“Pissed would be a better word. You didn’t warn me that Dracula himself would come looking for me someday.”
“And if I had, what would that have accomplished, other than to make you nervous? To make you jump at the slightest shadow? There was and is no way to prevent him from seeking you.”
“Well, he did, and he found me, and it freaked me the fuck out.”
“I imagine so. Would you mind if I relived the experience, Sam?”
“Relive away,” I said. “But I’m still pissed at you.”
Maximus sighed and came over to my side of the help desk...and then helped himself to my memories. By helping, I meant he placed his hands on my head and asked me to relax and to go back to when I first saw the Count, as I was now affectionately referring to him. Anyway, I did go back to when the creepy bastard first appeared in the gym. I then relived the conversation as best as I could remember. A few minutes later, Max pulled away.
The alchemist blinked rapidly, then made his way back to his side of the Help Desk. “He can appear and disappear.”
“You can say that again,” I said.
“And yet, when he was here in the Reading Room, I didn’t see him. And when he laughed loudly in the boxing ring...no one turned to look.”
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
“I don’t actually know,” he said. “But he seems to have the ability to project himself where he wants. Then again, you are the only one who seems to see him.”
“Yay,” I said. “So, what does that mean?”
“I think,” said the Alchemist. “I think he can project an aspect of himself, seen only by you. Or, if not just by you, perhaps others of his kind.”
“You mean vampires?”
“Yes.”
“But am I seeing him, or a part of him?”
“I don’t know,” said Maximus, “but this adds a new wrinkle to stopping him.”
“So, you’re saying this bastard can literally appear to me anywhere, at any time of the day.”
“So it appears.”
That thought alone made me want to run to the diamond medallion, which would, according to Max, remove the entity from within me. Except the entity within me wanted to attach herself to my bloodline. And a female bloodline at that. Leaving my sister—and even my daughter—the next in line for them to attack. I had a thought.
“Couldn’t you just make other diamond medallions?” I asked, knowing the alchemist was more than likely following my thoughts anyway. “One for myself, and for my sister and daughter?”
“You would risk having your sister attacked? Or your daughter? And what if neither of them were able to control my mother? What if she took hold of them early on, possessed them fully, and fled to parts unknown?”
I shuddered at the thought. He was right, of course. The best way to manage—or control—his mother was, for now, through me.
Again, yay.
“It’s easy to see the bad, Sam. I know that. Having something dark and angry living inside you cannot be fun. But try to see the good in this, if possible. I think, perhaps, that is your only saving grace.”
“She doesn’t want me to see the good,” I said.
“Of course not. Seeing the good keeps her at bay. Seeing the good empowers you and disempowers her. Seeing the good, in effect, keeps her locked up, where she belongs. Remember always that letting her out, even for a moment, would be far, far worse.”
“How bad?” I asked.
“Madness, perhaps. Or worse.”
“Worse than madness?”
The Librarian shrugged, and I considered again the man known as Vlad Tepes, which, I now knew meant Vlad the Impaler. Had he gone mad...or was he already mad? He didn’t seem mad. He seemed keen...aware. He seemed, above all, stable and in control of himself. That was, of course, until the entity had spoken through him.
“There’s no knowing their relationship,” said the Librarian, following my trail of thoughts easily enough. “And there’s no knowing the extent of Cornelius’ possession of Vlad, either.”
“It has a name?”
“Yes, Sam. Just as my mother has a name.”
At the sound of it, the entity within me—Elizabeth—perked up noticeably. I had a mental image of her fighting against her restraints. She could fight all she wanted.
Max went on, “I’ve sometimes wondered if Cornelius had bitten off more than he could chew.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Vlad might have been a bigger psychopath than even Cornelius. That Vlad might have, in fact, been on the road to mastery himself.”
“But I thought all the dark masters had been banned,” I said. “Run out of Dodge, so to speak. By your mentor, Hermes.”
“And so they had, but it is possible some had slipped through our fingers. Or, in the case of Dracula, someone who was close to being one, but not quite there.”
“And how would he, Dracula, know of this Occult Reading Room?” I asked. “I thought only those who needed the room—or were ready for it—could find it?”
“A good question, Sam,” said Maximus. “My guess? He’s been following you for quite some time...and saw you slip in here often enough. Such hidden rooms—magical rooms, as you explained to your son—would not be unfamiliar to Cornelius, the entity within Dracula.”
“And he followed me how?”
“Dracula is a shape-shifter with the best of them, Sam. He is purported to turn into fog when convenient.”
“And mice,” I added, recalling my teen years reading Stoker.
“Exactly.”
I chewed on that for a moment. Chewed a lot. Didn’t like it. Wanted to spit it the hell out. Where was a spittoon when you needed one? I said, “So, you’re telling me you’re not sure who is controlling whom.”
“Exactly, Sam. Cornelius was and is a force to be reckoned with, second only to my mother. But Vlad...”
“Vlad is a whole other kind of crazy.”
“Exactly. One the most fierce—and feared—rulers the world has ever known.”
“They make for interesting bedfellows,” I said, and was fairly certain that was the first time I had ever said the word “bedfellows.”
“Indeed, Sam. Potentially, they are unstoppable.”
“Unstoppable from what?” I asked.
“Whatever it is they want. Which, in this case, is to open the veil between worlds.”