Vampiric Interdiction

[11] Thrill of Transgression

It took a while for her to take notice, but after the fourth bong of the old clock on the wall, Karolinna found that she was shaking. She got up off her spot on the bed — she had been sitting there so long that her rear had left a slight indentation in the mattress — and shook out her legs before pacing back and forth along the length of the room.

Being nervous was very unlike her and she didn’t quite understand herself what had changed to make her so jittery. It couldn’t possibly be the fact that she was defying her parents, because she did that all the time, and fear was absolutely out of the question — or at least that’s what she lead herself to believe.

Could it be Villahr that had such a profound effect on her? Karolinna shrugged off that possibility as well, as the loud, aged timepiece, mounted between two windows to the right of her, chimed for the seventh time. The sun would be going down shortly, and the creatures of blood and gore would walk the night.

Karolinna moved at such a speed that the bottoms of the big, black curtains that shielded her from the outdoors blew up a bit at the bottoms, and so halting her incessant strides she knelt down at her bed and reached for the duffle she’d hidden underneath it. It was still open and the sleeve of her long cloak was hanging out the partially zipped zipper. She had almost been caught earlier by the maid and had to hastily do away with the unsavoury content before it was noticed, not leaving enough time to make sure things were properly put away.

Dropping down to the floor, Karolinna focussed her eyes in the darkness. She began adapting them as if lenses to the absence of light until she found a screen she could see out of, like adjusting the picture quality on a movie projector.

She looked carefully to see if anything had fallen out in her hurry to hide the tools that were to aid tonights heinous act of wrong-doing, but found only dust and empty liquor bottles. Karolinna smiled as she caught sight of one reading Chilla Loq'or across the yellowed parchment label in big bold letters, scrawled out as if by hand with an old fountain pen.

Coming back up, she wiped the dust from her knees pulled the bag closer to her. Besides the cloak, dark sunglasses and her favourite pair of knee high boots — the ones with the buckles all the way to the top, and that Villahr told Karolinna they made her look like a cheap hooker — there were a few other items of precaution as well. It wasn’t just the moon she needed to protect herself from. What was hidden in the darkness, however unthreatening claimed them to be, was just as dangerous.

Karolinna would never admit to fearing those blood-siphoning bastards, but deep down she knew there was something there that came very close in resemblance to distress. Growing up, her head was packed full stories of terror, torture and the vampires grotesque ways to keep her away form them. They said it was to keep her safe. Even as a child she put up a front, made it look like she didn't care what others thought, or what the demons might do if they caught her, but beneath all that she was petrified. She hid her true feelings well, it was something she’d always been good at; however, there were still those select few that knew the real Karolinna. Villahr was and remained to this day, at the top of that list.

Although he fully believed in his friend’s abilities to tear the throat out of any vampire that tried to get the better of her — Karolinna may have been a slacker when it came to magical studies, but she knew just where to bury her fangs to leave her attackers in shreds a her feet — Villahr knew of her nightmares in disguise.

Picking up a sharp piece of wood from the bottom of the bag, Karolinna brought it up to her nose and gave it a slight sniff before immediately pulling it away again. They smelled of rotting corpses and kerosine in Karolinna’s opinion, and to many Vicio was simply repulsive. The smell would stay in her nostrils for a good while, which was a rather unpleasant after-effect, but Karolinna needed the confirmation assure her that the stake would do the trick.