Page 30 of Demonic Delights

And not just that, but the room behind my reflection looks different from the one I’m in, too. The oak panelling is still there, but it’s much darker because the ceiling light is gone, and instead, there are sconces with lit black candles lining the walls. The desk behind my reflection is bare; no bamboo pencil holder, no computer, no “world’s best professor” mug, none of Silas’s usual clutter.

My heart speeds up, but not with fear. With chilling excitement.

Could the legends of my ancestors be real?

Either that or I’m going crazy. In any case, things are about to get a lot more interesting.

I turn my attention back to the engraving and gasp. Were I not already familiar with the words, I likely wouldn’t have recognised the Old Romanian Cyrillic lettering for what it is, and I certainly would not have been able to read it. I doubt anyone on this campus is. But I already know what it says, because I spent my childhood secretly copying it from various family heirlooms—the kind you don’t tell people on the outside about.

By blood I rise, and in blood they kneel.

The credo that is feared to this day in all regions of Transylvania, synonymous with unspeakable horror, with fears too terrible to utter out loud. The knowledge of what it represents inherited from generation to generation on a level so visceral that it feels as if it were passed through genes and blood rather than through mere words and folklore.

Tales of prisoners being skinned alive and then left to thrash about in their mortal throes, the torture chambers echoing with wet splats of exposed flesh and ear-piercing screams. Tales of their pink-grey muscle tissue being rubbed with salt to maximise their agony. Tales of their skin, removed from them in one piece like a coat, and then nailed to the doors of their family homes.

Legends of a whole castle rising from the ground, built of nothing but skulls and spines and femurs. The seat of none other than the Baron of Bones, a ruler whose name was synonymous with that of the Devil himself to those who knew him.

And then, myths of his malevolence being such that it awed even the Underworld, of his wickedness being more powerful even than Death.

He whose name was already destined to live forever in the nightmares of a nation became a shadow, no longer bound by a mortal lifespan.

He became evil immortalised.

A demon.

The very same one for whom the women in my family burned at the stake, and yet still called for him as flames shrouded them in their doom.

Sangrel Morvian.

13

ROXANA

It is on shaky legs that I walk out of Silas’s office some time later. My eyes immediately land on Goodwoman Stubbs’ spindly back and the vertebrae protruding from underneath her blouse as she sits on the very edge of her chair.

Shit, I really shouldn’t have aggravated her earlier, should I? Not when she’s one of the few people I know who may be useful to me now.

“Mrs Stubbs,” I address her tentatively, coming to stand before her.

“What is it, dear?” she asks, looking up at me from the keyboard of her archaic computer.

Her tone of voice is notably more reserved than earlier, and there’s new reticence in her eyes, surrounded by spiderwebs of lines and framed by plain, round glasses.

“Do you still ... take interest in the occult?”

She raises her eyebrows in surprise, and the firm line of her mouth slackens. “Why, yes, I do.”

I nod, bothering the leaves of her snake plant. “Could I talk to you? Privately.”

I trap her in my gaze, mercilessly, hoping to intrigue her with the conveyed urgency of my ask. I feel like we’re sparring with each other, using eye contact. And I know I’m going to win as I always do in any game of will, because none of my opponents are ever as willing to discomfort me as I am them. Goodwoman Stubbs is no match for me.

“Sure.” Unsurprisingly, she capitulates, laying her glasses aside. “Come with me.”

I follow the dull thud of her pump heels against the flagstone floor, echoing throughout the long, narrow corridors of the building. She leads me up the main staircase and up another, spiral one with an ornate metal railing. She’s taking me to one of the turrets where I have never been before.

We reach a platform with a single door, and she unlocks it with a large key.

The room within is but a snug half-circle with scratched oak floor and peeling wallpaper, no more space in it than to allow for a little table, a half-full water cooler, and a counter with an electric kettle, tea kit, and a couple of mugs.