Tenth Grade Bleeds (22 page)

As Jasik helped Otis to stand—much more gently than Vlad had expected him to—a horrified expression crossed Otis's face. One that sent a bolt of terror through Vlad. Otis forced a bitter laugh, as if D'Ablo's twisted plan was of no consequence to him. “I've gone longer without blood.”

D'Ablo clucked his tongue. “You shouldn't utter such lies in front of these impressionable youths, my friend.”

Otis wrenched his body forward, but Jasik held fast. Otis spat a mouthful of blood, which splattered on D'Ablo's cheek. As D'Ablo wiped it from his face with the back of his glove, Otis growled, “I may be a lot of things, D'Ablo. But your friend is not one of them.”

D'Ablo very calmly removed a crisp white handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket and wiped the remainder of Otis's blood from his pale skin. Once it was clean, he met Otis's eyes, his gaze sharp, penetrating. “Enjoy your meal.”

Even Jasik seemed troubled by D'Ablo's words. He pulled Otis back and firmly, but gently, took him out the large metal door. Ignatius wasn't so kind. He grabbed Henry by a handful of hair and dragged him out of the room, kicking and screaming and swearing more than Vlad had ever heard him swear.

The door closed, and Vlad was left alone with D'Ablo. He wet his lips, which were suddenly unbelievably dry.

And though he wasn't as sure of his status as Pravus as D'Ablo was, it seemed like a good way to stall for time while he thought about his next move. “So what now? You can't kill me.”

“No, but with the ritual you were so kind to provide me with, I can withdraw that which gives you invincibility and imbibe it. And then, once I have drunk enough of your blood to render me immune to the horrors of sunlight, I will give you to Ignatius.” D'Ablo met Vlad's eyes and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “With your invincibility gone, he will be able to kill you. And in so doing, it will render me untouchable for all eternity.”

Vlad's stomach shrank in fear. If he could keep D'Ablo talking long enough, he might be able to think of a plan. At the very least, it might prolong his inevitable demise. “So what now then, huh? Do you really think that all those vampires who truly believe in the Pravus will be very happy to hear what you've done?”

“ That fact matters very little to me. You see, the existence of this ritual is not known to many. I myself only discovered it little more than a year ago.”

Vlad racked his brain, but couldn't think of anything he could do to escape. He glanced at each of the doors, and a hopeless feeling swallowed him whole. “So, the fact that nobody knows about it makes it okay?”

“Not at all. The fact that nobody knows about it means that by the time they find out it will be too late. The ritual will be done and I will be invincible.” The corners of D'Ablo's mouth rose slightly in a pleased smile. “No one would dare challenge me at that point. And those who do will fall before me.”

Vlad shook his head. “Dude, you have serious issues. Do you know that?”

D'Ablo laughed, “Is that so?”

“Yeah, it is. And do you know something else? It doesn't matter what you do to me. It doesn't matter if you manage to drain my essence and become invincible. Because there is one thing that you will never be, D'Ablo. You will never be the Pravus.” Vlad's eyes narrowed, his stare never leaving that of his foe. “You will never be me.”

“Enough of this,” D'Ablo snapped. His smile was gone, leaving behind only a bitter grimace. “ The hour grows late and my patience wears thin.”

The door opened, drawing D'Ablo's attention to Jasik as he entered. “It's done.”

“Good.” He turned his eyes back to Vlad. “I'd wager the human won't be your drudge for very much longer.”

“You son of a—”

“Come now, Vladimir, we must be civil. What would your father think if he knew that you were to meet your end slinging curse words and insults? I'm sure he would want you to die with honor and dignity.” D'Ablo bowed his head briefly in respect, as if saying goodbye to the former king of everything. His head still low, he whispered, “Shall we begin?”

Vlad leaped forward and moved with his amazing vampiric speed, grabbing the dagger before D'Ablo knew what was happening. He jabbed the blade upward, sinking just the tip into the underside of D'Ablo's chin. “I don't think so. Now call your cronies off and let my uncle and friend go, or I'll turn your skull into a pincushion.”

Cold, metallic laughter ebbed from deep within D'Ablo.

Furious, Vlad jabbed the blade in deeper. “Why are you laughing?”

D'Ablo met his eyes with a bemused smile. “Because I'm going to enjoy every second of this.”

D'Ablo gripped Vlad's hand and the dagger's handle at the same time. With one powerful thrust, he yanked it to the side, slicing through the flesh and bone of his own jaw. Blood gushed out, coating Vlad's hand instantly, but D'Ablo didn't bat an eye. Instead, he snapped his hand back, and hot pain shot through Vlad's wrist and up his arm. The cracking sound of bone breaking reverberated through his skull. And faster than he could blink, D'Ablo slammed him in the face with the butt of his gloved hand, knocking him backward. Vlad fell back onto the table, where Jasik was waiting. Jasik strapped Vlad's ankles down, then his wrists. As he tightened the strap on Vlad's left wrist, Vlad screamed obscenities and then growled at the mastermind of his torment. “When I get free, I'm going to hurt you like you've never been hurt before.”

D'Ablo smirked. “Child, I have walked this earth for almost five centuries. I have both caused and experienced levels of pain that you cannot even imagine . . . yet.”

D'Ablo picked up the journal and began to read from the pages of the ritual. His deep voice was rising and falling like a song as he formed the words of the Elysian code. He circled the table over and over as he read, stopping occasionally to touch Vlad's shoulder, or his foot, or his forehead. Occasionally he would draw a symbol in the air with his finger and then move again.

Vlad squirmed away from his every touch, but it didn't help. He was trapped. Trapped and scared, and not exactly sure what was transpiring. Worse yet, there was no one who could save him. And no way Vlad could save himself.

D'Ablo finally came to rest at Vlad's left side. He started to repeat the same phrase over and over again, his voice growing louder with each repetition. He placed his hand on Vlad's chest, pressing hard into the bone. Vlad struggled uselessly when he saw D'Ablo's other hand, no longer holding the journal, raised high above D'Ablo's head. The hand fell with force, and Vlad cried out. A six-inch needle plunged deep into Vlad's chest.

The pain was like nothing Vlad had ever experienced before. Not even getting staked could come close compared with the agony that ripped through Vlad. He screamed as a fire seemed to blaze to life at his core. It felt like it was burning its way straight through Vlad's soul.

The syringe filled with a liquid—purple in color, and iridescent, reminiscent of that strange color his eyes changed whenever he touched a glyph—and D'Ablo boiled over with cruel, joyous laughter. “Yes! At long last—the essence of the Pravus has been withdrawn!”

He said something else in Elysian code, and Vlad desperately wished that reading the vampiric language and understanding its spoken form went hand in hand. Without warning, D'Ablo bent down, gnashing into Vlad's unbroken wrist. He drank deeply, and Vlad's head swam as he nearly lost consciousness. Once D'Ablo had had his fill, he swallowed one last time and stood, steadying himself against the table as if he were drunk. He whispered, “I've never tasted anything like it.”

Ignatius entered the smaller door, his eyes full of an arrogant gleam. At D'Ablo's nod, he lifted a blade—the metal a strange blackish-gray, as if it were made of hematite—over Vlad's chest, and Vlad screamed in terror, knowing that his end had come at last. He would never again see his uncle or Henry, never eat Nelly's cookies or hold Meredith's hand, never catch snowflakes on his tongue, or read another book. His life would be over as soon as that blade fell. A thousand images flitted through his mind in his final moment—pictures of everything that he had ever loved and would never experience again—and Vlad knew that there was nothing he could do to stop his end. Death had come for him at last, wearing the face of his own grandfather, and all he could do was scream.

With his peripheral vision, Vlad saw Jasik, and in a second his plan was formed. He pushed as hard as he could with his mind, invading Jasik's thoughts, embedding his own into the vampire's mind, pushing Jasik to act, act now, stop this horrible moment before it was too late.

At first, he wasn't certain that his mind control had worked, but then Jasik closed a hard hand over Ignatius's wrist and twisted the dagger in his grasp. Jasik's fist fell into Ignatius's elbow, bending his arm and forcing the blade into his stomach. Ignatius staggered back, throwing Jasik a wild-eyed look of confusion. Jasik jumped high into the air, meeting Ignatius's temple with a roundhouse kick, knocking him out cold.

Vlad glared at D'Ablo, the burning sensation within him finally subsiding. “Give it up, D'Ablo. It's over.”

Jasik's lips moved, his voice low, echoing the words Vlad had spoken. “Give it up, D'Ablo. It's over.”

D'Ablo looked back and forth between them, his confusion slowly dissipating. He shook his head, snarling at Jasik. “You fool! He's controlling your mind.”

At Vlad's mental command, Jasik pointed the dagger at D'Ablo with one hand and undid his straps with another. When Vlad's left hand was free, he undid his right. “Know this, you overgrown mosquito. Whatever sick fixation you have with me ends here today.”

Vlad unstrapped his feet and climbed down off the table. “I want you out of my life for good. If I have to kill you, I will.”

Jasik's muttering caught up, echoing Vlad. “. . . If I have to kill you, I will.”

Vlad stood, making certain that Jasik remained between him and D'Ablo at all times. As Vlad made his way closer to the door, clutching his broken wrist to his chest, Jasik sidestepped at his command.

D'Ablo snarled, “You won't get far once I've dispatched your puppet.”

Vlad held D'Ablo's gaze as he moved. The door was only a few yards away. “You're assuming I'm not going to make him take your life.”

Jasik's voice followed, sending a chill into the air with his muttering. “. . . make him take your life.”

“We've both made assumptions.” The corners of D'Ablo's mouth tugged upward slightly. Then without warning, he lunged forward and grabbed Jasik, throwing him to the side. With his fangs gleaming in the candlelight, he rushed toward Vlad, a hungry look in his eyes.

Vlad struggled to make Jasik stand, but couldn't make him move fast enough. In a blind panic, he grabbed one of the lit candles from the table and thrust the candle toward D'Ablo, tossing hot wax into his open eyes.

D'Ablo roared in pain, clutching his face and thrashing about the room.

Finally Vlad coaxed Jasik back onto his feet, causing him to leap onto the still-blind D'Ablo with the blade in his hand. As D'Ablo struggled to keep the blade from entering his chest, Vlad bolted from the room.

It took him a second, but soon he recognized where he was and hurried through the next door to the corridor of prison cells. Vlad pushed hard and reached out, locating Otis in the cell at the end, astonished at his ability to take on two mind-focused tasks at once. What he saw when he reached the cell jolted his entire being.

Henry's head was bent to the side, and Otis's mouth was firmly fixed to his neck. Henry's eyes were closed—it looked like he was sleeping . . . or dead. Oblivious to anything else around him, Otis drank, swallowing greedy mouthfuls of Henry's blood.

Vlad felt his control over Jasik waver slightly, distracted by the horror he was witnessing.

Otis was feeding on Henry.

A single tear escaped the corner of Vlad's eye and traced a line down his cheek, before falling to the floor with all of his hopes for the future.

O
TIS, NO!” Otis pulled away, and Henry winced as Otis's fangs slipped out of his neck. Vlad breathed a brief sigh of relief that Henry wasn't dead, but he was still horrified at the scene before him. “What have you done?”

Otis stood, strong once again, his wounds completely healed. “Your drudge saved my life.”

Then he met Henry's eyes. “ Thank you, Henry. I am indebted to you.”

Henry nodded weakly and said, “Hey, you needed blood. I couldn't let you starve to death. Besides, you could barely move and, not that I don't have faith in Vlad's abilities, but something tells me we're going to need your help getting out of here.”

Otis replied, but Vlad was too distracted to hear it. His breathing had picked up in panic, his eyes blurring with tears. But these things hadn't come from him. He focused on the part of his mind that was still controlling Jasik, pushing a bit more until he saw through Jasik's eyes.

D'Ablo was beneath him, holding the blade at bay, his eyes fierce. “You're weak, Jasik. Letting a boy control you like this. You deserve what fate awaits you.”

Jasik was panicking and struggling to regain control—Vlad could sense that much. But he couldn't. Vlad, for once, was too strong—something that pleased Vlad more than he would ever admit to.

But still Jasik struggled, pushing with his mind against the part of Vlad that lurked within him. It was more than Vlad could allow, and he pushed back with all of his might, harder than he ever had before. Jasik lowered the knife momentarily, dazed. Something warm and wet dripped from his nose. It was only when a drop of crimson landed on D'Ablo's hand that Vlad realized Jasik's nose was bleeding. What's more, Jasik seemed dazed, as if Vlad had caused him physical harm, all from pushing with his mind.