14. Juliette
Juliette
WORTHY
Idon’t wake for three whole days. During that time, I dream as Dante said I would, and the dreams are filled with chaos.
Infernos I can’t escape. Screaming babies being tossed into a lake of blood by demons with enormous, leathery wings the size of horses.
Basilisks slithering along the charcoal beaches on their bellies, unhinging their jaws to devour anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths.
The pain and suffering are incomparable …
a red lake of fire inhabited by only the worst creatures.
Women with red skin and angelic faces using their tails like whips, flaying open skin with cracks sharp as thunder.
Just when I believe I’ve gone truly mad from the depravity, wispy tendrils caress my face like a cool breeze.
“Come back to me,” a deep, gravelly voice beckons. Whoever it is sounds like a scratchy woolen sweater. Agitating, yes, but also warm and inviting. “Come back to me.”
My body feels as though it’s been stuffed with lead and tossed into the lake. It doesn’t move when I command it, though I desperately want to be free from whatever realm of existence this is.
“Come back and join your father,” the voice pleads, this time much more commanding.
His fingers are no longer soothing gestures of love. Now his claws tear at my flesh as he drags me from my dreams, away from the demons and blood and fire and, oh, there was so much fire it should have been suffocating.
“I will sunder every layer of Hell if I must, little dove. Please come willingly so that I need not expend the effort,” he growls.
Realization slaps me upside the head. Dante.
My eyes fly open.
I open my mouth to speak but find that the words are sand in my throat.
All I can see is darkness. Then the lid of my coffin slides off, revealing the moonlight at last. And along with it, Dante’s face.
If I thought he was something to behold before, with his gaunt alabaster skin and sallow cheeks, then I am thrown off guard completely now.
He looks like himself, only worse, more haggard, with streaks of blood smeared across his cheeks.
“You’ve caused me a great deal of trouble, little dove,” he murmurs not unkindly, then offers me a bony hand. “Come. You have wasted too much time cavorting through Hell, and now you must feed.”
Feed? What could he possibly mean by that?
I move to sit up, but when I do, I notice every bone in my body feels …
wrong. There’s a stillness within me that wasn’t present before.
An intense quiet, as though my very blood has evaporated.
I blink and run my fingers across my scalp, expecting to run them through my mane of glossy hair, but—
No. What is this? All I feel is hard smoothness. Not even a hint of stubble remains on my head.
I clear my throat of dust and phlegm, then ask, “What is the meaning of this? What’s happened to me?”
Dante regards me with a cool, sympathetic expression. “Ah, my dear. I am … so very sorry. But hair does not survive the turning. I’m afraid it is gone, which is why I saved that lock earlier.”
The gravity of the situation slams into me like a horse-drawn carriage.
I press my fingers to my wrists. No pulse.
I touch my head again, desperately seeking even a single tendril of hair.
None to be found. No. No, no. I’m … this cannot be.
I run my fingers over my sternum and seek out the place above my heart where he struck me with the stake.
When I finally find the days-old wound, I try to suck in a sharp gasp.
Except no air enters my lungs. I cannot breathe, yet I am still alive.
“You are not alive,” Dante says, startling me.
“Not any longer. But fear not. Sometimes, one must be broken down completely in order to be made better.” He flourishes a claw in front of my face.
“Eternal youth. You will never age, Juliette. Nor will you become sick. So long as you are not staked again, decapitated, burned to ashes, or exposed to the sunlight, you never need worry about anything ever again.”
Hot, red rivulets run down my cheeks and into my open mouth. The coppery tang makes me gag. Blood. I’m crying tears of blood. As if this cannot get any worse, I am crying actual blood.
Dante winces at the sight of my crying, then holds up a silk handkerchief. I ignore him, throw my hands into the air, and let out a guttural scream.
The months that pass after my turning are filled with torment and suffering.
No amount of love from my creator can fill the void that takes up residence within my heart.
Perhaps it is because my heart no longer beats, or perhaps it’s the absence of my soul that makes it impossible for me to feel a sliver of joy.
Whichever the case, it doesn’t matter. This is my existence.
Like the rest of the cursed Nosferatu, I am expected to raid and pillage the nearby villages.
Sometimes, we turn the humans that flee from us, but more often than not, we drain them dry.
Adding to our ranks is a quality-over-quantity situation, Dante tells me, and we have to be particular about who we admit.
One evening at the dining room table, I ask, “Why did you pick me, then?”
Dante takes a sip of blood from his goblet, smirks, and then sets it back down. This is not the first time I’ve asked him, but this is the first time he’s ever answered me. “Because you, my dear, were an ember that refused to be snuffed out.”
When so many others perished in the flames or had their throats ripped open, I persevered. I clung to my mortal life like a leaf in a storm that refused to accept its fate. When he says it, for the very first time, I feel … worthy. All it took was my death. Ironic, I suppose.
Dante spoils me with dresses, jewelry, and other fine things stolen from the humans we butcher.
I wear every garment with pride and hunt with his approval in mind; if the hunt is successful, I tell myself that I earned a seat beside him.
If a hunt does not go the way I want, I refuse to eat with him at supper time, no matter how much he pleads.
I am not sane. My lust for blood becomes all-consuming. My lust for his devotion and adoration borders on maniacal, until finally, one evening, he storms into my room and demands to know why I will not join him for supper that night.
“Little dove, enough!” His voice shakes the walls and scares off the servants, including Selene, who I believed to be fearless. “You will join me downstairs, like it or not! As your creator, I command you!”
My throat tightens. I lift my hands to my throat and touch the tender spot between my collarbone. There is nothing in the world that can stop a fledgling from listening to their sire’s commands. Nothing.
I don the frilly white dress he gives me and eat with him that night, and every night after.