Meena took the medallion from him. She could clearly see the image on the back.

It was of a mounted knight. Slaying a dragon.

She caught her breath.

“St. George?” Her heart twisted.

“The patron saint of the Palatine Guard,” Alaric said. “My order. St. George and St. Joan are the patron saints of soldiers. St. George slayed the dragon-”

“I know,” Meena said quickly. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

“Hey,” Jon said excitedly. “Didn’t Lucien say something about dragons in that note he wrote to you, Meena? That you’d slain the dragon?”

“Yes,” Meena said. Why wouldn’t Jon just shut up for once? Her heart was pounding so hard, she could barely breathe.

Alaric, she noticed, had raised a single light brown eyebrow. “He wrote to you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jon said, getting up and crossing over to the dining table where Lucien’s letter rested alongside the bag he had sent her. “The note’s right over-”

“No,” Meena said, her heart pounding even harder as she darted up from the couch. “Jon, don’t give it to-”

But Alaric was, as usual, too quick for her. He was up from his chair and throwing a rock-hard arm around her waist, swinging her off her feet before she’d gone more than a single step.

“Give me the note,” he said, still holding a struggling Meena as Jon, taken aback by this turn of events, stood there in the space between the living and dining rooms, staring at them, Lucien’s letter in his hand.

“Don’t give him the note, Jon!” Meena yelled hoarsely, lashing at Alaric’s legs with her bare feet.

Which of course he didn’t feel at all.

She didn’t even know why she felt so determined to keep the note from him. It was simply imperative he not see it.

But it was too late. Jon handed the silver envelope over to Alaric, who let go of Meena, opened the note, and scanned the contents. Meena looked unhappily at her brother.

“It’s just a note, Meen,” Jon said with a shrug. “It doesn’t even have his address on it or anything. It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right.

Especially when Alaric looked up and said, “Dragon in Romanian is dracul.”

“What?” Meena said. She didn’t understand.

“Dragon,” Alaric said casually. “When he tells you in his note that you slayed the dragon, he means himself. The Romanian word for dragon is dracul. Dracula.”

Meena inhaled sharply. The room had started to sway a little.

“Wait,” Jon said. “So St. George wasn’t really slaying dragons? He was slaying vampires? Are the dragons in all the pictures supposed to be metaphors for vampires or something?”

But on this day, she remembered Lucien saying in the museum, there is no maiden left in the village, save the king’s daughter. She’s bravely gone to the water’s edge, despite her father’s protests, expecting to die. But look who’s appeared…a knight called George who will slay the dragon…

No wonder Lucien hadn’t looked very happy when she’d steered him toward that particular picture.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Meena said. Suddenly, her head was pounding. She thought she might pass out.

“Sit,” Alaric said, pushing her back down onto the couch again. Only this time, even she had to admit, he did it gently.

“No, really,” she said. The room was tilting in front of her. “I have to-”

“Drink the soda,” he said. “The sugar will help.” His hand on her shoulder was warm. It reminded her-with another stomach lurch-that Lucien’s hands had never been warm. They’d always felt cool. Strangely cool.

Even his lips, as they’d slid over her body, had been cool…

“Oh, God,” she said. She gulped some of the soda, then dropped her head between her knees. If she didn’t get some blood back into her temples, she felt certain she was going to pass out.

“But there’s no such thing as vampires,” she said to her bare feet.

“There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing…”

It seemed to Meena as if the more she repeated it, the more likely it was to come true.

But so many things from the night before-including the memory of Lucien’s own voice-came flooding back to her.

But you believe St. Joan heard voices, he’d said.

How can an educated woman like yourself believe this and not in creatures of the night?

Creatures of the night.

Oh, my God.

It was true. It was true.

“Drink your soda.” She heard Alaric’s voice urging her gently. “In the meantime, I want to tell you about a man named Vlad Tepes.”

Meena, her head still between her knees, groaned as soon as she heard the name.

“Oh,” Alaric said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’ve heard of this man? Well, I will tell your brother about him, then. Vlad Tepes was a prince from a part of Romania called Wallachia…what is today better known as Transylvania-”

Meena moaned more loudly. Not Transylvania. Anything but Transylvania.

“He was a brutal and cruel man who ruthlessly employed a method of torture you might have heard of called impaling-”

“Wait,” Jon said. “Are you talking about Vlad the Impaler?”

“I am,” Alaric said, brightening some more. “I see you’ve heard of him.”

“Everyone’s heard of Vlad the Impaler,” Jon said. “Impaling was where, as a method of torture, a long stake, usually not particularly sharp, would be driven through the victim’s various orifices-”

“I need something stronger than just a Coke,” Meena sat up and said suddenly. “Whiskey. I need whiskey. Oh, God-”

The room swayed dangerously, and she quickly put her head back down between her knees.

“No whiskey,” Alaric said firmly.

“Why can’t she have whiskey?” Jon asked.

“Then she will drunk-dial the vampire,” Alaric said. “And warn him about me, and I will lose the element of surprise. It’s happened before. Vlad the Impaler,” he went on, “ruled what is now modern Romania from 1456 to 1462. He was known for his exceptionally cruel punishments, both of his enemies and even his own servants, although it is impossible to say how many people he actually killed. He may have impaled a hundred thousand people or more, leaving them to die slowly in excruciating pain, sometimes for days, on long stakes along the road leading to his palace as a way to intimidate visitors to his native land.”

Meena closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out his words.

But she couldn’t, any more than she could wish herself back in time, to the point where the doorman had buzzed, saying she had a delivery.

Alaric Wulf was not a delivery anyone could ever have wanted. Now she knew how everyone must have felt when she’d given them her news about their impending death.

“Vlad himself was said to have been killed in battle against the Turks in 1476. He was decapitated and his head was taken on a pike to the sultan in Istanbul to prove that he was dead.”

Jon sounded disappointed. “So. Not a vampire.”

Meena lifted her head hopefully. “Maybe. Or maybe it wasn’t Vlad Tepes. He was reportedly buried at an island monastery near Bucharest,” Alaric said, continuing, “but when his tomb was recently excavated, it was…”

“What?” Jon asked eagerly.

“…found to be empty,” Alaric said.

Jon looked confused. “So where is he?”

Alaric regarded him and Meena both patiently.

“Vlad Tepes is more commonly known in his native country by his given name, Vlad the Dragon, for his service to the Hungarian Order of the Dragon,” he went on. “Or, if you employ the Romanian for dragon, Vlad Dracul.” He looked at Meena, his blue-eyed gaze unwavering. “Best known to the English-speaking world as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

Meena sucked in her breath. She both knew and dreaded what was coming next. Knew it as well as she’d ever known anything in her life.

She just dreaded it more than she remembered ever dreading any words she’d ever heard.

“Lucien Antonescu,” Alaric said, “is Vlad Dracula’s son.”