Five

Carlisle walked down the stairs with his eyes closed, his fingers trailing the gold encased rails with every step he took. He didn’t exactly need his excellent vision to guide him through the mansion. He knew it like the back of his palm. It had been his home for the longest time. The word home felt like a bucket of ice had been deposited over him, causing him to pull his long fingers off the rails.

He couldn’t possibly imagine or think of this place as home now. Not when the woman he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with had breathed her last inside one of its very rooms. He placed his hand over his heart, finding it beating so very slightly; a constant reminder of the creature that he had become. He buried his dark thoughts on the back of his mind as he opened his eyes and focused on the matter at hand.

Someone was in the house.

In all the times that he ventured on his 13th year excursion, he came unaccompanied. He cherished the freedom that came along with having no protection over his person. He could go out at night, walk freely in the busy streets, use a pedestrian crossing and undertake all the other things that bordered around normalcy. Here, he could be a regular guy in the mob of ever-so-bustling humans.

However, what he especially treasured wasn’t his few nights of borrowed facades. It was the danger that came with his exposure. Everyone has ways of dealing with grief, and his happened to be living on the edge. He had been appointed King of Vampires by the council; a responsibility that he took very seriously.

However, in as much as he had pledged loyalty to his kind and attempted to do right by them, the good he did towards them would never wipe the guilt that squeezed the depths of his heart. His one love had died at his hands and the guilt and pain of that heart wrenching fact would forever haunt him. Knowing that no amount of wishing or regret could ever bring her back to life, Carlisle put his life on the line too. She had been helpless; a mere mortal sacrificed by his kind for their own gain. So, he left himself vulnerable whenever he came over to the mansion.

If anything or anyone was out to get him, he didn’t have the warriors to neutralise the situation and build a wall around him. Those who dared to attack him were no match for the sheer, raw power of him but the beatings never failed to remind him of what he had done.

What he hadn’t expected was to find some company so soon. Trouble, if it came at all, always came knocking much later after he had settled. A smile stretched on his lips as his blood rushed at finding an outlet. He felt sorry for whosoever it was; immortal or mortal.

As soon as he stepped on the last step, he manipulated the room temperature to drop. Ah, how he cherished a sharp drop in temperature in his vicinity whenever he was dealing with a potential attacker. It never failed to throw them off; if they happened to be mortal. If they were his kind, it was safe to say he was the King for a reason.

He took his time walking, letting his sharp senses lead him to the person. He took a sniff and was largely surprised to smell the scent of a female human in the air. He wasn’t exactly too surprised, but still the mortal had to be foolish to think they could face him.

Getting the mist to appear was a piece of cake especially in the current temperature. Most vampires were not capable of half the things he could do, perhaps that was why his kind respected him so much and had so much faith in his abilities as their King.

It was funny that anything or anyone could even sought him out inside his own mansion, but he never walked away from a battle, despite the fact that the stakes were already cast and it was without a doubt that they were in his favour.

He took his time walking, coming to a stop when his excellent vision caught the figure on the floor. The female was tied up and clearly anxious and scared as he caught the scent that filled the air. Carlisle walked through the mist just as he heard the drumming heartbeat of the woman slow down.

Lying unconscious against the pole was a woman, her hair covering her face. He knelt down, pushing his head to the side in question. Her hands were cuffed behind the pole and the ugly, red lines that now covered her wrists were enough proof that his guest had not come of her own accord.

Weirdly enough, he found himself curious. He hardly ever got guests. Ever. The mansion was a good distance away from the next habitable building and it was hidden in the woods. It was no object of interest for humans, since he hardly ever found anyone during his excursions.

Yourne University, which happened to be under his sponsorship, was the next foundation but there was far too much distance in-between for someone to bother to do something as tasteless as kidnapping a person just to dump them inside his mansion. Unless, he gave humans far too much credit for their ability to act humane and they happened to be as devious as Ryka insisted they were.

Carlisle stretched his hand out and held her by the chin to twist her slightly around for his examination. Luckily, no harm had been done to her face —save for the red lines he had spotted courtesy of the handcuffs around her wrists.

Seconds seemed to turn into a minute and his curiosity seemed to not be satisfied by a mere sweeping of her features. It was all out of character and nothing of this kind had happened before. An unexplainable magnetism seemed to bubble from within, his fingers tingling to feel the smoothness of her skin, but he pulled his hand away from her chin.

Breaking the cuffs was no difficult feat, so was carrying the woman upstairs. Force of habit had him heading towards the master bedroom, where he entered and laid the woman onto the large four poster bed. He pulled the sheets over and headed out without another look at her.

The first thing he always did whenever Carlisle left the Palace grounds was go to Yourne University. But, something had definitely pulled him to the mansion. He didn’t want to think of the woman he had left in his bed as a significant reason for the sudden change of plans that he had repeated for over centuries.

Carlisle left the mansion and zoomed through the forest until he appeared before the university. He jumped across the roofs of the building before landing smoothly before the museum. It was here that he always hurried to before he set to doing anything else.

“Your Majesty,” Paul bowed in greeting, clearly glad to see the Vampire King. “It has been quite a long time.”

“It has just been but ten years, my friend,” commented the King lightly.

Paul, an elderly man of 73, found the interpretation of years by the King to be quite amusing. Surely, there was not one just as charmingly delightful as he was formidable. Theirs was a relationship that had been formed on shaky and weird ground. He had only been a boy of 5 when his parents had been attacked and killed by his kind. And just when he had thought that the same fate would befall him, some vampire warriors had come to his rescue and taken him to their King.

In a little boy’s mind, a man that takes you in, protects you and looks out for you without reason becomes your world, so Carlisle became the father figure he had lost. All until it was too late for his mind to be erased of its memories and he couldn’t go back to his old life or at least what had been left for it.

Before they knew it, the Vampire King had raised the scared little boy into the man that he was today and although Carlisle defied age and Paul Pearson looked like his senior, nothing would ever change the fact that Carlisle had raised him up; against the wishes of the council and many of his subjects. Yet, if he could go through everything just to meet a being as honourable as Carlisle again, Paul would it a thousand times over.

“Ten years is a significant step for mortals. A lot can happen for mortals in a decade,” Paul said, his eyes taking on a far away look.

The sudden drop in his mood did not go unnoticed by Carlisle. So did the wistful tone in which he had delivered the sombre words.

“Your wife, Maggie, does she fare well?” It was just a guess but he knew that what bothered human beings the most and could be the greatest source of sadness for them was the topic of family.

“Oh, my poor Maggie. The stubborn thing will be hard-headed until her last breath. She has been diagnosed with lung cancer, but she won’t allow me to spend any money towards her chemotherapy. She says it’s pointless at the stage the cancer is. My question is why does this always happens to the best of people?”

Carlisle could not provide the answer to that anymore than Paul could. But still to see him in such a state made him want to sympathise with him. “I can get some of our professionals to see her,” he offered despite already knowing what the response to his offer would be.

“Oh, I’m deeply grateful for such kindness, my Lord. However, knowing Margaret that would not work best in her favour. You know how she feels about anything that doesn’t fall in line with her religious beliefs.”

“Yes, I do believe that your wife would not appreciate any help that comes from the same evil she fights to keep off her door step.”

Margaret Pearson was a very determined and loyal Catholic, seeming to have an unparalleled hatred for evil of all kinds. She detested witches, vampires and every force of evil that she knew, whether from experience or folklore, they would never know. What they did know was the amount of effort she put into keeping evil from her household. She hung garlic on doors, sprayed anointed water on her doorsteps and had a rosary that she constantly prayed whilst counting each one of its beads.

“And what of her family? Have you divulged this information to them? You have spoken of how fond they are of each other.”

Paul didn’t have to ask how the King knew to ask just the right questions. The King wasn’t the type to read people’s minds on a whim, so in a way he was reminded of what set him apart from mortals like himself. He was willing to bet that King Carlisle had a sixth sense for these things.

Paul sighed. “That was the first I wanted to do as soon as we found out, but Maggie wouldn’t have it. She mentioned something about not wanting her sisters to gather around her as if she was already dead. But knowing her siblings—knowing Lena, this will not go down well for me. I mean, they are her sisters and she’s sick, they can’t do anything to her. But me, that Lena will have my head.”

“Lena? Well, I have never seen you cower from anyone so easily,” Carlisle commented with a touch of mild surprise. “This Lena, she seems like an interesting character.”

“Oh, she’s not just interesting. She’s interestingly dangerous. Maggie basically raised her siblings as soon as she was old enough to adopt her siblings. Their story was one tragic account —it was a literal wrong ties, fatal consequences type of story. Their parents were assassinated by the mob in a drug deal that went wrong and all the children were sent to foster care. So, she basically mothered them and they treat her a lot like a mother than a sister.”

Paul drove a hand through his dark hair. “But out of her three sisters, Lena is the toughest and just happens to be the youngest. She is especially protective of Maggie and her own daughter. Basically, she is an aggressive mother hen to those she cares for.”

“I’m sorry, Paul, but I trust you will find a way to deal with everything. You always do,” the King patted the man’s shoulder, his faith in him holding true because this was the same man that he had entrusted with the Yourne University and he had not once disappointed.

“Thank you, my Lord but enough about my personal issues. The premises have been readied for your arrival. Surveillance in this area as well as in the closest radius has been disconnected as per your request.”

“My King, if you will,” Paul bowed once more, as the two double doors to the museum slid open.