Chapter I
What can I tell you? Seeing Carmilla alive and well took me by surprise. It was a tremendous shock, and I had too many conflicting feelings. “Confront her? After everything we went through?” Several days passed, and I received another message. I told Dad everything; it was very difficult. I really thought that that chapter of my life had ended, but when your mother and your grandparents are hinted to be likely celestial beings, it’s clear that your life won’t be like that of a normal human. Knowing that I was immortal was a hard blow. Let me tell you how things unfolded.
“Dad, do you remember the girl I met in the past? In the Victorian era?”
“Laura? The one who taught you English?” he asked.
“No... The vampire.” I corrected, sighing.
“Ah, Carmilla, from the novel. Talk to me, even if it’s difficult. You know I’m with you,” he said calmly.
“Do you remember what happened between her and me? And how it turned out?” I asked uncomfortably.
“Um... Do I have to say it? If it’s uncomfortable for you...” he asked.
“Just tell me. I want to hear it,” I requested.
“The one who got intimate with you while you were unconscious and fed on you. She ended up obsessed with you, and you had to kill her.”
“Dad,” I said. “We fell in love. I couldn’t leave her, knowing that her presence endangered others, that my blood was making her volatile and addicted to me. But I couldn’t resist, and neither could she. I had to get sick and be on the brink of death. Even then, I had to end it before she hurt more people.”
My father thought for a moment and then began, “We all make mistakes, son; it’s part of being human. The key is to rectify those mistakes and learn a lesson from them. You shouldn’t be self-complacent, but also not too hard on yourself. It’s always good to look at things from a third perspective before jumping to conclusions. You tried to rectify your mistake; things didn’t go as you wished, but that’s life. This will prepare you for what’s to come.”
I took a pause and said, “She’s alive, still alive. I don’t know how she did it, but she has found me again, here, in the present.”
My father opened his eyes and asked after a pause, “Was she the one who sent you the Wagner CD? ‘Ride of the Valkyries’?”
“Yes. Then she called me, wants to meet me. Can you imagine? She probably even got inside the hotel!”
“If she sent that song, she must already know about your abilities. What abilities does she have?” asked my father.
“Very similar to mine, and I suspect she can transform into some kind of cat. Laura told me, and I realized she visited me at the inn in Styria. She was probably the one who attacked the two girls there.”
“Ah, the one with the mosquitoes,” Papa said. “But they are fine; she must have changed her tactics. In the novel, she would have killed many girls, even traumatized your friend Laura. But in our timeline, there were no more deaths, and Laura was able to age normally, as we saw in the museum.”
“But in the original timeline, she was supposed to be killed by General Spielsdorf! By going back to her time and bringing that damn Beast of Gevaudan with me, I gave her a chance, and now she’s still alive!” I sighed.
“You had no idea you would end up there, let alone that monster would follow you. Don’t torment yourself with ideas that lead nowhere. Are you going to confront her?” he asked.
I sighed again, not knowing what to do. If I don’t confront her, she’ll surely follow me and try to be bolder, maybe even find my house or hurt my father. But if I confront her, I’m in danger of falling into her web and back into addiction; my blood had made her irresistible.
My father cleared his throat and said, “It’s been several days; we’ll be returning to Chile soon. You must make a decision soon. I have a feeling that things await us back home, and we also need to prepare for you to see what you’ll study.”
I took the phone and checked the text message she wrote:
“Would you like to meet at Café Strauss at midnight? I’ll be waiting for your confirmation.”
“Damm stalker,” I thought. I considered bringing the sword and making sure the job was done this time, but there would be people, and the commotion would end in a secure jail.
I finally confirmed the time and told her I would be there. She replied with just a smiling face, and I told Dad about it.
“You are very brave, son. Don’t let your emotions take over. Give your best and see through her words,” Dad finally said.
After a few days, I prepared and dressed for the occasion. Using the maps application, I found the place, a very intimate alley in the first district of Vienna. It really seemed like time had stopped in the Baroque era in those places. Yes, my dad had given me history lessons during our vacations.
The table had been reserved under the name Millarca. “Typical of my dear Carmilla,” I thought. I ordered a coffee and looked around. It was happy hour, and for a coffee bar, the atmosphere was quite calm and intimate. She had thought it through very well. I even took the trouble to watch how the man prepared the coffee, paranoid about unpleasant surprises.
And there she came, her silky and beautiful hair elegantly flowing as she entered. Her smooth skin and elegant, slender body. Upon seeing me, her gaze lit up fervently, and I could notice a touch of ruby in her eyes, shining with a radiant smile, like those fans you see on television when their favorite movie star passes by. Well, all that was missing was for her to pull out a pen and paper. She looked even more beautiful in her modern attire, and her way of speaking had already adapted to the modern style, still with small traces of the melodramatic style she had.
“Hello!” she said and stood in front of me. Then she adjusted her bag and, with her typical feminine style, elegantly sat in the chair and ordered a glass of water. “God!” I thought. “I feel the magnetism again. I can’t, I must get out of here... No, you’re already here; you need to know what she wants.”
I felt again how her pupils dilated. “She smelled my blood again, not again,” I thought.
“I’m not going to give you a hug because a hundred and fifty years ago, we didn’t part on the best terms. So, I won’t make you uncomfortable. For you, surely, only a few weeks have passed. I had a lot of time to reflect, and I imagine that for both you and Laura, the experience was traumatic. I have changed my ways, and let’s say I am now more subtle, with no deadly results.”
Her words said something, but her expressions showed me another thing. I could smell how her hormones went crazy, see how she bit her lips from time to time, look at my face and neck constantly while swallowing saliva.
“I don’t want to sound rude, but I would like you to get to the point and tell me what you want,” I insisted.
Carmilla looked at her glass of water and said, “I just wish, hope, maybe... could we start over? From scratch? Without pressure?”
I thought, “You had a hundred and fifty years to prepare and reflect, and you come up with this? Vampires never change; they only desire blood.”
I meditated deeply because this time, I really had to be careful. I still desired her, but I knew it would only lead us to ruin.
I sarcastically whispered, “You know you can’t bite me now. My skin could break your teeth, and this time, I would be more attentive to your miraculous teas.”
Carmilla looked a bit disappointed because, of course, I was right. Why would she be with me if she couldn’t have what she desired the most? I wasn’t going to accept any strange concoctions or anything that altered my body anymore; the last time I did that, I almost died of tuberculosis.
She looked out the window with her beautiful face, then turned her gaze back to me and said, “No... No...” She sighed and continued, “It’s not about your blood, if that’s what you think.”
“Tell me,” I said. “How could I sleep at night while you’re extracting the essence of who knows who? I attract beings like you; my natural instinct is to kill beings like you. We’re not compatible, and I know you’ll eventually try to unlock the lock once again and go for my blood.”
Carmilla looked at and played with her glass, sobbed for a moment, and a tear fell, drying before anyone could see it.
“Okay, have good luck on your journey.”
Finally, she stood up and left, firmly closing the door. The rest of the people looked at me strangely. I paid the bill and walked back to the hotel; I had to prepare to go home, a new case was waiting for me.
Upon arriving home, I packed with Dad. I saw a new notification on my remaining social network. I hadn’t touched or logged in since Carmilla’s call, and I could see that the request was from her herself. I wanted to decline the request, but my curiosity won over; I wanted to see what she had.
She had only put “Cammy” on her profile, and there were no photos of her. Still, she had been tagged in some photos—all of them in nightclubs with other girls, perhaps. There were mentions, greetings with loud tones, and I could deduce that she had possibly been using a dating app to find other young women.
“The modern world must be giving her a lot of material,” I thought. “Of course, she wouldn’t need to kill anyone else. She simply continued her escapades and adapted. Now that she had more material to work with, and there were no inhibitions from the Victorian era, it was much easier for her.” Seeing the new nightlife she had, I thought, “I really dodged a bullet.”
But “why bother coming to see me? With her charms and the much more liberal world than that Victorian era, why bother bothering me?”
