I arrived at Haddon Hall
a lonely, bereft orphan. My reprobate father had left my innocent
mother for a small-waisted dance-hall girl, and the saintly soul had
gone insane and thrown herself into the swirling Thames. My father
was later found strangled with a stocking.
I was a desperate animal, shaking with
fear and hunger. My shoes were caked with mud and my brow flushed
with fever. As thunder roared around me, a jagged streak of lightning
ripped through the sky and struck a massive oak tree. It cracked in
two and fell, landing inches from where I stood. Was this a foreshadowing
of things to come?
I had been summoned by the mysterious
and reclusive Monsieur La Forge, who had agreed to take me in upon
learning of my parents' untimely demise. Rumor has it that my mother
(whom I resemble to an astonishing degree) had spurned his affections
years before. But what was his interest in me?
I felt misgivings, but. . . anything
for a free meal, I always say.
The door creaked open and a ghostly,
wizened face appeared. "You must be Eliza. Enter. Monsieur has been
expecting you."
I followed the hunched and ancient form
into a dank, dusty room, draped with velvet curtains and ablaze with
the light of dozens of candles.
Monsieur La Forge stood with his back
to me. When he spun around, I could not help but gasp: His teeth came
to ivory points, and his eyes were bright yellow and feline in appearance.
Bloodstains dotted his shirt.
My pulse quickened. Something was not
right.
So I pulled the wooden stake from under
my bodice and thrust it deep into his chest. And a few well-placed
kicks to the gut disabled the creaky old geezer. Then I cut off his
head just to be on the safe side.
For you see, my meek appearance belies
an observant nature.
And I always carry a wooden stake when
venturing into unfamiliar surroundings of a Gothic nature. I'm no
dummy.
I tore the bejeweled pendant from the
dead vampire's neck and began compiling a mental list of reliable
pawnshops. If I hurried...
* * * * *
