“Constanta,” Magdalena breathed, wiping your blood from her mouth with the hem of her dress. “What are we going to do?”
They both looked at me with wide eyes, the same eyes they turned on you whenever they didn’t know how to handle a situation. You had always been the firm gloved hand on the back of their necks, steering them through life. And now, that responsibility fell onto me.
I wiped my brow and took a deep breath. My mind was running quick as a foxhound on the hunt, and a plan was forming.
I sprang up on the bed, bracing my feet on either side of you as I bent down to wrench the stake from your body. It shouldn’t have been easy for me: the wood was melded to the cavity of your chest with drying blood and viscera, and the sharpened tip had gone all the way through the mattress. But to my surprise, the stake came away easily in my hands. All at once, I was stronger than I had been before. We all were, I suspected, but I was still the oldest. As far as I knew, I might have been the oldest vampire in all of Europe, now that you were really and truly dead.
The weight of this knowledge pressed down on me like an iron yoke.
“Magdalena, help me move him,” I breathed. “Alexi, get the key and go guard the door. I want you to open it, but not until I say so.”
Alexi nodded frantically, scrambling off the bed and fumbling the key out of your pocket. I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back to me for a quick kiss before I shooed him out of the room. Then I pulled Magdalena into a tight embrace, burying my face into her matted hair.
“What are you going to do?” she asked in a whisper.
I took her face in my hands and kissed her too, tasting the ghost of your blood on her lips.
“I’m going to end this,” I said.
You weighed no more than a child when I hoisted you into my arms. It shouldn’t have been possible. You were taller than I was, and I had never had much strength in my arms. But I was able to cradle you against my chest and carry you through the doorway and out the hall, your head lolling against my shoulder.
I took the stairs carefully, Magdalena rushing ahead of me just in case I tripped and fell. Alexi was waiting by the door as requested, every muscle in his body taut with terror.
With you gone, we all felt exposed, vulnerable despite our newfound strength.
“They’ve broken through the gate,” he said, voice tight.
I nodded to Alexi as soon as my bare feet hit the cold floor of the main entryway.
“Let them come,” I said. “Unlock the door and then get behind me with your sister. Be ready to run.”
Alexi did as he was told, then rushed into the reassuring darkness of the house and Magdalena’s open arms. I took a deep breath and shifted your weight in my arms, clutching you tight, and then pushed open the front door.
Twenty men and a handful of enraged mothers come to seek justice for their children stood in the yard, guns brandished and crowbars in their hands, hungry for violence. Their shouts assailed my ears as I stepped into the moonlight, cradling you like a groom might cradle their bride.
The mass stood stock-still when they saw me, the horror on their features illuminated by their flickering torches and lanterns. I suppose I must have looked terrifying; a slip of a girl covered with blood and holding the desiccated body of the monster they had all come to fear. The cries of rage died on their lips as I took a few deliberate steps towards them, feeling the night air on my skin for the first time in ages. Despite the fear pounding in my chest, I felt alive. I felt truly free, no matter what was to become of me.
I knelt and placed your body onto the ground, and in doing so released our hundreds of years together. Grief seized my heart in a vise, though it was lined with a sort of euphoria as well. It was as if I had been holding back tears for eons, and now, as I gasped out a sob, something that had been locked up tight inside me was breaking free.
“Here’s your demon,” I said, my voice fracturing around the tears. “Do with him what you will.”
The townspeople descended on your body with a collective shout and I stumbled backwards, sagging against the doorframe of the great old house. They dug their heels into your body and looped a rope around your neck. I dashed back into the house just in time to see one of them raise a scythe high, poised to rend your head from your body.
I slammed the door behind me as it came down with a sickening shink .
“Run!” I called to Magdalena and Alexi. I grabbed each of their hands, hauling them up the stairs back to our rooms. “Grab whatever valuables you can carry and run! Once they’re done with him, they’ll be coming for us.”