Tenth Grade Bleeds

memory. Vlad didn’t need to read his twisted mind to know that. The truth of it lurked hotly in Ignatius’s eyes.

Ignatius stood tall, but left his boot on Vlad’s chest, pinning him to the car. “Now, boy,” he hissed. “We finish this.”

Ignatius reached back with one hand and tore the curved blade from his back. He gripped it tightly, his own blood dripping from metal to flesh as he held the knife over Vlad, ready to strike the final blow.

Vlad closed his eyes and thought of his parents. It would be nice to see them again, at least. He tried not to think of Nelly, or of Otis. But his efforts were futile.

He knew he would die, Pravus or not. Because Ignatius wouldn’t stop until he did.

“Ignatius, stop.” A voice-familiar, cold, somewhat bemused. And then a dark figure appeared, moving closer through the fog-filled alleyway by the building.

D’Ablo met Ignatius’s gaze and uttered one word with all the strength of a man who is in complete control of a situation. “Enough.”

Ignatius stepped back, fury still lighting up his eyes. But he halted his attack, and that was what mattered.

Vlad gulped for air and scrambled away from his attacker to check on Henry. Henry nodded that he was okay, but Vlad was almost certain he’d sprained or maybe broken his ankle during his fall. He helped Henry to his feet and plucked his father’s journal from the ground.

D’Ablo gestured to the office building that housed the council rooms. “Please.”

They moved up the steps, Henry, barely able to walk, using Vlad’s shoulder for support, Vlad limping slightly. D’Ablo didn’t speak, only led the way.

As D’Ablo held open the door for Vlad and his drudge, Vlad gestured back to his attacker with his eyes. “Isn’t this getting a little old, D’Ablo? Sending your thugs after me? I gotta say, I’m getting really tired of it.”

D’Ablo paused, but just barely. “Actually, it wasn’t me. The council voted, and they sent him after you.”

Vlad furrowed his brow. “But you’re the president.”

“Elysia is a democracy, Vladimir Tod. And I am but one man.” A strange expression crossed his eyes-one that made Vlad feel almost sorry for him. Then D’Ablo cleared his throat. “Inside, please. The elevator.”

Vlad supported Henry as they made their way through the lobby and stepped inside the elevator. Once inside, Henry held onto the railing, giving Vlad a break. D’Ablo touched the glyph hidden in the wood and a second panel slid down, revealing additional elevator buttons. He turned, momentarily blocking Vlad’s view, and pressed one of them. The elevator began its ascent, to the tune of some Muzak melody that Vlad didn’t recognize.

Vlad exchanged glances with Henry, who was wincing from the pain but seemed to be holding up all right. Then he cleared his throat and looked at D’Ablo, who was quietly waiting for the elevator doors to open again. He wanted to say something, to let D’Ablo know that he appreciated his calling Ignatius off, that he was relieved to know that it wasn’t D’Ablo who had set Ignatius after him. But the words wouldn’t come. They were choked down with too many memories of the pain and fear D’Ablo had caused him.

The elevator doors opened and D’Ablo led them down the hall wordlessly, stopping only to pull open a large, ornate metal door. He held it open and gestured inside with a nod. Vlad helped Henry through the door, mentally kicking himself for so easily following the will of his mortal enemy.

But he didn’t really have a choice.

The room was dark, except for one corner that was lit by a single candle. D’Ablo stepped inside, closing the door behind him. As he lit several more candles, he spoke-his voice subdued, almost gentle. “Am I to assume you’ve had a change of heart about entrusting me with your father’s journal?”

Vlad helped Henry to a nearby chair and turned to face his worst enemy, a man whose motives he was no longer sure he understood. He pressed the journal protectively to his chest. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”

Vlad could make out D’Ablo’s smirk even in the dim candlelight. “ The Pravus can’t be killed.”

“Yes, but…” Vlad struggled to find the words. “I mean, why are you being… practically nice to me? It’s unnerving.”

“It has been my lifelong dream to see the Pravus come into being. And here you are.” D’Ablo managed an honest smile and held his arms outward. “And here I am, willing servant of he who shall rule over all of vampirekind and enslave the human race.”

Vlad thought he detected a note of sarcasm, but at the same time, he wondered if D’Ablo meant it. “I have a really hard time accepting that my father would have been friends with you.”

D’Ablo’s gaze dropped-but only for a microsecond, barely long enough for it to register-to the journal. “He was my mentor, my teacher, in many ways. I had the utmost respect for Tomas. Friends… yes. I suppose we were that too.”

Vlad wet his lips and squeezed the journal to his chest, feeling the comfort of its worn leather against him. “Why the journal? My father had many possessions, hundreds of things you could have to remember him by. What’s so special about this one?”

“I’m sure you never knew this, Vladimir, but most of your father’s belongings were left behind when he fled Elysia. Items that he had spent centuries collecting. Things that held real meaning for him. The trinkets in your house were not much older than you, my boy. They hold no history, no real worth. When he left, the council ordered all of his possessions confiscated and burned. The journal you now hold is the only thing that remains of Tomas Tod the vampire.” D’Ablo’s posture relaxed some. He looked conflicted. “From before he was Tomas Tod the traitor.”

Vlad furrowed his brow. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was really how all of Elysia viewed his dad now.

“And besides, that book holds some sentimental value for me personally. You see, Vlad, I was the one who gave it to him.”

Vlad shook his head curtly. “ That’s a lie.”

“I assure you, it is not.”

“I don’t believe you.”

D’Ablo sighed indignantly. “See for yourself. Open the front cover. Lower left corner.”

After a doubtful pause, Vlad opened the book as D’Ablo had instructed. There, in the lower left corner of the inside cover, right where he said to look, was a small, ornate letter D. Vlad had never noticed it before. He had spent so much time reading the words between the covers that he had never taken the time to look at the covers themselves. He closed the journal and ran his hand lovingly over the front cover. “So I guess you guys were pretty close then, huh?”

“You might say that. And all I really want is something to remember him by. To remember him as I knew him.” By the end of his sentence, D’Ablo’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

With a shuddered, uncertain breath, Vlad gripped the journal tightly, then loosened his hold and held it out to D’Ablo. Maybe he was making a grave mistake, but he didn’t think he was.

D’Ablo met his eyes and bowed his head slowly as his hand closed over the journal.

Vlad had to fight the urge to rip it away from his grasp at the last second. But he managed to resist. He cleared his throat. “Now that I’ve given you the journal… will the nightmares stop?”

“Nightmares?” D’Ablo raised a questioning brow as he flipped through the journal’s pages. Then he smiled. “Ah, so it worked. How delightful to know.”

Vlad blinked, confused. “What worked? I thought you sent the nightmares as a way of convincing me to hand the journal over.”

“In a manner of speaking, it was your uncle who sent those horrific images to haunt your dreams.”

Vlad swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. “Otis?”

D’Ablo offered a nod as he flipped through the pages of the journal. Finally he seemed to find