Chapter Twenty-Four

V is for Vengeance

Valek snarled and wheeled around, disappearing over the threshold. Pages left on the coffee table flew like they had been caught in a windstorm. Both Charlotte and Sarah raced out after him to the foyer, but saw the front door left gaping.

He was already gone.

“No….” Charlotte crumpled against a wooden end table, clutching onto one of its legs for support.

The sound of thirsty Vampires slamming against wood rattled the floorboards down the hallway behind them. Sarah turned to see dust flying violently into the air from the trap door. She grabbed Charlotte by the shoulders. “Go after him! Be very careful, and do not go with anyone other than Valek. They are going to kill themselves down there if I don’t stay and do something.” The small Witch raced back toward the study to retrieve vials of animal blood.

Charlotte looked out at the world beyond the threshold. Black clouds, pregnant with electricity, swirled high over gothic rooftops. The damp wind reached her face from the outside, pulling her hair, beckoning her to take the first step. The storm was not natural. Thunder called to her from miles away, challenging who stood on the cusp between light and darkness.

She swallowed once and without thinking much more, she ran over the edge. She did not feel her knees flexing and bending as they propelled her down the black road. There were other humans, like her, staring as she raced as fast as her lungs could take in oxygen. She felt their eyes on her. Hot tears flew from her cheeks back into her hairline. Her chest burned fervently but she did not stop. Not knowing what direction she was going in, she searched between the plummets of rain for any familiar figure.

“Valek!” she cried out as she kept running. “Valek!”

Just then, something a little further down caught her attention. The silhouettes were distant and vague under a streetlamp, the only light source in the dismalness. It looked like one figure grappling desperately with another. Charlotte could see people around them stopping and staring. Air stabbed like frozen fire in her chest as she picked up speed.

“Valek!” she screamed over the pain. “They will catch you, Valek!” She begged him to hear her. “Stop!” She ran for what seemed an endless distance before slamming into the shrouded, male figure. He gripped Evangeline’s throat mercilessly.

“Go back, Charlotte,” he growled.

She breathed so she could speak. “No. They will catch you. You can’t do this here.” A wheeze twisted her lungs, and she wrapped her arms around herself to keep her world steady. “We have to go back.”

Valek’s claws clung relentlessly to Evangeline’s throat, drawing blood. “She has to die.” His fangs shone bright against the lightning, the cold rain making his hair cling to his forehead.

Evangeline whimpered and grabbed his arm, silver tears streaming down her face. “Kill me, then.” She choked. “Do it. In front of all of these humans.” Blood began to seep from one corner of her mouth as she smiled faintly. “Aiden would want you to.”

“How could you do this to us, Evangeline?” Charlotte asked sadly. She stood frozen and noticed something silver hanging around the Witch’s neck. She winced, pulling it from her. “Why?”

“He—” She coughed blood. “He would have killed me. He promised me power.” She turned her eyes on Valek. “Kill me, Valek. I deserve it. It is too late to save Charlotte now.” She coughed again. “They know where to find her.”

Something snapped in Valek’s eyes. Anger immediately flooded away from him, replaced by fear. His grip on her throat loosened. The Witch fell to her knees.

“Come on, Valek. We have to get out of here.” Charlotte tugged at his sopping wet shirt. “Leave her.”

Valek stood like an immovable boulder in the freezing rain, his fists clenched at his sides. Charlotte’s pleas echoed between his ears. He knew then, as the gaze of the Witch bore into his own, that it was over.

Police sirens sounded a few blocks away against the rolling thunder. Valek grabbed Charlotte’s hand. Slinging her into his arms, he bulleted faster than light back through the streets. Water collected in the gutters waved over the sides of the pavement as if he were a speeding car.

Francis’ house was in his line of vision. He was beginning to see the façade of the building very clearly now. He would leave tonight and run as far as he could. He didn’t care where that endpoint would be.

But before his feet could pass the surrounding low-iron fence, something very large slammed into him head on. Charlotte tumbled to the ground, rolling across the pavement. Valek only skidded backward and looked up to see the large shadow eclipse the nearly full moon above them. Wings stretched out at its sides as it dove again for Charlotte, crumpled on the street.

He screamed her name as he raced to her, blood tears mixing with the harsh rain on his face. The claw of the giant beast scraped across his arm, but he blocked it from reaching his beloved Lottie.

She scrambled onto her hands and knees, the whistle now steadfast around her neck again.

Get Inside!” he bellowed.

The winged monster above them corkscrewed and dove to the earth again.

Charlotte saw it as she finally got to her feet and sprinted for the door. She felt it come up behind her, knocking her onto her stomach over the porch stairs. Her nails clawed at the wood but it was too late. She felt a large, very solid hand rear her up onto the back of the beast. “Valek!” She screamed for him, but could not hear or see anything against the concrete pummel of the rain. “Valek!” she screamed again, but when she opened her eyes, her Vampire was no more than a tiny granite dot against the black sea of the Golden City streets.

***

Valek could do nothing, say nothing. He knew troops would be there any second to carry off whatever was left of his dismal reality. He rolled onto his back and watched the Gryphon disappear into the darkest part of the sky. Rain poured over him as he dug his elbows into the hard road. He heaved—scarlet red diluted by water slid down the sides of his face.

Lottie!” he cried. He threw his head back and heaved again. “Charlotte!” He sobbed as the city turned to nothing around him.

Sarah burst out the front door down the steps. She leaned over him and tried to brush the sopping hair from his face. “Valek! It’s okay. Charlotte is going to be okay! Remember my vision. Remember the plan!”

He turned away from her, continuing to cry Charlotte’s name. She hushed him, but no words would help. She pulled his head and shoulders into her lap and watched the tiny, black dot disappear in the night sky with him.

Mr. Třínožka came out of the house next, Edwin steadfast to his back. Immediately following him was the entire Vampire coven. They all loomed sadly in the doorway and watched the scene on the street in front of the house.

“We’ve got to get you inside,” Sarah said quietly.

“Charlotte….” He moaned again and tried to roll onto his side. His eyes scoured the streets for her, praying to a God he struggled to believe in, he could have made some mistake. But he could not find her amongst the storm.

Francis pushed through the crowd to the front. He silently approached Sarah and Valek on the street, the rain straightening his perfect, white curls. “Go inside, dear. We must get ready to leave now. They will be here any moment.”

Sarah looked up at her master then got up and made her way quickly back into the house.

Francis turned to the rest of them. “Well? Why are you all standing there? We must prepare to leave! We have a job to do.” He turned back to Valek. He bent, the knees of his slacks pressed into the mud. “Now,” he comforted, an awkward hand on Valek’s shoulder, “let us not give up just yet. It is time to be strong for her. Keep your end of the deal.”

Valek only responded by shutting his eyes, more blood tears pooling on the ground by his head.

“I know, too, what it is like to lose a…child. That child came back to me. We will get her back.” Francis stood and extended a hand to Valek. “So you can give up, or you can rise from the ashes. What will it be?”

Valek did not look at Francis. He did not take his hand. But he did stand up. He did not think of how scared she must be. Instead he closed his eyes and begged her to smile, knowing he would be there soon. He turned and walked back inside.

The house was already bare. It looked as though no one had ever lived there. The Vampires shot one by one out from the basement tunnel. They marched after each other toward the front door where Valek stood behind Francis. The large spider-man and the scarecrow, too, were eager with the rest of them. Sarah emerged from a darkly lit room that had once been her study. The only thing she carried was her sewing needle, and her spell book.

She pulled something from the pouch at her side. A small glass bottle with swirling fog Valek recognized to be a transportation spell.

“Where will that take us?” Francis asked.

“Just to Old Town. We need to get away from the area. Now!” She smashed the decanter to the ground and at once, the smoke swallowed the entire group.

***

When the Regime guards stormed up the stairs of the modest, lavender home, they found it completely empty. With their fists ablaze, they tracked thick mud from the storm outside through the various winding hallways and bedrooms. But that was it. The door to the hidden basement had been sealed forever by magic.

The head officer turned to a freshly bandaged Evangeline. “Well?”

“No.” She began to back away. “I swear they were here. I swear!”

The officer looked around at the forsaken place and all its cobwebs. And then back at Evangeline. “Fire Elves!”

They all came storming back into the foyer from the upper levels of the home, flames swirling from their bodies like a massive dissention into Hell. They landed beside him, staring fiercely at the Witch.

“As instructed by the master,” the officer began.

Tears flooded from the doomed enchantress’ eyes as she held her arms out silently. She opened her mouth to plead with them.

The guards approached the Witch at once, fear etched on her face. The only evidence of her grim death was the smell of burning hair and herbs, and after they were finished, ashes floated away on the wind.

***

The forest where the coven landed seemed a different world entirely. Frost was quickly approaching, turning the warm autumn leaves to stony ice. Valek’s boots crunched solemnly across them as they walked between the shadows of the trees.

“I thought you said this would bring us to Old Town?” Sasha questioned.

“Shoot.” Sarah was the one to answer. She tilted her head up at the night sky. The moon looked almost full, but it wasn’t. “A minor miscalculation.”

Francis fumed, waving his hand through his hair. “Perfect! Just perfect, Sarah. The sun will be up in a few, short hours and we don’t even know where we are.”

“Just hold on a minute. The spell wasn’t that strong. We are probably right on the outskirts of the city,” Sarah concluded.

“We could not have invaded the castle tonight, anyhow,” Lusian explained. “They will be waking up soon. We want to do this tomorrow, in the dead of night.”

“Charlotte’s birthday,” Valek mused aloud. Francis glanced at him.

“No,” Sarah continued as they started to walk. “The wedding will be at sunset. We have to go as soon as you all wake up.”

“Why?” Sasha asked.

“A mortal can only marry an Elf under a harvest moon. It signifies the end of Summer and the beginning of Winter. Or the ‘in between’ of life and death.” She stumbled once on an unseen tree branch in the dark as they marched. Mr. Třínožka effortlessly pulled her up with one of his appendages onto his back. “Thank you.” She sighed. “We have to get to her before the ceremony is over. The moon is full tomorrow night.”

Andela toyed with something around her neck. It glinted in the moonlight, catching Valek’s attention. “Excuse me. What is that?”

Andela stopped and held up a small, wedding band strung on a pewter chain. “It was my husband’s. I’ve kept it all these years. He was killed on our wedding night. A Vampire wanted to claim me for his own. And so he did, though he was destroyed also.” Something evil glinted in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Valek whispered.

“How do you know where we are going, little Witch?” Dusana asked.

“I don’t,” she chirped cheerfully from atop the spider’s back.

“I do,” Mr. Třínožka grumbled. “Can’t you smell the mortals from this distance? Prague is North.”

“How long?” inquired Jorge.

“I’d say about four hours this way,” the spider replied. “There is approximately two hours until daylight. It will take us only one to get to the nearest graveyard,” he instructed. “I kin smell that, too.”

“We would find it much faster if we were running,” Sasha said.

“Well, you could run, but sooner or later you’ll run right into a guard. They’re hiding all over these woods,” Mr. Třínožka said. “But I know where they’re hidin’.”

“You’re awfully relaxed, my dear.” Francis smiled at Sarah, who seemed to be napping atop the Spider.

“It is better to stay calm in a situation like this. I really do believe we are going to get to her in time,” she offered, mostly for Valek’s sake.

“We will get to her in time,” Valek said confidently. “And I will never let her leave my sight again.”