Twenty years have passed since the death of my beloved Nathan. Twenty years of raising our daughter single-handedly, only to see him again reflected in her porcelain face. I thought for sure my time for love had come and gone. But a recent trip to P...
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A pile of fresh snow was no match for the roar of the train as it zoomed its way along the frozen tracks, toward the white-capped fangs of the Carpathian Mountains. From my cabin in first class, a digital clock counted down the hours, minutes and seconds until sunrise. Not that it would have mattered anyway. The windows are reinforced and heavily tinted so that no amount of sunlight may enter when I'm aboard. Though sunlight for a vampire like me does not make for a perfect combination.
Suffice it to say it involves highly spontaneous combustible flames followed by death and eventually ash. And then there's my daughter Astrid. The very first of her kind. A vampire by nature yet still manages to retain a hint of human compassion and the soul-wrenching ability to survive out in the daylight. But that's the beauty of it all, isn't it? The mystery, the secrecy, the hidden piece of the puzzle. A puzzle that has now come full circle has been transformed into a more complicated problem. Only this time the pieces are nonexistent.
As my mind wandered, I pressed my head back against the plush high-backed seat, while focusing all of my attention and energy on the smooth ride coming from the train. With today's advances in modern technology. Trains now had the ability to move from one city to the next in just a few short hours. And that's how I ended up here. I was on holiday in Paris when I received a phone call from Nicholas, a former police detective turned vampire who told me that someone broke into the crypt and stole Nathan's body.
I was furious beyond words as I opened my eyes to the light of our compartment. Astrid slept soundly in the seat across from me with an old copy of a Romanian newspaper folded as a pillow underneath her lavish hair. In the top rack above her was my sword. A powerful weapon and a dangerous one at that. One swing can take a man's head clean off without so much as a drop of blood on the blade. Leaving it there, for now, I decided it was time to stretch my legs for a bit as I went to the door and slipped out.
In the pale light of the corridor. A bay of windows showed the beauty of what meant to travel through the Carpathian Mountains by train. Bare branches dipped in white gold sparkled under the cover of the silvery moon that shined overhead. I leaned forward, even though I didn't have to thanks to my supernatural eyesight, as I watched a pack of wolves run freely through the countryside. While the storm raging outside proved to be no match for their heightened senses as I listened to them howl in the dead of night.
Listen to them. The children of the night. What music they make! That's from a book or a movie. I don't really remember which. Not that I care. I just like saying it.
As I made my way down the narrow corridor, I headed for the dining car. It was here that I caught the scent of alcohol being poured freely into a pair of shot glasses. But as I looked around, I noticed that not too many people were out this time of night. A man stood behind the bar dressed in a white buttoned-down shirt and black slacks, wearing a vest. He was handsome and his eyes were gray, the color of smoke. And as I approached I knew that I would catch his attention. No one could resist me after all. Not even my mate.
