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The Vampire and the Virgin
Rebecca Royce
This is for Saranna, because she gave me the chance to write my gothic vampire.
Chapter One
The rain splattered across the pavement, making the flick-a-flack sound Essence Welch had known her entire life. But the sound was the only thing familiar to her at that moment. She stopped running and gave up on the idea of trying to stay dry at all. Her umbrella snapped inside out the second the winds picked up to what she had to believe was near hurricane force. Or maybe not. If they were really that hard or fast, she’d have blown clear back to New York City by now.
Gee, wouldn’t that be a sight. Five foot nothing Essence Welch and her drenched self, floating all the way from DuBois, nowheresville upstate New York—so far north she was practically in Canada—to Manhattan. Like Mary Poppins. Only, she’d be Essence the flying paralegal.
She steeled her back. The bosses wanted her to find some very rich man who lived in the middle of nowhere and personally get him to sign his estate documents because he didn’t have email. And she’d do anything to have the legal secretaries stop calling her the stupid ballerina. She’d tried and failed to be one for years—but she’d also put herself through school and become a paralegal. What was the matter with that?
Wiping the hair out of her eyes, she tried not to be annoyed. Wet, tired, and dripping she might be, but she was employed and optimistic. Life could be a lot worse.
She might even get to show off her cat costume at the Halloween party she’d rsvp’d she’d go to before she left the city. The cute bartender who worked near her building had invited her, and she was considering it her reward for a job well done… if she could get this job done.
Her instructions had been to bring him the documents, wait while he signed them, get back on the last train and return home to return the documents to the office the next morning. No mail would do. He didn’t have email or a fax machine. She had to hand deliver them to him. That was the way business had always been done with his family, from back when his great-great grandfather employed the original partners in Janeway, Bonnett, Tipitinia, and Rogers to present.
She didn’t own a car. Who did in the city? The train had gotten her—if her mapping app was to be believed—less than half-a-mile from her destination. Like so much of upstate New York, DuBois had once been a thriving, small city that long ago fell on hard times. So many other locations had come back—or so she’d read, when she googled the place—but not DuBois. She didn’t know why. Politics and geo-cultural issues had never interested her very much.
When she searched the internet for more information on the man she was going to see—Alec Amanar, sixth in the long line of Amanar men with the same name—she’d found nothing at all. A rich guy living off family money who didn’t do much, it would seem.
Heat in the form of mist pushed off the pavement where the rain hit it, creating a fog-like effect that would be great for a scary movie. She looked up at the buildings around her. They were all closed for the night already, and it was barely past eight. A solitary light burned in the distance, covered mostly by a shade. The red brick building housing the lone light appeared dilapidated. She wondered if someone should condemn it, or if there was anyone left around to do such a thing since the town really looked abandoned.
Why would Alec Amanar, with all of his money, choose to live here?
She eventually rounded the corner to the place—unless the GPS on her phone lied—where she should find the man. Essence came up short, staring. In the middle of the deserted town stood an ornate building straight out of a creepy novel. Architecture was actually something she’d studied in college, briefly. Someone had clearly renovated the building to modernize it at some point—old ones hardly ever had satellite dishes or what looked like a phone and internet hookups on the side.
So, why didn’t he email?
She shook her head. Not her business to speculate about the client.
Other than the small visible updates, the building had everything a dark novel would have contained, from the pointed arches on the top of it, a ribbed vault, a flying buttress and two gargoyles affixed on the building itself above the front door.
Essence had taken a step toward the building when she was jerked backwards. A man grabbed her arm and she shrieked, nearly falling over while she struggled to get him off her. Terror flooded her soul. Why hadn’t she taken precautions? Why had she thought this practically deserted place would be safe? She didn’t make mistakes in Manhattan. She knew how to protect herself, how to take precautions.