I pulled back into my apartment's lot, brakes squeaking as I shut off the engine. My face body still hurt from the exertion, I had not used my powers that much in the last year combined. I wanted to get my findings back to Dusty and have them analyzed but I would need to rest first. The afternoon sun permeated a soft warmth over the chilling bite of the wind that pointed fingers at winter.
Up the stairs, Through the door, Into bed. As an undead creature of the night, sleep was never a priority. Most of the time it was a feeling that I felt every few weeks when the drain of daily monotony ate at my existence. I call it sleep, but it's closer to a food coma after Thanksgiving, a hard wall of darkness swallowing me until waking.
The comforter I had picked up the last year was a humor choice, lined with images of coffins and spider webs, what's life without some accessories anyhow? A deep rest and some odd dreams came following thereafter.
I wandered through a field of flowers. Odd shaped, deep maroon with large leaves, I had seen these flowers before. They were my mothers favorite and she always kept a garden of them. Dracunculus vulgaris, that's right, they were Dragon Arum. I meandered through, looking for some kind of town or settlement that could help me figure out where I was.
The smell of blood hit like a freight train as I moved into the trees and found the cadaver of a stag, drained of it's lifeforce by twin fang marks on it's throat. My fangs extended and my eyes sharpened. I looked around frantically for the vampire that did this, was I found? My hands pulled on my attention, and looking down revealed them covered in blood. I had done this? When?
I blinked, once, twice. I was standing in a large stone hallway, a large wooden door on the end of it, slightly ajar. A young girl, seven years old and barely tall enough to reach the handle, sat staring into the room. I knew her, she was me. Voices came through the crack in whispered tones that I could barely hear if it was not for my powers.
"What are we going to do?" A man's voice spoke.
"We are going to think about this, she's too young to be in this position. I have guards on the perimeter. Word was sent to the Wolkenheim family a week ago without a response." A woman responded in a serious and callous tone.
I approached, the younger me paid no mind as she eavesdropped as well. There were two adults inside. They were my parents. My mother, a beautiful woman who had been turned when she was pregnant with me at the age of twenty five. Her fiery red hair almost giving off a light of it's own. She wore a long dress that was decorated with various flowers. My father, an older man in his forties, had clean cut hair combed over to one side and wore a tuxedo. He had been born into vampirism as a Crimson Line heir.
As I thought about my father, the scene shifted again. I watched a version of me who was in her early teens being transported by my mother on horseback. My father sat on his own horse behind us, holding a rifle. The rifle was beautiful with an ivory stock, carved with intricate magical circles that glowed every time he fired. His targets where a group of masked men sprinting after, but not gaining on the horses.
"Glacium Ictus!" The four men chanted in unison. Evocation circles appearing before my father's horse.
I remembered this moment.
"Keep going, Anzhelika! Get Juniper to safety!" My father yelled as his horse began to falter.
Spears of ice shot like a shotgun blast, pelting his horse and causing him to fall into the mud. He staggered to his feet as the men advanced. He fired two more shots with them, taking two of them out.
"Uralte Glut, entzünde den Pfad!" My father yelled, the barrel of his gun glowing a bright blue.
An incantation I had never heard before, my father channeled the power of the Crimson Line into a spirit flame shot. The blast blew forward, knocking the remaining two to the ground. I watched as his mask burned to ash, revealing a pale face with fangs, clawed hands flew to cover his face as he burned in the blue blaze.
The other man was grazed, climbed to his feet and stood off against my father. His mask had burned halfway, revealing a sizzling burn from his lower left portion of his jaw to the top of his forehead.
"Ah, Sigvard, how I missed fighting that flame." He chuckled and stepped closer to my father.
"Felix. I will not let you get my daughter. I will finish this here." My father said while throwing his rifle sling back over his shoulder.
Both of them clashed fighting in brutal vampire combat. One on one, they seemed to be evenly matched. Claws and fangs flashed through the air, swaths of blood painting the wilting flowers. Both of the men collapsed at the end of the fight. The man who had started the attack, began to mutter something that was cut short.
My eyes snapped open, fangs already out and vision already saturated. Someone had shaken me awake and their hands were on my shoulders. I went to throw a fist into their jaw when they spoke, ending my punch short. It took me a moment to recognize them. Blood drenched their clothes and coated their face. It was Alex.
"What have I-What did you..." He said before collapsing on my floor.
So this is what they meant when they said your problems might come back to bite you--literally.