Prologue
His favorite lair was in the remains of
a castle that had been built only a few years before he had been
turned. He came back every thirty years or so, whenever the noise
and the smell and the busyness of modern life became more than he
could bear. He much preferred the life he had once known, before
the advent of cell phones and iPods, a time when life had been
slower, simpler. There had been a beauty to those days long gone, a
grace that was missing now. An innocence that could not be
restored, and was sorely missed.
But Wolfram Castle remained, exactly
the same as it had always been. It was an impressive structure,
rectangular with round turrets at three corners and a high, arched
entrance. Battlements edged the flat roof. A barbican surrounded
the building. The single entrance, flanked by two towers, faced the
rising sun. Stone steps, many of them broken, led to the imposing
entrance. The outbuildings, save for a large stable in sore need of
a new roof, had been destroyed long since.
The ground floor of the castle housed
the kitchen and storerooms; the main hall occupied the first floor,
along with several smaller rooms, including a garderobe and a
bathing chamber, as well as quarters in the rear that had once
housed the servants. The chambers on the upper floor had been used
exclusively by the Wolfram family.
Drake had purchased the castle and the
surrounding acreage from Thomas Wolfram, the last of the Wolfram
line, over four hundred years ago. In this day of malls and
superstores and housing tracts, holding on to the land had been no
easy task, but a good lawyer, and a bit of supernatural magic, had
ensured that the castle, the ground it sat on, and the meadow
below, would be his as long as he lived.
Standing in the pouring rain, Drake ran
his hand over one of the ancient walls. Even though the castle was
inanimate, he felt a kinship with it, for they had both endured
much in the course of their long existence.
He had survived angry villagers eager
to burn him alive; the king’s guards, who had desired his head on a
pike; pious minions of the Church who had hoped to redeem his soul
before they drove a sharp wooden stake through his heart;
mercenaries who wanted to sell vials of his blood to the highest
bidder.
The castle had been ravaged by fire and
flood, pummeled by rain and hail, struck by lightning, buried in an
avalanche, and yet both he and the castle remained, still strong
and nearly indestructible.
On rare occasions, he had thought of
tearing the place down and building something more contemporary,
but it had been a favorite retreat of his for centuries. Destroying
the castle would be like destroying a part of himself.
He grunted softly. Maybe ending his
existence wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Perhaps he would find peace
in true death. He might even find forgiveness. At the least, he
would find an end to his hellish thirst, to the loneliness that
could never be assuaged by brief encounters with nameless women. An
end to watching the rest of the world change and develop while he
remained forever the same. Best of all, it would put an end to what
was expected of him.
He shook all thought of
self-destruction away. Suicide was a cowardly thing to do. Perhaps
it was time to go to ground, to rest for a hundred years or so.
When he awoke, the times would have changed. There would be new
things to see, to learn, a whole new world to explore.
He gazed into the distance. Dark clouds
hovered low in the sky, spitting rain and lightning. There was
little to see in this part of the country save for the castle, and
a small township at the foot of the mountain. A movie company had
used the town as the backdrop for a horror film that had, to
everyone’s surprise, become a worldwide phenomenon. Since then,
tourists had come from all over the world to take pictures and buy
souvenirs and pretend, for a day or two, that they were part of
that fictional world.
He shook his head. He had little
interest in movies, but the tourists who wandered throughout
Romania looking for Dracula made for easy pickings. The rain would
keep most of them inside on a night like this, but there were
always an adventurous few who were willing to brave the elements in
search of excitement.
He smiled inwardly as the hunger rose
up within him, and with it, the urge to hunt. Any tourists out
looking for a thrill tonight would find more than they bargained
for.