“
Her scream was his only response as he clutched the bars made of something heavier than iron. An overwhelming and unfamiliar feeling of helplessness bowled him over as big, red teardrops plummeted to the floor in front of him. He called out her name again. He pulled and pulled at those bars, suddenly remembering all too well what it was like to be so human, so weak.
Their painful screams and roars blended in an agonizing orchestration. The horror of his helplessness. His little Lottie was alone, pleading for him, yet he could do nothing inside this loathsome cage.
“Lottie,” he bellowed. “Lottie! My sweet Lottie! Please!” Valek slumped to the floor, hand outstretched between the bars. The palm of his hand stained scarlet as it ran over his cheek. A sharp sob escaped his throat as he bellowed for her again.
Silence answered him.
“Lottie….” He took a deep breath and could barely hear the voice from her thoughts anymore. So, this was how they would torture him. The silence from her mind grew louder. “
Charlotte heard these last words, despite the rushing death, like a flashflood through a hollow tunnel she was submerging under quickly. She fought to keep above the surface, for if she allowed herself to sink, life would be over.
“I love you,” rang out so saliently. The rest of her dark world seemed to evanesce into hell. The hissing, the screaming, the pain — and, “I love you”. She kept hearing it over and over again, until she realized she was speaking the words. Too weak to yell it, it came out in a whisper.
“I love you.” She hoped he could hear the thing she wanted to scream to the world. “I love you,” she said for the last time, before she could not hold on any longer, melting into oblivion.
Metal bars at the front of her cell crashed inward. Thunder guards came stomping in, sending currents of electricity flying through the air. Yellow streaming bolts struck the bodies of the living dead. The Vampires immediately recoiled from Charlotte and went dashing into the back corners of the cell like rats in bright light.
“Come on, foul creatures. We have somewhere for you to be,” one guard ordered as he joyfully watched them all squirm and growl as the electricity continued to fly.
The Elves ripped some of them from the ground, throwing them over their shoulders, some plucked from the aluminum piping. One officer had to use a stake for one that tried to fight, though it only stunned him for a few seconds.
The struggle continued as Charlotte’s life pooled down in between the cracks into the marble floor. One of the guards noticed her.
“What about that one?” he asked his comrade.
“Eh, just leave her there. Maybe we can feed the leftovers to the next batch that comes in,” he said, as they finally walked out with the gaggle of screeching soul-feeders.
And as he was being dragged away, the head of the condemned clan looked back to the dungeon cell. The Vampire stopped walking, the vision of his figure blurry in Charlotte’s ebbing consciousness.
“What are you doing, leach? Keep going!” one officer prodded.
The Vampire angled his gray ear toward Charlotte. “No. No…she’s alive. You have to kill her! She is still alive!” the Vampire screeched to the air.
The guards only glanced in Charlotte’s direction to see a lifeless, bloody mess.
“This fool is out of his blasted mind,” the guard grumbled as they continued to lead him away, screaming something incoherent all the way out the heavy dungeon door.
Valek, who had been silently listening through the bars all the while, now forced himself to stand, his knees quaking beneath his weight. He had never felt so mortal. He pictured his Lottie’s eyes, wide with fear, now slowly closing. He saw the menacing creatures ripping at her soft skin. He thought about how he was one of them, responsible for the demise of so many people just like her. He hated himself and everything he was, as more garnet tears rolled down his pallid face. But he also decided that as long as he was a monster, he would not rest until every other monster responsible for this was dead. The only way Charlotte could still be alive was if by some divine magic, and Valek hardly held his breath.
He gripped the bars tighter, a mournful cry ripping from his core as he forced them apart. Larger drops of blood spilled from his eyes as he pulled the gap wider and wider, crying out again, surprised at his sudden strength. He would not chalk it up to God. That was something he stopped believing in a long time ago.
Valek, liberated from his cage, didn’t take but half a second to rush into the cell several yards down the hall. Thankfully, the door to her cell had been carelessly left open.
He knelt beside her, listening intently to her faint heartbeat. She was a mess on the ground, her eyes only slightly open. Her breathing was shallow; most of her wounds already healed from the saliva of her predators, while leftover blood stayed drying on her skin. If he ever came face to face with those creatures that called themselves Vampires, he swore to himself he would kill them faster than the sun could scorch their skin.
Valek was afraid to touch her for fear she might shatter into a million pieces. His hands wavered over her body for a few seconds longer before he pulled her into his lap to cradle her head against his arm.
“Valek,” she murmured, a sound of affirmation.
He gave a bittersweet smile; his throat burning with the smell of the room, though feeding was the furthest thing from his mind. He caressed her perfect cheek with his fingertips. “I am here now, Lottie.” He took her hand gently in his, brought it to the hollow under his cheekbone, and hummed. “Little Lottie. I am here. And I’m so sorry I wasn’t before.” His eyes started to well up again as he watched one corner of her mouth pull up into a faint smile.
Her fingers moved softly against his cool skin. The two huddled together in the center of the dismal chamber. The moon outside the barred window created an easing, silver pool around them as he cradled the girl in the quiet light.
He leaned down and kissed one unhealed slash across her face until he felt it disappear under his lips. He kissed the side of her neck until it healed as well. She would pull through, he decided. She had to — for him.
“Me, too,” he whispered.
Her eyebrows furrowed slightly at him, and she shut her eyes. “You — you were s-supposed to stay out of m-my head.” Her head rolled to one side.
His dark gaze locked on her face again as he saw she was resting now. He smoothed her hair with one long hand while he listened to her breathing.
“Sleep now, Lottie.” Looking around the cell, he wracked his brain for a way to get them out alive. Or, at the very least, get
Valek inhaled the smoke left over by the morning’s execution, breathing in the dust of his own kind as he cradled his little love. He traced the outline of her soft lips. Once a ruddy sort of pink, they were now pale with the blood loss and matched the rest of her perfectly placid skin. He noticed a trace of one silvery little tear, still left on one side of her face, and he caught it on his finger. He held it up to the moonlight and watched it sparkle.
He stroked her face again and suddenly heard heavy footsteps echoing, resonating off the stones like alarms. He had to think fast, but what could he do? He looked down at the little, half-dead mortal.
The footsteps continued to advance. They were coming for him. A soft sound lifted out of the small opening between Charlotte’s lips, something Valek took to mean she heard them, too. “Do not worry, love.”
He
He shot up from where he sat, carefully slinging her over his shoulder in one, fluid motion. He made sure she was secure to him, before deciding he was going to run.
But it was too late. He looked to see two officers, though this time, they were the familiar fire Elves that had greeted Valek at his house in the Occult. Fire. The one element which was the most difficult for Vampires to fight off. If Valek had a heart, he imagined it would have dropped down into his lower bowels.
The first laughed. “Hello,
