“No,” Heathcliff admitted. “According to his records, it was a couple of fictional characters a year at most. It’s been the same since I took over the shop.”
“So what’s changed? And why did it have to changenow?We’ve got enough on our hands with Dracula and Mrs. Ellis’ bloody Halloween extravaganza without turning the shop into a halfway house for literature layabouts.”
“And don’t forget your dad’s mysterious note,” Morrie piped up.
That’s right. Dad’s note.The note he asked Sherlock Holmes to deliver. The note that had chased me across space and time to impart vital information.
The note that read simply:
BRING THE WINE
By Hathor, WTF, Dad?
I clutched my head in my hands. “Bring the wine? What does it even mean? Which wine? Where am I bringing it? It sounds more like a text from Jo than a vital clue from my dear departed time-traveling father.”
“I guess it’s another mystery for the great Mina Wilde to solve.”
“Not tonight.” I yawned. Grimalkin’s body hummed with bliss as she settled herself into a ball on my lap. “The great Mina Wilde needs sleep.”
And to get away from Heathcliff and his indifference.
I cradled a sleepy Grimalkin on my shoulder and clambered up the rickety stairs to Quoth’s room. His bed lay under the window, the covers strewn all about. When I first saw his attic bedroom, it made me sad. Why should Quoth be hidden away up here in the smallest, pokiest room in the house? Now that Quoth was going to art school and being in the world more, he needed his room to be a sanctuary – a place where he could be completely himself. So we made it beautiful. The four of us repainted the walls and built a bird gym in the corner, with a swing and a tunnel and a little box for his favorite berries. His artwork adorned the walls, and Morrie even gifted him with a sound system so he can play his favorite post-punk music while he painted.
I paused in front of Quoth’s easel. It held a large, square canvas covered in a grey sheet, tacked down at the edges so no one could peek. My fingers itched to tear away the sheet and see what my beautiful artist was working on. I shook my head. I wouldn’t do that to Quoth, not when he’d asked us to respect his desire to keep the paintings a surprise.
The string of garlic around Quoth’s window had fallen down again. I found it in the corner and tacked it up. I didn’t have to see out the window to know that across the street a bat hung in the window.
Dracula’s eyes bridged the darkness between us, watching me, biding his time.
I drew the curtains with more force than I intended and lay down on the bed, sliding Grimalkin’s sleeping body onto my feet. I breathed deep as Quoth’s light, crisp scent rose from the sheets.
I had everything I could possibly want, right here in this bookshop. But that meant I had so much to lose. On the other side of the street loomed the greatest danger humankind had ever known, and I was responsible for stopping him.
“Mina. Miiiiina…”
He hissed my name through the darkness – the nightly taunt that only I could hear. This was his game when the moon rose him from his daily slumber – to ensure that even in sleep I could not escape the looming terror of his presence.
“I have crossed eons of time to find you, Miiiiina. Soon, I will taste your sweet blood and we will be together for all eternity.”
Chapter Three
Heathcliff’s mouth hung open, his booming cry made mute by the blood burbling from the jagged wound in his throat. He staggered back, his dark eyes wide with fear, his hands clasping the gash as if he could push the blood back into his body.
No, please no.
I tried to will myself to run to him, to hold him in my arms. But my limbs remained frozen. All I could do was glance down at my hands, stained with dark blood.Heathcliff’s blood.
And I knew. The sickening truth slammed into me.
I did this…I killed Heathcliff.
“M…mmm…mmminaaaaaa…” Heathcliff tried to speak. With one last surge of effort, he launched himself at me, but he slipped in his own blood and crashed to the ground. His glassy eyes blinked, once, twice, then no more. Their light dimmed. I licked his blood from my fingers. It tasted like the finest whisky.
I killed Heathcliff.
I drank of Heathcliff.
I am Heathcliff. I am…
