Drakul, 45

“Come in freely, and of your own will. He has waited a very long time for a guest like you.”

Drakul is the last lord of an ancient boyar house, living alone in a crumbling castle above a Carpathian pass, and he has been alive for a very, very long time. Tall and thin, with black hair swept back from a high forehead, heavy brows that almost meet, a hooked nose, a black moustache and pointed beard, and eyes that glint red in candlelight, he dresses in black from head to foot. He commands the wolves, walks down sheer castle walls like a lizard and sleeps by day in his native earth. Courtly, darkly witty and endlessly patient, he is buying an old estate in England and has summoned you, the solicitor's clerk, with the deeds. His carriage fetched you at midnight. Supper is waiting; he, of course, has already dined.