Blessed (23 page)

“I get that it sounds strange, vampires who can play mind tricks —”

“No, some can,” he informed me. “Neophytes, even. Miranda . . .” He cleared his throat. “It’s not that uncommon.”

Freddy, who’d said nothing up until that point, stopped pacing and pushed up his wire-frame glasses. “The ability to enthrall their victims, face-to-face, yes. And granted, there’s a mystical connection between eternals and those humans they’ve blessed — like an invisible preternatural umbilical cord. But, Quincie, what you’re talking about . . . and I don’t say this lightly . . . is a power of Dracula Prime.”

Hadn’t I just told them that?

Freddy drew his slender frame straighter. “It’s long been debated whether the count was truly or at least wholly eliminated by Van Helsing and his friends. A legend among eternals states that Dracula’s uncanny abilities somehow survived his presumed destruction — split and lingering within the weapons that killed him.”

“The knives!” I exclaimed.

“And,” he continued, “if Brad managed to find a spell that would let him access those powers, even just the half housed in Morris’s knife —”

“Is that possible?” Zachary asked, dropping the bread. “Not the spell — I’ve seen my share of magic — but the part about the weapons. You’re saying Drac Prime’s psychic skills have been trapped all this time in the Morris knife?”

“It’s not unthinkable,” Freddy replied. “Count Dracula studied sorcery. He took being an eternal to a far more horrifying level, spawning a new, more insidious breed.”

“The Carpathians,” I said, relieved to have at least that much confirmed.

Freddy nodded. “Of which Dracula is believed to have been the first and last, though he sired others who predeceased him. They were closely related to eternals like you, my dear, conjured into being when the count tampered with the original spell that first created vampires. Or rather, the curse.”

I double-checked my notes. “So there really are
two
kinds of vampires?”

“Only two?” Freddy rested his hands on the back of an empty chair. “Quincie, a staggering variety of supernatural blood drinkers have flourished throughout time and around the world — Babylonia, Russia, Serbia, ancient Greece, Brazil . . .” He glanced at Zachary. “Don’t they teach children anything in the public schools?”

I didn’t bother to ask who’d educated him. “In the novel, Van Helsing says the count studied at someplace called the Scholomance.”

“With Lucifer,” Zachary put in, reminding me of last night’s conversation. “Some slip; some fall.”

The two men went quiet, and I could tell by the way they traded looks that they were trying to decide how much to tell me.

“The kukri knife turned up earlier this year,” Freddy finally admitted, sitting down again. “The bowie knife was believed to have been lost to the ages. Fortunately, the vast majority of eternals don’t take the legend seriously.”

Zachary sipped his sparkling water. “I don’t think the individual now in possession of the kukri knife realizes that it’s more than an antique. Let alone that it houses half of Drac Prime’s powers.”

That had been a carefully worded statement. “You don’t think he’s experimented with it?” I asked.

“She’s wary of sorcery,” Freddy explained, “or at least of its price.”

Noting the gender pronoun, I wanted to ask who we were talking about. But then again, maybe it was better if I didn’t know. We couldn’t risk having Brad rip that information out of my head. If I could help it, he wasn’t getting anything else from me.

Zachary pounded the table. “If this Brad does have Morris’s bowie knife and he’s able to use it to tap
any
of Drac’s abilities, we have to stop him.”

“And before he gets ahold of Harker’s kukri knife,” I agreed. “Given that he knows the legend is true, I’m sure Brad is looking for it.”

Clyde peeked through the heavy red drapes into the private dining room. “Have you told them yet?”

“Not yet,” I replied. “Shouldn’t you be washing dishes?”

He bared his pointy teeth and went back to work.

“There’s more?” Zachary asked.

Glancing from one new ally to the other, I swallowed hard and then explained what Bradley had done with the chilled baby squirrels. I didn’t name names, but I did admit that some of our employees had been infected. “The victims should begin to transform in about a week and a half.”

“Good Lord!” Freddy exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“You’re kidding, right?” I exclaimed. “Think about it. Three total strangers with mysterious ties to the demonic show up just when I need them. Normal people don’t have a history with vampires. Normal people don’t think that vampires exist anymore. If I hadn’t realized last night —”

“Quincie.” Zachary reached for Frank and turned to the October calendar, tapping where I’d circled the 11th. “It’s okay.”

Freddy nodded, holding up a hand in surrender.

“What matters is this,” I said in a rush. “According to Stoker, Mina’s life was saved when Dracula was destroyed. If we could hunt down Brad, his victims —”

“Are likely still doomed to undeath and damnation, just like any of those blessed by common vampires,” Freddy said, drawing his PDA from his pocket. “It’s true that, with Dracula Prime, the transformation of his spawn — including Mina Harker — became dependent on his continued existence. However —”

“Can we please not use the word
spawn
?” I muttered.

“Yes,” Zachary agreed, shooting his friend a look.

“Of course,” Freddy conceded. “But even though Brad might be
using
some Carpathian magic,
he’s
still a typical eternal.” At my puzzled expression, he added, “To whatever degree, Brad may have managed to co-opt those powers of the count contained in Morris’s knife. But Brad’s still Brad. Those abilities are not inherent in him. He transformed you, for example, and you’re not a Carpathian. Neither is he.”

“Though from what you’re saying,” Zachary put in, “if Brad gets ahold of Harker’s knife, too, then he might as well be a Carpathian. He’d have all their strengths.”

Damn. “So, there’s no hope?” I asked. “The infected are doomed?”

“There’s always hope,” the angel assured me.

After work, I parked The Banana on a residential street near the Pease Mansion. I’d brought the standard battle-axe that Kieren had used against the vice principal. The angel had worn his holy sword. Meanwhile, across town, Freddy was looking into the issue of Harker’s knife and how we could prevent Brad from acquiring it.

As I locked my car door, I asked, “How does Freddy know so much about vampires?” I’d expected Zachary to be the one with all the answers.

“Freddy was born and raised among human servants of the worldwide vamp royalty and aristocracy,” Zachary replied, coming around the convertible. “It’s a pitiable subculture, supporting truly revolting dictators. Walking away isn’t usually an option. But for most of his adult life, Freddy managed to stay on the outskirts of eternal high society. Finally, here in Austin, he’s left it completely.”

“Except,” I said, “for playing the vampire chef every night at Sanguini’s.”

As we started on foot through the Old Enfield neighborhood, Zachary explained, “It’s for a good cause. Freddy has always had to be something of a chameleon. Blending in, suiting others’ expectations to survive. But now, aside from the midnight toast, he has the freedom to be himself. And working with us on the side of good . . . That’s something he’s always longed to do.”

I thought about that as we hiked in the dark to Bradley’s two-and-a-half-story 1920s home, entering the backyard through a side door in the tall wooden fence. The cops had been here already, but the angel had wanted to take a look for himself, and I’d insisted on coming along.

With Zachary, I didn’t have to pass for human like I did with the Moraleses, with most of the world. And I didn’t have to be the one in charge, like I was at Sanguini’s and with Aimee and Clyde. Maybe I should’ve been awestruck that he was an angel, and it still caught me up short. But Mama used to say that God was always with us, and Zachary had explained that guardian angels were everywhere, all the time; it was just that they seldom showed themselves. So I kept telling to myself that the whole thing was business as usual.

The back gate was unlocked, and a glass-paned back door offered a partial view of Brad’s kitchen. Peering in, I didn’t see any sign of activity.

Meanwhile, my GA (AKA guardian angel) had slipped off his shirt — leaving him bare-chested in the moonlight — and wrapped it around his hand.

Despite my devotion to Kieren, I still had eyes. I couldn’t help noticing Zachary’s shoulders, chest, abs . . . the inch-wide cherub inked into the skin over his heart. “You have a tattoo? Are you allowed to have a tattoo?”

“It wasn’t entirely my fault,” he replied, punching through a glass pane. “There was tequila involved.”

“Are you crazy? What if there’s an alarm?”

“We’ll find out soon enough.” Reaching in, he opened the door.

No alert sounded.

“Show-off,” I whispered. “I could’ve just forced it open.”

Inside the kitchen, I studied the Viking range, stainless-steel appliances, and the silver Colonial chandelier hanging above the marble island. I could almost imagine Bradley at the stove, sautéing porcini and veal kidneys in a veal stock reduction. That’s when I realized my hands were trembling, and I tightened them on the axe handle.

We skulked through open French doors and the empty dining room into the empty parlor. No leather club chairs, no antique clocks, no bowie knife above the mantel.

Nothing in the sunroom or in the foyer or in the tiny restroom under the stairs or in any of the bedrooms or baths on the second floor.

Nothing in the attic with the pitched roof or out on the south balcony.

“He’s not here,” I whispered.

“Aren’t I?”

Damn. Brad might’ve kept his promise and left, physically left Austin. But what difference did it make if he could still penetrate my mind?

Hauling the axe, I marched down to the basement door. I thundered farther down to the unfinished, windowless concrete room containing the antique iron-frame twin bed. I heard my GA following me, calling my name. But I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t.

I swung the blade into the rusted bed frame. “Damn.”

I swung the blade again. “Damn him.”

Again. “Damn him to hell!”

Again and again, though I couldn’t feel it, not in my arms, back, shoulders.

Though I couldn’t feel it, not in my heart or mind.

I swung the blade until, finally, the frame was nothing but scrap metal, and then I sank to my knees on the cold, gray floor. Crying.

I didn’t know how to be what I was now. Brad’s fault, and in some dark corner of my mind, I blamed him even more for leaving me to deal with it alone. But then again, I wasn’t alone, was I?

Zachary reached for the axe, and I let him have it. He set it aside and knelt, wrapping me into a hug. For a second, I stiffened, not wanting to be touched. But it was such a safe and comforting embrace, like I’d skinned my knee and he was the doting big brother. Like Kieren was to Meghan.

“I hate Brad,” I whispered, hiccupping. “I hate him. I hate losing. I lost myself.”

“You’re not lost, Quincie,” the angel insisted. “You’re still here.”

“I’m dead. Mama and Daddy are dead. Vaggio’s dead. Uncle D. And I’m a dead,
dead
thing. A dead, dead ruined thing.”

“Quincie,” Zachary said, gently raising my chin. “Quincie, look at me. Everybody who ever loved you still loves you. Your parents still love you. Vaggio still loves you. Your grandparents, too. I promise you, kiddo: the love never goes away. You just have to give yourself permission to feel it.”

I pulled back, blinking at him. “That’s how it works? For real?”

“For real.” He almost smiled. “Trust me; I’ve got connections.”