Кейти Макалистер: A Girl's Guide to Vampires

"Not much bustle," Roxy commented sourly, slinging the strap of one bag over her shoulder while grabbing the two other pieces. "More like a limp, if you ask me. There's not even a porter or someone to bribe into carrying our bags. What sort of place is this?"

"Exactly what you wanted, missy, so stop your whining. If you hadn't insisted on bringing three bags, you wouldn't need anyone to carry your stuff."

Luckily for my peace of mind, there was a taxi in the small town, but it was off running someone else to their destination. I chatted with the stationmaster in my high school German for a few minutes, then went over to where Roxy sat camped out on her mound of luggage next to the taxi stop. She got up and wandered over to the station wall to read all the bills posted announcing local bands playing taverns, housecleaning services, tour times to the various caves, et cetera.

"Hans the stationmeister says the taxi guy should be back in fifteen minutes, so if we sit tight, we won't have to haul all your luggage up that hill. Brrr, kind of cold out here, isn't—"

"OHMIGOD, Joy, c'mere!"

"What?"

She jumped up and down in place, her breath puffing white in front of her as she beckoned me over to a spot on the wall. "You're not going to believe this! Look! Just look! Just stand right there in front of me and read that, and tell me that Miranda didn't foresee this!"

"What?" I asked again, warily this time as I approached a large black and red poster. "It doesn't have anything to do with axe-murdering maniacs, does it?"

"Stop being such a poop and read it! Oh, what a glorious, glorious time we're going to have!" She hugged herself with happiness, and whirled around until the fringe on her jacket spun out.

"I knew it, I knew it," she chanted to herself. I looked around quickly, hoping no one could see us in the gathering darkness of the late afternoon. I was ready to disavow her if she was going to stand in a foreign country and act like an idiot.

"Read it!" she demanded, pointing a finger at the poster.

"Stop acting like a boob, and I might."

"Read it!"

I read it. The sign was printed in English, German, and French, GOTHFAIRE! it proclaimed in bold, red letters: TAKE A JOURNEY TO THE DARKNESS THAT DWELLS WITHIN US ALL, EXPERIENCE DARK PASSIONS AND DARKER SINS. INDULGE IN YOUR DEEPEST, MOST SECRET GOTHIC DESIRES AS YOU PLUNGE INTO A WORLD FILLED WITH THE MACABRE, THE BIZARRE, THE ENDLESS NIGHT. TICKETS available beginning 24 October. "Sounds like a carnival or something like one of those Renaissance fairs, only this one is devoted to the Goth scene. What about it? You don't plan on going to it, do you?"

"Look at the bottom," Roxy chanted, dancing a grapevine dance past the luggage. "Look at the bottom, look at the bottom."

"You need serious medication," I muttered before bending over almost double and squinting at the tiny red print.

GOTHFAIRE IS PROUD TO SPONSOR THE ALL HALLOW'S EVE FESTIVAL OF THE DARK, 31 OCTOBER AT DRAHANSKA CASTLE, BLANSKO, CZECH REPUBLIC. TICKETS TO THE FESTIVAL WILL BE AVAILABLE AFTER…

"Oh, Lord." Just what I needed, a big party celebrating a fictional cult of vampires. It wasn't bad enough that Roxy had planned for us to spend every evening scouring the area for any possible Dark Ones who might be roaming the streets in search of prey; no, now she would drag me to a week-long fair and festival with a bunch of pimply teens who were heavily into the Goth scene. "No, no, no," I groaned.

"Yes, yes, yes," Roxy sang as she danced by me. "You see? Now do you believe in Miranda's powers? She said you'd meet a Dark One, and just look! There will be a whole fair full of them! Not to mention the ones we'll find at the Festival!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Rox, there are no such things as vampires!"

My words fell on deaf ears, but before I could shake some sense into her, a small, beat-up blue Peugeot that looked like it had been through a couple of wars squealed to a halt beside us. I grabbed Roxy and shoved her toward the car. "Taxi's here. Grab your luggage while I tell the driver what hotel we're staying at. And for God's sake, stop dancing! You want everyone to think Americans are lunatics?"

The Hotel Dukla wasn't really that far from the train station, but it was up a steep hill, and off the main square on the edge of the town. Within half an hour of arriving in Blansko, we had checked in, hauled our luggage up the three flights of twisting, uneven stairs to the loft rooms assigned us, and quickly changed out of wrinkled travel clothes to something a little more decorous. Roxy beat me to the communal bathroom, so I had to wait until she was finished before I could wash up.

"See you in the bar," she called out to me a few minutes later as she skipped down the stairs. I grimaced at the careless way she raced down, hoping she wouldn't break her neck on the steps' uneven tread, and set about making myself presentable to the local populace. I had this Audrey Hepburn image in my head of how I wanted to appear: sophisticated, elegant, and unmussed. I carefully unpacked my long black velvet dress that made me look thinner, pinned up my plain brown hair that a stylist once kindly referred to as chestnut, and dabbed on a little perfume.

"You're a long way from Audrey Hepburn." I wrinkled my nose at the reflection in the tiny mirror over an oak bureau. "But you'll do."

I don't quite know whom I had pictured as the patrons in the hotel's bar, the most popular in the city according to the proud hotel owner, but the sight that met my eyes was not it. I imagined people in tweed hats and dirndls and such, but what I saw was a room with a low ceiling made of dark, smoky beams crossing in a herringbone pattern. The few people already in the bar were for the most part in jeans and sweaters, and there was nary a dirndl to be seen. At the opposite end of the room, two large windows ran ceiling to floor, overlooking a balcony that opened to a grassy meadow that brushed up against the darker purple rise of the Moravian mountains. Peeking through the dark trees, I could see a part of a turret of Drahanská Castle. The sky above it was deepening into an indigo that matched the soft lines of the mountains nestled against the town. There was something about the rich shades of blues, blacks, and purples that struck a chord deep within me, but before I could wander over to the window to look out at the scenery, I was hallooed.

Roxy called out from a long table that hugged one of the side walls. She sat in the middle of the table with two women on either side of her. At least I guessed they were women; they could have been men in drag. It was hard to tell, what with the layers of pancake and kohl and the crimson lipstick that slashed their mouths into hard, unbending lines. They were dressed similarly, both in black vinyl lace-up bodices over red chiffon blouses. Although their lower halves were hidden by the thick polished plank that served as a table, I assumed they also had spiky, high-heeled black leather boots, and probably micro miniskirts with the visible garter belts that so many young women thought looked sexy.

"Damn. She's found herself some Goths," I swore to myself, looking around the room for an escape. There was none, so I slapped a pleasant smile on my face and wound my way through the chairs and tables to where Roxy was waving vigorously at me.

"There you are. I thought you'd never get here. Joy, this is Arielle and Tanya. They're both witches."

My smile frayed a bit around the edges as I held out my hand to Tanya, sitting nearest me. She examined my hand as if it might have leprosy, then gave me a sour look and dismissed me as unworthy of her time. Goths—the poseurs of the underworld. Where would we be without them?

"Actually, I'm apprenticed to Tanya," the woman named Arielle said as she stood up and leaned over the table to shake my hand. She had a faint Slavic accent mixed in with heavy French. Her friendly washed-out blue eyes were a nice counterpoint to her friend's hostile glare. "I'm not a witch yet, but I hope to be as powerful as my sister in a few years."