Laura was currently in Sweden with her father. Silas had all but shut down temporarily, not only because they lost the Dean but because there was a monstrous hungry light ravaging campus that was proving to be a bit of a problem. She wanted to laugh when they sent out the "official letter."
"Dear Student,
Reinstatement of the classes at Silas University has been postponed due to technical difficulties. Please do not attempt to retrieve any personal items you may have left behind."
Laura's father said that a change of would be good for her; that she should go out and see the world while she still had the chance, so long as she under supervision. Constantly.
It had been four months. Four months since she had seen LaFontaine and Perry and everyone else. Four months since Carmilla had died.
Her friends would call or text her every now and ten. Kirsch mostly sent snapchats of himself drinking with his buddies. Danny would even check in sometimes, just to make sure Laura was coping.
Coping was a strong word. Laura didn't really know if she was coping or not. She tried to compare it to how she felt when her mother died, but that seemed wrong. This was different. She missed her mother like a memory, hazy around the edges, something she couldn't quite grasp. But she missed Carmilla like the earth missed the sun when it hid away for the winter and let everything wither and freeze.
Most times she answered her friends concerns with a blank "I'm fine." Except when she was drunk, in which case she would stare at the words "What am I supposed to do?" refusing to hit send, simply letting the question exist for a while before she would erase it.
She supposed that Italy was beautiful. It was full of old buildings that she supposed Carmilla had seen built. Her father stopped forcing her to go sightseeing. He couldn't understand why gothic chapels and the dark haired beauties she would see in them made her cry.
Because, Dad, I fell in love with a three-hundred-some year old vampire, and then I watched her die. No big deal, though, do you want pizza for lunch?
Laura's dad had claimed a sabbatical from work. The place they were staying in was nice enough. An old castle of some long gone Baron had been renovated as a sort of inn. Each floor could occupy two families at a time. The other family was made up of a General Wyvern and his family, on a long vacation to celebrate his retirement. The General had a nineteen year old son, Brian, who was constantly trying to bother Lauren with cheap lines and lingering stares. The seventeen year old, Cheryl, wasn't terrible to be around, except for her shrill, loud voice that was constantly bubbling into unnecessary laughter.
The pervasiveness of the laugh in the halls of the old place made it harder and harder for Lauren to remember Carmilla's low, silky voice, that purred and beckoned and soothed. She found herself going over every conversation they had ever had, over and over, forcing them to stay fresh in her mind so those memories wouldn't fade as well.
At night she thought she saw shadows in her room, staring obsessively at them to see if she could make out Carmilla's frame bent by the window or curled up on the floor. She couldn't shake the feeling that these shadows weren't just in her head. They brought with them warmth and peace that would instantly be crushed into painful shards when she would wake in the morning and find that the room was still, in fact, empty.
Laura had started having nightmares again. That's what would make her wake to squint into the shadows. They were different than the ones she had in her dorm. They were memories, blurred and distorted and scarred into horrible recounts of watching Carmilla leap towards the hungry light, the blade of Hastur held above her head like a beacon. In the dreams, she would play out what happened with multiple endings. Some with the same unhappy fate, some worse, as the light would absorb Carmilla and project silvery portrait of her, screaming, in front of Laura. In some she would watch the dean crawl back out of the pit and slice Carmilla's throat, letting her severed head topple into the pit. And in some, she would see Carmilla sitting at the bottom of the pit, trapped, asking the darkness why Laura wouldn't save her.
And then Laura would wake in a cold sweat, screaming, her chest heaving with uncontrollable misery, only to force her breath to cease, straining her ears, fancying like a reverie that she heard the light step of Carmilla at the door.
Her father had stopped trying to ask her what was wrong. He could protect her against, evidently, an army of bears, but not against the pain that Laura refused to share with him. He'd spent his whole life protecting her form everything. But heartbreak was something he didn't know how to fix.
Laura was sitting at breakfast. Cheryl was giggling about a video she saw on YouTube. She was insisting she play at full volume so everyone could hear, though nothing could be heard over her snorting. Laura shoved a cookie in her mouth, rinsing it down with now only lukewarm chocolate.
"You know there's other things to eat in the pantry," Laura's father coaxed.
"I'm fine with this," she said, a crumb dribbling off her lips.
"Well," Mrs. Wyvern said, her accent thick with something European. Laura was terrible with identifying accents. Carmilla would know. "What do the Hollis' have on their agenda? We were planning on spending the day in town, there's some festival going on. Would you two like to join us?"
"Actually," said Laura's dad, "That sounds lovely. Laura, would you like to go with the Wyvern's?"
"I'm good" Laura said. "I think I'll just stay in today. Watch Netflix or something."
"But Laura,"
"You go, Dad, I'm sure you'll have a great time. I'm just not feeling so up to a day trip."
He frowned, but he knew that forcing her to go would be more of a hassle than just letting her do what she wanted.
"Just as well," he said, "who knows how many shady characters would be at such a festival. I would be a wreck trying to keep you safe. Promise you'll eat something other than cookies? There's plenty of leftovers in the fridge."
"Okay," Laura said, and excused herself to her room.
Laura's room was a little large for her taste. It was mostly barren, with an overstuffed velvet chair by the tall window, a fireplace, and a mirror almost as long as Danny propped opposite the bed. Laura thought that what she disliked most about the room was its lack of grime and dirty stray clothing and unwashed dishes. She never thought she would prefer the messes Carmilla had constantly made in their cramped little dorm room, but it was a sign that she was there. Laura had even broken some of her longstanding cleaning habits, letting her dirty clothes drift about the room, leaving her bed unmade. The unkemptness of it made her feel at home.
Her yellow pillow sat atop the red paisley bedspread, completely clashing. But Carmilla had stolen it enough times that for weeks after she left it still smelled like her: that confusing combination of Laura's cookies and hot chocolate, leather, and a hint of blood. She knew it sounded like a repulsive combination but at was still a million times better than the communal stench the Zetas used to emanate. Laura had held the pillow so tight for so long that the scent was long gone, but every now and then, just of a second, she thought Carmilla's her smell had come back, sauntering through the room like she used to.
Laura locked the door behind her, thankful for a lock that worked after months of interruptions by Perry or LaFontaine of Danny or Kirsch, or really anyone, when Carmilla would give Laura that look she wanted so badly to find the meaning behind. She collapsed onto the unmade bed, tucking one arm under the yellow pillow and sprawling out for a nap, but unable to sleep. A dry lump swelled in her throat, but no tears came. Laura didn't think she was able to cry anymore.
She died for nothing. That was the worst part. Carmilla had swam to thousands of feet below water to retrieve a sword she knew would kill her and leapt into the heart of the sickening light for nothing. She finally stood up to her mother for nothing. None of it did any good. And what did Laura do to make this right? She fled. She ran away. The least she could have done was finish the job, even if it killed her. Carmilla had been brave enough for her, and she was a coward. Sulking, isolated from her friends and the cause she fought so hard for, she knew Carmilla could never love the girl Laura had become.
Laura's phone started chiming. LaFontaine was trying to skype her. Laura cleared her throat and sat up.
"Hi," she said, trying to sound cheery, "What's up?"
"My amazingly keen sense of intuition tells me you're brooding and need cheering up."
"I'm fine, LaFontaine. Really."
LaFontaine glanced down at her computer screen for a second.
"JP says you don't look fine."
"I'm serious! Look, no baggy, puffy eyes, clean clothes, nails relatively unbitten, stomach full of cookies and hot chocolate. I'm normal Laura again. Really. No more mourning. I'm moving on."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes."
"Are you gonna stay in your room all day?"
"No?"
"Are you lying?"
Laura scowled at her phone.
"I used to spend days at a time in my dorm room without leaving. What's so different about this?"
"Simple, we were there to keep you company. Right now you're alone."
"She's right, Laura," Perry chimes in, her curls bouncing into view of the camera. "Now, I know your dad didn't give you much choice about going to Sweden, but you've barely even called. And, well. It just doesn't seem healthy."
"She's trying to say we miss you," LaFontaine interpreted. "Danny came to visit yesterday. She asked about you."
"Is she back home with her parents?"
"Until Silas re-opens. If it re-opens. And if the Hungry Light doesn't consume the whole planet by then."
"What's it doing?"
"Well, the damage is still pretty much contained to campus. It seems to be the most active at night, so most people who are dumb enough to stick around know to stay indoors. I'm staying at Perry's house to keep an eye on it. It's close enough to campus, but not so close that we're at risk of being drawn into it again like that night. If anything, I think it's weak, it doesn't have enough people to prey on. Looks like Silas did the right thing for once by shutting the school down."
"Yeah," Laura said, pushing the memories away.
"Hey," LaFontaine said, "did the mail come in yet today where you are?"
"Uh, I don't know," Laura said.
There was a knock on her door.
"Who is it?"
"Uh, Miss Hollis? This is Lila," the housekeeper said in broken English, "there is package for you."
Laura looked at her phone screen.
"How did you…never mind, I don't want to know."
LaFontaine beamed a big grin at Laura, and she opened the door to take the package from Lila. It was large and flat and rectangular, bound up in cardboard and post marked from Austria.
"What on Earth is this?" Laura asked. She set the phone down to open the package.
When she peeled down the top edge she saw that it looked like a picture frame; a big one. The cardboard was slapped together in chunks, so Laura had to patiently rip piece by piece to keep from damaging whatever was in the picture frame.
She saw the hair first, wound tightly in black, impossibly thick curls. She ripped the cardboard down the length, revealing an extravagant red silk mantua gown with black accents, with a bodice cut low on the chest, revealing soft, pale cleavage below a pronounced collarbone and a slender neck with a mole. Laura tore away the rest of the cardboard.
"It's…" Laura breathed.
"Countess Mircalla Karnstein," LaFontaine's voice proclaimed. "I tracked down where the Karnstein estate was and I did a little…negotiating. It's not the original, it's a copy. The owner of the estate commissioned several copies of all the original paintings he found on the estate to show off to tourists. But still. That's her."
Laura found that her eyes were still capable of producing tears after all. She felt like she couldn't breathe, staring at Carmilla, who looked so healthy and happy and alive. They must have heard Laura choke on her own breath.
"Oh," Perry squealed, "Susan I told you that was a bad idea. It can't help her move on at all."
"No, but I at least wanted to show her that there was a time, before everything, when Carmilla was happy."
Laura forced herself to speak.
"It's fine, Perry. I really do appreciate this, LaFontaine. It must have taken a lot of work and I'm sure it wasn't cheap. Thank you. I, I have to go."
Laura ended the call, unable to take her eyes off the painting. This wasn't the same, but still, Laura never thought she would see Carmilla's face again. They left in such a rush from campus that Laura didn't have time to save any of the old university photos she had dug up of her. In a way she liked this better than any of the photos she'd seen of Carmilla. Because LaFontaine was right, she looked happy. This was before Carmilla grew to hate her mother, before her years of being trapped underground, before Silas. All the pain had not yet been etched into her face.
After a while Laura decided to take down the landscape painting above the fireplace, and put up Carmilla's painting in its place. She lay down on the bed, staring up at it, grabbing the box of cookies from under her bed, pretending it was the 1690's, and somewhere Carmilla was running around, attending balls and waltzing and laughing, and it was the calmest Laura had felt in a long time.
Laura didn't remember falling asleep, but when she opened her eyes it was dark. Laura felt frozen in place, a feeling overwhelming her that told her she wasn't alone in the room. She had felt that way before, back when she lived at Silas, but it was never as threatening as this. It felt too real to be one of the nightmares induced from the Dean. This was different. Like she was something's prey, being watched carefully.
She suddenly felt an ice cold rush up her back. She inhaled sharply, unable to look behind her or roll away. It wasn't just that she was too terrified to move, it was that she felt somehow compelled to stay put , afraid that any movement on her part would scare off whatever it was that had taken her over.
"Laura," a voice whispered, cold and slippery and hungry. Then she felt a sudden pain, like two needles plunging into the flesh above her collarbone.
Laura woke with a start. It was still daylight, late afternoon judging by the way the light streamed into the window, blunted by the curtains she didn't remember closing. She was panting, sweat staining yesterday's pajamas she hadn't yet changed out of. Her eyes darted around the room, desperate.
"Carm?" she whispered.
For what felt like forever there was no reply. She strained her ears, hoping in vain that she would hear something, anything, to confirm that it wasn't just a dream. But she heard nothing.
She sighed, angry with herself for feeling let down by nothing more than a dream. But it didn't feel like a dream. Laura lay there for awhile, and finally decided she had to do something useful with herself. She got up to remove herself from the bed, and was overwhelmed with a weakness in her whole body. she could barely move. Laura noticed a strand of short black hair on her shirt. She looked down at the comforter, and saw that it was mussed, lightly littered with the fur of a familiar black cat.
Laura nearly screamed, elation rushing through her, crackling like fireworks. This had to be real. She was here.
The surge in her heart gave her enough strength to get up, but then she nearly collapsed, her knees giving out. She fell against something with a soft thud, resulting in a small yelp from a slender figure clad in absurdly tight leather pants.
"C-Carm," Laura said, barely able to stay awake.
"Oh God, Laura?" Carmilla said, jolting herself upright and pulling Laura towards her. "Oh my God, Laura, I'm so sorry. Laura? Laura. Come one. You're fine."
Laura felt herself slipping in and out of consciousness. Her neck pulsated with a low ache, pulling her under into sleep.
"Laura, come on. I didn't mean to, I was nearly starved, I turned into something I don't want to be anymore. I didn't mean to hurt you."
Carmilla grabbed a cookie from the bed, nearly shoving it into Laura's mouth.
"Wake up, Laura, please. Please tell me I didn't take too much. Please, Laura. I came so far. This can't be how it ends. Laura," she said, shaking her, "Please!"
Laura listened to Carmilla's voice, a voice she never thought she'd hear again, pleading to her like Laura had pleaded into the dark for so long, praying that Carmilla wasn't dead. She used it like an anchor, pulling herself out of murky sleep, forcing herself to stay awake.
"Keep talking," Laura said through cookie crumbs.
"What?" Carmila said.
"Keep talking, Carm. It's keeping me awake."
"Uh, okay. Umm, I missed you. No, sorry, I'm being stupid. Um. I guess I'll tell you how I got here."
Carmilla took a breath, as if she had to pull the details of the story into herself from the air in the room.
"Well, thing is, the cult of Hostur was made up of humans, so they never really thought of what would happen if someone immortal wielded the blade. When I went after the light, I felt my life source being drained through it, pulling everything out of me: my very soul. If I even have one. And strangely, I felt at peace. It was okay if I died, Laura. Because I did it for you. And for every girl my mother sacrificed to that thing. For every person I ever drained dry to keep myself, a sickening monster, alive. I did one good thing. And I supposed I wanted it to end that way. It was good to end that way. So I plunged the knife into the light, and everything went dark.
But then I woke up. It had to have been days later. The moon felt different than it had that night. I remember screaming, hating that I had survived. I was trapped down there, in the pit. I had no way to know if you survived. And I was weak; I hadn't fed for a while. But I had enough strength to transform. My paws had nails that could dig into the gaps in the walls of the pit. I think by now you know I have a little habit of turning into a cat. It makes for a good party trick. Anyhow, I dragged myself up.
It was like I had missed the end of the world. The campus was deserted. Buildings were smoking in a pile of their own ruin. The earth shook. And I knew we had failed. I knew the light wasn't dead. And I felt so angry. I had to assume that you had died. But I wouldn't believe it. I had to find you, I needed proof. But I was so weak, I had to feed. Then…I found a girl. A student. I don't know why she was still on campus, maybe the light had locked onto her, made her want to stay, like it did to us that night. But she was injured, pinned under a pile of bricks, bleeding out. The smell of her blood was so strong. I didn't want to drink from her. I hadn't drank from a fresh catch in so long. I didn't let myself. I never thought anything was wrong with it until after Elle. Mother would provide blood for me, and I wouldn't ask questions.
It was disgusting, but I didn't have a choice. She was weeping; she knew she was going to die. I eased her pain; let her drift off into a permanent sleep. Maybe I could have turned her. I've never done it before, but I know the gist of the mechanics of it. I decided turning her that was a worse punishment.
Then I made myself find our dorm building, and it was barely standing. I climbed up the side of it to our room, and saw that it was cleared out. And I had to hold onto hope that you made it out okay. I found something that still had your scent and tracked you to your home. That was empty, too. But there were travel pamphlets, and a printed receipt for lodging here. What on earth are you doing here anyway? In this place. It reminds me so much of my first home."
Carmilla nearly panicked in the second it took Laura to answer, afraid of the worst.
"I couldn't really explain the irony of it to my dad when he said I needed to 'escape my demons' for a while."
Laura's voice sounded so weak it made Carmilla's stomach sink. She hated what she was, she hated that it hurt the people she got closest to. She forced herself to talk through the pain.
"I took a boat here. Planes make me nervous. Soon I grew hungry again. I could hear the heartbeat of every human on that ship, that hideous, oversized ship. I tried to limit myself, to sneak into people's room at night and take only small amounts from each person. I didn't lose control, because I didn't let myself slip into the thrill of the hunt.
It's an amazing feeling, Laura: to hunt. The thing about being a vampire is that somewhere, deep down, buried under all the monstrosity, you still remember your humanity. The only way to live with yourself is if the hunt is something irresistible, addictive enough to let you sleep at night with blood on your lips. It's like being in love, Laura. You pick your prey, and it becomes yours completely. To choose prey is like choosing a suitor. You go for a certain hair color, body type, smell. A target attracts you in the most carnal way possible; the instinct of a vampire is to be wholly attracted to your prey, so that the hunt is so alluring you forget how evil it is.
I made it here with as little blood in me as possible. In such a confined space, people would start to notice if they all had the same puncture wounds on their necks. When I got off the ship my need to survive kick started that pleasurable urge, that love of the hunt. All around me people pumped with fresh blood. But I had to resist it. I knew once I gave in I wouldn't be able to stop myself. I made it here, and somehow I thought seeing you would make everything alright. I just needed to see you, Laura. That need was stronger than any hunger I could ever feel."
Laura's breathing had been slowing down as Carmilla spoke. She listened to her heartbeat. It was weak, but refused to quit. Everything about Laura was stubborn. Guilt rushed over Carmilla. She buried her face in Laura's neck, the urge to drink totally gone, letting the rest of the story be muffled in Laura's warm skin.
"But I didn't prepare for this. The undying human love I have for you, Laura, it got confused with my animal lust for blood. Two completely different kinds of love. One is real and beautiful, and the other is vile. I let them blur together, only for a second, so blinded by the fact that you were alive, sleeping in your bed, like nothing had happened. In in that second I let the predator take over. And I'm so sorry, Laura, I'm so so sorry. You can't die now. You're the only thing that kept me going. I can't lose you know. Please just stay awake, please don't leave me alone. I'm just a monster without you."
Laura had heard every word, half in a dream and half in reality. She thought perhaps all of it was a dream, that she had let herself think up some fantastic story in her sleep to let herself think Carmilla was still alive. But the ache of the puncture wounds and the chill of Carmilla's lips on her shoulder let her believe, however impossible that this was real.
"Carm?" Laura said.
"Yeah?" Carmilla answered, laughter in her voice, just happy that Laura was speaking.
"Would you mind taking me off the floor?"
"Oh. I'm such an idiot. Here."
She gently lifted Laura onto the bed.
"What do you need?" Carmilla asked, face as close to Laura's as she dared, so she could feel her warm, sugary scented breath on forehead, just to feel that she was real.
"Maybe," Laura croaked, "Some water? And something other than cookies. Something with some sort of nutritional value."
Carmilla darted to the kitchen down the hall as fast as her superhuman speed would allow. She grabbed everything she could find, and raced back to Laura's room. Old pizza, pasta, crackers, chicken drenched in some sort of sauce that didn't smell appetizing to Carmilla, practically building a fort of food and beverages around Laura.
Laura laughed, propping herself up on shaky elbows, letting Carmilla spoon feed her like a baby bird, stroking her hair, muttering to herself. Laura kept her eyes locked on Carmilla, barely letting herself blink, in fear that all of this would disappear.
"Carmilla," Laura mumbled through a mouthful of whatever she kept shoving at her. "Carm! Stop for a second."
Carmilla's eyes snapped up at Laura, wounded and almost a little misty, though Laura swore she once heard Carmilla say that vampires don't cry.
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
Carmilla blinked at her.
"Don't say that. Not now."
"Why not?" Laura asked.
"Because I hurt you."
"You seem to be conveniently forgetting that if it weren't for you I wouldn't be alive at all. You were dead, Carmilla. And I didn't know what to do without you. And I never got to tell you that I loved you so don't you dare tell me I can't say it now. I needed you back. And now you're here. And if the side effect is that I have to deal with a little blood loss, I'd say that's a pretty fair deal."
"I'll find another way to get blood."
"I know."
"I'll never touch you again, I promise."
Laura leaned in and kissed Carmilla, breathing in the scent of leather and her cookies and her blood. She let herself get wrapped up in it for a moment, before pulling away, shaking a little from weakness and excitement.
"You had better not make that promise," Laura said.
Carmilla smirked, eyes flashing under her black bangs. She placed a hand on Laura's hip, leaning in for another kiss she knew would be one of many.
"Then I take it back, cupcake."
After a moment Carmilla realized it was probably a better idea to let Laura rest than to otherwise occupy her acting out everything she'd pictured doing to Laura in her head all those times. She kept an ear on her heart and her breathing, letting Laura curl up against her, propped on that stupid yellow pillow, content to stay that way for as long as possible.
"Uh, Laura?" Carmilla asked, looking above the fireplace. "Is that?"
"LaFontaine found it. I liked the idea of you watching over me, even if you weren't around."
"Well you don't need a stupid picture for that anymore," Carmilla said, kissing Laura on the forehead.