Chapter One.
The lament of a wild goose echoed through the empty silence that lay still like a dense mist over the glassy surface of the Red Lake, fading slowly into the soporific sound of water lapping its rocky shores. A heron cast its wings to the air, flew the short distance from a log half-submerged in the shallows to the safety of the thick pines that fringed the far shore. Trees jutted precariously from sheer rocks the colour of veins beneath white skin, their foliage so green they looked almost black, even against the late afternoon sun.
Victor Frankenstein pulled the hood of his cloak over his head to protect against a light veil of rain that drifted from the overhead clouds. He placed his two suitcases down on the sandbank as he paused to study the lake's murky waters, inhaling the deep scent of the new country around him. He held that breath a moment, filling his lungs with cold air. It had been a long, long journey from Ingolstadt. The carriage that had brought him to Romania had left him somewhere in the forested hills of the Eastern Carpathians, a stranger in a foreign place, alone, with little more than the clothes on his back and papers of scientific research in his suitcases. Victor's knees trembled as he stood on the sandbank, out of exhilaration rather than fear. He was free, and away from the eyes of scrutiny.
Victor walked a little way along the narrow sand strip, kicking at pebbles and crunching twigs that littered the shore of the lake. The light was receding over the snow-tipped mountains, already the stars on the distant horizon were chasing the sun away. The lonely cry of a loon echoed over the surface of the still water as a cottage came into sight, small and rickety, built of logs with wood-smoke trickling in a light grey vapour from its chimney. It was as far removed from the modern architecture of Germany's cities as one could get. A nanny goat with a bell clinking around her neck eyed him warily as he approached the gate, gingerly he pushed it open, walked around her as she stood tethered to the fence bordering the little herb garden that adorned the front of the cottage, and knocked three times on the door.
An elderly gentleman answered, his back was stooped, and he carried a cane, his face was weather-beaten and bearded, but he looked kindly enough, and his blue eyes had a youthful glint in them. Victor removed the hood from his head of sandy blonde hair and, dropping his cases again, outstretched a hand.
"Alexandru Costas?" said Victor, "My name is Victor Frankenstein from Ingolstadt, the coachman said I am to be your guest tonight?"
"Victor, yes, please come in," Alexandru shuffled out of the way, and Victor stepped over the threshold into the little cottage.
"I do not possess much," said Alexandru, his cane clicking on the dusty floor as he went to ease himself on a chair in front of a fire that was crackling in the grate, "But I can offer travellers like yourself a warm bed and a hot meal for the night, and goat's milk and fresh bread to break your fast." He gestured across the room with his cane. "You will find your room on the left, it used to belong to my son, but he has long since departed from this world."
Victor thanked him and went to place his suitcases in the room. It was small, but comfortable. The thin pillow cases were stuffed with duck down and there were plenty of blankets for him to keep warm should the night have been cold. Victor knew it got cold in these strange parts of the world, and he admired the people he had met along his journey for their hardy nature. As a man of science, they seemed almost primitive to him, but he admired them nonetheless.
Dinner was a bowl of stew with bread and a generous lump of goat's cheese. They ate in the fading light of the fire's embers, and Victor could hear outside the lapping of the water on the shores of the lake, the lake birds making their last calls of the day before retiring to roost in the trees and rushes. There was a faint squeaking of bats to replace the sound of the water birds, and the distant screech of an owl.
"How long have you lived here, on the shores of the Red Lake?" asked Victor, spooning the last of his stew into his mouth.
"Almost my whole life," replied Alexandru, "I travelled for a while, about ten years or so, but I always knew I'd come back. Romania is my home."
"How did you come to learn English?" Victor inquired.
"When I travelled, the people spoke many languages. English was the only way to communicate. My son also helped me to learn, back when he was still alive," the old man said, sadly.
"Forgive my asking," said Victor, "but how did you come to lose your son?"
Alexandru paused a moment, eyes downcast. Silence fell between the two men. Victor floundered.
"Alexandru I am so sorry, I should not have asked such a personal question…"
"Nu, nu…" said Alexandru in his native tongue, "It is okay, my friend. It is just that the memory still pains me."
"You do not have to say."
"I must say, because I must make others aware of the devilish creatures that make their homes in these very hills. Creatures that somehow crawled their way out from the very pits of Hell and stalk this land with undead feet."
Alexandru lifted his eyes again, from inside his cloak he removed a carved wooden cross and he gave it a firm squeeze as if for reassurance. Victor was silent.
"It was a vampire," he whispered, the way he said the word Victor could almost see drops of hateful venom oozing through the cracks of his gritted teeth. "It was a vampire who took my son."
There was another pause. Victor almost scoffed as he took a sip from his cup of wine, but he managed to subdue it. The rumours are true, he thought. The belief in superstition here is as powerful as their unrelenting faith in God.
"I'm terribly sorry to hear that," said Victor, "That must have been a dreadful tragedy."
"My friend, where do you travel on to, tomorrow?" asked Alexandru.
"I travel to a village called Vaseria," said Victor. "I received a letter some months ago from a nobleman expressing interest in the scientific research I have been undertaking at the University of Ingolstadt. I had all but given up on the project I was working on, for none of my peers supported my ideas, they said I was 'playing God'. But this man, I believe he is a Count living on the outskirts of Vaseria, has expressed great enthusiasm for my project, and has even paid toward the expenses of my trip!"
"And what project is that?"
Victor grinned, "Why, the reanimation of dead tissue."