Midnight After Midnight - Nanowrimo 2022

Chapter 13 - When Death Knocks

During all this time, Adelaide was wondering what was going on in Simon and Elizabeth's lives. It had been four years since she came to the palace of the Vega clan and six years since everything began. She'd left her life behind, never completing her education and getting a job like she'd expected all her childhood, instead getting pregnant at a young age and forsaking her remaining family for a bunch of vampires. Even after all this time, she couldn't quite grasp her situation, still feeling like she was stuck in some overlong nightmare that could end at any moment.

However, she didn't think about all of that too often, for there was always a lot to do in the court that occupied her mind for the majority of her nights, and even days when she stayed up late. At midnight, she and the rest of the brides still liked to waltz with the others because Lionel's ghastly presence in their lives wasn't enough to ruin that beloved pastime for them.

During their meals, and sometimes even after them, they liked to gossip with the vampire noblewomen on everything that was interesting at the time, fortunate to get measly clues on how their plan for world dominion was going. Over time, those clues came to form a picture. The plan was going better than ever before, but the major problem was that the vampire race was overwhelmed with caution.

They slowly sent their test subjects to London, never sending more than a few at a time and especially not sending anyone too important, and although there was progress, there wasn't too much of it, so they were not yet sure if they should be sending more and how many of them they should be sending if they were to decide to go through with it.

They were already known more than enough in Ravenseye, and despite Ravenseye consisting mostly of superstitious, God-fearing, paranoid fools, they always considered the risk of something like that happening in any other city. If it were to happen in a more advanced city, it was sure to spread to other more advanced cities, which would foil their plans to at least some extent that they didn't want.

Still, they were vampires, far more intelligent, powerful and cunning creatures than humans, which meant that, as their plans became more successful, which they knew would happen, they began sending more subjects of bigger importance, and actual apparent progress began to show itself. But the population they wanted to control was rather large, so they had to work from the shadows for a little more while before they could initiate the war between the two species.

The brides also had their meetings with Jeremy, who'd been preparing for the war for years. Together, they were creating plans to win and to escape, but just like when it came to their enemies, their progress wasn't as concrete as they wanted it to be. They supposed that they had to wait for their opponents to make the first move, which meant that Adelaide could be staying there for several more years. The possibility of that happening caused her to fall into deep sorrow.

Little did she know that she'd soon fall into even deeper sorrow. On a random morning, when the sky was light grey and full of clouds, and when Lionel had had more than enough time to grasp some of the things she could be wondering about, he came into the then-empty hall slowly, ready to talk to her in a way he hadn't been in a while. It surprised her when he sat near her with a mournful expression on his face, and her eyes widened as she wondered what was on his mind at the moment.

He let out a deep sigh, immediately waking her up from her thoughts. "Hello, my dear. I'd like to talk to you tonight because I've got a lot to say."

She scowled at him. "Why did you wait until now, Lionel? You hadn't been this eager to talk to me for years, barely willing to spend time with me, marrying a new woman every year, with secrecy enveloping you like your cape at every step. You're aware of just how strange you are, right?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I realised my mistake. All these years, I've been a naive romantic, jumping from one enchanting woman to another, ruining the lives of women I should've left for dead because of my caprices. Not you, of course, it'd be a shame if you died. It's just that I believed that someone would finally accept me for who I truly am inside, a thoroughly devoted follower of Satan.