Midnight Visitation

Maria was having another nightmare about her mother.

She jerked awake, not screaming, but sobbing. Then she remembered where she was, and her weeping slowly eased. She climbed out of bed and rinsed her face at the faucet. Outside the window, all of Paris seemed to be asleep for the first time in a long time. She appreciated the peace and quiet.

Juste's words of warning came back to Maria.

Your mother might still love you, he said. And I know this hurts for you to hear. But at the end of the day, a vampire is still a vampire. They're inherently inclined towards evil, even when their intentions are good. Your mother simply can't help herself. That's why you can't trust her, or any other vampire.

She felt her throat tighten. She remembered the moment when her mother had run away into the forest. The pain and anguish that shattered her heart.

Mum! Don't leave me!

Maria leaned over as if to vomit. Her stomach felt as if it was about to explode. Six months. Six long, interminable months. Alucard and Juste did their best to ease her emotional burden, but the pain wouldn't go away. It could only get better. Gradually, over weeks, months, years. But it would never go away.

"It's not fair," she croaked. "It's not fair."

Maria dried her face and took long, measured breaths. Don't think of her, she brooded. Just don't think of her, and it won't hurt as much. Then she turned around to go back to bed.

Her mother was standing in the patch of darkness beside the bed. Two white little dots – her eyes – stared out from the black void.

Maria froze. She didn't know how to react. Was she still dreaming? Or was this happening for real? How much had her mother changed? Had she come to kill her only daughter? Would she laugh while she killed her, revelling in the blood and carnage? Would Juste be proven hideously right about vampires?

"Go away." Maria didn't know why she uttered those words, but it was what she said in the moment regardless.

"Maria." Tera said, simply, smoothly, without a hint of emotion.

"Go away. I don't want to hear it. Any of it." Maria was backing up against the wall. "I know what you're going to say. You'll try to get into my head. Manipulate me. That's what Juste said vampires do to people. And I can't stand it. Not when it's you. Please, not you."

Tera leaned sideways and took a candle from the bedside table. It lit up, seemingly of its own accord. Her mother's face became more visible in the light. The calm, placid eyes and the serene, soulless little smile on the lips. It made Maria want to run screaming out of the room, out into the night, and keep on running until the sun rose on a new day.

"If I wanted to manipulate you," the vampire that was her mother said, "I would have found easier ways to do it."

Maria saw that her clothes were different. The Speaker wardrobe was gone, as was the blue brooch that was normally suspended at the base of her mother's neck. She was now dressed in the aristocratic attire of a higher-ranking vampire. Her hair was also longer, cascading down her back in a rich golden mane. She was beautiful, but only in the way vampires could be beautiful: Cold and wintry, without even a smidgen of genuine warmth.

"Why?" Maria asked. "Why are you back? You said you wanted to find yourself. Did you?"

Maria thought she saw Tera's shoulders shrug, but it could have been a trick of the light.

"More or less," Tera said. "I've come to terms with what I am, if that's what you want to know."

"You've killed people, haven't you?" Maria was doing her utmost to make her voice sound devoid of any feeling or attachment, so her mother couldn't exploit it. Juste's warning continued to ring inside her head.

Tera didn't say anything, but that chilly smile provided all the answers anyway.

Something broke inside Maria. Something about the sight of her mother behaving like a statue, immovable and detached, was too much to bear. Everything had come too much to bear. It was like a dam cracking wide open. She staggered over to her mother on weak legs and fell into her arms, literally howling with sorrow.

"Mum!" She cried into Tera's chest. "Mum!"

"Shhhhh." She stroked Maria's hair. "It's all right. Shhhh."

"Stop that!" Maria wailed. "Stop...being so calm! I was so alone! You left me, and I was so alone!"

Tera didn't speak again. She simply held her daughter, tight and close, letting her weep, and weep, and weep. Not once did her expression change. It remained that way between them for five minutes.

Eventually, Maria pulled away, her face a red mess of tears from even redder eyes. She shuffled over to her bed and sat down.

"You still haven't told me why you've come back," she said, her breathing still ragged and short. Despite of everything, she felt genuine joy. She knew it was wrong. She knew her mother was a monster now. But she couldn't help it.

Tera sat down beside Maria. "I can't stay for long," she said. "I haven't really come back. Not yet. This is more of a...a visitation."

Maria bit down on her bottom lip.

"How have your friends been doing?" Tera asked. Maria was amazed. She actually sounded as if she wanted to know.

"Juste's still playing the babysitter," Maria said, as casually as she could manage. "He makes me laugh a lot, even when he doesn't mean to. He's just a silly old man, in a lot of ways. Alucard is...well, Alucard." She cleared her throat. "Sorry. There just isn't much to talk about. He's the sort that keeps himself to himself. I think it must be strange for him, to be only half of one thing and half of another."

"...and yourself?"

"I've been having nightmares," Maria said. "About you."

Tera remained still.

"I dreamed you stopped being my mother. You were just another monster that had to be killed." Maria had promised herself she wouldn't cry, that she would be strong, but the tears were coming. "And I was...I was..."

"You were the one who killed me," Tera said. There was no anger or recrimination in her voice. There was nothing at all.

Maria couldn't turn around. She kept her eyes locked on the moon in all its ethereal glory. A cold wind brushed past her face, and she suddenly felt horribly alone.

"It's all gone so wrong!" she screamed aloud, punching her little fist against the window ledge. "We're supposed to be together, all of us! Richter, Juste, Annette, you and me...but instead...instead..."

She didn't hear her mother's footsteps as she crossed the room. Vampires are notoriously stealthy creatures when they want to be, but Tera was not going for stealth. Rather, she was going for speed, to be at her daughter's side as fast as possible. She wrapped her arms around Maria and held her close.

"Maria," she said, the faintest sound of remorse in her tone, "you know that whatever happens, I won't stop feeling the way I do for you. I let Erzsebet take me instead of you for a reason. But if you don't want your dream to come true...you must decide who you're going to stand with."

Despite her mother's closeness, Maria shivered. "What does that mean?"

"There's a darkness coming," Tera said. "A power greater than anything Richter and his friends have ever encountered. I wish I could side with them, but...their victory would mean my destruction. That's just the way it is now." She slowly moved her daughter around until they were face-to-face. She held her daughter's chin in her pale hand. "It's a horrible, frightening thing, but it's also beautiful in its horror. You won't understand until you see it for yourself. And it must win in the fight to come, Maria. My survival depends upon it."

Maria flinched. As gently as her mother had put it, she could still detect the distinct hint of vampiric narcissism in her words.

Tera knelt, grasping her daughter by the shoulders. "You've become so powerful, Maria. I've never been prouder of you. You can tip the scales in either direction. But it must tip in our direction. If you join us, I promise there'll be no more sorrow, no more grief, no more regret. We'll be together forever. He'll make sure of that."

"Who?" Maria asked. But Tera pressed on without providing an answer.

"Richter and the others don't have to die. They'll be given a choice, just as I'm giving you a choice. But...I think we both know what their decision will be."

"And if I stand with them instead of you," Maria said, feeling a terrible gnawing pain in her stomach, "You'll have to kill me, or...I'll have to...kill..."

Tera clutched her daughter's face between her hands. "Maria, listen to me. It doesn't have to be that way. There will be great pain and devastation, but also renewal and rebirth. But you'll have to be strong, stronger than you've ever been before. Strong in heart, strong in resolve. Once you stand with us, there can be no going back. Do you understand?"

Maria nodded.

Tera warily glanced at the window. "It'll be dawn in another hour. I need to go. The next time we see each other...you will have to make up your mind by then." Slowly, right in front of Maria's eyes, she began turning to mist.

"Mum?"

The face in the mist solidified for another moment. "Yes?"

"Thank you for coming back."

Tera blinked. Her mouth opened, as if she were on the cusp of saying something. Then her features receded back into the mist, which exited through the window like a fading dream. Maria was alone again.

Tera was alone in the dark alley, waiting for someone. Or something, depending on your point of view.

Finally, it manifested itself: A pulsing shadow in the vague outline of a man, its face a sketchy blur impossible to make out, aside from an occasional expression.

"You needn't worry," she said to the shape. "She'll join us when the time is right."

The shape whispered.

"No, I told you she's mine alone to coerce," Tera said, with a note of impatience. "If she sees you now, she'll run back into Juste Belmont's arms. She loves me too much to ever kill me, and...I feel the same towards her. That's all that's required. No lies are necessary. Don't interfere, or the deal is off."

The shape murmured.

"Good. It's nice when we agree." Turning around, Tera saw a hobo staggering along the street in a drunken stupor. "You'll have to excuse me. It's time to feed."