"What do I have to do to convince you to come?" Keel's impatience was turning into a childish kind of desperation. I half expected him to start begging, pleading and stomping his feet. He'd been trying – unsuccessfully – to convince me to accompany him to his room for the last ten minutes. I had no idea why he didn't just force me to go with him. Was this his next game? His next test? Seeing if he could make me walk into his trap?
So far, I hadn't budged, and he hadn't attempted to drag me, but he pummelled me with wave after wave of promises and impassioned pleas, all while refusing to tell me what he planned on showing me once we got there. The whole display was un-Keel-like. He was never this animated.
Or maybe that's just what I told myself when I started caving.
One of us had to. Either that, or declare our little field trip over. We couldn't very well stand around in the creepy Nosferatu museum forever. If it wasn't for the clean clothes I was wearing, I might have been the one to do it, but I wasn't ready to give them up yet – and apparently that meant making concessions. Sadly, there wasn't anything I could ask Keel for that would even the odds between us, but there was one thing that might lessen his advantage slightly.
"Give me your knife," I demanded.
Keel's eyes widened in surprise. "Really?"
"Yes, really. You want me to trust you, so prove you trust me first."
"You know I could disarm you in two seconds, even if you had my knife?" He was right, of course. His preternatural speed and strength outmatched me no matter what I was wielding.
"But I'm betting you won't." This time, I stole his line.
Keel grinned at me, looking happier than I'd ever seen him. It gave him a sheen of humanity I'd previously only glimpsed in fits and starts. He wore it well, and I had to resist the urge to smile back at him. I knew better. He was a creature of many guises.
Keel removed his knife from his pocket and snapped it open. He tossed it into the air so it twirled end over end over end in a high, arching loop. When it came back down, he caught the bladed side in his hand. It didn't even nick him. Then he offered it to me, handle extended. "I wish you were like this all the time," he said, laying on the charm. I rolled my eyes at him. "Sheer nerve looks good on you."
"Don't make me use this," I threatened, snatching the knife out of his hand and waving it in front of his face.
"You won't," he said, oozing confidence. "Now can we go?"
Unable to argue – or delay – any further, I followed him out of the museum, happy to leave all the dead things, and the unanswered questions they left me with, far behind. Keel guided me back to the service elevator, which I assumed would take us back down into the bowels of the compound, but instead he produced a key that unlocked a tiny metal flap beneath the elevator's bank of buttons. Inside it was another button – a solitary, unnumbered black one, which he pressed. The door we'd just walked through slid closed with a clunk and a door directly behind us opened. Like the panel, I hadn't noticed it was there. Keel flipped the flap closed and exited through the rear. I followed him, tentatively, only stepping fully inside when the elevator doors almost squashed me.
"Welcome to my room," he said, spreading his arms.
Keel's bedroom dwarfed my cell in every possible way. It held, among other things, a large four-poster bed, a set of built-in cupboards, which spanned the far wall, a dresser, an armoire, a sturdy-looking cherry-wood desk and two matching bookshelves, both of which were crammed full and heaving. The area to the right of the elevator was home to a well-stocked weapons rack and a stretch of cushioned, blue vinyl flooring that, judging from slits and tears in it, was used for sparring practice. Keel's bedroom didn't scream monster – unlike the weaponry in the throne room, these maces and swords were pristine – but it didn't exactly say teenage boy either.
"It's nice," I said, politely, still taking it all in. I'd expected to see more Keel in the room. But apart from the overflowing bookshelves, nothing here told me anything about him.
Keel released a long, weary sigh. "It's what's expected. That's what it is. And it isn't what I wanted to show you."
He turned and walked towards his bed. "You can sit down if you want." He tapped the chocolate-brown duvet with his open palm.
"I think I'll stand," I said, but trailed behind him nonetheless.
Keel got down on his hands and knees beside the bed and dug around beneath it, emerging roughly twenty seconds later clutching a wooden box about twice the size of a shoebox.
"This is what I wanted to show you. These are my artifacts," he said, placing the box on the duvet. He sat down next to it and then looked up at me expectantly. "Open it," he implored.
As I placed both my hands on its lid, all I could think was, This is it: the coupe de grace, the grand finale of his latest trick. I took a deep centring breath, braced myself for more museum-esque horrors and flipped open the lid in one fast, fluid motion, much like I ripped off Band-Aids. The contents of the box had a similar, startling effect on me. The strength went out of my knees and I plunked down onto the bed, Keel momentarily forgotten.
When I finally looked up, he was smiling again. "You know what these are, then?" His face was full of childlike anticipation.
"I do," I said, before adding, "You know, Keel, you're one hell of a conundrum. You hate humans, lock them up and eat them, can't wait to not be even half of one any more, and yet your most precious things are all human things."
"Just because they're weak, doesn't mean they aren't worth knowing, understanding, studying." Keel said it earnestly enough, but it didn't change the implication.
"Just like me?" I asked, disgusted.
I thought he might deny it, but he left the question hanging there awkwardly between us. An admission through silence.
My hand drifted into the box of lost treasures; dozens of earthly trinkets – a Darth Vader Pez dispenser, complete with candy, a Nirvana CD, a copy of Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, a dead iPhone and a tube of glittery lip gloss, among them. It all made me so incredibly homesick I almost puked all over Keel's bedspread, which wasn't just brown, but pinstriped with delicate threads of gold and ochre. Positively princely.
"I'm like these things to you," I said as calmly as I could. There were truths and there were truths. This was one of the latter.
He refused to meet my eyes. He was too busy watching my hand connect with each item in the box. Pieces of a past so precious, it didn't even matter that it wasn't my own. How am I supposed to feel about all this? I wondered. He'd never disguised the fact I was a curiosity to him, but knowing he thought of me as more of an object – a means to an end – than a person stung.
"I need to eat," he mumbled, snapping the small wooden chest closed, almost clipping my fingers in the process. Was this his way of saying yes? Or had I come too close to a core truth and now he was battening down the hatches.
"Keel, I –"
"Don't." That weird, joyous aura of humanity that'd clung to him from the moment I'd agreed to come here with him all but dissolved. "Take out the knife," he ordered. He was using that voice again, the one that reminded me I was just as crazy as he was for allowing myself to get tangled up in his little rebellion.
I slammed my hand deep into the pocket of my hoodie and enclosed the cool metal in my fist, but I did not remove it.
"No, not like this. You promised," I said, getting to my feet and backing away from him. Maybe I'd get used to his jarring insensitivity, but I doubted I'd ever get a handle on his mood swings.
"Then try to stop me," he responded. "Now take out the knife."
My hand was shaking so bad when I finally withdrew the weapon it was a miracle I was able to keep it from slipping out of my grasp. I don't know who I'd been trying to kid earlier, Keel could be damned scary when he wanted to be.
"Open it," he commanded. I gave him a pleading look but he just shook his head and repeated those two words louder. I obeyed, and he moved – so fast it was almost a blur – but instead of disarming me, he wrapped my arm around his neck, so the knife made a slight indent in his throat.
"How much do you hate me?" he asked. I couldn't see his face, but some of the hardness had drained from his words.
This excursion had gone from irritating to confusing to downright bizarre. Is this how Boras felt when I'd offered my life to him? Keel's back was pressed against my chest, and I could feel the throb of his pulse – his lifeblood – in the gentle rise and fall of the blade.
Could I do it? Could I kill Keel? The Nosferatu were evil but had he done anything to me to warrant death? Being a bloodsucking jerk wasn't exactly worthy of capital punishment. Could I kill him for what he would someday become?
"What d'ya say, Mills?" There was zero fear in his voice. "Are we destined to be enemies?"
I didn't believe he'd let me slit his throat? Besides, where would murdering the king's son get me, besides killed too? There was no clock in Keel's room to indicate how much time I had before the Nosferatu awakened. And god only knew if Keel had all the keys to get to the surface, I doubted it – he wouldn't be wasting time with me if he could be causing havoc up there. Never mind that the main entrance would probably be fortified and well-guarded. The odds were definitely stacked against me. But did that mean I shouldn't try?
I tightened my grip on the handle, pressing the knife a little deeper into Keel's neck. I felt his spine stiffen against me, but he didn't flinch. If anything, he tilted his head further back to allow me better vantage, calling my bluff.
Just one slash and you could...
I opened my hand and allowed the knife to slip through my fingers.
Apparently I failed at being a monster slayer as well.
Keel kicked my foot out of the way before the falling blade could impale it, letting it clatter to the floor. Then he stepped forward, out of my grasp, leaned down and picked it up. "And now we know the answer to that," he said, twirling the knife in his hand like a circus performer.
I didn't detect any disappointment in his voice, even though I'd expected it after his rant about how no one ever gave him a real challenge.
He seemed so incredibly sure of himself – and me – but would I really spare him if all that stood between me and escape someday was a cocky-as-all-get-out crown prince? I couldn't share his confidence.
When he stopped spinning the blade, he offered it to me again. "I need to eat," he repeated.
I looked from the knife to him, then back to the knife again. My question required no words.
"You do it," he said, pushing it back into my hand.
"I don't know if I can." The idea of slitting myself open was reprehensible enough, never mind doing it so a vampire could eat – even if it was Keel.
"You can," he insisted. "Trust me, it's part of who you are."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll see."
"What if I refuse?" I asked.
"Then we do this every night until you don't."
"Why is this so important to you? Is this another way to break me?"
"Mills," he said, grabbing my shoulders, making me look him in the face. "I gave you my knife, I offered you my life: now do this one thing for me."
"Help me choose a wound then," I said, relenting. Are you actually going to do this? Victimize yourself for him? This was pathetic. Who was I becoming?
"Don't need to," he said with a wink, as he lifted the hand holding the knife, shoved up the sleeve of my hoodie and planted the weapon against my forearm. It was sharp, already biting at my skin; it would only take a flick, one moment of stern resolution.
Keel shifted his right hand up so it was cupping my cheek. A pleasant tingling flared out from where our skin met, fogging up my judgement. My nerves danced on the edge of panic... and something else. What the hell were we playing at here?
"Trust me, Mills," he whispered. "Now, do it!"