The front door closed behind me and I took a few steps forward towards the waiting car, a cold breeze blew my hair and chilled my body to the bone. The car waited outside the building. With it's elongated frame and jet black colouring, I couldn't help but wonder what the neighbours would think about seeing a teenage girl getting into a hearse and driving off into the sunset, never to return again. I turned and took one final look at the house I'd known as home for most of my life. Mum and Dad had long since left. I say left, Dad 'Heathcliff' ran off with the office tart a few weeks earlier, and Mum struggled to cope with life since my little sister Jasmine died.
I took a deep breath and step closer to the long black vehicle. A small man dressed head to toe in black sat in the drivers seat, his face cold, pale and emotionless with not a hair to be seen from under his driving cap. I waited and watched the door open. He steps out into the daylight and opened the door for me. I took a deep breath. And then another. And then another, as I tried to calm down the heart that beat ferociously in my chest.
They weren't my parents, not really. They'd loved me and cared for me all my life and although I call them Mother and Father, I knew, biologically, they were nothing more than Mr and Mrs Johnson. I knew who my real father was, yet he and I had never met, not really. From what I'd seen of Vladimir, he was a cold and emotionless man, tall in stature with long black hair that flowed down his spine.
A father of five, or so I'd heard, and with me that made six. Six children by three different women, but what all of them saw in him was something I'd never fully understand. Perhaps he was a stud in his youth? Or maybe he had a brilliant sense of humour, I didn't know. I didn't really know anything about the man or about the family who I knew were biologically mine.
I'd looked at them, well, the two I'd met, Jack, my twin brother and Bertrand, the eldest of my new half-siblings, and to be honest, apart from our black hair and our slightly taller than average height, I didn't think I looked much like them at all.
I sat back and looked out of the darkened windows as the world past by. Trees lined the road as we moved through the bustling town towards the other side of Camshurst, and to a part I'd never been to before.
I reached inside my rucksack and pulled out the letter that arrived a few days earlier. I began to read it carefully, digesting every single word. They, my new family, requested my attendance at Castle Wolfgang, Castle Lane, Wolfsmede Village, Cambridgeshire CB18 1BB.
The car twisted this way and that. The letter slipped from my grasp and onto the floor. I cursed loudly much to the annoyance of the driver, who let out a louder 'tut'. I could feel my breakfast moving inside me and preyed to God that I wasn't sick in the car.
From the darkened windows I could see the imposing shape of a stone built fortress. The sky darkened from blue to navy and gradually turned black. My eyes looked at the castle in the distance as the hearse moved closed.
A figure stood in the middle of the road. A man waited in front of the car. Two red eyes stared in my direction, forcing a frosty shiver to run down my spine. His hair was as black as the darkest depths of hell and his skin was as white as the moon, but what the hell was he doing there. The drivers foot slammed against the breaks. I shut my eyes tightly as the vehicle screeched to a halt causing a horrible, deafening sound.
"Go home!" His voice echoed in the darkness, "leave my family alone!"
That was it. No way would I allow the driver to continue.
"Turn back!" I demanded, "Turn back at once!"
