Blueblood 4: Dracula - 2. Bound For Sighisoara

I chuckled and nodded. “Dracula was after your time. He is the most famous vampire that really made an impact with the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.” I quickly told him about the novel and movies that came from the story and embellishments on the theme. Amasis had more questions, but I just took his hand. “I’ll get you the book, but know this story and others shaped our fear of vampires. Many contain the magic we are supposed to have and that power we are supposed to have in us.”

“I don’t read English very well,” Amasis said with a sad grin. "Yet."

I smiled bigger. “Well, there’s always my favorite thing…movies!”

Amasis chuckled. “And you know which one I should see.”

I brightened. “I do!”

“What if it is all just fiction?” Mom asked.

“That fiction had to come from somewhere,” Colin said logically. “We can look and find out.” He shrugged and then he smiled at me. “We need to get all information available for Dracula. We should call Stan.”

Wayne smiled. “He’ll be thrilled!”

We waited for our daily conference call to Stan. I was early, but I established the connection to see Mark sitting where Stan usually sat.

Mark frowned. “This is a restricted channel. No unauthorized…” he squinted his eyes. “Oh! It’s you, Devon! I saw this dark-skinned guy and thought it was someone else!” He smiled. “You’re really tan!”

I chuckled. “Thanks. Two weeks in the sun and that’s what happens. Where’s Stan?”

That’s when I heard. “What are you…?” Stan said. “Wait! He’s five minutes early!” Then I saw Stan’s handwave him away. “Out! I sit there.”

Mark smiled and winked at me and then turned to Stan. “I was keeping the seat warm.”

“Out!” Stan repeated and sat down. He smiled at me and looked at his watch. “I had five minutes. Nature called and I thought I had time.”

I nodded. “I know. Sorry about that.” I grinned. “We have a new destination.”

“We do?” Stan asked. “Where?”

“Eastern Europe,” I said. “Specifically, we are looking for Dracula.”

Stan’s eyes widened as he just said. “What!?”

Mark, however, was instantly in the frame as he was smiling even more. “Really!? That…would be awesome!”

Stan looked at Mark and just rolled his eyes.

“We’re going on this trip, right?” Mark asked.

I nodded. “I don’t see why not. We still have the CPU we had in Egypt?”

“Of course,” Stan said. “I’ll need to make sure the Romanian and other languages of Eastern Europe are in and ready.” Then he looked back. “Wait, are we going after Vlad the Impaler or Bram Stoker’s Dracula?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“We’re searching for the ruler…or the fictional character?” Stan asked.

I frowned. “Stan, we’re looking. That’s what we’re looking for. Evidence!”

Stan looked a moment and thought. He slowly nodded. “Okay. I guess we’ll need all the information about Dracula and Vlad.” He thought. “I’ll get Buddy to look at all information to find commonalities.”

I nodded. “At first, we stick with the novel and historical records,” I said. “I would say all information prior to 1897.”

“Why 1897?” Mark asked.

“That’s when Stoker wrote Dracula,” Stan answered. “He would have to know details before that to write the story.” He grinned. “Dracula literally means bad blood in Gaelic. Bram Stoker was Irish and he used his knowledge. Drac Ullah is the Gaelic words. Vlad Dracula was nicknamed Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler.” He looked at me seriously. “My point is…he wasn’t a nice guy.”

Mark looked at Stan. His usual banter and kidding was forgotten a second. “How do you know all of this?”

Stan frowned. “I was a lonely kid and even more of a lonely teenager. I had a lot of time. I read a lot.” He looked at me. “Including Dracula. In that part of Romania, they didn’t like the story that Stoker wrote. It wasn’t even translated into Romanian until 1990.”

I nodded. “They will be more cautious about giving him away.” I sighed. “They will be protective of him.”

Stan nodded. “Of Vlad Dracul. Dracula also means son of the devil in Romanian. Dracul was given to Vlad’s father, Dracula means the devil’s son. This may not be a good person, vampire or whatever.”

“Count Dracula was a fictional character,” I said. “There are just too many…” I thought, “…odd things about this. Based on fact or based on a real person. He may be a nasty person. I believe there is a vampire here. He may welcome us, he may not. We can help those that are vampires there. This…” I frowned, “…could be the most important contact we’ve ever made.”

Stan nodded. “I’ll make sure Buddy is updated with the latest of the Delkenzie program.”

“Why?”

“There are several languages in Romania. Romanian is just the official language of Romania. There is also Hungarian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Slovak, Romani, Ukrainian, and German.” Stan nodded. “It literally is a melting pot,” Stan said with a nod that he gave for the monumental task.

“It’s a good thing Mitch programmed his program well for Russian and the other languages.” I smiled at Stan. “We’ll gather the information with Buddy about Dracula, but I’m glad you’ll be there Stan. Your knowledge of Vlad and history will prove very valuable.”

“The Romanian people of that era during Vlad’s reign were very superstitious. A lot of that will be still with most people there.” Stan said.

“The contacts that we do have in that area, is there one more vocal? Someone who wants help?” I asked. “They might be more cooperative.”

Stan nodded. “I can say the one that sticks out in my mind is Andrei. His name I’ve seen more than any other. I’ll send you his email address. He has been more vocal since Edwin was turned back to more human. That’s all I know about him.”

“Sure.” I nodded. “And maybe send me those emails, so I know about what he would like to have done and I can tell him what we hope to do.”

I was feeling something else about this trip. Did we have special abilities? Maybe. What I was now feeling was like a heavy weight on my heart or soul. If there was a figure that inspired the creation of this character of Dracula. Was he a vampire? Was he still holding any humanity in him? Did he feed on people like he was supposed to have in the book? If he did, he could be more dangerous than any wild vampire. He retained that part of being human that made him more dangerous.

Colin came in as I was looking over the Internet about this area of Romania that Dracula was supposed to have been. He sat next to me in a chair. “How’s the research?”

“There is a lot about Vlad Dracul,” I said waving at the screen. “Everything from where he was born to where he was a ruler. He was born in Sighisoara. That’s just northwest of Bucharest.” I looked at Colin. “The idea of looking for him was…I can’t explain it. It was more like a tickle in the back of my mind. Now, I’m starting to feel the weight of it. He could be very dangerous.” I said softly. “In many ways, I now feel like we’re going into real alien territory.” I looked at Colin. “You have this ability to tell about a man. Whether we can trust or not.” I smiled tightly. “Has anyone ever surprised you?”

Colin thought a minute. “Not really.”

“When we go, this person may be old. Would he be able to fool you?” I asked.

Colin frowned. “He might try, but usually I can tell that they are trying to fool me and that’s my first clue not to trust.” He looked at me closer. “You, however, seem to have this…intuition about where we go and what we’ll find there. What do you feel about this?”

“I’m no psychic.” I smiled dismissing the thought.

“You were right about a lot of people. Marissa and Adrian. You were right about England with Edwin, Matt and even Wayne. You were right about Egypt, now we have Amasis and Amir.” He said. “What do you feel about going after this…Dracula?”

“I think it’s something else. Bigger. It’s a heavy feeling, is the only way I can describe it.” I said. “I don’t think he’s Vlad Dracul. I don’t think he’s Count Dracula either.” I admitted. “Is there a vampire?” I chuckled with a nod. “I do feel there is one. I think he knew Bram Stoker and believe he was the inspiration for this…Count Dracula. His experiences and what he did may have influenced a lot that Bram wrote.” I shrugged. “But with Artistic License, this vampire’s experiences were…embellished. I don’t want to take away any of the stories about Dracula or about Vlad Dracul, but there is a story that’s different than the story told.”

Colin nodded with a short sigh. “That’s what we’re going to find out.” He smiled. “And we will find out. If nothing else, we help those there that need help.”

I nodded. “Sure.” I frowned. “We don’t have magic abilities. We have our talents that pretty much seem like magic. Suppose he has abilities we’re never encountered before?”

“We’ll be fine,” Colin said kissing me. “I may have told you before…I love you.”

I chuckled. “I know. I said it before, I think. I love you.”

Colin shrugged a nod. “Once or twice.” He nodded as he ran his hand through my hair. “You’re everything to me, Devon. We’ll be fine.” He assured and kissed me gently.

Going into Romania was not difficult, but we wanted to have people there to understand what we were doing, at least on the surface; why we were there. If for no other reason than upgrading the Delkenzie Language Program. It was a good cover. That meant Mitch had to know what we were doing. We invited him to dinner with Colin, me, Wayne and Amasis to let him know what we planned to do so he could back us up if called.

Mitch grinned as the steaming plate of Shrimp and Grits were being served by Bertie.

“This is the only way I’ll ever eat grits,” Mitch confessed with a chuckle.

I grinned back. “Me, too.” I shook my head. “I’m a lousy Southerner. I hate grits, don’t like plain rice and no greens of any kind on my plate…ever.”

Mitch nodded. “I like my coffee cold as you know. I was fine in New York. Tony had the problem in the South with some of our…unique customs and sayings.” He looked up at me and added. “Tad Morsi called me a few days ago. It seems he really wants that program.”

Colin’s eyebrows rose surprised. “Really?”

Mitch nodded. “Really. It seems you two impressed him.” He looked at us. “What happened over there?”

We briefly told him about his brother Rafa and how he was holding a few vampires in hopes of creating a perfect soldier and that his brother was killed in a struggle. I left out the Fredrick Hoffman desire to become an immortal to make more money.

Mitch nodded. “Well, whatever happened. He wants that program.”

“I’m surprised.” He looked suddenly happy. “But pleased. We’re thinking of using it again.” Colin explained.

“You said you wanted to buy in,” Mitch said. “You wanted to invest money and become partners.”

“We will provide the hardware and some of the distribution.” Colin nodded and smiled. “I will admit, when we went to Egypt, it was to cover what we were really doing. Which is why I was surprised. But it’s a good program.”

Mitch nodded. “Because you went to find vampires.”

Amasis smiled. “Well, they did.” He held his hands out for himself.

“Where are you going now? Is there another few vampires you’re looking for?” Mitch asked.

I nodded. “Yes.” I looked at Mitch. “We’re looking for Dracula.” There, I told him.

Mitch dropped his fork on his plate as his eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

Once again, we presented Mitch with the how and why.

At the end of our explanation, to which Mitch listened and didn’t interrupt. When we were done, he just nodded. “Okay.”

Colin was more shocked that Mitch was. “Okay. That’s it!?” He shook his head. “We tell you we’re vampires. We tell you that our dear friend Amasis is over two thousand years old and a vampire as well. You said okay then, too. How is it that you just accept what we say? You don’t ask for proof or verification, just accept it.”

Mitch chuckled and gave a nod. “I told Devon when he first told me. What he told me was too…unusual and too outlandish not to be true. He didn’t strike me as a liar nor did I think he was crazy. Therefore, it had to be true.” He waved at me. “I can’t dismiss the obvious things that are right here.” He sighed. “I hear something new like this. You want to find Dracula. That sounds dangerous, but I can see it. If you exist, perhaps he does, too.” He shrugged. “As partners with me, you will be doing the field work. There should be no questions asked by anyone. If there are. I’ll back you up. No problem.” He smiled a little in a smirk. "And he has a trustworthy face." His eyebrows danced. He munched on some of his shrimp. “God, this is good!” He shook his head loving the taste.

Arranging with the government in Romania, we told them the truth. We would be there to further our program. They weren’t suspicious and told us to come. Now arrangements were being made to travel there. We would again take the plane for Holms' Laboratories to get there. No tickets needed and we would carry what we needed in equipment.

Colin was packing when he passed me. “The house we’re renting should be big enough. We’ll be staying in Sighisoara. We’re inside the city proper. From the images I got, we should be okay. There are seven to eight bedrooms. One is a den, sort of that can be a bedroom. Some of us will have to double up.”

I chuckled. “I don’t think that will be a problem. You and me, Stan and Mark, Mom and Dad, Gabriella and Alex…”

Colin nodded. “George and Burke…” he waved. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Do we have the scanners packed, the extra tablets and laptops? Earpieces?”

Colin looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Do you think I’d forget those? It’s why we’re going. Officially.”

I laughed. “Just crossing them off the list.” I shrugged. “It’s still summer. This could take a while.”

“We’ll bring what we may need,” Colin said. “I’m sure they have clothing stores in Romania.” The feeling I got now, was even heavier. What we were about to do, was very important.