Page 8 of After Darkness Falls

It didn't feel like the sort of place that should be disrupted by…by what, exactly? People?

"Yes, here. Let's go."

The conductor opened the doors for them while the rest of the train remained locked.

"Thank you, Louis."

"Always a pleasure, Mr. De Villier."

And on that note, the man closed the doors and the train was gone, leaving them in the Scottish wilderness. The landscape was so beautiful she almost didn’t care that she was freezing her tits off. Almost.

Eyes in the distance, Chloe couldn't stop looking at these hills, this lake. There was something about them.

"Interesting," said Levi.

"What?"

He extended a gloved hand, inviting her to take it.

"Your eyes."

For a wild moment, she thought he was paying her a compliment. Before she had the sense to blush, he added, "Strangers normally need to be shown the way. You seem to have a good sight."

Oh. He was complimenting her…eyesight?

Strangely, that made more sense than his saying she had pretty eyes. Chloe was cute, but next to him, she looked like a charming fluffy gremlin.

"Yeah," she replied with an awkward chuckle, feeling foolish for thinking he might have been flirting. "Twenty-twenty."

He laughed.

"Come on through."

Levi took one step, and she had to take two to follow him. Midway through her second, a strange sensation made her shiver, as if she'd passed through a waterfall. Chloe closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw a paved road and a fancy sports car parked right in front of them. Miles away, those hills were still there, but now houses were on them; large, imposing state houses that all seemed to rival Buckingham Palace.

The most imposing edifices were the castle built at the foot of the hill and the house right on top. The former couldn't be called a house at all; it was a fort with numerous towers and surrounded by high walls. The latter was a tall mansion, black as night and shimmering in the distance.

"Welcome to Oldcrest. Come, I'll give you a ride."

4

The Institute

Levi dropped her off in front of the castle at the foot of the hill before driving to the summit. She wondered if he owned the black house. That would certainly fit his persona.

Chloe expected to feel somehow inadequate when she entered the stylish, antique castle. Meticulously carved out of white stone, with ornate windows and wooden doors with iron bolts, the Institute looked ancient—a new concept to someone from the States. She was starting to get used to it after a couple of days in England, though.

While she'd been suitably impressed by the Tower of London and Big Ben, the Institute distinguished itself by also being surrounded by strange open lands that suited it to a T. London landmarks were beautiful pieces of history preserved in a vibrant, modern city. From what she'd seen of Oldcrest so far, everything here was antediluvian. She wasn't surprised to find that her phone had zero network bars.

Among a sea of olden fixtures, from an actual moat with a drawbridge around the castle to high city walls and the guard tower, one fortification distinguished itself. It seemed not only old but also unnervingly unnatural. The gates. They weren’t the kind of thing one might have found on a normal fortress—if such a thing existed. The gates at the end of the drawbridge were made of a material Chloe just couldn't identify. It couldn't be glass—it seemed too shiny, too precious—and she sure as hell hoped it wasn't diamond, because if so, the two twenty-foot-high doors could buy an entire planet. The water of the moat was reflected on the shiny surface, but Chloe couldn't see herself through it.

She hesitated. Something told her these weren’t the kind of gates one simply pushed.

"You walk through them."

She turned to find a woman standing right behind her.

She was a knockout. Ebony hair, long limbs, deep eyes, and ochre skin.Chloe couldn't help herself; she checked her out from her high, block heel boots to the tips of her slick hair. She wore fitted brown leather—not skintight, but still clutching at her every curve.

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