Chapter 1
LIORA
I pulled up to the little house just after noon and the place looked exactly like the photos my distant relative’s lawyer had sent me, small and a bit run-down but quiet and far enough from everything that I could finally work without anyone asking questions. I stepped out of the car and stretched and looked around at the empty street and the overgrown gardens and the way the whole town seemed to hold its breath like it had been waiting for someone to notice it again.
“Well, Liora,” I said out loud to myself as I unlocked the front door, “this is it. Your new life starts right here and there is no one left to tell you that your books are strange or that you spend too much time thinking about dead that walk.”
The inside smelled like dust and old wood, with something faintly sweet that might have been dried flowers left behind years ago. I walked from room to room, talking under my breath because the silence felt too heavy otherwise. “Kitchen’s tiny, but it’ll do. I can put the kettle on the back burner and still have space for my notes. Bedroom’s at the back, good, the window faces the hill. Study has the best light, and that old desk is perfect for the books.”
I carried my boxes of grimoires and notebooks into the study and stacked them carefully on the old desk. Looking at them made me smile, they felt like old friends who had finally come home with me after being packed away for too long.
“We’re here now,” I whispered, running my fingers over the nearest book. “No more noisy flatmates. No more people asking why I’m reading about blood magic at three in the morning. Just you and me and whatever decides to answer when I call.”
I spent the next two hours unpacking only the things that mattered. Clothes went into the wardrobe without much care, food into the fridge, but the books I arranged carefully by subject and age. Every time I opened a cover I spoke to it. “You stay close. I might need you tonight. I already feel it in the air here, something older than the town itself.”
That first evening I walked down to the small corner shop for milk and bread because the fridge was still almost empty. The woman behind the counter looked me up and down and said, “You’re the one who took the old Miller place, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Just moved in today. It feels quiet here. I like it.”
She nodded slowly and leaned closer over the counter. “Quiet is one word for it. You’ll want to stay away from the big house on the hill though. The black one with the broken windows and the iron gates that never stay shut. People say it’s cursed. Some say worse than cursed.”
I felt something warm twist low in my stomach. “Worse how?”
“Haunted. Or worse. Nobody goes up there after dark and most people don’t go in daylight either if they can help it. Strange sounds come from it some nights, like someone walking on the upper floors when the place has been empty for decades. Lights that no one switches on. Best leave it alone, girl. The town has enough stories already.”
I paid for my things and smiled at her. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for the warning.”
She watched me leave like she wanted to say more but didn’t.
Of course I didn’t keep it in mind. The second I stepped outside I looked straight up the hill and there it was, the gothic mansion sitting against the grey sky like it had been waiting for me the whole time. Tall windows, dark stone, some boards across the lower floors, and that heavy silence around it that made the rest of the town feel louder and smaller. I stood there holding my shopping bag and whispered, “Hello you. I’ve been looking for something like you for a long time. You look exactly like the places in my books.”
I walked home slower than I needed to, glancing up at the mansion every few steps and talking to it under my breath. “I wonder how long you’ve been empty. I wonder what still lives inside you. I hope whatever it is can hear me already.”
Back at the house I put the milk away and then went straight to the study. I cleared the desk, lit three black candles the way the old ritual asked, and sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room with the leather-bound volume open in front of me. My heart was already beating faster than it should have been.
“Alright,” I said to the empty room, voice soft but clear. “I know this is half a joke and half something I shouldn’t say out loud, but I’m saying it anyway because this place feels right and I’ve waited long enough.” I read the Latin lines carefully, tasting every word, then switched to English because the book said the final words had to be spoken in the tongue of the heart.
“I call to the one who walks between life and death. I call to the one who drinks and never ages. I call to the true vampire, not the stories and not the films, the real thing that still hides in places like this.” My voice dropped lower and I leaned forward toward the candles. “I want to meet you. I want you to find me. And when you do, I want you to take me. Not gently. Not kindly. I want your teeth and your hands and everything else you have kept locked away for centuries. I’ve dreamed about it for years. I’ve read every account and every warning and none of them ever stopped me wanting it. So if you’re listening, come. I’m here. I’m ready.”
The air in the room shifted. It wasn’t a wind and it wasn’t cold exactly, but something pressed against my skin for a second and then pulled back like a breath being held. The candle flames leaned toward the open window and the pages of the book fluttered once even though there was no breeze. I sat very still and whispered, “Did you hear that? Please tell me you heard that. Don’t leave me talking to empty rooms forever.”
Nothing answered out loud, but the feeling stayed, like someone had turned their head in the dark and decided to keep listening. I closed the book slowly and blew out the candles one by one. “Okay. Okay. That was either the best or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and I already know which one I’m hoping for.”
