Page 54 of The Last Vampire
Trevor sets down the text he’s paging through and comes closer to us. “Butif this room is too lame for you, you can go,” he tells William. “Maybe catch up on your Shakespeare.”
“Cursed ink!”blurts Salma, obviously trying to deflate the tension between the guys. “Maybe there’s a spell on these books, and that’s why we can’t read the ink. I wonder if we should be looking up spellbooks in the library.”
I know she’s being serious, but no one else seems sure how to react.
“I saw a documentary once about invisible ink,” says Zach. “You can use heat to reveal it.”
“Were the lights on when you first discovered this room?” asks William suddenly, staring curiously at the mass of glowing white wires overhead.
“I think so,” says Zach, and everyone starts looking around, presumably for a switch.
The lights cut out abruptly.
I hear a few sharp breaths as the place drowns in darkness, and Trevor asks, “See any glow-in-the-dark text on those pages?”
“No,” says Tiffany.
“Um, guys… look up,” I say. Without their illumination, the mass of wires is now invisible, exposing the room’s ceiling.
A message glows in the dark.
CHAPTER 17william
“It’s a list,” says Trevor.
“Atimeline,” Zach corrects him.
William forgets to pretend to blink or breathe as he stares at the words overhead. The first sign that his history has not been forgotten.
Five different time periods are spaced out across a long line, and underneath the numbers are a series of corresponding events.
1300s: The Massacre.Known to humans as the Black Death.1449: The Treaty of Mutual Survival. Known to vampires as simply the Treaty, since it is their one and only accord.1700s: The Great Fires.
“What is the Immortal Registry of 1670?” asks Salma. That amendment to the Treaty was a Legion-sponsored initiative that ordered all vampires living in human societies to register with their local Legion of Fire precinct.
William can feel Lorena’s eyes on him. No doubt her brain is searing with questions, but he is burning for answers himself.
“1775: The Spell,” reads Tiffany. “There’s nothing after that. What do you think it means?”
“It has to be witchcraft,” says Salma, sounding delighted at the thought.
“Try taking a picture of it,” Trevor says to Zach, and the latter raises his camera, then inspects the display.
“Nothing,” he says in disappointment.
William flips the power switch again, and light floods the space. The switch is so high on the wall that Trevor is the only other one of the group who might reach it.
“Thisshould be our club.” Trevor’s eyes grow rounder as he pans his gaze across everyone but William. “We can keep studying the LUB, only we’ll give it another name, something people won’t want to join. Like…history club. So it’s just us five.”
“We’resix,” says Salma, “and I’m in.”
“So am I,” says William, to Trevor’s dismay. The boy is annoying, but the vampire cannot deny he was correct about this room having more secrets to share.
William leaves the basement before the others so they will not see the path he takes to his room. Who left that timeline for him? Did they know that history was going to be changed? Why did they leave him here, alone?
The first tower is roped off at the base because the structure is unstable. The paint along the stairs has mostly chipped off, the walls are webbed with cracks, and some of the steps have caved in. Yet William darts to the top and opens the door to what looks like a bombed-out version of Lorena’s penthouse.
Not a shard of glass covers the wide window, leaving the room open to the elements. There are no light fixtures or pieces of furniture, nor is there need for them. The vampire’s vision is perfect even in the dark, and after so many centuries spent sleeping, he does not yet require rest. It will likely be a few more years before he has a regular sleep cycle.
