Page 86 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

86

Salt Lake City, January 20, 2025

Iris

I float in a haze of lust, anchored only by Lucy. I want to do things—to her, with her—but it feels like I’m moving through water. She is the water, though. Deliciously warm water, holding me up, buoying me. I’m nothing but nerve endings, every touch, every kiss, every whisper triggering so much pleasure it’s overwhelming. I want more of her, more of us, more of everything. I can’t focus past the sheer physicality of it all, can’t find my voice to talk to her. And I want to talk to her, want to—

Oh god, I want, I only want.

A sharp sound cracks the world in half. I sit, heart racing, flush with feelings and full of Lucy, but…

I’m alone, in my lonely bed, in my empty, rented house. Lucy isn’t here, because she can’t be here. All my lingering warmth dissipates. We’re still apart, and Dracula, fucking Dracula, hasn’t visited me a single time since Lucy spooked him. Every night I’m out on that trail, cold, nervous because I’m cold, pacing back and forth, waiting. Tortured knowing Lucy is close but I can’t see or hold or speak to her. And Dracula doesn’t so much as show.

Maybe we scared him off for good. Maybe he decided he wasn’t interested in me. It’s weird that I’m offended by that, but—

A noise at the window. I startle in fright. Wings press close to the glass. They flap in a frenzy, darker than midnight, not velvet but veined and repulsive. I stare, wide-eyed, confused. A bat?

And then I realize: It’s him.

He flings himself against the window, over and over, scrabbling at the glass. Does he really think I’m going to open it? Even if I didn’t know it was Dracula, like I’d let some random, enormous bat inside! I’m also offended on behalf of bats everywhere. They’re helpful, adorable creatures. They don’t deserve to be mocked in this twisted and monstrous imitation.

He hits the window again. That’s the sound that woke me. If he’s going to be a creep, the least he can do is be a creep when we can kill him. Not when it pulls me from a Lucy dream. I raise a single eyebrow in annoyed defiance.

The bat hits the window so hard the glass shatters. I scream, throwing my hands over my face. I brace myself against the onslaught of wings and teeth.

It doesn’t come. When at last I dare lower my arms, I’m alone again. A freezing breeze whips through my room. I think of another window, broken so long ago. Whether it was a wolf or not, that window symbolized the end of Lucy’s first life.

If Dracula had been able to come in, I would have been powerless. Just like Lucy back then. God, no wonder she was so worried the other night on the trail. I was flippant and dismissive, high on seeing her again. And also so relieved that she’d come back for me, and desperate to forget how it had felt to be under Dracula’s thrall. Embarrassed, too. I didn’t want her to know that he’d affected me. I want to be stronger than that, and hate that I’m not.

I trudge downstairs to make some weak-ass tea. Of all the things Goldaming Life has taken from me, demanding I stop drinking coffee seems the most excessively cruel. It’s “bad for my condition,” puts too much strain on my heart and circulation, etc. All lies, just like their building-wide ban on perfume out of respect for “allergies.” Heaven forbid we make it hard for the vampires to sniff out our blood type.

The tea’s only tolerable because it reminds me of Lucy. As it steeps, I stew over why Dracula decided on a flyby. Does he know I know who he is? That I’m trying to set him up? Was tonight a warning, or was it just part of his whole deal?

It’s 3 a.m ., but I’m not going back to sleep. I read over more of the files I stole from Olivia’s laptop. One of them is Dickie’s official schedule. This morning he has a lab tour. Could be useful if I can sneak in a camera. I’m slowly but surely building a case to expose the entire organization as a fraud, so I’ll take every chance I can get.

Yo Dick, I text, I’m coming on the lab tour today and sitting in on the meeting with state senator Harrell next week.

He responds almost immediately. You should be sleeping. It’s not good to strain your system.

I flip off the phone screen. Also can we stop pretending I don’t know about the vampires it’s tedious.

Come on, Dickie. Admit something in text. But he disappoints me, as usual.

You have such a strange sense of humor. My car will stop by to pick you up at 8 AM sharp; please be ready. We’ll discuss the Harrell meeting later.

What kind of sociopath texts with semicolons?

But at least I got my way. I regret it a little by the time the sleek black Goldaming car pulls up, though. I’ve been awake for hours and my attitude matches my face. Dickie takes great pleasure in the waves of surliness rolling off me. He talks the entire drive, a nonstop stream of legalese and corporate nonsense. I want to sink into the leather and never come out.

“As soon as you’re officially sworn in as president, I’ll have you sign off on our new agreement with Frye Technologies. I’m going to forward you the contract. Please read it all and let me know if you have any questions.”

“My questions are usually just Why and Will it ever end and Should I start day-drinking. ”

He doesn’t look up from the sleek leather folio filled with papers. “I’d like you to pick some photos of your mother for the memorial charity auction next month.”

“I don’t care. I really don’t. Put up a photo of her dead body.”

Dickie sighs and at last sets down his folio. “I advised her against it, you know.”

“Against dying? Was that your legal opinion, or just a general recommendation?”

“Against the egg retrieval.”

All the air is sucked out of the car. No one’s ever admitted that it actually happened. “What?” I croak.

“I advised her against a lot of things. This all should have been your choice. But she was always afraid.”

“Blanche Goldaming, afraid? I think you’re going senile, pal. If you’ll recall, my mom was a terrifying bitch who never gave an inch on anything.”

One of the things I remember best from when I accidentally invited a monster inside? While my dad bled unconscious on the floor and I cowered under the table, my mother stood in the dark in the next room and calmly talked to Dracula himself like he couldn’t hurt her. Blanche Goldaming was many things, but afraid wasn’t one of them.

Dickie stares out the window. “She worked hard to make herself essential. She worried you would jeopardize that, for her and for yourself. I didn’t agree with her choices, but I can respect what she did with Goldaming Life. Under her ruthless direction, it flourished. But children shouldn’t be raised like assets. I was rooting for you, you know. I wouldn’t have looked that hard if you’d managed to follow through on your plan to run away in England.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I don’t know how to feel about this. Dickie knew I was trying to get away, and he was…on my side? Or maybe this is his way of getting on my side now. Pretending that he was always sympathetic to my plight. But he never helped, did he? No one did.

I’ll keep playing my part. “Sucks to be you, Dickie, because I decided to stay and now you have to deal with me forever.”

But when the car pulls to a stop in front of a building, all my confusion about Dickie’s motivations evaporates. We’re at corporate headquarters. He lied to me.

“What the fuck, Dick. You told me I could come on the lab tour.”

Dickie exits and waits for me to climb out after him before answering. “You’re welcome to use whatever colorful language you wish on your own time, but I recommend trying to eliminate the cursing habit entirely. You need to convey the correct level of warmth and gravitas befitting your role as president of the company, and habits at home have a way of seeping into work. Also, this is the location for the lab tour. Come along.”

I drag my feet like the toddler he thinks I am. But once inside, we don’t use the elevators in the lobby. Instead, he takes me down a hall to a nondescript door I’ve never noticed. It doesn’t have any obvious security features. But something must happen, because there’s a clicking noise and then the door opens. A guard is on the other side.

Dickie walks straight by. I follow. My lawyer’s demonic grasshopper legs are so long I have to take a step and a half for every one of his. A glass door opens with a hiss of air. We step through and it seals again with an ominous sound. I’m already claustrophobic.

“I’m glad you suggested this,” Dickie says, flashing a badge at the vampire standing between us and an elevator door at the end of the hallway. “It’ll be much more efficient to do your treatments here, instead of at the I-Vee Center. We’ll combine them with our weekly meetings. Less time away from your studies, and you can start today. You’re looking unwell.”

My breathing gets shallower and faster. The elevator in front of me is a gate straight to hell. This was their goal the whole time. Seal me in and drain me dry. They’re finally going to finish what my mother started. They’re going to take my blood and my eggs and my soul, and then—

“Iris?” The way Dickie says it makes it clear it’s not the first time he’s just said my name.

“What?” I snap.

He gestures. Hanging on the wall are several white jumpsuits made of thin, paper-like material. “To keep things sterile in the lab.”

“Right. Yes.” Surely they wouldn’t have me dress up if I were a lamb being led to the slaughter. I awkwardly climb into my jumpsuit while Dickie puts his on with practiced ease. My curls are trapped beneath a humiliating hairnet, and, damn them, my phone is trapped beneath this suit. I can’t reach into my pocket and surreptitiously record anything.

The elevator doors open. No fiery flames of hell, no straight drop into a pit, just a vampire standing there, which at this point I’m so used to he barely registers. For a brief moment I think I’m getting past the fourth floor at last, but the vampire guard pushes the down button.

We’re going into a basement. The weight of the whole building is on top of us. I’m sweating with panic by the time we stop moving and the doors open.

I don’t know what I was expecting to be revealed. A dungeon, maybe. Torture chambers. A vampire rave, complete with human victims suspended from the ceiling like blood pi?atas. As a teen I was convinced Goldaming Life had a whole underground S I’m introduced to lab techs who tell me their roles in such specific jargon they could be building nuclear bombs and I’d have no idea; I’m taken down a row of newly developed products which all look like lotion to my eyes.

Everything is deliberately incomprehensible, all the lingo the same as in the brochures I’ve studied. They’re feeding me total bullshittery.

Demanding to come on this visit was far from a coup on my part. It’s clear in the way Susan keeps smiling, her eyes weighing and measuring me: I’m a harmless idiot, and we all know it.

“Right, I think that’s everything,” Susan says after a doctor or lab assistant or Vegas showgirl for all I know finishes “demonstrating” a new detoxifying patch by putting it on her arm and then taking it off.

“Do you feel less toxic?” I ask.

The assistant darts a puzzled, mildly panicked look at Dickie, who subtly shakes his head.

Susan gives me an imitation of a human smile. “You should join me tomorrow for the weekly branding meeting. We’ve nabbed the artisan who won the last season of that glassblowing show—I forget its name, very popular, Gwyneth was a judge but we got this one before Goop did, to design the jars for our new line of ultra-free radical combating creams, and she’s giving us a demonstration of her techniques. A few of our top earners are coming, too, and I know they’d love to meet you.”

“That sounds wonderful, Susan,” Dickie says. One of his spider hands comes down on my shoulder, guiding me toward the curtain-lined hallway. “Now it’s time for Miss Goldaming’s treatments. She’ll be doing them here now.”

At last there’s a hint of life in Susan’s eyes. “Such a good decision to be proactive about your health. Your mother would be pleased.”

Fuck that bitch, I think. “Yeah, it’ll be more convenient,” I say.

I want to believe coming down here more often will mean they won’t watch me so closely. I’ll be able to corner a chatty lab technician, or steal their formulas. Somehow, someway I’ll spot a weakness I can exploit. Maybe find a big red button labeled “AUTO-DESTRUCT: NEVER PUSH.”

But Susan is right. If my mother could see me, she really would be pleased. With that thought souring my stomach, I’m led to one of the curtained-off rooms. Inside is a chair that looks like it was designed for a Rolls-Royce. Which, knowing Goldaming Life, it probably was. The leather feels like it was molded to hold me. Which, knowing Goldaming Life, it also probably was. I half expect silver cuffs to come shooting out of the armrests, but nothing happens as I sit back. I keep my arms folded over my chest, just in case.

Susan and Dickie excuse themselves to go discuss important things about the company I ostensibly own. A young person, as weightless as a pop song, clips a monitor onto my finger. Beside me is a sleek white marble cube, three feet by three feet. Other than a tube going in and a tube coming out, it looks like a miniature tomb.

My heart rate spikes. I can’t do this. I can’t be trapped in the basement with them sticking needles in me. They could drug me. They could knock me out. They could finish the job I ruined when I was sixteen.

A woman yanks back the curtain. One hundred percent a vampire, obvious through her inhumanly graceful but powerfully efficient movements. But she’s mismatched with the usual Goldaming brand of Instagram filter drones. Her goddess-like beauty is specific, not generic. She’s tall and fat and Black, with hair cropped close to her scalp and no makeup at all.

And she’s pissed. “Why is her heart rate so high?” she demands. The assistant mumbles something but the vampire doesn’t even listen. She points toward the hallway. “Get out.”

The assistant scurries away. The vampire frowns at her tablet, then finally looks me in the eyes. “Are you afraid of needles?”

“Sure. Needles,” I say, on the verge of hyperventilating. How long will it take me to sprint to the elevator? What are my odds of overpowering the guard there?

“Your mother was never afraid of needles.”

“Yeah, well, my mother didn’t have her ovaries excavated without her permission when she was sixteen.”

The frown doesn’t move, but the doctor looks slightly less annoyed at me and more annoyed at the world in general. “I’ll tell you everything I’m doing before I do it, and you’ll calm down so you don’t pass out during the procedure.”

Oddly, I believe her. I can’t imagine her lying; she seems too impatient for it. “Deal,” I agree. I take deep breaths, trying to slow my heart.

“I’m going to insert a needle here,” she says, pointing to my wrist, “and another one here.” My elbow. “This one will draw your blood and send it to the machine next to you. And this one will replace it with standard O negative. The process will take approximately one hour. You may experience some lightheadedness. I’ll have that useless assistant bring you apple juice and a cookie to jump-start your blood sugar afterward. Within a week, your body will have overcome the new blood and returned to its default state. At which point we’ll do this all over again, over and over and over, and I’ll have to be here every single time.”

Her annoyance calms me. “You sound really put out about it, considering you aren’t the one having your blood removed on a weekly basis.”

She sterilizes my arm with practiced efficiency. “They didn’t tell you who I am, did they.”

“No, but I’d love to know.”

One needle goes in. I’ll give this to her—her bedside manor may suck, but her needle skills are beyond compare. She didn’t even feel for a vein. Normally I’d be creeped out, but I’ve had enough blown veins to be grateful for vampiric precision.

“I,” she says, inserting the second needle with ease, “am the genius who figured all this out. I’m the genius who identified the unique properties of your family’s blood and pioneered these procedures. I’m the genius whose incredible, groundbreaking, world-changing work is being used for glorified cosmetic procedures. I’m the genius who has to sit here and babysit a simple blood exchange when I could be revolutionizing medical treatment. I’m the genius who figured out how to use vampiric blood to supplement—”

“Holy shit, you admit it!” I try to sit up, but she puts a hand on my shoulder and keeps me firmly in place. “Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. You admit that Goldaming Life uses vampires! Wait, are you all drinking my blood once it’s out? Is that what it’s for?”

Her eyes flick to the box, but she shakes her head. “I’d never be wasteful with such a limited resource. And yes, I’m a vampire, and I use the correct terminology,” she says, her tone scathing. “Living gods, golden gates. It’s absurd. Names matter, and proper terms should always be used. And yes again, I am more put out by this than you are, because they’re taking your blood, but they took my freedom. It was my own fault, too, due to my own idealistic hubris, assuming we wanted the same things when I agreed to help them.”

I’m horrified. I thought all the vampires were here because they drank the Goldaming Life Kool-Aid. “You’re a captive ? They’re holding you hostage? I can help, I can—”

“You’re a Goldaming,” she says. It’s not an accusation, it’s a statement of truth. She finishes attaching the tubes and watches, transfixed, as my blood begins to flow. With a tremendous show of self-control, she drags her eyes away from the blood and checks my vitals before standing. “That’s that, then. The worthless assistant can manage the rest. Please stop looking at me with that guilty expression. It’s not your fault I’m here. If anything, I blame Lucy.”

Her name jolts through me like an electric shock. Is this a trap? Have they known about Lucy this whole time? I lean forward, dropping my voice to a whisper. “How do you know Lucy?”

She looks up from her pad, puzzled. “How do you know Lucy? The last I heard, she was terrorizing Europe, killing vampires everywhere in her search for Dracula.”

Footsteps are heading in our direction. Before I can ask her anything else, the doctor shakes her head. “I hope she finds him. I hope she kills him and puts us all out of our misery in one merciful strike. Susan,” she says without turning around as the expressionless woman opens the curtain, “I’m going to sleep.”

Without another word, the doctor turns and leaves.

“What the fuck, ” I whisper. I came down here hoping for solutions, and only found questions.