Quarantine

Eyeing the steaming plate before her, Charlotte plucked one of the glazed rolls and bit into it, tasting the melted honey and coating of cinnamon. Immediately, the blood rushed back into her cheeks, heating her from the inside out.

Sarah smiled, clearly satisfied.

"Well, the rest are gone," the Witch said and placed both of her fists on her hips.

"What do you mean, gone?" Valek's voice boomed with lion-like rumble.

Sarah marched over to the double doors and tore them open, revealing the empty, ransacked foyer, the wood clawed and scraped so much it was a wonder no one had broken through. Most of the chairs were turned over. "I mean gone. I suppose, with the smell, they just couldn't wait anymore. They're probably wreaking havoc somewhere...." She trailed off as she started turning one of the chairs back over onto its legs again.

"There's just no getting through to them," Valek muttered.

Charlotte frowned at her fingers knotting in her lap. The coven just would not heed his warnings. It would only be a matter of time before a vengeful Elf stumbled across their path on the outside. In fact, it was only a matter of time before one of them came looking for Charlotte and Valek within the Occult gates. They knew where they lived, after all. It wasn't safe to let their guard down yet.

"I think it's better this way. I wasn't really in the mood to be their host tonight, anyway," Charlotte mumbled purely for Valek's benefit. She tried her best to convince him she was okay now and that the scar had been pacified for the evening.

"You should know by now, it's impossible to lie to a Vampire, Lottie. At any rate, I'd sooner sever their heads than let them fix both their addictions and yours."

"I'm fine." She began to stand up, though the room tilted once more, causing her to stumble forward. Valek was immediately in front of her, steadying her by the elbows.

"You're right. You seem really healthy," he snorted.

The blazing pulsations at her temples had already returned slightly and she could tell tonight was going to be one of those nights when the need wouldn't leave her quite so easily. Some nights, the ailment came a little worse than others. The light was beginning to bother her again now, too, so she shut her eyes. She couldn't believe the pain was returning again, couldn't remember another night where its return had been so immediate. She needed him to do it again, and quickly. Valek's grip around her tightened, probably his reaction to hearing those thoughts in her mind.

"Charlotte, you need to stop scratching!" Valek pulled her wrist away, tearing her nails away from the scar, which began burning badly again. Had she been scratching? She hadn't realized. Valek's breathing was staggered and furious.

Sarah blinked, yanking Charlotte away from him. "I think you need to get away for a minute. Come, let's fix you up."

Charlotte could see that even if she was going to need it, Sarah was not about to let Valek feed again. It wasn't easy to miss the scowl in the expression the Witch threw at him. She eyed the immense bloodstain left drying along the neckline of Charlotte's tattered dress.

"Can't have you looking so grotesque all of the time, can we?" Sarah's smile looked more like a wince, her lips mashing into a forced line, as she pulled her out of the library and up the staircase. "Careful," Sarah muttered when Charlotte nearly fell forward on one of the upper stairs.

Sarah rounded the corner into what used to be Charlotte's bedroom. Upon moving in, Sarah had instantly claimed this room as her own, undoubtedly liking the energy left over from Charlotte's many years of living in it. She remembered their homecoming as though it were yesterday. Everyone had staggered in through the front door, so tired from the fight they'd hardly cared what the house looked like at all. Sarah was the only one who'd gazed around wondrously, flitting from room to room, sizing up the place. Charlotte recalled that it only took the Witch a few minutes before she laid her things down on the singed floor of Charlotte's old bedroom and chirped, "I like it! I'll be staying here!"

She'd dusted and polished all of the dirt and soot away, and before Charlotte looked at it twice, the room had become beautiful again.

Lilacs lined every flat surface from the massive vanity to the various smaller end tables. Sarah had colored the walls her signature violet with an enormous bed that seemed to swallow her whole when she sat on it. And there was a brilliant, antique floor-length mirror leaned up against one corner, the ornately carved frame of it done up in gold leaf. Not to mention many new bewitchments that attached themselves about the corners of the room, the false-stars in twinkling ribbons scattered along the ceiling. A whittled owl dangled from a twine string nearest the window. Charlotte wondered about the curious thing with the shiny emerald stones for eyes as she inhaled the delicate scent left over from the flowers. It instantly calmed the remaining unease that twisted in her gut.

Charlotte turned to see Sarah disappear inside the closet at the far corner of the room. She started tearing out a cornucopia of lacy clothing, tossing each article to the floor.

"No, no, no, no...." she muttered, eyeing the pieces quickly. "All of these are so beyond my help, I can't even look at them anymore."

Charlotte hugged her arms tightly around herself and wandered deeper into the room that had once been hers. In her mind's eye, she saw the canary-yellow walls with the eggshell trimmings. The lace curtains. Her drawing books scattered out about the floor with the colored pencils and oils that used to stain her hands in an entire spectrum. All were literally disintegrated in her past. Destroyed by Evangeline. Charlotte grimaced and dug her nails deeper into the sides of her arms. She wanted to spit on the very memory.

"This one!" Sarah's musical voice chimed from the depths of her old closet and Charlotte turned to see the little Witch clutching something garnet red.

Her mouth fell open when Sarah unfurled the garment in the air before her. It was a beautiful, strikingly deep shade with a flared hem. It was a short dress that looked like it would fall just at her knee, with a cinched waist with zillions of what looked like real garnet buttons that ran all the way down the center of the back.

Charlotte, with eyes wide, exuberantly reached up, fingers wriggling, and grasped the dress. "Where did you get this?" she gasped. "It's amazing!"

Sarah smiled satisfactorily and shrugged. "Oh, that old thing?"

Charlotte whirled around to the floor-length mirror and appraised her reflection as she pinned the dress to the front of herself, the silver, sparkling bewitchments twinkling just above her head. They illuminated the image before her dimly, but enough to make the buttons glitter. She needed to get it on. "I love it." Immediately, Charlotte peeled off her tattered potato sack of a dress and threw it to the floor. She pulled her new garment over her head, struggling behind herself to fasten the buttons.

"I figured you would." Sarah toed up behind her and reached to help close the back to the top. "It's yours!" She beamed at Charlotte's reflection. However, after a moment, her expression changed. The smile faded as she narrowed her eyes and bit her lower lip-as if she were studying something. "It's such an appropriate color."

There were a few moments of silence as Charlotte watched Sarah stare distantly at her in the glass. She did that thing with her mouth again, her lips forming into another troubled, straight line. That's when Charlotte could see Sarah's eyes begin to well up. "Sarah?"

"Oh, dear." The Witch turned her back and began shoving the discarded articles of clothing back inside the closet. Charlotte whirled around in time to catch Sarah wipe at a string of tears that rolled down her face.

"Sarah, what is it?" Charlotte frowned, dropping her hands to her sides.

Sarah sniffed and waved her hand, the silver bracelet around it making a distant twinkling sound. "Oh, nothing." She sniffed again. "It's just that I thought of Francis for a moment. I've been missing him recently, that's all."

Charlotte could tell she was lying. That wasn't at all what had gotten her so upset. She saw it in the way she'd looked at her.

Charlotte turned back to her reflection, and noticed then what had shocked Sarah so much. Against the vivid brilliance of the dress, her complexion looked a sickly shade of blue, her skin thin and papery enough that Charlotte could actually see the purple rivers of veins underneath the layers of her flesh. Her eyes looked so deeply sunken into their sockets, and her frame, normally slender, was so frail that the dress almost swallowed her whole. She took a step back from the image. Had she been so distracted over the past several months to have missed this? She tried to recall the last time she looked at herself in a mirror.

"Sarah," Charlotte squeaked. "Could you get the sweet rolls from the library, please?"

Sarah stopped what she was doing, her eyes still wide and watery. She nodded once in silence before dashing out of the room.

Charlotte wrapped her suddenly feeble arms around her middle. She was so thin she could tuck them under her ribs. How could she have lost such control, when she always had everything so figured out? She gasped. Was this really a side effect of being fed upon-of her addiction? Why weren't Sarah's spells helping anymore? Charlotte sat down on the bed, heart hammering in fear, for she had always had enough wherewithal to take care of herself. She should have been paying better attention. She racked her mind for a solution to cure herself of this burning mystery on the side of her throat. Her fists tightened in the bed sheets until her arms began to tremble.

The scar at the side of her throat pulsed again, and she placed her cold hand over it in an effort to suffocate it. She heard murmuring out in the hallway. Valek must have been coming up with Sarah. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to swallow until finally, the two entered the room. She looked up, struggling with all of her might to hide the pain in her eyes.

Charlotte only managed to squint at Sarah against the blaring light in the room, which hadn't seemed that bright only a few moments ago. She grimaced at the food on the plate, and instantly changed her mind about wanting to eat. Her stomach rolled.

"You have to, Lottie," Valek said nervously as he rushed to her side.

He loomed over her, his form a massive shadow that umbrellaed her in darkness. Her addiction really was getting worse by the night. Now, she realized that, when she had been in such denial before. She opened her mouth to respond, but didn't have that much control over herself yet. The scar singed hotter.

Gingerly, she reached for the cup of tea and began sipping, knowing full well she would never be able to keep solid food down. Her hand bobbled as though the cup weighed ten times what it should have. She drank. Some of the liquid came up, and she stopped her choking with the back of her hand, forcing herself to swallow it again, downing the entire contents of the cup.

Valek spoke. "If you need me to do it again, you have to replenish at least some of what you've lost."

"You're going to do it again?" Sarah howled.

The empty teacup instantly crashed to the floor. Charlotte winced, placing her hands over her ears, and bit hard on her lower lip to distract herself from the pain. Sarah's rage was enough to deafen her as she rolled into a fetal position on the massive bed, begging for relief. The burning had come back stronger now, just like she'd known it would. The fire rolled down her spine as her eyes pricked with more stinging, salt tears.

"Just look at her, Sarah! Does it really seem like I have a choice?"

Sarah crossed her arms and mumbled something so low, even Charlotte, with all of her sensitivity, could not pick up. Valek just looked at Sarah, sighed once, and nodded before hoisting Charlotte up in his arms and walking her outside of the bedroom. He sat her on a small chair that was perched against the wall in the corridor.

"I'll be out in a minute. I want you to go to the bedroom. Try and fall asleep," he said before he spun on the heel of his polished boot and disappeared back through Sarah's door.

Defiantly, Charlotte staggered to her feet, gritting her teeth against the protesting aches in her joints. The feebleness that remained after being fed on earlier made her hands and knees quake, though she could almost feel the blood cells replenishing in her body after forcing down that tea. But now she knew even Sarah's magic would only save her temporarily.

Immediately after Valek disappeared back into the room, she heard Sarah wail at him and him hush her before going on to whisper something further. Though her knees continued to wobble, Charlotte slowly made her way back over to the threshold, hoping Sarah would distract Valek enough so he would not notice her eavesdropping.

"I guess it's a good thing that it was just you tonight," she heard Sarah say bitterly. "I know a few of the others would have taken a little more advantage if they'd gotten close enough...."

"It is never a good thing! Do you actually think I enjoy hurting her?"

"She doesn't believe you are hurting her. She doesn't think any of you are, after how you've rationalized it in her mind! You've brainwashed her, Valek! You've tricked her into thinking she's helping by making such a huge sacrifice! And now it's worse, because now she needs it just as badly as the rest of you!"

"I did not have a fair choice when I brought her to Francis! You know what the consequence was. Let them use her, lest she die!" he fought back.

"Yes, but now it's you that's using her. Francis is no longer here. You take it from her now! I heard Lusian talking outside the library doors. He'd rather be on his own anyway, so why don't you just let him? Let his consequences be his own! You, Charlotte, and I can stay here. Things will finally be peaceful!"

"Lusian is a fool! The more times I let them hunt out in the open, the larger the chances are of Charlotte being found. They are looking for her. With Vladislov's brothers still out there, nothing is safe yet! I don't care what happens to the coven, but don't you see how they might lead one of them back here?" Valek raged on. "Do you honestly think I babysit them for their well-being? I'd rather have them starve than have her perish because of their recklessness. So, on either count, I am selfish and evil-"

"I know what you mean to do, but this has gotten to be too much, Valek. Have you looked at her recently? She is dying. Can't you see it?"

"Of course I have! But what are my choices at this point?"

Charlotte's mouth fell open. Her heart pounded as though it just might stop. She covered her mouth to stifle her gasp.

"With every bite you take, she fades a little more. I've been watching her. Just a few moments ago when she was trying on that dress, I had a chance to finally be alone with her for a moment-to really see what she is becoming. Her skin is sallow. Her cheeks are completely drawn. I can count every one of her ribs. Her eyes are sunken so deep behind those massive, dark circles, I can barely see the light in them anymore!"

Charlotte could tell Sarah was crying by this point, her words were so broken. Am I really dying?

"We have to do something! Don't you understand?"

"What in God's name do I do, Sarah?" Valek bellowed.

Charlotte peered just a bit around the threshold to see him throw his hands up. Sarah recoiled from him, used to being smacked around by her previous master, no doubt.

This would have been where Charlotte intervened. This would have been where she calmed the tension in the room by carefully helping Valek to cool down while deducing several solutions to their problem. But she wasn't the same Lottie anymore. So many things were changing too fast for her to keep track of. Her mind spun as her mark burned. And...was she really dying? She looked down at herself.

"You even promised her things would change after we escaped the Regime!"

"Congratulations," Valek growled. "You've found my dilemma. And what do you propose I do about it? How was I to anticipate this?" He jabbed a talon in Charlotte's direction. She jumped and scooted back around the door. Clearly, he was aware of her presence, as she should have expected.

"I told you weeks ago, the only way to cure her and solve everything is to change her! She's human, Valek! They grow weak and then they die. What do you expect will happen to her in about seventy years, anyway? Of course it is her fate to die! She is only mortal! For you to expect anything more is unfair and irrational."

Charlotte's stomach turned as they continued arguing. She hugged herself tightly, unable to bear the sound of either of their voices any longer, and slid her back down the wall until she collapsed to the floor. Finally, fate had caught up with her. They were right. Destined to die. Fate had had it out for her ever since birth. There were so many other times when death had come to claim her, yet somehow she'd managed to outrun it. It was the only rational explanation for her being found and kept by something as deadly as Valek. She glanced down at the fate line in her palm, the one that linked her eternally to Valek, remembering how it diminished in her dream.

"Here, take these," she heard Sarah whisper.

"Why are you giving these to me?" Valek asked. He sounded spent.

"In case you ever go too far. Just have them on hand, or you'll regret it."

It abruptly got too quiet. Charlotte wondered exactly what it was that Sarah had given him. She sat there in her place on the floor, listening to her own heart beat, counting each pulsation. Wondering which one was going to be her last one.

Valek appeared in the hallway, gazing down at her.

A single, cool tear rolled down Charlotte's face as she returned his stare.

With a remorseful glance toward Sarah, Valek fluidly swept Charlotte up in his arms, his face hard and filled with disdain.

Charlotte peered over Valek's broad shoulder at her. The corners of Sarah's pretty little mouth pulled down in an accusing grimace.

"You're enabling her, you know. There must be a solution."

Valek turned and looked at Sarah once more as well. Red welled under the lower lids of his eyes. Vampire tears. "Tell me, then, if you have all of the answers. Tell the doctor," he began, the sadness weighing down his words. "How do I cure her without killing her?"

Sarah remained silent as they regarded each other for a final moment.

Valek carried Charlotte toward their bedroom without another word from the Witch. He pushed open one of the carved double doors at the end of the long, shadowed hallway.

He led Charlotte to the bed she used to fantasize about curling up with him in. She marveled at the beauty of the room that he used to keep concealed from her. The walls were of a rich mahogany. Thick drapes that matched the black bedclothes were successful in letting absolutely no amount of light in whatsoever during the daytime. The canopy stretched dramatically up the back wall and over the length of the bed. Upon moving in, Sarah had lovingly placed one of her famous bewitchments just against the top of it. The makeshift star constellations twinkled down over them whenever Charlotte slept. They were her night light-her solace in the depth of the dark.

Valek delicately placed Charlotte on the edge of the bed. She shifted backward so that her legs were stretched out in front of her. She curled forward and hugged her center as a new wave of nausea rolled through her gut.

"That's a pretty dress," Valek muttered with a forced smile, though the lines that crinkled his brow revealed the true sadness that lived behind it.

"Sarah gave it to me."

"Do you not wish to sleep?"

The vision of him standing before her was blurry though eerie and still, as though he had frozen into slate. He did this often, this unnatural stillness a part of the whole package of what he was. It made her uneasy, because whenever he did this, it meant he was upset.

She shook her head. No. It's not that. I'm tired. She racked her mind with all she had just heard. Dying. Her world was still ebbing back to her. Thanks to Sarah's tea, colors and details slowly became more vivid. She placed her hands on either side of herself, balling up in fists in the comforter, trying to clutch on to something physical to keep herself from fading away. Her mouth went dry, as though it had been stuffed with cotton. Her gaze moved up to Valek's face and she blinked hard, forcing his features to come into focus. But that only made her dizzier and so she shut her eyes. The mattress dipped slightly as he sat next to her, though the springs stayed ghostly silent under his weight. It was as if he wasn't even there.

She sensed Valek longed for the advice of his creator and mentor. Nights when Charlotte was only pretending to sleep, she could hear him by the window, talking-or perhaps-praying quietly to Francis, knowing not if Francis existed in the physical world any longer, or if the "Dark City" existed elsewhere. Charlotte knew Valek was unsure of how to care for her in this condition and lead an entire coven through their society in ruin. Everything had happened so fast. And Valek was so sharp. Of course he would naturally find himself in a leadership position. That was to be expected.

"Am I really dying?" she finally asked.

Valek sighed. "You should have gone to bed. You were not supposed to hear any of that."

She knew he meant his words to come out scolding, but they were soft and lamenting. He sounded tired.

The scar called for him again, that familiar burning seeming to disintegrate her flesh every time he was close to her. She clenched her teeth. "Well, if it was not something I was supposed to hear, then it must be true."

"Charlotte-"

"I think you need to do it again," she cried out desperately, eyes still closed. She suppressed a whimper. All of her muscles tightened.

Valek hesitated for a moment. "I cannot."

"So, I am dying. It's true!"

"No!"

She opened her eyes and looked at him. He had never denied her before. "I am in so much pain."

"I said no." Valek leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and sighed. "I cannot do this anymore."

Her scar flared angrily as if it understood what Valek said. Sarah succeeded in making Valek feel guilty. Charlotte could see that. She moved forward on the bed, wrapping her arms around him and rested her cheek against his large shoulder blade. She knew he could detect her pulse beating against his spine as she pressed herself tightly against his back, silently pleading for him to go against his own conscience.

Valek stood up and whirled himself around to face her. "I said no," he snapped, but weakened almost instantly when his gaze locked with hers. She could see that his eyes had already made their aroused and thirsty transition again.

Addicted to each other. Perhaps she had the same effect on him that he had on her. Perhaps now she understood him just a little bit better. The details of his perfect face began to blur a bit in the darkness again. With the impossible beauty of him standing before her, Charlotte bit her lip hard to keep from making any sort of pained noise. It was unfair. The addiction was becoming worse than it had been even a few days ago. What was happening to her?

"I must figure out my own way to solve this," he said in a frenzied whisper.

Someone burst through Valek's bedroom doors, the wood slamming against the wall behind. From where they were on the bed, both Charlotte and Valek snapped their attention to the threshold. The coven, at long last, was home.