“Hey, gorgeous.” A strong hand circled my wrist, staying my hand. “You can stop swinging that lump of metal around.”
“But Dracula—”
“His head’s no longer attached to his body. We’re good.”
I slumped into Morrie’s arms. “Morrie, you’re alive.”
“Barely,” he coughed. I drew back slightly, my fingers tracing the line of his jaw, feeling the blood trickling from a jagged wound in his neck. Wet blood coated my fingers. “The bastard took a good bite out of me, but he had more delicious prey in mind—”
A tiny cry broke through Morrie’s words. “Croak?”
“Quoth?” I held him up to Morrie.
“Croooo-aaak.”
Mina, Mina…Quoth’s voice fell into my head, so quiet and faint I couldn’t be certain I didn’t imagine it.I’m so sorry.
“No.” I cradled him against my chest. Morrie stoked his head.
“There’s got to be something we can do for him. The after-hours vet—”
“He flew at Dracula to save me.” I rocked Quoth. “He was thrown to the floor pretty hard, and he’s lost so much blood. I thought we’d lost the real Quoth forever, but there was still a piece of him inside who remembered that he loved me. He saved me, but I can’t save him.”
“What’s in your pocket?” Morrie drew out the scroll.
“It’s something my dad gave me…” I didn’t care about it anymore. I rocked Quoth and whispered all the words of love I wished I’d told him. I said how sorry I was about our fight. I wished I could take back every harsh word. I wish I had kissed him until we both died of starvation.
Without Quoth, none of it had meaning.
Morrie tore open the leather and rolled out the scroll. I didn’t even bother to look at it. What did a bunch of old Greek matter when Quoth was dead? “Mina, this is an original copy of a chapter of Homer’s Odyssey. This ispriceless.”
I sniffed. It doesn’t matter. None of it mattered.
“It’s the chapter where Odysseus goes to the underworld to learn his fate from the blind prophet Teiresias.” Morrie frowned as he turned the scroll upside down. “Mina, I think you need to see this.”
He thrust the book into my hands. Itshimmeredas I touched it – that was the only way to describe the sensation of the pages vibrating against my fingers. Even though it was too dark for me to read anything on the pages, Ifeltthe rows of neatly-printed Greek letters dancing beneath my fingers, and I felt the raised shape of a wine amphorae doodled in the corner, and Iknewwhat I had to do.
Something in my chest tugged me to my feet. I held the book against Quoth’s ruined body and let the invisible thread drag me where it wanted, which turned out to be the kitchen, where I grabbed the bottle of wine Morrie stole from Grey’s showhome from the rack.
“Mina, where are you going?”
“I think I know what I’m supposed to do with this.” I shuffled to the staircase and descended, one foot in front of the other into the gloom below. Even without Oscar, I knew my way by heart. The steps were ingrained in my muscle memory from the hundreds of happy days I’d spent treading these familiar floorboards.
I paused in the hallway, torn by my desire to look for Heathcliff. But I had to keep going. I passed by the Classics shelves. My feet squelched on the sodden carpet. I flung open the cellar door.
Water lapped at my feet. The cellar had completely flooded. Bitter cold radiated from the surface of the water, raising the hairs on my arms to stand rigid like soldiers marching off to war.
Something clattered on the staircase behind me. Morrie’s breath caressed my ear. “What are you doing, gorgeous? That book is priceless. And I was saving that drop for your birthday.”
I hugged my birdie against my chest. “Quoth is priceless. That’s what my father was trying to tell me.”
Tears stung the corners of my eyes. My father had given me everything I needed. I just had to put it together. I was Mina Wilde, vampire slayer, bookstore manager, and – above all else – storyteller.
The invisible thread tugged at my heart.
I had to finish the story.
I tossed the book into the waters of Meles.
