Night Runner (27 page)

He picked me up and set me on my feet. When he let go, I fell to my knees again.

“For what has happened, blame no one but yourself,” he continued. “The day your father died, I should have perished. Burned to ashes. But fate brought you to me, and with your blood I endured. What an irony! To become that which your father once hunted. And to fall into the power of a vampire he himself would have destroyed had you not interfered. God is quite a trickster, is He not?”

He turned his back to me and drifted away. As soon as his eyes were off me, it was like I could suddenly breathe again. But the feeling of relief didn't last long. When he turned and fixed me with a dark stare, I froze again.

“Fate has bound us together, my son. I am your doom.”

He then bent and picked up one of his hostages. With his other hand he ripped open the black bag so that I could see the person inside. It was Charlie! He was bound and gagged, and his eyes were wide with terror. I could see two small, red dots on his throat, as though he'd been bitten, and his skin was horribly pale. Vrolok pushed him to his knees, then grabbed the second bag and tore it open. It was Luna. She didn't look frightened. She was past that. She was in shock. Her clothes were still covered in blood. I could see the same red holes in the side of her neck. She glanced around the room with a face as white as chalk. I couldn't tell if she had any idea what was happening.

The Baron pushed Luna to her knees so that she was shoulder to shoulder with Charlie. “To see old friends, is it not wonderful?”

I raised myself to one knee. I could almost stand up. Almost.

He shook his head, as though I'd disappointed him somehow.

“You know the fate of most vampires. I see that. But no one recognizes madness in themselves. That is for others to discern. And so we have brought your friends along to test you.”

He sucked a breath in past his teeth. The sound of it made my stomach tighten. He watched me with his bulging eyes and I felt them burning into my head.

“You were careless, you see.” He scratched a finger under Charlie's chin. “You told this one you were infected.” Then he glided past Luna and grabbed a handful of her hair. “And this one saw enough to divine the truth herself. Tragic, but fate isn't always kind . . .”

He raised one hand towards me. His fingers were long and gnarled with age, but I had felt them pressing down on my chest. They were strong. His eyes widened for just a second, and again I couldn't breathe.

“It isn't safe for humans to know this about us, and so I am giving you a choice. Consider carefully.” He flicked a finger towards Charlie and Luna. “There were two halberds on the wall earlier. It was most kind of you to bring them to my attention. I had them fashioned into blunt stakes. There are three of you here. Two will be impaled for my amusement. It is for you to decide who will receive this honour.”

The Baron stared at me while I crouched on the floor. I didn't whimper, but I couldn't stop tears from rolling down my cheeks. I pushed myself to my feet. I wasn't going to face him on my knees.

“Good,” he whispered. “Good.”

He waited while I got my balance. The whole time I kept wondering if this was really happening, if I really had to choose. My uncle's words kept coming back to me—that this was a test. It was about my mental state. What was I supposed to do? Argue? Fight? I looked at the Baron to see if there was something in his face that might give me a clue. It was a big mistake. His eyes dug into my brain. What he saw there made him smile, and that's when I realized that my uncle had been duped. My sanity was just fine. I didn't need a test to tell me that.
Neither did the Baron. This was about revenge. It was about cruelty. It was about evil and torture and death. And unfinished business.

The Baron nodded. “Quite right,” he said. “Now make your choice. Who lives? And who dies?”

I
couldn't speak. My lips moved, but no sound came out. The Baron must have seen. Or maybe he just knew what I was thinking. He answered my silent question.

“Why? You ask why? Is the answer not obvious? Your father robbed me of a treasure beyond price. His debt has passed to you. You are here to suffer. And you will. But perhaps not in vain. You could save yourself . . .”

I shook my head. I didn't want his voice in there, telling me lies. He wasn't going to spare anyone.

“Of course I will,” he said. “I am not without honour. And I believe God speaks to all of us in His own way. There were two halberds. Was that not a sign? Two long, wooden shafts for two blunt stakes for two slow deaths. It can mean nothing else.”

I looked at Charlie, then at Luna. I wanted them to understand how sick I felt.

“You can let them go,” I said. “They haven't done anything.”

The Baron shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “They haven't. But you have. You revealed yourself too carelessly.” He looked at Luna and Charlie with contempt. “You must learn to see people for what they are. Food. A resource to be exploited. A source of amusement, perhaps. But never more than this. A hard lesson to learn, but a vital one, if you wish to join me and become a member of my Coven.”

I saw his fingers twitch slightly when he said this, as if he was getting ready to slash something.

“Your father believed a vampire could be tamed. ‘Redeemed,' he called it. A life spent pilfering donated blood. He was a fool. What kind of vampire sucks blood from a bag? We are predators. And a predator makes no apologies. You don't expect a wolf to repent for killing a
deer
, do you?”

The Baron stared at me. I couldn't look away. It would have been a denial of the truth. I had killed a deer in the forest, chased it down and fed. I had been a predator. And I hadn't felt the slightest bit sorry for what I'd done.

The Baron looked amused. He began to circle me. He drifted past one shoulder, then the other. “We are more alike than you realize. The spirit of the hunter is in us both. It stirs in your heart. I see it. Embrace your true nature, and together, we can transform you into something divine. Something eternal. All it will take is a little sacrifice, and a few more nights like the last one, when you found that gift I left for you.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I remembered the boy, the blond twin, whose body I had found at Luna's cottage. Was that what he meant? I saw him nod. He was right behind me, speaking straight into my mind.

“It was good, wasn't it? That first taste of human blood. Why deny it? It is ambrosia to our kind. And it is the only thing that can
sustain you now.” The smile on his face slipped away. The look that replaced it was one of exaggerated pity. “You are weak. That is why you suffer. And yet, only through suffering does one become strong. Don't you wish to be strong?”

The Baron stood in front of me and put his hands on his hips. His head tilted up as he spoke.

“I can make you so much more than you are. But you have to give up your past, starting now. So make your choice. Who dies? Tell me now, or I will have you all impaled.”

I nodded, as though I finally understood what he was getting at, but I was careful to look down at the floor so he couldn't see into my eyes. I couldn't risk that he would sense what I was thinking. That there was a way out of this. I needed the Baron to get angry. So I did my best to irritate him. I made like the Chicago Man and started muttering incoherently. The only thing I left out was the tune.

“What was that?” the Baron said.

I mumbled again, making sure my mouth was moving but my head was down so he couldn't lip-read or look into my eyes and see that I was speaking gibberish on purpose.

“At me, pup,” he hissed. “
Look at me!
”

He stepped forward, grabbed me by the throat and hauled me off my feet so that they were dangling above the floor. It hurt and I couldn't breathe, but it was working. I was so close. All he had to do was toss me against a wall, any wall. Then I could throw something at the windows. A statue. A candlestick. Anything. The sunlight would stream in and kill us both.

Instead, the Baron stared straight into my eyes. He glanced at the painted windows and smiled. Then he turned me around so that my back was against his chest. He wrapped the other arm around me so I couldn't move.

“Clever boy,” he whispered. “Our weakness is known to you. And my strength, you sense that too, do you not? Indomitable. Eternal.
You desire this, too. You cannot hide it. You fear your end. But to hunt through the ages, your mind cannot be mired here. You must let go of all this.” He waved a hand at my friends. “You cannot be connected to anyone but me. Only I will endure.”

The Baron still had his hand around my throat. He let go so that his arms were around my chest in a bear hug.

“Because you are a vampire, because you are immortal, you think that time is not your enemy, but it is,” he said. “Time is a thief. It will take everything from you. All of your friends, the ones you love, they will die centuries before you. All that you value will be stripped away. Music will change. Your language will change. Your country will change. Your religion. Everything will change but you. Cling to the past and it will drive you insane. I am doing you a favour. I am teaching you how to give up that which you care most about. You will thank me for it in time. When you are more evolved in your thinking. More detached and independent.”

He held me up so that I was suspended at arm's length above the floor, then he set me down. By the time I had my balance, he was standing behind Luna and Charlie.

“You will choose,” he hissed. “
Now.
”

I was out of time. We were done for.

Then I heard a knock. Four quick raps. The secret panel opened and Maximilian stumbled in. I recognized him only by his suit. There was a black bag over his head and his arms were tied behind his back. He struggled to keep his feet, then tripped and fell against his desk.

The Baron dropped me. I heard another familiar sound—heels clicking on a hard floor. And that was when Nurse Ophelia walked in.

She wasn't dressed like a nurse when she came to save me. She was wearing a dress. An old dress. And nothing I'd ever laid eyes on was as beautiful as she was that day. Nothing. Not in any painting. Not in any movie. Not anywhere.

The Baron looked absolutely shocked.

“Ophelia . . . How is this possible?”

Ophelia looked at him and smiled. It was a smile unlike any I'd seen on her face. I can't imagine what she was feeling. Regret, maybe? Sadness? Disappointment? I don't know. But an instant later it was gone and her face hardened. When she spoke next, her voice was like granite.

“I have come to offer
you
a choice,
husband
.”

O
phelia and Vrolok stood face to face for a few seconds. Neither moved. Then the Baron drifted past me, but Ophelia raised her hand and he stopped.

I started backing away as quietly as I could. Luna was curled up on her side. I think she was shaking, but I couldn't really tell. I didn't want to take my eyes off the Baron in case he noticed I was sneaking off. Charlie was still on his knees, doing his best impression of a mouse in a reptile zoo. When I put my finger to my lips in the universal “Be quiet” sign, he shook his head. I didn't know if he meant “No, I won't make a sound” or “No, please don't come anywhere near me if that freak behind you is going to turn around and notice I'm still here!”

Then, while we both watched, stupefied, Ophelia reached down, grabbed my uncle by the shoulder and hauled him from the floor so that he was half sitting, half leaning against the side of his desk. She
pulled off his hood. Blood was dripping from a welt on his forehead, but he ignored it. His eyes were alert and focused. I could tell he was thinking. Calculating.

“I am giving you a choice,” she said. “Give up the boy and his friends and we will leave quietly and disappear. Then you and this worm can go back to doing whatever it is you do.”

The Baron had his back to me, so I wouldn't have been able to see his face even if I'd wanted to. The tone of his voice was one of total disbelief.

“Ophelia . . . how?”

“How? How am I still alive? It's simple, really. I never died. Dr. Thomson didn't kill me. He let me go.”

As soon as Nurse Ophelia spoke, I asked myself the obvious question. Why would my father have wanted to kill her? It made no sense. And then it did. Ophelia was a vampire, just like me! She always worked the night shift at the Nicholls Ward. She could see in the dark as well as I could, and she knew what to put in my brain cocktails. She could toss a boy into a trash bin. It made me wonder if she was the vampire Maximilian had referred to, the elusive one he believed had escaped my father.

“Dr. Thomson gave me a choice,” Ophelia continued. “To hide and never again take a human life, or to be destroyed. I chose to hide. And I sealed my contract with a gift, as is the custom. I gave him
my
necklace. And after you killed him, I chose to look after his son, who is the most decent boy on the face of this earth, and if you don't agree to let him go, you're going to die in this room.”

“So that is my choice?” the Baron said. “To let this boy go, or be killed by my
wife
?”

He sounded amused by the whole thing. But just like that, he changed, and his voice was so angry I'm surprised the light fixtures didn't shatter.

“You Judas! You had me believe you were dead!”

I was shocked that Nurse Ophelia could stay so calm in the face of his rage. His voice was an explosion. It made me wish I was on the other side of the planet. But when he spoke again, he sounded hoarse. Deflated.

“How I have suffered. You cannot imagine.”

“I don't have to imagine,” she said. “But I made a promise—to disappear and have nothing to do with you. And I have kept that promise.”