Chapter 16
AEGIS WAS RIGHT. The currents of air flowing into the cavern created a soft symphony, almost sounding like voices on the wind. We crept forward, my stomach knotting as we went. I had had my share of nerve-wracking adventures, creeping into caverns to look for vampires, but it had been a long time since then, and the edge I had during my hunting days had faded into a soft blur. But I was stronger than I was a year ago, and I had more stamina. Even so, delving deep into the catacombs that ran beneath Bedlam didn’t promise the excitement that I valued.
“Follow me,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Be cautious. Max, keep an ear open for anybody who might take a mind to swing in behind us. It will be difficult to tell if there are secret passages inside, and we might miss some of the side tunnels. I don’t want anyone looping around behind us to catch us unawares.”
“Do you really think we’re going to find Dracula here?” I asked, both hoping and yet fearing that he might say yes.
“This is the sort of place he would hang out. Dracula is an old-school vampire.”
“So is he truly Vlad the Impaler?” Max asked from behind.
“No,” Aegis said. “Although Vlad actually idolized him. Dracula was around long before Vlad. That said, Dracula is his ancestor. I know the two met and that Dracula refused to turn Vlad into one of the Fallen. They had a blowup about it, and Dracula left. The two looked so much alike, rumors started that Vlad was actually Dracula. When he was captured, they cut off his head and impaled him through the heart, thinking to destroy the vampire. His body was buried in a tomb that still remains hidden, once his body was returned to his family. His head was burned. So while Dracula is a relative of Vlad’s, he existed long before the Impaler took his name and his throne.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. “When our hunt swept through Romania and Transylvania, people there seemed to think they were one and the same. I suppose old rumors die hard, and sometimes they become legends. And those legends become truth. At least as far as the general public is concerned.” I thought for a moment. “Is there anything we should know about Dracula that Essie didn’t tell us?”
“I’ve never met the man, but I do know that he’s ruthless and cunning. He has several weaknesses, however. He likes fame, and he likes his legendary status. If he could handle modern living, he would probably be up and still running through the world. I doubt, though, that he would choose to have woken if the Arcānus Nocturni hadn’t brought him around. In fact, I wonder if he wasn’t trying to die.”
“What do you mean?” Sandy asked. “Vampires can’t die, not like we can. If he wanted to die, why didn’t he walk into the sun?”
Aegis turned to stare at her for a moment, his expression thoughtful in the glow of the flashlight beam. After a few seconds, he gave her a small shrug.
“Do you realize how terrifying it is for a vampire to even think about walking into the sun? Those who do are usually desperate. For one thing, the fire burns with a searing pain that is almost beyond imagining. And Dracula, as old and as tired as he probably is, isn’t desperate. He doesn’t regret his nature, he isn’t ashamed of who he is. The killing, the blood drinking, it’s part of his very essence. No, I think he preferred to sink into a sleep from which he would never wake up. He didn’t expect the Arcānus Nocturni to wake him up.”
“So he’s ruthless, has an allergy to witches’ blood, and a ego to match his legend. He’s also weaker than normal, one factor in our favor.” I tried to think of anything else, but other questions eluded me.
Aegis turned back to the passage, his finger to his lips.
We followed him silently as he led us deeper into the tunnel. The walls were rough and sharp, formed by pickax and hammer rather than nature. Here and there, we saw wooden beams and cross-pieces shoring up the passage. I tried to look for side passages, but it was so dark that we could barely see the floor in front of us. Sandy had another flashlight and as we went along, looked for anything Aegis might have missed.
The smells in the passage were dank, filled with mildew and dust, and the scent of decaying seaweed. I wrinkled my nose, but tried not to sneeze. I found myself thinking how vampires had used these passages early on, to come and go into Bedlam as they chose. And now, the Vampire Queen of the Pacific Northwest was living out in the open and everyone accepted her.
It truly was a changing world, and these would not be the last of the changes. My kind—witches—could live upward of six or seven hundred years, or more. Most of us only had one or two children in our lifetimes, and many, none at all. We were still rare in the world of humans and other Pretcom, but I wondered if that would change as well.
I was caught up in my thoughts when ahead, a sudden noise startled Aegis into stopping. I ran into his back. Sandy grabbed my wrist and pulled me back beside her as she turned off her flashlight. Aegis had already turned off his.
That will teach me to keep my mind on what I’m doing, I thought.
A gust of wind hurtled through the passage and I caught a fetid scent on it. It was familiar in a distant sort of way, and I tried to remember where I had smelled it before. Suddenly, I knew what it belonged to.
Goblins. We hadn’t seen any for quite some time. Since I had moved to Bedlam, I hadn’t had any run-ins with the creatures. But every now and then they made an attempt to sneak into our community, and we kicked them out as soon as we found them.
Goblins were of an ill nature, creepy little creatures who thought only of gold and silver and themselves. Most of them were thieves, and more than a handful were murderers as well. Usually, goblins didn’t think twice about offing somebody when they wanted what their opponent possessed. Greedy and lecherous, they were one species we could do without.
“Goblins,” I whispered to Aegis.
Sandy overheard me. She stiffened.
Aegis motioned for us to back up. I realized that we were near a juncture in the passage. Which way led to the goblins was hard to tell, the smell was so rank and filled the air so much.
“Get back—” Aegis started to say, but was interrupted when four goblins came dashing around the corner, running headlong toward us.
Goblins were bipedal, like humans, but there, any resemblance ceased. Their eyes were narrow and dark, evolved for seeing in the dim light rather than sunlight. They were lean and stretched thin at around five feet tall. But their size cloaked their strength. Goblins were strong, and wiry quick. Most of them generally wore their hair pulled back in a braid or ponytail, leaving the sides of their scalp to show. The hairline started at the middle of the skull, and their teeth were sharp and razor-like.
“Just move back slowly and don’t turn around,” Aegis said. “Do you know if goblins speak English?”
“They’re nasty, not stupid,” I said. I was trying to see their expressions in the beam of Aegis’s flashlight, but it was difficult to read their faces and I had no clue whether they understood us or not.
“So what the hell are we going to do now?” Sandy asked. She rested her hands on her hips, staring at the goblins in front of us. “Maddy, can you use your fire?”
“I suppose I could try, but I have no idea exactly what would happen. I’ve never used it in such an enclosed place before. What about your wind? Can you drive them back with it?” Sandy was extremely powerful with air magic.
“I can try,” she said. She took another step back, separating herself from us so that we wouldn’t take the brunt if her spell backfired. I pressed myself against the side of the cavern, digging my hands into the nooks and crannies formed by the rock. Max noticed what I was doing and followed suit.
Sandy cleared her throat. She held out her hands, and began to sing.
Waves of wind, waves of air,
gather here, flow to there.
Shake and rattle, rage and storm,
a funnel cloud, please to form.
Aim be swift, aim be true,
chase them down, and pursue.
A massive gust raged through the corridor past us, shaking the walls as it began to form into a ceiling-high funnel cloud. I dug my fingers deeper into the nooks and crannies that I was holding onto, and Aegis braced himself against the storm. Max flattened himself against the passageway wall, and we watched as the miniature funnel cloud touched down in the center of the tunnel, spinning toward the goblins. I wanted to clap, but I didn’t think that would be a wise move, given that I was still trying to hold on and not let the wind suck me into it.
“That’s one nasty funnel,” I said.
Sandy, who was focusing on controlling it, merely nodded. She was making maneuvers with her fingers, and I realized she was controlling the pathway of the storm. The funnel cloud raged down on the goblins, and they scattered, turning tail to run back into the other passage. A tangible snap echoed as the cord between Sandy and the funnel cloud broke, and she let it go, spinning it ahead into the hallway. It rounded the curve. Without another sound, it turned the corner and vanished from our sight.
“Well, I have a feeling they aren’t going to bother us for a while.” I grinned at Sandy. “Nice funnel cloud. We should remember that next time somebody gets in our way at the supermarket.”
Sandy snorted. “It’s nice to have a reason to use my spells, you know? Sometimes I feel like we don’t get enough practice with our more powerful magic. We should go out in the country and let ‘er rip.”
“Let’s save that for after Fata goes home. I don’t want to see her let it rip. Not after the storms have been buffeting the island.” I tapped Aegis on the arm. “Should we continue?”
“I suppose,” he said. “Although I’m not certain that Dracula would be using the catacombs if they’re filled with goblins. By the way, isn’t there a law against goblins coming into Bedlam?”
“Yeah, and I need to talk to Delia about that. She needs to bring a force down here to clear through the catacombs, now that we know they’re hiding out here. But since Essie thinks Dracula might be down here, we’d better press on.”
We continued on until we found ourselves in the middle of the juncture. It was a triple fork in the road, with passages branching off to the left, the right, and continuing straight ahead. I skirted around Aegis and walked a few steps down the passage ahead, sniffing deeply. When I returned I shook my head.
“The goblins have been that way, so I doubt if we want to continue straight until we search the other two. Let’s start with the left.” I backed up behind Aegis again, resting my hand against the chiseled wall.
We headed deeper into the catacombs. I was relieved that we weren’t facing a bunch of mummies. Even the non-animated ones were spooky, and the few I had seen over the years who had been resurrected through necromancy were terrifying. They were fast, they never tired, and you had to burn them to stop them, unless you could somehow reverse the spell that brought them to life. In fact, most of the undead were better off left in Halloween stories. More often than not, they turned on those who had given them back what resembled a life force. And except for vampires, none retained any semblance of the person they had been in life.
The path began to slope downward, the grade steepening as we descended farther into the cavern. The air thickened, and while it was still breathable, it felt stale and musty. I found myself thinking about miners, and the canaries they took into the shafts to tell them when the air went bad. I couldn’t do that—I couldn’t ever use another being as a guinea pig—but I understood why they did what they did.
The passageway began to narrow as we continued, and my nervousness grew proportionately. As the tunnel became too narrow for us to walk side by side, Sandy had to swing behind me. Here, I could extend both my arms, and my fingertips on either side scraped the sides of the tunnel. Ahead of me, Aegis slowed down, holding up his hand for us to stop. I motioned to Sandy and Max and we all froze. I tried to peek beyond him, but I could only see what seemed like a never-ending tunnel deep in the cliffside. I wanted to ask what he had heard, because he had cocked his head to the side, sweeping his hair behind his ear as though to listen.
The only sounds I could hear were the sounds of Sandy, Max, and me breathing. I closed my eyes as we stood there, reaching out, trying to touch the energy around me. It seemed to roll in like the mist, thick and viscous, almost cloying. Inhaling slowly, I drew a deep lungful of breath and analyzed what I could smell.
Dampness, of course. A sense of mold and mildew from deeper in the tunnel, the sting of salt water in the air. And…something else. Something pungent, like freshly turned soil on a rainy day.
I’m not certain how long we stood there, but it seemed like a very long time until Aegis straightened up again. He leaned toward me, cupping his hands around my ears as he whispered.
“I thought I heard the sound of moaning up ahead. Now, I can’t hear anything. Try to be quiet as we go. Tell Sandy and Max, but do it quietly.”
I turned, holding my fingers to my lips and motioned for Sandy and Max to close in toward me. Max leaned over Sandy’s shoulder, and I leaned forward so that I could whisper to both of them. It felt oddly intimate.
“Aegis thought he heard something up ahead—a moan or something. He’s not sure now. He asked us to be quiet as we go. So watch your step.”
They nodded, and I turned back and tapped Aegis on the shoulder, giving him the go-ahead. We started on again, in what was beginning to feel like a never-ending journey.
Another ten minutes in, and Aegis stumbled. He froze, bracing himself against the wall. A moment later, he turned the flashlight beam on the floor ahead of us to show an abrupt slope, where the passage suddenly took another steep decline. One more step and he would have tumbled down the slope.
Aegis started forward, cautiously testing the tunnel floor as he went. It was rocky and slick, and now extremely steep. As I came to the edge and realized that there was about a twenty-foot descent that would be fairly treacherous, I regretted not bringing some sort of walking staff. Aegis glanced back at me and immediately jogged back up the slope to hold out his hand and help guide me down.
Once we passed the entryway to this portion of the passage, I saw that there was a dropoff of about twenty feet to our left. The rock wall continued to the right. The path had narrowed considerably, now about two feet wide, and it looked harrowing in the light of the flashlight.
The floor was so rocky that I was inching forward, clinging to the wall, afraid of slipping over the edge. Finally, Aegis picked me up and, resting me over his shoulder, carried me down the slope, setting me down at the bottom. Then he returned for Sandy and carried her down as well. Max made his own way down, though he was cautious and looked like he might topple over the edge.
We found ourselves in a chamber, about the size of a small ballroom. It was hard to tell whether there were any other doors or passages along the circular wall, and the floor here was smooth, at least where we were standing. The flashlight’s beam only penetrated so far into the gloom. For all we knew, Dracula could be standing on the other side of the chamber and we wouldn’t be able to see him. But if anybody was down here, they could surely see us by now.
“What now?” I was growing more wary all the time. I had the feeling we were walking into a trap, although I didn’t see how it could be. Unless Essie and Dracula had made a pact together, and I had my doubts about that.
“You stay here while I circle the wall. Keep your weapons ready. I’ll make sure you know it’s me when I’m on the way back.” Aegis took off to the right, edging along the wall. We could see him for a little while and then he vanished into the gloom, his flashlight a vague flicker in the air. My only consolation was that if we were having a hard time seeing Aegis and he had a flashlight, then anybody else here would be having a hard time seeing exactly how many of us there were.
“I can’t believe I’m standing here with a fanny pack full of my own blood,” Sandy said.
“I can’t believe that I’m standing here wearing a fanny pack packed with your blood either,” Max added.
I smiled, grateful for the light banter. I was tired and weary, and I really wasn’t looking forward to a fight with the godfather of vampires. At least one of the godfathers. We waited in silence, until a few moments later, Aegis’s voice echoed out of the darkness to our left.
“It’s me,” he said before stepping into the circle of light from Sandy’s flashlight. “I found two other passages leading farther into the cliffside. I think we’re underneath the Gull Springs area.” Gull Springs was a neighborhood not far from Beachcomber Spit. It was inland a little ways, and it was one of the older neighborhoods in Bedlam.
The name tweaked something in memory.
“Hold on, I think I remember something.” It had happened earlier, I realized, something that we had been thinking about doing. And then, I remembered.
I snapped my fingers. “One of those abandoned houses we were talking about is in Gull Springs. I wonder if there’s a secret passage leading from the house down to here. I just can’t imagine Dracula hanging out down here, except to use the tunnels to come and go by. The impression I get is that he’s a snob. And snobs don’t hang out in dark caverns.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out,” Aegis said. He took off across the chamber as we hurried to keep up. When we approached the other side we saw that, yes, there were two exits to the chamber. I walked up to the left one and leaned inside, sniffing deeply and closing my eyes. It smelled more fetid and dank than where we were. Then I approached the other and did the same. There was a flicker of movement in the air, and I inhaled again. This time I could smell rain and chill weather.
“This way. I can smell it. I smell rain and the outdoors. This must come up near a house or something. Shall we go?”
Aegis took the front again. “Be cautious. If we are near Dracula’s hideout, we’re likely to come up in the basement or someplace close to that. And he’s probably living in the basement, given the fact that we need protection from the sun.”
“No,” I said. “Remember? Dracula can walk abroad in the sunlight. He’s one of the Arcānus Nocturni.”
“Damn it, I forgot,” Aegis said, an angry look on his face. “My mistake could have gotten us all killed. Please, be careful and don’t rush into anything. Go quietly.”
He led us into the tunnel and immediately the floor began to slope up. The ascent was as steep as the descent, but it was easier going because there were handholds along the side and the rocky outcroppings gave us a place to steady our feet and hands. We weren’t exactly rock climbing, but it felt close to it. Ten minutes later, we were nearing the top. Aegis shut off the flashlight and we were plunged into darkness.
“I don’t want to alert anyone who might be up there. Wait here, and I’ll be back in a moment.” He began to creep up toward the opening, and though I couldn’t see him ascend, I could hear the faint movement of his boots against the rocks. We waited for what seemed like an eternity before he returned.
“It lets out into a basement,” he said. “Just like you thought it might. There’s a door that leads to the outside, and it’s open. The basement looked deserted, although I did see a coffin there. It must be Dracula’s, but I didn’t see any sign of him. Either he’s out, or he’s upstairs in the main house. Whatever the case, be very cautious when we arrive at the top.”
We continued to climb in darkness, and a few moments later, we came to a trapdoor that was open. The smell of rain and wind rushed through, a welcome change from the fetid air of the caverns. Aegis went through the trapdoor first, and then a moment later he reached down and pulled me through. Sandy came next, easily slipping through the trapdoor and out on her own. Finally, Max followed.
The room was dimly lit from a single bare bulb overhead. It looked like a typical basement, with tools hanging on a corkboard against one wall, and dusty old trunks against another. The furnace was to one side, and a workbench next to it. And in the center of the room, a coffin sat on sawhorses. It reminded me of Aegis’s setup downstairs in the Bewitching Bedlam. I had tried to convince him to change it out for a bed, given the sunlight never penetrated his lair, but he told me that he wasn’t comfortable falling asleep outside of his coffin. There was too much vulnerability involved. I understood and had dropped the subject.
“Should we just wait?” I glanced around and saw another staircase leading upstairs, probably to the main floor of the house. Thinking quickly, I pulled out my phone and brought up Bjorn’s email with the house addresses on it. Sure enough, when I looked at my GPS, we were in the last one on the list.
“We are in an abandoned house, like I thought. This is one of the ones Bjorn told you about.” I glanced at Sandy.
“I’m not sure whether I’m glad to be right or not,” she said.
“At least we know there isn’t a family involved, at least not any that we know of. I’d hate to think there was a lineup of corpses up there. And you know, with Dracula, that’s what we would have.” My fingers itched, and I absently reached for the stake. I was fiddling with the handle, when I realized that my entire body was tingling, and I felt an adrenaline rush that I hadn’t in a long, long time.
“Crap,” I said. “Get ready, my intuition tells me he’s coming.”
I barely managed to pull out my dagger in one hand, my stake in the other, before the door at the top of the stairs opened. There, looking larger than life, stood a dark-haired man in a black suit. He was wearing Armani, that much I could tell from a glance. There was no penguin suit, no flying black cape behind him, but the feeling of dread was so strong that I almost dropped my weapons and ran. I hadn’t felt anything like this in a long time. I heard a faint whimper behind me, and I realized Sandy was feeling the effect of his glamour as well. His energy was so strong and magnetic that it rippled through the air like heat waves, encompassing all of us. Aegis seemed the only one who wasn’t affected, and he stiffened and let out a slow growl.
Dracula said nothing as he slowly descended the stairs. He kept his eyes fastened on me, never wavering, as though he could glue me to the spot with just his gaze. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to force the butterflies to a remote corner of my stomach so that I wouldn’t panic and screw up. I held my stake high, and my dagger firm as he approached.
He stopped just out of arm’s reach, and held out one hand toward Aegis. With a flick of his fingers, Dracula muttered something under his breath and Aegis went flying back, slamming against the workbench so hard that the left leg of the bench splintered, and the large circular saw that had been sitting on it slid off, narrowly missing Aegis’s head. He looked dazed as he struggled to his feet.
Crap. Dracula knew magic.
Instantly, I jumped back, slipping my dagger back into its sheath. The stake might work, but I’d never get close enough to him to use it and I knew it. Instead, I quickly unzipped the fanny pack and pulled out a vial of my blood. There was only one way to take care of Dracula, at least as far as I was concerned. My confidence shaken, I forced myself to stand my ground.
I pulled the cork out of the vial with my teeth and, before I could actually stop to think about what I was doing, I raced directly toward him, splashing the blood in his face. Some of it missed but a few ounces managed to spray his cheek. His face sizzled as smoke wafted up into the air.
Dracula hissed, narrowing his eyes as he reached toward the burning spot on his face. It looked like he had an acid burn, and I realized that Essie was right—witches’ blood was an incredible weapon against the ancient vampire. If we could get enough on him, we might be able to put him out of commission for a while. At this point I wasn’t convinced anybody could kill him, the energy of his aura was so incredibly strong. If he was like this when he was weak, I dreaded thinking what he’d be like at full strength.
Dracula waved his fingers to my right, and a blinding flash behind me startled me enough into turning around. Max was in his weretiger shape, crouching on the ground, letting out a pitiful yell as he rubbed his face with his paw. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but he had obviously shifted quickly enough to rip his clothes off him.
At that moment, Aegis came flying across the room, tackling Dracula and taking him to the ground. They scuffled, rolling on the ground. Dracula might be strong, but Aegis was as well, and it looked as though they were almost evenly matched.
I turned to Sandy, who was kneeling by Max in tiger form, frantic. “How is he?”
“I think he’s injured,” she said, trying to convince him to let her touch him.
But Max swatted at her, growling deep in his throat, and then he slinked away, low to the ground, trying to hide from her.
“Your pack—the vials. Quick!” I grabbed two more of the vials out of my own pack.
Cautiously approaching the fighting vampires, I was terrified at the display of strength and fury that I was witnessing. Aegis’s eyes had turned thoroughly crimson, which meant he was completely caught up in his predator self.
Dracula, too, was fighting fang to fang. This was a fight to the death and only one of them could walk away. I pulled open the stoppers on the two vials, and waited for my chance. As Dracula straddled Aegis, his hands around Aegis’s throat, I managed to sidle in at an angle where I could see his face. Before he could look away, I threw the blood directly into his eyes.
Dracula screamed as I threw the other vial on his face as well.
Sandy came running in with hers, but she tripped and fell, the vials slipping out of her hands to land on Aegis. The blood trickled down to Dracula’s fingers, and he let go, staggering back, clutching at his eyes.
There were no flames, but it looked like acid was eating away at the flesh. I grabbed up my stake and started pursuit. As I was racing toward him, Dracula whirled, raising his hand.
A wave of energy slammed into me so hard that it knocked me off my feet and I went flying back through the air, crashing against the wall. My stake went skittering across the floor as the room began to spin. I gasped for air, trying to catch my breath.
Inside, I could feel my fire began to grow. I tried to contain it, but it was as if gasoline had just been thrown on my inner flame. As I stood, my only focus and thought was to burn the vampire who had done this to me. Aegis, Sandy, and Max vanished from my thoughts as my sole focus turned to Dracula.
Memories of the village in Romania swept over me, and the passion I had felt as the flames raced down the mountainside returned in full force. I held up my hands, conjuring two balls of fire to flicker in my fingers. Somewhere in the distance, I heard Sandy shouting something, but I couldn’t be bothered to listen.
The only thing I wanted was to destroy Dracula in fire and flame, to rid the world of his evil. I stoked the fire, feeding it as it grew stronger. It sprang from a ball of fire in my hand to flames shooting from my fingertips and I held my hands out, aiming at Dracula, and sent the full force of my anger and fury out like a whip of flames in the dim light of the basement.
I caught him in my flames just as he turned into a bat and flew quickly away, wobbling from side to side. He vanished out of sight. In vain I looked for dust, something to tell me that I had killed him, but the next moment, Aegis slapped me hard, bringing me out of my haze.
Sandy was screaming for Max, and I realized that the basement was on fire, blazing so bright and so hot that I couldn’t even see the exit. As the manic anger vanished, I realized that we were in danger of burning to death if we couldn’t find our way out. If we couldn’t escape, it would be my fault, and we would all be dead.