Page 29 of The Curse of Eternity
For a second, everything else left my head. Shock overshadowed the pain and aches, disappearing alongside my deep-seated terror. Sure, Drake was old, but I never expectedthis.
“That’s—” I cleared my throat. “Impressive.” When Drake briefly laughed, the sardonic sound managed to pull a smirk from my cracked lips.
“Hardly, and that is what I am attempting to explain. Most of us still existing today are from the same era. Very few immortals are created in this age, and your ancestor is to be thanked for that.” His words managed to warm the center of my heart, thatthere being less vampires was agoodthing. It helped, even if it only distracted me from our impending death for a moment.
A memory clicked into place, from before I left my family at the club, and drove to the Rio Bravo park where Drake awaited. In hindsight, he must have known the other vampires and the sorcerer would come for him. Except that wasn’t what made me pause. It was another player on the field whose nosy involvement hadn’t made any sense before.
Carefully, I wiggled my hips to figure out if that little orb the faery gave me was still nestled safely in my pocket and—miraculously—it was.
Hope surged, my breathing sped up, but I tamped it down before I could give anything away. My hearing picked up every pot-hole and passing car on the road. I would bet the vampire driving this—van?—had superior hearing even to a descendant of Helsing.
Coming up with a plan would have to wait, so I refocused on the conversation at hand, and asked, “How is that possible? And why aren’t there any new vampires being made?”
When the van jostled, I stifled a shriek as the shackles pulled at the sores forming across my wrist bones. Drake’s brow pinched, concern crossing his features while I breathed through the pain.
“It was made illegal shortly after Dracula suffered his final death, sometime around seventeen-fifty-two.” Drake’s tone was perfunctory, like talking about what happened almost three hundred years ago was inconsequential. Maybe that’s what it was like to survive for so long. The impact of events packed less of a punch.
“Why? Their whole plan was for world domination, wasn’t it?” At least, that’s what I’d been raised to believe Dracula had been after.
“Once theirvoievod,Dracula, was gone, the Domnitori acted as a council to lead the remaining immortals. Many of them ‘saw the writing on the wall,’ so to speak. They feared human invention, the acceleration at which it was progressing, and opted to enact a law of secrecy.”
“The vampire leaders…fearus?” I balked, but Drake nodded.
“Perhaps they can terrorize and torment the few, charm those who fight against them—but the entirety of the human population?” Drake scoffed, his lip curling. “Dracula only believed it was possible because he existed during the aftermath of the Black Death. When humans fell left and right like flies, their numbers in Europe decimated with the ease of neglect. Many of his council came long after, nearing the industrial age, and they were right to be afraid.”
Flooded with too many revelations, I blurted, “My… My family always told the story like Dracula was given his immortality by the devil.” Part of me needed to know, if only to ground myself, just how much I’d been misled to believe—or chose to ignore. “Grandpa explained that there were three brothers, the sons of Vlad the Impaler…”
Being a story I’d been told since childhood, the rehearsed words flowed easily off my tongue. “The oldest was Mihnea, followed by Alexandru, and then finally Dracula. When the Impaler died, Mihnea was too sickly to take the throne of Wallachia, a failing kingdom already. Except Dracula wanted to rule instead, so badly that he made a deal with the devil for immortality, speed, strength, heightened senses…” Everything that made vampires the monsters who preyed on people.
“He received it, yet it came at a price,” Drake continued on my behalf, and my gaze shot to his. Dark eyes bore into mine, and my stomach warmed beneath his unwavering attention. “Consuming the life blood of others was key to maintaining such ‘eternal youth.’ Under the rays of sunlight, our true ages arerevealed which cast us as skeletal creatures—held together by magick and wicked deeds.”
A small, sardonic grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “With his newfound strength, Dracula bested his elder brother, Alexandru, yet lost interest in Wallachia when he set his sights onmore. Whether that was the continent, or the globe in its entirety, I have no clue. The world seemed smaller in those days.”
“Except Alexandru didn’t die,” I argued through a cough, my parched mouth almost at its limit. The distraction of our conversation was the only thing keeping my thoughts from spiraling, so I clung to my family’s oral history instead of acknowledging whatever future laid ahead. “During his final breaths, he was visited by the archangel, Michael, and given a similar version of immortality. But his came with an expiration date. That was the balance, or something. Over the centuries, he eventually took on a new name—Abraham Van Helsing.
“Once he killed Dracula, he aged like any ordinary man. That’s how I came to be…” It was how Grandpa always ended the story, impressing onto us, even as kids, that we were part of a great legacy. One which led to Helsing’sgreatdescendant being chained up in a van, driven across the country by vampires and some asshole sorcerer.
A curse, more like, because how many of us survived into the golden years? My father and uncle were the oldest generation still alive and actively hunting. Grandpa retired ages ago, long after his own brother was killed in the crossfire during a hunt. We had no extended relatives on the Harker side. None of them survived the legacy.
Looks like I landed on the wrong side of my family’s history.
“I have been taught a similar version of events,” Drake acknowledged, but his whispered words brought the conversation to a close.
A sigh rattled through my lungs while I thought about my family.Why did they have to push me to this point?Was this what I deserved for what I put them through last year? Would I never get the chance to earn their forgiveness?
My eyes shut tight, holding back the prickling tears.
“How long—” I cleared my aching throat while my wrists throbbed and empty stomach twisted. “How much longer until we get wherever they’re taking us?” It was hard to believe our destination, and maybe it made the situation less real not to name it.
“Enough distance exists between now and then for you to rest—if you can,” he tacked on, and my stinging eyes opened. Surrounded by the van’s jostle, speeding down unknown highways, my chest shuddered with a suppressed sob.
When I had no one, not even my machete to make me feel safe, Drake’s steadfast kindness cut through the chaos inside my head. Somehow, just his presence here with me became a comfort. Maybe because we were both racing toward the same fate, our destinies now intertwined. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t shake the burgeoning warmth squeezing my heart while chills skittered over my shoulders and down my spine.
Minutes passed after silence descended between us. Each second punctuated by the same confusing question.How had I ever considered him my enemy?
The stale dry air worsened the cotton feeling in my mouth. Staring down at the floor of the van, I couldn’t help but stew in misery. Thankfully, Drake only asked how I felt once since I woke from the latest in a series of uncomfortable naps. Mynoncommittal response about wishing for water was answered with more sympathy, but no promises.
Never in my life did I think I’d be this thirsty, or that I’d rather starve for days than go one more second without something to drink—anything, at this point. Through the brain fog, I tried to sort out how much time had passed.Damn these shackles, everything from my fingertips to my tailbone hurt.
