The Castle Of Constant Night

On the coast of a sea that I will not name, there is a castle where it is always night. If I told you the sea's name, you might try to find the castle with GPS, but that would not work, and then you would doubt my veracity. In all probability, you are already doubting me because I told you about the constant night, but that detail cannot be omitted. I do not understand how it is possible, but it is true. The castle sits at the crest of a hill dotted with jagged stones. Some of them sparkle in blues and greens. Others are pure obsidian. On most sides, the castle is protected by impassable mountains. The only way to reach the castle is via the sea and a long climb up a winding path.

Most ships won't go near this particular bay. Only a select few crews will even admit that the bay is real. Some captains will insist that they can't do it, but if you ask them it certainly seems like they just won't do it. They talk about blessings and curses, good luck and foul luck. If you are fortunate, they'll point you in the direction of a different captain. Follow that chain to the end, and eventually you might find someone who, for a price, will sail you to that particular castle.

It should go without saying that the castle is ruled by an ancient vampire.

Stories about Count Dracula are not an accurate portrait of the ruler of the castle where it is always night. I don't think that creature would accept any mere human title. He is the vampire, and he has ruled this castle for longer than any human civilization has held hegemony, and that is all.

The ship I found left for the castle at dawn. I'd hoped for a boat that would inspire more confidence, but after weeks of following that chain of names and recommendations, I took what I could get. So at dawn I'd texted my brother, I found him, and then I prepared for the blackout. I thought about texting my ex-wife, but decided against it. We'd sailed for a few hours, and the captain had told me to go below decks as we hit a terrible storm. It had been a clear morning, but the clouds churning overhead appeared like a predatory animal emerging from the underbrush. My watch said that the storm lasted for three hours. When the captain called for me to emerge, and I stepped onto the deck under a moonless midnight sky.

"This is as far as I go," the captain who took me there said. "From here on, you're on your own."

He'd earned his payment, and he wanted me off his boat.

As I stepped onto the stone dock, he said to me, "If you're back in three hours, I'll return you to where I found you. Otherwise, this is where we part ways."

I assented and began the climb towards the vampire's castle. For the first time in a long time, I was without cell-phone reception or any other means of contacting the world at large. It was as if the storm had been a vortex that pulled the captain and me into the past. If my brother had any last minute epiphanies about the vampire that might help me, there would be no way for him to reach me. So I walked as fast as I could, aware that the captain would stay true to his word.

Perhaps there are minor vampires with less intense powers, but I've never encountered any of them. I've heard stories, sure, but who can say if those stories are true? Sometimes I imagine that the vampire at the castle of constant night is like Zeus, and all of the other vampires from all the other stories are like the demigods who sprang from Zeus's loins. On other times, I imagine that this vampire is a singularity. He is one odd creature, and that is all.

My brother had been the vampire fanatic in our family. He read our copy of Dracula until the spine broke. He wore a black cape on Halloween and he practised an impression of the Transylvanian accent.

"Why can't you be a police man this year?" my mother asked one Halloween. "Or a fireman?"

He inserted his fake fangs. "Because I like vampires."

"But why?"

Slinking around the house in his cape, he declined to answer.

By all rights, it should have been him climbing this path, but it wouldn't be. It would be me. My legs burned. Precious seconds ticked by. And finally, I reached the massive gate leading into the castle's interior structure. It was as cold and dead as the night outside. The courtyard beyond was larger than my high school's soccer field, but it was empty and silent. No birds chirped, no wolves howled, no rats scuttled along the ground. I had the feeling that you could swab the stone ground for hours without finding so much as a single living bacteria.

At the castle's threshold, I looked back down to the sea. The boat was still bobbing on the water. It had taken me an hour to reach this far, which left me with two hours to return. I had no doubt that if I missed that boat, I would never escape this place of eternal night.

There were multiple structures around the main building. They looked like servant's quarters, but there were no lights in any of the windows. There weren't even bones scattered along the ground. Perhaps that would have made it better. I could tell myself it was just another haunted house, like the one my brother loved at the fair. He'd dragged me through every haunted house within a five-state area, relishing some, scoffing at others. That was before the accident, of course. In recent years, there's been slightly more accommodation for wheel chairs, but my brother had loved haunted houses that were all cramped hallways and narrow staircases. After the accident, he was stuck with the generic, bland attractions that would have bored and insulted him.

Before all of that, when we were children and he thought I couldn't see him, he'd stared into the bathroom mirror. I knew he was waiting for his reflection to disappear like a child trying to summon the Force. He practiced hypnotism and slight of hand, but none of it turned his polyester cape into a vampire's robe.

The main building's doors were open. Distinctly aware of the sound of my footsteps, I emerged into the building.

That was when I first heard that voice: "Come, come. We don't have all day." There was no thick Transylvanian accent. It was like there was no accent at all. Not like the speaker sounded like me--he didn't. But it was like the ideas echoed through the building's hall without any artefacts from the speaking.

I followed the voice down long, wide halls. My legs shook like they had on my wedding day, approaching the isle. This time, I was alone. That time, my brother had walked a few steps behind me then. Later, during the reception, he slipped in his vampire teeth during his toast as my best man. It had gotten a big laugh.

Only instead of emerging into the chapel where the officiant waited, I entered a hall where the vampire sat in a throne on a dais. Mere hours before I had been in civilisation. I didn't know how the sea had taken me from that world into the presence of this creature. There was something in that water, in that bay, in that storm. Maybe I was no longer even on Earth, and that ship had taken me to a dimension of nightmares.

This creature wasn't Earthly.

Looming over me from his throne, the vampire could have been three meters tall. He looked relaxed but curious. It reminded me of my father meeting my daughter. He'd never been good at displaying emotion. When he met his first grandchild, he hadn't been able to summon anything that resembled the enthusiasm that I knew he must feel. That was just how he was, though. I don't think he ever told me or my brother that he was proud of us. He was either distantly interested, distantly approving, or distantly disapproving.

Hundreds of evenly placed candles illuminated the vampire's hall, but I couldn't read his expression. As well, while the flames flickered and danced on the candles, the wax never fell or dripped. Those candles might have been burning for centuries. Those candles might have been lit before our sun.

"So..." the vampire said. "You wish for a miracle?"

I swallowed. "How... How do you know?"

"No one seeks me out unless they want a miracle. Come closer. I won't bite... at least, not at first." He smiled, and I thought there was genuine warmth in the expression.

When I reached the dais, he made a go on gesture. "I can work miracles. So, what is it you want?"

"There was an accident."

"How long ago?" he asked, like a dentist asking how long a patient has lapsed.

"Two years ago."

"And?"

"People were hurt. I want you to... to change things. Can you do what they say you can do?"

"There's always a price, of course. I'm not interested in trying to trick anyone. I don't hunt people down, and I don't hover outside windows controlling anyone's mind. You know that, though, don't you?"

I nodded.

Before the accident, my brother had come across stories about the first vampire, and he relayed them to me with a sense of disappointment and betrayal. There was a blood-sucker out there, but it wasn't the blood-sucker my brother had wanted. Maybe that was why he started drinking. Of course, I didn't realize how bad his drinking it was until it was too late. I thought he could watch my daughter while my wife and I went on our date. Surely my daughter's uncle could be trusted for one night.

"The price is blood."

"Exactly."

"But if I give you blood, can you raise my daughter from the dead?"

He smiled, but he didn't show his teeth. I imagined that at one point, he must have been a charming host. This hall would have been the sight of laughter and joy. The servants' quarters would have bustled with activity. Maybe in those days, this castle had been on Earth, and the sea-way that connected it to the rest of the planet could have been found on a map. Or maybe he was the last survivor in this world.

"You would give your life for your daughter's?"

"If I have to." At the mere sound of my voice, his mouth opened wide enough for me to see those fangs for the first time. "But there's another," I rushed to add. "The person responsible for her death."

"Really?"

"Can you leave this place?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "I don't hunt. My food comes to me. I don't seduce them. I just wait. They come all the same."

"But could you leave this place? If I brought someone to the edge of the sea, could you take their blood in exchange for my daughter? It would have to be at night, of course. But could you?"

Leaning back in his throne, he said, "For your daughter? Perhaps."

I smiled, and I told him when I would return, and then I ran down the path back to the boat. I hope I never return to that place, and I hope I never see that creature again. And more than anything, I hope that I never watch him open his mouth and reveal those terrible, life-taking fangs.

After all, my brother was the vampire fanatic.

You loved vampires so much, kid? Well, guess what: I'm going to take you to meet one.