As soon as I was out of the room and the door was safely shut behind me, I took off. Harker was an (fairly) intelligent man and probably strong for a human, but if any of the three Brides decided they were hungry, that was it. If he was unlucky, Katherina would get her hands on him, which would inevitably lead to torture and, eventually, death from loss of blood. Absolute worst-case scenario, Elizabeth and Ava would be in there with her and go into a feeding frenzy.
I closed my eyes and thought of the three. I heard giggling in my ears, and Katherina's low voice. There was a long wail, starting out low and quiet and picking up volume and pitch. Ava's husky voice quieted it, but only momentarily. The crying returned full volume, hitched with a noise almost like a choke, and faded off entirely.
I returned to my senses and headed for the cellar-crypt.
Katherina was easy enough to pick out with all that blonde hair, but Ava and Elizabeth were hidden in the shadows and nearly invisible. Ava had her pale arms wrapped around a white bundle, her shoulders hunched and her face down. Her black hair was coming out of its knot. She might have looked maternal to a lesser eye, but I knew her too well.
At the sound of my footsteps she looked up. Her face was warped with inhumane hunger- her eyes were widened, the pupils dilated, and the ruby irises sparkling with an insatisfiable delight. Her fangs had extended into one, one-and-a-half, inch knives, her lips were curled reminiscent of a wolf, and around it all the contours of her face had angled and sharpened. She hissed at me, open-mouthed, clutching at the faintly crying child with tensed fingers.
I stopped dead, froze solid. I had once made the mistake of walking in on Katherina when she was running on a blood high. I actually still bore one of the scars from that frenzy on my wrist from then and now took the prospect of approaching an aggressive and hungry Bride with caution. "Ava . . ." I said slowly.
With that one word, the demon was gone and Ava was back in its place. The fangs withdrew and her cheekbones softened, the lovely eyes dulled and the pupils contracted, her hands relaxed, and she exhaled a small sigh. She held the child out to Elizabeth, the only of the trio not yet bloodstained. I took another step forward and tucked an errant strand of hair behind my Ava's ear.
Katherina observed all this- my hesitation, her sister's aggression and return to earth- with amusement. She already had blood on her lips, her fingertips, and miraculously under her eyes (I was rabidly curious as to what she had done that she had blood under her eyes, but said nothing). The Brides fed the way wolves do, in order of hierarchy, and she naturally pushed her way to the first. Elizabeth, the youngest, had to wait her turn.
"Where were you?" Katherina asked.
"I was upstairs, finishing up paper work. But I could ask you the same thing."
"Oh, where were we today?" she said, raising her eyebrows and widening those lovely blue eyes and otherwise feigning innocence. "Well, we're here now . . ."
"Kat."
"Well, you told us to stay out of sight, so we thought-" She paused and looked at her sisters; beside her, Ava and the now bloody Elizabeth were vigorously shaking their heads no. I felt a sinking feeling that I was not going to like what came next. "Fine, then, I thought it might be a good idea to get out of the castle and-"
"You left the castle?!" I bit my tongue again and pressed my hand to my forehead. "What did you do?"
"We went to the village." I put my face in my hands. "And to our credit, Harker didn't see us."
"What did you do?" I asked, my voice muffled. "Set things on fire- houses, crosses, people- steal livestock, have a killing spree, write things in blood? What?"
"Um . . . we didn't drink anything." In a much quieter tone she added, "If we stayed in one place too long, the townspeople would have stabbed us."
I groaned.
Katherina put her hands on her waist and squared her shoulders. All of her features screamed indignation. "You told us not to be seen!" she snapped. "So how could he have seen us if we weren't there, hmm? It was resourcefulness and here we- well, I- am, getting chastised for it!" Only Kat could possibly take something such as this and turn it around.
I drew myself up to my full height, scowling. "He may not have seen you, but you just wrecked havoc- Cry havoc and let slip Katherina- in the village, and what do you think will happen when a crowd of raging townspeople turns up outside the door with torches and stakes?"
"We can take to the air," she said indifferently. "This castle can take the wrath of a few villagers."
"And what of Harker?" I hissed. Kat's face smoothed- that had clearly not occurred to her.
Elizabeth and Ava glanced at each other; the former was taking very steps backwards into the shadows, while the latter's eyes darted from my face to her blonde sister's apprehensively, chewing on her lip. Even after three hundred years for one, two hundred for the other, the small flare-ups that came alongside bunking with vampires never failed to distress the pair. It was worse for Ava, considering she had taken it upon herself to make peace.
"He could have-" Katherina started, but Ava stepped in, putting her hands on each of our shoulders, and angled herself between us two. She said nothing, just shook her head and looking at me pleadingly with a child's eyes. Her hand was cold even through my shirt. I took a step back and a deep breath. Katherina pursed her lips and I got the uneasy feeling that she wasn't fully placated, possibly was even resentful, and a resentful Kat was dangerous to us all.
"I have to cook dinner," I said, starting to turn towards the stairs as Ava and Kat began to speak in low tones. Elizabeth, who had the smallest must-be-quiet-after-an-awkward-moment time frame I have ever seen, bounded behind me, doglike.
"How do you know how to cook?" she asked. I smiled. I liked all my Brides for different reasons, Elizabeth for her genuine innocence. When she talked, there were no hidden pitfalls, no tricks to walk into. In short, she meant what she said, free and clear. "You never answered."
"Cooking is a useful skill," I replied.
"Whatever for? Blood over easy?"
I grinned. She smiled brightly and hugged my arm, leaning her head on my shoulder because that was as high as she could reach.
Elizabeth stayed with me while I laid out the things for Harker's supper, asking questions and exchanging comments. When I got out the bottle of old tokay- honestly, how the human could drink that bilge is beyond me- she observed its dark red color and asked for a taste. When it was actually in her mouth, she turned a faint shade of pink and had to run to the nearest window and spit it out. She told me later she thinks she may have hit a wolf.
By the time I managed to come down from my laughing fit, dinner was ready. Elizabeth kissed me on the cheek once and took her leave. I took another minute to calm down and went to retrieve my guest.
He was studying an almanac with furrowed brow, combing slowly through the pages, back and forth. When I entered he jumped and said in a clearly surprised voice, "Oh! . . . Hello, Count."
"Still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come, I am informed that your supper is ready," I said, waving him up from his perch. He did, but much too slowly. When he came within comfortable arms reach, I yanked on his sleeve and led him into the dining room.
Harker saw the one place setting, and he stood staring at it, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I explained I had already eaten while . . . away . . . but other than that he asked no questions. Like the previous night, I grilled him on England and afterward let him smoke one of those vile cigars.
England is interesting, fascinating, and somehow I picked the one guest who made it sound dull. I was fully prepared to fall into a stupor, possibly even a full-blown coma, when I heard the shrillest and, to my ears, the sweetest noise to grace the earth- a rooster crowing.
I plunged to my feet with an accidental swiftness. Harker jerked backward the way a hare would if it mistakenly stumbled upon a wolf den. I made a gesture indicating my guest's bedroom, saying, "Why there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us." I bowed and with that, left my guest sitting by the fire.
----------------------------------------------
The next morning I didn't sleep very long at all. When I awoke, it was still daylight out, although not for particularly long. Judging by the shadows, it was more or less nine o'clock.
Allow me to here dispel a common myth. Sunlight is not harmful. I find it annoyingly bright and warm and am generally less able in daytime, but it does not reduce me to a pile of ashes. As well, "normal" food is edible for me, although it rarely suits my taste and offers no nutritional value.
But let's move forward.
The Brides were all three tucked in their coffins (the Brides were nestled all snug in their small wooden beds, while dreams of dead children danced in their heads) and they were no longer quite so bloody. I guessed Harker was more or less safe for another night.
Upstairs I took care of Harker's dirty dishes and put them away. After this I laid out a new meal- humans need to eat much more than is convenient. I assumed he was still asleep, having gone to bed at sunrise at the earliest, but I heard the sound of footsteps moving around, a thump, the click of metal on metal, and a sccchhhhh-sccchhhh kind of sound. He must have been afflicted with the same insomnia I had. Living with a human was turning my days into nights and my nights into days.
I pushed open the door. Harker was dressed, seated with his back to the door, hunched over. I couldn't see his hands, but one shoulder was moving.
Oh no, no, no, no, PLEASE don't let him be-
But I have seen worse things than what I hoped to God I wasn't about to see, so I hesitantly reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. He jumped a mile and half-turned in his chair and I practically cried with relief. Shaving. He was shaving.
He was staring at me with round blue marbles instead of eyes, pale as fresh-fallen snow. One hand was holding a shaving knife, the other clenched tightly around a- mirror. A mirror I was standing in full view of, and at the same time not. According to it, he was the only living creature in the room.
Harker could have passed for a statue of marble. I'm sure, though, I faired no better. We were both frozen dead, staring blankly at each other; he was too surprised to call me on it and I was too surprised at having my "true nature" caught in such a brutally obvious way.
And then I noticed the thin stream of blood slowly making its way down his throat like a climbing rose, dark against his pale skin. I stared at it. Very slowly, Harker raised his hand to his throat.
I was so very, very hungry.
Oh, son of a-
Of its own volition, one hand shot out. If I- or at least my arm- had its way, I would have clawed out my guest's throat then and there and quenched my aching thirst, regardless of what people would think, how I would cover his death. I think nothing in my hunger would have made a difference, except maybe-
Oh! Harker drew back. Something hot touched my hand and I jerked it back out of reflex, pulling it into a fist, looking to see what I'd accidentally grabbed. It was a cross and rosary hanging around his neck- I'd touched the beads. It looked aggravatingly similar to what that innkeeper had been wearing. I bristled.
"Take care. Take care how you cut yourself," I said through clenched teeth. "It is more dangerous than you think in this country." I looked down at the mirror, which he had dropped; I was still invisible in its eyes, but Harker was staring at me too hard to pay it any heed. I bent and picked it up, and shook it like a dog worrying a bone. "And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief- it is a foul bauble of a man's vanity." I stalked to the window and wrenched it open. "Away with it!"
I dropped the glass. It fell for what seemed to be an eternity. When it finally struck the unforgiving stone beneath it, there was a most terrible and somehow extremely satisfying shatter and Mr. Harker's faithful shaving mirror came to an untimely end.
Like a coward, I fled the room.