Sacrifice Helle

Chapter 29

Darien’s POV:
The corpses of the two female demons were still laying on the floor. Their smell burned into my nose, it was unpleasant. I hesitated a little, then walked over to them and turned their faces upwards. They had been a couple of nice looking demons once, now they were dreadfully deformed. I wondered about what I had been thinking joining Helle in this place. It was clear all the way that the vampire wouldn’t want me to be near him, and since Helle would be close to him pretty much all the time, it would be nearly impossible to have anything to do with her. I also wondered about why he wasn’t with her when they had arrived earlier. And for that matter of fact, why was Helle even here? I ripped of a bit of flesh from one of the demons and sniffed it. The vampires had not used any magic to kill them, vampires rarely used magic. But I was unsure of whether it would be poisonous or not. They seemed to have died normally. So I ate it.

Some time had passed since I last had visitors, I didn’t wish to eat more of the dead, it wasn’t like I enjoyed doing it anyway. But if one is hungry, then one eat. And to eat the flesh of strong demons was an honor in a way. They had been stronger then me, and just as crazy as my gang. Attacking the vampire castle, a really stupid idea. But so was going after Vaan. Like she said. How stupid.

As I sat pondering about what to do next, I was visited once again.

The door opened and she entered. I stood up from the floor. She looked at me a little uncertain, then she spoke. “I figured he would put you here. And that he wouldn’t plan on letting you close to her.” Then she smiled at me. “But if you promise to behave, I’ll treat you for what you are here; our guest.” She held out her hand to me, “You will be my partner at the dance?” I looked her in her eyes, her face showed no expression. “Why?”, I asked her. “Last chance.”, she replied.

Helle’s POV:
I woke up slowly at the feeling of something running along my skin. At first I figured it must be a bug, and hardly reacted, loving sleep as much as I do, you don’t let a little bug distract you. But it wouldn’t stop, so I shook my hand to get it away. But it came back, and me still with my eyes closed, still half ways in dreams, I sat up and smacked it big time for interrupting my sweet dreams. Then I hit something a little different from a bug, off course, once I remembered where I was, I realized how stupid the idea of a bug was.

“Oh, shit, sorry!“ Vaan hardly moved, he just shifted his glance from my hand and to my face. “I don’t go down that easily.”, he smiled at me. I sat up properly, rubbing my eyes a little, then I couldn’t keep myself from yawning. Still not quite back to myself yet I asked him, “What’s the time?” “We don’t watch the time down here.” “Huh? What do you mean down here?” He raised one eyebrow and looked at me like he was looking at a dumb sheep. “Oh. Oh, right. I forgot.” I rubbed my neck, it was hurting from the collar. “Just a second…” Vaan raised his hand and opened the collar. “Thanks… “ I didn’t know if I should thank him or not, since it was him that had put it on me in the first place. “I thought only dark elves used the collars…” “Hehe, I don’t need to use a magic collar on you, cutie, for you the normal ones work just fine.” /He called me cutie? What is the world coming to? Since when did I become cute?/ Vaan smiled. /And what are YOU smiling about?!/

“Come on, get up now.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me up with him from the bed. When I got up on my feet he flipped me around and started opening up my corset. “What are you doing?!” “You need to change for the dance/party/blood bath…” “I’m going? I thought you didn’t want me there.” “I changed my mind.” “But, Tobias said that… I only have this dress…” “Don’t you worry about THAT now.”

He opened the corset and it fell down on the floor. Then he undid the buttons on my skirt and under dress and it all fell down. The soft fabric felt good against my bare legs, and I kinda liked being undressed. Vaan was so gentle in his movements, I barely felt his hands on me at all. I heard him behind me, grabbing something, then he came back. I didn’t turn once, just waited. I felt his hands gently toughing my back, then again a soft fabric toughing my legs. This one was thinner though, almost cotton like. I looked down at my new skirt. It was white. White with a beautiful broidery. Then Vaan put on me a dress, white too, it’s skirt covered the white broidery, it barely covered my chest, closing up in my neck, my shoulders bare. It felt so loose and light. His hands stroke over my arms and he put white pieces of clothing on them too. “Turn around.” I lifted up the skirt and turned, it was so long, I almost tripped in it. Vaan took a good look at me. His let his fingers tangle down my hair. “Maybe we should put it up?”, I asked. “No.”, he said, “It’s beautiful this way.” I blushed and looked at the floor. “Oh, one more thing…” He walked over to a desk and picked up a silver tiara, or, it was just the ring, nothing fancy, no diamonds, just plain silver. He laid it on my head. “Now there’s my queen.”

We walked down the stairs again, down and down, down and down. “Tired already? I hope not.” Vaan cast a glance at me. I was walking by his side. “No. It just doesn’t seem to end anywhere.” White shoes. All white. I didn’t ask any questions. “Don’t worry, it will end soon.” I didn’t like the sound of that coming from him.

Then music. Yes, from further down. It must be very loud. /What are they playing?/ Vaan didn’t answer. /I wont be able to hear anything…/ “There will probably be no need to speak.” He took my hand and led me down the last stairs. The music got louder and louder, we entered a door and a great hall met us. There were many vampires there, but it still wasn’t crowded. Many doors. Huge hall. They were looking at us. I didn’t like it, I didn’t know if it was me or Vaan, or just the two of us together that caught their interest. And not knowing was not pleasant. Vaan’s hand held onto mine harder. We kept walking to some great doors, and passed many others. On one wall there was a mirror, it was the only mirror I had seen so far down here. I caught a glimpse of myself as we passed it, only me. I felt the goose bumps on my skin. I looked like a ghost in these clothes. My skin was already so pale, white made me seem even paler. And the dress itself, a ghost. Or a fading bride. /Bride? Stop thinking in that direction Helle./, I told myself. The doors flung open before us and we entered. My mouth fell open at the sight. I was bombarded with music, and the pure dimension of what I saw overwhelmed me. The room was so huge, gigantic! We were standing on top of a huge stair going down into a gigantic mess of bodies crawling around. Vampires everywhere. I wasn’t sure I could see the end of it even. Vaan started walking down the stair as the huge doors closed behind us. I hesitated, going down into the insanity down there? Not the first think I was thinking of. The first thing was to get the hell back to the bed I had been dreaming so nicely in just an hour ago. Vaan stopped and looked at me. /No?/, he asked. He pulled my hand and my feet started moving by themselves. /Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you./ He laid an arm around me, it felt a little better, but still. I stared at the vampires around us. They were staring at me, smiling, laughing. Maybe not at me. Maybe I was being paranoid.

Vaan led me through the mass and headed for a heightening in the room. My eyes brightened as I saw Tobias up there. A familiar face. Then my eyes darkened again as I saw Embla there as well. She smiled to Vaan, he replied the gesture, something was said I knew, but only between those two. I noticed that this heightening was somewhat reserved. The other vampires kept down there, and there was a significant line of separation between “us” and the rest. Embla was dancing around to the music with a whole bunch of male vampires flocking around her, it looked like she was going down to the masses. Tobias also had a partner there, a female vampire I hadn’t seen before. They both bowed to Vaan. /Sire then?/ That far I understood. The ranking order in this society must be pretty easy to keep control of. It seemed that we were socializing, Vaan led me around the group of vampires on the “top”, seemingly having conversations with them. Conversations I was left outside of. But he still kept his arm protectively around me. /Hello Helle./ I turned my head. Iselin! She looked as gorgeous as ever, but now she had gotten herself out of her black clothes and into a smooth deep blue dress. Her eyes ran over my outfit. She was angry. /What?/ She didn’t reply. Instead she hid her anger and smiled slightly. She looked over at Vaan and bowed, he didn’t seem to notice her. /I’ll see you around/ And then Iselin turned around. I followed her with my eyes as Vaan pulled me in another direction. Iselin was walking over to her partner, she took hold of his hand and led him away from me and Vaan. Her partner - Darien.