The wind was gentle, invigorating. Part of the valley was pure white, remnants of the avalanche, the dark wet road flanked by the train tracks and the forest. Laura tightened her arms a little tighter on the pilot; being honest, she couldn't resist tightening her grip on Carmilla's back. The sensation calmed her thoughts, and in three days was what she needed most.

Since her mother's death, she had taken on countless responsibilities herself; resting was not a common thing for her head. That wind reminded her of her first ride. She nearly fell off the pony, and her mother rescued her on a snow-white steed.

"What's wrong, cupcake?" Carmilla asked.

"Nothing, I'm just thinking," said Laura, but that wasn't true.

"That's why I smelled smoke over there," laughed at her. "I know you did nothing. They are fools to think that you are the responsible."

"Will you tell me?"

"You don't tell me what you were thinking."

"Nothing important, just my mother. I remember her sometimes, but I don't remember her face." no more words needed, like young Guto, parents or any loved one added to the word war explained everything. "It's ok, I got a substitute face."

"Substitute?"

"Yes, I imagine my father with a long wig and braids. Then I have a mother."

The sound of the bike shared space with their laugh, talking the biggest nonsense, and it all started with Sherman Hollis wearing a wig, then it only got worse.

***

An uncharted road brought them to that deserted spot among the mountains. The vampire tapped her foot on a step. The beginning of an ancient stone staircase, invisible by the snow. They went up for about half an hour.

The path was narrow; trees invaded the steps of roots and the branches thinned the passage, and the temperature plummeted because of the height. They reached a landing with a few pilasters, ruins of what had once been the amphitheater of "Greek-Austrian" poets. Laura marveled at the place of ancient Greece.

"We are almost there cupcake," Carmilla called up the floor of the audience.

They climbed to the end, passing between two pilasters to form a Greek portal, the path leading to the end of the mountain. The sight silenced the blonde.

"Why no one has ever told me about this place?" said the journalist.

"Probably because everyone who knew this place; is dead," commented the vampire.

"HEY! WE ARE HERE! Now you have to tell me, what happened that night, those things, the fire!"

Carmilla was staring in a way that made her legs tremble, but she stood her ground in front of the brunette. They sat on a stone bench overlooking the valley.

"So! Spit it out!" enjoin Laura. The vampire sighed, looking at the journalist.

"Look, I know there's no way to lie now, but; you really want to know? If you stop now, your life will go a lot easier. Knowing more will step on thorns in a dark forest," said the dark Carmilla.

"I waited three days in that room to find out. You think I'll stop now? I'll go all the way down this."

"Well, then ask me three questions." Carmilla's voice sounded with a lot of amusement. The vampire smiled.

"Those things were werewolves, right?"

Carmilla nodded a yes.

"But they didn't have ears."

"Long story that, but they were werewolves."

"Were they responsible for the fire?"

"Totally, they did it because of me, emptying the city to get me." explained the brunette.

"You? But what about the train?"

"Big, dumb, yes, they overdid it. Well, three questions. Satisfied?" Carmilla said, turning back on her companion.

"Of course not!" Laura pulled the brunette by the shoulders, laying the biker's head on her lap. "I have thousands of questions. You said we'd talk. When we woke up," Their gaze locked, golden hair encircled the vampire's face. "Where did you go that night? And what is it between us?"

"You really want to know?" Carmilla's gaze shifted, as if the explanation of the disaster didn't match what would come next.

"Yes, why you ask so much, how many times do I have to confirm it?" curiosity consumed the journalist.

"At least one more time, cupcake. What you want to know can tie a knot in your brain; and; can change everything; everything between us."

Laura looked at the valley. The brunette's tone was very disconcerting. A little fear climbed the blonde's chest, but the lack of answers was even more frightening. Carmilla sat up, looking at the mountains horizon, her hands gripping the bench.

"I feel agonized, not remembering my mother's face, a single absence like this is awful. I feel the same between us, Carm. Feels like you know me, and I feel like I know you too, but why don't I remember? It's like something missing in my head." Their hands met on the bench. "It's killing me, so please tell me." Laura turned to look at Carmilla and she was already staring at her face.

"Where can I start? It's hard to tell, if you knew everything that happened. I don't know how you could react to this." the brunette closed her eyes with regret in her voice.

"Why? Don't tell me we..." the blonde stared at her feet wide-eyed, failing on trying to control her imagination about bed sheets.

Carmilla was silent, keeping her eyes on the emptiness of the valley as if everything Laura wanted to know was passing in the wind.

"Laura; what if everything you know was a lie? And if what you believe it is, isn't true?"

The journalist found herself confused by the brunette's existential proposals. 'To be or not to be?'

"Why don't you tell me of what happened that night, they were werewolves and, I don't think you're very; human."

"For a nosy you're pretty smart cupcake. I don't know why it's been so hard to tell you, but in the end, better you know. This ignorance that kills men. You're right, I'm not human, I'm..." Carmilla paused. The truth seemed stuck up her throat. "I'm a vampire, and don't worry, I don't want your blood only." She made the blonde blush. That lead to the hardest part. "Don't freak out, okay. There's really something missing in your head, a part of your mind. A few weeks ago the Wallachia's third court came after some rumors about attacks. They thought I was responsible. As punishment, they took away the memory of everyone who knew me in the city. Especially yours. Those wolves were after me, because of this mess. The wolves blamed me for the third court here, finding out they were the monsters causing rumors."

The journalist remained static; it made perfect sense, or none. She squeezed the other's hand, staring at the dark gaze through the black strands.

"Someone got inside my head?!" She despaired, but in less than a second she was back to sanity. "So you meaning I'm not crazy? We really knew each other, and that's why you don't get you out of my head?"

"I what?"

They fell off the bench when Laura hugged Carmilla.

"It means I'm not crazy!" She repeated happily, hugging the other on the floor. "You're my friend, that's why I thought about you so much!"

"Friend?" The brunette's tone tinkled sadly.

"No?" The silence was the answer, and the vampire got out of the embrace, staring at nothing. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she replied quickly.

"It's wrong to think you're cute when you are feisty like this?" Carmilla returned a confused look, and Laura laugh in the back of her hand. "Kidding."

"Kidding on what?!"

"I was scared, I didn't know, if we, but..."

"Comes here!" Carmilla pulled the blonde to her.

They grappled in a wrestling match, rolling from side to side trying to beat the opponent - right that the vampire was just playing on strength - Laura pinned the brunette's wrists to the ground, with her legs flanking the torso of the same. They faced each other, feeling their breathing out of step, their heart racing, and the distance between them ending.

"Carm," called, approaching her face.

"Say nothing," she asked, almost at the blonde's mouth.

The brunette's breath warmed Laura's lips, closing her eyes a few millimeters more and.

"You haven't changed a bit. Always like this, always liked the virgins." The two girls on the floor looked up, and a girl with orange hair landed on the bench.

"Sophia," snorted Carmilla, extremely disgusted with the meeting. Laura analyzed the girl, she was thin, very thin, she wore a long light dress, tied up hair in a tight bun, completely exposing her shoulders and neck, her eyes were green almost yellow, the pupil thin as a needle evidencing non-humanity.

"What's your beautiful name?" asked to Laura in a thin, sweet voice, crawling over the blonde. In one movement, the vampire plucked Laura from the scaly one, licking her lips with desire.

"Her tongue!" yelled Laura when saw the forked tip.

"What you want Sophia?"

"Jeez! This is how you greet an ex?"

"Ex?!" hissed the incredulous blonde.

"Yes, means that we dated," she explained, intertwining her own hands in front of her chest.

"Shut up, you pervert snake! What you want dammit?!" snapped Carmilla.

"You naked in my room later would be great, but," she said calmly, enjoying the sight of Laura's legs and looking up at each curve. "What a waste, I'd like her too, would be a wonderful threesome, don't you think Mircalla?" Sophia's eyes bulged as Carmilla grabbed her by the throat.

"Came here just to piss me off? Say yes for me to kill you now."

"You always turned me on with that face and, you always had good taste, but I came to warn you about the steak there," Carmilla tightened the skinny's throat. "She's an Off." She spat at them. The vampire released her.

"I'm what?" Laura asked.

"At my place," said the viper, pulling the brunette's hands on her waist.

"Yeah, at your place," Carm replied, while Laura felt a lump form in her throat with the proximity of the two. The 'ex' next to Carm's name bothered her in all ways.

They went to the road. Carmilla pulled Laura onto the bike, starting without waiting for Sophia.

"What about her?"

"She know the way," Carmilla replied, annoyed. "Listen, I know will sound weird, but, you'll say yes to everything I say, promise me, please."

"Okay." The blonde didn't understand what was going on, but the vampire's tone was serious and the ex. "SHE IS YOUR EX?! And are we going to her house?"

"Laura, it is serious,"

"You look so cute fighting; you too, Mircalla," Said Sophia at long footsteps, almost floating beside the motorcycle at high speed.

"Shut up and show the path!" Carmilla growled. The skinny ran in front of the motorcycle. "Go faster or I'll run you over your ass" As soon as the girl got far enough, the vampire gave the instructions. "I didn't imagine they would choose you for this. As an Off, a scapegoat for their mess. They'll hand you over as guilty, that's the end of questions or investigations."

"Them who? And, is she really your ex?"

"We're going to meet the governor of Styria, he's a grumpy basilisk of three thousand years."

"Basilisk?!" The fantastic snake swept away all thoughts of the journalist, making her extremely excited.

"It's supposed to you be so happy about being chosen as live bait? Anyway, just do what I say okay? And don't look him in the eye."

***

An old castle was Sophia's home, in a remote part of the valley, almost on the other side of the mountain. A thin man with a gray mustache and a butler's uniform greeted them.

"Madam," said the butler in his monotone voice as he greeted Sophia, arriving last. "Anything I could do?"

"Bring me wine," snorted the disheveled redhead. "Good race, but next time I want to go on your back, like her did."

It was a castle fit for royalty, gilt-framed paintings with dukes and counts in oil paint. A piano graced the side of the great hall, with two curving stairs ending at an ebony table in the room's center. The green floor trim with the snake-shaped banister. The air in the residence was very different. Wasn't human, which made the journalist's chest pump as if she were in Alice's magical world.

"Stay close," Carmilla whispered, grabbing Laura's hand.

"Stuart, where is my father?"

"In the office, madam."

"Thanks. Take wine to my room and my toy chest. I'll play later," she said, devouring the brunette with her eyes. Sophia led them up the stairs, passing two corridors of rooms to a large door decorated with a snake of blackened metal, with thorns sprouting at the edges. The hinges spun with a great creak, as sharp as chalk on the blackboard. Laura covered her ears until the noise ended.

"Dad, I'm home," Sophia crooned, heading straight for the table in the living room next to the office.

"How dare you bring a traitor here?" Said Midas Brandsnake, sitting in the chair behind the table.

"And I was planing on be polite," Carmilla looks at the ground.

"I'm not sympathetic to your mother's servants or traitors, but if the problem is civility. To what do I owe the displeasure of the visit, Mircalla?"

"She's not my mother, and was she who betrayed me, but it's not about Lilita I came here. I came here to complain about a fault in your command." Midas must have opened his eyes a little wide, but neither of them would have seen such a glimpse. "You chose my human as a men's offering, disrespecting the rules."

"And with rules you ever followed?" He said. "You talking about respect. You? A traitor, stray dog and renegade of Lilita. I just don't kill you, because I won't finish your mother's dirty job."

"SHE IS NOT MY MOTHER!!!" The vampire took a deep breath, censoring her anger. "She betrayed me, soon as I met her. Renegade or not, I'm still a nighter claiming my right of possession, Laura is mine. You can't offer her as if she belongs to no one. Or will honorable Lord Brandsnake cross the most absolute law among us?"

A rapturous silence compressed the room. Laura was failing to keep her eyes away from the lord. She took in her daughter's similar physiognomy, the clothes with ruffled sleeves, the buttons in gold bundles. The orange hair tied with a ribbon at the end and left on his chest.

"Is it true what she says, young lady?"

The blonde almost glared at him, but Carmilla squeezed their hand before her gaze passed over the man's mouth.

"Yes, I'm hers." Laura untied the brunette's hand, only to intertwine their fingers, and she could hear Carm's muffled smile because of the change.

"Mircalla, I will not make a secret of my contempt for you, and I will still respect the law of our people. But, you know how men are, they don't believe in anything they can't see and touch. I give you a day, find a better substitute than your human to offer them."

"Done."

"Take the offering to Norbert, I'll send him a message, telling him to wait for your contact."

"Thank you, and I don't like you either." The vampire was pulling Laura to the door.

"You 're welcome, and Sophia will go with you."

"No way, can't be you my lord?" Carmilla asked. Sophia leapt to the vampire's free side and, smiling, took her hand, which filled the journalist's mouth with flame and her heart of lead.

***

Laura held her stomach, nauseated by Carmilla playing the doctor. A few miles from the mountain inn, in the tomb of the growlers serving as patchwork.

"Good idea," said Sophia, near the edge of the hole under the trees.

The vampire mended the arms and legs of the corpses in a single chest. The smell of decay, the misshapen creature, propelled the turns in the journalist's stomach. However, nothing compared to the revulsion at Sophia's hints, the gazes, touches and winks. It was agonizing. Even though the brunette didn't give the slightest leash, it ruffled the blonde's hair.

"Fuck off, Sophia," said the brunette, avoiding a peck.

Laura turned away from the couple, walked kicking the floor so she wouldn't hear it anymore.

"Come on, my love, what fun have on been together, if I can't touch you? Ouch!" Sophia pulled away, squeezing the back of her head. "What is this? Now you going to mistreat me? Ouch!" The snake fell face-first into the roots.

Carmilla picked up a little stone from the ground and looked at Laura from the far back. Sophia got up and said something about handcuffs, and another gravel hit the snake in the middle of her forehead.

Time to go. And they followed the vampire carrying the Nazi centipede.

***

Norbert's disdain was no surprise, but it was the governor's orders. Sophia also helped to invent the story of the demonic centipede. They would believe it. No one would dispute an animal with four legs, six arms and a decaying head, reeking of dead socks.

"My beloved, aren't you forgetting anything?" Sophia said, strumming her lips.

"No," Carmilla started the bike and called Laura, "Hurry please," asked.

The blonde hugged the vampire's waist. They went back to Punkt. Carmilla ran for the shower as thirty-eight slaughterhouses bite her clothes. Laura stayed in the vampire's room, packing her suitcase.

"I should have thrown a bigger stone," suggested to herself. Squeezing a paper ball, she threw it right on the edge of the window, ricocheting towards the trash. She stared at the street outside, the lights coming on and the day fading. Sat up on the bed and found one of Carmilla's books on the bedside table, picked it up and read.

"Want to take a shower, too?" Carm entered the room, drying her hair.

"Who's Ensom, the dark king? No, wait, that was Breus. Ensom was the black lion. This story is outstanding. Who wrote it?" asked the curious blonde.

"Wait a second, you can read this?" The expression was a mix of amazement and wonder.

"Of course." Laura didn't understand why asked something so obvious.

"You can take borrowed. Are you going to take a shower here? Or," Said Carm.

"No, I take a shower at the inn. Now there's no problem in going back right?"

Not at all. Right now the monstrous centipede was the protagonist of the disaster and guilty of everything that men could call bad luck. The vampire approached the blonde, closing the book, leaving it aside on the bed.

"Cupcake." they stare at each other's eyes. In order to finish what started in the mountains, which surely would have been wonderful. The journalist felt the other's breath on her mouth.

"Carm." called one more time.

They closed their eyes.

"Daaarling," Sophia stuck her head into the room. "Don't begin without me," she whine passing through the door.

"What you want? We're finished," growled the vampire.

"Wow, darling, won't you take me to my home? Then we could continue what we didn't finish years ago."

"You are more than capable to go home by yourself,"

"Stop making that face. I can't stand it. Please my love, my legs hurt so bad." The snake said, pulling her dress up.

"Ah, for fuck's sake! I gave you a ride," the vampire roared. Carmilla left, slamming the door. And Laura passed by the two out into the hallway.

A few minutes later Laura was at the foot of the mountain. The vampire said goodbye rudely; furious she was. But the journalist wasn't okay with all of that..

***

She was happy, even with the bucket of information over her head. Vampires, basilisks, the night. Confirming her suspicions of the blue elves in the woods, and the goblins who played pranks on their parents and neighbors. She swore they loved the car exhausts. In fact, she also soiled herself with soot, imitating the runts, worshiping them like dragons.

Since she was little, since always, she suspected that this world had more than it appeared; she felt like she was the only one to see it. The weirdo, they said, so she sought for answers, to questions that no one had ever asked.

That difference had always set her apart from the other kids by being labeled a weird girl, but it never dampened her thirst for the unknown. More, more, and there was more. Now she understood why Carmilla had caught her attention. The vampire attested to all of her most absurd theories.

Vampire, thought the journalist, her face heating. She was back at 307 at the inn. Carmilla returned to the town, after take Sophia home. The blonde's thoughts turned violent. But she cleans up the bedroom. The furniture out of place, because of the jolt of the avalanche. The clothes everywhere, as she hurried out to outwit the lynching group after her.

It was hard not to think of a bonfire with a roasted snake, or a family-sized bottle filled with vinegar to trap the snake and show it off. Laura closed the clothes drawer, stared at the ceiling, gasping for the lump in her throat, nearly crying. When she realized she was already wetting the floor with tears.

"But, there's nothing between us, at least, I don't remember, why I'm crying, is it because, I...love her?" Laura sat on the bed. "We slept together, but, did we, did that already?" Someone knocked on the door and by strength, was urgent. She wiped the tears quickly before answering the door.

"Hi Laura, are you alright? I just came to see how you were," Danny explained, entering the room.

"Yes, I'm fine, don't worry. And did you get another scolding from Norbert?"

"He should already be used to. I will not stand with someone in danger. Were you crying?" The woodcutter approached, touching the short girl's blond hair. "You know you can tell me anything," said the woodcutter, holding Laura's face between her hands. "Anything."

The journalist felt the heat coming from the other. Wondering what to say, Danny bent down, leveling her face to the blonde's. The window creaked in the wind on its hinges, the blow of snow from the avalanche covering half the inn. The room was warm from the blazing fireplace.

"What are you doing?" asked the journalist, having her face pulled.

"Nothing, I'm sorry." Danny walked away with a red face and went to the door. "Good night, we'll talk tomorrow!"

Laura said good night when the door closed. She turned her thoughts back to what just happened, remembered Sophia and if the snake was now in the same position with Carmilla. The thought infuriated her, but soothed her when she wondered if it couldn't be her and the vampire in that way. Not tiredly chaining them to sleep, not that sleeping with her was bad, but I'd rather be awake. Get closer and kiss her. The journalist was the color of strawberries, her face burning and her hands sweating, clutching her clothes nervously.

Once again, someone slammed the door. Laura shook her head to compose herself. She placed her hand on the doorknob, turned the latch, and it was too fast. She felt the heat of a thousand times before. Hands pulling her waist, the curves of the other fitting with on her body, when she realized was too late.

Given in the urgent kiss of Carmilla, who pulled her body, which forced them to advance across the corridor and, pressing the brunette's hip against the balustrade. The noisy contact crackled at every brief interval without pulling away. The blonde didn't have control of her hands, lost at Carm's body.

"Good night, cupcake," said the brunette, jumping the balustrade. Laura saw the vampire slip into the landing, but jump up on the bike. From a distance the blonde swore she heard a cry of joy, that for sure was for the kiss she wanted, and had it.

***

Author notes:

Hey Creampuffs, how it was this chapter? They try, but seems hard to Hollstein make out. After all, a shadow from the past chase our vampire, and her human.