Dracul Read Online Free Page A

coast is clear.”
    Constantine gives me a sharp nod, but he doesn’t smile or anything. He looks super serious, almost like he’s going into battle. But I don’t really know the guy, so maybe that’s the way he always looks.
    Whatever. All I care about is getting rid of the bats.
    Once I’m on the other side of the door, both hands on the knob holding it shut tight, my ear pressed to the wood, I hear the sound of the attic hatch opening, and the clunk-a-thunk of the ladder shuttling down.
    Muffled thuds, probably Constantine’s steps up the ladder.
    Then, nothing.
    I’m trying to envision what he must be doing up there. It’s a pretty lofty space, maybe ten feet from floor to beams in the middle, with a sharp slope down on all four sides. A single dormer with a vented window in the front. We don’t keep anything up there, mostly because we travel light and don’t have much stuff to store, and also because of spiders.
    I may be a dragon, but I’m not fond of spiders. My instinct, when I see spiders, is to kill them by breathing fire, which might have a negative effect on the resale value of the house, insofar as it might burn it down.
    So I avoid the attic.
    Still no sounds from above. Maybe he’s being careful with the bats. He never did say what he was going to do with them. Take them home and study them?
    It’s not like I care.
    There’s a sound. Something low and constant. I press my ear flatter against the door.
    Are those voices?
    Maybe Constantine’s talking to himself. I’m not going to judge him. If he takes away the bats, he can be a total loony for all I care.
    But seriously, those are voices. Men’s voices. Is Constantine talking to someone?
    Be careful.
    What’s he doing up there, anyway? Is he even up there, for sure? I don’t know. For all I know, he could be robbing me blind while I hide behind this door.
    I’ve got to see for myself.
    Don’t worry. I’m only going to open the door a tiny crack so I can hear better, and maybe see.
    But the men are shouting now, threatening words in a language I don’t understand, though I can hear much better with the door cracked open. To be honest, I’m not sure for sure that there’s more than one person.
    I turn my head to peek through the door crack.
    The attic is dark.
    Is he even up there?
    Crashing noises answer my question. He’s up there, banging around, thumping into the walls. It almost sounds like he’s fighting somebody.
    And yelling at them. Still in that language I don’t know. I’m pretty fluent in a lot of things—English, of course, and Azeri. I can carry on conversations in German and Russian, and ask for the baño in Spanish, but the words being shouted in my attic are none of those.
    Now the yelling stops. There are a few more thumps, followed by silence.
    I hear slow steps across the attic floor, then Constantine’s black leather lace-up boots appear. Before I see more than the bottom half of his jeans, I push the door silently closed.
    He never needs to know I peeked.
    “The coast is clear.” There’s no hint of Constantine’s accent in those four words. If anything, he’s inserted a bit of forced Montana cowboy casualness into his speech.
    I open the door to confront him. “What was all that shouting?”
    “You heard that?” He flashes me an almost sheepish look as he closes up the attic hatch, then turns his back to me and heads for the stairs.
    “It was kind of hard to miss.” I follow him down to the ground floor. “It almost sounded like there was someone up there.”
    “Just bats.”
    “You talked to them?”
    “I had to convince them to leave. They weren’t eager to go.”
    “Do they have rabies?”
    “No.” He turns to face me, and for the first time since he came down from the attic, I can see his face clearly.
    “You have blood on your face.”
    “Don’t touch it.” Constantine hurries to the kitchen and pulls several paper towels off the roll by the sink.
    “Why not?”
    “It’s