Eleventh Grade Burns(44)

But then, it was only a matter of time before Eddie would return to his old habits. After all, even for vampires, there was no stopping the media.

Stealing around to the back of the house, Vlad pulled open the door and stepped inside. Immediately, something felt very wrong.

“Vikas? You home?” He reached out with his blood, the way that Otis had taught him last year, and felt his teacher’s presence upstairs. Something felt ... wrong. Vikas’s blood felt off, somehow. Different. As he climbed the steps, his pace hurried, and with worry, he opened the door to the guest bedroom.

Vikas was lying on the bed. The dark circles under his eyes and his sunken cheeks made his face look like a skull. He was always pale, but now he looked like a sickening combination of gray and green. His eyes were closed, and if Vlad didn’t know any better he would have thought that Vikas might be dead.

Tristian was standing over him, dabbing his forehead with a cool, moist cloth. Vlad’s face darkened to see his actions. They only confirmed his fears that Vikas must be terribly ill. Vlad stepped inside the room, careful to keep his footfalls hushed. He exchanged glances with Tristian, who looked so worried that it made Vlad’s heart skip a beat. “What happened?”

Tristian parted his lips to speak, but Vikas opened his eyes and spoke in a gruff, stubborn voice. “I’m fine, Mahlyenki Dyavol. Just a bit under the weather.”

Ignoring Vikas’s grumblings, Vlad sat on the side of the bed and met Tristian’s gaze.

In a hushed, timid voice, Tristian said, “I brought him a glass of bloodwine from the open bottle on the counter, like I do every afternoon. He gets peckish around three, you know.” A worried crease had taken up permanent residence on Tristian’s forehead. He looked down at his master, whose eyes were closed again. “Even if he eats a late lunch, he’s always hungry around three. So I brought him a glass. He took a sip and just ... just crumbled to the ground.”

Worried tears filled Tristian’s eyes. “All I could think was that something was wrong with the wine. So I put my finger down his throat to make him throw it up. He vomited and retched up every drop of bloodwine, so I gave him as much of my blood as I could and put him in bed.” Tristian took the cloth from Vikas’s head and dropped it into a bowl of water on the bedside table. “I tried to call Otis, but he told me not to.”

“Stubborn old man.” Vlad shook his head. Vikas opened his eyes and gave Vlad the best ‘I heard that’ look that he could muster. It was like Vikas to be the strong one, even when his life was on the line. Vlad squeezed Tristian’s shoulder and offered him a comforting smile. “You did everything right, Tristian. I can see why Vikas values you so much as his drudge. Could you please go get me the bottle so I can take a look at it?”

After Tristian left the room, Vikas clutched Vlad’s arm and pulled him closer, his voice raspy. “He poisoned me.”

Vlad’s eyes widened and his heart thumped hard inside his chest. “Who? Tristian?”

“No. The boy. The slayer.” Vikas fell back on the bed, barely able to open his eyes. He looked so weak, and in so much pain. He swallowed hard, as if it were a challenge to call a slayer by his given name.

“Joss.” Vlad almost hissed the word. He should have known. But why use poison? Why not a stake? It seemed like a cowardly way to take down one of the oldest vampires known. One would think that such a task would give the slayer who accomplished it bragging rights among his psycho slayer friends. “How do you know it was Joss?”

“Who else would wish the death of me in this town and take such a cowardly approach to achieving that end but a slayer? I should have smelled it, but I never thought the bloodwine could be tainted. It seemed like one of the neighbors was cooking something foul. One of the downfalls of living among humans, it seems.” Vikas coughed and then caught his breath. “I took a sip. Just one sip. Luckily, I vomited it all up, or you and I might not be having this conversation. Tristian ... he saved my life.”

As if on cue, Tristian returned to the room, bottle in hand. Vikas moaned at the sight of it, and Vlad nearly gagged at the scent. Garlic juice. Probably so little that Tristian couldn’t pick up on its faint scent with his human senses. But to Vlad and Vikas, the nauseating stench was overwhelming. As if realizing this, Tristian ran the bottle back downstairs. Vlad heard the back door open, so it was likely he was throwing it in the trash. Smart guy.

Turning back to Vikas, Vlad said, “If Joss did this ...”