He must have died for a moment, because he felt his vampire self kicking him back to life. The pain in his chest was insufferable, and he could feel weight on his body, but could not really make out what it was for the sharp orange setting sun was flooding the train wreck. His ears started to notice screams, weeping and the piercing sound of sirens. When his eyes adjusted, he realized the weight he was feeling was the weight of a motionless female body, whose neck had visibly snapped in the fall, and whose abdomen was pierced with a broken metal rod, formerly an overhead handrail. Then he realized the rest of the rod was stuck in his own chest, which was the cause of the sharp pain he was feeling. But the worst was yet to come: not long ago, the body now sprayed on top of him was a smiling blonde mother he had been chatting with.
"Oh, no, Alice…" he heard himself say, his voice full of all the tragedy this entailed. And then: "Oh, God. Rowena? Rowena!" he called and tried to get up, pulling the metal rod out of his chest, looking frantically around in search of the child.
She wasn't far. Her eyes were open, and at first he feared the worst, but then he saw her gaze following him, as he gently rested her mother's body aside and knelt beside her.
"Rowena," he said her name again, urging a response. "Are you hurt? Can you move?"
Her stare met his eyes. "You were both dead," she said feebly, but with conviction he had no power to shake. He might have imagined it, but there was also a trace of accusation in her voice.
"Yes, I'll explain later," he promised.
"Mummy's not coming back, is she?"
He could feel tears forcing their way in his eyes. What are you supposed to say to that? He felt guilty that he was the one who cheated death, while the person that mattered to this little girl, the only person she had in this world, did not have the same luxury.
"Come on, let's get you out of here," he said instead and lifted some chunks of metal so that he could see how bad her injuries actually were. She had some cuts and scratches all over her body, but otherwise nothing seemed to be broken, no internal injuries. He lifted her carefully, looking for a possible head wound, relieved when he found none.
"I don't want to leave mummy!" she cried out in sudden desperation. She must have figured out that once she was carried out of here, she'd never see her mother's face again.
Nikola sat down again and clutched the child against him. He could feel shock disabling his body. He sensed the presence of other mutilated corpses all around them, their little island of life where he hid with his little treasure – a goldilocks whom he hadn't even known an hour ago, and yet who was now connected to him through this horrible act of fate.
And then an idea dawned on him.
"Rowena," he said and sat her down, kneeling in front of her. "I need you to be a brave girl now and wait for me. I'll go get help. I'd ask you to come along, but I know you'd rather be here. It's an unbearable sight for a child to see, I know, but it's what you want and I can't take that away from you. Do you understand me?"
The girl nodded.
"Ok. Hang on, I'll be back soon."
He made his way through the rubble and eventually climbed out into the open. The scene of the crash looked even worse from the outside, with wounded or dead victims being brought out of the fallen train and firemen and medics running around frantically, looking for survivors.
Someone noticed him, but he brushed them off.
"I'm fine," he insisted, and concluding it would be the best he could do, he broke into a run.
Breathless, he reached a telephone box and with a shaking hand inserted several coins in it that he found in his pocket.
"Yes, can I speak to Miss Warren, please? It's urgent," he asked the person who picked up his call.
He had to wait for what seemed like minutes, but what was, in fact, a mere several seconds.
"Hello?"
"Annabelle!" he breathed out. "It's me. Please, tell me you can raise the dead."
"Nikola? What's going on?"
"Can you or can you not?" he insisted.
"Theoretically," she emphasized. "It would depend on the cause of death and the time elapsed since the death… Nikola, what's going on? You seem like you're in shock."
"I've just been in a train crash, Annabelle. There was this woman and a child right next to me; the child is ok, but the mother died in my arms! And the girl is now looking at me like I'm the world's biggest monster, because she saw me come back to life, and I mean she's right, why should I get to live while her mother's dead? She doesn't have anyone else in the world, Annabelle. Tell me you can do something about it. Please…"
"I can be there within half an hour," she estimated, and he breathed out a somewhat relieved thank you. "But Nikola, I can't promise you anything."
He nodded, realising she couldn't see that, of course.
"First car. Please hurry, Annabelle," he urged her with a failing voice and hung up.
Then he hurried back to the site of the crash, and without thinking about it, he barked: "My wife and daughter are still in there!" at the fireman who tried to stop him entering the rubble again. When the fireman insisted that he let the rescue teams deal with it, he simply pushed the man aside (with a force the fireman wasn't expecting) and climbed back inside anyway.
"Rowena! Are you still there?" Nikola called. It was getting dark and he couldn't see whether she was still where he left her. But she was, huddled next to her mother, only lifting her head when she heard the familiar voice.
He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms again.
"Are you an angel, Nik?" she asked before he could voice his thoughts.
"No, darling, no, I'm not an angel. But I'm not human either. God, I wish I didn't have to explain that to you right now, but I have to. I don't know why; I honestly don't know, but it breaks my heart to think this happened to you. I feel connected to you somehow – this happened to us… together… oh, I don't know, do you even understand what I'm trying to say?" he sighed.
"You know me now," she said. "And you care."
"Yes," he jumped at that, "I think that's exactly what I'm saying. And - oh God, I wish you didn't have to go through this, I wish your mummy was all right… I guess what I'm… I mean it's just you now, right?"
She nodded and the pain he felt was more than he could take.
"Ok, I need you to listen to me very carefully now. Here's what you need to know about me: I'm a scientist, just like I said. I've done some horrible things in my life. You could probably say I'm a monster. I was born 94 years ago and I'll never get any older than this. I need you to know all this so that you can decide, ok? I want you to come stay with me. We're in this hell together, and I want to make this right for both of us. If you say yes, I'll take care of you and protect you. I'll show you all the world could be and let you decide what you want to do about it. But I am what I am, and nothing will change me. You should also know that I can be a nasty arrogant pain in your shoe sometimes. And by sometimes I mean most of the time. But I can promise you that I pose no danger to you. And, again, I wish I didn't have to do it all so quickly, because, believe me, darling, I can see how difficult this is for you, but we don't have time. I need you to tell me right now."
She nodded slowly. "Ok."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Like you said, Nik, you care. You will understand about today because you were here with me. And I don't want to go to an orphanage," she burst into tears, and he protectively clutched her tighter.
"No one's taking you to an orphanage, darling. But I need you to help me now, ok? I need to know everything about you so I can convince everyone you are my daughter. Can you do that for me? We need to do that right now, otherwise they could take you away from me, ok? It's just a game for now," he told her. "We'll figure this whole thing out later, I promise."
He was well aware of the strain he was putting on the child, and hated himself for that, but it had to be done. When he was certain he had all angles covered, he stood up and carried her outside to let the medics take her to the hospital.
"Don't leave me, please!" she begged when he explained that he needed to stay behind for a while longer. "Please, come with me, please!"
"Shhhh, darling, don't worry. I will come to you as soon as I can. I need to stay here and help mummy."
"But she's dead," the child protested.
He leaned closer to her and gently explained: "Yes, I know. I need to take care of things, Rowena. But when I do, I'll come straight to the hospital to you. You have nothing to be scared of. Just let them help you. Be brave for your mummy, sweetheart."
When did he even learn to talk like that? It was as if he'd always known, it had always been in him, like it was waiting for this moment, a fixed point in time and space when their paths would cross.
Why did he make her go through that procedure of institutional lies when he was still hoping to resurrect her mother? He told himself it was easier if he pretended to be her real father – to be able to see her in the hospital, to deal with their matters with authority and without unnecessary complications. But he promised a little girl to play a part in her life. He would have to face the consequences no matter how it would all end.
A car stopped at the curb and a woman got out of it, directing her steps immediately towards him. Annabelle.
He led her to Alice, holding the dead mother's hand as his friend examined her.
"This is very nasty, Nikola," Annabelle frowned. "I don't think I can do much here…"
"Could you please just try?" he snapped, berating himself for that instantly.
"Like I said, I will do whatever I can," she assured him kindly. She knelt beside Alice and took the dead woman's other hand in hers while she started singing. In the fading daylight, the world paused to listen to the song, and it brought comfort and alleviated everyone's pain.
Annabelle's free hand rested on Alice's neck, and when she took it away, Nikola could see that the spine had mended itself under her touch. Then she brought her hand down to the wound, which very gradually, unwillingly, sealed itself. But Annabelle shook her head sadly even before her song finished; Alice was gone and there was no way she could bring her back to life.
"I'm so sorry, Nik," she whispered. "I am so, so sorry…"