Lucinda Applecott slammed shut the gates to Applecott Gardens, taking satisfied note of the click of the lock. She had allowed a suitor with painfully forced nonchalance to accompany her from the theatre, the throb of his blood all but deafening, belying his rehearsed flattery. The clanging metal, so much louder than the dainty little sound he may have expected, accentuated the distance which now lay between them. He had been granted his time in the sun.

Applecott Gardens were massive. An expanse of land surrounding Highcore Hall, the main estate of her family. The outer garden had been made public by an uncle or an aunt some generations ago, a popular move, since there was not much green left in the city, and labourers and idlers alike roamed the pebbled pathways day and night ever since. Some wilderness beyond these prowlers had returned to the outer garden as a result. Vines clinging onto bark, shrubs protruding unevenly, flowers blooming beyond the flower patches. In some places, it had become impossible to walk along the path, carefully following its middle, without a branch scraping one's dress.

Fortunately, her late relatives had kept the inner gardens private, surrounded by a crenellated wall of blackened stone, topped by silver ornaments designed to persuade would-be trespassers of the impossibility of bloodless passage.

[A lot of mention of blood. You'd think she knew what was coming.]

Though the inner garden was still vast - so vast, in fact, that Highcore Hall looked as if located in the countryside - Lucinda Applecott did not ring for a coach at the empty gatehouse. She never did. She liked the slow, meandering walk towards her home. The stillness of nature made to bow to the whim of her family. The knowledge that all of this was hers.

She would later claim, and convince herself into believing, that she sensed something was off. And yet there would have been nothing to trigger such portent. The inner gardens were patrolled at irregular hours, guard hounds, trained to move soundlessly and bite savagely, were free to roam. All was silent that night. Aside from the mundane variances of the everyday, all was as usual, too.

Had she truly sensed something was off, she may have followed the main walkway, though meandering still, to the inner courtyard and its stately entrance, all of which illuminated by flickering lamps the brightness of which, at places, rivalled the light of day. It would have kept her visible to the guards stationed by the little watchtower. It would have made her, though not impervious to ambush, a much more dangerous target.

But Lucinda Applecott chose to do what she always did. She left the main walkway in favour of the so-called scenic way, though she had no real interest in the views this coiling path offered of the park, the mansion or the city. The lanterns here were more sparse, the path no less familiar for it, and it teetered off near the back of the house to a large stone gazebo, elevated so as to overlook the lush pond. This she would pass, removing herself from the designated walking zones, towards what the particularly eagle-eyed guests would recognize as a well but imperfectly hidden shed. Satisfied with this discovery, this peek behind the curtains, none so far had ventured to see behind the structure to find a much smaller gazebo, this one of dark wood, that overlooked nothing but bushes.

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This was her spot, where she came to unwind, even if she did not feel very tense, before entering the house through the back terrace. This, more so than her lavish chambers, was her sanctum, a place she considered entirely her own. Her visit to this refuge, though she may not admit to it readily, was as much a means of unloading the burdens of being a beautiful socialite, as it was a way to steel herself for the domestic, the one place, she felt, where she was forced to relinquish control.

It is possible that this routine, this habitual stroll across Applecott Gardens with its culmination in still contemplation, was of such importance that Lucinda Applecott would ignore her alleged sense of foreboding in its favour. It is also possible that this detour had become *so* routine that her distracted mind could no longer conceive of returning home by the front gate when arriving alone. Whatever she was thinking or not thinking, she sought, this particular night, the darkness and solitude of her sanctum.

What she saw there - who she saw there - made her heart stand still.

She did not scream. She would later concoct plenty of open as well as hidden reasons for this. Fear of affirming her role as a victim. Fear of relinquishing her moment. Defiance. Dignity. Anything but folly.

"Y-you're a Vampire!"

In truth, she would have screamed, if only for the shock alone. The violation of the intimacy of her secret realm may also have sufficed to summon a shriek of indolence, blind anger suffused with panic. She would have screamed at any intruder, should he not have made her utter those very words.

For before her stood, unmistakably, a Vampire. All the visual trappings were there - the dark but rich suit, flowing cravat, gloves that could not quite conceal the sharpness of nails; the pallid skin, the hair flowing over his shoulders in coaxing locks, pointy ears protruding from their ashen waves. The hint of two teeth caressing his full but colourless lower lip, just barely visible, prominent all the same.

The deep red of his eyes. Not the eyes of a mortal.

The scent of blood in the air.

[Ooooh!~]

Of course, most people placed in the position of Lucinda Applecott would find it trivially easy to identify a Vampire from these traits. Some may even have found it appropriate to express this recognition. But for most, and perhaps even for everyone, the fact that they could tell what it was that stood before them was secondary. The primary thought, the primary emotive response, would have been not recognition, but disbelief.

Vampires are not real.

For however much people knew of them, no one interacted with them. They were the bogeyman, haunting nightmares and waking hours of small children as well as more than a couple of adults. They were the explanation for the suddenly slain, the wordlessly disappeared, those changed forever with neither cause nor cure any doctor of body or of mind could find.

Lucinda Applecott, however, did not subscribe to the common practise of fearing what one expects to be fiction. The Vampire had been myth for so long, even those experts who spoke of myths as manifestations of ancient truths believed in their present existence only half-heartedly.

To Lucinda Applecott the case was clear. Among their skills as hunters and seducers - is there a difference? - Vampires are known first and foremost by one thing. Immortality. And so it stood to reason. If even one Vampire had ever existed in the history of the world, one Vampire could still exist today. And believing in one thing, one entity, was a lot easier than to believe in thousands, to believe in a secret, hidden world of nocturnal predators.

It was a lot easier still if this belief could fuel the fires of one's deepest desires. For if such a being existed, it would have defied death. And that meant hope that a human, even at the cost of losing their humanity, may do it too. Even if not, it still meant hope. For it meant that death was not everything. It was not omniscient, all-devouring. It had been conquered, defiled, spat on once before.

That alone was worth the faith.

Lucinda Applecott did not scream, for hope overshadowed any fear.

She did not scream, for Lucinda Applecott was a believer.