Almost Lovers (27 page)

“I’ll never leave your side again,” I told
her once I had gotten her in the car again; “I’ll always keep you
safe. I swear it on my life,”

“You’re not even alive, Sebastian,” Prussia
spit the words at me, “are you?”

She knew the answer. I could read it on her
face and I hated that this is how she had come to know of us, of my
kind.

“You can’t even say it,” she continued, her
face a mixture of pain and anger, “You are a monster and I don’t
want you by my side. I don’t want you near me at all, ever again! I
want you out of my life forever!”

She struck out at me and I let her hit me.
It didn’t hurt physically. But it made me cringe on the inside. She
searched my face but apparently my lack of a response hadn’t been
what she had been looking for.

“You don’t even feel,” Prussia shouted,
“you’re not natural. Monster!”

She began to sob. I couldn’t imagine what
she had gone through in that room. I wasn’t sure what they had
wanted with her besides a meal with a side of entertainment. If
anyone knew the limits of pain that a vampire could and would
inflict a human…it had to be me. I had had low points in my
existence as all vampires usually experienced. But we rarely
stopped to think of how it felt to the human. I had focused on me,
on our game, Lydia and me.

I hadn’t realized I would come to care for
anyone other than Lydia. And here the one I cared for most hated me
for what I am not who I am. And she had good reason to hate and
fear my kind. I hoped that in time she would see I could be
different.

“I’ll never leave you,” I said quietly, “I’m
sorry I let this happen to you,”

And for whatever reason those words seemed
to quiet her. Perhaps she didn’t think a monster could be
apologetic. Or maybe she realized her anger shouldn’t have been
directed entirely at me. Either way, she at least calmed down and
stopped yelling at me.

I started the car. The body in her apartment
might draw attention sooner rather than later since the smell would
soon follow.

“Where are you taking me now?” asked
Prussia.

She stared off out the car window. I reached
for her hand and my heart gave me a reprieving flutter for a moment
as she looked at our hands together, clasped. And my heart sank
just as fast as it had fluttered as her face turned to disgust and
yanked her hand away from mine.

“Somewhere safe,” I said.

We didn’t speak during the drive which
helped me focus on my thoughts and the road. I drove as quickly as
I could. Though she seemed more alert, even if angry, she had still
lost a lot of blood and needed to see a doctor. We had no way of
knowing if she had been infected unless her blood was tested. We
needed to see Tommy as soon as possible and I needed to talk to the
Queen about the next move. Clean sweep had been a success but a
great deal of damage had been done. And Lydia still needed to be
dealt with.

Prussia let out a whimper as I pulled up to
the house.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

I made a motion to put a hand on her
shoulder but pulled my hand back after remembering how she had
pulled away from my hand before. I thought it better to give her
some space after everything that had happened.

“You brought me here before,” she said, “You
really think this place is safe?”

“No one would think to kidnap you from
here,” I said, “…not a second time,”

I realized that didn’t sound as assuring as
I had meant it. And the track record for the guards in protecting
Prussia had been continually lacking at best. This gave me all the
more motivation to take it over myself. This time, to make sure our
defenses were as good as or better than I had left them years ago
when I had followed Lydia into her banishment. I never should have
left.

“I’m not holding my breath,” said
Prussia.

I couldn’t blame her for her skepticism. I
would be too in her position. But looking at her face I could see
the night had taken a deep toll on her. Her eyes were sunken in,
her complexion had a sickly dullness to it and the tone of her
voice rang of defeat.

I came around and collected her from the car
as carefully as I could. She motioned as though she wanted to walk
but after a few steps she faltered and began to collapse. I caught
her as she began to fall and picked her up. I cradled her as I had
before and carried her up the steps of the castle. She closed her
eyes as I reached the door and I knew that those few steps had been
too much.

I could feel the faint moving of the air
from her breath as the door opened for me. I walked in with Prussia
in my arms, covered from matted head to tattered toe in blood. She
looked more dead than alive and a sea of vampires parted from the
entrance to the Queen’s ceremonial podium on the grand
staircase.

I walked slowly so as not to jostle Prussia.
Each vampire we passed turned to stare. I could see that much had
happened during my short mission to save Prussia. It looked as
though the entire court had shown up in the middle of the night. To
an unaccustomed visitor, the dress and mood of the room would
appear as a very formal wake for a dearly departed relative. It
wasn’t.

I passed some familiar faces and some
not-so-familiar faces. All of them parted to make way for me and to
murmur comments to their right and left at what I carried.

I could hear the sound of voices in the heat
of argument as I approached the Queen’s podium at the landing of
the grand marble staircase that graced the center of the castle. I
knew one voice particularly well, and another I knew better than I
wanted to admit anymore.

“I cannot be tried for merely knowing a
vampire that brought harm to your pet,” slithered Lydia’s high
pitched and aristocratic drawl as she stood in front of an
audience, as well as the Queen, “And while I don’t know that
vampire outside of casual acquaintance the thought that she could
be put to death when she had no way to know that your precious
Prussia had the protection of the Queen...it’s preposterous!”

“She knew very well as I had told her in
your very presence,” I boomed at Lydia, standing in all her
theatrical display of wounded and wronged dame on the steps much
lower than the Queen on the platform, “And as I told her I would
before, I killed her when I found her after she had kidnapped
Prussia from the Queen’s very room and tortured her in a warehouse.
The exact location you told me I could find her, and I did,”

Lydia gasped in shock and horror at what I
said. I took several steps up the staircase to the platform and
turned so that the court could see the damage done to Prussia,
covered in injuries and blood.

“You see,” cried out Lydia, she regained her
posture and pointed to Prussia in my arms, “He admits he has
murdered a vampire-”

“We performed a clean sweep and a total of
34 vampires were given the eternal death,” I said, cutting her off,
feeling obligated to correct her.

A loud gasp went up throughout the court. A
look of shock and outrage appeared on many faces though when I
looked out into the crowd, some were merely intrigued. Perhaps they
were the oldest and less inclined to feel sentiment over loss of
vampire life.

“This is genocide of our very species,”
proclaimed Lydia, “I think I speak for the court when I demand that
you give a fair and just sentence as Queen to your grandson for the
genocide he has committed against our species and our laws,”

“I ordered it,” said the Queen, loudly and
unwavering, “And I’m pretty sure you, with your past indiscretions,
don’t adequately represent the voice of the court let alone the
voice of our…species,” the Queen said in a condescending and silky
tone.

I had to hide my surprise as I climbed the
remainder of the steps to stand on the platform with the Queen. I
heard a slow roll of chuckles bounced around the court at the Queen
poking fun at Lydia’s past shames.

It didn’t do anything for Lydia’s temper
though and it looked as though she had actually bit down on her
tongue to keep her temper in check. I looked for blood to start
dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. She had turned red in the
face but I didn’t see a single drop before she spoke again.

“Genocide by the Queen herself is still
genocide,” Lydia said with defiance, pointing at the Queen.

The room went still with only a murmur or
two coming from the court as they watched to see how the Queen
would react. The Queen stood relaxed. She had always been a master
of her emotions long before I had ever been an inkling of an idea
in her daughter’s mind. I stood holding my own breath, waiting to
see how the Queen would react.

“And what is a good Queen to do, then,
Lydia?” asked the Queen with a calm voice.

I knew that voice. The tone the Queen used
now had always been and would always be one of calculation.
Whatever the Queen had decided to walk Lydia into – Lydia would no
doubt be blind to it until it was too late.

“Select a new Chancellor immediately to
oversee the rule of law once more. Relinquish the throne as you are
unfit to rule, unable to separate personal gains and pleasures from
rule and justice,” said Lydia, her noise pointed stiffly up and her
arms crossed with a solid nod that dropped every few words as she
looked out at the court.

“And what of your treason,” said the Queen,
“Shall I hand over your case to the new Chancellor that you might
manipulate the law in your favor per your usual …skill sets.”

This time there were decidedly female voices
that rolled with laughter at the insinuation. The Queen had decided
to continue to poke fun at Lydia – making a show of the entire
ordeal and it looked like Victoria had the court in the palm of her
hand.

“A female Chancellor would be a breath of
fresh air,” said a woman toward the front, one I recognized from
one of the Queen’s counsels but not sure which.

“Name a Chancellor, choose a successor and
relinquish the throne?” mused the Queen aloud, “Such an interesting
proposition – hardly a King or Queen in their right mind could
refuse!”

Now the lords and ladies of the court openly
laughed as it sounded absolutely absurd when repeated. I let a
chuckle out as well, though mindful not to shake Prussia as she lay
still unconscious in my arms.

“I will take your suggestions under
advisement,” said the Queen in amusement, letting a hand wave out
over the court and hearing the roll of laughter once more, “And as
I consider it-,”

“And what of your grandson?” asked
Lydia.

Lydia had become beyond angry. From her
stance I could tell that her patience had been spent. She had never
enjoyed being laughed at. She must really be trying to dig her
heels in. She had managed to fail miserably thus far. I began to
lose interest as the circus act dragged on. I needed Prussia to be
seen by the doctor sooner rather than later and nothing would come
of it until this entire ordeal dissipated.

“My grandson,” the Queen’s smile faded
slowly as she looked down the steps at Lydia, “Yes, I gave him
commands to kill any in his path in order to secure Prussia. She is
the human you so informally refer to her as though I hadn’t
instructed her title firmly as Lady to you first and foremost.
There will be no judgment or sentence to oversee now or in the
future,”

This time I didn’t expect to hear the unrest
and unhappiness come from the court but I should have. Vampires had
always viewed humanity as a sort of breeding, roaming, free-range
cow farm. The idea of a pet had always been tolerated but killing
over a vampire, especially in vengeance, had been established as
illegal even before my time.

“This is blasphemy,” shouted someone from
the back, “Vampire before Human,”

I watched as one of the counsel leaned
forward and whispered to the Queen. It seemed the court unrest
couldn’t be ignored. Even with Lydia as a mouthpiece, the court
stood behind her on it. The Queen nodded her head and the counsel
member, one I hadn’t seen before, stepped up to the podium to
speak.

“Councilwoman Plurth, if the court shall
have me,” she said in a very ceremonious and mundane way.

“We shall,” murmured the court as a
staggered whole.

“The Queen had been in her jurisdiction and
right, as she had previously given warning to all those in
proximity to the throne, of the boundaries concerning Lady
Prussia,” began Councilwoman Plurth, though with audible whispering
and comments in the crowd, “with death a reasonable and expected
result for anyone found to attack a member of the Royal
family,”

Even I didn’t by that line. Prussia wasn’t
part of our family. It seemed like a really big stretch to give
family title to pets and property which is where this could easily
head and become a giant mess.

“What are you saying,” Lydia laughed at the
Councilwoman’s explanation, “That our pets are family? Shall every
vampire that attacks a random human owned by another vampire be
held accountable as though they attacked the owner instead?”