Tea Time in an English Inn

Part of the One Page Series

The shutters clattered and battered all night. The wind was sharp and could blow a man off his knees. I knew there was still a fire going in the hall, so I put on my robe and slippers. A little cup of tea would warm my insides. The inn was pitch black, no light but from the hearth in the hall. I saw no one and I felt like I was walking through a crypt. Silent bodies laying behind closed doors.

Entering the hall I saw a young woman sitting at a table with a teapot. She looked like a nice village girl in every way, but she was not sitting close to the fire. She sat against the window, the mauve curtains now a deep black behind her palely lit face. She welcomed me to sit with her and share her tea. When I asked what village she was from, she explained that she was from the badlands. I filled my cup twice since joining her but she refused any for herself. She launched at me and sank two sharp fangs into my neck.

When the vampire pulled itself away, it had transformed into a winged beast, then flew out the window. I could summon the strength to get to my feet but I could not walk. I screamed but my calls echoed in the empty hall to no response. I crawled out the door into the winter storm, my eyesight losing any axis to see straight. I no longer felt cold, but burning, incinerating heat on my neck. Snow melted under my touch.

I had crawled to the burgomaster’s quarters near blind and in excruciating pain. I rattled his door and out he stepped with robe and cone shaped cap. He shouted insults towards me and bragged about eliminating ruffians from the countryside. He slammed his door shut and I lied flat, looking at a trillion stars pierce the moonless sky. I wanted the time to count the stars in Tully’s Tiara before shutting my eyes. I woke feeling revigorated, the neck pain gone, but the creeping dawn began to feel unusually hot.

My skin began to smoke and I felt the incinerating heat again. I banged on the burgomaster’s door again and this time knocked the door down. He ran down the stairs in his cone shaped cap and before he could say anything, I ran towards him and sank my fangs into his neck and felt the cold blood run down my throat.