People generally regard dying as a downer. I assume it’s because they’ve never tried it. Of all earthly phenomena, death is probably the most underrated. Imagine not having to worry about anything. How do I look? Where did I leave my wallet? Why do I get so many pimples? All that vanishes in a snap. So does your pain. Aches and bruises and burns. They all disappear. In the end, there is only the light. And the light is full of hope and love and all things good. And it was receding. A terrible sense of isolation came over me as I slipped away. As if I was being disconnected from something much greater than myself. I reached out so I wouldn’t get separated, but it was too late. The light was gone.
I heard a faint voice. It was familiar. The person was right beside me, but he sounded light-years away. “Clear.”
A shock went through my body. It made me want to scream. My mouth was too dry. I needed more air.
“Did it work?” asked another voice. It was also familiar. The words were packed anxiously together.
“Not yet. . . . Clear.”
It happened again. A powerful jolt. My eyes opened. The light was blinding, with no warmth in it. I sucked in an icy breath. It stung.
“It’s working. His pulse has steadied. That’s all we need.”
I felt a sting in my elbow. Nothing happened, then a warm rush crept up my arm. A feeling of heaviness followed. A man stepped into the light. His shadow fell over me. I saw black hair streaked with white and gray under a hat like a chimney pipe. “Get some sleep, boy. You’ve had a busy night.”
His advice seemed reasonable, so I slept.
When I woke up, it was dark. I came out of my sleep slowly. Comfortably. My arm was a bit numb. It was tied to the metal rail of the bed I was in. I was alarmed at first. The thought of being tied up scared me, then I realized it was only surgical tubing. It was to keep my arm from moving. A machine beside the bed hummed quietly, pumping blood through a needle and into a vein near my elbow. Something brushed against my cheek. It made me jump. I heard a quiet laugh.
“Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
It was her. Luna. She was crouched over my bed. “It’s you,” I whispered. My voice was hoarse, my throat dry.
She left her hand on my cheek and smiled. “Yes. It’s me.”
I felt the floor shift. Then a door opened. It made an odd metallic sound. Cool night air rushed inside the room. It smelled of concrete and wet paint. I heard city sounds. Distant feet on pavement. The hum of cars. The creak of trees nearby. Then Mr. Entwistle appeared. He had to take off his top hat to step inside. The ceiling was low. I realized why when he closed the door.
“Are we in a truck?” I asked.
“No. An ambulance,” he said. “I borrowed it from the hospital.”
“Borrowed?”
“Well, I’m thinking of it more as a trade-in. The hospital lost an ambulance, but the police got a pretty good aquatic car out of the deal.” A stool was beside him. He handed it to Luna, then slumped down to the floor and let his head fall back against the wall, which was actually a medicine cabinet of some kind.
“Thanks.” She slipped the stool beside the bed and sat down.
“How did you get here?” I asked her.
“Charlie called and said you’d been poisoned. I had my sister drive me up right away. The two of them are inside with Ophelia.”
“So he’s okay?”
“Charlie? Yeah. He’s going to be fine. He was in here until a few minutes ago.”
I felt the air rush from my chest. A breath of relief. My face stretched into a comfortable smile. Everyone was safe. And Luna was here.
“I can’t believe your parents let you come.” I wasn’t one of their favorite people. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Thanks to me, one of their daughters was a vampire and the other was in therapy.
Luna eyes flicked nervously over to where Mr. Entwistle was sitting, then she looked back at me. By the expression on her face, I would have bet a stolen ambulance that her parents had no idea where she was.
“We’re just sorting that out now.” Mr. Entwistle smiled, spinning his hat in his hands. I’m not sure why he found this so amusing. If Luna’s parents found out that she and Suki were here, the Beast of the Apocalypse would be the least of my problems.
“They already hate me,” I said.
“Who hates you?” Luna asked.
“Your parents.”
“Hate’s a strong word, boy. They might dislike you—”
“No, they hate him.” Luna was smiling now, too. I couldn’t see what was so funny. “Don’t sweat it. You have enough to worry about.”
This was true. And lying around here wasn’t going to fix anything. “Why am I not inside?”
“Ophelia didn’t want to risk moving you,” Mr. Entwistle explained. “And I wanted to be mobile if Agent X raised the alarm and we had to split in a hurry.”
“Who is Agent X?” Luna asked.
“Someone from the Underground. He’s helping with security. Zack knows him. He’s walking the perimeter. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you, boy, once you’re feeling better.”
I was feeling better, and I said so.
Mr. Entwistle laughed. “Zack, you were clinically dead. Anything else is generally considered an improvement.”
With Luna beside me, I wasn’t going to argue. “How did I get here?”
“We drove,” he said.
“No. I mean, how did we get out of the hospital?”
“We ran.”
“Helpful, isn’t he?” said Luna.
Her tone was playful, which surprised me. She couldn’t have known him more than a few hours, and he looked like Jack the Ripper. If I’d seen him coming down the sidewalk, I would have crossed the street.
“My guess is, Ophelia kicked him out of the house for being a smart aleck,” she added.
The old vampire smiled. “Well, at least you said smart.” Then his smile vanished and he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “She wasn’t happy with me for dragging you out of the house last night.”
I remembered the note she’d left me, advising me to stay home. I should have listened. “Was she angry?”
“Angry!” said Mr. Entwistle. “Men get angry. Women get something else. I don’t think they’ve invented a suitable word yet. . . . But I settled her down eventually.”
“What did you say?”
“That I’d made a mistake. And that I was sorry. And that we were recruiting help from Agent X—which she appreciates.”
Agent X. The alias made me think of my father’s journal. He always referred to people with letters. Only Maximilian and Mutada were mentioned by name. Everyone else was Dr. Q, or N, or C. I guess it was to protect people’s identities.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?” I asked.
“At the hospital? Sure. Just let me fuel up.” Mr. Entwistle took a bottle of red wine from inside his coat and downed a good mouthful. “So . . . where did I lose you?”
“You were about to chop off my foot.”
“Right.” He took another swig. “You would have grown it back, you know. It only takes a couple of weeks.”
“I didn’t want the poison to reach your heart.”
“Poison?”
“Yeah. From the knife. You’re lucky. Not every guy is fortunate enough to stab himself in a hospital. How did you get it, by the way?”
“The cut? I think it happened in the elevator. I dropped the knife. It might have nicked me on the way down. Or maybe I fell on it.”
“No,” he said. “I meant the knife. Where’d you get it?”
I had to think. My memory was usually dependable, but my brain was still warming up. “It was a gift from Agent X.”
Mr. Entwistle took another sip and nodded. “Should have guessed. . . . That was bad luck, getting cut like that. But that knife is our best protection right now.”
“What about Mr. Hyde?” I asked. “He caught us, didn’t he?”
“More like he was lying in wait for us. But, yeah, he was there.” Mr. Entwistle cleared his throat, then smiled. “But he doesn’t like being lit on fire. It looked a bit uncomfortable. We’ll have to remember that trick. Then Charlie showed up. He had the hatchet I’d dropped. He came in swinging like a madman. Not even the walls were safe. He’s got guts, that boy.”
He was certainly brave in the elevator. When Mr. Entwistle carried me off, I was worried that he’d get left behind, but his was the voice I’d heard in the ambulance earlier. Did it work? he’d asked. Mr. Entwistle must have been the one shouting Clear. I’d watched enough television to know what he’d been doing—fixing my heartbeat with those paddle-size electrodes you see doctors using when a person flatlines.
“You saved my life.”
Mr. Entwistle stood. He had to bend at the waist to keep his head from hitting the roof. “I’m more than just a pretty face, boy. But it was really the knife that saved you. In the end, that was what scared the fleabag away. The poison is lethal. And as you found out, it only takes a scratch. Agent X really came through with this.” He tapped his waist.
He nodded. “I’m going to hang on to it. At least until you’re feeling better. I promised Ophelia. She’s not happy we have it. Woman’s intuition maybe. She was insistent I keep it as far from you as possible. A bad feeling is what she said.”
A bad feeling. A lot of those were going around.
“What is it?” Luna asked. “Are you all right?”
I could feel that my eyes wanted to close. But this wasn’t the time for sleep. “I had something important to tell you,” I said to Mr. Entwistle. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“Was it about Hyde?”
I couldn’t remember. Then more questions popped into my head. Why had he wanted me to meet with my uncle? And how had the two of them met up and reconciled? But I didn’t want to mention any of that with Luna right there. To her and Charlie, Maximilian was a villain.
“I’ll be inside,” Mr. Entwistle said. “You can tell me later.” He tapped the side of the metal bed frame several times with his knuckles. “I’ll give you two a minute alone, but you might want to consider making an appearance soon. We have a lot to discuss. And a few important decisions to make.” He flicked the bottom of his hat in way of farewell, then opened the door and stepped out. The ambulance sank, then rose again.
Luna was looking at me, biting her bottom lip. She rested her hand on my arm. I was sure she meant to comfort me, but I could tell by the expression on her face that she was nervous about something.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I just don’t know what’s going to happen when my dad finds out I’m here. He’s going to flip. So is Mom. But I couldn’t risk staying home. If something had happened to you, I would never have forgiven myself. I needed to be here.”
“I’m glad you came.”
She smiled. “Me, too. I just don’t want to have to turn around and go back home.”
I didn’t want that either, although it might have been much safer for her not to stay. “Take me with you if you go,” I said.
“I’d have to sneak you in the trunk.”
That sounded perfect, so long as there was room for two.
Luna stood and checked the machine at the bedside. “There’s not much left.”
“What’s that?”
“Blood. This is the last of it. There’s only about a half liter left.”
She tilted her head so our faces were in line. It was dark inside, but some light from the streetlamps managed to sneak in through the tinted windows. Enough that I could see her emerald green eyes, her copper curls. She reached up and touched my fingers. Suddenly they were on fire, but in a good way.
“Do you want to go in?” she asked.
What I really wanted was to stay here with her, but if plans were being made, I didn’t want her to miss out, especially if it meant she might get to stay longer. Then I remembered what I had to tell everyone—that Detective Baddon’s son might be a vampire. I sat up. The room spun. Luna must have seen the look on my face.
“Better not push it.” She put her hand on my chest and I flopped back down.
“Wait.” I nodded toward the machine. “You can turn that off.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” I sat up, more slowly this time. The dizziness came back, but I toughed it out. Sleep would have to wait. “There’s a faster way.” I pulled the needle from my arm, snapped the surgical tubing, removed the bag of blood from the machine, and drank. It wasn’t quite enough. My ankle and calf were still itchy. Some stinging remained. My head was clearing, but I didn’t get the usual urge to go marathon running. “That’s all we have? Is that what you said? This was it?”
Luna slipped in front of me. We stood facing each other. Like Mr. Entwistle, I had to duck to keep my head from hitting the roof. It brought our faces closer together. Enough that I could feel her breath on my cheek.
“That’s the last of it,” she said.
“You didn’t bring any up with you?”
She shook her head. “Sorry. The last batch I got was tainted. I was hoping to find more here.”
“And did you?”
She moved a bit closer. “No. But I’ll be all right for a while. I didn’t get poisoned last night.”
“Last night? What time is it?”
“Almost midnight. You’ve been out for about twenty hours or so.”
Asleep for twenty hours? That meant I’d been out all day. But it also meant there were a good five hours or so before sunrise. I had a pretty good idea how I wanted to spend them. Then I heard footsteps outside the door. It opened a crack and Charlie’s face appeared.
“Room service.” He smiled when he saw I was out of bed. “He lives.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “I hate to spoil the party, but Luna’s father is on the phone. He was so angry it almost blew apart. You two need to come inside.”