Chapter Text
Natasha
Not the nursery, anywhere but the nursery. My heart pounds in my chest and I barrel down the stairs. I can barely breathe, lungs so clogged with worry.
Vampires in Watford.
How did they get past the gate? Why are they here? Why the nursery?
My mind races with questions, but there’s no time to answer them.
There are vampires in Watford.
Even my nightmares are better than this.
I turn the last corner to the nursery, feeling my worry settle into dread as I push open the door.
Dark creatures stand in the room, children crying, the nursery maids pleading. But I can’t focus on them, my eyes zeroing in on the vampire in the centre—the one holding my son.
At the sound of the door, he looks up at me, grinning around his mouthful. Fangs deep in Basil’s neck.
A scream rips its way through my throat and I can’t move.
Time seems to slow and I can’t raise my wand, can’t summon a flame, can’t do anything but feel panic rise.
Frozen as I watch the vampire drain my only child.
But then Basil screams and the noise pulls me into motion.
Vision blurred, I raise my hands, summoning a ball of fire, letting my panic translate into aggression. I won’t let them hurt my son.
I hurl the fire at the creature. And it’s his turn to scream.
The fire takes to him like a gasoline-soaked rag, and he crumples over, shrivelling and falling to the floor. Basil hits the floor hard, and I want to run over to him but the danger’s not gone yet.
Spinning on my heels, I turn to face the other two vampires in the room, both of them corralling the nursery maids and children into the corner. One nursery maid holds a cross in her shaky hand up in an effort to stop them.
But the vampires didn’t touch any of the other children.
Only Basil was attacked.
Why?
Well, they won’t live long enough to tell me. Justice will be swift.
Fire shoots out of my hand, taking down the other vampires as easily as the first. Really, vampires should know better than go after the best fire mage around.
To go after her son.
With the vampires taken care of, I rush to Basil, dropping to my knees and drawing him up in my arms. His skin is cold beneath me, and my underlying panic only grows.
Did the vampire Turn him?
I didn’t think vampires could even Turn children.
I pull the five-year-old closer to my chest. He isn’t screaming anymore and he doesn’t seem in pain, he’s just all limp against me. I look down at his face, watching as he slowly blinks his eyes.
Grey.
I gasp.
His once dark brown eyes are stark grey.
As his eyelids slowly flutter closed, I rub his back, pressing him even closer to my chest. “It’s alright, Basil. Sleep. Mummy’s got you. You’re safe now.”
I wish I knew if that was the truth.
------
“What are we going to do?” comes Malcolm's tired voice. Head dropped in his hands, face illuminated only by the yellow glow of the kitchen light, he looks just as I feel: devastated.
A week has passed since the vampire attack, and Basil’s been sick. Both cold and feverish, his skin turns paler by the day. He sleeps nearly all the time, and he cries when he’s awake, saying his head hurts.
He can hear things that he couldn’t hear before, picking up on conversations far out of earshot. And once, in a fit of pain, he grabbed my wrist, and the bruise he gave me still hasn’t left.
Malcolm and I can’t deny what happened any longer.
He’s been Turned.
My son is a vampire.
I can’t quite wrap my mind around it, the idea foreign and wrong. A vampire for a son. A chill runs through me.
“You know what we have to do,” I say, keeping my voice hard, emotionless. Now’s not the time to be soft. “He’s a vampire, Malcolm. You can’t be a Mage and a vampire. We have to report him to the Coven.”
“They’ll kill him.” Malcolm’s voice is quiet and pained. “I don’t want him to die. He’s my son.”
“He’s a vampire.”
“He’s your son too, Natasha.” Tears form in the corner of his eyes. Oh, how I wish I could just wipe those away. I wish I could pull him close and we could hug and kiss and just forget about all of this.
But I can’t.
One of us has to be the strong one.
“He’s a vampire,” I repeat. “A dark creature. A vampire has no place in the Pitch family.”
“The Grimm-Pitch family,” Malcolm corrects, just like he always does.
Sometimes I wonder why I let him put his name first, why I conceded that much. Then I remind myself that he let me name his first son Tyrannus.
Love makes us all do stupid things, I think, letting a small smile ghost my face before wiping it away. Now is no time to be tender. This has to be dealt with.
“You know what we have to do, Malcolm.”
“I won’t let you do it!” Malcolm yells, slamming his fist on the kitchen counter. “I won’t let you kill our son.”
I flinch, surprised by the uncharacteristic outburst. Malcolm’s a gentle man, not normally one to raise his voice. But this isn’t a normal situation.
Looking at his face, I can see the toll this decision has on him. Tears slowly roll down his cheek, no longer remaining in the corners of his eyes. His brow is knit together. Bottom lip wrecked from nervously biting it.
I look away. “He’s already dead.”
I don’t want this any more than he does, but we have no choice. He knows just as much as I do that vampires aren’t alive, aren’t anything more than dark creatures.
Basil, my perfect Basil, is already dead. The vampires killed him when they made him like them.
“You can’t possibly believe that, Tasha.”
My heart softens at the pet name, and against my better judgement, I lift my eyes to meet his. His eyes are pleading, his face so full of anguish.
“He’s the same as he was before,” Malcolm continues. “He’s still living, and he’s still our son.”
“We can’t let a dark creature live,” I repeat. “It’s our duty to the Coven and the Old Families.”
“Fuck the Coven. Fuck the Old Familes,” Malcolm swears. “He won’t get the… bloodlust until puberty. Maybe we’ll find a solution before then. Maybe there’s a cure.”
“You know there isn’t.” I look away again, feeling my resolve breaking.
Just a month ago, everything was perfect. We had our perfect family, our perfect son. Just a month ago, I was making breakfast with Basil on the high chair, grinning around an orange slice. Just a month ago, vampires were the last thing on our minds.
My beautiful boy.
I don’t want to hurt him any more than Malcolm does.
And if there’s a chance he’s still in there, if there’s a chance he isn’t all monster…
“Please, Tasha.” Malcolm takes a step closer to me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Even if we can’t find a cure, he can drink from animals. He’ll never hurt another person.”
Basil is my son.
He can’t be a monster.
Malcolm squeezes me tighter, and I drop my head into his shoulder. A part of me is angry with him. How dare he make this all fall on me? How dare he need me to tell him what’s right? Need me to be strong for the both of us?
“Please,” Malcolm whispers, voice cracking and we both break into tears, holding each other in the kitchen.
I’m not feeling very strong anymore. I’m sorry, Malcolm.
“Okay,” I whisper. “We won’t tell the Coven. We’ll keep it a secret.”
“We’ll keep our son.”
------
I try my hardest not to regret that decision. Not to think of it as a moment of weakness. Not to wish I could change it. Instead, I try to cling to how alive Basil seems, how normal he still is.
Basil sits on my lap, a book open in front of the two of us. We’re in the home nursery reading a bedtime story together. He’s smiling and gleefully turning the pages before I’ve finished reading all the words on them. This is his favourite story, and he’s never able to get enough of it, making me read it again and again and again.
It’s been three months since that fateful night in the kitchen. Since we decided to keep Basilton’s… condition a secret. Malcolm and I haven't discussed it since then. What more is there to say, really?
Basil isn’t sickly anymore and he acts just like any normal five-year-old would. While his skin is greyer and his eyes duller, nothing else has really changed. I can’t quite forget what he is, but I’ve been able to put it in the back of my mind.
I try not to dwell on it.
I try not to regret it.
“And then the Prince lived happily ever after. The end,” I say, closing the book.
“Again!” Basil cries, bouncing up and down on my lap, clapping his little hands.
“Sorry, Basil,” I say, ruffling his black hair playfully. “That’s the last book of the night. Time to get you into some pyjamas and tuck you into bed.”
Basil’s face shifts to a pout. “I don’t wanna go to bed! I wanna read stories!”
I sigh. Children are such fun.
“Basil,” I say, voice firm. “ We can read more stories tomorrow. Now it’s bedtime.”
I move to set the book down.
“No,” Basil says again, sounding frantic. His little hand reaches out and grabs my wrist. “It’s not bedtime.”
And I try to move the book down, but I can’t. He has my arm locked.
Unnaturally strong.
The reminder comes in sharp and unwanted. He isn’t a boy—he’s a creature. I can’t ignore that. I can’t keep pretending that he’s not.
I have to stop treating this creature like a boy.
“Stop it.” Venom hisses in my voice. “You will not restrain me like this.”
Basilton’s face falls and he instantly relaxes his grip. I stand, shoving him off my lap. He scrambles for purchase on the floor, and I stare him down until his lip begins to quiver.
I crouch to meet his level.
“You can never use that strength with anyone ever again,” I grab his face and pinch his cheeks hard. “Do you understand me?”
Basilton blinks, eyes wide and confused, darting around the room.
“Look at me, Basilton.”
He does.
“Do you understand me?”
He nods.
“Good. Now go to bed.”
I don’t help into his pyjamas, and I don’t tuck him in. He’ll learn that if he does anything unnatural, anything vampirish, he—in that moment—would not be a boy, but a creature, and he would be treated as such.