The Origin of Dracula (19 page)

A beat later, my eyes caught up to the sensitivity of my ears and I saw why Harry was anxious. At the far end of his former building, one of the residents was looking out of a second-story window.

“We should go,” I said. “They probably called the cops already.”

“We got to stay here until we know what we’re doing,” Harry said. “This plant is what’s keeping him away.”

Lee turned to me. “You’ve got nothing, right?”

I shook my head, and wanted to add,
I got nothing, so why don’t
you
come up with something for a change?
but didn’t—he was on my side.

“Harry—I don’t like taking off, either,” Lee said, “but I know it’s not going to look good if the cops find us here. You got a gun on you, and that’ll lead them to the rifles in the car, and they’re not going to let that slide. They’re going to make a few calls and find a dog lying dead in your living room, shot in the head, and that’s not going to go over too good either.”

“Then let’s just get our butts to another power station,” Harry said without missing a beat.

It was great that one of us was thinking straight. Harry’s mind wasn’t clouded with trying to distinguish between fact and fiction. His goal was simply to survive.

Lee and I used our cell phones to search for other substations. We didn’t just pick the closest one, though—instead we picked one that was isolated, in a neighborhood with big lots, so there wouldn’t be a lot of neighbors. And it abutted Windy Run Park, so there were no neighbors at all on that side of it.

Lee wheeled Harry across the parking lot, and I fell in line. We passed Harry over the metal gate, placed him back in his wheelchair, then headed toward the car. My hypersensitivity was still in full swing. The roar of a plane descending into Reagan Airport was so loud that my bones vibrated. Water flowing in the sewer pipe below the sidewalk babbled so clearly, it was as if I were lying in the gutter listening through the storm drain. And I could hear, emanating from deep inside an apartment, the haunting laughs, compressed and tinny, from the laugh track of an old TV show.

The sights were magnified, too. The street’s granular surface glimmered brightly under the pools of light cast down from the streetlamps—every tiny grain of asphalt sparkled. The pitting in the concrete sidewalk formed thousands of distinct little black wells. And each of the blades of grass that made up the broad lawns reflected its own slice of the moonlight above.

I wondered if my keen awareness was more than that. Was I seeing another world? Another reality? I didn’t have an answer, but I did tell myself that whatever was happening was a good thing. This was the road that would lead to Dantès. He was hiding in this other world.

Of course that’s crazy talk
. Crazy talk bubbling to the surface right after I’d made a decision to steer clear of fiction and steer closer to fact.

We made it back to the car, got in, and drove off. It was late enough now that the streets had little traffic, and the way to Windy Run was familiar territory—Shirlington to Glebe to Lee Highway to Lorcom Lane. I went on autopilot so I could concentrate on Harry’s story.

This time I accepted the help of my crazy talk—I didn’t try to separate fact from fiction. Instead I just searched for clues, connections, and leads. I turned Harry’s story over, this way and that, looking for a detail that might lead somewhere—and I came back to the connection between Cold Falls and Prince William Forest. Then I followed this a little farther down the trail.

Harry had said that Prince William Forest was originally Chopawamsic land, and I knew that Cold Falls had been prime Native American land. The Potomac itself was named after the Patawomeck Indians; I remembered that from my Virginia history class. All of Northern Virginia had once been prime Native American land—glorified land.

Okay… so how was this helpful? I glanced at Harry in the rearview mirror and made another connection. The Bellington genealogy stretched all the way back to that period of American history. Plymouth Colony was the beginning of American history,
and
it was also the beginning of the end of Native American land.

But what did this mean? How was it related to Dantès? I didn’t have an answer to those questions—
what a surprise
—but I had found the right trail, just as surely as those first colonists had entered a new world. And in a way, I had entered a new world, too. But I couldn’t yet make out exactly what this new world looked like—and I had no idea that I was closing in on Dantès’s identity.

But Dantès must’ve known. He must’ve known me so well that he’d calculated exactly when I’d find this trail into the new world. He knew that right about now I’d start to pull against my chains and try to look back at the fire to get a glimpse of the real figures, the ones casting the shadows on the wall.

He must’ve known, because he made his game-altering move right then.

We were close to Windy Run, not more than a half dozen blocks away, and I was stopped at a stop sign. Our car was the only car at the intersection, and we were the only souls here. The houses up and down the street—large, beautiful homes set back on outsized pieces of property—were dark, shuttered for the night.

I was just about to pull forward when out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of someone rushing the passenger side of the car—nothing more than blur of pale skin. I took my foot off the brake, but before I could punch down on the gas, the passenger window shattered in a spray of glass.

Lee reacted instantly, jerking away from the attack, but the glass shards had already done their damage: his face was streaked with bleeding cuts.

A pair of hands—long and bony—reached into the car, seized Lee’s head, and pulled it toward the window. Lee grabbed at the hands and tried to pry them off. I lunged at the thin arms belonging to those bony hands and punched at them. But the man behind those arms was too strong.

He hauled Lee out by the head, and Lee’s torso was through the window so swiftly you’d think neither of us had offered up any resistance whatsoever. I grabbed at Lee’s legs, but they slid through my hands before I could get a grip on them.

Then the sharp sound of gunfire suddenly erupted, shattering the back passenger window. It was Harry—he’d gotten off two shots.

But if those shots had hit home, there was no sign of it. Our attacker—a thin man dressed in black—had Lee’s head in a death grip and was now dragging him across the asphalt toward the sidewalk. It was too dark to make out the man’s face, but I could see Lee, his legs kicking and his arms desperately trying to grab at his assailant.

Harry aimed the gun through the shattered window and fired another shot.

The man stopped, and for a second I thought Harry’s bullet had hit its target. But that wasn’t the case. The man had made it to the sidewalk, where he lifted Lee’s head, then whipped it hard into the curb.

Lee’s body went limp.

I was slack-jawed, overwhelmed with disbelief, but Harry fired off another round. If his shot struck the man, the man showed no sign of it. He just turned from Lee’s body and walked away, in no hurry, down the sidewalk.

Harry threw open the back door. “Get me over to Lee!” he said.

I slammed the car in park, jumped out, and circled around. But I didn’t go over to help Harry. Instead I raced straight for Lee. It crossed my mind to pursue the man—but that option was taken off the table as soon as I glanced down the block. The man was gone as if he’d somehow folded himself into the darkness.

I kneeled down beside Lee. He was out cold. I reached out and turned his body over—and gasped. The blow he’d suffered was brutal. The edge of the curb had opened a deep, bloody gouge in his forehead. Down to the bone. His eyes were open, glassy, and lifeless. Blood oozed from his gaping wound into his eyes, over them, and down his cheeks onto the street.

“Get him back in the car!” Harry yelled from his perch in the back seat.

I pressed my middle and index fingers against Lee’s wrist, hoping to feel his pulse. I waited for the soft thump—the sign of life. When I didn’t feel anything, I closed my eyes and held my breath and pressed a little harder.

A few seconds went by. Nothing.

Eyes still closed, I stuck with it for another half minute. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a pulse.

I remained kneeling over Lee’s body. I wasn’t exactly praying, but I wasn’t exactly not praying, either. Lee’s death was a culmination of sorts. My sympathy for Lee was deep, and the pit of my stomach ached. It ached for Lee, and also for Nate—because at that moment, I realized that there was no way to win this game. That was where this trail was leading.

Where else could a trail into hell lead?

Yet, somehow, for Nate’s sake, I had to move forward anyway. I had to lie to myself and tell myself I could win this game. Against all odds, I had to believe I could win.
They call that faith
, I thought. And that’s why I’m saying I wasn’t exactly praying, but it was close.

Finally, I opened my eyes and looked back at Harry. When I met his gaze, I saw fear in his eyes. He hadn’t betrayed
any
fear all evening. He’d been cool when the dog had entered his apartment and calm when he’d executed it. But facing Lee’s death was something altogether different. Lee had been Harry’s lifeline.

I stood up.

Harry slid back from his perch on the back seat and pulled his car door shut.

“We can’t go to the Windy Run substation now,” I said, accelerating down the block and around the corner. “I’m sure one of the neighbors heard the gunshots and the cops are on their way.” Lights had already come on in a few of the houses.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Harry didn’t respond. He was staring out the shattered window, and the fear I’d seen in his eyes had spread to the rest of his face. It was drained of color.

“When we get far enough away, I’ll pull over and look up another substation,” I said.

Harry wasn’t adding his two cents’ worth. Not that I blamed him. He was shaken by Lee’s death.

We drove for about ten minutes in silence. The entire time, I tried to keep my mind off of Lee’s murder and on my route. I wanted to avoid main streets and even those side streets where police cruisers would be on the lookout for anyone associated with the dead body—which by now they’d certainly found. Luckily, Arlington was my home turf and I knew what streets to avoid.

“Lee wasn’t like his dad,” Harry said, his shaky voice breaking the silence. “He had some rough patches, but he never made excuses. And he got it all together when he married Grace. She was a sweetheart. So was he. Hot head and all.”

His eyes watered up, so I looked away from the rearview mirror to give him some privacy.

“Goddamnit,” he said. “Why the hell didn’t this fucker go for Macon? I know that’s an evil thing to say of your own brother, but it’s the damn truth. If he wanted another Bellington, he shoulda taken Macon. That boy ain’t never gonna turn his life around.”

I couldn’t help but glance at the rearview again. Harry was wiping tears from his cheeks when he suddenly turned to the mirror and caught me looking at him. “Why you?” he said.

“Why me what?”

“Why did Dantès—ain’t that what you call him?—pull
you
into this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. This was the very same question I’d been asking myself since the moment Harry first presented his Hatfield and McCoy theory. “I’m not a Bellington, so why’d he add me to his list?”

“You wanna know what I think?”

“Of course.”

“Are you gonna believe me?”

I glanced over my shoulder and met his gaze. The fear on his face was changing back to confidence; his jaw was taut and his brow was stern. So was I going to believe him? I didn’t know, but I said yes, and I did my best to look like I meant it.

“I know you ain’t gonna believe me,” he said. “At least not yet. So why don’t we start with what
you’re
thinking? Why do
you
think he’s playing his games with you?”

“I was there that night at Cold Falls with Lee,” I said. “Wrong place, wrong time.” That was the only explanation I had.

“Nah. You’re thinking small. That ain’t the reason, and you know that in your heart. Do you really think this guy is playing that simple a game?”

Harry was right. I already understood that Dantès was playing chess while I was playing checkers.

“He killed Art Craig, my buddy,” Harry said, “and I never did figure out why. And it’s not like I haven’t had the time to think about it. I’ve had years to think about it and I still haven’t come up with a damn thing. But I know it wasn’t random.”

“What about chalking it up to collateral damage?”

“Don’t you worry. I thought of that. But this guy don’t do collateral damage. He’s laser-guided, not a daisy cutter.”

I couldn’t have agreed more. Dantès’s modus operandi wouldn’t allow for randomness. His games were too elaborate, too planned, spanning decades—even centuries if Harry was to be believed. Dantès was doling out breadcrumbs, but the breadcrumbs were part of this elaborate game. And this game was the key to fighting him. This game was the big picture. It was the loaf of bread from which Dantès was plucking his breadcrumbs.

And what
was
the big picture? Why
had
I been drawn into this?

“As far as we know,” I said, “there are five people who aren’t Bellingtons that are part of this. Grace—Lee’s wife—and Lucy—my wife. Then Quincy, Art, and me.”

“Nah, take it from me. Lee’s wife counts as a Bellington. Dantès don’t discriminate. I saw what he done going way back, and marrying in counts.”

So that left Lucy, Quincy, Art, and me—and I got it right then and there. The big picture suddenly came into focus. The light bulb moment was shining bright. My heart started racing and my chest tightened. I was elated, frightened, and even more baffled than before. Baffled because even though I had just now graduated from checkers to chess, moving forward with this clue meant I’d have to trust more in the very thing I was running from.

Novel therapy.
The one place I didn’t want to look for leads. The place that had failed me. But novel therapy now pointed to one book. One very specific book.