The forest breathed differently that morning.
Quieter. Heavier. Like it was waiting for something to pass before exhaling again.
He stepped beneath the canopy, letting the trees swallow him whole. No birds sang. No insects stirred. Even the wind held its breath.
The vampire walked slow.
His hand brushed the bark of an elder tree, fingers dragging over the rough, ancient surface. It should've felt cold. But it didn't.
It felt… watched.
He paused.
Nothing. Only the rustle of distant leaves, like whispers running from branch to branch. He tilted his head and closed his eyes, reaching—
Not with sight.
With sense.
There it was again.
A flicker.
Something had passed through here. Not long ago.
Dark. Not just in energy—but in intention. Like a weight. Like malice wearing skin.
His jaw clenched.
Not a ghost. He knew spirits. Knew their taste in the air. Their pain lingered, their sadness soaked places. But this—this wasn't pain. This was hunger.
And it wasn't wandering.
It was searching.
He moved again.
Past roots and rocks, through wild ivy and forgotten paths.
He crossed into old territory—the place where no one in the village hunted anymore.
Where the ground dipped too suddenly, and trees grew too close.
Something had been here. He felt it. Not just once, either.
It circled this place.
Claimed it.
Yet the deeper he went, the colder the trail became.
Like it was teasing him. Like it knew he was coming.
So you're hiding…
He stopped near a ridge, breath still, eyes narrowed.
Below, the soil had been disturbed. A few scattered leaves. A broken branch. Marks too jagged for any deer or wolf.
And then—gone.
No more scent.
No more sound.
Just forest.
Still. Pretending to sleep.
He waited.
Waited long enough for the stillness to crawl under his skin.
But nothing came.
Eventually, he turned, cloak brushing the moss as he walked back toward the village.
The unease stayed with him—settling somewhere deep in his ribs.
Whatever it was… it didn't want to be found.
Yet.
And that was what disturbed him most.
He returned to his manor just before dusk, though it felt like dusk had followed him home.
The sky bled with a pale grey, the kind that never quite turned golden.
Shadows slipped along the windowpanes like they didn't belong to anything.
He placed his cloak on the hook, but didn't light the candles.
Silence.
He preferred it, but tonight it felt… crowded.
As if something unseen walked the halls just after him, keeping its distance. Watching from corners where no light reached.
He didn't flinch. Didn't show the disturbance crawling just beneath his skin.
Instead, he moved to his study, fingers brushing against the shelves.
Ancient scripts, bindings cracked from centuries. Some languages even the dead no longer spoke.
But tonight, no book would give him comfort.
He poured a glass of thick crimson—not wine. And sat.
His mind wandered—not to her, not to Tilda—but to the pattern forming in his senses.
The screaming.
The body.
The stillness in the woods that felt… alive.
He'd lived through wars, through plagues, through centuries of man's worst nightmares. But this felt different. This wasn't history repeating itself.
It was new.
And deliberate.
He drank slowly.
Outside, the wind shifted, a whisper against the windows. A soft knock. Then another.
Branches. That's all.
He didn't move.
But his eyes flicked to the fire that hadn't been lit—and the faintest flicker of breath he didn't take danced across its ashes.
Something had been here.
"He stood then. Quiet. Careful. Not because he feared it—but because part of him recognized it."
Walked toward the back door.
The night greeted him like an old friend trying too hard to smile.
The air was too still. Too sweet. "Like flowers rotting beneath their perfume—sweet, but wrong.
The kind of scent that clung to corpses dressed for burial."
He looked toward the trees again.
Same silence.
Same waiting.
He let his senses stretch—reaching not just for presence, but for intention. What was this evil waiting for? Why hadn't it shown itself?
It was here for something.
Or someone.
But it was still watching. Still hiding.
He returned inside, shutting the door with slow finality.
Then, for the first time in years, he took the thick black chalk from the drawer and began to draw protective runes on the floor—across doors, beneath windows, over thresholds where even sunlight dared not step.
Whatever it was, it wasn't just passing through.
It had chosen this place.
And it had no intention of leaving.
The chalk left thin, dark trails across the wooden floor, each symbol older than the next.
Not sacred, not holy—but protective, forged from knowledge lost to most of the living.
He knelt by the last mark, hand steady. But his mind…
Something was off.
Not just the scream. Not just the body. Not just the stillness.
It was the waiting.
This… thing—whatever it was—was patient. Too patient. Not like a ghost. Not like a demon. He'd faced those. You could feel their hunger. Their recklessness.
This was watching.
Testing.
He stood, brushing dust from his hands, eyes narrowed.
The flickering candles danced higher behind him now, though no wind blew.
Their shadows didn't behave like shadows.
He paused in the silence.
No breath.
No heartbeat.
But something beneath his skin tingled, the way it had the night his own brother turned on him—centuries ago.
That ancient warning. The kind not even time could dull.
He turned toward the mirror across the room.
He couldn't see himself.
He never could.
But tonight, something passed behind him.
A flicker.
Too fast. Too shapeless.
He faced it. Nothing.
Stillness again.
He closed his eyes, listened—not with ears, but with what he was.
A creature built for sensing blood and threat, for feeling heat long after it left a corpse.
And what he felt now…
It wasn't just malice.
It was intelligent.
Curious.
He poured more crimson into his cup, but didn't drink it. Instead, he stared at the dark liquid and whispered, "Why here?"
He walked to his desk and opened the drawer beneath the oldest ledger.
Inside lay a sealed scroll—one he hadn't touched since the 1700s. Written by a dying witch whose warnings were never meant for this era.
He unrolled it, lips moving silently over each archaic word.
The last line made him stop.
"When the shadows learn to wait, the veil is no longer yours."
He looked up sharply. The runes around the door flickered once—then went still.
And he whispered again, this time not as a scholar, not as a loner, but as something older, darker, and finally… alert:
"You're not hiding from me."
"You're watching who I'll protect."