And then we came to my bedroom. I tried not to see the unmade bed and strewn-around clothing through my aunt’s eyes—which was more or less impossible with her standing beside me.
“Um, this is my room.”
“As I would have guessed by the unkempt bed. Honestly, child, personal habits are a reflection of character.”
“I didn’t know you were coming. If I had, the whole place would be pristine.”
“That’s no excuse. Character shines brightest when no one’s watching.”
You can’t argue with that. I know, because I opened my mouth to do so and nothing occurred to me. Okay, time to move on. We went back out into the hallway.
“That door’s the bathroom.”
“And across from it, I presume, is your roommate’s bedroom.”
“Yes, that’s Juliet’s room, but—”
Mab reached for the doorknob. “Since she’s away, she won’t mind if I stay there.” She opened the door before I had time to warn her that Juliet slept in a coffin. Halfway into the room, she froze.
“Your roommate is . . . a vampire?”
“Yes. Juliet Capulet.” Surely I’d told Mab that at some point. I mean, sharing an apartment with Shakespeare’s most famous heroine was too good a story to keep quiet. But Mab and I rarely engaged in personal chitchat; it just wasn’t a part of our relationship. Maybe I hadn’t told her.
Mab pulled the door shut, her face white. “I think I’d like a cup of tea, if you have any.”
“Sure. Are you all right?”
She waved away my concern. “Yes, yes. Of course I’m all right. But I’m rather thirsty, if you don’t mind.”
We went back through the living room. CNN was doing an interview with Police Commissioner Hampson about the Reaper murders.
“Anything new?” I asked Kane.
He shook his head. Hampson was blustering about locking down Deadtown to protect Boston’s human citizens. I tuned him out and continued into the kitchen.
Mab sat silently at the table as I put the kettle on, found the teapot, and spooned in some tea. As I worked, I snuck glances at her. My aunt’s mouth was drawn into a thin, pale line, and the knuckles of her hands, folded before her on the table, showed white. What could have flustered her so much about Juliet’s room?
I placed the teapot and a mug on the table. She pulled them toward her but didn’t pour.
“Are you sure you’re all right? What upset you in that room?”
“It wasn’t the room, child. I . . . It was a bit of a shock to learn you live with a vampire. Some of the Cerddorion feel they’re the enemy of our race every bit as much as demons. That they should be slaughtered without mercy.”
I frowned. “Is that what you think?” I’d never heard Mab say a word against vampires before, but suddenly she was sounding way more like Commissioner Hampson than my aunt.
She poured some tea, and steam rose from her mug. She sighed. “No, that’s not my personal view. But I can’t say I trust them, either. You see, every vampire is a potential Old One.”
That comment hit home. “Juliet came under their thrall,” I admitted, feeling uncomfortable. “But she ran away from them. That’s why she’s not here now; she’s in hiding.”
“Are you certain she’s broken with them?”
From the doorway, Kane barked, as if to say that’s what he wanted to know, too. He came into the kitchen and sat beside me.
I related to both of them Juliet’s account of her experiences with the Old Ones. And I told Mab what had happened when I’d visited Juliet in the Goon Squad cell, how the Old Ones had tried to saw off her leg to drag her out of there.
I wondered how Juliet was doing, if the salve had helped. I’d have to call Axel and check. Also Daniel, to see whether forensics had found anything on the swab of the Old One’s blade.
“If her story is true,” Mab said, “I’ll be very interested to meet this roommate of yours. In all my lifetimes, I’ve never heard of a vampire who could resist the Old Ones.”
“Why do the Old Ones have so much power over vampires?” It was easy to see why humans were attracted to the vampires who preyed on them—vampires were sexy, and their narcotic-laced saliva made feeding time an erotic pleasure. But the Old Ones . . . from their hideous faces to their icy auras, there was nothing attractive about those creatures.
“Vampires crave power and life. It’s their nature. They cannot help that any more than you or I can help craving air, water, and food. But it’s a craving that can get out of hand, and too many are prone to give in.”
“The Old Ones offer them more of what they crave.”
She nodded. “The Old Ones don’t just prey upon vampires. Centuries ago, the Old Ones created them. In a sense, vampires belong to them.”
“Explain, please.”
Mab cleared her throat, going into storyteller mode. “In ancient times, shamans were the most powerful men in the world. They were prophets, priests, and rulers, or advisers to rulers. In Wales these shamans were the derwyddon, the druids.” She poured herself another mug of tea, sipped. “Most druids were admirable men, loyal to a code of service and honor. But power corrupted then, as it always does. A druid named Colwyn became obsessed with the power of death. How could he have so much influence over men, and over the natural world through magic, and still be subject to death? The question possessed him, drove him mad.”
“This is the same Colwyn who’s working with Myrddin now?”
“Yes, but I can’t imagine that either of those two is happy in their alliance. I’ll explain why in a moment. When Colwyn was still human, still a druid, he began experimenting. He realized that power doesn’t exist on its own; it’s something you receive—or forcibly take—from others. And life, he reasoned, works the same way. Every sentient creature needs to consume life in order to sustain life. Predators eat other animals. Grazers absorb life from the living plants they eat. But that’s consuming only a small amount of life, just enough to keep going for another day. Take more life, Colwyn reasoned, take it in massive quantities, and you could live forever.”
“Sounds like a recipe for mass murder.”
“Indeed. There have always been rumors of druids performing human sacrifice. Anthropologists still debate the question today. The druids did not sacrifice living humans.” Her expression darkened. “Only Colwyn did. Hundreds of them. Eventually, he passed through death and turned himself into a vampire. The first one.
“Colwyn discovered how to create others like him. At first, Colwyn’s little band of vampires were very much like the vampires you know today, possessing youth, beauty, and strength. There were arguments, of course, power struggles, splinter groups. Vampires spread across Europe, across the world. They went to war with each other. With the rise of the Roman Empire, they went underground. And then, about seven centuries after he’d corrupted himself, Colwyn began to weaken.”
“Seven hundred years. That’s about Juliet’s age. She said the same thing, that she could feel herself growing weaker.”
Mab nodded. “All living things have a life span. Vampires are a corruption of nature, but they haven’t conquered death, merely traversed it once to postpone their ultimate end. Nature does win out eventually, as it must. But Colwyn couldn’t accept that. So much power, so much life, and he was losing it. He pondered on his original transformation. If he’d cheated death once by preying on humans, perhaps he could cheat it permanently by preying on what he considered a greater life form.”
“He started feeding on vampires.”
“Yes. And you see what he became as a result.” Colwyn traded beauty and youth for raw power. The Old Ones, with their skull-like faces and massive fangs, were vampires stripped to their essence: on the other side of death, craving power. “In a very short time, vampires became problematic as a food source. Although they’d spread, their population was relatively small, and Colwyn slaughtered most before he realized that he couldn’t treat vampires the same way he’d treated humans. So he preyed upon humans to feed his physical body and vampires to feed his power. He selected his most loyal followers and converted them into the creatures we now call the Old Ones. And if they’d been hidden before, now they pulled back even further into the shadows.”
“Let me guess. Fast forward to today, and their life span is once again coming to an end. That’s why I could kill one.”
Kane woofed.
“And Kane could, too,” I added, stroking his fur.
“Yes,” Mab said. “As vampires, they lasted seven hundred and fifty years. As Old Ones, they doubled that life span. But again, they’re weakening. I believe that’s why they’ve become so vulnerable to silver. In their strength, they possessed all the powers of a vampire many, many times over. In their weakness, their vulnerabilities are similarly amplified.”
I added up the numbers in my head. According to Mab’s story, Colwyn was more than two thousand years old. “So two-plus millennia aren’t enough for them.” You’d think that even a vampire-god wannabe would get tired of the game after all that time.
“Obsessions do not fade with time, child. They intensify. Colwyn will never get enough power. And he’ll never stop questing after eternal life.”
Not until we stopped him. “So where does Myrddin fit in?” I asked. “You said he and Colwyn weren’t exactly happy campers together.”
Something flared in my aunt’s eyes at the mention of Myrddin’s name. But it was gone in a moment.
“He’s the real Myrddin Wyllt, isn’t he?” I said. “I thought he’d named himself after some crazy wizard he admired.”
“Yes, he is. There can be no doubt about that.” Again, a glimpse of something in her face I couldn’t read. “You remember the story, correct?”
