Derek struggled with the watch but managed to buckle the leather band. It was an old watch, but it was ticking. So this would now tell him the minutes and the hours of his new freedom. He felt suddenly hungry and exhausted and overwhelmed. He wanted to be excited, efficient, and helpful to the boy.
He drew close to see the computer monitor over his son's shoulder.
At once pictures of a giant yacht filled the screen, a Cheoy Lee 58 Sportfish. The boy was fast-forwarding through interiors of sumptuous cabins and what looked like a control room or cockpit of sorts. Derek knew nothing of modern boats.
"Father, get dressed," said the boy. "Let me take care of this. Hurry."
Derek found a pair of dark wool pants, put them on, and unwrapped a new white shirt from its plastic. As he balled up his old mutilated shirt, a surge of bitterness and anger moved through him.
"For ten years, they kept me prisoner," he said under his breath. "Ten years, if you can imagine it, ten years, in a dreary locked room in a cellar in Budapest..." The words were bubbling up out of him uncontrollably.
"I know," said his son. "There is time for vengeance. I can manage this boat easily. Everything I need to know is here. No problem. Channel sixteen is the universal Coast Guard channel. If the boat has full tanks..."
Derek found a brush and comb. He ca
ught sight of himself in the long mirror on the open closet door. He hadn't seen his own reflection in so many years. It felt unbelievably good to rip the brush through his thick hair. But he knew his son had a confidence and demeanor he didn't possess. He looked like his son's younger brother.
Suddenly the computer began to talk. But the talk was entirely mixed with the sound of a piano playing. Ah, it was Benji Mahmoud talking on the vampire radio station.
"And all the Children of the Night throughout the world must be on the lookout for these three, Felix Welf, Dr. Karen Rhinehart who might also use the middle name Kapetria, and Garekyn on the West Coast of the United States, who has murdered another blood drinker."
"Welf! Did you hear that?" Derek cried. "Welf is with Kapetria. We are all alive, all of us! That is all of us!"
"Yes, I know," said the boy indifferently. He was tapping the buttons relentlessly as the voice continued. Suddenly Derek saw three faces on the screen: Garekyn unconscious lying on some sort of table; and official frontal portraits of Kapetria and Welf.
Welf was smiling in his photograph, Welf the calm one, the one who had always smiled so easily, my big brother! His curly hair was massive and handsome, and his dark eyes brimmed with spirit.
And we will be together once again! Derek was struggling to keep back tears. "We have to escape, we have to survive, we have to!" he said childishly. And then, "You will never in a million years know what all this means."
He buttoned his new clean shirt and tucked it into his pants.
The voice went on, words running steadily under the soft sweet current of the music, like a dark unfurling ribbon.
"I do know what it means, Father," said his son, "because I know everything you know, I told you, but I don't have so much emotion attached to the information." The boy looked at him. "Now I want you to give me a name."
The computer voice was saying something about murder, blood, decapitation. He was describing the trio of black-skinned black-haired non-humans as murderous, and a danger to the Undead. Worldwide alert. All blood drinkers were to hunt the trio.
"Listen to him, he's lying!" said Derek. He was going through the socks and boots laid out on the bed. "Listen! This is all wrong. We are not the enemies of anything. What did you say about a name?"
"I suggest my name be Derek Two pronounced as one word and spelt as such, Derektwo, and I'll take your modern last name, Alcazar, which you took after your rescuer."
"No," said Derek, but he was focused on the radio voice. "You're not as clever as you think you are. Roland knows the name Alcazar. Roland went back to my apartment in Madrid after he'd taken me prisoner, and sacked it for information. Roland reported me dead."
He sat down on a leather ottoman with the black socks and brown shoes he'd chosen from the bed.
"Of course, you are right. All you know is inside me, but I'm not perfect at summoning the information. Give me a name."
"Derektwo sounds absurd and will look absurd," said Derek.
Black skin, said Benji Mahmoud, black curly hair, highly visible gold streaks in their hair. Strength of ten human beings. A desire for the vampiric blood, the vampiric brain.
"That has to be a lie!" said Derek. "We have no craving for vampiric blood or brains. That is a filthy lie."
"My name, Father. You are to give me my name."
"What is this, a baptism?" demanded Derek. "Shorten your name to D-e-r-t-u," Derek said. "That's plenty good enough. And it sounds fairly normal. And if there is to be a Derek three and a Derek four, we'll figure some way to sound it out properly. Dertu will do. You don't need a last name now."
"Very well," said the boy, "Dertu it is. I never thought of that. The last name can wait. We can't risk anything with new names from this computer, anyway. We'll worry about last names when we reach Scotland or Ireland."