I don’t know how long I lay on the floor. I drifted in and out of consciousness, and you can’t really keep track of time when that happens. Some time later, my uncle came back into the room. He stood over me with his hands on his hips. I still couldn’t see well. My eyes were watering and everything looked blurry.
“Get up,” he said. Then he turned his back on me and walked behind his desk. There was a cigar in his hand, which he lit with something that looked like a miniature cannon. He took a big puff and turned to face the painted windows.
“Get up,” he said again. “We don’t have much time.”
I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, but I was too tired, and when I opened my mouth to speak, the pain of moving made me gasp.
He looked down at me with the same blank expression he’d worn during my fight with the Baron. “In life, the only person you can really count on is yourself. Others will abandon you, betray you, disappoint you. You have to learn to depend on yourself. GET UP.”
I couldn’t believe that he was shouting at me after what had happened. It made me so furious I did stand up. Then I coiled myself for a charge. He probably had a gun handy, so I’d have to be quick.
“Don’t be foolish,” he said. He had a small black box in his hand. There was a switch on it. “One false move and I blow out the windows. And you know what that means.”
I did. The sun would stream in and I would go up like gunpowder, so I straightened up as best I could.
“That’s better,” my uncle said. “Now, take a seat.” He nodded towards the couch.
I shook my head. I wasn’t sitting down. I wasn’t going to do another thing he told me.
“Fine,” he said. He took a haul on his cigar. The end of it glowed an angry orange. It lit up his face, and for just a split second he looked more like a devil than a person.
“That was incredibly foolish, what you did earlier. Reckless . . . mindless . . . stupid . . . I can’t imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t been here.”
He paused. I knew he was giving me a chance to respond, but I had no idea where to begin. For starters, he was making it sound as if he’d saved my life, when he hadn’t done a thing. And he was angry. I was the one who was half dead. What did he have to be so mad about? Had he forgotten that the Baron killed my mother and father? What was I supposed to do when I met him, snuggle up for a cozy hug?
“I didn’t rescue you from Johansson to watch you get flattened in my office,” my uncle said. “Another mistake like that, and it might be your last.”
He took another puff on his cigar. The smoke brought on a series of coughs that shook his broad chest. Once he’d fought them down, he reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled something out. It took me a moment to recognize my father’s journal. He stepped out from behind the desk and walked over to where I was standing.
“You left this in your friend’s boat. The Baron brought it here. I flipped through it while you were sleeping. I’ve found some interesting passages I think you should read.” He handed me the notebook.
I snatched it away and stumbled into the sofa. “You don’t deserve to touch this,” I said.
He blew smoke out through his nostrils. I guess he didn’t care.
I stared at him. He stared back.
“Do you want me to read it for you?” he asked.
I looked down at the journal. There were yellow sticky notes marking several of the pages. I opened it to the first and glanced over the writing until I found a passage that had been underlined with a pencil. This is what my father had written.
Max is a true evolutionist . . .
And later, on the facing page, was this passage.
Because of his belief that the fittest will survive, and the confidence he has in his own abilities, he is willing to place himself in the most dangerous situations. I fear for him. At times, he shows a total disregard for his own safety. And yet, if he were not like this, we would never have achieved so many victories over those carriers who have fallen into darkness, who refuse redemption. And so, indirectly, he has saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives . . .
I shook my head. What was this supposed to tell me? Was I supposed to forgive him or something? Did he think it would explain why he had betrayed me and given me over to my father’s killer?
I read the rest of the page and the one following.
“Just keep reading,” Maximilian said.
I found the next passage.
Max put forth the suggestion today that instead of merely monitoring those carriers to whom we have granted amnesty, we use them to hunt other carriers. I am reluctant to endorse this strategy. It seems a dangerous risk, given that we know so little about Endpoint Psychosis and what triggers its onset.
And that was it. He’d marked only those three entries. Well, perhaps my brain had been bruised, or maybe it was still disconnected from my wrestling match with the Baron, but I didn’t get it. I looked up at my uncle. His eyes were dark and focused.
“Your father was a very conservative man, Zachary,” he said. “Perhaps too conservative. The truth is, the best vampire hunters in the world are other vampires. You have the potential to be counted among them. But you must be able to prove that your mind is healthy. Uncorrupted by the pathogen. Another ridiculous stunt like the one you pulled earlier, and I won’t be able to do a thing for you.”
He went on to say other things, about Endpoint Psychosis and suicide and spreading the infection, but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking of my father. That he wouldn’t have wanted me to bite Maximilian, which is what I wanted to do most at that very moment. I wanted to kill him. I’d like to think it was my hunger that made me think this way. I was a little short of juice, and after tasting human blood for the first time at Luna’s cottage, my desire for more was making me furious.
When I looked up at him he must have noticed the change in my expression. That my rage was closer to the surface. Still, he didn’t seem worried at all. Who would be? He had the sun as his ally. It was waiting to kill me, hidden behind a thin layer of glass.
“How much do you know about the Coven of the Dragon?” he asked me.
What did this have to do with anything?
“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “Answer me.”
I shook my head. “Nothing, really.”
My uncle pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. “They are an elite group of vampire hunters. They keep the pathogen from being spread recklessly by those who go insane. Baron Vrolok—Vlad—is the Grand Master of the Coven.” He stared at me for a few seconds. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. That this excused the Baron for killing my mother and father and squashing me into submission?
My uncle turned and walked back behind his desk. He was practically shaking with excitement. “Your father and I tried for years to penetrate this organization. It is cloaked in secrecy. We only knew that it existed. And could move with terrible swiftness. On more than one occasion, your father and I started a hunt only to discover that the Coven had finished it for us. Always very thoroughly.”
He stopped talking and opened one of the desk drawers. I expected him to remove something, but he didn’t. He closed the drawer instead.
“And do you know how I made contact with them?” he asked.
He looked at me as though I was supposed to guess. Like I should have been as excited as he was. I barely had the energy to see across the room. Why should I care?
“I didn’t,” he said. “He came to me. Vlad came to me. He came with an offer, and I have accepted it.”
He looked at me and started coughing. The coughing turned to hacking. He had a handkerchief in his pocket. He removed it and covered his mouth. When he pulled it away, I could see the crimson stain of his blood on the cloth. For just an instant, he looked like a wraith. Shrivelled and decayed. Then he straightened up and thumped his chest with the side of his fist. It helped him clear his throat.
He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am. But I’m taking steps to ensure that my work will continue.”
Steps? What did that mean? I took my best guess.
“You want to become a vampire!” I said. “You want to enter the Coven of the Dragon. You want to work for him!”