Page 93 of Lucy Undying

The Queen wrinkles her nose in distaste, but the Lover waltzes up to him and presses her face right against his neck. “He smells like—” She pulls back and sneezes, a tiny, precious sound. Her cheek skin dislodges again. I brush it back. She just laughs. “I didn’t know I could sneeze anymore! He smells like Dracula. But not like you.” She wraps her arms around me and rests her head against my chest. “No one smells like you, Lucy. Except the Queen. And me.”

“Who turned you?” I ask the infant.

“I don’t know what that means!”

“Who turned you into a vampire,” the Queen clarifies, her question delivered like the falling of a blade.

“Vampire? What are you—I’m not—I’m purified. I’m a Golden God. I’m divinity on earth. I’m not—I’m not a—oh god.” He slumps to the floor, arms hugging his knees. He’s on the verge of tears.

I spent so long not knowing who I was, but he doesn’t even know what he is. I crouch in front of him. “Hey,” I say, and this time my gentle voice isn’t an act. “What’s your name?”

“Ian,” he says. “My name’s Ian.”

At least they gave him his name back. “Ian, I’m sorry to tell you this, but he killed you. He turned you into a vampire. Haven’t you been sleeping in a casket, or dirt? And drinking blood instead of eating?”

“I have—we have cubbies. They only smell like dirt because of the organic, all-natural insulation they use. And we drink Goldaming Life supercharged, gold-infused liquid, which has everything we need to survive.”

“And it’s red?” the Lover asks, skipping around collecting arms and legs and heads, adding them to a quickly growing pile. “And it tastes like blood?”

He looks up at me. I like his face. He seems like he was a nice person, when he was a person. “I’m not a monster,” he whispers. “I’m not.”

“I know. Do you want to help us destroy Goldaming Life?”

He twitches. There’s a familiar flash of instinctive fury. It’s the way I must have looked when Iris accused Mina of betraying me. His expression is all I need to know. Whatever they did to Ian before they turned him, they made certain that loyalty to the Goldaming cause is the core of his existence.

Before he can lunge at me, the Queen’s razor fingernails appear through his neck, neatly severing his head from his body. She glances at her claws with disdain as he slumps to the floor. “It will take forever to clean them, and no one does it for me now.”

The Lover gently collects Ian’s head and places it next to his shoulders. “Something’s wrong.”

“I know,” I say, trying to be patient. “His head came off. You can’t put it back on.”

“No, ma petite chou. What’s wrong is he’s a him. Lots of them are hims. Or at least, they were.”

I nearly dismiss her, focused on the next task, but—she’s right. How did I not put that together before? I suppose last time I was distracted with trying not to die. But in America, Dracula has been turning men. I never found a male vampire in Europe. Only ever women. “Strange,” I say, looking at the Queen for her opinion.

She shifts her shoulders, impassive. “We changed. So did Dracula.”

The Lover pats Ian’s cheek. “Poor little dear. I like him. We should keep him.”

I guide her away from his body. “It would be very hard to do what we need to if we were lugging his corpse around with us.”

“What exactly is it we are doing,” the Queen says, raising a single imperious eyebrow.

I take her hand in one of mine, and the Lover’s in the other. “I saw you two in the center of that circle. You weren’t trying to survive. Not really. You were ready for an ending. It’s okay. I was ready, too. But I have something better than being killed by a bunch of babies in an obnoxious club.” I smile at them, my only friends, my oldest friends. The only two who will understand. “We’re going to find Dracula, and we’re going to stop him, once and for all. Together.”

The Queen’s fingers twitch around my own. I worry for a moment she’s trying to cut me, but she’s just holding my hand. Squeezing it back. She gives me a single, regal nod.

The Lover squeals in delight, letting go so she can clap. “Oh, yes, let’s! It’ll be a—what do they call them? Girls’ trip! Girls’ trip, girls’ trip, girls’ trip!” She twirls around the bodies, singing her song.

I came here to kill vampires and get information. I did both, with the bonus of securing two allies. It feels right, having them by my side for this. I only wish I’d managed to find the Doctor, too.

“You know where he is, then,” the Queen says.

I begin pouring alcohol from the bar over the bodies. Wouldn’t do for some poor hopeful dancers to come in here and find a massacre when all they need is a good night out.

“Not exactly,” I answer, “but I know someone who will figure it out. First things first, though, we start this girls’ trip the proper way: arson and then a visit to my therapist.”

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