Page 11 of Wonder
We searched the cabinets in the room, but they only held cleaning supplies. At the end of the hall were two bedrooms, each with two twin beds. There was no desk, but we found one laptop and a folder of papers I took to read through later.
On the first floor was another bedroom, this one with a queen-sized bed. Whoever had rated this room had another laptop plus a stack of what looked like accounting journals.
We didn’t find anything else of interest. They didn’t have much besides clothes, food, a TV, and gaming consoles. When the Hunters got here, we’d have to go check the two dead vampires in the woods for cell phones.
Tucker and I took our meager findings out to his car. Thomas and Shirley had moved the dining table out of the kitchen and loaded it with bottled water, sodas, and snacks. Nicky was still unconscious.
Anika walked over. She gestured toward the other former captives, who were still hanging out near Simon and Nicky. “Thanks for letting me use your phone. Ophelia has it now. I told Simon and Shirley, but someone using a number you didn’t have in your contacts texted you that they would be here soon. You had a bunch of other texts come in, but based on the previews they didn’t seem related to this.” She circled her finger to encompass everyone.
I thanked her, and Tucker and I went over to Simon. My gaze lingered on the pale skin of his back, admiring how his muscles flexed. Shit. “Any change?”
He shook his head, keeping his eyes on Nicky’s still form. “No.”
“What about you? Do you need to feed?” I knelt down next to him.
He met my eyes at last, a tired smile gracing his face. I could’ve stared into his golden eyes for days. “Thanks for checking, but I’m good for now. Are you okay? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”
My face felt hot, and I stifled the urge to run my fingers through my hair to make sure it was laying flat. “Nah, I’m fine.” Fuck, what was I, in middle school again?
I looked down at Nicky. I was kneeling by his feet, which stuck out from the end of the mylar blanket. Other than the bite scars, the skin on his soles was soft. No calluses. I tugged at the hem of his scrub pants. The scars were everywhere, and his ankles were scabbed and bruised from the restraints on his cot. “How long did they have him?”
Simon didn’t respond, so I glanced up. He was gently tracing the tip of Nicky’s ear with one finger. He dropped his hand and let out a huge sigh. “Since 1946. He was twelve years old.”
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – AUGUST, 1946
I thanked the brownie, and he shut his door—rather firmly—behind me. I got into the Ford Anglia the king had allowed me to keep and made my way back toward the main road.
Hundreds of years. Wonders had been regularly vanishing for hundreds of years, and we’d never realized. The brownie’s story matched the others I’d heard, varying only in the length of time since the disappearances had taken place. I felt sick thinking of the rotting pestilence at the heart of the Royal Guard. This wasn’t a few bad apples egging each other on as a whim. This was entrenched generational behavior. A club, a cabal. And all the members were vampires. My species.
When I was young, long before I’d left the Elven dimension, the vampire community had been up in arms over an Earth book,Draculaby Bram Stoker. My kin were either amused or horrified that one of our kind would be portrayed as feeding directly from sentient people. Theories abounded as to how the author had come to know of our species in the first place—some of the details were too accurate to be coincidence. But what if that author had witnessed, or known someone who’d witnessed, a real vampire feeding from a Wonder?
I’d never suspected my people, my colleagues, could do such a thing, but obviously they had. What signs had I missed? There had to have been signs.
I’d led the Royal Guard for the past twenty-seven years. Maybe most of the guards who’d vanished with Prince Nicol had never been people I’d enjoyed spending time with off duty, but they’d all been completely professional. They’d done their jobs and done them well.
So I wouldn’t suspect them. So the king wouldn’t suspect them.
And when Wonders had reported loved ones missing, the only investigations had happened locally. Word had never reached the king, had never reached me.
If King Domhnull hadn’t decided to abandon Earth and close the portal, we still wouldn’t know about it.
I grimaced. There was nowe. I was the only one who knew, the only one who’d ever know. The king was back home behind the closed portal. I wondered how many of theluchd-òl fola, the blood drinkers as I had named them, had returned with him. Surely there were more in their club than only those who had taken Prince Nicol. The Wonders in our home dimension were not safe, just like those here on Earth were not safe.
I’d sent thirty-six Royal Guards to meet Prince Nicol, his tutors, and his four Guards when they’d arrived in London. Kinnon had announced there wasn’t room for everyone to return in the estate wagons. He’d put the Prince’s Guards immediately on leave, then he’d chosen seven of the Guards he’d brought—and I’d cleared those seven of any involvement in the kidnapping—to stay behind with the tutors and travel by train back to Scotland. When I reviewed the names of the remaining twenty-nine Guards, I’d been able to trace strong friendships between all of them. I was certain none had been killed. They had all participated. Twenty-nine Guards had betrayed their king. Betrayed their prince, their people, and me.
Ordinarily, tracking such a large group would be easy, but these were vampires. Vampires trained to be Royal Guards. So far I hadn’t found a trace of them, so I’d resorted to looking for missing Wonders. I hadn’t expected to find evidence like this though.
I glanced down at the passenger side footwell to make sure my carryall was still secured. I kept a journal of my findings, though I didn’t know who I’d ever show it to. The bag also held Prince Nicol’sdèideag dìon. The king had wanted to destroy them, but I’d asked to keep them with me on Earth. He’d been relieved to have them out of his sight.
As adamant as he was that Prince Nicol was dead, the king had hated my decision to stay on Earth to find out what had happened and why. But in the end, he’d allowed it, deciding it was a tribute to his late son.
In addition to the car and a good amount of money and jewels, the king had left me with a generous supply offuil-bheatha, the life-giving serum the Elves created so we vampires did not have to feed from other sentient beings. But I was running low, and with the portal closed, there would be no replenishing it.
Soon I would have to drink from Wonders. I’d have to become like theluchd-òl folamyself.
CHAPTER 4
SIMON
