Cora's mousey brown hair draped like a curtain from the way Mr Peters carried her. Like a child carrying a precious doll. Still she had not wakened. His mind took another turn and he smiled his wicked smile. He turned and ran full pace to the next town, in particular the grave yard. A wasted place in disrepair, rusted iron twisted into intricate designs surrounding graves and headstones. Angels offering their hands to the sky bearing sorrowful faces for their keepsakes below them. Almost as if on purpose a flat grave crypt provided a bed on which to lay his prey. She lay there very still, her breathing giving the fact of her living nature away. Her white night shift giving her the appearance of the those that now lay beneath her. He removed his blue coat and placed it under her head.

Mr Peters leaned forward and breathed across her face. She woke as she had done once before and was rather confused by the cold beneath her and the fact that the sky now stretched before eyes rather than her whitewashed ceiling. "Where am I sir?" she asked in a tone that contained more anger than fear, but curiosity got the better of her. "Why am I in a graveyard, this is the most horrid place I have seen" she said with disgust, looking at the bleakness of it all.

"I've come to show you my family" he said simply "I had the notion and thought 'why not'" he said as if it were nothing out of the ordinary to bring young women to cemeteries in the dark of night. His eyes stood out against his pale skin, his stiff white shirt and cravat giving him the seemly appearance of a courtier. Cora could hardly take her eyes off him. To Hell with decency thought she, there was no one here to pull her into check. Everyone here was beyond caring what the world thought of them and what they thought of the world.

Puzzled still at the notion of Cora seeing his family in a graveyard, her mind began to imagine wild things that perhaps his family was really poor and degraded living in the graveyard for shelter and so hated by society they dare not show their faces.

He read her face and took her hand, she was still not completely use to his cold touch, but it was pressed to the far reaches of her mind as this new puzzle was unveiled. He led her before a grave worn with time bearing the inscription:

In our Lords tender care forever
Georgiana Peters
1679 – 1720
and her beloved husband
Michael Peters
1671 – 1716

"Are these your grandparents?" Cora said in honesty, turning for Mr Peters answer.

"My mother and father" Mr Peters whispered in her ear, enjoying the confusion and horror that swept over her in an instant. "Would you care for me to introduce my brother and sister, of course, they didn't last long once they found out my covert life, as it were" he chuckled darkly.

"Come now, where are you running, you can't hide my dear" he taunted and smiled slowly striding after her.

Cora stopped running and turned, her shift clinging to her form as she perspired in the cool night air. "You unnatural thing" she shook her head willing it to be untrue. She felt so far removed from the anger and curiosity that had her caught only some ten minutes before. He strutted forward keeping her gaze, there was grace and dignity in his walk, but his eyes and his face were arranged in such a manner to contradict the beauty.

"Is it really so unnatural for somebody to want somebody else? So much it hurts? I am in Hell here Cora my dear" he said in a convincing affecting voice. It was enough to make anyone weep. And as fearful as she was right now, a tear escaped down her cheek.

He edged closer and she could not move. "You have no power over me" she said willing it to be true, standing resolutely still. Perhaps she could turn this game in her favour. "And what if somebody did not want anyone else, save those known to them already, Hell is self made and deserved by those who create it" she tried to spit out the last of her words.

"And if they could be saved?" he prompted arching his brow, "Is it not a persons duty to do their utmost to save a person if they can be saved. Would it not be worth it?" he continued.

He leaned in closer to her.

"As a soldier of Christ I suppose it is everyone's duty" she replied in a small voice, eyeing his face as it came nearer yet. Had she just condemned herself?

"Libera te me ex inferis" he whispered to her (free me from Hell), and encircled his hands around her waist and kissed her in a fierce hunger. She was so overcome by him, his strength that she could not break free from, even if she wanted to, he was leaning and forcing her down, his supernatural presence erasing any rational thought she may have had. She yielded in a small sigh. And here he took the greatest of liberties. Before she knew what was what, the cold damp earth was beneath her and cold stone was atop her, her mind did not stop to question it as it spun quickly. Her heart raced, her skin shivered in a pleasant manner. She felt a cold hand under her linen shift and her heart nearly stopped. For an act such as this, her father would probably force Mr Peters to marry her. But soon the pleasure contradicted itself, she felt a strong pain in her neck and let out a sigh befitting such., encouraging Mr Peters all the more.

Her head felt suddenly light, lighter than it was at the present. She tried to speak but no sound would come. She did not make a connection at first to Mr Peters kissing her neck and the pain. Until she tried to pull away and found she could not. She had no strength and felt sick. Her vision became impaired and dark at the corners. Her eyes rolled as her lover continued in his manner. Draining the life of her.

The last sound she heard and the last thing she felt was Mr Peters being knocked off her and a growling so fierce.

Doctor Cullen had run from the complaints of a woman from the southern reaches of the county to this little graveyard. He knocked Mr Peters against a gravestone with force enough to send it to dust. No one had opposed him before. He kept his seductions and feeding to a minimum. And yet this Doctor seemed to find fault with his and their ways.

"Leave now or you'll leave me no choice" Doctor Cullen threatened, crouching before the started Mr Peters.

"If you want your own, you'll have to find one, I found her and she is mine" he said. He wanted nothing more than to drain the last few ounces. It almost hurt.

Doctor Cullen began to circle the grave stone where sat the confused Mr Peters. "If you go now, I will not chase, you could join me you know, redeem yourself and your wicked past" he said offering his hand to help Mr Peters stand.

"I've heard tell of ones like you, turning from our natural source to…" he searched for a word "lesser things" he spat, eyeing Cora again slowly loosing more blood from her neck His eyes flashed in hunger and he leapt to her.

Doctor Cullen had no choice but to defend her and knocked him down again. "I can keep this up all night if need be, but your weak, can you not try another way?" he asked imploringly.

"When there is such sport to be had?" Mr Peters laughed. He could see he was not going to finish what he started. "I shall leave as a gentleman at least. You can have her if you wish, I won't tell a soul" he smirked and took his jacket. Dusting himself off and running his hand through his hair. "You can't follow me forever" he laughed and darted out of the graveyard and into the night. Some pathetic drunk became the meal he needed to satisfy his thirst, but it was not in the least as much fun as that girl had been.

Doctor Cullen turned to Cora, pale white, drained of blood and staring aimlessly at the stars. He deliberated turning her, but he had never done it before and did not want to risk his perfect countenance, what if he couldn't? What if he couldn't stop? In the small time he deliberated, her chest rose and fell rapidly and was then still.

His shoulders fell. Crestfallen, he brushed his hands over her eyes, closing them forever.