by Max Turner
It wasn’t my intention to doze off, but it happened anyway. I woke up to the sound of someone knocking at the door. I hoped it would be him, but when I said “come in,” Mr. Entwistle entered.
“You’re not asleep yet. Good.”
I sat up and asked if Charlie was okay.
“He’s fine. Just talking to Ophelia now. They’re in the apartment upstairs.”
“Is something wrong?”
“He’ll be fine. I just needed to explain to him why it was so important that your uncle be involved. And that he be forgiving. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. You?”
His movements were restless, his eyes busy. He strayed into the doorway, his hat tucked under his arm. The hall light was behind him, so his body was like a tall shadow. “As good as can be expected. I wanted to speak to you about a few things, but I . . .” He waved his hand through the air as if it wasn’t really that important.
“No, tell me. What is it?”
He hesitated. “I just wanted to . . .” A few quiet seconds followed. “I’ve been trying to find a solution to this Hyde dilemma.”
“Do you think Charlie’s right? That his alter ego might be Maximilian?”
He started shaking his head. “I’m not convinced. It just doesn’t fit.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. It seemed to fit perfectly to me. But he didn’t say anything else about it. He just sat down on the bed and looked at me over his shoulder.
“I believe he’s a lycanthrope, Zack. Hyde, I mean. Not your uncle. But no matter how I reason it out, I can’t get past the reality of the Beast, and that I have to face him. I’ve seen it too many times. . . .”
I realized as he spoke, as I watched his eyes move around the room, that he was terrified. I understood. Hyde terrified me, too.
“You don’t think you can beat him?”
He took his hat off. It trembled in his hands. “I can’t.”
“Are you afraid of dying?”
He looked at me. His clear blue eyes were piercing. His forehead knotted. He looked offended. “Of dying? Me? Heavens no. I’ve never been afraid of that.” He stood up as though I’d somehow restored his confidence. Then he seemed to sag. His face. His shoulders. It was subtle, but I didn’t miss it. “But when I die, who will deal with him?”
Is that what scared him? That he would die and leave us helpless?
“I can’t beat him. I’ve faced him several times now, and John Entwistle is no match for this thing. I can’t. John Entwistle can’t . . .”
When he said his name that way, I suddenly understood his fear. The air of defeat around him. He wasn’t afraid of Hyde or of dying. He was afraid of himself.
“John Entwistle can’t beat him,” he continued, “but the Butcher can. The Butcher can kill anything.”
So that was it. I was right. He was afraid he would become John Tiptoft, the Butcher of England. The man he used to be.
“I don’t think you’re meant to be that person,” I said.
“I can’t see any other way. I keep asking myself, How can we survive? There is no cure for lycanthropy. Only death stops the curse. To atone for the sins of John Tiptoft I must face the Beast. I know that. But how can I atone for my sins by committing murder? How can I atone by becoming a monster myself?”
There was only one answer. He couldn’t. I suddenly understood why he wanted to face Hyde alone. He didn’t want us to see him becoming the thing he most feared—the Butcher. He wasn’t just trying to protect us from Hyde, but from himself.
He sighed, turned, and opened the door. “You’re a good kid, Zack.” His voice sounded sad. It dropped to a whisper. “I had a son once . . . little boy . . . died of plague. . . . Had he grown up, I would have wanted him to be like you . . . would have been proud of that.”
He put his hat on his head and closed the door. I listened to his footsteps. A great swell of pity rose up in my throat. I wondered how he could have been anyone but Mr. Entwistle. And I wondered how Luna was. And Charlie. I decided to wait up so I could ask him, but when I put my head down, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. Some days are like that.
I awoke at dusk to the sound of gentle knocking. It was coming from the window. I got up, drew the curtains, raised the blinds, and pulled back the shutters. A faint strip of yellow light was fading on the western horizon. The sun was gone, but I still had to squint to see.
Charlie was standing on the fire escape. A pack hung loosely over his shoulder. He looked at me. I knew what he would ask before he opened his mouth. Are you coming?
“Where?” I asked.
“Stony Lake.”
“You mean the camp?”
He nodded.
I started looking for my shoes. Once I’d slipped them on, I climbed out onto the landing. Charlie hadn’t moved.
“You should have told me,” he said.
He must have been talking about my uncle—that Maximilian was Agent X.
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry. I kept thinking there would be a good time, but stuff kept happening. . . . Are we good?”
Charlie turned and started down the steps. “Yeah. But still—you should have told me.”
I closed the window and followed him to the street. “You know they’ll see us leave. And it won’t take a brain scientist to figure out where we’re going.”
He nodded. “Ophelia said the same thing last night. She wanted me to know that if I left, she’d notice. But I don’t care.”
We started off down the street. Then my mind started wandering. What if we ran into Hyde? Or worse. What if he followed us to the camp? I slowed. Then stopped.
“Don’t tell me you’re bailing already?”
“We need to go back.”
Charlie looked as if he were ready to bite me. His voice was angry. And disappointed. “You want to go back to the apartment?”
“No. I want to go to Ophelia’s safe house on Burnham. The one with the antiques—the weapons. If Hyde shows up, I want to be armed with more than just running shoes.”
Charlie smiled, exposing his long incisors. “Now you’re talkin’!”
— CHAPTER 35
THE VAMPIRE’S KISS
The trip to Stony Lake was exhausting. Running with a two-handed sword isn’t as easy as it looks. Video games can be deceiving that way. The thing was five feet long and weighed forty pounds. I was flushed and famished by the time I arrived. Charlie was, too.
We approached the camp from the road. Because it was just down the channel from Charlie’s cottage, I’d assumed it was on Stony Lake, but he explained on the way in that it was actually on another one, Clear Lake, though the boundary wasn’t really clear at all. It looked like one large body of water. It was around ten by this time, and the place was settling down.
I’d never been to a summer camp or even seen one before, so I was a bit surprised by the number of buildings scattered through the woods and along the shore. There were playing fields for football and soccer. And even a rope course.
“This place is awesome,” I whispered.
Charlie laughed. “Aren’t you a bit old for camp?”
Obviously not. It looked like paradise to me. We passed a rock-climbing wall, then a basketball court. You’d never get bored at a place like this. It was like Disneyland, but without the threat of anyone spontaneously bursting into a corny song.
“Where do you think the girls are?” I asked.
“My bet is, they’re at the docks. Just one second.” He pulled out his cell.
One text message later we were heading for the waterfront. There, on the docks, Luna and Suki were sitting side by side, their feet dangling in the water.
Charlie and I crouched in the shadows of a boathouse. We didn’t want to brave the lights. Several were illuminating the shoreline. A swirling cloud of moths hovered around each lamp. From time to time, the familiar shape of a bat darted through.
Charlie raised his chin and whispered into the wind, “Hey, Luna. The preside
nt of your fan club is here.”
As soon as he spoke, she turned, then smiled and tapped Suki on the shoulder. A second later they were walking toward our hiding place. Luna’s expression changed from pleasure to alarm when she saw the weapons we were carrying. My sword was almost as tall as she was, and Charlie had a voulge on his back—a pole arm with a head like a halberd’s, a combination of spear and cleaver with a few extra barbs and hooks thrown in for good measure. It was over seven feet long.
“What are those?” she asked.
“Security,” answered Charlie. He was watching Suki. She seemed sedate and uncertain. I could smell it on her skin and see it in the anxious movement of her eyes.
“Are you expecting trouble?” she asked.
Charlie reached out and took her hand, then raised it to his mouth and kissed it. “Only the trouble I plan to make.”
She smiled, then tugged at his arm and started to pull him away from the boathouse toward a trail that led through the woods. He resisted, his eyes staring out over the lake. He lifted her hand then kissed it again.
“I miss the water,” he said. “Is there somewhere we can go without spotlights? I’d love to get my feet wet.”
“There’s a beach this way,” Luna said. “Let’s get out of here before someone sees you guys. You look like a pair of assassins.”
“Wait. I’ve a better idea.” Charlie tipped his head toward the boathouse. “There’s got to be some canoes in here. Why don’t we take one out?”
Suki shrugged, then smiled. A mischievous spark was in her eyes. A trademark of the old Suki. “I’d love to go for a midnight paddle.”
Charlie laughed, then pulled her closer, which made her giggle. Then he saw the look on my face and laughed even harder. He knew I didn’t like the water. I felt his hand slap the center of my back.
“Don’t worry, Captain Nemo. Hyde hates the water, too, remember? It’s what saved Entwistle. So at least you’ll be safe for a few hours.” Then Charlie looked at Luna. “Well, safe from him, at least.”
A canoe is a tricky beast. It looks stable until you get in, then, just when you relax, it tries to throw you overboard. The secret, I’ve learned, is to stay low and let the other person do most of the work. I had never paddled before, so Luna had me sit in the bottom with my back against the piece of wood across the middle. She told me it was called the thwart, which was a perfect name, since it thwarted me from getting anywhere near her. In the end, I crawled to the front and sat facing backward so I could look at her without having to peer over my shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving the apartment?” I asked.
Luna raised her paddle as if she were going to hit me with it. “I didn’t know anything about it. It was Suki’s idea. I couldn’t talk her out of it. I didn’t really want to go, but the thought of going home with my dad was too depressing.”
“What’s going to happen when he shows up here?”
“What do you mean when he shows up? He showed up this afternoon and flipped out.”
“What happened?”
Luna shrugged. “Suki’s words, not mine. I was asleep in the trunk of the car.”
Those didn’t sound like the best sleeping arrangements. When I mentioned it, Luna shrugged it off. “Better than the alternative.”
She took another stroke. I noticed that she turned her thumb down each time. It made the blade twist in the water so it acted like a rudder.
“I thought your dad wanted to take you home,” I said.
“He does. But he wants me to see a blood specialist in Toronto first.”
“Where is he now?”
“Who? Dad? He’s asleep in the infirmary. The camp doctor is an old friend of his. After driving most of the night and morning, he’s exhausted.”
“So how long will you be here?”
She shrugged. “We’ll drive to Toronto tomorrow night—that would be my guess.”
For a time, neither of us spoke. I just watched the muscles in her arms and shoulders at work as she paddled us down the shore.
“Does anyone know you’re here?” she asked.
I shrugged. “It won’t take a rocket surgeon to figure it out.”
“And then what?”
“Who knows? I don’t want to think about it. I can’t believe you’re leaving.”
Her eyes softened and she smiled sadly. “We have tonight. . . .”
I glanced over my shoulder. Charlie and Suki had already paddled farther down the shore. I think they were planning to go to his family’s cottage. It was on an island down the channel.
“You look much better,” Luna said.
I didn’t feel much better. I needed more sleep, and another dose of blood. But mostly I just needed to hear some good news.
“Have you talked to your sister about Charlie?”
“What do you mean?”
I let my hand fall into the cool water, where it left a long V-shaped trail across the surface. “About turning. Becoming one of us?”
“A bit. I think she wants to. But she’s afraid. Now might not be the best time. Why? Has Charlie said something?”
“Not lately. Not to me. But things have been crazy. I’m sure he wants to.”
“Yeah, like we aren’t in enough trouble.” She put the paddle down across the gunnels and started sliding forward. “Don’t move for a second.”
I wasn’t going to move if a whale breached under us. I wasn’t wearing a life jacket, which for me was like skydiving without a parachute. As soon as she started toward me, I gripped the gunnels so hard I felt the wood begin to creak. Luna stopped when she crossed the thwart, then turned and backed up so that she was leaning against me.
“You seem nervous,” she said. She took my arms and wrapped them around her waist, then let her head fall onto my chest.
We looked up at the moon. At the clouds. It was a perfect night. She nestled in a little closer. Then she turned so that her face was right in front of mine.
“You still owe me a kiss,” she said.
My brain was starting to sizzle. The smell of her hair. The closeness of her. I’d read about moments like this. Seen them in movies. The kiss that would make some patients at the Nicholls Ward roll their eyes and others sit up in their seats. A part of me, my heart I guess, was screaming, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yessssssssssss. But another part of me was saying, No, no, no, no, noooooooooo, because my teeth were up to their usual tricks and wanted to get busy. My whole body started to buzz. And my eyes—they kept straying to that part of Luna’s neck right under her ear where her muscles formed a perfect contour. It was inviting all kinds of mischief. I couldn’t figure this out. I knew I wasn’t supposed to bite another vampire. Her blood might be fatal. So why did I want to so badly?
Her eyes closed. Her chin rose. A quiet breath leaked past her open mouth. I should have just kissed her, but I didn’t want to mess it up.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said.
“I’m not afraid.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m not shaking.” I’m not sure why I said this. It wasn’t true.
“What are you waiting for?”
I wasn’t sure. I just didn’t know what I was doing. Her teeth were down like mine. One started to tease the front of her bottom lip. It made a gentle indentation against her skin. I was going crazy. I wondered if she felt the same.
“You think too much,” she said.
Her face was close enough to me now that I could feel the warmth of her. One of her hands strayed to my chest. She turned and her other hand slipped around my neck. She tightened her grip. It surprised me. She was a vampire now, much stronger than the first time we’d been like this—last year, at her cottage. Almost kissing.
“Don’t think,” she said. Her eyes closed again. Her head tipped back. Mine tipped forward. “Just do what comes naturally.”
So I bit her.
I took it from her yelp that this wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting. Fortunately
she wasn’t loud, or the whole shoreline would have woken. I’d finally get to meet an angry mob, or at least the summer-camp version. The rush I got from the taste of her blood sent shock waves through my body.
Luna gasped. Then she tightened her grip and drew me in closer. I felt her head shift. Pain jabbed my neck like two hot nails. The skin burned. Then an airy feeling filled my head. I couldn’t think of anything but the rush. It was thrilling. And horrifying. She was drinking from me, and I from her. I was getting weaker. We both were. My vision went blurry. My hand was on the back of her head, my fingers massaging her warm skin. I could feel her pulse. It was quickening. My head fell back and the stars overhead started to swim. I had no strength left. I had to lie down. Somehow we managed it together so we were resting in the canoe. I closed my eyes and felt her body lying against mine. Her breathing was like my breathing. Slower now. Her heartbeat was more settled, but still strong. One hand remained on my chest, and her head nestled in the space between my arm and shoulder.
“What just happened?”
She hummed a soft sigh. “I don’t know.” Then her eyes opened. They were warm. Glowing. “But we have to do it again sometime.” Her teeth were still down. The same one as before had strayed outside her lip and was pressing against the front of it.
“I think I need a minute,” I said, and looked up at the stars. They were back in their usual arrangement. I took a deep breath and smiled. The rush was passing, but with no feeling of disappointment, of ending. Instead there was only deep contentment. A warm restfulness. Not even dying felt this good.
“You mean that?” Luna asked. She nestled her head a little deeper into my shoulder. I kissed the top of it.
“Do I mean what?”
“That this is better than dying?”
I must have been thoroughly exhausted. I was certain that I hadn’t spoken a word.
“I heard you,” she said.
An honest mistake. I was zonked.
“That’s a funny word,” she said.
I knew I hadn’t spoken that time. This was odd.
I felt her hand pinch me. “What’s so odd about it?”
