Last Daughter of the House of Belmont (Book II)

1

The morning air was bitter cold, biting through Hector's threadbare clothes and chilling him to the bone. He shivered and rubbed his arms, trying to generate some warmth. But it was no use. The fire in his workshop had long since gone out, and Lenore had refused to give him any more coals.

Hector knew she was doing it on purpose. She delighted in his suffering, and she took pleasure in watching him shiver and shake. She was just as cruel as Carmilla, if not more so. At least Carmilla didn't climb into his bed most nights. If she did, there would be nothing left of him, but a dried, withered husk.

Hector sighed and turned back to his work. He had to finish the soldiers for Carmilla's army, no matter how cold he was. He knew that Lenore would punish him even more if he didn't.

He worked for hours, his fingers numb and his teeth chattering. Finally, he finished working on the last body. He was exhausted, but he was also relieved. He knew Lenore would be pleased with his work, and that would be one less thing for her to torment him about.

Hector stepped outside and took a deep breath of the cold air. It was still freezing, but it felt good to be out of the workshop. He looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was starting to rise.

A knock at the door made him jolt, the sudden moving sending a momentary burst of warmth into his aching muscles. It couldn't be that time already, he forlornly thought to himself. How many more bodies could there be?

"Enter," he said, summoning his voice from his belly, still chattering.

The usual guard barged her way in, a thick, stained sack over her shoulder as she poured torsos, heads and miscellaneous limbs onto his workbench. Thankfully no children today. All adults by the size of them, their faces warped in the final look of terror for whatever had cut them down.

Hector sighed and looked at the pile of bodies in front of him. He knew he had to work quickly before the sun went down and Lenore returned. He started by sorting the bodies into different piles, depending on their condition. The torsos and heads that were still mostly intact, he would use to make new night creatures. He would throw the limbs and other body parts that were too damaged into the fireplace.

"How many more does that make?" she asked, looking into the dim horizon over the balcony. Hector often thought her strange, her almost respect for humans, particularly the dead. She never watched him work, could never meet the glossy empty eyes of the dead - a peculiarity among the rest of Carmilla's guards.

"Seven... No, eighteen today," he said, ordering the workable pieces into rows and piles.

Sometimes she would linger in his workshop, they would exchange small talk - never any details, and never her name, though try as he might to pry it from her - and then she would leave, whether out of her peculiarity or whether she was not allowed to stay. He liked her, and what little he could glean. She didn't look down her nose at him or smirk at his misfortune, she just listened.

Today, it seemed, was one of those days. She placed her helm on his desk, keeping it as close to the edge as possible, so as not to disturb his mistrewn papers and scribblings. "I'm surprised you're still here," he said. "The sun will be up soon."

"I know," she said. "I wanted to talk to you."

"About what?" he asked, setting aside his tools and joining her on the balcony. She didn't step fully outside, but he often got the impression she wanted to. Instead, she lingered in the lasting shadows of the doorway, her eyes glowing as the ice reflected the light into them.

"About what you're doing," she said. "Making these night creatures."

"What about it?" he asked.

"When you make them," she said. "When you turn them into those...things, do you think they feel it? Is it painful?" Normally, he would not deign to answer a question like that, not from the vampires, but with her, he felt compelled to ease her mind, to comfort her.

"I don't know," he lied. "I hope not, birth is painful enough. I can't imagine what rebirth feels like." The look in her eyes told him it was painful, excruciatingly so. He did not know the workings of how a vampire was made, nor did he want to. The day he first met her, she looked like a beaten animal, with bloodshot eyes and a wounded expression. Whatever place she'd been taken from, this was her hell, or maybe she hoped to go there instead, to join whoever she looked for in the red and gold sky.

"Maybe it's only their bodies that change. Maybe their souls are in a different place, somewhere safe and warm," she said hopefully, her voice barely above a whisper. It was hard to tell if she was trying to convince herself or him.

"Maybe," Hector said. He didn't believe it but didn't want to crush her hope.

They stood there silently for a moment, looking out at the frozen landscape. Then she spoke again, "Carmilla is sending more of them South... more bodies, she said." Hector shuddered, both from the cold and at the scenes flashing before his eyes.

"She might be merciful." Now who needed the convincing, he thought.

A beam of light bled into the room, and the vampire flinched away from it, a sizzling sound coming from underneath her gauntlets. She let out a fearful hiss, clutching her arm. Hector moved to help her, but a vicious glare kept him rooted to the spot. He held his hands up in surrender, his knees buckling at the red, glowing eyes. For all the times she acted human, she was still a vampire.

"I'm sorry," he apologised, waiting for her to move towards the door before returning to his bench. For every three steps of hers, he took one, keeping himself in her sights. "I'm sorry."

"Please don't apologise," she whispered, repulsed by herself. Floating across the marble, she took up her helm, covering her face and the shame that swept over her. "You aren't to blame..."

Hector thought perhaps she might feel more amenable to sharing now. Guilt was an emotion he knew was easy to exploit, to prey on as Carmilla had his. "Wait!" he started both hands on the workbench. "Will you tell me your name today?" His eyes widened with hope.

The vampire wrestled with herself, unsure whether to share it, whether to give up her identity or the woman she used to be. He watched her fight with herself, her eyes darted back and forth between the choices, before she sighed, resigning herself to one. "Elizabeth," she said softly, as though she were saying the name of a dead woman. "My name is Elizabeth," and then she was gone, vanishing down the corridors.

It wasn't until the sound of her footsteps vanished that he noticed she'd left her cloak behind, draped across his cot. Hector stared at the cloak for a moment, then reached out and touched it. It was soft and warm. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, pressing the warmth against himself. He knew he should give the cloak back to her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. So he wrapped it around himself, fastening it around his neck as he took up his hammer.