Valkyrie - the Vampire Princess 2 (3 page)

I saw only lit torches and a huge hole in the ground. It looked like a lake with dark green liquid. This would be my bath water.

Valeska took care of everything. She even helped me get rid of my dress. Then she took me to the hole with water, which I called ‘the lake’. My feet froze after I touched its water.

When I felt the water covering all my body, my skin became lumpy
.  I was shocked. I had never had a bath in water as cold as that.

“It's too cold!” I muttered.

“You feel this way because your blood is hot!” she said and smiled wider, showing her teeth.

I realized that they had no problem
with it. After all, they were as cold as the water in which I took my bath.

I came to a bedroom that was intended for me.   My bedroom had huge curtains on the window and my bed was made of stone. There was no mattress. It looked like a marble table, that is, plain and cold...

“
There’s no pillow? ...Not even a bedspread?” I asked her as I glanced at all with my critical eyes.

“We do not need anything like
that,” she responded naturally.

“Do you lie down on top of it?” I asked
as I believed it to be a marble table. I could not avoid my disappointment at all.

“There are several ways to sleep here
. When you have become one of us, you will find yours,” she replied as she was staring at my frightened expression.

I felt fear to hear those words
, that in a little while I would be like them, whether I wanted it or not.

I had no choice, that is, I just should accept my sad fate.

She put me into a salmon-colored long dress. Its fabric was heavy and harsh.  When she was zipping my dress behind me, she saw the picture on my back - the ‘Symbol of Neptune’.

“You have it on your back!” she said and her eyes were upon my picture.

I felt discomfort again coming over me.

“My picture is situated here
,” she said and showed me her tattoo. It was on her neck. I could see it as soon as she lifted up her hair, keeping it away from her neck.

“All of us have one
like this,” she said, turning to face me.

“Why
do all of us have it?” I asked her.

“It was born on our bodies when we were chosen by your f
ather to be part of his lineage,” she explained and looked at me with enthusiasm. “And it also protects us from the light, so we can go out in the daylight on the planet Earth”.

“Now I understand why Eros was attending school in the mornings
,” I said looking at the wall, as I was recalling scenes of Eros in school.

“That would never be permitted if he couldn't contain the symbol of Neptune on
his body,” she affirmed.

 
Valeska was proud of being a vampire. She tried to do everything with passion and served my father diligently. She was grateful to him for all he had done in his life and mainly grateful that he turned her into a vampire.

Chapter 5

We return
ed to the main room in the castle. The place was empty, my father and Bizak were not there. Then we stopped in the center of the room without knowing what to do.

“Where are they?” I asked, looking from side to side.

“Probably they are resting. If you let them, they sleep all the time.” She smiled.  “A good sleep helps to restore our energies and we ‘vampires’ need too much,” she explained.

“Where’s ... Eros?” I hesitated to pronounce his name.

“He is reposing, too,” she said and cast me a suspicious look.

Valeska asked me to accompany her to the other room of the castle. She wanted to show me something. However, she would not tell me what it was.

We walked in silence
through the castle corridor.

“Make no noise
; we vampires have very acute hearing. We hear any noise at several miles away and hate to be interrupted when we are asleep,” she warned me.

I did exactly what she said and then we walked softly on tiptoe, as if any person would surprise us at
any instant.   She stopped in front of a dark door and I stopped walking behind her.

“Not a word,” I was warned before she opened the door and went inside.

We enter
ed a dark room with no light whatsoever. There were only walls and some objects.

In the dark I could not exactly see it with any
clarity. We stopped in the middle of the room. Valeska looked up at the ceiling and gestured with her head at me. Consequently, I did the same and I looked up at the ceiling just like she did. What I saw amazed me.

Eros was sleeping with his head down as his body was hanging from his bedroom ceiling
. His hands were crossed on his chest.

At that moment he looked like a bat sleeping with its head down.

Valeska pulled my arm to her so we left his room at that moment before he could wake up.

We stopped walking in the hallway, as soon as we
got out of Eros's room. I leaned my body against the wall, thinking of that creature with his head down.  Everything he did, in my view, was fascinating.

“What did you think of how he sleeps?” Valeska asked me.

“I was surprised. I've never seen anyone sleeping like that...with their head down like a bat.” I honestly answered.

“You
know that’s ‘vampires’ because normal people will never sleep that way,” she said.

“Sometimes I forget you are ...”

“Creatures from Darkness,” she interrupted me and completed my phrase with her right words.

“How did you become a vampire?” I asked her.

“The right question is… when did your father turn me into a vampire?” she said.

We progress
ed toward the hallway while she narrated her facts.

“I had always been a troubled person. I had never lived well
or got along with my parents ... and with my brothers. Then one day ... I decided to leave home ...” she explained.

“Did you abandon your family?” I asked astonished at her.

“Yes, I did and I do not regret it. My family mistreated me all the time”.

Valeska knew how to narrate her version. She described her painful life
with her family.

“I did not have
anywhere to spend the night. I was under a tree at an abandoned place ...and then Vincent came out of the darkness and gave me a chance of life I had not had before.” She looked up at the ceiling and smiled at it.

“
Weren’t you afraid?” I asked.

“
Of becoming a vampire?” she asked smiling at me and said, “Oh, I love this life.”

Chapter 6

I was lying on the hard, cold stone which would be my
new bed. I felt uncomfortable. I missed my soft mattress, my pillow and my blanket to cover me from my waist down.

My discomfort was greatest due to
the fact that I had laid down without looking at Eros’s eyes.

Since I came to that palace, I saw him no more. We had no contact after my arrival there, except when I saw him sleeping in the shape of a bat, but this meeting I did not take into consideration.

I thought about my mother, how she
would be in that moment. The homesickness clutched my chest like a mill, as I wanted my mother to be here with me. A tear rolled down my face. Then I automatically stopped it with my own fingers.

When I realized the sleep would not come to visit me soon, I got up and walked to the open window. I did not see anything out there, only the ground covered with snow and a wind accelerat
ing around the castle. I could almost touch the dark clouds through my bedroom window. However, I had no idea at what altitude I was and I estimated more than ten meters.

I stood near my window until the darkness had gone away and a dark gray sky with its dark clouds
emerged. The weather was cloudy and I realized it was another day. It had dawned and I had been standing at my window the entire night as I remained watching the infinite darkness.

I left my room and came to the main room, where a silence reined around the place. Everyone was still asleep.

I walked through three different corridors. The last of them took me to the castle’s central door. I decided to open it carefully, not making any noise
to wake the others in the palace.

I came across the outside of the castle. It all was very different from what I was accustomed to see
ing on the planet Earth. I put my feet onto snow.

I walked over it and ran into a huge forest, which seemed endless.
There were large stones lost on the whiteness of the snow. I saw several brown trees with their branches completely dry. There was not even a life in that place, no green plant, no flower, no grass...

I continued to walk without noticing I was more and more distant from my father's residence.

My steps became strenuous due to the ice freezing my feet. I felt very cold
. The temperature in the castle was nice, but outside of it, it was impossible not to experience the feel of a lot of frost.

I stopped walking next to a lake with dark water. Its shade was a gray and navy blue.  I touched my sensitive toes on it, causing
small ripples in the lake, becoming a growing mill into it. I could see my face reflected on its water as soon as I looked into it.

It would be the last time I would see my own
image. I felt a twinge in my chest, a strange pressure. It was as if something strange would happen to me that day.

But I did not know exactly what.

Afterward, I walked back as I was frightened at everything I had seen on the lake. Its water had turned into blood.

To top it all off, I had another scare when I turned to one side and saw Bizak in front of me. He had probably followed me there.

“Why are you scared?” he asked.

I looked back at the lake and its water returned to its normal color. It was just a mirage.

“I saw blood
in the lake,” I said innocently.

“Blood
in the lake?” He looked into the water as he didn’t seem convinced by my words.  Bizak knew it was some fruit from my imagination.

“It's so cold here! I’ll go back to the castle
,” I said and felt a discomfort through my feet. They were anesthetized due to the ice on the ground.

“Your feet are turning purple
,” he said, looking at them.

“I had not noticed them
,” I said, looking at them too.

“Hold my hand firmly! I'll take you back to the castle, without you needing to step on the ice,” he said and put out his hand.

At that moment I could see the symbol of Neptune on his left wrist.

“It is not necessary,” I replied with my eyes on his picture.

“I promise I’ll not hurt you
,” he insisted with humor.

I stared at him for a few seconds, until I
made the decision to trust him. I held his hand with firmness and immediately I saw our bodies floating on the snow. It was like magic. We arrived at the castle door within seconds.

My feet touched on the ground
and we walked on. He gazed at my silly face as I was surprised at his vampire tricks.

“How
did you do it?” I asked astonished, keeping a smile on my lips.