16

When I returned to the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, my mind was a cloud of confusion and raw emotion, so much so that as I made my way back through the Lovecraft Café, I didn’t dare look anyone in the eye for fear of accidentally spilling everything I knew. Back in the offices, I couldn’t help but feel the words from the bulletin board high up on the main room’s wall weighing down on me:

It has been 777 days since our last vampiric incursion.

The one time I had climbed that ladder to change it, I had felt a sick yet joyous sense of pride, even if I had had to change the number back in shame later when it turned out to be a false alarm. Now the pronouncement weighed heavily on me as I kept my new little secret. It was like having the Eye of Sauron upon me, watching, waiting…

I stopped briefly at my desk, only to weep when I saw a second in-box had been added to compensate for my caseload. The distant haroom of the Inspectre’s voice came from his office upstairs and I ran for the arched door that led down to the Gauntlet.

I couldn’t deal with the Inspectre right now. There was no way I could honor Connor’s promise of silence by flat-out lying to the Inspectre about the vampire situation, and God help me if Allorah was with him. When I reached the stairs, I stopped at the top of the old stone steps, pulled the wooden door closed behind me, and headed down to the archives.

The fatigue I had already experienced from the rest of my day’s adventures doubled by the time I hit the subbasement caverns that housed our archival unit. Godfrey Candella was once again in his usual spot, hidden in his office behind a stack of books, folios, and ancient maps.

“What’s up, Dr. Jones?” I called out.

Godfrey looked up from one of the maps. His straight black bangs brushed the top of his horn rims. He pushed the hair off to the right, parting it. It wasn’t much of an improvement given that all it did was expose the pasty whiteness of his forehead. “Umm, Dr. Jones was an archaeologist,” he corrected. “I’m an archivist.”

“You really need to lighten up,” I said. “Maybe loosen your tie a little.”

Godfrey reached up and adjusted his tie, even though it was already in a perfect knot. “I’m happy with it as it is, thank you very much.”

I looked around. The Gauntlet was a hive of activity right now. Various archivists were running around with books and files, a few of them sitting at the long wooden research tables off in the main area. I didn’t see Godfrey’s little kiss buddy from the other day around. I snuck a peek back toward the stairs.

“You’re not expecting the Inspectre, are you?” I asked.

Godfrey looked up from the map he was reading. He cocked his head. “Huh? Am I inspecting the Inspectre?”

“Expecting,” I corrected.

“Oh,” he said, distracted by what he was looking over. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

Godfrey laid the map he was looking at back down on the desk, leaving it here. “Are you hiding from him down here?”

I shrugged. “More avoiding than hiding, really.”

“I appreciate your attempt at honesty,” he said, glibness in his voice. “So what’s up?”

With everything I suddenly knew, I had to be careful how I approached anything, so I thought for a moment before answering.

“I was just wondering if I could ask you a few things about vampires.”

Godfrey’s eyes widened and he sat up straight.

“And you’re asking because…?”

Here’s where it gets tricky, I thought. “No reason, really,” I lied. “You remember a few months back when I caused all that hoopla about vampires?”

Godfrey reached over to a stack of books on his desk and patted the top one. “Only there weren’t any? Or rather, only that one you reported on later and it got away. Didn’t sound like much of a vampiric threat, all things considered. I believe I documented that here in volume seven of the D.E.A.’s modern history.”

Knowing that it had already been canonized threw me for a loop, causing my face to go red with embarrassment. “That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t want to go down in the history books here as the boy who cried vampire. Maybe if I knew a bit more about them, I’d be better prepared next time… you know, if there is a next time. I haven’t had a chance to take Vampirology yet.”

Godfrey nodded with understanding. I hated lying to the poor guy, but until Connor had a chance to come to terms with what his brother had become, I owed him the silence he had asked for. For now, at least. I doubted our newly discovered vampire menace was going to stay a secret long. Where things really got tricky was if it started to seem like telling the D.E.A. about vampires would help me get Jane back… but I’d burn that bridge when I came to it.

“I could take you back through the archives,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He folded his hands over his stomach. “Or I could just tell you what you’d like to know. Kind of saves me the trouble of having to walk back there.” He paused. “I thought maybe this tied in with that building schematic we were hunting out the other day…”

“It doesn’t,” I said, feeling like it came out a little too quick and defensive. If it did, Godfrey didn’t react to it. “How about we start with their history?”

“Well, if we go by what’s written about them, there seems to be a consensus that they originated in Eastern Europe, probably of a Slavic nature. You can tell by the many names they’re known by-Vampir, vepir, ubour, Vrykolakas, upirs…”

“And other things I don’t stand a chance of pronouncing,” I interrupted. I was pretty sure Nicholas’s mention of Wallachia covered that territory. “I get it. Any idea when all this started?”

Godfrey nodded. “We’re talking mid-1600s here, at least as far as actual sightings of them go.”

“And their origins?” I said. “If you tell me it’s all about Dracula, we can skip all this and I can head up to the movie theater. I think they’re starting a Bela Lugosi marathon this week.”

“Actually, there is some truth to the Vlad Dracula mythos,” Godfrey said, “but more from the historical tyrant end than the bloodsucking one. The rest is a bit unclear. From what I’ve read, the Department has never had one in custody long enough to get any answers.”

“Of course,” I said. “Dust first, ask questions later. That’s strict policy down from the Enchancellorship. Seems a bit primitive to me.”

Godfrey sat back up, looking a little uncomfortable with the conversation. “Well, technically speaking, the vampire has always been seen as a lethal predator.”

“Yeah,” I said, getting down to what I felt was the heart of the matter, “but is that just a nature-of-the-beast thing or are we simply lumping all vampires together in a big bucket of evil? I mean, look at dogs. Some are sweet as can be, and others? Well, it’s time to get all Dog Whisperer on their badass selves. What do you think, God?”

Godfrey stood up, stretching and then straightening his tie. “Do I think vampires are evil?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Honestly, I think it would have to depend on their origins, right?”

“How so?”

“Well, speaking of dogs, look at those chupacabras we found, for example. They’re not evil, as such. They’ve always been that way as far back as our records in the Gauntlet have been kept. Yes, they kill to survive, but so do a lot of normal creatures. That doesn’t make them evil, and they certainly can’t help being what they are.”

“But vampirism is a choice among people who think on more than an animalistic level,” I said, “whether it is forced upon someone or they choose it. All vampires start as human, and only through transformation do they choose to feed on humans for survival. It’s a totally different situation.”

“Agreed,” Godfrey said. “But where does that leave us?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Working with Other Division and the Fraternal Order of Goodness, I’m not even sure what constitutes as good or evil anymore.”