Children of Van Helsing

Chapter Fourteen - Masks

Susanna

After Lily and Jessica had left I went upstairs and sat down on my bed. I thought about what Lily had said – that she needed to get out of here for a while. She had sounded angry and annoyed, and she usually never sounded like that. Maybe it was all just too much for her and I couldn’t blame her.

This was all my fault. All that ever went wrong was my doing, and I couldn’t stop it, whatever I tried. I wanted my family safe and then this happened. If I hadn’t taken Regina with me on the hunt, she wouldn’t be infected with… Whatever this was. If I had just gone alone she would have been fine.

Telling myself I shouldn’t, I reached out to my nightstand, opened a drawer and got hold of the small razor blade I always kept there. Then I rolled up my sleeve and just sat there for a few minutes.

I had promised myself so many times to stop doing it. The scars on my arm were hardly visible, but I knew they were there. I was weak, to do this. To even think about it. But the pain kept me real – the pain kept me focused.

Don’t do this. Not again. My sisters would find out some day, and I was sure they at least suspected something.

“Come on, put that thing away.” I softly said to myself.

My brain told me to stop but my heart didn’t listen – I put the blade just above my wrist and hesitated some more. Should I? Would I?

No.

Yes.

I bit my lip to stop myself from crying – I hated crying. It was useless and wouldn’t do anybody any good. I needed to help my sisters. I needed to stay focused. Maybe just this once, one last time.

I felt the blade cutting through my skin when my phone went off. Almost relieved that I had a distraction, I threw the razor blade across the room and got my phone out of the pocket in my comfortable sweater.

Work called. Why? I had called in sick, so they knew they couldn’t really reach me. I sighed and decided to answer anyway.

“Hello?”

My colleague Arin answered. I heard sounds of the office on the background – coffee being made, people talking and typing. “Hey, Susanna, sorry to call you when you’re sick, but we have a crisis here.”

“It’s okay.” I said.

“Good. How are you, by the way?”

I hated lying. “A bit better.” I said, making my voice sound hoarser than usual.

“Good to hear. Well, back to the crisis.”

“What happened?”
He sighed. “Difficult to explain. There has been another murder. Multiple, actually, close to Piccadilly Circus. It’s horrible, Susanna.” His tone changed – he sounded sad, and serious, as if he had lost all hope in humanity. “It’s a massacre. Those people have been slaughtered. It was a family. They had two young children, a boy and a girl. All completely drained of blood, probably because of the wounds they had. They have been ripped open. It’s horrible just to see.”

I felt a bit sick. This sounded like vampires. “Do we have any leads?”
“No. It looks like it’s been done by an animal or something, but there are no wild animals in the centre of London. No security cameras around, so we’re lost. You’re usually good at solving these things. I wondered, if we send you a mail with all the information and photos, could you help out?”

God, I was busy already. But on the other hand… This could be connected to the uprising which was supposed to happen. “Yeah, okay.” I said.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you feel worse, I mean, you’re still sick…”