The Transylvania Express rocked and rattled through the Romanian darkness. Despite the name, it was a slow train running on Soviet-era rails. Anastasia, a twenty-five-year-old hospice nurse, was returning to her compartment at midnight when she bumped into her great-great-grandfather.… Continue Reading
How do you kill a vampire? It was a question Grigore Nicolau first asked when he was 4 years old. He was hardly unique. Many of the boys he knew growing up in his hometown wondered the same. There was… Continue Reading
It’s clear that no one would ever willingly drink it, but there’s no consensus on why. “It won’t be the same,” Count Orlok complains. “It’s disgusting. Mortals ruin everything.” He’s been in a foul mood ever since the TSA confiscated… Continue Reading
So, our adopted daughter Tabitha has been kidnapped, and my husband Frank and I are waiting for the call. At least we think she’s been kidnapped. Her Gucci bag, her women’s size Christian Louboutin shoes, and a favorite large diamond… Continue Reading
Colin remained seated in the pew, watching the congregation file out with smiles and nods and murmurs. Religion wasn’t exactly his thing, but in this situation he hadn’t been sure what else to do. His usual methods of crisis management… Continue Reading
Malcolm ‘Stakeman’ Gribble didn’t look like a vampire hunter. He looks like someone who lives in their mother’s basement, thought Aneira, as she watched him eat through the roadside diner’s misted window. He had long, greasy brown hair, milk bottle… Continue Reading
“Good evening, sir,” said the pale man in black coat at my front door. “Hello. You are…?” “Call me Mackey, sir.” “Ah, Mr. Mackey, you’re a day early,” I said, clutching my robe against the chill. “But come in, come… Continue Reading
“I hate funerals,” I whisper. “Who don’t, boss?” Ah, Lomax. In his 5’2”, motheaten glory, he’s doughy as flapjacks and almost as aware. “Assassins, morticians, beneficiaries of juicy wills, and we other lowly disciples of greed and grift. At least,… Continue Reading
My name’s Kari Herman, and I’m not sure whether I murdered my landlord. Hopefully I did, in which case that’s an end to it. This is what happened. Mr Rasnov Alba Claud, or R. A. C. as he preferred, was… Continue Reading
Amy Ford woke up dead. It was immediately obvious she was dead. Her mind went through a number of distinct memories: driving high on methamphetamine, wrapping her car around a tree, and being flung onto the road. She remembered thinking,… Continue Reading