by Rain Oxford
What I focused on was the design drawn under the words. There were intricate designs and symbols in a circle. I had seen it before, but I couldn’t remember from where.
* * *
The next day, I noticed at breakfast that more people were staring at me than usual. Before, students were excitedly talking up my powers in facing Zhang Wei, the vampire, and Jackson’s posse in the bathroom. Everyone assumed I was all-powerful and that gave them all kinds of fuel to embellish the minor events. This wasn’t the same excitement as before.
This was fear.
Darwin sat in his usual place next to me and Henry sat across from us. “They’re saying you were the last to be seen with Remington Hunt,” Darwin said. “Jackson is saying he saw you and Heather arguing right before Hunt found you in the closet with her dead body.” He said it so matter-of-fact as he shoved too much bacon in his mouth that it was almost comedic.
“How the hell does Jackson know about Heather?”
“So you did get in an argument with her?” Henry asked.
“Of course not. I was with Remington when I found Heather’s body.”
“So you were the last person to see Remy alive?”
“Yes… shit… we don’t know that anything happened to Remington,” I argued. “We found Heather’s body, which I had nothing to do with, and Remington ran off to get her father. Maybe she got lost.” Except she obviously hadn’t because Alpha Flagstone would have found her already if that were the case.
Mostly out of curiosity, I pulled the letter out of my pocket. There had to have been a reason why Heather had it on her. “Darwin, can you read this?” I asked, passing it over discreetly. He caught on and hid it from view as he opened it. Henry glanced around as if keeping watch.
Darwin folded the note back up and handed it back to me.
“No clue, bro, but that symbol looks familiar. I’ve seen another like it in some old journals I ran across. The language was the same and the symbol wasn’t exactly the same, though, so I don’t know anything helpful. By the way, what happened to your head?”
“I ran into a friend.”
“You shouldn’t have been running,” he said.
* * *
Alpha Flagstone’s class had been cancelled while he was hunting down the headmaster’s daughter. Since there was no substitute for Professor Hans, Magic in Everyday Life was also cancelled. I was at the lake, feeding the kappa when Hunt found me.
“You know, people are going to start spreading rumors about you if they see you feeding the pests,” he said.
I tossed my last cucumber out. “Did you find Remy?”
“No. Let’s go.”
I stood. “Where?”
“To get her back, of course.”
“So you know where she is?” I followed him back to the school.
“I know where to start looking.” We stopped in his office just long enough to trade his wizard robe for a long, black coat and grab a cane.
We were in a black SUV ten minutes later with Alpha Flagstone as the driver and Professor Nightshade in the passenger seat. I wondered why Mrs. Ashcraft wasn’t part of this, but then I figured that someone had to take care of the school. As I watched the university disappear behind me, there was a change in the atmosphere of the car.
Professor Nightshade still looked ridiculously young, but seriousness emanated from her as much as the other two. There was something very powerful about her, like she was hundreds of years old and no more human than the wolf shifter who was driving.
I studied Hunt’s cane. It was about three feet tall, a little more than an inch in diameter, and made of a dark wood. Every inch of it was covered in carefully carved magic symbols and sigils, starting at a skull with vampire fangs. The top of the staff was a silver oval that unscrewed in the middle, and the staff ended with a silver spike.
Nobody spoke the entire drive, which was well over two hours long. Most of the drive was through back roads and mountain passes. Finally, we pulled into a manicured lawn just as dusk was settling in.
Like something out of a Lovecraft novel, the house was a two story Gothic monster crouched halfway up the hill; the setting sun glittered on the fanlights and small spires. The windows were blank. Not surprisingly, the hair on the back of my arms and neck stood. The thing looked like a predatory beast waiting for some unsuspecting prey to pass by. It looked as if it had been waiting for a long time.
I found myself pondering if it was wondering how I would taste.
Every instinct suddenly screamed at me that this was a bad idea. “Where are we?”
“At the home of Stephen Yocum; the vampire king of the largest coven in the country,” Hunt answered. “If a vampire took Remy, he would know.”
“And he’ll tell us the truth?” I asked doubtfully.
“Vampires are like women; success lies in your tone of voice. If you go in there and make demands, he will bite first and bury whatever is left later. That is the problem with the wizard council; they never think before they bark.”
Whereas vampires were all bite. “Can I wait in the car?”
“No.”
“Vampires suck,” I muttered as Hunt opened the door. Professor Nightshade came around to my side and looped her arm around mine like an excited girlfriend. Since she looked like a teenager, it bothered me. At least she didn’t wear miniskirts and tube-tops like some girls liked to. Too many children thought dressing slutty was cool. I found it sad.
“Not all of them suck,” she said. “Yocum’s preferred method of punishment for dishonor is defanging those who failed him.”
“Great.”
“You two take a look around to make sure we do not get ambushed by shifters,” Hunt said. Professor Nightshade and Alpha Flagstone took off in opposite directions parallel to the house. When we were alone, he handed me a Glock and shoulder holster.
I checked the butt of the gun to see a small dent in the black metal. “This is my gun! How did you get my gun?” I took off my black leather jacket, strapped the holster on, set the gun in it, and put my jacket back on.
“I went to your apartment to see if anyone had searched the place. Someone is onto you. I could not place who, but someone had definitely been there. As far as I could tell, nothing was stolen or broken. Also, you had a message. Your ex-wife wants a new car and demands that you buy her one. I deleted the message so you had room for something important.”
“Thanks. Some women should have warning labels glued to their foreheads.” I was just trying to distract myself at this point. A man opened the front door. He was tall and thin with an Italian heritage. His shirt was black satin and his pants were a dressy, pressed, black material. He didn’t look like a vampire to me. I patted my gun anyway.
“Be polite,” Hunt warned. He used his cane as if he needed it, even though I knew he didn’t.
We went inside and the door shut behind me just as it occurred to me that Alpha Flagstone would have been great backup. He was still outside with Professor Nightshade. I was sure they had a good reason not to come in, but a trained wizard, a powerful shifter, and whatever the hell Professor Nightshade was, seemed like a better team than me and my gun against a vampire attack.
I guess fighting a vampire army isn’t covered under teacher duties. It’s probably an insurance thing.
The house was modern with high ceilings, blank white walls, and sophisticated furniture that looked uncomfortable. Of course, this was a vampire coven, so maybe they were into that. My sense of danger was growing with each step as the Italian vampire led us through the brightly lit, spacious hallways and rooms.
We were shown into a room that had the most lived in appearance and left alone. It was a large ground floor room that served as a library. Shelves packed with books lined two walls while a fireplace occupied most of a third. There was a large desk, two chairs, a couch, and a coffee table. The desk had a fairly clear space on it and there was a coating of dust over everything, as if no one had been in here in a very long time
.
Books and papers were piled on most of the available space, as well as some rather esoteric looking odds and ends. It gave the impression that vampires were not above cracking open a book on occasion.
There must have been well over two thousand books and bound manuscripts on the shelves. As I read some of the titles, my curiosity about this vampire was reaching critical limits. There were volumes on chemistry, biology, and psychology, as well as highly esoteric works on physics and mathematics. Sharing the shelves with these were occult classics, alchemical texts, ancient grimoires, and leather bound manuscripts concerning things either long since dismissed or banned by all sane men. It was a fascinating and rather frightening compilation of scientific and cabalistic lore.
Just as I was about to ask Hunt how long we were going to wait, I heard a sound; something between a bass violin note and the moan of the wind, from behind me. I turned back.
A man sat behind the desk. “Good evening, Logan,” he said as he stood. He was a few inches taller than me with black hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a business suit, of all things, which made him more like a human than I was comfortable with. This vampire could go out on the streets, blend in with the unsuspecting humans, and get away with anything.
And he was oddly familiar.
“Good to see you, Stephen,” Hunt said smoothly.
The vampire grinned at me. “I see you brought a gift. I always appreciate when you bring dinner, wizard, but you know I prefer women.” His fangs glinted in the light.
I made a sound I had never made before, something between a cough and a squeak.
“Relax, Devon, he is just messing with you,” Hunt assured me. “We are here on business, Stephen. Remy’s missing. One of my teachers and some of my students were killed. Tell me what you know.”
Obviously, these two had a history. It was disturbing to be so close to a vampire and not try to kill him, but it seemed Logan Hunt was more open minded when it came to vampires than other wizards. Still, my sense of danger was increasing.
The vampire sat back down in his leather office chair with a sigh. “Why are you asking me? You know I wouldn’t move on your school. Now, the wizard council has something coming to them if they don’t stop---”
“Stephen!” Hunt barked, interrupting the vampire. “My daughter is missing!” He said each word slowly, emphatically.
This was the headmaster as I hadn’t seen him before. He was worried about his students, but he had been able to hide his emotions like I learned to. This was fear for his daughter’s life.
The vampire sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know anything. There were two rogues that invaded my territory and started a mess a few months ago, so I told my guys to lay low for a while. The last thing we needed was humans getting a serial killer stuck in their heads. I will keep an eye out and listen for her name. It would be best if no one knew you came to me because if it is a vampire who took Remy…” he trailed off as an odd expression crossed his face. Then he sighed. “Call off your dogs, Logan. Have some decorum.”
“Focus, Stephen.”
“Look, I will listen around, okay. Just don’t expect anything. I’m almost certain this isn’t one of my guys. My coven knows you and that your school is protected. I don’t even know how one of my vampires could get through your wards.”
“What if a vampire that isn’t from your coven got in?” I asked.
They both looked at me. “Then we all have a major problem on our hands, because the school is covered under my territory. Is that what happened to your head? Were you attacked by a vampire?”
“Do you know something you have not told me?” Hunt asked.
Since Hunt seemed to trust the vampire, I didn’t hold back. I told them about the vampire I ran into at the school, the two conversations I overheard with Mrs. Ashcraft, and the vampire that attacked me by the dorms. Hunt never looked angry, startled, or suspicious as I informed him of what was going on under his nose in the school.
“Damn, you should be a spy,” the vampire said when I was done.
“I’m a private investigator.”
“You look very familiar, by the way.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I could use an investigator sometimes to deal with some human complications. You would be well compensated, of course.”
“I don’t work for vampires,” I said.
He looked a little offended. “Why not? You don’t strike me as prejudiced.”
“I will never trust a vampire.” Danger. My instincts screamed that I was in danger like they had only once before in my life. I pulled my gun, switched off the safety, turned, and aimed.
“Hello again, Devon.” Her voice was as smooth and calm as ever, joyful even.
“Astrid.”
Chapter 7
Astrid and I saw each other every night for more than a year. If I was tired, we would just sit and talk, but we never missed a night. That was why I knew that Astrid was missing. For a week, I went outside and waited every night. On the seventh night, I fell asleep in the snow because I was afraid that I would miss her coming home if I went inside. I woke to the strangest sensation I had ever experienced.
Astrid was lying next to me, her skin pale like a corpse and her eyes open, staring at the sky. She was completely silent, but I could feel her crying. Blood stained her lips, nose, and ears. Her fingernails were red and bloodied like someone had tried to tear them off. Her hair was dull as if graying with age. Yet she wasn’t shivering. As always, she was wearing a white nightgown, but it was dirty with blood and mud.
I climbed to my feet and tried to pull her up, but she was no smaller than me and she was completely limp. “You have to come inside. I can’t carry you. Stand. Please stand.” She finally did, barely, and I was able to get her in the house. The clock on the stove said it was three in the morning. I helped her sit in a chair by the kitchen table, wet a cloth with warm water, and then started cleaning the blood off her as gently as I could. “What happened?” I asked. She was still staring out into space.
“Grandfather. He found out that I was seeing you. He locked me in a cage and drowned Seda in the river.” Her voice was monotone and lost.
“Oh my god. I have to get you to the hospital.” I turned to grab the phone by the sink, but she grasped my hand.
“I can’t go to a hospital.” She looked out the window. “The sun will be up soon. I need to go home.” When I put my hands on her knees to hold her in the chair, she finally focused on me. “I have to leave, Devon. It’s not safe to ever see each other again.”
My heart was breaking. At eleven years old, emotions are simple but not weak. “No. Stay here with me. You can hide in my room.”
“You can come with me. I would never hurt you.”
“I… we can’t. We don’t have any money. My parents would call the cops. Just stay here.” She pitched forward and cried out in pain. I didn’t understand the blinding pain that shot from my head down my spine. I didn’t understand that I was feeling her pain. All I knew was that I was on the floor, panting and trying desperately to stay conscious.
“I need to eat,” she said when it subsided enough for her to speak. She fell from the chair to kneel next to me. “I won’t hurt you, but I need to eat.” I started to turn to the fridge, but she stopped me with a nearly painful grip on my shoulder. “I can’t eat that kind of food.”
“What do you eat then?” I asked, completely clueless. After all, I was only eleven.
She took my left wrist and raised it to her lips. I saw the fangs and gasped, but I couldn’t say a word to stop her. She was my friend and I knew she would die if I stopped her. There was a sharp pinch as her sharp teeth broke the skin before it went numb.
* * *
I woke up in my bed, shivering and cold, but alive. I wasn’t surprised to be alive, because I knew Astrid wouldn’t kill me. I knocked on the wall beside my bed and waited. Just as my heart started to fall, the knock finally came, but it wasn’t at the wall. Astrid hadn’t run off a
nd left me, she was merely hiding from the sunlight in my closet.
I crouched in front of the closest. “Are you okay in there?” I asked.
“I’m okay.”
“I have to get ready for school, but I’ll put something over my window when I get home so you can come out later.”
I really felt it in my mind when she put her hand against the door, so I hoped she felt it when I put mine there, too. Astrid would stay and everything would be fine. At school, I thought of nothing but her. One of my semi-friends looked up the closest blood banks on his phone for me. It seemed so simple and easy.
As soon as I got home, I put my blanket over the curtain rod and made sure that no light was showing. “You can come out now,” I said.
Astrid did, cautiously, and I was sad to see that she was still hurt. Although she had some color back to her skin, there were cuts across her chest and neck. Her nightgown was torn down her left sleeve and showed a long scratch on her arm.
“Why didn’t the blood help you heal?” I asked. In movies, blood always healed vampires.
“Grandfather cut me with silver. I can’t heal them. They will never heal on their own.”
I took her hand and made her sit on the bed, then ran to the bathroom in the hallway and wet a washcloth with some warm water. When I returned, she was still sitting on my bed. I closed and locked my door, then started washing her wounds. While I did, I imagined them healing as I washed away the blood. I imagined the pain that it must have caused and wiped it away, mentally, with the water.
I loved her and I trusted her. What’s more, she could read my mind, so I knew she could feel my love and trust. It wasn’t strange to me at all when I felt similar feelings erupt in my mind. She felt the same for me, but she was also hurt. It wasn’t just physical pain; everyone else in her life had been killed or had tried to kill her. I was the only one who ever wanted to help her.
There was an odd heat in my chest and when I took the cloth away, the cut I had cleaned was healed. I did this with her other cuts, careful to focus on my emotions. Soon, her wounds and bruises were gone. She got up and looked at herself in the mirror over my writing desk.
