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.
Chapter 1
Elena Knightsbridge paused outside the back door, her gaze drawn to the gray stone castle at the top of the hill. No one knew exactly how old the castle was, only that it has been passed down from one generation to another. No one had lived there for as long as Elena could remember. From time to time, developers had come, hoping to buy the land, tear down the castle, and build a Dracula-style theme park, but the land was held in perpetuity for the heirs of a man no one in town had ever seen.
There were those who said Wolfram Castle was haunted, that ghosts wandered the long dark halls. There were other tales as well, scary stories whispered in the dark of the night, of witches and warlocks, of demons and dragons.
There were other stories, too, of young women who had been lured into the castle in days gone by, never to be seen or heard from again. Elena’s uncle, Tavian Dinescu, insisted that stories of devil worship and witchcraft were a bunch of nonsense, and that the girls who had supposedly disappeared had been employed at the castle as hired help. Whether any or all of the old stories were true or not, there was something about the castle that repelled visitors.
With a shake of her head, Elena bent over the wicker laundry basket and began hanging the clothes on the line. A haunted castle was nothing compared to the hell her life had become since her parents were killed in a car accident seven years ago, when she was twelve, and she had been sent from Colorado to this nothing little town in Transylvania to live with her father’s sister, Catalena, Catalena’s husband, Tavian, and their daughter, Jenica, who was a few years older than Elena. Fortunately, communicating with her cousin hadn’t been a problem, since Elena’s parents had often spoken Romanian at home.
Life hadn’t been too bad when her aunt was alive, but Catalena had passed away some years ago, and Jenica had recently run off with a boy from the next town.
Elena shuddered when she thought of her uncle, with his cropped brown hair, thick brown mustache, and close-set gray eyes.
Uncle Tavian was such a skinflint, he refused to buy a new dryer. Times were hard, he said. They didn’t have money for silly things like dryers. He had money for whiskey, though. She supposed, if the washing machine broke, she would find herself pounding the laundry on the rocks in the river. Her workload had doubled since her aunt passed away and Jenica had eloped.
Caring for the house, doing the washing and the cooking and the mending, as well as the shopping left little time for anything else. The only bright spot was that her uncle, who was now the chief of police, was rarely home these days. Truly a blessing. He had made her uncomfortable for as long as she could remember. She hated the way he called her “my little cabbage,” the way he smiled at her, the way he found excuses to touch her.
He had grown bolder since Jenica ran off with one of the neighbor boys. Her uncle’s touches had become more intimate, and more frequent. It was all Elena could do not to cringe when he caressed her hair or stroked her cheek. His conversation was laced with double entendres. Lately, Elena wanted to hide whenever he was in the house. The way he looked at her, like a hungry wolf contemplating its next meal, made her skin crawl. One night, during dinner, he had reminded her that he was her uncle by marriage and not by blood.
Last night, she had awakened to find him standing by her bed, staring down at her. Though she had no experience with men, every instinct she possessed had warned her that she was in danger. She had kept very still, feigning sleep, until, after what seemed like hours, he tiptoed out of her bedroom.
Jenica had whispered about abuses by her father, confiding that, since her mother died, he had come into her room many times. She claimed that he had done things so vile she couldn’t repeat them. Elena had been horrified to learn that her uncle had raped her cousin, not once, but many times. She’d always thought that kind of thing only happened to people you didn’t know. But that was only part of it. Jenica had told her that, before Elena’s arrival, he had often locked her in the cellar for days at a time.
Both girls were terrified of him. Elena hadn’t been surprised when her cousin ran away from home. She herself had considered it on more than one occasion.
Returning to the house, Elena looked out the window, a shiver of unease snaking down her spine when she saw her uncle staggering up the street.
She needed to get away from here, but where could she go? Walking to Brasov was out of the question. It was many miles away, on the other side of the mountain. She had no car, no cash, no one she could turn to for help.
Elena was acutely aware of her uncle’s repeated glances in her direction at dinner that night. His advances had become more blatant with every passing day. Though the table was large, he insisted she sit close beside him. She flinched when his arm brushed against hers, gagged at the smell of his whiskey-sour breath.
“How old are you now, Elena?” he asked.
“Almost twenty.”
“Far past the time when a young woman should be wed. Do none of the young men in town appeal to you?”
“No, sir.”
He nodded, looking pleased, and then thoughtful. “Perhaps you would prefer an older man? One with experience, if you know what I mean?”
She swallowed hard, her heart pounding. “No, sir.” She recoiled from the look in his eyes as he leaned closer toward her.
“It’s been five months since Jenica ran off. It isn’t proper for the two of us to continue living together without a chaperone.” He laughed, a mean, ugly sound. “People might get the wrong idea.”
Elena clenched her hands in her lap, sorely afraid she knew what was coming, and dreading it.
“I think we should marry.” He nodded, as though pleased with the idea. “I need an heir, someone to carry on the family name.”
She stared at him, mute with horror at the idea of sharing his bed.
Smiling, he took hold of her arm and drew her closer. “You’d give me a son, wouldn’t you?”
She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her arm, his pudgy fingers digging into her skin to hold her fast. And then he leaned forward and kissed her.