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When Laura looked up at the magical door, it didn’t open. Again. She sighed, knee bouncing up and down, and forced herself to look back at the dusty book in her lap. Carmilla had gone through the door nearly 3 hours ago to try and find something to eat. Despite the library’s ability to generate seemingly endless amounts of cupcakes and blood bags, apparently Carmilla ‘just needed to kill something’.
Laura wasn’t going to take it personally that this urge struck right after yet another awkward encounter involving a spontaneous rain shower and her unfortunate choice of a white shirt.
She looked at the ceiling and muttered, “Lot of help you are.”
“Perhaps we don’t blame the sentient library that literally holds our lives in it’s hands,” Laf piped in. They stood in front of the mystery board, trying to find anything new. “Just because you’re worried about tall, dark, and broody being gone longer than expected, it doesn’t mean you can take it out on innocent bookshelves.”
Slamming the book that she wasn’t reading closed, Laura leaned back against her chair, “But you heard that weird noise right? Like an hour ago. We don’t know what it was and Carmilla still hasn’t come back.” Her gaze went back to the door, willing it to open.
“You need to calm down frosh,” Laf said, “She’s a big vampire. She can take care of herself.”
Laura huffed. Moments later, her knee started bouncing again.
Something hit her in the chest and when she looked down there was a pair of goggles sitting in her lap. “Come put the energy from those repressed squishy feelings to use and help me. I think this book emits tear gas when you open it which sounds nasty enough to warrant investigation.”
With one last look at the door, Laura snapped the goggles over her head and walked over to Laf.
Two almost-bites from an apparently sentient library book and a Laf getting a face-full of tear gas later, the library door burst open. Laura whirled around, something relaxing in her chest when Carmilla stumbled through the door. Carmilla slammed the door behind her and then leaned back against the wood.
Something in Laura’s chest tightened all over again. Carmilla was sweating.
Sweating.
Which shouldn’t have been possible for a vampire but the strands of hair around her face were matted to her head. Carmilla tucked her hands in her pockets, moving just slowly enough that Laura could see them tremble.
Laura took a step towards her, “Carm. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Carmilla said even as she didn’t move away from the door, “Just had an interesting encounter with some of the eldritch horrors tucked away in the psychology section.”
Biting her lip, Laura looked at Laf for help. Carmilla was pale. Even for her. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down?”
“What frosh means is that you look like you’ve been put through a blender and come down with a bad case of the flu all at once,” Laf added, “We’re definitely going to need to take notes on how vampire flu progresses.”
“I don’t have the flu,” Carmilla snapped. As if to prove her point, she stepped away from the door. She looked stable enough for the first two steps but on the third she stumbled forward, nearly hitting the floor.
That was enough for Laura. She rushed forward, dragging Carmilla’s arm over her shoulder and ignoring the feeling of Carmilla’s body pressed against hers. Well, mostly ignoring. Despite Carmilla’s best efforts to get her feet under her, most of her weight continued to press down on Laura.
“Stupid stubborn vampire,” Laura said, trying to keep Carmilla from falling over again.
Carmilla’s face was locked in a grimace but she still managed to get out, “I’d hate to break character.”
“It’s your own fault for going out there by yourself,” Laura said, “Again. When you know that it’s not safe and your mother is trying to kill us and the library is possibly trying to stab us with knives for its amusement.”
Carmilla’s head fell against her neck and Laura almost tripped at the feeling of Carmilla’s breath on her ear.
“Try not to kill me, cupcake,” Carmilla rasped, “something else seems to have its heart set on that.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” Laura said, “You don’t get to die. Not now. No way.”
All she got back was a groan. The hand on her shoulder squeezed her shoulder, almost tightly enough to bruise, as Carmilla’s legs gave out entirely. She fell to the ground and it was all Laura could do to keep her head from hitting the floor.
“Carm!” She cried. Her hands were on Carmilla’s face as Carmilla’s eyes rolled back into her head.
Laf dropped down beside them, “Whoa. Her pulse is going crazy.”
“She doesn’t have a pulse,” Laura snapped.
Laf’s hands moved to Carmilla’s wrists, “Well she does now. At least, she has one that beats really fast for a second, cuts out, and then starts again.”
“Well. Fix her!”
“Trying. It’s not like there’s a textbook on vampire anatomy handy.”
Laura looked to ceiling, hoping that one might fall but then Carmilla started to seize, her whole body shaking on the floor as though it wanted to split itself in two. Laura’s hands fluttered in the air, uncertain of their destination. Uncertain of anything beyond the deep aching fear pulsing in her chest.
“Whoa!” Laf shouted.
Red magic had begun to ripple over Carmilla’s torso before centering around her heart in a small ball. It fractured, sending the magic flying into a hundred little pieces in the air.
“Carm!” Laura’s hands settled on Carmilla’s face as best it could with the ongoing seizures, “Carmilla Karnstein. I did not save you just so that you could die in a library. You better come back right now. No going into the light or whatever. Don’t you dare. You can’t. You know you can’t, Carm. You know.”
“Hollis!”
The next thing Laura knew, Laf had slam tackled her to the side and the room exploded in a poof of red magic. They rolled to the side, coughing at the force of the impact. Laura scrambled to her feet, nearly kicking Laf in the face as she tried to get to Carmilla.
“Please don’t be dead. Please please. Don’t be dead.” She whispered.
Then she froze as her eyes caught up to her legs.
Laf’s voice came from across the room, “Well. She’s not dead.”
“Carm?” Laura said. She took another hesitant step forward. Two voices replied.
“I’m Carmilla.”
“I’m Mircalla.”
Sitting on the floor in front of her were two identical copies of her ex-girlfriend.
#
Naturally the first thing Laf did was try to line them up and start probing. Neither was going for it. The one who had called herself Carmilla had waltzed over to the nearest blood bag, guzzled it, and then thrown herself in one of the chairs with her leg over the chair arm. Blood still on her face. The one who’d called herself Mircalla had quickly walked over to a chair on the opposite side of the room and perched on the edge of a chair. Mircalla shot her doppelganger dirty looks as the Carmilla version licked the blood off of her fingers.
Laf was unperturbed, running across the room to investigate them both.
Laura had just let herself sag against the table.
“Okay,” Laf said to them, “I have a theory but you’re going to have to help me out here. You said that you were in the psychology section right? What exactly happened?”
Carmilla started sucking the blood off of her thumb while Mircalla just lifted her chin and looked away. Neither offered an answer.
“Laf, what’s going on?” Laura asked. She couldn’t take her eyes off the two girls, “And please tell me that you can fix it.”
Carmilla gave her a twisted smile, between the blood around her lips poked two white fangs, “Who said that we needed fixing, cupcake?”
That got Mircalla to speak, “Oh. While you certainly need a repair, I’m equally content to maintain our separation.”
Laura’s jaw dropped.
“Yeah,” Laf said. “So from what I can gather when vampira there wasn’t trying to bite my hand off.”
They pointed to Carmilla who waved them off with a, “Just a snack. Fresh is so much better.”
“The blood covered one with the fangs calling herself Carmilla is a vampire while the prissy, ‘I’m too good for your tongue depressors’ Mircalla is a human.”
“I prefer Countess,” Mircalla said. Then she shrugged, “Same either way I suppose.”
Laura put her hands in the air, “Wait. So you mean they’re both Carm? Like, she’s split in two or something?” Laf shrugged and nodded. “But that’s insane.” Laura continued, “She can’t just split into two separate people. Vampires. Organisms. Whatever. And you can’t just parse out pieces of a personality like it’s a piece of cheese. People are like cookies. You can’t separate the chocolate from the dough after they’ve been all mushed together.”
“Just calling it as I see it, frosh,” Laf started packing up their gear.
“Um,” Laura said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Laf gave her a look “Neither of them seem to be dying anymore and we’ve still got an evil Dean hellbent on taking over the world. Literally hellbent. Someone needs to deal with that. You get the Carmillas. Frankly, if the Countess and Vampira want to help out, I’m perfectly willing to accept the extra set of hands as a good thing. See if you can work on that.” Then they quickly retreated up the stairs.
Laura took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was definitely never equipped to handle ‘what to do when your ex-girlfriend gets herself split in two’. Really. What was anyone supposed to do in that situation. Get them talking. Find a solution. It was just Carmilla. Two Carmillas maybe but she knew Carmilla. It would be fine. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes.
She jumped. There were fangs in her face.
Carmilla loomed over her, eyes fixed on her.
“Um. Hi?” Laura said.
“You smell delectable,” Carmilla said, “Your blood practically screams out that it would be a buffet.”
Laura forced herself not to take a step back, “Wow. Um. That’s something. I suppose. A compliment, I guess? I don’t really know, we never really got the chance to talk vampire etiquette but complimenting my blood feels like it might be crossing some sort of line? Maybe. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that I don’t have repugnant smelling blood but it’s sort of a weird thing to bring up.”
Carmilla’s smile did not make me feel better. The hint of fangs poking from her lips, “I could just eat you alive.”
“You’ve said that before,” Laura said.
“And I was a fool not to,” Carmilla reached out to stroke from the side of her face and down her neck. Her fingers were smooth and cool on Laura’s skin. Goosebumps broke out in their wake as Laura tried not to shudder from an overwhelming combination of emotions. Carmilla leaned a little closer. Then immediately retracted, “But,” Carmilla continued, “there’s just something about you.”
She continued to stare at Laura but didn’t make another move to get closer. There was almost confusion in her eyes, the pupils large.
Peering around her, Laura looked at Mircalla, “Um. She’s not actually going to eat me is she? Like, you don’t have all the not-eating-Laura in you do you? She’s still got some not eat Laura instinct?”
Mircalla already had her nose shoved in a book of what appeared to be poems, “If she doesn’t eat you,” she said casually, “then I certainly am willing to provide the service. Although perhaps we mean the phrase in slightly different ways.”
That had Laura taking a step back from both of them, cheeks flaming red.
“You can’t just say that,” she said, “Aren’t you supposed to be like a Countess or something?”
Carmilla kept staring at her at while Mircalla just flipped another page and said, “The 17th century was not nearly as aloof as your modern movies make it out to be. I’m certainly capable of making my feelings known without any concern for the supposed debauchery of the action. Mere trivialities if you knew to say the proper words in a girl’s ear and keep the door closed as you went about your business.” She finally looked up, a smoulder in her eyes, “I’m certainly willing to show you.”
“That is,” Laura said, “historically interesting I suppose. Alright then. Well. No. Thank you for the offer of um eating. To both of you.” She took another step back, “But i’m going to pass.”
“Very well,” Mircalla went right back to her book, “Please inform me if your feelings change. The offer stands but I will not press again. A Countess does not beg.”
Laura would disagree but she wasn’t going to bring that up now with the uber-vampire looking at her all hungrily.
Carmilla frowned, “I should drain you dry.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Laura said but held her ground, “You’re still Carm right? Somewhere in there.”
Carmilla ignored her. That apparently hadn’t changed. “You should be running,” Carmilla said. She didn’t wait for a response. Instead, she licked her lips, looked at Laura again and stalked off to the back of the library. She snagged another blood bag on her way then slammed her fist into the nearest bookshelf.
The whole thing collapsed.
Carmilla just kept walking.
“Well, that is a mess,” Mircalla said and disappeared in the opposite direction.
Laura groaned, slumped into her chair, and slammed her head on the table. She already had an evil Dean to deal with, did the universe really have to do this too?
#
She may have done some less than morally correct things last semester but Laura didn’t think that anyone deserved this. Two Carmillas. Neither of which seemed to be her Carmilla. She had one prissy human Countess eating all of her cookies and rampaging vampire who seemed bound and determined to leave blood on every available surface.
And the Dean had found the fifth gate.
She stormed into the room where the two Karnsteins were, letting the door smash against the bookshelves for an extremely satisfying crash. “That is enough!” she shouted.
Both Karnsteins startled. Mircalla’s spine went rigid as her book snapped shut while Carmilla eye’s went wide. Both girls tried to hide it, Mircalla behind her book and Carmilla behind a blood bag but Laura wasn’t even close to done.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she slammed the book of lives down on the desk between them then proceeded to snatch the book from Mircalla’s hands and smack Carmilla’s blood bag to the ground. She’d hope the library would forgive her the stain.
Carmilla’s jaw twitched, “Only a complete idiot would take blood from a vampire.”
“That’s me then,” Laura shouted, “Complete idiot. I don’t care. Bite me. Drain me. Whatever. Make good on the threats that you’ve had to make over the last 3 days. What was the last one? You should broil my liver like one does a duck? Sure. I don’t care so long as you do it quickly because I cannot handle another minute of this.”
She jammed her wrist under Carmilla’s mouth, “here. You want my delectable, delicious, mouth-watering, temptress level blood. Go for it. Either drink it now or just stop.”
Carmilla blinked. Her eyes bounced from Laura’s wrist to her face and back again. After a moment, her fangs, which had been out since she split into two, actually retracted.
Mircalla was snickering behind her.
“And you,” Laura whirled around and pointed a finger in her face, “Prancing around like you own the place. You leave a bigger mess than she does it’s just not bloody. Books everywhere. My entire wardrobe spread over the room because apparently you wore too much black before. Dirty dishes. I am not here to pick up after you. We’ve done the messy roommate shtick before and I thought you’d gotten better.”
Mircalla just sunk back in her seat and scowled.
“Oh don’t give me that,” Laura said.
“Cupcake has some fangs,” came Carmilla’s comment.
“Well,” Mircalla said, “she’d have to in order to deal with us. What kind of girl agrees to date a vampire after all?”
Carmilla shrugged, “I thought it was because she liked you.”
“Just our face,” Mircalla said, “That’s really all we have going for us.”
“We’re pretty good at one other thing too,” Carmilla added, “I know that you can’t hear her anymore but she’s still having those dreams about us where-”
“Would you two stop that,” Laura closed her eyes then opened them, trying to stop the blush, “The whole talking about me like I’m not even here. Especially about those kind of things. I’m right here. And we broke up. In fact, you broke up with me. So you don’t get to do that. No. No more eating innuendos or flirty one liners or that look you get where I don’t know if you’re about to bite my neck or not. No We agreed. Just friends”
Both girls scoffed.
“We only said that because-”
“I don’t know which one of us decided that was-”
Laura spoke over both of them, “We agreed friends! Friends do not have conversations about each other. Friends do not leave blood everywhere. Friends do not say hog the shower for an hour and use all of the hot water.” Something prickled at the back of her throat, “Friends do not abandon each other.”
She was not going to cry.
“I don’t know who you two are but Carm, my Carm, was past all of this petty stuff. She was still broody and stubborn and flirty but she was trying. She was helping. We were working things out and I thought that maybe. Eventually. If we got free.” Laura took a deep shuddering breath, eyes closing against the two girls who were suddenly leaning closer to her. Carmilla had both feet on the floor for the first time while Mircalla’s hands twitched at her side.
“Laura?” Carmilla said quietly.
Laura forced her eyes open and gave them her best Hollis glare face, “I don’t know if any of my Carm is in there somewhere but you’d best try and find her because I am not tolerating this any longer. You are both going to shape up. You are going to help us defeat your mother because the campus needs us too. If you need a selfish reason, it’ll mean that you’ll be free.”
She tapped on the book of lives, “I need someone to translate this because Laf refuses to come down here again after someone tried to bite them again.”
Laura gave Carmilla a look.
“I’m a vampire, cupcake. You know the monster speech.” Carmilla said. Her tone was easy but her eyes were looking at her boots.
Mircalla rose from her seat with a grace that apparently wasn’t from vampire reflexes, “I’m the one who still knows Sumerian.” Laura must not have hidden her surprise well because Mircalla smiled, “There wasn’t much to do in the 17th century and do you really think that Miss I Want To Suck Your Blood over there has much in the way of an appetite for learning?”
She picked up the book and settled back in her chair. Pencil shoved between her teeth.
“Alright then.” Laura nodded, “You do that. And you,” she looked at Carmilla, “just biting people or telling people that you want to bite them. If you can think of anything mildly useful, do that. Just try and do something helpful. My Carm was researching something before she went all splitsville.”
Carmilla said nothing when Laura stalked off.
Eight hours later she found the library bookcase repaired.
The next day, when she grabbed her basket of toiletries, there was a box of cookies sitting next to her shampoo.
Later that night, an entire handwritten translation of a chapter of the book of lives showed up on her laptop.
The blood bags disappeared into a sea of mugs.
She was just blearily blinking awake, her fingers finding the edge of a blanket she was pretty sure hadn’t been there before, when there was a muffled boom and a beam of red light shot past her. Laura was on her feet in an instant, running to where she’d left the Karnsteins.
“Carm?” she called as she barrelled down the hall, “are you back?”
“Not quite,” came the reply.
She skidded into the room and blinked. Her and Laf had discussed a number of options regarding what had happened to Carmilla, this wasn’t one of them.
Mircalla stood on the edge of the room, staring at it’s center. Two girls lay in a crumpled mess on the floor and both were slowly getting to their feet as the last tinges of red magic faded. One was obviously the bloody vampire version of Carmilla from the new piercing that she’d decided to give her ear with a nail two nights ago.
The other sat cross legged on the floor and looked up at her, “I think you can call me Carm.”
Three Carmillas. There were now three of them.
Laura groaned.