In the movies, when a hero gets shot, he usually has time for some last words. The villains, if they don’t drop dead like a stone, usually stay alive long enough to look dazed and confused—as if they’re stunned that good could ever triumph over evil, as if it never happened in Hollywood before that one, shocking moment. I think I went out like a villain—stunned. I wasn’t instantly dead! What a surprise! I reached up to my neck expecting to find a gushing wound. I didn’t. Wonder of wonders! Something about the size of a cigarette butt was sticking out of my throat. What could this be? I pulled it out. A sting followed. Then I dropped, no wiser than before. Dazed and confused.
My uncle caught me. Pain was radiating up and down my neck. It turned from a burn into a warm rush. This passed after a few seconds and a feeling of pleasant euphoria took over. Lightness filled my limbs. I’d felt something like this before. A runner’s high, it was called. When you run long enough, your body starts to produce natural painkillers. They act a bit like morphine. But I would’ve had to run to Pluto to feel this good.
“Forgive me,” he said. “But all hell’s broken loose. Good people are dying out there. I can’t take any chances right now.”
Forgive him? For what? This was heaven. My body was turning into air. The only thing that stayed heavy was my head, which was starting to feel like a medicine ball. If I didn’t lie down, it was going to roll right off my neck.
I managed to whisper the word “What?”
“Nothing fancy. Mostly sodium thiopental and a mild opiate.”
I smiled. Why hadn’t I tried this before?
Maximilian led me to a chair, then sat me down. I melted into it.
“Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
I could hear him, which I assumed was good, so I kept smiling. Questions formed. “Are you going to kill us?” The words came out in slow motion.
He shook his head. He was starting to look fuzzy around the edges. “Of course not. Charlie’s going to have a little sleep, and we’re going to talk.”
“Thaaaat’s goooood.”
He sat on the edge of his bed and slipped something under his pillow. Then he started talking about Vlad, and how dangerous he was, and that he wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone that night. I had trouble listening. I was staring at my hand. It looked interesting. So did my other hand. I waved them in front of my face. They were like two blobs of ice cream with peach-colored birthday candles sticking out the top. A birthday ice-cream cone . . . Why hadn’t anyone thought of this?
My uncle gently brushed my hands away. Then he rolled up my sleeve and drew out a syringe. “Can you hear me?”
I had forgotten how to speak, so I just hummed—like R2-D2.
“The Coven doesn’t want people to know about vampires. Only the Underground is exempt, and they are selected with great care. When Charlie and Luna found out about you, the only thing Vlad was willing to do was absorb them as agents, or make them vampires. I would never have guessed he was planning an execution.”
“Two executions.” My voice was coming back, at half normal speed. I held up two fingers in case he didn’t understand me, but it might have been four.
“I’m going to set things right.” He snorted. “Ironic. In the end, you all wound up vampires anyway. And Vlad is finished.”
“What do you mean?”
“His body went missing,” I said slowly. “It disappeared.” I spread my hands for emphasis. It felt as if I were rising out of my chair, so I flapped my hands slowly a few more times to see if I could really fly, but the weight of my head made it impossible. It tipped forward. My uncle seemed to take up my entire view. “You look terrible.”
He cleared his throat. It sounded like rocks breaking. “It’s the cancer treatment. If the chemotherapy doesn’t kill me, the radiation will.”
“I hope not.”
For a long time he looked at me without speaking. I tried to stare back and nod so that he’d know I was being honest, but it was hard to focus on anything because my eyes wouldn’t open all the way. The room seemed to be shifting, as if I were seeing it through a hazy waterfall. It made him sound far away.
“Are there any rumors of him? Of Vlad? From Ophelia or Entwistle?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Do you know why the Coven wants you and Charlie dead?”
I tried to focus. It seemed this was important. Why did they want us dead? There could be only one reason. “They just don’t know us very well. We’re actually really nice guys.”
“What can you tell me about this creature—this vampire hunter?”
He must have meant Hyde. “Ophelia and the others are hoping he’s a werewolf. I don’t know why. We call him Mr. Hyde, although he doesn’t hide. He attacks people with these huge claws.”
“Why does she hope he’s a werewolf?”
I hummed for a while—until he repeated the question. “I don’t know. No one tells me anything.”
My uncle rose from his seat on the bed and started lacing up a pair of heavy black boots. When he took off his gown, I could see scars on his torso. He had lost a bit of weight, but he still looked like a powerhouse. He slipped on a shirt.
“What is Entwistle planning to do?” he asked.
“He wants to face Hyde on his own. He told me I needed to survive.”
“You will. That’s a promise. Why does he have to face Hyde alone? He didn’t mention it to me.”
“He saw it in a vision. He’s going to die.”
My uncle stopped. Whatever he’d put under his pillow he removed and tucked into the back of his jeans. “He told you this!”
I nodded.
“Did he say when? Or where?”
I tried to remember if he had. Nothing was coming back to me, so I shrugged.
“What did Ophelia say about this?”
“She doesn’t trust him because he’s a murderer.”
“Who’s a murderer?”
“Mr. Entwistle. But his real name is John something or other. Or it was. He was the Barber of England.”
“The Barber of England?”
That didn’t sound right. “No. The Butcher of England.”
My uncle was putting on a windbreaker. His moving blur became a stationary blur. “John Entwistle is really John Tiptoft? The executioner for the House of York?”
“Yes. Well, not anymore.”
“Who told you this?”
“Ophelia did. And Baoh.”
My uncle moved closer. His face took up the whole screen. The words seemed to echo in my head.
“You met Baoh? The prophet? Unbelievable! So he does exist!”
“We played Nintendo. I beat him, but only because he let me win.” It was funny—our little men pulverizing one another.
“What did he tell you?”
I wondered what my uncle was talking about.
“Baoh. What did he tell you?”
He told me lots of stuff, but one thing stood out. “To be righteous.”
I sat up. My uncle’s tone was serious. “The End of Days is here. I have to die with a clean soul.”
My uncle reached down to a black bag that was on the floor. “You’re not dying on my watch.” He took out something in a thin leather case. “I’m leaving this with you. Be extremely careful. It’s lethal.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a knife. The blade has been treated with dioxin. It’s sixty thousand times more potent than cyanide, so leave it in the sheath until you need it.”
I looked at the knife. The blade was buried inside a narrow leather sleeve, but it must have been about the same length as my hand. My hand . . . It really did look like an ice cream cone, especially when I made a fist. Then I lifted my other hand and the two started waving to each other.
My uncle dug back into his black bag. This time he pulled out something that looked like a space gun I’d once seen on Teletoon. “This is going to cause some swelling.” He put the gun against the back of my shoulder blade and pulled the trigger.
I felt a jab of pain. Right away the area under the skin started to bulge. It felt like a pimple.
“Don’t pick at it.”
“What’s that for?”
“It’s a microtransponder, so I can find you if I need to.” He took out a small case and removed a syringe. He screwed a needle into the end and stuck it in a small bottle. After drawing some fluid into the syringe, he told me to roll up my sleeve.
“Is that poison?”
He shook his head. “No.”
He helped me roll up my sleeve, then injected my arm with something.
“You’re going to sleep for a while, but you’ll be safe here. The door’s locked. Mr. Entwistle will be back before the sun comes up. I’d stay, but this Hyde creature appears to be nocturnal. I have to see if I can find it before Entwistle gets himself killed.”
Was he crazy? My head slumped forward. It was too heavy to lift again. My eyes were starting to close. I fought against it. There were things I had to know. “How can you kill this thing?”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the chair, then slipped his shoulder under me and tipped me onto the bed. “Poisons work best. Cyanide, arsenic, or dioxin. I’ve used Conium maculatum effectively in the past, but your father preferred venom from Hydrophis belcheri.”
Hydrophis belcheri? What was that? It sounded like a burping water dragon. “Do you have any?”
“Only what I’ve given you. The dioxin. It’s the Cadillac of poisons.” He was moving toward the door.
The Cadillac of poisons? What I needed was the bulletproof, floating Cadillac of poisons with huge tires and twenty-four hundred horses under the hood. Then I could drive back to Weed World. Hyde would never find me there. I laughed. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I was full of good ideas tonight.
My uncle was leaving. I needed to ask something else. “Where have you been all this time?” I hadn’t seen him in a year. He was sliding in and out of focus.
“Hunting a werewolf.”
“Was it Hyde?”
“No.”
Now he was a complete blur. “Did you catch it?”
He said something, but I couldn’t make it out. I wanted to ask him to repeat his answer, but my tongue got all tied up and my eyes just wouldn’t open. I heard the door. Then it closed and I fell asleep.