The moment Cornelius crawled out of his crypt with coffin-hair and wrinkled bat-pajamas, Charlotte grabbed him by the oversized vampire-collar and held him against the wall in the damp crypt.
"She scares me!" Charlotte hissed, hair in a frizzy halo around her head and bags underneath her eyes. She had waited hours for the vampires to wake up and had barely slept all day because of Shadow.
"I'm dead, but I still need to breathe," Cornelius choked out, and Charlotte let him go. He coughed a few times and lost the bluish tint Charlotte had thought was normal for vampires pre-breakfast. Cue oops.
Lord Nightstalker rose too, and at the moment he looked far from his usual impossibly beautiful self. Tumbling out of the coffin did little to redeem his ultra cool vampire image.
"Tiny wardrobe malfunction," he grumbled, disentangling himself from the overly swishy cloak. When Charlotte offered a helping hand (Cornelius had vanished, perhaps because it wasn't socially acceptable for vampires to wear pajamas like the one he donned), Lord Nightstalker waved it aside. "No thank you, I'm fine. But thanks."
Charlotte didn't care. She was too tired, after spending most of the day hiding from the younger girl, till she finally found the room she woke up, where she crawled in under the covers and promptly fell asleep just to endure surreal nightmares about garden gnomes. Now the plan was to keep close to Cornelius, avoid Shadow and try to be polite but brief with Lord Nightstalker. Then, home, hopefully with her sanity still intact.
Cornelius should have been briefed with her plans because what happened was quite different
The four of them gathered in for breakfast in some formal looking room. Lord Nightstalker was greeted cheerfully by his human girlfriend, and in turn he ignored her completely. He had found an interesting book in the library.
"Good evening, Charlotte!" Shadow chirped upon spotting her new best friend.
Charlotte sat down by the table and felt her heart try to leap out of her chest. "I'm so sorry I left you last night," the young girl continued, "but I couldn't find you and then I was so tired I simply had to go to bed!"
"Oh, no worries! No worries at all!" Charlotte held back a little sigh of relief, imagining the tantrum the girl would have thrown had she known the effort Charlotte had put down into avoiding her.
"Slept well?" Cornelius asked. Charlotte nodded, choosing not to elaborate on the psychedelic garden gnomes she had been chased by.
Everyone seated, they waited. Cornelius sent the door an annoyed glance, wondering what kept the servants from bringing the girls their food. The vampires couldn't eat normal food, at least not without excessive vomiting, and would feed later. But breakfast was a ritual.
Then he remembered he didn't have any servants any longer, and that Verona had run away with Igor. "Excuse me for a moment," he said, running off to make breakfast for his human guest and pretend wife. "I'll go see whatever keeps them!"
Charlotte grumbled silently. Who did he think he was fooling?
"Shouldn't you eat?" Shadow asked Nightstalker.
He put his book down at last. "The most sensible thing I've heard you say tonight, darling."
Shadow immediately offered a wrist. Nightstalker didn't hesitate to snatch up a knife from the table and make an incision, where he latched on. Charlotte tried hard not to faint. Perhaps she had laced the corset too tight.
Instead of shrieking, screaming, struggling - every course of action natural when someone is feeding on your blood, Shadow just kept smiling. The deer-eyed loving look was sickening. Charlotte was happy she hadn't eaten in a while.
The couple finished. Charlotte didn't know where to look and tried to act like what had just happened was completely normal. She was married to Cornelius - or were they engaged? She couldn't remember. But of course she would know about this. She was happy vampires didn't seem to be able to read minds; otherwise Nightstalker would have heard her going crazy about the spectacle.
Shadow laid her arms around her centuries older boyfriend. Her arm was still bleeding. "Do you love me Nicky?"
"Of course," said Lord Nightstalker, not even bothering to look up from his book. Charlotte tilted her head to read the title: The Dracula Cookbook of Blood. True love indeed. Then the vampire looked up and across the table, noticing Charlotte's pallor. "Are you alright?"
"Oh no!" Shadow exclaimed, realising what must have upset her best friend in the whole world - no wait, universe! The whole cosmos! "You mustn't worry about me! I find it thrilling that he's always on the verge of killing me! It makes me feel so... so alive!"
Not for long if Nightstalker had anything to say about it. Charlotte couldn't help but glance at the book in his pale hands.
"I'm okay," she said. A few sessions with a skilled therapist should be enough to sort her out. She avoided Shadow's gaze, thinking it better not to stay away from her crazy. Until Cornelius came back, the next best person to talk to was unfortunately Lord Nightstalker.
She cleared her throat. Taking the scientific route would distract her from the plain icky side. "So you don't... bite the jugular?"
"No, that leaves an awful mess. Besides the victim bleeds out in a manner of minutes when the carotid artery is severed... Useless for anything else than murder, really." He silenced a moment. Charlotte mentally slapped herself. She had had to ask. And then Nightstalker continued: "I went through a few loves of my life before figuring that one out."
"Charming," Charlotte replied and looked away. Nightstalker, no matter how silly his name was, had murdered people.
Lord Nightstalker, having been preoccupied reading when Cornelius left, noticed his host's absence, and smiled. Time to set the plan in motion. The cookbook was put aside.
"I must confess, fair beauty, that I have hidden intentions."
At first Charlotte thought he was talking to Shadow, 'cause she didn't feel like a fair beauty. She wore the same Victorian ensemble as yesterday, and the downside of living in an old castle was no plumbing, thusly no showers. "Excuse me?"
"You cannot possibly be content like this, living with Cornelius. Between you and me, everyone knows he's not... the sharpest knife in the drawer, so to say."
Charlotte glanced at the door, heart-rate picking up. "I think I should go see if Cornelius needs any help."
"Don't you long for more?"
"Not really."
"Well, I could give you more!" he said.
Charlotte fumed. What was it about vampires that made them totally ignore what you said? Because she was human? Racist nitwits the whole lot of them!
Lord Nightstalker rose. "Come with me and I will give you eternal life, what Cornelius would never give you!"
Charlotte blinked. "Why would you do that?"
"I have something unsettled with Cornelius."
"I thought you and Cornelius were friends."
"Not really," he said. "This story just needed a dashingly handsome antagonist."
"Alright," she said, still eyeing the door longingly. "So, lemme get this straight - you want to murder me to get back at him."
"Yes, that's pretty much it."
Charlotte didn't know what to say. The stunned silence was broken by Shadow, who just about exploded: "How dare you make a move on my boyfriend?!"
"I-- You can hardly say I was the one who--" Charlotte sputtered. She didn't get farther, as Shadow suddenly seemed to collapse headfirst down onto the table.
Lord Nightstalker released his firm grip on his girlfriend's head and sighed in relief. "That ought to shut her up for a while."
"Is she gonna be okay?"
"She's had worse," Lord Nightstalker commented casually. "So, what do you say? Join me in reanimation!"
Just then, Cornelius returned and Charlotte was spared having to answer. She hadn't thought anyone could outweird Cornelius, but tall, dark and dead across the table gave him quite a run for his money.
Cornelius brought the girls food. Charlotte looked at the delicious toast and fought against a gag reflex working overtime. The images of the bloodletting were still all too vivid in her mind. And then there was Nightstalker, of course.
Shadow was still out cold, drooling at the table. Cornelius put her plate down beside her head, and waited a moment for her to come to. When she didn't, he nudged her gently. She moaned, but nothing more happened.
"It looks like Shadow is tired," Cornelius said.
The conversation picked up again, more mundane matters this time. Cornelius was trying to keep it going. Lord Nightstalker tried to keep Cornelius out of what he considered his conversation with the young maiden opposite him. Charlotte wanted to eat in peace and tried to ignore them both.
But when Lord Nightstalker suddenly remarked upon something special, he had her complete attention once again: "I cannot see the Mark upon you."
The remark was innocent in itself, but Charlotte felt a jolt of uneasiness that didn't have anything to do with nausea. "The mark?" she asked.
Lord Nightstalker gasped in mock surprise. "Has our dear Cornelius not Marked you as his own? My dear, you stand free to be claimed by anyone, you have no bite!"
Charlotte's mouth felt dry all of a sudden. Nightstalker had a plan he would follow through with, one way or another. She needed whatever protection she could get.
"Bite?" she repeated. "The mark, it's a bite?"
Cornelius frowned. "What's this mark you're talking about? A vampire bite would be--"
He was cut off rather roughly when Charlotte rose in a hurry to smack her wrist into his mouth, causing the sharp incisors to break the vulnerable skin. She winced slightly, but the pain was worth it. It seemed pretty obvious who would want to claim her if Cornelius didn't. Lord Nightstalker had crossed over from hot to silly-named-guy to dangerous creature, and had at last landed on deranged psycho killer with an agenda she didn't like.
"There," she gasped, lowering her arm. "All marked!"
Cornelius paled, Charlotte's blood staining his lips. He wheezed, got up from the table and bolted from the room. Seconds later a series of truly horrid retching noises were heard.
It took Charlotte a few moments to decipher the meaning of this. "Oh no-- I'm so sorry!" she called after him. "He's allergic to my blood," she mumbled to Lord Nightstalker, completely forgetting he was a deranged psycho killer with an agenda she didn't like.
"You're B?"
"Yeah," she answered absent-mindedly, gazing after her unfortunate kidnapper.
"My favourite," Lord Nightstalker purred.
As her blood flowed freely from the open wound, staining the white table-cloth red, Charlotte slowly came to realise she was in the same room as a bloodthirsty vampire. "Gotta go check on Cornelius, see if he's okay!" she blurted, and vanished as fast as possible in the impossible gown.
"Dear gods, why did you do that?" Cornelius complained when they re-entered the room a few minutes later. He didn't catch her answer ("Lord Nightstalker is planning to kill me."), as he gazed upon Lord Nightstalker. "Nicholas, are you eating the table-cloth?"
"Of course not!" Lord Nightstalker denied, with bits of textile between his teeth. Charlotte shuddered at the comical sight, noticing he had consumed the parts she had bled on.
Nonetheless they sat down again, no conversation this time. Charlotte was severely spooked and tried to inch her chair away from Nightstalker. Cornelius was too nauseous to speak. Lord Nicholas Nightstalker boiled with anger over still another lost opportunity to claim the girl to whom Cornelius Reading's heart belonged. The silence didn't last long.
"I will not tolerate this any longer!" Lord Nightstalker declared. Cornelius and Charlotte both watched, in confusion and horror, as he rose, pointing a threatening clawed finger at the other vampire. "You cannot come between us like this!"
"I assure you, I have nothing against you and your, your..." Cornelius glanced at Shadow, who was still asleep, "... sleeping beauty getting together."
"Playing games will only aggravate me, Reading!" Nightstalker snarled. Charlotte found herself unable to look away from his growing canines. Funny how she hadn't thought of vampires as really dangerous until now. Then again, now they seemed very freaking dangerous.
She got to her feet and ran for the door. When Nightstalker simply seemed to appear in front of her, continuing to grab hold of her arm, she produced a scream so high-pitched it would have made even the overly girly Shadow proud. Then she rammed her foot into his knee - or she would have, if Lord Nightstalker hadn't been wearing a cloak and she could have seen his legs. She missed by a mile.
Cornelius rose. "Unhand my, um -- my wife! Or fiancé, I can't really remember! Right this instant!"
All he got in return was a cold laugh. Nightstalker really enjoyed the drama, actually so much that if she hadn't been scared witless at the moment, Charlotte would have thought he would have to work with the villain theme he had assumed.
"And what will you do if I don't?"
"Um," said Cornelius, unexpectedly having to answer to his own threat. "Painful things, I assume."
"Like I came unprepared!" Nightstalker laughed, reaching into a pocket and throwing its contents at Cornelius' feet.
Seeds, Charlotte realised, raising an eyebrow when they did nothing to him. But then, to her surprise, Cornelius sighed, and started counting them. "One, one seed – two, two seeds – three, three seeds - four..."
"That ought to keep him occupied for a while." Nightstalker smiled, baring fangs. She was dragged out of the dining room. "And now, I will be having a drink out of that lovely neck of yours."
"Or not!" Charlotte growled in anger, and smashed in his face with the spiked mace she had snatched from one of the numerous armaments around the fortress while he acted like a bad Bond-villain in front of Cornelius.
Nightstalker was out cold. While vampires could regenerate and heal quickly, he had been badly mauled. Charlotte decided to handle him on her own, grabbed hold of that silly cloak of his and was able to haul him to the front door without trouble before he started to come to. He might have come to only to be knocked out again - on their way downstairs she made sure his head fell hard on every step of the twenty-one step long staircase.
Downstairs, she unlocked the mighty entrance and heaved him out. He came to, just in time to feel the impact of the gravel, and hear her bellow: "And stay out!"
Lord Nightstalker sat up, covered in grime and dust-bunnies, no short of furious. Not once, during his six hundred and fifty-two years as a mighty vampire, a fiend of the night, a blood-sucking incubus of hell, a grand something of you get what I mean - not once had a mere human dared go against his will. But now this girl, none less than the spouse of Cornelius Reading, had the nerve to lay hand on him!
He staggered up, fuming. "Mark my words!" he hollered, so angry he could have ripped off someone's head, preferably hers, with ease. "My revenge will be quick and merciless! It will strike you - both of you!"
And with those words he turned to stomp away, but got tangled in his own cloak, tripped in his feet, fell and impaled himself on one of Cornelius' garden gnomes.
Charlotte shrieked in terror when he turned to dust and ashes with an anguished wail, and ran out. "Oh my god, are you alright?!" she shouted, running for the ash-pile, but stopped. He wasn't bloody alright.
Cornelius came out of his magnificent dark black gothic castle, having counted three hundred and seventy-nine seeds, and ran up to Charlotte. Her knees had given in under her and she sat crying, at a safe distance from what would have been a corpse hadn't the victim been a vampire.
"He-e tripped," she sobbed, pointing at the pile of ashes scattered across a garden gnome and Cornelius' much beloved begonias. "I could just as w-well have sta-staked him myself - I didn't mean for him to die! Oh god, I killed him!"
Cornelius led her inside, only stopping to mourn that Nightstalker had fallen on one of his absolute favourite garden gnomes and gotten grime and gore all over it. Well inside, he tried his best to comfort the distressed girl. None of the vampire fics he had read said anything about how to stop someone from crying their eyes out over basically killing someone, so he was on his own. Which was good, otherwise he would have fucked up yet another time.
It didn't take Charlotte long to remember what Lord Nightstalker had tried to do, and thusly realise he was still a deranged psycho killer, albeit a dead one, and she felt better.
"It's strange, I didn't like him and he scared me and he wanted to kill me, but now that he's dead, I don't know what to think. You know, death is such a strange thing... Yes, death is such--" She stopped mid-sentence. "Why do I feel compelled to sing?"
"Because The Author has an unhealthy obsession with this... Austrian vampire musical," Cornelius grumbled, still having his horrible musical number from chapter one fresh in mind. No wonder Charlotte found him silly.
"Oh," muttered Charlotte, before giving the ceiling a scorching glare. "Oi, will you please stop it? I hate singing!"
There came a disembodied voice: "Sorry."
Cornelius glared at his ceiling. "You're not!"
"Nope," replied the author. "And it's a grusical, not a musical! Huge difference!"
"Whatever," Cornelius and Charlotte replied in unison.
Not faced in the slightest by talking to their creator, the unlikely pair continued.
"Don't worry about Nightstalker," Cornelius said, handing his kidnapped would-have-been-wife a steaming cup of tea. "All it takes is one drop of blood dropped on his ashes, and he's as good as new."
Charlotte choked on the tea and scalded her insides, not at all keen on the idea of a revived Lord Nightstalker.
"The Hammer-movies got something right," mused Cornelius, as usual oblivious to Charlotte's fears. "I know, shocking isn't it?" he said, at last noticing her worry and then completely misunderstanding what she was worried about.
"But out here, that's not likely to happen?"
"No." Cornelius rose. "And, personally, I don't see a problem with that. If you'll please excuse me, I shall go bury his ashes to prevent revivification from happening."
He stopped in the door. "I guess that means you can go home."
Charlotte looked up from her tea to meet his eyes. "Yeah," she said, without any real enthusiasm. She rose to follow him, and then looked down at herself. During the brief struggle with Lord Nightstalker, the dress had been utterly spoiled. It was also bloodstained. The wound where Cornelius' teeth cut through her skin was still bleeding.
"I can't go home looking like this."
"You could just e-mail your parents and tell them where you are. And by that I mean you could lie, I think they would be upset if they knew the truth. The computer's in the library, you remember?"
"Hmm," she said, drying her tears. "Good idea."
Hilarious seeds x]
SvarSlett