The Nosferatu Adventures s11 p18

The Nosferatu Adventures
page 292, chapter 292

Out of Time...

The back door to the building opened easily as our heroine ungracefully broke the lock. Moving through the office towards the main area of the laundromat, she took a deep breath. The smell of wet soap tickled her nose, causing her to sneeze. The lost and found box in the corner by the office door, held nothing but missing socks and a few children's items, forcing her to move farther into the main area. Someone had left a backpack, which held a bit more promise. She'd managed to find a pair of jeans, but they didn't quite fit. Stomping her foot she swore. "I miss magick misting." Sighing, the banshee started to slam all the washers and dryers open hunting for any loose items that she might be able to wear. "A-hah!" she scored a long skirt tucked in the bottom of one of the dryers. Shaking it out, she screwed up her nose at seeing that it was tie-dyed and had large pink bunnies on it. But at this point, she really didn't have a choice. "No wonder they left it in the dryer."

"I do miss watching you get undressed. Or in this case, dressed." the voice said from the shadows. Spinning around, our heroine tucked her chin towards her chest, letting her shoulders sag. Vlad was standing in the doorway towards the back office.

"Not something I hear every day. Or ever actually." scratching at her temple the banshee moved slowly, cautiously towards him. "I assume you've come to tell me what happened after you left." she stood less than two feet from him, captivated by the way the light poured in from the far window, casting shadows around his head and shoulders. She watched as Vlad leaned one leather clad shoulder against the door frame, crossing his hands in front of him. The long leather trenchcoat Quentin had bought for him, fit Vlad like it had been made for him. The colour a deep mahogany which he favoured so much.

"I find it interesting that even though you made such a fuss about wanting to be alone with your fledgling during the moon, yet here you are. Not with him. Nor have you been." he said without a hint of anything but cold fact.

"Yeah, well just because he's my choice doesn't mean that I was his." she found herself searching the darkness for a glimpse of his eyes. But Vlad had turned in such a way the shadows were completely hiding his face. All he was, was an outline and a voice. It still sent chills through her to hear him speak.

"Aren't you? You underestimate the power you have as a woman." he spoke, his accent thick as he moved a step, beginning to circle around her. "That was always your downfall. Had you embraced it more..." Vlad pointed at her, still circling forcing her to turn with each step. 

"Huhmm." she smirked into the darkness. "It was the 1400's. All I needed to do was bathe to be a complete catch. Easily a ten. Here, I'm barely a two. Two point five with make-up, okay a solid two point nine with the furball crowd but only on nights like tonight."  Vlad's eyebrows knitted together in slight confusion as our heroine crossed her arms sighing. "So the news?"

"There is no news." Vlad replied moving towards her as if in a single breath. "Can't a husband miss his wife." it was a statement not a question, as he seemed to breathe in the actual moment causing her to feel light headed. He reached his left hand up to touch her cheek, his fingertips trailing down the edge of her jaw.

"Don't!" she heard herself saying but barely recognizing her own voice. "Don't you dare pull any of your tricks on me."

"This is not a trick. No magick being used on you. I give you my word."   Nosferatu felt herself being drawn in to him. The same way she had been back in the 1400's, when he'd convinced her to marry him. To help him lead his army, to tame the lycanthropes for him. The allegiance the packs had given to Vlad and his men, was taken by trickery. He'd known that as long as the packs were united under their combined loyalty to Nosferatu, they were bound to be loyal to whomever she'd chosen for her mate. He wasn't completely ready to give that idea up. Nor the fact she was the only female of his kind he'd come across. Sadness crossed his features as he realized that she didn't feel the same way anymore towards him. In the time they had been apart, our heroine had stopped thinking of him as an idol. Had stopped looking at him with the admiration and awe she'd been filled with on the first moment they'd met. Now, she gazed at him with empty eyes. "You can't beat him." he said softly. "Not alone." he moved from her just enough turning sharply on his heels, his one hand in the air the other behind his back. "Your alliance is divided." walking slowly around the room, he listened to the empty echo of their breathing. Noting just how tight our heroine's was and timing his own to match. "The first time we met, you informed me that you couldn't love me. That your heart belonged to someone else. More than one actually. You were in love with Reuben, and Dagan, and Loki if I'm not mistaken. But you were bound to them, just like you were bound to Rolf and Finn, and ..." he rolled his wrist letting his sentence fall into silence. Turning back to face her, Vlad had let his eyes turn to the pure white of the banshee. "To your pack. To those mutts who took you in. Stole you from the glory you were meant to be part of." she was about to protest but he held his hand up silencing her with the mere gesture. "I'm not finished." his eyebrows knitted together once again as he raised his chin collecting his thoughts, and it seemed all the air in the room. "It's one thing to let your heart be divided to those you love. It's another for your mind to be too. You'll never be able to beat The Seer, if your mind is not your own. Giving up your werewolf nature was smart. Draws the line in the sand as far as your loyalty goes. But your inability to choose a mate...it's left you weak. You're still thinking like one of them. Acting like it. Still waiting around for a pack alpha to save the day. You said yourself, this isn't a wolf thing, it's a vampire thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to have an ally who knows you? Who's as smart and strong as you are!" he slammed his palm on one of the dryers. "Where is the woman; the leader of armies I married? Cause you, you're nothing but a weak child waiting to be rescued by a man!"

"She died in a well!" our heroine screamed at him. Taking a step closer to the vampire, she let her fangs cut through her top gums. "That woman was captured and imprisoned for four years!" 

"It should have made you stronger, not weaker." his voice never rose from a hushed whisper. "You can't continue to live one foot in their world and one in ours. You are no longer bound to them. You're bound to no one! You are a smart woman, use your brain. Not your emotions." his brown eyes shimmered in the dim light, emotionless. "Leave them. You left them once, you can leave them again." he sighed, his mouth becoming a thin line as he straightened, his shoulders back slightly, chest out. "You don't love this one. Tell me I'm wrong."  Vlad watched as our heroine stood there, her palms flat on the white machine, clumps of laundry soap near the lid's opening teasing her fingertips, as they both unconsciously counted the grains.

"I need to get back to him. I don't need him coming looking for me, putting everyone else in danger." she moved from the dark haired male. "With Dagan having claimed Matilda, it just makes more sense..."

"Dagan never claimed Matilda. Dagan was knocked out before we left here."

Our heroine's eyes went wide as she raced out of the building and back to the hotel room, leaving Vlad standing in the darkness.


Tune in again for another installment of the Nosferatu Adventures starring your heroine...me(straight up story. Vlad is planning something, the question is what?)