The Other Side Of Midnight

by Georgia Le Carre

  “Yes, that’s right. Would you not like to see Rocco?”

  My jaw drops in shock. “Is he here?”

  She smiles again, a condescending, knowing smile. “Of course.”

  “Yes, I would like to see him,” I whisper.

  “I will take you to him, but look, the clouds have passed and you can see the moon. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  I don’t turn to look. “Please take me to see him, Isadora.”

  “Follow me.” She turns and goes out of the room.

  I hesitate for a second, then I run barefoot after her. She moves extraordinarily fast through the castle and I have to run to keep up. My stomach is churning with sick dread as I tail her down stone steps past gloomy gray walls. There are heads of animals mounted on the walls. They stare balefully at me. We get to the main part of the castle and I can see how vast the main living room is. It has a great big fire roaring in a massive stone fireplace that is so big it is almost like a small room. There is a long dining table and a feast is set out on it. In the middle is a roasted suckling pig with an orange in its mouth.

  She turns to me and winks. “We are having human guests after the ritual. Obviously, you’re invited.”

  An icy finger of fear runs down my spine. I am not sure what she means, but no matter how I look at it, it makes me feel cold with dread. We pass the ground floor and go down a circular set of steps. It seems as if we are going right into the bowels of the castle. Here the stonework is rough and there is a strange smell in the air. All of a sudden she comes upon a door, stops, and turns to me.

  “Here we are.” Then she opens the door and walks in.

  The floor is cold beneath my feet. I take a deep breath and come what may, follow her. I gasp at the scene before my eyes. In the lights of thousands and thousands of candles I see that we are in a large cavern-like space. The sweet smell of incense is thick in the air, and the walls consist of orange brown rock. At the far end of the space there is an altar with a thick wooden slab of dark wood on it.

  Rocco is lying on it and his eyes are closed. There are metal shackles around his leg and wrists.

  I fly to him and throw my arms around his chest. “I’m so sorry I left the house,” I sob.

  “Listen carefully,” he whispers. “You have no choice now but to go through with the ritual, but afterwards I will make sure that none of them ever takes another human life.”

  I raise my head and look into his eyes.

  “Did you understand what I said?”

  I nod.

  He smiles encouragingly at me. “Don’t be frightened. It’ll be okay. I’ll never leave your side.”

  “I love you,” I gasp.

  “I love you too, Autumn… so much.”

  A shadow moves in my peripheral vision and I swing my head fearfully in that direction. To my shock I see Zelena. My eyes widen with astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

  “She’s here to carry out the ritual,” Rocco’s sister drawls.

  Suddenly, I realize what that statement actually means and I shake my head in disbelief. I stupidly sent her a goodbye note because I truly cared about her, but she told them I was leaving. I grasp the pendant she gave me, rip it from my neck, and fling it towards her. It hits her belly and falls at her feet. Still she does nothing. Says nothing. For some weird reason her betrayal really cuts. I had trusted her implicitly.

  “You betrayed me,” I scream. “For what? Thirty pieces of silver?”

  “Immortality. That’s what is on offer tonight,” Rocco’s sister answers for her, looking at me with avid eyes. It is almost as if she enjoys seeing me hurt and in pain.

  I ignore her and turn to Zelena. “Are you going to become one of them? Hunt humans down and suck their blood?”

  Rocco’s sister laughs. “After tonight you’ll be one of us too, little sunshine. To be honest I really can’t wait to see how high and mighty you are when the thirst for human blood comes upon you.”

  “I’m not going to give in,” I say through clenched jaws.

  She throws her head back and laughs uproarious. “Tell her, little brother. Tell her what it’s like.”

  “If you want her to be willing you sure are going about it the wrong way,” he snarls at her.

  That makes her sober up quick. She forces a smile on her face. “I was just kidding. It was a joke. You know, to lighten the air.” She turns to Zelena with a frown. “Isn’t it nearly time?”

  “Yes, it’s nearly time. Your parents are on their way down and should be here any minute now. We’ll start in less than half an hour.”

  There is a noise and the door opens. His parents walk in, both wearing red robes similar to the one worn by Isadora. I stare at them in shock. His mother appears as young as Isadora, but his father looks as if he is a hundred years old.

  “Shall we begin?” he says, in his cold voice.

  Chapter 67

  Autumn

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iAzMRKFX3c

  -The Wind Beneath My Wings-

  Zelena opens a big book and begins to chant. Her chanting is strange and yet hauntingly beautiful. I listen to her voice and feel almost hypnotized by it. I have to force myself not to fall into the spell she is casting. I try, but it’s hard, I start to feel light-headed.

  I look at Rocco.

  “It’s okay,” he mouths. “It will hurt less.”

  “I love you,” I mouth and let myself go. Instantly, I feel a strange warmth in the region of my solar plexus. The warmth rises until it is in the middle of my chest. It becomes stronger and I burp loudly. I look around me confused.

  “Yes, let it all out. All the old blocks,” his mother coos eagerly.

  And suddenly out of nowhere comes a horror of what I am about to do. It makes my body shake. Out of my mouth comes the words, “I can’t.”

  Zelena continues to sing her song. She has betrayed me, but a little voice inside me says, listen to her. She will lead you to the right path.

  My body convulses. This is wrong.

  “I can’t,” I blurt out.

  His father moves so fast I do not actually see him. All I see is the glint of the knife as it flashes, then blood, a fountain of red blood pouring out of Rocco’s wrist.

  “What have you done?” I yell as I run towards the altar. I try to hold closed the gaping wound but blood seeps through my fingers and flows onto the dark brown slab. I turn to Zelena. “Help him,” I scream.

  But she doesn’t take any notice of me. She just sings in that hypnotic voice that makes my insides throb. I am so frightened I feel as if I am floating above my body.

  “Only you can help him now,” his father says. “Give him your wrist before it is too late and let him drink your blood before he dies.”

  I take my wrist and lay it on his mouth. For a second he does nothing and my gaze moves to his eyes. He kisses the inside of my wrist, then I feel his sharp teeth break my skin. It doesn’t hurt at all. All I can hear is Zelena’s voice and all I see is Rocco’s eyes. I thought I would see greed or a great hunger as the blood thirst takes over. He had denied that urge for centuries. I was even afraid I would be disgusted, but to my shock I see tears fill his beautiful eyes and run down his temples into his golden hair. I stare at him astonished. He is crying! I have never seen him cry. But here he is. Crying. Because he has to drink my blood.

  “Now,” Zelena commands, her voice ringing out.

  And things start happening around me. The speed with which his parents and sister move is incredible. Three red flashes at the edges of my vision, and suddenly, they are upon me. His parents on either side of my neck and his sister on my wrist. The pain of their fangs inside my flesh is unbearable and I open my mouth to scream, but only a strange strangulated gasp comes out because the horrendous smell of them makes my body dry heave uncontrollably. More than the pain, it is the smell that overcomes me.

  I see the terrible fear and shock in Rocco’s eyes, before he turns away from my wrist and yells at Zelena. “St
op them. They are going to kill her.”

  She answers him calmly. “Not yet. They have not had enough.”

  “They are going to kill her,” Rocco roars, as he tries to yank himself out of his steel bands.

  Zelena doesn’t answer him.

  He begs her. I hear bits of his begging and pleading. He offers her all his wealth on top of the promise of immortality that his family have offered her, but she ignores him and carries on singing.

  The skin on my arms turn pale with the loss of blood and I start to feel faint and cold. So cold. Even their awful smell no longer bothers me. I know I am dying. I look into Rocco’s eyes. I love you, I tell him even though I am already too weak to speak. How greedily they drink from me. Like starving beasts. I feel my heartbeat become fainter. I know I am dying, but a part of me feels glad I will never be like them.

  I will die a human being.

  I do not know why, but I am drawn to listen to Zelena’s voice. Even though she has betrayed me and Rocco, the songs she is singing are oddly familiar and dear to me. I feel as if I have heard them before. Where I do not know.

  In my mind’s eye I see tall weeds swaying in the wind and hear the sound of water rushing by. “Autumn,” a woman’s voice calls. I’ve heard her voice before. It is sweet and full of love. Is it an angel coming to collect me? I know I should go with her, but not yet. Let me say goodbye to my Rocco first.

  More and more blood flows out of me and into their rapacious mouths, and I feel my life force ebbing away into their bodies. I can even feel them becoming strong with my blood. They have won, but I have no one to blame but myself. I sent the note to Zelena, and I left the house when I was commanded not to.

  The edges of the room start to go black. It’s almost like the way a photograph burns. Now the middle starts to yellow. Soon it will be all black. And I will be dead.

  In a daze of pain and resignation, I look into Rocco’s horrified face. He cannot believe his eyes. He fights against the metal constraints, but they are thick, meant to hold down mighty vampires. I want to tell him it’s okay. Not to be sad. I don’t mind dying. I never wanted to live forever. And I definitely didn’t want to be a creature of the night.

  I can die in peace because I know now that he loves me. I try to open my mouth to speak, but I am already too frail. I’m so cold my body is shivering. The voice in the reeds calls to me again.

  “It’s me, Autumn.”

  I gaze at Rocco’s face, and let all the love in my heart shine in my dying eyes.

  “No,” he roars, the veins in his neck are bulging as he rails against his metal trap.

  Then, suddenly, without warning, his mother jumps away from my neck with a scream of terror. Clutching her chest, she falls on the ground and starts to writhe and roll in agony. Both her husband and daughter instantly cease drinking from me, and turn to look at her.

  When they let go of me, I am so weak I cannot even stay upright. I collapse on top of Rocco. Disorientated and half-alive, I watch them as if from far away. I cannot understand what is happening. Something must have gone wrong.

  “What the hell is going on?” Rocco’s father demands, looking from the horrible sight of his wife writhing and choking, to Zelena.

  She has stopped singing and looks at him expressionlessly. “She drank without permission.”

  “You told us to,” Rocco’s father shrieks like a madman. He no longer looks old and withered, but nearly as young and powerful as Rocco. His eyes are frightening.

  “I lied,” Zelena says softly.

  “You, you, worthless gypsy traitor,” he screeches incoherently.

  With blazing eyes, he picks up the same knife he’d used to cut his own son and lunges wildly at her. He stabs her in the stomach. Then his dangerous eyes widen, and he seizes his own chest and falls to the floor where he twists and writhes in extreme agony. Isadora grabs her throat and stares at her parents in horror. Then she too begins to twist on the floor in agony. Rocco’s mother starts to vomit. What comes out of her is like bits of egg pudding, only they are the reddish brown color of liver. More horrendous clots heave out of her.

  “Quickly, set me free, Zelena. I have to give Autumn my blood before she passes out,” Rocco shouts, and I hear the desperate panic in his voice.

  Blood pours out of Zelena as she crawls slowly towards us. When she arrives, she pushes me gently onto my back.

  I look at her with love. She didn’t betray me. I was right to trust her. My pendant. I threw it at her. Tears fill my eyes.

  “Don’t cry,” she croaks.

  “Let me loose, Zelena,” Rocco begs urgently, his hands shake furiously inside the steel bands.

  “It is not your blood she needs. It is mine.”

  “Don’t do that, please. You will kill her. She needs my blood to survive,” he cries frantically.

  “You do not know who she is, my Prince. She was never meant to drink blood.” She pulls the knife from her chest and her blood rushes out of her wound. Uncaring of her own blood loss she uses the tip of the knife to make a small cut on my chest.

  “You are my granddaughter. I am your grandmother. And this was foretold,” she crones in a hypnotic voice as she mixes her blood with mine.

  Quotation

  This is my command: Love each other.

  -John 15:17

  Chapter 68

  Autumn

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXsxYf2UMA

  -Sacrifice-

  A strange thing happens.

  Where her blood touches mine, I feel its warmth. A wonderful heat that spreads through my body. I no longer understand what is happening, but I feel my body changing. There are sounds, rushes, gurgles inside me. In the background, I can hear Rocco talking to Zelena.

  “Who are you?” Rocco gasps.

  “We are the great old ones, beings who have been called upon to stand in the place that was once held by your species. We are humanity’s guardians now, and we agreed to lend some of our own to earth, to help and guide them during this difficult period in their evolution.”

  Then she reaches out a hand and unclasps the metal band closest to her. Immediately, Rocco frees himself from the other bands and moves to cradle my head in his lap.

  “What’s happening to her now?” he asks, looking down anxiously at me.

  “She is regenerating.”

  A wailing sound comes from his sister as she thrashes on the floor.

  “And my family? What will happen to them?”

  “They will die, slowly and horribly. Unless you hasten it by stabbing them in the heart with the silver dagger in my bag.”

  “What about the rest of my species? What will happen to them?”

  “They will all die. You will be the last vampire on earth.”

  “The life is ebbing out of me, but remember, hold my granddaughter until she wakes. Do not shake her or move her even if she stops breathing,” Zelena says, her voice trailing feebly.

  “Zelena,” Rocco calls, but there is no reply from her. Her breath comes in short gasps, then she takes no more breaths.

  Suddenly, I see the weirdest, craziest thing. I see her rise from her body, but she is not old and ancient, she’s tall and beautiful. She shines with white light. She reaches down and touches my body and I too begin to rise from my body.

  “Am I dead?” I gasp in shock.

  “No, you are not, but there are things you must see which you cannot see while you are in your human shape.”

  I look at Rocco and I see him holding onto my body, his face is creased with worry lines. When I look up I find that the cavern walls are fading out and another structure is taking its place. It seems almost like a cathedral with a lofty ceiling made of glass and crystal walls. A light without a source is pouring in from every direction and other beings like Zelena are flooding into the space. They are all mesmerizingly and indescribably beautiful.

  Inside their midst a figure moves forward. She doesn’t look like them. She looks human. My heart fills with joy.
It is Sam. She smiles at me. I reach out to touch her, but my hand goes through her.

  “I love you, Autumn,” she says.

  “I miss you so much,” I tell her.

  “I know, but everything is as it should be. Don’t mourn for me. I am fine. Do what you came to do. We will see each other again.” Then she smiles at me, turns and disappears back into the midst of the beings.

  One of the beings moves forward. “You have sixty-three years left on earth.” She touches the space between my forehead, and says, “This is what is going to happen to humanity in your lifetime.”

  “Nooooo,” I cry in shock.

  She retracts her finger from my forehead.

  “Is there a way to control it, to make it friendly?”

  “No.”

  I stare at the luminous being desperately. “Can they just not turn it on?”

  “Unfortunately, it is too late for that.”

  “What is to be done then?”

  “Wake humanity up.”

  “How?” I whisper. I could not even begin to imagine how I would stop the terrible future I was shown.

  “To move a beach, start with a handful of sand. Begin immediately, tell your friends, teach their children, but don’t tell them what you have seen, or their fear will make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Show them the true power and light that lies hidden inside a human being. Wake them up to their own beauty. The evil cannot manifest when there is love.”

  The shining being takes a step back. “We must take our leave now.”

  The being that was Zelena, steps forward and smiles gently at me. There is so much pure love radiating from her. I feel a strong reluctance to let her go.

  “Do you have to go?”

  “Yes, my work here is done, child.”

  “I’m so sorry I was rude to you before. I trusted you and it hurt me terribly when I thought you had betrayed me.”