Michael and I had gotten home from work a while ago, and Antun still wasn’t home. Syla hadn’t been by herself that long in a literal century and hadn’t known what to do with herself, eventually resorting to stress baking. Once we had gotten home, she switched to hostess mode and started preparing tea, needing to stay busy. She’d had no appetite and hadn’t even thought to make dinner with how stressed she had felt.
She kept apologizing over and over, and we kept assuring her that it was alright. To be entirely honest, neither Michael nor I had much of an appetite either. We’d both been thinking about it all day at work. There was no way this wasn’t a vampire killing, simple as that. I’d thought through it inside-out and backwards and could come up with no alternative. I hadn’t been able to eat more than a few bites at lunch and only because Michael insisted it would help more than hurt and he’d been standing right there.
Bowls clinked as Syla moved things around, trying to make more room for cooling racks. The smells of sugar and flour hung in the air, and the oven would occasionally beep at odd intervals. “You think you made enough cookies, Sy?” I asked with thick sarcasm. Michael – bless him – tried to help by clearing dishes, only for Syla to whip around and glare, so he quickly returned to safety on the far side of the kitchen island.
The clock had to have been ticking slower. The rain outside thickened, pelting the windows in a heavy shower. “When do you think he’s going to get back?” I asked aloud to no one in particular.
“I expected him back hours ago. He said nothing of being out after the scheduled visit to the morgue.” Syla fidgeted with the thread bracelet on her wrist. She hadn’t taken it off since she’d received it at the Faire.
“What if he found something worse?” Michael posed, daring to voice the worry we all had.
There we were, three vampires in a room chock full of cookies, pretending everything was fine. But it wasn’t. Syla served tea, but none of us drank very much. We all waited as patiently as we could. Michael paced by the back window, occasionally staring out at the forest beyond. Syla, still stressed, packaged cookies for the neighbors and the freezer and I sat on the couch, my leg bouncing at a thousand beats per minute.
I heard the distinct sound of tires crunching on gravel and knew that Antun had just pulled in. I sat up straighter, the others pausing what they were doing as the front door opened. Antun walked up the stairs, calm but visibly worn. One hand stayed in his coat pocket as he said, “Greetings, all. You needn’t have waited up for me.”
“You were gone. All day. Not even a text to say, ‘Hey, I’ll be back at x-time.’ Do you realize how much baking I’ve done just to keep from climbing the walls?” Syla’s voice escalated. “You left me alone! ”
Syla never yelled. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her raise her voice until now. Her sharpness seemed to surprise even her, her eyes going wide and hands shaking in fists at her sides. But she stood firm.
As if he’d been punched in the gut, Antun sunk in on himself. The look on his face told me he hadn’t realized the full impact of his actions. His silence held for a long minute as rain pounded against the windows.
I felt like I was in the middle of a family fight, but I couldn’t look away – Antun’s guilt was too raw, Syla’s hurt too deep.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed back emotion. “I’m so sorry, Syla. That will never happen again. If I ever find I have to be out for a long time again, I will let you know from now on, I promise.”
Syla’s crossed arms closed her off to him, but she nodded anyway, accepting his apology. “Where were you?” she pressed.
“Not just that. What happened this morning? You haven’t said anything at all today,” Michael added, his phone in hand as if he was still waiting for an incoming text from Antun.
I simply watched on, my eyes asking my question: is it really what we fear?
Antun sighed, “Why don’t we have story time, alright? Everyone sit,” he waved down with his hands as he crossed over to the tea pot, still hot, and poured a mug for himself. Sitting and taking a sip, he set down the mug and took a breath as if preparing himself for a long story.
“The morgue held a sterile cold, the weight of absent life in a room full of bodies…” He seemed to hold back, as if not wanting to say what he had to. “I’ve confirmed that this had to have been a vampire-caused death. The corpse was completely drained of blood, not a trace of mana left at all. There’d been no wounds at all, no external or internal signs of struggle.” He paused as if he didn’t know how else to explain. “There was only… absence. I’d never tasted such nothing before.”
“Tasted nothing?” I asked.
“I bit the corpse to get an idea of what might’ve happened.” He paused before leaning forward. “It wasn’t a feeding. It was an extraction.”
Each word landed heavy, and I watched him as his composure tightened between sentences. I didn’t even try to think about when or how he would’ve been able to bite the body with mortals around, I was so blown by the word.
Extraction.
“It was like biting through a piece of paper: dry with nothing behind it. The emptiness of it was worse than anything,” Antun said.
Michael had leaned forward, his jaw set so tightly a vein raised under his skin, but he remained silent. He leaned forward on his knees, fingers tapping the backs of his hands as he held them twined together. Syla’s frown was more thoughtful, analytical, though there still lay a crease of concern between her brows. She asked, “Can a vampire even do that? Drain a person bone dry?”
I thought about her question, and I honestly didn’t know. Story time, Antun had called this, as if bedtime tales now came with autopsy reports.
Antun’s hand – which had been in his pocket seemingly gripping something the entire time – withdrew, holding what looked like a photo. He laid it flat on the table and smoothed the crinkled edges. Light caught on the creases of the glossy surface. A stray fingerprint marred the otherwise spotless gloss. He leaned back, allowing more room for us to lean forward and look.
It was a picture of some kind of graffiti, a circle with a vertical line crossing through it and sticking out the top and a horizontal line sitting at the top of the circle, making it look like a cross that stabbed a circle and got stuck. But not just graffiti – there was an evidence marker and a ruler next to it to show its small size, no bigger than three inches at its tallest.
“Our relationship is built on trust,” Antun said softly. “I couldn’t not share this with you. This was found painted right next to the body, and if the gleam is to be believed, that paint was still wet in places.”
Syla studied the picture. “The shape is old, a religious symbol maybe?” she offered.
Antun said, “I’ve seen styles like this before… years ago, back at the monastery. But this one feels wrong somehow.”
Syla gave him a curious look but didn’t say anything.
“So, you think it’s another vampire…” Michael said. “I feel a big ‘but’ hanging in the air. What are you thinking, Antun?”
The pale man was composed but I caught a tremor in his hand before he fisted it. “I do not like what I am thinking. But I’m guessing you’ve already come to the same conclusion, Michael, given the look on your face.” Antun paused, swallowing. He turned, glancing at Syla and I as he posed, “I believe another of Davor’s Ten might have woken up.”
My mind raced back to when we were studying the journal non-stop. Davor’s Ten – the ten vampires he ended up turning in his experiments towards godhood. Nikola was one of them, and we’d barely managed to face him. Now another one was stirring? There were at minimum nine possible suspects who may or may not have still been around.
The air stilled. Having any of the Ten suddenly emerging was something that none of us were prepared for. The silence stretched for long minutes, each of us trying to process what on earth we were going to do. A cowardly part of me wanted to hide and let someone else take care of it, but the rest of me knew that that was not an option.
Antun exhaled, the silence finally broke. “I don’t want to poke a sleeping bear,” he murmured quietly, “but I’m afraid this one’s already awake. We need to track down the remainder of Davor’s brood, identify which if any of them are causing trouble.”
Syla grabbed a notebook, already thinking about logistics as she opened it to a fresh sheet and began to write. Michael rubbed his temples, a look that said he was already tired crossing his face. We got out laptops and began searching for any kind of mention of any of Davor’s Ten progeny, assuming they all still went by their original names – records, sightings, social media, newspaper articles.
I looked at the list of names we had compiled, the nine names we were all researching now:
Sava Stojanov
Zdravka Velinova
Rastko Belov
Razvan Ilijev
Radovan Stojanovic
Sofija Mireva
Stojan Goranov
Argir Vasilin
Zora Ognjenovic
“I found a Dr. Zdravka Velinova. She’s a pioneering trauma and reconstructive surgeon. She runs a private clinic offering “regenerative therapy” for rich people…” I paused when I read the next part aloud. “She operates only at night time, blaming photosensitivity and insomnia. Her staff doesn’t mind as she’s brilliant. Her patients call her a miracle worker.”
“Send me the link, I’ll save it under her file so we don’t lose it,” Syla said, all business to hide her nerves.
Antun muttered something about needing a map and a pen and wandered off, scratching the back of his head – deep in his thoughts.
Michael leaned over to see the website that I’d pulled up. “She doesn’t look like a 500-year-old vampire. Then again, neither does Antun… if you look past the pale skin and red eyes… perhaps he isn’t the best example to use.”
I managed a weak smile, a small laugh huffing out of me. Watching everyone, I felt the weight of it all settle on our shoulders, on my shoulders. There was a sense of controlled urgency as Syla consolidated everyone’s links on her laptop, Antun getting an old map out so we could see where in the world everyone was in relation to each other. All we needed was red string and tin foil and we’d look like a bunch of loons, but this was real.
Our teamwork was natural, a tragedy turned into routine. We spent a couple of hours working on that, finally agreeing we all needed rest if we were going to continue productively. I laid awake beside Syla long after everyone else was asleep. I could hear the steady rhythm of everyone’s breaths, knew how they each sounded when sleeping.
I could hear everything: the rain against the windows, the house creaking and settling in the humidity, the clock in the living room downstairs ticking. My mind was so full that I began to blank out, losing minutes at a time because my mind was so deeply engrossed that I couldn’t remember what it even was I was thinking about. The sound of the rain continued, echoing like static in my head.
I carefully crept out of the bed, walking silently over to the window. The forest beyond was a dark, slick blur. I could still smell the dozens of cookies that Syla had made, some still cooling on the counters.
My thoughts circled the photo that Antun had brought home. It was such a simple but deliberate mark, a cross piercing a circle through the top. Just how far back did Antun think this mark went?
And how close was the hand that had drawn it?
Extraction. Not feeding. The distinction kept repeating, the word ringing in my head.
The world felt too big again; older, less safe. I felt… fear, not just of another threat, but that I wasn’t surprised. It felt like déjà-vu – same dread, different vampire.
The quiet peace I’d found at the Ren Faire already felt like a distant memory. We’d survived gods and monsters, but I wasn’t sure how long we could survive waiting.
