Dead Spots (Scarlett Bernard #1)(86)

“What did you write?”

He waved a hand. “Claire and I, we were just what you’d call hangers-on. Neither of us had much talent for writing, but we wanted to be around the three of them so badly, we were determined to...play in their league, I suppose would be the phrase. Claire decided to throw herself at Byron, which started a great deal of anguish. And I...Well, I was foolish.” He leaned back in the chair. “I picked up Byron’s discarded story and tried to make it my own. I added every detail I could think of, from every silly vampire story I could find. Back then, vampires did what they wanted—Stoker’s book wouldn’t come out for nearly a century, and vampires were just folklore. When I tried to get the book published, however, I was visited by three of them.”

My eyes widened, and he smiled. “Oh, yes, they threatened me. I suspect they pressed my mind as well, because I awoke the next morning with no desire to be a published author whatsoever. But in a stupid twist of fate, one of my servants passed a manuscript to someone, and the story was published without my permission. The Vampyre. They came for me that very night.”

“That’s how you were turned,” I said quietly.

“Yes. I believe they only did it so they could torment me further, but something strange happened. When I was ‘born,’ for the second time, I was more powerful than I should have been, with more control over myself. It happens that way every now and then. A few years later, after her affair with Byron had gone wrong and their young daughter had died, Claire came to me begging to be turned as well. Claire was always trying to find a cure for her restlessness, her endless search for self, and she had decided that being a vampire would solve all her problems. After two years of begging, I relented. She decided she was in love with me, which caused more anguish...” He lifted a shoulder in an elegant half shrug.

“Ariadne.”

“Yes.”

“Did it work? Did it make her happy?”

He frowned. “No. In fact, a few dozen years later, I met Beatrice and realized what love really felt like. And Claire was furious. So furious that she acted rashly, once again. She went to a young theater manager and failed novelist named Abraham Stoker, determined to give away secrets that would lead to the destruction of vampires. Luckily, Stoker was smart enough to do some...What would you call it? Fictionalizing.”

My jaw dropped open.

He saw it and smiled. “I won’t go any further into this particular drama. Suffice it to say that when you turned Ariadne—Claire—you did me a great favor. She was a thorn in my side for nearly two hundred years.”

He stood up again, straightening out his clothes. “Of course, if you tell anyone that story, I will shoot you in the chest.” He touched his forelock, as though tipping a hat, and just that quickly, he was gone again.

My jaw hung open.


I spent two more days in the hospital, sleeping and getting CT scans. I never asked who was in charge of supernatural cleanup while I was out, and Eli was in my hospital room every day. Maybe Kirsten, Dashiell, and Will were taking care of things themselves, or maybe they just ordered everyone to be cool for a week or so. I didn’t really care either way. I was more concerned with getting better. By the morning after Dashiell’s visit, I was starting to feel short, tingling bursts where the edges of my radius had been, like an electric fence struggling to turn itself on. I had also finally caught up on sleep, and was getting bored with the hospital.

Corry and her mother came to visit me on Thursday afternoon. Corry’s arm was in a neon-green cast, and there were dark circles under her eyes, but she looked calm.

Her mother trembled as she took my hand. “Corry has explained some things to me,” she said tearfully, “but I still have a few questions. Perhaps you could come for coffee sometime when you feel better?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said, glancing at Corry.

She nodded happily and turned to her mother. “Mom, could I have a second alone with Scarlett, please?”

Her mom hesitated, with: as if she might object but couldn’t come up with an excuse.

“You’ll be right outside the door, Mom,” she said softly. “We’ll leave the door open.”

Mrs. Tanger finally nodded and turned away. This was a very different woman from the one I had met only a few days before. This woman knew that her children could be hurt, that she could become powerless to save them. It was a terrible thing to know, and the weight of it seemed to pull on her. I hoped she’d recover.

When she was gone, Corry took the chair on my right and dragged it close to the bed. “So...um...I guess thanks for saving my life and stuff,” she said, smiling hesitantly.

I laughed a little. “You’re welcome.” I pushed the button to raise my bed up, trying to get a better angle for talking to her. “How much are you telling your mom?”

“Not a lot, so far. She knows that I can do something that’s valuable to certain...I think the term I used was ‘criminal elements.’ She isn’t asking a whole lot of questions. I think she doesn’t want to know.”

“And your dad?”

Her smile was sad and wistful. “He’s just pretending the whole thing never happened—that we had a botched robbery or something.”

We were silent for a moment, thinking about that.

Then I said softly, “Have you told them about your teacher?”