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“Save it, Noel! Tell her thetruth!”I insisted. “Iam her mother! I carried her inmywomb for nearly nine months as a human before you snaked into my home when William left. You tore her from my body, I thought you’d killed her! You evil bitch!” Rage coursed through me, I pounced, snarling. Noel lunged forward in response, allowing me to grab her shoulders and latch onto her neck. She screamed in pain, taking my head in her hands. We flipped onto the ground, her neck still in my grasp, my hands on her wrists to release my head.
“ENOUGH!” Helena shouted, pulling Noel up, a chunk of her neck still in my mouth. I spat her bitter flesh onto the dirt, on my feet. “Is this true?” Helena asked, tears welling in her eyes. I stepped forward with my hand out.
“You tell me,” I encouraged. Helena placed her hand in mine and a warmth of electricity shot through the both of us. The connection was undeniable, one of truth, of love. One of unspoken lineage. I felt my flesh and blood in her, I felt as if she was merely an extension of myself, a piece of my heart. She gasped, choking on tears, running her hand up my arm, and placing it on my chest where my heart would have beat if it could.
“What is this?” she asked me.
“Iam your mother. I had no clue the bond would be like this… we tried to gather information about others like you while I was pregnant.” I placed my hand on her cheek, she was warmer than we were. “There wasn’t much to go on at the time, though we suspected other vampyres and humans had kept their children secret out of fear.”
“There are others, we found them a few years—”
“I have had enough of this!” Noel roared, pulling Helena back.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” Helena twisted out of her grasp, taking my arm. “You lied to me! You, you kidnapped me! How could you do that, it is sick!”
“You’re right, poor girl. Iamsick! I thought I had killed your mother on her birthing bed and I had hoped your father would come around to claim you, but he never did. I was happy to raise you as my own, you see, I love your father and we could never had children.” I felt sick to my stomach as Noel lamented her disturbing tale. Helena’s face was colored with disgust, William slowly slid forward.
“We have had enough of you,” he growled, angling himself toward Noel. Adam was in front of him, mirroring every move. Noel disappeared, sprinting toward Bath.
“We have friends in Bristol,” I urged Helena, “Go get them, Horris and Filip, you’ll sense them. Bring them.” I kissed her forehead and she nodded a confirmation, running with surprising speed toward the city. As Adam lunged toward William, I stepped in between, grasping his head, flipping him through the air and into the fence surrounding the yard. He groaned in pain and I grabbed William’s hand, taking off into a sprint, following Noel’s scent.
We were behind her, through the countryside outside of Bath, toward the direction of the cottage.
“You don’t think?” William asked as we drew nearer his home.
“I most certainly do not put anything past her,” I muttered.
“If anything happens—”
“Nothing will happen. We will kill her and be done. She had our daughter!” I cried, the impassioned heat pushing me forward faster.
We reached the cottage, Noel’s scent carrying into the gate. She was perched on the thatch roof, a book of matches in her hand.
“Won’t you enter, my darlings?” she asked, leaping from the roof and into the garden. “Let us discuss this over tea.” Noel vanished inside the cottage, starting a fire in the fireplace which glowed orange in the lattice windows. Something inside me soured, a sensation of ice coating my chest. I turned to William, sadness creeping in on the edges of my mind. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this, not now.
“Don’t,” I begged William, grabbing his hand to pull him toward me. “I have a bad feeling.”
“This could be our only chance,” he urged forward, determination set in his eyes
“Let’s go to Bristol and reconvene. Our daughter knows the truth now, it seems too risky,” I begged, growing more and more panicked by the minute.
“I want to be rid of her, Rosemary, please.” William leaned down to kiss me, tugging at my hand. “I want to live our quiet life together, the one we promised each other–”
Shattering glass filled the silence and William gasped, clutching his chest.
I screamed as he collapsed onto his knees, blood gurgling forth like a river from his mouth. Panic filled my every sense, and I could not fathom the scene before me. No, no, I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. William, no, no, no! Not now, not now!
A red hot iron poker had shoved itself into his heart, thrown from the window of the cottage where Noel watched, grinning devilishly. Flames began to lick at his flesh, crackling through his undead form. I fell to my knees with him, taking him into my arms.
“No, no, no, no, no, William, NO!” I grabbed the poker, burning the palms of my hand as I pulled it in an effort to remove it. It had seared itself inside him, scorching him to death. He looked up at me, eyes glazed and desperate. I could only wail, rocking him back and forth, his head on my shoulder.
“What have you done?WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I howled, my heart gaping in agony. She came from the cottage, standing over us with a sickening grin. “What have you done? We just—we just found each other again,please!”
“I have been on this earth a long time, Rosemary. I know of more ways than one way to kill our kind–the hot metal has burnt itself to his heart. He cannot escape theultima mortem.” Noel divulged, her hands on her hips as she watched him shudder.
“What? No, what do you mean? He can’t, William, no, he can’t!”
William continued to choke on the blackened blood that spilled forth from his mouth, his chest crackling as he writhed in my arms. I sobbed, scorching my hand as I continued to try to pry it from his chest, panic flooding me.
