It took the girls a few hours to get Gervis back to Adalaide’s hideout. They had considered taking him directly to his parents’ house but, Sarah was surprised to learn, his parents were Gerwin and Elke and they lived too far out of town. Gervis needed time to recover from his blood loss before attempting that sort of extensive journey.

Christine looked over at Gervis occasionally with a haunted look on her face. Her thirst was an agony inside her, but seeing Gervis, someone she had almost killed, gave her the willpower to resist it. When they arrived at the hideout, she went to sit in a corner by herself, trying to block out the presence of the humans in the room.

Sarah looked over at Christine with concern. Unlike the other times in their lives when things had been hard, she just didn’t know how to help her sister to deal with this. She wanted to go to Christine, wrap her arms around her sister, and promise her that everything would be okay as long as they stayed together, but she was afraid that close contact might awaken Christine’s thirst. She tried to focus on other things instead. The first thing she did was make Gervis comfortable in the lone bed in the room. Then she went over and sat down beside Adalaide.

There had been one train of thought circling her brain during the entire walk back to the hide away. Hillard was a vampire. He drank blood. He could affect her emotions. She didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore. Oh, she knew that this world she was in was real. There was no more kidding herself that it was some kind of hallucination. She wasn’t even sure when she had accepted the truth. The bigger problem now was that she didn’t know who Hillard was anymore. Of course, they had only known each other for a few days. You never really know someone after such a short time. But even her first impressions were now called into doubt. Was he a nice guy – or did he make her feel safe around him by messing with her feelings? Were the warm feelings she had for him simply a fabrication?

Adalaide was sitting beside her, quietly looking from Sarah to Christine, who she was watching warily. Sarah finally looked her in the eyes and asked “You knew Hillard is a vampire?”

“Yes,” Adalaide replied simply.

“How could you be friends with a monster?” Sarah decided that the straight-forward route was the best.

“How can you be sisters with a monster?” Adalaide retorted.

That set Sarah aback. She had to think about things, learn more about this. She looked over at Christine, who was now rocking back and forth in the corner, moaning.

“Christine, honey. It’s going to be okay. I’m here for you. We can get through any…” She tried to put her arms around her sister but Christine pushed her away with supernatural strength and Sarah slammed back against the wall.

“Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. “Don’t you understand?!  I’m so thirsty! And there is so much blood in this room.” Suddenly, she stood up and began to stride towards the door. “I have to get out of here. You can’t trust me Sarah. I have to go. Just look at Gervis. I couldn’t stand it if I hurt you.”

Just as she reached the door she stopped and took a step back. A second later the door opened and there stood Hillard. He and Christine just stared into each other’s emerald eyes for a moment before he asked, “And where do you think you’re going?”

“I have to get out of here. I might hurt them. You know that!  Let me out.”

Hillard looked over at the bed and saw Gervis. “Is he okay?”

Adalaide answered. “She nearly drained him right after she turned, but she stopped herself. Giselle made me take him with us. We have to warn his parents that Lord Radek will be coming for them.”

Hillard nodded curtly. After a few seconds of thought, he took Christine’s hand. “I know how to help you. Come with me. We’ll go to warn Gerwin and Elke and we’ll find you something to drink.”

Christine looked panicked for a second.  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she whimpered.

Hillard pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay. You’re going to be alright. You won’t have to hurt anyone, I promise.” As he hugged Christine, he looked over her shoulder at Sarah. Her face showed how betrayed she felt. Hillard didn’t know what to say to her. He would just have to take care of her sister. He led Christine out of the shelter and they set off.

Adalaide had been watching the interplay between Sarah and Hillard. Now she waited to see what Sarah’s reaction would be to seeing him again after discovering his true nature.

Sarah sat numbly for a minute. It was a shock to see him again. When their eyes had met, she had felt that same jolt of attraction she had been feeling all the time with him. Was it real? Or was it simply what he wanted her to feel? It wasn’t important right now, she reminded herself.  Christine was the most important thing to her now.

“Where are they going?” she asked Adalaide in a very subdued voice.

“Where he said. They are going to warn Gerwin and Elke.” Adalaide was a little irritated with Sarah for even asking. Hillard would never lie.

“How can she drink and not hurt anyone? I thought they needed blood to survive.”

“Humans are not the only animals with blood,” Adalaide snapped at her. “Hillard does not drink human blood. Did you really think that he would? You have spent days with him and he has been nothing but protective of you. Do you really think that he would ever hurt anyone?”

Sarah was shocked at Adalaide’s tone. Then she reminded herself that Adalaide and Hillard had a relationship. “I don’t know him.  That’s the point. How do I know if anything he’s shown me has been real? He can make me feel anything he wants. And you – how can you be with someone who is like that – a monster?”

Now Adalaide was the one who was shocked. Then she chuckled.  “Hillard and me?” She snorted. “Not in a million years. But,” she interrupted before Sarah could speak “not because he is a ‘monster’ as you call him. Hillard is the most kind, gentle, honourable soul I have ever met – he is just not my type. I prefer the big, muscular, wood-cutter type of man. Hillard’s a bit scrawny for my taste.  Although,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “he is stronger than any wood-cutter I have ever met.”

“How do you know that it’s really him and not what he has made you think of him?”

“It does not work that way. They can affect your emotions when you are in their presence, but not when you are apart. I can understand you doubting him, things have been pretty strange for you in the past few days, but I care about him, and if you hurt him you will have to deal with me.” Adalaide smirked.  “And, while I am not a vampire, I am not always so gentle or honourable.”

“Me? Hurt him?” Sarah had no idea what Adalaide meant. While she had a lot of extra weight, she was the first to admit that it was all fat. She was no physical threat to anyone.

“He cares about you, Sarah,” Adalaide said gently, suddenly realizing that Sarah really had no idea of how Hillard really felt about her. “He has real, romantic feelings about you. Just because he is a vampire does not mean that he cannot care about someone and have his heart broken.”

Sarah was dumbstruck. Sure, she and Hillard had had their moments. But he had always pulled away.  First she had thought it was because she wasn’t pretty enough, or thin enough, then she had just assumed that it was because he and Adalaide had a relationship.

“How do you know that? He always pulls away as soon as we start to get close.”

Adalaide smiled grimly at Sarah. “He has been afraid of how you would react when you found out what he was. And,” she continued, a disapproving tone to her voice, “he thinks that because he is a vampire, he can never have a relationship.”

“Well,” said Sarah, stubbornly, “maybe he shouldn’t.  What if the temptation got to be too great? What if he accidentally killed someone?”

Adalaide looked at Sarah with a fierce expression. “You had better not ever say anything like that to him.  That is his greatest fear.  But let me tell you, I have never met anyone with as much self-control as Hillard has.”

The way she said that made Sarah pause. “What do you mean by that?”

Adalaide looked at the floor, and then looked up at Sarah. “I do not think he would want me to tell you this, but it will prove my point. I said that he drinks animal blood, but sometimes he needs something more. For some reason, if a vampire does not get at least small amounts of human blood, the blood thirst becomes irresistible. I have let him feed on me sometimes to regain his strength.”

Sarah was shocked. “Why would you do that? You said you weren’t in a relationship with him. What would make you want to do something like that?”

“I said he was my friend. He is. And he is going to help me get my revenge on Lord Radek. We have just been waiting for the day that Lord Radek steps over the line and the Vampire Council gives the word that he has to be destroyed. That word came this morning.  I did not know for sure until I saw your sister, but I suspected when Hillard started sharpening sticks on the walk to the castle.”

“So, Hillard is not a rogue?”

“No. And I do not know what happened at the castle, if he had the chance to go after Lord Radek. I do not think so though, not if he left here in such a hurry to warn Gerwin and Elke.  That means that, at the very least, Lord Radek knows that Hillard is out to get him and is extremely angry. Most likely, he is out on the hunt for us all right now.”
Sarah looked towards the door and shuddered. She hoped that she never had to see that monster again. Hillard and Christine may not be monsters, but the way that Lord Radek had looked at her, and what he had done to her sister, proved that Lord Radek definitely was.

“Adalaide, why do you want Radek dead so badly?”

Adalaide paused and took a deep breath. “He is responsible for the death of my parents.”

Sarah just stared at Adalaide and, seeing the pain in her eyes, waited for her to continue.

“When I was fifteen, a merchant train came through Donner,” she began. “There were some rougher than normal types with them.  Two of them started bothering my mother and I when we were in town buying some cloth for a new dress for me. My mother tried to stop them and they knocked her to the ground, tearing her dress. I ran into a nearby store to get help and came across my father. My father ran out into the street and caught the men trying to rape my mother. He fought them off of her and took her home. That night, Lord Radek came to our house and took my father away. As a punishment for fighting, he drained all of the men involved, including my father.”

Sarah was shocked. Hillard had described such things to her, but when they had talked about it, it was just a hypothetical situation. She could not believe that such a thing had happened to Adalaide’s family.

“And what happened to your mother?” Sarah was almost afraid to ask.

“Oh, Lord Radek had no excuse to punish her. Even he could not claim that being raped is a crime. He left my mother alone. But that did not console her. She felt responsible for my father’s death and sunk into a deep depression. One day, she left our cabin and never came back. Some of the villagers found her at the bottom of a high cliff.” Tears were now flowing down Adalaide’s cheeks. “I have lived in their cabin ever since. I pay my one Geschenk a year for my land, but I grow the rest of my food and catch my meat. I will not give that monster one more drop of blood than I have to.”

The two women just sat in silence. Sarah could completely understand Adalaide’s need for revenge. She felt a very similar need herself, for what the monster had done to her sister.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Hillard and Christine made good time on the way to Elke and Gerwin’s cottage. They stopped every so often so that Hillard could teach her how to find animals to drink from. The small animals she could drain, and bring back to the others as food, he explained. The large ones she could practice taking only a small drink from. It would never remove the thirst for human blood, but he explained that there were ways around that too.

Christine surreptitiously watched Hillard the whole time. Who was this vampire who had rescued her sister and was now teaching her to feed from animals, not humans? Was it possible that she could be a vampire and not hurt people?

Hillard was all too aware of her scrutiny. He had been giving periodic updates to the Vampire Council. They wanted to know if Christine would be a suitable replacement for Lord Radek. He still wasn’t completely sure. She was listening very carefully to everything he was teaching her, but he wasn’t sure how she was dealing with the situation as a whole. He wondered if she would be able to accept who and what she was now. He wanted to ask her about her sister, but was afraid to hear the answers. Things were confusing for him right now too. The moment that he and Sarah had shared before entering the castle had made him very aware that he had real feelings developing for the woman. Part of him wanted so much to share himself with her honestly and to be with someone for a change, instead of living on the outskirts of humanity. But the other part of him knew that it was a bad idea. He was basically immortal. She would live another twenty or thirty years. The temptation to turn her would be too great for him to resist. Of course, if he could prepare Christine enough so that she could take over the leadership of Donner, the Vampire Council would most likely send him somewhere else – somewhere far away from Sarah. The whole idea of being away from her made him hurt inside. He hadn’t realized that it was possible for him to care for someone this way.

He shook his head. What he had to focus on now was Christine. He needed to help her to find a way to accept her new life so that she could be a suitable leader for Donner – and he had to do it fast. That was the least he could do for Sarah – make sure that her sister was not destroyed. Knowing that he would be the one ordered to destroy Christine made his mission all the more vital.

Finally, they reached Gerwin and Elke’s cottage. The lights were on inside and everything seemed quiet. It appeared that they had made it to the cottage ahead of Lord Radek. Perhaps, in his dismay to discover that Christine and Sarah had escaped, the additional escape of Gervis may have gone unnoticed. If that was the case, it was a good thing that they had arrived now. Lord Radek was sure to make the connection soon.

Hillard knocked on the door. Elke answered. She was in a long white nightgown and she looked shocked to see Hillard at the door. She was even more shocked to see Christine – and she nearly fell over when she saw Christine’s emerald gaze looking back at her.

“Hillard! What has happened!? Is Gervis okay?” Suddenly, Gerwin was beside his wife in the doorway, looking concerned.

“He’s alright now, Elke. But he’s no longer at the castle. We have him somewhere safe, but Lord Radek is bound to be coming after the two of you next. The Vampire Council has decided that he is to be eliminated, so the threat to you and yours should be over soon, but you need to get somewhere safe in the meantime. Do you have a place to go?”

The elderly couple looked at each other and nodded. “We do,” replied Gerwin gruffly. “You’re sure Gervis is okay?” He looked suspiciously at Christine, who looked away from him, shame painting her face.

“He’ll be fine. He just needs a bit of rest. As I said, this should all finally be over for you soon. I know the last fifteen years have been hell for you, but you’ve done what you had to do to survive.”  Hillard looked pointedly at Gerwin, who seemed to take what Hillard said to heart.

Gerwin looked more kindly upon Christine and asked, “And how is your sister? Is she okay?”

“She’s better than I am,” she said, in her own way trying to tell the couple that her sister had not been turned like she had.

Gerwin and Elke both nodded. Hillard took Christine’s arm and led her down the stairs. “They’ll need to get out of here. Let’s go and let them do what they need to.”

Hillard had shown her several things besides hunting on their journey to Gerwin and Elke’s cottage. First was the fact that she could now run extremely fast, and without seeming to get tired. Hillard told her that she would get tired, eventually, but that her stamina was dependant on the amount of blood she had consumed recently. Another thing he had demonstrated was her new strength. She could lift enormous objects now. It was like she had suddenly become a bodybuilder overnight. That part of it was a bit of a thrill.

She was wondering now why they were walking at such a normal pace, until Hillard moved off the main road and led her into a clearing.

“This is where your sister and I spent some time the day after I found her,” he said. “I thought we could sit here for a while and talk about whatever is on your mind. I’ve seen you stealing glances at me all night. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I think it’s better if we do a lot of this talking before we get back to the others.  They’re probably all sleeping by now anyway, so we have time.”

Christine indeed had many questions swirling around in her brain. She asked the first one that came to mind. “What did you mean when you told Gerwin and Elke that they had only done what they’d had to do to survive? Did that have something to do with Sarah and I?”

Hillard nodded slowly. This was a question he had been expecting. “Lord Radek took Gervis from them when he was just a boy. When he was young, they lived with him in the village, but when he turned ten, Lord Radek took him from them and told them that they had to move out here. Their job was to find the fog travellers, keep them calm, and send them on towards Donner where he or his soldiers would find them and bring them to the castle dungeons.”

“But that’s horrible! How could they do that, knowing that the people they sent on would be killed by Lord Radek?”

“They really had no choice, Christine. He had their son. They couldn’t flee to another settlement without Gervis, and if they refused, Lord Radek would kill all three of them. They were trapped. Living so far out of town, they had only each other. It would take them more than a day to get into town, and at the age they are now, they can’t make that trip anymore.  The only communication they have is with me, Adalaide, and when Lord Radek comes once a month, just before the fog, to remind them of their responsibilities, to bring them some extra supplies, and to exchange letters with them for Gervis.”

“He acts as a postman for them?” Christine could not imagine Lord Radek doing something so kind and thoughtful.

“Don’t mistake it for what it isn’t.  He brings them a letter from their son to remind them of their responsibility to him and to their son. It’s a reminder of what they have to lose should they try to betray him.”

Christine thought for a bit about the couple and her and Sarah’s strange initial visit with them. It so seemed obvious to her now that they had been hiding something. It was also obvious that they had tried, in the most subtle of ways, to warn them. She couldn’t blame them for trying to protect their son – especially since she had so recently come close to killing thim herself. She was far from blameless herself in this situation.

Christine sighed, half in despair. “How do they get away with all of this? The Vampire Lords, I mean. And why are you and I able to see that it is so wrong when we are … like them?” She couldn’t yet face calling herself a vampire.

Hillard smiled at her and shook his head. “Not all vampires are like Lord Radek, Christine. In fact, very few villages are as bad as this one. Lord Radek is very old. He was from the first batch of vampires, a group that went crazy in their blood lust, drinking more than their fill every day until the human population was decimated. He has always resented the fact that there are rules now and that he has limits. He feels that he is better than all of the lowly humans, because he’s stronger than they are, and faster, and can make them feel however he wants them to. What he doesn’t realize is that he needs them. If there were no humans, he would quickly die. We can live on animal blood but, Christine, we need a certain amount of human blood to keep ourselves sane. I don’t know why that is.” He smiled. “They say you are what you eat.”

Christine gasped at the horrible joke and then smiled back at him warily. “But how can you drink human blood? I thought you didn’t hurt anyone.”

“You met Adalaide?”

Christine nodded.

“She and I have a bit of a symbiotic relationship. I bring her the wild animals that I kill and about once a month or so, she gives me a very small drink. It is not a lot. It is just enough to keep the thirst at bay, so that I don’t crave the human blood so much, so that I can walk among people without worrying that I’ll hurt them.”

Christine looked at him. “And she lets you do this?” She was remembering the times that Lord Radek had drunk from her. At the moment it was occurring it was pleasant, but that was because he affected her emotions at the time. Afterwards she had felt violated.

Hillard seemed to read her thoughts. “If it is done willingly, as a gift, it’s okay. That is where the word Geschenk comes from. It means gift. And I don’t drink from her directly. She makes a small cut on her wrist and lets the blood run into a glass. When the glass is about one quarter full, I put a drop of my blood on her cut and it heals. That is the way it is supposed to be done.”

Christine nodded. It almost made sense that way. And it was similar to the scene depicted on the tapestry in her room in the castle.

“What are the other villages like?” she asked.

Hillard was glad that she had asked this question. It gave him the opportunity to approach the subject of leadership without mentioning it first. The Vampire Council could not chastise him for answering a question and it made Christine look like a better candidate for leadership in their eyes for asking the question in the first place.

“Well, they are each a little different. Each leader approaches things in their own way. The best, happiest villages are run by leaders who understand the value of humanity. They understand that the sacrifices the humans make to give the Geschenk require them to give back to the community as well. Some villages love their leaders. Some merely tolerate them. Some, like Donner, hate them. I know that the vampire stories in your world depict us as monsters, Christine, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We have a lot to offer humanity. We have the power to heal.”

Christine was nodding. “Lord Radek told me that.” Thinking about him, Christine felt a little guilty for abandoning him. “Hillard, he came to me in my room last night. He told me that he was lonely. He said that if Sarah and I stayed with him as his companions, he would never feed on us. I still don’t know if he was telling the truth.”

Hillard had been able to sense that something was bothering Christine. He tried to console her. “It’s most likely that he was planning to turn you from the start, Christine. The Vampire Council has suspected for a long time that his increased blood lust was leading up to him making a play for power. I believe, as they do, that he would have turned you and then forced you to feed on both Sarah and Gervis, to remove your final attachments to humanity and tie you that much closer to him.”

Christine had to admit that it was possible. Lord Radek’s sudden interest in gaining her friendship had not seemed completely genuine to her. She knew that it was likely that she would never learn the truth now. Not only had she tried to escape before he turned her, but she had then successfully ran away with Sarah afterwards as well. And now the Vampire Council wanted him dead for turning her without permission.

She gasped at the thought and asked, “Does the Vampire Council want me destroyed because Radek made me without permission?” It was a surprising thought, but one she should have had before this.

Hillard had been dreading this question. The Vampire Council still had not made a decision, although throughout this conversation with Christine he had been in almost constant communication with them. The general opinion at this point was that she seemed to be adjusting well, but that it was still too soon to make a final determination. They reminded him that he was not to tell her that she was being considered for a leadership position, or even that they were trying to decide whether or not to let her live.

“I don’t know. I hope they’ll let you live. Sarah would never forgive me if anything happened to you.” His shoulders slumped. “She might not forgive me for not telling her what I was. For all I know, she hates me now.”

Christine stared at him.  Was he telling her what she thought he was telling her?

“You have feelings for my sister?” she asked quietly.

Hillard took a deep breath. “Yes. I know I have no right to, but she’s so strong and opinionated,” he smiled, “she has nearly bitten my head off a few times for saying stupid things.” He thought again for a moment. “Sometimes, though, she seems so vulnerable.”

Christine nodded. She knew all too well about Sarah’s vulnerability. The strong pig-headed part of her was more of a defence mechanism than anything else.

“She had a pretty hard time of it when we were kids,” she started to explain. “Our dad was a bit of a drunk. Okay, he was a lot of a drunk, and Sarah was his favourite target when things weren’t going his way. He was always proud of the fact that he never hit us, but I think that his words cut Sarah deeper than any physical violence ever could. He called her fat and ugly on a regular basis. He compared her to farm animals and basically cut any self confidence that she had to shreds. By the time he died, she had become a self-fulfilling prophecy, eating to comfort herself from the pain of living with him. She has never been able to let go of the vision of herself that he planted in her brain. No matter how much weight she has lost, or how terrific she looks, what she sees in the mirror is an ugly fat girl, not worth anyone’s attention or love.  The fact that she just caught her husband cheating on her has only compounded the situation.”

Hillard understood everything now. He now recognized the scared look in her eyes every time he tried to tell her how lovely he found her. The walls that she had built up around herself had only grown stronger since her husband had betrayed her. Hillard felt ashamed that he may have compounded the problem by sending mixed messages to her. Of course, it didn’t make his situation any easier. Either he could try to have a relationship with her – one doomed to failure because he was a monster in her eyes – or he could push her away – and make her feel even more rejected and worthless. He only hoped that the Vampire Council spared Christine. He could not bear to see the look in her eyes if he were forced to kill her sister.

He stood up. “Time to get back. We should check on everyone else and maybe check on the village to see what Radek is up to.”

Christine nodded. She wanted to check on Gervis. Now that she’d had time to think she knew that she had to try to make things up to him. She couldn’t just leave things as they were. It was so sad that things would never develop further between the two of them – that possibility had died when she had almost killed him. Now she just had to try to make amends, if there was any way to make amends for drinking almost all of someone’s blood.

The two vampires headed off into the dark of the night, using all of the superhuman speed available to them.

 

Read Chapter 15 next Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 . . .

 

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