Page 19 of Love Immortal

Eighteen

T he Kellogg-Hubbard Library is a gorgeous nineteenth-century building with a granite fa?ade and columns and a marble-lined portico. The main floor has heritage golden-yellow walls with well-preserved oak wainscotting, carved stairways, and pillars. It’s warm and welcoming and manages to lessen my anxiety.

At the service desk, I inquire where I might be able to find books on symbols in European art. It’s impossible to tell Dacian’s ancestry just from looking at him, but judging by his skin color and accent, that part of the world is a good place to start.

The librarian directs me to the second floor, where I find several encyclopedias and art history tomes relevant to my search. I bring my haul to a secluded reading nook and start skimming. Somehow, being buried in books makes me feel almost normal . This is how I planned to spend my fall break anyway. If only I could pretend I’m working on a class assignment instead of investigating the dark origins of my vampire professor…

Since I don’t know what era I’m supposed to be looking for, it takes a good hour of randomly flipping pages before I stumble on a relevant image. My heart jumps at the discovery. I have to reread the caption several times before the information sinks in.

The wolf-dragon I’ve been looking for is in the chapter dedicated to the architecture of Ancient Rome, a close-up of a relief in Trajan’s Column depicting a military standard. It’s one of the most peculiar designs I’ve encountered in heraldry. The standard’s long tail is made from fabric, meant to soar in the wind like a dragon, while the wolf head has sharp teeth and appears to be forged from metal.

The caption notes that the column was erected in the second century AD to commemorate Emperor Trajan’s victory in the war with the Dacian people. My heart skips another beat. Dacian. And the wolf-dragon is known as Dacian Draco. Now that I know what dates to search, I quickly find a helpful volume about ancient Roman history. I discover that before the Dacians were defeated by the Roman Empire, they comprised a number of tribes who occupied the area around the Carpathian Mountains, including the region of Transylvania. They were fierce and proud warriors who covered their bodies in tattoos, wielded sickle-like swords and marched into battle accompanied by the howling sound that their wolf-headed standards made when air passed through them. Those warriors terrified the Roman Empire. They considered themselves one with the wolves, and the very name Dacian might have come from the Phrygian word with that meaning. A popular legend says that a wolf deity even fought alongside the Dacians, defending their capital from the Roman invaders.

Sadly, not much else is known about their ancient civilization. The last Dacian kingdom was wiped out in the first century AD when Rome decided the rich gold mines in Transylvania were an ideal source of funds to pay for their burgeoning military campaigns. After the bloody conquest, thousands of Dacians were forced off their land and subjected to ethnic cleansing, sold into slavery, or turned into legionnaires. And even though small factions of Dacians bravely rebelled against Roman rule for the next two centuries, they never gained full independence again, falling under the influence of Goths, Huns, and later Slavs. Eventually, what was left of them became the forebearers of modern-day Romanians.

I lean back in my chair and exhale with deliberate slowness. I recall the shadow wolves from my dream, their sharp teeth, and how violently they tore my classmates and Clay into pieces. There is no way that was just a coincidence. But can Dacian’s family roots really go back two thousand years? Or can he himself be that old?

A cold shiver prickles my neck. One of the common beliefs about vampires is that blood can give them immortality. I spent a long time in a very isolated place , Dacian said. I thought it bizarre at the time because how could someone who looks twenty-five at most speak of time like it’s an ocean he has crossed? But maybe he did mean centuries, even millennia…though something tells me that isn’t right, even if I can’t logically explain why. Besides, although he does come off as a little old-fashioned, Dacian doesn’t look or speak like he’s that ancient. But then again, how many two-thousand-year-old beings have I met to compare him with?

I sigh. What must it feel like to have so many memories, to have borne witness to so much change in the world? Wars, plagues, empires crumbling, and new ones rising from their ruins. Just imagining that makes my head spin. It must be so lonely. No wonder he gives the impression of being an impenetrable fortress surrounded by a moat. Why would he let anyone close when no one can understand what it’s like to be him?

I shut the book with a loud thump—there isn’t much else to glean from it. What am I doing, anyway? I can’t afford to start romanticizing a vampire. He killed Eric and probably Anita Hernandez, and he was trying to lure me in too. I doubt it was so we could take an innocent stroll in the moonlight. The image of his crimson irises flashes in my mind, their wild, untamed hunger. Dangerous and yet so alluring. With effort, I drive the pining ache away. I need to stick to the facts and not indulge in fantasies. And there’s one fact that stands out in the story of ancient Dacians: the heart of their civilization, the source of their wealth, was the region of Transylvania, and there is at least one famous vampire who hailed from that corner of the world.

I know which book I need, but I hesitate. There’s a reason I didn’t start my search with horror novels or collections of myths and folk tales. This is a life-and-death situation— my life, and possibly my death, unless I can find a way to defend myself. How can I put my trust in some story? But there’s sure as hell no scientific paper on the subject of vampires. In which case a fairy tale is as trustworthy a source as any. No matter how unbelievable this situation seems, I have to follow the only thread I have, and that thread is leading me to Transylvania and its lore.

I push myself up, return the books I no longer need, and visit the fiction section. The novel is so famous, I have no problem finding several copies on the shelf. My fingers tremble as they trace the black spine with ominous red letters. Dracula . I swallow and bring the book back to my research camp.

As I read the first page, a deep chill burrows into my skin. How did I not think of this before? I should’ve connected the names by now. Jonathan Harker’s Journal , it begins…

Several hours later, I stare at the wall, my mind racing. I’m only halfway through the book, but I need to stop, or I’m afraid my brain will explode. This cannot be. Everything in me screams that it isn’t possible. But pieces of what I know about Dacian spin through my head, perfectly aligning with Bram Stoker’s book. The ability to transform into a mist, to visit his victim’s dreams, the wolves, and the isolated castle in the mountains. How many “coincidences” does it take before one is forced to admit there’s no such thing as a coincidence?

Dacian had a severe reaction to my name when he saw it on the class roster. He seemed to despise it, and me along with it. I’m certain now that I didn’t imagine it. He still won’t call me by my first name. Could that be because he has a history with Jonathan Harker? Because Jonathan escaped from his imprisonment in the count’s castle and provoked the chain of events that eventually led to Dracula’s destruction? Again, my rational mind wants to scream that this isn’t possible, that a made-up character couldn’t be walking the real world. But in the words of the greatest fictional detective of all time, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains,no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Not everything in Stoker’s book is pure fiction. Count Dracula was based on a real historical figure, Vlad the Impaler. There’s extensive evidence that he existed, even if none of it claims he was a vampire. From the introductory note at the beginning of the book, I know that Stoker himself insisted his story was based on real events and that he was personally acquainted with relatives of the Harker family. Was that just clever book marketing, or was there truth to it too terrifying to accept?

I squeeze my eyes shut. I’ve read the encyclopedia entry on Vlad Dracula; I couldn’t resist fetching it after finishing the first few chapters. His monstrous moniker, the Impaler, wasn’t just for show. It’s estimated that during his bloody reign, Vlad III, voivode of Wallachia, tortured and killed eighty thousand people, mostly by impaling them on wooden stakes. They were left to bleed out, and he refused to bury them for weeks. The entire country was one blood-chilling horror show. His other nickname, Dracula, originates from the word meaning dragon; he inherited the moniker from his father, who was a member of the Order of the Dragon. If I dig deeper, will I find references to mysterious wolves in his story too?

Nausea threatens to rise in my throat again. Could Dacian be Vlad the Impaler? Could he be the count? The awful things Dracula did to Lucy Westenra, Mina, and Jonathan—he was a gruesome killer, unburdened by conscience or remorse. He would’ve murdered his way through England had they not chased him out. But if this insane theory is true, then the ending of the story got twisted somehow. Dacian escaped retribution and is now hiding out at a university in Vermont, with at least two victims to his name. How many more will he kill before someone stops him? Can anyone stop him?

I let my forehead crash onto my folded arms and rest there for a moment. I feel like I’m stuck in a nightmare. Is any of this even real? It might just be a hallucination of my sleep-deprived brain.

My stomach growls pitifully. All I’ve had today are two doughnuts and two cups of coffee. I glance at the window. It’s started to drizzle. It will start getting dark soon. I can’t stay in the library overnight. As crazy as it sounds, there’s no place I can be safe from him other than my dorm, into which he hasn’t been invited.

So I check out a copy of Dracula and drive back, stopping for a grilled cheese and a bag of fries at a busy gas station along Route 7.

As I circle West Hall, I resist the urge to check the trail where I caught Dacian last night. I wonder if there are any stains from Eric’s blood or if the rain has washed them away. The body is surely gone by now. Dacian would have disposed of it. He probably didn’t throw it in the river, though. If another body washes up on campus, the police won’t be so quick to bury the investigation this time. After all, this victim is a rich white boy. He must have buried it somewhere?—

I shake my head violently. What the hell is wrong with me? This is not a sane train of thought. Lack of sleep is starting to get to me, and it’s only been a day!

Fueled by anger and the inviting smell of fries, I make my way back to my room and manage to stay awake for a few more hours. But as night falls, I get increasingly paranoid that Dacian will pop up outside my window. I check it obsessively, not trusting myself to keep it shut and vampire-proof. My anxiety spikes, tormenting me with scenarios of the evil ways he could slither inside so he can hack a chunk out of my throat and gleefully watch me bleed out on the floor as punishment for uncovering his secret.

I pace around my room in endless circles, trying to shake myself awake. I blast a rock station on my radio and set the alarm at regular intervals in case exhaustion gets the upper hand. This strategy gets me through the night and the better part of Sunday until students start returning in the afternoon.

But in the end, none of these tricks can keep me out of Dacian’s reach.