-Chapter Four-
When they got to the Holmwood residence-a detached house of three stories, narrow and fairly utilitarian in outside decoration, but of quality stone-Vlad escorted Mina straight to the front door. When Arthur answered, she went inside, while Vlad went to patrol around the house and see what was causing the fuss.
He found it rather quickly, and cursed Lord Godalming for an idiot. Without bothering to knock, he let himself in.
"What is it?" Arthur asked. "Did you find- Oh."
Vlad held up the kitten. "Really, Godalming? You're terrified of a kitten?"
"There was scratching at the door!" Arthur protested.
"Yes, I'm sure," Vlad said dryly.
Mina came over and plucked the kitten from his hands. "Oh, how cute! Look at its little paws!"
The kitten, a little grey thing with white paws and a white blotch over its nose, crawled up and snuggled into her neck. Mina giggled.
They turned at the sound of footsteps in the open doorway. Lucy stood there, hair wild, face pale. The kitten jumped down from Mina's arms, hissing, and ran to hide under the nearest sofa.
"Lucy!" Mina cried, and took a step forward before she realised that Lucy's eyes were glowing red.
Lucy lunged for Mina, knocking her to the floor. Mina instinctively drew up her knees to keep the vampire at a distance. The bulk of her belly also helped. Pushing at Lucy's shoulder with one hand, she slapped her across the face and snapped, "Get ahold of yourself, Lu!"
The vampire reeled back, a hand to her face, red eyes blinking. Vlad caught hold of her, an arm around her neck.
"Are you alright?" he asked his wife.
Arthur rushed over and helped Mina to her feet. Mina thanked him and told Vlad, "I'm okay."
Lucy let out a cry and went limp in Vlad's grasp. She began to sob. Arthur tried to go to her, but Vlad held out a hand to stop him.
"Lucy?" Vlad asked. "Do you know who you are?"
After a moment, she nodded. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt Mina. I'm just so hungry."
Vlad knew that feeling all too well. "Have you fed at all since you woke up?"
Lucy's eyes had returned to normal, and they were full of tears. "I think so. It's all such a jumble. This man, he came into the house, and he . . . he hurt Mum, and then he attacked me, and he forced me to drink- drink his blood. And I think I passed out. When I woke up, I wasn't at the house, and there was this homeless man . . . Oh, god. Did I kill him?!"
This time, Vlad let Arthur go to his wife. She sobbed in his arms, sitting on the floor of the foyer.
"She's a vampire now," Mina said, somewhat unnecessarily.
"Yes," Vlad murmured.
"Are you going to . . .?" She trailed off, panicked at what his response would be.
He looked from Mina to the hysterical Lucy. "Only if she wants it. Otherwise . . . We'll take her to Romania and I'll teach her to . . . live with what she is."
"You knew this would happen," she said softly.
"When we didn't find her dead with her mother, yes. I feared that was his plan."
"What do we do?"
The kitten scooted out from under the sofa and gave Lucy and Arthur a wide berth as it dashed back to Mina. Vlad picked it up, as Mina couldn't bend over, and handed it back to his wife.
"This is mine now, by the way," she told him.
"I figure as much when you first saw it. As for what we do . . . that depends on Lucy. Though I suspect we should call the police and tell them she's turned up."
With the kitten on her shoulder, Mina did just that. The tiny feline was attracted to her earrings, soft little paws batting at the dangles. She had the thought Ingeras would have adored the kitten, and wondered why he'd never had one.
"Why did you and Mirena never give Ingeras a kitten?" she asked Vlad when she finished her phone call.
"What?" Vlad frowned in confusion. "Cats were considered bad luck back then."
"Oh, right."
The police arrived in short order, and interviewed Lucy. She told them she'd been hit on the head and had no idea what had happened until she'd woken up miles from home with no mobile and no money. She had, she told them, walked all the way home and had arrived to learn her mother was dead. The blood on the stairs, she explained away as from being hit in the face, a nosebleed. That was one injury they couldn't force her to prove, because she healed quickly now and there was no way anything would last long enough to be evidence.
Arthur sat in stony silence through it all, his arm around his wife's shoulders.
"We'll let you get some rest, Lady Godalming," the detective inspector said, as he closed his little notebook. "Though I do think you should go to hospital to be checked out."
"No, I- I want to stay here, at home. I don't feel sick or anything."
The police left. Vlad spent a long time talking with Lucy in low voices, while Mina played with the kitten. Getting Lucy grounded in her new existence was paramount. Mina had to admit, though, that after Vlad's horror stories of so many of their people turning feral after the change, she was relieved that Lucy was strong enough to keep herself.
"Do you think it's safe to leave Lucy here with Arthur?" she asked Vlad as they were leaving.
"She won't attack him. I made her promise that she would leave if she starts thinking about it."
"I hope she's strong enough to keep that promise."
Mina held the kitten in her lap on the way back to the house, the small grey ball of fluff content to sit and purr.
"I think I'll call you Boots," she told the little thing. "Because of your little paws."
Vlad huffed a laugh.
Inside the house, Mina put the kitten down so it could explore.
"We need kitten food, and a litter box," Mina said. "Can we go to the Tesco and get some? It's open twenty-four hours, and I'm so wired over Lucy that I'm not going to be able to sleep for ages yet."
"If you'd like."
Mina shut the kitten in the bathroom with some water and a blanket, and they headed to the Tesco she'd been at earlier in the day. It seemed like a lifetime now, so much had happened since.
"This is the one I want," Mina said, showing Vlad the white wood crib. "I dunno if it'll fit in the boot, though."
"We can try. If necessary, we'll put the seats down in the back and drive with the lid up."
That ended up being necessary to get the box in. Mina rode with the new litter box in her lap, bags of litter and kitten food at her feet. It was a little silly, but having the kitten to focus on gave her something to think about other than the development that Lucy was a vampire.
Upstairs in the intended nursery, Vlad set about putting together the crib. Mina sat on the twin-sized bed presently in residence and played with Boots.
Suddenly, a sharp twinge raced up Mina's spine, and she gasped.
"What is it?" Vlad asked, dropping his screwdriver. "Are you hurt?"
"Not . . . the way you're thinking. Ow. I've suddenly got a horrible backache."
Vlad jumped up and moved to sit beside her, sliding his arm around her. "Did you pull something when Lucy knocked you down?"
Another pain spiked through her, lower this time, and she groaned. "Oh, ow. Vlad . . . I think it's the baby."
Vlad broke nearly every traffic law there was in getting Mina to the hospital. When they got there, it was determined that Mina was, in fact, in labour. The story was that she'd tripped on the stairs while trying not to step on the kitten. It wouldn't do to tell the hospital staff that she'd been pushed down by a vampire hellbent on drinking her blood.
Mina was scared as they stripped her out of her clothes and attached all sorts of monitors to her. One that she recognised was a fetal heart monitor, and it seemed to be beating a lot faster than it had at her last ultrasound.
"What's wrong? Is there something wrong with my baby?" she demanded.
"Your baby's in a bit of distress," the doctor assigned to her informed them. "Just try to relax."
The doctors discussed stopping labour, but with the baby in distress, they weren't certain. Mina's water broke while they were discussing, and it was decided to proceed with delivery. Since Luka was so early, it only took ten minutes of hard labour before he emerged, squalling and flailing his tiny limbs.
"Well, that's a good sign!" the doctor said. "That means he's breathing on his own, which isn't always the case with an infant this early."
Mina held her hands out for the baby. "I want to hold him!"
"We need to check him out and make sure he's alright first," the nurse told her. "Please be patient."
They whisked the baby out of the delivery room, and Mina burst into tears. Vlad hugged her tightly, kissing the top of her head.
"You'll hold him soon, iubita mea. It's just that he's so small."
"I know, but . . . but what if something happens while they've got him, and I didn't get to hold him?"
"Shh. Nothing will happen to our son. He'll be fine." Vlad stroked his hand up and down her back. "Shh. You need to rest now."
They had Mina cleaned up and resting in a curtained cubicle in the maternity ward when the nurse brought a very small bundle back. The nurse was beaming, which eased a tight band around Mina's heart.
"He's eleven weeks early," the nurse said, "and very small, but all of his vitals checked out that of a full-term baby. We're a little confused, to be honest."
Vlad wasn't. Luka was half vampire. Who knew what else that would mean?
Mina held out her arms. "Let me hold him, please!"
Carefully, the nurse handed him over. She helped Mina get him settled against her chest. He was fuzzy all over, which the nurse said was lanugo hair and would fall off in a few days.
"Ordinarily, babies as early as him have trouble breathing on their own," she told them. "But he's got a good set of lungs on him. We're going to put him in the NICU, where we'll have him on extra oxygen. Keeping those lungs healthy is important. We're also going to have him on some fluids to help him get stronger and put some weight on. Unfortunately, he'll be in hospital for a while yet, but we wanted to let you hold him for a bit first."
"Thank you," Mina whispered.
"I'll give you a few minutes," the nurse said, and excused herself.
Mina cuddled Luka close. She marvelled at his perfect little fingers, wrapped tight around her own.
Vlad gently ran his fingertips over his son's head, smoothing the baby's dark hair. "He is perfect," he told her.
She looked up at her husband and said, "So was Ingeras."
"You remember that?"
Mina nodded. "I don't remember everything, but I remember . . . a lot. I don't remember his actual birth, but I have a memory of being handed the baby. I remember when you came in, and I handed him to you. You cried."
There were tears in her husband's eyes now. "I think I might now."
"Do you want to hold him?" she asked.
"Of course."
He gingerly took the tiny baby, holding him close against his chest. Vlad couldn't believe how small Luka was. He was at least half the size Ingeras had been.
His son's skin was wrinkly and just about translucent, the red of muscle and blue of veins showing through. His hair was dark, though, in little wisps on his small, oddly-shaped head.
"Why is his head shaped so strangely?" Vlad asked.
"Because most of his head is a soft spot. The bones haven't joined in his head, and won't for a while." Mina reached over and touched the baby's tiny arm. "He's so small, Vlad. What are we going to do?"
"Anything we need to," he told her gently. "We'll love him and we'll give him everything he needs to grow up strong and healthy."
Even as Vlad said the words, he hoped they weren't a lie.
Author's note: To those wondering if I've gone insane, I do know what I'm doing, and I know what I'm talking about. I was born 12 weeks early myself, was breathing on my own, and only needed fluids and some extra oxygen. I know this is not the case with all preemies, but that's how it was for me and that's how it is for Luka.