Authors: Finley Aaron
As I watch, slightly horrified, his canines grow to sharp points, which seem to glint menacingly before retreating back to their normal size and shape.
Then he pinches his lips shut, lowers the menu, and gives me a half shake of his head along with a look that says he can’t believe he let me bully him into doing that.
For all his discomfort, though, I’m sitting here with my blood chilled cold as ice in my veins. I pull my coat tighter around me (I can’t very well take the thing off, not with the back of my shirt ripped by my wings).
He really is a vampire, then.
I mean, he couldn’t have faked that. It was pronounced and distinct and clearly vampirish.
“So, the bats…” I begin slowly once I find my voice.
“I already told you.”
“Yes, but I didn’t quite believe you then.”
“Perhaps you should start believing. I don’t have time to repeat everything. We have work to do, and the others are closing in far faster than I expected.”
“See—
that
.” I point at him as though to point at the words he just spoke. “Right there?
That’s
why I have trust issues. There is clearly a lot more going on, which you haven’t begun to tell me. I got attacked this evening—”
“You keep bringing that up.” Constantine’s no longer whispering.
“My head still hurts!” I’m definitely not whispering.
The co-eds glance our way. One of them gives us an annoyed look before they go back to their loud giggling.
Yeah,
we’re
the annoying ones.
I exhale impatiently and pinch the bridge of my nose, which is still throbbing from the cranial impact earlier. “Who is after what and why? Why do they think I have whatever it is they’re looking for, and what’s up with the appearing and disappearing out of nowhere?”
“Vampires can teleport. I believe that is consistent with most of our mythologies, even if the more rudimentary traditions don’t use the same terminology.”
I try not to be too impressed with his vocabulary, though I’ve long had a soft spot for big words. And he’s multi-lingual.
I could swoon.
But no, no, I can’t.
It’s a good thing Constantine is a dangerous and probably evil beast who’s almost certainly been lying to me, because I simply can
not
form a crush on him. I mean, he’s cute and cosmopolitan and smart and studly and everything, but he’s a vampire, which is definitely, completely, totally, and in all other ways, not a dragon.
It’s also not a human, which is handy, because as long as he thinks I’m human, I don’t have to worry about him thinking there might be something between us. I mean, he already mentioned about Melita Thorne liking him, and how he deliberately never let anything develop between them because of the species difference.
So the boundaries have already been established.
I’m safe—romantically at least.
But in all other ways, I fear I’m in terrible danger. The mugging earlier proves that, even if you don’t count all the mysterious activity that’s led up to it.
“So, these are vampires who have been bothering me?”
Constantine nods.
“Enemy vampires?”
Constantine shrugs. “Are your classmates your enemies?”
“No.”
“When you play sports, are the other competitors your enemies?”
“No.”
“These vampires, they are after something, just as I am after something. We are not enemies, just peers on a journey that leads to the same places, and sometimes we get in each other’s way.”
“What is it you’re after?”
“Knowledge.”
“Knowledge?”
He glances down at the dessert menu. “A recipe, of sorts.”
“Who has this recipe?” Now we’re both whispering in words so silent we’re practically reading lips.
“No one. It is lost knowledge. Forgotten methods—everyone who knew it is long, long dead. All we have left are pieces of the tradition handed down or hidden. It’s a recipe in parts, and the parts are all disguised, encoded, in minds and memories and books, in myths and tales too fantastic to be believed. And they are searching for the pieces of the recipe. I am searching for it. I have pieces I cannot let them see, because if they put it together before I do, they could use it to enslave us all.”
I hesitate to ask my next question, because I’m afraid of what the answer might be. “What is the recipe for?”
“How to make gold.”
Chapter Eight
As if an unseen hand has thrust me against the back of the chair, I lean back and stare at Constantine until the waiter delivers my steak, and then I eat with as much restraint as I can muster, which is just enough to avoid too many annoyed looks from the co-eds, and the whole time, what I’m really trying to digest is not the steak, but the information Constantine just shared with me, and its uncanny overlap with a bunch of other stuff that’s been happening to my family in recent years—battles we’ve fought and hints of a greater fight that’s been going on since before I or even my parents were born.
And all that’s happening in one sentence, just like that, because my head is really full right now.
See…gold.
Oh, where do I start?
My brother, Felix, made gold, but he doesn’t know how he did it.
And my sister-in-law, Nia (who’s married to my other brother), was enslaved by a dragon named Eudora, who’s technically no longer a dragon because my mother turned her into being only human, and we thought she had finally forgiven my mom for that because she agreed to help us last summer in our battle against that mad scientist guy Hans Wexler, only probably she was only lying and betraying us to get something else she wanted, which might have had something to do with the fact that she was once married to Hans Wexler, or it may have been totally unrelated. We still haven’t figured out what it was, or if it was, in fact, a number of things.
And did I mention why she enslaved Nia?
No?
Oh, that’s a very important part. Well, part of it was for one thing which we thought was the whole reason, but actually it probably had as much to do with trying to get information from Nia about how to make gold, which sounded absurd to Nia and everyone else at the time, because Nia had no idea how to make gold, but the more I learn, the more I think, wow.
Seriously, wow.
Mysteries and myths and tales too fantastic to be believed.
Indeed.
So, I happen to know it
is
possible to make gold, since my brother did it, even if it was on accident and he hasn’t been able to replicate the process since (though he’s tried).
But if the dude who attacked me earlier today wants information like that, well, I’m not going to let on to anybody one peep about anything I know.
Because these vampires are dangerous.
Enemies or peers, they clearly aren’t above attacking someone who might have the information they’re looking for.
If they knew for sure I had information?
I can only assume that would be even more dangerous.
And Constantine—charming, almost swoon-worthy Constantine—might be the vampire who attacked me (odds are pretty good, actually, when you put it all together—he knew where I was coming from and where I was headed and exactly when). So no way am I telling anything of what I know to Constantine.
We finish our meal, and the waiter asks if we want dessert, and while I’m tempted to order the black tie cheesecake, I order a burger for dessert, because burgers are basically meat cookies, which totally count as dessert, and I need dessert right now.
After the day I’ve had?
Yeah. The waiter’s walking away, but I call him back and order a second burger.
The co-eds look at me all questioning like, so I give them an annoyed look.
“You…must be hungry,” Constantine observes. He ordered the cheesecake after I decided not to.
“Stress eating. I’ve never been mugged before.” I sip my water before I can say anything more.
“Completely understandable.” Constantine gives me the kind of sympathetic smile that makes me immediately wonder what he’s up to.
Seriously, I think it’s an established point of vampire lore that vampires don’t give that look to anybody, ever, unless they’re trying to manipulate them according to their evil will.
There’s a reason why he’s so charming, and it’s not a good reason, is it?
Gambling puns aside, I’m going to bet Constantine is evil. And if there’s anything on earth I dislike more than being lied to or misled, it’s being manipulated according to someone’s evil will.
Especially if said manipulation involves being lied to and misled.
Which right now I suspect is very much the case.
So I’m going to change the subject and steer this conversation back to what was supposed to be the reason for our meeting in the first place. “I got a chance to look through the blackjack books before they were stolen.”
“Ah, yes. What do you think? We can do it?”
I give him my crinkled-face expression that says I’m willing to humor him only a short while longer. “The card counting stuff doesn’t sound too difficult. I even think it might be possible, with practice, for me to get good enough to count cards while making a diversion of conversation with my tablemates, so no one knows I’m doing math in my head. But that doesn’t get us past the hardest trick to pull, the reason so many aspiring card-counters ultimately fail.”
Constantine leans back, grinning that way-too-charming grin. “The signal.”
I nod and keep talking and try not to let his smile work its magic on me. The man is not
that
good looking. It’s just that smile. “I can’t think of a single signal that hasn’t already been proven not to work. I’ve never been terrifically smooth or adept at being discreet. If anything, I’m kind of a bumbler. I’ve always been tallish and gawkish. And trying to pull off something complicated while I’m chatting innocently with everyone else and trying to keep the cards counted—that sounds like a recipe for disaster…”
Constantine’s still grinning at me.
It’s almost unnerving.
“What?”
His grin becomes, if possible, even bigger. “That is why you are the perfect partner.”
In my head, I replay what I just said, trying to sort out what he’s referring to. “Because I’m gawkish?”
His smile veers noticeably into smirk territory. “Because no one will suspect you. You have a natural cover—college girl hoping to win money to pay for a spring break trip, or grad school, or a new car. You pick. Maybe all three if it gives you something to chat about.”
“That makes me the perfect partner?”
“No, that is just the foundation. The real perfection is your face.”
I raise a dubious eyebrow. No one has ever used the word
perfection
to describe my face before. I had some serious acne not so many years ago. If you look close enough, you can still see the scars.
“Your face, I can read like an open book.”
For a second, I’m tempted to grab the dessert menu and hide my face behind it, but thankfully the waiter returns with my burgers and Constantine’s black tie cheesecake, so I take a big bite of burger and chew slowly and keep the sandwich in front of my face, just in case Constantine really can read what I’m thinking.
Because what I’m thinking right now is something he absolutely cannot be allowed to know.
It’s kind of a long story, but here goes.
We dragons can’t talk when we’re in dragon form. Not really. I can do a few grunts and clicks, maybe an emphatic yelp to get my point across, but not much more than that. Our dragon mouths are made for breathing fire and tearing meat, not talking.
So, in order to make up for being unable to communicate
verbally
, we’re able to communicate
facially
.
If you’re not a dragon, that probably sounds crazy weird, but for us, it’s just normal. Not only do we use our faces to get our points across when we’re in dragon form, but we use everything from the angle of our heads to the glint in our eyes to let each other know what we’re thinking when we’re in human form, too.
The catch is, it’s just a dragon thing. It’s not like other people can read my face the way my fellow dragons can. Nor am I nearly so adept at deciphering what a human wants or thinks just by looking at them. And it’s not something you can generally do with other dragons until you’ve gotten to know them well. You have to learn their face, their mannerisms, the peculiarities that make them who they are.
I’ve never met any humans who’ve said they could read my face like a book.
But Constantine isn’t just a person, is he?
He’s a vampire.
And vampires are shape-shifting sorts of creatures, if I believe the whole turning-into-a-bat part of the mythology, which Constantine has implied is true.
So maybe Constantine can read bat faces and vampire faces, and his past success with that makes him think he can read my face?
Except I don’t think he can read my face, not really. I mean, I’m a dragon and he’s a vampire. He might think he can read me, but he stands to lose a lot of money if he mistakes my don’t-come-near-this-blackjack-table-unless-you-want-to-lose-everything look for a come-on-over-this-table’s-hot look.
Not only might that kind of mistake cost him a bunch of money, but it might cost me my end of the deal. I can’t risk losing my primary source translation.
So I can’t wait until we’re in Vegas to make him understand. I’ve got to get the point across now.
I finish off my first burger and clear my throat with a long sip of water. “Okay then. If you’re so good at reading my face, let’s try it. Pretend this is the blackjack table. I’m going to give you a look, and you tell me what it means.”
I pull in a deep breath and focus on clearing my face of residual thoughts. “Okay.” I tilt my chin and meet his eyes. “What am I thinking?”
Constantine smirks. “You are thinking, Constantine is a crazy vampire who overestimates his skills and is going to lose all his money in Vegas.”
“Well.” I scowl.
“And now you are thinking, damn, he got it right.”
“You could have guessed that from context.”
“True.” His eyes bore into mine a little too deeply. “But now you’re thinking, hmm, maybe Constantine really is a vampire who can do all the things he says he can do. But you’re scared.” His voice drops low. “Why are you scared?”
I shoot him a look.
“True, I don’t
seem
trustworthy,” he confesses. “But I have promised not to hurt you.”
I might be kind of glaring at him as I pick up my second burger and take a bite.
Then he blows out a grunting breath and leans back as though he’s been stabbed. “You don’t trust that I will keep that promise? Truly, Rilla, in my life I have not always been honest or kind, and I have many times played a ruse when the situation called for it, but those were situations when I was dealing with my enemies.”
I’m still chewing my burger, but I raise an eyebrow.
“Touché,” he nods in deference to the point I just made with my eyebrow. “Not enemies—my peers whose journeys have crossed paths with my journey—those who crossed me by lying to me or cheating me. But your path does not cross mine. It just runs parallel to it for a bit. We can work together and both benefit. We can trust each other.”
I stop chewing and close my eyes, as though that can keep him from reading what I’m thinking.
No—not what I’m thinking. He can’t actually read my thoughts. He can only read my face. Can’t he?
Just to be sure he can only read my face, and not my thoughts, I focus hard on a passage from my stolen poly sci textbook.
Constantine scowls. “Now you have lost me. Something displeases you. What is it?”
I don’t answer, but I feel a small measure of relief. Okay, maybe my thoughts are safe—as long as I don’t project them on my face. Still, I don’t feel it’s wise for me to trust Constantine. I can travel with him, and make this deal, and I can certainly take advantage of his access to my necessary primary source, but I. Can’t. Trust. Him.
Nor should he trust me.
For the sake of my family—indeed, my species—I can’t let him know who I truly am.
More than that, though, I can’t give any hint about what I know of the recipe for gold. I especially can’t let on that my brother has made gold. The vampires are clearly willing to do anything to uncover any and every part of that recipe. If they knew, they’d track down my brother the same way they’ve been tracking me.
I’ve read plenty of stories in my research, of the horrible acts Vlad Dracula is rumored to have committed against those who crossed him—impaling, hard forced labor, boiling alive. If these vampires, whoever they are, think we’re trying to hide secrets from them, who knows what kinds of torture they might subject us to in an effort to learn secrets we may or may not even know?
We’re not even in Vegas yet, and I already feel like I’m involved in extremely high-stakes gambling.
Can I hold on to the secrets of my people...while I try to win the secrets of Constantine’s kind?
If I don’t play my hands right, I could lose everything.
But what other choice do I have? My search for the book has already put me on the vampire radar.
I’m already deep in the game.
“Rilla?” Constantine prompts. “Have I convinced you that I can read your face?”