The Angel's Knight #9 - The Impossible Child

#

San Francisco, October 14, 2017

#

I watch as the sun comes up over the bay, golden light slowly making its way across the shimmering surface of the water. The first rays touch my face, warm my skin, and I am once again at a loss to explain how this is possible. How I can possibly be standing here like this without dying on the spot.

Impossible. It has become one of my favorite words these last few years, or at least one of my most frequently used. So many impossible things have happened to me that I think I need to find a new word to describe them. Are things still impossible when they actually happen? When every law of man and God says they can't possible happen, but they still do? Repeatedly?

Sixteen years ago I knew exactly who I was, what I was, and what I was going to do. I had clarity of purpose like never before or after. The people who had used me like a puppet were going to pay and pay dearly. The man whom I loved was going to come back to me and together we would drown the world in blood, send the mortals run screaming in terror. It all seemed so simple and straightforward.

Only nothing happened like it was supposed to. My shot at revenge misfired and I escaped with my life only due to the foolish love of a foolish mortal. The night that was to bring me back my beautiful immortal lover brought me something else altogether. Something that called into question everything that I thought I knew. Everything that I thought I was.

Back then I believed ... no, I knew ... that I was Darla, first and favored child of the Master, one of the most powerful vampires that ever existed. Not even final death could stop me. I was reborn - naked and scared inside a wooden box, but reborn nevertheless - and came into power once more.

Now I don't know who I am anymore. Am I Darla? If I am, then how can I be standing here? How is it possible that a 400-year-old vampire can stand in the morning sunlight, overlooking the San Francisco bay, and not burst into flames? I have walked in the light of day for sixteen years now and I still don't know how it is possible.

I am not human. That much I know. I was for a short time, but then Drusilla came and made me what I am now, whatever it is. I don't age, I don't need to breathe, I am stronger than any mere human, and if I want my face can change, transform into what I once believed was my true visage. All that says I am a vampire. Yet here I am, standing in the sunlight, not bursting into flames.

Sixteen years and I am no closer to an answer than I was that long ago day when I realized what my one night with Angel had left me with.

"Mom?"

Footsteps approach from behind me, heading out from the porch of the house I bought, quickly coming closer. I close my eyes, not for the first time thinking that I might be dreaming all this. Vampires dream, too, though seldom of things like this. We dream of blood and slaughter, of suffering and the sweet taste of mortal blood. If this is a dream then it is of a kind I never thought I would have.

The same goes for the feelings flaring up in my chest as the source of the footsteps arrives at my side. A warm hand touches my shoulder, sending a tingling down my spine. If I were a vampire then I would not be feeling this way, would I?

Sixteen years ago I, a vampire, slept with another vampire in the hope of giving him a moment of perfect happiness. That particular hope did not come true and something else happened instead. Something that resulted in the fifteen-year-old girl standing next to me right now, hair as blonde as my own, eyes the dark chocolate brown of her father.

"Is everything okay, mom?" she asks me and I can feel my heart clench. Emotions I should not have, things I should not feel. I do, though, and there is nothing I can do about it. God knows I tried. This girl is my daughter, however impossible that is, and I love her. I love her so much that it scares me to death and I know I would kill anyone who dared to harm a single hair on her head.

I don't have a soul. I know I don't have a soul. I felt it fly away when Drusilla's tainted blood entered my throat, when I died and became a monster again, right in front of the man who wanted to give his life for mine. Yet somehow that does not change the feelings in my unbeating heart.

"I'm fine, Celeste," I lie to her. I always lie to her when she asks me this question and I think she knows that I do. When she looks at me with her father's eyes I just know that she can see right through me. Celeste is not like other children. How could she be? The very fact that she exists is impossible, yet here she is.

Celeste is human. It was one of the first things I checked when I realized that I was pregnant with her. I couldn't go to a normal doctor, of course. Any doctor worth the name could not have helped but notice that the mother was missing a few vital things, such as a heartbeat. I found a few people with the necessary qualification that don't ask questions, made them do my bidding through money and fear. They told me she was human. Not a little vampire, not some kind of demonic hybrid, but human.

I look at her now and I can see the slow rise and fall of her chest beneath the sweater she wears. I can see her pulse beating beneath the skin at her throat. She should be enticing to me. Young, innocent, full of sweet blood. Yet the very thought of sinking my fangs into her flesh fills me with nothing but self-loathing and revulsion. She is my daughter. How can I even contemplate harming her? How can I not, given that I am a vampire?

Sixteen years and I don't have so much as a single answer to my many questions.

"We have to go soon," Celeste says, now also looking out across the bay.

"Go where?"

I like it here. A house with a nice view, far away from any other place I ever spent time in, nothing to remind me of the creature that I was, or thought I was. I haven't killed since Celeste was born, neither for pleasure nor for food. That's another thing that should be impossible. I don't drink blood anymore. Not because I no longer crave it, certainly not. But just like with the killing I can't help but think what Celeste would say if she saw me do it. I imagine the look in my daughter's eyes and it's ten times stronger than any trace of conscience could ever be.

So I am a vampire that walks in the sunlight, does not drink blood, yet somehow survives. Survives and loves the impossible child she can't possibly have carried to term, yet somehow did.

We have lived here in San Francisco for the last twelve years. She is going to school here, has friends, a life. I even have a job, something I never thought I would need or want. I have to provide for my child, though. It's the only thing in the world I'm still certain about. Celeste is my child and I have to take care of her.

"It's almost time," Celeste says. "We have to go and see my father."

What? Her father? Celeste doesn't know about her father. I never said a word about him and she never asked. If she had I would have told her that he was dead (which is the truth, more or less) and left it at that. I might have told her that we enjoyed our time together (which we did) and how he changed then, changed into a person that no longer wanted to be with me.

I look into her eyes again and I know that she knows. On some days I think that she knows everything. I never told her about myself, either. Never tried to explain to her why I haven't gotten so much as a single wrinkle or any gray hairs. She never asked, not once. Yet she knows. Somehow she knows. And she knows about her father.

She smiles at me and that smile alone is enough to make all my questions unimportant. When she smiles at me like this I don't care how it is possible that she exists, that I could give birth to her. I only care that she is here, that she is my daughter, and that is enough.

Or it would be if she hadn't just mentioned her father.

"I wish I could tell you everything you want to know, mom," she says, still smiling. "I promise you will learn the truth soon. The truth about me, about what you are, about what happened between you and dad."

My brain is completely blank upon hearing her words. She takes my hand in hers.

"I love you, mom. I've only just begun to understand everything that is going to happen and sometimes I wish I didn't. If it was up to me we would just stay here and not get involved in all this. There are things I have to do, though, things only I can do. But I need your help, mom. I need you to take me to dad."

I stare at her for a long time, trying to make sense of everything she just told me. What is going to happen? What is she to do? I always knew that she had to be destined for something. Vampires don't get pregnant and start walking in the sunlight by accident. She is here for a reason. Somehow I hoped that it would never catch up with her. With us. I hoped we could continue like this, live the lie that we are a normal family. It's not something I ever thought I wanted, but having it now, with her, it means more to me than anything else ever did or could.

No such luck. Destiny always catches up with you.

"D-do we have to go immediately?" Is that my voice? Since when do I sound so afraid?

"Not immediately," she assures me.

"Good. Good."

She tilts her head to one side, still looking at me with those oh so familiar eyes.

"Are you still afraid of dad?"

"Afraid? Why ... why should I be afraid of your dad, honey?"

She knows. I can see that in her face. She knows everything. But how? And how am I supposed to handle the fact that my daughter knows how her father and I tried to kill each other more than once? Does she know I ran him through with a sword? Does she know he set me on fire? Does she know what we did before he got his soul back? What we were like together? The kind of havoc we created for nearly 150 years? God, please! Don't let her have learned that! Anything but that.

"He won't hurt you, mom," she tells me. "And even if he wanted to, he can't. You are not what you think, mom, and neither is he."

"I don't understand."

"I know. I'm sorry I can't explain everything to you right now. There is still a lot I don't understand, either, but I know things will get clearer once we find dad."

Angel. She wants to go and visit Angel. The same man who, during our last meeting, told me that the next time he saw me he would kill me. It was not an empty threat, I could see that in his eyes, those same eyes that are looking at me right now. He did it once before. Rammed a crossbow bolt into my back and all for a stupid girl that didn't have the slightest clue who he was, what he was. He killed me and I realize I'm deathly afraid he'll do it again.

Who will take care of Celeste when I'm gone?

Celeste moves forward to hug me and I feel tears roll down my face. Vampires don't cry, do they? Vampires don't cry while they're looking at the sunrise and are being hugged by their daughters. What have I become?

"Everything will be okay, mom! You'll see! Everything will turn out just fine."

Somehow these words don't carry the same absolute certainty as everything else she told me today.

TO BE CONTINUED