Eleventh Grade Burns (28 page)

Henry took it, shrugging. “Yeah. Just happy to officially be a senior.”

There was a moment when she seemed to be debating something. Then she met Vlad’s eyes. Hers were full of a questioning, of hesitancy, of loss. “Hi, Vlad.”

Vlad smiled as warmly as he was able to. “Hey, Meredith. You look very pretty today.”

A gentle smile touched her lips. “Thank you.”

And he wasn’t lying. She looked lovely with her tan skin and her pink shorts, pink tennis shoes, and pink T-shirt. In a strange way, he felt like he was talking to someone he had once known, but didn’t anymore.

A whiff of the sweet nectar that lurked in her veins teased Vlad’s senses, but he remained still and strong. “I don’t think I ever told you how much you mean to me. I mean, I know you’re going out with Joss now and that’s great. He’s a good guy. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

Henry’s jaw hit the floor. He looked at Meredith and shook his head, laughing the way people surely laughed whenever a crazy person was near. Panicked. Almost frightened. “He’s ... been taking cold medicine. It makes him ramble on about some crazy stuff.”

“Actually, I’m quite lucid, Henry.” He looked from his friend back to Meredith. “I mean it. I’ll never forget you.”

An echoed blend of sadness and concern crossed her brown eyes. “Why does that sound like goodbye?”

Vlad merely shrugged.

Once Meredith had joined Joss on the sidewalk, Henry turned back to Vlad, flabbergasted.
“What was that?”

Vlad shook his head, his response at the ready. “Nothing. Just making sure she knows how I feel.”

As Henry put the car in gear, he shook his head too. “Man, you are acting really weird today, Vlad. You sure you’re not sucking down cold medicine?”

Vlad stared out the window as the car pulled from the parking lot. “Nope. Not me. I’m actually feeling more rational than I ever have.”

Henry turned the radio up and drove him home.

It was the best, most subtle goodbye he could give his friend.

But he didn’t have the guts to release his drudge.

V
LAD LOOKED OUT OVER THE SCHOOL GROUNDS at Freedom Fest from atop the hill behind the school, at the hot-air balloon rides being offered, at the carnival games, at the many, many booths of deep-fried everything and cotton candy, at the crowd of people all wearing smiles on their faces, and sighed. Beside him, Otis sighed too, but more out of contentment. “Otis?”

“Yes, Vlad?”

“I think it’s time we cleaned out my parents’ old bedroom.”

Vlad could feel Otis looking at him from the corner of his eye. After a long silence, Otis replied, “If you feel you’re ready ...”

He thought about the room, still charred, still home to whatever was left of his parents’ memory. He thought about all the tears he had shed and how much he wanted to remember the good things rather than the bad. With a hard swallow, Vlad said, “I do. And I want to do it tonight.”

He had to do it tonight, after all. He was leaving tomorrow night, just after midnight.

“Can I ask what brought about this decision?”

“The need for change. I’ve held on to a lot of things from my past.” Down the hill, walking hand in hand were Meredith and Joss, smiles lighting up their faces, looking very much in love. Vlad dropped his gaze to the ground between his feet. “I think it’s time I start letting go, don’t you?”

When Vlad glanced at Otis, he too was watching the happy couple. After a moment, he met Vlad’s eyes. “I think that’s a very healthy attitude. Just make sure you only let go and don’t forget the past entirely.”

Meredith and Joss disappeared into the crowd. Vlad watched the glowing balloons for a while before breaking the comfortable silence between him and his uncle. “Otis?”

“Yes, Vlad?”

Vlad wet his lips. Tonight was a night for change. A night for honesty. A night for closure. “You know I was feeding on Snow ... don’t you?”

“Yes, Vlad.”

“But you didn’t say anything, didn’t tell me you told me so, didn’t point out all of my lies.”

Otis paused briefly, as if weighing whether or not Vlad really wanted him to answer. “No ... I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because if all I had to do to see you eating right was listen to a few fibs about it, then so be it.” He shrugged, and it occurred to Vlad that he’d kept his secret needlessly. Otis would have understood. Otis quieted his voice some, speaking gently, as if sensing the subject was a sensitive one. It was. “Of course, you weren’t always feeding on her. There was a time midwinter that you looked completely ravenous. Was it a crisis of conscience?”

Vlad scanned the crowd, looking for any sign of Henry or October, but the faces all blended together. “Yeah ... kinda. Snow was starting to develop feelings for me.”

Otis clucked his tongue. “That’s why I never feed on drudges. It’s too easy for them to mistake the closeness of feeding sessions for romance.”

An image of Snow’s face flickered through his imagination, and Vlad felt something hard and hollow at the center of his being. He recognized it instantly as longing, but couldn’t really explain where it had come from. He missed Snow. More than he would admit. Absently, he said to Otis, “You must have had thousands of drudges by now.”

“Why would you get that impression?” Otis shook his head. “I have none, actually. Never have. I’m not comfortable with the attachment, and I’ve heard the temptation to create many is overwhelming. It’s against the law to have more than two, you know, and like the rest of Elysia, if I don’t kill them, I release them immediately.”

Vlad gaped openly at his uncle. “Is that such a common practice? To release them so soon?”

Otis looked more than a little confused. “Of course it is. I assumed you’d read that in the Compendium of
Conscientia
.”

The book. Oh crap. Vlad knew he’d forgotten something. He’d spent all of last night searching but couldn’t seem to find the book anywhere. He’d hoped to take it with him, but apparently that wasn’t an option. “About that ... I kinda lost it.”

Otis’s eyes widened. He didn’t appear the least bit happy. “Lost it?”

Vlad cringed. “Yeah. Sorry.”

To Otis’s credit, he didn’t yell. But he did get quiet for a really, really long time. After a while, he released what seemed like a very tense breath. “I’d bet that your good friend Joss knows where the book is. You understand, of course, how crucial it is that we retrieve the
Compendium,
yes?”

“Of course.” Vlad did understand, though it had never occurred to him that Joss might have taken the book, which made him feel more than a little stupid. It could have been part of Joss’s reconnaissance, after all. Maybe he could just ask Joss for the book, before Otis had a reason to attack him. If Joss had it, he’d hand it over. Unless ... unless D’Ablo took it, for some reason. Anxious to drag Otis away from that line of thinking, Vlad said, “Will you keep feeding on humans after you and Nelly are married?”

It was an innocent question, but something about the look in Otis’s eyes said that the answer would be anything but innocent. “I’d give up anything to be with your aunt. Even if it meant starvation.”

Vlad inhaled and against his will he took in the scent of human blood from the gathered crowd, a delectable potpourri that Vlad found almost irresistible. Strangely, he didn’t feel guilty for feeling that way. It seemed right, somehow. It seemed ... normal. “Can I tell you something, Otis?”

“I would hope that you’d feel comfortable enough to come to me with anything.”

He inhaled the scent again, enjoying it. “I don’t really feel human anymore. These days, I feel much more like a vampire.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Otis raised an eyebrow, a smirk planted firmly on his lips. “You are a vampire, Vlad. There’s no shame in it.”

Vlad nodded down the hill toward the crowd. He spotted Henry near the cotton candy machine, his bottom lip covered in fluffy pink. “What do you see when you look at them, Otis? Do you see people, or do you see warm meals?”

Otis laughed warmly. “That depends on how hungry I am.”

And there it was. The guilt. Vlad moved his eyes from Henry to a girl he’d once sat behind in algebra to Eddie Poe to Mr. Hunjo. People he knew. People. He swallowed hard and asked, “And if you’re hungry when you look at Nelly? What will you see when you look at her?”

The expression on Otis’s face became haunted.

Vlad shook his head, berating himself for tolerating the monster within him, even for a moment. “There is shame in it, Otis. It’s just not a shame anyone talks about.”

As Vlad turned to walk away, Otis called after him. “I’ll never hurt her, Vlad. I swear that to you.”

Only it wasn’t just Nelly that Vlad was worried about. It was everyone. Every human he had ever known. But Otis had no way of knowing that. He peered over his shoulder briefly as he made his way to the sidewalk and spoke to his uncle with his thoughts. “
I know you won’t, Otis
.
But I’m not as strong as you are
.”

Bathory was quiet as Vlad moved down the sidewalk in the direction of Nelly’s house. She wouldn’t be there, as she was working another late shift at the hospital, a fact that made his journey even quieter, even longer.

Darkness surrounded Vlad and with it, a silence that he took great comfort in. For the first time in a long time, Vlad felt at peace. It was time to clean out his parents’ bedroom, and then ... it was time to leave Bathory forever.

Out of the darkness came a sound. It was soft and breathy, a whisper that had only barely escaped the speaker’s lips before it raced to Vlad’s ear. “For you, Cecile.”

Vlad turned quickly, remembering those words from the night Joss staked him. Terror enveloped his entire being as he scanned the dark. Joss was nowhere to be found.

Then another sound. A low whistling. Vlad stepped back quickly, ready to run, fearing the worst. To his left, someone said, “No!” Their tone was a mixture of surprise and fear. Then, before he could blink, a dark figure stepped just in front of him. The figure staggered back, turning toward him, and Vlad recognized him instantly.

“Dorian?”

Dorian’s lips turned up in a semi-smile before he collapsed into Vlad’s arms. Vlad managed to catch him, but half fell, easing Dorian onto the ground. Vlad’s eyebrows were drawn together in concern and confusion. He was about to ask what was wrong, when he noticed the stake—Joss’s stake, Vlad would have recognized it anywhere—sticking out of Dorian’s chest.

Dorian had saved him. What’s more, he’d saved him from someone that Vlad had begun to trust once again. Quickly—quicker than Vlad thought was possible—blood seeped from Dorian’s back onto the ground, soaking Vlad’s jeans. A lump formed in Vlad’s throat and tears welled in his eyes. Dorian—the only vampire in existence who knew the truth of the Pravus prophecy—was going to die in his arms. He swallowed hard. “Why are you here?”

Dorian coughed, blood spattering his lips. “I came ... to tell you my secret.”

In the distance, Vlad heard movement. Feet moving over grass. He searched the darkness but couldn’t see Joss anywhere. If he didn’t get him and Dorian to safety soon, they’d be in real trouble. But there was no way Dorian was going to be able to move like this. He met Dorian’s eyes. “This stake has to come out, Dorian.”

Dorian closed his eyes briefly. “No.”

Vlad thought about the night he’d been staked and how Otis and Vikas had saved him. He gripped the stake and pulled hard.

Dorian screamed, but once it was out, he looked much more comfortable. Vlad flung the stake behind him and put his wrist to his mouth. He was about to bite the skin open and feed Dorian, when Dorian grabbed his arm and spoke sternly. “No, Vlad. No. I’m ... dying. Drink from me. Quickly. Drink deep.”

Vlad furrowed his brow, darting his eyes about their dark surroundings for any sign of the slayer. “Why?”

“Because of my secret. I told you that four vampires can know the prophecy, but I only told you about the Foreteller, the Transcriber, and the Keeper. Do you recall?”

Vlad did. It had been that day in New York, the day before Otis’s pretrial. That night Otis had changed. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Vlad was only seeing the real him for the first time. He shook his head, clearing his mind, and listened.

“There is one more. You, Vladimir. You are the Subject of the Prophecy. Therefore, it is yours to carry. As the Pravus, if you drink my blood, you will begin to understand all that was foretold about you. I couldn’t tell you before, because you weren’t ready. But you are now. I can feel it. You’re ready to know the truth. The truth of everything.” Dorian gasped, then settled again and spoke with urgency. “The knowledge will come slowly. Drink, and you will know much of it, but over time the parts you do not understand will become clear. It is a lot of knowledge. It will take time to become known to you.”

“No. Dorian, I—”

A twig broke behind him. Just yards away.

Dorian grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him close, so close that Vlad could feel his heartbeat weakening. His eyes were narrowed, his words forceful, desperate. “Drink, before I die. This is the duty which I spoke of—my duty—to pass this knowledge on to the Pravus. Now drink. Quickly.”

After a pause, one filled with thoughts of how Dorian’s blood had infected Otis, Vlad nodded slowly and leaned forward, biting into Dorian’s neck. He swallowed mouthfuls of blood and with each, he felt a strange surge of power. He pulled away, unwilling to take Dorian’s life. Dorian stared up at him, an odd smile on his lips. “How strange. It’s true about your eyes ... that was the one thing I doubted.”

Dorian stretched out a hand, his skin paling drastically, and brushed the tips of his fingers against Vlad’s Mark. In an instant that took Vlad’s breath away, Dorian’s eyes flashed iridescent blue. Vlad gasped. Dorian smiled. “Foolish of me to doubt, or perhaps arrogant. The other two, the Transcriber and the Foreteller, their eyes were the same as ours, but orange and red. We were chosen, the four of us, by something much larger than any of us, for a purpose that must be served at any cost.”