A Very Dark Gothic Tale of Vampiric Love: II

Cornelius Reading sighed, and wondered how other men managed to live peacefully with the women in their un-lives. Charlotte was raging.

It was less than an hour since she woke and found herself kidnapped by a bloodsucking fiend of the night, and during that time, she had, after a while, managed to find her way back to her room, and had of course found her clothes to be missing.

And when she stalked back to the library, Cornelius had the audacity to ask her a favour.

"Are you insane?" she asked, and he actually seemed puzzled by the question.

"I don't think I am," Cornelius answered straightforward. "Why do you ask?"

Charlotte had been brought up to be polite, and she extended this to vampires, even one that had kidnapped her. "I don't know, it could have explained a thing or two."

"But," she continued, adopting a firmer tone, "I thought you were going return me. You promised!"

"I never promised anything," Cornelius argued.

"I wanna go home!"

"But if you would just hear me out -"

"I'm seventeen! I have to be home before half past ten on schooldays! My parents are probably worried sick about me already, don't you care?"

"I have a problem," Cornelius admitted.

"Tell me something I don't know," Charlotte sighed.

"You know?" he exclaimed. "How?"

"I'm psychic."

"Really?"

"No, you -" She silenced and took a deep breath. "Just continue. Your problem."

"I need help, sort of," Cornelius explained. "I invited an old friend over earlier, thinking I would have a wife to show off. And he's coming today -"

"Tonight," Charlotte corrected.

"- and if he realises what has happened here, I will be the laughing stock of the sanguine community, forever!"

"And if I don't go home, I will be grounded, forever."

"Technically that would be impossible for a mortal," Cornelius said. "Back to my guest - he is only staying for a short while, and you don't even have to talk to him if you don't want to, I'm sure he would understand. He's coming soon, so you should probably go change. You can't meet him wearing a nightgown, imagine the scandal."

"Excuse me?" Charlotte sputtered. "When did I agree to do this?" She advanced on him, and Cornelius backed off. She had already slapped him around the place. "I - want - to - go - home! Now!"

And then Cornelius put up the saddest puppy eyes she had ever seen. Charlotte's resolve wavered.

"I really have to go home. I have homework."

His eyes watered a little.

Charlotte realised the alternative to meeting supernatural beings, was doing homework. She had a heap of math on her plate tonight, and had to rehearse for choir tomorrow, which she rather dreaded. Her mother had made her join a more feminine activity under threat of not sponsoring her martial arts classes. Between studies and extracurrucular activities, Charlotte didn't have the time for a part-time job.

"It's not as if I have anything better to do," she mumbled, giving into the power of puppy eyes. "But I'll have to let my parents know I'm staying the night at a friend's."

"Really? You would do it?"

"I'll pretend while he's here. But I'd rather be your fiancé than your wife, okay? It's just less weird."

"Thanks," Cornelius beamed. "No worries, I'll make it up to you, and the whole kidnapping thing too." He thought it best not to mention his guest was meant to be staying for a week.

Charlotte had almost violated the wardrobe in her room, in a desperate search for something appropriate to wear. At last she had decided on a long dress she was sure was from the Victorian age. She had to wear a corset to fit into it, but this was, by her standards, better than to sport the skanky black gothic garb she'd found. She was going nowhere near the PVC and pleather and spikes unless she hit her head and decided to become a dominatrix. Which was unlikely.

I look like I just escaped from some badly written Victorian fanfic," she grumbled. "And I can barely breathe!" she added with a wheeze, finding the corset too restricting on her modern, healthy figure.

"I made an honest mistake," Cornelius protested. "The stories said Victorian dresses and corsets was all the rage nowadays amongst vampire kidnapping victims. Look at the bright side, now we match, and I feel as silly as you do."

Charlotte didn't listen. "How could you not realise those stories were written by hormone-fuelled wannabe-gothic teenyboppers who couldn't bother doing as much as a speck of research before churning out their tripe?" The long sentence left her heaving for breath, and she almost tripped in the black fabric. "And," she added, once she didn't feel lightheaded anymore, "my butt looks huge!"

"It's a bustle, darling, it's supposed to -"

"You know," Charlotte cut in, "you should have kidnapped my sister! She loves this kinda shit, 'cause, I mean, she's fourteen and a complete dimwit. No offense."

"None taken," he retorted, opening the front doors out into the garden.

Outside, the moon illuminated everything in view. Curious about her sanguine kidnapper's lair, Charlotte turned and gasped in utter awe. While most fictional vampire kidnappers chose to live in black gothic mansions situated in large cities where victims can be easily found, Cornelius Reading resided in a freaking castle.

As she was overcome with wonder, Charlotte was immediately thankful for the supportive hand he rested around her waist. She had come dangerously close to tripping down the magnificent staircase leading up to the castle's entrance. Then she realised what he was doing - touching her again! - and swatted his hand away, now making sure to keep a distance, both to the vampire and the treacherous stairs.

"How do you pay for all this?" she asked, really meaning to express her amazement.

"Credit cards, mostly."

Oh dear, Charlotte thought. "I assume you haven't heard of the recession?"

"Recession?"

"Nevermind," she blurted, holding back a nervous laugh. The poor bloke would find out soon enough.

She looked around again, and then, understanding they were alone in the vast fortress, she asked: "Don't you have servants? I always thought that was a huge part of the vampire stereotype."

"Well, there was Igor," Cornelius said, keeping an eye out for his mysterious guest. He hesitated, and when he spoke again there was a hint of hurt in his voice. "From what I understand, my second wife ran away with him."

Oh burn, thought Charlotte.

"That is the downside of hiring young, attractive men to do your bidding." Cornelius grumbled.

"Oh."

Charlotte's eyes started to get used to the faint light from the moon, and stared at her surroundings. "That's a nice garden," she complimented him.

"You really think so?" Cornelius beamed with pride, forgetting about the harsh way his wife Marissa had left him while he had been deep in slumber. Finding her aged note on his coffin had been quite a blow. "It's been abandoned for nine years and I haven't had much time for gardening... I'm afraid it's still a little wild."

"No, it's nice," Charlotte assured him, and worked up the courage to ask her next question. "What's with all the garden gnomes though?"

"Oh, do you like them?" Here Charlotte only gave a murmur, but the bloodsucker didn't notice her lacking interest and just continued, with great enthusiasm: "I find them absolutely enchanting!"

Apparently he did; she counted at least nine of the creepy small statues peering at them. It would seem Cornelius wasn't the ordinary run-of-the-mill vampire. She wished she had remained ignorant to the small things - thanks to an incident in her early childhood, she was convinced such creatures were out to eat her soul.

All thoughts of evil garden gnomes were chased away when a black gothic car pulled up outside the gates, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Cornelius gestured to Charlotte, offering her an arm. She took it, willing to play along to impress his friend. Now was the moment she realised she was going to be introduced to another vampire. Quite strange for someone who had only known them to exist for a few hours. She didn't know what to hope for, but if this new bloodsucker was a copy of Cornelius, she was bound to go insane.

A cloaked man emerged from the car, the black fabric of the cloak delicately draping itself around him in a dramatic manner before he threw it aside in an even more dramatic manner.

"He makes that look so easy," Cornelius remarked, green with envy.

Charlotte didn't really listen. A second, smaller figure came out, taking the hand of the man. When the couple approached Cornelius' castle, Charlotte's eyebrows were raised higher and higher. The girl was wearing a really short black, gothic dress. Charlotte owned belts longer than that.

The man's attire was so peculiar it calls for its own paragraph, which follows: While Cornelius had been dressed up in a century old outfit plus mismatched cloak, and had ended up looking like the common movie vampire, this man really dressed the part. Underneath the black cloak he wore the usual ensemble; vest, jacket, usual vampire attire with hints of gothic influence. Only, unlike most vampire lifestylers, wannabes and costumers, he pulled it off.

The cloak seemed to be alive, swishing around him, brought to life by the chill night wind. The girl at his side ought to be freezing. It turned out the weird noise Charlotte had strived to place came from the girl's shattering teeth. Nevermind his skanky companion, the vampire looked undoubtedly cool.

That was the reason why Charlotte's traitorous heart was aflutter when Cornelius strode forwards to greet his sanguine friend. He smiled and let out a roaring laugh as they shook hands, like friends who hadn't seen each other in a very long time. Then Cornelius turned and offered Charlotte a hand. The perfect gentlemen.

"Charlotte, this is one of my oldest friends." He practically beamed. "Lord Nightstalker."

And so the mystic sway the mysterious stranger had over her was gone. Trying not to blurt out with laughter, she managed to press out a rather pained, "Nice to meet you, sir."

Her heart beat fast. She didn't like the thought of possibly offending a vampire, but the vampire in question took it with grace and shrugged. "All the cool names were taken."

"Oh," said Charlotte. "And, um, sorry," she rambled on. "My manners are better, usually."

"No worries, fair beauty," the vampire purred, placing a kiss on her palm. Charlotte was pierced by a jealous glare from the short-skirted girl, so she swallowed uneasily and looked elsewhere. She had no intentions of insulting vampires' girlfriends either.

Introductions were made in a more common fashion after Charlotte's blunder. The girl's name was Shadow. She was human, and from what Charlotte could understand, very possessive of her vampire boyfriend. Strangely it seemed this interest wasn't mutual.

Nightstalker shook off the hand of his girl, and went inside. Quite how it happened, Charlotte didn't know, but suddenly he had seized her arm, and led her down some random corridor. Behind them, Shadow chattered happily with Cornelius, who tried to follow her conversation about hot vampires. Needless to say, he was failing. ("Well, being male - and straight I might add, I have never really noticed the firmness of Lord Nightstalker's buttocks, I'm afraid...")

Charlotte, who had woken up to realise she had been kidnapped, had wrongly presumed her day couldn't get any worse. As the previous sentence might imply, she was wrong. Because after an hour spent in a comfortable lounge, where Charlotte, Nightstalker and Cornelius discussed a variety of surprisingly interesting topics and Shadow mainly was ignored, Lord Nightstalker suddenly gave a long-drawn yawn, baring sharp and quite scary fangs. Cornelius had also started to look kinda tired.

"Oh, look at the time," he announced, looking out a window to the east. And, true, dawn was drawing near. The sun had started to creep up behind the mountains. "Time to go to bed. You girls can have some human bonding time while we sleep," suggested Cornelius, beaming at them. "Good day."

And then the vampires were gone.

Charlotte glanced nervously at the girl, straightened out some wrinkles in her skirt, and cleared her throat. "So, um, hi."

"Hi."

There was an awkward silence. Charlotte briefly wondered how the vampires could have disappeared so freaking fast, and, considering her current situation, pondered on whether she should strangle Cornelius next time she saw him.

"So, how did you end up here?" asked Shadow.

"Well, I was... kidnapped," started Charlotte cautiously, a little afraid Shadow would think Cornelius totally bonkers. "I know it sounds silly that I'm staying with him -"

"Oh, I was kidnapped too!" squealed Shadow. "At first I was scared, but then I like realised all the vampire guys were, like, hot, really hot. Nightstalker is smexylicious, don't you think?"

"Well, I... don't know," mumbled Charlotte.

"O-M-G!" Shadow managed to pronounce each letter with even greater drama than the former. "I mean, are you freaking blind?"

"Well, I guess he's sort of...?"

"He's mine. Don't ever forget that."

There it was again, the invisible danger sign that informed Charlotte the other girl was a pretty little psycho, who would do really bad things to those who dared come close to her lovey-dovey.

"No worries, I'm, um, deeply in love with Cornelius," Charlotte lied, blushing like mad.

"Oh I know how you must feel!" sighed Shadow, delicately taking the arm of Charlotte, wrongly assuming the other girl to be as demented as herself.

"So you love Lord... Nightstalker?"

"Well, he did rape me and permanently scar me for life and leave me to be tortured in his dungeons of doom, but I really think it could work between us. I've never been so happy."

Charlotte swallowed and forced herself to smile. "That's... great."

Next part this way.