The Unholy Night

Chapter XIII

"I am the people, I am the storm, I am the riot, I am the swarm, when the last tree's fallen, the animal can't hide, money won't solve it, what's your alibi?"

- Blood // Water by grandson

We did not rush to the Heath, but we made our way to Shooter's Hill in the late hours of the afternoon, when we knew whatever creature roamed would be active. Hopefully it would be Lucy.

It seemed as if all the children had gone when I heard just the faintest trace of sobbing. 

God, I love vampire supersensory powers. 

We ducked under the boughs of a magnificent willow tree, where sat Lucy. 

Although sat is perhaps the wrong word. She was curled up in a ball, her eyes closed and her muddied skirts and her long blond hair pooled around her. 

Still, it was not difficult to see why when the children had reached for an adjective to define her, they had chosen beautiful. 

"Lucy?" Bess asked, crouching down. 

She curled tighter into a ball, trying to move as far away as she could without getting up. "I'm so sorry," she said, her voice quiet and horrified with herself.

"Why are you apologizing?" I asked. 

"I'm so goddamn terrible and I don't know how to stop!"

I wouldn't make the connection that she sounded like me until later. 

"We've been looking for you," Addy said. "We thought you were dead."

"I wish I was," she whispered, as if to herself. "I don't know why I ever wanted to be a vampire. It seemed so new, and interesting." A tear ran down her face. "It would be better if I was dead... I'm a monster. I don't want to be a monster."

I grimaced at the pain her words brought me, and I saw Bess and Addy do the same, although we all quickly covered our hurt for her sake. 

She was probably alluding to eating children rather than being a vampire, but even by those standards, the three of us were still monsters.

We were monsters who couldn't remember a time we weren't. I felt quite artificial, and sometimes I still do, in the way where I have no memory of being born and must assume that I was, in some grotesque, insidious way, made, whether I'm referring to my body or my mind. 

"I'm hungry all the time... I miss Mina, Arthur, Mother..." At this, she dissolved into a fresh set of tears. "How do you stand it?"

I was about to answer with the bleak truth, but Addy cut me off before I could do so. "It'll go away soon. Come on, I'll teach you to be a vampire. You two can go home."

The authoritative way she said it made us listen to her, but Bess hissed low enough that Lucy couldn't hear, "Poor girl just lost everything, and it would do you some good to be conscious of that."

She said it in a way that clearly implied she did not expect Addy to be conscious. 

I went home and wrote a letter. 

Dear Lucy, 

There will be things I will never be able to say to you, but I think I can manage to write them down. We'll have to see.

I'm sorry we ever had to meet. I suspect you strongly of being sorry of this too, but you're just too kind to say it.

It's our fault. Really, it is. Dracula targeted you because he sensed us somehow. And now we cannot help you.