Midnight After Midnight - Nanowrimo 2022

Chapter 7 - The Vampire Court

After Adelaide and Lionel arrived right in front of the vampire palace, he let her take in the surroundings for a little while. The moment she turned around, she saw that the building was located in the middle of a vast, thick forest whose tall, dark trees had thin, withered branches, defeated by winter in all its cruelty, the baggage that weighed over them looking as if it was going to crush them anytime soon. That forest was so thick, hardly anything else could be seen around, and the feeble rays of the sun were blocked out almost completely. 

The small, messy bushes that contained blackberries and blueberries were all white and blue now, and when Adelaide crouched to their height to touch one of them, she saw that the bush she touched was frozen entirely. When she returned to her former position, she saw a raven that she'd failed to notice before, amongst the wide, elevated web of branches that was laid on its back, its whole body spread in utter agony, every feather and bone on it covered in ice without any exception.

Way above her, heavy, grey clouds had engulfed the sky without much space left out, making it seem as if it was going to rain shortly, and the time of day could barely be discerned. Nature didn't have much to communicate that wasn't expected there, so she quickly went on to study the much more majestic palace.

Its roof pierced through the overwhelming clouds, its flag of the vampire royal family, which was positioned very close to the top of it, swaying in the strong winds of cold quite a lot, the Vega emblem, which was a bat with bloody fangs and a golden crown with rubies on it, painted over a deep layer of crimson red. 

The palace appeared to have been built out of a ton of black bricks, which perfectly contrasted the large white door and the white edges of the rectangle windows, over which were drawn curtains of the same colour as the primary layer of the flag. The big, intimidating gate was made of iron, all black except for the exceptionally sharp spikes, the tips of which were coated in a light shade of grey.

The fences were built in the exact the same way, their edges veiled with heaps upon heaps of barbed wire, which was itself veiled with ivy that Adelaide couldn't tell was poisonous or not, and they seemed normal up until the moment she saw a tiny, bony finger in between all the barbed wire.
She swallowed for a bit before Lionel nudged her shoulder with an innocent smile.

"Hey, is everything alright?" he asked softly, at which she nodded energetically, not wanting to think about what she saw anymore, and he didn't seem to pay her obviously untrue answer much attention.

Soon, he pointed at the castle, by which time she'd already forgotten about everything that had been bothering her. "This place has a rich history behind it. My ancestors, who most likely came here from Serbia, didn't build anything themselves. It's important to note that we're far from Ravenseye now because, although there aren't anywhere as many of us as we'd like, we occupy many areas around the world, and any random person with merely a few infinitesimally odd qualities about their appearance you've ever seen in your life may just be a vampire.

I mean, when you passed the street, ate your lunch in the school backyard, or went near the border of the woods, were you able to remember how many of them there were, let alone what they looked like?

Anyway, as I was saying, we're far from England now, and this castle didn't belong to us from the beginning. Much like wealthy bandits with vast secret networks when it comes to humans, we like to use our power to scare those weaker than us away from the territory we set our eyes on and can't afford to lose, but only every once in a while, for we can't familiarise too many mortals with our kind, and the tiny number that becomes acquainted with us can't be considered anything other than mad by their peers if they do tell what they saw and immediately ran away from."

Adelaide's eyes widened, which he didn't seem to have noticed.

"Let's enter the building now. It's been our source of pride for centuries for a reason, and there are many more luxuries in there than you'd expect."