Sara walked over to the jail and placed the blanket between two of the bars.
"Sara," Ethan said, reaching through and grabbing her arm. "Don't let him do this. You know this is wrong."
"I am sorry, Ethan. There is nothing I can do," she said and quickly ran away.
"Victoria," Ethan said, "don't give up. There is still time; we can still escape." He looked around the cell for anything he could use as leverage to unhinge the door.
"No, Ethan," she said. "The sun is setting. There is not much time. Don't waste these last moments we have together." She looked at Ethan and gave him a reassuring smile. As hopeless and helpless as he felt, he could not help but smile back at her. Even in the face of death, she was calm.
"I have to confess something to you," Ethan said.
"More confessing? The Father will be sorry he missed this," she joked.
"Yes, well, this involves Father James anyway," he said. "I told him on Sunday that I planned to leave the church and marry you. He was not just unhappy – he was furious. He told me at the time that he thought you and your father were evil. I told him he was crazy and that he should not slander you like that. I thought that he would calm down and that things would be all right. I never thought you would be in danger. I should have told you, should have sent you back home to where you would be safe. This is all my fault. I am so sorry."
Victoria saw the sadness and guilt in his eyes. "Oh, my darling," she said. "You had no way of knowing what he would do. Don't blame yourself. Promise me that you will not blame yourself, do not burden yourself with guilt on my account. It is not your fault." She felt tears well up in her eyes, but she needed to remain strong. "Besides," she said, "I need to confess something to you." She took a deep breath. "I am not what I seem, Ethan."
He looked at her in disbelief. "No, Victoria…" he muttered.
She shook her head and cut him off. "Father James is right," she continued. "My father is unnatural, and I am not like other people."
"You don't mean…You can't be saying…" Ethan stammered, trying to find the words. "Father James is not right. You are not evil, Victoria. I know it."
"I know, Ethan," she said. "That is not what I mean. My father is not the devil, but he is not…human. I have made it my business not to know what my father is. I have known for some time that he was different, but I thought that if I simply ignored it, I would not be held accountable for his actions. Today, I found out that I was wrong. My intolerance of the sun I inherited from him. You never see him because he cannot tolerate the sun at all. He can only live by the glow of fire or the moon. He is a creature of the night. The maids who tend to me, they are just like him. They are his…his lovers. All of them. I don't know what they are, but I know I am my father's daughter, and I too am not…I don't know what I am…" her voice started to break. The sun was quickly setting, and she did not know what was going to happen. "I am so sorry, Ethan. I did not mean to deceive you or hurt you. I just wanted to be with you and have a family and…I wanted to be normal."
"It's all right, Victoria," he said. He had calmed down considerably. Even though Victoria was trying to tell him something important, the sound of her voice soothed him. "It is not your fault. You cannot help what you or your father are. Everything will work out."
She returned his smile. "Promise me," she said, "promise me that when the time comes, you won't watch. I don't want you to see…"
"No, don't think that way," he interrupted. "You are not going to die."
"Ethan, even if the wolves do not come, the sun will rise eventually."
"Then my loving face will be the last thing you see." Tears formed in his eyes and a few managed to escape. "But don't worry because it is not going to happen. Don't give up. Surely your tiny wrists can free themselves. Keep trying."
Victoria tried to remain calm. She stood and tried to work her hands free from their bonds.
The jail was so old, some of the boards were rotting. Ethan began to pull at a few of the weaker ones, hoping to create a hole big enough for him to fit through. The sun had completely set. Only stars and the moon gave any light. Victoria kept working to free herself, but then, in the not-to-far distance, a wolf howled. Victoria held her breath, trying to gauge the distance of the sound, but she was too afraid to turn around. Ethan stood at the window and looked into the woods. From among the trees a large, black wolf appeared.
"My God," Ethan whispered. "How is this possible?" It had only been three days since the last attack. If the wolves were supernatural, as the priest had asserted, they should not have been back for a month. Ethan watched as five more beasts appeared at the forest's edge. He felt so helpless. There was nothing he could do but watch if the monster decided to rip his love to shreds. He remembered the man he found in the shed and felt sick to his stomach.
Victoria turned just enough to see Ethan and his wide eyes. She gulped, took a breath, and slowly turned the rest of the way around. She locked eyes with the lead wolf and her breath quickened.
"Hey!" Ethan called out. "Hey, wolves! Over here!"
The wolves did not alter their course. Victoria was paralyzed with fear. She watched as the leader of the pack slowly and cautiously approached her. She suddenly did not care about the villagers and wished her father would appear and save her. Now, actually faced with death, she was not ready to go. She thought of Ethan. She did not want to live in a world without him, and she did not want him to face the world without her. At that moment, though, all she could do was to watch the wolf as it stepped closer.
There was something strange about the way the wolf stayed locked onto her gaze. His eyes seemed almost human, almost wondering what she was going to do. Victoria remembered the chain about her neck, pulled the amulet from between her breasts, and held it firmly between her hands.
"Oh, Mother," she prayed softly holding the amulet to her lips, "if I ever needed protection, now is the time." She kissed the medallion and removed it from her neck. She fell to her knees with her hands above her head. The wolf continued his slow progress toward her. The other wolves followed not far behind. "Oh, Father, forgive me; forgive them. Please let it be quick." Whether she was praying to her earthly father or her Almighty one, she did not know.
She waited until the wolf was only a few feet from her when she held fast to the gold chain and let the medallion drop. It dangled just at her forehead and the moon reflected the red gemstones in the eyes of the wolf.
He immediately stopped in his tracks.
7
The wolf stood still. The other wolves also saw the amulet and began to shrink back. Victoria held her breath.
"Who are you?" the wolf asked in a low, gruff voice.
Victoria paused for a moment, shocked that the wolf could speak. "My name is Victoria. Who are you?"
The wolf snorted at her. As if she were in a position to be asking questions. "Where did you get that medallion?" he asked.
"It was a gift. I was told it would protect me," she replied.
The wolf ascended the step and sniffed the girl. He was huge. She had not realized just how big he was until he was close enough that she could feel his hot breath on her face. He was at least twice the size of a normal wolf. "What are you?" he asked. "Are you a nosferatu?"
"I don't know what that is," she answered. "I am a human."
"Hardly," the wolf replied. "You smell like a nosferatu, but the warmth from your skin says otherwise." He backed away and said something in an ancient, Slavic language to one of the other wolves. The other wolf replied to him in kind. The lead wolf turned back to Victoria. "You say you do not know what the nosferatu are, yet you wear one of their amulets. Who did you get it from?"
She began to feel that she had some power, some say in the situation. The wolves were reluctant to attack her because of the amulet; she had to figure out what to say to retain that power.
"I was told it would protect me," she repeated. "Does it protect me from you?"
"That would depend on who you
got it from," the wolf chuckled. "No, my dear, it only protects you from nosferatu. But we like the nosferatu; we would not want to upset them."
"Then I don't think I want to tell you who gave it to me," she said. "If that is the only reason you have not eaten me."
The wolf let out a low growl. "Do not fool yourself, girl, into thinking you have any control here. I don't like Vincent enough to be made a fool of." She tensed at the mention of her father's name, which the wolf quickly picked up on. "Vincent," he said again. "Did you get it from Vincent?"
Realizing the mistake she had made, she nodded her head. The wolf growled again, turned away from her, and returned to the pack. Victoria turned to look at Ethan. He was just staring at the events unfolding before him. He could not believe what he was seeing. Even though he could not hear what was being said with the voices so low, he could see that Victoria was holding a conversation with a wolf.
The wolf carried out what looked, to Victoria, like a very heated conversation with the other wolves. Two of the wolves left, wanting nothing to do with the situation. The lead wolf growled angrily at them, making Victoria cringe. Her arms were getting tired and her knees were freezing. She wanted to stand, but she did not want to draw attention to herself. She slowly raised herself up and put the chain back around her neck. She quietly tried to free herself from the chains once more.
The wolf's ears flickered at hearing what she was doing and quickly turned back around. Her breath stopped as he began to walk back toward her. With each step the wolf took, he began to change. His fur receded to form clothes about him and reveal skin. His snout shortened to a completely human face. He stood upright and stopped just before the platform.
Victoria's jaw dropped and she sank to the ground. She could not look away. He was tall and muscular, but burlier than her father was. His hair was short and wild. His clothing was more rustic, too, with a fur wrapped about him from his left shoulder to his right hip, but his appearance was wholly human. He stood over her with his hands on his hips.
"Dear Lord," she finally managed to whisper. "The legends are true."
"Your name, girl," he demanded.
"Victoria Vladimir," she answered mechanically.
He took a deep breath at the utterance of her confession and turned back to his pack. Victoria looked in the direction of his gaze and saw the remaining wolves had also changed. Two men and one woman looked back at her.
"This is indeed an unfortunate turn of events," he said, turning back to her.
Unfortunate for whom she did not ask. She was running all of the possible unfortunate answers through her head when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. The man looked away from her, as, to the left and right five cloaked persons appeared from the woods. They were people Victoria knew all too well. Four of the figures stayed back, but one continued approaching and removed his hood.
"Xavier," Vincent said, pulling back his hood. "This was not part of our agreement."
"What are you doing here?" Xavier asked in a friendly tone, approaching him.
"You sent me a letter," he replied, holding up the parchment.
"Yes, a letter asking you not to get involved."
"How can I not be involved?" Vincent asked. "You were planning on eating my daughter."
"Oh," Xavier replied, feigning shock. "Is that who this is? Honestly, I had no idea. I thought the town was just offering me a gift. Though it appears someone has actually made them quite angry…Angry enough to kill," he said, looking at Victoria.
"Apparently," Vincent said, matching his gaze at the girl.
After the pause had stretched out too long, Victoria realized that they were waiting for her to say something. "Yes," she slowly said. "I have made people very angry."
He father approached her and leaned down very close to her face. "What did you do?" he asked.
Tears welled up and she lowered her head. "Love is my sin," she said. "I fell in love with a forbidden man."
"Is falling in love a crime in this town?" he asked, looking at Xavier, who only shrugged.
"No," Victoria said, looking at him. "But the priest wanted him to join the Church. I ruined that."
"Ethan," he said. She had spoken of her friend to her father many times before.
"Yes," she answered.
"You are not here because you caused a change in one man's occupation, are you?" he asked. She did not answer. "You are here because you are different."
"No," she said. "It is not their fault. I broke the laws of the Church and now I am being punished. Please don't blame them," she pleaded.
Vincent stood up and went back to Xavier. "You broke our accord, Xavier," he said. "Your people were given a woman of their choice in exchange for the rights to the village and peace between our people. This village is mine and as such under my jurisdiction."
"Yes," Xavier condescended. "But the people have been testing us. They have been leaving the village at night. The town is ever expanding into our realms. They log our forest. They hunt our prey. We were only exercising our rights. I thought that the girl was a peace offering, like Valentina, my grandmother, was. You must believe me, I did not know who the girl was. But I was not going to harm her. She smells like you. I knew something was not right."
"The village is mine, you had no right to attack it without my permission," Vincent firmly said.
"Of course," Xavier placated. "I was in the wrong. It won't happen again." Xavier bowed and turned back toward the forest and his people. They all morphed back into wolves and quickly disappeared into the trees.
Vincent walked back to his daughter and with his bare hands pulled the chains from the post. Victoria's arms dropped and she rubbed her shoulder. Vincent walked past her and down the back of the platform toward the village. The other cloaked figures approached him and removed their hoods. Tessa was among them, looking tired and emaciated. She was very hungry.
"My darlings," he said to the women. "This village is yours." They laughed with wicked glee as they removed their cloaks. They transformed in an instant from beautiful, pale women into frightening beasts. Their eyes turned ice blue. Long fangs protruded from their mouths and their fingers elongated like talons. Web-like wings that ran from their arms and down their torsos began to grow.
One by one, they leapt into the air and took flight, screeching and laughing. Victoria had never seen anything more frightening in her life. Even the wolves did not instill such terror. She watched them dance in the moonlight before diving back toward the village in a hunt for sustenance. Jessenda stopped and looked back at Victoria. She smiled as she remembered the confession of a lover the girl had made to Vincent only moments before. She at once headed toward the church, never noticing the boy in the jail.
Victoria ran to her father and pulled at his arm. "Please, stop them!" she begged. He looked down at her with an icy gaze she had never seen before. She stepped back upon the realization that all the priest's accusations were true. "No," she said softly.
She ran toward Ethan but could hear her father's slow, steady footsteps following behind her. Ethan reached out to her and tightly grasped her hands. "Ethan," she said. "Take this." She placed something in his hand and tightly wrapped his fingers around it. "I am sorry."
She felt the cold grasp of her father's muscular hands on her waist. Her feet lifted off the ground. After a moment, they were flying.
Lucia, who had been watching from afar with her keen vision, landed at the jail window and screeched at the inmate.
Ethan yelped and jumped back. He looked at his hand and realized he was holding Victoria's necklace. He remembered her showing it to the wolf, which had made it stop advancing upon her. He showed the amulet to the monster. She backed away, growling. She took flight in search of another victim.
Ethan found the blanket Sara had left him and pulled it around him as he sat on the cold floor. Screams found their way to his ears, but he was trapped and unable to help anyone. He pulled the blanket up to his chin and waited for fi
rst light.
By morning, ten people were dead.
8
Unlike the women's, Vincent's wings had grown from his back. He used them to fly his daughter back to the castle. He held her tightly, but she was afraid to look at him. She watched the trees below her pass by; it all seemed so dreamlike. They landed on one of the towers, and he gently put her down. She could not feel her legs, so she slumped to the ground. She curled up and began to sob.
Vincent changed back to his human form almost immediately and tried to approach his daughter.
"No!" she said, raising one hand in protest. "Please, let me be!"
"I'll not leave you here to freeze to death," he said, picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder despite her kicks and screams of protest. He took her to her room and threw her on the bed.
She jumped from the bed and ran to the door. Vincent was lightning quick and blocked her way. She beat her tiny fists against him as he picked her up and again put her on the bed.
He managed to get hold of both her wrists and pin her down. "Victoria!" he yelled. "Stop this! You're acting like a lunatic. Don't make me tie you down." Her sobs subsided, mainly from exhaustion. "Don't fight me, Victoria," he said. "Do you not understand? You need not be in fear."
She stopped fighting, but continued to cry. Her father slowly let her go, and she slid off the bed to the floor. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Vincent backed away and smoothed his hair back. He figured it was best to leave her alone for a little while to let the events of this evening sort themselves out in her head. He knew it would be difficult for her; this was not how he had planned to tell her. He wanted to expose her to things gradually as she matured, but her body was maturing much more slowly than he had anticipated. Humans were fully developed by age eighteen at the latest, but she had not developed any of the features of his kind. It worried him.
He had planned to marry her to an acquaintance of his when she turned eighteen, but she was not ready. The suitor, Sebastian, was not pleased when he learned his marriage to Victoria would have to wait a few more years, but he would never go against Vincent.
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