"And that's all?" Ava asked in her most world-weary voice. "And we can ask questions now?"
"By all means." I turned my head and looked out the window. A rain had started sometime between Ava's interruption and my finishing, and it had by now drummed itself up into quite a healthy thunderstorm, drops the size of quarters. Elizabeth watched me watch it; her head was on my shoulder, deadweight, and, in a voice quiet enough to ensure only I could hear it, said, "We haven't had rain in such a long time."
"Okay," Ava said. "Just what in hell were you thinking?"
"Talk about a silly question," Katherina piped up, playing with her hair. "He obviously wasn't."
I made a "yeah, that's pretty much it" shrug and Ava sighed and got to her feet. She held her chin in one hand, the elbow of that arm in the other, and paced across the room, staring at the floor. "So," she said, more to herself than to any of us. "Van Helsing and his followers are coming here with the intention of killing us."
"Yes," I said. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have said "duh," but I had done some spectacularly stupid things since leaving, and I didn't think my mocking her intelligence (which, I think, outstrips my own) would be well taken.
"We cannot deter them," she said, still pacing. "If they have crossed oceans, simply magic tricks are not likely to send them back on the nearest ship. It appears to them that we will fight, or we will die."
"Well, fight, obviously!" Katherina said loudly, spreading her hands palms-up.
"No," said Ava quietly, lost in thought. "I don't think we should."
For a moment there was shocked silence on our end, and in the next moment all three of us were on our feet. Loudly.
"Not fight? How can we not fight? Why don't we just lie down in front of them and make it easier?"
"Why shouldn't we fight?"
"If anyone is going to die, it ought to be them!"
Ava held up her hands against our outburst and kept them there until we quieted. Her eyes had narrowed just slightly. "You want to fight?" she asked, sounding almost feverish. "Fight? For how long? Weeks? Months? Years? Master has tried-" She pointed at me. "And proved my point. For every one of our strengths, we have a weakness they can exploit. We are too evenly matched to come away winning."
"Then we move quickly!" I insisted. "If we storm them-"
"They are armed!" Ava yelled. "They will always be armed, possibly for the rest of their lives, and every skirmish we enter we will come away as Master has before. They will always be ready, and we cannot be, and if we fight there will come a day- in weeks or in years, I don't know- where we will let down our guard and they stake us."
"So why don't we just get it over with now?!" I shouted.
Ava laughed shrilly and reached her hand out, laying it against my cheek. It was as cool as marble and, instinctively, I raised my own hand and held it to hers. "You silly boy. Listen to what I saw, will you? It appears our only options are to fight or die."
"And?" I demanded.
"As you, of all people, should know, appearances are deceiving," she said, withdrawing her arm. "There is a third alternative."
"Then stop hinting and say it," Katherina seethed. Lizzie, who was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her, scooted away.
"They think we die," she said simply.
"How?" Lizzie asked in that curiously fresh voice of hers.
"That is what I'm pondering," Ava said, crossing her arms and turning away from us. "Master, their plan of attack is to seize you before you reach the castle and drive a stake through your heart, no?"
"Don't forget slitting my throat."
"Ah, yes." She nodded. "And what vampires have they killed, apart from Lucy?"
"Van Helsing may have killed some, but the others, none."
"So, basically, they only know what happened when they killed someone still half alive, and have no real notion of what to expect when they stab someone as old as us."
"Yes."
"That's very good. Gives us more creative license." Ava began to pace again. "We have to fake our own deaths, but we have to do it in such a way that it leaves no doubt in their mind we have passed, and also prevents them from pursuing the matter further."
"And we do this how?" Katherina insisted. "The only way to seem to kill ourselves in such a foolproof manner is to actually kill ourselves."
There was a pregnant silence.
"We could seem to turn to dust," Elizabeth offered, and Katherina made a disgusted noise.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever-"
"Lizzie," Ava said, choking Kat off midsentence. "That's brilliant."
"It is?" Lizzie asked, looking astonished, and then she beamed.
"How in the hell are we supposed to do that?" Katherina demanded, clearly nonplussed. "We can't turn into dust."
"No, but we can put dust in our clothes, and we can mist."
"The dust will just come with us," Elizabeth said. "Won't it?"
It was starting to dawn on me now. "No. Only what's directly touching one of us will come with."
Now they all looked at me, Ava nodding excitedly. Her cheeks were flushed. "Yes! You understand!" She held her hands out, looking as though she wanted to crush something between them just to prove she could. This side, this animated, "I have something to solve!" side of her, was not something I saw often, and I rather liked it. "If we get dust and dirt under us and in our clothes and we let ourselves be caught, we can mist when they start to stake us, and it'll give the impression of us just . . . disintegrating. There's nothing that will keep them there after that!"
"Excuse me. One flaw," Katherina said sharply.
We turned and stared at her. Ava was breathing especially hard. "What?"
"If we have to mist at the same second they start pounding a stake into us," she said, sarcasm dripping off her tone. "The chances of them hitting our hearts before we can get gone is though the roof."
"It's a very high roof," said Elizabeth. I've never fully understood this comment, for some reason, but I've never wanted to clarify on something Elizabeth, of all people, said.
"Armor," I said.
Ava blinked at me. "What?"
"Armor," I said, a little louder. "Or chain mail. On our chests; it won't stop the stake fully, but it ought to keep it always from our heart."
"Babe, I like how you think," Katherina said.
Fiftieth chapter. --falls over dead and is brought back by main characters--
I would have updated this eariler, but I started watching "Dracula: Dead and Loving it" and once you start that movie, you simply cannot stop. It's like a drug. Anyway, it's now my third-favorite movie (after "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Shuan of the Dead") and as such, I must now quote some of my favorite lines (there are so many I hardly know what to choose, but I'll try).
"Kiss me, Jonathan!" "Um, Lucy, I'm engaged to Mina. And you're dead."
"My God! What are you doing to the furniture?!" (two minutes later) "No, no, this is wrong, I can't do this, so very wrong and- yes! Wrong me! Wrong my brains out!"
"How much blood can she possibly have left?" (Famous last words)
And, always in good taste: "I'm also a gynecologist." "Oh, I didn't know you had your hand in that too."
