Page 8 of The Vampire Always Rises
Each door bore a huge wrought iron knocker in the shape of a heart pierced with an arrow, but a discreet little button set beneath a metal speaker caught my eye just as I was about to pound on the door. I pressed the button, almost dancing with excitement. I was going to meet Aunt Roxy’s vampire! I had so many questions for him, so many things I desperately wanted to know after reading his steamy books. And now I was about to meet—
A voice spoke in Czech from the metal grille above the doorbell. I was momentarily disappointed by the fact that it was a woman’s voice, but pulled my wits together enough to answer what I assumed was a query as to who I was, and what I wanted.
“Hello. My name is Tempest Keye, and my aunt is a friend of Mr. Dante’s. She was supposed to let him know I was arriving.”
“Tempest?” the woman asked, the voice tinny and distorted. “Your name is Tempest? That is storm, yes?”
“Yes to both. Is this Allie? Roxy said she talked to you about me visiting.”
“Am Tilda. Am housekeeper. You wait.”
I waited, disappointment dampening my joy. “Stop being a baby,” I told myself. “Patience, virtue, and all that. Oh, hi.”
The door opened to reveal a small, dark woman with salt-and-pepper hair. “Come,” she said, taking my suitcase. “You have yellow room. Dante and Allie not here. Will come later. You go with me.”
I followed her up a staircase and across a dark-paneled hall complete with medieval weapons on the wall, banners hanging from the ceiling, and several toys of the Big Wheel variety. There was also a bike, a small doll’s house, and an elaborate Star Wars Lego setup. We climbed another flight of stairs, then went down a dizzying number of hallways until Tilda stopped at a door, and opened it to reveal a room done in various shades of yellow and red, with gorgeous Japanese paintings on the silk hangings.
“You wash, or go to library now?”
“A library in the castle?” I asked hesitantly, wanting to make sure she wasn’t shunting me out to the town’s local library.
“Yes, yes, Dante’s library. You come.”
I left my suitcase and hurried after her, afraid that if I lost sight of her, I’d be forever wandering the halls. We went down a flight and, after a couple of twists and turns, emerged into a large room lit by soft golden light that seemed to gild the spines of books contained in the massive mahogany glass-fronted bookcases. There were several low display cases along one wall, as well, but it was the sheer number of books that had me gasping in pleasure.
“You stay here. I bring tea, then I leave. Allie and Dante home soon,” Tilda announced.
“Oh. You don’t live here?”
“No.” She was gone before I could say anything more. I wondered if I was going to be nervous at being alone in a big old medieval castle, but then it occurred to me that I might not be alone after all. A place this size had to have a full-time staff.
When Tilda brought me in a tray containing a pot of tea, some cookies, and a couple of crustless sandwiches, I realized just how hungry I was. “Thank you for this. It looks wonderful. Oh, can you tell me who else is in the castle?”
She paused at the door and glanced back at me. “Who else?”
“Yes, whatever other ... uh ...” I didn’t want to say the word “servant,” since it sounded far too snobbish. “Whatever other staff is here?”
“Is me. I leave now. Dante home soon.”
The door closed on the last of her words, leaving me feeling, for a moment at least, remarkably alone.
“Don’t be stupid,” I chided myself aloud as I sat down at the table at which Tilda had set the food. “How many people get to eat a vampire’s sandwiches in his very own library? Not very many, that’s who.”
That little pep talk kept me going a couple of hours while I perused C. J. Dante’s books. I was super excited to find he had a collection of not only his own vampire books but a large number by other authors, and happily dipped into several books that were new to me. By the time the little clock on a massive desk that took up one corner of the room chimed eleven, however, I was exhausted, no doubt due to residual jet lag.
I wandered out to the main hall with its toys, and wondered where my hosts were. “And should I stay up to be here when they finally roll in, or should I give in and go to my room to sleep, so they don’t find me slouched in a chair sound asleep and drooling on myself?”
The mental image of that was enough to drive me up the stairs, but not before I left a note on one of the tables in the hall saying that I’d arrived, but gone to bed.
“I hope nothing’s happened to them,” I murmured, climbing into the bed. I could imagine any number of horrible accidents that would keep someone from arriving home safely, but was comforted by the fact that vampires (and their mates) were very hard to kill, and even if they were in a car accident, they were probably fine.
The dream started with a bird flying around at night, zipping in and out of a forest of tall fir trees, his shadow flickering on ground lit by a huge silver moon. Just as I was enjoying the bird’s graceful moves, it swooped down toward a snake ... only it wasn’t a snake—it was a winding dirt road, and along it one man dragged another by his heels.
The two men stopped before a set of beautiful dark doors with hearts carved crudely into the wood. They were the doors to the castle, I knew, but oddly, the rest of the castle seemed to be missing. The mobile man dropped the other one in a heap at the door, and reached up to pound on the door.
I wanted to point out to him that there was no building to go with the doors, and all the man had to do was to walk around the doors to get behind them, but my attention was focused on the man lying brokenly across the stone steps leading to the door. I bent over him, distressed for some reason, knowing somehow that the man was about to give up his hold on life.
“Don’t,” I whispered, my nose almost touching his.
