Eighth Grade Bites (15 page)

They continued walking toward their house. The silence broke when Nelly said, “We'll just straighten this out right now, Vlad. No worries.”

Vlad jerked his eyes toward the house. Mr. Otis stood in the front yard, near the porch. Vlad squeezed his aunt's arm and halted his steps, but Nelly tugged him along, as if his fears were unreasonable. She smiled at Mr. Otis, but Otis didn't smile back. “Mr. Otis, may we have a word? It seems Vlad is upset by something you wrote on his paper.”

Mr. Otis had his eyes locked on Vlad. His skin was pale, his jaw set. His eyes had sunk in some, as if he needed either rest or sustenance—or both. He nodded slowly and gestured to the door, as if by retaining his gentlemanly qualities, his crimes would be ignored.

Vlad pulled away from Nelly, remaining with his feet firmly fixed to the sidewalk.

Nelly cast him with a sympathetic glance. “Come inside, Vladimir. Let's all talk this out. You'll feel better after we do, I promise.”

Otis stepped closer, but despite his fears, Vlad didn't back away. “Yes, Vladimir, let's go inside. We wouldn't want your secrets becoming public now, would we?”

Vlad didn't say a word. In his mind, the image of those words on his paper, the image of Otis's hat in Mr. Craig's house, the image of his parents' bodies reduced to ashes flipped over and over, like a sick Rolodex of morbid thoughts.

Nelly retreated into the house, probably hoping Vlad would give up and follow. He resisted doing just that until Otis walked inside and closed the door. When Vlad entered, he heard Otis's voice in the living room. “No more running. No more giving your ward the opportunity to hear me out. You'll both listen now, and then I can deal with what must be done.”

Vlad peeked around the corner. Nelly was sitting on the couch and Otis was pacing in front of her. Vlad's aunt looked spellbound.

Otis tilted his head toward a chair. “Sit down, Vladimir.”

Vlad looked over his shoulder at the door and then at the stairs. He could get out, get help, bring the cops back, and explain that Otis was a madman. But Otis would kill Nelly for sure and divulge to the world that Vlad was a vampire. Loathe the idea of listening to the fiend as Vlad did, he knew when he was trapped. He sat in the chair and watched Otis pace silently for several minutes.

“Where's the book?” Mr. Otis was looming over him, and though the room was warm, Vlad swore he could see clouds of breath escaping from his teacher's mouth. Vlad glanced at the leather-bound book, which was lying on the coffee table where he'd left it. Otis followed his gaze and, in a few steps, snapped the book up in his hands. “How much of this have you read?”

Vlad shook his head, professing ignorance of the book's contents. “I haven't read a word. It's written in some weird language.” He shrugged and offered, “I'm not even sure it
is
a language.”

Mr. Otis blinked and then blinked again. He looked at the book in his hands and back at Vlad. Clutching the book to his chest, he resumed his pacing across the room. “Your father never taught you Elysian code? The vampiric language?” he asked.

Vlad pursed his lips stubbornly. “How did you know my father?”

Mr. Otis's booming voice reverberated in the room. “Did he teach you the code?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Vlad looked at Nelly, who shook her head, indicating she was clueless as well. It didn't surprise him that she was. His dad had been pretty secretive about the vampire world—apparently
very
secretive. He dropped his eyes to the book in Mr. Otis's hands.

Mr. Otis loosened his grip on the book. “So you don't know.” He lowered his voice so that Vlad had to strain to hear him. “Did Tomas ever speak of Elysia? The vampire world?”

Vlad shot Mr. Otis a glare, and suddenly a wave of hunger washed over him. He could see himself biting into his teacher's neck, popping the skin between his teeth like a berry until the juices flowed down his throat and filled his belly. He wanted to taste Mr. Otis's blood, and he was starting not to care that he'd be injuring another person. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, once more under control. Mr. Otis might be a monster, but Vlad was nothing like him. “Why are you asking me so many questions? I don't know anything. Just let us go.” He glared again, but Mr. Otis was no longer looking at him.

Mr. Otis's eyes were kind of glazed, and he was regarding the space between Vlad's feet with growing interest. “I can see it in your thoughts, like watching a short film. He told you about Elysia, but as bedtime stories, fairy tales. And he told you so little. He left out most of it, even the name, leaving you with false images embedded in your imagination.”

Otis shook his head, raising his gaze to meet Vlad's. “The journal.”

Otis stretched his mouth wide, exposing his fangs and eliciting a gasp from Nelly. “Your father was an outlaw, Vlad. He left Elysia for the love of your mother. Revealing vampiric heritage to humans is forbidden, let alone engaging in a romance with one. Those who do are hunted down, and their lives are taken for their crimes.”

Though he fought it, a tear dripped from the corner of Vlad's eye and rolled down his cheek. He didn't want to cry. Not here in front of his parents' murderer, not here when he was about to die. He tried to look away from Otis's fangs, but they gleamed in the soft light, demanding to be seen. Beside him, Nelly was shaking in her seat, muttering things that Vlad couldn't understand. He met Mr. Otis's eyes. “So that's why you killed my parents. But why did you kill Mr. Craig? And why kill us? We haven't broken any of your laws.”

Mr. Otis stopped, as if Vlad had kicked him hard in the chest. “Is that what you think? No, Vlad. I could never . . . I wouldn't kill you. I could never bring myself to harm a family member.” Otis's fangs shrank slightly. He regarded Vlad with shimmering eyes. “Vladimir, I'm Tomas's half brother. Your uncle.”

“What?” Vlad blinked again, trying to make some kind of sense out of the words his teacher had spoken, but he couldn't. What Mr. Otis had said was crazy.

Nelly glanced nervously between Vlad and Mr. Otis.

“My uncle?” Vlad said. “But you killed my parents and Mr. Craig.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Then for glob's sake, why'd you scare us like that?” said Aunt Nelly. It was something she had always said as long as Vlad had known her:
for glob's sake.
Vlad rolled his eyes, then looked to Mr. Otis for his reply.

Mr. Otis looked at Nelly and then at Vlad, stretching out his palms in front of him as if he were pleading for forgiveness. “I'm sorry. It wasn't my intent to frighten you. I needed you to sit and listen. Every time I tried to talk to you, you'd run away. I need you to tell me what you know about Tomas and Mellina, and exactly what happened to both of them.”

He glanced out the window again and then took a seat on the sofa, his elbows on his knees, his fingers raking back the hair from his face. “I was shocked to hear of their deaths. In fact, after Mr. Craig disappeared, I volunteered to take his teaching spot to find you, Vlad. I thought if I found you, I could find Tomas. I'd never planned to harm you or your parents. I only hoped to protect you from the vengeful justice of Elysia.”

Tears coated his cheeks, and the sight of them made Vlad feel insignificant and small. The man he'd thought a monster was braver than he was. Brave enough to cry.

Nelly stood and crossed the room, placing a caring hand on Mr. Otis's shoulder. “We don't know what happened. It was an accident, their death. A dark mystery to us all.”

Vlad swallowed a lump in his throat and pushed the image of his parents to the back of his mind. “Where is Elysia?”

A sigh escaped Otis. “All around you. Elysia isn't a place one can visit, Vlad. It's what we call vampire society. Coexisting with our own world—that is Elysia. The council gathers in Stokerton.” He tapped the book's cover and handed it back to Vlad. “Everything you need to know is in here. I can teach you the code if you'd like. But later, when things are safer for you.” His eyes shifted to the door, as if something terrible were going to burst through it at any second.

Vlad gripped the book in both hands. A million questions cluttered his mind. “But your hat . . . and that symbol . . .”

“I need you to trust me, Vladimir. I loved your father. We were more than brothers, we were best friends. It pained me when he left, when he chose your mother over Elysia, but it was his choice to make and I respected that.”

He pulled up his sleeve and held his wrist up for them to see. Vlad cringed a bit at the symbol—a guilty cringe, one from a boy who'd actually accused his uncle of being a murderer. When Otis turned his wrist, the symbol glowed slightly, like the glyph he and Henry had discovered in his father's study, like the one on the book he was holding.

“This is my symbol, my name in Elysian code. When a vampire vows to protect someone, we leave our symbol on something that belongs to them. It's called ‘marking' and it serves as a warning to others that should they harm this person, they should expect harm returned to them by the one who did the marking. Vampires are honor-bound. If we bother to mark someone, it is taken quite seriously. Your father marked Mr. Craig as a vow to protect him, by carving his name on his porch, just as surely as I marked you by carving mine on the box in your dresser. Unfortunately, someone ignored your father's mark.”

“Who
did
kill Mr. Craig?” Nelly blurted.

“D'Ablo, though I'm not sure why. He could have fed on any number of Bathory citizens—did, in fact, on a young woman. But why he chose a man who'd been marked by your father is beyond me. Perhaps he'd hoped to anger Tomas, bring him out of hiding, which is where all of Elysia believes him to be.”

Otis went to the window and pulled the drapes open an inch. It was already dark outside and there was strange electricity in the air, as if a storm was fast approaching.

“Who is D'Ablo, anyway?” Vlad asked.

The normally mellow Amenti jumped at the glass, hissing at the shadowy figure that was approaching the gate. Vlad jumped too and tried to see out the window. His heart was racing.

“That's D'Ablo,” Otis said. “The president of the Elysian council. You remember him, Vlad. He was the one I was talking to while you were in the tree the other night.”

Vlad blushed at the realization he'd been caught. Nelly muttered something that sounded very much like “grounded.”

Otis pulled the drapes closed and turned from the window. “We need to hide you. D'Ablo has plans to take you to Elysia to be punished for your father's crimes—for your very existence.”

Vlad's heart skipped a beat, and then continued its race. “I can hide in the attic.”

“I'll come with you,” Otis said. “D'Ablo mustn't see me.”

They rushed up the stairs to the attic, shutting the door behind them. Otis sat on the attic floor and closed his eyes.

“What about Nelly?” Vlad asked.

“Shh. I'm trying to concentrate, Vlad.”

“But she's still downstairs.” Otis kept his eyes closed. He didn't answer, so Vlad could only guess his concerns were being ignored. Stretching his thoughts downstairs, he pushed into Nelly's mind, but found only a haze of images and general confusion.

Coming back to himself, Vlad looked at Otis. “Are you clouding her thoughts?”

Otis frowned in irritation. “I'm making her believe she knows nothing about you or me—it'll protect her from D'Ablo. Now hush.”

Suddenly Otis opened his eyes wide and looked at Vlad. “He's taken her.”

The meaning of his words hadn't settled in Vlad's mind before Otis was down the stairs and running toward the front door. Vlad bolted after him, calling to his aunt. When he reached the door, he found Otis slumped against the doorjamb, looking out into the darkness. Vlad swallowed hard. “Where is she?”

“He's taken her to Elysia, no doubt as bait for you.”

As the anger boiled up within him, Vlad felt his fangs tear through the gums, pushing out to full length in a matter of seconds. He looked past Otis to the darkness outside. His heart rammed up against his ribs. “Come on.” He shouldered past Otis and moved down the sidewalk, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of D'Ablo and Nelly.

Otis approached and placed a calm hand on his shoulder. “Where do you think you're going?”

“To Elysia. We're going to save my aunt.”

A look of terrible concern crossed Otis's face. “Vladimir, that's exactly what he wants.”

Vlad looked out into the night, determination in his eyes. “Then let's give it to him.”

O
TIS SMIRKED, BUT WITH a glare from Vlad, he stopped. “If you're serious, we'll go. Have you mastered your animorphing capabilities yet?”

The young vampire answered this question the only way he could. With a blank stare.

Otis sighed. “Okay, so flying's out. We'll have to drive, but we'll need a drudge to watch the car. Do you have one?”

Vlad blinked again, and in his confusion, his fangs began to shrink. “A what?”

“A drudge.” Otis waited for a spark of recognition in Vlad's eyes, but when he didn't see it, he sighed again in frustration. “Do you have a human who you can control? Who you can make do your bidding, follow your will with little effort?”

Vlad bit his bottom lip, not realizing his fangs were still protruding some, and licked away the blood quickly. “Well, I guess that would be Henry.” He was pretty sure Henry wouldn't be amused at being referred to as a vampire's human slave, but he was the first person who came to mind. Vlad scratched his head and his fangs retreated fully. “But he doesn't really do everything I ask him to.”