Fate of the Vampire (23 page)

I shrugged. “I think you might.” I would have to explain things to Jessie if I ever got to see him again, but I saw no reason to let gorgeous pieces
of jewelry just sit around in a safety deposit box. I’d keep my Pools of Light, of course, but I thought I could part with the other pieces. They were much more expensive, but they had way less sentimental value. Besides, that stupid Grandpa Vanderlind had hurt a giant that I considered a friend, and I wasn’t about to put up with it.

Viggo nodded, mulling the whole thing over. “Yes, I know someone who vorks at a wery famous auction house. He might be able to arrange a quick sale.” He looked me straight in the eyes. “I am sure if I had such a friend, their gift vould not be vasted.”

“And if a parcel was to arrive for you, it would be addressed to … the castle?” I asked.

Viggo shook his head. “It vould be better if it vas made as a general delivery to the Tiburon post office.”

“I see,” I said, this time nodding at him. “If there’s nothing else you have to tell me, then I guess I’d better get going.” The day was pushing toward noon, and I had to get to the bank.

“I vould tell you to never come back here, but I guess you vouldn’t listen,” Viggo said, giving me a penetrating look.

I thought about Fred locked in some cell, juice box for some nasty old vampire. I thought about Liz and Don and even Mervin, who I didn’t really know personally but saw quite frequently driving his cab around town. “No, I probably wouldn’t listen,” I agreed.

“Miss Aurora, I have learned over the years that the castle has many secrets,” Viggo said, his face very earnest. “There are things about this place that even some of the family doesn’t know. Sometimes you think something is wery vell hidden, but it’s actually right under your nose.” He tapped his large nose significantly. “If I was sitting in the Vanderlind dungeon, that is something I vould think about. That might be a vay to find vhat you are looking for.” He tapped his nose again, giving me a steady gaze.

“So you’re saying I need to search the dungeon?” I asked, trying to divine meaning from his words.

“No, I am saying that if I vere you, I should stay wery far away from the castle,” he told me, his voice flat and grave.

“But …” I stammered, not at all sure what he was trying to tell me.

“Miss Aurora, do you remember how ve met?” he asked.

“Of course,” I told him. Jessie had sent him to help me drag an unconscious Blossom out of the secret tunnel.

He nodded his head. “I remember it
, too.” He nodded some more. “I thought you vere a wery brave young lady.” He tapped his nose again. “And smart, too.” With that, he turned to head back toward the castle.

I wanted to chase after him. I wanted to yell at him until he gave me some damn information I could actually use. Here I was about to hand over a small fortune in antique jewelry
, and the giant was being all cryptic. But then again, the guard was in his little hut watching us. Word would probably get back to Grandpa Vanderlind that I had come by and that Viggo had spoken to me. If he was questioned, even under a vampire’s influence, Viggo could honestly say that he had told me nothing. He did have his own life to think about. And Gloria’s.

After leaving Viggo, I headed out of town. When I’d returned from Budapest a month earlier, I had a fake passport, a huge diamond engagement ring, and a moonstone necklace created by a famous French designer. Also a few thousand in
euros, all courtesy of Jessie Vanderlind. I didn’t know where to keep them, so I drove two towns over and opened a security deposit box in Colette’s name using the fake passport as my ID. Colette was conveniently over twenty-one.

Sitting in the bank parking lot, I called the house. My mom didn’t pick up
, but I left her a message casually mentioning that I had talked to Jessie and he didn’t know anything about Fred. Neither did his cousin. If I went missing, I knew my mom would tell the police I was headed over to the castle, and I wanted her to know that I’d left there in one piece. I knew it was stupid that I wanted to protect Jessie even if it put my own life at risk, but that was the way I felt.

After that
, I stared at my phone for a long time. I needed to call Jessie and leave him a message, but I really didn’t want to. I decided I would wait and just deal with the bank first. It was best to take these things one step at a time.

I took everything out of the safety deposit box but my passport then headed to a drugstore for a box, tape
, and bubble wrap. I wasted a few minutes in my car looking at the engagement ring, admiring it on my hand, wishing that I could actually marry Jessie. But then I finally managed to put it in the box with the necklace. Almost as an afterthought, I slipped the Marquis de Sade’s ring off my finger and tucked it in the box. Big diamonds and famous designers were one thing, but I was sure there were plenty of rich weirdos out there that would pay big money for the ring of a legendary pervert. Jessie had intended for me to use the ring as protection. And I was, to some extent. I just wasn’t using it to protect myself.

It occurred to me that Viggo wouldn’t know the history of the ring, so I wrote down what I could remember on the back of a receipt I found on the floor of my car and stuck it in the box. After I sealed everything in securely, I headed over to the post office and sent the box general delivery as requested. The clerk thought I was nuts. He told me I should just hand deliver the thing myself, but I explained that I was on my way out of town and didn’t have the time.

A block down from the post office was a mom-and-pop hardware store that had somehow managed to survive when almost everyone else had been run out of business by the big chain stores. I found some wooden dowel rods that I thought, if I put my knee into it, I would be able to snap in a way that would make sharp points.

“Need any help, young lady?” an elderly gentleman asked.

“Do you have any wooden tent stakes?” I gave him a hopeful look. Those would already have a point.

“Wooden tent stakes?” The old man frowned as he thought about it. “No, I’m sorry, miss. I think if you want wooden tent stakes you’d probably have to carve them yourself.”

“That’s okay,” I said, grabbing a half dozen of the dowel rods. “I’ll just take these.” I thought of something else. “Do you carry crowbars and maybe some bolt cutters?”

With my errands done, I headed back to Tiburon, directing my car toward the public pier. I knew something special about a storm drain that was about twenty yards from the pier. It wasn’t actually a storm drain, just a small tunnel mocked up to look like one. It was a secret entrance to the Vanderlind Castle. Viggo had helped Blossom and me use it to escape when we unwittingly crashed a vampire party. Blossom had been unconscious at the time, so it was very good the giant had been there. My best friend was not overweight by any means, but dragging her as dead weight was surprisingly challenging.

I parked the car and then just sat there for a
while looking out at the river. I kept thinking about Fred. I knew without a doubt that I loved Jessie. I loved him with all of my heart. But I couldn’t let Fred and the others die. If there was even the smallest chance that I could save them then I had to try.

Something kept nagging at my brain. When Grandpa Vanderlind made his big entrance during the Christmas Eve party, he appeared from somewhere off by the kitchen. That also happened to be the general location of where the steps were that led down to the dungeon. Adding that to Jessie’s information plus the cryptic hints from Viggo
, I had an idea where my classmates were possibly being held. Or at least where I should start looking. I was convinced that if Fred and the others were still alive, they were imprisoned somewhere that was accessible from the castle.

The idea of sneaking into a vampire fortress was pretty damn scary, even if I was dating one of the vampires. Still, I had to be brave and force myself to enter. The day was getting on
, and I needed time to look for Fred and everyone while there was still plenty of sunlight.

Steeling my hand, I picked up my phone and hit Jessie’s number. I’d already program
med it into my cell. I could barely hear the ringing over the pounding of my own heart. If things did not go well, there was a strong possibility that Jessie wouldn’t get my message until after I was dead. The phone rang several times, and then went to voicemail. I wasn’t expecting it, but Jessie had already recorded an outgoing message. He said, “Aurora, I know it must be you calling because you’re the only one who has this number. Please be strong, darling, and know that I love you.” Then there was a beep.

My
thoughts had been racing before I dialed, scrambling to come up with just the right thing to say. But hearing Jessie’s voice made my mind go blank. For a few moments, I couldn’t even think of why I was calling. “Jessie,” I finally blurted, my voice sounding dry. “Your grandfather grabbed Fred, and I think I know where he’s keeping him. I know you might not understand this, but I can’t let Fred die. He can’t die because of me. Not because …” I trailed off. “If I didn’t …” My voice was sounding very shaky. “If I didn’t love you then …” I knew I was making a mess of the message, but I couldn’t think of a way to express what I was feeling. I couldn’t say, “If I wasn’t in love with a vampire then this never would have happened.” I couldn’t let those be the last words of mine that Jessie ever heard. I took a deep breath and finally managed to say, “Just know that I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love. But this is something I have to do.” My hands were shaking so badly that I found it hard to press the button to end the call.

I rifled around in the glove box and found a small flashlight. I should have bought a nice one while I was at the hardware store, but I didn’t think of it. Then I turned my attention to the dowel rods. Breaking them over my knee turned out to be a little bit painful, so I used my boot instead. Some snapped cleanly, which was no use to me, but others splintered, leaving jagged ends. When I was finished, I had six good stakes. It seemed foolish packing a handful of flimsy dowel rods against a powerful vampire, but I wasn’t going to enter the castle empty handed.

I stuffed a few stakes into the waist of my pants and put the others in my backpack. The bolt cutters fit snuggly inside the bag, but the crowbar stuck out the top. That would probably seem a little suspicious if anyone happened to be looking, but there was nothing I could do, so I just said “the hell with it” and got out of the car. Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone around the pier on a cold afternoon in December, so there wasn’t anyone to witness a crazy girl with a crowbar climbing into a storm drain.

The drain was actually a set of bars with a latch on the inside. You had to know where to feel for the latch, but once you knew where it was, it became easy to undo
it and swing the bars open like a gate. Unless it was the end of December and the bars were frozen to the ground, then you had to lie on your back and kick at them for a while to break them free of winter’s grip before yanking the whole thing open.

Once inside, I carefully closed and latched the bars again. I didn’t want any curious kids accidentally entering the vampires’ castle. Tiburon had already suffered enough loss. I had to crawl for a few yards, the crowbar scraping on the ceiling
, before the tunnel expanded and I was able to stand. The light from outside illuminated my way for a little while, but eventually I had to turn on the flashlight. The walls of the tunnel were made of the same gray stone that was used to construct the castle itself. There was a cold, moldy smell to the air, and the stones were glazed with frost. I wondered if the escape tunnel had existed when the building was in Budapest or if it was something that was added after the move to America.

The tunnel came to a dead end. From inside the castle, access to the tunnel was concealed, but from inside the tunnel, access to the castle was just yanking on a door handle that appeared to be randomly attached to the wall. The secret door popped open with a small groan. I struggled with if for a few moments before I could push it wide enough to slip inside. I was very glad I had shut the faux storm drain’s bars securely. I could easily see pulling on the handle if I was a kid seeking a bit of adventure and not realizing that some adventures
shouldn’t be real.

The secret door opened from under the steps that led to the castle from the dungeon. I stood very still, listening. I didn’t know what the castle staff did while the Vanderlinds were in their coffins. All was quiet
, so I took a few steps forward and turned on my flashlight. I started casting the beam against the stone walls and the three cells of the dungeon. Unlike the stonework in the rest of the house, the walls of the dungeon were composed of jutting points and rough edges. After a few moments, I realized that the flashlight wasn’t really necessary. The dungeon wasn’t well lit, but there was enough illumination that I could see fairly well once my eyes had adjusted.

My legs felt shaky underneath me, but I forced myself to move forward. “Fred?” I called in a low voice. “Liz?” I took a few more steps forward. “Don? Mervin? Is anybody here?”

It was quite obvious that nobody was there. That would have been too easy just to saunter into the dungeon and find the missing kids. Plus Mervin, of course.

“Where the hell are they?” I grumbled to myself.

I briefly considered trying to stealthily search the castle. But I wasn’t foolish enough to believe I was some sort of ninja who could slip from room to room without drawing the attention of the castle’s staff. Plus, I was pretty sure Jessie or Viggo would have known if the prisoners were in the living area of the castle and would have somehow let me know.

All three cell doors were open
, so I went and sat in the one furthest from the stairs and the secret passage. It was the cell where Jessie had locked Blossom and me for our own protection so we wouldn’t fall victim to a lecherous vampire when the castle was celebrating Jessie’s maker’s day. We were so completely stupid for having snuck into the party.

But did I regret knowing Jessie? Being with Jessie? If Blossom and I hadn’t crashed the party then he would always just have been that handsome boy I saw once at the library. But there was also a strong chance that Fred and the others wouldn’t have been snatched off the street. I didn’t know why Grandpa Vanderlind had grabbed Mervin, but I was convinced the teenagers had been taken because of me.

It really wasn’t the right time to mentally beat myself up. I had to stay focused and figure out where everyone was being held prisoner. Freeing them would definitely alleviate the guilt I was feeling. I tried to think about what Viggo had said. I was looking for something that wasn’t as well hidden as I expected, and if I was in the dungeon, it was right under my nose.

I scanned the walls, the bars
, and the floor of the cell. I figured maybe it was on the ground. Was that what he meant by under my nose? I got on my knees and rubbed my hands across the floor, pressing at the different stones in case one turned out to be the release button to another secret passage. I felt under the bunk and pulled at all the bars, crawling along with my nose an inch off the floor.

When the first cell proved fruitless, I inched out into the hall and made my way down to the second cell. Viggo had mentioned the dungeon but said nothing about having to be in a cell. Or did he? I strained to remember his exact wording.

The second cell gave me nothing but scratched and chafed palms from running my hands over the rough stones of the floor. I crawled down to the third cell and gave it a thorough search only to find nothing. No hint. No clue. Nothing. I got to my feet and stretched my back. It was starting to throb. I sat on the bunk and propped my head up with my fists. What the hell was under my nose?

I felt a little nauseated, probably brought on by stress. There was
also a definite smell coming from the third cell, which wasn’t helping matters. I wondered how long a bad stench could last. Was I smelling the misery of medieval prisoners who probably weren’t very hygienic before they were tossed in the dungeon? But it didn’t smell like feces or body odor or anything like that. It smelled like old, boggy water, like someone hadn’t bothered to clean a fish tank for a very long time.

I got to my feet and started pacing around the cell. Was that what Viggo meant about something being hidden under my nose
? Did he mean to follow my nose or did he mean something directly below my nose? I stared at the stones beneath my feet. Or did he mean both?

The cell wasn’t very big, but the smell was definitely stronger at the end that was closest to the stairs and the tunnel. Had I noticed it when I came in? I couldn’t remember. I started sniffing along the wall. The boggy stench was definitely strongest in the corner of the cell that was under the bunk. If I was lying on the bunk
, that would be right under my nose. Was that what Viggo had said? Did he say sitting on a bunk or lying on a bunk? As quietly as I could, I moved the rusty metal bunk to one side. It made a sharp screeching sound as I didn’t lift it high enough and one of the legs scraped across the stone floor.

The smell was really
, really strong in that corner. If my body wasn’t pumping adrenaline like crazy, I was sure I probably would have been gagging. I began poking around at the stones. They were slightly moss covered, which was different than any place else in the dungeon. I thought that one stone in the very corner about the size of my two fists had maybe moved slightly when I pressed on it. To get the secret passage under the stairs to open, I had to press very hard on a stone that was a slightly different color from the rest. I put my palm against this new stone and pressed with all my might. Nothing happened. Maybe I had just imagined that the stone had moved. I prodded at it with my fingers a bit. I could definitely get it to move from side to side, but not in. Maybe it came out, instead. Grabbing at the stone with my fingertips, I tried pulling. It moved a little, but then my hands slipped off. I repositioned myself and pulled again, the sharp little edges of the rock biting at my flesh and tearing at my nails. I didn’t let go, though. I didn’t stop. Inch by inch, I was able to claw the stone out of the wall.

The filthy fish
-tank smell grew much stronger. Using the flashlight, I peered into the dark hole I had just created. There was something inside. I couldn’t tell what it was because it had green slime all over it. It was moss or algae or something. I tried scraping it away with my boot, but couldn’t get the right angle. “Fine,” I grumbled to myself. I fished a mitten out of my pocket and put it on. Better to ruin a mitten than my hand, in case the slime was really something gross. Cringing a little, I reached in and felt the object. It appeared to be an iron bar.

Tentatively, I pushed at the bar, thinking maybe it was some kind of lever. It did nothing. I pushed again much harder but still had no luck. Wrapping my hand around it, I tugged at the bar. I thought there was a little play
, but maybe that was just my imagination. Grasping the bar firmly, I yanked at it. It moved a little, and I definitely heard a click. That was all the encouragement I needed. I grabbed the bar and heaved backward, putting all of my weight into it.

I hung there for a moment, then the bar released, coming forward toward me, moving almost like a stick shift in a car. It happened so suddenly, I lost my footing and landed hard on my butt. There was a low rumbling sound. I expected to see something, like part of the wall giving way to a secret passage or something, but there was nothing.

I got to my feet, shedding the slimy mitten. I didn’t know what else to do with it, so I turned it inside out and shoved it back in my pocket. Brushing the seat of my pants, I looked around. The cell looked exactly the same. I had no idea what I had just activated by pulling the lever.

Rubbing at my nose, I noticed the dirty fish tank stench was even worse. And there seemed to be a small breeze blowing through the dungeon. Stepping out of the cell, I looked around. There was a dark
, jagged line in the wall very close to the original secret passage that led to the tunnel. It was immediately obvious that the stench was coming in from there. I hurried over and pushed at the crack. It was a stone door that blended seamlessly with the wall. This was the hidden passage that Viggo considered easy to find? I had to wonder what the giant would think was a challenge to find. But at least his cryptic hints had encouraged me to keep looking.

I shined my flashlight through the door and saw that it led to another tunnel, but it was on a lower level. To access it, I would have to climb down some metal rungs that were fastened to the wall. “Great,” I grumbled. Gripping the flashlight between my teeth, I shimmied through the door and began to descend.

Once I reached the bottom, I looked around, using the beam of the flashlight to cut through the darkness. It was a fairly wide tunnel, and I was able to stand up with room to spare. It wasn’t the same construction as the castle and the other secret passage. If I’d had to guess, I would have said it was an unused pipe in the Tiburon sewer system. I took a step forward and immediately plunged my boot into some rather murky water. I cringed for a moment but then realized that the water was green with algae. This probably wasn’t a tunnel used to transport human waste. It was an access tunnel or maybe something for fresh water. I was no city planner. I really had no idea. I was just grateful that I wasn’t dealing with poop.

The tunnel stretched into scary blackness in both directions. My flashlight wasn’t powerful enough to show me more than a few feet either way
, and what it did reveal was just more tunnel. I wasn’t sure which way to head. I could hear a distant hammering coming from the left, so I decided to move in that direction. That way showed a slight incline, and I was pretty sure it was the way back toward town. Maybe the banging was a construction crew or something. Both directions felt very intimidating, but I somehow felt safer moving toward the noise.

My progress wasn’t super fast because I kept thinking someone was coming up behind me. When the urge to look got too strong
, I would wave the flashlight around wildly, trying to see if anyone was there. After what must have been a minute of creeping forward, but felt like much longer, I noticed daylight shining in from a gap in the upper left corner of the tunnel. As I got closer, I turned off my flashlight to spare the battery. The gap was about twenty feet over my head. Like where the roads drain into the sewer after it rains only much deeper. I must have been in the Tiburon drainage sewers.

As I kept moving forward, the hammering got a little louder. There was another gap in the sewer revealing a sliver of sunlight. The gap looked a little closer than the last one, but I was walking up an incline, so that wasn’t completely unexpected. I wondered if at some point the tunnel would simply lead to the surface. Or at least into town where I could crawl out a manhole or something. The sunlight gave me comfort. I assumed Grandpa Vanderlind wouldn’t venture down the tunnel until after dark. But I also began to wonder if I had chosen the wrong direction. Wouldn’t a vampire store his food supply in a deep dark place? Would it be better if I turned around while there was still time? Were Fred and the others even in the sewer?

The sound of the hammer broke off abruptly. I thought I heard the faint sounds of a brief conversation. I wondered if it was about me. I aimed my flashlight toward the ground to dim its beam then pressed it against my leg to dim it even more. Then I switched it off. I waited for the hammering to continue. It did not. The only hammer I could hear was my heart pounding loudly in my chest.

Trying to control my breath so I wouldn’t panic, I moved forward again as quietly as possible. I felt like I was getting very close to the source of the hammering. I heard some movement, a rustling around. A male voice hissed, “It’s him. Get ready.”

“Fred?” I whispered, taking a few more tentative steps forward. “Don?”

“Get away from us, you psycho!” someone shouted
, and I felt something hard mashing into my shoulder sending a sharp pain shooting through my arm.

I shrieked, raising my arms to deflect another blow. “Yieeh!” I cried as someone else grabbed my ankles and jerked, sending me crashing backward to the ground. I felt one of the stakes I had tucked in the waist of my pants snap, gouging at my legs.

Fortunately I was able to keep hold of my flashlight. I fumbled for the button and turned it on. “Fred?” I cried, my shoulder throbbing and my butt numb with pain. “Is that you?”

“Aurora?” was the hoarse reply.

I directed the flashlight toward the sound of his voice and saw two pale, frightened faces looking at me from behind a set of bars. “Don?” I asked, assuming he was the one who had tripped me.

“Oh
, my God. Aurora,” Fred gasped. “What are you doing here?” He stretched his arms through the bars of his prison reaching for me, trying to help me up.

“Looking for you,” I said, getting to my feet by myself. His arms weren’t nearly long enough.

“You came down into a sewer to look for us?” Don asked, sounding a bit incredulous.

“Kind of,” I told him, rubbing my shoulder. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. What the hell did you hit me with?”

“Sorry,” Fred said. “It’s a piece of concrete that I managed to break off the wall. We’ve been trying to chip our way out of here. I thought you were the dude that grabbed us. He’s totally twisted and like psycho strong.”

“I believe you,” I assured him. “Are Liz and Mervin with you?” I directed the beam of my flashlight to the interior of the cell. I saw one small figure huddled on the floor, but that was it.

“Liz is here, but she’s not doing great. None of us have seen Mervin. We don’t know what happened to him,” Don told me.