Prologue

Julia ... she said her name was Julia.

The image of her standing in front of my desk still burns in my mind. One look at her face, and I knew right away she was not human. But there she was with those gray eyes - those piercing bright eyes upon me, framed by her beautiful wavy auburn hair.

Somehow she knew my inner thoughts, my secret plans, and my fears. I could tell she did.

Then she spoke. Her voice was soft as a whisper and somehow captivated all my senses; that accent of hers was European, no doubt. Her English was perfect, but that little trace of Georgian accent remained, giving her away in an elegant way, almost intimate.

I was tired. The day had started very early, and I hadn't eaten, like I usually did since leaving the publishing company to open my own. Life had settled into this pattern: skipping meals, long hours, and not much of anything else.

I looked at her right hand. Her soft skin was too white. She was not wearing any rings, just an expensive watch-Cartier. Then I noticed the black laptop bag slung over her right shoulder. On her left hand, she was holding a leather backpack.

"I want you to take a good look at this," she said, placing the bag and the backpack on my desk.

She moved with care, neither too fast nor too slow, making sure my full attention was on the two items. I dared to look at her eyes again. They spoke to me. I felt the urge to run out of my own office, but I couldn't move. I wanted to stay and get closer to her. My eyes moved down her silky-skinned thin white neck to take in her beautiful blue dress. Everything about her was perfect, and yet never before had I felt so much fear.

Then suddenly, my attention was on her face: Almost no makeup. She looked so stunningly fresh and young-twenty-one years old, or perhaps twenty-two?

Her jawline moved as she spoke, and the only thing I could think of were those pink lips of hers. I followed their movement like in slow motion, understanding every word like as if they were the very first words I had ever heard in my life. Something about "the most important story of my career," about me making sure it gets published, making sure the world knows.

"One last thing," she said from her position. "All the credit must go to Kamille Blackwell."

I nodded without knowing why.

Then everything stopped. There was no time, no other sound inside my head, but her voice and that name-Kamille Blackwell.

Slowly, she moved backward, looking for the darkest place in the room. Then she turned her head toward the glass window to look outside.

"Let everyone who cares read his story," she said softly, staring out at the night.

Julia. She said her name was Julia.

I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, and when I opened them, I was alone again, sitting in front of my desk. I looked at my computer monitor; the digital clock showed it was 8:09 p.m. The framed pictures of my kids sat next to the stapler. My eyes rested on the laptop bag and the leather bag. "She's gone," I found myself saying out loud in a sad voice. I looked toward the office window, then toward the door, noticing that they were closed. I never heard her coming in or leaving.

Somehow I knew that I would never see her again.

10:30 p.m.

I couldn't get enough of what I was reading. I passed my fingers over the notebook covers. The engraved details were remarkable, the vintage pages, the odor of old ink, the handwriting.

I opened the first volume for the third time and reread the first entry: "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did." It was a simple sentence; yet it carried so much meaning, strength, and truth.

I read about a man, a Gypsy, about the places he had traveled and people he had met, dates and specific thoughts. I read about the night, about blood, thirst, and immortality. I browsed over words, full sentences, and entire paragraphs written in Spanish and Portuguese, or maybe both, then in French, and later in English.

Is this a joke?

I knew what I saw in my office was real. She was real, and I understood why all my senses told me to run away from her. It was my primal fear picking up on the sense of danger, the possibility of certain death.

"Vampires?"

I read the sentence again: "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did."

I closed my eyes, realizing that in order to go on, I at least had to consider the possibility that what I was about to learn was, in fact, true.

I opened another volume out of more than a dozen inside the leather backpack. I studied the cover. It was dark blue with the word Journal engraved in a golden font.

There was another sentence handwritten in the first page: "Insouciant sui generis." Next to it was the name Kamille, and then in the bottom-right corner, "Munich 1903."

I flipped the pages and realized I couldn't understand what I was reading. German-the entire notebook was written in German, during the years 1902 to 1907.

I found my way to the laptop. The desktop screen contained only one folder named "Gate." I double-clicked on it, and a series of word documents were revealed to me. I opened all of them and read them over and over. I couldn't stop. What I was experiencing was both incredible and frightening. There I was, reading in first person this Gypsy's words, his thoughts, and his confession.

It has been more than six months since I read his journals, and I still can't believe it. I have cross-checked places and names. Some of them do check out. Others are dubious due to the absence of public records lost to wars or/and acts of God.

From all the entries I could, and will, publish, I believe the ones you're about to read are the most faithful to that first entry from the first journal. I will do the transcript word by word.

The following will challenge your senses and beliefs, but it doesn't matter whether at the end you believe it or not. What matters is that there was once a man who became more than a man, and there was once a woman who forever haunted his dark heart.

The woman's name was Kamille Blackwell, and the credit is all hers.

Gadriel Demartinos, New York, March 13, 2011