CHAPTER 62
Cosette stands in the center of the cobble-stoned street. Brownstone residences sprout up smartly just beyond the sidewalks on either side. A light mist is pervading the evening air and droplets of rain bead upon her pouty face.
She looks on as her vampire minions infest the previously calm suburban neighborhood. The shrill screams of frightened women ring out in the night. The newly bitten flail about or fall to the ground, their human forms dying during the transformation. Within this fringe of Aldin's metropolitan area – deep in the heart of the urban wonder, pillars of smoke rise to the saddened heavens, lit by the source of their production.
Vlad had departed from Cosette only moments before to see how the destruction and chaos of the City of Aldin was progressing. He left her to oversee the creation of new Bloodchildren around the outer perimeter of the metropolis. Cosette knew the initial stages of her work would be slow going, but once her vampires had sunk their teeth into the residents of the first few streets, the process would snowball – increasing exponentially.
Within an hour the circle would be complete and her new army of undead would advance upon the epicenter until every man, woman, and child was either dead, undead, or for those poor souls who had caught the plague from the zombies prior to transformation – somewhere in between.
Cosette recalls her own turning from human to vampire as she watches a young woman with auburn hair and doe-like brown eyes fall victim to one of her fanged underlings. The creature of the night had seduced the damsel with his hypnotizing eyes, much as Vlad had done to Cosette over two hundred years ago.
It was a different time in the city of Aldin. The former animosity between Cosette's native homeland and their old enemy, Finden, still lingered. The real threat of vampires had caused a begrudging relent in the hostilities of the rival nations, but there still was no real love toward their northern neighbor.
Much of the city of Aldin had been under siege during the height of the Finden/Aldin war. Reconstruction had been a slow, burdensome ordeal and Cosette's father, Raul, was one of the construction workers in charge of overseeing the renewal of their own neighborhood.
Raul was a large, jovial man with a bushy mustache and an ample waistline. The long hours of work never put a damper on his cheerfulness and his crew's production reflected their high regard for him.
He often would bring his men to the temporary encampment situated in the field adjacent to the neighborhood. Cosette, her mother Sarah, and the other wives and daughters would bustle about feeding the workers and enjoying Raul's anecdotes. Though the hovels of the camp were dreary and everyone was eager to return to their former residences, the aftermath of the atrocity had brought their community together stronger than before.
Cosette would sit and listen to her father. She would laugh and cry as he would spin his yarns to everyone's delight. A tinge of jealousy would creep inside her occasionally as she would note the many eager faces about. She was a young woman but Raul had always been the one to tell her stories at bedtime when she was a little girl. Now, she had to share in the delight of her father's tales.
As Cosette was of age, there had been many suitors calling to date her. As was her father's nature, he welcomed them all. But Cosette found them dull – even the handsome ones. She needed someone that could captivate her attention – a man with experiences to share that she might delight in his stories.
After some time, she had rejected every young man from not only her own neighborhood, but the others nearby as well. Despite Raul's encouragement to find a suitor, Cosette could not bring herself to settle for less than what her heart desired.
Time went on, and her father's crew completed the reconstruction of the neighborhood. Everyone moved back in and marveled at the new innovation of indoor plumbing, which Raul had a captivating story for also.
Raul had designed a new, terraced rooftop for their own home and Cosette began to spend the warm, summer evenings lying upon the patio chaise-lounge and peering up at Draconos' eerie moon. She often dreamed of the strange lunar surface. Once again, this had been another subject of a story her father had told her as a child.
"Papa, why does the moon have that weird green glow?" the little girl Cosette had inquired of the then younger Raul, who's mustache and paunch had not yet realized the fullness of what they would become.
"Cosette, you have picked upon a very interesting topic," Raul had replied, ruffling his daughter's hair as she beamed up at her father from her pillow. It started long ago, you see, when Draconos was a baby fresh from the creation of Great Pyronius himself."
"This was way before people, vampires, or even dragons," Raul continued.
Cosette's eyes had lit up at the possibility of such a span of time. Dragons had been around forever. She held her hands together in anticipation of the story to come.
"The fledgling Draconos and the brilliant Pyronius had each other in a loving embrace. Everything was perfect here – a paradise. Then a terrible thing happened," Raul said with dramatic effect.
"What was it, Papa?" Cosette asked on an indrawn breath.
Raul paused to look out the window, up at the faintly green, iridescent moon, and then continued. "Well, you see Cosette, Pyronius had only created Draconos, not the moon." He returned his attention to his daughter with a grave look.
"From beyond our heavens came a wanderer. It was a stranger beyond Pyronius's creation and realm. It did not share in the goodness of our own god and when it saw beautiful Draconos, it wanted to touch it, to taste of its perfection.
"Drawn as it was to Pyronius's new child, the outsider flew at Draconos, trying to imbed itself in the infant's perfection. Unaccustomed to invaders in his kingdom, Pyronius was slow to realize the evil intentions of the unwelcome guest.
"At the last moment, Pyronius tried to shield his offspring from the harm of the intruder. His brilliance shined upon the bad seed, hurting it greatly. But the wanderer's course had been true and it struck Draconos with a devastating blow, tearing a piece of the newly formed youngling away from its body.
"No!" cried Cosette with tears in her eyes. She was holding her blanket close to herself.
"Shhhhh, it's alright," Raul said, smoothing the child's head with a reassuring hand. "Baby Draconos didn't die. The bad seed flew away from Pyronius's mighty golden rays and never came back.
"The only thing was, though...Pyronius couldn't put the torn piece back into Draconos. It had been tainted with the wanderer's evil and would forever circle above Draconos as a reminder of the dangers that lurk beyond the darkness..."
"And that's where the moon comes from?" came Cosette's question conclusion.
"Yes," Raul replied. "The moon was a piece of Draconos. It got its green hue from the evil seed."
"But Papa," Cosette began. "If the bad seed left its mark on the moon, then what if part of it touched the rest of Draconos?"
As the young woman Cosette remembered the story of the moon from her childhood, she is suddenly brought back to her viewing of the glowing lunar surface from the rooftop by the appearance of a luminous mist sailing across the green canvas in the night's sky.
Its course unexpectantly altered when she laid eyes upon it. Its new bearing appeared to be advancing upon her position. She was captivated by the odd phenomena and found that she could not look away.
As the phantom fog grew in size with proximity, Cosette felt an odd prickling at the base of her skull. She knew it was connected to the cloud-like apparition approaching her and a terrible fear gripped her every fiber of being. Still, she could not react.
Something was touching her mind. She could feel it probing her thoughts. She was still frightened, oh yes, but there was a reassurance being planted in her brain that kept her still. Finally, it spoke to her through her thoughts.
Cosssssssssssettte, it cooed.
She found herself smiling and shaking all at once as the formless veil descended upon the very roof she occupied.
You want to see me, yes?- the mild voice lilted.
Cosette found herself nodding mindlessly. The vapor slowly coalesced, harnessing the luminescence to give itself form and function. The man standing before Cosette was strikingly handsome, but that wasn't what really drew her to him.
It was his eyes.
Those windows into his being seemed to know no bounds or depths. He had experiences and stories to share with her to last her a lifetime, and little did she know at that moment, but there would be many more stories made from that point on, enough to fill many lifetimes to come.
This is the one for whom she had been waiting...
The woman with auburn hair and big, brown eyes awakes from the transformation induced slumber to look upon Cosette with her new vampire eyes. She stands abruptly, recognizing the authority Cosette holds over her.
"There, my child," Cosette comforts. "Isn't that better now?"
The newly made vampiress hisses her agreement.
"Go, my sweet. There is a whole city awaiting you," Cosette commands, motioning to the other homes and streets.
The former woman possessing the reddish-brown hair and deer-like eyes peers around at her surroundings. Others were emerging from their stupor, all with the thirst burning inside. She grows her fangs and talons, shrieking at the faintly green glow of the moon, and darts across the road, caught up in the mass of undead as they stream out toward the next neighborhood.