Venice Vampyr - The Beginning

The fact that she didn’t ply her trade in the dark streets and in dingy rooms that rented by the hour didn’t diminish her feeling of being dirty. And despite the fact that she found relations with men enjoyable and had learned a great deal about how to please a man, and how a man could please a woman, she’d never loved any of them. Nobody had ever seen who was beneath the surface of the beautiful courtesan or had touched her heart. Because all they saw was the shell, the body that blinded them, the fa?ade she’d erected in order to protect herself and the girl within. The girl whose father had betrayed her.


No, Bianca didn’t want the house. But she wanted what it contained: the treasure her father had spoken of so many years ago. She remembered his words well.

“It’s a great treasure,” he’d claimed as she’d sat on his lap as a little girl. “And if I sold it to the right person, it would bring us more money than we could ever get for this house.”

“More than for our house?” she’d gawked. “But it’s a huge house!”

He’d smiled at her. “Yes, but the treasure is worth more.”

“It must be big then, the treasure.”

Her father had shaken his head. “No, it’s small. That’s why it’s so easy to hide.”

“Where is it?” she’d blurted.

“It’s a secret. Nobody can know it even exists. If they do, they will hurt us.”

“Shh,” she’d hummed. “You can whisper it to me.”

But her father had never divulged the hiding place, nor what the treasure even consisted of. And maybe it had just been a story to keep a ten-year old girl entertained. But she couldn’t dismiss it. If the treasure really existed, then it still had to be in the house. And she needed to find it. It was her only way out of her current life. She wasn’t going to remain a courtesan forever and give her body to men she didn’t love.

Bianca set her bag onto the floor beside her and ventured into the house. Everything was still the same: the furniture, the paintings, the rugs. Even the crystal glasses in the parlor where her father had liked to drink his Grappa were still at the same place as always. Signore Mancini had told her that the man who’d purchased the house had insisted on keeping the furniture and everything else. When she’d asked him when the new owner was going to move into the property, he’d shrugged and declared that the man had seemed in no particular hurry.

Well, considering that the purchase had only been recorded in the city’s ledgers this afternoon, Bianca figured the new owner would most likely wait until Monday to hire workers to clean the place and bring his own personal items into the home. No Italian liked to work on weekends, not even the poorer classes. This meant she’d have the weekend to search the house from top to bottom and take everything apart to find what her father had been referring to as the “treasure.”

Bianca walked up the creaking staircase, her long dress picking up the dust on the way up. Clearly, her father’s servants had neglected the house even before his death, because there was no way this much dust could accumulate in merely a week. Now the house was quiet, devoid of any life. The servants were gone, most likely glad that their back wages had been paid by the solicitor. It wouldn’t surprise her if they’d taken some of the silver with them.

In a way she was glad this was how it had happened. Had her father’s servants still occupied the house, she would have had to sneak around trying to hide what she was doing. With the house empty, she could conduct her search openly.

Bianca shivered as she reached the upstairs corridor. It had been an overcast day, and now that the sun was about to set, the dampness crept into the house and took hold. If she wanted to stay in the house for the weekend, she would have to get at least one or two fires going. She passed by the door to her father’s chamber, but decided not to enter it. She had no wish to be reminded of him so intensely.

Instead, she opened the next door and stepped into her mother’s old room. It was like she’d only died yesterday, yet it had been over ten years since she was gone. Her father had always made sure the servants cleaned and aired her room at least once a week, as if he was expecting her to come back. She glanced around. Fresh linen adorned the large four-poster bed, and wood was stacked next to the fireplace, ready for a maid to start a fire.

The remaining light entering through the window was sufficient for Bianca to see herself in the mirror. She looked a fright. Traveling all day, first on a dirty coach, then on a rocking boat, had shaken her. She hadn’t had time to clean up since. The neat bun her long dark hair had been tamed into was no longer the elegant coiffure it had once been. Little strands of black curls tumbled down her neck and shoulders. Her dark blue dress was dusty, and its hem was caked with mud. Lifting her dress slightly, she noticed that her boots weren’t faring any better.

As much as she wanted to start the search right now, Bianca couldn’t help but yearn for a hot bath to take the grime of the trip off her body. Plus she needed to get a fire going to warm up the room so she wouldn’t freeze to death at night.