Nothing Dark Can Stay, Either

Chapter 3

The second year had been better than the first.

They had tried to make the most of it. They learned to cook. Learned to drive a train. Learned to fly a plane. They'd gone ziplining without their straps fully adjusted. They'd trashed any place that simply didn't look nice, and had lived in gorgeous homes they found wherever they traveled. Some places, they stayed in for weeks. Others, for less than a day. They were making their way mostly down the West Coast, because Kai claimed that maybe if there were sea creatures, they could die for real.

Of course, there hadn't been any sea creatures. Or any animals or insects at all. Beatrix was thankful for the lack of maggots and flies and mosquitoes. But she missed the presence of a dog or a cat or even an alpaca, from her time in Peru.

As they moved around, exploring places with the weirdest names and marking down towns they'd planned to pass through off their 'bucket list,' Beatrix had told Kai about her travels. In fact, they'd bonded over the fact that anytime they settled down somewhere for more than a month, she could teach him spells from all over the world.

After leaving Louisiana, she had gone to Europe. Stowed away in a ship, concealed inside some containers that would likely not be checked, considering how terrible they smelled, and how gooey the substance was. Beatrix wasn't sure if it had been a chemical, but either way, she was immortal, and if the smell was toxic, it didn't matter. She slept often anyway. She wouldn't have noticed.

They had docked in Lisbon, Portugal, where she had used the cover of the night to slip away and go clean herself up. She had assaulted a woman despite knowing better, and stolen her clothes. She compelled the woman to forget she was a vampire, but to allow her to stay. When the sun had come up, she was hiding safely in the basement of the woman's house, which had a tunnel prepared for her escape if someone came looking.

No one did. Everyday, the woman cooked for her, and let her feed in the evenings. Beatrix did not leave the house except to bathe under the moonlight, and sometimes, feed on someone else. She always gave them her blood after, but prayed no one would kill them before the blood exited their system.

Many months passed that she was down there, terrified of what to do. As a siphon, she wasn't used to just spontaneously trying to do magic, therefore she didn't think to try it. She assumed the new surge of power she felt was from being a vampire.

It wasn't until one evening that she was nearly slaughtered by another vampire. The woman had come from behind and attacked her, plunging her hand into her chest and gripping her heart, ready to rip it out. Beatrix had seen her life flash before her eyes, and she had thrust her own hand out to grip the woman, trying to siphon out of habit.

It had worked.

The woman released her heart, let out a yelp, and sped away. Beatrix had struggled to catch her breath, but when she did, she realized that her siphoning was still intact. When she had returned to her current residence, she had attempted a few spells, and was shocked when she realized that the magic was flowing through her as naturally as it had with her mother and the witches who finished raising her.

Seeking to understand why she had managed to keep her magic, Beatrix left Lisbon, compelling a farmer on his way to Merida, Spain, to take her with him. Underneath his baskets of radishes and carrots, she'd been carried across into a new country, and had compelled another lonely woman to take her in. This time, she learned more. She met other vampires, and they spoke, teaching Beatrix that walking in daylight was possible but that the vampires needed a witch to help them with that. Beatrix had set to work, fabricating a daylight ring for herself. She briefly met with Spanish witches in Sevilla, then in Madrid, and finally in Zaragoza, before deciding to continue traveling, now with the identity of Ianira Soleil solidified.