Moon Dragon (8 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Twenty seconds later, we slipped in through a third-story window that had been left cracked open. I cracked it all the way open. There was no fire escape or ledge, and whoever had left it open hadn’t expected someone to climb three stories up a drainpipe. With her son hanging off her back, no less.

“This is cool, Mom!” said Anthony, when he slid off and found his feet.

“Shh!”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

We found ourselves in an administrator’s office, complete with a blinking monitor and a glow-in-the-dark keyboard and mouse and a small, gurgling fountain that was presently running. Wasteful.

“Come on,” I whispered.

The office led to a hallway, lined with many doors. The halogen lighting above was off. The floor was polished vinyl squares. I led the way down the hallway toward an “Exit” sign hanging over another door.

I already knew that my son hadn’t inherited my night vision, which was, apparently, primarily a vampire and werewolf trait. The angel had only bestowed upon him great strength, agility and quickness.

Good enough,
I thought.

I paused at the door at the far end of the hallway and pressed my ear against it. Nothing. I was fairly certain the door would lead to the main library on the third floor. I turned the knob and cracked the door open a smidgen...

I heard a door bang open, followed by the sounds of running feet. Many running feet. Security guards approached, and from the sounds of it, at least three of them. So much for sneaking in.

I turned to my son. “Do
not
tell your sister about this.”

“Oh, I won’t.”

“Or your auntie.”

“My friends?”

“No,” I said. “This stays between me and you.”

“Fine,” he said, and flashed me a giddy smile.

“Are you ready to run?” I asked, as the voices and pounding footsteps got closer.

“Yes!”

And run we did, exploding out of the doorway and hanging a quick right down a side corridor, where we ran along the west wall. The Occult Reading Room was on the south wall.

“This way!” someone shouted behind us.

“Faster,” I said to my son, and we kicked into a whole other gear. Bookshelves swept past us in a blur. I looked back once and saw my son keeping up with me virtually step for step, although I was pulling away. I slowed down and let him catch up. Then we made a quick left. The Occult Reading Room was about halfway down the south corridor.

A bobbing flashlight was directly ahead. Someone was running toward us. I reached back and took my son’s hand.

Unlike the movies, I didn’t just appear somewhere when I ran. I actually had to cover some ground. I had to pass through time and space. There was no movie magic here. Just my son, me, and a security guard, all converging at or around the Occult Reading Room.

We were too far away for him to see us, although I’m sure he heard our pounding footsteps. Our furiously pounding footsteps. The guy probably didn’t know what was coming at him.

“Hang on,” I said to my son.

As we rapidly approached the security guard, who dropped his flashlight and held up what appeared to be a Taser gun, I hung a hard right through a narrow doorway, pulling my son with me.

The security guard screamed. So did my son.

I didn’t blame either of them.

* * *

Worst mom ever,
I thought.

“It’s okay,” I said, hugging my son. “We’re safe.”

“But he’s right—”

“He can’t see us. This is a secret room.”

“Secret?”

“Yes.”

“Like magic?”

“Exactly like magic,” I said.

Outside, through windows that only my son and I could see, we watched the confused security guard sweep his light over the wall. Each time, my son ducked, until he started getting the picture that the guard couldn’t see us.

Still the worst mom ever,
I thought.

More security guards appeared, each sweeping their light over the area while the first guard did his damnedest to explain what had happened.

“They went through here,” he said, and now he sounded like he was doubting himself. He should doubt himself. To all the world, “there” was just a blank wall.

“They went through
where
?” asked another guard.

The first guy pointed his light right at us. My son’s previous reaction was to duck, but this time, he held firm, standing his ground. “Right here. Through this wall.”

All the flashlights hit the wall at once.

“It’s a wall, Mick—”

“I swear to God—”

This went on for another half minute, until one of them got the bright idea that there was a chance that we went left instead of right. And so, they dashed off down a side corridor, flashlights bobbing and pounding footsteps receding.

I felt the presence behind us before he spoke. “You certainly know how to make an entrance, Samantha Moon.”

Chapter Nineteen

I got my son settled in one of the reading chairs, where he was doing just that: reading.

No, he wasn’t brushing up on his dark magic or even studying for his potions finals with Severus Snape. No, he was using the Kindle app on my iPhone to plow through
The Hunger Games
trilogy, reading like there was no tomorrow. And, according to
The Hunger Games
, tomorrow looked bleak indeed.

Anyway, I’d admonished him to not touch anything, under any circumstances. He had agreed with a wave of his hand, face aglow in the phone’s back light. What chance did I have to compete with Katniss Everdeen?

At the Help Desk, Maximus, who was wearing a tee-shirt and sweats, said, “You are annoyed at me.”

“Pissed would be a better word. You didn’t warn me that Dracula himself would come looking for me someday.”

“And if I had, what would that have accomplished, other than to make you nervous? To make you jump at the slightest shadow? There was and is no way to prevent him from seeking you.”

“Well, he did, and he found me, and it freaked me the fuck out.”

“I imagine so. Would you mind if I relived the experience, Sam?”

“Relive away,” I said. “But I’m still pissed at you.”

Maximus sighed and came over to my side of the help desk...and then helped himself to my memories. By helping, I meant he placed his hands on my head and asked me to relax and to go back to when I first saw the Count, as I
was now affectionately referring to him. Anyway, I did go back to when the creepy bastard first appeared in the gym. I then relived the conversation as best as I could remember. A few minutes later, Max pulled away.

The alchemist blinked rapidly, then made his way back to his side of the Help Desk. “He can appear and disappear.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

“And yet, when he was here in the Reading Room, I didn’t see him. And when he laughed loudly in the boxing ring...no one turned to look.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“I don’t actually know,” he said. “But he seems to have the ability to project himself where he wants. Then again, you are the only one who seems to see him.”

“Yay,” I said. “So, what does that mean?”

“I think,” said the Alchemist. “I think he can project an aspect of himself, seen only by you. Or, if not just by you, perhaps others of his kind.”

“You mean vampires?”

“Yes.”

“But am I seeing him, or a part of him?”

“I don’t know,” said Maximus, “but this adds a new wrinkle to stopping him.”

“So, you’re saying this bastard can literally appear to me anywhere, at any time of the day.”

“So it appears.”

That thought alone made me want to run to the diamond medallion, which would, according to Max, remove the entity from within me. Except the entity within me wanted to attach herself to my bloodline. And a female bloodline at that. Leaving my sister—and even my daughter—the next in line for them to attack. I had a thought.

“Couldn’t you just make other diamond medallions?” I asked, knowing the alchemist was more than likely following my thoughts anyway. “One for myself, and for my sister and daughter?”

“You would risk having your sister attacked? Or your daughter? And what if neither of them were able to control my mother? What if she took hold of them early on, possessed them fully, and fled to parts unknown?”

I shuddered at the thought. He was right, of course. The best way to manage—or control—his mother was, for now, through me.

Again,
yay
.

“It’s easy to see the bad, Sam. I know that. Having something dark and angry living inside you cannot be fun. But try to see the good in this, if possible. I think, perhaps, that is your only saving grace.”

“She doesn’t want me to see the good,” I said.

“Of course not. Seeing the good keeps her at bay. Seeing the good empowers you and disempowers her. Seeing the good, in effect, keeps her locked up, where she belongs. Remember always that letting her out, even for a moment, would be far, far worse.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“Madness, perhaps. Or worse.”

“Worse than madness?”

The Librarian shrugged, and I considered again the man known as Vlad Tepes, which, I now knew meant Vlad the Impaler. Had he gone mad...or was he already mad? He didn’t seem mad. He seemed keen...aware. He seemed, above all, stable and in control of himself. That was, of course, until the entity had spoken through him.

“There’s no knowing their relationship,” said the Librarian, following my trail of thoughts easily enough. “And there’s no knowing the extent of Cornelius’ possession of Vlad, either.”

“It has a name?”

“Yes, Sam. Just as my mother has a name.”

At the sound of it, the entity within me—Elizabeth—perked up noticeably. I had a mental image of her fighting against her restraints. She could fight all she wanted.

Max went on, “I’ve sometimes wondered if Cornelius had bitten off more than he could chew.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Vlad might have been a bigger psychopath than even Cornelius. That Vlad might have, in fact, been on the road to mastery himself.”

“But I thought all the dark masters had been banned,” I said. “Run out of Dodge, so to speak. By your mentor, Hermes.”

“And so they had, but it is possible some had slipped through our fingers. Or, in the case of Dracula, someone who was close to being one, but not quite there.”

“And how would he, Dracula, know of this Occult Reading Room?” I asked. “I thought only those who needed the room—or were ready for it—could find it?”

“A good question, Sam,” said Maximus. “My guess? He’s been following you for quite some time...and saw you slip in
here often enough. Such hidden rooms—magical rooms, as you explained to your son—would not be unfamiliar to Cornelius, the entity within Dracula.”

“And he followed me how?”

“Dracula is a shape-shifter with the best of them, Sam. He is purported to turn into fog when convenient.”

“And mice,” I added, recalling my teen years reading Stoker.

“Exactly.”

I chewed on that for a moment. Chewed a lot. Didn’t like it. Wanted to spit it the hell out. Where was a spittoon when you needed one? I said, “So, you’re telling me you’re not sure who is controlling whom.”

“Exactly, Sam. Cornelius was and is a force to be reckoned with, second only to my mother. But Vlad...”

“Vlad is a whole other kind of crazy.”

“Exactly. One the most fierce—and feared—rulers the world has ever known.”

“They make for interesting bedfellows,” I said, and was fairly certain that was the first time I had ever said the word “bedfellows.”

“Indeed, Sam. Potentially, they are unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable from what?” I asked.

“Whatever it is they want. Which, in this case, is to open the veil between worlds.”

“Um, what?”

“The veil,” he said. “Between worlds.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “That veil. Silly me. And this is a veil that Hermes himself created.”

“Created and sealed,” he said.

“And I happen to be a descendent of Hermes,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And where is he now?” I asked. “Seems like we could use him again.”

“Hermes is gone,” said Max, and I suspected we had hit upon a sore spot for him.
He misses him,
I thought. Maximus held my gaze for a moment, then looked away.

“Gone where?” I asked.

“I don’t really know, Sam. There are other worlds out there. Other people who need help. You have experienced these other worlds with the creature known as Talos, who lives in such alternate worlds.”

“You’re making my head spin,” I said.

“Sorry, Sam. But such highly evolved masters as Hermes Trismegistus aren’t long for our world. They’re needed elsewhere.”

“To fight other dark masters.”

“Indeed, Sam. But he would never use words such as ‘fight.’ He saw it as maintaining balance.”

“So, he would go to worlds that were out of balance?”

“Something like that.”

“And our world is balanced now?”

“It had been, Sam. For the past five hundred years.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now,” said Archibald Maximus, “I don’t know. But Hermes did not leave us without hope.”

“Oh?”

“He left behind his bloodline. A very powerful bloodline. I think you see where I’m going with this.”

“I do,” I said. “And I think you might see me curl up in the fetal position any moment now.”

He laughed lightly. “You are more powerful than you know, Sam. And you are not alone. Not ever.”

I was just about to tell him a fat lot of good that did me, when my son screamed bloody murder.