“All chapters will be published on the blog.”
Chapter 1
The Encounter
Paris, France, twenty-first century. The café was steeped in a bittersweet haze of burning incense, laced with the metallic tang of rusted iron.
Elias Montgomery, an American pastor and writer of thirty, drew a long breath, striving to mask his unease. He had chosen this dim Parisian café, with its low ceiling and muted light, because an anonymous message on his phone had promised that here he would find the subject of his life—the fantastic yet real story no one else dared to record.
The door opened. A gust of cold air swept through, snuffing out a candle on the counter. And then she entered.
Emma Valcourt. Her blonde curls spilled over her shoulders with a liquid grace. Her face, seemingly fixed in the youth of twenty-three, betrayed none of the decades—or centuries—she carried. In the moist gleam of her eyes flickered both innocence and cruelty.
“Pastor Montgomery?” she asked in hushed French, though the cadence of her English betrayed her.
He nodded, swallowing hard. As she approached, the warmth of the room seemed to fade, as though her presence drained not only the light but the very air itself.
She sat before him. The faint rasp of her dress against the wooden chair echoed like the only sound in existence. For an instant, the world stopped—the patrons, the clinking glasses, the street outside—all fell silent.
Emma smiled. It was a restrained, perilous smile, heavy with promises and threats.
“Do you wish to hear a story, pastor?” she said. “Then write. But know that every word you set down will carry the weight of my guilt and the taste of my blood.”
He opened his notebook, his hands trembling. Emma leaned closer, and the fragrance she exuded was not human—a disturbing blend of wet earth, freshly cut flowers, and something darker, reminiscent of freshly severed flesh.
“I begin at the beginning,” she murmured. “The night I ceased to be merely a daughter orphaned by the Revolution and became something… more.”
She paused, then continued:
“I am a killer,” she confessed. “Yet always torn by a dilemma. Every noble I devoured was a fragment of justice. Every innocent peasant who fell to my thirst was a fragment of damnation.”
Resting her chin upon delicate hands, she gazed at him as though probing his soul.
“Before dawn, I learned to dissolve into shadow. A swift, near-invisible shadow that crept along walls, slipped beneath doors, seeped into ceilings. Only thus could the sun not destroy me. But for that…”—she leaned closer still, her voice a whisper against Elias’s ear—“…I needed blood. Two or three victims each night, or my shadow would not endure the dawn.”
His skin prickled. His heart raced, as though Emma could hear it pounding within his chest.
“Do you wish to know how I live even now?” she asked, raising a brow. “Do you wish me to show you what hunger drives me to do?”
Without waiting for an answer, Emma rose. In a fluid motion, she crossed the café and opened the door. The night swallowed her.
Elias, seized by a mingling of fear and fascination, rose and followed. Outside, Paris throbbed with light and noise. But Emma was gone.
Until a scream split the side street.
He ran.
There, in a narrow alley, he saw Emma in motion: swift as shadow, evading the strikes of a man armed with a blade. With a sequence almost choreographed, she wielded two daggers that seemed to appear from nowhere. The metallic gleam sliced the air, and the man fell. Before the blood cooled, Emma sank her teeth into his neck.
Elias shuddered. The scene possessed the terrible beauty of a dance.
Emma lifted her bloodstained face, fixing her gaze upon him.
“Do you still wish to write my story, pastor?” she asked, her tone a blend of threat and invitation.
Striving for composure, he replied:
“Yes. That was our agreement.”
She adjusted her curls with a certain charm. Her beauty was staggering. With a mysterious smile, she warned:
“You know well you could become a victim, pastor.”
He inhaled, filling his lungs, then exhaled calmly.
“My mission, Emma, is to fulfill the purposes of God.”
Emma laughed, unable to contain herself. Then, with biting sarcasm, she said:
“God…?”
“Yes.”
A flicker of irritation crossed her face, though she concealed it.
“Your purpose, pastor, is only to serve mine.”
“I am certain it is not.”
Their eyes locked for nearly a minute that stretched into eternity. Emma, a powerful immortal, felt unsettled by the pastor’s audacity. She could easily kill him, feeding on yet another mortal. Yet even as she felt challenged, a strange admiration began to stir. The game was only beginning. She smiled with disarming warmth, as if to put him at ease.
“Do not fear, pastor. I only need someone to hear my story. And I chose you.”
The café dissolved. Elias plunged into Emma’s words and found himself transported to a dark, damp forest near Versailles.
