Eleventh Grade Burns(74)

Vlad chewed his bottom lip for a moment. It had never occurred to him how lonely Dorian might be. Or maybe he wasn’t lonely. Maybe he was just bored a lot. He thought for a moment before speaking. “Is the Pravus evil?”

Dorian cocked an eyebrow. “What a strange query, my young friend.”

Vlad shrugged. Strange or not, he needed to know if he was going to somehow morph into this evil being, mad with power. “Well, people say that the Pravus will rule over all vampirekind and enslave the human race, so ...”

“What people say this?”

“I don’t know. Vampire people. Vikas, for one.” Vlad was feeling oddly frustrated and he wasn’t sure why, exactly. Maybe it was because he hadn’t expected criticism or query in response to his simple question. “Is he wrong?”

Dorian raised a sharp eyebrow. “That’s difficult to say. Can you be more direct in your questioning?”

Jeez. It was like talking to a Magic 8 Ball. With a sigh, Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, “Will the Pravus rule over vampirekind and enslave the human race?”

“He will do one out of necessity The other will be done in charity.”

“Which one will he ... I do out of necessity?”

“The Pravus will rule over vampirekind.”

Vlad’s heart thumped twice, hard. “And if I don’t want to?”

Dorian shook his head. “You’re asking my advice now, advice that I cannot give.”

After mulling this over for a bit, Vlad wondered aloud, “How can I enslave the human race out of charity?”

Dorian narrowed his eyes, his attention waning. “Would you be opposed to slitting open a vein and filling a cup? It would be cold, but I think it might satiate my need.”

“No, Dorian.” He wouldn’t let Dorian feed ... and he would continue to keep their interactions to himself. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but Vlad wanted to handle this on his own. Besides, Otis and Vikas had enough on their plates.

“You can’t blame a vampire for trying.” His sly smile slipped into a more serious purse as he shook his head. “I must leave. The urge to feed from you is becoming too intense. It’s almost unbearable now.”

Vlad nodded at this, still questioning Dorian’s motives. “Does this mean you’re not going to attack me anymore?”

Dorian flashed him a smile as he turned to leave. “For now, my young friend. Sleep well.”





31





MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE


VLAD FINISHED JOTTING DOWN THE DETAILS of his day and closed his journal with a snap. It was getting full. Soon there would be no more room to write at all.

But there was no time for musing about how full his journal had gotten. Vlad had an appointment. A very important appointment. One he’d kept almost every night and certainly every weekend night for the past four months. In fact, the past few months had been oddly full of btiss—no sign of D’Ablo, no interference by Dorian, not even so much as a sniffle from Eddie. Vlad’s life felt, for lack of a better word, normal.

He dropped his journal on the chair and made his way to the arched windows, then stepped from the belfry and floated gently down to the ground. He had made it a block from school when a wooden stake whizzed by his head and stuck fast in a tree trunk.

The corner of his mouth rose in a smirk before he turned around. That one was close. But he knew Joss wouldn’t get it much closer. Ever since the hospital, their fights were the equivalent of sparring and showing off.

Vlad turned, searching the darkness for Joss. When he found him—merely a shadow within the shadows—he darted forward with vampire speed, clotheslining the slayer. Joss made an oof sound and fell to the ground.

It was like a play, a theatrical representation of what vampires and slayers were meant to do. The players moved back and forth across the stage, knowing that when the sun rose, when the curtain came down, life would resume and the play would be all but forgotten.

As a courtesy, neither of the players mentioned Meredith.

A bead of sweat dripped into Vlad’s left eye, but he brushed it away with the back of his hand and high kicked Joss in the center of his chest. Joss did a windmill kick, knocking Vlad’s feet out from under him. But neither stayed on the ground for very long.

Vlad took to the trees, hopping almost silently from treetop to treetop in a circle around Joss, who stood at the ready scanning the darkness for any clue of where he’d gone. In a breath, Vlad dropped from a branch, ripped the stake from the tree’s trunk and slashed forward, stopping with the sharp, silver point pressing into Joss’s back.