The Vampire's Reflection (6 page)

“Come here, son. What’s happened to you, my boy?” She began again with tears streaming down her soft, lined face.

His resolve wavered. He needed to be comforted by her—to be told it would all be okay. He went to her. He didn’t care. He was already dead enough as it was. He couldn’t imagine how things could get much worse.

She wrapped him up in her warmth, cradling him like she always used to. “I was so worried about you. I’m so glad to see that you are all right,” she paused, “mostly.”

“Did you not know where I was?”

She pulled him away, holding him by the shoulders to look him in the face. “Of course, I did, dear. I put you there.”

“What?” Aiden blanched and yanked himself free from his mother’s grasp. “Did you just expect me to figure it out for myself—to find my way back? I was out there for weeks!”

“Yes. You are a warrior, Aiden. There’s nothing you can’t fight through.” Her gaze dropped to his feet before lifting slowly back to his face. “Even this.” She gestured clearly to what he had become. “I needed to put you there. To protect you. Or else the others would have found reason to destroy you—burned your body like those sniveling nightwalkers and found a new heir. I was not about to let that happen.”

“I am still the same, mother. I’m the same I’ve always been.”

“That
monster
changed you.” Her jolly, little tone sank into a seething growl.

“It’s better this way, mother. He has made me stronger.”

“No, not
him
, you twit!
Her
! That guttersnipe!
She
is the monster. This is entirely her fault!” Meredith approached Aiden slowly. “I swore upon your dying breath that we were going to make her pay. Once you awoke and returned to me, I swore we were going to seek our revenge on her and her wretched fiend. I warned her, didn’t I, Aiden? In the beginning, I told her how dangerous it would be to stay with that beast! Well, the child didn’t listen, so vengeance will be ours. Wait and see.”

“How?”

Meredith grinned a Cheshire-cat grin and lifted her arms, slowly spinning in a wide circle as she gestured to the room around them. “What we promised you, my Aiden!”

Slowly, the light began to brighten in Vladislov’s office, as if life itself were being restored. The cobwebs and dust dissipated into thin air, leaving the surfaces shining again. Just outside, in the hall, Aiden could see the bits of rubble pull themselves up off the ground and fit back into the holes in the walls.

“Vladislov’s legacy is yours now! The Regime. All of the magic in the world. It is all yours!”

“What of the others?” he asked, clenching his jaw tightly. His mind automatically started spinning with the actual possibility that this was all his now—that he really did possess the abilities and the resources to take down Valek and his band of sewer rats. And Charlotte.

“Long dead, sweet boy. Those demons killed Bedrich and Kazimir.”

“And father?”

Meredith blessed herself silently, her gaze lifting toward the wooden ceiling. “I have not been across his body yet, love. Let us pray to the goddess we don’t find it, and that he’s off somewhere in hiding.”

“The goddess will no longer hear my prayers,” Aiden mused as he caught a glimpse of his gruesome reflection in the mirror. “She doesn’t listen to those who have fallen to darkness.”

“You have not fallen by choice. Of course she still hears you.” Meredith stroked affectionately through his hair and kissed his forehead softly. “And she takes pity.”

“What was it you said to Charlotte as she was leaving? When I was dead in your arms? You must have exchanged words of some kind.”

His mother smiled briefly before mashing her lips into the grim line. “I looked into those abysmal eyes of hers, and I swore I would hunt her down. We will. We will take what is rightfully ours now. The country. The world. We’ll carry out your dream of uniting the mortal world and the magic world, so that we may have it all. You’ll rule without the likes of her. You will rule both the light and the dark. And you’ll take down those who have committed such a crime against the Regime and you as lord. You’ll take them down. One. By. One.”

Chapter Four

Nightshade

Charlotte’s heart caught in her throat as she ran. Every muscle in her chest tensed as she cried out through the crowded Occult town square. She needed to find Valek. Fast.

Bewitched lanterns twinkled in oranges and reds against the color of midnight, casting eerie shadows through the alleys as all of the various creatures moved quickly from the shops, headed for the Occult border. The low monotone of people’s conversations floated around her as she shoved against the packed mob like a fish swimming upstream, every face less familiar and friendly than the last.

This wasn’t working. He couldn’t possibly be back where she was going. He must be somewhere near the front of the crowd.

She spun on her heel, fiery curls flying into her face, blinding her search for him. Her stomach twisted in an awful knot. She fought for each breath as she begged an unseen force to make him appear within the crowd.

She screamed his name until the back of her throat went dry, like sandpaper, scorching like fire. She grasped at her neck, digging her nails desperately into her flesh. Where was he? Surely, hiding in the darkness for what he had made of her.

Nobody looked at her as she called. Nobody even acknowledged her cries or the fact that she was screaming out his name as loud as she possibly could. The various Elves, Imps, Phasers, Witches, and the rest of those so utterly different from her, continued with their gazes fixed forward, all marching in the same direction down the wide, cobblestone street. All of their blank stares were cast upward, as if waiting for something to drop out of the sky.

Charlotte grabbed hold of one tall Witch by her pointed shoulders. She recognized her instantly as one of the Witches her arch-rival, Evangeline, used to spend time with in the tavern. Her face was white and drawn, the expression in her eyes completely lifeless—like she was dead.

“I’m looking for Valek Ruzik!”

The Witch didn’t even acknowledge her with so much as a facial twitch. The wicked woman continued on, as though Charlotte weren’t actually there at all. Like she didn’t exist.

“Help me!” Charlotte tried calling again, “Please!” She turned, mouth agape, just now noticing the large Ogre alongside her. She caught only a glimpse of him just before his girth slammed into her, throwing her to the ground. Trying hard not to be trampled by those clamoring toward her, she gasped and scrambled out of the way. The soft skin on her palms scraped against the rough granules between the cobblestones, bloodying instantly. She winced as shards of rock and rubble clung to the shallow wounds. The familiar, alluring smell of salty iron wafted to her senses. Her stomach groaned with it. She lifted her reddened palms to her face, wanting to open her mouth and lick her wounds clean, but she shoved the atrocious urge away as quickly as it came.

She pulled herself up from the ground again and gasped for air like she’d just surfaced from the depths of dark waters. “Valek! Valek!” She turned the other direction, desperately scanning each face. “Where are you?” Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry!”

No one answered or even looked at her. It was as though she were invisible to the world.
Oh God, I’ve really lost him this time
. She continued scanning the square for his face, whirling around to see if she’d somehow missed him walking past.

A lute and fiddle played themselves in the center of the square, their merry music echoing off the large rim of the ancient fountain. Ghostly memories of people happily clapping and dancing in time to that music crawled up Charlotte’s spine as she choked on the dry air in her throat. There was nothing but deathly silence from the surrounding patrons now. She wrapped her sweater-clad arms around her shoulders, her breath forming mist in front of her face.

Charlotte cried his name once more before catching sight of the mystified expression on the face of one of the Phasers, who gazed upward like the rest of the crowd. Charlotte finally turned to see what had captivated all of them so—what had driven them out of the square, and what had caused all of them to become so enraptured.

She saw it then.
Dawn
, coming like the opposing army, relentlessly invading over the rooftops. It blasted its way through, striking a cannon’s hole in the midnight surface.
No
.

“No!” Her flesh started to tighten around her bones. She looked down at her palms. One of her fate lines, carved deep through the middle of her hand, had begun to disappear in the coming morning light. Her skin started to gray. “No! Valek! I’m so sorry! Please! Where are you? Valek!”

More tears poured down her face as she sprinted off in the direction of her house. She could see it just beyond the crowd and the rooftops of the inns and taverns. It stood there faithfully, as always. Safe. Constant. Unchanging. The lights were on. Valek must be inside.

She ran harder and faster, her own breath heavy in her ears, her lungs burning. The shock of her feet meeting the ground with each step reverberated up her leg and hit her hip and knee like a lightning strike. The pain was more than she could bear, but she kept on. She could not leave Valek there. Not when dawn was coming to claim them. It was her fault, for what she had become. That was why he wouldn’t come when she called him. That must have been it. He was angry with her.

Charlotte burst through the front door. Despite the pale lights glimmering from the salon and kitchen, the house took on a dark and dead quality. It looked empty, abandoned, and panic set in until she sensed Valek was in his bedroom. She choked out the breath she’d been holding and bolted for the staircase and down the dusty hall, her lungs on fire. Possibly from exhaustion—possibly from the impending sunrise. “Valek!”

She shoved through the carved double doors to his master bedroom. “Valek, we have to leave! They are coming for us! Valek—” Charlotte stopped in a cold sweat when she saw there were two figures in the room before her.

In the dim light that peeked through the black bed curtains, Charlotte saw Valek belly up on his bed, a graceful-looking female looming over his body. A golden wedding band glinted off her slender ring finger that stroked the side of his face affectionately. Her brown hair twirled down to the middle of her shoulder blades against the perfect ivory of her skin. She was beautiful. Delicate. Human.

Bile rose in the back of Charlotte’s throat.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said to her gently, his horrid monster’s claw trailing down her pure, naked spine. The sudden recollection of the story Valek had told once in Francis’ basement, of his long-deceased, mortal wife, came flooding back to Charlotte. She gripped fistfuls of her hair in knots. But how could this be possible?

“No!” Charlotte howled until her chest felt like it would explode into a thousand pieces. “Valek! No! It’s a trap! No!”

“Charlotte!” A familiar voice called to her. “Charlotte, open your eyes!”

A warm hand gripped her shoulder. She whirled around in Valek’s bedroom to see a large, shadowy figure looming over her, one distinct, pointed ear poking out from the waves of auburn hair. The mere vision of him sent waves of fear whizzing through her. A scream bubbled up from her gut.

Suddenly, her body began rocking gently, like she’d somehow drifted. She continued to scream, never wanting to return back to that basement. Tears continued to ensue.

“Charlotte, wake up!”

“No,” she sobbed.

“I b-believe this is the th-third night in a row,” another familiar voice stammered next to her.

“Charlotte, darlin’. Wake up. You’re safe!”

Finally, her eyelids fluttered open to the utter stillness of the ruddy color of a dirt-packed ceiling, cluttered with several brass pans, a few cuckoo clocks, and about a dozen or so silver teapots. Her senses filled with the heady scent of wood smoldering in Mr. Třínožka’s massive hearth. With teary eyes, she remembered the burning smell in her nightmare. She was wrapped tightly in a quilted blanket, as one of Mr. Třínožka’s eight large arms cuddled her affectionately. It was so tight, she could barely move her own arms—like a fly caught in a web. She finally realized where she was.

“Charlotte! Why, you had a nightmare, girly.” His normally gruff voice was lifted a few octaves higher than usual, probably from his concern.

Had she been screaming
out loud
? How embarrassing. “I…fell asleep?”

“You did. Edwin and I came in from the day and found you were curled up in one of my bean chairs.” His mustache bristled with the promise of a smile just underneath, the corners twirled upward by fresh wasp wax. His antique brass aviator goggles were lifted onto his forehead, his ruby scarf wound tightly around his broad neck. He and Edwin must have just arrived home from work at the Broucka General Store. They’d been cleaning up the shop after a looting that had occurred during their battle at the Regime Palace. It had taken them
days
to do so.

Another set of familiar eyes, shiny and made of buttons, caught her attention as they loomed over her. Edwin, the enchanted, boy of burlap and yarn, stared back at her curiously, his stitched mouth mashed into a worried line. Charlotte was never very certain
what
kind of creature he was. Something like an animated scarecrow or a rag doll of sorts and the only one of his kind, as far as anyone knew. Mr. Třínožka had invited Edwin to live with him in the burrow after their return from the Regime, and sadly, upon finding Horris, Mr. Třínožka’s old roommate, gone.

Mr. Třínožka rested Charlotte into one of the enormous bean bag chairs set in front of the blazing fire. His burrow was cozy and intimate, crowded by his collection of so many mortal objects. Ragged teddy bears, lamps, pipes, plates. It was all there. The fire set a warm glow around the red color of the dirt walls. It danced in the reflection his massive goggles and in the spectacles sitting on the bridge of Edwin’s burlap nose.