How, in the name of all accursed things, had Abraham managed this? Dracula could smell the blood--not purely Abraham's, but clearly the blood of that infuriating man's kin. It infested the walls of this house. She lived here, the mysterious child of the hunter's bloodline. The air was redolent with the scent of her. Her heart beat steadily at least one room away, perhaps two, if the rooms were small. He could take her, easily, if he wished ...
... or he could have, if not for the thrice-damned magic that bound his very essence. Dracula swore again in his native tongue, a long diatribe that told Abraham, absent though he was, exactly what he and his descendants could do with themselves, preferably with a long fall off of a cliff sealing their fate before they went into the Devil's arms.