Chase Kaollyn

He rushed into the room. Her father. Rushed in with excitement in his face – not an innocent excitement of a child, but a rather violent excitement of a hunter who just shot a deer. His green eyes were ablaze, even his skin looked more alive, more vibrant. His copper-brown hair shone a little more in the dim light of the candles. Everything about him felt alive. He was a vampire. There were only a few occasions when those creatures felt alive…

His wife was sitting in an armchair with two little girls by her feet. Their father interrupted a story about the most beautiful nymph the world has ever seen.

All three of them looked up, but only his wife dared to ask.

“What happened?”

He was pacing back and forth, then finally stopped and looked at her with a smile.

“They caught one. They got one of the animals from the forest.”

Pruna frowned and closed the book in her hands. “I thought you had no contacts with your family.” Her voice was harsh, ice cold, and very quiet, as if she didn’t want their daughters to hear those words. But they did, of course they did.

“Well, no, usually I don’t, but Cornelia sent a messenger, this is big news.”

“You talk to your bloody sister?!”

“In all honesty, that is none of your business,” Chase snapped back.

She kept frowning, but didn’t continue. They couldn’t argue in front of the girls. At least not too often. It was probably the least they could do.

“It’s nothing to you, anyway,” she replied coldly, her gaze dropping to the book in her lap. She sounded almost sinister, that little smile on her face almost looked like it, too. “You can’t go there, you’ll never see one suffer and die…”

That seemed to have worked. Chase stopped moving, that awful stillness that vampires were capable of. He just stared at her, those words echoing in his brain. No, of course not. His mother refused to let him in the house. Or near it. He doubted he could even come close to the mountains. And whose fault was it? Was it all the woman sitting in front of him? The sweet elf who turned into a sharp harpy?

No. It was his own fault. He was blinded by the beauty he saw in her. Blinded by what he thought was a good deed. Blinded by the possibility of being different. Now… now he wanted to be just like everyone else in his family.

He wanted to have his go on a werewolf.

“What did they catch, da?” asked the older of the girls, Anitta. She was probably expecting a rather ordinary answer – a deer. A fox. Or maybe even a swan.

Chase walked to her and crouched next to her. “Do you know what a werewolf is?”

“Do we have to?” interrupted Pruna, now her eyes were worried and a little dissatisfied. Do their girls need to know about all those species? Now?

“Yes. Yes, we do. They need to know what those things are to keep safe. So?” He looked back to Anitta, who shook her head and so did her younger sister.

Before Chase could answer, his wife decided to do it for him. More sensibly, she thought. “They’re cursed people,” she started and looked at the girls. “Cursed by a spell that makes them abide by the moon and-“

“Oh, shut up.” Chase stood back up and looked at her with disgust in his expression. “It’s not a curse. It’s a disease and everyone who spreads it should be executed. And those they infected alike. You don’t let a rabid dog run around! You don’t wait for it to bite more people! You shoot it. You poison it. You drown it.”

Now Pruna was the still one, her pale skin went even paler. Then she realised something – or someone – was holding on to her ankle for dear life. When she looked down, she saw the younger one, Gem, fighting back the miserable expression on her face.

“Sweetheart-“

“They drown dogs?” the girl asked, her voice shaking. She’d asked her dad for a puppy a hundred times, but now that she knew that he might just drown it one day…

“No, not normal dogs. Not the healthy ones. It’s okay.”

“They’re diseased beasts,” continued her father, “that we nobly started calling a species.” He shook his head in disbelief, now standing with one hand in his pocket. “They’re no species,” he hissed, “they’re less than us. If we let every leper walk around, soon there would be no one.”

“Can you stop talking?” asked his wife, now cradling both her daughters’ heads to her chest. “This is not for their ears. Also, you can’t expect everyone to be bitten, it doesn’t work like that. They kill more people than they turn…”

“Are you hearing yourself? They kill people! Every damn full moon someone dies. And those idiots try to help them…”

“Chase-“

“They think they can tame a beast! How?”

“Chase, stop. They put them there to keep you safe. To keep safe everyone living in the mountains or by the forests…”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Chase laughed. “Obviously.”

“Girls? To your bedrooms. I think it’s time to sleep.”

“I’ll have nightmares,” murmured the younger one. She dreamed often, almost every night, but not every night they were nice dreams.

“If you have nightmares, I’ll come. But first, you need to go to sleep. Both of you. Take your sister, Anitta.”

The older girl took Gem, who was so sleepy she was almost sleepwalking, by the hand and started walking away.

“What’s going to happen to it now?” sounded Pruna’s voice from the room.

“I imagine they’ll tie it down and have some fun… Possibly wait for the next full moon. Maybe they’ll keep it alive long enough-“

“You are not going there.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“They don’t want you there, Chase. Please, I… Would you really leave just to torture some poor soul?”

Then, quiet.

They wouldn’t let him in. His mother wouldn’t. And the beast didn’t have a soul, anyway…