Page 5 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

It just made you a fool. A weak, miserable fool.

“He can hate me all he wants,” I told the Castle, my voice steadier now, filled with conviction. “But he still needs me.”

Finally, with a nearly audible rustle of exasperation, the Castle let down its stairs.

2

Thea

Lanterns hung on both sides of the massive door, but neither of them was providing illumination tonight. Still, I could see it clearly, set deep in the center of the gnarled surface like a gemstone: the letterA, surrounded by withered vines and gold filigree. People around the Realm called this the vampire castle in the sky, but for the few who’d wandered past this sacred door, it was simply Aventine Castle.

Several seconds passed before the Castle deigned to open its door, confirming its reluctance to let me in. Pricks of anxiety crept over my spine, making me still, a stilling of everything but breath and pulse.

You came all this way. For once in your life, finish what you started,the exasperated voice in my head grumbled.

My fist clenched around the grip of my suitcase as I finally stepped inside, the tremendous door closing behind me with a reverberatingthud.Long shadows lapped over the room like deep sea water. Then I was in the dark.

“Hector?” I called out.

No answer.

I took another wary step, my eyes stretching wide to catch as many fragments of the deserted hall as the enduring gloom allowed.

It was impossible to describe the Castle in terms of breadth or height. It changed constantly and on its master’s whim—Hector’s whim now. With its indecisive proportions and fairylike ambiance, it often looked like something you had dreamt or read about in a story rather than a real-life place.

Yet for the first time, the Castle didn’t seem to be a living, ever-changing entity. It was lightless and eerily quiet, its air of abandonment filling me with a primeval sense of dread. Goosebumps surfaced all across my body. The hairs at the nape of my neck stirred against the chill.

The foyer, with its black paneled walls and impossibly high ceiling, stood cold and dark. The various chandeliers, spangling the entry up until the grand stairs, had fallen into disrepair, the countless rows of crystals dangling lifeless and dull amid the golden branches. The only illumination was coming from the stained glass window above the door, a softly filtered red light painting the room in the most unsettling of shades.

I tried using the compass as my guide again, but it was not bright enough to battle this darkness, so I set my suitcase atop the large bench by the door and rummaged through it for my matches. Clearly, the Castle wasn’t feeling cooperative tonight, so I would have to make my own light.

After I found the box of matches, tucked haphazardly amid my undergarments, I grabbed one of the lamps that hung on ornate brackets along the entrance’s walls and pulled at it with all of my strength.

The Castle resisted me—of course, it did, the old bastard—but I gritted my teeth and yanked harder, cold metal digging into the skin of my palms. “I will hammer it out of the wall if you don’t surrender it to me. You know I’m not bluffing,” I growled.

The lamp gave in abruptly with an angryclink,and I had to stagger, impromptu lantern in hand, to keep my footing.

Blowing the curls off my eyes, I raised the wick to my nose and nodded contentedly at the smell of fresh oil. “That’s better,” I muttered, stifling my trembling anxiety so I could focus on lighting it up. After a try or two, a little orange flame licked the inside glass.

With a sigh of relief, I held it out before me and sailed toward the stairs, my flickering shadow being my onlyvisiblecompanion.

As I reached the wide landing after which the stairs twisted and looped in both directions, I was attacked by yet another swarm of memories. When Esperida would hold her annual winter ball, hosting every vampire family in the Realm, Hector and I would dance on this very landing to the music drifting from the ballroom above, since humans—with the sole exception of Eron—were not allowed to attend any of these balls and gatherings.

Their world was a sacred one, a world of precarious balance and clandestine codes of honor. Only here, in their Castle in the sky, did the vampires have the freedom to be their true selves. The creatures of our nightmares. The creatures of the night. To them, night was not something dreadful that one had to endure until dawn. It was its own kingdom with its own secret laws, and only they were allowed to enter it.

But Hector was not made of darkness alone, and so here he had danced with me on those nights. Haltingly. Bashfully. With his hand in a closed fist against my back so he wouldn’t touch me.

Now there was barely any space to move on the landing, much less dance. The grand chandelier that used to dazzle above it dangled so low that some of the teardrop-shaped crystals were brushing against the carpet while others lay crushed to pieces around it, glinting like a spill of treasure in the demonic red light.

Gingerly, with a boulder lodged in my throat, I stepped around it and trailed up the left set of stairs. Although both sides unraveled into identical drapery-hung balconies, which then unwound into more stairs, creating a structure that seemed to spiral up into an infinity of destinations, I remembered that if you wanted to reach the bedrooms, you should always turn left.

I could also recall that this first level had been its own little forest once, covered in ivy and lichen and sprouts of multicolored minerals. I tried to console myself with the vividness of this memory.I know this path. These are the stones Hector’s hands have touched. This is the grass his feet have walked.But the corridor was as unfamiliar and lightless as the entrance and even darker without the moonlight filtering through the rose window.

These walls were no longer covered with moss but with a sequence of paintings and onyx pedestals, the elaborate vases atop them holding bouquets of dead roses, their blackened stems and aged thorns forming unsettling, cobweb patterns.

The art, which had always been peculiar, as most things about the Castle were, had taken on a darker edge as well. These paintings used to tell stories of the sky and its many mysteries. Now they were abstract pieces of horror, full of blood moons, demon skulls, and rotting arrangements of fruits and florals. I could almost smell the decay through the canvas, hear the buzz of the flies circling their spoiled flesh.

Out of everything, the Castle’s willingness to embrace all things dead was the most concerning to me. Dreadfully, chillingly concerning. In truth, I grew so nervous that my hand holding the lamp started to shake, the little magic in my veins rising to warn me,Turn around and leave. If you follow this destiny now, you will not be able to abandon it later.

---