Parallel World

Chapter 28

I've always thought that March is an odd month, neither winter nor spring. Living in an urban area, it was less noticeable but now, standing in the middle of the Hungarian countryside, I could see it clearly again.

The bright blue sky and sunshine gave a false impression of warm weather, the ground was still awaking after winter sleep and the melting snow had turned it into a big puddle of mudd. The mountains looked so beautiful and inviting, and then there was the silence... My ears were struggling to adjust after being so used to living in the noisy NYC. I felt like I was alone in this place with not a soul around but that was an illusion - Jack was here and we were standing outside a train station.

A silhouette appeared near us.

"I didn't see you when we arrived," I said.

"I was standing on the platform but a bit further away."

"Did you have to wait long for us?" Jack asked.

"No, five, maybe ten minutes, I timed it well."

The vampire was now standing in front of us: tall, in excellent shape, with long dark hair tied back in a bun, piercing green eyes and immaculate posture. She was confident, decisive and strong willed. Her outfit consisted of a simple but very well made tweed suit and riding boots.

"Firenzi Sandora," she said and outstretched her arm. What a strong handshake she had! I suddenly found myself thinking of pliers.

"Excuse me, but which one is your name and which one is your surname?" I asked.

"Firenzi is the family name and Sandora is my name. Hungarians say their surname first," she explained.

"Thank you for your clarification, I learn something new every day. Elisa Lestanheart."

Sandora went to Jack, he told her his name and they shook hands.

"Welcome to Hungary. Meghan's friends are my friends too. Shall we depart? I hope you don't mind walking. My house is about ten kilometres away."

"We love walking, in fact, we were hoping that you don't live too close to the train station," Jack answered for us both.

Ten kilometres for a vampire was like two kilometres for a human. We couldn't feel the weight of our luggage and the mudd didn't bother us.

Sandora's home was about one and half hours away from Budapest, in a small town we'd never heard about. When I was only planning this trip, I had mentioned it to Meghan and she said straight away that we must meet Sandora. So here we were. Meghan herself was either on her way back to New York or already there. Due to the specifics of her job she couldn't go away for long periods of time.

II

As cliche as it sounds, Sandora lived in a castle on a hill. The place looked impenetrable: thick, tall walls, the gates could probably withstand a tank crashing into them and the building itself didn't look very inviting from the outside.

"Peace, quiet and no-one but wild animals as my neighbours, this place is perfect!" Sandora exclaimed as she opened the gates. "Since you're only here for a short period of time, how about a short hike in the mountains? We can walk and discuss business at the same time."

Jack and I agreed straight away. Sandora showed us the rooms she had prepared for us, we dropped off our luggage and were ready to go.

She knew why we were here therefore there was no need to introduce her to our products. Sandora was in charge of the conversation and was telling us about Meghan's visit.

"How did you even meet?" I asked.

"On the Internet, it's a marvellous thing," she grinned. "Meghan was interested in Central European vampire mythology and found a forum I was a member of. We started messaging each other and became friends some time later. By the way, Meghan gathered I'm a vampire fairly quickly. As for me, I thought she was a researcher or something, definitely not an amateur or a vampire enthusiast. When I found out she was actually a vampire hunter it was..." Sandora paused. "Weird. However, us representing different camps has never stood in the way of our friendship."