Virlaq Kingdom

15

Michael T. Chase

12/02/00

I discovered something I shouldn't have discovered the other day.

Mallory had a secret door hidden in the bookshelf of his office. Through this door, I found a laboratory of some sort. I'm not sure what its purpose was, but there didn't seem to be anyone working down there. I almost saw something down there, I could've sworn it was human. Or at least something that looked human.

I was able to run my way back up into his office before he came and figured out that I found out his secret, but he looked suspicious. I think he knows.

Scratch that, I'm positive that he knows.

When I left that day, he told me not to stick my nose in places I shouldn't.

Despite that, I think I'm going to go back down there. I have to figure out what Mallory's getting himself into. This could mean trouble, not just for the company but for our people. I know these new vampires in the company have something to do with it. They're tainting the purity of Dragon.

I have to go back down there.

If I don't find out, I-

"Silver!" Nick slammed Silver's bedroom door open, causing Silver to drop his father's journal. He had spent almost an hour finding the passage that seemed to connect with Silver's weird nightmare and he didn't even get to finish it.

Silver sighed, "Agh! What? I found something really important!" he pressed.

Nick, wearing nothing but silk pants and an unbuttoned sweater that showed his bare chest, grabbed Silver by the shoulders and pulled him close.

"They took Diana!" he hissed in Silver's face.

They stared at each other, Silver blinking before what the prince said finally sinking in. "W-what?" He stuttered dumbly.

"Dragon Co. The Dragons took Diana!" He yelled, letting the man go and pacing the room frantically, "I-I don't know what to do! I can't tell my dad or else they'll hurt my mom. I can't tell Donald because then he'll tell my dad..."

"Why would they want your sister?" Silver asked, "They're after me, not your family."

"They probably want me to trade you for her back. They're gonna threaten me with your life," Nick shook his head, panicking running his hand through his hair, "I already called Darius, he said he could get me an appointment with his father this weekend."

"Okay, so..." Silver said, using a soothing voice to calm the prince, "We'll make the trade and you'll get your sister back, Nick, it's going to be o-"

"Are you insane?" Nick shouted, turning to the man, he made his way back to Silver's bedside, "You honestly think I'm going to just hand them to you?"

"You can't let them hurt Diana!" Silver looked at Nick like he had gone crazy, "Look, we can make the trade and figure out what to do later."

"That's not going to happen Silver," Nick shook his head.

But Silver wasn't backing down, "Nick, I'm not going to let them do anything to your sist-"

"I'm not giving them to you!" The prince raised his voice again.

"It's the only thing we can do right now!" Silver sighed, "Nick, you can't just-"

"Enough!" Nick's fangs dropped down and his eyes glowed a snake-like yellow, shifting to slits. His voice dropped down to a dangerously low octave, crackling, and making Silver almost shiver, "I'm not letting Dragon co. take you. We will come up with another option, and we'll figure this out. That is final."

Silver wanted to speak more but was rendered speechless by the scary look in Nick's eyes. He suddenly thought of the bracelet on his wrist- then scolded himself for it.

Nick wouldn't ever hurt him, Silver thought, the only reason he was this angry was that he was trying to stop Silver from getting hurt. He wouldn't hurt him himself.

Although Nick was very scary when he was angry.

The prince seemed to realize Silver's shift in attitude and how scary he must've looked. He cleared his throat awkwardly, dropping his eyes to lock on anything that could help change the subject.

"Uh.," he said, nervously, eyes finally landing on the journal Silver had dropped. He bent down and picked it up, "What's this?"

"My father's journal." Silver answered quietly, "I think James sent it to me. I found it under my pillow."

Nick flipped through the pages, eyeing them skeptically, "And you're 100% positive that James is really the one that sent it to you?"

"No, but I have nothing else to go off of." Silver shrugged, "I found the continuation of my dream or vision or whatever you wanna call it. He wrote about it in here."

"Where?" The prince asked.

"December 2nd," Silver told him, "So I think maybe this jour-"

"Wait," Nick interrupted. Silver watch his eyes with awe. They flitted down the pages so fast his pupils looked like a blur. After about 5 seconds he looked up, "Okay, I read it."

"You read that so fast!" Silver gawked.

Nick smiled, happy to see Silver wasn't so tense around him again. "I actually read it five times. Just to make sure I wasn't missing anything or any clues."

"So what now?" Silver asked, "You said we can't make the trade so what are we gonna do? There's hardly any time before your meeting with Mallory. We can't tell anyone and we can't come up with anything...." he said nervously.

Nick sighed, digging into the deepest part of his brain for something-anything-they could do to. He suddenly felt hopeless and scared. And weak.

Then an idea popped into his brain.

"MJ and Felix are still in town," He said out loud but mainly to himself.

"King Felix?" Silver asked, "You think they can help us."

"Definitely not Felix. He's way too public and I don't want this thing to go public," He bit his lip, "But MJ's magic could be useful."

"You should call him over," Silver said.

"Yeah," Nick nodded, "Tomorrow maybe. For now, let's go eat. I cleaned up Diana's room. When they ask, I'll just say she went with father because she missed him or something. That won't work for long but it's something."

"You're so smart," Silver stared at him with admiration.

Nick smiled, eyes softening at the compliment. Then his eyes turned sad.

"Not smart enough to save you apparently."