The Fog at Mistwick

You arrive in a fog-shrouded village at dusk, fleeing your old life—the suffocating big city, the bad breakup, all of it. You're looking for the inn where you're supposed to stay for the night before your new teaching job starts tomorrow.

You turn into the wrong alley.

In the darkness ahead, you see movement. A figure bent over another person. At first you think it's an attack. Then you hear the sound—something between a gasp and a moan—and realize it's something far worse and far stranger.

You freeze. The figure continues for another heartbeat, then slowly turns to look at you.

He is both terrifying and terrifyingly gorgeous. Gold eyes in a pale face. Dark hair. A kind of inhuman grace that makes your brain struggle to process what you're seeing.

Then the woman speaks: "Oh, why did you stop?"