INTRODUCTION:
The corpse was pale white, just as the rest. Red pin-pricks on its neck were the only signs of injury, and a tell-tale sign of the culprit. The police were baffled, of course, much like they had been with the rest of the serial killer's victims, and in their ignorance they rejected all help that I could give.
My name is Professor Abraham Van Helsing, MD, D.Ph., D.Litt, etc. I consider myself an expert in many things, but most relevantly I am an expert in Romanian folklore—and Romanian folklore gave me an identity for our culprit: Vampire.
Were I to go back to that day, I would have left it to that. I would have told the police my theory, and I would have simply walked away once it had been rejected. It would have spared me from so much. Fool that I was, though, I took things in my own hands. This is the story of how I hunted the vampire, and was hunted in turn.
CHAPTER 1
In Which I Pursue the Vampire; the Hunter Becomes the Hunted; and the Unlikely Encounter that Ensued
The streets of London were foggy, I remember, the moonlight shining from above as the lamplighters set upon their work. Most of the effort put into tracking was uneventful, so I won't bore you with it; what is important is what happened once I found the trace of the vampire. At first I thought it to be a couple having a late-night rendezvous in an alleyway their lips caressing their lover's neck, and when I saw said lover struggle I feared that I was the witness to an assault; the truth was much darker, however, as what I had stumbled into was a predator devouring its prey.
At this point it is important for me to describe the vampire, for that quickly became frighteningly relevant. At first glance it seemed a shapely young ${What is the vampire's apparent gender? ex. man/woman} with thick black hair, but the pallid skin and pointed ears betrayed its undead nature.
Its victim dropped to the ground as the vampire released its grip, and I found myself face to face with a predator.