New Order

by Max Turner

  “And Ophelia,” Luna added with a reproving look.

  “Yeah, but Vlad gives the orders.”

  I couldn’t imagine Ophelia being told what to do by anyone.

  “If you thought Ophelia was controlling,” Luna said, her lips nearly brushing my ear, “Vlad is in a league by himself. The two of them fight like cats and dogs.”

  “Someone’s got to be the boss,” Vincent said. “Vlad’s amazing. He can do anything. Just look what he did for me.”

  “You got that right, Vin,” Charlie said.

  I looked Vincent over again. He might have passed for a vampire now, had his scent and yellow eyes not given him away. Was this Vlad’s doing?

  “He’s still got some anger-management issues,” said Charlie, “but you get past it. And Vinny’s right. He’s amazing. He’s got a wonder potion for everything. Boils this. Distills that. A little eye of newt and tongue of frog, and presto, he’s turned water into wine, or a pine cone into a hand grenade, or powdered blood into something edible. And the serum he makes for Vin. Well, you can see for yourself. All the power of the Beast, but no fleas, no fuss and no freaking out.”

  There was awe in Charlie’s voice. It rattled me. When I’d last seen them together, Vlad had threatened to impale him.

  “I don’t get it. After the hell that guy put us through, how could you have anything to do with him?”

  “How could you?”

  “At the trial? What choice did I have?”

  “What choice do we have?” Charlie leaned closer, his hands still locked firmly on the controls of the gun. “Vlad and Ophelia have been keeping us alive. You want a reason to trust him? Well, there it is. The Changeling and his Horsemen are killing everything in sight. It’s always dark somewhere, and they’re at it twenty-four seven. If they get their way, there won’t be enough vampires left in the world to fill a school bus.”

  “Except the ones that take the mark,” Luna said.

  Charlie snorted in disgust. “That’s no guarantee. According to Ophelia, half their army got buried at Iron Spike Enterprises, and they didn’t care a whit. She said they arranged for it to happen that way, so it’d be easier to control infection rates. Who would do that, kill their own soldiers?”

  “Well, they still have plenty to spare,” Luna said. “They’ve had us on the run since the trial.”

  My head fell back against the top of the seat. The chopper jostled a bit, then tilted as we changed direction. For a moment, no one spoke. I was grateful for the quiet.

  I’d been in tough spots before, but never had I felt so uncertain. Like a marionette with some unseen person pulling at my strings, I’d been hauled from one disaster to another. The rooftop of Iron Spike Enterprises. L’Esprit Sauvage. Ophelia’s trial. Castle Dracula. The Prince’s Church. It seemed I’d been powerless to exercise any control over what was happening around me. If that was going to change, I had to start doing things differently. The trouble was, I had no idea where to start. Allying myself with Vlad, a man I didn’t trust, seemed a poor way to get the ball rolling.

  While I sat brooding, trying to figure out how to manage my inevitable meeting with him, a dark ribbon of water appeared below, frozen along the banks but open through the middle, winding through the tree-covered mountains. The evergreens rising on either side had been dusted with a white layer of snow. In the still night air, it sparkled like tinsel on a forest of Christmas trees.

  “You know,” said Charlie, “this landscape has given me a brilliant idea.” He looked at the two comatose hostages, then his eyes fell to the open river below us.

  “You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking …” I said.

  “I am.”

  “Charlie, you can’t.”

  “Actually, it should be easy. Gravity will do most of the work.” He started unstrapping the harness that was holding the Asian woman in her seat.

  I looked at Luna.

  “I agree with Charlie,” she said. “It’s brilliant.”

  Vincent laughed. I blanched.

  “Think of it as a compromise,” she said. “Drowning won’t kill them permanently, but it keeps them off our backs for a while.”

  “Compromise,” Charlie echoed, “the foundation of any healthy relationship.” He pulled the woman from her seat. “If you have to, just think of it as a midnight swim for two people whose morals need a good cleansing.”

  I reached up and knocked on the glass separating us from Ophelia.

  “What? You planning to tell on me?” Charlie asked, walking the body over to the edge of the cabin.

  “Just getting a second opinion.”

  Ophelia’s voice came over a speaker from the cockpit. “You going to lighten our load?” she asked.

  Charlie gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Brilliant!” she answered. “I’ll take us down.”

  I felt the helicopter lurch and we dropped.

  “Aren’t we going to discuss this?” I asked.

  “We just did,” said Charlie.

  The wind from our rotors caused the small section of open river to ripple along the surface. Two splashes later, we rose again and changed our bearings.

  “See?” Charlie said. “I told you that would be easy.”

  Vincent laughed. “Moral cleansing. That was a good one, Charlie.”

  I looked from one to the other, then to Luna. “I can’t believe you supported that!”

  “It’s better than the alternative. Vlad would just insist we cut their heads off.”

  “So we’re really going to see Vlad.” I felt my stomach twist as if I’d swallowed a knife.

  Luna slipped her fingers through mine. “It’ll be okay.”

  Vincent was watching us. His eyes strayed from me, to Luna, to our hands in a quiet, disapproving way. I remembered him stepping between us and casually putting his arm around her back at the church. I was guessing the two had become closer in my absence. I wondered if it was going to be a problem.

  I closed my eyes and imagined the warm light of the tunnel all around me. It helped settle my stomach. “So, where is Vlad now?” I asked.

  “Budapest,” said Charlie. “He’s taking us to meet the Baptist.”

  CHAPTER 39

  BUDAPEST

  LUNA’S FINGERS WERE still entwined with my own. I brought her hand to my lips. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that Vincent was watching us, furtively, from the corner of his eye. I tried to put it from my mind and squeezed what peace I could from Luna’s calming presence. The moment didn’t last.

  “We’ve crossed the Carpathians,” Ophelia said, her voice crackling over the cabin speaker. “We should reach the Hungarian border soon.”

  We were flying low to the ground. It was cold. Our breath froze in tiny white clouds that the wind quickly snatched away. Everyone was quiet. Vincent and Charlie were both hunched behind their guns, scanning the naked oak and beech trees of the foothills below. Luna let go of my hand and pulled out a pistol, then started loading bullets into the clip.

  “What happens when we land?” I asked.

  “Vlad will have a plan,” Charlie said. “He always does.”

  Was I wrong about my vampire father? The Changeling had suggested I hardly knew him, then went on to say that Vlad had betrayed me. If this were true, would Ophelia be supporting him? That might have been all of the answer that I needed.

  I thought back to the first time I’d seen him, face to face, at Iron Spike Enterprises. Even when stark raving mad, there’d been limits to his violent behaviour. He’d refused to hurt Ophelia when she came to my defence. They’d been husband and wife for over five hundred years, and he thought my father had killed her. Should I have been surprised that he would take revenge? While I puzzled this out, mountains and forests, farms and villages passed unnoticed beneath me. I didn’t snap out of it until Luna tapped my shoulder. We were flying over a wide river. The lights of a city were visible on either side.

  “Budapest,” she said.

  I
stared out of the cabin, thinking I might recognize some part of it. I’d been here with my father when I was seven. At the time, I thought he’d come to lecture at one of the universities, but he and my Uncle Maximilian had really been hunting Vlad. Nothing looked familiar. I knew enough to separate the two cities, Buda and Pest, on either side of the Danube, but couldn’t remember which side was which. Both had a distinctive European feel. The streets were much narrower than the ones at home, and they wound like fishing line straight off the spool. The faces of the buildings were right up against the sidewalks, and they all touched side to side as if every inch of space was precious. The helicopter dipped closer to the river, sending tiny ripples across the surface. We followed it to a large castlelike building on the right that was straight out of a fairy tale. I counted nineteen spires, but it might have had more.

  “Parliament,” Ophelia said. “But we’re heading there.” She pointed across the river to a building that must have been at least two football fields long. There was a single dome in the centre. It looked like a fortified office building. “The Royal Palace.”

  We skimmed a short hill and rose over the palace, which was topped with small islands of copper roofing, all tarnished green. The city was quiet, but the lights of the building made it seem as though we were flying into a spotlight. Ophelia brought us down in an open courtyard near a statue of a horse.

  The instant the wheels hit the ground, Luna jumped out, both pistols drawn. Vincent removed the Gatling gun from its housing, grabbed a long belt of bullets, slung it over his shoulder and followed. By this time, Ophelia and Charlie were already out.

  “Man, you guys mean business,” I said, jumping down.

  Charlie laughed. Ophelia quieted us with a glance.

  “Is this where we meet the Baptist?” I asked

  “No,” she answered. “We’ll meet him in the labyrinth just before sunrise. This is where we meet Vlad.”

  Clustered around a fountain at the far side of the courtyard was a group of copper statues tarnished green like the roof. The highest, most prominent figure was a man holding a bow. He was standing over the body of a freshly killed stag. Vlad had his back to us and was admiring it from below.

  “I don’t understand,” I said to Ophelia. “I’m not sure I ever have. What are you doing with that awful man?”

  Ophelia paused. She’d been strapping her rapier to her hip. “I know this is difficult for you. And I don’t expect you to understand. I owe him a debt that spans centuries … You can’t imagine the weight of that.” She adjusted her belt and gave everyone a quick inspection. “I left his side when your father caught up with me. He offered me redemption, and I accepted. Part of that arrangement involved cutting my ties with Vlad. I should not have been so selfish. Without me to keep him stable, he became something terrible.”

  “You’ve never been selfish,” I said.

  “You don’t know what I’ve been. Your father was hunting me, Zachary. You’ve never asked me why he felt that was necessary, and I’m more grateful for that than you can ever know. I was not always as I am now.”

  I felt awkward in the silence that followed. I remembered that Mr. Entwistle had known her by a different name: Ilona. Although that was centuries ago, the thought that she had once been someone else was unsettling. I didn’t want to think of her as anyone but Ophelia.

  “I think that life is behind you,” Luna said.

  “It is. Or it was. Part of it has resurfaced.” Her eyes drifted to Vlad, who was still facing the opposite direction.

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with him,” I said. “I don’t trust him. The Changeling said he gave me up. That he knew his castle was being ransacked and he let me get captured.”

  “The Changeling would want you to think as much. He would not want to see you and Vlad united.”

  She sighed.

  I looked at her as you might look at a stranger, as if seeing her for the first time. I realized that, like me, she had no idea what was going to happen next, and she was flustered. She was used to being in control. This was unfamiliar territory.

  “I am not asking you to trust him,” she said, “or to like him or to forgive him. But realize that we have a fight to finish, and for that, we need his help. I know he’s far from perfect, but there is a nobility in him. You need to recognize it, and help him to be his best person. Is this not what your father would have wanted?”

  It was. I felt a sting of shame that she should have had to remind me.

  Ophelia started walking away. I followed. Vlad turned when I took my first step, as if he’d been waiting for this one gesture, like the extending of an olive branch, before acknowledging me. His voice filled my head, drowning out the sound of our footfalls on the stone.

  So, my progeny returns … Well, come forward, little cub, and we shall see if your abduction has proven fruitful.

  CHAPTER 40

  COUNTERMOVE

  “I KNOW WHAT you’re thinking,” Charlie whispered.

  “This is gonna be fine. Trust me.”

  I reached under my robe and felt for my necklace. Luna took my hand. I searched her neckline. There was no trace of the golden-crescent charm.

  “Welcome to the Royal Palace,” Vlad said as we entered the nimbus of light around the fountain. “Beneath this building are the ruins of older castles. One of them belonged to Matthias Corvinus. That is him, above.” He glanced at the statue of the hunter with the bow. “I think the likeness is quite good. Much preferable to the rotting corpse you saw in my lab. Matthias the Just, King of Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Duke of Austria, my ally and rival.”

  I remembered the name from Vlad’s biography. Matthias Corvinus had betrayed him to his death. Vlad had been betrayed by Istvan, too, when they were young. As hard as it was for me to imagine, Vlad had forgiven them both.

  His eyes drifted to the dragon-headed dagger still hanging at my waist. “The Changeling let you keep that? How interesting.” It seemed that he was going to reach for the hilt, but he didn’t. “Can you tell us what has happened since the night you were abducted? Do you know anything of the Changeling’s plans?”

  I eyed Vlad cautiously. He seemed more composed than I’d expected. More human. But there was no way for me to know if, underneath it all, he was trustworthy. Ophelia was right to say there was good in him. I’d seen it at her trial. And my father would have wanted me to recognize it. “The greatest measure of a man’s soul is his capacity to forgive,” he might have said. But he also said things like, “Someone needs to stand up to the bullies of the world.”

  I didn’t even know who the bad guys were any more. Vlad. The Changeling. I didn’t want to side with either of them.

  The Dragon Prince was standing in front me, glaring at Ophelia. “What is wrong with this boy?”

  “Give him time. He’s thinking. Can’t you tell?”

  The two of them argued back and forth while I figured out what to say. It took a while.

  “How is this supposed to work?” I asked eventually.

  Vlad turned to face me. “Ah, so you’ve returned again, a second coming, this time in body and mind … How is this supposed to work? I’m not certain. I suppose we shall learn as we go.”

  “And what happens now?”

  “You tell us what you know,” he said. “You weren’t gone long, but you must have learned something about the Changeling and his plans.”

  “Did he show you his face?” Charlie asked.

  “He showed me several faces. But we spoke for only a few minutes. It was just before you guys showed up. I was dead the whole time. He poisoned me and … I don’t know what happened. I woke up in a coffin. But it wasn’t like the other times. I didn’t go to the tunnel.”

  “You died but did not pass on to the next life,” Vlad said. “Trapped in undeath, a state that would make it impossible for Ophelia to find you, since those who are undead don’t dream and so have no voice on the Dream Road. Thankfully, we had a backup. Two, in fact. One w
as Istvan. The other was your necklace. My guess is, the coffin he used for you was lined with heavy metal. It would have blocked the signal.”

  “Signal? What are you talking about?”

  Ophelia lifted the full-moon necklace from under my habit. There was a guilty look on her face.

  “I had a duplicate made for you,” Vlad said. “It contains a tiny transponder. I wanted you to wear it in case you got lost.”

  I looked for any signs that he was lying and found none. I was still skeptical. The idea that Vlad cared about whether I got lost, was poisoned by the Changeling or got fed to a pool of hungry piranha seemed about as thin to me as the fabric of my monk’s habit, the same outfit that was meant to show the Changeling how little my fate mattered. Caring wasn’t Vlad’s style. Neither were transponders. I didn’t know much about them, only that they sent out a signal that could be traced.

  “How did you think we found you?” he asked.

  I’d been very curious about that. Ophelia had brushed me off when I’d asked back at the Prince’s Church. I’d assumed at the time it was because we were in such a hurry, but she probably wasn’t keen to reveal that my necklace was a fake, transponder or no transponder.

  “So, where’s my real necklace?”

  Vlad ignored the question. “Did he indicate why he didn’t kill you?”

  “He said he wanted to redeem me. That I owed him a debt, and finding you was how I was going to start repaying it, after I’d taken his mark.”

  Vlad’s eyes jumped quickly from my right hand to my forehead. Both were unblemished. He nodded his approval. “And why were you so poorly guarded?”

  “I got the sense he was using his soldiers for something else. Tiptoft and Tamerlane were there with the horde, but he flew them off someplace.”

  “Did he indicate where?”

  “No. But he did talk about—how did he say it?—culling the herd. But not until he’d dealt with you.”

  “Culling the herd? Even though they have his mark? Interesting. What else did he say?”