The Vampire In The Archives Says I Belong To Him

The scent of decaying paper and leather was my constant companion in the sub-basement archives, a smell I’d come to associate with a comforting solitude. Tonight, the silence was deeper than usual, the only sound the soft crinkle of a diary’s brittle page as I documented its contents. The Bainbridge Collection was a new acquisition—a trove of Victorian-era journals, ledgers, and letters. My job was to bring order to the chaos of a dozen lives lived over a century ago.

That’s why the sharp click of the security door’s lock turning over made me jump, my heart hammering against my ribs. No one else should have been here. Security did their last walkthrough an hour ago, and the only key card with after-hours access was mine.

I held my breath, listening. A slow, measured footstep echoed on the concrete floor, coming closer. I stood slowly, my hand resting on the heavy oak table, ready to grab the antique letter opener I used for slitting sealed envelopes.

A man emerged from the shadows between the towering shelves. He wasn't a security guard. He was tall and unnervingly still, dressed in a dark, high-collared coat that looked like it belonged in one of the exhibits upstairs. His clothes were immaculate but not modern—tailored wool and polished leather boots that made almost no sound as he stopped a few feet from my desk.

“Miss Porter?” His voice was low and smooth, a dark velvet that absorbed the room’s silence.

“How do you know my name?” I asked, my voice tighter than I intended.

“It’s on the staff roster.” He offered no further explanation. “I apologize for the intrusion. The director granted me clearance. I need to consult a document in your care. The Bainbridge family ledger, circa 1880.”

His directness was disarming. He moved with a liquid grace that was at odds with his rigid posture, his eyes—so dark they seemed to drink the dim light—fixed on me. There was an intensity in his gaze that made me feel like a specimen under glass.

“Right,” I managed, my professionalism kicking in despite the alarm bells ringing in my head. “It would be in the new collection. This way.”

I led him to the unsorted section, the air growing colder as we moved deeper into the archives. I scanned the shelf labels, my fingers tracing the faded ink. “Here we are. It should be…” I spotted the thick, leather-bound volume at the same moment he did.

We both reached for it. The back of my hand brushed against his fingers as they closed around the spine of the book. A shock, sharp and absolute, shot up my arm. His skin was cold. Not the cool touch of a person in a chilly room, but a profound, lifeless cold, like polished marble from a crypt. I pulled my hand back as if burned.

He gave no sign he’d noticed, his grip steady on the ledger. “Thank you,” he said, his gaze briefly dropping to my face before he turned away. He carried the book to a nearby reading table and sat, opening it with a reverence that felt ancient. The silence descended again, but it was no longer comfortable. It was heavy, charged with his presence and the lingering, impossible cold on my skin.

He was gone for three days. I tried to dismiss the encounter, to rationalize the coldness of his skin as a trick of the drafty archives, but the memory clung to me. Every time I reached for a document, I half-expected to feel that marble-like chill against my own warmth.

Then, he was there again. It was late Thursday afternoon, the museum quiet as the last of the daytime staff headed home. He didn’t startle me this time. I felt his presence before I saw him, a sudden shift in the air, a drop in temperature that had nothing to do with the building’s ancient climate control. I looked up from a delicate, lace-edged letter to see him standing at the edge of my desk’s pool of light.

He held a book in his hands, its leather cover worn and dark. "A token of my gratitude," he said, his voice the same low resonance that seemed to vibrate in my bones. He placed the book on my desk.

I recognized the title embossed in faded gold leaf immediately. Whispers of the Cobblestones. A privately printed collection of local folklore, notoriously rare. I had mentioned it off-handedly during our first meeting, a throwaway comment about sources for the Victorian city’s superstitions. I never imagined he’d actually listened.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” I stammered, my fingers tracing the title. “This is a first edition. It’s priceless.”

“Nothing is priceless,” he replied, his gaze unwavering. “Only difficult to acquire.” He didn't move to leave. Instead, he leaned a hand on the corner of my desk, bringing him closer. The scent of night air and something else—something like cold stone and dry earth—wafted from him. “Tell me, Katy. What is it about these old stories that captivates you?”

He used my first name. The shift was subtle but deeply intimate. “The lives,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I like knowing who these people were, what they feared, what they hoped for.”

“And what do you hope for?” The question was direct, stripping away all pretense. It wasn’t small talk; it was an excavation. His dark eyes searched my face, and I felt utterly exposed, as if he could see every lonely evening, every unfulfilled dream I kept locked away.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted, the truth slipping out before I could stop it.

“And what do you fear?” he pressed, his voice softer now. “Do you believe in the things that lurk in the pages of that book? In the creatures that inspired the whispers on the cobblestones?”

The air grew thick with unspoken meaning. This was more than a thank you. It was a test. I looked from the impossible book to his ancient, knowing eyes, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold ran through me. He was asking if I believed in him.

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. The weight of his stare was a physical pressure, and the silence stretched until it was thin and brittle. He held my gaze for another long moment, a flicker of something unreadable in his dark eyes—disappointment, perhaps, or patience. Then, he straightened up, the spell broken.

“Enjoy the book,” he said, his voice once again a neutral, velvety murmur. He turned and walked away, his footsteps silent on the concrete floor, swallowed by the labyrinth of shelves until the quiet click of the security door announced he was gone.

I sank into my chair, my legs suddenly weak. My hand trembled as I reached for the folklore book. It felt real, solid, its worn leather cool beneath my fingers. I spent the next hour trying to work, but my focus was shattered. His questions echoed in my mind, layered over the impossible memory of his cold skin. What do you fear?

Finally, giving up on the letter I was transcribing, I reached for a new item from the Bainbridge collection. A small, unassuming diary with a faded damask cover and a broken clasp. My hands felt clumsy as I opened it, the pages stiff with age. As I turned the first leaf, something slipped from between the pages and fluttered to the floor.

It was a photograph, a sepia-toned carte de visite. I bent to retrieve it. When I turned it over, the air left my lungs in a sharp gasp. I was staring at my own face.

It was impossible, but there was no denying it. The same wide-set eyes, the same curve of the lips, the same straight nose. Her hair was swept up in an elaborate Victorian style, and she wore a high-collared lace dress, but the face was mine. A wave of vertigo washed over me. I flipped the card over. In faded cursive, a name was written: Isolde Bainbridge, 1888.

The name from the ledger Eoin had been studying.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. This was the reason. This was why he was here, why he stared at me with such unnerving intensity. The resemblance was absolute, perfect.

I packed my bag in a haze, the photograph tucked safely in my wallet, its presence a cold weight against my hip. Walking out of the museum, the crisp night air did little to clear my head. The street was mostly empty, the lamps casting long, distorted shadows on the wet pavement.

I was halfway to the bus stop when the feeling hit me. A prickling sensation on the back of my neck, the distinct, primal certainty of being watched. I stopped, my hand tightening on the strap of my bag. Slowly, I turned my head.

Across the street, shrouded in the deep shadows of a closed storefront’s awning, a figure stood perfectly still. Tall, dressed in a long, dark coat. I couldn’t see his face clearly in the gloom, but I didn’t need to. I knew the unnerving stillness, the predatory poise. It was Eoin.

He wasn’t hiding. He was simply observing me, a sentinel in the urban dark. As my eyes met the spot where his should be, he gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Then, he turned and melted back into an alleyway, disappearing from sight not as a man walking away, but as a shadow that had simply ceased to be.

I stood frozen on the sidewalk, a strange cocktail of terror and exhilaration flooding my veins. He was watching me. The thought should have sent me running. Instead, a dangerous, thrilling curiosity took root in my heart, pulling me deeper into his orbit. I wanted to know why. And I was afraid I already did.