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licia stirred slightly, her head pounding. She tried to move, but found her body unwilling.
“There you are,” she heard a familiar voice say. “I was getting worried we would have to take you to the hospital.”
Alicia smiled slightly. “Brody,” she said.
“I’m here.”
She felt his hand touch her fevered skin. It was comforting.
“Fever,” he said with a sigh. “Perhaps I should take you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Alicia murmured, already fading.
“No,” Brody said firmly. Alicia felt his strong arms wrap around her body and lift her upright. “You are eating first. Then you can sleep.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That’s not my problem.”
Alicia scoffed and finally pulled her eyes open. She immediately regretted it. The room spun and sudden nausea gripped her stomach. She groaned and shut her eyes.
“Give it a minute,” she heard Brody say. “That will pass.”
“What happened?” Alicia asked. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”
“I’m not entirely sure. What do you remember?”
“Nothing,” Alicia said. She wracked her throbbing mind for memories that she felt sure must be buried in there somewhere. “I was talking to a woman... strawberry blonde, very petite. Pretty thing.”
“Yulia,” Brody said. “She runs that hideous nightclub and dungeon.”
“Oh. I mean, at least I think I was speaking to her. I vaguely remember her introducing herself. Then... nothing.”
Alicia turned to look at Brody, who watched her with a thousand unsaid things behind his eyes. “Are you certain?” he asked. Alicia heard a faint urgency in his question and frowned.
She closed her eyes and forced her lagging brain to function. “Yes. I don’t remember anything after that.”
Sighing, Brody nodded. He sat down on the edge of her bed. “There is a lot we have to talk about, Alicia. But first, there is stew on the bedside table beside you. You have to eat some. Then take a glass of water. Then you can rest.”
Alicia forced her eyes open again, fighting her swimming vision and rolling stomach. “What do you have to tell me?”
“It can wait. For now, you need to recover your strength. You’re going to need it.”
“Why?”
“Please just trust me on this, Alicia. Please.”
Distracted from the nausea by Brody’s tired and miserable sounding tone, Alicia looked at him again. He looked old, hunched over himself, sitting at the edge of her bed. He wasn’t looking at her, but at the ground. Or, rather, not at the ground exactly, but past it, into his own thoughts.
“Brody,” Alicia said. He looked up at her, his eyes slightly wild. Words fled Alicia.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” Brody said. “I haven’t been that afraid since... Well, it doesn’t matter.” Brody straightened. “You should eat and rest. I’ll be just outside the door if you need me.”
“You’re insane,” Alicia said, staring at her partner as if he had just now grown a second head. He had arrived shortly after lunch carrying a huge file folder and looking unwell. The following discussion was thoroughly unbelievable.
“Alicia, you need to listen to me,” Brody replied calmly, evenly. “I know it sounds nuts. Trust me, I know. But you need to know what you’ve gotten yourself involved with.”
“Brody,” Alicia answered, trying to reign in her temper. “Vampires don’t exist. They’re just stories.”
“Vampires killed my daughter, Alicia,” Brody said. “And I know it seems crazy to you, but you have to listen to me. Your boyfriend is one of them — only he calls himself an Opyri — and it was one of them that attacked you the night of the party. You can’t remember because they don’t want you to remember.”
“You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you?”
“No, Alicia. I’m stone cold sober and I have been for years.”
“Then you’re insane. I need you to get out of my house now.”
“Alicia—”
“Get. Out.”
Sighing, Brody rose to his feet. “Just... just read the file, all right? Promise me you’ll at least read the file.”
Offering the barest of smiles, Brody stood and walked from the house. Alicia stared at him as he left, hoping to see him stumble, or perhaps walking into a wall, something to prove that this was the ramblings of a relapsed drunkard instead of a genuinely insane man. There was no stumble. Instead, Brody, arriving at her front door unscathed, turned and offered her one last small, sad smile; an imploration for her to believe him. He left.
Alicia turned and stared at the file folder before picking it up and throwing it in the wastepaper bin of the office that adjoined her living room, then retired upstairs. She was not yet up to her full strength, and the argument she had just had with her partner had drained her.
She drew herself a bath, hoping to soak the entire afternoon’s conversation away. She went downstairs to pour herself a glass of red wine while the tub filled. It was by chance that she peered out of the kitchen window. There, across the street, stood a man in a long trench coat, sunglasses and a fedora. He was doing nothing but standing. The man took a long, slow drag of his cigarette and threw it on the ground before turning and sauntering away.
There could be any number of reasons he was there. Perhaps he was just out for a stroll and happened to pause and light a cigarette. It was just a coincidence. There was no reason for him to be watching her or her house. In fact, he probably wasn’t. Alicia tried to convince herself of this as she stomped up the stairs to her bath.
All the scented bubbles in the world could not stop her mind from working. It replayed the things Brody had said over and over.
Vampires possess a quasi-psychic ability that can turn humans into mindless slaves called Thralls. They can also erase or suppress memories, which is why Alicia could not remember after a certain point of the masquerade. She had, Brody asserted, been attacked by one such vampire. That vampire was an associate of Aleksandar’s, who they called a prince; something like a king amongst vampires.
On and on, Brody’s patient explanation of why Alicia was so ill played in her mind, like a broken record continually skipping.
None of it made sense. Or, rather, in a world where such things were possible, it made far too much sense. But this was not that world. Vampires were not real. Brody was insane.
But then, there were the dark eyes. Aleksandar had them. So did Stoyan, and Aleksandar’s man servant Lucan. Scowling, Alicia recalled that Aleksandar’s associate, the pretty strawberry blonde who supposedly attacked her, also had them. And those dangerous, dark eyes were the last thing Alicia remembered about that woman. She could see them even now, large and dark and consuming.
Alicia felt her mind slip into blankness even at the memory of those eyes. With a jolt, she pulled herself back from the precipice of mindlessness and sat upright.
“Fuck you, Brody,” she muttered, settling herself back down into her bath. Thanks to his mad ramblings, her imagination had started to act up. She struggled to keep her imagination from taking over while simultaneously trying to force herself to enjoy her bath and her wine.
Neither worked and so, frustrated and angry, Alicia gave up. She stepped out of the bath and towelled herself down as it drained.
“Fuck you, Brody,” she said again. Her mind could not stop turning over his words. She fought against it. It was insane. Vampires are not real.
“They’re not real,” Alicia assured herself as she stepped up to the mirror. “They’re not real. Brody is insane. This whole thing is insane.”
Picking up her brush, Alicia started to comb through her curls. She froze as her eyes fell on the newly exposed left side of her neck. There, though small and almost invisible, she spied two dots. She dropped her brush and drew back her hair with one hand. Leaning close to the mirror, she examined the marks, letting the fingertips of her free hand brush over them. They were not imaginary. They were not moles. They were wounds, almost healed. Two small puncture wounds, spaced just far enough that they could conceivably have been created by sharp incisors; by vampire teeth.
Alicia dropped her hair and stepped away from the mirror. She scowled and shook her head. No. There had to be another explanation. There was some other reason why she now had two perfectly spaced puncture wounds on her neck; one that did not involve fictional creatures, even if vampires being real made enough sense to be credible.
It wasn’t credible. Vampires were not real.
Clutching her towel around her, Alicia bolted down the stairs to the study. She hauled the thick file folder out of the wastepaper basket and threw it on her desk. Sitting down, she shifted through the papers. Page after page of printed notes, handwritten notes, mind maps, and printed pages from internet searches greeted Alicia as she sifted through what had obviously become Brody’s obsession. It started years ago, when his daughter first went missing. The first few parts of the folder were typical of any file regarding a missing person. Brody followed all the procedures. He researched all possible avenues, until the testimony of one particular witness. The man had appeared erratic and unhinged, displaying symptoms consistent with withdrawal. However, there was no trace of any drug in or on him, and, other than the withdrawal, he displayed no symptoms of the kind of drug use that would create such withdrawal symptoms.
The man had babbled about hypnosis, about demons with dark eyes that drank blood, about his own part in their blood rituals... All organised and held by the Üstrel family. The notes were extensive and sickening.
Brody had then begun to research cults and occult practices. Down the rabbit hole of research he had gone, and Alicia followed.
The witness’ description of the rituals performed matched accounts from the Middle Ages, as did his description of the demonic creatures who he insisted made up the controlling board of Üstrel Corporation. Midnight eyes, a blue so deep and dark it was almost black, that gave truth to their soulless nature. Pale skin, a result of severe reactions to sunlight. Immeasurable strength.
Alicia compared the notes of the case of Brody’s missing daughter to the research on demonic creatures. They matched in almost every regard. Alicia’s hand trembled as she reached the research Brody had done on Aleksandar Svetoslav, the young surprise heir of the Üstrel Corporation.
Midnight eyes and pale skin he had, but Alicia could easily have chalked that up to coincidence. However, Brody’s research on the name Svetoslav caught her eye. The name Svetoslav is of Bulgarian origin, Alicia noted, and belonged to the Tsar of Bulgaria, one Theodore Svetoslav, son of George Terter I. Theodore expelled the Mongols from Bulgaria and ruled with an iron fist from the year 1300 AD to 1322 AD. Theodore.
The heraldic shield of the family also caught her eye; a red bull’s head crested with a cross, also red. She had seen that symbol, hanging above the fireplace in Aleksandar’s dining hall.
Theodore Svetoslav, Emperor of Bulgaria, Aleksandar’s lover.
Alicia stopped. Lover? She forgot the file as her brain whipped back to the night of the masquerade. Lover. Someone had identified the photograph on the mantle in the fireplace of Aleksandar’s bedroom as Theodore Svetoslav. Aleksandar’s lover.
“Handsome, isn’t he?” the woman had asked.
The man Aleksandar had claimed to be an adopted brother was anything but. They were lovers. For how long? A thousand years?
“Yes,” the woman had said. “Lovers. I would watch them on occasion. Sometimes they would invite me in to play.” She had taken Alicia’s hand in her own and kissed the knuckles. “You poor thing.” She had reached out with her other hand and stroked Alicia’s cheek. “You don’t really think he loves you, do you? How could he? He is a prince and you, well, you are entertainment.”
Alicia withdrew from the sudden memory of the masquerade, wrapping her arm around her middle to quell the nausea that threatened. She closed her eyes briefly in her struggle against her own stomach. After forcing herself to calm her breathing, she opened her eyes and returned to the file Brody had given her. She poured over the extensive notes Brody had made, including the record of a conversation he had had with Aleksandar in which Aleksandar had identified himself as the Prince of the House Svetoslav, one of many such Houses of vampires that operated undetected in the world. Obscure testimonies from bizarre cases involving occult rituals in Europe cropped up in the file, connected to several prominent families, mostly in Eastern Europe.
But Aleksandar was British, was he not? Alicia continued reading, her stomach growing cold and heavy. She saw the papers indicating his British citizenship. Everything looked in order except... Alicia stared at the stated birth date. May. He had told her he was a November child. She remembered that well. Her friend had gone on a rant about a Scorpio man she once dated when Alicia had divulged the details of that date to her.
Worse still, despite having a birth certificate that looked in order, there had been no record of an Aleksandar Svetoslav prior to the issuing of that certificate, some ten years before Aleksandar inherited the Üstrel fortune.
Stranger still, an almost exact copy of the certificate with a different birth date was listed as having been issued in the early 1900s. And back further, an Aleksandar Svetoslav was listed in Church records in Bulgaria some two hundred years before that. Beside the scanned copy of that record, Brody had scrawled the words ‘same man.’
Alicia felt ill. She closed the folder and pushed it away from her, shutting her eyes and resting her head on her hands. Images flashed before her.
“That’s all right, though, isn’t it, my sweet?” the pretty woman crooned. Yulia. It was Yulia. Alicia recognised her now, staring as she was through a hazy memory.
“You only ever wanted to be entertainment.”
Alicia had nodded. It was not true. She loved Aleksandar. She wanted to be his partner, his equal. Perhaps his wife one day. She never wanted to be nothing more than entertainment. She had agreed. Why? Because Yulia had wanted her to. She had agreed because, somehow, Yulia had taken away her impulse to resist. Yulia had done this. Yulia and her midnight eyes.
The images kept coming and Alicia’s nausea increased. They had kissed, and more. And they kissed until Yulia’s lips made their way to her neck.
The remembrance of the pain was enough to induce another seizure, similar to the one that had rocked her when the bite had first happened. Alicia’s eyes flew open, and she gasped. She had been attacked; preyed upon. By a vampire.
The nausea fled, replaced by a flash of anger so extreme it made her fingertips tingle. Shaking, Alicia bolted from her chair and up the stairs, discarding her towel as she did so. She dressed hurriedly, not bothering to brush out her hair, before dashing back down the stairs again, gathering the file and running outside to her car.
Aleksandar sighed as he shifted the stack of reports on his desk. Running a business was fearfully dull. Running several was simultaneously chaotic and dull. A ruckus from downstairs in the foyer caught his ear. He stood to investigate. He had no time to move around the desk in his study when the door crashed open, revealing Alicia, clutching a folder to her chest. She marched in, her brown eyes blazing.
Aleksandar straightened, surprised as her angry eyes regarded him in silence.
“Alicia,” he managed to greet. “How...?”
Alicia tossed the file onto Aleksandar’s desk. It landed with a thud. “Is it true?” Alicia demanded.
Aleksandar observed her a moment longer. He felt his heart sink. He knew what lay in the file. He knew what it was she was asking him. Even still, he reached out and flipped open the folder. Page after page of thorough research on himself and his House greeted his eyes. The birth certificates, with the mismatched names, the appearances of his name throughout the last few hundred years in Europe... It was all there.
“This is very thorough,” Aleksandar murmured.
“Is it true?” Alicia demanded again.
Sitting down, Aleksandar closed the file. He clasped his hands together, intertwining his fingers. For a moment, he rested his chin against his thumbs, then lifted his head to look up at Alicia.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked her quietly. There was no anger, no surprise in his voice, and no humour — none of the most likely responses to the absurd accusation that lay between the ends of the file folder were present. Only a distant touch of sadness.
“I want you to tell me that I’m insane, that there is no way this is possible. I want you to stand up and tell me that my imagination has gotten the better of me.”
After a pause, Aleksandar rose to his feet.
“Alicia,” he said gently. “Your imagination has gotten the better of you. This isn’t possible.”
Tears struck Alicia’s eyes. Aleksandar did not believe what he had just said. He did not even bother to make a realistic pretence at it. Though his words denied her knowledge in exactly the manner she requested, everything else about him told her that she was right after all. “Now tell me the truth,” she whispered.
Aleksandar broke eye contact with her then. He turned and walked to the window, the curtains of which were firmly closed. He stood, his back to her, and ran one hand through his hair. With more force than necessary, he wrenched the curtains open. Sunlight flooded into the room. Still safe in the shade provided by the half-opened curtain, Aleksandar turned. His expression was impassive, but his eyes ... his eyes stirred. They were not blank and cold as Alicia had expected them to be.
“The truth,” Aleksandar said.
“I remember,” Alicia whispered. “The night of the masquerade. I remember it. I remember what was done to me. And I remember what you told Brody on the car ride back.” The tears that had welled in her eyes found their escape. They trickled down her cheeks. “I remember it all.”
“The truth is this,” Aleksandar replied. He held out his hand, letting the sunlight stream across his unclothed skin. Alicia watched as his pale skin began to smoke, dry and crack. “I love you,” Aleksandar said, withdrawing his hand.
Alicia shook her head, anger, shock and vindication mixing in her chest, making it hurt. Aleksandar took a step towards her, and she moved back. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t come near me.”
“Alicia,” Aleksandar said. Even as he said it, he knew it was futile. There were no words he could utter that would bring Alicia willingly to his side. Not now. Not anymore. He felt an odd pain build in his chest. “Please.”
“No,” Alicia replied. Her voice gained strength as anger became dominant. “Stay away from me. I never want to see you again. Do you understand? Never. Again.” With that, she spun and bolted from the room, running across the hall and down the stairs with surprising speed given her condition.
She almost reached the door when Lucan stepped into her path. Alicia screamed and jumped back.
“Let her go,” Aleksandar said from the top of the stairs. Lucan looked up, and Alicia turned.
“My lord,” Lucan protested.
“Let. Her. Go,” Aleksandar repeated. His voice had not changed in volume, but there was something in his tone that would have given God Himself pause. Lucan’s dark eyes flickered to Alicia. Then, as commanded, he stepped aside.
Alicia sprinted outside to her car.