I gasped, mostly because no one had been standing next to me just a few seconds ago. I was certain of it. Somehow, I managed to calmly turn and look at whoever was standing next to me, whoever had managed to sneak up on even me, which, I was certain, was virtually impossible to do.
“It’s you,” I said.
“It is me, yes,” said the man I instantly recognized. “Is this section of the mat taken?”
“No,” I said before realizing that I probably should have said yes. Not that it mattered. Any man who could sneak up on me—and the Librarian, too, for that matter—was going to talk to me whether I wanted to or not.
The man nodded and I almost—almost—sensed that he could read my mind. He was dressed a little too nicely for a boxing gym. Hell, a little too nice for Fullerton, in general. His black suit was immaculate, if not a little dated. His thick black hair was slicked back with some sort of oiled wax—Brylcreem maybe—and combed perfectly. Although his clothing and hairstyle seemed a little dated, there was nothing old-fashioned about the brightness in his eyes. They flashed over me quickly and appreciatively, and he made a show of sitting down by unbuttoning his jacket and flipping up the longish tails as he sat. I had a mental image of a maestro taking a lunch break.
As he sat, I caught sight of his claw-like fingernails. I also sensed the impenetrable wall around his thoughts and a distinct lack of an aura.
He was a vampire, and, I suspected, a very old one.
He sat smoothly, in one fluid motion, his narrow limbs coming to sharp points. In fact, he didn’t use his hands at all. He dropped down, legs folding under him neatly, like a collapsible picnic table. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said he glided down.
Meanwhile, in front of me, my son danced in the ring with Jacky. Granted, Jacky wasn’t doing much dancing these days, but he kept pace with my son, using the punching mitts, urging my son to keep his hands up. My son, for his part, seemed to revel in the workout. Heck, he even seemed to enjoy Jacky’s good-natured verbal abuse. Once, after a flurry of devastating punches, he reached over and ruffled the Irishman’s gray hair, to the old man’s surprise and, I believe, delight. This got a swift condemnation from Jacky, but they did pause, and I caught the two of them laughing in the corner of the ring a moment later.
“Your son has phenomenal control and power,” said the man sitting next to me. He had an accent that I couldn’t quite place. Then again, I’d always been crappy with accents.
“Long story,” I said.
“I would like to hear it someday,” said the man.
I shot him a look. And the more I looked, the more I could see the fire blazing just behind his pupil. It was, I was certain, the brightest fire I’d seen yet. What that meant, I didn’t know. But there it was, a single flame leaping and crackling and snapping. I should have found it distracting, except I found it to be the exact opposite.
I found it hypnotic.
So, I shifted my gaze to his long, slender nose. I had to. I felt myself...slipping into his own flames. So strange. I said, “You assume I’ll see you again or that I’ll want to talk to you.”
“Perhaps I was loose with my speech.”
I forced myself to look at my son. My warning bells had been ringing steadily, although not very loudly. There was danger here...but not immediate. I said, without looking at him, “You also presume that I care about what you like.”
“And you don’t?”
“I could give a fuck about what you like.”
He threw back his head and laughed loudly. Except...except no one looked at him. No one but me.
“I can see why Elizabeth was keen on you, Samantha Moon. You remind me so much of her. In fact, you look quite a bit like her.”
I glanced at him. “Elizabeth?”
“Don’t you know?” he asked, raising a single narrow eyebrow. His sharp elbows rested lightly on his equally sharp knees.
“Know what?”
“Ah, I see her son hasn’t yet shared her name with you.”
The flames inside his pupil danced and wavered and sputtered as if a wind were rattling around inside his skull.
“That’s her name...”
“Indeed,” said the man.
“Her name is Elizabeth...” I heard myself say. Hearing her name had a strange effect on me. It...humanized her. I wasn’t sure I wanted her humanized. I preferred to think of her as a demon. It was bad enough that I thought her son was kind of cute.
“And a fine name it is.”
The entity within me responded to her name, and came rushing to the surface of my thoughts, but I shut a mental lid on her before she got too far, or could take too much control.
“And who are you?” I asked.
But the man next to me seemed to guess what I was about to ask, for he was already standing and giving me a small bow. He tipped a non-existent hat, and said, in a rolling, sing-song voice, “Wladislaus Dragwlya, at your service.”
Coming from him, coupled with his strange accent, the “W” sounded like a “V” to my ears.
In fact, I was certain he had said...Vladislaus Dracula.
Chapter Sixteen
I caught myself rocking a little and breathing hard, although there was no damn good reason why I was breathing hard. It was a reaction, I knew. A reaction to yet the further absurdness that was my life. That had been my life for the past nine years.
While I breathed and rocked and tried to process, the man continued to watch me sideways, sitting completely still. The fire behind his pupils seemed almost palpable, to radiate real heat. But I knew that was not true. Vampires were cold, were they not?
My son took a short breather, although he barely seemed to breathe hard. Jacky, however, staggered away from the heavy bag. The poor guy literally didn’t know what had hit him. First me, then my son. He must have thought we were the freakiest of freaks.
Not the freakiest, I thought. In fact, the original freak was sitting next to me now.
Dracula.
I forcibly calmed myself. After all, had I not met other vampires? Hell, I had encountered werewolves, angels and body-hopping demons. Wasn’t he just another...
No, he wasn’t.
He was fucking Dracula and, according to the Librarian, the original vampire. The first vampire. The oldest vampire.
Jesus...
“You seem upset, Samantha Moon.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” I said. “If, you know, you just met you. Okay, that sounded lame.”
He threw back his head and laughed easily. “Yes,” he finally said when the laughter subsided. “I suppose I would be upset, too, if, you know, I had just met me.”