I don’t know what to say, and my silence makes her stop what she’s doing and look at me.
‘It’s not a criticism,’ she says gently. ‘Sometimes the opposite is just what you need, like the yin and the yang. Sometimes you find you’re not opposites at all, but just both shades of grey.’
She hums out a breath, almost a tune. ‘And I’m so sorry about the mix-up with Bram. The poor lad was mortified. He’s a good boy.’ She turns back to the worktop and starts assembling more tarts. ‘My husband is known for many things, but reliability is not one of them.’
And then, as if she’s summoned him, a full-sized, definitely-not-stone vampire sweeps into the kitchen, cloak first.
‘You rang?’ he says, in the worst fake vampire accent I’ve ever heard. It makes both Peggy and me laugh out loud.
‘Speak of the devil,’ she says, kissing him on one painted cheek, and he flashes a fangy grin at me.
‘Fresh blood?’
‘This is Lucy,’ Peggy says, raising one eyebrow at him. ‘I was just telling her how sorry you are about the mix-up with the annexe.’
He looks like he’d have blanched at that if he didn’t already have pale face paint on. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry about that.’ His real voice breaks through, still accented, but barely. Polish, I guess, from knowing Mina’s heritage. ‘Entirely my fault. I’ve put a call out to the local Airbnb owners’ WhatsApp group to see if we can find somewhere for the lad to stay.’ He looks over at his wife. ‘Is he still here?’
She shakes her head. ‘He’s doing a round of his friends, seeing if any of them have space for him.’
The vampire nods before turning to me. ‘He was here first thing, seeing if there was any chance he could stay here, but I’m afraid we are bursting at the seams.’ His shrug is small, and there’s a twist to his expression like perhaps he still feels guilty about his role in the situation. But he seems to get over it quickly. ‘I’m Wladek by the way,’ he says, extending one hand to me as his mouth quirks into a one-sided grin. ‘But,’ he drawls, slipping back into the fake accent, ‘you can call me Vlad.’
Peggy scoffs good-naturedly. ‘Don’t call him Vlad, you’ll only encourage him.’
His darkened eyebrows pinch. ‘It’s the same name, just this language, that language.’
Peggy chuckles like it’s a discussion they’ve had a lot, and he’s about to reply when his phone beeps aggressively from somewhere in his pocket. He pulls it out with a flourish but then frowns as he starts to read. Within seconds there’s another beep, and then another just moments after that. He sighs so hard that I can almost feel the weight of it.
‘Dammit,’ he says, without lifting his eyes from the screen. ‘I knew it’d be a long shot finding a place for the weekend on such short notice, but I thought, even worst case, that Gerard’s place would be available. But no. Booked solid.’ He looks up at me, face solemn. ‘It’s a flat over the fishmongers and smells just exactly as you’d imagine.’
I wrinkle my face in disgust.
‘There’s nothing?’ Peggy asks, still deftly arranging strawberry slices.
Wladek’s shoulders sag. ‘Not a sausage.’
Peggy nods, and pauses a moment, like she’s thinking about something. ‘Hopefully one of his friends will have space,’ she says eventually. It feels like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t, just turns back to her tarts and continues working steadily.
‘So, Lucy,’ Wladek says, shoving his phone back into a pocket. ‘Are you excited about the Goth Weekend? It’s big news around here!’
Am I? If you’d have asked me even an hour ago, I’d have replied with a resounding ‘no’, but now I’m not so sure. There’s something about these people, about the warmth of this home, which looks as if it should be anything but warm. I feel like it’s drawing me in. If one house– onefamily– has this effect on me,who’s to say what the whole town could do? Maybe this is how Bram Stoker felt.
I’m just about to open my mouth and say as much when I hear the door open and close, with a draught that reaches all the way into the kitchen. Then my heart jumps into my mouth as an almost-familiar figure appears in the doorway.
Bram.
Bram the tall, scary tattooed guy, that is. Not Bram Stoker. That seems obvious now I’ve said it, but his sudden appearance has me all turned around.
He matches this house perfectly– dressed all in black but for a single red plug in one earlobe. His chin-length hair, undercut high up on the sides, falls in dark, tousled waves, which he sweeps over to one side with a tattooed hand as he leans a hip against the door frame. He seems paler in this light, his skin a perfect porcelain which really makes the ink on it pop. At first glance he looks just as dark and dangerous as the first time I saw him, but there’s something different this time.
This time he looks comfortable.
Until he notices me.
I see the change in his posture immediately, the way his back snaps straight as he pulls away from the door frame and pockets the phone that had been in his hand. And his face changes too. That softening that was there just a moment ago is long gone.
He doesn’t say anything, though, just studies me with those eyes– green, like the cat, which is now at Bram’s feet, rubbing its little black face against his ripped jeans with quiet, insistent chirps.
‘Leave him alone, Poe,’ Peggy calls, presumably to the cat, who meows back as if he’s arguing with her. A string of message tones ping into the air and Bram digs his phone back out of his pocket to check it.