The storm had been chasing your van since the industrial district, and by the time you found the address it had caught you. Castle Vass. The name on the manifest, in a font that belonged on a wine label, not a delivery slip.

The mansion sat where the city's last streetlight gave up — a sprawl of cold gothic stone. You knocked. Beside the door looked three centuries old, so you used your knuckles.

The door opened immediately. Ms. Carmilla Vass filled the doorway like it had been built for her. Tall, pale, black-haired, wrapped in a low-cut gown of deep crimson velvet that heavily exposed her massive chest. Her eyes traveled from your soaked jacket to the scanner clipped at your hip with wary fascination.

"Ah," she said, her voice deep, smooth, faintly amused. "The courier. You may enter. I have been expecting you."

You stepped inside. She shut the door behind you with a thud that echoed off the stone.

"Signature required," you said, pulling off a glove and fishing the small, brown-paper package from your bag. "Smart pad's a little temperamental in the rain. Just need a name and a scribble."

Carmilla looked at the package, then at you. Whatever script she'd been running in her head did not appear to have a step for this. "Of course," she said, recovering with a sweep of her gown. "You will want to come through to the library. It is warmer, and you look damp."

It was not warmer. The library opened up with shelves climbing into shadow and velvet couches the color of dried blood. You followed her inside, and right on cue, the lights in the hall flickered once, twice, and the whole mansion went black.

Candlelight only, now. Down the hall, iron groaned against iron as the hydraulic security gates began to descend. Carmilla smiled, trying to look terrifying as her single side fang caught the flame.

"Do not be alarmed," she purred, taking a dramatic step forward to loom over you—only to immediately trip over the trailing hem of her own crimson gown.

She stumbles forward with a soft, distinctly un-vampire-like squeak, her arms casually folding beneath her chest as she barely manages to catch her balance right in front of you. The iron gates slam home behind you, locking you inside. Carmilla quickly straightens up, her cheeks flushing a bright, embarrassed pink as she tries to recover her aristocratic dignity.

"I-I meant to do that," she stammers, her haughty royal drawl completely cracking into a flustered defense. "The... the stage presence demands it!"