by D R Brooks
CHAPTER 4
Early the next evening, which is what seemed to pass for morning in that strange dimension, Betty woke in a four-poster bed to see Schreck standing over her with a silver platter of tea.
Betty was desperately thirsty and grabbed the teacup without delicacy. She stopped just before the first tide of refreshment breached her lips and raised one eyebrow in question.
"Miss, I am to assure you that this is only Earl Gray." She gave a little sigh of relief and quaffed the entire cup. "Oh, good glorious, that was delicious." It was only then that she saw IAN sitting in a nearby armchair. She didn’t even notice that she could see clearly and left her glasses forgotten on the nightstand.
“Sleep well after your snack?”
"As well as might be expected." Betty reflexively reached up to her throat wound and found a silken scarf. "Oh, don't tell me it's still..." Betty gently worked at the knot until her fingers touched the smooth skin below. "Oh," and "Oh, it's completely gone."
"So then, where may I find our hostess so that I may thank her?" She directed the question at Schreck only to see that he had already silently left the room. "Gabriella is fearsome to be sure, but the only one who actually frightens me here is her manservant. There is something deeply wrong with him."
"And also, how did I come to be wearing this nightgown?" Betty thought on Schreck again. "You know what? Never mind. I don't think I want to know."
Sensing her train of thought, IAN reassured her. “Schreck is harmless. He too is from the country. A slave to the Ancient Ones until Gabriella saved him from his wretched fate. As for our hostess, she is currently securing me a conference with an old friend.”
"Are all your intra-dimensional friends as...pleasant as she?”
She was already at the door before she realized she was still in a thin nightgown. She immediately returned to the bed and snatched up a blanket, embarrassed. "More appropriate clothing should be the first order of business, I suppose."
“Gabriella has laid an outfit for you over there and before you say anything, remember, it would be considered an insult to our hostess if you didn't wear it.”
Betty acquiesced and went to the settee and frowned with chagrin. "It would look overdone in a ballroom."
She lifted up layers of taffeta and silk, letting them fall back into their stiff shape. "All right, if there is nothing else to be done, then wear it I shall. I certainly hope she doesn't mind if it comes back a little dusty or grimy.”
Betty reached into her bag, which was nearby and pulled out a large and rather ancient-looking tome, which she promptly blew a cloud of dust off of. "This is why I can't have nice things."
She managed to get dressed within two hours. Putting those outfits on without a maidservant was nigh impossible. She left her room, and as she carefully shut the oaken door, she heard a high pitched whine from downstairs.
As she descended the staircase, she heard it again, this time sounding like a wounded animal. She ran down the rest of the stairs and flew around the corner, smack dab into the middle of Schreck's concave chest. He looked disturbed.
"Schreck, what's going on? You look positively pale! Uh, paler than usual." He righted her and pointed to a stairway leading even further down. "Is that where IAN is? What is all that noise?" In the short time it took to turn around, Schreck was gone again. Screwing her courage to the sticking place, she hiked up her skirt and began the descent into the darkened under-house.
The farther down she went, the less like a house and more like a cave it looked. As she reached the bottom, IAN was nowhere to be found. She could just make out the vague form of a statue fashioned after the image of the creature that bit her. But this creature was much larger and far more frightening. Positioned below it was a bowl of blood, as an apparent offering to the stone beast.
She felt movement behind her and turned just in time to see what looked like the back end of a wolf going up the stairs. Absolutely nonplussed at this point, she weighed her options. 1) Stay in this dank place with the statue that gave the impression of movement while totally still or 2) follow the wolf.
"Option three," she said to no one in particular and went further into the cave-like structure until the candlelight would reach no further. Hearing a susurrus coming from the direction of the statue, she picked up the pace, feeling her way along the craggy wall. As she ventured further in the darkness, the omnipresent whine rose in pitch. Betty began to see a shape take form in the darkness. A feminine shape. As Betty walked closer to the figure, she noticed that the whine was emanating from the figure.
“You have been playing with my daddy,” asserted the crouched woman in a surprisingly childlike voice.
"Oh, dear." Though something was very 'off' about the woman, Betty couldn't help but intervene. "What are you doing down here? Where is your father?"
“He slipped between the cracks again. Silly daddy.” The figure giggled.
Now Betty really WAS concerned. The woman was obviously hysterical. Between the cracks, indeed.
"Now, now, we'll have none of that. I'll help you find your father." She bent down with a handkerchief and stretched it toward the huddled figure, to wipe her tears, but suddenly halted when she heard the whining turn to a low growl. A foul smell came wafting from further down the cavern.
"Who did you say your father was, again, sweetheart?"
“He loves me, he gave me a world to play with. My world. The world you go to when you're naughty.”
Betty’s eyes begin to adjust to the dark and noticed half of the girl’s face was dead and decayed
Betty gasped "A dhampir! Heaven's alive, I never thought I'd see one in real life." The thing snarled in response and started moving towards her, teeth bared in aggression. "Oh, now, I have something for this in my bag, hold on."
But of course the woman would not wait and was within lunging range as Betty pulled a handful of something from her bag.
"Time to play a little counting game!" she said as she threw seeds all over the cavern floor. The woman whined again, gnashing her teeth, but an invisible force seemed to bring her focus back to the earthen floor and as Betty quickly hurried past, she could hear a soft girl's voice. "One, two, three, four, five..."
Betty did not stop to hear her finish. She moved surprisingly fast in the dress. Almost as if she was walking on air. That feeling was supremely accurate. She was flying. The strangest thing was that it came so naturally.
"Well, this is quite the pickle. I certainly hope that IAN will be able to set everything to right because I have no clue what's going on at the moment."
She continued on at speed through the cavern when she felt a draft of fresh air and smelled the distinct scent of the ocean. This, of course, cheered her considerably and she flew even faster, right out of the cavern, which ended on the sheer face of a cliff. The surf pounded below her and she tried to catch her breath as she scrabbled back towards the cave entrance. In what seemed like an eternity but surely could have only been seconds, she realized that she was in no immediate danger. Not daring to question her good fortune, she managed to propel herself far enough up to reach the back of the estate.
Gasping, she threw open the servant's entrance and settled back on her two legs, shaking, trying to understand what had just transpired.
“There you are! Now is not the time to tour the house, we have to go.” IAN helped her up. “And it is certainly not advisable to attempt flying this early in your transformation.”
"Oh, I was really hoping you weren't going to use a word like that."
“Would conversion sound better?”
She sighed. "No. Not really. May I ask what I am converting or transforming into? Or should I go back and ask that dhampir downstairs? I might get a straight answer from her...before she killed me."
“The dhampir? Oh, you mean, well, that’s a topic for another time. You are in the throes of vampire transformation, of course.”
"Yes. I s
uppose I should have figured that out myself. No more garlic tea for me. No direct sunlight?"
“Only in this Dimension. Once we cross the Multiverse, you will be back to normal. As normal as a 35-year-old who acts more like an 75-year-old can be.”
"Oh, lovely. The rector would have been quite upset at me having to bow out of arranging the weekly flowers. Churches and vampires don't mix, as I understand. Well. No use moping about it then."
“Your ability to adapt must be studied as well. By someone else. Let's go, I will give you brief history so you don't act daft at the prison.”
"The prison?! I thought you said we were going to visit a friend of yours! Oh. My condolences."
“Not needed, they most definitely deserve to be there.”
"I can't even imagine what would get you thrown into a, well, a V-word prison. Excuse me, VAMPIRE prison. Now that I am one, even if only temporarily, I guess I shouldn't take issue with saying the word out loud. Is your friend, um, dangerous?"
At this, two fangs descended quite suddenly from her mouth. "Oh, my. How embarrassing!" She covered her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Danger is subjective.” IAN said as he helped Betty into the carriage. “But they paid me a considerable amount to capture him.”
"Well, let us go see your friend then."
