Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Belle gave her a touch of the ardeur and Bartolomé was enraptured. Belle did not mean to bring him over to us as a boy. She meant to wait until he grew older, but Bartolomé was thrown from his horse. He had crushed his skull, and was dying. His next brother was only five, and Belle would have no hold on him. She needed Bartolomé, and so she bid Musette finish him."

"How did he feel when he woke up?"

"He was happy to be alive."

"How'd he feel when he finally realized he'd be a little boy forever, no matter how precocious?"

Jean-Claude sighed. "He was… unhappy. Bringing children over is forbidden for a reason. Musette did not make Valentina one of us. Belle found that one of her Master Vampires was a pedophile and had brought over children to be his permanent… companions." His voice went soft at the end.

I felt ill. I breathed deep and slow. "Sweet Jesus," I said.

"He had broken our prohibition against bringing over children, and when Belle Morte found out why he had done it… she slew him. With full permission of the council, she slew him. They destroyed most of the children he had made. They were vampires trapped in children's bodies, and they had been abused." He shook his head. "Their minds did not survive, not whole."

"So how did Valentina escape?" I asked.

"She was his newest and had yet to be touched. She was a child and a vampire but she was not mad. Belle took her in and found her people to care for her. She had human nannies for many years. She had human playmates. I must say that Belle did her best for Valentina. I think she blamed herself for not realizing what a true monster Sebastian was."

"Why do I think this ideal picture doesn't stay ideal?"

"You know us too well, ma petite. Valentina tried to turn some of her playmates into vampires, so she would not be the only one. When her nanny discovered her, Valentina slit her throat. That was the end of human nannies and human playmates."

"That's why the vampire nanny," I said.

He nodded. "She does not truly need one in the traditional sense of a child's need, but she is forever eight years old, and even today she cannot catch a taxi by herself, register in a hotel, without people wondering. Some well-meaning human will call the police to report the poor abandoned child that's staying in their hotel."

"She must hate it."

"It?"

"Her existence," I said.

He gave half a shrug. "I do not know. I do not speak to Valentina."

"You're afraid of her."

" Non, ma petite, but I am unnerved by her. The few children that survive for centuries are twisted things.