Insatiable

by Meg Cabot

  But Alaric was, as usual, too quick for her. He was up from his chair and throwing a rock-hard arm around her waist, swinging her off her feet before she’d gone more than a single step.

  “Give me the note,” he said, still holding a struggling Meena as Jon, taken aback by this turn of events, stood there in the space between the living and dining rooms, staring at them, Lucien’s letter in his hand.

  “Don’t give him the note, Jon!” Meena yelled hoarsely, lashing at Alaric’s legs with her bare feet.

  Which of course he didn’t feel at all.

  She didn’t even know why she felt so determined to keep the note from him. It was simply imperative he not see it.

  But it was too late. Jon handed the silver envelope over to Alaric, who let go of Meena, opened the note, and scanned the contents. Meena looked unhappily at her brother.

  “It’s just a note, Meen,” Jon said with a shrug. “It doesn’t even have his address on it or anything. It’s all right.”

  But it wasn’t all right.

  Especially when Alaric looked up and said, “Dragon in Romanian is dracul.”

  “What?” Meena said. She didn’t understand.

  “Dragon,” Alaric said casually. “When he tells you in his note that you slayed the dragon, he means himself. The Romanian word for dragon is dracul. Dracula.”

  Meena inhaled sharply. The room had started to sway a little.

  “Wait,” Jon said. “So St. George wasn’t really slaying dragons? He was slaying vampires? Are the dragons in all the pictures supposed to be metaphors for vampires or something?”

  But on this day, she remembered Lucien saying in the museum, there is no maiden left in the village, save the king’s daughter. She’s bravely gone to the water’s edge, despite her father’s protests, expecting to die. But look who’s appeared…a knight called George who will slay the dragon…

  No wonder Lucien hadn’t looked very happy when she’d steered him toward that particular picture.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Meena said. Suddenly, her head was pounding. She thought she might pass out.

  “Sit,” Alaric said, pushing her back down onto the couch again. Only this time, even she had to admit, he did it gently.

  “No, really,” she said. The room was tilting in front of her. “I have to-”

  “Drink the soda,” he said. “The sugar will help.” His hand on her shoulder was warm. It reminded her-with another stomach lurch-that Lucien’s hands had never been warm. They’d always felt cool. Strangely cool.

  Even his lips, as they’d slid over her body, had been cool…

  “Oh, God,” she said. She gulped some of the soda, then dropped her head between her knees. If she didn’t get some blood back into her temples, she felt certain she was going to pass out.

  “But there’s no such thing as vampires,” she said to her bare feet.

  “There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing…”

  It seemed to Meena as if the more she repeated it, the more likely it was to come true.

  But so many things from the night before-including the memory of Lucien’s own voice-came flooding back to her.

  But you believe St. Joan heard voices, he’d said.

  How can an educated woman like yourself believe this and not in creatures of the night?

  Creatures of the night.

  Oh, my God.

  It was true. It was true.

  “Drink your soda.” She heard Alaric’s voice urging her gently. “In the meantime, I want to tell you about a man named Vlad Tepes.”

  Meena, her head still between her knees, groaned as soon as she heard the name.

  “Oh,” Alaric said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’ve heard of this man? Well, I will tell your brother about him, then. Vlad Tepes was a prince from a part of Romania called Wallachia…what is today better known as Transylvania-”

  Meena moaned more loudly. Not Transylvania. Anything but Transylvania.

  “He was a brutal and cruel man who ruthlessly employed a method of torture you might have heard of called impaling-”

  “Wait,” Jon said. “Are you talking about Vlad the Impaler?”

  “I am,” Alaric said, brightening some more. “I see you’ve heard of him.”

  “Everyone’s heard of Vlad the Impaler,” Jon said. “Impaling was where, as a method of torture, a long stake, usually not particularly sharp, would be driven through the victim’s various orifices-”

  “I need something stronger than just a Coke,” Meena sat up and said suddenly. “Whiskey. I need whiskey. Oh, God-”

  The room swayed dangerously, and she quickly put her head back down between her knees.

  “No whiskey,” Alaric said firmly.

  “Why can’t she have whiskey?” Jon asked.

  “Then she will drunk-dial the vampire,” Alaric said. “And warn him about me, and I will lose the element of surprise. It’s happened before. Vlad the Impaler,” he went on, “ruled what is now modern Romania from 1456 to 1462. He was known for his exceptionally cruel punishments, both of his enemies and even his own servants, although it is impossible to say how many people he actually killed. He may have impaled a hundred thousand people or more, leaving them to die slowly in excruciating pain, sometimes for days, on long stakes along the road leading to his palace as a way to intimidate visitors to his native land.”

  Meena closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out his words.

  But she couldn’t, any more than she could wish herself back in time, to the point where the doorman had buzzed, saying she had a delivery.

  Alaric Wulf was not a delivery anyone could ever have wanted. Now she knew how everyone must have felt when she’d given them her news about their impending death.

  “Vlad himself was said to have been killed in battle against the Turks in 1476. He was decapitated and his head was taken on a pike to the sultan in Istanbul to prove that he was dead.”

  Jon sounded disappointed. “So. Not a vampire.”

  Meena lifted her head hopefully. “Maybe. Or maybe it wasn’t Vlad Tepes. He was reportedly buried at an island monastery near Bucharest,” Alaric said, continuing, “but when his tomb was recently excavated, it was…”

  “What?” Jon asked eagerly.

  “…found to be empty,” Alaric said.

  Jon looked confused. “So where is he?”

  Alaric regarded him and Meena both patiently.

  “Vlad Tepes is more commonly known in his native country by his given name, Vlad the Dragon, for his service to the Hungarian Order of the Dragon,” he went on. “Or, if you employ the Romanian for dragon, Vlad Dracul.” He looked at Meena, his blue-eyed gaze unwavering. “Best known to the English-speaking world as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

  Meena sucked in her breath. She both knew and dreaded what was coming next. Knew it as well as she’d ever known anything in her life.

  She just dreaded it more than she remembered ever dreading any words she’d ever heard.

  “Lucien Antonescu,” Alaric said, “is Vlad Dracula’s son.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  9:00 P.M. EST, Friday, April 16

  910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

  New York, New York

  Meena could only stare wordlessly at Alaric as he went on. “Lucien-that wasn’t his name back then-and his half brother went into hiding after Vlad, for reasons unknown but likely related to his ambitions to conquer the world, bragged to Stoker about what he was. That was how one of our officers managed to track him down and stake him.”

  Alaric had settled back into the armchair and was regarding both Meena and Jon, but mostly Meena, with a grimly serious expression.

  “Then Stoker’s novel came out and the name Dracula became infamous and synonymous with evil. His sons have been hiding in the general population ever since, frequently changing their names and professions, trying to stay one step ahead of us. But I can assure you, Vlad Dracula’s death at the hands of
the Palatine a hundred years ago made his eldest son, now calling himself Lucien Antonescu, the new prince of darkness. He has to be exterminated.”

  Alaric’s blue-eyed gaze was so direct as it met Meena’s, it again riveted her to her seat.

  “And you’re going to help us do that, Meena Harper, by telling me where you spent last night with him, so that we can find him and put him-and then all the members of his clan, the Dracul, whom we believe are the vampires responsible for killing those girls, as well as almost killing my partner-down.”

  Meena stared up at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. She couldn’t stop remembering Lucien’s face as he’d told her the story of the woman who’d plunged to her death in the Princess’s River rather than be taken prisoner by the Turks.

  If what Alaric was telling her was true, that woman had been Lucien’s mother, whom he’d watched commit suicide before his very eyes.

  Those dark eyes that Meena had found so filled with sadness.

  And no wonder!

  But that was impossible. Because if he’d actually seen Vlad the Impaler’s wife kill herself, that would make Lucien five hundred years old.

  On the other hand, if she hadn’t been his mother, why else had Lucien made such a special point of showing her Vlad Tepes’s portrait? It had to have some special, personal meaning to him.

  Except…

  There was no such thing as vampires.

  Was she really supposed to think Lucien Antonescu was a vampire who’d magically transported himself into the museum, knocked out all the guards, and turned off the alarms…just to impress a date?

  Except…

  What had happened to all the guards?

  And what about the bats? The bats that had attacked them outside of St. George’s Cathedral?

  “It can’t be true,” she said faintly, shaking her head. “He never…I mean, he seemed so…normal.”

  Except for the part where he’d been absolutely perfect.

  Even to the point that she never got a sense that he was going to die someday. Of course not.

  Because he was already dead.

  What had Leisha said that day on the phone when Meena had told her about Shoshona getting the head writer gig? If someone who can tell how everyone she meets is going to die can exist, why can’t vampires?

  Suddenly cold, Meena reached for the blanket lying on the end of the couch, the one Jonathan often napped all day underneath.

  But her arm fell short, and she didn’t seem to have the strength to stretch for it.

  He was already dead.

  Oh, God.

  Vampires were real.

  And she’d slept with one.

  “They’ve learned to blend over the centuries,” Alaric said with a shrug. “They’ve had to, in order to survive. Look at your neighbors, the Antonescus.”

  Jon’s jaw dropped. “What?” he cried. “You’re not trying to tell me that-”

  “It’s never struck you as odd,” Alaric said, “that you’ve never seen them outside in the daylight?”

  Meena and Jon exchanged glances.

  “I’ve seen Mary Lou outside in the daylight,” she said. “All the time.”

  “Where?” Alaric demanded. “Tell me one place you have seen her.”

  Meena opened her mouth to say that she’d seen Mary Lou on the street plenty of times…outside the building…in the grocery store…at the deli counter…

  But then she realized she’d never seen her in any of those places. Never once.

  “I’ve seen her in the lobby,” Meena murmured. The chill she felt seemed worse, suddenly.

  “Maybe,” Alaric said. “Coming up from the garage where she and her husband keep their car, with its specially tinted windows.”

  “Well…yes. I’ve seen her there. She seems to always be there.” In her wide picture hats. And gloves.

  “Wait,” Jon said. “They have that huge terrace. They just had us over for cocktails on it.” Then he added, “Although it was after sunset.”

  “But they’re huge donors to cancer research!” Meena cried.

  “Jack Bauer can’t stand them,” Jon said.

  “The dog doesn’t like them?” Alaric asked Jon, ignoring Meena.

  “Hates them,” Jon said. “Has a fit every time he sees either of them in the elevator. Always has, since the day we got him.” He looked over at Meena. “Come to think of it, he wasn’t particularly fond of Lucien, either, was he, if the growling I heard in the hallway last night was any indication.”

  Meena looked uncomfortable. Jon was right, of course. Still. “Jack Bauer is nervous. He always has been. That’s why his name is Jack Bauer. He has a lot on his mind.”

  “He appears that way,” Alaric observed.

  They looked at Jack Bauer. He was sprawled on his back in his dog bed, all four legs splayed, his belly and genitalia on full display, his tongue lolling as he dozed.

  “Well,” Meena said. “Not all the time, of course.”

  “I think,” Alaric said, “that the reason your dog is so nervous in the elevator and hallway, and not when he’s at home, is because he’s a vampire dog.”

  “Now my dog is a vampire?” Meena cried indignantly. “Who next? Me?”

  “I didn’t say your dog was a vampire,” Alaric said calmly. He had an infuriating habit of never losing his cool…even when he was threatening someone with a deadly weapon. “I said he was a vampire dog. Some animals, particularly dogs, are more sensitive to the smell of vampiric decay than others, and because of this they have been used since the very early days of man to help track and control the vampire population. Some have even been bred for tracking and capturing vampires. It appears your dog may have some ancient instinct for sensing and alerting at them.” Alaric shrugged. “I suppose you scolded him for it,” he added, “but he was only trying to warn you about an evil that you yourself failed to sense.”

  Meena, feeling ashamed-because she had scolded Jack Bauer for his behavior and even locked him in a bathroom overnight-was relieved when Jon changed the subject.

  “If the Antonescus are vampires,” Jon asked, “why haven’t they bitten us, then, like someone did these girls?” He gestured toward the photos on the coffee table. “It’s not like they haven’t had plenty of opportunity.”

  “Because then we would have caught them,” Alaric said. “Exactly the way we’re going to catch whoever did this to these girls. Since your boyfriend has become prince, vampires have been under orders to go underground, taking care not to draw attention to themselves by murdering their victims. Instead, they just find weak-willed ‘donors’ they can use as human feed bags, draining them slowly, a little bit at a time. Only instead of the word donor, try using the word slave.”

  Meena let out a bitter laugh. “And you think Lucien is using me as one of these slaves? Well, think again, Mr. Wulf.”

  “Yeah,” Jon said, looking skeptical. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s nothing really weak-willed about my sister. I don’t think anyone could make her their slave. Except a love slave, maybe.”

  The minute Jon said the words love slave, Alaric got a strange look on his face.

  He rose to his feet.

  “Lift up your skirt,” he said to Meena.

  She craned her neck to look up at him from where she sat on the couch. “I beg your pardon?” she said with a disbelieving laugh.

  “Lift up your skirt,” he said again in a commanding voice.

  So she hadn’t misheard him. “Uh,” she said. She glanced over at Jon, who gave her an uncomprehending shrug. “No. I’m not going to do that.”

  Then, more suddenly than she would have thought possible, he’d grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. Jack Bauer, woken by the shriek she let out, looked up at this sudden burst of violence. Jon jumped to his own feet, his expression alarmed.

  “Hey, now!” he cried.

  “Stop that!” Meena yelled as Alaric Wulf reached down and began tugging up the skirt of her slip. �
�What do you think you’re doing?”

  “The femoral artery,” Alaric was saying. He was practically dangling her in the air by one arm as he pulled up her slip with the other. “I forgot. The sexual ones always go for the femoral artery.”

  “Hey,” Jon said, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t think my sister likes you doing that-”

  “I’m not doing this because I like it, you fool. I have to see if she’s been bitten.” Alaric threw Meena back down on the couch, where she landed with her legs spread slightly apart, the slip hiked up so high above midthigh that he was able to point and say triumphantly, “There!” while holding her down with his free hand.

  Meena, furious, looked down her torso to see what he was raving about. At the most, she expected to see a love bite. She was willing to admit that, if she considered it objectively, things might have gotten a little out of hand with Lucien last night, it was true. A lot of what had happened in his bed, if she was completely truthful, was a blur.

  But she never expected to see that.

  It was a bite. There was no denying it. It wasn’t at all unlike the ones she’d seen on the dead girls in the photos Alaric had left on the coffee table. In fact, it was exactly like those. Except not as big or as bruised.

  “Oh, my God,” Meena said with a gasp.

  Meena quickly closed her legs, mortified, pulling down the skirt to her slip. Now both her brother and this rude stranger had seen her in her sexiest black panties.

  “No wonder he sent you a tote,” Jon said in a stunned voice.

  “The inside of the upper thigh,” Alaric said. He’d let go of her. “I should have looked there from the start. The femoral artery is often used for catheters and stents in hospitals, due to its easy access to the heart. But bites there generally go undetected.” The look Alaric gave her was inscrutable, halfway between curiosity and disbelief. “Don’t you remember him biting you?”

  “I…I…,” Meena stammered. “I remember him saying he’d only bite me if I gave him permission,” she said, feeling confused. And very cold.

  “And?” Jon was still on his feet, towering over both Meena and the man who’d lowered himself onto the cushions beside her. “Did you?”