Of Light and Darkness: The Vampire's Daughter

Every morning at sunrise, Valek’s body stopped working. His eyes sunken deep into their sockets, his breathing growing more and more staggered, his joints popping and whining as his last breaths rattled from him. The death of any type of person was not something pleasant to watch, but the daily death of a Vampire beat out most. He never wanted Charlotte to see him like that. Normally she locked herself in her own bedroom, shut all the curtains, and tried to muffle out the sound of Valek’s moaning with her pillows until she eventually fell asleep.

“Lottie.”

Valek’s musical voice stopped her halfway up the staircase. She looked down to see him quickly wipe something away from one corner of his mouth. Charlotte appreciated Valek always being careful to never expose her to his feeding habits, though seeing blood barely bothered her anymore.

“Going to sleep early tonight?”

She shuddered, trying to dispel the deathly images of his “sleep” from the book. “Yes. I think I might go for a hike tomorrow…while the sun is out.”

He smiled uncomfortably. “Yes, well…say hello to it for me.”

Charlotte understood his unbridled fascination with the sunlight — like an unrequited romance.

When Valek turned to retreat to his office, she began once more up the stairs.

“Lottie?” He stopped her again.

She turned back again to see he had returned to the same spot, as if he had never moved.

“Be careful tomorrow, please.”

“I’m always careful.”

“I still do not like the fact that you had to go all the way into the city for me tonight.” He sighed and pushed back an unruly lock of dark, brown hair which had fallen into his severe face, the rest tied neatly back with a black ribbon.

Charlotte waited for him to continue.

“I know it must disturb you on some level to have to hunt for me. I simply…do not know how else to handle our unique situation.”

Charlotte’s mouth fell open, but nothing came out. Valek had never addressed his feelings about this before. He rarely revealed his personal feelings at all. She descended a few steps to stand eye-to-eye with him.

“It's okay. I don't mind it, really. I much prefer things this way than what the alternative would be.” She smiled.

“It is not a joke to me, Lottie,” he said seriously. “If anything is ever bothering you or makes you uncomfortable, I expect you to come to me about it.”

“Of course I will. Who else would I go to?”

He squeezed the bottom of her chin affectionately. They regarded each other for the last time that evening and retreated to their own corners of the house.

Charlotte thought about her five-year-old self against the Fairy again as she crawled into her bed and pulled the covers around her shoulders. She smiled when she thought of Valek’s horrifying grin that day, but the memory of how he’d bounced her on his knee, like a daughter, stung insatiably. The Fairy’s long jagged teeth were much scarier than Valek’s fangs.

She gripped the covers tighter around her neck and closed her eyes. The image of Valek wiping the blood away from his mouth flashed in her mind. Blood, from a human just like her. Frowning, she turned over and thought of Evangeline again. Charlotte noticed Valek’s eyes brighten when she told him about the Witch’s plans to stop by tomorrow. Her heart sank a little deeper in her chest and she flipped over again, staring at the ceiling.

Charlotte recalled Valek’s smile after Evangeline hugged him as a “thank you” for fixing her. If he’d been physically able to blush, he probably would have. Flesh wounds never took Valek very long to sew up, but he gave so much attention to Evangeline’s that night, taking a longer amount of time to ensure that the gash would scar as little as possible. Nothing would ruin Evangeline’s perfection.

The Witch was beautiful, with the brightest eyes that always seemed to pop against her tanned skin and dark hair — Moravian. Nothing like Charlotte’s spiraled, red curls and pallid skin. Evangeline was tall, like the models advertised on the sides of the building walls in Prague. If she were human, she’d probably be plastered there with the rest of them.

To Charlotte’s surprise, she felt her eyes well up with stinging tears. She squeezed the bottom of her own chin, replaying in her mind Valek’s action from just a few moments ago — how parental it felt. Valek would never see her as anything other than a child. She couldn’t remember what the catalyst was that caused her feelings for him to change, but Charlotte needed to live with the fact, as his adopted daughter, she could never be anything else to him

A single tear rolled down the side of Charlotte’s face. She needed to guard these embarrassing, miserable thoughts from him at all costs. He would never understand the way she felt.

She turned on her side again, and let herself drift to sleep.

Chapter Two Stripped

Charlotte’s torturous thoughts from last night resurfaced in her mind the instant she opened her eyes the next morning. But she couldn’t think of him anymore. It was daytime. He was resting. And she was leaving.

The day was much cooler than the night before, the air crisp, smelling like burnt cinnamon and baked red apples as it drifted through Charlotte's window. It was her most favorite time of year, and that was what she would decidedly focus on today.

She got dressed in a hurry and skipped to her vanity, carefully running a beaded comb through her tousled, dark red curls. Why couldn’t she have hair that was fine and straight, like Evangeline’s? Men’s eyes always lingered when Evangeline ran her slender fingers through it.

She grasped her canvas satchel, swung it over her shoulder, and skipped to the second story landing of the staircase, but Valek's bolted bedroom caught the corner of her eye. Its ornately gothic doors were shut tight, letting no pinch of light enter between the thin crevices as it stared back at her down the long hallway. She frowned at it, feeling badly he had to be trapped there during the beautiful, warm daylight. She pushed one curl behind her ear before she started again downstairs.

Quickly, she grabbed a loaf of sourdough and jam from the ice chest in the dark, empty kitchen, before rushing through the foyer to the front door.

Once outside, Charlotte sucked in the clean air and let the sun heat her skin. Valek had warned her about her lack of vitamin D since she was kept pale by her nocturnal life. He demanded she at least go out weekly during the daytime to stay healthy. It worried him, though, that she would be out on her own, beyond the reach of his protection.

The streets of the Bohemian Occult were abandoned of all but the Elves and a few non-nocturnal Phasers, creatures who looked human but were able to shape-shift. Charlotte had grown up playing with a lot of the Elven children, as they were closer to human than the others. They ate normal food, though most were vegetarian, and they were mortal, except they aged much slower than human beings.

Near the end of the town square, next to an Elven church, across from the pub the Witches liked to frequent, there was Broucka General Store. It was the shop she went to every time she was out for the day because it sold everything from fresh meats and fruits, to specialty potions and knick-knacks laced with psychic energy — things she might need for a night of hunting.

“Edwin?” Charlotte called to her favorite clerk, pushing through the noisy curtain of stones that rained down from the front doors. Enchanted, red clay birds twittered around Charlotte's head as a welcome before disappearing to the wooden rafters of the shop ceiling.

“Hello there, Charlotte!” A small demon poked his head out from behind a tall oak shelf of crystal potion bottles. “I’ll be with you in five minutes.” He went back with his rag to finish polishing. The purple stained glass of the bottle he dusted distorted his burlap face into a funny jug shape that forced Charlotte to smile. Edwin was the strangest creature she had come across in her lifetime so far — something like a living scarecrow, with potato-sack