Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Not long after they chatted briefly did Rohit decide to fall asleep.

Since Ingrid was fully awake, she just sat in the office chair until he decided to wake up. In the meantime, she was sifting through her plan now that she was in this country and conveniently found the one she’d been looking for. She soon started feeling queasy from the food she ate earlier and instinctively made her way to the bathroom. “That garlic…” she whispered to herself, while looking at her pale face in the mirror. “I think there was too much in that sandwich—no, in each of the toppings in general.” The young woman then recalled the spicy condiment drizzled throughout and placed a hand over her stomach. “I haven’t had anything like that in a century…”

Once Ingrid completed her movement in the privy, she proceeded to exit, but came in contact with an older woman with dark hair and mocha skin.

It was Rohit’s mom.

She looked at the vampire heiress in shock, eyes widening, opening her mouth to scream, but the young woman acted fast and did what she thought would be the right thing to do.

A few hours later, Rohit woke up naturally from his brief slumber. Usually he’d have set an alarm, but had actually forgotten to do it, and therefore woke up an hour later than usual. It was past noon, and the young man first rubbed his eyes and sluggishly rose before pushing the blanket away. The first thing he reached for was a bottle of water, as he sat on the edge of his bed. The taste of the meatball sandwich lingered in his mouth, so the first thing he was going to do was brush his teeth, but not until he felt that he was awake.

Even though he worked overnight for the past two years for three to four days at a time, with it steadily dwindling down to once a week, it was still a whole procedure to recover upon waking up. After the night he just been though, he felt even more tired, but didn’t like wasting the day, so he encouraged himself to stand up.

Once erect, Rohit continued to stand in the middle of his room like a statue, as he caught his bearings, especially after getting up too fast. He then took a deep breath and looked around the organized mess of his room. Like his senses were beginning to sober him to reality, he finally noticed one crucial element in his room that was missing: Ingrid. “Where is she?” he muttered, panicking under his breath. “Ingrid?” he called out in a low tone, as to not project his full voice. He scrambled around the room looking for her, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

He wondered, starting to check the small crevices of his room, ‘She didn’t turn into a bat, did she…?’ With no sign of the vampire heiress, Rohit heard his parents conversing like normal beyond his bedroom door, but they appeared to be talking with someone. “No way…” he muttered in disbelief, as he proceeded to hastily exit his room to find a sight to behold: Ingrid was serving his parents some tea she prepared.

“Thank you, dear,” Rohit’s mother acknowledged, accepting her cup with a casual smile.

“It’s my pleasure!” Ingrid replied gleefully, as if she’d been doing this forever. “I’m just happy you decided to finally give my tea a try.”

Rohit’s father commented slowly, “Well, you know I need to watch my fluid intake, so I’m sorry about before.”

“No worries—ah!” the young woman halted midsentence and noticed Rohit’s arrival.

He stood there with his eyes widened and in disbelief at what was happening before him.

“Look who’s finally up!” The vampire heiress stood in front of the distraught young man. “Would you like some tea, sweetie?”

‘Sweetie?’ he thought with a jolt. ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Rohit continued to remain quiet and composed. He didn’t want to act out when it appeared everything was going swimmingly.

“What’s wrong, honey? Didn’t sleep too well?” she continued with the familial labels.

‘Honey?’ He blushed. ‘W-Why’s she saying that! What’s going on here?’

“Come, let’s check your temperature,” Ingrid finalized before ushering him to the sanctity of the bedroom. Her grip clutched onto the young man’s bicep, as she directed him out of his parents’ sight.

Rohit’s dad chuckled. “Puppy love.”

When they were alone again in the room with the door locked, Rohit was breathing heavily, while trying to hold himself together. He paced around his room, while Ingrid pursed her lips and hung her head.

“What was that?” he calmly piped up. “What’d you do to them?”

Ingrid flexed her cheeks before hesitatingly replying “I… placed a spell on them.”

Rohit jolted, as he felt his heart skip a beat. He opened his mouth to chastise her, but didn’t follow through, as he knew he had to listen and approach this situation with as much understanding as possible. He had to be in control of himself in order to rectify any potential damage done to the ones he loved, and it started by gauging the situation and completely hearing Ingrid’s testimony first before passing judgement.

“A bewitchment really,” the vampire heiress clarified, “but a harmless one.”

Rohit picked his fingernails. “What do you mean?”

“One that can fabricate false memories in order for the caster to blend in. It’s what some vampires are capable of doing in order to hide their presence from the human population—specifically the hunters.” She then frowned and leaned her back against the door, disheartened at what she unintentionally did. “I-I’m sorry, Rohit… I had no choice at the time…”

Rohit stroked his beard and recalled something he had previously seen from a television series and video game. “Oh, so you only manipulated their memories to include you in it or something…?”

Ingrid looked up at him and slowly nodded.

“Okay that makes sense.” He was quickly and nonchalantly absorbing the reality of the situation. “So are they gonna be okay?” he soon asked. “Like, they’re not gonna have any repercussions, are they? It won’t damage their retention of thoughts or whatever, right?”

The young woman stood up straighter. “I assure you they’ll be fine, Rohit.” She then bit her lip before asking, “So… you’re not upset by this…?”

He ruffled his hair and sighed. “Well, I’m not thrilled, but I’m not mad either…” He was trying to express how he felt about this affecting his parents, but was carefully structuring his words so as to give Ingrid the full benefit of the doubt.  “As long as they’re not gonna be in any sort of danger—”

“Of course not!” she interrupted. “They’re completely out of the loop when it comes to what I’m setting out to do.”

“So you’re sure that this spell is also untraceable by those hunters?”

She nodded affirmatively. “I promise.”

Rohit still felt uneasy about the whole thing with his parents being affected the way they were, but trusted Ingrid’s word. If she said they’re not in any kind of danger, then he’d believe her. It’s not that he was so easily trusting of others, it’s that Rohit believed certain people had their reasons for doing what they were doing. To him, despite meeting Ingrid under dangerous circumstances, and hardly knowing a lot about her, he just felt that there was something triggered inside him to want to assist her in her mission.

It was still unclear.

He even wondered to himself if he had been bewitched by her as well. Knowing what he could about this spell of hers for the time being, Rohit decided to let it play out. “I understand.  So what’s the deal with this ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’ situation?”

Ingrid’s face became flustered, and she placed both hands over it to hide her embarrassment after he asked that provocative question.