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I was back on Skull Island.

Total elapsed time was just over an hour. I found Allison where I'd left her: in her bedroom lying with the steak knife clutched in her hand. Her bone-white hand. Yes, I'd felt bad leaving her, but trusted our psychic connection to alert me should she be in any danger.Advertisement

"What took you so long?" she asked, setting the knife aside after virtually prying her fingers open. "I thought super bats made great time."

I ignored her; instead, I filled her in on what I'd learned.

"And who's Archibald Maximus?" she asked.

"He's a librarian at Cal State Fullerton."

"The University?"

"Yes."

"What is he, like 215 years old?"

Her math, I suspected, was dubious. I said, "No. He looks younger than you, although that's not hard to do."

"Mean, Samantha Moon," she said.

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"Very mean. Is he a vampire, too?"

"No. Not quite. He's something else."

She read my thoughts. "An ascended master?"

"Or a warrior of the light," I said.

"He's here to counterbalance the darkness."

"Is he single?"

"Allison..."

"Sorry, sorry. So, what does all this mean?"

"I don't know yet," I said.

"He obviously survived the shipwreck, since only the captain died."

"Right," I said.

"And he was transporting a treasure."

"Right again," I said.

"What kind of treasure would a warrior of the light have?" asked Allison.

"I mean, isn't he supposed to be above material wealth and all that?"

"Maybe," I said, and thought of the simple young man I'd met a few times now working in the Occult Room at Cal State Fullerton, a young man who wasn't so young after all. A young man who had, quite remarkably, reversed my son's vampirism, using the first of four powerful medallions.

Medallions he had shown me in a book. Medallions that were created, he'd said, to counter the effects of vampirism, although he had told me nothing more.

Allison had been following my train of thoughts, seeing my memory as I reviewed it.

"Four medallions," she said, commenting on the book Archibald had once shown me of the four golden discs.

"Yes," I said.

"And you have had two of them?"

"Yes."

"Aren't these, like, rare?"

"Well, there's only four of them."

"And one of them is presently on you - "

"In me," I corrected, and showed her the circular-shaped scar along my upper chest.

"Gotcha. And easy on the vampire cleavage, Sam. Kinda gross." She faked a shiver. "How did you get the first one?"

"It was sort of hand-delivered to me."

I gave her the image of the hunky, blond-haired vampire hunter who'd posed as a UPS deliveryman. She nodded. "And why did he deliver the medallion to you?"

"I'm not entirely sure."

"Sam, perhaps you are not seeing this, so let me spell it out for you: there are only four of these bad boys in the whole wide world."

I waited. She waited.

"Well?" she asked, exasperated.

"Well, what?"

She rolled her eyes and got up and stood in front of me. "Sam, somehow you are attracting these medallions."

"Pshaw," I said, blowing her off.

"Only a coincidence."

"Is it, Sam? And now you are on an island where, quite possibly, one of the medallions is hidden."

"That's a leap," I said.

"Is it? The same entity, the same warrior of the light, lost his treasure over a hundred years ago, a treasure that has never been found - "

"Because it sank off the coast. It's buried in muck."

"Or is it?" asked Allison. She was on a roll. "There were fourteen survivors, Sam. They obviously had life rafts of some sort. How easily could our friend Archibald Maximus - the same guy, mind you, who first showed you the book containing the four medallions - how easily could he have hidden his treasure here on this island?"

"You're crazy," I said. "There's no evidence of the treasure being hidden on the island."

"And there's no evidence of it ever being found, either. Didn't the professor say that divers have been looking for it for decades? Well, maybe they're looking in the wrong place. Maybe they should be looking here, on this island - where, I might add, this entity friend of ours is compelling Tara and Edwin to dig endlessly."

I opened my mouth to speak. There was a sort of insane logic to what she was saying.

"Insane?" she echoed, reading my thoughts.

"Kinda crazy, kiddo," I said. "But what makes you think Archibald even had one of the medallions?"

"I don't know, but it makes sense. A treasure, Sam. A treasure. The medallion would be considered treasure, wouldn't it? Besides, what else would the entity have Edwin and Tara looking for? The family doesn't exactly need a few crappy gold coins."

"I could use a few crappy gold coins."

"Me, too," said Allison. "My point is this: there is a very good chance the third medallion is here, on this island."

"Then why lure me up here?"

"Isn't it obvious, Sam?"

"No."

"The entity - and now me - thinks that you can help it find it."

"Now that's crazy."

"Maybe, maybe not. Remember, Sam, you have possessed two prior medallions.

By this point, it might be desperate."

"Fine. Then what does it want with my kids?"

And just as the question escaped my lips, I knew the answer. Allison, in tune with my own thoughts, gasped.

"One of the medallions is in you," she said. "And the other medallion..."

"Is in my son," I said grimly.

"Didn't Archibald break down the other medallion into some sort of potion?"

I nodded, feeling so sick that I could vomit. A potion that my son drank. "Yes."

"A medallion which reversed your son's vampirism?" said Allison.

"Mostly."

"So, in effect, one medallion is in you, and one is in him, and the third..."

"Might just be on this island," I said, and held my stomach, thinking of my son.

"But why does he want the medallions?"

"I don't know."

It was at that moment that a God-awful loud wolf-howl blasted through the blowing wind.

Allison jumped. "Jesus, was that a wolf?"

"Yes," I said, feeling some relief.

"Here on the island? I thought there were no predators."

"Not of the mortal kind," I said. "Get dressed." pqdm.com