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“Mariah won’t be spooked,” Katherine says. “She’s one of us.”
Katherine was—and still is—a powerful clairvoyant, like her mother before her, going all the way back to the early sixteenth century when my grandson had the misfortune of falling in love with a raven-haired witch. It’s how Katherine is able to interact with objects in the physical world—a skill I envy.
Oddly, Mariah doesn’t seem to have inherited her forebears’ gifts, though she certainly has the look: dark hair, pale skin, and gunmetal-gray eyes framed by thick lashes. She’s beautiful and fresh, like a new paint job. But all pure, unpolluted things wind up stained at some point or other.
“Why does Edward want the girl?” I ask. Someone more gracious than me might say it’s because he regrets exiling his daughter, but I know the bastard far too well. He never does anything out of the kindness of his corrupt heart.
“He thinks she’ll be of use to him.”
“Obviously, but how?”
Katherine frowns, then shrugs, which is her way of saying she hasn’t had a vision yet.
“Has Isabella seen her?” I ask. Isabella’s spirit appeared on the property a few weeks ago, called home by the psychic connection to her family.
“Not yet. John and I agree it’s better to wait until she’s more lucid.” Isabella’s spirit made the journey, but she’s thoroughly caught up in the miasma of the realm. It could take years before she truly understands where she is and what she’s become.
“Does your daughter know who you are?”
A smile graces her bow-shaped lips.
“She does.” Having died in childbirth, Katherine never got the chance to hold Isabella in her arms. I imagine having her back here is a bittersweet reunion.
For a ghost, Katherine is exceptionally self-aware. I enjoy her company, as well as her husband, John’s. She tolerates mine, and John occasionally visits me in the cellar.
The new blood in the next room has both of them fluttering around the manor like moths.
“You’re looking thinner than usual,” Katherine says.
“I’ll try harder to look healthy for you.” One nice thing about astral projection is that I can present myself however I wish, regardless of my physical appearance. It requires a bit more focus, but beats having to walk around looking emaciated and blue-faced from repeated sprayings with colloidal silver. The stuff is like pepper spray for vampires. Get sprayed with it enough times, and it’ll start to bioaccumulate, turning your skin blue.
I sense a presence approaching my physical form. Edward, most likely, though he doesn’t often visit me so soon after a feeding.
“I’m afraid I must depart,” I say. “It appears I’m late for an impromptu bloodletting.”
Katherine shakes her head sadly.
I return to my body with a sharp inhale, squinting against the artificial light. Much of the time, I’m shrouded in total darkness. I wouldn’t mind it so much if my night vision wasn’t compromised from poor nutrition.
“Where do you go, William?” Edward asks, unlocking the door to my silver-coated cage. “Every time I come in here, you look like you’re waking up from a dream. But I know your kind do not sleep.”
I don’t respond. Edward hates being ignored more than anything. I consider it my duty to do everything within my limited power to ruin his fun.
He approaches me without fear because he knows I cannot touch him when I’m chained to the wall. He’s rigged up a system of heavy-duty chains attached to silver-coated collar, ankle, and wrist cuffs. With the press of a button, he can loosen the chains and allow me to roam about my enclosure. Or, he can tighten them—like they are now—pinning me firmly against the stone.
Most of the old vampire legends are nothing but fiction. I don’t care for garlic, but it doesn’t hurt me. The sun won’t kill me, though I would need a significant amount of blood and a few days in the dark to recover from a day at the beach.
However, the anecdote about silver being harmful turns out to be true. For a vampire, merely touching it is like placing your hand on a hot stove.
Now, imagine how it would feel to hold your hand there twenty-four seven.
That’s been my whole existence for the past eighteen years.
“I hope the boy was to your liking,” Edward says, gesturing to the lifeless body of a young man on the floor of my cage. Once a month, Edward and his son will drag an unlucky human down here for me to feed on. He’s got it down to a science. One human’s worth of blood is enough to enrich every bottle of wine that leaves this place, while keeping me alive and sufficiently weakened.
Edward leaves my cage to fetch an IV needle and a coiled tube from the cabinet where he keeps an array of medical equipment. Back inside, he sets the supplies on a small metal table, next to a bottle of wine and a corkscrew, then takes a seat on the rollaway stool.
“Do you know what tonight is?” he asks.
