Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Charles

Westbourne, England, 1853

It had been nearly ten years since Ysanne Moreau had seen another vampire.

As Caoimhe had said, the railway industry had continued to boom, giving people the chance to travel all over the country, but Ysanne had not been on one since meeting Edmond's former lover. She still didn't trust the noisy great things.

So most of the time, she relied on her own feet to take her from place. It took longer, even for a vampire, but she felt more comfortable that way. Still, she couldn't help thinking about what Caoimhe had said – that trains might make it easier for vampires to find each other.

Maybe if she used the damned things more, this wouldn't be the first vampire she'd seen in so long.

The village of Westbourne was home to a beautiful medieval church, noted for apparently having the oldest yew avenue in all England, and the vampire was leaning on the ancient wall that ran around the graveyard.

He looked up as Ysanne approached.

Inside the graveyard, a middle-aged couple were standing over a gravestone, quietly holding each other; they didn't seem to have noticed the two vampires.

"Do you know them?" Ysanne asked.

The male vampire looked back at the couple. "They're my great-great-great-great –" He broke off, clouds gathering on his face. "I've forgotten how many greats. They're my descendants."

"I've never met another vampire who still knew of human descendants. I'm Ysanne, by the way."

"Charles."

"Do you live here?" she had to ask. Westbourne was only a small village –surely no vampire could have got away with living in the same place for hundreds of years.

He shook his head. "I come back from time to time, to see how my relatives are doing." There was a note of sadness in his voice, and Ysanne surmised that none of those relatives knew he existed. All he could do was watch from a distance.

The couple started to move away from the grave, and Charles turned away, as if he didn't want them to see him.

"Walk with me?" he said to Ysanne.

They moved away from the church and walked through the village to the sprawl of the cricket pitch, quietly talking. Charles told her about how he worked hard to keep track of his descendants over the years. Ysanne told him about her experience with trains, which led him to admit he'd never been on one, and had no intention any time soon. She told him about the vampire that she and Jemima had been forced to kill.

"You did the right thing," Charles reassured her.

"I know, but I've thought a lot about him since then, and . . ." She tried to find the right words.

Charles abruptly stopped walking. "And what?" His voice was noticeably cooler.

"I understand his frustrations."

"To a certain extent so do I, but what difference does that make?"

"Because if no vampire is happy living in the shadows like this, maybe we need to work together to do something about it."

"Do something about it," he flatly repeated.

"Yes."

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet –"

"Because it sounds like you're saying you think we should reveal ourselves to humans."