“Devil worship?” Anka chuckled. “Humans and their little tales of terror.” She pointed to two iron gates on either side of the skulls and bones. “What is beyond these gates?”

“These are what makes this place so perfect for you, Madam. These gates give you access to the entire Paris catacomb system.”

Anka grinned. The ancient quarries underneath Paris were shored up by six million skulls and bones, taken from the nearby overflowing graveyard, after cave-ins started to happen in the late 1700s. She shivered slightly as she thought of all that energy coming from the dead, disturbed from their original resting places.

“This is perfect, Asha. You have outdone yourself.”

Asha bowed his head. “Now you have the perfect place to commune with our master.”

“Indeed I will.”

* * *

The next morning Daisy woke up with a banging sore head and an equally sore bite mark. She wandered to the bathroom and got two painkillers from the bathroom cabinet. Daisy poured a glass of water and swallowed them down quickly.

She wetted a facecloth and held it to her bite mark. Daisy hissed as the cold water met the angry, fiery hot wound. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw how tired she looked.

“You look awful.”

Daisy couldn’t remember falling asleep. The notebook extract that she had witnessed just morphed into her dreams. So when she did wake up, it was like she’d been in an emotional wringer.

All Daisy could think about was going to Victorija. But was that because of the deep biological need their blood bond had given her, or because of her ancestor’s plea for her to help Victorija? How she could help a bloodthirsty vampire, she didn’t know. Daisy got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast with her granny.

After the meal, Daisy asked if they could go for a walk together. There was a beautiful wooded area not far from the house. Daisy wanted to talk to her granny. She needed to make sense of what was happing to her.

Twigs crunched underfoot as they walked arm in arm in the forest. Daisy’s Debrek minders, Owen and Trista, were not too far behind them.

“I wish you didn’t have to go home today,” her granny said.

“I know.” Daisy sighed. “But I have to get back to work at the tailor’s. Amelia was good enough to let me have time off to film at the Fire Festival. I’m meeting my friends to get the train after lunch.”

Her grandmother squeezed her arm. “I’m going to be worried about you the whole time. Will you phone me at every point in your journey?”

“Yes, Granny, but I’ll be fine. I’ll have my friends and my two vampy bodyguards back there.”

“Not your friends nor even your vampire bodyguards could keep you safe from a born vampire like Victorija Dred.”