Tires crunched on gravel, then stopped. John lifted his chin and looked out the passenger side window. Bellbroke Castle. God, it looked more decrepit up close than in Kyung-Jin's photos. The castle was little more than half a wall and the crumbling remains of two ancient turrets that faced the cliff and the sea beyond. Sometime in the early 1800s, the Third Baron Kilcomb built a sprawling modern (for the time) mansion on the old castle grounds for use as a seaside vacation home. After World War I, King George V stripped Bellbroke Castle away from the Sixth Baron as punishment for attempting to collaborate with the Central Powers.

The castle and its surrounding buildings lay abandoned for a couple of decades until an up-and-coming Hollywood star decided to buy it to use as—what else?—a vacation home. But sadly, the poor bloke was killed in a car crash and all work stopped.

"We could just go back to Valmar, sir," Kyung-Jin said, noticing John's furrowed brow.

John shook his head. "No." They both knew that leaving Valmar was the best course of action. Brighton was getting too crowded for his liking. Bellbroke was quiet and secluded; the majority of Chepstow-on-the-Sea residents were pushing sixty or more and unlikely to bother him. He could stay here, undisturbed for a century or more.

It was easier up north, in Wales and Scotland. Other Knowing didn't have to pack up and shuffle off to new locations in their territory every fifty years. They didn't have to go through the hassle of crafting new names, and new backstories, or have their staff spend weeks hacking into databases to change information. Sometimes John thought that immortality was more of a hassle than it was worth—and he was only 118 years old. Others of his kind were twice or three times that age.

Kyung-Jin nodded, opened the door to the black Rolls Royce, and got out, smoothing her black dress as she did. John exited the car and pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his beige jacket pocket, putting them on. He didn't need them, but he liked the look.

As he stepped around to the front of the car, Kyung-Jin stood behind it, waving to the caravan of moving vans and work trucks. Five more cars pulled up next to the Rolls Royce and the rest of his staff climbed out. While they gathered around Kyung-Jin, awaiting orders, John stuffed his hands into the pockets of his white slacks and took off down a short overgrown path toward the main house.

The mansion was built of grey stone, likely hewn from a nearby quarry. It was built in a rough inverted "L" shape, with the front door located at the bottom of the letter. This part of the house, where the lord of the manor lived, reached three stories in height. John paused by one of the clouded windows, bare of even curtains, and studied his reflection in the dirty glass: long face, aristocratic nose, short dark blond hair that looked brown in certain situations. Behind the sunglasses, his eyes were dark blue. Thankfully, his various transformations had eliminated the famous sleepy look inherited by his father and brothers.

Then again, he barely resembled his father and brothers anymore.

Well.

Turning away from the window, John continued his slow walk. The floors of the manor gradually dipped from three to two and at the very top of the "L", only a single floor for the staff. A hundred yards away was a stone barn with a dilapidated paddock and beyond that was a massive, overgrown garden.

John paused, resting a hand on the lichen-encrusted wall of the barn. Snippets of memories flashed behind his eyes: a garden such as this, a young boy with his dutiful nanny in tow, and a handful of local children brought in to play.

Hm.

Tucking his hands into his pockets, John pivoted in the opposite direction and walked back to the main house.

"Everything going smoothly, Kyung-Jin?" he asked his housekeeper.

Kyung-Jin nodded and waved at a mover carrying a box of the cook's pots and pans. Just then, another van pulled up bearing the name of a gas and plumbing company. Three men in grey overalls and logo polo work shirts approached them. Kyung-Jin called over Lynn, the cook, and directed the men towards the kitchen.

John watched them enter the house and pulled off his sunglasses, cleaning them with his sleeve. This wasn't the best way to move his household, but he wanted to get out of Brighton as soon as possible. When Kyung-Jin returned and said that Bellbroke would do, he purchased the castle right then and there. The former owners had performed minimal upkeep to the manor, so hopefully, any problems they encountered could be fixed quickly. He had all the time to make any necessary renovations.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," John told Kyung-Jin. The housekeeper nodded distractedly and pulled her phone out of her back pocket. Letting Kyung-Jin deal with whatever issue had arisen, John tucked his sunglasses into his jacket pocket and went inside.

One of the workers had propped the front door open with an iron statue of a lion. Like the gates, the old beast was chipped in places and nearly completely rusted. Strangely, but somewhat fittingly, the lion appeared to be wearing a little crown.

John's lips twitched and he leaned down to give the old statue a pat on the head.

The heavy oak door opened into a sparse, but large foyer with a rolled-up rug tucked into one corner and several cloth-draped pieces of furniture shoved up against a wall. Flowery wallpaper, cracked and stained with age, showed the outlines of long-removed paintings. An old light fixture in the shape of a blooming lily hung upside down above where one of the paintings sat.

John's eyes flickered up and down, noting all the repairs that needed to be made. This could get expensive relatively fast, he thought wryly. But he couldn't back out now. Valmar was gone, sold to some American businessman, so this was it.

He paused at the stairs that led to the upper levels—ones that he would occupy. The rest of the staff had their own quarters at the other end of the manor. John briefly considered looking at the state of the kitchen, but the men from the gas and plumbing company were already hard at work. Running his index finger along the curved banister, he pulled it away to reveal a thick layer of dust. Maybe it was time to hire more staff, he mused, walking up the stairs. Most Knowing had dozens of servants to take care of their mansions, but John had always had a small, dedicated lot with him over the years—a carryover from his younger, human days.

Then again, he'd always been rather picky when choosing servants. The call of immortality was strong and it tended to attract the wrong kind of people. Of course, if you worked for a vampire, it wasn't a guarantee that you would get turned into a servant, anyway. Most of his staff came from Axel De Villepin's household—the French vampire who had saved him and eventually sponsored him to the Masters.

Currently, he employed two full humans—one of Cook's assistants, a young girl named Jillian, and a twenty-five-year-old man named Dean who was training under Kyung-Jin. Jillian had promise, but Kyung-Jin wasn't too sure about Dean. The man, she said, was a little too eager to be turned into a servant.

Well, they'd see how everything worked out at Bellbroke. At the moment, John had a manor to explore.