Page 54
Frustrated with the snow impeding my progress, I willed the wind to take me. I glided along the edge of the forest, my coat spreading out about me like great wings. I darted past trees, branches tearing at my hair, before flying low over the garden. The sleeping plants were buried under mounds of snow and my feet barely skimmed over their tops as I desperately looked about for Laura. Landing on the pedestal of the statue of a lion, I peered about. It was the scent of blood that caught my senses. I leaped over half the garden and landed beside Laura as she feasted on Enre’s blood.
“No!” I screamed.
I tossed her away and watched her fall into a deep snowdrift near the edge of the garden.
“Enre!” I cried out. I threw myself over him, desperate to staunch the blood, but I saw it would be to no avail. She had partially decapitated him and he was dead.
Adem fell to his knees beside me and let out an agonized cry.
“I can do nothing for him,” I wailed.
A noise drew our attention to Laura. She was gone. Then I heard a strange scuffling sound and looked up to see her scaling the side of the house.
“I must stop her!”
“Go,” Adem said, cradling Enre against his chest. He was weeping and the sight broke my heart.
I hurled myself after Laura and landed close to the house. Shards of glass fell from above. I saw her glance down at me before darting through the broken frame and into the house.
“Laura, no!”
A heavy curtain was drawn back over the ground window I stood beneath. I saw Sir Stephan’s expression of shock at my appearance for a mere second before we both heard Maria cry out, “Laura!”
“You brought her back?” he exclaimed. “You brought her back!”
“I must stop her!” I leaped onto the edge of the window sill. “Open the window! Quick!”
“Stephan! It’s Laura!” Maria’s voice rang out from upstairs.
Conflicting emotions fought in Sir Stephan’s eyes, then he said words that I never believed he would say. “Your invitation is rescinded. ”
“No!”
The curtain dropped into place as the ward took hold and plunged me into the snow. Scrambling to my feet, I rushed to the house and screamed Laura’s name. I could distinctly hear her parents welcoming her home and her own sweet voice answering them.
“Adem, I cannot enter! Adem!”
His dark form emerged from the misty darkness of the night. Blood covered him and his face was ghastly in its sorrow. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me along to the doors that opened into the garden. Picking up a stone vase, he beat it against the doors, trying to break them open.
“Laura!” I screamed. “Laura!”
My vampire senses are a blessing and curse. Tonight, they were a curse. I heard Laura’s own sweet voice say in the most chilling tone, “I have not come home to be with you, but to kill you. ”
“Adem,” I gasped. “Hurry!”
The heavy wood door began to splinter under his assault. I tried to help him, but the ward shoved me off my feet and into the snow.
As I stood up, I heard the screams begin.
“Adem!”
The door broke apart in pieces and Adem pried the remains from the frame. The wind and screams mingled together in a terrible chorus.
“Hurry,” I urged him.
With a nod, he plunged into the house.
Pacing back and forth, I listened as the shrieks above me died. Silence followed. A terrible silence that ate away at my senses and made me feel mad with dread. I stopped before the broken door and cried out for Adem.
There was no answer.
The hallway beyond the doorway remained empty, the flickering candles throwing grotesque shadows along the walls. I ventured a little closer and tentatively set my foot inside the house.
The ward was gone.
I gasped as the implication of the ward’s removal struck me. I took another step, horrified at what I had wrought upon Laura and her family. A loud thumping noise echoed through the house then Laura stepped into view. She was dragging Adem by his collar. Blood covered her face and saturated her white burial gown and her long dark hair.
“Laura,” I cried out.
Hesitating in her step, she lifted her head and gazed at me. Calmly, she dropped Adem to the floor.
“Laura, what have you done?”
“I killed them for you. For me,” she answered calmly. “They will not hurt either one of us ever again. ”
“Are you mad?”
“No. I am what you are. A vampire,” she said.
And smiled.
Later-
It was Adem returning to consciousness that restored any sort of sanity to the situation at hand. Laura had merely rendered him unconscious when he had barged in upon her. Despite the fury in his eyes, he calmly surveyed the damage my vampire fledgling had wrought on the world.
Laura watched us both with some interest from where she sat in a chair slowly licking the blood from her fingers. She looked neither crazed nor feral. In fact, she looked very much like she did when we worked on our embroidery.
“We had best set about assuring that her new nature is not discovered. Without Enre this will be difficult. Stay with her. ” Adem shook his head with frustration and rushed back up the stairs.
I sat with Laura as I listened to Adem moving about in the upper floors. Most of the servants did not live within the house, but in another building set to one side of the estate. But I did fear that the few that did live with the family had met similar fates to Laura’s parents.
“Madam?” a voice said out of the gloom.
I stood quickly and looked around the corner to see the butler and three maids clustered together in the hallway. They could easily see me from their vantage point, but not Laura.
“What is going on?” the butler asked, his eyes as large as saucers.
“Sleep,” I ordered, my power striking all three like a thunderclap.
They collapsed at my feet.
Abruptly drained, I staggered, falling against the wall.
“What will you do with them?” Laura asked me.
“Nothing,” I answered. “And neither will you. ”
“I’m not hungry anymore. ” She smiled slightly. “I wasn’t hungry after I killed that man. I wasn’t. . . crazed anymore either. ”
I turned to regard her, my anger barely held in check. “You killed Enre. ”
“I didn’t mean to. I mean. . . ” she faltered. “I meant to kill him. But I wasn’t in my right mind. I was just so hungry. ”
“And after you were done feeding from him?”
“I wasn’t hungry anymore. Or mad. ”
“Yet, you killed your parents. ”
She smiled. “Yes. I did. ”
“Why, Laura? Why?” I stared at her incredulously. I had wanted so desperately to save her from death and give her life. I had intended to protect her from all the horrors I had experienced when Vlad had created me. I did not want her to lose her family as I had lost mine. Yet, she had butchered them as coldly as Vlad had killed mine.
Laura twisted her blood soaked hair about one finger, her eyes regarding me thoughtfully. At last, she said, “I killed them because I was never anything more to them than a key to more wealth and prestige. When I was a little girl, I always knew my brother was the important one. I was always shunted to the side once he was born. As I grew older, I heard them talking about securing a wealthy husband for me to ensure that they would remain in good standing. I was nothing more than a commodity to them. ”
“They loved you. Of that I am certain. ” I felt sickened by her words, yet could understand her frustration. I had been furious with my parents for insisting that I marry well, yet I always knew they loved me.
“I am not,” she answered firmly. “I never felt their love. They were adamant in shaping me into the perfect
bride so that they could infuse more wealth into their lives. I know my father even arranged for your marriage. I heard him speaking with the baroness and Vlad Dracula. I know that they set about entrapping you. Did Dracula make you into a vampire?” She tilted her head and regarded me curiously.
“Yes. And murdered my family. That is why I hate him. ”
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “At last I understand why you married him despite being so staunchly opposed to marriage. So he created you, and you created me. ”
“Yes. Though I am not certain how I made you. ”
“Are you glad you did?” Her enormous, beautiful eyes regarded me with hope.
“I don’t know. ” It was the truth.
Standing, she walked to my side, her blood-soaked hem dragging on the floor. Resting her hand against my cheek, she gazed at me solemnly. “I have loved you since I first saw you. I loved you with all my heart. A silly girlish crush of the heart, perhaps. I thought perhaps you were like me. A woman who wants to be with other women. ”
I turned my head and averted my gaze, her closeness disquieting.
“But then I realized you do not. And I grew to love you in a different way. As a sister, a dear friend. You are the only person in my life that I truly believe loves me. ”
I looked upon her face and saw the red tears running down her cheeks. Her eyes were clear, sane, and full of love. I touched her cheek tenderly, my heart swelling with my love for her.