How to Cure a Vampire Bite without Losing Your Mind
Chapter 15

When I awoke the next morning on the cotsOrcus had apportioned us in the attic, I couldn’t muster the necessary surpriseat seeing the resident sociopath’s head in my lap. I thought about turning himin when we got back to school, except that I didn’t like the idea of not beingable to be a pain in Orcus’ derriere. So I quashed the thought. Besides, whowas going to believe it? The trouble with getting a charming sociopath introuble is that no one wants to believe said charming sociopath is a horribleperson. Human nature doesn’t like being disturbed, and it certainly doesn’tcare to be wrong. It’s where the crazies like Orcus Locke get their advantage:People want to believe them, and no matter the evidence, they refuse to believeanything other than what they’ve really duped themselves into believing.

In any case, I was more surprised tosee how – well, human he looked inhis sleep. I shook myself; I was in very real danger of thinking there was ahidden depth to Orcus, which would surely be an advantage for him. I nudged hishead just a little bit, trying not to damage the ear I’d spent the last eveningtrying to fix. He didn’t show any particular sign of having felt me move, so Isat up and slapped the injury quite hard.

Orcus’ eyes flew open and he shot tohis feet, a look of utmost pain on his face. It didn’t take long for him torealize what had happened, and he set about calling me a lot of very rudenames. He didn’t necessarily calm down in the end, but he collected himselfenough to bellow, “What’s wrong with you?!”

“You were violating my personalspace,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Your point?” he demanded.

“I told you last night I wasn’tgoing to tolerate it. Did you think I was going to forget?”

He grimaced, still cupping his ear.“I had hoped you wouldn’t be cruel enough to damage me again.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” I said. “Do youwant a hug?”

He smirked. “I was thinkingsomething a bit different.”

“Keep dreaming, Joseph,” I said witha scowl. “Speaking of, what sort of atrocities are you planning to committoday?”

Orcus, ear still cupped, slouchedagainst a desk. “Bringing books up from the library. I want to do some researchinto what may or may not qualify as a cure for the disease. The answers wecan’t replace or conclude on our own we’ll pose as questions to my grandfather.”

“Where do you think it’ll be?”

“A cure?” He snorted. “I don’t thinkit’s a where. I think it’s a what.”

I shook Raechel awake. She openedone eye and glared at me. “Unless it’s an emergency, I’m not helping you.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed. “Where’sthe village idiot?”

She rolled over. “I don’t know, andI don’t care. Red vs. Blue.”

“Okay.” Whatever Raechel had beendoing last night, it had tired her out considerably, and she wasn’t going to bemore than a hindrance if she was in a bad mood.

Orcus did a quick search of theattic that yielded no sign of Sebastian. It was a situation neither of usliked. Even so, we had priorities, and neither of us fancied running about thehouse looking for him without being alert enough to know where we were.Bathroom rituals completed, we went in search of the poor fool, Orcusverbalizing his hope that he’d fallen out of a window somewhere. I didn’tbother chiding him. As it happened, while we were traipsing the second floor nearthe kitchen, looking out windows and checking through doors, we ran into ayoung woman who looked remarkably like Orcus and could be none other than hissister. She was tall and willowy with wavy brunette locks and sharp blue eyes.She frowned when she saw us, and her eyebrow twitched.

“Orcus?”

I was impressed with his ability tostay focused. “You wouldn’t by any chance happen to have seen a tall sort ofhalf-wit wandering about here, would you?”

“Sort of pompous?”

“Yes.”

“Sebastian?”

“Indeed.”

“Phyllida’s monopolizing him in thekitchen.”

I almost groaned. This could only dobad things to Orcus’ temper, and I was going to have to be the one to calm himdown later. He was already muttering under his breath as he dragged me alongtowards the kitchen. “Encroacher,” I heard him say. “Galling. . .horn-backedtoad. . .kill him if it’s the last thing I do.” He hadn’t finished his rant bythe time we got to the culinary den, so I pulled him back a minute.

“Would you calm down?”

“No,” he snapped. “That happens tobe – ”

“ – your sister, I know; but she’snot territory any more than I am; you go in there guns blazing, the most it’lldo is start a fight and get you bitten again, and I’m pretty sure that a doubledose would effectively nullify anything your grandfather gave you. So beforeyou do something unusually and extraordinarily stupid, calm down.”

He gave me one withering look, andthen slammed his fist into the wall behind me. The resulting crash wasdeafening, and while I kept my expression very firmly in neutral, I did wonderif he’d broken his hand. Apparently it didn’t matter to him. He looked back atme woodenly. “Now may I go in?”

“Yes.”

And he did. I opted to wait on thesteps outside the door, but the proceeding events were perfectly audible. Inabout two or three minutes another young woman came out of the kitchen. She wasbeautiful, like the other sister (who I’d concluded must be Jo), but shorter,rather plump, and very rosy. She looked tired, and very surprised to see mesitting there.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Who are you?”

“Mallory. I’m here with Orcus.”

“Mallory Tourney?”

“Indeed.”

She looked me up and down, thesurprised look on her face morphing into approval. “I see what he sees in you.”

“Who?”

“My brother, dolt,” she said, andheld out her hand. “I’m Phyllida.”

I shook it, but didn’t smile.“Pleasure.”

She sat down on the steps next tome, both of us ignoring the male voices firing back and forth in the next room.“He’s exceedingly dense, your friend.”

“Sebastian?”

“Him.”

I almost snorted. “I know. He was inmy room for three weeks.”

“Attractive nonetheless.”

“I guess that depends on what youconsider attractive.”

“He’s got the potential if hisattention could be harnessed,” she said thoughtfully.

“Indubitably.”

“Admittedly, the vampire thing is. ..a bit of a turn-off. But if he can control that then I won’t mind him.”

I considered acting surprised, butdecided that would be rude. “He told you about that already?”

“No; Grandfather did. He said he’dhad to give Orcus something for it.”

I nodded. “They got into a bit of atussle, yeah.”

“About what?”

“You know, I don’t know.” Eventhough it was the same lie I’d toldher father last night. “But I promise it was very violent.”

“I’m sure,” Phyllida said. “Orcuslikes his fights.”

I hummed in agreement, but didn’t gobeyond that. Orcus and Sebastian had exited the kitchen, and were standing infront of us, Orcus with a thunderous countenance, and Sebastian’s face set in adetermined pose. He extended his hand to Phyllida, who grinned wickedly andtook it, hauling him up the stairs. I looked back to Orcus, whose hands were inhis pockets. He hated losing, almost as much as I did.

“You’re just letting them go?”

He nodded once, stiffly. “He assuredme his intentions were far from dishonorable.”

“You didn’t believe him,” I said.

“Phyllida wants the no-accountscalawag, and I’ve got much more pressing issues on my mind at the moment.”

“There was no reason why not?” Isaid.

He scowled and began hauling me upfrom the steps, pulling me along behind him. “I want to get as much a start aspossible on that research. Come on.”

He led me to a secret secondaryentrance, and within half an hour we had hauled to the attic too many books tocount. We spread them out on a desk by the north-facing window, and settleddown to work. We were flipping through pages and pages and pages of material onsupernatural beings, monsters, vampires, Eastern European lore, and every copy ofevery known document that featured the name Claus Traugott-Rothstein. The roomwas silent for the next four hours, neither of us coming up for air, ensconcedsoundly into the books on the table. Orcus finally let out a long sigh andslouched back in his chair, face set in an even darker mould than earlier. Hewasn’t having any more luck than I was.

I closed the book in front of me andopened another one. “Lots in here about how to kill you; not much on how tocure you.”

“There’s nothing on a cure,” hesnapped. “Where’s your head?”

“Don’t lose your temper with me,Orcus,” I said absently. Normally I’d have been a bit tetchier, but reading hadtaken off my edge considerably. “What are you thinking?”

He tossed a book into a pile, thepetulant scowl still on his face. “Thinking that if we’re to replace a cure we’regoing to have to look for ways tied to vampiric weaknesses.”

I hummed. “Which methods would youprefer to study? Obviously we can’t inject you with silver, as that hasconsiderable potential to be more harmful than helpful. May I make asuggestion?”

“Please.”

“Start with the edible substancesthat vampires are typically averse to; garlic, leeks, onions, and the like.Leeks aren’t typically very strong, so we’d likely have to confine the observationto the stronger stuff; garlic being what it is, it’s likely our best bet.”

“Degas hasn’t shown any adverseeffects to the plant,” Orcus pointed out.

“True, but he also said his motherwas Italian, and he hasn’t exactly ingested any since the second week we hadhim.”

Orcus rolled his eyes. “His mother’sItalian blood has nothing to do with it. In the other context, however, youridea has merit. We mix the elements and observe how they react to each other.”

“That’s an idea,” I said, “exceptfor one small hiccough of a problem.”

“Venom is released during the hunt,yes,” he said. “However, that is according to lore, which is mostly justspeculation.”

“You think it’s in his saliva?”

“If not it could be in his blood.”

The light-bulb went on in my head.“Because ingesting the blood of a vampire has the effect of making one like avampire. And ingestion translates to bloodstream. . .”

Orcus grinned. “We check the salivaif he can’t produce on demand, and we’ll cross-check it with what blood we drawout of him.”

I looked back at my book. “It’d be ahell of a breakthrough if we do this, you know.”

“Yeah, for two of us,” he replied. “Themedical community’s only going to think we’re bat-shit crazy.”

“Yes, but at least we’ll havesomething on hand in case the horde at school become anything like a threat.”Even if Director Carson was helping them along, there was only so much onecould do to control a starving vampire; and he had at least three others on hishands.

Orcus chuckled. “If this works,Mallory, I think I may have it arranged to marry you.”

That almost killed my good mood.“That’s not funny, Orcus.”