Her Vampire Master Book two

Chapter Five

She dreamed and it wasn't a drugged dreamless sleep like before, it was as if her mind was trying to catch up with the hours it had lost to the laudanum. Her dreams confused her more than anything.

Mostly she dreamed of him, the Charles from her time, the one she didn't know, not really. They had been having a friendly argument, as she and her Charles had. She had been dreaming of the Charles of the future more and more often lately, sometimes they were in the library where she liked to study, him pacing in front of the bookshelves or snooping behind the checkout desk, he was always in constant motion. Sometimes they were walking through the sunlight halls of her high school, her arm tucked into his or his arm slung casually around her shoulders as they strolled around the familiar corridor.

Tonight they were in the bathroom, a white and green bathroom institutionally boring in its decoration. He was sitting on one of the sinks, his booted foot propped on the other as he watched her. His hands picking at the label of a water bottle that looked to be full of blood, she was dying her hair darker auburn, she had liked that color. It made her look more like her cousins, Jessie and Star. She had a thick towel wrapped around her neck and shoulders protecting her neck and clothing.

It seemed that her mind was subtle in its obviousness.

The first time she had dyed her hair had been the night before she started her freshman year. She knew she had the academic success down, so this would be the year she started to work on her looks, and she had decided to start with her hair. She had studied the different products well before settling on a henna product, happy that it would give her strawberry blonde locks a deeper more striking red auburn color.

The results had been exactly what the package had suggested, though only Nova, Jessie, and Star had noticed the difference. They had told her it looked great, her parents had noticed, but pretended they didn't. She hadn't gotten to give them her speech about how it was her hair to alter, it had made her sad and her chest feel tight as she thought about how little they seemed to care.

She leaned over the sink rinsing her hair watching the reddish dye swirl down the drain, it looked like blood instead of the normal dye tinted water. She combed through her short dark locks, it looked almost black. "I like your hair dark like that, it looks rebellious, same as mine," He said pointing to his now black hair, in a short modern cut, "Only less cool." He said with a smirk.

It seemed even dream Charles was in a weird mood tonight, she kept waiting for him to do something that her Charles would do, like brush her hair, or touch her like she was a point of reference for him, or maybe call her by one of the many little nicknames he had for her.

Dream Charles didn't though, he just followed her through the empty hallways making mindless conversation, commenting on everything and nothing at all.

She woke up to the dog staring at her, the bedroom door to the hallway was wide open, the gaslights from the hallway were spilling into the room. Making the dogs wet eyes shine in the dim room. She wondered where Ciaran had gotten the dog from for Mary.

Mary had made up a little story about Ciaran rescuing the dog from a smoky basement, but that didn't seem like the older vampire at all. He wouldn't risk his fangs with fire for a small animal. Mary said the dog had been left alone for far too long and was talkative and bossy.

Elizabeth felt a familiar pang of loss as she thought about how that reminded her of Nova. She closed her eyes trying to catch the memory of sitting in her room talking with her best friend, long rambling talks, pointless conversations between the two of them.

"I miss you so much," she whispered, and she did. She missed Nova and even her parents who were rarely home, she missed her cousins, she even missed Zack who she didn't even get to know very well. Ciaran had dropped off the list of people she missed a long time ago, when she lost the ability to separate him from the man he would become.

Fiona was sitting by the window, looking out into the night. At Elizabeth's whisper, she turned her head towards the girl. She tried hard for a moment to think of anyone she missed, but she drew a blank. "Who do you miss?" She asked.

Elizabeth shot up, she was startled she hadn't realized that she wasn't along. "People I used to know," She stammered, "A long time ago."

"It's just you and me alone tonight," Fiona told her with a spiteful smile. She knew Agata was in the hallway, always listening, and she knew that she would realize how utterly dismissed she was.

Elizabeth remembered Charles talking to Mary about going out for the evening. Fiona's smile made her feel uncomfortable, she watched as Fiona rose up from the chair, the older vampire walked over to her closet and took out a dress.

She held up the navy dress into the dim light, "This will do," She said, "You and I are going to find out what our new friends haven't been telling us."

Elizabeth got up and quickly started to get dressed, she shared Charles' suspicion about their new friends and Fiona's inquisitiveness about what they might be hiding from them.

"How?" She asked as she pulled the dress over her shift.

“You are a witch,” Fiona said as she pushed her hands away and helped her with the smooth pearl buttons on the dress, smoothing her hands over Elizabeth's corsetless waist.