Towers of spider-haunted mystery

Marble scraping on marble breaks the silence as the lid of the sarcophagus slowly slides off. A chill rises from the soil within and contaminates the air of the noble bedchamber. Samuel kneels when his lordship arises from his grave. 'More of your kin have been slain, my lord,' he croaks. Silence overtakes the room again until, finally, the vampire's voice pierces through the darkness like a whetted blade: ' Quel dommage ... none of the well-mannered ones, I hope?'  The hunchback averts his gaze to the cold floor before he answers: 'Your niece, Odile, and Marcel, the one who is...  was always hungry.' With an aristocratic gait the undead lord steps out of his resting place and, from a richly decorated cabinet, takes a carafe and pours a red liquid into a small, façon de Venise wine glass. Having once been of noble birth, any emotion left inside his rotting heart is carefully concealed as he replies: 'They deserve their rest, je suppose , but it should ...