Cosatto's black cloak swished behind him as he chased his daughter's bobbing red head through the crowd. He feared he might lose her at any moment, swept up in the collective movement of the people in the town square. She was a light-hearted, playful child, and as she ran away from him her high-pitched giggle was carried back to him on the summer breeze like the tinkling of wind chime. He heard her shouting something, probably buried in her child's play, imagining a situation beyond his reach.
Strangers reached out to capture the beautiful child for her father, but she always managed to escape their grasp with a lithe certainty. The bells of the church sounded from the grey stone tower up ahead, and Meredia began to run ever faster. The hem of her blue cotton dress disappeared around a corner. Cosatto swore violently, causing the merchant at a nearby stall to turn and glare sternly in his direction.
He was known in the town for his mysterious nature. They called him an odd man in an attempt to be polite. He had moved here with his daughter after divorcing the child's mother, a woman nobody in the village had ever seen or met. He always smiled bitterly when he overheard their whispers, sensed their confused fear. He was stranger and more terrifying than they could ever understand. Creatures like him, vampires, had to stay under the local radar. He depended on their antiquated sense of propriety to keep his daughter safe.
He turned the corner and saw the tail end of her dress disappear into the church. Like everyone else in the immediate vicinity, he was a good Catholic. But for reasons of his own, he avoided the church. He had to. His daughter, however, was welcomed there regularly for Sunday mass by the elderly women of the town. They didn't think it would be right for a little girl to be raised without the influence of the Church. This, too, made him smile. They were Italian. He had once been Italian himself.
"Meredia," he said, standing at the door of the church and pretending to catch his breath for appearances. His eyes reveled in the dark comfort of the awning, but he could go no further. He felt the force of religious faith pressing on him like an invisible barrier. He was not welcome here.
Meredia turned and looked mischievously in his direction. She looked like her mother. Cosatto himself was a strong, dark man, but her mother was beautiful in a fragile sort of way. Her skin was the color of porcelain and her eyes were like the peaceful sea they had walked along in another, better time.
An elderly lady clutching a rosary beckoned him forward. "Viene dentro, signore," she said. Come inside.
He paused. Would the force of her invitation be strong enough to allow him safe entry into the House of God? He knew that an invitation from a clergy member could usually grant a vampire entrance to a place of worship, but he wasn't sure what this woman's purpose was.
"My father can't come in," trilled Meredia gleefully.
"Why?" the woman asked, eyeing Cosatto with a familiar kind of suspicion.
"He's not allowed, he's—" began the five-year-old, grinning to expose one missing baby tooth.
"Meredia!" shouted Cossato in panic. He rushed forward, his arm extended.
He felt as though his entire body were engulfed in flames. The life seemed to leave him in an instant, like air consumed by a hungry fire. Cosatto fell to the ground, his body lifeless.
Meredia screamed.