HIS MATES CALLED him Fang. He didn’t like it, then again he didn’t much like his mates. He worked the metal file on his épée.

She awoke and had an urge to explore her new surroundings. She exited the front door and she was in a courtyard, next to a gate. She did not remember a courtyard or a gate. But she’d only just moved in, perhaps she hadn’t noticed.

After locking the door she started across the courtyard, but she heard a loud noise and spun around. A man in a military uniform was holding a machine gun. She figured the last bolts of sun had made her invisible because the guard looked right through her. He was resisting the urge to destroy her. She reminded him of someone and rage swelled in him, but he stayed perfectly still.

She carried on down a path, passing statues and follies. The park was gigantic with immense trees of blues and greens. “Ouch!” Something scraped her ankle leaving a bulbous coagulant of blood.

Up an incline she found a circular pavilion of stone. At the center on a table stood a filled champagne flute. She sat and sipped the sweet effervescence and gradually her eyes focused on a structure of she figured and columns with a tiled roof, all of it ending faraway in a chapel, topped by a glinting gold cross.

Then a thrashing sound splintered her tranquility. It was the guard.

“Who are you?” he demanded, pointing the barrel at her face.

“I live here,” she replied, unnerved. Quickly she replaced the flute.

He slid his finger around the trigger.

“Why?” she whimpered, and braced for the bullet.

From nowhere a man wearing similar military attire appeared swinging a sword and struck the guard, scattering his gun. Who was he? She didn’t care, he was her savior. She didn’t know what to do so she offered him the glass of champagne, and he accepted it and when he smiled she saw his gleaming fangs.