by Charlie Tran
He had cursed my mother's name, and so had I. I loved her with all my heart, but she was going to ruin everything. Not to mention that I had grown so swollen in my stomach. I was growing so quickly that my skin was stretching and developing stretch marks. Sebastian had given me lanolin to smear across to help with the tautness of my belly, but it only helped a little bit.
I was smearing more across my belly, and trying to prevent Lago from licking it up. My Master paced back and forth, his brows furled and a very serious look on his face.
"What's wrong? They haven't been back nearly a week," I implored him, waving my hand to get his attention. He never stopped his pacing; I thought he might wear a hole into the rug.
"They will be returning. It makes me more nervous to think they might come back while you're in labor, or after the child is born." He turned to me, his eyes flashing wildly.
It was frightening.
"They can't do anything, we're in the secret chamber. How will they find us?"
"Where there is a will, there's a way. I will not let religious fanatics kill my love. I will not let them take my children from me. Never again. I would kill them all before I let that happen."
"I'm not going to leave you. Ugh, I can't stand this thing around my neck. Please, take it off and take me to the garden? O-or maybe I can help."
"I can't. And you don't need to go. I will steal some of the crops from the farmers when I go out hunting tonight. That should provide you with a little more sustenance to maintain you while you're pregnant."
"I need more vitamins than what I get from some plants! I'm a human, we need sunlight too!" I argued back, but he wasn't having it. I could tell he had a lot of thoughts running through his head. It was beginning to make me nervous as well.
"I need to leave. I'm going to meet with the others to see what they wish to do about this. We might need to flee this place and stay with one of them if the humans return."
"Who are the others? Sebastian…"
"Don't call me that! Don't say my name with her voice. And don't look at me with her eyes," he said desperately. My heart began to race in fear. He was losing his mind worrying about this.
"Are you okay?"
"I have to go. Someone is here," was all he said before he took his leave again.
"Wait! I can help!"
He ignored me. I wasn't useless just because I was with child. Or because I was a human.
It was as if he was having some sort of post-traumatic stress breakdown. He said he had overcome it, because what happened was centuries ago. But it was a farce. I didn’t think he’d ever recovered from the loss of his family, and my heart broke for him.
I could tell Sebastian desperately wanted to move on from his past, but still he couldn't. Just because of these people coming in. Because I’d come here in the first place. If it wasn't for me and my friends, he wouldn’t be in such a predicament. I blamed myself.
I whistled to Lago to try and get his attention as he stared out the door that his master had left.
"Come here, boy." I continued to whistle. His attention was solely focused on the door, not on me at all. His ears perked up every now and then, but it wasn't due to my whistling. He could hear whatever was going on outside. I just had to get out of here to see.
I quickly searched around the room, looking for something—anything—that would get me out of these damn chains.
"What's this?" I hummed, finding a long metal rod. It wasn't a fireplace poker; it was much shorter than that, with a claw at the end. The metal was adorned in various jewels, set in gold plating. A back scratcher, maybe?
I blew the dust off it and turned to watch Lago to see if he was watching me.
No, still focused on the door.
I went to work. As best as I could, I tried to reach for the pin I'd felt my Master pull from the collar before to make it come undone. There were a lot of different dips and crevices around the latches, but I knew there had to be one tiny little pin that would set me free if I could get it.
Something small began to lift, but as soon as I tried to move the back scratcher up at the awkward angle, it fell right back in place.
"Damn it," I cursed under my breath. So close!
I tried again. And again.
Ting!
The collar split in half around my throat, hitting the ground with a loud clanking sound. Lago looked back at me then, snarling and barking as if he was warning Sebastian that I'd freed myself.
"Hey! Calm down! It's okay!" I tried to tell him, but he kept barking at me, saliva hanging from his mouth and foaming around the corners. It was frightening. I'd never seen him act so crazed before! But he didn't leap at me.
Instead he turned to stand on his hind legs and scratched at the door.
"What is it, boy? Something wrong?" I asked, stepping forward carefully as I approached him. He kept snarling, snapping his maw angrily to open the door.
"Is Sebastian okay?"
With a deep breath, I placed my foot next to him, kicking the door open with all my might. Lago nearly tripped as he raced out of the room and down the steps. And like the idiot I was, I followed him. I really believed I could deescalate the situation.
"Where is he, boy? Where's Sebastian?" I asked Lago as we continue to run around the castle in search of him. We ran by the garden, but he wasn't there. He’d said that someone was here, but we still hadn't seen anyone either. We made it to the room to the left. It looked similar to the dining hall, but it was empty except for the few voices that could be heard echoing on the other side of the wall.
"I swear I saw something," someone said. I wanted to be sneaky, to see who Sebastian had been talking about, so I grabbed Lago by his thick neck and pulled him to the side of the door to hide in the corner. He was far too strong for me, and his growling was going to give away our position.
"Shh! Be quiet!" I whispered to him, but he was not going to be quieted. I released him as soon as he snapped at me, something I hadn't seen him do in quite some time, and he ran straight into the room.
"Fuck!" I cursed, scrambling up from the corner to run in after him. I was the one who let him out in the first place. If something happened to him, I’d be in huge trouble. But I didn’t recognize the voices on the other side. Were they the vampires that my Master was supposed to be meeting?
"What is that? What is that?!" another voice shouted. A third screeched, and Lago barked ferociously. Still no sign of Sebastian, however. I leaned against the side of the doorway to stare inside, trying to see who was in there despite the darkness that obscured my vision.
I squinted, trying to get a better look. Light flashed into my eyes, causing me to retract and stumble to the ground. I attempted to blink the stars from my eyes but it didn't help. I had become far too accustomed to the dark.
"Hey, hey! That's the boy we're supposed to be looking for!" one of them said, and hands grabbed my shoulders, lifting me up from the ground. I struggled against them.
"Let me go!" I shouted, flailing my limbs wildly.
"He must be possessed. I told you we should have let the father exorcise this place sooner!" another voice said. Lago suddenly whimpered with a hard and heavy thump.
"Don't you hurt him!" I continued to shout and flail to no avail, when my feet were lifted up as well.
"I'll have other priests from the congregation come. They'll cleanse this place of whatever evil spirits live here." I could see now a priest, as my vision began to settle after that blinding flash of light. He was following after the two men who were holding me, dressed in typical police uniforms.
"No, you won't," another voice growled from behind me.
The policemen dropped me, and my tailbone hit the ground hard enough to make me cringe in pain.
"What is that?!" the policeman who was holding my legs said, withdrawing the gun from his waist belt.
As soon as he raised it, he was no longer there. Instead, a spattering of gore and blood filled the space.
"Oh shit!" the
other officer shouted, and the priest went running. I looked behind me and saw that the police officer that had been holding my arms was firing randomly into the darkness. Another person, their eyes glowing red in the darkness, was on him as well.
"V-vampire! A vampire!?" the officer shouted. The stranger began to splatter the officer just as he had done with the other one, using his claws to instantly turn him into a mess of red..
"What are you doing out here?!" The voice shouting now was familiar. In front of me, standing over my crumpled form was my master.
"I-I just wanted… to help…" I told him, my lower lip trembling at the furious look on his face. He extended a hand for me to stand up, before writhing away and screaming as steam billowed off the side of his face. He let out a blood-chilling shriek as the priest next to him threw water from a flask on his hip.
"Get away from him! Get back you unholy beast!" the father shouted, though his hands were visibly shaking as he flung the remnants of his holy water at Sebastian.
"You should have never come here," the other vampire said, finishing off the priest. I did not look this time. I couldn't stand to see any more of the gore. Instead I managed to stand up on my wobbly legs, running after Sebastian as he hunched over against the wall, gripping the side of his face.
"Get away from him!" the other vampire said, drifting into view as he wrapped his arm around Sebastian’s shoulders. I had never seen him tremble so hard, and the steam continued to follow up from his flesh.
"I was only trying to help. I came down here to…" The stranger vampire's glare froze me. I felt like I was locked in place. I couldn't move.
"I said to leave. Never come back here. This is your fault."
"I can't leave!" I managed to say as I quivered.
"You're the reason the humans are here in the first place. So go away, and then they’ll leave as well. I said to get out of here!" the vampire screamed.
Sebastian wasn't saying anything, still shaking horribly. I could only imagine the pain that he was in.
"If you just let me explain…" I started. Before I realized it, the vampire was right in my face, his nose practically touching mine. He was so fast.
"If I have to tell you again, I'll kill you myself. Now get the fuck out of here," he threatened, cracking his knuckles close to my face, close enough to see the remnants of entrails and blood there. I was not going to be his next victim.
I didn't argue anymore.
I fucking ran.
Chapter 10
Duke
Despite the falling out with my mother, she was kind enough to pay for a room for me at the hostel I’d stayed at before while I waited for my friends to come and pick me up. She was happy to hear my voice, and it was comforting to hear hers. It’d only been a few days, but I still couldn’t get the thought of Sebastian out of my head. He couldn't even speak, and the way he was huddled over, I was unable to see what damages he had sustained.
He still hadn't come for me though. Was he going to be okay?
I was thankful for the knock on the door drawing me from my thoughts. I quickly leapt off the bed and waddled over to the doorway to open it up for the guys on the other side.
"Shit, Duke. You look terrible!" Marcus said on his way into the room with Jake behind him, both of them with their ghost hunting satchels on their back.
"Gee, thanks."
"And you're getting fat as hell." Jake laughed.
"What's going on? We haven't heard from you in forever. Last thing we ever heard was your mom saying that you came home and left again. What's up with that?" Marcus piped up.
"Did you guys bring the equipment?" I ignored their questions. They wouldn't understand or be able to comprehend what had been going on, so there was no point in trying to explain it all.
"Yeah. And the footage too." They both dumped the duffel bags on the bed, much less gently than we had done the first time. "I hadn't gotten around to editing any of the stuff yet." Marcus shrugged.
"Not to mention that the only footage we really got was of screaming, and just a little of the interior and exterior of the castle up close." Jake snorted.
"I didn't scream," Marcus said as Jake elbowed him in the side.
"Guys!” I said. “Please, we need to focus."
"What are we focusing on exactly?" Jake asked.
"I had an idea." I hoped this was going to help. I had the time to sit and think on what I could do to help Sebastian, if he was still in the castle. If he was still alive. "Instead of paranormal footage, we’re going to make this into some quick documentary footage."
"Documentaries are so boring," Marcus groaned, flipping open his laptop and accessing the video editing software where the footage they had recorded was uploaded. My camera was destroyed a while ago, and I was thankful they weren't bringing that up.
"Show us the part where we were screaming. That would make it funnier," Jake snickered, sitting next to Marcus on the floor and watching him get to work with the video.
"No, let’s not use that. We need just shots of the inside and outside, so that we can send it off."
"Send it off to who?" Marcus glanced over his shoulder at me with an eyebrow raise. He looked doubtful of my intentions.
"To the mayor of Worj. We're gonna send her this and show how rundown the place is. We don't need more people going in there to ruin it further. We need them to make it a historical site so that they don't try and bring it down when people want to start coming in to exorcise the fucking place."
"It's already a historical sight, though. People aren't supposed to be going in anyway. We're just the assholes that did."
"No. Priests and police officers are still going in there. We need to make it so that nobody can touch the place. Nobody is allowed to go inside because of the risk it could cause to historically sensitive stuff."
"Doesn't even make sense. How can we make it so that nobody, even the church and cops can go in?" Marcus retorted.
"We're gonna say that it's dangerous. In the video, you can see it crumbling and falling. So if it's a historical site, they can't tear it down. It's going to be too much of a hazard to allow people in."
"Can they do that? People are still gonna try and sneak in," Jake warned.
"If it's so dangerous that touching a fucking stone wall could make the shit collapse, I don't think you'd want to go in. The only things that we ever heard about it was that it was haunted, and the place was closed off to the public. No one ever said anything about how dangerous it is inside. And no more fucking cops and priests should be going into the damn place!"
They both stared at me in silence, stunned at my sudden outburst. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.
"Look, it's the only thing I can think of, so this is what we’re going have to do."
"Whatever helps, man," Marcus said, and they both turned to the laptop. "How are we even going to get this in the eyes of the mayor anyway? She's got more important shit to worry about."
I took a seat next to them, staring intently at the laptop screen as Marcus's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Your dad. He's in politics, right?"
"My dad would kill me if he ever found out we went near that place. You've really lost your marbles, your mom was right."
I grabbed Marcus’s shoulder and stared at him intently, pleading with him.
"Please, we have to do this. Don't ask me why, but I need this. We've been friends forever, and I've never asked for anything before. I always stick to my word and help you when you need it. Please. Just this once."
Marcus looked me up and down, before groaning. He turned to his phone, which was sitting next to his computer, and dialed his father.
"Fine. Stop looking at me like that."
"Thank you! You don't know how much this is gonna help! Thank you, thank you." I went on and on, and I could tell that Marcus was enjoying me sucking up to him.
If I could get the mayor to quarantine this place off from all of the public, even the ch
urch and police… then maybe Sebastian wouldn't have to worry about people anymore.
We could be safe from harm. And so would our baby.
SEBASTIAN
* * *
"Take them off me," I begged, shakily reaching a hand up to my face that my comrade had bandaged. As he sat next to me, he was quick to slap my own hand away. He leaned over me and examined the wounds I had sustained before crossing his arms over his chest.
"You're not looking any better. They're going to stay on for a while. So don't get any ideas about taking them off."
"Where is he?" I groaned as I attempted to sit up. As old as that priest was, he sure was quick with his glass. He had managed to splash water all over my clothing and across my face and hands. Where it had soaked through, it would burn me until Clay could remove the soaked fabric. Fucking holy water.
"Stop asking, you need to focus on saving your strength to get better. When you're able to move properly, you have to come stay with us. Geoffrey is great at preparing tonics for wounds and pain. It might help you."
"I said… Where. Is. He?" I let out a threatening growl, snarling at him with my fangs exposed. But as threatening as I attempted to come across, it was no use. Even shifting my face ever so slightly caused me immense amounts of pain. The majority of the holy water had splashed across the right side of my face. I couldn't even see out of my right eye anymore.
"I told him to get the fuck out of here."
"Why would you do that?" I couldn’t remember their exchange. The pain in that instant was so blinding, so piercing I couldn’t focus on anything except trying not to pass out. If I ever saw another priest again…