Haven’t read Chapter One yet? Click here to read it!
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six

Hillard had been watching Sarah’s reaction at seeing the land mass stretching out across the lake. He watched her turn back and forth from the lake to the castle on the hill and back again with pity. He had been born in this world, so he’d never experienced what she was feeling first hand, but he’d seen a similar reaction several times in others and it never got any easier to watch.

As Sarah slumped to the ground, he rushed forward to catch her but, despite his more- than-human speed, he was too late. He knelt beside her and gazed down at her pale face. Her light brown shoulder-length hair was fanned around her face like a halo and she looked achingly beautiful. The feverish flush only added to her loveliness. He gently stroked her cheek and his finger trailed down the surface of her face, and along the side of her throat. There he paused.

He mustn’t even think about it. It had been days since he had fed, but they would be at Adalaide’s cottage soon enough. With a sigh, he reached his right hand behind her shoulders and took hold behind her knees with the left. Rising, he could feel the heat from her fever through her clothing, and he swore softly. She was very ill.

On a positive note, however, he could now move at his full speed, and they would be at Adalaide’s cottage in mere moments.  Carefully, he picked his way back through the forest to the point where the road met the path. Neither branch nor twig touched Sarah as he passed.

Once he reached the path, however, he sped up, moving at a speed that would be unnaturally fast for a human. He was not human, however, he was something more. He had been human once, but that was more than fifty years ago.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When Christine awoke, it was dark. She felt slow and groggy. Trying to wake up fully, she felt like she was swimming up toward the surface of a warm deep pool. She wondered if she had been drugged. She tried to think back and determine whether every time she’d had something to eat she’d felt the same irresistible urge to sleep. It would have been an easy explanation, but Christine realized that she had felt constantly tired since she had first awoken in the castle. It could have something to do with the knock she had taken on the head.

    After a few minutes of deep breathing, she was finally awake enough to sit up. She felt weak and feverish and she wondered if she had caught Sarah’s cold. That could also explain the sleepiness. It didn’t have to be something as nefarious as drugging or as medically worrisome as a concussion.

    Getting out of bed, she sighed as her feet came to rest on the cold floor. She slowly walked over to the dressing table and sat down. There was a basin of cool water there and she was happy for the opportunity to finally wash herself, if even in such a limited fashion. What she wouldn’t give for a nice hot bath right now. The chilly water, however, felt cool and refreshing on her tired sweaty face. The water finally washed away the remnants of sleep and she got up again and walked over to her bedroom window.

    She hadn’t looked outside again since she had first arrived in her room. Now, she gazed out and saw, in the light of the half moon, the Sleeping Giant reclining across the bay.

    Christine wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but she knew that she hadn’t been transported to some European castle while she was unconscious. The view she saw now was very nearly the same as the one she saw every day from the kitchen in her apartment in Waverly Towers. Now that her head was clearing, she tried to understand how such a situation could be possible. She thought back to Saturday afternoon, which was the last time that she had known things were normal. She and Sarah had left her apartment at around two in the afternoon, driving south towards the border to the United States. It had started out sunny and they had been chatting and laughing about their hangovers and their over-indulgences from the night before. Then they had hit bad weather. That was where things had started to become strange – in the fog. Everything had been weird since then.

    Gerwin and Elke had been nice enough. Their house had been remarkably quaint, but it wasn’t as if Christine had never heard of people who pulled away from today’s overly technologically-obsessed society. In fact, she’d even had a friend who had grown up in a rural area located just outside of Thunder Bay, in a small house with no running water and an outhouse as the only bathroom. So Christine hadn’t been overly concerned about the simplicity of Gerwin and Elke’s living conditions.

    However, in retrospect, when combined with the sudden transformation of the highway from pavement to gravel, the complete lack of houses or any other signs of civilization along the road, and now finding herself in a castle located in the middle of what should have been Thunder Bay, Christine was starting to realise that something was seriously amiss.

    “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” she joked aloud to herself, and then became more solemn as she thought about her sister. She wondered if Sarah was still waiting for her in the car or if she had left it and was now walking down the empty road, not understanding what had happened to them or where they were. Perhaps she, too, had been captured and was now trapped in the castle wondering where Christine was.

    With that thought, she released the latch on the window and let the glass swing into the room. Her intent had been to lean out the window and see what she could of the castle, but she stopped when she saw the thick metal bars blocking the way.

    “Christine, you’re seriously trapped here,” she said aloud, using the calmness of her spoken voice to still her inner self and prevent the scream that was bubbling up inside her from coming to fruition.

    She had no way to escape. She was completely trapped in this room, in this castle, at the mercy of a crazy man. Her mind started working methodically, her eyes searching the dim room for some weakness, some hope of escape.

    Systematically, she began at the window and began to carefully inspect her room. Her walls, like the walls in the room downstairs, were covered in tapestries, the purpose of which seemed to be both as decoration and as insulation against the cold seeping in from outside through the stone walls. The room was sparsely furnished, with only the bed, the dressing table, and a wardrobe lining the walls, leaving an enormous empty space in the middle of the room, which was covered by a lavish oriental-style rug.

    She went over to the dressing table, inspecting it as if seeing it for the very first time. It was made of heavy redwood, expertly crafted, the surface gleaming in the dim light of the moon. There was an oval mirror at the back, with artistic carvings of nude women surrounding the glass. It seemed like an odd motif for a ladies’ dressing table.

    Christine went back to the tapestry lining the wall beside the window. She inspected it more cautiously, taking careful note of the design and decorative aspect of the piece. The picture was simple, but disturbing. It depicted a dinner scene in a large dining room. There were twelve people seated at the table, with one man at the head. Strangely, he had numerous wine glasses in front of him, all empty except for some residue of what looked like red wine. That’s what Christine assumed it was until her gaze travelled to a man on the far end of the table. He held a blade to his wrist, and blood was dropping down the blade and into a wine glass.

    Christine stared at the tapestry scene in fascinated horror. Was it some sort of religious blood sacrifice? It was a very strange choice of art to hang in a bedroom. Of course, nothing here had seemed normal since she and Sarah had come through the fog.

    There was a noise at the door and Giselle entered. She looked at Christine for a moment, then finally spoke, a distrustful look on her face.

    “The master would like you to join him for dinner,” she said. There was an almost angry tone to her voice.

    Christine saw this as an opportunity to get out of the beautiful but stifling room and see more of the castle. If she was going to escape, she had to at least have some idea of where she was. When she was first brought up to this room, she hadn’t thought to inspect her surroundings. All she remembered was a blur of grey stone walls and cold stone floors. She couldn’t remember in which direction they had travelled or even what exact floor she was on. In effect, she was lost in the castle with no idea of how to get out.

    Another thought crossed her mind. Perhaps she would see Gervis when she was out of her room, walking in the castle. Maybe he could still help her to escape. He had suggested something like that when he had come to her the first night. Thinking about it more, she stopped that thought before she could get her hopes up. She couldn’t risk getting herself or Gervis in trouble, and Lord Radek had made it all too clear that they were not to see each other. Christine finally decided to just pretend to ignore Gervis if she saw him, only giving him some sign of recognition and friendliness if she had a moment when no one else was looking.

    Giselle was still staring at her impatiently. Christine had the distinct impression that the woman didn’t like her or approve of her for some reason, aside from her responsibility in getting Gervis in trouble.

    “Oh, of course I’ll have dinner with him. But I don’t have any clothes except for this nightgown.” She had been wearing the nightgown when she had first awoken in the dungeon. By this time it was dirty and smelled of old sweat. Christine wondered who had undressed her when she had first arrived at the castle – Gervis, or one of the guards. She blushed, but hoped that it had been Gervis. The thought of one of those smelly, unkempt guards touching her naked body revolted her.

    Giselle snorted and walked over to the wardrobe. Throwing the doors open wide, she exposed a plethora of silks and satins in a wide variety of colours.  Christine gasped.  She had never seen such a huge assortment of beautiful clothing in her entire life.

      “But will they fit?” Christine asked, incredulous that such an extravagant wardrobe could be available to her.

    “Of course they will. Master picked them out especially for you,” muttered Giselle.

    Christine had no idea how Lord Radek could know her size, let alone when he could have had them brought to her room and deposited in the wardrobe.

    Fifteen minutes later she was dressed. Red satin flowed around her and she felt more elegant than she had ever felt before in her life. There had even been a selection of dainty slippers lining the bottom of the wardrobe. She put her hair back in a braid, fastening it in a loop on top of her head, wishing that her room had a shower or a bath. Her hair was stringy and greasy and in desperate need of a wash. It seemed like there was no indoor plumbing at all in this … wherever she was.  She had been using a chamber pot similar to the one at Gerwin and Elke’s for the last few days.

    Giselle marched in again, looked Christine over from head to toe, and nodded.

    “That will do,” she said, lips pursed in disapproval. “Follow me.”

    Christine followed Giselle obediently out of her room. They turned left and walked down a long hallway, dark except for some candles elaborately mounted on the wall in metal candelabras. Near the end of the hall, two staircases lined the walls, one ascending and one descending. They took the one on the left and it led down to a stylish entrance hall. Near the beginning of the hall was a door leading off to the right and there they entered the dining room.

    Lord Radek sat at the head of the table and something about the scene seemed oddly familiar. He motioned for her to take a seat to his right. There were numerous chairs running down either side of the grand table. Christine walked with trepidation down to the seat Lord Radek had indicated and sat down.

    “You look … lovely Christine,” Lord Radek murmured seductively. “Normally I do not ask my … guests … to join me for dinner, but I could not resist the opportunity to spend some more time with you.” He looked mockingly towards the door through which she had entered. “However, I do not think Giselle approves of my choice of dinner companion.”

    Christine glanced over and saw Giselle standing in the doorway. She had looked up just in time to see the stern look of disapproval on the woman’s face swiftly change to abject horror as she scurried out. Apparently, Giselle was fearful of her employer.

    “What exactly do you mean when you say that I’m your guest?” Christine asked, overcoming her own fear and daring to ask a direct question.

    “Well, I am sure you have noticed some peculiarities about your current situation, hmmm?” Lord Radek’s face seemed to hold a permanently mocking expression.

    “Well, yes,” Christine said. She paused and then decided that it was best to be direct. “I know that the fog had something to do with it. This isn’t the same Thunder Bay that we left on Saturday.” Christine mentally gasped as she realised that, by using the pronoun we, she had potentially given her sister away.

    Lord Radek smiled as he correctly interpreted the flicker of horror that she had unsuccessfully tried to keep from her face. “Do not worry my dear. I know all about your sister. You will be happy to know that she is safe, for the moment. I am not completely certain for how long however, because she is keeping some questionable company.”

    “You’ve seen Sarah? Can I see her?” Christine was too shocked to hide her joy at finding out that her sister was okay.

    “Well, as I said, I do not entirely approve of the company she is keeping. She was found by someone of whom I have been aware and watching for some time. He is a bit of a renegade in these parts and I actually should have taken care of him by now. I am really quite interested to see how the whole situation plays out, to tell you the truth.”

    “Who’s she with? Is he dangerous? Do you think he’ll hurt her?” Christine was frantic to obtain more information about her sister.

    “I do not really know. That is the fascinating thing about Hillard. He seems to be fighting against his very nature. He does not seem to want to accept what he is.”

    “What do you mean by that? What is he?” Christine was confused.

    Lord Radek sighed, lifted his glass, filled with a thick red liquid, and took a sip. “Well, my dear,” he said, chuckling softly, “I am afraid that Hillard is a vampire.” He looked up and his shining emerald eyes looked deeply into Christine’s.

    With those words, Christine realized why this room had seemed so familiar. She froze, her gaze locking with that of Lord Radek. The picture from the tapestry . . .  The blood in the glasses . . . The man at the head of the table. It had been this room!

Read Chapter 8 next Wednesday, November16th, 2011 . . .

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