by Anna Katmore
But talking to her yesterday was nice…in the castle and also through her window.
Aimlessly, I wander through the silent place. The fire in the big hall is still burning, and so is the one I carried to the hearth up in my bedroom. If it weren’t for Abigail’s help, it would still be awfully cold in this castle, and annoyingly dark.
I miss her blabbering mouth. Even more so than her delicious little neck. How odd?
“Helloooh…” I shout out, just to hear the echo of my own voice in the halls and pretend that I’m not entirely alone up here. “Get me a pizza guy on the phone. He should deliver himself to Castle Dracula. After dark, please, and no garlic, thank you.”
I rub my hands over my face and groan. Man, how long will it take to go mental in this place?
It would all be so much easier if I could sleep until dark, but not even a nap in the monster wingback chair in front of the fireplace is in the cards for me. Sleep deprivation is taking its toll, ramping up the urge to throw myself on the floor and bawl.
To while away the lonely hours of the afternoon, I even eat the rest of Abby’s apple strudel that she forgot in the castle yesterday, along with her backpack. Unfortunately, that takes me exactly twenty-five seconds, and there’s nothing else in her bag to keep me busy for a longer time. I even lick out the container.
Just past four o’clock, I saunter down into the dungeon to see if that will provide a diversion. The rats fled last night, so it’s not that creepy today. Except for the stale, moist air that makes me feel as if I’ve booked a slot in my own catacomb. Only this one comes equipped with an exquisite selection of torturing tools.
It was easy enough to spy the ax among the many medieval items next to the rack. I really don’t want to know what my uncle needed this room for—and I’m sure as heck not going to ask. Some things should just stay in the dark for all time. But as I wander through the eerie room and let my fingers glide over the cold steel, the shackles on the moist stone wall at the far side give me an idea. People have crazy interests in kinky love games nowadays. Seriously, I don’t get the hype, but if it aids me in my hunt for food, I’m open to experimentation.
Like a kid on Christmas, I dash upstairs and impatiently wait close to the tall window for the thin strip of light falling through the crack in the curtains to disappear. It’s my sundial. When the illumination is gone, it’s dinnertime. With an accelerating heartbeat, I crouch on the floor with my nose close to the strip of sunlight and watch as it gets fainter and fainter.
Annnd…gone!
I give it an extra minute before I step outside and stretch my limbs in the wonderful twilight of Romania. Then I head into town.
Half an hour later, the one thing I know for sure is that the sleepy little village has no internet café. But they have a bar. With the credit I still have from Uncle Vlad, I draw out some Romanian…dollars or whatever this shit is, at a cash point. Mercifully, he didn’t cancel the card when he sent me here.
Low music invites me inside the bar when I pull open the door. There could be a lot more people in here, but only a handful of patrons sit in small groups around tables. Most are men, and they don’t look yummy, but fuck, it’s so good to be among people again. My chest expands with a relaxing breath as my gaze sweeps across the room. Within seconds, I know that the girl sitting alone at a table close to the door will be my target. She’s about my age—well, the age I was when I died—slender built, and her black bangs keep falling into her eyes as she reads a book.
I pull out the chair opposite her and take a seat, lacing my fingers together on the table. “Hi.”
As if she needs to finish reading the paragraph, she takes a second to finally look up. But when she sees me, her face splits into a surprised smile. “Hey.”
About to introduce myself, I’m suddenly ousted by the waiter, who puts a small bowl of salad in front of her and a plate that holds three slices of bread—with garlic. At the nasty reek, the remnants of Abby’s apple strudel travel up my throat, and I struggle not to let it out right into the girl’s meal. With a painful grimace, I quietly rise from the table, wave at her, and cross straight to the far end of the bar.
A woman in her mid-forties sits there sipping red wine from a long-stemmed glass. Crossing bare legs revealed by her dark blue mini dress, she scrutinizes me sideways when I slide onto the stool next to her and order mineral water.
I have absolutely no idea what she says when she starts talking to me, but she smiles. “Do you speak English?” I ask her, lifting my brows.
She laughs but nods, so I turn toward her a little more, resting one elbow on the bar and the other on the low backrest of my stool. As I twirl a long strand of her auburn hair around my finger, I look into her gray eyes and offer her a lopsided smile. “You have a very nice laugh.”
Her gaze lowers to my hand and her hair. Then she gives me a look that, even though not unfriendly, comes from so far away that it probably needed a special stamp to arrive. “Grow up, little boy, and come back in ten years.” She fetches some bills from her handbag, places them on the counter next to her not entirely empty glass, and leaves.
Frustrated, I squeeze my eyes shut and drop my forehead to my folded arms on the bar with a groan. God, please send me something edible!
At the sound of a glass being put in front of me, I lift my head just a little. Before me stands the barkeep. All two-hundred and eighty pounds of him, with thinning black hair and a full beard that can’t cover the wilting skin of his sixty-some-year-old face. Ugh.
Lips pressed tightly together, I place the same amount of money the woman left behind on the bar, take a quick sip, and then dash outside. If this is God’s answer to my prayer, I’m in deep shit.
To walk off my irritation about an unsuccessful evening, I stroll around the little town for a while but finally head back to the castle. Since I already failed at the bar, picking women up from the curb sounds like the intro to my next big mistake.
With my head hanging and my shoulders depressively slumped, I kick a stone in front of me the entire way out of town. In the suburbs, the streetlamps thin, and it gets a whole lot darker. Castle Dracula stands majestically in the moonlight atop the mountain. The bend in the road is only a few steps ahead. A deep sigh escapes me. I don’t want to go back to these lonely rooms just yet. It’s so dreary there.
My gaze wanders down the lane that leads to the few houses settled out there until it stops at Abby’s cottage. It’s the fourteenth one down. I wonder what she’s doing right now. It’s not even ten, she’s probably still awake. Reading? Watching TV?
Sharpening a stake?
With a sly grin, I decide that I much prefer a stake over garlic bread as I amble on—not in the direction of the castle.
Her garden lies in the dark, and there’s only one window alight in the house. The one I was hoping for. Her grandmother must have gone to sleep. Please don’t let her room be the one right next to Abby’s. I’ve had enough old ladies for one evening, and I don’t need this one sending me home and into bed, too.
From the ground, I pick up a pebble and toss it against Abby’s window. The light goes out.
Yeah, as if that could make me leave. Not a chance, girl. I toss another little stone and wait. It takes half a minute and pebble number three for Abigail to finally come to the window and look out. With my head tilted up, I smile when her terrified gaze finds me.
She opens one side of the window just a crack and croaks, “What do you want?”
I try to mime a ten-year-old, hands in my pockets and eyes blinking sweetly. I was told I look like a little boy tonight, so why not use it to my advantage. “Can I come up?”
“Uh…”
Not an immediate no. That’s something I can work with. I grasp the first branch above my head and quietly climb up the tree to the same spot as last night. Actually, the thick limb is quite comfortable. Not exactly a cozy sofa, but good enough for an hour or two while talking to Abby. Except, when I lift my head and look over t
o her room, she’s shutting the window with a long, pointed piece of wood between her teeth. A chuckle ripples in my chest. So…sharpening a stake, after all.
“Come on, Abby, open the window. We had this conversation before, and you know I can’t enter.”
Her lips move around the stick. “Did you fix your tooth?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you hungry?”
My brows furrow to a line. “Er…yes?”
“Then the win—” She spits the stake onto the sill because even she notices how stupid it is to speak with wood between her teeth. But her scowl is sharp as spikes. “Then the window stays closed.” Arms raised to press against the frame, her tight, gray t-shirt rides up a little to reveal a strip of skin between the hem and her black jeans.
“Oh, please!” Sheepishly, I rub the back of my neck. “I swear I didn’t come to bite you.” My stomach rumbles at exactly that moment. Not helping. Damn. Tilting my head, I try to convince her in a very gentle voice. “Why don’t you go get your grandmother’s garlic pills? And when, let’s say, I go crazy and try to climb into your room, you just pop it into your mouth and swallow. You know how fiercely I react to that stench.”
Abby scrutinizes me for endless seconds, her expression so hard she could knock a hole in granite with it. Then she reaches to the desk next to the window and pulls her hand back so slowly that it’s impossible to miss the pill between her fingers. Oh, hell. I throw my head back and laugh. It seems I wasn’t the only one with the genius idea.
“Will you open the window now? Really, I just want to talk to you. Promise.” With my index finger, I draw a cross over my heart, performing a pleading pout. “You’re the only person I know on this continent, and if nobody talks to me before the night is over, I’m going to impale myself on the next sharp tree branch I see, I swear.”
With the pill in one hand and the stake in the other, Abigail cautiously pulls the two sides of the window apart. A relieved sigh pushes from my chest, even though she warily steps back, still nailing me with that rock-hard glare. “One false move and I’ll pop the garlic pill into your mouth,” she warns me.
Yuck. I don’t even want to imagine what that would do to me. I grimace and gulp. “Sounds about fair.”
I didn’t think it was actually possible, but her features harden even more. “How did you find me?”
I blink. “What?” Does she have a memory problem? “I was here last night.”
“Exactly. How did you know this was my house?”
Ah…that’s it. I pull one leg up onto the branch and lean against the trunk, tilting my head to her with a soft look full of honesty. “You have a very distinct smell, Abigail.”
“You sniffed me out?” Her narrowed eyes move to the right. “I knew it,” she snaps, but seemingly just to herself. When her focus returns to me, the mean wrinkles around the corners of her eyes ease a little and morph into a look of curiosity. “How do I smell?”
One corner of my mouth twitches into a smirk. “Delicious.”
Oh, hell. At the first tiny quirk of her face, I can see that was the worst possible answer.
“Do you want me to close the window again?” she growls.
Hands shooting up in surrender, I apologize. “Only a joke. Well, not exactly. You do smell nice, but you’re absolutely safe from me. Right now, I want a friend more than blood.” Nah, wrong word again. Fuck. My face scrunches up, and my voice lowers awkwardly as I correct myself. “More than food.”
Abby rubs her temples and groans. “Oh, man, you being a vampire is a tough thing to get used to.”
“Tell me about it,” I say dryly, which makes her gaze snap back to me. Her look demands an answer. “Well, I didn’t know about the vampire world until my uncle sucked me empty and then introduced me to the night.”
Her mouth drops open.
“Talk first and bite afterward would have been a kinder way, but Uncle Vlad said there was no time.”
It’s nice to see her face softening. Her shoulders lose some of their tightness. “Were you afraid?”
“Hell, yes!” My brows rise in pure honesty. “It took me seven months until I was ready to bite my first human. Uncle V had to bottle-feed me with bags from the blood bank.”
Abby swallows, but this time, she courageously accepts my slip. “And…do you regret it?”
“What? That he changed me?” Is she kidding? “Absolutely not!”
She looks at me as if she can’t believe I said that. In her place, I might not have believed it either. “You see,” I start to explain, “apart from my special diet and being prone to sunburn, the life of a vampire is so much better than a human’s. We’re stronger than you, faster than you, see better, hear better”—the next one slips on a grin—“look better…”
“You certainly have a bigger ego.” She blinks her brown eyes at me, paired with a teasing smile. Damn, where did that come from? It makes my chest expand.
“Right, that’s in the small print.” I wink at her.
The taunting disappears from her smile, and she laughs softly. I like the sound. It makes me relax, and she obviously does so, too. Abby drags the wooden chair away from her desk and sits down closer to the window. She plants her feet on the seat edge, knees pulled up. “Why did your uncle send you here of all places? You made it sound like punishment. Is he the cruel, creepy creature from the legends everybody believes?”
I draw in a deep breath. It was cruel to send me here, all right, but being completely honest, he probably had a point. “Actually, Vladimir Dracula is a very kind man. He cares for his people, especially his family.” A wave of homesickness rolls over me. I miss Ellie’s warm voice and Uncle V’s dry humor—on his good days. “I might have strained his patience one too many times. And he’s right, I never would have learned the things a vampire should know back at our cozy villa. Life was too easy there, with no need to leave my comfort zone.”
“You don’t like Romania, do you? Your heart is with your family. And not just for the easy way of eating there.”
“I like the twilight here. It’s great.” After a brief smile, my head lowers a little. “But, yeah, I miss home.”
Absently, her fingers play with the pill. The stick leans against the chair now. “What do you think, how long until you can leave again?”
“Well, since I found a way out of the vampire trap around the castle”—at her surprised gaze, I grin—“long story, don’t ask… Anyway, I’m free to go wherever I want. I have this credit card and could arrange transport back to the States.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“The unleashed wrath of my uncle if I show up there, still inept and without the skin of a werewolf in my luggage.” I shudder at the thought.
Abby visibly does, too. “A werewolf?” Her voice is a silent screech. “Are you telling me they exist, too?”
“Mm-hmm.” I nod. “There are other shapeshifters as well, but the wolves make up the biggest piece of the population. I think they account for at least ninety percent of them.”
Abby stares at me for an endless moment.
“Are you all right?”
She makes no sound, doesn’t move. Her eyes get strangely glassy, her skin taking on a blue shade in the moonlight.
“Abby? Are you having a stroke?” My body tenses. Fuck, I can’t even get inside to shake her. A crack sounds when I break off the longest twig within my reach, then I hang on to the branch above me and lean forward. Reaching through the window with it, I carefully lift her chin. “Breathe, Abigail.”
A deep breath follows. Her lips start to move, but the words are an incoherent mumble. She still seems lost somewhere, and there’s no chance I can get to her. “Abby, you’re scaring me. If you don’t come around right now, I’m going to wake your grandmother.”
Slowly, her gaze clears to focus on me. Horror shimmers in her eyes. “How can it be that all the spooky fairy tales are real?”
My tension eases. At least she seems physically all right. I
draw the twig back and anchor it in the fork of the tree. Who knows when it’ll be needed again. Then I tilt my head and offer Abby a warm smile. “Where do you think all the spine-chillers actually come from?”
She rubs her hands over her face. I don’t know where the garlic pill went, but hopefully not into her mouth. She takes a moment to gather herself again. Finally, she clasps her hands. “And do those shapeshifters bite humans, too? Do they eat them?”
“Usually, they don’t. They can eat food in human form. But there are exceptions to every species.” I wonder if my next words will shock her into a palsy again. “My uncle was informed that a berserk wolf is roaming this area, ripping sheep and cattle to shreds. Once the shifters fall into bloodlust, it’s only a matter of time before they start attacking humans. I need to find out how far this one has gone already.”
I can see how her thoughts wander when she turns quiet, her gaze looking straight through me. “Nana warned me about a wolf in the woods,” she murmurs eventually. “I hear it howl at night.”
Slowly, I nod. “I heard it, too.”
“What does your uncle want you to do about it?”
“Vampires and werewolves normally don’t go into each other’s territory. But in the world of, let’s call them the night creatures, the paramount rule is the absolute secrecy of our existence. Not many humans know about vampires and shapeshifters…and are allowed to live.”
“And since you told me all of this, you have to what? Kill me?” she deadpans.
“God, no!” My eyebrows quirk at her ridiculous assumption. “I should wipe your memory—of me, the incident at the castle, and every conversation we had.”
“But you can’t, so what are you going to do now?” Her hand wanders down to find the stick leaning against the chair.
My gaze moves from her tightening fingers back to her face. She has a point. There were some cases in the past where people couldn’t be influenced because of certain mutations in their brains. When they started terrified rumors about the night creatures, they had to be taken care of in order to prevent a species hunt. But that’s not what I want to happen to Abigail. Not at all.
