Louise A Vampire's Story (Completed/Editing)

Chapter Eight (Re-Edited)

I could smell blood; the smell was so strong that it felt as though an ocean of it surrounded me. But with how dark everything seemed, I couldn't see ahead of me. Only blood permeated everywhere, as though it came off my very flesh.

"Why should it surprise you?" I turned to the sound of a woman's voice only to see myself looking back at me, dressed in the same nightgown the night my mother died. Coated in blood, as well as the mouth. "After all the blood is on you, your hands are proof of that."

I looked down at my own hands to see that they were covered in blood. Pale white arms then wrapped around my shoulders, as this other me leaned in close with a cold smile upon her lips. "It is his blood, after all, what the rumours say. His, yours, all the same in the end. With mother dead, that is..."

At my feet lay my mother. Dead on the ground, with a distinct marking along her arm, of the bite which Edmond had inflicted.

I could feel cold dampness along my back. Pale blonde hair came into my vision as this other me pressed herself against my back, lips dyed red nearly brushing against my cheek as darkness greeted me, where blue eyes were supposed to be. "Come now. You know you want to. How can you say no when you have his blood in your veins?"

Lips pulled back to reveal a sharp set of teeth, teeth going for my own throat.

I let out a slight gasp when I opened my eyes, and what greeted me now was not the corpse of my mother or a hellish version of myself but an unfamiliar ceiling. The longer I stared, the more I recalled that Edmond had brought me to a place to keep me safe. Through the thin walls, I could hear the boisterous laughter of men and women as the evening had come once more. I let out a breath, slow and steady, to ease my quickening heart.

Only a nightmare.

I rolled on my side, sinking deeper into the covers only to open my eyes once more, where I saw a beautiful woman sleeping beside me. Her dark brown wavy hair looked almost black, with her lean, toned body and heavy breasts making her look even more seductive compared to other women of noble society. Such a woman could drive the court of France to ruin if such a woman desired. In a sense, I could not help but picture Edmond within that same light. I had known him for many years, and so many women of higher class and even that of ordinary folk would often stare at him. He was beautiful and yet holding many secrets that I still did not understand.

opened her eyes and looked to me with an almost lazy half-asleep smile. "Good evening Louise."

"...Evening," I responded in a delayed fashion. It was the first time someone had said that to me after I had woken up. Edmond might have during my time with him, but I was just so bitter and angry that I might not have noticed.

"You looked as though you were having a bad dream. Sleeping in an unfamiliar place can do that," Mercédès spoke softly as she rested on her elbows while remaining in bed.

"Do we really sleep?" I asked her as I continued to lie there under the covers as well. "Or do we fool ourselves just to keep some morality of human life?"

"Perhaps," she said as she rose from her bed and pushed the thick drapes back to look out a nearby window to the people who continued to walk around at night. "But in thinking that, I believe we can keep something that was ourselves even though we can no longer be. Though it is because of that case that I am here now, so in a way, it has its merits." She smiled at me. "Now then, allow me to accompany you to your room. That way, no foolish man will think of you as one of our fine ladies of the night."