Lucas helped me to my feet when we landed on the other side, making me gasp with pain. Somehow, I hurt my right ankle on the rocks covering the ground under our feet.

It's the fault of these silly shoes! I despaired, inspecting the tips of the leather lace boots, which appeared on my feet in place of my well-worn, comfortable trainers, showing from under the hem of my burgundy velvet dress. My long brown skirt was gone, and my green jacket had vanished too; I was wearing one of my warm, fur-lined coats now.

I... nearly couldn't believe it. I found my way back home, into my world, my time. Despite Stoker's awful theory, the passage was still here for me. Now I only needed to find the man to whom I belonged.

Letting go of Lucas' hand momentarily I pulled the long silver chain of the Victorian locket over my head and loosening up the laces of my gown I stuffed my book into its tight bodice, not trusting the coat's pockets with it.

"What?" I replied to Lucas' raised eyebrow look, testing my foot by trying to put my whole weight on it. It isn't too bad, I can walk...

"Nothing." He shook his head. "You look so much... 'at home' in that dress."

"Wow." I said, noticing only now, as he mentioned my clothes, that his hadn't changed. So it is as Stoker thought, it's only me... I mused as I admired the dark silhouette of the impressive castle standing some distance in front of us instead of the old ruins, rising from the cloud of thick, chilly mist.

We could hear restless horses neighing somewhere nearby, their hooves stumping impatiently on the cobblestones. They were hidden in the deep shadows where the light of the few small fires burning along a narrow path leading from the arch to the castle did not reach. Apparently, we were in a courtyard, not far from the stables.

Lucas took my hand in his again and dragged me behind him, back through the now perfect arch, then in the direction where the stairs had been in our time.

It was a slow walk. Hours had passed since we stepped into the passage even though we did not perceive it, and it was now nearly completely dark, and foggy. The path Lucas chose was poorly illuminated by the incandescent torches mounted at wide intervals on the stone outer wall of the citadel.

Suddenly the world spun around me and I had to stop and lean against the cold wall, hit by a strong wave of nausea. I felt my knees tremble but Lucas caught me before I could slip to the ground.

"What's wrong?" He asked, holding me tight.

"Just... just give me a moment." I begged, leaning into him. "It was the same before, I just forgot about it. It will pass soon."

He, perfectly undisturbed by crossing the time portal, waited patiently, giving me as much time as I needed before I was ready to go on.

"I'm good. Let's go before someone notices us." I said weakly after several minutes.

"Yes, we should move, or at least hide somewhere," he said, pulling me further away from the burning torches, which filled the cold night with the sounds and smells I missed so much-- the hiss and whisper of the flames and the scent of the burning wood.

My heart stumbled with joy as I realised yet again that I was really here, and soon I would be with Vlad, and then we would both be with Aurora...

I bumped into Lucas who had stopped in front of me and I, lost in thoughts, hadn't noticed. We reached the place where the castle's wall finished abruptly and the light of the last torch cut a flickering semicircle out of the surrounding misty darkness. A motionless male body lay there on the ground, face down, on the outskirts of the half moon of light, barely visible from where we stood.

I let go of Lucas' hand and walked towards it mechanically, without thinking. But he put a hand on my shoulder, making me stop.

"What are you doing?!"

"We... should see if he's ok. He might need help..." I said.

"I don't think there's anything we can do for him. Even if he was still alive... We should hurry... Fine." He sighed, resigning. "You're right, of course. Let me go first."

I followed him to the body and when we reached it, Lucas kneeled down, inspecting it. He brought his fingers to the man's neck and checked his pulse. Shaking his head to make me understand that there was nothing to do, Lucas turned the corpse around.

Viorel's eyes stared at me suddenly, opened wide and unblinking; dead. I gasped as fear creeped through my body, making me shiver.

Lucas rushed to wrap me in an embrace, turning me away from the sight. "Let's go. It was... them. Only a vampire can kill a vampire this easily..." he muttered, dragging me away from Viorel and the castle, into the fog filled tenebrosity growing thicker, the farther away we moved from the walls.

"I can't see anything," I mumbled after a few moments of groping blindly behind him, feeling angry and frustrated with myself. I was just slowing him down, making this all so much more difficult. Being just a human was a great disadvantage in this world.

"I know. Let us walk just a little farther before I switch on the torch..."

Even before he could finish his sentence the cold air shifted around us and two figures walked out of the blackness of the night.

"So it is you, my lady, and you brought a guest this time. It is such a pleasure to see you again." A vaguely familiar female voice greeted me.

We were flooded by the light of a small torch lit by the woman's tall companion, whose face I could not see through the moving, blinding flames.

But I recognized her as the woman we saw on the other side and now I realised why she had looked so familiar.

"Alina..." I whispered, shocked. The plump, plain girl, the maid who was in love with Radu, was now an inhumanly beautiful woman. A vampire.

"Lady Alina, for you." The stranger said. His voice...

Shaking my head I squeezed Lucas' hand, thinking how weird this encounter, this conversation, held in a strangely-sounding, heavily accented English only for his benefit, must seem to him, before I spoke to Alina, "So... he, Radu.. married you after all." If I wasn't so scared I would have laughed; this girl, who had tried to burn me alive, was now my sister-in-law.

She laughed, "Oh no, not Lord Radu. But he did." She pushed the man's torch farther away from his face, revealing... Andrei.

No, no, no... Despite my trembling legs I stepped in front of Lucas, trying to shield him from them with my body. I looked longingly down the hill, into the black night, where I could see, or maybe I just imagined it, the first lights of the distant village... This... isn't fair, we're so close...

I could feel a lone tear running down my cheek as I felt Lucas' arm wrap around my waist from behind, as if he knew what I was about to say and wanted to stop me. He knows. Lucas might know you better than you know yourself, he is your best friend. And you dragged him here, into this place full of dangerous, crazy vampires... My subconscious scolded me.

"Nice to see you again, Lady Samara." Andrei bowed deeply, scattering my thoughts. "You must come to meet my sister before you and your... friend," he smirked as he noticed Lucas' arm at my waist, "will continue on your journey. Jusztyna will be delighted to see you."

"No. She is not going anywhere with you." Lucas said decisively from behind me. The deathly still veil of mist encompassing us caught his words and made them echo, as if they were coming from all directions.

Alina smiled, and Andrei laughed heartily, the sound scattering around us like Lucas' words.

I shook my head, then disentangled myself from Lucas' embrace and turned around to look at him, making him meet my eyes as I spoke to Andrei, voice shaking, "I... will do whatever you want... But you'll let my friend go, unharmed. He has nothing to do with this."

Looking in Lucas' eyes I tried to transmit my thoughts to him. There was no way we could fight these two. I didn't trust Andrei, of course, I was sure that even if they let him go now, they would follow him eventually. But Lucas was as fast as them and they didn't know that... He could reach the village, hide somewhere, send a word to Vlad, or go back through the arch if he wanted to... If only I could buy him enough time.

As I turned around and waited for Andrei's reply, watching him and Alina exchange meaningful looks and hushed words, I concentrated hard. Animals... there must be some wild beasts hiding in the night I could connect with...

"As you wish, my lady." Andrei agreed, even as I sensed a couple of wolves none of whom I could see, hiding in the darkness.

"Samara, don't..." Lucas said as I stepped away from him, towards Andrei who grabbed me by my arm and pulled me towards him while I pictured the wolves following Lucas through the darkness, helping him, attacking anyone whom he might fight.

"Go Lucas. Please." I begged.

"Yes, go boy, before we change our minds." Andrei said condescendingly. "Who knows, you might see the lady again... Or you might not," he added, already in Romanian, chuckling.

Finally Lucas moved, vanishing slowly down the hill towards the village, stumbling on the rocks in the darkness, wisely not revealing his vampire half.

Andrei and Alina led me back towards the citadel, the walk much faster now, in the light of their torch.

We crossed the empty courtyard and following the path I had noticed before reached a massive wooden door, which stood open wide. They rushed me down several dim, empty corridors, up, down, and again up large, stone, and then narrow, wooden staircases until I completely lost any idea of the layout of the castle I might have had.

When we finally stopped at the end of a long corridor and they shoved me into a room, I was not sure if we were deep underground or high up in a tower as we had met no one on any of the floors. The castle seemed completely abandoned.

"Go get him. I know you liked him." Andrei said, pulling Alina in an embrace and kissing her deeply, with so much passion that I had to look away from them, feeling embarrassed.

"You promised you would let him go!" I called as she vanished in a blur down the black corridor.

"Don't tell me you believed it, my lady." Andrei said, entering the room and locking the thick wooden door, closing us inside.

While he kindled a fire in a small fireplace, then placed the torch he was still holding into a sconce on the wall by the door, I looked around.

I wasn't in a cell as I had expected, but in a small chamber-- there was the fireplace, a bed, a table and a chair, and a tall, narrow window, now perfectly black, revealing no hints about my surroundings.

Hopefully Lucas made it to safety, I thought, feeling worried about him, as I stared out of the window into the blackness, trying to ignore Andrei's presence.

I was scared of this man, not even Radu made me feel this sort of irrational fear. But why? I had only met him once...

"Finally we are alone..." Andrei whispered from close behind me, making my skin crawl. "I've been waiting for this moment for centuries, Samara."

I spun around and looked up in his face, shivering at seeing his expression. The way he pronounced my name, suddenly forgetting the honorific...

"What... are you talking about?" I asked, my words coming out as a hoarse whisper, my fear seeping through each syllable I pronounced.

But I cleared my voice and forced myself to keep talking, I needed to distract him, I needed time. "I... don't understand you... You should let me go before my husband comes here, looking for me."

He laughed, taking a step closer to me, making me take one away from him and hit a stone wall with my back.