Vampire Crush(40)
Author: A.M. Robinson

Now there’s only one room left, and I begin to lose faith that my brilliant hide-and-seek spying technique will turn up useful information. When the last door swings open to reveal one lonely rocking chair, my heart sinks. I do a loop around the room anyway, hoping that the thump of music downstairs is loud enough to cover the creak of floorboards. The chair is positioned to face the window, and the high vantage point of the house means that the sitter has a vaulted view of the neighborhood down below, with its slanted roofs and twinkling house lights. It’s as majestic a view as you’re likely to find in suburbia.

I wander to the far wall and slide open the closet door, pushing when it sticks. There is clothing here, as well, but while the other closets were a jumble of styles and owners, this is organized to the level of neatness normally associated with former military men, serial killers, and Marcie. To the right are shirts and jackets, all covered in plastic and arranged by color. I recognize the black jacket that Vlad wore on the first day of school, and look down to find the pair of pointed boots from that afternoon in the woods gleaming up at me in the dark. An unbidden shiver shoots through my body, and it takes a moment to regain my composure.

His jeans hang on the left side, and while they aren’t covered in plastic, they each have an individual hanger, back pockets facing outward. This proves that old maxim that people who hang their jeans up are to be feared, even if I just made that maxim up.

I start to push the door closed, thinking that I would have learned more hiding in the cupboard with Violet, when a bulge in the back pocket of the outermost pair catches my eye. At first I don’t believe what I’m seeing. But no – Vlad’s journal is still there, stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans. He left his plans for vampire domination in his other pants.

I pull it out so forcefully that the jeans fall off the hanger. I rearrange them, heart pounding, and then open the pages with trembling fingers. Vlad’s cramped, flowery handwriting covers every bit of paper, with lines squeezed into the margins or running up the spine and dead-ending in the corners. I go to the rocker and let the small bit of light from outside pour down over the yellowed pages.

The first few pages are just a list of names and dates, beginning with "Anton and Evangelique Mervaux (d. 1815, burned)" and ending with "Christiana Jones (d. 1999 – killed)." Beneath that Vlad has written question marks of all sizes, some scored so deeply that he’s torn through the page. If what Marisabel told me was right, this must be the list of the girl’s descendants that he’s been piecing together through the years – but if he knows where it ends, why is he here?

Next comes a series of journal entries, the first of which dates from 1966. They are terse reports of research, mentions of lost children, dreams of what life will be like once he is Danae and can get revenge on all the vampires who have snubbed him, and complaints about being Unnamed. There are years of time in between entries, years, and a small part of me can’t help but admire Vlad’s tenacity; the longest I ever pursued a story was one month.

I stop at an entry of unusual length.

March 13, 2000New OrleansThird appeal to join the Society of the Divine One denied, even with fake identity. Broke into their archives. The last descendent was (obviously) female, recorded death in Canada. No further research done. Obviously a society of incompetence to which I would not want to belong anyway. Three-year gap from Christiana’s last sighting in Michigan unexplored. Previous flights had been limited to months. Why three years?The next few entries outline his theory. Christiana stayed in Michigan because she had fallen in love and become pregnant. What’s more, he thought that she had given birth to a child, the next descendent of this family tree that everyone thought had died out a long time ago. But soon after arriving here, she adopted an alias that he has still not been able to discover, although her child would have to be anywhere from fifteen to seventeen.

November 23, 2009New York Upstate WildernessTruly, everything is coming together. Met a vampire named Neville, who bears the mark of the Danae and who seems very interested in my work. This is my link to them; this is the sign I have been waiting for.The following entries all detail his preparations to bring the group here, which included glamouring people out of their money and possessions and being blood-drive bandits. My heart skips a little when James’s name first appears.

April 11, 2010New York Upstate WildernessViolet’s new conquest, James, has actually turned out to be useful for reasons other than to stop her incessant sulking. He is not only familiar with the location of the girl, he may have attended school with her during his early years. At first he seemed reluctant to return, but was convinced by yet another example of particularly clever thinking on my part. "Well used are those cruelties that are carried out in a single stroke."

– MachiavelliI frown, wondering exactly what "particularly clever thinking" and that quote are supposed to mean – it can’t be anything good. Maybe I should show it to him in yet another attempt to lure him over to my side, or at least give him a heads-up – I shake my head, realizing this is just another example of Distraction via James. No. Girl. Danae. Moving on.

We’ve reached Vlad’s first day at Thomas Jeff.

August 30, 2010Town of MichiganInfiltration of Thomas Jefferson school successful. The child is here. I can taste her. . . .Why is this woman still talking? If she thinks that I am going to stop wearing my pointed boots, she is sadly mistaken.I let out a loud snort and then turn the page quickly, feeling guilty at being amused by Vlad’s ramblings. Thankfully, the following entries putter out into endless rants about how the other vampires aren’t helping and he doesn’t even know where James is. I move past a number of blank pages to the next section, which is a listing of girls he’s rejected. Caroline sits proudly at the top, followed by approximately thirty other girls that I’ll cross-reference with my own list later. When I turn the next page, I swear that my eyes start to tingle. This. This is what I’ve been looking for.

Vlad has made a rough sketch of Neville’s tattoo, large enough that the star’s four main points touch the edges of the page. By each tip he’s written a name – last names from the look of it, unless there’s some poor soul wandering around with the name "Vandervelde." I squint and look closer. Instead of a "D" in the center, Vlad’s written "Mervaux," the big, bad, human-baby-having vamp family itself, and I would guess that these others are vampire families as well.

Excited, I move on to what appears to be a timeline. Some dates are far apart and others are crammed together, and they’re all in different colors of ink, like this is something that he’s been adding to for a long time.