How to Cure a Vampire Bite without Losing Your Mind
Chapter 12

Four hours later Orcus was curled up intoa ball, shivering and vomiting into a bucket. We were pretty sure it wasn’tcontagious, but Raechel made sure Sebastian was the one dealing with him, justin case.

“I assure you,” he said to us, “it is not an infection –other than what’s already there, likely.”

Orcus stopped retching a moment and looked up atSebastian. “Does it stop?” And then his head was in the bucket again.

Sebastian shrugged. “Not sure. It ought eventually; lookat me. Although, I’m not certain I have ever vomited this profusely.”

“That’s not all that comforting,” Orcus snapped.

“Does it still hurt, Orcus?” I asked.

“No,” he retorted. “It’s like hugging a pillow. What doyou think?!”

Raechel sighed. “How long d’you think it’ll last,Stupid?” As far as Raechel was concerned, the nickname had stuck, and shewasn’t about to stop using it.

Sebastian shrugged again, very much used to Raechel’s passive-aggressiveabuse. “I’m sure I don’t know. Everything I recall is still very much stuck ina haze.”

“Can it be helped?” I asked Sebastian.

“I don’t think so,” he said lightly, almost as though hefound this to be good news.

I rubbed my brow irritably. “Sebastian, there’s got to besomething we can do.”

“Unless you know how to cure it,” he said, “there’snothing to be done.”

“Your grandfather would know, right, Orcus?”

“I said so, didn’t I?” he gasped.

I jumped up from my seat. “Where is he?”

He gave me a wild look. “Does it look like I know?”

“A general guess would do.”

“Library,” he said, retching. “Or his rooms.” Pause for adry-heave. “Or the grounds.”

I snorted. “Not much to cover, is there?” I said toRaechel. “I’ll go look for him; you stay and make sure they don’t kill each other.”

“I don’t want to baby-sit,” Raechel whined.

But I was already retreating the length of the attic.“You’ll be fine. If they get too out of hand, just threaten them with HolyWater.”

“Great,” she replied very unenthusiastically.

The hall was just the same as before, but it felt muchemptier, much bigger, and quite a lot more haunted. A quick peering over theedge of the banister yielded no results. The whole house was far too big forsuch a venture to prove successful anyway.

I stole down the hallway as quickly and softly as Icould, peering through doors, and through keyholes when the doors were locked.The library door wasn’t on the third floor, apparently, so I stole up to thefourth and went about my mission with just as much gusto and half the amount ofsilence.

As I rounded a corner I found myself in a very long andpoorly lit corridor, with almost no windows, and only one door located at thevery end. It wasn’t wholly remarkable, so I went up and tried the handle. To myminute relief it was unlocked. When it swung open my jaw hit the floor.

It was the library all right, and it was bigger than allof the other rooms I had seen, combined.Books and a short temper are my two vices in the world, and Orcus Locke wasable to exploit them both. This library was perhaps the biggest, most beautifulthing in the world. It was four floors, and stacks and stacks of book stood inrow upon row on the uppermost level. The third and second levels the shelveswere built into the wall, and on the bottom floor there were stacks and twogreat desks accompanied by three smaller tables. On each surface was a pile ofbooks, some opened, some closed, and piles of paper strewn across them. Theroom was so massive, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t spot the end of itclearly. I had to assume it was the bit at the end where all the light fromoutside was flooding in.

My hopes rose: At one of the smaller tables, flippingthrough the books, was an old man, wrinkled and doubled over, the pen in hishand slowly scratching across the page.

“Mr. Locke?” I called.

He hesitated, and then kept writing. “Mr. Locke is myson-in-law, dear girl, and he is in another part of the house at the moment.”

I looked about hurriedly and, seeing some stairs, beganto descend them. “But you are Orcus’grandfather, aren’t you?”

He looked up on his paper then, eyeing me warily.“Indeed. And you, I suppose, are Miss Mallory Tourney.”

I froze on the bottom step, frowning. There was only oneway he could possibly know.

“Yes,” he said with a small smile, “I know you. Orcus hastold me quite a lot, as a matter of fact.”

“He – he has?”

“Oh yes,” the old man said. “It’s not unnatural, and I amtherefore not alarmed.” He stood and extended his hand. “I am PercivalStorenton, his mother’s father.”

It was only polite, and I liked him okay, so I shook hishand. He didn’t seem anything like his grandson; not just yet anyway. “He saidyou were the man to see about – er, well, otherworldsort of – uh, stuff.”

Mr. Storenton indicated a chair, and I took it copyinghis movements. “Speak plainly, Miss Tourney. I can’t help if you beat about thebush.”

“Orcus was bitten by a vampire yesterday, and we’retrying to replace a cure for it so we can deal with what is apparently a vampireinfestation at our school. He said if we were to get help from anyone, it wouldbe you.” I hoped that was to the point enough for him.

Storenton didn’t even blink. “Ah; yes. How unfortunate.”He scribbled down more words on the paper, and put down the pen and folded hishands in front of him on the table. “Yesterday, you said.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How old is the vampire? Is it new born, or is it older?”

I faltered. “We don’t actually know. He can’t remember.I’m inclined to say he’s a couple of months, at most.”

“No savage appetite?”

“Not that we’ve seen.”

“Is he distracted with the ordering and counting of, say,seeds, grains, and the like?”

“No, but he says can’t count anyway, so that wouldn’tmake much of a difference.”

Storenton snorted. “That is unsurprising. How did he cometo you?”

“We don’t know that either. He just appeared in my roomat school. Orcus has a theory, but he doesn’t feel up to sharing.”

Storentons’s eyes bored holes into mine. “And do you?”

I shrugged. “Nothing plausible.”

The old man smiled. “You’d be surprised at just howplausible the implausible is, Miss Tourney.” He waited for me to speak.

“I think – and I think Orcus thinks so, too – that hefell through some sort of wormhole, or something. The way he described it, itmakes the most sense. Normally I’d decry the idea of a wormhole existing, butsince we’re dealing with vampires, I’m prepared to make exceptions.”

Storenton looked a little more impressed than Mr. Lockehad been. “That is very wise, especially where the otherworldly is concerned.Did he say where it was?”

“In his house, behind a portrait of his grandfather; thestaff was under strict instructions not to touch it. When it was dislodged,what he described, it seems like he was sucked into it. Again, it’s just ahypothesis.”

“True,” agreed the old man, “yet just as likely asanything else.”

“You agree, then.”

“Invariably,” he said. “But how it could have come to bethere, I cannot say. Obviously someone knew what it was, else it would not havebeen covered and all inferiors told to avoid it.”

“Sir,” I said, anxious to bring my purpose back around,“can you help Orcus?”

Storenton nodded, and stood up. “Bring my grandson here;as it happens, I may have just enough of an elixir to delay his full change.Finding a cure, however, is quite in your court; at this moment in history itsimply doesn’t exist, and I am most certainly too old to be anything more thana nuisance in a laboratory.”

I was on my feet in a second. “Thank you, sir!”

It had taken me a full forty-five minutes to replace thelibrary, but it took me less than two to replace my way back to the attic. Luckwas on my side, because no one was in the halls. When I got back, said grandsonwas no longer vomiting into the five gallon bucket, and Sebastian and Raechelwere debating whether to just toss it out the window, or carry it to the bathroomand dispose of it properly. They were ignoring Orcus’ limp frame which wassprawled out and breathing raggedly.

“For real?” I said.

Raechel wasn’t surprised to see me. “You found him?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “He says to take Orcus down to thelibrary, something about an elixir to delay the process.” Orcus’ only responsewas a tired moan. “Come on,” I snapped. “We need to do what we can to get youtaken care of, and since no one is allowed up here, we have to go down there.” I took the bucket, wrenched open awindow, and held my breath as I tossed it out, bucket and all. “There’s thatproblem solved.”

Raechel was trying to pull Orcus off the floor, a featwhich probably would have been easier had he not been so much bigger, and hadSebastian thought to help.

“In this case,” the sociopath moaned, “I may just rescindthat rule.”

I huffed. “Come on. Sebastian, you great buffoon, help.”

The giant vampire swung Orcus’ other arm over his neck,completely taking the whole of his weight off Raechel. “Grandfather is in thelibrary,” I said. “Stay close so we don’t get separated.”

Orcus mumbled something incoherently, his eyes barelyopen, his face pale and wet with sweat. Panic was rapidly becoming an option, Ithought, as far as he was concerned.

We sneaked down the ladder and managed to make our wayalong the corridors with almost no noise at all. Movement was slow on Orcus’account, so the two minutes a healthy person could make were extended to five.He didn’t complain, though. To Sebastian’s credit, he was as gentle aspossible, trying to make the trip relatively painless for Orcus’ nowhyperactive nerves. As we passed a vase on the fourth floor, Orcus’ handknocked against it. The vase hit the floor, and Orcus’s half-shut eyes flewwide open; he was biting back what had to be a very pained scream. I plasteredmy hand over his mouth just in case he let go, but, true to form, he was quietas a mouse.

“We have to hurry,” I whispered to Sebastian. “Justaround the next corner, at the end of the hall.”

He nodded, hoisted Orcus a little higher, and was aboutto take another step, when we heard, in the direction from which we’d justcome, the footsteps of two people, and a voice belonging to Edward Locke.Thinking fast I hurriedly gave Raechel the finer details, shoved the three ofthem around the corner, hissing, “Hurry up!” as they went. Tiptoeing over towhere the vase lay in ruins, I began thinking up stories about how it hadhappened. It didn’t matter how outlandish the story was, as long as Mr. Locke wasdistracted, and Orcus got to the library. My question was how to make myselflook like a hapless klutz, and not infer that I had been sneaking about thehouse. When he finally did come around the corner, I froze, and Edward Locke’seyebrow twitched. In the light, big man though he was, he looked the mirrorimage of his son, hands clasped behind his back, head tilted curiously to theside, and amusement playing at the corners of his mouth.

“I swear, I did nothing,” I said. That bit was trueenough.

“Let me guess,” he replied smoothly. “You just looked atit, and it fell.” This ruse wasn’t going very well, I could see that now.

I nodded. “Sounds about right, yeah.”

He laughed and walked towards me, eyes on the brokenpieces of the vase. “Tell me true, Miss Tourney, do you think me a very stupid person?”

“No.” He knew. He knew exactly where his son was, he knewexactly what I was doing, and he wanted me to know that I wasn’t going to getaway with it for very long.

“Did you think I wouldn’t conclude that you are coveringfor my very ill son, who is likely just down the next hall?”

For whatever reason, I stuck to my story. “No, he isn’t.”I hoped they’d reached the library by now.

Mr. Locke smiled and swaggered to the intersection. “Havethey hidden away in the library yet – oh, they have!” He looked back at me,distinctly pleased. “I am not as ignorant of my son’s movements as he wouldlike to believe, Miss Tourney. He’s always preferred his grandfather, and hisgrandfather has always preferred him.”

I just eyed the big man warily, unsure just yet as to howI ought to proceed. He smiled, then. It wasn’t Orcus’ cold smile, as I wasaccustomed to; Mr. Locke’s smile was genial, and touched his eyes. “No doubt hetold you I am to be avoided at all costs.” He looked down at the vase. “It’snot what the collector said it was,” he said thoughtfully, “but I knew thatwhen I took it off him. The real thing would have weighed less, and the brokenpieces would be smaller; would have scattered across a broader area . . .” Hegestured to the outline of the shattered pieces.

“If you knew it was fake, why did you buy it?”

“My daughter, Jo, liked it as a child. I’m not sureshe’ll miss it now.”

Another set of footsteps sounded, and a second man camearound the corner. “Sir! Everything all right, sir?”

Mr. Locke waved the off the concern. “Just fine,Strumpen. If you could take care of this please?”

“Shall I take it to Miss Phyllida’s studio?”

Mr. Locke looked down again, thoughtfully. “Yes, please.She’ll make better use of it than we will, I’m sure.”

I looked out the window, my heart sinking for some reasonwhen I realized how dark it had become. The sun had practically disappeared,the sunset streaks something like a feeble heartbeat on the very edge of thehorizon. Why exactly I was sappily comparing the sunset to a heartbeat I wasn’tsure, but on the bright side, I thought, the moon was light enough to atone forthe lack of sunbeams.

When I looked back at the giant Mr. Locke, he was eyeingme keenly, as though turning something over in his mind. Then, in thefriendliest voice I’d ever heard anyone use, he asked, “Are you hungry?”