The man rested both his hands on a cane. I could see his long white fingernails shining in the dimly lit room. They were old hands, though. I had no doubt it was Night Von Sorrow, because I hadn't seen anything scarier than him in my life. I hadn't seen anything more cold-blooded. The slight parting of his mouth, showing his fangs, confirmed my fears. He smelled of blood, milk, and chocolate.
"Is she the one?" Night asked in a raspy voice that sent shivers to my soul.
"Carmilla Karnstein in the flesh," someone answered him.
"Weak is the flesh," Night said, taking a step forward and bending over. He held me by the jaw and parted his lips slowly, showing his sharp fangs again. "Strong is the soul that lives forever," he added, almost admiring me—or whatever his eyes were scanning my body for. "I can smell her soul already," he mumbled with envy and hatred, probably because he had no soul himself.
"I know who you are!" I spat on him, wondering where I got my sudden feistiness from. After the incident with my mother, this was the second time I'd realized how much anger I had inside.
"Then you're not as afraid as you should be," Night said. "Although I despise all Karnsteins, I have always admired their foolish bravery." His eyes met mine. They were piercing, as if looking for something beyond me. "You're such a beauty, Carmilla, just like the ripe Blood Apples the Karnsteins produce." He laughed in a low drone as his long fingernails almost scraped my cheeks. "We have been waiting so long for you."
"Let go of me!" I wriggled in my chains, not having a clue what he meant. "What is this bathtub? What do you want from me?"
"It's a tub of blood, milk, and dark chocolate." He dipped his long forefinger in it, pulled it up, and licked it with closed eyes. "And not any blood, or any milk, or any chocolate." It looked genuinely delicious to him. "I will let go of you." He signaled for the other men, who came and unchained me. They were too tall and strong, so I decided against kicking against them or trying to escape. Not yet. I didn't know where I was.
Night Von Sorrow turned back to the cloaked men. "Send him in," he ordered. "I want him to have her. Now!" he screamed, clenching his fists, red veins sticking out his strong neck. When he did, the liquid in the bathtub rippled, blood, milk, and chocolate weaving into each other's curvy threads. "Let's see if she is the one we're looking for."
A few cloaked men pulled open an iron door and dragged a man in a red cloak inside. A tall man with broad shoulders. His hands were tied, and two giant henchmen barely held him. He seemed strong, only overruled by their numbers. Another hostage, I thought, as he tried to set himself free.
"I believe you have met my son, Angel Von Sorrow," Night said proudly, removing Angel's cloak.
"The apple trader?" My heart tore into pieces. Too many surprises. It was the first time I'd realized that Angel had betrayed my father and our land. He was not an apple trader, but a disguised member of the Sorrow's family. Didn't he say his name was Angel Hassenpflug?
And he was a vampire who was supposed to kill me?
I didn't really care if I died that day. How could Angel betray me? It was one of the first moments I realized the world wasn't as friendly as I had thought. I had been confined behind walls of conformity, not really knowing anything about the real world outside. Betrayal seemed the world's most common trait.
"It was a nice little trick to fool you and sneak into your castle and learn about you." Night smirked at me. "You see, my dear son has not been fully turned into a vampire yet. We postponed the ritual of his full transformation so I could send him to Germany and then to Austria disguised as a human being. Being a half-vampire made him undetectable by your father. Karnsteins haven't developed the talent for sniffing half-vampires yet. For years, my son has been very useful to us, learning how humans thought and behaved so we can rule the world soon enough."
"Why would you do that?" If I was going to get killed, I needed to know.
"Because humans have been haunting and killing us for years, thinking we're just like rats, infecting the world with a disease." Night Von Sorrow sounded hurt for a slice of a moment. Soon he raised his raspy voice again, as if he were an actor in the Shakespearean theatre. "You have been wrongfully burning everyone who was different from you; the women whom you called witches, for instance. Humans have been exterminating everything that's new to them because they just couldn't understand it. They couldn't look at the beauty behind the fangs and the blood. You treat us like a walking plague, thinking you are the greatest species on earth. We, vampires, are the greatest species. Not you. We are an evolved human being with much more powers than any of you. We're something new and beautiful. I know it looks like we are the evil creatures, but it's the other way around. Vampires are just different from people, with their own lifestyle. Humans should have made a space for us so we could all live together."
"What kind of crazy ideas are you speaking of?" I snapped. "You kill people. You suck their blood."
"Humans suck other humans' blood every day," Night said. "Just look at the wars and poverty all around you. But you are a Karnstein. You wouldn't understand." He
