Dracula Hearts of Fire Book two of Dracula Hearts

THE SUN WAS A FOOT HIGH in the sky, and the morning had all the qualities to make one happy to be alive, bright, and warm with nature’s scented atmosphere. The birds were singing, and the groundhogs were digging. A deer looked on from the edge of the forest but then quickly ran off into the deeper woods. Inside the small red-shingled house, Dorian was putting the final touches on the spell to bind the two eagle feathers to the last strand of his brother’s hair. He had given up on locating the other strand; it was simply impossible. He would probably go mad before it was discovered. It had depressed him to such a degree that his frame of mind had forced him to abandon the search for it.

“Well, brother, I fear we’re both lost without this enchantment, although I’m not six feet under in a box. It sure would be nice to hear your voice again.”

Dorian looked over his left shoulder and caught a crow watching him in the old window, past the bugs and dead flies, watching intently as if it were some sort of spy. He smiled at it knowingly. He searched through more than a dozen leather pouches in the kitchen drawer until he found the two he sought. One marked with an S and the other with a D. He mixed the silver dust with the specks of dried red sap from the Dragon’s Blood Tree (Dracaena Cinnabari), which originates from a group of four islands in the Indian Ocean, Socotra archipelago. He put the two ingredients in his hand’s palm, mixed them together, said a few words to bind them, and then watched as a white mist was released from the concoction. He placed the two feathers on each end of the hair inside the fog, and they bound themselves to it. A chainsaw now couldn’t force them apart.

The wizard had mixed feelings. This was it unless there was another spell out there that would bring him to his brother, and he had searched for years without success. He hoped that time would close the wound if not heal it. A part of him wanted to run out and cast the spell, but he really didn’t want to see the last stand of hair float into the sky and into oblivion. It was likely to take part of his soul with him. Hope was worth more than a ton of gold. He quickly turned and shot a gray lightning bolt at the crow and killed it. Dorian wasn’t about to risk the bird attacking the spell as it floated up and off, disrupting its flight pattern.

The wizard exited the house, stood on the rickety porch, and felt the pull of the enchantment; it wanted to be released and taken to the wind. He stood there for several minutes, waiting and wondering. The odds weren’t with him and with but a single attempt remaining, but it depended on how far away his brother was. He released it, and it shot straight into the air; he morphed into a bat and followed it as best he could, but it was gone. It didn’t act like the others at all. None of them had gone straight up like that.

He went to the side of the cabin and kicked a hole in it.

The feathers went straight up almost a mile; its magic searched for Lemuel inside the coffin and then started slowly floating back towards the earth. It circled like a glider in free fall. Lemuel awoke from his nap and could sense something pulling at him again, but he had no idea what it was.

Dorian pulled his foot out of the house and fell. Even with his enhanced vision, he saw nothing. It was as if his lifeblood was slowly draining, drop by drop; he was mentally depleted. Then he saw it, swirling down toward him. He couldn’t believe it. Was it really going to work? He followed it and followed it until the enchantment landed directly on the roof. What did that mean? It couldn’t mean that his brother was buried under the house?

“Are you down there, brother?”

Dorian pushed the house about forty feet and then ran back to where it had been. He looked down at the patch of earth alive with worms and bugs. He blurred off to the hardware store, returned with a shovel, and paused to consider. It was best not to get his hopes up too high, as the enchantment could be wrong. He leaned on the shovel and thought this was it, one way or another.

Lemuel could barely make out the sounds of digging because, with the centuries that had gone by, the ground was compacted, not allowing much sound through. He opened his eyes and stared at a tiny spider crawling on the casket. Could it be Dorian up there in the process of digging him out? He certainly didn’t want to get his hopes up after all this time. He screamed his brother’s name, but there was no response.

Dorian dug slowly as he needed time to think. He searched as slowly as a human would, throwing the dirt some forty feet in the air. When he got down to six feet, he was disappointed to find nothing. At seven and then eight feet, he jumped out of the large hole, assuming that, unfortunately, he wasn’t down there. It was unlikely they would have buried him deeper than eight feet; the location was the thing, not the depth.

Lemuel cursed for almost a minute at the sound of silence. Whoever was up there had stopped digging. At least it had sounded like searching. Perhaps there was something else going on up there? After all these years, he could be hallucinating. He screamed his loudest but still didn’t hear any response.

Dorian stood looking down into the hole. A nearby crow was making a lot of noise, making it difficult to concentrate. He shot a bolt at it but missed, and it flew off. Then he thought he heard something. It was faint, but he cocked his head as he listened intently. He jumped back into the hole and listened, but whatever it was stopped. Or perhaps it was his imagination. He jumped up and down in the hole.

Lemuel heard a thud. It almost seemed that someone really was up there, but what the hell they were doing, he couldn’t say. He screamed and cried and then heard the sound of more digging. If it was an auditory hallucination, it was a good one. He stopped to listen some more, and the noise of the shovel hitting the coffin almost scared the shit out of him.

“Lemuel!” Dorian pulled the oak coffin out of the ground. “Lemuel, can you hear me?”

“Thank GOD! Hurry up and get me the hell out of here! How long have I been in here? Can you hear me?”

Dorian smashed the dirty coffin hard, and it should have broken open with his strength, but it didn’t. He actually hurt his hand on it. Again and again, he walloped it. “What the hell?”

“Get me out of here!”

Dorian looked for a seal where the box would have been closed so he could pry it open, but there was none. He jumped in the air and gave it the bionic elbow smash, but even that didn’t work. Even after centuries, the spell hadn’t weakened one iota. He jumped around with a crushed elbow and was glad when it healed.

“What are you doing up there?”

“I can’t get you out. You’re sealed in with some powerful spell.”

“You’re a wizard, you jackass. Get me out of here!”

“I can’t. I don’t know how. I’ll get you out, but it might take some time.”

Thrashing and screaming were heard from inside the box. “Help me!”

“Lemuel, what the hell is going on in there?”

“Help me, I can’t breathe!”

“You don’t need to breathe. I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“What’s that?”

“Just what it sounds like, an attack of panic.”

“I’m gonna kill you when I get out of here!”

“Then I’m not letting you out.”

“I was just kidding. Help me.” Lemuel sounded pitiful.

Dorian sat on the coffin and started to think. He wouldn’t be happy if it took another three hundred years to get him out of there.