The Vampire's Reflection (33 page)

But she began anyway, stumbling forward before breaking into a desperate sprint, ducking under the thick clouds of webbing. Her breath caught in her throat as she pushed herself though the darkness, not glancing even once behind herself. She didn’t want to look. She couldn’t, in fear that she would find him just behind her, reaching to drag her back to that hell again. She would fight it to her death.

“Charlotte,” the menacing voice called out for her again. “I can smell you, Charlotte. There is no point in running!”

A malevolent laughter shattered her eardrums from down the hollow tunnel. The feeling of fear that scraped itself up the length of her spinal cord was as if it were the very tips of his icy talons dragging themselves there. It sucked the air right out of her chest and she found herself drowning in the chase.

“Leave me alone!” Reaching up to the earth-packed walls, she tore down clods of dirt with her fingernails to try and create an obstacle for him. Another useless attempt, she knew. Living with this mortal limitation was growing more difficult by the moment. However, she could at least tell she was headed in the right direction. Various trinkets began to scatter the ground and she found herself tripping over teapots and clock gears.

“Help! Mr. Třínožka!” He couldn’t be very far ahead.

“You’ve been a very, very naughty young lady, Lottie.” The beastly voice was almost a growl in her ear now.

She gasped, the air burning in her lungs. Thinking quickly, Charlotte grabbed the nearest thing by her feet. It was large, metal car wheel from decades and decades ago. Immediately, she pivoted to find herself nose to nose with Lusian, who met her with a malevolent grin.

“Lottie…I’ve got you now.” His black eyes shimmered with some faint undercurrent of a red glow.

Shrieking, Charlotte slammed the metal wheel over Lusian’s head, the thing catching around his neck, seeing in the darkness that she had disfigured his face. Dark blood rippled down from the deep slices in his skin, and even though the details of his face were difficult to make out, it looked to her like the winding, jagged metal of the wheel had permanently blinded him. A gasp caught in her throat as she released the wheel, stumbling backward. Tears welled in her eyes as the demon before her wailed in pain, grappling to pull the wheel up from around his neck. She was a dead woman.

“Charlotte!” A new voice rang out, this time before her. “Run, Charlotte! Hurry!”

“Mr. Třínožka!” she cried.

“I’m here!” His calls sounded weathered and exhausted, though he somehow still sounded as valiant as he always did. The Spider always knew when to appear, right in the nick of time. “Run toward my voice, Charlotte! Faster! He’s just behind you!”

She yelped, for she could see nothing—feel nothing—in the darkness. But she didn’t dare stop.

“D-d-d-danger,” she heard Edwin’s voice sputter.

“I know, Edwin! Can it!”

Finally, she slammed hard into something massive, but didn’t even have time to fall backward from the impact as an enormous hand plucked her from the ground. They were already running again before she could think, starting to bullet down the tunnel. The giant hand placed her somewhere she guessed was his front breast pocket. Her body slipped down into the soft material.

“Not to worry, darlin’. I’ll have ya outta here in a jiffy.”

“What happened to you? Where do we go from here?” she called up to him over the rush.

“We were trapped down here—forced to dig our way out!” Edwin’s call answered hers.

“Right! After that idiot beat and hog-tied us and sealed my confounded door shut!” Mr. Třínožka concluded.

“He’s h-hot on our t-trail!” Edwin warned.

Charlotte could still see nothing.

“Don’t worry your head! I’ve got an idea!” the Phaser declared proudly.

“Those last four words always mean something d-dangerous,” Edwin grumbled.

“Hold on tight, kids!”

Charlotte gripped tightly to the material of the Spider’s vest and shut her eyes as he leapt upward, thick chunks of packed dirt plummeting down around them.

Instantly, there was light, and as she opened her eyes, she found they were running through the dense Bohemian woods just as dawn was coming. Charlotte straightened inside of Mr. Třínožka’s massive pocket. It had been so long since she had been outdoors, let alone seen the sun. So accustomed to the stifling smell of her own, drying blood in Valek’s stuffy bedroom and unable to control her excitement, she leaned forward and sucked in a huge breath of the fresh, wintry air.

“We’ve l-lost him! He w-won’t come out in the daylight. He doesn’t h-have enough light m-magic in his system,” Edwin cheered from somewhere above her.

“How do you know?” Charlotte asked.

“H-he’s not following us, and b-besides,” Edwin reached down, dangling several, small canisters of Elven blood from his satchel. “I’ve got his s-stash!”

“When did you do that?” Charlotte called.

“I swiped it days ago when he first barred us down here! He didn’t notice in the grapple!”

“Good boy!” Mr. Třínožka bellowed. The giant Spider slowed to a halt and pulled Charlotte from his vest. As soon as her feet gently touched the ground, she ran to him anyway, wrapping her arms around one of his front legs.

“Thank you! It’s so wonderful to see you alive.”

“Thought I was a goner, eh?” He chuckled.

Edwin slid easily off Mr. Třínožka’s back and ran to Charlotte as well. “But not n-nearly as m-much as we thought you w-were a goner, Ch-charlotte.” He pulled her out of his tight embrace but continued to keep his hands grasped firmly around her shoulders. “W-we overheard all of the ar-arguing before V-valek left. Among some other things.” His eyes narrowed at her. “What’s happened to y-you?”

“Oh,” A wave of heat enveloped the apples of her cheeks as her blood rushed to her face. She looked down at herself and was reminded of the feebleness. The weakness. The very things she swore to herself she would overcome. “I’ll be fine. I only just lost myself for a minute.” Her gaze locked with Edwin’s concerned one again. “I’ll be fine. I swear it.”

“We’re taking you to Valek,” Mr. Třínožka interrupted. “He’s the only one who can fix you.”

Charlotte’s gaze shot to his face as he said this, her mouth falling open. “Really?” She stopped again and thought about that. “Valek doesn’t need to fix me. I’m fine. I’ll fix myself.” She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. She couldn’t shake the bitterness. However, all she wanted was for Valek to appear in that clearing—to just be pointed in his direction, and she would start running. She knew she should be angry, and for a slight moment upon hearing his name, she was. But the vision of his face in her mind, of knowing she was alive because of his many sacrifices, diminished every other negative emotion.

Something moved in the periphery of Charlotte’s vision. Though she heard Edwin continue to try to explain exactly what had locked them down in the bowels of the house, the next thing her eyes met caused the entire rest of the world to disappear into the background. It was as if she had gone blind to the world around her. The forest seemed to wane into the distance, because all she could see was his glorious silhouette waiting for her just up ahead, his long, graceful form leaned up against the trunk of a tall redwood. But she didn’t understand. Had Mr. Třínožka known Valek would be waiting there for her? She didn’t care. Her legs began moving even before she told them to.

“Valek!” she cried and bolted desperately forward into a sprint again. She could see his tall, shadowed form just on the edge of a sun-soaked clearing. “
Valek! I’m here!
” All of the bitterness she had harbored against him for leaving, all of the anger completely subsided.

She ran to him, throwing herself against him, at long last feeling his arms around her.
Finally
, she thought.
I am never letting you leave my sight again.

“Charlotte, n-n-n-no!” she heard Edwin call from somewhere behind her.

“Who is Valek?” an unfamiliar voice asked her.

Abruptly, Charlotte backed away, though the strange boy continued to hold her by the wrist. Her heart sank. Looking up into his face, she found he was not at all the person she’d thought he was. Now that she was close enough to decipher the details of him, she was made certain he was definitely not her beloved guardian, though his facial features and the length of his body were eerily similar. And what was more, he wasn’t even
like
Valek, or so it seemed. In fact, she didn’t think he wasn’t magical at all. Charlotte was staring face to face with another human, with Edwin and Mr. Třínožka, two monsters from the Occult, not too far behind. What were the consequences going to be of another human being witnessing the appearance of these two creatures? How was she going to get out of this one? They’d surely have to kill him.

A screech sounded suddenly somewhere above them, and before she could look to see what creature had created it, a falcon swooped down from one of the trees and landed obediently on the mysterious boy’s shoulder. She continued to stare at him, though with a new question arising in her mind.

The boy only stared dubiously back at her. Those eyes were the same crystalline color as the rest of her strange Vampire family, though they were not as ungodly illuminated. She frowned upon noticing that they were just a mere beautiful, normal blue. His jaw clenched into an intense sort of grimace, as if he were fighting himself over some impulse, a strange and angry line forming between his eyebrows. It made Charlotte take another step back.

Her heart slid up into her throat with the grasp of his hand around her wrist, the touch of his hand warm on her skin. He wouldn’t release her. The hair on the back of her neck lifted on end, her lips parting. She could feel her scar begin to throb at the side of her neck again. Oh God, she thought, it was starting to happen again. She winced. But why was it happening in the presence of a human?
Was he a Vampire?
She was so confused.

Finally, he let her go.

“I apologize….” Shyly, she dropped her gaze. Again, all of the sounds of the forest disappeared and the only things she could hear were the sound of her own frantic pulse and her static breathing. “I thought—I thought you were someone else.” Nervously, Charlotte took another step backward, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

The boy was devastatingly adorable, with a face that was eerily similar, though much younger than Valek’s. She guessed he was around eighteen or so, as she was. Such peculiar similarities. The same square jaw line. The same chiseled cheek bones. But his complexion was just a normal pale. His hair was cropped short, bangs feathered over to one side. And he wore a rather beat-up looking sweatshirt and a torn pair of jeans. He looked like any one of the victims she would have brought home for Valek, though she probably would have ended up developing a crush on
this
one.

“It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged, though his apathetic front did not match the suspicion in his eyes. He looked at her like Valek did when she had done something that confused him—as though he were searching for something. There was also something sort of…sad about him.

“I’m Nikolai.” He offered his hand to her.

“Charlotte!”

Edwin and Mr. Třínožka slid up behind her simultaneously. The strange boy didn’t seem at all affected by them. What kind of magic was this? He could not have been any normal person.

She glanced over her shoulder a moment to see them studying the boy as well, probably half expecting him to run away screaming. When Edwin didn’t seem to nervously combust as a result of any sort of impending danger, Charlotte turned back to Nikolai and finally shook his hand.

“I’m Charlotte.” She froze a bit when his skin met hers again. Her scar instantly reacted, and she retracted her hand.

Again, the falcon at Nikolai’s shoulder screeched at her and cocked his head.

“This is Ears.” Nikolai gestured to the winged beast as it continued to stare at Charlotte like it was about to fly at her and peck her eyes out. She hated birds.

“Ears?” Charlotte lifted her eyebrow at the same time Ears cocked his head at Nikolai as if also wondering why on earth that would be his name.

“What brings you about
these
here woods, Nikolai?”

Charlotte could hear the bitter skepticism in Mr. Třínožka’s voice from behind her. Perhaps there
was
something magical about this boy.

Nikolai shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing down for a moment. Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat. Even his mannerisms were weirdly similar. She hadn’t been so far off in believing for a moment he was Valek.

“Actually, I’m not sure,” he began. “I just sort of found myself here after wandering around for days.” He sounded tired. Vexed. He looked boldly and directly into her eyes. Charlotte frowned at him again, her heart thudding hard once against her sternum.

“I…haven’t…been like this for very long,” he struggled to tell her.

Edwin gasped behind her. “D-do you mean, you’re n-n-new?”

“Newly created, he means to say,” Mr. Třínožka abruptly amended.

Nikolai frowned again, averting his gaze. “Well, not exactly. I don’t remember much. My family was murdered in the night. The attack was the last thing I remember before waking up…like this. And now I really don’t know what I am.” His gaze flashed to Charlotte again. “I mean, I suppose I have an idea.” Discreetly he eyed her throat, though Charlotte missed nothing. After all of her years of living through what she’d lived through, she was definitely used to Vampires eyeing her as though she were a meal.

Charlotte clenched her jaw, her pent-up frustration with Valek finally letting itself show. “Wait.” She whirled to Mr. Třínožka and Edwin, who each carried a grim look on his face. “I’m not sure if I understand exactly what’s going on.”

“Th-this man is only half ch-changed,” Edwin indicated. “You’re a fledgling is what you are. Not really a Vampire. Not really a h-human. It’s like you’re in your l-larval stage.”

Charlotte looked back to Nikolai, who tightened his lips in a thin line and shrugged. “I remember being attacked. I have…certain abilities.” When Charlotte refused to respond to that, Nikolai quickly reached into his sweatshirt pocket. Charlotte backed away at the abruptness of his movement, but he looked at her with wide eyes and moved more cautiously. He pulled out a hunk of bread. “See?” He offered. “I still eat…normal things. Here,” he held it out to her, “it looks like you can use this more than me.”