The Devil

Charlotte appeared in the doorway of the study. The permeating smell of cherry tobacco and pipe smoke filled the room and wafted out into the place where she stood. The foyer had been restored, for the most part, the more resilient pieces of the antique furniture placed back in their rightful spots, the floor dusted of debris. Charlotte could see hunks of the more unfortunate chairs roasting before Valek in the hearth. He watched them cremate, as if he were mourning the loss of his valuable collection.

The room before her was cast in a deep, sienna glow. Valek's regal armchair sat facing the fire, its beautifully carved back slightly angled to her, the many screaming faces imprisoned in the cherry wood. One by one, his perfect smoke rings billowed up and out of the open window, fading into the night behind the long, garnet curtains.

She lingered in the threshold, leaned up against the carvings in the frame for a few more silent moments, though of course, he knew she was there. Her mind flashed to what she'd seen. Valek strike down upon the woman in his office. Sarah watching in horror as he sucked the life from her, and then to Charlotte's surprise, pulled away well before the woman was dead. What exactly did he intend to do with her if it wasn't to kill her? Did he always tie his victims down? He'd noticed Charlotte watching, too. Valek never missed a motion. But he went on now, pretending it was only himself and the fire before him, methodically producing perfect circles of smoke, one by one. He seemed focused on his own thoughts, his movements slow and somber, rather than tuning into hers.

Valek sat, one long leg crossed over the other, perched on the velvet seat of the chair. He lifted his pipe to his full lips with his other set of claws wrapped around one of the intricate chair arms. Mindlessly, he chipped away at the wood, gazing into the crackling flames. The sound of Valek's nails scratch-scratch-scratching made the hair on Charlotte's arms stand on end. She was addicted to every lethal part of him.

There were so many memories from this particular room that haunted her. Her guardian habitually perched where she always remembered him being before the disaster at the Regime, before their capture, before their relationship got complicated, turning both of their worlds on their axes.

Every night, when Charlotte would return home from hunting another human, this was where she'd find Valek sitting. Every evening, without fail, this was where he would be. It was comforting to know that at least one thing in her strange life was a constant-dependable and unchanging. At least one thing in her life would exist forever. Now, somehow, the two of them managed to find themselves back in this very room, alone again. It was as if nothing had changed at all.

Her fingers wound in impatient knots in the material of the skirt of her favorite new dress. She bit her lower lip a little too hard and suddenly tasted a very familiar sensation of iron and copper.

"Lottie."

Valek's liquid voice soothed her burning anticipation. Her heart fluttered unevenly. When he spoke, it was like rain when she had not tasted water in days. When he touched her, it was like ice against the devastating fire that now tortured her under the bed of her skin. This addiction was literally eating her alive.

"Charlotte," he began again. "Come to me, please."

The immense shadow from his armchair stretched across the wooded floor to the ends of her toes, tugging at her, begging her to meet his request. A waiting lump formed thickly in her throat as she took a step deeper into the study. She could tell he hadn't moved from this spot since she had fallen asleep, beating himself up inside over Charlotte's very peculiar predicament. Valek had been self-flagellating for the past few months. It was true. Something from his bite had made her deathly ill. It had been that way since their time in Francis' basement.

The fire roared before Valek, as if a wild beast lived in the embers. It cast intimidating shadows across the edges of his face. As he exhaled, his lips parted ever so slightly to reveal his lethal incisors. Something fluttered in Charlotte's stomach, and it lurched as she rounded the corner of his chair to face him.

Valek was more than beautiful, crafted by the devil himself in order to cause Charlotte to do awful things-unspeakable things: to hunt her own kind, to sacrifice her life, to drive her to insanity. He possessed her.

The pallid Vampire puffed a perfect silver ring into the air above his head, his electrified blue eyes following it before it eventually vanished. He didn't say anything. He merely waited. Many things were bothering him. Charlotte could only imagine what those things were. She couldn't tear her mind away from the woman. What had happened to her? Against Valek's strict orders, she'd crept down the stairs and around the corner to his office the night before. Through the crack in the door, she could see the mortal's panicked expression just moments before Valek had struck, sinking his fangs into the side of her throat like a cobra. It was so fast, and Charlotte had winced instantly upon the sight of it, her scar flaring with the recollection of what that felt like.

"Charlotte!" Sarah had whispered feverishly at her. "You are not supposed to be here! Go back upstairs, now!" The Witch had shoved her away and quickly slammed the door. Charlotte did as she was ordered, too exhausted to witness anything further that night.

She climbed into Valek's lap and settled herself, her legs hanging over the side of his knee. The scar at her throat continued to throb, though it wasn't too painful yet. She wrapped her arms around his neck, lacing her fingers together as they draped over his broad shoulder.

Valek neglected to look her in the eye, his gaze remaining transfixed on whatever distant thought was hanging before him. However, that didn't mean he missed anything.

"You're shaking," he observed, shifting his weight slightly and wrapping his free arm around her, though his deathly skin didn't do much to warm her. He continued to look stoic and stone-faced. His movements seemed absentminded and almost involuntary. Charlotte frowned. She could tell he wasn't really in the room with her at all. "Shall I close the window for you?"

Charlotte cleared her throat, which made her wince with the immediate shooting pain that followed. "No. It is not that I am cold...." She trailed off, hoping he would catch on. She wound one of her fingers around a thick lock of his soft, dark hair. It ran long, like a night's rain, from his widow's peak, down past his shoulders to the middle of his chest, curling slightly at the ends, the impossible beauty of his porcelain face cradled by it. Oh, he was deadly indeed.

"I caught Sarah crying," Charlotte began.

"Did you?" Valek's eyebrow lifted.

"Yes. I believe she worries for me-that she feels I am in danger if I continue on this like this. I saw it in the way she looked at me."

Absently, deep in thought, Valek twisted one of Charlotte's curls around his index claw. He did not utter a word, which made her stomach turn.

She wanted him to look at her. "Do you like my dress?"

"It's very pretty," he murmured without even a mere glance in her direction.

Charlotte hugged his neck tighter and leaned in closer to his face. "I know that you are also worried for me."

Valek's lips parted slightly again, though he did not answer. He blinked once, as if there was something he needed to say, but he only sealed his lips again.

"What happened to that woman, Valek?" Charlotte asked innocently, her heart fluttering in response to her nervousness. A lump formed in her throat as her breathing became shallow. She awaited his answer. When he didn't, she continued. "Did you consume her? Is she dead?" Charlotte's heart sank with the last of her words. She had not realized before how saddened she was by the thought of it. She hadn't seen it before. Or rather, didn't want to see it. But she was just like that woman. Just as expendable. Ashes in the wind.

Valek blinked twice and cleared his throat. His gaze shifted a bit with a new thought. "N-no," he stammered. "She is not dead."

Charlotte hugged him closer. "What did you do to her?" she whispered.

"I fear you'll think me a monster if I tell you," he said quietly back, continuing to stare sadly forward.

"I think I am more like you than you know. I am already such a monster. I take lives as you do, so I am already a killer. I have an addiction, as you do. Why will you not transform me entirely if I am already as damned as you are?"

Finally, Valek dropped his gaze, though at nothing in particular, his focus distantly at the floor. "Your soul is clean, Charlotte. I've brainwashed you into doing my bidding, into thinking it is right, so your killing is my responsibility. Please, do not compare yourself to the likes of me. I am the worst kind of evil. The kind you wish to believe is inherently good." His voice was pained, his gaze soft and thoughtful. He stroked one of his claws lightly across her cheek and smiled slightly. "And anyway, I prefer a killer in an angel's body to that of a beast such as myself."

Charlotte placed a hand on his cool cheek, pulling his mouth closer to hers. "You don't look very beastly to me." She kissed him lightly, her fingers trailing up the sides of his face and burying themselves in his soft hair. The sweetness of his scent enthralled her, but he pulled away after a few moments.

"What else is bothering you?" he prodded, narrowing his eyes at her. He was all too observant. He probably didn't even need to listen to her mind anymore to know when she was troubled.

Charlotte dropped her gaze, struggling with the next bit of it. "Well...."

Valek sat straighter. Suddenly, he was completely there in the room with her, his undivided attention on what she was about to say next. This only made her more nervous.

"It was something I dreamt. Though Mr. Třinozka said we should never discuss our nightmares for fear they might come true," she started to explain, nervously toying with the hem of her dress.

Valek squeezed the point of her chin. "That's silly. I've never heard that said before."

"There might be some truth to it," she confided, dropping her gaze from his. Her tongue swelled in her mouth as she grappled to choose the right words. Her cheeks burned at one particular memory of her nightmare. She shivered.

"Tell me, Lottie. I wish to make it better." His claw grazed the slight crescent raised along the flesh of her throat. "Perhaps," he offered, "it is the only thing I can make better."

Bashfully, Charlotte peered up at Valek, melting the chill along the icy surfaces of his face. "I dreamt of your wife, Valek."

Valek drew in the smallest gasp. Charlotte caught a glimpse of his fangs from just behind the perfect fullness of his lips. He suddenly went rigid, as though all of his walls had gone back up, and looked away from her.

"She returned to you...in my dream," Charlotte went on to explain.

She could see him struggle to conceal his utter shock. A new sadness filled his eyes, though he smiled faintly in spite of it. Softly, he traced the surface of her cheek with the back of his cool hand.

Charlotte dropped her eyes again, blushing with the next memory of the nightmare, knowing he would see it play in his mind as instantly as she did. "You-you welcomed her." She wound her fingers together in her lap as she waited for his response to that. When she was met with nothing but silence, she looked back up just to make sure he was still in the room with her. He only continued to stare forward, eyes narrowed and pained, as though watching her memories like he was watching a film. "You still love her, don't you?"

Valek's gaze darted about the room as though he were searching for what to say next. He cleared his throat. Her heart fluttered in her chest when she saw he wasn't responding immediately. Panic bubbled in her stomach.

"There will always be a type of love for her, yes," he said finally looking back at her. "She was the love of my human life-when I was something different other than what I am now. Even though I keep those memories, however muddy and distant, that time in my life is obsolete. I am something entirely different now, and you," he held up his left palm to her, "are my soul mate. You are the love of my life as it is now-the very one fate has brought me to."

Charlotte relinquished the breath she'd been holding and offered up a tiny smile. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "Thirsty?" she forced out breathlessly.

Valek sighed and put his pipe aside on the small, carved ashtray on the end table next to his chair-an action that seemed solemn, and almost a little peeved, she noted. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Your addiction has gotten far worse, Lottie." His words condemned her. Punished her. They were a cold diagnosis-one a doctor would tell his patient. She wanted to argue back, but he interrupted. "It grows worse by the night. Sarah's right to be worried for you. Something has to be done."

"What needs to be done? I thought Sarah said there was no cure." She grimaced. "Aside from the...obvious."

Valek's expression hardened even further as he ground his teeth together. "Yes. Well, we both know that will not be the answer." His gaze snapped to her face, causing her heart to leap up into her throat, though she saw that his expression softened when their eyes locked. He traced one of her dark, under-eye circles with his claw, trailing down her cheek and her chin to the hollow at the base of her throat. "We are going out later. Just you and I. I need to get away from this house."

He barked this out low, as an order rather than a request for her to join. Even though she knew it was biologically impossible, Charlotte thought about how much he seemed to have aged recently. Never at rest, his usually bright characteristics seemed to lack their unnatural glow. She knew how he sat alone in the library, night after night, racking his brain-worrying about Aiden's next move. Worrying about Charlotte's condition. Carrying the weight of the world on his too-capable shoulders. She knew all of these things haunted him behind his eyes set aglow by the harsh firelight. Valek didn't need any sort of God to send him to hell. He'd already put himself there.

"All right," Charlotte said meekly.

"I know you hate me." He whispered so close, the moisture of his breath cooled against the skin of her ear.

"I don't," she managed to get out, though her words were barely audible.

Valek ran the back of his cool hand over her cheek again as his gaze dropped to her lips, parted from the anticipation of him being so close. He grazed her lower lip with the edge of his nail. It made her throat muscles tighten.

"You're an awful liar." Valek, continuing to focus on her mouth, slid his one nail down the center of her throat again and watched her shift uncomfortably as a wave of an odd, new emotion fluttered through her stomach. Her fists tightened. He chuckled, and she could see the full glory of his fangs, which caused this odd feeling to spread through her stomach again.

"I love that I can do that to you," he murmured, satisfied.

She shivered as he cupped the side of her face, closing in. He kissed her with a greater intensity this time, crushing his mouth to hers. Her scar reacted to his dangerous proximity.

Pulling away, he grabbed her wrist and drew it toward his face, sliding it along his cool cheek. He inhaled slowly. Charlotte watched his eyes engulf in black. He opened his mouth and penetrated her wrist delicately, the red pooling up around his lips. Releasing it, he plucked a wine glass from the end table and held it just under her open wounds. Charlotte watched her own blood flow in scarlet ribbons down her arm and into the glass. When it was filled about a quarter of the way, Valek brought her wrist back to his mouth and ran his tongue over the puncture, all the while keeping his eyes locked with Lottie's as her wounds healed shut. He dropped her wrist.

"Run along now, Lottie," he murmured darkly, sipping at the warm, red contents of the crystal glass. "I'll be after you shortly."