Dracul (6 page)

In the wake of his speech, waves of silence pulse palpably through the room. Or maybe it just feels that way because my heart is slamming inside my ribs.

Did this guy know Vlad Dracula personally?

And is he trying to defend him?

Or condemn him?

Constantine is staring at the light fixture as though he expects the bat to rematerialize there. Or perhaps that’s just the direction his face is turned, and his thoughts are hundreds of years away.

I don’t even know what to say. Maybe Constantine really is a vampire. Maybe he is hundreds of years old.

Though I’m not sure I believe his wild identity claims, at the same time, I can’t deny he has strong feelings about Dracula’s family. Finally, I confess, “I still don’t understand where you fit into this picture.”

Abruptly, Constantine closes the book and stands. “It is getting late. You need your sleep. I have given you enough of an introduction. You have the information you need to make your decision. I will let you sleep on it.”

Desperation flashes through me. I want to hear more! I
need
to hear more. I’ve been searching for answers for so long, and now the answers are here, in my house, in that creepy skin-bound book I cannot read.

I stand as well, ready to ask him to stay a little longer.

The room shifts slightly, and I slap my palms against the table to steady myself.

It
is
late. Or perhaps more accurately, it’s early morning, and I haven’t slept yet. I’m already behind on sleep from dealing with the bats in recent nights, so my exhaustion has reached the point where I can’t ignore it any longer. Coffee or no coffee, Constantine is right. I need my sleep.

By focusing on each step, I’m able to walk steadily as I follow Constantine to the front door.

“I will call you tomorrow afternoon,” he promises. “Tomorrow the sun is supposed to shine, so I won’t be able to come over until the sun has gone down, but this time of year in Montana, that is before six o’clock.”

Right. The vampire thing. He’s still sticking to that story.

“I’ll keep my phone close so I don’t miss your call.” I hold the door open for him, then close and lock it once he’s gone out.

Then, tired though I am, I step sideways to the front window and peek out past the blinds.

Constantine is headed down the sidewalk in the same direction he went when he left to get the book. The street lights illumine his tall, broad-shouldered form. He steps behind a tree…and that’s the last I see of him.

There’s a patch of well-lit sidewalk on the other side of the tree, but he never emerges, no matter how many times I blink to clear my eyes.

He’s just gone.

Hmm…that vampire story of his?

Either there’s something to that, or he’s going out of his way to make me believe there is.

Chapter Six

The next day I’m crazy tired, and run home to grab a nap between classes, heading back to campus with the blackjack books in my backpack. After my last afternoon class, I retreat to a quiet corner of the library to find out how hard it’s going to be to hold up my end of the bargain.

Let’s not forget, I’m a student. I have a pretty light load this semester, since I’d strategically planned it so I’d already finish up most of my coursework prior to my final semester, leaving me time to focus on my thesis, but still. I have a lot of information I need to cram into my brain every day.

Information my grades depend on.

I don’t need to be taking away brain power learning something that has nothing to do with my degree.

Except if I don’t learn it, I won’t be able to hold up my side of the deal, and Constantine won’t translate any more of the book for me.

One thing’s for certain: the book is legit. I don’t really know Romanian, certainly not Old Romanian, but I recognized enough of the words to know that was the real thing. And Constantine read way too smoothly to be making it up as he went, never mind that he wouldn’t even be able to make up something like that if he didn’t already know what he was talking about.

So even if his story of writing it isn’t true, the resource is solid, no doubt about it.

And there’s no doubt I need it.

It would seem I have no choice but to cram my already-brimming brain with this not-very-easy blackjack strategy, hopefully learning it well enough to be able to play in a real-life, high-pressure casino setting.

And, as I quickly learn in the blackjack books, I’ll need to be able to use these techniques without letting on to anyone what I’m doing. In fact, the real trick of counting cards in blackjack isn’t learning the techniques—yes, it’s time-consuming and complicated, but it’s not that hard.

No, the real trick, and the reason why more people don’t do it, is that you have to be able to do it
without getting caught
.

While there’s no rule against counting cards, the casinos hate it, because it tips the odds in the favor of the player.

When players count cards, casinos lose money.

They despise that.

So they put a lot of pressure on people who they suspect are counting cards.

One way some players try to disguise their card-counting activity is by playing with a partner or even a team. The way it works is, everybody hits the tables and plays low bets, counting cards until a table gets hot (a gambling slang term for a table that has a card count favorable to winning lots of hands—there’s some complicated math and card-playing involved here, but the bottom line is, a hot table is where a player wants to be to win big).

Once a table gets hot, the card counters have a couple of options. One, the player who was already at that table can vastly increase the size of his bets, and start winning some serious money.

Sounds great, except if you go from playing measly bets and on-average losing to the house, to suddenly playing big bets and winning, the casino is going to think you’re counting cards. And if you do that all night long, all weekend long, you’re going to get yourself on their persona-non-grata list.

The other option, which is the option Constantine needs me for, is that once a table gets hot, the player who was already at that table signals to the other player, who saunters over all casual like and starts playing big money.

Since they didn’t switch over from small bets to big bets at that table, they’re less likely to raise any eyebrows.

The catch—and it’s a big catch, the kind of catch that gets players blacklisted from casinos all the time—is that the signal between players has to be invisible.

Not just discreet enough that the dealer won’t notice. Casinos have gotten way too smart for that. They up their game every time the card-counters up theirs.

No, the casinos have security cameras everywhere, and if somebody starts winning big bucks, you can bet the people in back are going to be scouring their footage for anything that looks like a signal.

Discreet signals aren’t good enough.

Anything that can be captured by the camera is too obvious. The books list plenty of tricks players have used in the past—stacking their chips in different ways, flipping a necklace charm, scratching a nose, smoothing an eyebrow, flipping hair to part the other way—and for every trick that worked once or twice, there’s another card counter who can never go in that casino again.

The phone in my pocket vibrates. The screen shows Constantine’s number, and I check the clock.

Almost six.

Technically, the library doesn’t like people talking on phones. Silent rules, and all that.

But there are some study groups chatting not-so-quietly a few tables down from mine, so I duck around a stack of books and take the call at a whisper.

“This is Rilla.”

“Have you had time to look at the books?”

“Yes. I have some questions.”

“Can we discuss them over dinner? There is a restaurant not far from campus.” He names a place that happens to be one of my favorites, which serves thick steaks and doesn’t try to overcook them when I order mine rare.

“I’m at the library now, but I can be there in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” Constantine agrees. “I will meet you at the front door of the restaurant.”

“See you there.” I toss my phone next to my wallet in the front pocket of my backpack and stuff the books back into the main compartment. This time, I put the straps over both shoulders instead of just one.

Sure enough, it’s almost dark outside.

In summer, the spacious campus is beautiful with its green lawns and leafy trees. But right now, in the deep midwinter, the trees jut skyward like giant skeletal hands, grasping at the moonlight. The brisk northern wind sends clouds swirling across the face of the moon, and footsteps crunch across old snow.

I pause in the library doorway just long enough to get my bearings and plot my course. Then I set off at a brisk pace and try to ignore that feeling like someone is watching me.

That’s not a real “feeling,” is it? Certainly it doesn’t encompass any of the traditional five senses—not sight or scent or touch. It’s more like paranoia, the kind that will probably follow me for days after the back-pack-snatching incident that shook me up yesterday.

It was probably random.

My backpack wasn’t even on my shoulder yet.

I was an easy target then.

I’m
not
now.

And yet, I listen carefully to the crunch of feet on snow. All even-paced and distant. Nothing to be afraid of. Students coming and going, all perfectly innocent and perfectly normal.

Frigid air enters my lungs, and I walk briskly as I blow out deep mouthfuls of steamy breath that look like smoke.

Sometimes, I really miss being a dragon.

Of course, I’m still a dragon, even when I look like a normal college girl. It’s just, sometimes, I miss
being
a dragon. Because when I’m a dragon, I don’t have to feel nearly so afraid.

College girls are way lower on the food chain than dragons.

So is that why I still have this feeling I just can’t shake, like somebody’s watching me?

I glance around. There aren’t even very many students on this edge of campus, and those I can see have their heads ducked low inside their hoods as they hurry on their way to get out of the cold. I’m far from the library now, getting closer to the restaurant, but I still have to pass between those darkened buildings and the long row of evergreen trees strategically planted to block the snow from blowing onto the parking lots.

The crunch of footsteps fades until I can hear only my own. There is no one around. I’m alone.

I’m jerked suddenly backward by a firm tug on my backpack. I instinctively grab both straps at the shoulders, holding tight to the bag while I spin around, whipping my right boot toward my attacker’s head.

My sole makes contact with a ski mask a good six feet off the ground. This dude is tall.

My kick does not drop him.

Seriously? That was a hard, direct kick.

He doesn’t even waver, but lunges toward me, his gloved hands grabbing mine, trying to pry my grip off my backpack straps.

The dude has a vise-like grip, never mind the gloves.

Thankfully, I’ve been practicing various martial art forms my entire life, and a dozen hapkido evasive maneuvers spring to mind.

Snapping forward at the waist, I simultaneously bend my knees and flick my arms out. It means briefly letting go of my backpack straps, but the combined force of my other movements should be enough to toss this guy flat on his back in the snow.

Should
.

He grunts, rises maybe two feet off the ground, and grabs my backpack straps.

We wrangle and heave and wrestle, with neither party taking any advantage.

For an instant, I’m tempted to take on full dragon form. I could swallow this guy in one bite. But other than the fact that taking on dragon form would mean shredding my clothes Hulk-style and leaving me mostly naked in the freezing winter—and of course the obvious problem that I might be seen in dragon form—I stay human because I don’t know who this guy is.

He’s got to be one of two things. Either he’s human, in spite of his surprising resilience against my kick to the head, in which case I should not need to turn into a dragon, so why go to all the trouble and take the risk?

Or, as events of late have hinted, though it would normally seem like an impossibility, he might be a vampire.

In which case, I don’t want to eat him.

I don’t want anywhere near his blood, so turning into a fanged, taloned creature would gain me nothing but increased risk to myself.

Constantine has never explained why the blood is dangerous, but I’m going to respect his warning and not take any chances.

Even as these possibilities flash through my thoughts, we’re both straining against the straps on my backpack, neither of us yielding any ground.

The straps, however?

The straps, which have survived many a flight in dragon form, not to mention hauling tons of books for me over the past eight years?

Those supposedly indestructible straps?

They’re showing their age.

Or perhaps they’re up against a foe mightier than windstrain at hundreds of miles per hour.

My attacker is slowly pulling the straps free of their buckles. I don’t know if he can get them completely apart, but all he really has to do is make them loose enough, and the bag will practically fall off my shoulders.

Nobody seems to be around on this distant corner of campus at this hour. Certainly no one appears to have noticed my plight. I could scream for help, but there are two factors that hold my cry deep in my throat.

One, if I call for help, even if someone does come to my aid, there’s little chance they’ll be any better at fighting off this guy than I am. Most likely they’d just get hurt. I can’t stomach the thought of that.

And two, if I cry for help and people come running to see what’s going on, even if they don’t intervene, they’ll be watching.

They’ll be witnesses.

I can’t turn into a dragon, not even a partial dragon, in front of witnesses.

I try whipping a leg around to kick the guy again, but he’s in too close now. I can’t slip my arms free of his grasp without giving up my hold on the straps. My elbows seem to be useless, my attempt to head-butt him resulted in a horrid throbbing sensation in my own skull, and I don’t dare bite his hand if there’s any chance he has vampire blood pulsing through his veins.

What else can I do?

Slowly, painfully, the straps are pulling loose.

He’s nearly got it.

But I can’t let him have my bag. Never mind that my wallet and ID and tons of personal information are in there.

My
phone
is in there.

And on my phone, I have contact info for my parents and brothers and sisters. I mean, I keep their numbers memorized and everything, but they’re in my call and text history. They’re findable, callable, textable, maybe even trackable or meetable, if somebody wanted to impersonate me to get to them.

Anybody who takes my phone could use it to find my siblings. And in the case of my sister Wren and my brother Ram, it would lead this crazy attacker dude to my baby niece and nephew, too.

I don’t know who this guy is or what he’s after or why, but I can’t let him get that information. No way can I risk letting him get to the babies.

Forget this slow dance. I start thrashing madly, flapping my elbows like chicken wings, knocking his head back and forth like a cross between a bobble-head doll and a ping-pong ball.

The dude’s making a funny noise.

Okay, an angry noise. Turns out, it’s not funny at all.

He’s sort of… roaring? But kind of quiet like, and what is that other sound?