As we meet her, she is packing to leave the festival when Vlad, a vampire of the Ţepeş line, comes in and demands a reading. She has been expecting him, we discover, both because she was visited by one of his vampiric relatives early in the festival and because her Grandmother had predicted it.
Vlad tries to bite her but cannot penetrate her skin for mystical reasons, equally he discovers other sorts of penetration are closed to him. She knows that if she gives herself to him, she'll regain her sight but it is not the time – but her fate is to go with this, often brutal, vampire. As the story is from her viewpoint the story uses a brevity of physical description, which is stylistically interesting and handled with aplomb.
The vampires are playing a fratricidal/patricidal game and their society is mired in misogynistic and violent tradition. I loved the idea of luring a rival around sites associated with historical figures Peter Kürten & Fritz Haarmann simply as a way of mocking a supernatural vampire. This showed a twisted humour that really worked and could be expanded on – the story, however, is marvellously enclosed and eschews the need for follow up (whilst opening a vista that could also legitimately be explored).
On Kindle @ Amazon US
On Kindle @ Amazon UK
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