Aurélie Margaret Campbell; twenty-two years old; classics student at Royal Holloway—at least, I was up until last summer, when I stopped updating almost all my social media. My online presence wasn’t exactly robust even before that, but the near silence after it is still a little abnormal. The only information I’ve found dated within the last eight months is an obituary for one Helen Campbell née King. My mother. She died just three months ago. Stalking yourself online is a bit of a strange experience, especially when you don’t even remember most of it. Aura Campbell had been an awkward looking girl, lanky and slouched, with dark brown hair and hazel-brown eyes. She liked to wear shapeless jeans and t-shirts, and she never showed her teeth when she smiled in photographs. Looking at her now, I can barely see any of myself in her. She’s so ordinary, so pathetic. It’s hard to imagine how she might have caught the eye of Lord Canus. It’s only been about a night since I’ve resolved to fi

It’s difficult to describe the scent of one’s Sire. This is a problem that all vampires have, not just myself. To a vampire, the smell of Sire is just that: Sire. It’s authority and trust and command and home all wrapped into one. I don’t know why it comes as a surprise to me. It’s quite literally impossible for Canus to have not encountered me as a human, considering he was the one who replaced my mortality with his blood. But still, it’s strange. The distribution of this scent doesn’t indicate a mere visit, a get-to-know-each-other before immortality is imparted. Obviously, this must be where it happened. This must be the last place I set my human eyes upon. But Canus’s scent suffuses this space, strongly and evenly, as if he lingered here for an extended period of time. So why? Why did he stay around so long? I wander into the bedroom. The bed has been made, and the wardrobe is empty, as expected. There are no other scents of creatures beyond myself (as both vampire and human) a

The man had an ageless air about him, one that made it difficult to tell if he was in his late twenties or his early fifties. His colouring was drab—mousy hair and dark grey eyes, but his features were fine. Too fine, maybe, to be hidden by a thin scruff and old-fashioned glasses. He dressed in a cosy way, all argyle and tweed, but he sat like a Grecian ruin, elegant and straight and seeming to have endured unblemished for aeons. Aura’s academic advisor had told her that he was a very approachable man, this Dr. Chantrell. She hadn’t believed her then, and she didn’t believe her now. There weren’t many other choices, however. James Chantrell, PhD, was relatively new to the college, and thus he was the only lecturer with an opening for a seminar leader in his intro to Latin class. Aura was still an undergrad, but she was in her final year and top of her class to boot, and she really, really needed this job. ‘Dr. Chantrell?’ she said, more meekly than she would have preferred. ‘I hope I

Canus looks back at me as the door shuts behind Scintilla and Margaret. We both wait, tense as their footsteps fade into the distance. Out of pride more than anything else, I want Canus to go first, to explain himself to me. He’s calm, however, lounging back as if we didn’t start the evening off with me barging into his rooms to demand answers from him. Eventually, I break. I start with something innocuous, but relevant enough, given how my wrist is still marred with a semicircle of drying blood stains. ‘Can you not drink from humans? Is that why you do this to us?’ I know the answer, of course, but I want to hear his excuses again. Surviving on mortals weakens me, he’d said the first time I mustered up the courage to ask him this question. The curse of our bloodline burdens me more than most. His tone had left no room for further questioning. His answer is different this time: ‘I could, for a time, but often not without killing them. As my newborn vigour left me, however, human blo

My blatant emotional manipulation works on Canus. He stops pacing and looks back at me with a stricken expression. ‘I don’t—I mean—no, you’re right. It’s not fair to keep it from you.’ He breathes in, then exhales in something akin to a long sigh, but it’s not the sigh that I’m used to. It’s not disappointed or exasperated, but instead tremulous. Almost like if he’s afraid. ‘Alright, it’s like this. As a newborn, my curse was centred on, ah—’ He winces. ‘Sorry, there’s just no other way to phrase it: I was more or less limited to virgins—purity in a very archaic sense of the word. I still am, sort of, but the curse worsened when I stopped being a newborn.’ I already knew this, more or less, but still I feel the un-vampire urge to blush. I swallow down my embarrassment and ask, ‘And how did it worsen?’ ‘Now, I am limited to those who are dependent upon me.’ A pause, then I start, ‘How does that even…’ relate? He grimaces. ‘I can’t be certain, of course, but I think the logic might