I didn’t know what I expected when he said we’d be going to the evidence — a four-wheeler or motorbike, a broomstick, some kind of flying machine. Instead, Dragomir tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and ran. At one point I knew we flew, because I looked up and got nose-to-beak with a startled owl.
The freezing air in the tops of the trees stole the breath from my lungs and numbed the tip of my nose. More than anything, though, the adrenaline of maybe finding a new way of tracking Jamie down kept me warm but set my teeth chattering in anticipation.
The view wasn’t great from over Dragomir’s shoulder, though. Mostly the blur of his ass and legs created vertigo and a curdling in my stomach. We’d have to come up with a different arrangement on the way back to the cabin, that was for damn sure.
And then — just as abruptly as he’d leapt into action — Dragomir swirled to a halt and dropped me in front of a massive, iron-bound oak door. In a mountain face, high on an almost sheer cliff. I swayed and clamped onto him like a spider monkey.
“Holy shit,” I croaked. Trees and branches and enormous boulders blocked the view and a good assessment of exactly how high up we were, but it was windy and cold enough I knew I didn’t want to test it out. “Where are…”
He opened the door and hauled me inside, shutting the door and continuing down the circular stairs deeper into the mountain. I staggered and braced myself on the rough-hewn wall, and eventually got my legs to cooperate and follow him, one stair at a time.
The large room we entered was familiar enough: the main room in his lair.
My skin prickled. He didn’t mind me seeing the outside of his lair?
I followed Dragomir into a room I hadn’t seen before: this one lined with bookshelves groaning under the weight of masses of tomes. A pigeon-holed tall cabinet in the corner held… yep, there were scrolls.
Sure. What else would a vampire collect but scrolls? Maybe they contained the account of all his dastardly deeds over the centuries.
“You are exhausting,” he said, standing next to the table in the middle of the room. “And easily distracted. How have you ever completed a task?”
“It’s easy when it’s something I’m interested in.” And before another word occurred to me, I saw what lay on the table.
A muddy boot with broken and knotted laces. A shredded bear bag. Tatters of a blue one-person tent, repaired with duct tape in a triangle. Protein bar wrappers in Jamie’s favorite flavor. A dented aluminum pot he used to cook over, one side blackened due to an unfortunate experiment with accelerant on a campfire.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I’d recognize the boots and pot anywhere. Jamie.
Dark spots on the tent, though. Dark red-black. Blood. Maybe blood.
I dragged my gaze to Dragomir as he impassively took in my reaction. “H-how did you find this? Where did you find this?”
I held onto the table to get to a chair before my knees collapsed. Something still made sense. Gravity still worked. The blood still pounded in my ears. I gripped the chair as everything else threatened to fall apart.
“I searched, as I told you.” Dragomir used a pencil to turn the dirty boot, then showed me a series of burn marks around the heel. “I assume you recognize this.”
My throat dried. Dot dash dash dash. Dot dash. Dash dash. Dot dot. Dot. Jamie.
Morse code from the summer he thought he’d join the Navy and design cryptographic algorithms. He learned semaphore and every sort of code he could learn, grew obsessed with it. Tapped it on the table during dinner, whistled it as we hiked, emailed me pages and pages of it for letters that took me an hour to translate and inevitably attracted the attention of IT people looking for weird shit on the network.
Jamie’s boot.
I blinked a few times, rubbing my eyes. None of the capsicum remained on my skin, but I felt like blaming it for the tears that fell from my lashes. “Was there any sign of… anything else?”
“No remains,” Dragomir said. “These items in what might have been a campsite. And this.”
He pulled something from his jacket pocket. A silver chain fell from his fingers to mine. I froze, staring at the serpentine swirl as the cool metal warmed in my palm. The small medallion on the chain showed St. Albert the Great, patron saint of the natural sciences and half a dozen other things. While our family hadn’t really gone to church and certainly hadn’t been true believers, Jamie occasionally went to Mass with Mom before he disappeared.
The only thing I could think of to say was, “I thought you couldn’t touch holy items.”
“Superstition and mythology. Surely you do not believe that nonsense,” he said under his breath. “I fledged on holy ground, Ada. If I could not touch blessed items, I would have incinerated the moment I woke from my first death.”
“And… isn’t this silver? I thought you guys were allergic to silver? Or is that werewolves?”
His lips thinned. “More superstition derived from folklore.”
I folded my arms. “Really? Would you tell me if it worked?”
“The belief that silver affects us arose after villagers linked the death of a werewolf to a silver-tipped spear destroying its heart.” Dragomir’s words dripped with disdain. “As they believed werewolves and vampires linked, the belief spread to encompass a silver allergy for vampires as well. None of it factual.”
“And a stake through the heart?”
“A stake through the heart would kill anything,” he said. “There are certain types of wood that cause us some damage if introduced to a specific location. More than that, I will not say.”
Of course he wouldn’t.
“Does it really affect werewolves, though?”
“To an extent, and only if pure. Mercury is the preferred method to counteract werewolves.” Dragomir didn’t even sound interested. “Far more silver is required to kill them than mercury.”
“To be fair, any amount of mercury would kill almost anything.” I squeezed the chain until the link imprinted in my palm. I’d never let it go, not until I could give it back to Jamie. “Where did you find it? How was it… It’s been ten years. How was any of this still intact? Undiscovered?”
“There are no trails there anymore, apparently.” The vampire studied the tent. “Are you satisfied I have maintained my part of our deal?”
I almost would have preferred he hadn’t, but knowing was better. Knowing was always better than not knowing.
My voice grated in my ears. “Yes.”
Jamie. Jamie. Where are you?
Dragomir handed me a torn slip of thick paper. “The coordinates, if you wish to identify the location on a map.”
It took all my willpower not to snatch it out of his fingers and hiss “My preciousssssss.” I glanced at the numbers to memorize them, just in case I lost the paper, and tucked it away safely in my bra. Another step closer to finding my brother.
Blood and ripped up gear didn’t necessarily mean that he’d been injured or killed. How had it happened? Had he been attacked? What had he done after it happened? He couldn’t have gotten far with only one boot and no tent and no bear bag. Maybe he needed to move fast and took only his canteen and the emergency blanket. Other hikers could have found him and packed him out to safety. He could have lost his memory and started over somewhere with a different identity. Anything was possible.
I couldn’t breathe. I inhaled and inhaled and inhaled until black spots dotted my vision and the air itself choked me. Maybe Jamie had been here well after his disappearance. He could have been lost and wandering for some time, surviving with his instincts and woodcraft, and gradually discarded his gear as it became too battered to use. It didn’t explain leaving his boot behind, but it made me feel better to imagine my brother working his way through the park to get back to us.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the reality of what the items told me and instead focused on my brother. Jamie was alive. I just had to find him. He’d just gotten lost. He knew enough about survival to live in the park on his own for years. Maybe even a decade.
The vampire stood over me with an impassive expression. “Now are you convinced to uphold your end of the deal with a little more urgency?”
I touched the bear bag, searching for any connection to my brother, and gathered the tent close. Jamie. Where are you?
My voice grated in my ears. “Yes.”
“Good.” Dragomir checked his watch. “I trust you will prioritize my objective over any others, regardless of who attempts to distract you.”
From the glint in his eyes, he knew how much Archer stole my attention.
I pushed to my feet and faced the vampire. “You are the priority. I have some theories. I still think one of the porphyrias is the best direction to start with, and…”
Dragomir’s pupils went vertical as he watched me. “It is not porphyria.”
“There are six different kinds,” I said. “Did you test for all of them?”
His expression soured enough that guessing his answer didn’t take a genius.
I took a deep breath and focused on what my heart told me. Jamie was alive. I just had to find him. Which meant helping Dragomir above all others, even if Archer was the more comfortable ally. Or maybe not, based on his willingness to run into the middle of a pack of werewolves with nothing more than a couple of guns. He wasn’t getting a MacArthur Grant any time soon but at least he was cute and had a good sense of humor.
But he would have to wait. I calmed my racing heart and double-checked that the bear bag contained the remnants of Jamie’s things.
I was closer to finding Jamie than I’d ever been. I just had to stay focused.