has happened to Beatrice and my son….”
“Will you never trust me, brother? Trust that they are unharmed for now!” Roderick’s tone was worried, and he shot me an anxious glance. “Have your instincts become so dulled you can no longer determine the truth readily available around us?”
“It’s not my instincts,” I responded, testily. The emergency stairway was just ahead, and we seem
ed to share the same conclusion it would be better to take our chances not loitering while awaiting an elevator car to take us to the lobby. “I have not sensed his presence this strong since we left Spain for Holland, just before our first mutual journey to the New World. We should’ve taken more time to consider and plan our reunion with the bastard…this shed.”
“I apologize for doubting your sincerity in taking Dracul’s threats seriously,” said Roderick, as we moved into the stairway. “I believe it’s been centuries since I’ve heard you use your native tongue, even for descriptors like demon.”
For a moment the invisible scrutiny dimmed, though I knew it would soon resume. Roderick’s urgency to race down the stairs with his arms pumping like an Olympian confirmed the same opinion. However, I doubt he was any less startled when the door from the third floor suddenly flew open and crashed violently against the stairwell wall above us. No audible footsteps followed, but the air’s warmth around us cooled noticeably, as if siphoned away by the presence in pursuit. Luckily, we had already reached the first floor and bolted through the door. We didn’t slow down until we reached the lobby filled with patrons whose collective energy was enough to deter our menacing voyeur from preventing our exit.
“How much of a head start do we have?” I asked, once we hailed another taxi and jumped into the backseat. “If everyone is ‘okay’, as you’ve said, then why are we being pursued this aggressively?”
“¡Tómenos al Aeropuerto de Ciampino, por favor apuro!”
Roderick motioned for me to be silent after urging the driver to get us to Rome’s other airport as quickly as possible. He didn’t answer me until we neared our destination.
“I don’t know how long it will be before he catches up to us,” he confessed. “We might find him waiting at the plane.”
“In the flesh?”
“No, and you already know this, Judas. Dracul no longer sleeps, or so it seems. The fact he has broken free from the rest cycle typical for nearly all vampires is especially alarming,” said Roderick. “And, just to be clear, I didn’t say your family was okay. I said they were unharmed.”
Splitting hairs. My blood began to boil again, but I decided to save my anger for our enemy, since spending it on my buddy would only weaken our alliance, at least temporarily. Not knowing what was in store for us on the tarmac, it would be wisest to keep my wits and rely on every sentient trick to gain any advantage possible.
We moved through the terminal’s security checkpoint. All the while, I listened intently and paid attention to every thought and feeling that passed through my mind and body. Nothing. Nothing, and yet, the game was surely still in progress. We were the hunted, no matter how one looked at the situation. If Dracul was watching from an undetected vantage point, he was in the lead regardless of our next move. He could either intercept us between now and the boarding of the Cessna destined for Podgorica, or he could simply await our arrival in Montenegro. Would it mean an immediate strike upon our touchdown? Or, would he wait for our return to Budva? More questions flooded my mind, especially as I worried about my family’s fate. Every possibility maddening, none were verifiable at the present time.
“Let your worried thoughts go,” whispered Roderick, pulling close to my ear as we strode together toward the small blue jet ahead of us on the tarmac. “When we’re in the air, I’ll share my latest impressions, and we can begin to form a new plan.”
“A plan for what?” I couldn’t hide my disgust. While the presence had yet to return, what was left of my optimism had died away. Perhaps this was Dracul’s goal all along. “To die, and likely watch those we love perish before our eyes?”
“Shhh! Control your negativity and shelter even your best thoughts until we’re safely in the air. Silence your mind, please!”
Not an easy request to honor, but I clung to the slimmest of hopes that the message he would soon tell me would restore peace to my soul. And, that my defeated spirit would draw nourishment, encouraging my heart to hang on.
* * * * *
“I have information from a friend working for Interpol, and perhaps I should’ve mentioned it to you earlier,” Roderick advised, soon after the jet cleared the thickest bank of clouds above the Adriatic Sea. “But until our most recent experience, it didn’t seem important enough to mention. In fact, I doubted the authenticity of a girl’s claim that Dracul could walk in the day.”
“Yes, you should’ve told me earlier!” I fought the urge to glare in anger, while picturing the implications if such a claim about Dracul proved to be true. “Why wait to tell me anything, Rod, especially something like this? Something that would certainly have changed our approach in dealing with him?”
“I know, I should’ve told you right away, and I am more sorry than you realize,” he said, his voice subdued. The terrible dread from when he faced Dracul the other night had returned to his countenance. “The girl, an Austrian, was discovered in terrible distress last month. And, my contact Andrew Moore, whom I’ve mentioned to you before, thought I might benefit from this knowledge. Although not an immortal, Andrew has been sympathetic to my previous inquiries about the extensive and highly illegal operations Vlad Tepes is involved with.”
“You’ve mentioned Vlad’s connections to the Balkan gangs and other criminal outfits, as well as the kidnapping for blood and sex slavery. Doubtless, the girl’s distress is due to at least one of his favorite addictions,” I said, calming down. I was steadily becoming more curious than angry. I nodded for him to continue.
“The estate where she was imprisoned has been raided by a collective force in broad daylight, which surprised me until Andrew revealed that Interpol agents have monitored Dracul’s activities for nearly twenty years, now, after a brutal attack left one of their highest officials dead and his family missing. Andrew hasn’t stated his belief in the supernatural, but his evasiveness in talking about the attack makes me wonder if knowledge about Dracul includes files on his status as a supernatural being. Andrew said they almost caught him, too, but he eluded them before they could make an arrest.”
“Are you frigging serious?” I chuckled. “Interpol starts to believe Dracul is in fact real and a dangerous vampire, and then they want to cuff his talons?”
“It sounds preposterous, I know,” he said, uncomfortably shifting in his seat, as if in preparation of a derisive barb shower from me. “And, we already know these horrific activities are just the tip of the iceberg of what he is criminally involved with. But this isn’t even the point of why I brought it up. Why I mentioned the girl is on account of Dracul’s movements. He is much more dangerous to us if he resides in one place, especially if it is an impenetrable fortress. We might never get close enough to stop him from carrying out his threats against Beatrice, Amy, and Alistair. However, knowing now that he can travel outside his castle at any point might give us the window of opportunity we desperately need.”
My recent panic had dulled the keenness of my mind. Even so, I clearly pictured what Roderick implied with his words. The image of a girl matching Roderick’s description suddenly appeared in my head, but from after her rescue. I saw a tall brunette man with kind blue eyes standing next to her. Andrew Moore…it had to be. From there, the images sped up and blurred, until I saw the castle in daylight.
“How in the hell could they know?”
“About the dimension where Vlad resides most often?” Roderick chuckled. “Similar to our travels last summer, there are those, and not all immortal, who have discovered and tapped into these other realms within the energy bands surrounding our planet. In other words, they followed him there.”
“I hate when you hijack my mind to try and prove a point!” I chided, though mostly playful in my rebuke.
“Would you have believed me had I just spelled it out for you, as we sit comfortably thirty-thousand feet above the earth’s surface?
“Probably not. So, was he using another dimension earlier today?”
“Most likely. However, from what I understan
d it’s only a single dimension,” Roderick advised. “He certainly favors the one over all others.”
“The one your buddy Tampara likes to hang out in?” I sought to confirm, when he wouldn’t continue. He stared out the window closest to his plush leather seat as if lost in deep thought. “And the girl? She might be able to act as a lure, is that it?”
“According to what I learned earlier this week, yes. Especially since she has survived and can identify him. He may not fear anyone interfering with his ‘business’ transactions, but you know as well as I that he desperately wants to remain an invisible voyeur. The girl’s survival threatens his ability to remain secret. Well, it did, until he captured the next best thing.”
“Our crystal-bearing loved ones.”
“Yes.”
“Then it puts us back to square one!”
Yes, I lost my cool. After all, why broach the subject of an Austrian girl who could help us if it would all be for naught?
“Before we left Rome, Benevento advised that Comte has secured access to this girl, with the intent of having her ready as a decoy, should we need his help,” Roderick said, calmly, bringing my attention back to him. “I’ll confirm this with Andrew on the drive back to Budva, and then we’ll devise a plan to rescue Alistair, Beatrice, and Amy.”
“Does this mean the world will get to hear your primal yell when you switch dimensions?”
I eyed him playfully, thinking back to the bizarre ritual he performed in Bolivia just six months earlier.
“If only it would be that easy,” he said, releasing a low sigh. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. I’m fairly certain the ritual only works in the realm of Paititi. It’s something I learned from Tampara’s people long ago, back when Africa held more fascination for you and Comte. Every portal on earth has its own access vibrations, and I have only decoded a handful to date.”
“In other words, if you can’t figure this shit out, then we’re royally screwed,” I said, taking my turn to gaze out over the deep blue of the Adriatic below us. We would land in Podgorica within the next half hour, and despite our elevation, I could almost feel Dracul’s invisible tentacles reaching for us in the wispy clouds just beneath the plane. “Meanwhile, time is against us.”
