Chapter 1
“Do you dream, Uncle?” The child was fair, with long hair streaming down her slight shoulders. Her eyes were wide and expectant, waiting for her uncle’s answer. She had flung her bed clothes away and grabbed the soft cotton of her uncle’s shirt.
“I’m free when I sleep, Liliana. Witches, wolves, and spirits don’t chase me the way they do you. No longer do I dream.”
“You almost sound sad about that, Uncle. Why would you miss such horrible ogres?”
“I don’t. Liliana, I miss you. No one else means as much to me as you do.”
“But I’m here, Uncle, sitting upon your lap. How can you miss me when I am so close to you?”
The child tilted her head to the side and strands of hair fell over one eye.
Uncle Louis tried to squeeze her arm, but no matter how much pressure his hands exerted, he couldn’t feel his niece’s soft flesh. Liliana didn’t cry out in pain. She sat quietly waiting for an answer.
“I never dream,” he repeated. “I never dream because I’m dead.”
“Will I someday be dead like you, Uncle?”
“Many pray for a different kind of death than mine.”
“But will I die, and can I spend forever with you?”
His hand sought the smoothness of her cheek, and surprisedly found the softness beneath his fingertips. He cupped her chin. Her pale eyes looked into his with great love.
“I would share all that I have with you, Liliana. Even death.”
“Will you ever regret it, Uncle?”
“There is nothing that I regret. When I’ve taken, it has been because I wanted possession. What I’ve cast off, I’ve cast off in boredom. Each moment is fed by its own needs, and I do not beg forgiveness for any of my desires.”
“Will I grow old like you before I die?”
Sade laughed and hugged the child to his body.
“I never will be old and neither will you.” He brushed her blonde hair off her shoulder, revealing her slender, delicate neck. He wrapped his hand around her neck and felt her pulse against his flesh. Her neck was so tiny that he thought of the chickens he had seen his servants kill. The chickens squawked just before the servants so easily wrung their necks. His hand tightened on the child’s neck but she did not make a sound, did not fight him.
As a joke Liliana stuck out her tongue, rolled her eyes, and made believe he was really choking her.
“Don’t mock me, Liliana,” Sade said.
She pulled free from his grip and rose up in his lap and kissed his cheek. His skin burned where her lips had been.
“You must go back to sleep, Liliana.”
“I can’t sleep after those horrible nightmares. Tell me a story. A nice story where princesses meet fairies and bad men don’t exist.”
“I wish you were a princess, my little dumpling.”
“Would you be my knight and slay all the bogeymen and dragons for me?”
“Ah, yes. Especially the ones that make my princess wake crying in the middle of the night. I’d chop off their heads and bury their bodies deep in the ground.”
“And what would you do with the heads, Uncle?”
“Burn them to ash, so that they couldn’t return and bother you ever again.”
The little girl’s fingers touched his lips, outlining the shape.
“That tickles, Liliana.” He laughed and playfully attempted to bite her fingers.
“What will you do with my head, Uncle?” Her face looked as though it were made of stone. The eyes didn’t blink, the nose didn’t twitch, and the lips were hardened into double lines.
“Your head is attached to your shoulders. Right where it belongs.”
“What did you do with my head?” Her lips barely shaped the words, but he clearly understood what she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, child. It’s late, and you are tired.” He tried to lay her back on the silk sheets, but he couldn’t budge her. “What are you doing, Liliana? Do you want me to call your grandmother?”
“Grandma,” she sung out.
“Shhh! She doesn’t like me visiting you.”
“She didn’t come when I cried out in fear. You did. She can’t complain about that.”
“Yes, she can. Please, lie down and go back to sleep and I’ll promise to bring home a special gift for you.”
“Will you make me whole again?”
“Stop this silliness and go to sleep.”
He stood, but she knelt and grabbed onto his forearms.
“Don’t leave me, Uncle. I’m afraid of the dark. Afraid of the beasts that will come to rip me apart.”
“They won’t come again, Liliana.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you are much older when the insane vampires rip you apart.”
Suddenly Sade stood in an old cemetery. He yelled out Liliana’s name several times.
“Ma petite chere!”
“Mon enfant!”
Tilted crosses surrounded him. He couldn’t walk without tripping over twigs and bark. The soil smelled of age and decay. He tripped and fell to the ground. A hand reached out of the soil, and he tried to take hold, but a wind rose that swirled the leaves and blocked his view. His hands were numb. They felt nothing, but his knees felt the twigs and branches biting into them. He flung his body forward in a last attempt to find Liliana. 
