No Matter How Dark It May Be, There Is Redemption

A Dean, A Monster Hunter, and A Pillow Fairy... Oh My!

The house’s first floor was dark now, as its inhabitants had retired for the evening.  Laura could hear the sounds of feet padding around in the room above them, probably from Perry pacing and panicking to Lafontaine over something silly like “Are we supposed to cook breakfast for Richard tomorrow morning?” or “What if your snoring keeps Richard awake?”

Carmilla walked into Laura’s bedroom, freshly showered with a towel in hand, wearing one of her old t-shirts. Damn, she looks better in it than I do, Laura thought, smiling at her. Carmilla closed the door behind her, taking advantage of Richard’s lack of an open-door policy.

“So I finally spoke to Danny,” Laura began slowly, pointing to her new and functioning iPhone, drawing out the “so,” as her girlfriend sat down on the foot of the bed beside her.  “Her and Kirsh are fine and the zombie situation has been more or less confined to just the campus by the Zetas and Summer Society.”

“That’s great,” Carmilla said, drying off her hair.

Laura looked down for the next part. “But she has some bad news. She was hoping to tell us earlier, but,” Laura waved her hands around, “lack of cell phone service kinda put the kibosh on that.”

Laura hesitated so Carmilla stopped drying her hair and gave the girl her full attention.  “What is it?”

Laura took a deep breath.  “Well, it turns out that the thing controlling the zombie horde is lophiiformes.  Or, rather, a form of it.” She bit her lower lip and averted her gaze.

Carmilla gently placed a finger under Laura’s chin and Laura’s eyes returned to look at hers.

“It’s The Dean,” she said softly. “Lophiiformes is sharing your mother’s body.”

“Oh.”  Carmilla had to admit that she knew this would be a possibility, but hearing it was more jarring than she expected.  “They’re sure?”

“Yeah.  During one of their horde-taming missions, Danny said she saw The Dean commanding them.”

Carmilla let out a deep sigh, but it did nothing to assuage the feeling of the world crashing down around her. The idea of facing her mother again was so overwhelming. It was like she was being buried alive all over again, like she was dying or trapped in that coffin again—

Laura wrapped her arms around Carmilla and leaned her head on her shoulder.  “We’ll figure this out, Carm,” Laura said.  Carmilla closed her eyes.  She didn’t know how, but the drowning feeling instantly started to lessen.

I know how, Carmilla thought, it’s Laura. Somehow this easily excitable ball of energy that was her tiny girlfriend was much more effective at keeping Carmilla grounded than anyone or anything else ever had.  With anyone else, those words could have rung insincere and empty, but Laura was always so strong-willed with good intentions that every word that left her lips were given that much more power.

“Thanks, cupcake,” Carmilla said, leaning her head on Laura’s.  They sat in silence for a bit before Laura shifted to stand and face Carmilla.

“So what’s going on with you and my dad?”

Carmilla was taken slightly aback, having forgotten about that, given the current predicament with her mother. “Ah, yes,” she drawled, “that.” Carmilla furrowed her brows, thinking of the best way to explain it to Laura.

Meanwhile, Laura decided to fill the silence. “I mean, at first I thought it was you two being all piss contest-y and being like, ‘She’s my Laura,’ ‘no, she’s my Laura,’ but he was okay with us sharing a room and closing the door, so that wasn’t it, and then I thought it was like maybe he had seen my videos but I feel like by the end of those he would’ve been a-okay with us being together and then I thought—”

“Laura,” Carmilla gently cut her off. “It is none of those things. Or, at least, those aren’t the main issue.”

“Then what is the main issue?”

Carmilla took a deep breath.  “I’ve met him before,” she explained slowly. “I met him about thirty years ago.”

“Oh.”  Laura wrinkled her nose a bit.  “Uhm, but then what’s the problem?  Don’t tell me he saw you eat someone or something?”

Carmilla stared at a spot on the floor. “No, that’s not it,” she murmured. She continued to stare at the spot on the floor.  “Laura, he’s a hunter.” She slowly looked back up.

Laura gave her a blank look, which, as time passed, grew more confused.

“He’s a monster hunter,” Carmilla elaborated. Laura’s eyes grew wide. “He hunts monsters. And, when I met him, he was with a young woman, who, ah, I assume was your mother.”

Carmilla could no longer read Laura’s face.

“Cupcake?”

Laura blinked hard.  “Hmm.”  Now it was her turn to furrow her eyebrows.  “So my dad recognized you?  And didn’t try to stake you?”

Carmilla chuckled.  “Monster hunters tend to only go after ones that are actively causing problems and hurting people or killing them.  When he found me, I was doing none of those things and he just wanted information on a vampire that was.”  She stroked Laura’s arm.  “I guess you never had any idea, huh?”

“None.”  Carmilla could see the wheel in Laura’s mind’s slowly turning and reviewing her entire life.  The way Laura puffed out her cheeks when she was thinking and pouted slightly made her look adorable.

“Okay, well, before your brain goes up in flames, how about we try to go to sleep and figure things out tomorrow? I seem to remember some genius suggesting that earlier.”  Laura gave a small laugh and the two lay down in bed next to each other on their backs, staring at the ceiling.

A few minutes went by before Laura rolled to face Carmilla.  “Carm?” she whispered.

“Hmm?” she turned to face her girlfriend. Moonlight shone through the window and illuminated their faces.

“You’re lying on my yellow pillow.” Laura gave a large scowl, joking. “And your hair is still wet.”

Carmilla fluffed her hair so it covered her pillow. “Dunno what you’re talking about, cutie.”  She used her hand to cover Laura’s face so Laura couldn’t see.  “No yellow pillow here.”

“Ah, then where is my yellow pillow?” Laura asked, the words muffled into her vampire’s hand.

Carmilla adopted a very serious tone. “Maybe the pillow fairy took it.”

Laura lifted the intrusive hand off of her face. “Why would the pillow fairy wrong me like this?” she asked, feigning sincerity.

“Maybe,” Carmilla said, looking as if she was thinking very hard for a reasonable answer, “it’s because someone’s monster-hunting father killed the previous pillow fairy.”

Laura grumped and rolled over. “Stupid vampire,” she huffed, followed by a small snicker.

“Yeah, I know,” Carmilla laughed at her tiny human, maneuvering the yellow pillow out from under her head and plopping it on top of Laura’s head, “but I’m your stupid vampire.”

There was a moment of silence before Laura let out a sob. “Carm!” Laura whined, “You got the pillow all wet!”

Carmilla laughed as Laura made no immediate effort to remove the wet pillow from her head.