A Study of Poisons

TWENTY EIGHT

      There was an unevenness about the air as I roamed around the desolate manor. Rain peddled down the glass as the moon was no where to be seen. It had been a while since the manor had felt like it was empty. Summer was almost over, considering I steps on those stairs in May. July was coming to a close. My time only getting slimmer and slimmer.

I had reinforced the seals on each corner of the manor. However, there was something wrong that I felt about them. Someone had been tampering with my spells. I needed to get back on track with my job, I've gone through those files almost a thousand times but there has been nothing up until this moment. There was another witch in our mist.

My feet clicked down the hall as I began to roll up my sleeves. My plan was to return to Maggie's room with the spell book, maybe then I'd come up with something.

That was until I heard the sound of slight sobbing. My boot heels stopping in their tracks. It was Natalia's rooms where the crying came, my mind wondering the worse. Maybe Nelo and her broke up. Down my hand slid to the knob of the door, I knocked before I opened it. "Nat?" I called out.

"Don't look at me, please." She said as if I could. She was huddled under the blanket on her bed. In a teary mess as she wrapped her hands around her face.

I turned away in an instance, I was really invading her privacy but I was worried. Natalia was everyone's ray of sunshine. Now here she was spending her night crying. "Fine I won't look. If you don't mind telling me what's wrong, I'll gladly listen." I offered but I didn't even know if she would open up to me.

Humbled words escaped her fragile mouth,"It's my father's death anniversary." I was left in awe. I read her file too, I should have known.

I did know about her father's horrible end. With the last breath of her grandmother, Natalia's dad was turned during the flames of the French Revolution. Then decades later he mysteriously was found dead in the Paris catacombs. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Do you want me to get something to snack on, or maybe Nelo?" I didn't know if the on and off boyfriend would be enough to cheer her up. However, I would try any means necessary.

"Don't leave." She called out to me. My shoulders falling.

I inched closer and closer to her bedside as the sorrow filled my body. Weight dragged me down as I sat down in the darkness. I could barely see the pink of her bed. "Why don't you talk to someone about it, I'll listen." I called out to her.

Then it was Natalia's fear that inched me closer to her. "I'm only allowed to live because of a treaty." Her voice low as she told me, afraid anyone would hear.

Shaking my head, I could only hope that weren't true. "I doubt that Nat."

"The Queen hated the French, my grandmother and her didn't get along." Is all she told me. It filled my curiosity. For what a centuries old Vampiric Queen would want with a French Queen who held no power?

I had grown surprised after the fact that Nat didn't put the Queen's blessing behind our talk. I had grown so used to hearing it, that the missing words hollowed in my ears. "That doesn't mean she wants to kill you."

"It's nothing." She said, that's not what I wanted. She was shutting down on me.

After all my progress, it was about to be folded over by my stupid choice of words. I didn't need another Vampire hating me. Nat was the glue that held this entire operation together. I needed her. "No, I'm sorry. Tell me what's worrying you." I pleaded.

She was silent for a few moments, until all her rage and terror crawled out to me in one single fit. "The Queen hates anyone of power, especially those who have a possibility of threatening her stance. My Grandmother was a popular person in the underground even if she was human, some even called her the Human Queen. Many hated my Grandfather but Grandmother was always able to lighten the room." Natalia again got lost in her train of thought. Back to her words she continued. "There was a rumor that a new house of Vampires were going to rise and their Queen would be my grandmother, of course there was no way that could have happened. She was human." She explained.