Chapter 22: The Perfect Vampire

Seeking feedback on my work-in-process novel, Jack and the Beanstalk Cafe.

Start from the beginning: Chapter 1

Previous Chapter: Chapter 21

Where we left off: Philomena and Gillian travel to the Count’s castle where Philomena rescues Alice via magic portal and Gillian attempts to sneak out on foot. She’s almost out, when she runs into her father and his guards— with Jack in tow.

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Jack

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Jack had no idea what was going on. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten there, wasn’t even sure where there was. But then, he saw Gillian across the old stone hall, looking like a beautiful deer caught in headlights.

“Father.”

She said it with such cold disdain that the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood up. He had thought he’d experienced the extent of her anger, but he now knew he never wanted to be on the receiving end of whatever she was feeling toward her dad.

“So nice of you to join us, dear,” her father said. Jack had to hand it to the man for making such an innocuous statement sound so… evil. And he thought he had family drama.

“What are you doing with Jack?” Gillian asked, a slight tremor in her voice, still not moving from where she stood across the large room.

Jack would very much like the answer to that question, as well. One moment he was stepping outside the Beanstalk to grab something from the hardware store, the next he was being manhandled by two men and going on some sort of psychedelic trip. They’d arrived in this cold, dark castle-like place and Jack had immediately fallen down and dry heaved as his head spun from whatever they’d just done to him.

It was while he was there, on his hands and knees on the cold stone floor, that he felt a set of hands grip his shoulders. He could feel the cold of the stranger’s hands through his linen shirt and with prodigious strength, he was hauled upright and found himself face to face with Count von Karnstein.

The man was even more terrifying up close, his sharp black eyes staring straight into Jack’s soul. They were the same color as Gillian’s but that was where the similarity ended. Where hers were moonless nights, glimmering onyx, and half written promises in spilled ink, the Count’s were a black abyss of evil and rot.

The vampire had spoken words, low and monotone, that Jack didn’t hear or maybe heard too much. He found himself answering questions he didn’t know he’d been asked, moving through rooms he didn’t see and wouldn't remember. And it was like this that he’d arrived in the great hall in what looked like a medieval castle, staring at the woman he had fallen for before he’d known the truth.

“Oh, my darling girl,” the Count said, interrupting Jack’s spiraling thoughts. “You know exactly who he is, don’t you? You knew he had the runes I’ve been searching for for centuries. And yet you said nothing.”

Gillian crossed her arms, and Jack could almost feel her mind working, looking for a way out of this. He just wasn’t sure if anything she planned would include getting him out, too.

“Well, father, it was a little hard for me to contact you while I’ve been imprisoned for the last two hundred years.” She said it with a smirk but Jack knew her tells. She was nervous.

“Ah, yes. You remind me that you’ve been disappointing me for almost a millennium,” the Count said and Jack saw Gillian flinch at his words but she recovered quickly.

“Well, dad. You’ve been disappointing me lately, too.” She took a subtle step forward while putting her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you tell me what my real name is?”

The count laughed and spun around to look at his guards.

“She learned the truth, did she? I thought I raised her to be intelligent, but how many centuries did it take her to put it together? Pathetic.” The man was putting on a show now, his canines glinting in a horrifying pretense of a smile.

“Why?” Gillian’s voice was small and her voice caught on the single word. Jack’s heart lurched at the sound and his gaze darted back to her.

“Why? Why, she asks,” the Count taunted. “Because that stupid witch was gallivanting all over that putrid island, making claims about bringing me down. If she’d been a little less cocky, maybe I wouldn’t have seen it coming. But what did she expect would happen? Did she think I’d just let her tell the whole world about her plan to curse me with no repercussions?”

Gillian’s brows knitted in confusion.

“You still don’t get it, do you? I came there, to your puny human village, to find the witch and kill her. But she had run away scared, with her tail between her legs. And what was I left with?” he scoffed. “A pathetic little human. The wrong human. I thought you were her child, with that magic all over you, but it was just… you.”

Gillian’s eyes were brimming with tears now and Jack found himself struggling against his captors to reach her.

“What do you mean? What did you want with me?” she cried out to him.

“To punish the witch, of course,” the Count said, as if he were speaking to a confused child. “I wanted her to see her little friend turned against her into the perfect vampire. The very thing she despised more than anything. But, of course, you were a disappointment there, too.”

Jack’s heart was pounding in his chest, aching for reasons he couldn’t define. Since learning Gillian had become a vampire, he’d been confused— all the evidence of his interactions with her proved that she was a good person. But everything he’d discovered since, had conflicted with that first impression.

His destiny was apparently to hunt down vampires, but she was one. And not only a normal vampire, but one who had done something so evil, the Vampire King himself had sent her to prison. But now it seemed, she’d been a victim to him all along. She was just a human girl who was forced into the middle of this fight between two powers bigger than herself. Used as a weapon instead of loved and nurtured like a child should have been.

And Jack had just been one more person to let her down. To give her support and friendship and then rip it away through no fault of her own. His heart cracked as he realized how much his words and actions must have hurt her.

“None of this explains what you’re planning to do with Jack, now,” Gillian said, her arms crossed in front of her chest again. “The curse is complete. There’s nothing he can do for you. He doesn’t even know magic.”

“Ah, dear. As always, you underestimate me.” The Count gestured to one of his guards and the man pulled out a small leather pouch and handed it over. “While I have been searching for the witch for centuries, I found something even better.”

He pulled the drawstring on the small leather pouch and dumped the contents into his upturned palm. Jack strained to see what it was, but it just looked like a small pile of little brown pebbles.

A feral smile stretched across the Count’s face.

“Magic Beans.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 23