Dracul (17 page)

“A little bit. I don’t know how stretchy, but you’re right—I don’t have time to change. That blackjack table’s not going to stay hot forever, and once Constantine realizes we’re gone, he can teleport here without even having to wait for an elevator.”

In two more minutes we’re ready to go. In a burst of ingenuity, Felix leaves a note:
Gone to find food. Be back later
.

“That will buy us some time, at least until he realizes all our stuff is gone.” I nod with approval.

We’ve left most of the clothes he brought us, besides the ones we’re wearing. It might throw him off. Anyway, we don’t have room for them in our bags.

Felix grabs the empty teriyaki skewers and dumps them into a side pocket of his backpack. The top ends stick out so we can easily grab them, almost like a quiver of arrows. “I hope we don’t need these.”

It’s all I can do to nod. I can’t speak. I don’t even want to think about needing them.

We take the elevator down as far as a floor with a skywalk, then dart over to another tower before taking its elevator down to the ground level, minimizing our chances of running into Constantine while we’re trying to run away.

I get a few odd looks for wearing a bulging backpack with my evening gown, but it’s Vegas and it’s late. I’m sure people have seen far weirder things.

The whole way, in between watching what we say and clamming up whenever people are too close, we’re quietly arguing about how we’re going to get out of town.

“We need to go somewhere we can change. It can’t be anywhere people might see us.” Felix is referring to changing into dragon form, but of course, he doesn’t speak those words aloud.

“It can’t be anywhere near here. We’re only a mile or two from the airport. Too many people watching the skies, way too great a chance of being seen. We’ll have to get further away before we change.”

“There’s a big national park or something on the west side of town. I saw it on the map,” Felix offers.

“That’s like fifteen miles from here or something. I’m not walking fifteen miles with a teleporting murderer after me, not in these shoes.”

“He can’t teleport to you if he doesn’t know where you are, and he has to have been there before. Remember?”

“He said he can only teleport to a place he’s been, or to a person with whom he shares a special connection.”

“Special connection? You think he shares a special connection with you?”

I’m not telling Felix about the kiss. “I don’t know what constitutes a special connection, but at this point, I’m not taking any chances. I’m going to assume that at any moment he could show up wherever we are.”

“Then we need to get far away from here as quickly as possible. The longer the distance, the harder it is to teleport, right?”

Everything I know about teleporting, I learned from either Constantine or my brother-in-law, Ion. I distinctly recall Ion saying something once about longer distances being problematic, but I’m really not clear on how or why or what kind of distance causes a problem. So I shrug. “Right.”

“I say we take a cab.”

But when we get outside, there are no cabs in sight.

“We could call one,” Felix suggests in a voice void of hope.

“That will take too long.” I shiver in the cool of the night. Though the weather is mild even by Vegas standards, it’s not yet March. The temps are probably somewhere in the fifties. Low clouds nearly touch the tops of the tallest towers. “Buses stop too often. They’re too slow. Trolleys are way too slow.”

“Monorail.” Felix snaps his fingers as one goes shuttling by in the distance. He starts walking after it. “Where’s the nearest station?”

“Follow the rail.”

We find a station, vend tickets from a machine, and hop on a north-going car, where I study a map of the route. “This thing only goes up and down the strip. That’s only a few miles.” I’ll admit, I didn’t do a lot of research on Las Vegas transportation options prior to my trip. I trusted Constantine with that responsibility. I trusted him too much.

“When we get as far north as it goes, we’ll hop off and walk or find a cab or something. Anyway, it got us away from our hotel.”

I pull out my phone, call up a google map, and enter the name of the northernmost monorail stop. “We’re still going to be surrounded by miles of city, but here’s a golf course. It’s open space, at least. Should be closed this time of night, so no people around. If we get off at the second to last stop, we’ll be right there.”

“And then what?”

“Then we find a place on the golf course where no one can see us, hide behind some trees or something, turn into dragons, and fly away. It’s overcast tonight with low-lying clouds. If we shoot straight up, no one will see us, and if they do, we’ll look like a streak of light and be out of sight before they figure out what we are. It’s Vegas. There are lots of bright lights in this city. We’ll blend in.”

Felix makes a face that says he’s not so sure, but he admits, “I don’t actually have a better idea, so we’ll go with that.”

“Great, because we’re almost to that stop.”

The good news is, we find our way quickly to the golf course.

The bad news is, it’s surrounded by a high stone wall with sharp spikes at the top.

“Oh, come on,” Felix fumes. “Don’t they trust people to stay off their golf course?”

A car drives by. I walk casually until it’s out of sight, then dart forward to where a
no parking
sign stands atop a solid post about a foot out from the wall. The top of the sign is level with the fence spikes. “Give me a boost up.”

“What? You’re not going to—”

“It’s that or fly over. Quickly now, before another car drives by.”

I grab the sign post with one hand, hold the wall with the other, and step from Felix’s interlocked fingers to his shoulder. Then I grab a spike (the sides aren’t sharp, thankfully, just the tips) and pull myself up, crouching, until I can get one sparkly strappy heel onto the metal bar between the spikes. Once I’m steady, I hoist my skirt high and free of the spikes and sort of launch myself over.

“Ow!”

“Break any ankles?” Felix calls with a grunt. His head appears above the spikes a second later as he scales the wall. Sure, he can do that without help—he’s wearing vastly more practical shoes.

“Don’t land on me.”

Felix politely lands beside me. “Disappointing lack of trees over here,” he notes, looking around.

“Bushes down by the pond.” I gesture, and we hurry toward them. I’m running on my toes because otherwise my spikey heels sink into the ground. I could take my shoes off, but if I can just get behind the bushes and turn into a dragon, the transformation should eliminate the shoes for me (although they’re a lovely pair and I hate to ruin them, but that’s the least of my concerns right now).

So I’m toe-running through a golf course in the middle of the night wearing a bulky backpack and an evening gown, when I hear a sort of grunting noise like somebody landing after jumping over the fence.

I know that noise because I just made it myself.

The low-lying cloud cover reflects the lights of the city back down at us, so even though it should be pitch black here in the Nevada desert, there’s still enough light to see the three men who just leapt the fence.

The one in the middle, I’m pretty sure, is Special Agent Nick Gane, but there’s nothing reassuring about his sudden appearance.

He and his two buddies didn’t just climb over the fence.

They flew.

Large, bat-shaped wings fold into resting position behind their backs as they stride hastily toward us.

I don’t think they’re dragons. Probably none of them actually work for the FBI.

My guess is they’re vampires.

And they’re after us.

Chapter Seventeen

Gane’s gold tooth sparkles as he flashes us a hungry grin, and now I remember exactly where I saw him before, handing me back my bag after it was stolen on campus the first time.

Did one of his buddies steal the bag so he could intercept it and act like a hero for returning it? Why would he do that?

I don’t have time to wonder.

“Run!” Felix grabs my hand and we head toward the pond at a dead sprint.

“Should we change—”

“Not if they have wings, too. There’s no advantage. Don’t show your cards.”

Right. If they don’t know we’re dragons, maybe they’ll underestimate us. Anyway, I don’t have time to strategize.

Normally I’m a pretty good runner, but in high heels on the soft golf course, after sort of jamming my left ankle when I leapt the fence, I’m not at my swiftest. The evening gown and heavy backpack aren’t helping.

The vampires behind us got a running start, and I think they’re using their wings to propel themselves forward, so they’re gaining on us quickly. I can hear one coming up close behind me, so I spin around with a high round kick that cracks the vamp across the face.

Like the vampire I fought the night I was supposed to meet Constantine at the restaurant, this dude barely wavers.

Probably the same dude. The fact that he stole my backpack, which contained the blackjack books, might explain how he knew to look for us in the biggest gambling city in North America. Either that, or he followed Constantine on his flight south.

No sooner does my right foot hit the turf than I jump, cracking him with a left front kick under the chin, snapping his head back.

It’s a dirty move. Seriously, you could kill a person with a move like that.

The dude only laughs, and his eyes glow a sickly green.

He might even be the same dude who tried to steal my backpack the
first
time, and handed it over to Gane to return to me. Maybe they even snuck a bat in before handing it over—that would explain how they got into my place later that day.

So much makes sense now, but I don’t like any of it.

I did not like fighting this guy the first time.

And now there are three of them.

I start throwing every kick combination I know. Front, round, side kick this guy, side kick the other guy, switch legs. Inward crescent, outward crescent, axe kick to the neck while he’s slumped from the last impact, switch legs to kick the other guy. Round, inverted round…you get the idea. It’s exhausting, and the vampires just keep laughing.

It’s not a pleasant sound.

That axe kick should have killed the first guy, but if I’m not mistaken, his green eyes are only glowing brighter. And his orange-eyed buddy seems to be playing with us, bounding back and forth from me to Felix, trying to catch us while we’re distracted with our primary opponents.

Here’s a bit of strategy if you ever find yourself fighting vampires without any weapons at your disposal: use your legs. Legs are way longer than arms, which means if you fight a kicking battle, you can keep your enemy at a much greater distance than you would in a punching battle. Besides which, leg muscles are bigger and stronger than arm muscles, so you can deliver heavier blows.

Anyway that’s the strategy I’m trying to use right now. The only problem is, I still need my feet for basic things like standing and not falling over. The backpack is throwing my center of gravity way off, and in these heels, it’s like I’m trying to balance it all on my tippy toes.

On a grassy knoll.

Did I mention we’re outnumbered?

So I’m throwing all these exhausting kicks, and the vampires appear to be enjoying it. They’re wearing dark, billowy cloaks, which snap and flutter behind them, making it difficult to see where I’m supposed to be aiming.

“We need to get out of here,” I inform Felix as he leans my way, kicking in the opposite direction. We kind of have our backs together, covering each other.

“So they can follow us home? No. We need to end this.” He presses a handful of chicken skewers into my fist.

I look from the flimsy skewers to the vampire I’m currently kicking.

This doesn’t seem like it’s going to work, but I’ve seen crazier things. I clutch one skewer in my right hand, lean in quickly, and shove it in a hammer-fist at the center of the vampire’s chest.

It snaps in two.

Didn’t even poke a hole in his shirt.

This isn’t working. How can I get them to go away? Why are they even after us?

“What do you want from us?” I shout, kicking the green-eyed guy in the head again.

“The book,” Gane answers as he ducks a blow from my brother.

“I don’t have it.”

“We know you do.”

“I don’t.” I punctuate my answer with another kick, this time to the orange-eyed dude.

“You do.”

“Why do you think that?” I hit the green-eyed guy with a series of back and forth abbreviated crescent kicks in a move I liken to the motion of windshield wipers. I’m pretty sure the slit in my dress has torn higher, or else the dress is riding up. Fighting in an evening gown and heels has significant drawbacks for both the fighter and the apparel.

“We know Mircea gave it to you,” Gane answers, a split second before Felix boots him in the face with enough force, it should have knocked all his teeth out.

But vampire teeth aren’t the same as human teeth.

“However,” Gane laughs, unfazed by the blow, “if you don’t have it, then we have no reason to take you alive.”

There’s a moment of near silence after he speaks. The stillness of the golf course is broken only by the sounds of my right foot whipping from the green-eyed dude to the orange-eyed dude. But even as I’m kicking them, their eyes begin to glow brighter, and their laughter deepens with an ominous, thirsty sound.

Like they’re after blood.

I try again to punch a skewer into first the green-eyed dude, then the orange-eyed dude, but they snap and splinter on impact.

The green-eyed dude throws a punch. I duck clear, but on my other side, the orange-eyed guy snaps his foot my direction. I try to move away in time, but his foot clips my backpack, and I stagger sideways.

The motion brings me closer to the green-eyed dude, who’s ready for me. He grabs the strap of my backpack, pulling me close to him with an iron grip.

“We want the book,” he growls, his fangs descending as he pulls me closer to him.

Is he going to bite me?

I have no choice. I have to turn into a dragon and hope his teeth can’t pierce my scales.

But even as that thought occurs to me, before I can act on it, the green eyes go dark, like someone has switched off the light within. The vampire sort of deflates, dissolving into dust before my eyes.

I’ve been panting, but I hold my breath to keep from breathing in vampire dust.

The green-eyed dude’s cloak snaps backward.

Constantine has pulled it off the vampire’s dissolving back. For an instant, I see the wooden stake Constantine shoved through the vampire’s heart from behind him. Then the whole mess of him dissolves.

The orange-eyed dude grunts behind me as he leaps to attack. I spin, skewer in hand, and try again to impale him, only to have the stick snap in pieces like all the others.

“Your heels are wooden!” Constantine shouts as he leaps to where Felix is wilting under Gane’s grip.

I stagger backward a couple of steps, then leap toward the orange-eyed guy, pulling back my toes as I come at him with a fierce side kick, the heel of my sparkly shoe pointed toward his heart like an arrow.

It sinks into his chest.

He dissolves to dust, leaving his cape puddled atop a pile of ashes. I pull my shoe free once he’s mostly gone, and I turn to face Felix and Constantine.

They’re both holding cloaks.

“Did you kill Gane?” I ask.

Felix shakes his head. “He disappeared—teleported away, but I had hold of his cape.”

“What were you doing out here?” Constantine asks.

I’m panting and still kind of stunned. Guilt swirls inside me. “Gane tricked us.”

“Gane is the vampire who got away?” Constantine clarifies.

“That’s what he said his name was. Obviously he was lying about a lot of other things, so who knows what his real name is? Did you recognize him?”

“I didn’t get a look at his face before he disappeared.”

Felix offers, “He was the guy-in-the-navy-blue-jacket-formerly-known-as-the-guy-in-the-silver-jacket.”

“Still don’t know him.” Constantine gathers up the cloaks, snapping the one from the ash pile to free it of vampire dust. “Shall we get back to the hotel?”

Felix and I exchange looks, communicating as much as we can without telling Constantine what we were really doing. Yes, we were supposed to be running away from him, but that was only because Gane said Constantine was a murderer…and possibly partly because I was scared to face him after that kiss.

But I’m nearly positive Gane was lying to trap us.

And running away is clearly worse than facing Constantine. In fact, I’m insanely glad he showed up. “Yeah, let’s get back.” I take a few steps in the direction of the fence, but my legs feel like rubber after all those kicks, and I wobble unsteadily.

Constantine extends his arm.

I take hold of the sleeve of his jacket, gripping it maybe a little tighter than I need to, because I am so glad he’s here. “How did you find us?”

“I jumped to you. I expected to end up in your room, but this is where I rematerialized.”

“You jumped
to me
…even though you expected to end up in my room?”

“I’m not very familiar with your room—not nearly as familiar as I am with you.”

My heart is ramming inside my chest with a beat more frantic than when I was fighting the vampires. I kissed this guy earlier. I kissed him and I liked it.

And I can never kiss him again.

But I really, really want to.

Does he feel the same way about me?

“How did you get out here?” Constantine asks.

“We took the monorail,” Felix answers.

“And you’re wearing backpacks?” There’s a note in Constantine’s voice that I don’t quite recognize. It’s not accusation, nor is it suspicion, but it’s close to both of those things.

“We, um…Gane said you were…well, he was lying to us, obviously.”

We reach the stone wall as I’m struggling to answer. The light is brighter here near the street lamps.

Felix lays down the blunt truth. “Gane claimed to be an FBI agent investigating you for murdering pretty young ladies by slitting their throats. We were running away.”

Constantine’s expression transitions quickly from confused, to appalled, to hurt. “You believed him?”

“He caught me at a weak moment.” Right after I kissed Constantine—not that I want to talk about that right now. “You
are
a vampire.”

“That automatically makes me a killer?”

Felix comes to my defense. “Vampires are traditionally considered monsters.”

“So are dragons.” Constantine gives us a look that says he knows. He knows, and he’s not amused by subterfuge.

Still, I won’t let my guard down. “What do you mean?”

“I know,” Constantine states flatly.

In hopes there might still be room for interpretation, I clarify, “You know?”

“I know what you are. Dragons. I was waiting for you to tell me, as I told you precisely what I am. I thought for sure once I admitted that I am descended from dragons, that you would finally realize I hold no judgment against you, that your secret is safe with me, that I am on your side. I thought you would finally tell me.” He pulls his arm away from my hand. “But you ran away.”

It’s all I can do to stand there, facing him, trying to think of something to say, some explanation that won’t make it worse.

Remember how I really resent being lied to—even more than that, being deceived?

Right now,
I’m
the liar. I’m the one who deceived Constantine, or willfully held back the truth from him even while he was spilling his secrets to me.

I did the thing I most despise, and I did it to a person I care about very much, to a guy who has risked his life to be kind to me even when he knew the whole time there could never be anything between us.

Felix finds words before I do. “How did you know we’re dragons?”

“There is an abandoned castle in Romania. You and your family have stayed there many times, arriving and leaving as dragons. The castle was originally mine, but the government seized it along with so many other properties during the war. To get it back, I must either prove that I am descended from the original owners, or buy it from the government.”

“But you can fake IDs—” Felix reminds him.

“Yes, but I cannot change hereditary record. I cannot at the same time be myself and my heirs, nor would I want to place my family tree under scrutiny. No, it seemed far simpler to raise the funds and buy it back.”