Chapter Three

As he was doing it, Angel wondered why he was opening the door to the little knock when he really wasn't the social type—especially with kids. Nevertheless, that's what he did, and William's face beamed up at him as he opened the door.

"Hi, Angel!" Angel nodded in return as William entered, even though Angel hadn't moved aside for him. "We're still friends!"

"What?"

"Jamina and me are still friends. She was very impressed I knew what mahogany was." He beamed and a smile tugged at the corner of Angel's lips.

"Good. I'm glad it worked out between you two."

Silence fell while William looked happily around the room from where he stood.

"Um, is there something you wanted?" Angel asked.

"Nope," William said cheerfully. "Just coming to visit."

"Oh."

William ambled farther into the room, looking around. Angel gave in. The ancient Gomarian text he was trying to read was giving him a headache anyway. "I'll guess I'll make some tea, then," he said, and closed the door.

Angel liked his kitchen. He didn't have nearly as much wood in there as the rest of his flat—it was a fire hazard with his gas stove that had cost him an arm and a leg to install—but it still maintained an old feel with his antique-style appliances, the porcelain tea set sitting in the corner on the counter, and the small wood table against the wall. It was comforting to be able to immerse himself in a more familiar time when everything else around him changed more rapidly than he could keep up with.

William, who had followed him into the kitchen, plopped down on one of the chairs at the table. His toes brushed the floor as he swung them, looking around. Angel filled a kettle with water and placed it on one of the burners, then sat down opposite the boy, who said,

"I've never seen one of those working before. Every year our school takes us to the history museum where they have a house with different rooms that look like different times. The kitchen has a stove like that, but it's never on. Why do you use that and not a heater like everyone else?"

Angel had never actually used a heater. He knew it to be similar to a microwave, but it was the kind of appliance that people bought for convenience and price rather than the quality of service it offered, and Angel flat-out refused to buy one.

"I like things that are heated slowly more than when they're put in the heater for a few seconds," he replied.

"Why?"

Angel shrugged. "Seems like it stays hotter longer and tastes more authentic." Angel had to explain the word "authentic" at William's puzzled look. "That's why nice restaurants are so expensive, you know: they start from scratch and heat things slowly."

"There's a place we go to sometimes where I have to comb my hair and put on nice clothes. It takes forever for the food to come and by the time it does I'm starving so I eat it really fast."

Angel frowned slightly. "Eating it fast defeats the whole purpose though, don't you think?"

"Why? I ate it. What difference does it make if I ate it fast or slow?"

"Well, when you eat it slowly you can taste it better. It makes for a more enjoyable experience."

William looked pensive and Angel was happy to leave him to his thoughts—which were evidently not long on food.

"Can you tell me more about monsters?"

Angel, who's mind was still on the food track, blinked a few times to catch up.

"Er, like what?"

"Hmm…" William considered the question a moment. Then his eyes lit up, "I know! What's the biggest monster you ever fought?"

Angel made unintelligible noise in his throat, and then was silent with thought and decision. The water in the kettle reached a rapid boil, pushing the steam forcefully enough out the spout to start the whistle. Angel stood to tend to it.

"I'll get the milk!" William said eagerly as he dashed to the fridge. Angel thought nothing of the statement at first; until he realized that it was not milk that he kept in the fridge. Angel suddenly dropped the kettle back on the stove and snapped the fridge door shut before the boy could properly look inside. William jumped at the combined bang of the kettle and the door, and stared at the fridge in shock for a second, as if it hadn't yet dawned on him what happened. He looked up at Angel, bemused.

"I'm out of milk." Angel said. "Sorry. I have some sugar, though… In there." He pointed to a cabinet across the way. William, still dazed, fetched the sugar while Angel prepared the tea. Behind him, William took a breath to ask another question, but Angel spoke first.

"One of the biggest 'monsters' I ever fought was a giant, three-headed, slimy hell-worm." Angel served the tea, sat down, and told the story of how the Sisterhood of the Jhe tried to open the mouth of hell and how Angel helped save a small town on the other side of the world.

Calder raced down the city streets, his heart pounding. With agility and speed like a hunting tiger that came from years of practice, he ducked, jumped, and dodged his way to William's building. He leaped up the front stairs two-at-a-time (a feat he had just recently accomplished when he realized his legs were finally long enough), bounced on the balls of his feet while he waited for the lift, and finally burst through the Cole's door when William's mother opened it for him. He uttered a quick word of greeting to her as he dashed down the hall and into his best friend's room.

William was setting up for an impending war between his World War II soldiers and fleet of spaceships when Calder burst in and collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath probably more dramatically than necessary.

"Hi," William said, used to his friend's unexpected visits. "Wanna be the soldiers?"

Calder shook his head.

"Okay, fine. You can be the spaceships. You can't use the Destroyer C202, though, because that wouldn't be fair."

"I have…to show…you something." Calder managed to say between breaths.

"What?" William turned to look his friend in the eyes.

Calder stared back as seriously as he could and took a few extra gulps of air so he could spill his revelation properly. "Angel," he dropped his voice to a secretive whisper as William leaned in closer, "…is a vampire!"

William frowned and sat back on his heels. "He is not."

"He is too!" Calder cried, indignant that William hadn't reacted like Calder imagined he would.

"Prove it!" William demanded.

"I will!" Calder pulled Favorite Vampire Legends out from his coat pocket. "I got this from that magic store across from the Pope Center, so don't tell my mum about it, okay?"

William nodded and eagerly scooted closer to look at it.

"These are scary stories about vampires," Calder explained, brushing through the pages to find the right chapter. "They always have—oh, you have to read this one sometime about this vampire called 'The Master,' it's really good—they always have pictures of the vampire at the end of the chapter… Here."

Calder handed the book to his best friend and couldn't suppress a wide grin at William's cry of surprise and shock as he stared at the drawing on the page. Calder's jaw had dropped, too. It was Angel. Okay, so his hair was longer in the drawing, his clothing was ancient, and on his face was an eerily evil grin, but…

"And look at this," Calder pointed to the caption where it said, Angelus, c.1850, and covered up the last two letters of the name with his finger. William stared at the word Angel and the picture. "That's him, Will. Angel's a vampire. That's why he can fight demons!"

"He was out of milk today. Who runs out of milk…?"

"Huh?"

William told him about the milk, or lack of it, at Angel's flat earlier.

"Of course! Vampires don't drink milk! I wonder what he does keep in there?"

"Blood?" William offered.

"No, vampires drink blood from people. It would be gross all cold and not fresh."

"It would be gross anyway….."

"Not to a vampire. Have you ever seen his room? Does he sleep in a coffin?"

William shrugged. "I don't know."

"Have you ever seen him outside in the day? Vampires don't like sun."

"Well, after he saved me he brought me home in the morning, but it was rainy. I don't know, though, Cal," William said, flipping back a few pages and skimming the story. "Vampires are supposed to be evil, right? I don't think Angel would do any of this stuff. He saved my life and helped me be friends again with Jamina and made me tea. Wouldn't he have eaten me instead?" He paused to scan a passage that caught his eye. "And look," he pointed to the last paragraph, "they think he's dead."

"Exactly, they think! No one really knows what happened to him. Around 1900 he just disappeared off the face of the earth. Some vampire hunters say they killed him, but people have seen him after that. His story is the most mysterious of all vampires because no one ever found out why he went into hiding."

"Maybe people just saw his ghost?"

"I don't think vampires can become ghosts… Look at the picture again, Will, it's him! I know it is! If you don't believe me let's go to the magic store tomorrow after school and ask the guy there. He knows him."

"I think we should ask Angel first."

Calder frowned. "You think he'd tell us?"

"Sure, why not?"

"He wouldn't tell me about magic."

"Well if he doesn't then we can go ask at the magic store. Okay?"

Calder sighed. "Okay."

The following day after school the boys dropped their bags off at William's flat, shouted to William's mother that they were going to see a friend, then set off for Angel's.

All the way there, William steeled himself for what they were about to do. If Angel was a vampire—the vampire in the book, no less….well…no, he couldn't be. Wouldn't he have eaten William by now? Or done something else equally horrible to him? And yet the drawing looked just like him. But it wasn't a photo, so maybe the artist didn't know what Angelus really looked like. Maybe it was a coincidence. But the name… It was too similar to be a coincidence, right? William had read the full story, and Angelus seemed good at pretending to be nice, like he had been to William. He might just be biding his time, waiting for them to get bigger before he ate them, so they would have more blood for him to drink. But what if the fact that they knew about him made him decide to eat them now, so they wouldn't tell anyone else?

Of course, this last horrible thought occurred to him only after it was too late and they had knocked on Angel's door, as most horrible thoughts do. Angel answered faster than he normally did (or was it just William?), and they waited for him to step back before crossing the threshold. The door closed with an ominous click. William bit his lip. He and Calder had agreed that William should be the one to ask.

"Just visiting again, or do you want something?" Angel asked.

William bit his lip harder and Calder jabbed him with his elbow.

"You're a vampire!" William blurted. His eyes widened in shock and he clamped his jaw shut. That wasn't at all what William meant to say, but it was quick, to the point, and, most importantly, over with. It was clear Angel didn't quite know how to respond to this, so William added, "aren't you?"

Angel didn't respond: he seemed to be thinking about what to say. William decided to continue.

"We found this book…" From under his jacket, William pulled out the book Calder had bought. Angel took it and read the cover and the table of contents. Studying his face, the boys could not see a hint of the names that jumped out at Angel from among dozens, though they could tell from his eyes they had clearly hit on something.

"Here." William said, and turned to the chapter on Angelus. When Angel saw the drawing he paused and flipped back a page, scanning the end of the chapter. Then he checked the copyright date and looked up.

"Your book is out-of-date." He handed it back to them and looked at Calder. "Didn't I tell you Ferguson's isn't the best place to get your information?" Calder flushed. "If you want to know more about vampires," Angel walked over to one of the bookshelves, "try this one. It's short, but accurate."

He pulled off a small book that could have been no more than 100 pages in length and gave it to the boys. "I'm going to make some tea. I bought some milk last night." He addressed William, who smiled slightly.

Angel returned several minutes later to find the boys on the couch deeply engrossed in the book. He sat down and began to pour the tea.

"What?" he asked as Calder started and failed to say something several times.

"Well…this is great," Calder said, looking at the book, "but…what I really want to know is….what about you?"

"What about me?" Indicating the tray, Angel added, "Sugar? Milk?"

"Both," Calder replied. "Well, you are a vampire, right? I mean, you're really pale and really strong and you have a fridge but you don't keep milk in it! And vampires live forever, so it could be you in the picture, right? It looks just like you and the name is almost the same."

Angel set the cups of tea in front of the boys before answering, "Yes, that's me."

"This book says that vampires are killers," William said, his heart thudding harder against his chest again. "Does that mean you're going to kill us?"

"No."

"Why?"

Angel laced his fingers together and sighed, more from the decision facing him than frustration. "I told you," he said, "your book is out-of-date. It doesn't tell the full story, nor is it completely accurate." He paused. "It's supposed to be a book of scary stories. Many of the facts are exaggerated and some just aren't true."

"So you didn't really do all these things?" William asked, hopeful.

Angel hesitated. "Not those things." Then he added, "There weren't actually any witnesses for most of these…stories. People made thing up based on rumors."

Calder leaned forward eagerly. "What rumors?"

Angel sat still in his chair, contemplating something for a moment. Then he bent forward to pick up his cup. "Alright," he said, leaning back. "I'll tell you my story. But I'll be honest with you: I won't give you the full details."

"Why?" Calder asked.

Angel glanced at him, and neither boy could decipher his expression. "It's a really long story," he said, and paused to sip some tea. "You see, I was turned into a vampire in 1753…"