Page 76 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

76

Boston, December 29, 2024

Lucy

At last, travel weary but humming with a body full of blood, I arrive outside the club. I want to visit Vanessa first and see if there are any letters for me, but I’m itching for progress. It’s been too long already just getting here. I couldn’t dazzle my way past airport security, so I had to take a boat. I thought the enormous yacht I climbed aboard would be faster than a bulky shipping container; I was wrong. At least I didn’t feel bad taking a meal from the insufferable owner. Weeks I had to listen to him! Agonizing.

It would have been much simpler to get to Boston had I been able to hitch a ride on Iris’s private jet. Unfortunately, given that her security team had at least one vampire who would sniff me out, that wasn’t an option. Staying away while the Goldaming Life people took care of the bodies we hid in the locked room and then bundled Iris off was one of the hardest tasks of my entire vampiric life. I wanted to tear them apart. Just to have a few more moments, a few more infinite nows with Iris.

But I can live the rest of my life in the nows we had. In the look of love and wonder on her face when she realized what and who I was. In the way, at last, at last, someone saw every part of me and loved me.

Iris. My heart. My miracle. My wonder.

After making sure Rahul and Anthony were set with the house—Iris insisted, and I didn’t mind because I agree that they deserve both the house and protection—I at last followed.

At least there was plenty of time to influence her dreams on the way over here. I’d had no idea exactly what giving her a taste of my blood before we parted would do. I only remembered that Dracula had done it to me and it had connected us. So it was a tremendously delightful surprise to find I could nudge her dreams in whatever direction I chose. Dracula chose terror. I chose something quite different.

We’ve had such a good time. It’s not the same as being with her, but I’m with her all the time in my heart.

And thanks to her, I’m ready. The last time I entered this club, I was weary beyond belief. I was lost and alone and desperate. I’m none of those things now. My spirits soar as I stride back into the place where I was nearly destroyed. I’m going to show them what I can do. I’m going to make such an entrance. I’m going to—

There’s a vampire brawl happening inside. It could almost be mistaken for a thrashing group dance, save the occasional limb that flies free of the melee. And in the center, pressed on all sides, about to be destroyed, are two familiar faces.

I had planned on killing the Queen and the Lover myself if I ever saw them again, but they’re on the verge of being killed by the same vampire trap that nearly ended me. I don’t think they set me up, after all. They must have made the mistake of listening to the Lover’s little bird and coming here.

“Excuse me,” I call out.

It’s hard to be heard over the rumbling bass pumped through the sound system. Fine. At least it’s after dark. I’ll never understand other vampires’ aversion to changing form. I let go of myself and I’m everywhere and I’m nowhere and they can’t track me because who can see moonlight in the middle of flashing lasers?

There’s nothing visceral or thrilling about what comes next. It’s an efficient dismantling of bodies. Hand through a chest. Moonlight. Arms removed. Moonlight. Head torn off. Moonlight. I’m dizzy by the time there are only a few functioning vampire bodies left, unsure where I end and the night begins.

I’m going to kill and kill and never stop, I’ll be doing this forever, I’ve always been doing this, body after body after—

“Lucy,” a sweet voice says, like a bell calling me home. I shudder back into myself. The Lover and the Queen stand amidst a mound of bodies. A final vampire cowers behind them, too scared to fight for his unlife.

“It seems like you’re about to kill us, too, and I’d rather you not,” the Lover says, blinking slowly at me. Half her cheek is ripped off, skin dangling like fruit mid-peel. I press it back in place for her. Just like old times.

The Queen adjusts her clothes with a surly expression. Skirt and blouse back in her preferred neat order, she sets the broken bones in her arms. “Thank you for rescuing us.”

“Wasn’t my intention.” I shrug, then peer around them. The vampire hiding there screams. His eyes are big and dark and panicked. He’s brand-new, poor thing.

“You killed them,” he gasps, looking around. “You killed them. You killed them.”

“Killed them again,” the Lover clarifies. She’s dancing slowly through the remains, pausing birdlike now and again if a body’s wearing something particularly shiny.

“I have some questions for—” I start, but he’s insensible.

“You killed them!”

“Yes, you’ve established that,” I say.

“But they told us—we went through the Celestial Gate! We’re incorruptible! We’re not bound by mortality anymore!”

“Who told you that?” I try to sound patient and supportive and nonthreatening. Which is difficult with my hands covered in the sticky remains of his friends.

“Goldaming Life. They gave us this gift. They rewarded us. They made us.” He shakes his head so fast he’s nearly blurring. Maybe he’s about to figure out how to leave his human form. Good for him. A little too late, though.

“What does he smell like to you two?” I ask.

The Queen wrinkles her nose in distaste, but the Lover waltzes up to him and presses her face right against his neck. “He smells like—” She pulls back and sneezes, a tiny, precious sound. Her cheek skin dislodges again. I brush it back. She just laughs. “I didn’t know I could sneeze anymore! He smells like Dracula. But not like you.” She wraps her arms around me and rests her head against my chest. “No one smells like you, Lucy. Except the Queen. And me.”

“Who turned you?” I ask the infant.

“I don’t know what that means!”

“Who turned you into a vampire,” the Queen clarifies, her question delivered like the falling of a blade.

“Vampire? What are you—I’m not—I’m purified. I’m a Golden God. I’m divinity on earth. I’m not—I’m not a—oh god.” He slumps to the floor, arms hugging his knees. He’s on the verge of tears.

I spent so long not knowing who I was, but he doesn’t even know what he is. I crouch in front of him. “Hey,” I say, and this time my gentle voice isn’t an act. “What’s your name?”

“Ian,” he says. “My name’s Ian.”

At least they gave him his name back. “Ian, I’m sorry to tell you this, but he killed you. He turned you into a vampire. Haven’t you been sleeping in a casket, or dirt? And drinking blood instead of eating?”

“I have—we have cubbies. They only smell like dirt because of the organic, all-natural insulation they use. And we drink Goldaming Life supercharged, gold-infused liquid, which has everything we need to survive.”

“And it’s red?” the Lover asks, skipping around collecting arms and legs and heads, adding them to a quickly growing pile. “And it tastes like blood?”

He looks up at me. I like his face. He seems like he was a nice person, when he was a person. “I’m not a monster,” he whispers. “I’m not.”

“I know. Do you want to help us destroy Goldaming Life?”

He twitches. There’s a familiar flash of instinctive fury. It’s the way I must have looked when Iris accused Mina of betraying me. His expression is all I need to know. Whatever they did to Ian before they turned him, they made certain that loyalty to the Goldaming cause is the core of his existence.

Before he can lunge at me, the Queen’s razor fingernails appear through his neck, neatly severing his head from his body. She glances at her claws with disdain as he slumps to the floor. “It will take forever to clean them, and no one does it for me now.”

The Lover gently collects Ian’s head and places it next to his shoulders. “Something’s wrong.”

“I know,” I say, trying to be patient. “His head came off. You can’t put it back on.”

“No, ma petite chou. What’s wrong is he’s a him. Lots of them are hims. Or at least, they were.”

I nearly dismiss her, focused on the next task, but—she’s right. How did I not put that together before? I suppose last time I was distracted with trying not to die. But in America, Dracula has been turning men. I never found a male vampire in Europe. Only ever women. “Strange,” I say, looking at the Queen for her opinion.

She shifts her shoulders, impassive. “We changed. So did Dracula.”

The Lover pats Ian’s cheek. “Poor little dear. I like him. We should keep him.”

I guide her away from his body. “It would be very hard to do what we need to if we were lugging his corpse around with us.”

“What exactly is it we are doing,” the Queen says, raising a single imperious eyebrow.

I take her hand in one of mine, and the Lover’s in the other. “I saw you two in the center of that circle. You weren’t trying to survive. Not really. You were ready for an ending. It’s okay. I was ready, too. But I have something better than being killed by a bunch of babies in an obnoxious club.” I smile at them, my only friends, my oldest friends. The only two who will understand. “We’re going to find Dracula, and we’re going to stop him, once and for all. Together.”

The Queen’s fingers twitch around my own. I worry for a moment she’s trying to cut me, but she’s just holding my hand. Squeezing it back. She gives me a single, regal nod.

The Lover squeals in delight, letting go so she can clap. “Oh, yes, let’s! It’ll be a—what do they call them? Girls’ trip! Girls’ trip, girls’ trip, girls’ trip!” She twirls around the bodies, singing her song.

I came here to kill vampires and get information. I did both, with the bonus of securing two allies. It feels right, having them by my side for this. I only wish I’d managed to find the Doctor, too.

“You know where he is, then,” the Queen says.

I begin pouring alcohol from the bar over the bodies. Wouldn’t do for some poor hopeful dancers to come in here and find a massacre when all they need is a good night out.

“Not exactly,” I answer, “but I know someone who will figure it out. First things first, though, we start this girls’ trip the proper way: arson and then a visit to my therapist.”