Lusian straightened himself again, completely turning his attention away from the boy before him, his gaze locking on the shivering little girl under the bed. About seven years old, tiny and fragile, she possessed the same, pretty blue eyes and dark hair as her brother. Her heartbeat sounded like the wings of a hummingbird.
Lusian dropped to his hands and knees, a new smile playing on his face. “Do not be afraid, child.” And then he lunged.
Chapter Seven
Quarantine
Eyeing the steaming plate before her, Charlotte plucked one of the glazed rolls and bit into it, tasting the melted honey and coating of cinnamon. Immediately, the blood rushed back into her cheeks, heating her from the inside out.
Sarah smiled, clearly satisfied.
“Well, the rest are gone,” the Witch said and placed both of her fists on her hips.
“What do you mean,
gone
?” Valek’s voice boomed with lion-like rumble.
Sarah marched over to the double doors and tore them open, revealing the empty, ransacked foyer, the wood clawed and scraped so much it was a wonder no one had broken through. Most of the chairs were turned over. “I mean
gone
. I suppose, with the smell, they just couldn’t wait anymore. They’re probably wreaking havoc somewhere….” She trailed off as she started turning one of the chairs back over onto its legs again.
“There’s just no getting through to them,” Valek muttered.
Charlotte frowned at her fingers knotting in her lap. The coven just would not heed his warnings. It would only be a matter of time before a vengeful Elf stumbled across their path on the outside. In fact, it was only a matter of time before one of them came looking for Charlotte and Valek within the Occult gates. They knew where they lived, after all. It wasn’t safe to let their guard down yet.
“I think it’s better this way. I wasn’t really in the mood to be their host tonight, anyway,” Charlotte mumbled purely for Valek’s benefit. She tried her best to convince him she was okay now and that the scar had been pacified for the evening.
“You should know by now, it’s impossible to lie to a Vampire, Lottie. At any rate, I’d sooner sever their heads than let them fix both their addictions and
yours
.”
“I’m fine.” She began to stand up, though the room tilted once more, causing her to stumble forward. Valek was immediately in front of her, steadying her by the elbows.
“You’re right. You seem
really
healthy,” he snorted.
The blazing pulsations at her temples had already returned slightly and she could tell tonight was going to be one of those nights when the need wouldn’t leave her quite so easily. Some nights, the ailment came a little worse than others. The light was beginning to bother her again now, too, so she shut her eyes. She couldn’t believe the pain was returning again, couldn’t remember another night where its return had been so immediate. She needed him to do it again, and quickly. Valek’s grip around her tightened, probably his reaction to hearing those thoughts in her mind.
“Charlotte, you need to stop scratching!” Valek pulled her wrist away, tearing her nails away from the scar, which began burning badly again. Had she been scratching? She hadn’t realized. Valek’s breathing was staggered and furious.
Sarah blinked, yanking Charlotte away from him. “I think you need to get away for a minute. Come, let’s fix you up.”
Charlotte could see that even if she was going to need it, Sarah was not about to let Valek feed again. It wasn’t easy to miss the scowl in the expression the Witch threw at him. She eyed the immense bloodstain left drying along the neckline of Charlotte’s tattered dress.
“Can’t have you looking so grotesque all of the time, can we?” Sarah’s smile looked more like a wince, her lips mashing into a forced line, as she pulled her out of the library and up the staircase. “Careful,” Sarah muttered when Charlotte nearly fell forward on one of the upper stairs.
Sarah rounded the corner into what used to be Charlotte’s bedroom. Upon moving in, Sarah had instantly claimed this room as her own, undoubtedly liking the energy left over from Charlotte’s many years of living in it. She remembered their homecoming as though it were yesterday. Everyone had staggered in through the front door, so tired from the fight they’d hardly cared what the house looked like at all. Sarah was the only one who’d gazed around wondrously, flitting from room to room, sizing up the place. Charlotte recalled that it only took the Witch a few minutes before she laid her things down on the singed floor of Charlotte’s old bedroom and chirped, “I like it! I’ll be staying here!”
She’d dusted and polished all of the dirt and soot away, and before Charlotte looked at it twice, the room had become beautiful again.
Lilacs lined every flat surface from the massive vanity to the various smaller end tables. Sarah had colored the walls her signature violet with an enormous bed that seemed to swallow her whole when she sat on it. And there was a brilliant, antique floor-length mirror leaned up against one corner, the ornately carved frame of it done up in gold leaf. Not to mention many new bewitchments that attached themselves about the corners of the room, the false-stars in twinkling ribbons scattered along the ceiling. A whittled owl dangled from a twine string nearest the window. Charlotte wondered about the curious thing with the shiny emerald stones for eyes as she inhaled the delicate scent left over from the flowers. It instantly calmed the remaining unease that twisted in her gut.
Charlotte turned to see Sarah disappear inside the closet at the far corner of the room. She started tearing out a cornucopia of lacy clothing, tossing each article to the floor.
“No, no, no, no….” she muttered, eyeing the pieces quickly. “All of these are so beyond my help, I can’t even look at them anymore.”
Charlotte hugged her arms tightly around herself and wandered deeper into the room that had once been hers. In her mind’s eye, she saw the canary-yellow walls with the eggshell trimmings. The lace curtains. Her drawing books scattered out about the floor with the colored pencils and oils that used to stain her hands in an entire spectrum. All were literally disintegrated in her past. Destroyed by Evangeline. Charlotte grimaced and dug her nails deeper into the sides of her arms. She wanted to spit on the very memory.
“This one!” Sarah’s musical voice chimed from the depths of her old closet and Charlotte turned to see the little Witch clutching something garnet red.
Her mouth fell open when Sarah unfurled the garment in the air before her. It was a beautiful, strikingly deep shade with a flared hem. It was a short dress that looked like it would fall just at her knee, with a cinched waist with zillions of what looked like real garnet buttons that ran all the way down the center of the back.
Charlotte, with eyes wide, exuberantly reached up, fingers wriggling, and grasped the dress. “
Where
did you get this?” she gasped. “It’s amazing!”
Sarah smiled satisfactorily and shrugged. “Oh, that old thing?”
Charlotte whirled around to the floor-length mirror and appraised her reflection as she pinned the dress to the front of herself, the silver, sparkling bewitchments twinkling just above her head. They illuminated the image before her dimly, but enough to make the buttons glitter. She
needed
to get it on. “I love it.” Immediately, Charlotte peeled off her tattered potato sack of a dress and threw it to the floor. She pulled her new garment over her head, struggling behind herself to fasten the buttons.
“I figured you would.” Sarah toed up behind her and reached to help close the back to the top. “It’s yours!” She beamed at Charlotte’s reflection. However, after a moment, her expression changed. The smile faded as she narrowed her eyes and bit her lower lip—as if she were
studying
something. “It’s such an appropriate color.”
There were a few moments of silence as Charlotte watched Sarah stare distantly at her in the glass. She did that thing with her mouth again, her lips forming into another troubled, straight line. That’s when Charlotte could see Sarah’s eyes begin to well up. “Sarah?”
“Oh, dear.” The Witch turned her back and began shoving the discarded articles of clothing back inside the closet. Charlotte whirled around in time to catch Sarah wipe at a string of tears that rolled down her face.
“Sarah, what is it?” Charlotte frowned, dropping her hands to her sides.
Sarah sniffed and waved her hand, the silver bracelet around it making a distant twinkling sound. “Oh, nothing.” She sniffed again. “It’s just that I thought of Francis for a moment. I’ve been missing him recently, that’s all.”
Charlotte could tell she was lying. That wasn’t at all what had gotten her so upset. She saw it in the way she’d looked at her.
Charlotte turned back to her reflection, and noticed then what had shocked Sarah so much. Against the vivid brilliance of the dress, her complexion looked a sickly shade of blue, her skin thin and papery enough that Charlotte could actually see the purple rivers of veins underneath the layers of her flesh. Her eyes looked so deeply sunken into their sockets, and her frame, normally slender, was so frail that the dress almost swallowed her whole. She took a step back from the image. Had she been so distracted over the past several months to have missed
this
? She tried to recall the last time she looked at herself in a mirror.
“Sarah,” Charlotte squeaked. “Could you get the sweet rolls from the library, please?”
Sarah stopped what she was doing, her eyes still wide and watery. She nodded once in silence before dashing out of the room.
Charlotte wrapped her suddenly feeble arms around her middle. She was so thin she could tuck them under her ribs. How could she have lost such control, when she always had everything so figured out? She gasped. Was this really a side effect of being fed upon—of her addiction? Why weren’t Sarah’s spells helping anymore? Charlotte sat down on the bed, heart hammering in fear, for she had always had enough wherewithal to take care of herself. She should have been paying better attention. She racked her mind for a solution to cure herself of this burning mystery on the side of her throat. Her fists tightened in the bed sheets until her arms began to tremble.
The scar at the side of her throat pulsed again, and she placed her cold hand over it in an effort to suffocate it. She heard murmuring out in the hallway. Valek must have been coming up with Sarah. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to swallow until finally, the two entered the room. She looked up, struggling with all of her might to hide the pain in her eyes.
Charlotte only managed to squint at Sarah against the blaring light in the room, which hadn’t seemed that bright only a few moments ago. She grimaced at the food on the plate, and instantly changed her mind about wanting to eat. Her stomach rolled.
“You
have
to, Lottie,” Valek said nervously as he rushed to her side.
He loomed over her, his form a massive shadow that umbrellaed her in darkness. Her addiction really
was
getting worse by the night. Now, she realized that, when she had been in such denial before. She opened her mouth to respond, but didn’t have that much control over herself yet. The scar singed hotter.
Gingerly, she reached for the cup of tea and began sipping, knowing full well she would never be able to keep solid food down. Her hand bobbled as though the cup weighed ten times what it should have. She drank. Some of the liquid came up, and she stopped her choking with the back of her hand, forcing herself to swallow it again, downing the entire contents of the cup.
Valek spoke. “If you need me to do it again, you have to replenish at least some of what you’ve lost.”
“You’re going to do it
again
?” Sarah howled.
The empty teacup instantly crashed to the floor. Charlotte winced, placing her hands over her ears, and bit hard on her lower lip to distract herself from the pain. Sarah’s rage was enough to deafen her as she rolled into a fetal position on the massive bed, begging for relief. The burning had come back stronger now, just like she’d known it would. The fire rolled down her spine as her eyes pricked with more stinging, salt tears.
“Just
look
at her, Sarah! Does it really seem like I have a choice?”
Sarah crossed her arms and mumbled something so low, even Charlotte, with all of her sensitivity, could not pick up. Valek just looked at Sarah, sighed once, and nodded before hoisting Charlotte up in his arms and walking her outside of the bedroom. He sat her on a small chair that was perched against the wall in the corridor.
“I’ll be out in a minute. I want you to go to the bedroom. Try and fall asleep,” he said before he spun on the heel of his polished boot and disappeared back through Sarah’s door.
Defiantly, Charlotte staggered to her feet, gritting her teeth against the protesting aches in her joints. The feebleness that remained after being fed on earlier made her hands and knees quake, though she could almost feel the blood cells replenishing in her body after forcing down that tea. But now she knew even Sarah’s magic would only save her temporarily.
Immediately after Valek disappeared back into the room, she heard Sarah wail at him and him hush her before going on to whisper something further. Though her knees continued to wobble, Charlotte slowly made her way back over to the threshold, hoping Sarah would distract Valek enough so he would not notice her eavesdropping.
“I guess it’s a good thing that it was just you tonight,” she heard Sarah say bitterly. “I know a few of the others would have taken a little more advantage if they’d gotten close enough….”
“It is
never
a good thing! Do you actually think I enjoy hurting her?”
“
She
doesn’t believe you are hurting her. She doesn’t think any of you are, after how you’ve rationalized it in her mind! You’ve brainwashed her, Valek! You’ve tricked her into thinking she’s
helping
by making such a
huge
sacrifice! And now it’s worse, because now she needs it just as badly as the rest of you!”