Would I strangle them with my bare hands if I could? Absolutely. They stole my hands when they stole everything. The moment they entered the house where I died, they sealed their fate, branding their names on early graves.
Perhaps I should care that I am becoming the villain, but I do not. Better villain than victim.
Survival becomes habit—then pleasure.
I am what they made me.
The shifter with the angled eyebrows who killed William learns this on a bright morning.
He sits at the kitchen table, crumbs dotting his shirtfront. Sunlight slants through the bare windows. He unfolds the newspaper and smirks at some ghastly headline.
The newsprint shifts before his mind catches up. A strip tears free and rams itself into his mouth.
His eyes bulge; his throat works. Another strip follows, then another. He tries to drop the pages, but the newspaper keeps tearing, keeps stuffing. Ink smears his lips, his teeth, his tongue.
The chair skitters back as he lurches upright, palms striking the table and his throat. Paper blocks his mouth, his nose; his lungs claw for air and find only pulped headlines.
When he finally collapses onto the tiles, newspaper spouts from his nose and throat like a frozen fountain, and the remaining pages settle round him in a ragged halo.
Satisfying.
I take my revenge, and for a moment it is glorious.
Then there is nothing.
The house settles; dust thickens on the skirting boards. The world outside draws away. It is strange, watching life shift while remaining beyond it.
Limitless time drifts past. New houses rise nearby, yet people keep their distance. I watch neighbours—watch them live without me. I was never adept with people; I feared my mask would slip, revealing the woman beneath—too angry, too opinionated, too powerful. Terrified of myself, I conformed.
Once I considered solitude a pleasure; now I know it is overrated.
Even the power to sublimate through paper and roam elsewhere offers scant comfort. In this ghost-like form I cannot speak; notes convey little, and with no one to answer and no rescue in sight, one must find another diversion. I read—scientific papers, novels, philosophy, manuals, even the backs of biscuit tins.
Some days weigh more heavily than others. When the walls press in and the world strides on without me, hours and weeks blur like ink on damp paper.
As a magical derivative—almost human—I always knew time was finite; death is the single certainty, unless someone’s soul is trapped in an object. I never thought that caveat would apply to me.
Forty-six years of that—of being never truly seen?—
—and then, on a sunny morning, a girl staggers into my garden.
Chapter Four
One Hundred and Ten Years Ago
It is spring,my favourite season; magic has my garden in riotous bloom: roses, lilies, and neat rows of forget-me-nots, all arranged in fastidious order. Dew beads on every leaf. I am admiring the beds beneath a soft blue sky when a girl bursts into view. She swerves past the street’s only motor-car, almost scraping its glossy black paint, blood streaming from her arm. Her pursuers race after her, wands and potion vials raised.
The woman next door, Miss Beattie, hears the commotion and steps outside. She fascinates me. I have watched her endlessly for over twenty-eight years. By day she is a seamstress and, in her spare time, a governess who tutorsyoung ladies in etiquette. By night, however, she guards a darker secret: she hunts vampires.
She appears to be the least likely vampire hunter imaginable—an ordinary human in her mid-fifties, fit and sprightly but undeniably mortal. Grey flecks pepper her black hair, drawn into a bun so severe it pulls the olive skin at her temples. Her features are sharp; she is more striking than beautiful. She stands tall, with impeccable posture—the very picture of elegance and refinement—yet she is utterly lethal.
No one would dare attempt to marry her off,I think with a huff.
The vampire hunter’s grey eyes narrow. A short sword, no longer than a forearm, glints in her hand. Like me, she has no patience for little girls being attacked in broad daylight.
The fleeing child is a blur of panic. Her tangled, filthy blonde hair lashes from side to side as she runs down the empty street. The hem of her wool dress hangs in tatters, dark with grime, and her shoes flap with every stride. Her breath saws in and out; I can almost hear it over the distant rumble of a horse-drawn tram.
She dodges one vicious spell. A second mage with red hair hurls another, laughing; the bolt catches her leg. The girl stumbles—almost falls—but recovers with an awkward skip, somehow staying upright.
