Walter de Ville's Advocate

Chapter Twelve

I must've fallen asleep when trying to remember the words to that old folk song, because when I awoke to a knocking sound on my door, I realized that I was still wearing my undershirt and formal trousers. "Uh, come in," I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I sat up in my bed.

The door creaked open just a few inches as Evie slipped into the confines of my suite. She wore a silky nightgown trimmed in lace that only dropped to her mid-thigh.

"I hope it's not a bad time," she whispered timidly.

I smiled, "Never, not for you. Is there something you need?"

Evie grinned as she walked towards me, her heart pumping so furiously it seemed to echo throughout the room. "Of course there is, Walt, but you already know that."

"I do?" I asked as she climbed onto the bed, onto me.

"You must know," she reasoned, tugging lightly on my hair as she angled me to look up at her. "Isn't it obvious? I love you, Walter." It was all I had wanted to hear her say since I first saw her photograph, yet it was said with so little emotion. "I need you, Walt. Please?"

My bottom lip popped open as she began dropping the straps of her nightgown, undressing for me as she confessed her love over and over again; kissing my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, and my chin. When she began to lightly suckle my earlobe, I tried to reposition her so that I could taste her lips, but she pushed me to the bed.

"How could you do it, Walt?"

I furrowed my brow, not fully hearing her over the music. "Do what?" Did she discover what had happened to the maids?

"Why would you condemn me to this? Why would I ever want to be a monster like you?" she asked, her face becoming pale, devoid of any blood circulation – not undead, just dead.

The polyphonic chanting grew louder, the wild and feminine songs of the old travelers, singing about the forest spirits that I had been warned about since a babe; advice I heeded for most of my life.

"Evie?" I asked in a panic, shaking her furiously as I realized I was looking over her lifeless form now; her neck severed so that her body laid in two, just like Emmaline. "Evie! No, Evie!" I shouted, tears making it hard to see her in this dark room.

Although her mouth did not move, I heard her say, "You have no real power, Walter de Ville."

Wait, that wasn't her voice. Was it Emmaline?

I turned around and found myself at a banquet hall, a feast laid out with many men drinking, and trading war stories.

"And it's de Ville, now?" the voice said again, and I realized it was one that I'd not heard in 600 years, in a tongue I hardly had use for in my current life. "So, you disgrace your father again by refusing the name he gave you? The one he chose wasn't good enough?"

I spun around, a weighty cape lined in fur alerting me to its presence. Noticing my long hair, my hands went up to my head where I found a heraldic hat trimmed in several strings of pearls, and that golden star with the large, red ruby.

"How?" I asked simply, not understanding.

"If only you'd stayed with the sultan, could have died at his hand for all I care . . . your father might have lived to meet his grandchildren – which you cannot even bear," my mother said. She was so beautiful; her long, brunette hair tied into a thick braid tossed over her shoulder, layers of fur over her blue, woolen dress. "Instead you sent your father to his death, taking my husband from me. Widowed at my age? Who would take me on? Just a crazy, old woman in the way of the next voivode!"