Dracul (10 page)

Constantine closes the book.

I’d beg him to keep reading, but I’m too tired. And from what I know of the story, there is too much for him to tell it all tonight, even if I wasn’t already exhausted. The book is long, and he’s less than a third of the way through it.

Besides, he promises to pick up where he left off tomorrow.

But when I exit my last Thursday class the next day, Constantine is nowhere to be seen. The day is overcast—the clouds are so thick, the street lights are on.

I get an uneasy feeling as I walk home, not unlike the feeling I had before my backpack was stolen, although right now I’m surrounded by people leaving class, so I should be relatively safe.

Should I call Constantine? Perhaps I should be glad for the reprieve. We’ve been spending so much time together lately. With any luck, my father should be arriving in the next twelve to twenty-four hours. Maybe I should lie low until then.

Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I hurry home, lock my front door behind me, and stretch out on the sofa to wait, phone in hand. After so many late nights, it’s no wonder my eyelids feel heavy.

A thump at the front door startles me awake, and I glance at my phone.

Midnight.

I’ve been asleep for eight hours. But who’s at the door?

Is it my dad? I doubt he could have gotten here so quickly.

The doorbell rings several times in quick succession, and the door rattles against its frame. Whoever is on the other side is growing impatient.

Well, they’re just going to have to wait. I’m not opening the door for trouble. I flick on the porch light and peer through the peephole at the figure on the other side.

It’s Constantine.

I fling open the door and he staggers inside.

“Stay back. Blood.” He drops my slashed-open backpack on the floor and stumbles past me, clutching his shirt. It’s one of those black t-shirts like he’s worn before, and I can’t tell but maybe it’s soaked with blood? Anyway, he’s not dripping on the floor.

I lock the door behind us. Seriously, am I having another nightmare?

“Towels.” Constantine’s voice sounds strained, almost strangled, as he staggers past me toward the bathroom. “Towels you don’t ever need to see again. I will have to burn them.”

This has got to be a dream. Everything is too weird.

And yet, it feels so real.

“Are you okay? Can I help you?” I grab a few of our oldest bath towels from the linen closet beside the bathroom door, step into the bathroom doorway, and gasp.

Constantine is standing in the shower, fully dressed, one hand still clutching near his ribs. With his other hand, he gingerly tugs his shirt up toward his mouth, sprouts fangs, and rips into the shirt with his teeth, tearing it down the middle. He shrugs it off each shoulder in turn.

It falls in a bloody pile on the floor of the shower.

But that’s not why I gasped.

There’s a chunk of wood sticking out of his body, between his right lower ribs.

Someone tried to impale him with a wooden stake.

Chapter Ten

“Toss me the towels. Stay back. Don’t get any blood on you.”

I toss the towels. “Do you need—”

“I’m fine.” He catches the towels with his free hand. “Stay back.”

I step out of the bathroom, but I’m still watching around the edge of the door as Constantine grimaces and tugs the wooden stake out from between his ribs. Before much blood can gush out, he covers the wound with the towels.

It’s a long stake. Seriously, the thing was nearly long enough to come back out his back. Aren’t there vital organs over there? I know the appendix isn’t vital, but you’re still not supposed to stab it open or any of that. Is he going to die?

This
is
a nightmare.

I thought it was bad when I had a dead bat on my kitchen floor. How am I going to explain away a dead vampire in my bathroom?

He’s never going to fit in the fridge.

“Have you got a sewing kit?” Constantine’s leaning against the back wall of the shower.

“Sewing kit?” I repeat, still trying to sort out whether I’m dreaming. Assuming I’m not, and I really do have a mortally-injured man in my bathroom, where could I possibly hide his body? It’s freezing outside now, so the garage is currently like a gigantic freezer case, but the weather will turn warm long before graduation, which means thaw and rot and stench.

This is going to have a majorly negative impact on our resale value.

“A needle and thread?” Constantine specifies. “String? Something sharp and some string, really, is all I need. I can improvise. Do you still have those chicken bones from last night? I’ve made a needle out of chicken bone before. They break easily, but if you haven’t got a proper needle—”

“I’ve got a sewing kit,” I recall aloud. It’s one of those cheap vinyl pouch numbers from the dollar store, but my mom thought it would be a good idea to keep one on hand, in case we ever needed one.

I think she envisioned something more like sewing on a loose button than stitching shut a vampire dying in the shower, though.

As I run upstairs for the needle and thread, my bare feet slap against the cold stairs, and I start to wake up a little more.

All my rational faculties are telling me I’ve got to be dreaming. But all my senses perceive the events as real. When I pinch myself, it hurts.

And I don’t wake up.

Instead, I clamber down the stairs to find my slashed backpack still on the floor near the front door. When I return to the bathroom, Constantine is leaning against the wall of the shower, waiting for me, his face even paler than usual in spite of his natural olive skin tone.

“Just place it on the sink there. I don’t want you coming into contact with my blood.” Constantine doesn’t reach for the sewing kit until I’ve withdrawn my hand and ducked back around the doorway.

This is real.

“What happened? You found the guys who took my backpack?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t have to go looking for it. I can replace everything that was in there.”

“I wanted answers.”

“To what? Don’t we already know they’re looking for Melita Thorne’s translation?”

“That’s precisely what was bothering me.”

“What?” I’m too grossed out by the thought of whatever he’s doing on the other side of the door (no, I’m not watching), to really follow everything he’s implying. Plus, I’m still not one hundred percent awake.

“You said you located a copy of the book, but by the time you reached the library to check it out, it was gone.”

“Yes. They must have beat me to it.”

“Then why are they still after you?”

Constantine’s question hits me like a cold draft. Granted, there was always something not-quite-right about the whole scenario, but I’ve been so busy trying to sort out whether Constantine really is a vampire and how to stay safe from the other vampires, that I hadn’t sat down to analyze that part. Maybe in some ways, I’ve fallen into the classic scholar trap—so focused on my research I can’t see past it.

But now it’s as though Constantine has thrown open a window, and a frigid blast of reality has blown in.

“I—I don’t know. Maybe they think I know something…or have something? Maybe when they stole the book, they didn’t get everything they wanted? Maybe there was a page missing, and they think I took it?”

“Something like that.” Constantine’s voice sounds strained by pain. “When I caught up to them, I demanded answers. As usual, they did not want to give up any information that would give me any advantage over them. Still, they could not help giving away one critical detail.”

Constantine sucks in a sharp breath.

I dare to peek around the door. He’s got the needle in his hand, the thread dangling from the spot where the stake went in. He’s sewing himself closed.

“What detail?” I ask, my eyes pinched shut, my forehead pressed to the cool doorframe.

“They don’t have the book, either. When they went to get it, it was already gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes. And then you showed up asking about the book.”

“But why would I ask for the book if I already had it? Surely the fact that I was asking about it would tip them off that I don’t have it.”

“I asked them the same question. They seemed to believe I was trying to throw them off your trail. Whether you have it or not, you’re the biggest lead they’ve had in decades, and the very fact you knew about the book enough to ask for it is a clue that, in their minds, warrants pursuit.” Constantine emerges from the bathroom carrying his shirt in a bundle made of towels. “I’ve mopped up the blood, but don’t go in there until I’ve sanitized everything. I need to burn these. Does your fireplace work?”

“Yes. Just let me get the plug out of the chimney.” I scoot the grate free and pull out the insulating cap that keeps the cold air from rushing into the living room.

No sooner have I stepped back than Constantine puts the whole bundle atop the pile of kindling I had in there, which came from a small branch that dropped in the yard last fall.

“Matches?”

“Let me look for some.” I retreat to the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, even though I doubt I’ll find any matches. My whole family knows how to breathe fire, so we don’t tend to keep matches on hand.

“Have you got any bleach?” Constantine calls. “And paper towels?”

“Bleach, paper towels.” I hold them out as I enter the living room.

He’s got a blaze going in the fireplace, licking up the towels and the stake and the kindling. I’m staring at it, surprised, as he takes the cleaning supplies from me.

“Thank you. I’ll just be another moment.”

I avert my eyes as I hand the things over to him. His shirt was in the pile of bloody things that are now burning in my fireplace. His otherwise-impressive midsection is marred by a nasty web of black stitches. “Would you like a shirt?” I call after him.

“If you’ve got one to spare.”

By the time I return from upstairs with an extra-large t-shirt (extra-large is always my second choice when larges are sold out. Mediums are just too snug. Though I prefer to think of my size as
above average
. That has a kinder ring to it than
large
.), Constantine is done cleaning the bathroom, and is tracing his path from the front door, wiping down the hardwood floor with a bleach-soaked handful of paper towels, I guess just to be sure he’s got everything.

When it comes to vampire blood, he doesn’t take any chances.

I could ask him a lot of questions, like how he got the fire started or whether he thinks the vampires will leave me alone after this, but the most pressing question on my mind is, “If
they
don’t have the book, and
we
don’t have it, then who has it?”

“I don’t know.” Constantine frowns. “If we’re lucky, the book was stolen by a relatively innocent Dracula scholar—someone fascinated by the story of Vlad Dracula, but otherwise unaware of the secrets his biography might contain.”

Constantine finishes wiping the floor and heads to the kitchen to wash his hands.

Though I’m dreadfully curious about the secrets Constantine’s referring to, another question is more urgent. I follow him into the kitchen. “And if we’re
not
lucky?”

“If we’re not lucky—and, frankly, this is the more likely scenario—the book has been stolen by one of the many immortals who desire to learn its secrets.” He dries his hands on the kitchen towel and heads back to the living room.

“Immortals?”

“Yes. Vampires and the like.” He plants a hand on the back of one of the dining chairs, supporting himself. He looks sincerely lightheaded. “Can you help me with the shirt? I don’t want to reach my hands above my head—it might pull out the stitches.”

For an awkward moment, I struggle to get the shirt in place over Constantine’s head. This requires me to stand quite close to him. It’s like we’re dancing. Or hugging.

But obviously not hugging because the injury at his ribs is still slightly oozy.

“Be very careful not to come into contact with my blood,” Constantine warns me, raising one hand just to shoulder height so I can stretch a sleeve over it.

He smells good. I should not be smelling him, but it’s not like I can just stop breathing. And I kind of want to inhale a deep lungful of his scent, like the woods on a cool fall day, or coming home to a feast of roasted meat.

No, no. I need to think about something else.

“Why did they stab you with a stake?” I ask.

His answer is exactly what I’d have guessed. “The only way to kill a vampire is with a stake through the heart.”

“Yes, but why
kill
you? I thought you knew things. Why would they want you dead?” I’m struggling to stretch the second arm-hole over his other hand. Really, his shoulders are a bit too broad even for the extra-large shirt. When my fingers brush his skin, I feel his icy coldness, and it reminds me again that I’ve never clarified what parts of the vampire myth are real. Is Constantine undead? Is that why he’s always cold to the touch? But he’s answering my question about why the others tried to kill him, so now is not the time to change the subject.

“It was my stake. I went in armed, got the backpack and at least a little information, and tried to tell them to stay away from you. But I was outnumbered and we fought. One of them took a stake from me and used it on me.”

“Do you think he meant to kill you? Or is it possible they missed on purpose and this was just a warning?” Finally, I get the fabric stretched over Constantine’s arm.

“He aimed for the heart.”

“You dodged it?”

Constantine’s smirk is almost wistful. “At most any other point in my life I would have welcomed death—would have leaned in to be sure the stake struck home. By most calculations, my death is five hundred years overdue. But I realized I had to stay alive.” He grips the chair back again and closes his eyes as though it’s too much effort to keep them open.

“Because of the book?” I have the shirt in place. I can step away and put some space between us. Any time now.

But he’s opened his eyes again, and the pull of his gaze is too strong.

“Because of you.”

For a second it’s as though all the air has been sucked from the room.

How many seconds pass, I don’t know. Part of my brain is trying to sort out whether Constantine is flirting with me, but why would he do that since we’re two different species?

Part of my brain is still fighting the urge to press my nose to his shoulder and inhale. That would just be too weird and awkward.

And part of my brain is thinking whatever danger we’re up against must be bad, if he felt he had to dodge death on my account, just to keep me safe.

That is what he’s referring to, isn’t it? Keeping me safe?

All he said was,
because of you.
That could almost imply there’s something more between us, some future—

No.

No, there can be no future between us. We both know that.

His eyes meet mine from inches away. “Shall I translate for you, or do you prefer me to go? It is late and you need your sleep.”

I’m quick to take a step back. “I fell asleep right after I got home from class, so I’ve basically had a full night’s sleep already.”

Constantine gives me one of those wry smiles that’s almost a smirk. “I am turning you into a nocturnal creature.”

“Eh. College students are practically nocturnal anyway.” I dismiss his claim. “But don’t you want to drill me in blackjack?”

“I had intended to, but if it is indeed true that Melita’s translation is in the hands of one of the immortals who is vying against us, then I wish to convey the contents of the original book to you as soon as possible.”

For a moment, it’s all I can do to stare at Constantine and wonder, for the thousandth time, what I’ve gotten myself involved in.

Constantine must be able to read the question on my face (of course he can), because he explains in a cautious tone, “They’re not playing games. I would never choose to involve you, but since they’re already after you, the best I can do now is let you in on all I know. Knowledge may be your strongest defense at this point. Should anything happen to me,” he pauses. His hand hovers over the spot in his ribs where the stake went in, but he doesn’t touch it. Instead he grips the chair back again and meets my eyes. “You may be the only one who can stop them.”