by Cameron Jace
"Let go of him," Night ordered his henchmen. "The music caught my son already. Let him go taste her." He began playing again.
Angel, now free, had his red eyes fixed on me. His darkened stare sent shivers down my spine. Seeing the bulging veins in his hands, I realized how strong he had turned. How hungry had he become? There was nothing I could do to prevent him from killing me but staring back at him. My beauty, which I hadn't been able to see in the pond, was my last defense after he'd been changed. He had said he loved the way I looked. It should work its magic on him again.
Sadly, it didn't.
In the blink of an eye, Angel was standing right in front of me. He pulled the henchmen away, not taking his eyes away from me. His grip squeezed on my neck. He lifted me up effortlessly, my feet kicking uselessly in the air.
Night stopped playing. "That's my son. Take her!"
Angel lowered my head to the level of his eyes. Any color had been already swallowed by the darkness of his pupils. It led me to believe he really didn't have a soul, not the slightest hint of humanity in his breath. He pulled me closer and drew his fangs to my neck. I felt a pinch like a needle. It was abrupt and fast, but he didn't sink his teeth in…yet.
He wounded me enough to draw blood and let it smear his teeth.
"I'd like to have her alone," Angel told his father, who threw him a suspicious look. "She's my first human. I need to feel it's a special moment."
Night approached him and touched Angel's lips with his fingers, smearing them with my blood. He tasted it himself then smiled slowly. "Why not?" he said. "Enjoy your first, my son, and let us know if she is the one." He ordered his henchmen to leave.
Angel stared back at me with such intensity that it squeezed sweat out of my pores. "Remember when I said I'd like you to stare at me forever to heal my soul?" he whispered, and I nodded. "Keep doing it, no matter how many people I kill."
While the henchmen had their backs facing Angel, he lowered me and squeezed my hands before he turned around. Angel pulled out one of their swords and stabbed the first one right in the gut. Even Night Von Sorrow didn't have enough time to realize his son was tricking him. Angel tightened his grip on my hands, as if it gave him the strength he needed, and slashed at the henchmen, piercing our way to the door.
The power he had been granted by the flute's melody was still in him, but not for long. I assumed its effect would subside soon, since Night Von Sorrow wasn't here and wasn't playing anymore. Angel had managed to use it against his family.
I couldn't even keep up with this speed, so he lifted me up with one hand as if I were a doll. All I knew was that I hadn't seen such fierce anger in my life—then again, I had been imprisoned in a castle amidst the snow; I was, in many ways, naive beyond recognition.
I tried not to stare as he killed people left and right, spattering my face and dress with blood. Spattering the air with blood. I closed my eyes. As traumatic as the experience was, I could feel darkness growing in me. Something in me wasn't right. Something in me wasn't who I'd always thought I was. I just didn't know what as I enjoyed Angel killing every one of them. Maybe I was learning that goodness sometimes needed to be spread to the world through blood, not smiles.
Angel's anger was dark and inhuman. He roared like a lion when he removed heads with his bare hands. I knew he was roaring to keep his dark soul from succumbing to his father's wishes. Angel was basically two people. A devil named Angel.
Later in the years, when I remembered this moment, I thought about how all lovers have their "firsts." Usually it's a first kiss, a first song, or a first date. Angel and I were different to any other lovers. We had our first lies, first scars, and first kills. Our first blood.
"Believe in me, Carmilla," Angel begged me as he continued the massacre of his own people. "Believe in me."
And that was when I knew how he did it. Through my longing for him. It felt unfair, to be honest, that all I had to do was believe in a man who killed his own people to do the right thing. But it was how it worked. With so much killing going on, and having not seen so much blood and death before, I fainted in his arms eventually, believing in him more than ever, but with blood on my hands as well as his.
Before I fainted, I remembered my mother's story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and how the gods honored their love with blood-red apples. I began to see the resemblance to my story with Angel. We were the new Romeo and Juliet, but fiercer, bloodier. We were called Angel and Carmilla.
21
I woke up in my bed in the Karnstein castle some time later.
I was safe and sound, surrounded by family and friends. I was back in my royal life, wrapped in sheets of silk and pampered like a princess all over again. I was back home where I belonged, back in my mother and father's arms of protection and safety, back where one should feel at ease and love.
But still I felt so alone, not knowing why. Something huge was missing from my life, an irreplaceable void, and I had no idea what it was.
Day after day, I walked in a shadow of what I was meant to be. A harsh and dizzying feeling of having no identity, of pretending to be someone other than who I really was.
But this was my home. This was my life and I supposedly hadn't known any other. It was a good life that any girl would have dreamed of—so good that I felt ashamed.
Seven days later, I realized what was wrong with me. I realized I didn't remember what had happened to me after escaping the castle and wanting to see my reflection in the water—of course, I regained my memory later.
Angel hadn't just saved me from his evil clan—and himself—he had also erased my memory of what had happened. One of Angel's most dangerous skills was the ability to erase mortal beings' memories.
My family told me that I had been lost in the forest, and that they found me in a golden-painted carriage—shaped like a pumpkin—outside the castle two days later. They said they didn't know who'd brought me back, but that they were more than grateful. My mother joked that it must have been my secret admirer, my knight in shining armor.
Of course, I knew they were lying to me, because they never mentioned the dead soldiers by the castle's gate, executed by the dark man whose face I hadn't seen.
I kept spending my days lost in a web of strange hazes, of faintly remembered memories, mistaking them for daydreaming. Although I didn't remember what had happened to me, I couldn't escape the feeling of having lost something dear to me—Angel.
Long walks in the castle's gardens, long days picking apples from trees, and long sleepless nights couldn't bury that feeling. It stayed with me like a suppressed childhood memory that you can't remember but can never forget.
I was trapped in that haze for two years, until I turned nineteen, keeping to myself, with no interest of seeing my reflection, making friends, or meeting men. Seasons changed, one after the other, trees died, babies were born, and I stayed the same.
At some point I began asking about the apple trader who'd just vanished from existence. My father told me he'd changed his line of business and all contacts between the Karnsteins and Angel Hassenpflug had ended. The only boy whose eyes I could really see myself in had vanished. All I did was collect apples from trees with peasants to pass my dull adolescent years.
Until one night when I eavesdropped and listened to my father telling my mother that he had discovered that Angel was a descendant of the Sorrows. How ironic was it that I was on the verge of standing up to my parents and opposing the possibility of that? With my erased memory, I couldn't believe this to be true. But I had no means to know or be sure, and continued the lost haze of my teenage years, barely interested in life—when this should have been the best time of my life.
When I think of it now, my teenage years were the basis for the hell I went through later. I mean, what does a girl have when you take her face from her, and then you take her memories too?
Eventually, I grew bored of collecting apples. Then a few weeks later, I began losing my appetite for everything—all but milk and cho
colates, which I began to crave all the time. I didn't understand why then.
My land's economy prospered and prospered, and my family had never been happier. None of this made sense to me. I was like a prophet before the words of God came down on them, knowing for sure something was wrong with the world around them, and that whatever rules, religions, or false gods people hung to couldn't be right. There had to be more—but I had no epiphany, and no alternate God talked to me.
Until Angel came back…
***
At first I thought I was being followed by some witch or stranger in the forest, or my father's warriors, who discreetly followed me everywhere in case I weakened and tried the Pond of Pearls again.
This time it was different. I knew I was being followed by someone I trusted. Someone I longed to meet. With each approaching footstep, I thought I was remembering what had happened to me.
The feeling of being watched was breathtaking, until Angel stood right in front of me. Right there among the dense trees and white snow in the middle of the forest. He had disguised himself, of all things, as a priest.
"Apple trader," I shrieked. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning creased through my mind when looking into his eyes. It wasn't really light, but a memory. Real memories: bloodstained, full of pain and pleasure.
I remembered everything that he wanted me to remember. That was why he had come back.
I warned him of my father's warriors nearby, and he smiled, almost pompously—he had taken care of them, but hadn't killed them, thank God.
"I'm sorry it took me two years." He held me by the arms, a look shimmering in his eyes, as if there was no woman on earth but me. "I thought I was strong enough to forget about you," he added. "I thought I could leave you be, to live your safe life without me and the sorrow I bring along." He stopped to catch his breath. "But I couldn't, Carmilla. I just couldn't."
"How could you do this to me?" I pushed his hands away. I didn't fear him as the son of the vampire king. I was angry at his foolishness in seizing the moment and believing in one heart. How could he not see how much my heart flowered in his presence, bloomed to the sunrays of his eyes?
"I did it because I care for you, Carmilla." Angel's eyes moistened. I couldn't think of a sincerer voice talking to me. This dark man longed for me in the strangest way. "It doesn't make sense. We're enemies. Our families are practically fire and ice. I'm designed to kill you as a human. I was created to rip the likes of you apart. I should drink your blood and leave your rotten corpse behind me, but I just can't. The years I've spent with humans, disguised as one of them, I ended up with a softer my heart. I spent so many nights wondering if there was ever a way for me to become one of you, and release myself from being a vampire. But every time I thought of it, there wasn't enough reason for me to become one. Until…" Angel shrugged. He almost looked away. "Until I laid my eyes on you."
"Angel…" That was all I said before I curled myself in his arms and began crying joyful tears. He was reluctant to hold me closer at first. Holding me was a big commitment. Both of us were signing a contract in blood, to be cursed by our families, and the world, for the rest of our lives.
In all those years living in Styria, I had always been squeezed in my father's arms, kissed and cuddled by Mother before sleep. Still, I never felt at home until Angel took me into the walls of his ragged yet tender heart.
He finally did. He squeezed me hard enough to forgive him for the lost years without him.
"Tell me something, Angel," I said. "Why do I feel so strongly about you? Although we've been through many things in a short time, it doesn't make sense. I am so into you."
Angel seemed to have an answer, but he didn't reply—years later I realized why, but it's too soon to talk about that now. Instead of talking and arguing and wishing, we summarized all our fears into a long, breathless kiss. Our first. Finally, a good first.
It was a long kiss. I had my eyes closed. I thought he had his closed too. He kissed me the way a man breathes for life. Not in a metaphorical way. He truly sucked my soul into him, and I couldn't understand why I meant so much to him. I couldn't understand how he could so passionately kiss someone he was supposed to kill. I didn't understand where he had been for two years and why he had come back now.
Right now, I am surprised I can't capture the emotions I felt that day on paper. Young love, with all its recklessness and lack of reason or logic, turned out to be a precious, magical feeling that I might have lost to the long and hollow winters of my life. The struggling life I lived after has made this memory a bit too hazy now. I can't even believe I fell for Angel so easily, but it was what my young heart had desired. It was the start of the craziest adventure I ever knew.
My haze of walking dead in the gardens of Styria had ended. I was in love. True Love. The kind of love I'd read about in Shakespeare stories. I was ready to die for Angel in the most unexplained ways.
"Did you feel that?" he said, holding me close.
"I did." I blushed, thinking he was talking about the kiss.
"I think the earth shook beneath us," he said.
I didn't feel the earth shake that day, but looking back now, I think it did. It must have. The earth probably knew the sorrow our coupling was going to bring into our lives. This kiss, as much I cherished it, should have never happened.
22
I could tell you all about when Angel insisted that he'd meet my father and tell him how he felt about me. I could tell you about how it all went wrong. My father, although supportive and considering Angel a great asset against the war on the Sorrows, succumbed to my mother's and Austria's noblemen's objections, and to the world that didn't approve of our love.
I could tell you the details of Night Von Sorrow swearing to kill every Karnstein, including his own son, if Angel and I were to stay together. Night had begun killing many European allies of the Karnsteins already, just to make his point.
I could tell you about the Styrians themselves, shocked that I could only fall in love with our enemy, raging a war across Europe as well.
But I don't see the point in reciting those details. All you need to know is that our love was damned, doomed, and destructive to others.
Angel and I escaped both my family and his to a small cottage in Italy. We rode for days and nights, disguised as beggars, apple traders, and entertainers. Everyone was looking for us—especially for Angel. His pictures were drawn by the most talented artists and hung on every wall in most towns. A recurring description of Angel was of a man with long hair, black as night, a hard-edged face, white as snow, and lips red as blood from the people it was rumored he'd feasted upon. Angel only fed on animals, which he hated, but he had no other choice at the time.
Wherever we escaped, people talked about the half-vampire who'd stood up to his vampire king. They called him Black Death, or sometimes Dracul, which just meant "dragon" in Romanian. Whatever Angel did to become human, mankind wasn't going to accept him. Nor were vampires going to accept him.
Then we started hearing news—rumors, or what people later started calling fairy tales—about a man walking the dense snow between Transylvania and Styria, killing other people. They said he wore black, and was usually surrounded by black crows. They said he stained the white of snow with the red blood of his enemies. People called him the Red Dragon, the Black Snow, and so many other names that revolved around the three colors that later haunted and cursed my life: red, white, and black.
Angel and I continued our escape, all the way through Europe, because we had no place to go.
But Angel sensed my weakness, my inexperience with hiding and enduring such horrendous traveling, and advised me to travel to a safe place while he fought our pursuers—later, I learned he had desired my blood too much and feared he could not hold himself back while we were alone.
Angel drew me a map and ordered me to follow it. He told me he'd meet me seven days later on Murano Island near Italy, the one were glass and mirrors were made. I argued that I couldn't be
near mirrors, and Angel blamed my parents for making me think so. He believed nothing would happen to me if I stared in a mirror, but I had lived with the fear for too many years and it had been carved too deeply.
"Also, I won't leave you," I argued, as I could hear the horses of our hunters approaching. "I can't."
"Go." Angel whipped the air to scare my horse away. "I will see you in Murano. Don't fear the mirrors. Ask for Amalie Hassenpflug, my godmother. Tell her I sent you."
I was speechless as my horse took off to my destination. So that was why he had used her last name when he was disguised as an apple trader?
"Carmilla!" Angel, sweaty, exhausted, and ready to kill, summoned me one last time.
"Yes?" I craned my neck as I rode away.
"When you see Amalie, tell her…" He swallowed, pulling out his sword, ready for the enemy's attack.
"Yes?" I asked. He wasn't going to leave my like this, not telling me his last words. "Tell her what?"
"Tell her you're the love of my life, my purgatory, and after," Angel said, followed by a scream as he began his war.
Night Von Sorrow sent black crows, black panthers, and the darkest vampires after Angel, intending to punish him with death for treason. No one had the heart or guts to oppose Night Von Sorrow, so Angel was alone, diverting his pursuers so I could reach Murano safely. He was determined to keep his promise.
Angel was hunted by everyone, not just his father's army. Humans, who outnumbered vampires in this time of history, hunted Angel as well. So he was on his own, trying not to kill the humans and escape them at the same time, and also killing every dark creature his father sent after him.
And I rode away to Murano.
Luckily, I never fought anyone. All I did was keep to myself and hide in a cave or treetop all day then continue traveling at night, although I had the feeling I was being tailed by the same man in black who'd killed the soldiers at my castle in Styria. But it might have been an illusion.
