Chapter Thirteen

Rogues

Charlotte slowly sat up, her head still spinning. She clutched the sides of the coffin so she wouldn’t fall back again. Valek’s hand swiftly moved to the middle of her back to help her keep balance.

His eyebrows pulled together as he appraised her. “Perhaps you should not get up yet,” he warned. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You may need a transfusion.”

Charlotte blinked until the spinning went away. Her head still pounded, but nothing else seemed to hurt. She could see all of her flesh wounds had been healed. She only felt weak. She turned to see several luminescent eyes that matched Valek’s staring at her from one corner of the room. She stared back at them with the same curiosity.

“Who are they?” she asked, fighting to remember what had happened.

Valek rushed to explain. “We escaped from the Regime. We’re at a friend’s house. He’s harboring rogues. Nowhere else is safe.”

Charlotte turned her gaze back on him.

“The Regime? That’s where we were?” She was astonished as more questions invaded her mind. She recalled every detail of the guard’s face, who found her hiding in Valek’s bedroom, as though she had known it forever. She remembered feeling her mouth open to scream, but hearing nothing as they dragged her away, kicking and clawing through the mud and the cool, morning rain as it splashed onto her skin. Everything had gone hazy. Something heavy had come down on her head, making her world go black. The last thing she saw was Valek’s fearful, blazing eyes before she woke up in the dungeon.

“Do you remember?” Valek furrowed his eyebrows.

Charlotte saw him then. Really saw him. She analyzed his torn shirt and disheveled hair about his dirty beautiful face. She grabbed onto him with as much strength as she could muster and pulled him close, wrapping her arms around who she thought she had surely lost.

“You saved me!” she cried. She saw the large doors on fire, though the vision blurred in her mind. She heard the thunderous orders from the guards and felt the wind that pulsed by her when they were running through the night. It was all very distant.

“You saved me,” she whispered again.

Valek smiled.

“Your face….” His skin was cracked, like broken marble. “I tried to stop it.” She reached up to stroke the burn scars, but he met her fingers with his and pulled them gently away.

“I know. I will be all right, Lottie.”

“How do we heal it?”

“I don’t think we can.” He changed the subject. “It is not important at this moment.”

Charlotte gaped wide-eyed around the dark basement. The warm firelight danced off the hauntingly beautiful, macabre faces that gazed back at her, studying her, as she did them. There must have been ten or twelve of them, each having their own pair of crystal-colored eyes. She saw the ominous daggers gleaming in their mouths, tasting the scent she left in the air.

Various parts of her body started to prickle with the memory. She shut her eyes against the vision, feeling as though she were back in the dungeon of the Regime. She smelled the polluted smoke again and saw the sinister shadows that hissed at her. She knotted her fists in her hair, pushing the images away. When she felt something cool touch her hand, she looked to see Valek regarding her with worry.

“Lottie. They are safe.” He put her fingertips to his cool cheek again. “You are safe. I swear it to you.” He frowned.

Charlotte gaped at him, tears stinging the bridge of her nose. She knew she was safe, but there was something else—something she desperately needed to tell him. She felt it burn every time his gaze locked with hers.

“Charlotte….” Andela’s soft voice shattered the ice that seemed to form in the silence.

Charlotte looked at the other Vampire’s soft, scary smile.

“Charlotte, there is something very wrong happening. We were hoping you could perhaps help us.” She spoke carefully, as if she were speaking to a wild rabbit. “The Regime is sending their guards to different Occults across Europe, and it seems they are only seeking out our kind. Vampires. We need to understand why. Each of us escaped from a different Occult city, and as far as we know, there are very few of us left.” Andela’s eyes were just as frightened and teary as Charlotte’s.

Charlotte looked back at the group huddled by the fire, and this time she saw their faces. She saw the horrified expressions. The mortal emotions. They weren’t monsters anymore. They were people. A different kind of people. She looked back to Andela and nodded.

***

Soon Charlotte was cuddled up with a large wool blanket closest to the fire, nursing a canteen of soup, though she could barely hold her head up. Valek huddled tightly next to her, with the rest of the group crowding around in a large circle. They listened intently as Charlotte told them about how the Lycan guarding the Occult gates attacked her and Evangeline a few nights before, and about the list Aiden showed her. They watched the images in her head, analyzing every picture.

“Charlotte, could you imagine again the list Aiden showed you for a moment?” Jorge, the young, blond Vampire asked.

She did and they all saw it as she did, trying to clearly decipher the fuzzy pictures enough to read the names on the paper.

“So, the Regime hired that Lycan to guard the Occult?” The one called Dusana asked from her perch on a torn armrest. She and Lusian matched each other. A bit more frightening than the rest, with chopped, raven hair about an angular face, clad with metal piercings. Several tattoos snaked around Dusana’s arms from under her torn, black shirt.

“Yes,” Charlotte replied.

“But that’s odd, isn’t it?” Dusana looked at Francis. “It attacked even when she was with Danek’s boy.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Lusian, the large Vampire, interjected from a dark corner. “If the dog was trained to sniff out magic, it would have attacked Aiden, no matter who he was. Lycans have absolutely no self-control.” He spat acid to the floor.

“Continue,” Francis told Charlotte.

“And when Meredith fixed my leg on the evening I was attacked, she said some very strange things,” she continued. “Racial slurs against Valek for what he is, like she was trying to warn me.” She glanced up at Valek’s hard face. “Or to keep me.”

“You said Aiden never spoke much about his father,” Andela said.

“Every time I asked, he just told me he was working. I assumed he was just another average Elf,” Charlotte admitted, fiddling with the canteen in her hand. She yawned, her coherency waning again. The soft light in the room seemed to blur behind her heavy eyes.

“And about his mother?” Jorge asked. “What was it she said that specifically bothered you?”

“Something about Valek being dangerous. In all the years they’ve known each other, she never spoke about him that way.” Charlotte frowned. “Valek and Meredith have been friends for years. Or so I thought.”

“It’s interesting that this is starting now,” Lusian said. The group got silent.

“What are you gibbering about, Lusian?” asked Francis.

“Do you remember that one crazy bastard? You know, the Vampire who attacked Vladislov a few years ago, when the Wizard’s Regime first began instituting their stupid laws?” He shrugged off the wall and walked to the center of the group.

“Right!” Dusana jumped up. “The Vampire who set out to assassinate the Regime.” She laughed. “You really had to have been crazy to try that one. It was splashed all over Occult presses.”

“Right. How many years ago would you estimate that was?” Lusian asked.

“I don’t know. At least twenty,” she said.

He stopped pacing. “Are two decades enough time to plot an entire genocide?” His eyes flashed. “A war, even?”

“If there was going to be a war, there would have to be an opposing side.” Francis rolled his eyes. “And we all know how one-sided the Regime is.”

“No, it isn’t. What kind of magic are the Elves and the Fae? Light. They are light magic. And what are we?”

“Dark,” Dusana mused.

Lusian lifted his hands like he had successfully proven something.

“Anyway, do you really think one Vampire was enough to scare the Regime enough into killing us all?” Jorge scoffed.

“Yes. Why not? They never found him. He escaped.” Lusian moved deeper into the circle, his features made more intense by the firelight. “Why not get rid of the lot of us just to make sure justice was indeed served? And there might be more of us out there, trying to get at Vladislov’s throat. That’s what the Regime is betting on.”

“Yes, but on what grounds do they stand? It would be considered mass murder. And I don’t care what society in which you live—light or dark. That is completely unjust.” Francis dismissed the idea with a lacey wave of the hand.

“Yes, Francis! But who cares when you’re sitting at the top of the chain? Who’s going to punish them? ” Lusian’s voice was ecstatic. “Think about it. That one incident probably scared the old guy enough to conduct something this insane. The bottom line is, we are disappearing. There were many Vampires in my Occult. All were captured, except for me.”

The group thought for a moment. Charlotte was amazed as she watched them all work together as one collective brain. Their faces carried the same expression at the same time.

“‘We are the only things you will never defeat,’” Valek mused, chuckling darkly. All of them turned to look at him.

“You know those words scared Vladislov,” Lusian said.

Francis continued to argue. “Still, how would they justify this? They would lose the respect of all the Occult people for killing mercilessly. Creatures would revolt. This goes completely against the magic code, ‘Harm none, and do as you will’.”

“We kill mercilessly, don’t we? We hunt for our food.” Lusian glanced at Charlotte. They all glanced at Charlotte.

“We kill to survive. Most living things do,” Valek countered.

“But we kill mortals, Valek. Even you do. People just like her.” Lusian pointed his talon at Charlotte. “We are responsible for more human deaths than car accidents, and that’s the ground on which they stand. That is how they are justifying all of this. The thing is—we are the victims now!” Lusian walked over and crouched in front of Charlotte. “Thanks to your papa here, the hunters have become the hunted.”

“Step away from her,” Valek warned, swiftly moving between them.

“He is not my father,” Charlotte said quietly. Her flushed cheeks burned in a flurry of embarrassment and rage.

Lusian’s menacing gaze shifted to Valek. “I’m not the one who is the cause of all of this. It is your fault. We should just turn you in now!”

The rest of the coven gaped at Valek, completely and simultaneously frozen.

“You could do that,” Valek dismissed. “But do you really think this would all just go away in an instant? Vladislov rules the entire magical world, and he’s got them believing our kind is evil. My opinion is, instead of using your efforts to ‘out’ me, we focus on finishing what I started under two decades ago.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened at him. Was Valek the same Vampire who nearly killed Vladislov twenty years ago? She saw his eyes flicker toward her for a split second.

“How do you propose we do this?” Francis asked.

“We have to fight. This isn’t going to be some peaceful revolution—a simple argument. Clearly, they do not know how to reason.” Lusian turned to the rest of the group, making eye contact with every one of them. “We’ve got to form an army. As many of us as they can’t catch. We fight to the death.” He wheeled back to Valek, except this time, a flash of admiration lived in his eyes. “Because it’s true, isn’t it? We are the only things they will never defeat.”

Valek nodded once. Charlotte looked at him again.

“No,” Andela croaked from somewhere in the back of the group.

All heads jerked to look at her. One of her claws gripped the chair, her nails tearing holes in the leather, the other one, she clutched to her chest. The whites in her eyes were completely overtaken by black then.

“It is starting again.” Blood spilt over her lips as she choked.

Francis blanched. “What time is it?”

“Eight o’ clock,” Jorge said.

“Damn. Okay, we continue this tomorrow night,” Lusian instructed. He swiftly moved over to his coffin on the other side of the room and drew a long, silver dagger from his belt.

“Don’t look,” Valek whispered, burying Charlotte’s face in his chest. Lusian’s painful, garbled cry wrung out as he pulled himself into his tomb, his black shirt sticky and wet at the center. He reached out, yanking the lid overtop, choking until the coffin closed with a thump.

Charlotte looked up at Valek, seeing his eyes were dark as well. He frowned at her.

“Sometimes, it’s just easier to get it over with,” Valek explained, stroking her cheek. He lifted her off the ground into his arms.

Crying and moaning resonated from the others as they started like Lusian before them, dropping one by one. Some dragged it out, holding onto life as long as they could.

“Do not take your eyes off of me,” he whispered.

She obeyed as he carried her over to the coffin he had put her in earlier. Charlotte wound her fingers in the torn material of his shirt, hiding her face in his chest. There it was again, his most beautiful scent.

He knelt to the dirt floor, eyes still fixed on hers. “Everything will be fine. Do you remember the day you snuck into my bedroom?” His smile was strange and crooked, filled with an intense suffering. Charlotte gulped, nodding. “Well, this is going to be just like that. All right?”

She nodded again. “Okay.”

“No reason to be afraid.”

“I’m not.”

Someone shrieked from the other side of the room, and Charlotte jumped. Valek lowered her in first. When he let go of her his joints cracked, and he cried out in pain like the rest of them.

“Valek!”

He placed both of his hands inside, trying his hardest to pull himself in. Charlotte grabbed onto his shoulders and tugged with all her might, until the rest of him was inside with her. He looked up with another pained smile.

“J-just close it most of t-the way…” he stammered. “You have to b-breathe.” He struggled to keep his eyes open as he fought to continue breathing.

Charlotte was about to reach for the heavy lid when she saw Francis hovering over her. A lump formed in her throat and she grabbed onto Valek, knowing he would not be able to do much to protect her.

“I have it.” Francis smiled softly at her.

She lay down on her side, the only way there was room for the two of them, and watched as the lid slid across the top of them, leaving only one, thin ray of light across her face. She looked to Valek again. Always seeing him in the darkness, she imagined what it would be like to see his face warm, in the sunlight. She smiled and placed her hand on his cheek.

“I-I wish I w-wasn’t l-like this,” he said. “S-scary.”

“You don’t scare me,” she lied.

“Don’t I?” He grinned painfully as he shook, his eyebrows drawing together.

She inched closer to him and pulled his arms around her, listening to his staggered breathing as he lay there dying against her. This was the moment she had been waiting for. She must do it now or nothing was ever going to change between them.

“I don’t want you any other way,” she whispered, slowly lifting her chin until her lips met the side of his jaw. She could feel his breath catch in his throat, not sure if what she was doing was wrong.

“Ch-charlotte, p-please….” He began to pull away.

But she wasn’t going to stop. She inched up farther, pressing her toes to the back of the coffin until she felt his cool, soft lips touch hers. Her heart lurched in her chest, jumpstarting, thudding hard against him. It must have been agonizing.

His hands moved slowly to her head, fingers intertwining in her curls. She sighed into his mouth, the muscles in her neck tensing, but the rest of her relaxed the most it ever had.

Valek slammed on the side of the casket with his fist, making a cracking sound with the impact. She was sure he’d busted a hole in it. Charlotte knew it was once again his time. He pulled his face away—a precaution—yet also, he pulled her body closer to his.

She rested her cheek on his chest and listened to his dead heart slam hard against his ribs, growing gradually slower. She stayed that way, listening, until it finally stopped.

His arms stayed stiff around her. He was sleeping, she reminded herself, beginning to be painfully aware her warm, living heart was beating solo against his hollow chest. Looking for a distraction from the truth, she closed her eyes and focused on his sweet scent and the lingering feeling left from his lips.