by Max Turner
Tamerlane rose into the air, then settled beside the opening. “Meet me on the other side,” he said to Pestilence. “Together we can finish this.”
Pestilence hesitated, his eyes busily scanning the room. He seemed unwilling to shadow-jump with me present.
“Let them go,” Tiptoft said. He was still holding his broken sickle. Half of the arc was in shards on the floor. He tossed the hilt aside, bent and raised the Dragon Blade.
“The Impaler is almost dead,” Tamerlane said. “We may never have an opportunity like this again.”
“It is not important that he die. Of what use is a dead enemy? It is more important that he was beaten, here, in his former court, with these few to bear witness.” He waved to the upper balconies and to the benches where the handful of spectators remained, including the Arabian Elvis, the strong Asian woman who was huddled against him and the young vampire who was still watching me, intently.
I snuck into his shadow, then rose up his back. You’re the Baptist, aren’t you? I asked.
I am, he said. To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide your feet into the way of peace. He winked and looked behind me to where the Four Horsemen were standing. I glanced back and almost missed seeing him sink into a shadow on the wall. His sudden departure left me exposed.
Famine saw me first. “There,” she said, pointing.
Tiptoft eyed me, unconcerned. “Tell your master that our offer stands. He would be wise to join his power to ours.”
I am my own master, I told him, sliding to the floor. And we both know Vlad isn’t the type to take orders.
“Then his fate is sealed, as is yours, Son of the Dragon. Unless you join us, I see pain and loss and death for you.”
CHAPTER 33
CHANGE OF PLANS
I FOLLOWED VLAD’S blood trail through the trap door and emerged in a stone tunnel. It was only four feet in height, so when I found Vlad farther along, he was stooped at the waist, walking with Ophelia cradled in his arms. He appeared to be perfectly fine, although moments before his right forearm had been shattered and his neck nearly severed. There was only one explanation.
You drank from Ophelia!
He glanced backwards. “It was a sacrifice she made willingly. The path to safety is one that only I can navigate.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. Or how I was supposed to feel, seeing Ophelia in a worse state now than in the courtroom. But a part of me must have realized that this was the only way forward. If Vlad had remained incapacitated, Ophelia and I might not have been able to get him out, and as willing as I might have been to leave him behind, she certainly wouldn’t have. It would have left me in a dreadful bind.
“I will need you to keep an eye out behind us,” Vlad said, moving forward at a crouch.
I don’t think they plan to follow, I told him.
“And why not?”
Tiptoft told them not to. He said a dead enemy was of no use.
Vlad turned. He was suddenly standing at his full height. In the short tunnel, it should have been impossible.
“If rulership taught me one thing, pup, it is the power of deception. A dead enemy …” He laughed. “Tiptoft is posturing. A dead enemy is the best kind to have! No, he’s too smart to be lured into this den of traps. These tunnels aren’t safe for him, and he knows it. Tamerlane and Pestilence are another matter. Tiptoft just wants them tethered so they don’t steal his prize. But they might not comply, so stay vigilant.”
He stooped and continued down the tunnel. It was as if the ceiling dropped when he turned around. His pace remained slow. He was counting the stones on the floor as he walked over them. From time to time, he would take a long step to pass over a certain tile. The walls were lined with torch sconces. At odd intervals he’d pull one out, or rotate another. He never said why.
We passed several branches. Most he ignored. Only once, when we came to a dead end, did he appear lost, but instead of turning around he reached to his left and pushed in one of the stones in the wall so that it slid inward several inches. A loud clacking followed, like the unwinding of a chain, and the wall on the right swung open beside us. This led to more tunnels and branches.
Eventually we came to a fork. To the left were stairs going down, to the right, stairs going up.
“You must return to your body,” Vlad said. “I will meet you back at Castle Dracula. My method of travel will be slower. The sun will rise before my return.”
As soon as he mentioned travel, I thought of the speed of my journey here, flying as a shade over the Transylvanian Alps. He had arrived just minutes later.
How did you get here so quickly?
“Pestilence is not the only vampire who can move from one shadow to another. When there is time, I will show you how, but you must have the right blood in your system, and you do not.”
He nodded for me to go up the stairs, opposite to the direction he was travelling, then readjusted Ophelia in his arms.
“Your journey back will be easy, but you will find your body exhausted, unaccustomed as it is to this form of separation. Go home now and sleep.” He turned and began to walk down the steps. “Fly north towards Polaris. As you draw closer to your body, it will call you back.”
I watched him descend out of sight. Go home now and sleep. He’d said it as though his ruined castle was a place I was safe and welcome. It seemed an odd remark coming from a man who was basically holding my friends hostage.
My instincts told me to follow him, at least until I knew that Ophelia would be all right. It seemed risky, leaving her in his hands. I stood unmoving for a time, thinking about this, and remembering something Mr. Entwistle had once told me about villainy: that whether we saw a person as good or bad usually depended on whether they served our interests or stood against them. Vlad seemed a much different person than the one who’d tried to kill me in my uncle’s office. I wondered if he’d actually changed, or if I was just seeing him differently because circumstances had forced us to work together. I tried to be objective, to look at his behaviour as one of the spectators in the courtroom would have. In the end, it came down to one thing: he’d been willing to die for Ophelia. Villains didn’t do that.
I slunk up the steps, hopeful that with Ophelia back we could regroup with my friends and start over. The stairs led to a dirt tunnel that connected to one of the city’s underground sewers. I rose up through a manhole and found myself on a quiet city street. Polaris was clearly visible overhead. I rose towards it and felt something pull at me. It was subtle. I wondered if it was similar to the feeling that birds got when it was time to migrate. An instinct just said this way. I didn’t have to think about it.
I followed the pull northwest towards my resting body, moving once again at the speed of thought. As I approached the castle ruins, I was aware that others were nearby. The lure of my body was strong, but a deeper instinct told me to stop. I took the shape of a small bat and flapped my way above a stand of trees. Shadows were visible through the canopy. Several people were running away from the castle. One of them was Charlie. Luna was with him. I moved closer, curious about what they were doing there and anxious to give them the news about Ophelia. As vain as this will sound, I also wanted to show off a bit. I dropped beside them, as silent as still air. They ran past without noticing.
Hey, you two, back here, I said.
Charlie stopped. Luna grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. “It’s got to be a trick,” she said. “Keep running.”
He hesitated. “It sounds just like him.”
Luna didn’t break stride. “Don’t you think Istvan would have said something if Zack were here?”
Annoyed, I shot ahead of them, then rose up from the ground, shaping my silhouette so that it would appear as my normal self, a young man in Kevlar armour. Hold up. It’s me.
Luna froze.
“That can’t be him,” Charlie said. He drew a knife from his belt and assumed an offensive crouch.
Of cours
e it’s me, you knucklehead. Well, it’s my shadow, actually. But close enough.
I felt Luna reach out with her mind. I welcomed it. Her face softened. “It’s him, Charlie.” She took a half-step forward, then stopped. “At least, I think so. You didn’t die again, did you? Why do you look like this?”
Didn’t Istvan explain?
“Are you kidding?” said Charlie. “That nincompoop is more tight-lipped than Ophelia.” He scrutinized my shadow essence more closely, then he shot me a disapproving look. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
About what?
“You’ve got your talent already, don’t you?” He gestured to Luna, the knife hanging loosely in his hand. “I told you he’d get his talent first. This just takes the cake. The last thing we hear is that you’re alive again—”
“Zack, what’s happening to your legs?” Luna asked, interrupting.
I had no idea. The base of my shadow essence was starting to stretch back towards Castle Dracula, moving as if it had a will of its own. My surprise quickly turned to panic. I’m not sure how I knew, but my physical body was being moved. I reached out for Luna. Help me! The shadow of my hands ran the length of her arm and slipped off.
“Not that way,” she shouted.
Charlie threw his hands up in the air. “Well, this sucks.”
I flew backwards. As I did, a large, ominous shape rose up beside Charlie. It was Vincent. Before I could ask if he was okay, or what they were doing here, the ground blew through me like a cold wind.
I crashed into my body and stopped dead. The smell of decay was instantly nauseating. I took a breath and could taste the rot around me. It sounded as if someone was pounding the sides of my coffin with a mallet. It was my heartbeat. I raised my hands to cover my ears. As the coarse fabric of my robe rubbed against my skin, I gasped. It felt like a nail file. My senses had come alive, and every nerve was screaming. After a few seconds the sensations began to ebb. My pain subsided and the sound of my heartbeat dropped to its regular volume.
I pushed open the lid to my coffin and climbed out. After travelling unhindered, it felt odd to have to use my legs again. They were slow and unwieldy. A lone candle burned on the floor, casting huge shadows against the wall. I had been moved to a cell of some kind. A heavy wooden door bound with iron was slightly ajar in front of me.
Voices approached from down the hall. One of them belonged to Istvan. “This way,” he said.
His footsteps drew nearer until he knocked at the door and pushed it open. The smell of death and corrupting bodies grew stronger, making my head shake. Instinctively, I closed my fingers over the handle of the Dragon Dagger still tucked inside my belt.
Istvan stepped inside. “I am relieved you are well. I’m told it can be a trial re-entering the body, especially for the first time. The senses awaken in ways that are unpleasant.”
He moved out of the doorway to make room for the person behind him. It was Uncle Jake. He was wearing the same ripped T-shirt and leather coat he’d had on at Iron Spike Enterprises, but they were filthy now and reeked of sweat. The skin underneath his bloodshot eyes sagged as if he had not slept properly for days. Stubble covered his chin and scalp, and his skin, which was much paler than I remembered, was covered in patches of grime. His movements were stiff. It clearly pained him to walk.
A vampire with purple eyes had his hand around the back of his neck. It was the Arabian Elvis. He looked much the same as he had in the courtroom. Black tasselled hat with a matching leather outfit. Two modern automatics had replaced his old six-shooters. The barrel of one was pressed into the side of Uncle Jake’s neck.
Istvan gestured for them to stop where they were, then turned to me. “I am sorry to do this, Zachariah, but there has been a slight change of plans. You won’t be meeting Vlad here after all.”
CHAPTER 34
TESTING THEORIES
I PULLED THE dragon-headed dagger from its sheath.
“Move and the Commander dies,” Istvan said.
I looked at Uncle Jake and wilted. He looked positively wretched, and there was nothing I could do to help him. I suppose I should have felt some joy or relief that he was alive, but Istvan’s betrayal obliterated everything but my sense of shock and outrage. My hackles rose and my stomach tightened. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Istvan was one of the good guys.
“What are you doing?”
“Only what is necessary. We are perched on the edge of an abyss, Zachary. The pathogen has spread out of control. There are too many vampires. If we fail to act decisively and the balance tips further, we will fall into a hell so deep not even God will be able to save us.”
“This has nothing to do with Mr. Rutherford. You have no right to treat him this way.”
“He will be allowed to go, if you co-operate.”
It was just as Ophelia had said back in Montreal. If someone I cared about was taken, I could be leveraged.
“I’ll do what you ask. Just let him go.”
Istvan took the dagger from me and glanced at the shadow of my coffin on the wall. It shifted slightly with each flicker of the candle flame. Pestilence stepped out from that darkness. He was still clothed in red, although his mask had been removed. Another shadow-jumper followed him. It was the Asian woman with the shiny green eyes and thick black hair who had been sitting with the bounty hunter at Ophelia’s trial. On her right hand I could see the Changeling’s mark. In the other was a set of manacles. She stepped closer, secured them in place around my wrists and ankles, then tested them carefully, her movements quiet and efficient. When she was finished, I couldn’t move.
“Now let him go,” I said.
A shadow fell across Uncle Jake and I suddenly found myself staring at a completely different man. He was several inches shorter and his clothes had changed to a pair of black slacks and a matching T-shirt with a large, round, open neck embroidered with silver thread. His body was lean and well muscled, like that of a young man, but he must have been very old, because his irises were completely white. It would have taken centuries to bleach the colour from them. I couldn’t guess his ethnicity. His face was perfectly proportioned, his skin tanned. He could have come from just about anywhere: the Far East, the Near East, the Middle East, South America or Europe. He definitely wasn’t Inuit or African, but he might have been a mix of either.
I suppose I should have felt surprise. I was standing face to face with the Changeling. But mostly, I just felt stupid.
“Forgive us a small deception,” the Changeling said. “The Baptist has been spreading a rumour that the true Messiah can see through my disguises. It comforts me to know that he is wrong … Unless you are not, in fact, the Child of Prophecy, and it is really the lycanthrope, Vincent, who escaped with your friends.”
The Changeling’s arm fell into shadow. when I could see it clearly again, the fingers had bonded together and were covered with something hard and chitinous, like the stinger of a scorpion’s tail.
“The Baptist also claims that you are immune to my venom. I would like to test that theory as well.”
He struck with alarming speed. A jolt of pain tore through my neck. It subsided slowly, leaving an itch behind. The itch became a burn. With each frantic beat of my heart, liquid fire spread through my body, first into my head and down into my chest, then into my shoulders and limbs. Every muscle grew taut. The edges of the manacles bit through the skin of my wrists. I fell sideways to the floor and watched as the veins in my forearms bulged and turned grey.
I had one chance. I closed my eyes and imagined the light of the tunnel. I drew it into my centre, so in my mind’s eye I was nothing but a shadow. Then I willed myself to leave my body. It almost worked. My shadow essence started to rise, but the Changeling saw me right away.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
An instant later, a shadow, identical in shape to him, emerged from his body, put its hands on my shoulders and shoved me back inside myself.
I stopped breathi
ng. My diaphragm wouldn’t relax. The pain grew unbearable. Then my heart spasmed, blackness took over and everything went quiet.
CHAPTER 35
UNDEATH
I DID NOT GO to the tunnel of light. There was no warmth, or sense of other. My senses had been stripped. I did not think or dream or feel. I had no self-awareness. No sense of time or place. There was only darkness and a silence so profound it was as if the entire world had vanished, and me along with it, so that nothing—not my body, my mind or my soul—existed at all.
This didn’t last forever. In time, I became aware of myself again. The space I was in shifted. My mind felt as though it was full of water. I couldn’t move, but my eyes were open a sliver. A blurry crack of light appeared beside me, then widened. I was in a coffin, and someone was opening the lid. Overhead was a huge bronze chandelier. It drifted in and out of focus as the muscles of my eyes began to work again. Orange-yellow candlelight cast dancing shadows on a circle of tall, thin, rectangular windows set inside a high dome. The areas between the window frames were covered with pictures of people with halos. This must have been a church.
A fuzzy shape appeared above me. A man in a cowl. There was an aura of power about him. When he bent closer to examine me, I noticed that he had a strange rune on his forehead. It was open, as if it had just been carved there with a knife. His hair and short beard were a mix of white and grey and black. I thought for a moment that it was an old friend, but something told me I was wrong.
“There is no cause for distress, John,” said a voice from across the room.
The man, John, removed his cowl. Icy blue eyes swept over me. “I cannot endorse this,” he said. “If this boy is who the prophets claim, he is a threat to us. He should be put to the torch, immediately.”
Something in his voice jogged my memory—this had once been my friend, Mr. Entwistle. Now he was Death. They shared the same face, the same voice, the same confident, wolf-like mannerisms. It was just plain wrong. As unjust as the thought of being burned alive. Anger, helplessness, disappointment, frustration—I suppose I should have felt them all, but my body was still numb, and my mind groggy, and so I was spared everything but a sense that things were not as they should have been.
