The Dragon Coin (2 page)

“He left it lying on the secretary’s marble top in the front parlor,” continued Roderick. “A little careless, though, since the note beneath it was almost illegible from the blood. Obviously, he had his henchmen deliver it.”

“Henchmen?” I snickered. “And, here I thought he’d still rely on his brood of baby vampires to take care of his dirty work.”

“He may still be steeped in old habits, but it would be foolish to underestimate his influence,” chided Roderick, regarding me somberly. “Our CIA contacts long ago confirmed that Vlad has been involved with organized crime throughout the Balkans and along the Adriatic coast since the mid 1960s. From the break-in method used to invade my home and disable all three alarm systems, it appears likely his
living
employees made the delivery today.”

He paused and looked away as a bellhop moved past the alcove, eyeing us suspiciously before disappearing from our view.

“We should probably rejoin Beatrice and the others,” I said. “We can discuss this further, later tonight.”

“Agreed. But first, let me tell you what the letter said. I’m sure your reaction will be similar to mine, and tomorrow’s planned trip for us all to visit Williamsburg will be postponed.”

I nodded for him to go on.

“This is what it said: ‘Don’t make me come to the States again. I know you both reside in Virginia. If I come for you, those closest to you will die. How you will mourn to see the blood sacks you cherish squirm on stakes! Meet me like men, in Montenegro, and only you shall enjoy impalement, Roderick and Judas.’”

“Is that all?”

“No. He signed it,
Wladislaus Dragwlya.”

“Curious as to why he signed his name in Latin, his preference from so long ago. Seems he has not evolved much, eh?” I chuckled.

“He remains dangerous and quite angry,” Roderick advised. “Unlike so many of us, time has done little to take the edge off his ruthlessness. And, it seems our
entente cordiale
is finally over.”

“We could change our identities and move someplace else like we’ve done before and strongly considered when Kaslow was a problem,” I suggested. “Or, we could hide out in the fortress beneath your Abingdon estate until we get a better handle on things, and can come up with an effective plan to deal with him.”

“I propose that Beatrice, Alistair, and Amy immediately retire to the fortress until this situation is resolved,” he said, motioning for me to follow him back into the lobby toward the ballroom, signaling the end of our conversation and hastening my return with him to the gala festivities. “As for you and me, we can no longer run from Dracul. I’m afraid it’s time to resolve this feud, once and for all.”

Chapter Two

“So, when will you and Roderick leave us tomorrow?”

Beatrice asked me this as we laid together in bed, shortly after we discussed the unpleasantness from earlier that evening, and after an hour’s passionate lovemaking that took us both to exhaustion. We needed the closeness and mutual ecstasy, as if our souls knew the perilous journey on the horizon might separate us for years, if not forever.

“Roderick booked a flight to Rome in the morning, and we shall continue on to Budva the next afternoon,” I told her, hating how the words sounded as they left my mouth. The whispered tone couldn’t ease the condemnation upon my heart. Worse than dread, it went beyond fear I’m well acquainted with. “He has already arranged for a taxi, and told me to be waiting at the door by seven-thirty.”

“And there’s no way to know how long you will be away,” she said, sadly, repeating my advisement from when I ended my phone conversation with Roderick, two hours earlier. “How I wish I could be there with you…to somehow keep you from harm.”

She began to weep again, and I moved to bring her closer. Throughout our early years, and again since this past November when our physical union was renewed, our most intimate conversations often followed our lovemaking.

“I know that I promised to never leave your side, my dearest love, but this was unforeseen, at least by me.”

True. Dracul had been no more than a distant nuisance—a Peeping Tom who would occasionally slip into my awareness at odd times. But only for a few minutes at most, and then the uncomfortable feeling of his scrutinizing glare would dissipate. Often times, I had thought it was my imagination and paranoia getting the better of me, until Roderick confided the same sensations last year.

She buried her head into my shoulder and cried harder.

“There, there, my love…I will come back to you. I swear it.”

“I know you’ll try,” she said, between sobs. “I believe you will do whatever you can to come back to me and Ali. But, this man, this
monster
has killed you twice before. That’s what you said.”

“Yes. He has succeeded in the past, and nearly a third time, as well,” I chuckled, hoping this would bring a smile. It failed, as she continued to weep. “Just remember the man this fiend dealt with nearly five centuries ago has gained useful battle skills while serving several powerful governments during that time span—including what I’ve gained from my employment with the CIA until I retired the first time, twenty years ago.”

She sat up and studied my face, focusing on my eyes as if they would provide assurance my words could not. She nodded subtly, seeming to regain some composure.

“He has weaknesses, too,” I advised. “As with most vampires, his body is hypersensitive to the sun and any other source of ultraviolet light. It turns him sluggish, and prolonged exposure can kill him.”

“You make it sound like it’s no big deal—like it will be easy to lure him away from the other vampires and bodyguards you told me about—but it
is
a big deal! A very,
very
big deal!”

Her gorgeous eyes were red and swollen, and yet the heat from her anger brought twin emerald flames as she continued to study mine. Bullshit had never worked with Beatrice—even subtle lies proved regrettable in our brief life together in Glasgow following World War II. And, other than pretending to be her grandson after I reentered her life near its natural end, I have never lied to her since.

“Yes, it is a big deal,” I confessed, making sure my tone remained confident despite the despair threatening to seize my soul. “But it’s unavoidable, and for more than just the reasons I’ve already shared. He will kill you and our boy if I fail to meet his challenge of a reunion. I know this for certain—as sure as the fact I will be reborn in some other time and place should he succeed in ending Roderick’s and my present earthly stay.”

I reached my arms around her for further comfort, and she trembled. Gently increasing my arm’s hold upon her back and shoulders, I sought to enforce her understanding that I was determined not to fail her.

“Perhaps The Almighty has willed this meeting…and maybe for reasons not so obvious,” I said, smiling at a thought that had just occurred to me.

“How, so?”

“Well, and this is something I had hoped to avoid bringing up. One of my coins was incorporated in a spell that restored Vlad Tepes, from the fires of hell he so richly deserved, to eternal life on earth,” I explained. “A sorcerer named Krontos Lazarevic, whose Serbian ancestors had obtained one of my coins through violent means centuries before, used it to fuse Vlad’s severed head back onto his body, and the blood from an innocent young man was then poured into his open throat to restore life to Dracul.”

“So, the legends that Stoker relied on were real?”

“Yes, in a sense, just as most myths have at least a grain of truth behind them,” I said, sitting up slightly to better face her. My wife’s trembling had quieted only slightly. “I’m not sure of exactly when this happened. Nor can I tell you when he began feeding on the blood of human victims. I hadn’t heard of his rumored rebirth until 1501, after I returned to Europe from what would later become known as America, and the Appalachian Mountains. In fact, I had only recently heard of his love of skewering his enemies on eight-cubit stakes when he was Lord of Wallachia.”

“And then he later killed you when he became a Roman Catholic Cardinal?”

“Yes,” I said, hoping to spare her too many details of a purge of innocent human beings—an extermination unrivaled until the rise of the Third Reich. “Roderick and I had a fondness for Madrid, and if we had kept our activities geared more to hedonism instead of the humanitarian interests we were most drawn to, perhaps we would’ve never crossed paths with Dracul.”

Beatrice nodded thoughtfully. With so much to take in, it took her a moment to respond. “Are you saying you stepped in and prevented him from killing someone?”

“Precisely, although it wasn’t a matter of us accosting him in public, as you might be picturing,” I said. “We would’ve been cut down as so many were. He brought along a small army of mercenaries, and these vile men were more than willing to inflict cruelty. To this day, the screams of their victims stay with me.”

“What did you or Roderick do for him to direct his ire at you?” she asked, when I didn’t continue. A rush of terrible memories threatened to overwhelm me. I’ve stated before how distant memories can suddenly become pristine as current events once called forth from the recesses of my mind. “Hmmm, you helped someone escape, didn’t you?”

“It was a Jewish family accused of heresy,” I said, nodding to confirm the accuracy of her keen intuition. “I almost fought Roderick to not help them…but once I learned of a local magistrate’s desire to lay claim to this family’s farm by false accusations of blasphemy against God, I agreed to provide shelter for them in our nearby estate. One of our servants betrayed us to the Cardinal’s men, and near midnight on a Wednesday, the mercenaries stormed our home, killed our servants other than the turncoat, and arrested our terrified guests hiding downstairs.

“I had thought this family would be taken to prison, like the other infidels, but the mercenaries separated them from one another and brought them into the foyer. By then Dracul had arrived. As soon as he removed his hood, Roderick and I were amazed by his garish flesh tone, worse than Roderick’s, as well as the preternatural glow within Vlad’s dark eyes. But that was nothing…nothing compared to the razor sharp fangs that seemed to lengthen inside his mouth as he laughed at us. We had only become vaguely aware that he knew
what
we both were, when he disappeared from our view. And, only the slashing of each family member’s throat told us that he was killing each one. A moment later, he stood before us again, his teeth and lips covered in crimson while each corpse slumped to the floor, nearly emptied of every drop of blood.”

“I’m begging you, William, don’t go! Instead come with us to the safety of Roderick’s fortress!
Please!”

I thought my love might start crying again, but this time it was the determined girl, who once was a fearless barmaid in the worst Glasgow pub I knew of back in 1945, who entreated me. Angry resolve spread across Beatrice’s face.

“No. No, I can’t, my love,” I told her, gently, meeting her fiery gaze with my own resolve. “He will find us, no matter where we go. I can feel his presence around me, and although he hasn’t attempted to use my eyes as his own, he knows Roderick and I are coming.”

“So, I am supposed to let you go to this loathsome vampire, and what? Let him try to kill you a
fourth time?!”

“You don’t know that,” I replied, more firmly. No way in hell was she coming along. “And, if I fail, it is just Roderick and me who will be in danger. At least the three of you shall remain safe.”

“Until Ali discovers you are actually on a coin-collecting trip—“

“You mustn’t tell him anything about the coin!” Yes, this time I was harsh. I had to be. “Besides, I’m not picking up this coin. It’s far too dangerous, and for the time being it will wait until I have at most just two coins left out in the world from the original thirty.”

“Our boy will never believe you!”

“That’s why you can’t tell him anything. He can’t know jack shit about
any
of this!”

“It’s not fair to leave this to me, William…he will see through my worry,” she said, obviously wounded from my rebuke.

How I wanted to sooth away her fears, but this was one time where I couldn’t. The potential consequences from being too soft would be eternally regrettable.

“I will call him, but not until after we arrive in Rome,” I told her, shaking my head at her imploring look and the fact I was in danger of giving in to her wishes. I had to close the deal, pronto. “I know his feelings were hurt at dinner when neither Roderick nor I would divulge what we discussed in the hotel lobby. Amy, too…and I could see the wheels turning in Ali’s head, that he fully expects us to be up to our necks in some shenanigans. Yet, despite the anger and hurt feelings still to come, it is for his own good as well as Amy’s and yours that
all
of you stay put, safe and sound at Roderick’s place. Am I clear?”

She started to protest once more, but I placed my forefinger over her lips—something she used to do to me when I desired the last word in an argument that could only be a stalemate. She often won those battles…and I needed to win this one.

“Yes,” she said weakly. “But, I may never forgive you if you die and leave me to worry when I’ll ever see you again.”

“I’ve always come back to you, and if per chance I do lose my life, at most I will only be gone a few years hence,” I assured her. “Remember, I will always love you, and that love will guide me back into your life within days of my return to the world. I
will
come back!”

A promise from the very core of my being. A promise I knew was true, and one that would bring her peace if she would only trust me to come through and make it happen. I pulled her close to me once more and held her tightly, as if I’d never let go, all the while whispering my promise to return. I did this until long after she had fallen asleep and the dawn’s first light appeared on the eastern horizon.