Crossing Paths

The plan was to get me to Princess Dolphina’s rooms and then, make an actual plan.

“That’s it?” I said, glaring at the two Fae in front of me.

Princess Dolphina handed me her cloak and said, “Put this on. Cover your hair and face. Gerritt will escort you to my rooms. If anyone should stop you, Gerritt will tell them I am tired and too frightened to be alone.”

She started putting the cloak over my shoulders and arranging the hood on my head.

“I can do it!” I said, “My god, you people are handsy!”

As I was pulling the hood over my head, Gerritt watched from the open doorway of the stairway.

I was about to ask him what he was looking at, when I heard the unmistakable sound of swords being unsheathed.

“Someone is coming,” I said, as I pulled the hood down to cover my face, “You need to get out of here,” I said to Princess Dolphina.

She nodded, understanding that this was the exact situation we just discussed.

“Be safe,” she whispered, looking from me to Gerritt.

“You as well,” Gerritt whispered back.

Suddenly, she was gone. Almost like she disappeared, but in a fuzzy, shimmery way.

I wanted to know how she did that, but now was not the time for questions.

Behind me, a door opened and in stepped two guardsmen.

I couldn’t see them with my face covered, but I could follow their movements by the sound of their heartbeats. First, a slight increase in heart rate, from the sight of me in their domain. Next, a bigger increase as their eyes move to the body of their fellow guardsmen on the ground at my feet.

“Lady? What has happened here?” one of them asked.

I shook my head, as if to say I didn’t know, and hoped that was enough of a response for them.

“Show your face, my lady, or we will have to expose it forcefully!” the other said.

I sighed because I didn’t want to have to kill these two young Fae who were only doing their jobs.

Then, Gerritt stepped into the room, staggering and moaning softly.

“She… escaped…” he said, sounding winded.

I felt him at my side, taking my arm.

“No! The vampire?” the second voice said, suddenly losing interest in my identity.

“Sound the alarm, you fools!” Gerritt shouted, pulling me towards the door the two had come out of.

“Yes, Sir! Of course, Sir. I’ll go immediately, Sir.” the first voice responded, then I heard him running away.

Gerritt was practically carrying me now as we moved out of the control room and into a hallway.

He said, “I must get the princess safely to her guarded rooms, but I will return.”

There was no response, but I could hear the other Fae’s heartbeat racing, and his breathing was shallow and quick.

“He’s going to pass out,” I whispered.

“Even better,” Gerritt said, and we were heading down the hall.

We were lucky because no one else stopped us. I huddled against him as if I was afraid. He nodded at each guardsman who ran by us, panicked at the alarm being shouted through the place.

“The vampire has escaped!” and “Find safety and stay quiet!”

We reached a set of double doors with two guardsmen at each side.

They opened the doors immediately, apparently trusting that Gerritt was only comforting his scared cousin.

Before they closed the doors, one of them said, “My lady, your security is my responsibility. I insist we lock your rooms and allow no one else in or out.”

I nodded.

“You will remain with her?” the guardsman asked, apparently speaking to Gerritt.

“Of course. I won’t let her out of my sight until the beast is caught.” Gerritt responded, almost sounding insulted.

The doors closed behind me, and I realized I was trembling.

“Oh, lovely! You made it! I was worried when I heard the guardsman’s alarm,” I heard Princess Dolphina say.

I pulled back my hood and looked around her rooms. They were nothing like any of the rooms I had seen here so far. The floor was white sand, and all around me were kelp and corals and little colorful, squishy things with tentacles. It looked like I was in an undersea cave.

“How did you get here so quick?” I asked her as I turned around slowly, taking in all the colorful fish that seemed to swim by me, even though there was no water.

“I can make myself almost invisible. It’s as if I am part of the surroundings. Many creatures are capable of this, but only very few Fae,” she explained, sounding proud, “It is a rare talent.”

I nodded absentmindedly, wondering just how powerful Fae magic really was.

I had experienced their whammy powder. I had seen their style of living and decorating and knew it was beyond natural. Now, I knew they had horrible weapons and mysterious powers.

“Did anyone stop you, cousin?” Princess Dolphina said, stepping closer to Gerritt and placing a small bluish hand on his arm.

I noticed the webbing between her fingers, but decided not to ask any more questions that might be taken as rude or intrusive.

“No one more than the palace guardsman,” he said.

“That is good. I saw the king headed towards the Detention Hub and I was afraid you would be found,” she told him.

“So, now that we made it here, what do we do? Can you get me out of here? Do you have a portal or something?” I asked, looking around and seeing nothing that I thought could be a portal.

Gerritt sighed, and I knew the response I was about to get would not make me happy by the look on his face.

“You are safe in my rooms, because I am not kept under the laws of this land, yet. I am an ambassador of Oceania and so have certain freedoms. Unfortunately, all of the portals in the palace have been frozen, in order to prevent your escape,” Princess Dolphina said, shaking her head.

“So, tell the king to unfreeze them. If you get special treatment, use it,” I told her.

She looked as if she was considering the idea.

Gerritt said, “The king will not allow the same freedoms when a vampire is loose in our realm. He has too much to lose if you are harmed.”

“Is there a way to just get out of this building?” I asked them, “If I could just get out, maybe I could find my own way.”

“NO!” they both shouted, looking horrified.

I pushed on, “But maybe there’s a portal or one of those stones somewhere and I could get home.”

Both Fae were shaking their heads and Gerritt took my arm and looked at me seriously.

“You don’t understand, Melissa,” he said.

When he said my name, I felt a warm tingle in my chest.

“The Fae realm is not like your world. This “building” is the only truly safe place in our area. The Fae are free to create and breed and develop whatever creatures they care to imagine,” he continued.

I yanked my arm free, glaring at Gerritt.

“My apologies,” he said, stepping away from me.

Did he look sad? His face was lowered, and his cheeks looked pink.

Princess Dolphina must have seen it, too, because she was looking from me to Gerritt and back. A curious expression on her delicate, blue features.

I definitely didn’t feel like I had time to deal with whatever had just happened. I pushed it to the back of my mind and turned away from the two Fae, looking around the room.

“So, what options do we have now, as far as getting me out of your realm?” I asked, watching a wriggling, pinkish squishy thing move across a nearby rock.

“Until they cancel the alarm, none,” Gerritt said, not meeting my eyes.

I sighed, “Well, what do you do for fun in here.”

I figured there was no reason to sit and be miserable if we had to wait out a search for a dangerous, bloodthirsty monster.

Dolphina had been staring at Gerritt and I, which was very irritating to me, but now she shook herself a little and looked around her rooms.

“You are free to look around for something to suit you,” she said, then she turned a small, purple shell on the rock wall next to her.

There was a shivering, rumbling feeling as the rock walls began to move.

“What the hell is happening?” I said, looking to Princess Dolphina.

She smiled and waved her arm over her head, saying, “This is a replica of where I come from. It makes me feel at home to be close to the things I love the most.”

There were larger fish now. I watched a turtle lazily, swim by. The dark silhouette of a shark circled slowly over our heads. In the distance I could see huge stalks of kelp, and in another direction, a beautiful coral reef.

I thought it was amazing.

“How do you keep them here? I mean, alive, with no water,” I asked Princess Dolphina.

She was still smiling when she leaned closer and whispered, “Fae magic can do many things.”

“I guess so.” I replied.

“So, you will also do such things when you have learned to use your own powers,” she said, as if explaining something simple that I should know already.

“I honestly doubt that a vampire’s powers could make sharks swim through the air,” I said to her, giggling a little.

She looked confused as she said, “Of course not. Your Fae powers could, though. Right, Gerritt?”

Gerritt was rubbing his face with his hands as if he wanted to rip the flesh from his own skull.

I didn’t bother waiting for Gerritt to answer.

“I’m not a fairy. I’m a vampire.” I stated.

Gerritt sighed, while Princess Dolphina still looked confused.

“She doesn’t know,” he told her.

Princess Dolphina’s face paled and she looked embarassed, then horrified.

“Oh my. I’m so sorry. I just assumed….” she trailed off.

Now I was confused.

“What don’t I know?” I said, almost hesitant.

The sound of whale song could be heard faintly, and I wondered if she really had a whole whale inside here.

Gerritt looked at me now, “What Prince Almin did to you, while you were unconscious in the cage, it made you a Fae. You’re one of us, now.”

I couldn’t help it; I busted out laughing. The idea that a vampire could be turned into a fairy was absurd. I hadn’t been unconscious long enough for something like that. Right?

“Please, stop laughing, vampire. Gerrit is not making a joke. He is quite serious,” Princess Dolphina said.

I saw the seriousness in her expression, and the sadness. I stopped laughing.

“Almin was quite skilled at his work. He managed to create what he was hoping for, a blood Fae,” the princess said.

“That’s insane. He couldn’t have done anything like that in a couple hours,” I said, but I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, because both Fae seemed to be confident in their belief that I was a Fae.

“You’ve been drugged, Melissa, heavily drugged for weeks. Your sense of time is off, and you’ve been unconscious for most of it.” Gerritt informed me, gently.

I suddenly remembered the way my skin had seemed to glow in that horrible, black place I had just woken up in.

“No...” I mumbled, feeling suddenly very anxious.

Princess Dolphina moved to another wall and tapped a spot of moss on a rock.

A big, soft, pink jellyfish moved close to me and settled on the sand.

“Sit down, vampire...I mean Melissa, sit down, please,” the princess said, indicating the squishy pink blob.

For a second, I wondered if the jellyfish would sting me, but I sat anyways because I felt I was about to remember something that would change my life forever.

“I glowed.” I said, quietly.

“You will, now,” Gerritt said, “The compound and the magics that Almin used on you and the blood he mixed it with were all lunar. In his notes, he wrote about believing a vampire would be an easier lunar transition than other species. You know, since you can’t go out in daylight?”

This was too much to take in. Was this even real? I willed myself to wake up, but I didn’t. So, I did the only thing I could to relieve the overwhelming sense of being overwhelmed. I started bawling.

Gerritt and Princess Dolphina both gasped suddenly.

I didn’t bother looking up to see what was wrong. I stayed seated on the very comfortable jelly chair with my head in my hands, bawling loudly.

This situation was ridiculous. It was bad enough that I had ended up turning into a vampire, especially since I had just lost my baby. Now I had to cope with learning another species? New sensations, new abilities, new stress.

I cried like this for about twenty minutes before I heard the two Fae cousins whispering to each other on the other side of the…. cave...room...thingy.

At first it was just irritating because I could clearly hear what they were saying even though they were going to great lengths to try to keep their conversation quiet.

Then, they started arguing over whose fault it was that we were in this position in the first place.

Princess Dolphina whispered, “This would not be happening if you had just told her!”

“I didn’t have time, Dolly. In case you missed it, the alarm is still sounding,” he whispered back, “Besides, did you see what happened when I touched her? She doesn’t feel the same.”

“I don’t feel the same about what?” I said, through snot and tears.

Hearing me suddenly speak seemed to startle them. They both jumped and looked at me with sympathy and embarrassment on both of their faces.

“What was that, Melissa?” Princess Dolphina asked me, coming to my side.

“Gerritt, you said I don’t feel the same,” I said, finally looking up and meeting his gaze.

His cheeks were bright red and he looked almost scared.

“What don’t I feel the same about? What do you think you know about me?” I asked, this time with a bit of an angry edge because, seriously…. these two didn’t know a thing about me.

Princess Dolphina answered for him.

“Gerritt has had dreams in which the two of you have a life, together.”

So, that was the deal. Gerritt had the hots for the scary vampire girl and wanted to save her.

“We aren’t even the same species,” I said, still looking in his eyes.

Yes, I was trying to compel him because there was no way I could ever consider getting close to one of these creatures.

“You are now,” the princess said, happily, “Matron Flora even confirmed you could have children with another Fae.”

Her smile, the knowledge that they had been poking and prodding at me while I was helpless to stop them, this guardsman thinking he knew me at all….it infuriated me.

I stood up and wiped my face on the ridiculous gown I was wearing, staining it with crimson and stars.

“Niether of you know a thing about me. You,” I pointed angrily at Princess Dolphina, “only just started calling me by my name. I’m nothing more than a beast to you. You,” I turned quickly and glared at Gerritt, “don’t have the slightest clue what it would truly mean to have a life with me.”

I growled deeply.

Gerritt was still silently looking at me.

I walked up to him, looked him straight in the eye and said, “You want nothing to do with me other than to get me out of your realm.”

I saw his eyes. I knew he knew what I was doing. I also knew it wasn’t working.

He smiled sadly, “I’m sorry. It’s good that you know. Now we can get past it.”

He was not convincing. I could hear the sadness and longing in his lie.

“I need to feed,” I said, looking away from him.

“There’s no way to get anyone here. Not until the guards complete their search,” Princess Dolphina said.

“Figure it out, princess, or I’ll have to take a little taste of the royal bloodline,” I said, even though the thought of having anymore Fae anything in me was disgusting to me.

I knew that if I fed, my strength would return. Maybe I was just too weak to compel someone right now.

The princess looked like she was going to tell me off, but Gerritt spoke first.

“You’re not helping yourself any by threatening the only Fae willing to help you,” he said, “Besides, like Dolly said, the healers ran a lot of tests on you. Feeding won’t help you make me forget my feelings for you.”

“Why not? I get stronger when I feed,” I said to him.

He shook his head, “They don’t know why, but you weren’t able to compel any of the test subjects.”

I sat back down on the jellyfish, understanding hitting me like a whale dropping from the sky.

“I can’t use compulsion anymore,” I said.

Neither of them said anything for the few minutes that it took me to decide what I was going to do next, but they jumped, noticeably when I made my announcement.

“I’m going to kill Almin.”