Heathcliff stomped back downstairs, muttering under his breath. We checked the shop was empty of customers, then Morrie went upstairs to fetch a sleepy Quoth while Heathcliff flipped the sign and I banged on the basement door.
“Victor, we need the basement for a bit.”
“Um…” a distracted voice called back up. “See, the thing is, I’m right at the most critical part of my experiment—hey, unhand me.”
“Outside, Poindexter.” Heathcliff dragged Victor from the basement by his collar. “You, too, green man,” he yelled at Robin Hood, who hung over the balcony, peering down at us while twirling an arrow shaft in his fingers. “And take the fairy, the Insta-whore, and the quiet one with you.”
One by one, our resident fictional characters filed out the front door of the shop. When Puck passed by Heathcliff, he sneered in his face, “My mistress with a monster is in love…”
“Nope.” I shoved him toward the door. “No turning Heathcliff into a donkey, or a walrus, or a delphinium. No turning anyone into anything, or I’ll make you share the bed with Socrates. Got it?”
The fairy poked his tongue out at me as he skipped after the others.
At least they’re dressed appropriately.
Morrie flicked on the basement light, but the dim bulb barely penetrated the gloom. Quoth settled on my shoulder, his talons sharp reassuringly sharp against my skin. Morrie went first, and I followed with one hand resting on his shoulder, the other trailing along the bare-stone wall. I’d left Oscar upstairs in his doggy bed – no way would I risk his life in Dracula’s lair. Although I missed him now as I stepped blindly into the gloom behind Morrie. Oscar wasn’t a pet, he was my eyes, and I hated how helpless I felt without them.
No, I’m not helpless. I can see things in this basement Morrie doesn’t notice, only in a different way. For example…
“Look at this.” My foot kicked an extension cord, which I held up for Morrie to see. The cord was damp in my fingers. “That cheeky bugger’s been using the shop’s power to supply his experiments. With the pipes leaking, he could start a fire down here.”
“If HSE ever inspects the shop, they’re shutting us down for sure.” Morrie’s foot splashed into the water that flooded the cellar floor. “Victor wasn’t kidding about the water. This is going to ruin my favorite brogues.”
Even my impervious Docs took in a little freezing water as I splashed across the flooded floor behind Morrie. He held up the flashlight on his mobile phone, and I could just make out a lumpy shape on a table in the corner, covered by one of my good white bedsheets and surrounded by strange machinery. I didn’t want to see what was underneath.
Morrie and I shifted the stacks of chairs and old bookshelves we’d used to barricade the entrance to the secret passage, then pried off the sheets of plywood Heathcliff nailed up months ago. We left the garlic and magical sigils in place, in case anything decided to follow us back through.
Morrie’s fingers slipped into mine. Quoth nuzzled my cheek with the top of his head. I planted a kiss against his feathers as he spread his wings and took off into the darkness. He returned a few moments later, settling onto my shoulder and nodding his head. “Croak.”
The tunnel is empty, and I’ll head out to the street to help Heathcliff keep watch. Be careful, Mina.
“You too.” I stroked his head. He let out anothercroak, then flew back up the cellar stairs.
Morrie and I sloshed our way down the tunnel, moving carefully to avoid the low arches that held up the roof. Our feet splashed and squelched through the water, which grew shallower as we moved away from the bookshop – the ground had to slope upward a fraction. We reached the stairs on the other end and moved up them as silently as we could. The walls I touched turned from stone to wood. We were between the walls in Mrs. Ellis’ old flat.
Dracula knew about this tunnel – it was why Grey Lachlan purchased the property. I knew he wanted to get his hands on Nevermore’s Bookshop’s magic, although how he thought he’d use it when none of us knew why the shop did what it did was anyone’s guess. Now that Dracula was drinking blood in earnest, he’d soon become stronger than ever. Strong enough to break through the protections we used to guard the shop? I didn’t want to find out.
Morrie stopped, and a moment later I heard a click, followed by a slowcreeeeakas the secret door swung outward. I squeezed Morrie’s arm as we stepped down into a small room.
The last time we’d been inside this room, it had been decorated for Mrs. Ellis’ niece, Jonie. She’d had the walls painted yellow and covered with posters, her clothes and stacks of Christmas presents she’d stolen from the village charity Christmas tree all over. Now, the room had been nearly completely stripped. Instead of the yellow, the walls had been painted a cool midnight blue that swallowed the light from Morrie’s torch. In the corner stood an iron candelabra holding three taper candles that cast a dim glow across the room, just bright enough that I could make out the dark object in the center.
A gleaming mahogany coffin.
Chapter Ten
Iswallowed. I couldfeelthe weight of the malevolence that waited on the other side of the lid.
Dracula’s inside.
I’m in a room with a literalvampire.
So far, we hadn’t encountered our enemy’s face. We knew him only as a black bat hanging in the window across the street or a menacing shadow described by my father in his letters and hidden behind the creepily deteriorating face of Grey Lachlan. I didn’t need to see Dracula to know him, because I’d loved Bram Stoker’s book as a teen, and because his malevolence visited me in my dreams every night, making me do horrible things to the people I loved.
But the coffin made everythingreal. We truly were in the lair of the slumbering beast.
“I could open it right now.” Morrie held up the wooden stake he brought with him. “This would all be over in moments. We could wait until Grey came back and found him, and follow him to where they’ve hidden the dirt.”
Part of me itched to lift the lid and come face-to-face with the monster who had plagued my thoughts for so many months. To put a face to this fiend would render him knowable, conquerable. He would be in his daytime slumber, dead to the world and unable to sense our presence.
