Dracula's Daughter

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

As dawn hung in the air, the sun about to break over the horizon behind her, Valentina guarded her father.

The irony tasted bitter on her tongue but she remained, steadfast, watching her father's body laid to rest deep within a mountain.

The cavern ran for miles into the rock where even the sun could not penetrate. It was the perfect place to place her father's body.

And now she stood, fighting against the approaching dawn, and watched as the entrance to the cave was barricaded with boulders from the recent avalanche.

Priests blessed the site and recited prayers.

Valentina allowed them their little ways, they had, after all, accepted to preside over and watch Dracula in his slumber.

They were his charges, his avenging angels, to make sure he did not stir from his untimely slumber.

As the last few rocks were put into place, Valentina closed her eyes and fought the urge to run for cover.

She instead ordered herself to remain there, basking in the light that was not quite sunlight, which had managed to creep over the horizon before the arrival of the Sun.

It felt warm against her flesh and she could smell the scent of dew in the air.

It had rained sometime the previous evening.

Inhaling slowly, Valentina opened her eyes and allowed herself to absorb every detail about her surroundings.

She indulged the moss that grew over the rocks, she smelt the wet bark on the trees, she heard the scattering of animals in the distance and she saw Marceau's body lying by a tree, waiting for the sunlight to claim him.

And, in that moment she felt free.

The soft morning wind was drifting through her hair, blowing away the dust, when Valentina realised that she would no longer need to run anywhere.

She no longer needed to fear her father's retribution or glance over her shoulder every second she thought she heard his voice.

He was gone from her life, and it had taken her over five hundred years to gather the courage.

As she thought about her father's body lying motionless in a blanket of darkness, a passage from a book, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, came to her mind.

She said it then, as a eulogy for her father.

"'I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.'"

As she said it a breeze flew through the area, picking up leaves from the ground and twirling around her body before it escaped into the sky.

Valentina looked towards in the horizon, her time was ending here.

Turning back, Valentina saw Sister McCoy judging her from a few feet away, her expression filled with mistrust.

She had heard Valentina's comment and did not believe her. McCoy saw not only Valentina's father, but Valentina also, as the devil.

She had chosen the lesser of two evils by accepting Valentina's proposal to imprison her father and allow Valentina to go free.

Although, she could not have made Valentina stay if she was God herself.