Chapter One

Becoming a vampire is simple, especially when you’re not given a choice in the matter. Say you’re on your way home from the pub one evening and you get blindsided by a car taking a corner, smashing right into you, that sort of thing.

You see, Patrick Hartford hadn’t planned on his life to change, hadn’t even kept a space for the possibility, but apparently what plans you’ve made for yourself, and what the Fates decide it is you truly need, can be two wildly differing things.

When Patrick stepped out of his local Oxford pub a handful of minutes before getting car-slammed into wet asphalt, it was with a soft sigh of relief. It was nearing eleven o’clock but the bell hadn’t been rung yet and he’d left a rowdy crew behind that was readying itself to order in final drinks. He’d spent the summer out of Oxford, but now that he was back they’d insisted he join them. Without any real thought he’d complied. Unsurprisingly to him, the evening quickly turned into a game of them goading him about his non-drinking and asking prickly questions about his summer internship. More than once he’d thought to himself that they weren’t his friends, not even close, and the insight had kept poking him to get up and leave early.

Whenever the compulsion flared in his chest, Sally’s consternation at what she saw as his inability to stand up for himself had come back to him. She had been right in telling him not to go. The admission had left him smiling to himself because it had made her voice, softly concerned, come back to him clear as a bell. He knew she wanted what was best for him—she was steady like that—and he wondered why it’d taken him so long to see it.

He wasn’t convinced that it was an aversion for confrontation that had kept him in his seat, though. Not really. It was more an unwillingness to burn bridges. Strategy, one might say. At least that’s what he’d kept telling himself. Grin and bear the borderline malicious teasing, the gentle picking apart of his stories of Rome. Be patient with them since, from their point of view, he’d ripped the internship out of the hands of everyone seated at the table. They didn’t care that he’d managed it by submitting the most compelling architectural design; they only cared that he’d won. Winners were losers unless it was one of them winning, and he wasn’t one of them—their underhanded lack of support kept making that imperviously clear.

And yet there he’d sat, drinking his lemon water and laughing along because one day one of the people around him might have a job to offer, a connection to hand over, a collaboration to pull him into. His father’s advice. Rome had put certain things in perspective and this evening had sharpened that perspective into something kind of beautiful. Excitement bloomed at the thought of telling Sally about it. He felt she’d be amazed, perhaps even proud. He realized right there, standing on the pavement with lungfuls of cool evening air in his chest, that he’d really like that.

It had rained and the scent made him nostalgic, bringing him memories of autumn mornings hiking with his parents. The forest behind his childhood home had been his backyard and he’d learned to climb tall trees before he knew how to ride a bike. It was sweet, how the sensation of gripping branches and stepping himself upward came back so vividly. Ever since he could remember he’d known that he wanted to have a home like the one he grew up in. A place of unchanging security, where each thing and trinket had its rightful place and nothing ever got so lost that it couldn’t be found again.

A cottage on the coast, with a small garden where he could grow his own greens—after learning how to—and a path of sea views to walk along into the nearest village.

That was his ultimate goal in life and what he was working toward. It was the reason he’d decided to apply to Oxford, even though he’d known it would be a struggle and he’d have to work twice as hard as everyone else. His father may be a doctor but he ran a small private practice in an ever shrinking hamlet in south Sussex that no one had ever heard of. The ambition to get wealthy off of his patients had never manifested and he had always advised Patrick to accept suffering as a part of life, and to steer clear of medicine altogether.

Patrick hadn’t argued since he had a tendency to faint at the slightest hint of blood.

Early on he’d leaned toward the anatomy of truth anyway, thanks to his grandmother’s sincere love of history. The places she would take him on their weekly field trips had opened up a world to him as a young lad, one that was full of all sorts of stories that to his marveling mind were all true. He’d walked the footsteps of Viking invaders, of medieval druids, of witches bound for trial. What did fiction hold to that?

And so his wish of a seaside home, a place where he could grow old in utter peace, had fused with the dream of leaving behind a path into the past as engaging as the one his grandmother had showed him, something for those seeking answers and not knowing where to begin.

For his winning essay he’d built an analysis around where humanity might be headed aesthetically, looking at architecture that had stood the test of time and how it continued to influence modern visionaries. If history could tell him anything it was that style evolved but function remained integral. His playful approach to this basic impression was what had won him the internship and had taken him to Rome. The Eternal City was a place his grandmother had yearned to visit but had never gotten to see for herself before she passed.

He had spent the three months patiently embraced by the team of curators at Galleria Borghese, where the pace was languid and where the attention to detail was meticulous. The head curator was born in a small fishing village near Lecce and was the kind of team leader who insisted on short but productive days, starting at 6am and finishing at noon, one of many revelations. Rome had been a place of acceptance, of fresh insight. It had prepared him for three more years of focused Oxford studies to secure his coveted Graduate degree. The OG, as it were. And it had put many things into perspective for him.

He was turning twenty-four in a month. He’d been with Sally for nearly a year. For the first time he felt ready to take their relationship to the next level. He was going to ask her to look for an apartment together. The thought gave him the jitters. What if she refused? He knew he would deal with it but every time he considered she might not want to, it made him understand how ready he was. He’d missed her more than he’d expected he would. He truly hadn’t known if she was it for him, or if he should be it for her, but now he couldn’t imagine anyone else next to him.

It made him smile to himself again, tilting his head back to look up at the darkened skies.

There were no stars, only a cloud cover to remind him he was home.

It wasn’t far to his dorm. A short ten minute walk and he’d be in bed. There was the urge to call Sally but he bypassed it with his usual ease. It was better to speak to her in the morning, following impulse never lead anywhere good. And he really wanted this conversation to lead somewhere good. Somewhere great, even.

He stepped off the curb with a sense of lightness that had been unusual for him until a month ago, but perspective was a sweet thing. It permeated your body until every nerve ending was singing with it and his were singing of a bright future ahead.

Then there were car tires screeching and bright lights shining, his eyes blinded, the world toppling over itself and he was sailing through the air, time slowing down in a way that defied any natural law. All he could think, knowing there would be an impact following this strangely calm floating, was: I should’ve listened to Sally.

How ironic that just as he felt he might be on the brink of actually starting to live his life, he was going to die in some freak accident, all because he hadn’t learned how to say no to unsolicited invitations.

When he woke, he was stretched out in his bed. He thought the whole ordeal must have been a dream. He could have sworn he was hit by a speeding car—the last thing he remembered was a weightless feeling—but he felt fine. To test the dream theory he moved one foot, then the other. He bent one knee, then the other. He reached his hands up to the ceiling. He was blinking, could move his lips, his tongue fine.

“Hello?” he said to the empty room.

He could speak.

He felt a little odd, like he was at a new angle somehow, but his thoughts came rushing like they’d ever done with questions he had no answer to.

He placed his hands on his chest, lacing his fingers above the place of his heart, and wondered what it was about him that felt different. He couldn’t put his finger on it and so he tried sitting up. As it went well, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed to face the room. Perhaps it wasn’t him that was different but the space.

He looked around.

He’d been given a large single room but there wasn’t much to it. Three steps would take him to the wall facing the bed; the door was to his left, a single window to his right. The head of the bed was crammed between a wall and his desk, which was ancient enough to have been put in the dorm when it was added to the university. Oh, yes, he wasn’t living in one of the older, more famous, buildings but rather in drably constructed student housing. It wasn’t bad. Considering the state of inequality in the world he had it pretty damn good, but he longed for a kitchen, a bedroom, company.

Sally.

He reached for his phone, pausing when it lit up to show him it was nearing one pm.

Not an ideal time to call the girlfriend, who was very particular about her sleep schedule, just to tell her he missed her. He considered sending a text to at least fill her in about his weird night and weird dream and get the burning fact that he had no memory of getting home from the pub out of his head, but wondered if she’d think he was sloshed. She’d worry. He didn’t want her to. Even though he kind of did.

No, he should go back to sleep and they’d speak in the morning. He got in a T and sweats and switched all the lights off as he’d for some reason flicked every single one of them on when he got back. Once under the covers, he couldn’t switch his brain off. His thoughts kept returning to the lack of engagement he’d had with his competitive classmates at the pub, soaked through with the scent of rain, and not too far off in the distance was that screeching noise of tires on asphalt. Had he really dreamt it? What other possible explanation could there be? If he’d been hit by a car he’d have woken up in hospital. Unless what he was experiencing now was the dream…

He turned over on his side, unwilling to engage in baseless debate with his own memory.

He couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t that his thoughts were running a mile a minute, rather it was like an emptiness was spreading that he couldn’t characterize. It started in his fingertips. They were cooling down and even when he tucked his hands in his armpits, the heat seeped out of them until they were tingly and feeling strange.

He moved onto his back, trying to ignore the sensation, but though it slowed down at his wrists it continued to overtake his arms until he began to worry about what might happen if it reached his head.

”What the hell,” he said. ”Stop.”

But his cells didn’t listen and the numbness kept claiming new territory as his toes and soon his feet joined in the slow marching sense of doom beneath his skin.

Was this what the onset of a stroke felt like?

He couldn’t be having a stroke.

Could he?

Was this a panic attack? Why would he be having a panic attack? Because he missed Rome? Because of what seeing his classmates had felt like? But that had felt good. It had made him certain that what he thought he’d learned in Rome, about himself and life, was the truth. Had made him certain about Sally. Was it that he wasn’t really certain?

He closed his eyes and concentrated on Sally, on her smile, the way she chewed her toast which he’d always loved for some reason, the way she pronounced butter and coffee. A lot of his warmest memories of her seemed to have to do with their morning ritual for some reason. But also, her hand stroking his hair; her mouth against his temple; her body underneath his.

He opened his eyes again, having to stop himself from reaching for his phone.

She’s asleep, he told himself sternly.

But he also concluded that it wasn’t that he wasn’t certain.

His chest was feeling heavy. In fact, all of his limbs were starting to feel heavier. He tried lifting his arm off the bed and could without any issue. He tried drawing a breath and found it difficult, like his lungs wouldn’t take the air. His mind was suddenly drifting, the drowsiness so immediate that his eyes shut of their own accord.

He drifted somewhere between waking and unconsciousness for what felt like a lifetime, and dreamed of being born, of growing up, of everything in between his teens and now. Everything. Like he relived it and yet, once his eyes fluttered open again, it was all hazy like a half-remembered dream.

His life.

To his relief, his body felt normal again. No numbness.

He checked his phone: almost 7am.

He got out of bed, stretched, feeling surprisingly rested.

In fact, when he bent over to touch his toes not a single joint in his body cracked like they usually did. And he wasn’t hungry, which wasn’t like him. He woke up ravenous in the morning. It was a thing. Or so Sally said. She hadn’t texted. He sent her a good morning and went to the bathroom, more out of habit than anything, realizing he didn’t need to go. Brushed his teeth, made a face or two at himself in the mirror.

Short, brown hair: same.

Wide, blue eyes: same.

Slightly wonky teeth: same, same.

He wasn’t too tall, had always been slender, and everything about him looked the same.

So, why didn’t he feel the same?

The numbness was gone but in its place was something else.

Like a… newness.

He shook his head at his reflection, heading back into the room and pausing when he noticed a note shoved gingerly between the notebooks stacked on his desk.

Had that been there last night?

He furrowed his brow, reaching for it. Reading it made him smile in the same lopsided way Sally always did. The handwriting on the note was neat enough to belong to a fellow Oxford student but he didn’t recognize it. His mate Gavin could probably pull a different style than his own off in a pinch, though, and this seemed to be a pinch if anything.

”Hilarious,” Patrick muttered, putting the note back down on the desk.

It was straightforward enough and nonsensical all the same.

I’m sorry, it said. I couldn’t let you die. You’re a vampire now.

Best wishes, Victor. PS. Don’t tell anyone you’re a vampire.

Patrick read the note two times more, then frowned, glaring at the curtains in front of the window, shutting out the view of the world outside. Was it raining? He thought he heard the pattering of drops against the window panes. He felt cloistered, suddenly. Entombed. He never closed the curtains. He liked waking with daylight flooding the place, helped him shake sleep. He’d been like that since early childhood. His glare darkened.

Someone had been in there; someone had brought him home.

His gaze drifted back to the note.

What the hell even was this?