The Vampire Princess

by P. Mattern

  “TRISTINA,” he said, “What are you doing here?” On the bed there was a rustling sound as the woman he’d been with sat up, straightening her layers of skirts and peering around the naked Prince.

  Even in the dimness there was no mistaking the eye patch that the woman was wearing,

  It was Theda.

  I found my legs and turned then as both of them called after me, their voices echoing against the stone walls over and over, burning into my brain. I was blinded by my own tears, desperate to escape what I had just witnessed, my heart shredded with disappointment.

  I was only sure of two things. I meant nothing to the Prince in spite of our intimacies, and I wanted nothing more than I wanted to leave this place, where loyalties were few and betrayals merely routine.

  I was done with it. Hot tears cascaded down my cheeks. I didn’t care that I was a blood craving monster now, a vampire. I just wanted to go home. I HAD to go home.

  TAKING FLIGHT

  By the time I stopped running I was near the entrance to the servants quarters. There were rows and rows of cloaks, knapsacks and outdoor gear hanging and drying against the walls. There were also weapons stacked in one corner.

  Drifting up the hallway toward the anteroom that I was standing in I heard the raucous voices of soldiers. Perhaps Theda’s Protector was among them, eating and drinking and anticipating seeing Theda with no clue that she was many floors above, lying on her back in the Prince’s bed, writhing under the Prince.

  Before I knew what I was doing I began to dress in the roughhewn garments hanging there and gathering supplies, particularly as many weapons as I could carry. I noticed that I was much stronger since my Turning, figuring that I must be carrying at least 2/3 of my body weight in the knapsack that I slid up onto my shoulders by the straps.

  I opened a flask and after smelling it, I was delighted to ascertain that it contained blood. I looked for other similar flasks among the hanging cloaks and found three more, which I also along across my body by the straps.

  I was terrified that I would meet someone coming up the corridor, but it didn’t happen. I held my breath as I passed the huge dining area which was full of soldiers, but was able to arrive undetected at one of the back entrances.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped outside, holding the heavy door as it closed and only letting go at the last minute so that it would close soundlessly.

  Even though it was late in the day the sun shone as brightly as it had earlier. It was a relief to me just to be able to stand outside. Kicking at the snow around the small porch that I had stepped out on I saw that there were berries beneath the snow here also, and I opened a side pocket of the knapsack and filled it. I didn’t really need them to survive, but having them made me feel better somehow.

  The cloak I’d chosen had a compass in the pocket, and I decided that I had two major agendas. They included testing my newly developing vampire powers, and also making sure that I traveled a Southwest course that would eventually land me back in my hometown.

  Fort Wayne, Indiana.

  There was no denying that my heart hurt. Having barely adjusted to losing my family of origin and the humans that I had considered my parents, I had now lost my best friend and my—well I wasn’t sure exactly what the Prince had come to mean to me, but at least he had been a sort of boyfriend. There wasn’t any point in analyzing our relationship now anyway.

  I felt a little optimistic, as if I were running TOWARD something rather than away from it. It was like a mental reload in some ways. As I reflected I realized that I had let go of my personhood and my identity in some ways and allowed myself to be sucked into the Prince’s world, HIS reality. Leaving Svalbard I was leaving behind my girlhood innocence, even my virginity. I was definitely a different individual. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t resume my life with a few adjustments.

  After I had traveled awhile I decided to try flying. The Prince has assured me that it was on the lists of ‘perks’ for Turning into a vampire, and warned against trying to practice it until he could set me up with a tutor.

  “You’re a strange girl, Tristina” he’d told me soberly one time when we were together, “So captivatingly graceful one moment, and so painfully awkward the next. I don’t quite know what to make of you…did you just have a growth spurt or something?”

  I’d assured him that he’d only managed to catch me at some very awkward moments. But I was a bit nervous about testing my flying skills. I knew, however, that they were essential unless I managed to stumble onto a portal, and I had no idea where any of those were located.

  Resignedly I lowered my pack and equipment into the snow at the base of a fir tree and stood on a hill that rose about 10 feet above a small valley filled with snow. I figured at least it would provide a soft place to land if I fell.

  I cleared my throat and lifted my arms up until they were level with my shoulders, even though I instinctively knew that the position of my arms had nothing to do with vampire’s ability to elevate. I closed my eyes and breathed in. And then I stepped off the end of the snow ledge that I was perched on, and willed myself to fly.

  It worked.

  I was soaring (well, maybe ‘soaring’ is the wrong word since I was no more than 15 feet off the ground) over the acres of snow fairly effortlessly. It was a brain controlled thing, I determined, adjusted by my angling my body and thinking where I wanted to go, and at what speed. It didn’t take much effort, and I was rather pleased.

  That is, until I attempted to land.

  Even though I willed myself to descend slowly I ended up gliding down in a lateral position face first, plowing a path of a good 20 feet through the snow with my upturned face. It made me laugh, because it was so unexpected, and I soon hopped up and stood in the valley of snow which sparkled in the sunshine.

  I wondered how, if I were a vampire, I could stand in the never ending sunshine of this place. It was something that I had neglected to ask about. All the lore that I ever remembered hearing had emphasized that vampires were burned and even vaporized to nothingness by the light of the sun. But here I was under a nearly cloudless cyan sky with the sun shining down and sunlight reflected everywhere and it didn’t seem to affect me one iota.

  Using more focus I drifted gently up to the original ledge and re-donned my stolen knapsack. I decided to load test one of my other abilities to check what was going on at the Silo. Even with maximum focus I couldn’t quite make out what was going on, but picked up enough random conversations and voices to know that the Silo was being searched top to bottom for me, buying me more time for my getaway.

  After I was loaded up I took off again from the ledge, this time making sure I was at a higher altitude. The scenery below was amazing, and I was up high enough that I could glimpse the sea near the horizon.

  The wind whistled past my ears as I flew, but I was impervious to the cold. As I flew, a compass fastened to my wrist to make certain that I stayed on course, I saw a brilliant reflection below me, an area that sparkled and shimmered so brightly I could barely see what it was.

  It was the Ice Palace. The abandoned site of the massacre of the Prince’s family. And even though I was anxious to put as much distance between myself and the Silo as possible before anyone searching for me figured out where I was, I felt that I HAD to stop there one more time. It was as if it were calling to me.

  I set down lightly on the front promenade .The Palace was even more impressive than I remembered, perhaps because this time I was there alone and it wasn’t eclipsed by my fascination with the Prince. My footsteps echoed loudly in the reception area. I stopped and hesitated, not knowing why I had entered and not knowing where to turn .Something white moved in my peripheral vision and I turned.

  My first thought was that I was seeing a ghost. A woman stood there, looking at me curiously. We engaged in a silent staring match for a few seconds and then she said with a note of regret in her voice, ”Oh. You’re not human.”

  I shook my head slightly, my
fingers drifting downward to the dirk in its leather sheath at my waist.

  “No, I am not. Who are you?”

  “I have no name,” she told me, ”I am the Caretaker of the Ice Palace. It is an honor to serve here, and I enjoy the quiet and the solitude.”

  I noticed the woman, though still very pretty was definitely human. She looked to be in her forties, with streaks of silver running through her center-parted dark hair in the front. She was exactly my height, and her eyes seemed to be the same unusual shade of blue green.

  “I don’t understand,” I told her, ”I was just here the other day with the Prince, and I never saw you. I never saw anyone!”

  The woman seemed to smirk.

  “My day off,” she explained ,”We do have them here you know, though it must seem primitive here to those originating from the outside world I am sure.”

  “May I approach you?” she asked.”My name is Johnna. I am a retired surrogate Host Mother for the Royals. That is why they allow me to come and go as I please.”

  “I am the Princess of Svalbard,” I told her. For some reason I hesitated to tell her my given name. The Prince had told me that names have power, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to share mine, even though I was currently running away from both the Prince and my new designation.

  But SHE didn’t know that.

  “Why are you alone, Princess?” she asked , a look of genuine concern on her face, ”It isn’t really safe you know. Well…it is safer during the time of Light. But it will be VERY dangerous as soon as the Eternal Night returns to us!”

  “The Prince doesn’t know,” I told her, winking conspiratorially, “I like to come and go as I please also. Right now I am supposed to be taking a nap.”

  The woman smiled, revealing white and even teeth and a pleasant smile that made her suddenly look years younger.

  “You must be very adventurous, Princess. I can tell you have been traveling on the terrain by the snow on your boots, instead of taking the portal here. I enjoy the fresh air too even though I am human. I think it does the body good.”

  “Portals?” I echoed, my voice reverberating against the icy walls. “I haven’t been shown any portals…”

  “Well I haven’t resided in the Silo for awhile, but traditionally they are located past the servants quarters. Last door on the left.”

  I was aghast.

  “Really? Why there of all places? Why wouldn’t the servants try to escape?” I questioned, mentally kicking myself and wondering if I should risk a return to the castle to travel by portal. It certainly seemed like a more practical and efficient option than hoofing it and then trying to fly across oceans, or trying to stowaway on a frigate bound for America.

  Johnna looked at me curiously.

  “Because they know that they would disintegrate as soon as they entered it. These are very specialized portals, and the frequency that they vibrate in is only compatible with the energy fields of certain creature phylums. There is still an open portal here at the Ice Palace in fact. I noticed the other day that it hadn’t ever been closed or collapsed after—after what happened . Whether it is still functional or not…well being human, I have no idea.”

  I could hear my heart beating in my ears. I was thinking that it would be a wonderful stroke of luck if I could convince Johnna to point me in the direction of the portal she was referring to. It took me about 5 seconds to come up with a plausible reason to find out where it was located.

  “Can you show me where the portal door is?” I asked her.”I’d like to bring it to the Prince’s attention, and also ascertain if it’s in working condition. I am sure that he would appreciate knowing.”

  Was that a flicker of suspicion I saw crossing Johnna’s face? I couldn’t be sure. But because I was the Princess I guessed that she dared not refuse me.

  “This way,” she told me, gesturing to the West Wing. “And , of course a story down. That lower wing was used to house the servants and the posterior door empties out toward the seaward side.”

  She took a step toward me, and then both of us stopped moving as a tremor began underneath our feet. We stood staring at each other. Within seconds there was another tremor, more pronounced than the first. A chandelier came crashing down from its moorings and splintered over the center of the Reception Room floor. What happened next was the shocker though.

  Even though Johnna and I were only standing a few feet apart, an ugly zigzagging fissure opened up between us. For a second I thought that the portion of the ice flooring that Johnna was standing on was rearing up and rising above me in slow motion, lifting her high enough so that I could see up her dress to her old fashioned looking petticoats.

  And then I realized that I was falling. The flooring I had ben standing on had given way and as the huge blocks of ice that had been supporting me separated and crumbled away against each other I descended rather rapidly. The noise was deafening as I fell for what seemed an eternity, and I was able to concentrate enough that I began implementing my flying skills, slowing down my descent, so that I could stay above the debris rather than being surrounded by it. I hoped that Johnna had fled to safety on the floor above, and realized that I was descending down into almost complete darkness.

  When my feet finally reached the bottommost floor and I looked up, I saw a jagged hole above me that had torn away in the collapse. One of the huge pillars that had graced the reception area had tumbled into the opening and was lying in pieces around me.*

  I was unhurt. And I could see, sort of, in the odd infrared way that all vampires can see in the darkness. I was in one of the arched tunnels below ground, fashioned almost exactly like the ones in the Silo. I felt a cold breeze on my left cheek and instinctively turned towards it, knowing that it might yield an exit point.

  And possibly, also, a portal entrance that hadn’t been used since the massacre.

  I carefully picked my way amid the shards of ice and found that I had the strength to lift some of the heavier fallen blocks off my path. Eventually I got past the ruined architecture. I remembered what the Prince had mentioned about the Palace being unstable, and that he hadn’t even allowed Theda to follow us into it.

  Tears stung my eyes momentarily. I realized that he had been trying to protect her, not just for her general well being but because he wanted her…in the same way he had wanted me.

  I forced myself to put away those thoughts. I wondered what would happen to an Immortal trapped in the ice. Would I have had the strength to claw my way out if I had gotten buried in the falling debris? Or would I have been trapped and then slowly starved to death without access to human blood?

  As my thoughts pressed in on me as heavily as huge blocks of ice, I was confronted with daylight coming through an opening to the outdoors. My eyes automatically shifted to the left, searching for an oval door indicating the presence of a portal.

  I was not disappointed.

  I became excited as I stared at it. It was not marked or labeled in any way, and the wooden slats of the portal cover were of graying wood held together by horizontal metal stays held in place by large octagonal brass bolts. It seemed very old. All the reasons not to open the door swirled around in my mind:

  I had no idea how portals worked, how to get out of one once I was in it and whether I had been Turned into a vampire long enough so that I wouldn’t be vaporized like the humans that tried to use it for an escape.

  None of that mattered to me I didn’t care where it went. I just wanted to be anywhere but here.

  I reached out and pulled at the iron ring that served as a door handle, making sure first that I had my blood supply and knapsack secured across my shoulders. I put up my hood. I said a prayer that I hadn’t said since I was five years old. And then I opened it.

  At first I was confronted with more darkness, a darkness that seemed insubstantial, like a vapor. I was about to stick one hand into it sacrificially when I discerned a bright pinprick point of light in the center of it that was growing larger with each pa
ssing second. As it gained velocity and grew larger I could see that it was moving in a counter clockwise direction, a fiercely bright spiral pinwheeling toward me. As it approached it seemed to consume the darkness like it was burning away a thick curtain of cobwebs, and then it filled the opening before me, and I jumped into it without hesitation.

  At first it was a squeezing sensation as though I had been summarily shoved through a thick wall of gelatin, and then I was spinning so rapidly I was getting sick, until I realized that I could stop spinning by exerting very little of the same force that I had called upon when flying.

  Oddly enough I lost all sense of time during the portal ride. It was as if time had no relevance and had ceased to exist. The brightness inside the portal made me squint—it was like looking at the sun on a white hot summer day.

  And just as abruptly as my portal journey had begun, it was over.

  I ‘tripped’ as I was ejected through the Crisco wall of the portal’s end and found myself rolling across a bright expanse of what turned out to be sand. After I stopped rolling I wondered where I was.

  A young man skateboarding on what looked like a boardwalk, tipped his skateboard up and ran over to me carrying it as I sat up.

  Hey are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned.”Did somebody shove you out of a car or something? I looked over and you were rolling across the sand!”

  A smallish crowd had gathered around me. I saw a large lady in a pink sundress with red hair, the teenager that had run up to me first and a concerned looking middle aged dad type with his two kids in tow.

  “Really I am fine,” I said, not at all sure that I was, in reality ,all that ‘ fine’. I stood up on legs that were slightly wobbly and shook the sand out of my long cloak and off my dress.

  “Hey are you a Princess?” the little girl wanted to know. She was looking at me with pure delight.