How to Cure a Vampire Bite without Losing Your Mind
Chapter 21

There was a good lull in activity afterthat. Nothing happened until around Christmas, and even then it was mostly anextraordinary amount of cursing because nothing was going quite as quickly orsmoothly as we’d all wanted. Sebastian managed to keep himself in check, mostlyby raiding the blood supplies Orcus brought back from the bank. The idea waseventually overridden by Mr. Locke, the excuse being that we were treading onthin ground as it was by lying to Carson, and adding stealing to the count wasn’tgoing to help our case should the wolves descend. He called in another favor,and very soon great large boxes of pint-packages found their way to the Lockefamily home.

Orcus had turned a blind eye. He wasbeginning to make the laboratory his new home, and there simply wasn’t the timefor him to argue with his father, even if it did put our activities on the map.It was a new side of Orcus I’d never seen before, and I didn’t know what to do.He was working feverishly in the lab at all hours, and became ever more andmore territorial, particularly where I was concerned. I soon found myself withhim nearly 24/7, as he was constantly coming up with things he ‘needed’ me todo. As Mr. Locke didn’t seem too bothered by this behavior, I told Raechel tolook into it for me while I was stuck with Orcus. She had glowered at me for abit, but then acquiesced, and went about hunting for the information. I wasleft with very strict instructions not to bother her about it until she came tome. This seemed unreasonable, but I agreed, and Raechel went on her way.

I needn’t have worried; Raechel wasas good as gold, and very thorough. When she said she was going to get all theinformation, she meant all the information and then some. It was an agonizingtwo week wait, to be sure, but when Raechel crept back into my room exactly afortnight and three days into the New Year (17 January, for those of you whoare vocabularically challenged), I found it had been worth it. She looked quitepleased with herself as she perched on my bed, smiling at my criss-cross foldedposition on the floor. It was about mid-day, and I had been doing my usual jobof being more a hindrance than a help with the task set before us.

“You’ll be proud of me,” she said.

“Why?” I asked. “What have youfound?”

“I have,” Raechel said smugly, “notonly found out why your lover is being so clingy, but, I have also beeninformed, by Mr. Locke himself, it is directly related to what his son is sointerested in and why Orcus wants it – or them.”

“Them?” I repeated.

‘Yes. I looked it up in a book Mr.Locke mentioned, and I think I found something more than a little pertinent.”Raechel produced a book from beneath her shirt, and laid it open on the bed.“Come look, do. It’s so fascinating, and freaky; be careful, though, you’re infor a shock.”

“Thank you, Willy Wonka,” I saidflatly, crawling up beside her. What I saw wasn’t quite what I’d anticipated,and I stared at it for about ten solid seconds before I managed, “Is – that – ”

“Mr. Edward Locke himself,” Raechelsaid brightly. “Circa 1872, with Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Hammond of Hartford,Connecticut.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t hold out on me, Raechel!How?”

Raechel flipped a few more pages,and pulled out two very well-worn pieces of parchment. “Mr. Locke gave methese. He thought you might like to see them as well. He said Orcus has wantedthem since he first found out they existed.”

“They?”

Raechel pointed, and I saw. ‘They’were urns. And not just urns; these urns – more like pots, but they werelabelled as urns, so what the hell? – held time-travelling portals, wormholes.According to the parchments, each urn was about five-feet tall, three-feetwide, and shaped in an altogether traditional pattern. To operate thewormholes, one needed the permission of the owner, and to call out the date,time, and place one desired to visit. There used to be four, said the papers,but in 1526 one had been given to a lawyer as payment, and he had supposedly hiddenit inside his house –

“ – behind a painting of hisfather,” I read aloud. I looked up at Raechel. ‘What do you think the oddsare?”

She shrugged, but I could see hershaking from her contained zeal. “Probably some ridiculous number; but itexplains a hell of a lot, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “Yeah, except why Mr.Locke is still alive if his son knows what he wants.”

“That’s on the other page,” Raechelexplained. “The way it works, when the urns were created, they were put underan enchantment that insures they pass down from father to son. They were givenas a gift to Simeon Locke in 1472, and they can only be operated by the masterand those to whom the master grants access. If the master gives an urn away,like they gave to Probably Stupid’s Father, the receiver becomes full master,and the old master can’t use it without his permission. If Orcus bumps off Mr.Locke, the protection of the urns breaks, and they become accessible to anyonewho wants to use them; they also become massively unstable.”

Orcus would want to keep them underhis control. A haywire wormhole would only be bad news for him. “That’s howhe’s getting his power he wants so desperately,” I said. “That’s why his fatheris still alive. Not just anyone can use it. But that still wouldn’t prevent himfrom ordering a convenient car accident, would it?”

Raechel hummed. “The urns can readintent; whether or not he had a direct hand in it, if Orcus is responsible forhis father’s death, if he planned it, the protection that ties the urns to himis completely cut off. If he is responsible, but feels remorse, the urns may ormay not grant access. It all depends on the circumstance. Our darling sociopathbeing unable to register emotion on that level, he can’t kill his fatherwithout sacrificing the urns.” Who the hell would think of all this?

I slouched against the footboard,slightly depressed. I had been very nearly all wrong about what was goingthrough Orcus’ mind, and that was a dangerous mistake to be making. I hadn’tbeen the distraction at all. Mr. Locke had been dead on from the beginning:Orcus’ one objective – besides the very obvious need to replace a cure – had beento keep an eye on me, and to keep me close. It was why he’d let Sebastian havehis fling with Phyllida, it was obviously why he was preventing me leaving hisside, and it was why he was so touchy about his father’s approval. I hadover-thought the entire ordeal, and was as wrong as it is possible to get.

“I’d thought he was just acting,” Isaid to Raechel. “I didn’t know it was real. I mean, he pretends so much; howwas I to know he wasn’t pretending this time? Bet he thought of that.”

Raechel tucked the parchments backinto the book, and closed it. “Not to detract from your personal loss,” shesaid, “but what are we going to do? About Stupid’s father having an urn, Imean.”

“Orcus would know.”

“Would Stupid? He’s been rememberingmore since we’ve had him on the blood-diet, and there’s a chance that he sawit.”

I bit my lip. “Maybe. But rememberthat he was really young when it was placed behind the portrait. Chances are hewon’t recall a thing.”

We sat in silence, and then Raechelwas off the bed. “Let’s ask anyway. It couldn’t hurt.”

I agreed, and we went out, traipsingin the general direction of Phyllida’s art-room. The two lovers spent almostall their time there, doing Lord-knows-what (probably having lots of sex,because, let’s face it, that’s what young people do). Since he’d been getting aregular dosage of blood, Sebastian had fallen back into some sense ofnormality, and now he and Phyllida were in a whirlwind romance, glued to eachother at all times of the day.

It was as we got to the downstairsfoyer that a shout of pure ecstasy rang through the house. It was extremelyloud and very terrifying. It could only be Orcus.

He came bounding up the stairs, faceaglow with pride, eyes manic. “I’VE DONE IT!!!” he screamed.

“Done what?” I asked stupidly.

“IT WORKS! IT WORKS! MY GOD, IT’S ACHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!” And then he kissed me quite hard before proceeding tojump off the landing and bolt back down the stairs and into the laboratoryagain.

I looked at Raechel, not sure whatto feel. “He knows Christmas was almost a month ago, right?”

“Well, it works,” she said. “That’sthe good news. You should be dancing.”

We decided to forego Sebastian forthe moment, and wandered down the laboratory to see the results of nearly threemonths of hard work. Orcus wascarefully measuring a golden serum into a syringe and transferring it into aphial. There were about sixteen or seventeen of them lined up and waiting, andthey smelled, frankly, like burned socks and farts. It was gross. Orcus took nonotice of us, so intent was he on what he was doing.

“So. . . .” I said.

He didn’t acknowledge me.

“Orcus.”

No answer.

“Really?”

Still nothing.

“Fluffhead!”

He looked up. “Did you say my name?”

Raechel sniggered. “Yeah, she did.Unfortunately for you, you answered to ‘Fluffhead.’ Could I call you that now?”

Orcus scowled. “I just curedvampirism, McNab. Shut up.”

“What are the specifics?” I said,trying to draw the attention back to the important matters.

“Alliin,” he said. “Alliin mixedwith phoenix tears. It’s brilliant. Of course, you suggested the alliin first –”

“I suggested a concentrated form ofit,” I contradicted. “You didn’t use that though, did you?”

“I used the naturally occurring formof it,” Orcus said, going back to his syringe. “It seems to work better than aconcentrate.”

“Did you use Sebastian’s blood?”

“No; I used mine.”

“Yours?”

“Mhmm.”

Could he be any less informative?“Care to share?”

Orcus chuckled. “Though I have beenimbued with phoenix tears, their qualities are beginning to wear off. I took myblood, extracted the tears – it was very simple, they co-habit in the systemalmost like their own complete entity, you could separate the two with a spoon– and was left with the regular contaminated sample. I found that when I hadn’textracted it, the serum worked better than when I had; the sample cleansedfaster and more completely, with less damage. I did another experiment, thistime mixing in a greater ratio of Tears to chemical, and produced a similarresult. A third test, where I mixedthe extracted and aged Tears with the serum, produced exactly the same resultsas with the first. Twenty-two extra tests later, the results were still thesame, and I knew I’d found my cure.” He straightened himself. “Well…what willwork as a cure for now. Obviously itwill still need perfecting, but it will do the job satisfactorily.”

That was truly incredible, Ithought. It wasn’t much of a surprisegiven Orcus’ ability to out-think practically all of his peers, and a goodnumber of his elders as well. It was still incredible.

“Do you think it’ll work on Degas?”Raechel asked.

“No,” said Orcus happily. “He’s toofar gone for such a thing.”

Somehow I didn’t think so. “Have you taken it yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Want to parcel it first. Not surehow I’ll react when I shoot up, and I want this stowed away in case I reactbadly.”

“Would you like help?”

“No, thank you.”

Raechel and I exchanged glances.“Right,” she said. “Well, we’re going to go inform Stupid, and Phyllida, andyour grandfather, and then we’ll be back to watch you. You know, just in caseyou die.”

Orcus snorted. “Do as you please.”

“We plan to,” I said.

Out in the hall I pressed Raechelfor what she thought; was he telling the truth, or would it really not work forSebastian.

She though it over. “Dunno,” she finallysaid, “but I agree with him on this one.”

“Sorry?” Raechel had probably neveragreed with Orcus on anything in her life.

“Think about it,” she said.“Sebastian is completely changed now, and Orcus wasn’t. He was close, butGrandpa shot him up with the tears in time. Degas didn’t have that. He took amonth or so to manifest the all thechanges – though he’s still not counting, and honestly I’m kind of let down bythat; he’s been drinking blood for a good while now. I think Orcus is right,and he’s not a candidate anymore.”

I didn’t have to do too muchconsidering. If Raechel was agreeing with Orcus, then I was prepared to believeit. “Fine. But I want to know more about these urns.”

You can imagine just how happy I wasthat Sebastian remembered. Not only did he remember the urn, he remembered howit had fit in the wall. He didn’t remember the portrait being hung over it, butwhen Raechel mentioned the wormhole, his eyes lit up.

“Is that what was hidden inside it?” he said. “No wonder, then!” We’dfound him wandering outside on the estate grounds, taking advantage of theheavily overcast skies to try to get out of the house. So far he seemed to bedoing all right: No blisters had appeared on his skin, and he’d been out forthe better part of an hour.

“Do you remember it exactly?” Iasked.

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Greystone; beautiful masonry; quite heavy, from what I remember of it. The worm –er, hole, as you call it, was muchmore wild when the portrait was dislodged.”

As we began making our way back upto the main house, Raechel launched into an explanation of how the wormholewould have gone haywire when his father was killed. By the time she wasfinished we’d made it inside a very large, very warm conservatory, and werepeeling off our coats and hats as we made our way to the door connecting it tothe rest of the house. I’d frowned to myself at Raechel’s explanation, butdidn’t attempt to correct her. Who was to say there wasn’t a particular detailwe were missing? According to the papers, the wormholes would only become destabilizedin the event of a son murdering his father; they hadn’t mentioned anythingelse, and there were several possibilities where the story was concerned. Sebastiandidn’t understand ‘haywire,’ and dulled a bit at his own lack of comprehension,but lit up again when Raechel described it.

“Like some sort of black hole?” heasked, coming to a stop in the entry as we put up our coats (I forgot tomention, but will do so now, that Sebastian wasn’t wearing a coat or a hat;apparently being a vampire makes one rather impervious to the cold, which isstupid because it’s annoying, but there we are).

I double-took. “I didn’t know you evenknew what that was,” I said. “But, yes, a bit like a black hole. Except that,if the urn broke, it would tear the space-time continuum, not just swallowlight.”

“Not if the urn didn’t break,”Raechel rushed to say. “And also, who’s to say that black holes aren’t tears in the space-timecontinuum? Nothing’s ever survived the trip into one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The worm-hole was encased inthe urn as well as the wall. It would have sucked everything into it, sure,until a part of the wall, maybe imbued with some sort of protection, collapsedon itself and sealed it off. The time being when it was, the house would have,upon its construction, been blessed by a priest, or religious elder of somesort. It would have provided an extra sort of protection.”

This was stretching my brain a bit.“How would that work?” Apparently we were disregarding the fact that curses andblessings are lumped into the same category of things that don’t actuallyexist.

Raechel shrugged. “I have no idea,but it must have, otherwise we’d be having a very different conversation rightnow. I imagine it’s the same concept behind vampires and holy water, butI wouldn’t know for sure.” We had wandered into the blue sitting room, and I tooka moment to eye Orcus’ mother’s portrait, thinking hard.

Sebastian seemed very keen on thisidea. “If the wall had collapsed it would have allowed time for the vortex tocome back to an even keel!”

Phyllida hadn’t been kidding whenshe’d said he had potential. I’d had no idea that Sebastian was truly thisintelligent. As it was, as I sank into a chair, my mind was preoccupied with adifferent challenge. “Orcus wants those urns, badly,” I said.

Sebastian’s hackles were raised.“Why?”

“Not sure exactly, but I can imagine it has to do with the level of power itwould afford him,” I said.

“There’s only one thing for it,”Sebastian said decidedly.

“What’s that?”

“They must be destroyed.”

“And how do you suggest we go aboutdoing that?”

He sat down opposite me. “No idea.”

We sat in silence a long minute, andthen Raechel said, “Orcus found a cure.”

Sebastian nodded. “I do not think Iwill be a proper candidate for it.”

“Neither do we,” she said. “But wethought it fair you know.”

He nodded again. “I thank you.” Hisblack eyes found mine. “Do you know where they are, the urns?”

I shook my head. “No. But Mr. Lockedoes.”

“And what do you plan to do if hesays no?” asked Raechel conversationally.

I shrugged. “Steal his records andreplace out where they are myself. We have to get rid of them before Orcus gets tothem. That might seem to be a long ways away, and I don’t know about you, butI’d rather not take that chance.”