Her eyes pricked, and she clenched her jaw tighter.
“We are going to go home now and give all of this up for tonight. This can be discussed a different time.”
She heard a smile on the last three words, and she knew he was trying to be nothing but comforting again. Her gaze finally touched his, her heart feeling like it had splintered. “But what about you? I didn’t hunt for you tonight.”
He smiled again. “I’ll be fine.” He stood. “Come. Let’s go home.” He held his arm out to her, offering to pull her from the thoughts she was drowning in.
Apprehensively, she took it and they started walking together, out of the abandoned garden. Her eyelids felt so heavy, she fought to keep them open. The world around her started to tilt in odd ways. Her teeth began to chatter again. She just wanted it all to be over.
The image of the Witch hovering over him branded itself into Charlotte’s mind, and she decided she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Valek’s hand enveloped hers, but things still felt a little weird so she tried to casually wriggle her hand free. He let it go, but Charlotte was sure he didn’t miss her motive. He rarely missed anything.
“I was actually just about to come and find you after our argument when she knocked on the door,” he continued.
She knew he was only trying to make things better, but it wasn’t working and Charlotte wished he had just left it alone. The earth started to tilt a little more under her feet. She blinked, stumbled forward, and caught herself on his arm.
“Lottie?” He stopped. “Lottie, are you okay?”
His liquid velvet voice reverberated around in her hollowed-out head. It almost sounded like he was calling to her down a long, steel tunnel. She opened her mouth to respond when her eyes rolled back into her head. The entire world disappeared from under her as everything faded to black.
***
Aiden was still awake, skimming over a crumpled set of parchment paper. Everyone else in the house had already gone to bed, and he found the solitude—something he rarely experienced with so many siblings—soothing as he read.
Before him, lit by a dim lantern perched next to him on the edge of the sofa, was a list of names, all employed by the Central European Magic Regime. Aiden was determined to find out who the assailant from the woods was. How dare anyone from the Regime try and attack him? After all, that Lycanthrope guard should have known immediately who he was.
He glanced up at the small, wooden clock above the mantle. The second hand ticked, like a metronome, a little too loudly. Father should be arriving any moment. Aiden had called on him the moment Charlotte left, not wanting to reveal to her the enormous secret he’d been hiding over the years they had been friends.
Danek Price was not simply a mere, woodland Elf. Aiden couldn’t help but grin in the dark room from the utter reverence he felt for his father.
Hearing the familiar sound, like a heavy gush of wind, of someone projecting just outside the front door, Aiden shot up from the couch. His father had arrived at last. A knot formed in Aiden’s throat just before he approached the door. It had been a considerable amount of time since they had last seen one another. The Regime didn’t always allow time for Father to return home. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have wanted to, Aiden admitted with a frown.
“Son.” Danek lingered in the doorway, a mere astral projection of his physical self. His bottom half was nothing but a swirling cloud of smoky mist, and any uninformed person might have thought they’d seen a ghost if they were lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Aiden guessed his father’s physical body must be somewhere secure within the walls of the Regime palace. Astral projection was considered very dangerous, and by law, something only a very skilled Wizard could perform. Aiden was not yet experienced enough.
“Thank you for coming, Father.” Aiden lowered his head and stepped aside, allowing his father’s astral body to enter the cottage. He watched Danek’s eyes shift around the room. Aiden guessed the small home seemed extremely modest in comparison to the lavish lifestyle of living in the palace.
“Where is your mother? Is she all right?”
A new knot tied in Aiden’s throat. He longed for his family to be whole again one day, but he knew that was unlikely. “Everyone is sleeping.”
“Why have you called on me, then?”
Aiden frowned. No matter what, this could not sound like some trivial schoolyard crush. That wasn’t what this was. “I need to speak with the lord, Vladislov, right way. It is…regarding something very important.”
Danek raised an eyebrow. “Something bothers you?”
Aiden’s hands trembled slightly, and he shoved them deep within his pockets. Even as a spirit, his father was intimidating. “Since I was very young, you taught me never to trust the followers of the dark—”
“Yes, Aiden, though you and your mother went against my word,” Danek interjected.
Aiden stopped pacing, looked his at his father directly. “No, Mother never went against you. Not for a moment! But if you were to banish me, of course she was going to follow. I am her child!”
Danek’s stern features tensed. “And I am her husband. Aiden, she went against me by befriending one of our natural enemies. Both of you did. You must make your point quickly. I have to get back.”
Aiden looked at the floor, choosing his next words carefully. “I understand now,” he said quietly. There was a moment of absolute silence between them. Aiden had to glance up to see if his father was even still there. “Valek Ruzik has what I want. He has committed a serious crime against the Regime.” Aiden continued to struggle to articulate. “What I mean to say is…I am finally ready to accept Vladislov’s offer.”
“Good,” Danek replied shortly, folding his ghostly arms behind him. “But Aiden, we already have a plan for the Vampire….”
***
Valek caught Charlotte and lifted her into his arms with ease. He began walking again and gazed down at the frail girl he carried her through the night. Her face seemed as peaceful as it had the night he first found her. It really hadn’t changed all that much, he decided. She was still the sweet, confused little Lottie who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. He hadn’t taken the chance to really look at her lately. She had grown into such a beautiful young woman, and he realized just how proud he had become of her.
As he continued through the quiet town square, Valek listened to her thoughts. He had never paid this much attention to her mind and found himself completely entertained by the mental war raging inside her, even as she slept.
But then, and not to his surprise, an overwhelming feeling of sadness came over him. This was his Charlotte–his Lottie. She was his child. But now, that which had been so peaceful for years was about to grow to a great complexity. This battle was not yet over. He could feel it.
Valek barely noticed the creatures gawking at him from inside the opened taverns, nosily wondering what he had done to poor, lifeless Charlotte in his arms. If it hadn’t been for their annoyingly curious thoughts aimed directly at him, he probably wouldn’t have been aware of them at all. They stared with their multi-specied eyes, and whispered things to one another, though with his keenness, they might as well have been screaming. They elbowed each other in the ribs, pointing their extended claws.
A Witch with an edgy, white, bowl cut, chic against her angular face, nudged Evangeline, who looked up from a conversation she’d been having with a tall, male Elf.
“Valek!” She shrieked and ran to the center of the square. Several gasps fluttered from the crowd.
Valek stopped walking, glancing around defensively at the ogling eyes.
“Valek! What did you do to her?” Evangeline asked, exasperated, and staring wild-eyed.
Valek saw she had somehow managed to gussy up more than she already had been that evening. Her chestnut hair swirled in loose curls around her pale rounded shoulders. Dark, emerald eyes glimmered under a bed of curled lashes. But all of that didn’t appeal to him so much this time
around. It seemed oddly sort of fake, like there was a hag cowering just underneath the layers of sparkling gossamer and ribbon.
He sneered. “I did nothing.”
“Then, what happened to her?”
“Nothing. She’s just exhausted.” He looked down at Charlotte again.
“Why are you crying then?” She reached up to the streaks of blood falling from his eyes.
He was quick to pull away, agitated. Had he really been crying? “I do not know. I hadn’t realized it.” He glared back once more at the watchful eyes staring at them around the village square, noticing how eerily still everything had become. “I believe I am just tired as well. Won’t you excuse me?”
“Can I walk you home?” Evangeline asked.
Valek shot a malevolent glower at the macho Elf still standing in the shadows of the tavern. Evangeline apparently did not waste any time finding another toy to play with.
“I believe your new friend would not feel right by that,” Valek seethed through gritted fangs. “You may hurt his feelings.”
Evangeline’s face burned with a chagrin Valek found neither appetizing, nor appealing.
“So, I think I’ll make it home myself. Thanks.” The urge to kill her was more out of fury rather than thirst, but he kept walking, leaving Evangeline alone in the center of the road.
Valek found himself stalking instead of gliding, like he normally did, back to his home at the far end of the street. It had been a long time since he had gone a full night without blood, though he believed nothing serious would happen to him. Veins throbbing under his icy skin pained him to no end. The anger that pulsed inside him didn’t help the situation either.
All of the lights were still on inside. The door left wide open after he ran out after Charlotte. He made his way back inside and slammed the door shut, barely touching it. He trudged up the stairs. All of the lanterns lining the wall on the way to the second story flickered out, bulbs bursting into thousands of tiny shards he crushed under the soles of his shoes.
Charlotte hung limp in his arms, her still face twitching every so often with a new thought. The floorboards, which normally creaked when Charlotte treaded on them, were silent under Valek’s feet as he made his way into her bedroom. Again, he noted how quiet and still the house felt without her. Charlotte’s bedcovers were still turned down from when she had woken up earlier that evening. He recalled their argument, instantly regretting having it.
He lay her down and removed her shoes. Charlotte was still adorned in her soaking, black dress, her hair clinging in thick pieces to her sleeping face. A nearly invisible shiver made her lower lip tremble, and he knew he had to remove the garment before she caught her death. A discomfort quickly flared up under his skin and if he were alive, he imagined it would have been several shades of chagrin turning him red. He sighed as he bent over her, gingerly fumbling with the pearl-face buttons beginning just below her collarbone, until he was able to slide it completely off her in one fluid motion. Quickly, he pulled the blanket around her, his gaze fixated on the dusty floorboards instead of on her.
He gazed at her again. She finally seemed peaceful; though he knew a million things haunted her behind those pretty eyelids.
He sat on the edge of the bed and watched sleep calm her features. Touching her soft curls, twirling them around his fingers, he listened contently to her complicated dreams, not surprised at all that they revolved around him. It shouldn’t have, but it made him smile. He glanced over at the alarm clock on her bedside table to see it was almost four a.m.
The muscles in his arms felt weak as the thirst started to flare in his throat again. Valek watched Charlotte’s chest expand and contract as she breathed. He leaned down and buried his nose in her hair, breathing in her rosy perfume, listening to the warm vibration of her pulse. It created a sharp, stabbing pain in his gums, his mouth drying up like he had swallowed a bale of cotton.
Lottie, my love, there is more than just the one reason why we could never be together. The angel and Satan’s plaything—together forever, he scoffed.
Though, he did love being so close to something so vulnerable, so real, and so alive, he decided that was what he loved most about her. It was a constant reminder of what he used to be—what had been taken away from him.
He inhaled her scent once more and an unrelenting burning shot up the back of his esophagus again, worse this time. He darted away from her, clinging to the furthest wall. Ruby veins glowed at him under the ivory current of her flesh. He shut his eyes tight against the sight of it. His gums throbbed harder, beckoning him to feed and he covered his mouth firmly with the back his hand, feeling his eyes begin to water.
Slowly, he walked to the door, turning one last time to look at his “Little Lottie,” knowing things were going to change between them forever. The door clicked shut.
He plummeted down the stairs and into the library, now made eerily dismal because of the dying fire. On his armchair sat a white, folded note. He opened it cautiously, already knowing who it was from. Evangeline’s face was creased from the horizontal fold. Her gray-scale eyes in the picture opened with a sad gaze toward him.
“Sorry,” the note sounded in an airy, musical voice, double-toned by a chord lower and sadder, before it vanished in a cloud of purple and gold.
“It is too late for sorry,” Valek muttered and collapsed into his chair. He put his head in one clawed hand and sighed. His lips throbbed with the thirst, and he knew death was imminent in just a few moments. He didn’t even have enough energy to make it back upstairs to his bedroom and close the curtains.
He sat there, analyzing the situation before him. His Lottie, his doll he had treasured and polished for years, the one he saw as eternally innocent, forever a little girl, had finally grown up.
The day he neglected to anticipate had finally come. In the back of his mind, he’d known it was coming. She was womanly. The little girl he’d watched change before his unchanging eyes, year after year after year, had made a change he hadn’t anticipated. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to anticipate it, because he didn’t want to believe she would ever change that way—that she would ever grow up. He mulled this over until the feeling of perishing was finally too overwhelming to ignore any longer.
First, breathing became more difficult as he choked and fixated on the oxygen. He fought with it until he felt his brittle ribs give to the pressure. He moaned softly, careful not to wake Charlotte, as his vision started to haze and then blacken. Soft flesh hardened around his drying bones. A louder cry ripped from him as his spine arched backward, pushing against the death that clung to him as he, himself, had been death clinging to life hundreds of times before.
The room grew entirely too cold and he clutched the sides of the chair, tearing holes in the upholstery with his mangled claws as he heaved. He fought for every last moment, tearing into his consciousness for one single shred of life. But the darkness finally enveloped the vision of the room before him as one final image shimmered before his blazing eyes. Charlotte.
Chapter Six
Bedrich, Danek, Kazimir and…Vladislov
Sitting alone in his office chamber, Vladislov watched the world teem outside his window. A phenomenal October sun painted its jack-o-lantern color across the morning sky. The moon had begun to disappear, fading against the periwinkle clouds behind the mountains of the West. His side of the world was now waking up to greet the day as Western civilization tucked itself in for another dark night. Mortal children stretched in their beds, yawning up at the brightened sky as their mothers rushed them out into their mundane lives. School. Work. Mortals wasted this earth. They took up space better used by the Occult—those with what he considered to have divine blood. But as everything ordinary was, they were temporary. Dust in the wind. They’d be gone soon. He cracked a smile that stretched the cavernous lines in his face.
Ever since the advent of life on Earth, there had always been deviations from what mortal society considered normal. Otherworldly creatures with
the divine spark of magic—things only spoken about in fairy tales and legends among humans, were the things Vladislov considered normal, and fought to conceal behind walls. But with a powerful civilization comes a powerful government to keep order, and Vladislov resided at the very top.
Wind whistled through hollows in the alleyways of his city, while unseen spirits descended into the white light of the sun now raying off car windshields. People rushed off in their lives, completely unaware of the more powerful forces existing in the simplest forms around them, all of it going unnoticed. It existed in the wind malevolently blowing their hats into the path of an oncoming vehicle. It existed inside the perilous mind of an envious ex-lover. And it existed in an unassuming building standing very regally near the center of Prague, in Old Town, where Vladislov sat.
The Regime Headquarters did not exist in some grand Occult city at the top of the world, as even he used to fantasize as an Elven child. The oligarchy of the master Wizards ruled from a small country in the heart of Eastern Europe in a capital city, infested with mortals, hiding in plain sight—as magic always tended to do.
Vladislov and his advisors lived and worked in the center of Prague, completely unbeknownst to mortal society. It was the most enchanted, modern metropolis in the world and the only Occult city the Regime could not hide. Human population flocked to the city mainly for its beauty. The history etched in the brick and mortar of Prague Castle, the old gates and bridges, kept mortals coming, fantasizing about the things they didn’t know actually existed. People could not deny the energy one found when walking about the glistening streets. It was powerful enough to fuel both the magical and the mortal realms, and so the Regime made the choice to have their order exist secretly amongst the common people of Europe. Because, after all, Vladislov couldn’t blame the lesser species for being so attracted to his divine race.
To the outsider, the building’s façade might have looked like some sort of embassy, with darkened, common bricks and long mirrored windows—all things completely spellbound, of course. If human blood ever tried to enter the palace doors, a simple touch of the handle would erase all short-term memory. Vladislov chuckled darkly. The grand doors always seemed locked, but could be opened with a rune most common Elves would not be familiar with. The Regime remained protected and coveted, even from its own kind, as any other government building was. Its one spire, atop the tarnished dome that shone turquoise in the sun, protruded high over the other surrounding rooftops. The building, for the most part, seemed completely common, except for the fact that once inside, its depth seemed to go on indefinitely.
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