Poetry & Blood Ch. 13

Chapter 13: Laura's Legacy

Edited By ALewdEditor

*****

Laura

Angelica had been promoted from nuisance to obstacle. Laura knew she had been campaigning against her from the start. She spread rumors and vitriol, trying to get Camille to fire her and banish her completely. That was nothing new.

It started with Claire. As usual, Angelica gave the welcome wagon of cold shoulders, sarcastic comments, and backhanded compliments to Claire when she started working there. Claire reported that to Laura with indifference. She had thick skin but, even then, she would ignore it if Laura commanded her to. Now Angelica was trying to get Claire fired. Abby reported that Angelica repeatedly told Camille and Miss Lancaster that Claire was too nosy and too eager. She was both too lazy and too helpful all at the same time. No matter what Claire did, Angelica had deemed it suspicious.

Now it was Abby. Ever since Abby came under Laura's service, Angelica instantly picked up on the change in the young editor. She was like a bloodhound sniffing out the slightest whiff of sedition. Any treacherous thoughts to her employer had to be crushed, and Abby was the latest target of her gossip. Claire reported that Angelica thought Abby was too reclusive—too private. She suspected that Abby was hiding something that Camille needed to worry about.

She was, of course, correct in all her suspicions, but that only made her more troublesome to Laura. Her own position in the manor was becoming increasingly tenuous. Apparently, some passages from Camille's manuscript were going straight to Abby and skipping Laura altogether. They had sectioned off this wing of the house, keeping Laura not quite trapped in her room, but isolated from the rest of the house. Claire and Abby fed her information, but she couldn't wander the grounds. Angelica was one step away from standing guard outside of Laura's room each night, which made it frustrating to sneak Emma in when Laura was feeling lonely.

The delicate vampire was curled in her lap now. Laura stroked Emma's silver hair and mused. She had more than enough time to think these days, but she was always more focused after feeding Emma. The adrenaline of it all sharpened her mind and reminded her of why she was doing this.

"Is Angelica devoted or neurotic?" she asked Emma.

"Are you a song or lesson?" whispered Emma. She was half asleep after feeding.

"A lesson," said Laura. "If she's neurotic, perhaps I can lure her to our side eventually. If she's devoted, I'll need to remove her."

"She's afraid of the monster under the bed."

"Marcilla? Marcilla is a shadow, not a monster."

"Even so, you know failures are remedied with blood."

Laura thought of Nikki. She had discovered Emma and was now trapped as nourishment until she likely died. Was Angelica afraid of the same fate? Did she realize that if she failed Camille she'd end up in the dungeon next to Nikki, chained to the wall and fed to a vampire until she was dried up like a raisin?

"She's afraid," said Laura. "Afraid to fail."

"We all fear, but hers is a horse dragging her through the woods."

"But she doesn't just work hard. She's protecting Camille's secret."

"Not Camille's. Everyone here guards Laura K's ghost."

"What does that mean?" Laura had gotten used to Emma's strange way of speaking, but sometimes they still had long conversations about a single sentence. Emma insisted, or seemed to insist, that there was no other way for her to phrase things.

"I can't say," whispered Emma. "But I can tell you about the butterflies." Emma turned her head and began to kiss Laura's thighs.

"No, you won't get away that easily," said Laura. "What does Laura Karnstein have to do with this?"

"This house is a song written in her honor," said Emma, still trying to kiss Laura. "Not a very pretty song, though."

Laura grabbed Emma's head and held back her kisses. She couldn't overpower Emma, but the small vampire rarely decided to use her full strength. Emma feared her strength more than Laura did.

"But Camille told me all about Laura K, why would Angelica worry about that? We read Marcilla's poems about Laura K each night. Everyone at the Muse Session has heard of her. It's no secret."

"This conversation is filled with wet mushrooms. Let's talk about your ribbons." Emma rose to kiss Laura's lips, but Laura moved out of the way. Emma whimpered and tried to fight it, but Laura held her back. Finally, Emma pouted and sat back down, across from Laura on the bed.

"Fine," she sighed. "Laura K's legacy isn't in the poems, though it is with Camille."

"What is Laura K's legacy?"

Emma didn't say anything. She looked down at the bed, trying to hide from Laura while sitting two feet from her. Finally, she slumped her shoulders, raised her arms and let them flop to her side. As though that explained anything.

"What does that mean?"

Emma raised her arms, turned her hands, and pointed them towards herself.

"You?" asked Laura. "You're her legacy?"

Emma nodded.

"Explain."

Emma sighed. "You can be born and not have a mother."

"Mother?" Laura reached across and raised Emma's face, making the vampire look her in the eye. Emma tried to turn her gaze away, to look anywhere but Laura's face, but Laura was persistent. She squeezed Emma's chin. This was important, this was big, and she couldn't allow Emma to keep things from her any longer.

Finally, Emma yielded and looked into Laura's eyes. "Tell me," commanded Laura. She held Emma's gaze. She was coming to understand her budding powers more and more each day, but it didn't always work on Emma. "Tell me everything."

Emma sighed, her chest sinking as she broke her head away from Laura's grip and looked back to her lap. The command either worked, or Emma was giving in, knowing Laura wouldn't let this go. It didn't matter which was the case to Laura. She wanted the truth. This was important, too important to ignore.

"Laura Karnstein is my mother," said Emma. Her voice was deeper, clearer, and stronger. "And I've been Camille's prisoner or hostage for almost a century."

Laura's breath caught. Emma was Laura K's daughter. She was a well of information, and she was lucid. "Tell me everything," commanded Laura. "Now."

Emma did. It was a long story, and it obviously pained Emma to obey, but she explained that Laura Karnstein had a lover, a prospective husband, that Marcilla was eternally jealous of. Laura K flirted with Marcilla and rejected her until Marcilla couldn't take it anymore. One night she sired Laura K, turning her into a vampire, after Laura K was pregnant with Emma. After becoming a vampire, Laura K killed her future husband, Emma's father, in her bloodlust and wild hunger. Laura K than ran away, afraid, desperate, and furious with Marcilla.

Vampires can't have children, and in this rare case of being sired while pregnant, vampires certainly can't give birth. Emma was cut from the womb. She was born prematurely and weak. The process almost killed Laura K, but she went into a feeding frenzy not long after her daughter was born to save herself. Emma grew up weak and frail while her mother was detached and half out of her mind with grief and rage. Emma was, as far as anyone could tell, entirely human. Either the traumatic and early birth or the vampirism had infected her mind. She had a lonely childhood, both infirmed and isolated for most of it.

As a teenager, Emma discovered a chest of love letters and poems her mother had kept hidden in the house. These were from Marcilla, and when Emma asked her mother about them, Laura K went into a rage and destroyed them. That only made Emma more curious. She began to write letters to Marcilla, trying to figure out who she was. Marcilla wrote back, and Emma became obsessed. She couldn't think of anything else, and when she turned nineteen, she ran away from home to find her penpal. Marcilla kept up a ruse for a short period of time, pretending to be old friends with Laura K, but she stalked Emma, watched Emma sleep, kept Emma close to her, and asked Emma endless questions about Laura K.

One night, Marcilla came to Emma and revealed her true self to her. She offered Emma the chance to be eternally beautiful, endlessly young, and powerful beyond belief. Emma accepted, more entranced and under Marcilla's spell than anything. She barely understood what Marcilla was truly offering, but she wanted to make her happy. That mattered more than anything else.

"The night she finally turned me was the worst night of my life," said Emma. "I woke up disoriented and hungry. My jaws, gums, and teeth hurt. I was shivering, colder than I had ever been, and I thought I was dead. I thought I was in the process and would shortly die. Then Marcilla brought me a young man from the nearby village. She said he was unconscious, but when I went to drink, his eyes shot open and he begged for his life. He begged, and I killed him. Marcilla tried to convince me that he deserved it or that he was nothing more than meat, but I watched the life drain out of his eyes while I drank it."

Laura nodded. That explained why Emma hated drinking. She knew Emma was trying to warn her in her own way. Emma thought Laura was a fool to be so tempted by either death or vampirism. She thought it best if everyone ran away, but Emma was young and had been a fool. Laura wouldn't walk in blindly to this moment. She had a plan, and she would be ready.

Emma continued with her story. After being turned, she went back home to her mother, but Laura K banished her when she found out what Emma had become and who had transformed her. Alone, confused, Emma went back to Marcilla. She decided that Marcilla had more to teach her than her own mother.

At first, Marcilla treated Emma like her own daughter, but Emma quickly discovered that was a ruse. Marcilla didn't want Emma; she wanted Laura K. She would ask endless questions about Laura K—about where she was and how to contact her and if she was happy or what she was doing. Emma quickly learned that she was merely bait for Laura K. She was a desperate plan to lure Laura K back to Marcilla. She tried to run away several times, but each time Marcilla would track her down. Each time she had to recollect Emma, she would slaughter everyone that saw her or helped her. She soon learned that it wasn't worth the cost. She would stay with Marcilla as long as was necessary.

When the command faded from Emma, she shriveled up into a ball and cried. Laura moved closer and picked up Emma, holding her frail friend. "I'm sorry," whispered Laura. "I had no idea. I'm so sorry."

"Don't take my story," said Emma. "Don't wear a tragedy like a laurel." Her voice was whispered and cracked again. There was only the ghost of the woman now, broken and scared.

"I don't want your story," said Laura. "I want to fix this. I want to save you."

"My saviors are martyrs, and martyrs make for poor friends."

"Like Nikki?"

Emma nodded her head on Laura's shoulder. Hot tears dripped down Laura's back from Emma's cheeks. Laura was flush with pity for Laura and rage for Camille. She was weak, and yet, she managed to do so much damage. Not damage as a predator, but damage as someone unable to move on, unable to forget the rejection of over a hundred years ago. Emma's pain and Laura's rage brought her mind back to the purpose at hand. She had to remove Angelica first, and this information was useful to her.

"Angelica is supposed to keep you a secret," said Laura.

Emma nodded on her shoulder.

"That's what she's afraid of. Nikki found out and they had to get rid of her, but what if more found out. Angelica may be the one in trouble." Laura pulled Emma away from her. Emma's face was a mess of pain, snot, and tears. "Does Miss Lancaster know about you?"

Emma nodded.

"Jacques? The others?"

Emma shook her head.

"Just Lancaster and Angelica?"

Emma nodded.

"Okay, good." Laura's mind got to work. "Good. We can use that."

"Can you hold my sorrows?" asked Emma.

"Yeah, sure," said Laura, spreading her arms to hold Emma again. Emma curled into her and put her head back onto Laura's shoulder, crying again. "Whatever you want," said Laura's lips, but her mind was everywhere else.

*****************

Abby

Abby let go of her held breath as she stepped out of Camille's office. She had played her part. She mentioned asking Angelica about a silver haired woman she saw on the fourth floor late last night. Angelica told her it was Camille's daughter and not to ask anymore questions about it. As an act of loyalty, Abby went to Camille because she didn't think it was Angelica's business to talk about Camille's personal life.

Camille tried to play it off as nothing. She said she had no daughter, and she didn't know why Angelica would lie like that, but she would have a conversation with her servant later that day. She acted calm, but Abby saw her jaw clench, she saw her nails dig into her palms, and for a moment, when Camille spoke, Abby thought she saw fangs.

Claire was up next. In the meantime, Laura was going to help the rest of the staff "remember" Angelica gossiping about the strange girl living on the top floor of the house. With any luck, Angelica would be out of the way by the end of the week.

In the meantime, Laura's orders were clear. Abby needed to be in Laura's room. They were afraid of some immediate backlash, of whatever happened to Nikki happening to the rest of them. That meant Abby needed to be safe, and the safest place they could think of was with Laura for the next few hours.

Abby didn't mind in the slightest.

She found herself fantasizing about Laura endlessly. She didn't get much time alone with Laura since their time in the orchard. Normally, Claire was there, or Abby got her orders from Laura through Claire. But these past few days were a kind of heaven. Laura would spread her legs wordlessly, and Abby would fall to her knees. Then, they would talk. Well, Laura did most of the talking, but she would stop Abby and ask for her opinion. They talked mostly about literature, about poetry, and about fantasy. For Abby, it didn't matter what Laura wanted to talk about. All she wanted was to be near her dark poet, to hear the soft cadence of Laura's voice, to sink into the confidence and timbre of Laura's commands for hours at a time. Just the thought of Laura's voice was enough to make Abby's skin tingle and knees go weak.

She snuck through the servant's quarters, the ones Claire had shown her, to get through the locked doors cutting Laura off from the rest of the house. This was how Angelica brought writing assignments or food to Laura. No one else was allowed to see her, and she wasn't permitted to wander the halls anymore.

Abby knocked seven slow times on the door, giving Laura the signal it was her. She waited, and then the door opened. Laura turned without saying anything and sat back down at her desk, stacks of paper sprawled out across its surface. It was strange to see Laura clothed, to see her without the cloak or the moonlight glistening over her pale skin. Still, she dressed well for someone banished to a single room: knee length skirt, maroon tank top, black cardigan, knee-high socks. But this wasn't the appearance of some dark and dreadful goddess. The goddess wasn't in the clothing anymore; it was in her voice.

"Report?" she asked. It almost didn't sound like a question. It was a single word, but Laura said it without looking, without hesitation, without imploring, knowing that her will would become manifest. She went right to work on the stack of papers in front of her, red pen in hand, while expecting Abby to report.

Tingles flooded over Abby's body and the top of her scalp, like there wasn't enough skin for all the sensation. She smiled despite herself, blushing already.

"It went ... um ... well." Abby shifted her feet from foot to foot. "I think."

"It went um well or it went well?" said Laura, striking something out with her red pen.

"It went well."

"Any tangible expressions of frustration?"

"Clenched jaw and ... um ... I think ... well ... I think that I saw ... her ... you know ..."

"Out with it," snapped Laura.

"Fangs," whispered Abby. "I think I saw her fangs."

If it wasn't for the power Laura clearly had over her, Abby would think the whole story about vampires and long lost lovers and the captive children of lovers to be a joke. She would have sworn Laura was trying to trick her, to make her seem crazy so Laura could take her job back. But one look deep into Laura's eyes, and Abby could believe. She had not had the chance to meet Emma yet, but Claire and Laura spoke of the vampire as though she were real, and Abby couldn't ignore the scars over Laura's skin: two tight holes perfectly spaced to hold fangs.

"Nothing else?" asked Laura. "No flipped tables or outrage?"

"Disbelief," said Abby, trying to calm her nerves. "Her words said she was confused, but her body said she was upset."

"Fair. We need a tidal wave of evidence. I think the worst-case scenario, besides you and Claire being destroyed, is that Angelica finds someway to clear her name. I'd be willing to trade you two for Angelica, but losing you for nothing would set me back weeks." Laura stopped reading and looked up, pen tapping her chin. "Though I suppose then I would be back in a state of grace. I could work with that, but it would be a step back, for sure."

Abby shivered as Laura spoke casually about her demise. She was terrified of Laura, but she couldn't resist her. She didn't want to resist her. Abby felt alive for the first time in months. So much of her time was spent in books, writing, editing, or online with her friends. Now, for the first time, she was doing something that mattered. She was doing something with consequences. The world didn't change when another romance book or smutty fanfic was added to the overwhelming tonnage of romances and fanfics. But the world did change when life and death were involved. The world changed when Laura spoke, when she schemed, and now Abby was a part of that cosmic movement.

"Claire should be speaking to her soon, right?" asked Abby.

"She could be speaking with her right now," said Laura. "I imagine Camille would be calm in front of you, but the way Lancaster and Angelica are terrified of her? There is a temper there that they fear and, if your words work, she may be starting her investigation as we speak."

"Oh ..." said Abby. Goosebumps spread across her forearms. It was happening. Finally. "So we just wait?"

"You may wait," said Laura, never pulling her eyes from the stacks of papers on her desk. "But I have work."

"What work?" said Abby, stepping behind Laura to look over her shoulder. Camille had stopped sending things to Laura altogether. She was tired of Laura's cruelty and aggressive comments.

"Your work," said Laura. Abby leaned down and saw all the pages she had been assigned, pages with her edits on them, pages that should be in her bedroom right now.

"How did you get these?"

"Claire got them for me when she was cleaning your room."

"But ... but ... why?"

"Camille is soft and insecure. She uses writing as a method of validation. All the validations she can't get from Laura K, she gets from her fans. She used to get it from me, and when she stopped getting that, she blocked me out. Now she's getting it from you. Well," Laura turned and looked at Abby, smiling, "not anymore."

"May I?" asked Abby, her hand shaking as she reached for one of the stacks.

"Yes," permitted Laura. "Ideally, I don't want to go over your work like this. If you can edit like this, I'd be quite pleased."