Page 59 of The Doctor and the Devil
A flicker of fear passed over the older man’s face, and he swallowed but stood and squared his shoulders.
“Powerful words from a powerless vampire.” He sneered. “Step back, Dracul, into that cell there. Yes—those bars that feel so strange to you? That’s Judas silver.”
I would have said it was impossible, but my inability to access any of my powers proved it was true. Even now, I could feel my supernatural strength siphoning off, draining every-so-slightly, like a trickle of water from a cracked pitcher.
“What’s Judas silver?” Charlotte asked, uneasy.
“Surely, you remember the story,” Derais scoffed. “Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver—blood money that led to the death of our Lord and Savior. Even if you and your kind are damned to Hell for your weakness in succumbing to the temptation of the blood plague’s power, I’m certain you recall how well that played out for humanity’s greatest traitor.”
“Mon dieu,Daphne, I forgot how melodramatic Derais could be,” Charlotte droned, rolling her eyes. “Look, if you’re going to execute us, just get it over with. I don’t need the torture of Bible study before I die.”
Daphne snickered and Étienne stirred in her lap. She stroked his bloodied hair idly, no doubt trying to comfort him and quell her fear.
Derais’s face twisted in anger, but he continued.
“Well, what happened to those thirty pieces of ill-gotten silver? Cursed, they were. Tainted. They left the mark of evil on everyone and everything they touched. Then they disappeared from legend for a few hundred years, only to resurface during the Crusades. When people slowly realized what they were, they were collected and kept in a lead vault in the holy land. The Order formed sometime after that, and then the blood plague came to France, and my holy brothers agreed the ultimate test of the silver’s effects would be to pit it against the greatest, most powerful threat to our world—the House of Dracul.”
He paced, seething in righteousness as I slumped to the floor. The more he spoke, the wilder the gleam in his eye became and the more rabid his tone. Flecks of spit flew from his lips as he continued his tirade.
“I secured the unholy treasure myself this past year at great personal cost, but it was worth it. Now, we finally have a means to eliminate every supernatural creature from the face of the earth. Once we had the cursed silver, it was almosttooeasy to find ways to use it—to smelt it down, mix it with other metals, and turn it into powerful weapons against blasphemous threats.”
“You are mad, Derais,” I growled. I tried to fight the rising nausea and weakness snaking through my body. “You and your Order are twisted. If you wish to protect humanity from its greatest threat, you might as well start by hanging yourself.”
Derais crossed the room and closed the cell door, locking me into Laszlo’s old cell. Placing the keys in his front pockets, he gestured to the door and motioned for Marguerite to leave. She flicked one glance back at me, regret written on her face.
“I’m sorry, Rafael,” she whispered. “But now…Laszlo and I are all we have.”
I wanted to hurl an insult at her, to scream and rage and wrap my hands around her delicate neck, but the sound of Mina’s screams split the night, and my horror froze me in place.
20
MINA
April 27, 1768
Cimetière des Innocents
Faster and faster I ran,swerving between trees and dodging shrubs and puddles. Laszlo had come running out of the mausoleum, obviously weakened from his imprisonment. Otherwise, I would have already been caught—or dead.
He gained ground ever so slowly, and I knew I had to do something to gain the advantage. But the farther we got from the Order’s headquarters, the more he seemed to recover, as if his strength was slowly finding its way back to his tormented bones. Sheer terror had me in its grip, and I couldn’t think—couldn’t puzzle my way out of this one.
“Doctor, please!” he called from behind me, closer than I would have liked. “Please, you must understand! I don’t want to hurt you! I just need to do as they say, and they’ll let Marguerite and I go!”
I wouldn’t be able to hide from him, and I couldn’t outrun him for long, but that meant my only recourse was to stand and fight.
Impossible.Even weakened, Laszlo was probably stronger and more powerful than Rafael, and it was only a matter of time before he caught up with me and hauled me back to the Order for my execution.
I stumbled on the root of a large tree and nearly went down, but as I twisted to right, I heard the faint clink of glass from my waistcoat.The vials in my medical kit. The pockets! The weapons!Realization slammed into me as I hurdled a low shrub—Charlotte and Daphne had given me everything I needed to defend myself; I simply had to find the right time and place to use it.
I groped blindly through the pockets, trying to remember which ones held what. I plucked the vial of quicksilver and a small wooden stake from my waistcoat, held them out, and then slowed to prepare for my final stand.
Laszlo was almost upon me, but he stopped after seeing the items in my hands. I knew they wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but if he was still weak, they would be enough to delay him considerably. I brandished them before me.
“Let me go, Laszlo,” I warned, desperately trying to catch my breath.
He shook his head slowly.
“You know I cannot do that,” he said. “If I don’t take you back, they will kill Marguerite.”
