Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On a scale of 1 to 10 of how bad the day was going, Naib would give it a What The Actual Fuck.

And he would still fall short.

As many bad things in life did, everything had started two weeks go, with an email that looked like spam:

To: Naib Subedar
From: Oletus Blood Bank, Inc.
Sent: Friday, November 12th, 19:24
RE: Congratulations!

Dear Mr. Subedar,

From the Blood Bank administration, we are elated to let you know how your generous blood donation helped a very important patient who urgently needed a very specific transfusion. The family of the now recovering patient wants to show you their gratitude by inviting you to their manor, located on a beautiful island in the north of England.

We are aware that our blood donors are financially compromised, which is why we offer a generous reward for your donations. In this case, the client kindly let us know that they will reward you with more than you could ever imagine, should you accept their invitation. We really recommend you pay them a visit. All the information is in the following file:

[Link]

Thank you for trusting Oletus Blood Bank, Inc.

Have a bloody day!

After reading the text, Naib opened the link with a curious hum, and scrolled down the page, which showed a beautiful, traditional british village full of small, adorable houses, pubs, a citadel, and a big manor that looked almost like a castle. 

Was he supposed to think that the owner of that place wanted to see him... and give him cash?

He looked around the office, and when he confirmed that his boss and coworkers weren’t paying attention to him, he took out his phone and wrote to the person who had recommended that blood bank to him in the first place:

Naib: [Sent a screenshot] hey, is this real or am I being scammed?

Norton: Not even a hello? </3

Norton: But yeah, you are definitely being scammed. Catfished. Played like a toy. Used like a napkin.

Norton: jk, I’m pretty sure it’s real, congrats for finding a sugar daddy

Naib: Ew shut up

Naib: But doesn’t it sound suspicious? Did you receive something similar when you donated blood there?

Norton: I didn’t, but I know someone else who did, went, and made like 100k extra. This blood bank is very exclusive, the clients love to throw money at the donors, you obviously got very lucky.

Naib: hmm... I don’t think I will go

Norton: didn’t you really need the money, though?

Naib: Yeah, but what if it’s a scam?

Norton: If you are not going I’m taking your place, I will never say no to my beloved¹ (¹Beloved: Money)

Naib: ...I hope you know shit like this is why you are single

Norton: </3

Naib rolled his eyes and put his phone back on the desk. Besides the blood bank message, his inbox was full of complaints from clients who wanted to return the ‘Sweet Intergalactic Bath Bombs’ his company sold, saying that they were expired, not sweet enough (you aren’t supposed to eat them??), made their bathroom explode, or whatever. 

Honestly, he was too focused on the blood bank email to care about sparkly soap.

Two years ago, he used to be one of the best boxing players in New York. That is, until he fought against a brute opponent who ignored the rules and gave him a grave wound on his leg that made him unable to fight again. That’s how his short lived dream ended: at 25 years old.

At least, that's the reason he used to give when noisy people asked why he quit.

After that, he felt like shit for several months, and was forced to find a boring customer support job in order to survive and not end up on the streets. He wanted to go back to boxing, but the operation for his leg was too expensive thanks to America’s inexistent healthcare system (derogative) It simply was not possible.

That’s when Norton -a new hire from the office who had become a close friend- came to him one day, and with a knowing smile that gave him chills, suggested Oletus Blood Bank. 

“You give them your blood, and they pay you extremely well,” he said with confidence. 

Naib didn’t have anything to lose, besides, you know, a bit of blood, so he decided to follow his suggestion.

It was amazing how easy everything was after that. He went to the clinic, wrote down all of his information, they took a picture of him (he wondered why that was necessary), they took his blood, and then gave him a strawberry lollipop and a thousand dollars for basically just sitting there.

It seemed that Norton really was a genius when it came to making easy money. He was a hustler, the sort of guy you would think spends his day posting gym pics on instagram, when in reality Linkedin was his favorite social media. For someone as money-hungry as him, it was a mystery to Naib how he ended up working in a mediocre soap shop.

Either way, Oletus had been a great recommendation, but he would need a lot more than that for the operation, and planned to donate blood again when they allowed him, hopefully in 8 months. The waiting times were crazy.

He looked at the email one last time and decided that he would rather be patient and do things the right way, than follow a dubious promise. He closed the tab and went back to work.

He usually finished his shift at 9pm, but that day he left several hours later because the staff prepared a retirement party for Larry, a sweet old man who had been working at the company for many years. Naib was going to miss the way he greeted everyone with his wrinkled, kind smile.

The party was surprisingly bearable. Karen from accounting even brought a homemade cake that was big, round and blue. ‘It’s bath bomb shaped’ she had proudly informed everyone. When she cut it, the interior was red and sparkly. Naib decided that it tasted like sugar with sugar and a bit more sugar on top of it.

Everyone drank, Campbell flirted with the girls, and Larry gave a heartfelt goodbye speech that Naib suspected he had taken from a Google retirement template. 

(He knew because at the beginning Larry said ‘Introduction - Start with an attention-grabbing story.’)

It was almost midnight when the manager called it a day and everyone was sent home. Naib always took the Subway with Norton at Bedford Park Boulevard station -that’s how they had become friends in the first place-. But when the doors were closing, Larry suddenly joined them, saying that he was too drunk to drive his car. 

“How does it feel to know you won’t have to work tomorrow?” Norton asked. The fucker had drank a lot, but it was impossible to tell because of how sharp and awake he always acted.

Larry laughed at first, but then he contemplated the question for a prolonged time. 

“I’m not sure. Now that it’s over, I feel as if I wasted my life. I achieved nothing, no one awaits me at home.”

He was still smiling when he said that, but his eyes told a very different story. Naib thought that the alcohol must have affected him, since it was uncommon for Larry to be so negative all of a sudden. He wasn’t like that.

“You didn’t waste your life,” He reprimanded. “And even if you did, so what? Now you have time to do what you really want. How old are you? 50?”

“70.”

“You are still young,” Norton complimented at the same time Naib muttered, “You are what?!”

“Bath bombs do wonders for your cutis,” Larry joked with his emblematic customer service voice. Then, he regarded Naib and Norton for a while and whispered. “I’m going to tell you a secret: When I was around your age, the girl I liked asked me to run away with her. She wished to travel the world and open a bakery shop in a small town near a river. She was a dreamer.”

“And what happened?”

“I was too scared to do it. It was a big change and I thought I wasn’t ready. Sometimes I still think about what would have happened if I had the balls. She used to say 'If you don't like where you are in life... Move. You ain't a fucking tree," he laughed and shook his head. “Well, don’t mind me.”

“Larry-”

“Ah, this is mine,” The old man interrupted, pointing at the next stop, Tremont Avenue. He stood up with shaky legs -Naib wasn’t sure if it was because of the alcohol or sadness- and looked at them one last time. “You are still young, don’t be like me, all day dreaming about how I should have done this or that. Regret can break your soul.”

Naib wished he had said something, but when he found the words, the train was already moving to the next stop.

Larry’s absence left an uncomfortable silence, the sort of existential dread that only appears when you think too hard about things you don’t want to think about. Naib hated that feeling and tried to look around to get distracted, there was only a young woman at the other end of the wagon, looking at her phone with sleepy eyes. 

“I love you,” Norton suddenly said.

Naib almost had a heart attack. “What? ” 

“I’m joking, there was a depressive mood going on so I thought it would be funny if I said that.”

“God, can you be normal for once?”

“Pay for my silence or suffer the consequences.”

Naib rolled his eyes and looked at the starless sky. 

“Campbell, do you regret anything?”

“Yeah… Meeting you.”

“Idiot.”

That night, Naib had trouble falling asleep. For once, it wasn’t because of the screaming Italian neighbors, the police sirens, or the cult of rats living in the ceiling. No, the noise that wouldn’t let him find rest came from inside his head. 

In the end, he spent the night watching old videos of himself fighting bigger men and coming out victorious. Replaying the best moments, reading the comments, it was addicting, but the more he watched, the less he recognized his own proud, smiling face in the screen.

When did he change so much...?

On the next day, work was as lovely as always.

“Subedar, someone threw 30 bath bombs in their toilet and clogged the sewage system of an entire town. I think we are being sued. Please answer them before I kindly go to their house and drown them in their bathtub,” begged a stressed coworker.

“Sure, sure.”

He was so tired of everything.

He couldn't stop thinking about what Larry said. What if he ended up achieving nothing in his life? What if he was missing a big opportunity because he was too scared to take that step? 

Naib bit the back of his pen. He used to be brave, fight men who doubled him in size, take risks... What had happened to him? He hadn't seen his family in two years because he didn't want to look at the disappointment in his mother's face, it was pathetic.

With a sigh, he opened a new window on his computer and cringed when he saw that the word 'BATH BOMB' was trending all over the place because of how stupid and surreal the whole toilet incident was. If he wanted to fix this mess, he first needed to check the full scope of this drama, but before he delved more into it, his eyes travelled to a smaller headline on the right side of the website:

'A 70-year-old man allegedly died by suicide by jumping in front of a suburban train in Tremont Avenue. The tragedy happened last night at...'

Naib stared at that headline for several seconds, unblinking, forgetting how to breath because he had an awful, chilling feeling about this. 

It was just a coincidence, right?

"Guys, can you stop working for a moment?" their manager asked, taking him out of his stupor and making everyone pay attention at her unusual sad expression. "I'm afraid I've got some bad news…”

When the words 'Larry died' left her lips, Naib was already outside of the office, going home.

On the next day, he didn't go to work either, but he found time to speak with Campbell.

Naib: Okay, I will go

Naib: but if it’s all a scam and I’m murdered and thrown in a ditch it will be your fault

Norton: Oh, please, in a ditch? be more creative, what if they throw you in a basement and seductively drink all of your high quality blood? 

Naib: That would suck

Norton: Quite literally haha get it?

Naib: Awful. Cringe. I pray to the gods that you are uncomfortable for the rest of the day, miserable even. 

Norton: Why? Is it because you want to take care of me and nurse me back to health? to show me love and tenderness? It's ok. I know.

[You have been blocked by Naib Subedar for the next hour]

Norton laughed at that, and got scolded by his boss. Apologizing for the interruption, he stood up and left the office, saying that he had to make an important call.

Once he made sure that he was alone in the corridor, he called an unknown number.

“It’s me,” Norton said, in a cold tone that had nothing to do with the casual energy he emanated during the chat with Naib. “Make sure to check your inbox, you will receive good news soon. Yeah, the one he requested will come.” 

Norton stared outside the window as he talked. The glass showed no reflection.

He had to admit it: his real job was amusingly easy. Money would make anyone take the most dangerous and illogical risks. Norton knew that more than anyone, that’s why the Oletus Blood Bank company never failed. That’s why Naib, despite being a rather cautious man, hadn’t been an exception, like all the people who had accepted the offer before him.

He smiled smugly.

'Poor thing, he can’t even run properly.'

"Why Subedar, though?" Norton asked before ending the call, his interest picked. "The quality of his blood isn't good, I can tell by his smell. He is just an insecure ex-athlete who fell into disgrace and now sells soap. He is useless compared to our other candidates."

The voice at the other side of the phone laughed. "Our boss wouldn't agree with you. He thinks Mr. Useless is the only one who can break his curse."

That day, in a gloomy town in England, Aesop Carl received good news.

Naib and Aesop had absolutely nothing in common. If a british serial killed murdered them, the police would struggle to form a connection between the two victims: They didn't know each other, lived in different ends of the Atlantic Ocean, had opposite personalities, hobbies and looks, but if the police worked harder and researched their recent activity, they would finally find a clue that associated them: Both had been Oletus Blood Bank donors.

And even more, Aesop got the same email as Naib. Exactly identical. Word per word. The only thing that changed was his name on the top.

If Aesop had known that it was the same message, he would have quickly realized that it was a scam, a trap. A copy-pasta that was sent to a few doomed souls. Unfortunately, he believed it and quickly replied with the confirmation of his presence at the manor.

Why would he do that? Simple: he was desperate. He needed the money—he couldn’t stand living with his adoptive father anymore. 

Jerry Carl had always been a cold and methodic man. Aesop never minded —he himself wasn’t a particularly warm person anyway— but Jerry had grown older, and with age his personality and temperament became worse, making him prone to break into violent fits. 

Maybe people were right, and working with corpses really turned morticians insane, to the point he had tried to hurt clients (living ones) and even his own adopted son.

One day, a high profile man died and her family hired the Carl Funeral Services to take care of the ceremony and burial. They gave Jerry a huge sum of money, more than Aesop had ever seen in his life, to organize a perfect departure.

Jerry had been overwhelmed with work, and Aesop did his best to help and make sure the funeral was perfect (there were more than 100 attendants, a concert held by a popular celebrity, and a buffet with caviar, how?) but when the day came and they picked up the coffin to bring it to the main room, Aesop tripped and, well...

The corpse didn’t get any injuries nor imperfections, but he got slapped by his disappointed dad, who left a noticeable purplish bruise on his cheek.

After that, they picked up the coffin again and kept walking without another word being said.

During the ceremony, Aesop stood in a corner trying to calm his frustration, telling himself that Jerry didn’t really mean to slap him: he was just stressed and for a good reason. Still, he couldn’t help but feel deeply upset. He did his job as expected, listened to the familiars mourn, and became one with the wall. It was at that moment when one of the visitors -he assumed it must be a coworker or acquaintance of the deceased, but not family because he didn’t look sad at all- approached him with a curious smile.

“Aren’t you too young to work here?” the man asked with a slight french accent. He was tall, blond and impeccably dressed, like a model.

‘Seriously, is he flirting at a funeral?’ Aesop thought, unsure.

“I’m 21, and it’s a family business,” he replied, dry.

“I see, following in your father’s footsteps,” the stranger nodded. “The choice of flowers is very thoughtful, I can tell it was you who did it. You are talented.”

Ah. Aesop usually never received praise from his work, the clients usually were too busy crying to appreciate the corpse’s makeup or the meaning of flowers, so his opinion on this man increased a bit.

“Thank you,” he replied with a small smile.

That seemed to be the right answer, judging by the way the corners of the stranger’s lips lifted in satisfaction. Then, his eyes went to his bruised cheek, and his smile became calculative. 

“Still, it’s such a loss that someone this young deals with death every day. If you ever want to make some extra money and start anew, you should look up Oletus Blood Bank. They are always looking for donors like you, and pay extremely well.”

After that unusual suggestion, the stranger and him talked a bit more about other topics. Well, more like the stranger, who introduced himself as Joseph Desaulniers, talked and Aesop nodded from time to time.

In the end, his mood lifted and the ceremony was a success. That night, Jerry cooked his favorite dish, and Aesop knew the man felt regretful for what he did. He internally smiled and told himself that Joseph was wrong. He didn’t need a change of profession, he was fine here.

A few days later, Jerry had another violent fit that ended up with Aesop going to the hospital and having to explain to several unconvinced nurses that he had fallen off the stairs.

On his way home, he typed the website of Oletus Blood Bank on his phone and made an appointment.

They got in contact with him in no time and politely asked him to visit a nearby center. He had never donated blood before, so his idea of a Blood Bank was a Red Cross van or tent in the middle of a park, nothing fancy, typical of the small ghost town he lived in, that's why he got pretty intimidated when he reached Oletus' center and found out that the building looked like a 5-star hotel.

He approached the impeccably decorated gold and red reception awkwardly and told the lady his name. The woman, who was all smiles and white teeth, typed his name in the computer and, after reading something, her lips formed a perfect 'oh' that worried Aesop.

"Is everything okay?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," she assured as she grabbed the phone. "Mr. Desaulniers recommended you, is that right?" Aesop nodded, confused. "Lovely, my coworker will take care of everything from now on."

After that, a different woman with even whiter teeth came and asked him basic information. He had been nervous at first, wondering if Joseph somehow told them about him. Maybe he was an important client or worked there, he didn't know. Either way, his worries ended up being unfounded. The whole process was comfortable and everyone was very kind to him. They even offered him a cab ride back home.

He earned a lot of money from a single donation. It was ridiculous, he had barely done anything. Joseph had been right. Well, rich people didn’t become rich for no reason, he guessed.

But now, he received an email. His blood helped a client and he wanted him to go to his manor so he could give him a reward? How lucky could he be?

With a racing heartbeat, Aesop realized that if he went, he might be able to have enough money to rent his own flat, away from the hell he was living in.

He appreciated and admired Jerry, he really did, but he needed to get away from there.

If he only knew that he was about to enter another, worse kind of hell.

By the end of the day, both men had confirmed their attendance, unaware that they had sold their souls to a group of delighted vampires.

Two weeks later, Naib took a plane with the ticket he had been sent by the Oletus company, and once he landed in England and picked up his luggage, he met a man named Eli Clark, who had been waiting for him at the arrivals terminal with a white cardboard that had ‘Naib Subedar :)’ written on it.

Standing next to Eli, there was a guy with silver hair and a low ponytail who stared at Naib with confusion.

Eli introduced himself as their guide and asked them to follow him to an impressive, navy blue car.

“I hope the flight wasn’t too shaky,” Eli commented as he drove, following absolutely none of the traffic rules. He was young and casual, with brown messy hair and blue eyes. Hanging from the visor, there was a keychain of a cute owl. “This time of the year there are many storms, you got lucky!”

“Yeah, it was a walk in the park!” Naib lied. The fucking plane had shaken like crazy. He hated those horrendous flying machines. The flight attendant had to give him green tea, then vodka, and then an aspirin to calm him down. 

But no one needed to know that.

"Excuse me...” Aesop muttered, talking for the first time since they entered the car, and looking between Naib and Eli. Unlike them, he was seated at the back. “I wasn’t aware that someone else had been invited.”

Naib had thought that Aesop was another guide, but apparently he was a guest too? He looked at Eli with confusion written all over his face.

“Oh, yeah! Naib, this is Aesop. Aesop, this is Naib,” He said with an easy smile. He had a calming aura that made the new experience less nerve-wracking. “The boss has two sons with a very uncommon illness. They needed different types of blood for the transfusion, and it happened to be yours.”

Naib and Aesop hummed.

“I don’t know a lot about blood types and all of that, but shouldn’t it be easy to get access to any type with that much money?” asked Naib, cautious. “Like, anyone with B+ could have worked, why would he go so far as to invite us?”

Aesop remained quiet, but he also had the same question.

“That’s because Boss is someone incredibly generous!" said Eli, in a way that felt more like a hilarious inside joke than actual fact. “You will love the town and the manor. Have you seen pictures of how the main residence looks?”

Naib nodded, “Yeah, it reminded me of Lady Dimitrescu’s castle.”

Eli smiled excitedly, “Right?! A man of culture, I see!”

Both of them high-fived while Aesop sighed.

“Who even is Trimidescru...?”

"By the way, what do you do for a living?" Eli asked after a while. He looked like the kind of person who enjoyed small talk.

"I'm in the sanitary business," muttered Aesop, without further explanation. Saying that he worked with corpses always earned him strange looks, so he would rather avoid that in a long car ride. 

It took Naib a bit longer to answer. "I'm a boxer from New York. I usually train in weekdays and fight on weekends." To prove his point, he took out his phone and showed Aesop a youtube video of him fighting. 

Eli turned around for a second and whistled, impressed. "Going against you seems like a nightmare, nice knockouts!"

Aesop nodded in silence. The video Naib showed them was 2 years old based on the description info, so he wondered if the boxer couldn't find a more recent one. Compared to the video, the guy seated in front of him had lost pretty much all of his muscle. He still looked fit, but very different from the proud, strong person he saw on youtube. Maybe he was taking a break?

"One time I tried to do a cool fight move. I jumped from a table and broke my leg," Aesop recalled, grimly.

Eli and Naib laughed as if he had said something hilarious.

After three near death car accidents thanks to Eli’s fucked up driving, they reached the harbor, where a boat of a considerable size awaited. They didn’t even need to get out of the car, Eli drove them inside the storage of the boat.

“I thought he was going to drive us straight to the sea,” Aesop whispered, relieved.

A couple of minutes and apologies from Eli later, the boat sailed.

“The island is a one hour ride from here, and not many residents live there. It’s more like a place where people reunite from time to time to celebrate all sorts of stuff,” he explained. “Now, if you excuse me, I have to make a call. If you are hungry or anything let me know and I will bring you something!”

The moment Eli left the car, Naib and Aesop let out a breath they didn’t know they’d been holding.

“Well, this is happening,” laughed Naib, trying to calm his nerves. Somehow, being inside a stranger’s car, in a new country on his way to an almost-empty island reminded him of how crazy he was for accepting the offer. 

Fucking Norton. If he ended up being kidnapped and getting his organs harvested he was going to haunt him as a ghost.

At least he wasn’t alone. Naib glanced at Aesop from the corner of his eye. The boy seemed to be four or five years younger than him, and was very pretty in a sickly-victorian-kid sort of way (not Naib’s type, though). He hadn’t said a lot during the whole trip, so he guessed Aesop was rather introverted.

Right now, Aesop was looking at his phone with a concerned frown. “There’s no signal,” he said after noticing Naib’s stare.

“Well, we are in the middle of the sea, it’s not that unusual.”

“Hm.”

“...Aesop, right? Have you been donating blood to Oletus for a long time?” He asked, trying to make the situation more casual and less asphyxiating.

The taller boy shook his head. “No, just once. Someone recommended it to me.”

“Oh, me too! An annoying guy told me about it.” Suddenly, Naib’s stomach grumbled. All that vodka, aspirin, and now the rocking of the boat was making his body complain.

“Do you think Eli will have sweets or something here?” he asked, reaching for the glove compartment of the car.

“You shouldn’t touch that, he said he would come back,” Aesop complained, annoyed by Naib’s rude behavior. Americans.

“Come on, he won’t mind, have you seen how chill that guy is?” Naib ignored Aesop and opened the compartment, “you know, like an angel-” 

...A human finger fell out from the compartment over Naib’s lap.

Um. 

What the fuck.

Aesop and Naib stared at the finger in silence for a whole minute.

“Please, tell me it’s fake,” Naib whispered, not daring to move nor touch that thing.

Aesop gulped. “I work with corpses and I’m pretty sure it’s real.”

“You work with corpses?!” Oh fucking God he was going to die.

“I’m an embalmer, and don’t yell! Why is there a severed finger in a car?!”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

“Guys, I’m back!” said Eli, opening the car’s door.

Aesop and Naib screamed. 

(Internally.)

(Aesop had been fast enough to grab and hide the finger, and then the both of them pretended that everything was fine.)

(Considering the turn of events, Naib decided that 1. Eli was definitely not an angel, and 2. If he came back alive from whatever the fuck this was, he was going to kill Norton.)

“Aesop, you look pale, are you feeling alright?” asked Eli with a worried smile, getting in the driver’s seat and closing the door once again. Naib looked at Aesop and internally cussed. The boy was as white as paper.

“I’m fine,” Aesop replied, doing his best to feign boredom as he stared at his phone, probably checking again if there was signal.

There wasn’t. They were trapped on a boat with no way out.

The phone slipped from his shaky hands and fell on the car’s floor with a loud thud. Aesop simply sat there, too shocked to grab it back, like a normal, not scared shitless person would.

Naib closed his eyes. It was impossible that Eli wouldn’t suspect that they knew something was wrong. Aesop looked positively terrified.

Naib expected Eli to suddenly have a change of personality, take out a gun or a knife from somewhere, threaten them, maybe also cut their fingers and kill them, but instead, he turned around, grabbed Aesop’s phone and returned it to him with a comforting, bittersweet smile.

“I have brought drinks, I’m sure you will feel better after you have some sugar,” he said as his eyes landed on the few drops of blood resting on Aesop’s hand from the moment he grabbed the finger. “Just take it easy.”

Aesop nodded obediently and held the drink that was given to him, but he didn’t drink it. He knew better.

Naib was also given a drink, and he considered if he should smash it over Eli’s head, get the fuck out of the car and try to swim back to the land. It was a stormy afternoon, but he was sure that he would be able to make it.

‘On the count of three, I will paralyze him and ask him what the hell is going on,’ Naib told himself.

Despite his shitty leg, he was still a great boxer and could use his hands, he was convinced that Eli wouldn’t stand a chance against him. After all, he knew who Dimitrescu was. He was a gamer.

1...

2...

“Oh, you better not do that,” Eli interrupted, as if he had read his mind. “I’m sorry for the kidnapping, but it’s time for you to go to sleep.”

Before Naib knew what was going on, Eli made a strange movement with his hand and, suddenly, everything started spinning. Naib felt his lungs burn as he fell on his seat, too disoriented to move, too tired to keep his eyes open. Did Eli release some drug in the air? But why wasn’t he affected?

Naib looked behind him, and saw Aesop going through the same dizziness.

The last thing he overheard before passing out was Eli’s frustrated voice:

“I wish I could have shown them the town, at least. I can’t believe the missing finger ended up in the car. I will have to talk with Robbie.”

Naib and Aesop woke up much later at the manor.

Their hands had been tied against their back and their legs were chained to the floor, just like another 18 strangers who were as unfortunate (and stupidly naive) to believe in the scam as them.

Naib’s head hurt a lot from whatever Eli had done to him, and it took him some time to realize that his green hoodie and comfy pants had been changed into black trousers, a white shirt, and a necklace with a red heart.

The place they were retained at was huge and dimly lit. In a way, it reminded him of a lavish cabaret, with them standing at the front, on a mildly elevated podium, while several people dressed in fancy clothes observed them from their tables with snickering smiles.

“What is going on? I want to go home…” cried a woman, doing her best to take off the ropes that tied her arms with no luck. “Who are these people and why aren’t they helping us?!”

Another girl shivered. “Are they going to auction us off? Like the One Direction Wattpad fics?” She was so nervous that she was muttering nonsense at this point.

Aesop was quiet with his eyes tightly shut, doing his best to avoid looking at all the guests in front of them. He hated being stared at by many people and, well, now they were the stars of the show.

But what kind of show?

Naib scowled as he looked at the floor, angry at himself for falling in such an obvious scam. He shouldn’t have come there. It sounded sketchy from the start. Why? Why was this happening to him?

He just wanted to fix his leg...

Suddenly, Aesop gasped as he stared at the crowd with wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Naib asked.

Aesop’s mouth was shut into a thin line. His voice denoted betrayal. “The blond man sitting there... He was the one who recommended Oletus Blood Bank to me.” 

Naib scanned the public until he found the man. He was smiling smugly towards Aesop, obviously aware that he had recognized him. 

He even had the gall to raise his glass of wine towards Aesop and say something. He was too far away for Naib to make out what it was, but he was able to read his lips:

‘Nice to see you.’

Wow, what a sick asshole.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Aesop lamented, voicing out what the 19 other victims stuck in there were thinking. He stopped looking at Joseph, unwilling to entertain the man for a single more second.

Suddenly, a thought crossed Naib’s mind. What if Norton had also lied to him?

He looked frantically at the guests, afraid to see Campbell sitting there in one of the tables, laughing at how innocent Naib had been, but he didn’t find his friend anywhere.

He released a relieved breath. Yeah, it was impossible that Norton was one of them.

Once all the fancy guests had arrived and sat on the several round tables distributed around the room, the only door closed with a loud clank, and Naib started to feel a real sense of claustrophobia. The realization that he might not come out alive from that room ever again was starting to become more than likely.

A deep, alluring voice Naib had never heard in his life interrupted the chatter of the guests, making the room fall silent:

“Dear guests, welcome to Oletus Blood Bank annual charity auction! We are very excited to present the human selection of 2021!”

The man who spoke walked in the room with a wicked smile. He was very tall, wore a top hat and strode around the podium with charismatic and calculated steps. He seemed to hold a position of power given the way everyone went quiet and listened intently.

He stopped behind Naib and put his hands on his shoulders, making him flinch.

“Every year, we, as the best vampire blood provider in the world, pick the donors with the sweetest and tastiest blood from our depository, and sell them to the vampires who are lucky and wealthy enough to buy them.”

His breath hit Naib’s ear, making him shiver. Naib closed his eyes and remained deadly still, despite wanting to punch the man behind himself on the balls. ‘Not now. Wait for a better chance.’ He told himself.

But wait, did he say vampires? What was he talking about? Was it some sort of codename?

In front of him, the guests applauded excitedly, cheering for ‘Jack’, which Naib assumed was the name of the tall man.

Jack nodded satisfyingly at the positive reaction. “This time, I have brought you a wonderful -and unwilling, as always- group of participants. Believe me, it’s the auction of the decade!”

Naib and Aesop exchanged a bewildered look. Did he say auction? Were they really being sold!?

“I fucking knew it!” whispered the One Direction fangirl.

Jack raised his hands from Naib’s shoulders and kept walking around the room. 

“Thanks to your benevolent donations during tonight’s auction, we will ensure that our company keeps providing the best blood in the world, always making sure that humans do not have a single clue about our existence. You know our motto-”

“Blood as fresh as if it came directly from the flesh!” The guests cheered.

The whole situation was so surreal and cult-like that Naib was starting to believe that he had died in a car crash and this was all just a nightmare.

“This is RIDICULOUS!” a man chained on Naib’s left shouted. He was in his late thirties, big front teeth and ridiculous hair. “My name is Freddy Riley and I’m a lawyer. If you don’t stop this nonsense, I will sue Oletus Blood Bank and everyone in this room!”

Naib raised his eyebrows in surprise. That dude had balls to say that while chained. Even he was smart enough to know when to shut up.

“Sue us? How brave, I would love to see that,” Jack provoked with a mocking tone. The guests started laughing.

 “You can laugh all you want! At least I’m not an idiot who believes he is a vampire!!” Freddy retorted, and Christ, Naib really wanted to shut his mouth, he was going to get himself killed.

After the public laughter had subdued, Jack approached them dangerously, but instead of facing Freddy, he stopped in front of Naib, who gulped at the huge height difference. From behind, Jack had casted a strong shadow, but upfront his presence was almost asphyxiating.

“What about you,” he whispered, looking at Naib with a curious smile. “Do you believe in vampires?”

Shit. He only sold overpriced bath bombs, why was this happening to him?

“I don’t,” Naib said, and maybe it came out angrier than he expected. The frustration and unfairness of the whole situation was slowly building up in his heart.

He expected Jack to hit him or kill him right there, but instead, the taller man let out a chuckle and, never taking his eyes away from him, said:

“You can leave, Mr. Riley. You aren’t chained anymore.”

Naib didn’t know when it happened, but it was true, Freddy’s chains had been unlocked.

The lawyer was as confused as him, but he didn’t think twice and started running desperately towards the only door at the end of the room.

He never got out.

In the blink of an eye, the ‘Fancy’ guests jumped over him and started feeding off him with their fangs in the most classical vampire fashion. The more they drank, the faster their eyes turned into a deeper shade of red. Freddy didn’t even have time to scream for help.

Oh, but the rest of the kidnapped people sure screamed in horror at the scene in front of them, begging for their life and shaking their chains in a futile attempt to run away. Naib watched the bloodbath speechless, his brain struggling to process what he was seeing. 

Jack laughed mercilessly, then grabbed Naib by the chin and forced him to look into his crimson eyes.

“You best start believing in vampires, Mr. Subedar... you're captured by one!”

Chapter Text

"Why are these called bath bombs? Do they explode?"

Naib wished they did.

He was working at the shop when a not-very-bright teenager approached and asked him what could be the dumbest question of the day.

"No, sir, that's just their name," he replied with the patience of a saint, also known as customer service voice.

"Really? Then why did my heart explode when I saw you?"

Country roads, take him home.

Naib groaned internally. What the hell?! That pickup line sucked. It sucked so bad he had to tell the guy.

"Hey, I am cringe but I am free," the teen replied proudly, and then proceeded to buy the soap and gift it to him. "Would you like to get a coffee, after you finish your shift?"

"I'm like 10 years older than you," Naib pointed out, he was aware that he was short and looked young, but he wasn't dealing with this. "I could be your dad." 

"My what-"

Well, he might have exaggerated that one.

It worked, though. The boy's eyes widened, clearly surprised, and after a few embarrassed apologies, he left the store equally confused and disappointed.

Naib sighed and stared at the bath bomb. Man, what was he supposed to do with that present? He only had a shower at home.

"Did you get hit on by another teenager?" Campbell asked with a teasing smile, because of course he had to see that.

Naib politely told him to fuck off.

"Hey, cheer up, at least you still got game, even if it's among kids," Campbell joked with an easy smile. "It could be worse, you know?"

Naib doubted it.

A few months ago he was considered a boxing prodigy, a rising star. Now he could barely climb up the stairs without feeling pain in his leg, sold a product he couldn't even use, and got hit on by horny teens. 

"I don't think my life can get any worse than this, actually," he said.

Norton stared at him with a strange spark in his dark eyes, and smiled for no reason. 

"I dunno, man, it can always get worse."

***

"You better start believing in Vampires, Mr. Subedar, you are captured by one!"

Jack had said those chilling words while he was standing tall in front of him, looking at his figure like prey looks at his food which, given their situation, it probably wasn't a metaphor.

The ex-boxer bitterly realized that, yes, his life could indeed become worse.

"The thrill of the hunt," Jack started, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. "-is in our nature, we love the chase, but when was the last time you ran after a screaming human?"

"Back in 1960!" Said a guy that couldn't look over 21.

"I tried in 1897, but almost got caught and had to leave the country!" said another, as if he was reminiscing a very funny memory.

Jack nodded. "Exactly! Back then, it was easy to get away with murder, but the world has changed, we can't be as reckless as we used to be."

He stared at the lifeless body of Freddy to make a point. 

"No one can know we exist, so we stopped hunting, and now we get our food through very clean and legal means," he smiled crookedly. "Isn't that boring?"

The guests' eyes shined with agreement and anticipation, like wolves who hadn't eaten a real meal in years.

"This year, our charity audition won't only sell our stock to the highest bidder. It will also be a beautiful remembrance of those old times."

"W-What does that mean?" asked a human girl in shackles, she was trembling like a leaf.

"Oh, dear," Jack smiled, and waited for a moment to look at all of them. "It means you have 30 seconds to run and hide."

What?

Naib noticed that not only the humans were confused, the vampires' expressions showed surprise as well, but in a much more positive manner. 

They were vibrating with excitement.

"No way, Jack..." A fancy vampire lady gasped. "Can we hunt them?"

Jack nodded enthusiastically. "Just this once. Before the auction starts, I invite you all to play a chasing game!"

Naib's ears hurt from the crowd's deafening cheers.

With a proud hum due to the overwhelming reaction, Jack slid down from the podium and walked around the guests' tables. 

"Your continued support of Oletus Blood Bank means the world to us, so we have prepared this little game as a thank you for your generosity. You only need to follow three rules:

-The humans will hide around the manor, make sure to find them before midnight.

-You can't hurt, bite or kill them, we need them alive and healthy for the auction.

-Their necklaces have a sample of their blood. You catch a mouse, you get to taste the sample for free."

Aesop and Naib exchanged shocked glances as they quickly looked at their necks. At first, Naib didn't understand why he was wearing a heart shaped red necklace, but now he realized that it wasn't red. It was a crystal bottle with his blood inside.

Holy fuck, everything was getting worse by the second.

The blond man Aesop had accused earlier spoke with a smug expression.

"I guess that if we catch a mouse during the game, we will have an advantage during the auction later. Is that correct?" 

Jack nodded, "Exactly, you will get a copious discount, so choose wisely!" 

Judging by Joseph's stare, his prey had already been decided.

Naib was looking at Aesop worriedly when a loud clap made him jump. 

Suddenly, they weren't chained anymore.

"When you catch your human, bring them here," Jack ordered. "The auction will start after midnight, and then-"

"-What if you can't find us in time?"

The unexpected interruption left a cold silence.

Aesop felt his heart freeze and looked at Naib warily, clearly disagreeing with his choice of starting beef with what seemed to be the boss of a vampire mafia.

Jack didn't seem to be bothered, though. He stood there and studied Naib for an uncomfortable long time.

Despite his better judgement, Naib didn't allow himself to feel discouraged and continued. "You said it. If it's a game, both parties should get a chance to win, right?"

Naib thought he did a good job at keeping his voice stable. At least, he hoped so.

The taller man let out an amused laugh, and actually nodded lazily.

"Of course, of course! If we can't find you before the clock ticks twelve, you are free to leave."

The humans looked at each other with a new light of hope in their eyes while the vampires seemed outraged by that rule.

"Alright," Naib conceded, never taking his eyes away from Jack.

After that, a huge grandfather clock's pendulum started swinging back and forth in the corner of the room. Jack used that echoing sound to start counting.

"One, two, three..."

They had 30 seconds to escape. Chaos ensued.

Everyone around Naib started running desperately, screaming and crying, marching towards the only door of the room while the vampires stared at them with a look that could only be described as entertained.

"-Naib!" Aesop called, the loud noises around him making his head hurt. "We have to leave now."

Naib nodded and followed Aesop. When he jumped off the podium, he felt his leg waver, but he ignored the pain and kept moving.

Before they left the room, a voice spoke behind him.

"I would be careful, Mr. Subedar," Jack said with an amused tone. "My guests are very thirsty, I doubt they take the 'Don't kill' rule seriously."

Naib didn't give him the satisfaction to look back.

***

"This is not fair, I want to play with the humans!" complained a little kid as he looked at the rainy landscape through the car's window.

"You can't, Robbie, it's a game for adults," Eli pointed out as he drove them around the small town in circles, in a futile attempt to make the kid fall asleep.

"A game for adults?" 

"...I could have worded it differently, but something like that!"

"I wanna go!! I want to play hide and seek too!"

"You like that game, don't you? Like the way you hid that finger in my car! Should we talk about that?" Eli asked in a friendly yet scary tone.

Robbie made a cute little pout. "Okay... is your driving a punishment as well? because I feel dizzy."

"What? Of course not-" Eli said at the same time they almost fell off a cliff.

Welp.

Aesop and Naib were probably right about him being a danger on the road.

Eli let out a patient sigh. Robbie was a vampire, but he had been turned when he was very young and never got the chance to grow up, not physically nor mentally. Like Peter Pan, he would always be a kid who loved to play and cause trouble, that's why Luchino had asked him to keep him occupied while the game took place.

Ah... and to think he was missing all the fun.

He wondered about the invited humans. All of them had fallen easily for the trap, all except those two. 

Eli remembered their scared expressions when they discovered the finger and the whole scam. The younger one, Aesop, had looked so betrayed... 

He decided that when Robbie fell asleep, he would go back to the manor and check on them. He wasn't going to bid in the auction, but he had to admit that he was intrigued. 

"Eli, watch out for the deer!!" Robbie yelled.

"THE WHAT"

He truly was dangerous on the road.

***

"Jack, you madman!" accused a woman with dark red lipstick and pointy white teeth while the clock ticked the seconds away. "What in the world crossed your mind to suggest for the humans to run freely around my manor? They are going to break the furniture!"

"Mary, my dear, it's just for a couple of hours, do not tell me you aren't excited as well."

"This is my summer house!" Mary insisted. "I only allowed you to use it because no one else wanted to. I didn't know you planned to turn it into a Hunger Games Simulator."

"It was a last moment decision, I wanted to make things different."

"Be creative in your own house. I have important documents and relics stored in here."

"And those doors are locked. Plus, we all know no one is going to make it out."

"Not even you if they touch anything from my kitchen," Mary threatened.

The two kept arguing to pass the time when a third party with a slight french accent approached and added:

"Even if they escape, it's not like they can swim back to the mainland with this weather."

Thunder fell outside to prove Joseph's point.

"I sure hope not, I don't want my food to get wet," Mary concluded, crossing her arms in annoyance.

"She pretends to be angry, but she is totally going for the Japanese human lady," Jack pointed out with a grin.

"You noticed it too," Joseph agreed with a smirk.

Mary stepped on them with her sharp heels and left without uttering a single word. 

"Lesbians," Joseph and Jack whispered in unison.

***

Meanwhile, Naib and Aesop were doing their best to find a way to get out of the manor through the kitchen.

When they left the big room, they found almost everyone at the entrance of the house. They were trying to open the main door with no luck. Not even the windows could be broken with punches or chairs thrown at them, they might as well have been sealed with magic. 

"We really are trapped here," someone cried.

Aesop thought that if they remained there, they were going to be found out, so he suggested they leave the rest and hide in the farthest room, which given their limited time happened to be the kitchen.

Naib was trying to see if there was some sort of garbage disposal that connected the kitchen to the outside when Aesop poked on his shoulder.

"Hey, I found this," the embalmer said with the biggest knife Naib had seen in his life.

He almost had a heart attack.

"DUDE! Stop doing this shit! Why are you holding this?!" 

"To defend myself?"

Oh. Right. "That's good, but stop scaring me, you are so pale you look like one of them."

Aesop rolled his eyes and then looked at Naib's chest.

"Why are you wearing onions around your neck?"

Naib gave him a proud hum. "To protect myself. You know, these fuckers hate onions."

"I mean, in stories, yeah... But isn't this their house? Why would they have onions if it could hurt them?"

"..."

"You know, it's no wonder you got scammed."

"YOU GOT SCAMMED TOO!"

Aesop was going to retort back when a chilling scream from the corridor made them freeze in place.

It seemed that someone had already been found out.

"...If we don't find a way out soon, we will end up like him," Naib whispered.

Aesop nodded in silence, he really wanted to find a way out, but the whole situation wouldn't let him think clearly. He still felt incredibly disappointed in himself for falling for such an obvious trap, he had been so stupid. That stranger had seen his bruises, spilled some easy words and managed to get him to come here.

He couldn't stop thinking about Joseph's smug smile and felt sick.

"Hey, are you okay?" Naib asked, noticing Aesop's dejection.

"Yeah, yeah..." he shook his head and tried to remain positive. "At least we are together. In case it gets physical, you can show them your fighting moves."

Oh, shit. "About that..."

"What? You are a famous boxer, right?"

"I am. I mean- I used to be, before I got my leg damaged. I haven't been able to fight for the past to years," he took a deep, shameful breath. "I work at a soap store now."

"So you also lied to me," Aesop accused, harsher than intended. Now it made sense why Subedar didn't look muscular despite his job. He had been scammed twice. Great.

Naib winced, hurt. "This is why I came here. I needed money for the operation so I could go back to the ring."

"Well, then you are an idiot for falling for this."

"Yeah, but what about you? Why are you here?" Naib countered, not hiding his irritation.

Aesop looked away, annoyed. "It's none of your business."

"I bet it's something stupid, like you were bored and thought this would be an 'avant-garde' experience or whatever." 

"Shut up! You know nothing-" Aesop closed his fists, frustrated. "I wanted to get away from my father, because apparently he is a better boxer than you."

It took a while for Naib to understand the implication behind those words, and when he did, he felt like a total asshole.

"Sorry, I- Wait. Fuck, fuck, fuck" he started cursing. "They are coming here!"

"W-What?" Aesop heard someone running towards the kitchen and panicked.

Naib looked around the room with urgency; they needed to find a place to hide!

Aesop tried to get inside the freezer.

"What are you doing, idiot?!" Naib yelled, grabbing him and pushing him inside a cupboard at the back of the room, and then following suit.

"It's cold where I work, I could have managed," Aesop whispered, shrouded by vegetables and fruit.

"Just admit you make insane choices when you are under stress!"

Naib tried to say something else, but he stopped himself when a girl opened the kitchen's door with a scream. Through the groove of the cupboard, he could see that she was panting and shaking. She quickly threw a chair to block the door and approached the cabinet.

"Where are the knives?!" she cried.

"How many did you take?!" Naib whispered.

Aesop remained suspiciously quiet and Naib thought that was going to be the worst night of his life.

Chapter Text

"Fiona," Luca called, as he licked a bright red lollypop that certainly wasn't strawberry flavored. "What is that human doing?"

Chapter Text

Is there anything more cozy than resting in a soft bed at night, while thunders sound far away, like a forgotten lullaby, and raindrops hit the windows? 

Well, yes and no.

That would have been a great weekend plan for Aesop Carl if it weren’t because that.wasn’t.his.bed.

The embalmer opened his eyes groggily, his head was still swimming due to the blow he received. When he looked around, his first thought was that he wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. Instead, he was in a huge bedroom, lying down in a four-poster bed, the kind you would see in medieval movies, with translucent white curtains and crimson sheets.

Besides the weirdly comfortable bed, what caught his attention the most was the mirror.

It was big, the sort you would see in a dancing class. Aesop saw himself and the room reflected on it, with the blue shadows, the ghostly atmosphere and the empty chair near his bed.

“You woke up,” The man who had gotten him into this mess said.

Aesop turned around, surprised to see Joseph resting on the chair, observing him with curiosity.

"How..." He looked back to the mirror, the chair was empty.

"Vampire," Joseph reminded him with a smile. "Mirrors reflect souls, and because I don't have a soul, I don't have a reflection."

Aesop decided to believe him. What kind of man would see a bruised, abused guy at a funeral home and think 'I'll make his life even worse?' Surely someone without a soul.

Joseph was the last person he wanted to see right now. His presence was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach. He was a reminder of how stupid he had been for ever daring to get away from Jerry, to wish for a better life. 

After a prolonged silence he refused to break, Joseph stood up and brought the chair closer to the bed. He sat down again and turned on the lamp of the nightstand. 

“Does your head hurt?” he asked.

Even though there was enough light to see his surroundings now, Aesop avoided looking at him and stared at the carpet under his feet.

“I’m fine.” 

A dumb question deserved a dumb answer. He wanted to escape, but the only door of the room was strategically located behind Joseph, and he felt defeat. The man he hated the most had caught him, and his body was too stunned to try to run for it.

Was he going to end up like that poor nameless girl?

“I can hear your heartbeat from here,” Joseph said, and Aesop didn’t doubt it for a second. Despite his efforts at showing a calm exterior, his chest hurt from the anxiety. “Take deep breaths, I won’t do anything to you.”

"...”

“You don’t trust me.”

“You lied to me.”

“I told you to contact Oletus if you wanted to make some extra money and start anew. They paid you well, didn't they? And what is a newer experience than this?”

Was he being for real? Aesop’s fists clenched. He threw Joseph a defiant glance for the first since he came to the manor. “You know this is not what I mean.”

“Oh, the mouse has finally stopped avoiding my gaze,” Joseph celebrated with a cocky smile, and Aesop despised how the other had riddled him up on purpose. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you." 

Wait, what?

“Then- What do you want?” Despite his asocial and aloof personality, Aesop prided himself in being able to read people’s intentions rather well, but for the love of god, he couldn’t tell what this man was thinking at all.

“We can just stay here until the hunting game ends, and then return for the auction. You don’t look like you enjoy crowds, and I'm not particularly liked among the other guests."

That last bit caught Aesop's attention due to how unlikely it sounded. Was Joseph implying that he was hated by the other vampires? He had not seen many of their interactions, but he could have sworn that the man was popular and respected based on the way he acted, full of confidence.

Joseph saw the incredulity in Aesop's eyes and laughed. "Is it hard for you to believe that I'm unwanted in this manor?"

"I didn't say anything." 

"You didn't need to, you are like an open book," Joseph easily said, which shocked Aesop because he had always been told the opposite thing. "Instead of spending hundreds of years wasting my life away with lovers, alcohol and depression like many of my peers, I traveled the world in search of humanity's biggest mysteries. During that time, I amassed a great fortune, made connections and became a bit of a philanthropist. Nowadays, I'm the biggest funder of Oletus."

If Aesop wondered about whether or not this man was powerful, his life resume pretty much confirmed it. Still, it's not like he asked.

"So the others are jealous of you," Aesop guessed with a tired sigh. Was Joseph trying to show off?

"No, they are angry," The vampire's lips turned upwards in defiance. "The CEO of Oletus disappeared a year ago and, as the biggest funder, I was in charge of selecting Alva's new successor. Many vampires blinded by the promise of directing the largest source of food begged me to choose them, they even tried to bribe me with money and presents, it was adorable, but in the end I chose Jack."   

"Why him?"

"I thought 'Why not?'" Joseph ignored Aesop's eye-roll at his 'illuminating' answer. "Nevertheless, it's been a year since that. Jack isn't doing a good job, vampires are hungry, and everyone in this manor faults me for it. They probably want to see me dead but, well, at least they pretend to be cordial."

Joseph's smile was cynical. Even though they were worlds apart and Aesop didn't want to have anything to do with that man, he could relate to the feeling of rejection amongst people who were supposed to be there for you. Joseph had said all of that with a calm, almost detached expression, as if he didn't care about what people thought of him. How could he not feel bothered by it? Or maybe he was, and simply hid his feelings. 

"Why did you come here if you knew you weren't welcome?" he asked.

"To support Jack, and to buy you, of course."

Joseph extended his hand and put it on top of Aesop’s, in a way it was meant to be comforting, but was anything but that. His hand was very cold, and the sharp long nails gave him goosebumps all over his body. 

His words were sweet, but Aesop had never felt more in danger than now.

In his self-imposed mission to avoid Joseph’s gaze and control his own blood from going to his pale cheeks, he realized that the lamp on the night stand was a beautiful antique.

An irrelevant detail for most, but not for him.

Kerosene lamps were used by many households before the electrical age. Jerry still had one in the embalming room because there were a lot of power outages in town, and no man liked the idea of staying in a dark room full of corpses. Because of that, Aesop had learned to be careful with them since he was a child.

Those lamps were no joke: They used a liquid fuel and a wick to produce a steady flame that was safe as long as it was protected by the glass chimney.

What would happen if that lamp fell on that beautiful carpet?

Would a fire be enough distraction to get out of the room, and maybe even the manor?

"Say, what do you know about vampires, Aesop?"

“W-What?” He tried to focus back to Joseph, who was looking at him with a polite, patient smile. “They... bite people and drink their blood, sleep inside coffins, have no reflection... Ah, and they can't let the sun touch them or they will shine, like, very bright."

"Twilight has done a lot of wrong."

"What?"

"We don’t shine, we die.”

“Oh.”

“Most of us don’t sleep inside coffins anymore. Beds are more comfortable and spacious, like this one,” Joseph explained, and as a way to prove it, he grabbed Aesop’s shoulders and lowered him back to the bed, climbing on top of him gracefully.

If Aesop’s heartbeat had felt like an erratic drum before, now it was an entire concert.

He tried to struggle, but his hands were pinned on each side of his head with a force a man shouldn’t have. If he hadn’t seen those vampires eat that lawyer alive, or that woman grab the girl as if she was weightless, he might have tried harder, but he knew it was a lost fight.

He could have never guessed that having a beautiful man on top of him would be such a terrifying experience.

“Do you know what else vampires can do?” Joseph whispered in his ear, ignoring the tense body under him. “This is a secret not many of my kind know, but if we drink blood from a highly compatible human, we become more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

The strong scent of roses coming from Joseph overwhelmed Aesop, who did his best to keep up with the conversation.

“Compatible human? As in... ABO?”

“I'm not talking about Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Aesop. I’m talking about your blood.”

...Well, that was embarrassing. 

“Blood compatibility? But my type is common,” he mumbled, quietly realizing that his right leg was free and could reach the night stand...

“It’s not that simple,” Joseph laughed, and lifted his hand from one of Aesop’s wrists to play with this necklace. “Blood transfusions happen on a daily basis. A, B, 0, positive, negative; all of that is irrelevant. The compatibility I’m talking about can happen once in a century, maybe even more.”

“Is this why I am here?” 

Did he get scammed because his blood was special to that man? 

“This is were you belong,” Joseph stated, and for the first time since they met, Aesop realized that under those patient, kind words, lied something dark and possessive.

He felt that if he didn’t do anything, that man would never let him go. He needed to create a distraction right now.

Mustering all of his courage, the embalmer raised his leg and kicked the nightstand with force, making the lamp fall and crash into the carpet.

“What are you doing?” Joseph released his hold to look at the mess he made. He even cursed the second his eyed lied on the carpet, which started burning as soon as the unprotected flame touched it. 

Aesop also sat up and was shocked at how flammable that beautiful and probably invaluable relic was. 

“I’m sorry-” He said lamely, hoping that Joseph would think it had been an honest accident.

The vampire didn’t seem to buy it. He threw him a stern glare and stood up. 

“This little stunt will have consequences,” he threatened.

Mary would skin Joseph alive if anything happened to her manor. Breaking a thing or two was alright, but that carpet had been a gift from Princess Lamballe, one of Mary’s more precious lovers who had died long ago. Joseph's head would roll if he didn't do anything. After all, it was his fault, he shouldn’t have picked the royal room to have that kind of conversation with Aesop.

Ignoring the human for the time being, Joseph went to the bathroom -thankfully located in the nearby room- and returned with a bucket full of water, spilling the content over the carpet and stopping the fire.

Of course, when he returned Aesop wasn’t there anymore.

His prey had escaped, but that was to be expected. The vampire opened the window to clear the smoke and, despite everything, couldn’t contain a satisfied smirk. 

A little set back or two meant nothing when the night’s fate was already sealed. Plus, he had to admit Aesop’s willingness to fight back surprised him, he hadn’t taken him for that sort of person. He couldn’t say he disliked it.

Now, where did the stubborn mouse go?

***

“Where the fuck did Aesop go?" groaned Naib, checking every single door of the corridor yet unable to find his peculiar companion.

He could swear the both of them had left the kitchen, but when he returned not only Aesop wasn't there, the vampire lady and the human girl had disappeared as well.

What was going on?

"Aesop, are you here?" he whispered, opening a random door and finding two guys kissing each other. “What the fuck?!”

“SHH! LEAVE! If we die tonight we might as well make this count!” The random, insane people said, closing the door on his face.

God, not to sound like a boomer but young people nowadays really lost their will to survive. Was it because of how shitty, harsh and uninhabitable this capitalistic landscape called world had become? 

Mmmm. 

Anyways, Naib shook his head and kept walking around the manor, making sure not to be seen by wandering vampires. He was crossing a seemingly endless and eerie hallway when something caught his attention.

Working at the Bath Bomb place for a year had given him two things: Depression and a heightened sense of smell.

For some reason, this part of the corridor had a very different smell. It was faint, but if Naib could differentiate the scented jasmine, clary sage and ylang ylang Sex Bomb versus the Bitch Bomb: Thorn in my Side Cacti 25mg CBD Infused Bubble Bar, then he could smell anything.

And right now this specific part of the corridor emanated a fresh, salty aroma that reminded him of the sea.

He looked around, trying to find the source but there was nothing. No rooms, no candles, not even a vase with flowers. Just this big, vertical painting with gold wall sconces on each side.

The painting was weird in itself, though, since it depicted a man opening a painting as if it was a mysterious door, which also showed a man opening another painting, and then again and again. It was an optical illusion. An infinite loop of a man opening a painting.

...An infinite loop.

Naib wasn’t a detective -he had wanted to become one when he was a kid, even drew an embarrassingly long comic called ‘The adventures of Mr. Inference’-  but cringe past aside, he recognized a clue when he saw one.

With thinly veiled excitement and anticipation, he tried to open that painting in the same way it was shown in the drawing, and was greatly surprised when it actually moved, showing a spiral-staircase that lead underground.

A hidden passage.

"Elemental, Mr. Inference,” he proudly told himself, like a weeb. 

Was it a good idea to get into that dark, unknown place? Hell yeah. Not being found until midnight wasn’t such an impossible task anymore, no one would find him there. He wished Aesop was with him. Seriously, where did that guy go?

Naib silently walked down the stairs until he reached a dimly lit, square room that contained several paintings, sculptures, instruments and other objects. It reminded him of a solemn area in a museum.

He approached a Japanese vase, trying to see if the smell came from those flowers when someone whispered into his ear:

“You have an excellent eye for mystery, Mr. Subedar.”

Fucking shit. Naib quickly turned around and took a fight stance, hitting the vase in the process and breaking it.

“Oh dear, you just crashed a ¥8,000,000 vase which was for the auction.” 

Of course, the intruder was no other than Jack, who stood imposingly in the middle of the room, his tall and slender figure casting a long shadow. He looked at the broken vase with fake grief, then regarded him with a polite bow. His relaxed demeanor didn’t reassure Naib in the slightest.

“Your rash behavior put me in a pickle,” the vampire said dramatically. “Now I’ll be forced to sell you to pay for the damage.”

“Cut that bullshit. You were going to sell me anyway!”

“But now I will feel less bad about it,” the other mocked.

“Oh, you can feel?” Naib retorted, without missing a beat.

He hadn’t known this man for more than an hour and he already despised his guts. Eccentric guys like him were the worst. Even a blind person could tell he found delight in this whole situation, in others’ fear.

Naib would never allow himself to be intimidated by that sort of individual. He had encountered people like him in the boxing ring, and even if they weren’t vampires, they had made fun of him for being smaller and an outsider. 

He always managed to make them feel regret after underestimating him.

“You have nerves of steel,” Jack complimented, with a red gleam in his eyes. “I’m still deciding if you are brave or terribly stupid.”

“How about you come and find out?”

Jack smirked, as if he had been waiting for that invitation from the very start, and in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.

Naib had to do a double take, trying to process what happened, where the Vampire was, but he didn’t even have time to look around because Jack reappeared mere inches away from his face, grabbed him by the shirt and threw him across the room.

Naib tried to stand up as quickly as possible, but he was once again too late. Somehow, Jack was already next to him, ready to grab him by arm and break it, but Naib reacted faster and used the knife he stole from Aesop to make a sharp cut on the vampire’s hand.

He used the other’s surprise to gain distance and punch him in the face, but Jack dodged the attack and kicked him right in the knee. 

His bad knee.

Naib closed his eyes and grunted in pain. 

Jack grabbed him by the hair and smiled crookedly, “Campbell was right, your knee really is your weak spot.” 

Campbell? 

No... Why did he- 

The mention of that name was enough to distract him, and Jack used that opportunity to hit him in the stomach. The blow was strong enough to leave him breathless on his knees. 

Before he knew it, the vampire had grabbed a rope that was hanging from the ceiling and tied his hands together, above his head.

“Mr. Subedar, did you know that many religious groups built hidden chambers in medieval manors? Most of the time, it was so they could worship in hiding, to avoid persecution,” Jack stated matter-of-factly, as he elegantly walked towards a corner of the room where a lever was located. “This is not the case.”

He pulled the lever and the floor under Naib’s legs started opening.

Trap doors?! Naib didn’t notice them before because they matched the flooring perfectly. If it weren’t from the rope connecting him to the ceiling, he would have fallen in the big hole that spread out under him.

Jack observed his shock with gratification. 

“This is a torture chamber. It was specifically designed to induce 'horror, dread and despair' to anyone but those possessing a 'strong mind and nerves of steel'."

Naib did his best to ignore the pain the friction of the rope inflicted on his wrists, and looked at the dark pit. It was impossible to tell how long the fall would be, or what awaited at the bottom. The smell coming out of it was salty, like the sea-

Shit. That’s the scent he had noticed before.

Jack walked around the room with joy. “In my times, we used this place to interrogate exorcists, hunters and other threats to our kind. If they didn’t collaborate, we would cut the rope and they would fall and drown in this pit of water you are so excellently hanging above.”

Naib closed his eyes. Jack’s incessant talking, the strain of the rope, the pain on his knee and the mention of Norton were too many things to process while his life was literally pending on a thread.

“What the fuck do you want from me?!” He ended up shouting, his patience long gone. “If it’s my blood then fucking take it, I’m tired of this game!” 

The vampire smiled wickedly.

“Do not worry, dear, we will get there, eventually,” he promised in a way that sent shivers all over Naib’s body. “But now that I have your full attention, let’s talk about what you saw in the kitchen, shall we?”

***

Andrew Kreiss couldn’t believe how miserable, pathetic and unlucky he was.

Only a loser like him could fall prey to a pyramid scheme orchestrated by the devil itself. He, who had been a devoted believer for so many years, must have severely disappointed God to end up being punished in such a cruel way.

What had been his unforgivable sin to deserve this? 

Could it be because he cursed too much? His psychologist told him it was an acceptable coping mechanism.

Perhaps it was because he got banned from his church facebook group? He just made a post saying that the flat earth society had members all around the globe!

Or maybe it went back to that time he spent a night of passion with Slothful Jeremiah.

It was truly too hard to know!

Whatever it was, it didn’t even matter because he had been stuck in a fucking chimney for god knows how long and he could barely breath.

Was there something more lamentable than dying of a dust allergy in a home infested by vampires?

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come...”

While Andrew was praying, Aesop had been running around the manor as if his life depended on it, trying to find Naib, a place to hide from Joseph, or both.

He got into the first unassuming room he found, which happened to be Andrew’s. 

“Why is the chimney praying?” Aesop asked, almost having a stroke because what the hell?! 

“I’m not a chimney, I’m Andrew and I’m stuck!!” The chimney- well, Andrew, yelled. “Help me!”

“Are you a vampire?”

“Lord, throw some brains from the heavens. Or stones, as long as he hits the mark!” The person groaned. “What do you think?!” 

Yeah, definitely a human. Vampires weren’t so badmouthed. Aesop approached the chimney and grabbed the person’s legs, which he missed at first because the room was too dark.

“Don’t touch me!” 

“How do you want me to help you, then?” Aesop buffed, impatient. He ignored the annoying man and pulled with all the strength he could muster until he managed to get him out.

“Thank God, I can finally breathe,” Andrew said, gasping for air. Aesop could barely recognize his features because he was covered in dust. 

He reminded Aesop of the chimney sweeps you would see in a depressing victorian movie, where rich people hired poor little orphans so they could crawl through chimneys, while their cold-hearted masters would light fires to spur the sweeps on to climb more quickly.

Except this guy was very tall. No wonder he got stuck.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think my face is funny?” Andrew accused. 

Aesop didn’t think it was appropriate to tell him about the traumatic victorian movies a kid shouldn’t watch so, instead, he pointed at the chimney and asked:

“Can we really escape through there?” 

Andrew cleaned his face with a white... well, ex-white curtain, and nodded. “It’s not plugged if that’s what you mean, raindrops fell on my face while I tried to climb, but it’s too small for me.” 

Now that the dust was off, Aesop could appreciate how Andrew’s hair and skin were actually white, and his eyes were a pinkish-red color. If he hadn’t known any better, he could have taken him for a vampire.

“I might be able to fit in,” he said, because he hadn’t been called as thin as a toothpick all his life for nothing. “I’m not too fond of the spiders there might be in there, though.”

Vampires were on thin ice, but in his totally rational list of priorities, getting stuck in a chimney with spiders crossed the line. He was desperate, not insane.

“Don’t worry, I scared them all,” Andrew deadpanned as a spider crawled around his back. He grabbed it like it was nothing and threw it away.

“Oh my God.”

“No, God has abandoned us,” replied the nutcase. “I’ve come to the realization that we are already dead and this is our purgatory. Those vampires are actually demons who will torture us until we repent for our sins in this unfair, asymmetrical horror game.”

“You sure spent a lot of time inside that chimney.”

“Make fun of me all you want, but there’s a reason we have been chosen out of everyone else.”

"Yes, because of the quality of our blood, not our sins." 

"And do you really believe that?” Andrew crossed his arms and regarded Aesop with a serious, harsh look. “Wanna know something? I have nothing. I lost my mom when I was a kid, spent my life getting bullied because of my looks and how poor I was, and even though the church accepted me, I know that if I die here today, no one will miss me. The world won't look for me. That’s why they chose me.”

Andrew plopped himself in the chair opposite of the chimney and let out a joyless laugh. “And don’t you dare give me a pitiful look, because I'm sure it's the same for you, I can see it in your eyes."

Aesop didn’t reply, he wouldn’t know where to start. He felt bothered by Andrew's speech, not because he thought it was a stupid theory, but because deep down, he was afraid that Andrew might be right.

He had been alone almost all of his life. He tried to remember the last time someone cared about him, really cared, and as embarrassing as it was to admit it, it had been when Joseph approached him that day at the funeral, just to have a small talk and make him company. It had been such a little gesture, but he had felt seen for the first time in years.

How pathetic. What did that say about him?

Joseph had talked about a special connection they shared, about a compatibility that happened once in a lifetime... but he had already lied before.

He probably just saw him as an easy prey, a lonely guy who couldn't look at anyone in the eye and had a bruise on his cheek. Someone who wouldn’t be missed.

Andrew noticed Aesop's downcast expression and sighed. "The whole 'Quality blood' thing must be a lie, an excuse to make us feel special so we feel different for once and fall into their trap." Then, he muttered under his breath. "My health isn't even good. Quality blood? Ridiculous."

Aesop felt his chest tighten. Andrew was right, blood was just blood, wasn't it? The whole talk with Joseph in the bedroom must have been another way for the vampire to manipulate and make fun of him. After all, it must be hilarious to see him fall over and over again.

He stared at the floor, feeling very small and hopeless all of a sudden. 

“I will escape and make sure to come back with help,” he ended up saying with a strained smile, getting inside the chimney.

“We aren’t getting out of this alive,” is the last thing he heard before he started climbing.

***

While Aesop was doing his best to ascend the chimney and Andrew was cheering for him with the energy of a tired slug returning from a funeral, the vampires responsible of making sure no one got out were very busy.

"Now pick a card.”

“Fiona, shouldn’t we be paying attention to the monitors? Plus, I told you that I don’t believe in Tarot. I’m a man of science and ocasional alchemy.”

“That’s what a Cancer would say, now shut up and pick the damn card, Luca Balsa.”

Luca groaned at her companion’s ridiculous love for an arbitrary card game, and chose the one in the middle. He gave it to Fiona, who contemplated it with a deep hum.

“The hermit. You search for the truth,” she curtly stated. “Pick another one.” 

Luca pointed at a card from the left corner of the set up and Fiona grabbed it, “Death. That means you want to end a cycle, you seek a big change. Last one.”

Luca chose the one closest to him. Fiona turned it around for the both of them to see, “Reversed Judgment. It means lack of self awareness, doubt and self loathing.”

Luca’s shoulders stiffened. “Big words for a game that lacks any scientific explanation,” he mumbled.

“Bold words coming from a vampire,” Fiona countered. “Plus, my readings are 60% reliable. For example, the cards just told me that you did something reckless that will bite you in the ass eventually.”

“Me? No way,” he waved his hand dismissively. “Although knowing my brain I might have forgotten something important.”

“See, we are getting somewhere!”

The two idiots kept discussing the meaning of the cards, unaware that one of the monitors in the background showed Aesop getting out of the chimney Luca totally forgot to cover.

***

“I can’t feel my arms,” Aesop whined, finally out of the dark tunnel.

The chilly air from the outside hit his dust-covered cheeks. He looked around and was faced with a dark sky and an unrecognizable landscape of rose gardens, the manor’s entrance, and a faraway forest. Luckily, the rain seemed to have stopped, but that didn’t mean much when it had left the roof’s tiles wet and slippery.

He stared down and saw a considerable fall of three stories. He gulped.

Great, how was he supposed to get down without opening his head in the process?

He hated to admit it, but he missed Naib. He hadn’t been the brightest, but he had a good heart and was very brave. He wished Naib was there with him, and hoped he was doing okay.

“What would Naib do...?” He wondered out loud.

Meanwhile, a navy blue car had parked at the entrance of the manor.

“I don’t want to listen to Baby Shark ever again,” complained Eli, letting out a tired exhale and getting off the car.

After listening to that satanic song for a hundred times, Robbie had finally fallen asleep in the backseat, allowing the older vampire to return to the manor and see how the game was going.

“I hope things aren’t getting too out of hand,” he said, approaching the gate at the same time someone yelled from the sky:

“PARKOUR!”

Then Eli heard the sound of a roof tile breaking.

And a body fell over him out of fucking nowhere.

“What the-!?” Eli yelped, tripping over a bush of roses with the stranger.

What did just happen? The vampire spitted some leaves, looked at the man lying down on top of him and gasped. 

“Aesop?!”

The embalmer had his eyes tightly closed in pain. Okay, he had severely miscalculated that jump, but it could have been worse. Falling on top of someone had definitely saved him, but when he opened his eyes, his blood froze.

“Eli?!”

Ignoring the pain, Aesop scrambled to stand up. Shit, one of them had seen him, he needed to leave now before Eli told the rest, and they brought him back, and-

“Wait, wait, you can’t leave-” Eli said, grabbing him by the forearm and making him hiss in pain. “How did you even get up there?”

“Leave me!”

“Stop struggling, your arm is bleeding, you will hurt yourself!” Eli insisted, still trying to process how Aesop fell from the sky.

Aesop looked at his right arm and, just like the other said, it was bleeding profusely. He must have cut his skin with a sharp tile. Even then, a wound was nothing when his life was in danger. He was going to ignore his arm in favor of convincing Eli to let him go, when he realized something that left him speechless.

His blood had that unmistakable pinkish-red color he had already seen before...

Pouring from that girl’s neck. 

Why did his blood look like that too?

"Aesop, are you alright?" Eli sounded genuinely concerned now. In a fraction of a second, Aesop had turned very pale and quiet, as if he had seen a ghost. The vampire held him by the waist to make sure he wouldn’t fall on the floor.

After a few wavering breaths, Aesop looked at Eli with wide eyes and asked, in a whisper, “am- am I poisoned too?” 

Eli’s body stilled. “What?”

The embalmer touched the blood with his fingertips. “It looks the same as that girl's,” he said, in a feverish tone. “The same strange color and texture... I'm poisoned too.”

“Aesop, you aren’t making any sense and have lost a lot of blood, please let me help you,” Eli insisted. The main gate was close, he just needed to get him back inside.

“No, I don’t want to go-” Aesop retorted, trying to wriggle out of Eli’s hold with no luck. Being kidnapped was bad enough, but knowing that he was poisoned too was the icing on the cake. “A vampire did something to our blood!”

“Why would a vampire poison their own food? Think about it, it makes no sense," Eli reasoned, trying to calm him down.

His words worked just barely, Aesop stopped squirming for a second to come into terms with the fact that Eli was right, it made no sense. There was no benefit in poisoning humans that were going to be auctioned. That would only hurt the vampires who bought them and sucked their blood.

...Unless that was the point?

"What if one of you wanted to kill one of the guests?" he said. Before the game started, Jack had proclaimed that this was a once in a year event, and that meant all the vampires reunited under the same roof for a night. "If a vampire hated another vampire and wanted to get rid of them, wouldn't this gathering be the perfect opportunity to do that?"

The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Any vampire could poison the humans and wait until the target drank their blood. They would die and no one would ever know who did it.

Aesop was aware that he sounded insane, but Eli should consider two things:

1. He just fell off a roof, his brain wasn't at his best capacity.

2. His blood was poisoned, there was no doubt of that. 

Eli shook his head at the theory. "This isn't a Knives Out movie, Aesop. Some of us don't get along, but no one would go so far as to kill another guest," he said the last part less convinced.

"Are you sure?" Aesop insisted.

Joseph had said that many people wanted to see him dead, could it be...?

"Trust me, everyone respects each other," Eli assured, in the same tone he used to talk about how wonderful this island was. 

"Then why is my blood poisoned?"

"It's not poisoned, you are just scared, but we will take good care of you-”

“Leave me!”

The raised voices woke up Robbie, who brushed his eyes lazily and looked at the fight from the car seat. He would have been content by just observing, if it weren’t for smell of Aesop’s blood, which travelled through the air until it reached his nostrils, clouding his mind.

Robbie ended up doing what any kid with no morals and yes murder powers would: He rushed out of the car and charged against Aesop, opening his mouth to lick the blood pouring from his arm.

Eli and Aesop’s reactions were immediate:

Aesop yelled in surprise while Eli grabbed Robbie and ordered him to stop.

“Don’t touch that!” the vampire shouted, his casual and carefree personality fading into something severe. He was in deep trouble, he needed to stop Robbie before it was too late, before he... “Stop it or it will kill you, Robbie!” 

The threat was enough to make the kid stop and look at him with confusion, and even though Eli felt grateful that he could finally separate the two, it was too late.

Aesop had heard him.

“So you knew,” the embalmer whispered in disbelief as he held his arm close to his side. "You are the one who did it!"

“It wasn't me. Aesop, this is not what you think it is,” Eli said with a forced smile as he approached the embalmer. Aesop took a step back and threw him an accusatory glance. “Please, just listen to me-”

“Eli, my stomach hurts...” Robbie interrupted with a feeble, pained voice. “Why do I feel like this?”

Crap. Eli cursed under his breath. Could the situation get any worse?

The vampire threw Aesop an apologetic look and crouched next to Robbie. He really wished to talk more with Aesop and hopefully get to an agreement (or make him fall asleep, like back in the car) but he couldn’t postpone this, the kid’s life was in danger. He took out his phone and typed an unknown number.

While Eli was distracted, Aesop rushed and got into his car. He had never driven before, but at this point he didn’t care, his actions were fueled by adrenaline and the imperial need to get as far away as possible from that madness. 

Eli was waiting for that person to pick up the call when Robbie grabbed the hem of his shirt. 

“He drives better than you,” The kid said, delirious but not enough not to be a little shit.

The vampire looked at the direction Robbie was pointing at, and saw his precious car leave through the woods. 

“You are on your own,” Robbie added.

Eli looked at the camera as if he was in the office.

Chapter Text

"Mr. Campbell, are you working until late again?” Emily asked, peeking from Norton’s office with a worried frown. 

Norton looked up from the computer and realized that his coworker was right. The sky was dark, with the only source of light coming from the city’s neon signs. He had been doing some numbers to make sure the nearby hospitals paid the company what they promised and, would you look at that? It was already 10pm.

“What can I say? Old habits die hard,” he told Emily with a lazy smile.

Oletus Accountant, Special Human Recruiter, Vampire. 

Norton Campbell was many things.

Unlike him, Emily wasn’t a vampire, she was just a normal worker. Oletus Blood Bank was a big corporation with several centers all over the world. The company grew so fast in the last years that 90% of the employees were humans who thought the blood they got was sent to hospitals to help people.

They were unaware that the other 10% were vampires that made sure that blood went somewhere else.

The process was simple. Oletus worked as any other private blood donation organization:

Well-meaning citizens would come to donate blood without expecting anything in return -besides the satisfaction of knowing they were saving lives-. To do that, they would be asked to fill out a questionnaire in reception with their information, health and life habits. Then, they would get a medical check up with Emily or any other staff member, and spend the next 10 minutes lying in a comfy chair while a machine drew their blood. 

Finally, they could go to a highly equipped kitchen to get a sweet snack and drink before leaving with a happy smile.

After that, things got a little different from the norm.

Their blood would be sent to a lab, where a vampire in charge would taste a drop of every donation and separate them in bags marked as ‘H-Blood’ and ‘V-Blood’.

H-Blood was unremarkable blood that didn’t taste too good for the undead, thus it was sent to actual (H)ospitals.

V-Blood had a composition that tasted genetically better to (V)ampires. When that was the case, that blood would be sent to another laboratory where they would add some chemicals to preserve it and make it better.

Finally, it was sent to the real customers of this whole scam: Vampires.

It was such a simple practice, yet it had been working for years. 

There was only one problem, though, which had started the moment Alva disappeared. The formula to preserve the blood perfectly was only known to him, who smartly decided to never share it with anyone.

“We are ambitious creatures, the only way to maintain my place as the CEO of the company is to keep the formula with me,” He had firmly said.

Norton, who was very ambitious and had killed to escalate in society, knew Alva was completely right. Still, it sucked. With him missing and no way to replicate the preserving formula, that meant the V-Blood didn’t taste as good as before, thus they had to lower the prices if they wanted to avoid customers getting angrier than they already were. 

That was truly a headache for Norton and everyone involved.

Because of the increasing complaints, Jack created the ‘ Happy Donors ’ Program.

“If we can’t make the blood taste good without the mysterious formula, then we shall find humans whose blood is exceptional,” he had told them almost a year ago. 

Antonio hummed. “I see. This way, even if we can’t conserve it, the blood will still taste better than the average.”

“How are we supposed to convince those humans to donate? It’s a hassle for most people,” Norton said. “I wouldn’t donate blood for free.”

“You wouldn’t do anything for free,” Fiona remarked with a smirk. “But you are right. We should pay them.”

“Isn’t it illegal to pay for blood donations?”

“Yeah, that's why I wouldn't be able to promote it. Maybe we could spread it like a secret between two close friends?”

“Wonderful idea, Miss Gilman,” Jack said cheerfully. “The targets will be humans with special blood and in need of money. Remember, the lonelier they are, the better.” 

Norton had to agree. Money blinded people, it could make them do the stupidest things, he knew that more than anyone, so when Jack asked for a consensus, everyone in the room gave green light to Happy Donors.

The vampires who started working in that department were called Human Recruiters, and their job was to walk around the streets, get jobs and socialize with people until they found a ‘Special One’. Someone whose mere existence and smell was a promise of a good meal. 

For a whole year, not a single person had declined Norton’s deadly invitation.

“Doing anything tonight, Ems?” 

He closed the entrance door while Emily called for a cab. The building was in the center of the city so, despite how late it was, the streets were still lively with cars and people ready to enjoy the weekend.

“Me? Not really, but tomorrow I will accompany a friend to a pumpkin harvest at Hall Hill Farms,” she said with a tired smile. “How about you?”

“I have a family reunion.” Well, sort of.

“Now? And you stayed until so late! Your family must be waiting…” Emily sighed. “I don’t understand why Oletus only gives you evening shifts.”

Norton opened the door of his car and smiled knowingly.

“It’s fine, I’m more of a night creature anyway.”

It took Norton an hour and a half to reach the island, and by the time he was driving towards the manor, it was almost midnight, which meant he wouldn’t miss the auction.

Well, it’s not like he would bid for any human. Those sorts of events were for disgustingly rich -and creepy, let’s be honest- vampires, and he was too much of a rat to waste money on just a few liters of blood anyways.

Why was he going, then? Probably because he was intrigued by something.

Naib Subedar had been one of the scam victims who had easily fallen into his trap. It was understandable, though, if Norton had to spend one more day selling bath bombs he would have also ended it all.

Even then, Naib had been an unusual case, because he was recommended by Jack himself.

Why was Oletus’ new CEO so interested in that shorty frog, to the point of making Norton travel to America, get a minimum wage job and try to convince him? He couldn’t think of a good reason, and that’s why he decided to go and see.

While he drove, he crossed paths with two vehicles who were going in the opposite direction, towards the coast. 

The first one was a bicycle. 

“Why the fuck is there an Uber Eats delivery guy returning from the manor?” he asked out loud, looking at the guy pedaling like a madman. What lunatic had asked for trash food in the middle of a secret reunion?! 

…It had to be Fiona.

Then, a few minutes later, he encountered the second vehicle, a navy blue car.

“Isn’t that Eli’s car?” Norton wondered, even more surprised, because everyone knew Eli couldn’t drive for shit and this car seemed to be doing pretty well. 

Why was Eli going to the coast now of all times? Maybe he was chasing after the food delivery guy, or maybe he was just being a weirdo.

If you asked Norton privately, he would admit that Eli Clark had always creeped him out, in a way. The guy was always too calm, kind and selfless. It was suspicious for a vampire to behave like that, since those adjectives contradicted their nature.

Plus, Norton knew the ages of every single vampire, either because they liked to show off how ancient (or young) they were, or because he heard rumors about it, but Eli? 

Not a single soul knew for how long Eli Clark had been alive.

He had always been there, though, and that was scary enough.

Meanwhile, in Eli’s car…

‘Grandpa shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo’

“HOW DO I TURN THIS OFF?” Aesop despaired, pushing several buttons, trying to stop that awful song from playing on repeat.

He was driving a car without a license, with a bloody arm, and the knowledge that he was poisoned. If that song didn’t stop right now, he was going to crash the damn thing. 

‘Let's go hunt, doo doo doo doo doo doo’

1, 2, 3… He took a deep breath. He just needed to keep it together until he got to the coast, jumped on a boat (which he also didn’t know how to drive, but at this point he didn’t care) and asked for help when he got to the mainland, if he hadn't drowned on his way there. 

He had dealt with corpses since he was 12 and had been bullied through the entirety of high school for dressing as an emo, so, in hindsight, this was nothing. Just undead goth bullies going after him. It’s like his life traumas had fused into one. 

‘Run away, doo doo doo doo doo doo’

Why were kid songs so creepy? Shh focus, Aesop, focus. He could feel the blood of his arm stain his white shirt and the seat, making the whole car have the distinctive 'metallic' smell that was so familiar to him. 

He tried not to think about how he was poisoned, but it was hard. The knowledge that some messed up liquid was going through his veins made him sick. He remembered Joseph saying that his blood was unique and that they were compatible. Well, not anymore, he supposed. Still, he wasn't sure if Eli was the person who poisoned him, but he definitely knew more than he let on.

Maybe he wanted to kill Joseph and then blame Jack for all the deaths, forcing him to resign as the CEO. That plan would fit with everything he had learned about that place against his own will.

Whatever the truth was, Aesop wasn’t planning to stay to find out. He would escape the island, call the cops, get checked at a hospital, and go back to his uneventful life full of dead people who didn't want to murder him.

“Is there something useful in here…?” he mumbled, looking around Eli’s car and hoping he had left his phone. He opened the glove compartment and, thankfully, the severed finger wasn’t there anymore, but what he found was even worse:

An album of Enya’s best hits.

Even bad people listened to talented queen Enya, life was meaningless.

With a pained heart, he kept rummaging through Eli’s stuff and, among several traffic and parking lot tickets, he found a very old and stained painted portrait. It was so frail and yellowed that he got scared it would break with the faintest touch.

He picked it up carefully, squinted his eyes and managed to distinguish a lonely man standing in the middle of a forest. He was wearing monk-like robes, and his eyes were covered by a blindfold. 

Aesop realized it could be Eli because of his cryptic smile, belonging to someone who knew more than he let on… and because of his bad posture. 

Mostly because of the bad hunched posture.

The artist who drew that must have been an amateur, though, because of how badly framed the portrait was. Eli was standing on the left, and there was a lot of space on the right and top for no reason, making the composition uneven. Aesop wasn’t a hater nor a great artist by any means, but his job as a corpse makeup artist had made him aesthetically tuned and more prone to notice ‘ugly’ mistakes that should be fixed.

But was it really a mistake? 

At first, he thought he might be going insane due to blood loss, but after looking at the drawing for a while, he realized that the ‘blank space’ wasn’t completely empty: It was easy to miss at first glance, but there was a strange ghostly figure on Eli’s right. The silhouette, which was at least twice as big as him, didn’t look human.

No, that thing looked like the sort of monster you would see in nightmares.

Aesop was so mesmerized by what he was seeing that he forgot to look at the road, so when he did…

Oh shit- “A DEER!”

‘It's the end, doo doo doo doo doo doo

One more time! Yeah!’

“Let’s try this one more time,” Jack said, standing at the edge of the pit that would swallow Naib whole if he didn’t collaborate. “What did you see in the kitchen?”

Naib clenched his fists and looked at the vampire with contempt. “I saw your mother, and she was a witch!”

Naib’s current situation was… disadvantageous, to say the least. He was in a secret chamber, hanging from a literal rope and his life was in the hands of a man who probably ate people for dinner. 

Were his words too bold given his dire situation? Very much, but Naib’s patience was gone the second he realized that he had been betrayed by Campbell, and was stuck with a sadistic vampire who was most likely going to throw him to the water the second he got what he wanted. 

If Jack expected Naib to be compliant in his last moments, then he was going to be very disappointed.

The vampire hummed, unimpressed at his rude behavior. “Daring words for someone facing death. That’s certainly my fault, next time I will make sure to add crocodiles in the water.”

“Make sure to add a few sharks as well,” Naib rolled his eyes, as if the huge fall wouldn’t kill him on the spot . 

If he was being honest, he had no idea why Jack wanted to know what happened in the kitchen, since nothing out of the ordinary took place in his opinion. The vampire lady seemed to die or pass out after drinking from the girl, so what? She had broken the rules but it didn’t seem too outrageous given the whole situation. 

Jack had already warned him about how some vampires would ignore the rules. If that was the case, then why did he want to know what happened, to the point of kidnapping him -again- and interrogating him about it?

“Why do you want to know so bad?” He decided to ask directly. He might be doomed, but if he could stall for time to think of a way to get out of this, he would take the chance.

“You are the one being interrogated here, Dear,” Jack reminded him.

“I’m not doing an interrogation with a vampire. I know how that movie goes.”

“It’s called ‘Interview with the Vampire’ , and I’m pretty sure it ends with gay sex, so if this is an insinuation-”

“IT IS NOT!” 

Wait, the movie was about that?!

Jack shook his head. “Don’t think I can’t tell how you are trying to waste my time while you try to find a way to get out of here. I must inform you that there is none, your better chance at survival is to be nice to me, and so far you are doing an awful job.”

“Fuck you!”

“See?”

Good lord he was so annoying. 

Jack seemed to notice his growing hatred, which he wasn’t even trying to hide, and let out a dramatic sigh. He reached for his pocket and took out a phone that had a familiar green case with food patterns.

Naib gasped, offended. “I can’t believe we have the same phone case.”

“We don’t. This is your phone.”

“Oh… HEY!” 

“While you were unconscious on your way here, we took all of your belongings. Campbell had previously told me you were a difficult one, so I thought this might come in handy,” Jack said.

Without elaborating further, the vampire turned on the phone and put in Naib’s password with no trouble. Naib didn’t want to think about how many times he had unlocked his phone in front of Norton, and felt his blood boil at the reminder of how his coworker and friend had betrayed him.

Jack raised the phone and took a picture of him. Naib didn’t understand what he was doing until the vampire said the next words, which completely froze him:

“Let's make this simple, tell me what you saw and I won’t send this picture to your mother.”

No way. Naib felt his heartbeat stop at the mention of his mom. His shock must have been clear as water, because Jack had the gall to offer him a pitying smile, as if he was well aware that he hit a weak spot.

“I checked your messages before,” Jack continued, in a disgustingly good mood. “And I was surprised to discover that you lied to your mother about how well you were doing in the ring. It didn't take me long to realize you never told her that you stopped boxing because of your injury. She probably doesn’t even know you are barely keeping afloat with that adorable soap job of yours.”

“Stop!” Naib warned, and it came out shakier than he would have wished. “That’s none of your business.”

“Is it not? I’m sure she will be surprised to find out that her strong, reliable son has been scraping to survive for the past few months, and even gone so far as to travel to Europe to get money from a stranger! What do they call that, from hero to zero?”

“Shut up!” Naib yelled this time, rocking his hands in a futile attempt to untie himself and punch the asshole. He could feel all of his blood rush to his face from rage. 

He had never told his mom anything about his collapsed boxing career because he didn’t want her to think he failed. She was so proud of him for becoming famous and getting so far despite their low upbringing. Their life had been extremely hard since they moved to America, and they were finally doing good after years of sacrifices.

He always sent her the money he earned so she could live comfortably, it’s the least she deserved for always being there for him, but that injury had been a slip, a mistake he was desperate to fix so everything could go back to normal…

But now, that goal was unreachable.

“You don’t want to worry her, do you?” Jack cooed, with an understanding tone that felt mocking. “You are a good person, good to a fault, actually. That’s why I know you are going to tell me everything you saw.”

“...”

“If you behave, I will even send her a part of your auction’s proceeds, so she will benefit regardless of what happens to you. Isn’t this what you really want?”

Naib closed his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath.

…Seriously, what an asshole.

***

If Victor Grantz had a spirit animal -which he couldn’t have because he wasn’t native american and that would be cultural appropriation- it would be a sponge. More specifically, SpongeBob.

Both of them had many things in common: They were blond, always smiled, never complained about anything, and loved to work at a place that exploited them. That's who he was. Victor had been the best Uber Eats employer of the month for 3 consecutive years. 

It was well deserved. Not many people would cross a stormy sea to deliver McDonalds to a lonely island at 21.00 pm, but Victor was built different. 

Maybe he had weird hobbies, maybe he was mentally ill. Whatever it was, he went so far because he loved to see the expressions clients made once they opened the door and saw him there, with a big smile and their food still warm. 

In Victor’s opinion, people were very egotistical. They would order food in the middle of a snow storm, tornado, heat wave or even a flood. They never cared about the delivery guy, who would be forced to go there if he didn’t want to get fired. Victor’s coworkers were lucky, because he always took the orders no one else wanted to do.

Sometimes -if they had enough empathy- when clients opened the door, they would look surprised to actually see their food being delivered, as if they didn’t expect anyone to actually go through that. Those were Victor’s favorite expressions.

People always told him that one day he would get in serious danger, but he smiled and told them he was fine. Deep inside, he knew he enjoyed the thrill of the unexpected.

Hmm… Maybe he really had unresolved mental issues.

Either way, the redhead lady had given him a generous tip, another good part of taking those unwanted orders.

Currently, Victor was at the deck of the island. He was folding his bike and placing it at the bottom of the motor boat he had borrowed. Thankfully, it wasn’t raining anymore, so he would be able to cross the sea back to the mainland without too much trouble.

See? In the end, this delivery hadn’t been hard at all!

At least that’s what he thought, until he saw a car with a deer on top of it approaching.

…

A CAR WITH A DEER ON TOP OF IT.

Who the heck ran over a deer and left it there, lying on the bonnet?!

And the deer wasn’t even dead, it was screaming, probably wondering the same!

Flabbergasted, Victor jumped on the boat and tried to start the engine, but the machine was old and it wasn’t working. 

Oh no no no no, come on-

Victor was already sweating when things got even more deranged. The blue car crashed against one of the wooden pilings of the dock, making the whole structure tremble. The deer flew high and fell on the water, and out of the car came out a silver haired guy drenched in blood.

DRENCHED IN BLOOD!

A distorted, broken version of ‘Daddy Shark, doo-doo, doo-doo’ played in the background as the bloody man started running towards Victor as he yelled:

“DON’T LEAVE!” 

Victor Grantz screamed.

Chapter Text

Ever since he had woken up in that manor, hands and ankles chained to the floor, Naib had tried to understand everything to the best of his abilities. 

His boxing trainer always told him that, to win a fight, he needed to take into account 3 things: His surroundings, the physical capacity of his opponent, and their mentality.

Well, Naib knew he was fucked in all three levels.

1. His surroundings: He had no idea where the hell he was. A random british manor located on an island he only saw on a stupidly well-edited youtube video. 

2. The physical capacity of his opponent: They literally were vampires. What was he supposed to do with that? He didn’t even know what they were capable of besides sucking blood. What was their lore? Could they fly? Could they play the piano dramatically as they mourned their past glory days? God, he hoped not.

3. Their mentality: They were insane, elitist fuckers who bought humans once a year in a clandestine event. Their host was Jack, a showman, a sadistic bastard who didn’t take anything seriously, was talkative to a fault, and who happened to make Naib’s shitty life a little bit shittier.

Could a psychopath like that really have a weak spot?

And not only that, Naib had severely understated his opponent. Jack’s easy-going personality was a ruse, the asshole knew exactly how to push his buttons and manipulate him into compliance. He was dangerous.

Naib could feel his resolve crumble just by looking at the man’s finger on his phone, ready to send that picture to his mother. 

A gun to his head would have been less menacing, and that was telling enough.

A long silence followed in which the vampire waited patiently, as if he knew it was a matter of time for Naib to speak. When the human looked away and opened his mouth with a grimace, the vampire knew he had won.

In the end, Naib bitterly told him everything he saw in the kitchen.

Fuck it, if he was going to die, at least his mom would get something out of it.

For the next several minutes, Jack asked weirdly specific questions about what the vampire lady said before drinking the girl’s blood, her reaction after, how long it took her to die, and more. Naib answered honestly, still not knowing what piece of information the man was really going after. 

When Jack stopped asking questions, seemingly satisfied with the answers, he went back to Naib’s phone and pressed the ‘Send’ button with a smirk. 

Naib felt his soul leave his body.

“W-What the- You promised you wouldn’t send her anything!”

“And I won’t, I’m sending the picture to myself, you look cute.”

…This fucker!

“You are disgusting,” Naib scoffed.

“Good. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have come so far.”

Jack sent him an amused smirk, as if he felt genuinely complimented by his insult. Naib decided that this man was too weird to make sense of anything he said or did.

“Why do you even care so much about what happened to that woman?” He still dared to ask.

Jack shrugged. “As a good CEO, I want to know the opinion of my customers.”

“Ever tried asking them to leave a google review?”

Jack laughed, earning a spiteful glance from Naib. “I’m simply glad to know that she seemed to really hate my management of the company.”

Huh?

Was Jack messing with him again? He had to be. No one would appreciate hearing about how their clients thought their products were bad and their predecessor was better than them in every way. 

Even then, Jack didn’t seem to be lying, he did look happy about it. It made no sense.

Just what the hell was going through his head?

The vampire grinned, seemingly enjoying the confusion on Naib’s face.

With a melodic hum, he left Naib’s phone over a table full of expensive items, such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s manuscript, Antonio Stradivari’s cursed violin or even the Koh-I-Noor, the Queen of England’s famous diamond. Then, he took out his own phone.

“As I promised, I will anonymously send a part of your bid to your mother as gratitude for your cooperation.”

Even if Naib hated to admit it, those words lifted a deep, heavy weight off his shoulders. His life was still in obvious danger, but it was oddly comforting to know that there was a chance her mom wouldn't have to stress over paying for his funeral. It’s the little things, he guessed. His muscles, which had been tensed for way too long, relaxed a bit, and that ended up being a reminder of the pain his wrists were going through by holding all of his body’s weight by the rope.

“Cool, then can you put me down to… Whatever this secret torture room is.”

“Was. Now we mostly use it to store valuable objects that will be sold in the auction. You humans are the main event, of course, but when you live as much as us, you also start hoarding and collecting hidden treasures.”

That would explain all that stuff on the table. Naib looked around and, next to the broken japanese vase, saw the most average looking mirror he had ever seen. It had a purple, almost gray wooden frame, no detail and the surface was scrim and dirty. 

He raised a skeptical eyebrow, clearly thinking 'How is this ugly thing probably more expensive than my apartment?’ Jack followed his gaze and smiled proudly.

“You really have a good eye, Mr. Subedar, this is the second most pricey item of the room!”

“It doesn’t look that special.”

“Most valuable things don’t look so at first sight,” Jack replied, and his eyes lingered on him meaningfully, then he placed his hand on the mirror, careful not to touch the dusty glass.

“This ancient relic has a soul trapped inside called Yima. When you look into the mirror, Yima will see your ambitions and show you a way to obtain your goal. Then, she will ask you to make a deal with her Goddess, Yidhra, but don’t be fooled, it’s a lie to trap you inside.”

Jack looked into the mirror and, just like he said, a creepy silhouette of a short girl with rotting skin and long, black hair looked back at him with empty eyes, unmoving. 

Naib thought that she looked like a fucked up version of an abyssal fish, but that would be too mean to say out loud. What if the monster had feelings?

If what Jack said was true, then he wondered what Yima saw when she looked at the nasty vampire. What could be Jack’s biggest ambition? The success of Oletus? When Naib looked into the mirror, he saw nothing.

One thing was for sure though, if he saw this little girl in the corridors of his own home, Naib would burn the whole place down. This creature was scary .

“If this is the second best item, then what is the star of your auction?” he asked, too creeped out to keep looking at her.

Jack finally looked back at him and smiled, as if he had been waiting for that question this whole time.

****

Victor Grantz felt like a mouse left alone in a snake tank. 

Except the tank was a boat with no way out, and the snake was a stranger who kept staring at him dead silent, probably waiting for the best moment to attack him when he turned down his guard.

Victor whimpered. He regretted many things right now.

He didn’t have time to leave the dock before the scary guy jumped on the boat and ordered him to turn on the motor. Victor had been too shocked to do anything else besides listening to that request like a dumb, loyal dog with a death wish.

And now there he was, in the middle of the lake, sharing minimal space with someone who looked like he escaped from an asylum, which might as well be true since that manor seemed really suspicious.

Victor had too many questions right now. Who was that guy? Was the blood his, or did it belong to someone else? What happened to the deer?! 

“Aren’t you, um… losing a lot of blood?” He decided to point out, conversationally .

The stranger, who seemed to be deep in thought, looked at his arm and shook his head, deadpan. “No, it’s fine like this.”

“Oh… Okay.” 

Fuck fuck fuck he was going to die here-

While Victor promised himself to stop taking weird delivery jobs if he got out of this alive, Aesop sighed internally. He knew the Uber Eats guy was right, he should stop the blood, but since it was poisoned, he decided it was better to let all the bad stuff out. 

The problem was that it didn’t matter how much he waited, the blood kept coming out in that messed up color. 

Just how much poison did they put in his body...? 

Now that he wasn’t running for his life and had nothing else to do, besides looking at the dark landscape and closing his eyes when cold drops of water splashed on his face, Aesop realized that he hadn’t explained anything to his poor boat-mate.

Victor -that seemed to be the man’s name, judging by the small plate on his jacket- must be so confused and scared of him. Aesop had been an idiot for not saying anything.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you before. I’m Aesop,” he tried, looking at the man properly for the first time and- Oh! What a nice skin complexion he had! “Have you ever been told you would look lovely in a coffin?” 

Victor looked at him terrified and contemplated throwing himself to the sea.

“Sorry- I mean, I’m glad you let me in the boat, I was worried about being caught-”

‘Being caught?!’ Victor looked even more alarmed. This guy definitely escaped from an asylum. “By whom?”

“By the v-…” The embalmer got quiet immediately, realizing that he shouldn’t mention the V-Word. Victor already looked at him as if he was a murderer. If he talked about a vampire cult, the delivery guy would definitely push him off the boat.

That presented an important question, though. He had escaped, but now what? When he reached the coast, no one would believe him if he said he had been kidnapped by supernatural beings. Should he go to a police station and tell the cops that someone got shot in the manor, so they would be forced to go and check?

But the island was infested with vampires, he might as well be sending those innocent cops to their deaths.

Well, it’s not like all cops were good people anyways, so- 

NO! Aesop, focus!

“Aesop…?” Victor asked, scared. “Who was chasing after you?”

Aesop blinked several times. “...The villagers! I fell and hurt myself at the manor. They said they would help me, but they were very drunk so I told them I wanted to go to a hospital instead. They were very insistent, so I panicked and took the car to the dock. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“Oh, so that’s what happened,” Victor let out a big exhale, “I thought you were dangerous or something!” He laughed, relieved, as if the pathetic explanation was enough to put him momentarily at ease. “Your friend told me that card games can get pretty wild at your parties, now I can see why.”

Card games? Is that what they told Victor when he delivered the food? 

And the idiot fell for it?!

In all of his disbelief, Aesop sneezed.

“You must be cold.” Victor quickly reached for his bag and took out a propaganda shirt that physically hurt Aesop’s eyes. It was bright red and green, with a flying Santa Claus hamburger that said: ‘Ho Ho Ho! Chill & Wait, Now The Food Comes To YOU!

“It’s for our upcoming Christmas campaign,” Victor explained as Aesop had no choice but to put it on. “We are also offering free ear piercing on-site with the purchase of a family menu.”

Aesop’s eyes widened. Who did they think they were? Claire's?!

“If you aren’t into piercings, you and your manor friends might also be interested in our Happy Family Offer. Basically we add little presents for everyone with orders over 80$. It’s called ‘No One Gets Left Behind!’ and…”

Victor kept talking excitedly, his fear for Aesop completely forgotten over his duty as Uber Eats’ #1 Ambassador, while the Embalmer looked at the dark sea and thought about the people he did leave behind. 

***

“The star of the auction is right there, Mr. Subedar,” Jack said, pointing in his direction. 

Naib blinked twice. “Me?”

He was the most pricey auction item?!

“Excuse me, I meant behind you,” Jack clarified.

Since Naib was hanging from a rope, he had to do his best to turn his head without snapping his neck in half, and that’s when he saw what Jack was referring to.

It was a painting. An enormous painting that took up the entire wall. Naib didn’t know much about art, but even he felt his mouth hang open at how detailed, dynamic and crude it was. The scene depicted a war that took place in a castle. 

There were two clear factions: humans and vampires. The humans, who were mostly medieval farmers, were holding torches and hoes, while the vampires were shown flying and attacking them with their fangs. 

In the middle of the painting, there was a young man burning in a pyre while many people surrounded him. He was blonde and wore a pure, white outfit that contrasted significantly with all the black and red that surrounded him.

It reminded Naib of a sacrificial lamb.

“It’s called ‘The Last War ’” Jack said, contemplating the painting with solemnity. “Humans and vampires used to coexist together. Vampires would let humans live in their lands and, in exchange, humans would give us their blood from time to time.”

Naib raised an incredulous eyebrow, because that obviously never happened. If it did, people wouldn’t think vampires were nothing but a fantasy creature. 

“I think I must have missed that history class,” he said.

“Winners write history. In this case, humans won the war.”

“And they forgot to mention the little detail about you existing at all?”

“Good observation. During the Last War, humans stole our Tome of Prophecies, and wished for us to never exist. The magic wasn’t strong enough to exterminate most of us, but it made the World forget about us,” Jack raised his arms dramatically. ''And so we had no choice but to hide in the shadows! Pretend to be human while we keep drinking your blood like parasites through a high-earning company.”

Naib stared at Jack, trying to see if he was messing with him again -which wouldn't be unexpected, given their track record- but under all the dramatics, there was frustration and longing for the past, he seemed to tell the truth. 

“It’s a unique painting, and it will be the key piece of this auction as a way to celebrate the 200 year mark since we lost our privileges and became what we are.”

“Well, now that sounds depressing.”

Jack’s smile came back to his face. “Oh, it should, it’s a reminder of our biggest failure. Most of us lost something or someone important that day.”

As he said that, Naib contemplated the painting again. The more he looked at it, the more details he noticed. There were people lying on the ground, losing blood, praying and crying. His eyes fixated on a blond vampire with a low ponytail, hugging what seemed to be his dying brother near a broken tree. 

Despite his expression of pain and sorrow, he reminded Naib of the elegant vampire that had raised his glass at Aesop. Could it be him?

Whoever it was, the painting did a wonderful job at portraying how cruel war was. The person who drew it must have been an exceptional artist.

“There’s something missing, though,” Jack whispered, like an afterthought, and before Naib could ask what it was -to him, the painting was amazing enough- the vampire raised his right hand and grabbed his necklace with a strong, short pull.

“W-Wha-” 

Jack threw him a provocative smile, walked towards the painting and opened the heart-shaped necklace, spilling the blood on his hand. Naib couldn’t figure out what was going to happen, until Jack used his red fingers to write something at the corner of the picture.

It was the author’s signature, Jack Whistler.

“Now, perfect,” Jack said, cleaning his fingers with his tongue. ”It took me a year to finish this piece, you are the first person who gets to see it, you should feel honored.”

Right now, Naib only felt relieved that he had not said anything out loud about the painting, for his own dignity. 

Jack might be a talented artist, but the asshole didn’t deserve the ego boost.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about his reply, since Jack’s ringtone echoed through the chamber, interrupting their little chat. The vampire looked at him apologetically, as if saying ‘Sorry for leaving you hanging, literally ’ and took the call. Naib couldn’t hear the other side, but judging the vampire’s quick change of demeanor, something seemed to have gone south.

“Can you repeat that?” Jack asked slowly and sharply, with a dangerous tone that sent chills down Naib’s spine. “There are dozens of humans in this manor, and you managed to lose the one Mr. Desaulniers wanted at all costs?”

Wait what, did someone escape? Naib could hear messy apologies on the other side of the line. The person might as well be begging for their life.

“Contact everyone who lives near the coast. Joseph won’t let us continue with the auction if that human is not here,” Jack ordered, checking his watch with an impatient frown.

Naib also stared at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, there were only 20 minutes left until the auction started, at midnight. Whoever escaped at the last moment had done a stellar job, Naib was a big fan.

“Maybe if you checked on all the contestants instead of bothering me this wouldn’t have happened,” Naib mocked, feeling vindicated, but when he looked around, Jack wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Huh? Had he left?

“Hey, where are you?!” he complained. “Dude, at least untie me first!” 

This was certainly an unexpected turn of events for everyone involved. Naib’s heart was racing with possibilities. Even if it wasn’t him, knowing that someone managed to get out gave him a gleam of hope. The manor wasn’t some inexpugnable jail as he had previously thought, despite the sealed windows and doors, someone had found a way to get out!

And Naib should be no less.

Feeling somewhat energized, he took a deep breath, and analyzed his surroundings once more, this time with the welcomed silence Jack didn’t grant him before. His eyes traveled on the antiques, one by one, until they stopped at the ugly, cursed mirror. 

Hm.

“You, Creepy thing!” He called, realizing that him and that monster had something in common. “Let’s make a deal! If I free you, you will help me get out of here.”

At the call, the girl reappeared in the mirror’s reflection and stared at him with soulless, blood-curdling eyes, and after an uncomfortable silence in which Naib started to doubt if she understood him, the girl nodded with a small, crooked smile that wasn’t very comforting.

“Err… I hope I don’t regret this,” Naib gulped.

With the help of his right foot, he took off his left shoe, aimed at the mirror as if it was a multiplayer first person shooter that didn’t deserve a part 2, and threw a strong kick in that direction, sending the shoe flying across the room-

-and breaking another Japanese vase.

The creepy girl stared at him in a loud, judging silence that hurt Naib’s honor a little.

“I was just practicing!” He tried to save ass from that flop.

(He did his best not to think about how expensive that vase was, and took off his right shoe.)

He took a deep breath, “Alright, one more time. This one’s for you, Yima!”  

This time, the shoe flew and hit the mirror, making a huge crack right in the center. Naib felt good for roughly three seconds, then he got shitless scared when Yima started crawling out of the broken thing as if she was the girl from ‘The Ring’ coming out of the TV.

He might have yelled a little.

Yima didn’t even stand up after getting out of the mirror, she just stared at Naib, on all fours while her hair covered her face. She looked like a fucked up dog from hell. He was going to have nightmares for a decade.

‘Be strong for mother’ he told himself.

“Okay- Now you have to go to that corner of the room and pull the lever of the right, that one will close the hole under me. After that, you gotta pull the one on the left, and the rope that holds me will fall. Do you understand?”

The girl looked at him for so long that Naib felt as if he had been cursed, and then she started crawling -on all fours, the crazy bitch- towards the corner. Good, she understood him! Naib was already tasting victory when she raised her hand and touched the lever of the left.

“NO! You gotta pull the one on the right first! If you pull this one I’m going to fall to my death!!”

The girl stared at him in silence, and pointed at the lever of the left.

“Yeah, no, don’t touch that one! You have to pull the other one. Oh my god, do you know the difference between left and right?”

She stared at him confusedly. Naib wanted to die.

“What am I even saying, you don’t even know the difference between right or wrong! You are an evil thing!”

The girl pouted, upset, and Naib groaned. 

Whoever had managed to escape the manor must be infinitely more capable and cooler than him, that was for sure.

***

“You look so cool now, it gives you a mysterious guy vibe!” Victor cheered.

Aesop touched his newly pierced ear and internally agreed. He did feel a bit cooler than before. What a great life choice to make on a boat!

Wait, no, why did he even agree to-

Damn, Victor was good at his job.

“You got pale, are you feeling okay?” Victor asked, worried.

Oh, sweet embrace of death. Aesop didn’t feel okay at all, he was starting to feel like one of the beautiful corpses he loved to take care of. He had lost a lot of blood, and the shirt Victor lent him wasn’t only ugly, but also not warm enough to stop his shivering. 

Plus, now his ear hurt. 

“And to think I was scared of you, yet you can barely stand!” Victor sighed. He had insisted several times to put a bandage over his arm, but Aesop had refused every single time. “You are such a child. As soon as I get signal on my phone I’m calling an ambulance.”

Aesop had no choice but to nod like a grounded kid.

It was almost midnight when they reached the mainland. Victor turned off the boat’s motor and tied the rope to the dock piling. The harbor was dark and silent, with no soul in sight. The only source of light came from a couple of lonely yet well placed streetlights.

Victor was the first to jump out. Aesop grabbed his bike and passed it on to him, and when he stood up to follow, he felt a sudden drop in blood flow to the brain that made the world spin and his legs give up.

He would have fallen to the sea if it weren’t for the hand that grabbed him and helped him up.

“Thank you…” He mumbled, ashamed for almost fainting. He was already at its limit. “Do you have signal now? Can you call the ambulance?”

“It won’t be necessary, we will take good care of you.”

That voice was too deep and raspy to belong to Victor, and when Aesop raised his throbbing head, he was faced by three tall men he hadn’t seen in his life.

Victor was lying on the humid asphalt, passed out or dead, he couldn't tell.

The embalmer stepped back in shock, but one of the men grabbed him again, this time with painful force. “Hey, be careful or you will fall into the sea.”

He gave him a mocking smile, and Aesop was able to see his sharp fangs clearly.  

Vampires. Like a cornered, sick animal, he started squirming under the man’s grasp. There was something cruel about getting so far, so close to freedom, only to be captured once again. He didn’t want to go back to that hellish place! 

“I’ve told Jack that we found the missing human,” said one of them, typing on his phone boredly. “At least he won’t shout at us. Man, he sounded so angry, and for what? Look at the guy, he is on the brink of passing out.”

“Did he specify if we had to bring him back in one piece?” asked the one restraining him, with a vicious tone that meant trouble.

“Not really. Why do you ask?”

“No one has escaped the island in the past 100 years, that leaves us in an embarrassing situation. I think we should teach him a lesson before we bring him back.”

“Boss said he is Mr. Joseph’s pick, isn’t he our most important financier?”

“Do you really believe Desaulniers, of all people, would be interested in this dirty creature? Even his blood smells weird.”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

Oh, the red flags. The conversation was derailing into a dangerous, punching-bag territory, and Aesop didn’t know what to do. This was proving to be a strong contender for the worst night of his life, even worse than that time he brought a ‘date’ to the funeral home so she could see her grandma’s remains, but instead she cried so hard she woke Jerry up.

She hadn’t been a real goth after all. What a poser…

That day had been rough for everyone, but tonight things were getting worse by the second. The two vampires, convinced by the third, started surrounding him, getting closer and closer until Aesop felt positively trapped. One of them grabbed him by the forearm while the other grasped his hair and pushed backwards, forcing him to look up.

Aesop had been pushed inside lockers for a good portion of his high school days. He knew what was coming, so he closed his eyes and shouted:

“You can’t hurt me, I’m poisoned!” 

It was the first thing that crossed his mind, and thankfully the statement was strange enough to make the vampires stop and look at him with confusion.

“What the hell are you on about? Is this how you managed to escape? By sputtering that nonsense?” one of them laughed.

“I’m not lying, there’s someone poisoning everyone! If you look at my blood you will see that-”

He couldn’t finish talking, one of them grabbed him by the throat and started choking him, deciding that whatever he was saying wasn’t worthy enough to listen to. The embalmer panicked and tossed around, managing to land a hit on one of the men’s faces.

He released him and Aesop fell on his ass. He scrambled to stand up and rushed towards the opposite direction of the vampires, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to outrun them. He looked behind to check how close they were, and instead crashed against whatever was standing in front of him.

The thing or person was so stoic that, for a second, Aesop thought he had run into a streetlight. That would have been pretty pathetic, all things considered, but when cold, elegant hands fell on his shoulders to stabilize him, he recognized immediately who it was.

“You know, there’s a reason why these three weren’t invited to the party. It’s because no one likes them,” a silky, humored voice with a french accent said.

“Mr. Desaulniers-” one of them stuttered, probably as shocked about Joseph’s presence in the harbor as Aesop. “What are you doing here? We were taking care of it.”

Aesop was wondering the same thing. Why was he there, in the middle of nowhere? It was suspicious, but as much as he hated to admit it, Joseph’s unexpected presence was welcomed. He despised the man as much as any bird would loathe its captor, but compared to the three vampires who wanted to attack him, Joseph hadn’t hurt him… yet.

Aesop knew it was nothing more than manipulation and circumstances, but he would also lie if he said he wasn’t a bit glad to see him.

Joseph regarded the vampires with a calm smile as he put an arm around Aesop’s waist. “I don’t like leaving important matters to others, because there’s always a chance they might disobey. Tell me, Aesop, did they hurt you?”

Oh, he was mad. If the three vampires had tails, Aesop was sure they would be hidden between their legs. Cowards.

Before he could say anything, one of the vampires pointed at him accusingly. “Don’t listen to anything this one says, sir. He is a liar, he even said there’s a traitor among us.”

Instead of being turned off by the accusation, Joseph’s eyebrows raised in genuine concern and interest. “A traitor?”

He looked at Aesop expectantly. All of them did. 

Great. The embalmer realized he was the center of attention and cowered a little. Was there really a traitor? Well, he doubted his own claims, since he had no real proof of anything, just a hunch and Eli’s strange reaction when the kid licked his blood.

…But if Joseph was as interested in his ‘special blood’ as he so boldly proclaimed, then he might be the only person willing to listen to him.

Plus, if he was right and there was someone poisoning the humans to indirectly kill the rest of the vampires, then this was big, wasn’t it? The revelation would help all the vampires survive, and even though he didn’t want to aid them in any way, maybe they would spare him for being helpful.

“Aesop, that’s a serious accusation,” Joseph repeated, a stern frown decorating his otherwise perfect skin. “Why do you think there is a traitor?”

“I…”

***

“Okay, how many people have you possessed recently? raise those bony fingers so I can see them!”

Yima raised six fingers. Naib cheered like a proud kindergarten teacher.

“Great, you know how to count! Now point at the lever on the right!”

Yima pointed at the one on the left.

Naib screamed. At what moment did he think it was a good idea to put his literal life in the hands of a cosmic horror monster?! He was sooo going to die.

“I hope I will be reborn as a strong, albino tiger in my next life,” he cried in his delirium.

“Be careful…” the girl whispered.

“About tigers? But they are- Wait, you can talk!”

“Ambition knows no bounds. Humans, vampires… All of you will be betrayed tonight.” Her eyes turned black and empty, it was as if a voice was calling her from inside.

Naib tried to make sense of her words, unsuccessfully.  “What do you mean?”

“The auction… Death. If you want to stop it… make a deal with my Goddess.”

Oh, so that was it, she was trying to manipulate him into signing a contract with her! It was just like Jack said, after all.

“Yima, I literally don’t care about your riddles, I want you to pull the lever on the right. I helped you get out of the mirror, this is the least you could do.” His patience was gone. If he had another shoe, he would throw it at her for wasting his time.

Yima looked at him with deep disappointment, as if she had expected Naib to be thankful for the cryptic information she disclosed. 

With bitterness, she glanced at the levers and maliciously pulled the wrong one.

“Wait, no-!”

The rope that prevented him from dropping down into the abyssal pit broke loose from the machine, and so he fell to his death with a deafening scream.

At least, that’s what would have happened if no one had grabbed the other end of the rope at the last second. The sudden tension of the object made Naib’s whole body crash against the hole’s wall with a loud thud . Air left his lungs at the impact, and his interiors cracked as if he had broken a rib.

His heart pounded furiously with each breath at the knowledge that he had almost died. He thought he might spontaneously combust from stress at any moment, and when he looked up and saw who was his savior, he was sure of it. 

“Jack was too nice to tell you this, but I’m not. You look absolutely stupid with that collar of onions. Did no one tell you that Vampires hate garlic?” said his ex-coworker, standing at the edge of the pit with a shallow smile.

“Fuck you!”

“Nice to see you too, Subedar.”

Chapter Text

Vincent [11:45pm]: We found the missing human at the harbor. He is wounded, nothing serious. We will bring him back in time for the auction.

Jack read the message on his phone, looked at the two filthy rats in front of him and said: 

“They caught him.”

Fiona and Luca released a breath in unison. They had been so entertained playing tarot that they missed one of the humans climbing the chimney Luca was supposed to seal. It wasn’t until they checked the cameras of the dock that they saw how said human managed to escape the island thanks to the delivery guy Fiona called for literally no reason.

“We are so fucked,” both of them had said, helplessly watching Aesop leave in a motor boat.

It was their fault. It was so unequivocally their fault that they procrastinated telling Jack what happened because of how much their fault it was. 

Their boss was going to murder them in cold blood.

“Don’t look so afraid,” Jack said, raising an eyebrow. “If he hadn’t been found before sunrise, I would have made sure to lock you in a coffin for a thousand years, but everything is fine now!”

Fiona and Luca stared at the floor and gulped. They were more than 200 years old, but one was never old enough not to be afraid of Jack in his passive-aggressive mood. Alva used to be a very strict and cold boss, but his punishments were pretty much ordering his employees to take time off to reflect.

To reflect! God, he had been so normal.

“I won’t order from UberEats ever again,” Fiona promised, hand on her chest.

“Just as I expected, you learnt nothing,” Jack looked around the corridor, there were no screams or sounds of footsteps, which meant that everyone was in the auction room and the game was almost over. “Leaving that aside, how are the preparations going?” 

Luca straightened his back. “Except for numbers 3 and 9, the rest of humans have been hunted, the last one being 10 minutes ago. The staff has already noted which of our guests caught whom, in case they decide to bid for them. Everyone is now waiting for the event to start.”

Fiona held the iPad she always brought with her and showed Jack a live-camera of the auction room. Any outsider would have looked at it and thought it was an inoffensive, luxurious party of old money people.

The vampires were gathered in groups or pairs. They lively talked and boasted about how much fun they had in the game. They told stories about their prey fighting with all their might, while others laughed at how easy it had been for them. Overall, the reactions were positive. 

Fiona swiped the screen to another camera that showed a much smaller, locked room filled with 16 humans. Unlike the vampires, they all looked disheveled and sweaty after two hours of hiding and running without success. Their wrists and ankles had been immobilized by shackles, the only thing they could do now was wait.  

“Almost everything is ready,” Fiona said, looking at the screen. “The only humans left are number 3, who has been caught at the deck, and numbers 9 and 13.”

“I’ve taken care of 9. Norton will bring him to the auction in a bit,” Jack said, talking about Naib. “Number 13 suffered an accident and died, so she won’t be expected.”

That last bit surprised Fiona, who silently looked at Luca as if saying ‘Did you know anything about that?’ Luca shrugged and looked away uncomfortably.

After all the reports were made, Fiona was tasked with announcing the guests that the main event would start soon. She retired with quick steps, leaving Jack and Luca alone.

Without Fiona there, the atmosphere changed immediately. Jack’s superficial frustration at their incompetence turned into something serious, dangerous. Luca couldn’t look at him, still feeling guilty for failing to keep the humans inside the manor. He was going to apologize when Jack’s cold words cut him. 

“Remember what happened to Alva, and do not disappoint me.”

That was the only thing he said before leaving in the same direction as Fiona. Luca closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he told himself the same thing he had been repeating on his mind like a mantra for the past year.

‘There’s no going back from this.’

***

“I crossed paths with Jack when I arrived and he told me to check on you,” Norton explained casually, as if he wasn’t holding 143 pounds of Naib’s weight with one hand. “I don’t know how you manage to make your miserable life even more miserable.”

“And whose fault is that?!” Naib bit back. 

“It’s nothing personal, Subedar, my job was to get you here. Whatever happens to you after that doesn’t concern me.”

If Norton wasn’t holding the rope preventing him from dying, Naib would tell him so many bad words it would get him banned in every single social media. He was very angry, and he had every right to be because holy shit, Norton Campbell was the biggest moron in the world.

Despite their bickering when they worked together, he really believed they were friends. Naib’s first impression of him had been negative at the beginning. Norton was a new hire, he worked hard, smart and charmed everyone with how competent he was. 

To Naib, he was the sort of person that would sell ice in the Antarctic.

Norton’s kindness always seemed to have an ulterior motive. An asshole manager was sick? He would offer to take care of their work with a smile. A gentle coworker couldn’t come because their house caught on fire? Fuck them, not his problem. 

As someone who had gotten into trouble all of his life for jumping to help people he didn’t even know, Norton went against everything Naib believed in. He was his antithesis of sorts, a rival, a whatever you call the coworker you despise because you hate your job and whoever makes it worse.

And so, Naib’s opinion on the newcomer was set on stone, which had ‘Norton Campbell is a shitty opportunist’ engraved on it.

He even had an argument with him about fucking Bath Bombs of all things. Norton suggested to the Manager that Naib should dress as a soap and walk around the mall to promote the shop’s new One Piece collaboration. When Naib asked why him, Norton just said that it was because he was short and cute.

“You look approachable, like Chopper,“ he had said, which was bullshit. Everyone knew that if he was a One Piece character he would be Zoro.

Things happened. Violent things. They were sent to the manager’s office, who sided with Norton because of course. That week, Naib posted a mirror selfie of him saying ‘How the fuck am I an essential worker?’ dressed up as a Bath Bomb with horns and a pink hat.

As if walking around as a ball wasn’t embarrassing enough, a few days later he forgot his wallet at home and his train ticket got a tear that wouldn’t let him access the station. It was night, he had no battery on his phone and no way to get to his apartment. 

He couldn’t even throw himself at the rails to end his misery because he had no train ticket.

He was sitting on the floor, like a loser, wondering about how risky it would be to jump the automatic gate and avoid getting fined, when a hand poked him on the head. 

He looked up, thinking it was a guard asking him to be pathetic somewhere else, but it was worse, it was Campbell.

“What do you want?” He grunted, not even pretending to be cordial.

Norton showed him a ticket. “Nothing, I just found this on the floor. You can take it.”

Naib threw him a distrustful look and grabbed the ticket, examining it. He was surprised to see that it was just what he needed to get home. At first, he was relieved for his luck, then he realized that it was impossible that Campbell found it on the floor. The ticket was in perfect condition, and it maintained the warmth and smell of coming straight from the machine.

Did he buy it for him?

He stared at Norton suspiciously, who scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “The train is arriving soon. Are you coming or not?” 

Naib was confused. Was Norton being nice? Even though he had nothing to gain from helping him out? He spent the entire train ride in silence, wondering about that.

On the next day, the manager gave Norton a Bath Bomb costume too. 

“Amazon sent me another one by mistake. Now go and help Naib,” She had ordered, because Karma is a bitch.

Campbell and him were forced to walk around the mall dressed as plastic balls. At some point, Naib tripped over Norton, who fell and started rolling down the mechanical stairs. Naib couldn't help but lose it, tears forming on the corner of his eyes, which he couldn’t even wipe because he was a ball with restricted movement. He laughed hard until Norton charged back in revenge. 

They kept ball fighting each other like pinballs, earning an audience. The only reason they didn’t get fired that day was because a lot of people came to the store after the ‘amazing performance’.

After that, Norton invited him to dinner as a truce, and Naib decided that Norton might not be as much of an asshole as he previously thought. He pretended to be one to survive, but deep down he was someone he could trust, and maybe call a friend.

Looking back on it, he was wrong.

That day at the train station, Norton hadn’t helped him out of kindness. He did it because he had something to gain, he had never changed. 

“Seriously, Subedar, in what world did you think that partnering with a mirror demon was a good idea?” Norton started pulling the rope to get him out.

Naib would have kicked him if he could, but his hands were tied and his right knee still hurt from Jack’s beating. After getting out of the hole, he looked around, trying to find the -other- traitor who had put him in that situation, but he couldn’t find Yima anywhere. Had she escaped?

“She went back inside the mirror,” replied Norton, reading his mind. “It’s not like she has anywhere else to go, and that’s how she feels closer to her Goddess.”

“Whatever. She can’t even distinguish between left and right.”

“What do you expect? She lives inside a mirror, she sees everything flipped.”

…Eh?

So that’s why-

Naib groaned. “Forget about Yima, I can’t believe you have been a vampire all this time!” It was such a ridiculous thought, that the man with whom he shared so many train rides and stupid texts had been a monster. “There were so many people at the store, too, but you decided to scam me. Did you really hate me that much?”

Naib felt to stupid, his fists were shaking. He had confided in Campbell about his problems. He told him about how much he hated his life because he couldn’t go back to boxing, about how he hadn’t told his mother about it because it was shameful, about how he struggled to save money for the operation.

All of that, and instead of feeling empathy, Campbell had only seen it as an opportunity to trick him.

“You are wrong about something,” Norton said. He didn’t care about Naib’s feelings, but somehow it bothered him that Subedar thought he did that out of spite. “I didn’t choose you. Jack had an eye on you from the beginning. He told me to come and convince you.” 

“Why would he do that? I hadn’t met him before.”

“I dunno. I was hoping you would tell me,” Norton sighed, disappointed because Naib didn’t know anything either. Jack always held his cards close to his chest, it was impossible to tell what was going through his mind, but he would have liked to know why it had to be Subedar.

“So you are not 25,” accused Naib, ignoring Norton’s conspiracies and coming to terms with the fact that he had been hanging out with a vampire.

“Multiply it by 8.”

“154!?”

“This is why you ended up in a soap shop, Subedar.” Wow, rude?? “It’s been 200 years since I was turned into one.”

200? Naib frowned. Why was that number so familiar? 

“What’s with that face? If you are thinking about making a peepaw joke-” 

“No,” Naib lied. “Were you transformed during the Last War?”

Norton’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Why do you know that?”

Naib rolled his eyes and pointed at the big painting behind them. Norton followed his gaze, letting out a sharp breath. He had been so focused on making sure Subedar didn’t kill himself that he hadn’t paid much attention to his surroundings, but now that he saw it, he understood. 

He had heard about Jack’s passion in art, but he expected the man to draw creepy, dark, gorey stuff, Saturn Devouring His Son sort of stuff, but this painting was much more than that. The screams, the deaths, the girl in the middle… It brought back memories Norton would rather forget.

“I see Jack told you about it. For some reason.” Yet another inexplicable behavior from his devious boss. Why would he tell something like that to a nobody like Subedar?

“Then it’s true that vampires and humans lived together?” Naib asked. He had thought Jack was messing with him with that crazy story, but Norton’s reaction made him doubt.

“It was a frail alliance. When I was human, half of my village feared vampires, while the other half admired them.”

Naib made a disgusted expression. “Why would anyone admire vampires? No offense.”

“You need to understand the context. We saw them as superior beings chosen by God. They had powers, strength and could live forever, while most peasants didn't know how to read, had five children on average and died at 30 from the plague or tuberculosis. When I was little, my dream was to become a vampire. I was lucky that I got my goal right before everything went to hell.”

Campbell stared at the painting for a while with an unreadable expression. Naib had always assumed that Norton had an easy, comfortable life. He  gave him trust fund kid vibes, the sort of spoiled young adult living an idle life on investments, with an air of pampered boredom and only 25,000 a month to live on.

Hell, he was convinced that Norton worked at the soap shop as a social experiment, but apparently he had been very wrong. Campbell might have lived a harsh life before….

“I understand now,” he said, looking at the vampire with pitiful eyes. “Why your name is Norton , of all things. Shit’s prehistoric.”

“Subedar, every time you open your mouth I feel less bad about bringing you here.”

“So you admit you feel a tiny little bad.”

“Enough talking, I have to bring you with the others.”

Norton pulled the rope to force Naib to follow him, as if he was a dog on a leash. Naib wanted to resist, but he was sure that if he did, Norton would drag him across the floor like a napkin. 

Before they left the room, Naib looked at the mirror one last time and felt uneasy, as if he was overlooking something important.

“By the way, Yima said that something bad is going to happen tonight. She talked about a traitor. Do you know anything about that?” he decided to tell Campbell.

“A traitor? That’s the last thing you should worry about. Yima lies all the time. Don’t believe anything she says,” Norton brushed aside with such confidence that made Naib feel silly for believing that monster at all.

***

“Why do you think there is a traitor?” Joseph asked again with a piercing gaze.

Four pairs of eyes fell upon him, making Aesop wish he was a rock, the wind, a concept or just Victor. Oh, how lucky that guy was, he didn’t have to talk to the mafia vampires because he was passed out or dead.

Still, as alluring as that was, Aesop didn’t want to die today. He took a big breath and told them everything. From the moment the vampire lady died after she drank from the girl, to Eli’s suspicious reaction after Robbie tasted his blood.

“Did you hear anything? He talks very low,” a vampire complained after he finished. 

Aesop tsked and repeated everything for a second time.

“Can you do it with a southern accent now?”

“I guess I can try.” Aesop was about to speak when Joseph stopped him. 

“Don’t mess with him, Vincent.”

“Sorry, he is just so nervous,” the Vampire called Vincent snickered. “You don’t believe that ridiculous lie, right?”

Aesop frowned. “I have no reason to lie about this. I’m an embalmer, I see blood almost everyday, that’s how I noticed. If you don’t believe me then you can taste it yourselves.”

He raised his bloodied arm to prove his point, successfully surprising everyone but Joseph. The three vampires shared shifty glances, suddenly feeling hesitant about Aesop’s story. After an antsy silence, the tallest one snapped and took a step forward, approaching Aesop with big steps.

“Don’t be cowards now!” he told the others, “He is bluffing. If the food wants to be eaten, then who are we to deny him?”

He grabbed Aesop’s arm without care, making him flinch, and stared at the trail of blood with a frown. The vampire had tried to look brave in front of his friends, but at such a small distance, Aesop could tell there was doubt in his face. He could see it in the way he winced when he examined the wound up close, as if he could also tell there was something wrong with it.

“I’m not lying,” Aesop repeated with conviction, low enough so only the vampire could hear him. “I think… I think someone wants to kill a guest, and that’s why they poisoned me and the other humans.”

The vampire shook his head in denial, “That’s stupid. Who would they even want to kill with...?” Suddenly, he stopped, as if a name had crossed his mind. 

Aesop looked at him with curiosity, wondering if he had any idea of who could be the target of this crime. He understood everything when the vampire stole a glance at the person silently waiting behind him, Joseph.

Aesop felt the vampire’s hold weaken, leaving a red mark on his arm. 

“The human is right, his blood has been tainted,” the man finally said, turning around to look at his shocked friends, and then approaching Joseph with professional, careful steps. “Mr. Desaulniers, it’s too soon to be sure, but if there is a traitor, it’s no secret that you have several enemies among the guests. It’s my duty to ask you to wait here while we go back to the manor and see what’s really going on.”

Joseph's eyes widened at the information and gave a silent nod. Aesop had expected him to look worried, or even angry to know that someone might be planning his murder, but instead Joseph looked at him with a mix of surprise and something he couldn’t quite name. 

Maybe he didn’t expect Aesop of all people to discover that, and felt grateful for it?

“I understand. I will wait here until further notice, but before you all leave to speak with Jack, may I thank the human for his warning?” He asked the others, getting a dry ‘sure’ for an answer.

Aesop sulked. He didn’t want gratitude. He wanted to be left alone after being useful, but they planned to bring him back anyways? It was unfair. He decided that he would ask Joseph to free him as thanks for potentially saving his life. He seemed understanding enough, willing to listen to reason.

Joseph moved towards him and put his hands over his shoulders in a comforting way. He leant down, drawing closer to Aesop’s ear, making the human’s stomach knot at the proximity.

“Fate works in mysterious ways,” Joseph whispered. Aesop blinked with confusion, to which the vampire laughed slightly and said, “Just think about it. There are more than 100 vampires on the island, yet you managed to tell the truth to the one you should have never trusted.”

Before Aesop could make sense of those words, Joseph disappeared from his side and reappeared behind Vincent, slitting his throat with a knife. 

The two other vampires reacted much faster than Aesop but, even with that advantage, they were unable to prevent the bloodbath that came next. 

Joseph’s movements were too hard to see for the human eye. It felt like watching a fight with missing frames, a tv-show with a bad cable connection, or a video game with high ping. He blinked once and Joseph was cutting someone’s throat, he blinked a second time and, suddenly, he was ten steps on the left, cutting someone’s head. He blinked a third time, and he was near the sea, killing the last vampire who tried to run away.

It happened too fast. Everyone had been murdered before Aesop could comprehend how badly he had misjudged the situation. 

Joseph wasn’t the victim, he was the perpetrator. 

It was a scary realization, one that prevented him from trying to run. It was useless, he had never stood a chance against this man. He only escaped from that bedroom the last time because Joseph felt like it.

He felt like a huge idiot. He had trusted Joseph because of what he said about his blood, about how special it was to him. In his head, it didn’t make sense for Joseph to poison him, but that must have been another lie. He was collecting them at this point.

“You seem surprised,” Joseph said, cleaning his hands with a handkerchief with terrifying normality. “Now we are even, since you also surprised me. I can’t help but admire your valiant attempt at uncovering this secret. You were wrong, but still, I knew you were a special one.”

Aesop ignored his empty, mocking praise. “Are they dead?"

"Not completely, in a few hours their bodies and wounds will regenerate. They will wake up as good as new, if not with a slight headache. Killing a vampire is harder than you think, unless you expose us to the sun or use a certain poison."

"Why are you doing this?”

Why did he want to poison everyone? Aesop didn’t go to business school, but he didn’t need it to know that killing the main clients of the company you are financing is an awful decision.

Did he want to ruin Jack’s reputation? Destroy the company? Get revenge on the vampires who shunned him?

“Your curiosity is adorable, but my reasons are none of your concern,” Joseph shrugged off his question with his usual sweet voice mixed with coercion. “Now, we are going to return to the manor, I will patch up that nasty wound of yours, and you will get ready for the auction.” 

“What will happen during the auction?”

Joseph smiled and said nothing. It was no use, Aesop knew he wouldn’t tell him anything. He also knew that Joseph was patiently waiting for him to get closer on his own, so they could leave the chilly dock, but his body wouldn’t move, it was as if he was nailed to the ground. 

He had seen many dead bodies in his life due to his job, not to the extent he was desensitized to the tragedy of others, but he had enough experience not to feel as revolted to that display than the average person.

This time was an exception, though. Seeing Joseph surrounded by fog, three slaughtered vampires scattered near his still polished shoes, and an endless dark sea framing his haughty silhouette was a sight of nightmares.

Even more so when two huge, bat-like wings unfolded from his back and spread like a shadow.

Aesop’s knees went weak with dismay. Of course he had wings. 

Joseph didn’t plan to bring him back flying, Right?

…Right?

“Come on, don’t be scared,” Joseph cooed. “If you behave and say nothing, I promise to give you the antidote. The poison running through your veins isn’t hurting you right now, but if you don’t reverse the effects in 12 hours, it will kill you,” he smiled kindly when he said the next words, “I wasn’t lying when I said your blood is important to me. I’m the only person who can help you.”

An antidote? Aesop had been so focused on escaping this whole time that he hadn’t thought about something as important as that. How many hours had it been since he fell unconscious? Six?

Joseph was right, he really had no choice.

With a downcast look and sour expression, he walked towards the vampire, letting himself be positioned however the other saw fit to leave.

“By the way, that T-Shirt is amusingly accurate, isn’t it?” 

Aesop tilted his head with confusion, until he remembered the slogan written on it.

‘Chill & Wait, Now The Food Comes To You’

He felt sick, and started to wonder if he was dealing with a vampire or the devil itself.

Chapter Text

“This is where we part ways, Subedar,” Norton said, stopping in front of a door guarded by two vampires. Naib could hear the cries of humans inside of it, and his mood soured even more, if that was possible. “Try not to look this grumpy during the auction, or no one will buy you.”

“Wow, that would make me so sad.” 

“It should. Unclaimed humans become free real estate, the appetizer of the night. You will end up looking like Swiss cheese.” 

Naib imagined himself lying down on the top of a long table, being sucked by what? 100 vampires? and shivered. He decided that he didn’t want to become cheese, nor any other food with several holes.

“What if someone bids for me?” He asked, realizing that he had no idea about what would happen after the auction.

“You will go sit with your new master and then we will eat... Normal food -I feel like I should make that distinction- while Fiona projects a video of tonight’s best moments. I’m sure she is working on it right now. You should see her TikTok edits, she is a pro.”

Naib ignored the last part for his mental well being and instead asked:

“Wait. If you eat normal food, why do you want to suck our blood?”

“Human food tastes good, but it’s an indispensable pleasure. If we don’t eat, nothing bad will happen. Blood, on the other hand, is like air to us, we need it to survive.”

“And after the food and video? What then?” Naib hated Campbell with his whole being, but at least he was open to answer his questions.

Norton started to look impatient, though, but he still replied. “Jack planned to bid several relics, you saw them in that room. When all is sold, we will toast, and say goodbye until next year.”

“When you say toast…”

“We will drink your blood. Even the guests who didn’t buy anyone will get a sample, so they don’t feel left out,” Norton’s words made his skin crawl, “Ah, but you don’t need to worry about dying. Most of them will probably take a sip, and bring you to their home so they can keep feeding for a long time. It would be ridiculous to pay such a huge amount to finish it in one night, right?”

“Sure, right…”

Naib wasn’t sure if Campbell was trying to make him feel better or worse, but if it was the former, he was doing a terrible job. Not dying tonight meant little if he was going to become someone’s stock for a few months, until he was too sick to keep going and die anyways.

“I hope you choke on a bath bomb,” he decided to say, just because.

Norton sighed. “I entertained you for way too long.” 

He untied the rope constricting his wrists, changing it for metal chains similar to the ones at the start of this ‘adventure’. Once it was done, he stood there for a while. He seemed as if he wanted to say something else, but decided against it. 

“I guess this is goodbye.” 

“And that’s it?! You are just going to leave?”

Norton started walking away. “Yeah, exactly.”

It was ridiculous and so, so unfair. Naib still hadn’t told him everything he wanted to say, about how despicable, arrogant and egoistic he was. He couldn’t understand how someone he believed was his friend could betray him so coldly, without even an apology. He just couldn’t. 

“Campbell,” Naib called, louder so he could still hear him. “Did you ever feel guilty?” 

‘About lying to me this whole time’ was left unsaid, but implied.

Norton stopped walking. He had his back turned, so Naib couldn’t see his expression when the other put his hands on his pockets and said, with disinterest.

“I didn’t. Unlike some people, I don’t spend my time regretting my life choices.”

His words were meant to hit where it hurt the most, and they were far from the stupid jokes Naib was used to hear from him. There was no doubt Norton had never cared about him, which was obvious, but maybe, naively, Naib had expected a different reply. 

The disappointment was enough to leave him speechless. He saw Norton disappear through the corridor, and couldn’t get himself to struggle when he felt a vampire push him inside the guarded room.

Clank!

The door closed behind him, and Naib found himself surrounded by the other humans who had already been caught. All of them looked like lambs waiting to be slaughtered. Tired, defeated and anxious.

“The vampire who caught me, Ada, was so beautiful. I think I wouldn’t mind becoming her pet.” 

…Except maybe that one weirdo.

“I can’t believe you are saying this, Emil, they are monsters!” A woman scolded the young man, who had accepted the dire situation way too fast.

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” Emil replied, crossing his arms. “My life was hell before coming here, I had a lot of debt and lived on the streets. Ada said she is going to treat me well. I think I will take my chances, thank you.”

“You don’t know what you are saying! How can you be so calm about…”

As expected, everyone started arguing at the same time, throwing insults left and right. Naib didn’t want to participate, it was stupid to go against each other when the real enemy was outside of that room, so he stepped back and leaned against the furthest wall.

His plan was to be an edgy lone wolf in a corner, but the fantasy was short-lived, as a middle aged man approached him.

“You are that famous American boxer, Naib Subedar, aren’t you?”

Naib’s eyes widened. He nodded in silence. 

“I knew it!” The man said, with a thick northern accent. “I watched all of your matches. I didn’t recognize you at first because you used to be more buff,” ouch “-but when you challenged that vampire at the start, I realized I knew those fierce eyes. I really thought you would manage to hide until the game ended!” ouch x 2.

Naib slapped himself mentally. Leave it to him to talk big only to end up looking like a clown in front of a fan. 

And seriously, how come someone recognized him here? Was the world that small? Or was he simply born with the shittiest luck? At least, no one recognized him when he sold bath bombs…

Though that’s probably because people who watched boxing didn’t buy scented soap.

“I’m sorry, I really tried to win,” he told the man, with an awkward smile. “I heard that someone managed to escape, though.”

As if a light bulb went off in his head, Naib realized something right after saying that. He looked around, and was concerned for what he saw, or more accurately, for what he didn’t. 

“Um, have you seen Aesop?” he asked, earning a confused look. “He is slender, with a dead stare, looks like Wednesday Addams’ lost cousin.”

“Ah, the somber guy! Now that you mention it, he isn’t here.”

Naib counted the people several times to make sure. Aesop was the only person missing, besides the girl who died in the kitchen, and that could only mean one thing:

Aesop was the human who had escaped!

How the heck did he, of all people, manage to leave the manor!? Naib was shocked, but also glad for him.

“By the way, can I ask why you stopped boxing?” the man inquired, clearly more interested in his life than on the possibility of someone making it out. “You suddenly vanished when you were at the top! Rumors said you got injured, but I never believed it. I saw your last fight, and your opponent barely managed to hit you.”

“Well, that’s because…” 

Naib faltered, unsure of what to say. 

He had told his closest friends that he got injured in his last fight, but that was a lie. In reality, something else had happened that night, after he won the match, but he hadn’t told anyone. Not even Norton.

His right knee hurt just thinking about it, it was an awful memory he didn’t want to remember. He didn’t know what to tell that man. Thankfully, he was saved by the sound of the locked door opening once again.

Two vampires pushed Aesop inside with so much force he almost tripped.

Naib completely forgot about his fan and rushed towards the embalmer to prevent him from falling. He grabbed him by the arms to stabilize him, but Aesop let out a pained hiss the second he touched him. Naib quickly retired his hands. 

“Are you alright?” He asked.

Aesop gave him a half-hearted nod as he clutched his arm. He looked wet and anxious, like a traumatized cat who had been forced to take a shower.

“For real, what happened to you? I heard that you escaped. Why are you damp, did you swim to the mainland?”

“No, Joseph caught me and brought me back, then he told me I smelled weird, so he tossed me in a bathtub…” he shivered, as if he just recalled a disturbing memory.

“Joseph? The vampire who scammed you?” Another beaten nod. “Damn, he won’t leave you alone. Wait a second, did you have an ear piercing when we met?”

“...Yes.”

Naib wasn’t fully convinced, but he let it pass. 

“I’m sorry you got caught,” he said instead.

He had only known Aesop for a few hours, so he didn’t consider him his friend. He was more like a hunger games teammate, an Alice in Borderland homie, a Squid Game bro who supports you in every trial until you are forced to kill each other while you cry because you formed a beautiful, homosexual bond.

Something like that, probably.

Even if they weren’t close, he felt bad for him. Aesop looked distressed, extremely so, to the point he wondered if it was because he had been caught, or if there was something else troubling him.

His senses must be right, because Aesop looked at him with conflict in his gray eyes. As if he was debating on telling him a secret or not, Naib waited patiently until the other whispered:

“Naib, there’s something you should know…”

“Everyone, it’s time!” A vampire interrupted, entering the room. “Follow me in an orderly line and avoid horseplay! Whoever misbehaves will be punished by walking out there naked,” he threatened, successfully making everyone fall dead silent. 

Naib and Aesop shared a concerned glance and followed him with the rest through a dark corridor, until they reached the backstage left wing. 

“Wait behind this curtain, and when you hear your name, walk towards the middle of the stage. Again, do something funny and the consequences will be terrible.”

Right after he said that, another vampire holding a list shouted:

“Number one, Emil Acorn!”

Emil, the guy who had been bragging about the Vampire called Ada, jumped in surprise, and quickly did as he was told, leaving the dark backstage and going into the dramatically lit platform, stopping in the middle, right next to Jack.

Jack put a hand over Emil’s head, in the same way a car salesman would slap the roof of a car and say ‘This bad boy can fit so much gasoline in it’ but instead it was blood. He looked at the guests with a grin.

“We will start the auction with Emil, a 28 year old male from Germany. This cute fellow not only bears excellent blood, he is also loyal, disciplined and strong. After living a life full of misfortunes, he will become a perfect acquisition for any vampire who cares about food, and companionship…”

Naib and Aesop peeked from behind the curtain to see the show. They guessed Jack had a speech ready for every human. After he finished Emil’s presentation, many vampires began to bid, starting at an insane one million dollars.  

"Two fifty, two fifty, I've got two-fifty! Do I hear two sixty-five?"

It took three minutes but, in the end, a beautiful, brunette woman with long hair made the highest bid and won, it must be Ada.

With an applause from the guests, Emil got off the platform and happily sat next to her, like a loyal dog.

“This is so sick, they are treating us like objects,” Andrew, the gay Christian, muttered next to Aesop. “I feel fetichized.”

“Is that the right word in this context?” Naib wondered.

“Number two, Andrew Kreiss!”

“I want to fucking die,” he groaned before walking out there.

While everyone was busy watching the ‘spectacle’ (Andrew didn’t agree with his description and was having a breakdown over it) Aesop got close to Naib.

“We are in trouble," he said, in a low, paranoid voice.

“No way? I didn’t notice?”

“Drop the sarcasm, it’s worse than it looks.”

And so, Aesop used everyone’s distraction to tell Naib everything he had learned for the past hours. From the poison, to Joseph, to the betrayal that was going to take place very soon if they didn’t do anything to stop it.

“Did you just uncover an entire conspiracy and almost escaped while I was hanging from a rope?” Naib asked, too shocked to say anything smart.

“Hanging from a rope?” Aesop repeated, confused. ”Anyways, we are in trouble. Joseph plans to betray and kill the other vampires.”

“And that’s why he poisoned us?”

“Yes. He told me he has an antidote, he even said that he will give it to me after everything ends if I remain quiet, but… I’m tired of falling for his lies, I don’t trust him.”

“Why is he doing this?”

“Maybe he doesn’t get along with Jack and the guests, and wants to get rid of them? I don’t know, but if we don’t do anything soon, we will die before sunrise.” 

Holy shit. Naib took a deep breath. This was a lot of information to take in, it’s like bad news never stopped coming. He would have thought Aesop had gone insane if it wasn’t because he had been told something similar not too long ago.

“Ambition knows no bounds. Humans, vampires… All of you will be betrayed tonight.”

Yima wasn’t lying, she knew about this, and he and Norton ignored her warning like idiots.

"We are fucked. Does anyone else know?"

"I think Mr. Clark is helping him, or at least is somewhat aware of it."

So there was more than one person involved in this plot. Maybe Jack suspected something, and that's why he had interrogated him earlier about the vampire who died in the kitchen, now everything was starting to make sense. 

All of the vampires dying sounded like a win in his mind, that is, if he didn't die with them.

"We should tell the truth," he said, even if it pained him. "Accuse Joseph in front of everyone. If we do that, the vampires will force him to give us the antidote."

Aesop shook his head vehemently. "They won't believe us, Naib. I almost got killed for even suggesting that there was a traitor. I’m in danger just by telling you this. Joseph is smart, we need to be more cautious."

"But how...?"

“Number three, Aesop Carl!”

Aesop cringed in distress, obviously reluctant to move.

“You have to think of something. If no one stops him, all of us will die!” he whispered, before being dragged out to the stage.

Fuck. Naib had no idea what to do. Why was Aesop putting so much pressure on him? He dropped that bomb and expected him to find a solution, but he was as lost as anyone else!

Should he tell Jack? Aesop said that they had to be cautious, so shouting the truth from the rooftops was forbidden, but if he managed to let Jack know, he might be able to do something about it. 

Naib hated him with all of his might, but he was the leader, and he seemed to be interested in him, based on Norton’s words. 

Yes. If there was a person who could stop Joseph, that would be him.

“We continue the auction with Aesop Carl, a 21 year old male from England!” Jack smiled, trying to put his hand on Aesop’s head, which he skilfully avoided. “This young man’s blood is extremely rare and pure. Don’t be put off by his unsociable personality, because deep down, he is as adorable as he looks!”

Aesop’s face turned red from embarrassment as his eyes burned holes through the floor. It was obvious that Jack wrote that bullshit with the goal of making them uncomfortable. He was a sadic and a pervert.

Naib faltered. Should he really tell Jack…? What if the cure was worse than the disease?

While he was debating on what to do, several vampires started bidding for Aesop, but it all ended very quick when Joseph raised his hand and, with a calm expression, as if he was talking about the weather, said:

“Ten million.”

A loud gasp echoed across the room. Aesop was so perplexed that Jack had to help him go down the stairs to Joseph’s table. It was obvious the man had won.

After that, they kept calling names and applauding every time a vampire got the human they wanted, as if they had won a TV at a flea market. Before he knew it, it was his turn.

“Number nine, Naib Subedar!”

He clenched his fists, raised his head and walked towards Jack with a clear goal. 

“Jack, there’s something you need to know. You are in danger," he said when he got close enough.

“Threatening me even now? Never change, Subedar!” The other replied with a laugh, misinterpreting him completely. 

“No, it’s not that-” Naib tried to continue, but Jack bonked him on the head, maybe with a bit more force than everyone else, as if it was a warning for him to shut up and behave.

“I’m proud to present a personal favorite, Naib Subedar!” he announced, keeping him in place. “His blood isn’t the most special, but he makes up for that with an energetic personality!”

“What the hell is that description? Do you even want me to get sold?!” 

“I’m just telling the truth, dear.”

Everyone laughed, thoroughly entertained. It was as if the auction had turned into a stand-up comedy. Naib internally screamed, that wasn’t what he wanted at all.

Stupid Jack, why wouldn’t he listen to him!? This was important!

“Come on, come on, the bid starts at one million. Anyone interested?” Jack asked the audience. “With such a wayward human, I’m sure you can play the hunting game every day.”

Some of the most playful vampires considered it, staring at him with great interest. Naib stared back at the public, and winced at how close Joseph and Aesop’s table was to the stage. 

Would Joseph be able to listen to what he told Jack? He was a vampire, so his hearing senses must be superhuman.

Aesop seemed to be thinking the same, judging by the way he frowned, like an owner whose dog shit on the carpet. He slightly shook his head.

‘Too risky! Forget about telling Jack!’ he was trying to convey.

But then what was he supposed to do? His options were very limited, he only knew two assholes in this place, and both of them were… Well, assholes! If he couldn’t ask Jack for help, then what? Should he tell Campbell, the slimy traitor who didn’t care about him at all?

…Actually,

you know what?

“Norton, buy me!!!” he shouted.

Campbell, who was drinking wine, blood or whatever at the very back of the room, spilled everything and looked at him with wide, shocked eyes. 

“What the hell, Subedar!?”

Not only had Naib used Campbell’s first name, something he had never done before. He also put him in the spotlight in front of everyone. That would surely catch his attention.

Jack was elated at Naib’s unpredictable move.

“That's a surprising turn of events! I had never seen a human choose his vampire. How romantic!”

“Norton, please, I don't want to become Swiss cheese!”

“For fucks sake, Naib, shut up!” 

Everyone started laughing. Jesus, this really looked like a comedy skit. Norton sent him the deadliest glare in the world.

That was part of his magnificently improvised plan, though. Naib knew that Campbell cared a lot about appearances when it came to people he wanted to impress, and since he worked at Oletus, he would definitely hate being made fun of in front of his clients, coworkers and boss. 

“You brought me here, so you should take responsibility!!” he shouted, like a dramatic maiden.

“Come on, Norton, you spend all day working! You should treat yourself!” A vampire lady laughed, patting Norton on the back.

“You are an Oletus’ employee, yet you never participate in this tradition, isn’t that bad promo? If you don’t even want him, doesn’t that mean his quality is really poor?” pointed out another.

Norton fake laughed with the other vampires, then stared at him and, oh, if looks could kill.

“Alright, fine, you are right!” Norton told the rest, trying to make himself look friendly, but Naib knew he was fuming. “One million for Subedar!” 

A random vampire raised his hand-

“-And if anyone dares to outbid me, I will make sure they drink blood through a straw for the rest of their life.” 

The vampire slowly lowered it.

“No one else wants to bid? Then it’s settled, Mr. Subedar goes to Norton Campbell for one million!” Jack announced. “Everyone, please congratulate Mr. Subedar for not becoming cheese!”

The public giggled like mean girls, while Naib did what could only be described as ‘The Walk of Shame’ towards Norton’s table. 

This whole thing had been fucking embarrassing, like a lucid dream or nightmare, but at least he got what he wanted. Now, he only needed to tell everything to Campbell and hope that he would help him.

It was going to be a difficult task, though, given the way the other probably wanted to murder him.

“What is wrong with you, Subedar?!” Norton half-whispered, half-shouted, right after he sat next to him. “Is this revenge for scamming you? Because if you think I won’t feed from you, you are very wrong. You will end up looking worse than cheese.” 

“Stop it with the damn cheese, this is important.”

“I just wasted one grand on you, nothing you tell me can be that important.”

“Will you let me explain everything first?” He insisted. “Remember what I told you in that secret chamber, bdsm-torture room or whatever? The warning Yima gave me about a traitor-”

“Hell, Naib, that wasn’t a warning, that was a lie. Did you believe that? This is why your name rhymes with naive.”

“I am not naive!” Hoo boy, how annoying, he was doing everything in his power not to punch Norton in the jaw. “She was telling the truth, someone is planning to kill everyone tonight. And fuck you, Norton rhymes with moron.”

Norton rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t, but enlighten me, who is that terrible serial killer among us?”

Naib tilted his head towards Joseph and Aesop’s table. Norton seemed to understand what he meant, but instead of appearing appalled or horrified at the implication, he let out a tired groan.

“Desaulniers? Dude, are you stupid?”

“He poisoned our blood!”

“What else? Did he poison our water supply, burn our crops and deliver a plague unto our houses?”

“You are being exceptionally insufferable right now.”

“One million!”

“Forget about the money! Anyone who drinks our blood will die. Please, go talk with Yima, she might know where or what the antidote is. Jack is too stupid to listen.”

Norton scratched the back of his head, then pinched the sides of his nose. Naib wondered if vampires could get headaches.

“Do you really think I can’t tell this is a lame escape plan?” he said.

“It’s not! If you don’t find the antidote, I will die. Please, Norton, help me.” 

It was very embarrassing to ask Campbell for help, and that’s why Naib didn’t turn away his face, the vampire needed to understand that he was very serious about this. It wasn’t a lie or an escape plan, they were in danger.

Norton pursed his lips. It was obvious that he didn’t believe him, but he didn’t dismiss him either. It made sense. After all, they had been coworkers and friends for some time, Norton got to learn Naib’s gestures and expressions, so he must know when he was telling the truth, even if that truth sounded ridiculous.

He studied Naib for a few more seconds, and closed his eyes in defeat.

“Ada, can you keep an eye on him?” He asked the beautiful vampire sitting on a nearby table. “I need to check something.”

Ada, who was in her own world caressing Emil, nodded excitedly.

“Of course. I get to take care of two dogs instead of one,” she smirked.

Norton thanked her, then left before Naib could say anything else. He was angry, there was no doubt of that, but Naib knew he was still going to do something about it, and felt immensely relieved, so much that his heartbeat went back to a normal pace.

He hadn’t noticed how stressed he had been until he saw how shaky his hands were.

“You sure made a spectacle up there!” Ada said, sitting next to him and bringing Emil along. “I had never seen Norton look so flustered. Moments like these are why coming here every year is always fun.”

Naib thought that ‘fun’ was a very subjective word.

Instead of replying to her, he asked:

“What kind of person is Joseph?”

“Oh? Are you interested in him now? Don’t let Norton hear that, but you have good taste. He is a handsome man.”

“W-What? No! I just want to know more, since he bought my friend.”

Naib pointed at the table near the stage. Aesop was as tense as a mousetrap, listening to something Joseph was telling him with a frown. Joseph offered him wine and Aesop shook his head repeatedly, making the other snicker.

“Mr. Desaulniers is one of the oldest vampires, he has been around for a very long time,” Ada whispered, following his gaze.

“Like, 300 years old?”

“More than 1000 years old,” she corrected, smiling at his surprised face. “The first vampire, who isn’t with us anymore, turned 12 humans into Vampires a long time ago. They are known as FF.”

“Fan Fiction?”

“The First Followers.”

“Are you one of them, Ada?” Asked Emil, interested in the conversation.

“Oh, no, I’m a very young lady, only 350!” she winked, making Emil blush, what a nutcase. “Jack and Joseph are, though. Alva as well, wherever he is now,” she added, with a pout. “The First Followers are very strong and wise. They make the rules, and we follow them. That’s how we survive.”

So they were a bunch of fossils. “No wonder they have gone insane,” Naib blurted, he was only 27, so he couldn’t imagine how it would feel to be alive for so long.

“Insane? You might be right,” Ada pondered, a hand on her chin. “Joseph had a twin brother, Claude. He was a vampire too, but was killed during the Last War. It was a terrible time for all of us, but especially for him. Imagine losing someone you have known for millennia. After that, Joseph changed.”

“How so?”

Ada looked around, unsure whether she should continue or not. Naib thought that, for a vampire, she was nice to talk to, and sort of understood why Emil was happy to be picked by her.

“I guess he became depressed, closed off. He forgot about his duties as a First Follower and traveled around the world, ignoring us. To make matters worse, last year he picked Jack of all people to lead Oletus...”

Ada stopped, realizing that she was revealing too much. Of course, Emil didn’t understand a word of what she said, but Naib had more context thanks to what Aesop had told him earlier. He wondered if Ada was right and Joseph had gone mad.

He had a brother who died in that infamous war…

It must be the blond man he saw in Jack’s painting. He knew he looked familiar!

What if one of the vampires sitting in this room had killed Claude? Maybe Joseph had discovered something during his travels and was doing all of this for revenge. 

“Ladies and Gentleman, the human auction has ended, but the fun still goes on!” A redhead lady shouted from the stage, replacing Jack and catching everyone’s attention. “Who wants to see the Best Moments of tonight’s game? Yes, you heard that right, we made a hilarious compilation! Get ready to laugh your fangs off!”

Ada and Emil gasped in surprise, unaware that they had been recorded. Everyone applauded, thrilled to see themselves in the video.

Meanwhile, Naib looked at the door at the back.

Whatever the truth about Joseph was, he hoped that Norton would find out in time.

***

“I’m not going to discover shit!” Norton complained, going down the stairs to the storage room.

Joseph? A traitor who poisoned blood? It was the most ridiculous and unbelievable lie he had ever heard. Despite that, he still decided to go check because… because!

Naib was such a pain in the ass. An idiot. He had always been too compassionate, trustworthy, fearless and proud.

He seemed tough on the outside, but Norton knew better, that guy was pathetically kind on the inside, so much so he always looked away awkwardly when he lied, like a little kid, and that’s why he had decided to give Naib the benefit of doubt.

Because he didn’t take his eyes off him.

Still, Desaulniers, a traitor? That was a stretch.

Like many other vampires, Norton didn’t like Joseph. He always acted as if he was superior than everyone else -technically, he was, but he didn’t need to be so arrogant about it-. He never seemed to care about the rest -Norton was like that too, but he was sexier about it- and worst of all, Joseph gave a lazy nutcase like Jack the control of Oletus.

Norton had been working at the company for decades, barely taking any breaks and getting amazing results that would have made any boss cry tears of joy, yet Joseph completely ignored his efforts and gave the promotion to his 2000 year old friend.

Fuck Nepotism.

“Yima, show yourself. We need to talk about what you told Naib,” he called the demon, standing in front of the broken mirror with crossed arms.

Instead of Yima, the mirror did his dark magic and showed Norton what he wanted the most.

He saw himself saving everyone from the big bad wolf that was Joseph. Jack cried dramatically, and told him that he should be the new leader of Oletus, he deserved that position. Everyone treated him as the savior among vampires, even Naib begrudgingly thanked him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m amazing, no need to show me. I want to talk with the girl,” Norton said, not falling for the bait.

Damn, he did look really cool, though. Naib better be right about this.

“Traitor…” Yima finally made an appearance. As she said that, she raised her grey hand and pointed at something with her finger.

She pointed at Norton.

“Me? I’m not a traitor.”

Yima rolled her black, voidless eyes and pointed again.

“Traitor,” she repeated.

Ah, behind him.

Norton turned around quickly, fists up, ready to fight the intruder, but there was no one in the room, he was alone.

He was alone, right? Joseph was at the auction when he left, he was sure.

“Are you trying to make me paranoid, Monster?” he laughed, in a bad mood. 

But Yima kept repeating ‘Traitor’ and pointing in the same direction.

Maybe she had suffered some sort of malfunction when Naib shattered the mirror, and that’s why she was making no sense, like a defective Alexa or Siri. The other option was that the traitor wasn’t a person, but something else. 

After all, there was nothing behind him, besides Jack’s painting. 

Norton studied the huge canvas, trying to see if there was anything suspicious about it, like a hidden camera, weapon, or a clue disguised as an innocuous drawing. He felt silly. What did he expect to find, The Da Vinci Code? Illuminati? 

Still, now that he was taking a closer look, it was impressive how Jack managed to portray the war so vividly. It was as if he was brought back 200 years prior. He recognized most of the people in it. He even found himself lying down in a corner, his humanity fading, and the scene was so real and intimate that he wondered if he wasn’t staring at a memory.

Yima was right, there was something unsettling about the painting.

“The light is blinding you,” she whispered. “It doesn’t let you see what’s really in front of you.” 

Another cryptic message? Norton closed his eyes and decided two things. First, Yima might not be as insane as she looked. Second, that girl sucked at riddles, so this definitely wasn’t a smart metaphor. 

He turned off the lights of the room, and found his answer:

Jack’s painting had a giant, alchemy pentagram drawn on it.

The symbols, meaningfully combined inside the circle, were bright red and only visible in the dark.

Norton had tried to learn alchemy once. Many, many years ago, when he was still human. It was natural, the main goal of alchemists was to turn lead into gold so, for someone who was born as poor as him, it was a science worth learning, a knowledge worth pursuing.

Of course, he never got any impressive results. He doubted anyone did, in the same way no one created the legendary Philosopher's Stone. Even then, he learned quite a bit of alchemy, enough to understand what the symbols drawn in that pentagram meant.

And, oh, they meant trouble.

“It can’t be…” he gasped.

Because damn. Naib was right, they were fucked. 

It was way worse than what he had imagined. He should call Fiona immediately and tell her everything, she was at the stage right now, so she would be able to ask everyone to leave the manor. Then, he could secretly deal with this without making an uproar. 

But if he did that, then he wouldn’t get the recognition he deserved. No one would know that he saved their lives. The dream Yima’s mirror showed him wouldn’t become real.

It was better that he went in person and told them himself. 

Norton didn’t waste time on Yima, nor on turning the lights back on. He forgot about all of that and started running up the stairs at full speed. He needed to let them know Joseph was a traitor who had picked an idiot like Jack as the leader, so he could do whatever he wanted in the shadows.

He almost bumped into someone at the top of the stairs, right when he opened the door.

“Norton?” Jack asked, taking a step back. 

Shit, talking about the devil. “Boss, what are you doing here?”

“I was going to pick up the antiques. The second part of the bidding will start as soon as Mrs. Gilman’s video ends, but forget about that, is everything okay?”

Norton didn’t answer immediately. He couldn’t tell Jack, he would surely get all the merit. That’s what always happened, low vampires like him did all the dirty work so a First Follower could benefit from it. 

Jack didn’t need to know that Joseph wanted to sacrifice all of them to bring Claude back.

Norton had never seen a pentagram like that before. The combination of those symbols was impossibly complex, only a genius could come up with that formula. The worst thing is that the symbol was glowing red, which meant that it wasn’t a failed attempt, the experiment was successful.

Naib had said that all the human’s blood had been poisoned. If the vampires drank it, it would kill them and they would become the sacrifice needed for this pentagram to work. 

‘100 immortal lives in exchange for a chance to fix the past.’

That’s what that combination of symbols meant.

Everyone knew that Joseph never got over Claude’s death, but going as far as killing his brothers and sisters to bring him back? Fix the past? He really was a traitor, he must have been planning this for decades.

Norton turned on the lights and smiled. “All is good. I forgot my phone when I dealt with Subedar and came back for it.”

“I see. By the way, congrats on the bidding. It was unexpected to see you participate.”

“It was a bit of an impulse, a thrill of the moment decision,” Norton lied, impatient for the conversation to end, but his boss seemed to be in a talkative mood.

“True, sometimes we make reckless decisions,” Jack agreed. “It’s like that one time, a few months ago. I found out that an old friend had created an amazing experiment that would change our lives forever, but instead of putting it to use, he decided that it was too dangerous, and hid it from everyone! Can you imagine? His coworker got so angry that he accidentally killed him. Quite a good example of a rash decision, eh?”

What the hell.

What was Jack talking about?

“Yeah, it’s madness,” Norton said with uncertainty. He had a bad feeling.

Jack nodded very impressed, almost fascinated by that word.

“Madness?” he repeated, looking at something lurking behind Norton. “How curious. That’s what Alva said, too. Isn’t that right, Luca?”

Norton couldn’t react in time. Before he was able to turn around and prevent it, Luca injected something in his neck, a powerful venom that made his knees weak, so wobbly that he fell all the way down the stairs like a lifeless puppet, until he was left spread on the floor, lying in front of that cursed painting.

Vampires didn’t need to breathe, but Norton felt as if he was asphyxiating. That venom… was it the same toxin they used to tamper with the blood? His surroundings started spinning. Jack looked at him with a pitiful smile, while Luca seemed a bit more troubled, but it was hard to tell, their expressions also started to blur.

He had messed up. 

It had never been just Joseph. This was bigger than him. 

He should have called Fiona instead of dealing with it on his own.

For some ridiculous reason, Norton’s last thoughts before closing his eyes were about Naib. That dumb, shorty frog had been right in the end.

“Your greediness will bite you in the ass someday, Campbell.”

How annoying.

Chapter Text

Naib had a bad feeling.

Campbell had left a while ago and he hadn’t returned yet. Was he alright?

It’s not like he cared about that asshole’s well-being, he might as well get stuck in a Saw trap and he would 100% deserve it, but still… Why wasn’t he back with help?

Did the idiot get in trouble?

“Oh, Naib, don’t look so rejected, I’m sure Norton hasn’t abandoned you,” Ada reassured, next to him. “And if he has, remember you are loved and valid.”

“What?” Naib asked at the same time Emil whispered, “She is into psychology.” 

“But she kills people?”

“So?” Emil rolled his eyes. “God forbid women have hobbies.”

Naib pretended to be deaf for his actual mental well-being. Unaware of his growing anxiety, the rest of the vampires enjoyed themselves and laughed at the projector screen next to Fiona, which showed a compilation of tonight’s hunting game. 

It was like watching one of those ‘Funniest falls caught on camera’ youtube videos, except worse because he was included in it. The vampires chuckled at the albino guy getting stuck in a chimney, a girl slipping down the stairs while a vampire caught her dramatically, and other shenanigans to the beat of Tears For Fears, Everybody Wants To Rule The World.

That song didn’t even fit with the vibe of the edit, Naib thought, inconsolable.

At the front, Joseph tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table, enjoying the show with a serene, innocuous smile. A big contrast to Aesop, who kept fidgeting and tapping his foot with stress.

Naib felt for him. The anticipation was also making his stomach churn horribly.

When the awful video ended, the guests applauded and Fiona reminded everyone to buy the blu-ray before leaving. Then, she put a hand on her earpiece and her eyes widened, as if she had been told through the receiver unexpected news, and Naib’s heart leaped. 

Was it Norton? Did he tell her what was going on?

His hopes got crushed when, instead of looking concerned, Fiona smiled widely and announced: 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, before we sell the final piece of the auction, our beloved assistant Luca Balsa wants to say a few words!” 

After she said that, a brunette man with a short ponytail came out from the left side of the backstage and walked towards the center, giving a practiced reverence to the audience.

“Is this seat taken?” Someone whispered behind Naib, pointing at Norton’s empty chair.

He almost jumped from the scare. It was no other than Eli Clark, the smiling liar who brought them to that island and drugged them in the car-boat. Naib didn’t pretend to hide his contempt. 

“It’s taken,” he said in a polite ‘Fuck off’ tone.

“Ah, great. Excuse me,” Eli ignored him and sat there. The disrespect!?

“I told you that it was taken!”

“I don’t think Norton will mind,” Eli calmly said, regarding him with knowing eyes.

His blue eyes creeped the hell out of Naib. What did he mean by that? Was Norton okay? His apprehension must have shown in his face, because Eli got closer to him and whispered in his ear.

“Have you ever heard about the fable of the Boiled Frog?”

Naib looked at him as if he was insane. “Why are you talking about frogs right now? What is wrong with you?” 

Eli sighed sheepishly. “Forget about that and pay attention to the stage, it’s important.”

If glances could kill, Naib would have turned Eli into dust -or a frog, since he liked them that much- but he didn’t have that superpower yet, so he complied with clenched teeth and turned his head towards the podium, where Luca was giving a speech.

“-As you all know, I helped Alva Lorenz build this beloved company 80 years ago,” the vampire said with a clear voice. “I stood by his side during the bad and good days, until last year, when he suddenly disappeared, leaving all of us worried and helpless. No one knows what happened to him.”

He took a deep breath, waited a second, and “Except that’s not true. I know.”

If Luca wanted to get everyone’s attention, he succeeded flawlessly.

The last sentence gave place to a huge buzz of whispers and complaints among the crowd. Naib could tell this wasn’t planned, because even his coworker, Fiona, looked at him with shock.

Luca didn’t look troubled, on the contrary, it was the reaction he expected. “I haven’t told anyone until now because I want to take this opportunity to share with you what kind of man Alva was.”

Ada gasped on his right. She was on the edge of her seat, clearly interested to know more about the CEO behind Oletus. 

“This is huge, I’m smelling drama. Do you think Luca will praise Alva or call him out? With these things you never know.”

“Is his friend getting cancelled for being fake?” Emil asked. “Wow. Just like in that scene from Mean Girls.”

“Emil, if you keep this up I will have to marry you.”

Naib rolled his eyes. He didn’t care about a CEO’s dirty secrets, but Eli told him this was important, so he must have known what Luca was going to say. 

Plus, the other person besides Eli who hadn’t reacted at all to the news was Joseph.

“It’s a long story, but there’s nothing I can do about that, our lives are too lengthy!” Luca joked, walking around the scenario as every pair of expectant eyes followed him. “Feel free to drink as much as you want during my tale, be it from the glasses or your new humans, I won’t feel offended at all.” 

He himself held a glass of blood and raised it towards the public, looking at everyone through the red liquid.

“If you are patient, by the end of the story you will know what happened to Alva and why he disappeared.” 

“In order to obtain something, something else of equal value must be lost”

Luca Balsa read that quote when he was a kid, in 1610. It came from a dusty book forgotten in a corner of his father’s private library.

He loved that quote as much as he loved Alchemy.

Life in that time period was hard for everybody, but not for Luca’s family. Vampires had been ruling Earth for thousands of years and, depending on the region humans lived in, the vampire lord would demand a lot of blood as compensation for letting them stay in their lands.

Even if they were weak and sick because they only ate potato soup and bathed once a month, all humans were forced to comply. Vampires were superior, holy beings that should be admired and served, after all.

Luca’s family were exempt from that treatment, though, because they were great inventors, and vampires knew that exceptional humans needed to be protected so they could keep coming up with new creations that would improve their living conditions.

The Balsas were famous because his dad invented something life-changing: 

The Flushing Toilet (1597) by Herman Balsa.

Vampires were ecstatic about it, finally streets wouldn’t smell like literal shit! but Luca had never been interested in those inventions. Alchemy was much more interesting to him, and ever since he read that book, he had been obsessed with finding the Philosopher's stone. 

It was a red stone that could turn lead into gold, sickness into health, death into life, and dreams into reality. A stone that could make anyone immortal, like a vampire!

Finding that stone was the goal of every alchemist. He was going to fix the world!

“In order to obtain something, something else of equal value must be lost”

Luca believed in those words wholeheartedly and that’s why, at eighteen, he abandoned his family, friends, wealth and comfortable life to go find that legendary relic.

“If I spend all my life working hard to accomplish my dream, then I deserve for it to come true. My life for the stone, that’s an equivalent exchange!” he told himself.

Of course, there wasn’t any logic behind those words. Many men and women had sacrificed their lives trying to accomplish great things, and died with nothing, but Luca knew that wouldn’t happen to him, because he was fully committed.

When he left, his father called him an immature kid with an impossible dream. Luca didn’t listen, and instead told him that he would come back home when he was successful.

“An Alchemist’s goal is the transformation of things from a less perfect form to a better one.”

Nicolas Flamel was an ordinary, unassuming bookseller from Paris with little aspirations until, one day, a mysterious man came into his shop and offered to sell him an ancient and unfamiliar book on alchemy. 

Flamel accepted the offer, even if he didn’t understand its contents. It took him twenty-one years to crack the code, and when he did, he found out that the book contained the ingredients, symbols and chemical procedures needed to make the Philosopher's stone. 

He followed the instructions carefully and managed to create the legendary stone. However, believing access to such power and easy wealth could ruin people, Flamel hid the book and the stone so no one would ever find it.

Most alchemists knew about that story, which took place 200 years ago. That’s why Luca spent the next couple of years traveling around Europe, Africa and the Middle East, following clues about the whereabouts of the book or, even better, the stone. 

He visited castles, shrines, churches and even caves. 

“The red stone? Yeah, we have some scrolls about that in the back, but it’s all bullshit. God is bullshit,” groaned a depressed nun. 

“The red stone? Sure, sure, I will tell you if you let me suck your blood,” proposed a smartass vampire.

“The red stone? That’s just a scam alchemists made up. ‘The earth orbits around the sun, hygiene is important’… All lies! What’s next? ‘Witch hunts were created by a patriarchy scared of female independence?’” laughed an uncultured monk.

“About that-” Luca started, but got the door shut in his face.

Well… The search wasn’t going as well as he expected, yet Luca didn’t allow his spirit to get crushed but, as time went on, with zero results and dead ends, he started to wonder if the legendary stone existed at all.

Before he knew it, he had spent all of his money, until the very last shilling. He realized that minor detail when he tried to pay for a night in a small European town, and his pockets came out empty.

“Ah, how embarrassing,” he muttered in front of the innkeeper, who also worked as the barmaid. “I don’t have money right now, but I’m an alchemist! In exchange for a night, I can help you with anything you need!” 

“Of course, how about you turn this jar of beer into gold?” The old woman said, with a mocking grin, making the clients of the bar laugh.

“Alchemy doesn’t work like that,” Luca retorted, a bit annoyed. “It’s not senseless magic. Beer will never turn into gold because it doesn’t have the same value nor properties, but when I find the philosophical stone-”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Stop mansplaining and go tell that to someone who cares. No money, no room!”

That elicited another laugh from the clients, who looked at Luca as if he had said that unicorns, mermaids or democracy were real.

Another thing Luca had learned from his travels was that Alchemists were usually made fun of. There were many scammers who had tarnished the name of that science, and now its reputation was almost as bad as that of fake seers and prophets! 

Despite that, he tried to defend his posture with facts, like any intellectual scholar would, but two men grabbed him by the sides and kicked him out of the inn like a dog. 

During that shameful scene, there was only one person who didn’t laugh at him. 

The man sat quietly on a barstool, at the end of the counter. He observed Luca with interest.

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”

No money, no acquaintances, no place to sleep and, on top of that, heavy rain.

Maybe his dad was onto something when he made the Flushing Toilet. Luca had given up many things for his dream and, so far, life only gave him mockery and an incoming sinusitis if he didn’t find a place to stay for the night. 

In front of the Inn, there was a vampire brothel called Love Bites . Luca had heard dubious things about those indecent places filled with sin. They were like average brothels, but instead of -or besides- sex, you offered blood in exchange for a bed to sleep in.

He was broke, but was he that desperate…?

“My dear Bartholomew, why did you have to fall asleep in a barrel?” a drunk guy lamented, coming out of a tavern. “They thought you were dead and buried you alive, my poor, lethargic Bartholomew. This one's for you!” He proceeded to sing Ave Verum Corpus and puke next to Luca.

Yeah, no. Sleeping in the streets was definitely out of the equation.

He crossed the rainy, muddy street towards Love Bites. Under the porch, there was a vampire leaving butterfly kisses on the neck of a woman. It might look harmless at first, but Luca knew that in no time those sweet kisses would start to hurt. He looked away and got inside.

If he was being honest, he didn’t like vampires. Society could be separated between humans who revered them for being superior, and those who wanted them gone. 

Luca was the second type.

Vampires were gifted with immortality and immense power, and instead of using it for good, they killed people indiscriminately, made rules that only benefited them, and spent their time amassing fortunes and wasting them on brothels and hedonistic, sex-fueled parties.

If he was a vampire, Luca thought, he wouldn’t hurt people more than necessary (he knew drinking blood would be unavoidable, but at least he wouldn’t play with his food). Instead, he would use that precious eternal time to find the Red Stone. 

“Good afternoon, I- um. I need a place to sleep,” he told the owner of the brothel. This was his first time doing something like this, and couldn’t help being awkward. “No sex, just blood.” He repeated that several times, just in case.

The man, an elderly vampire, groaned. “Sex, blood… Does it really make a difference?”

“I sure hope it does?!”

“Youngsters and their puritan culture nowadays. In my time, we did so many fucked up things for fun...” After a sigh, he accepted the deal and sent Luca upstairs.

At least he got to stay in a quiet and warm room. Inside, a faint smell of incense sticks burning drifted. It was there to help the clients relax, but it didn’t work on him. 

He sat on the bed nervously and waited. He had never been bitten by a vampire due to his family’s privileges, so this situation made him uneasy. He could only hope that it didn’t hurt a lot.

There was a knock on the door. Luca sweated and reconsidered his life choices as he meekly said ‘come in.’

The first coherent thought that crossed his mind when he saw the stranger was: ‘Woah, this guy is intimidatingly tall’ which was followed by ‘He reminds me of my evil math teacher if he had a scar on his face and went to church’ and culminated with, ‘ Wait. He wears glasses.’

“Are you a vampire?” he asked the man, because vampires had perfect vision. They didn’t need to wear glasses.

The man maintained the distance, not showing any emotion. “My name is Alva Lorenz. Excuse me, I’m probably not what you expected,” his tone was polite, but not necessarily kind.

“You are right, I didn’t expect a human,” Luca jumped, offended. “I’m here to donate blood, I told the owner I didn’t want to have se-”

“Can you fix these?” Alva interrupted, taking his glasses off which, on a closer look, were broken.

Luca raised an eyebrow with suspicion. Was he missing something? Did brothels sell sex, blood, and offer repair services? 

Alva seemed to realize his confusion, because he added, “I heard what you said in the Inn across the street. I merely want to see if you are a real alchemist or a scam, like that good woman suggested.”

Huh… So he had seen all of that, and proceeded to follow him here? What a shady guy. 

Still, Luca wasn’t a phony. Alchemy was as valid as any other science, and he was going to prove it to him.

“Welcome to Luca Balsa’s workshop. We repair all types of frames, whatever the material or shape. If you have any problem with your glasses or lenses, we will solve it for you,” he dramatically said, eliciting a surprised blink from Alva’s otherwise stoic face.

With expertise, Luca drew a pentacle on the nightstand using lipstick an old client must have left, and put the broken glasses on top of it. After a couple of seconds, the symbols started shining, surrounding the glasses with a deep red hue. When the light faded, the glasses were fixed as if they were brand new.

As long as the materials were there, Alchemy was able to turn back something to its previous state. Alva looked at the result satisfied. Luca crossed his arms with a proud smile.

“Alchemy is everything to me. I don’t care if people laugh or call me names, they will remember how wrong they were when I find the philosophical stone and fix the world.”

“There is no such thing,” Alva denied.

Yet another skeptic, and Luca had stupidly thought he was going to be different and change his mind after his impressive show, what a disappointment. 

“There is no Philosopher's stone because I also tried to find it.”

Eh?

“Are you an alchemist?” Luca asked, shocked. 

Alva nodded. “The pentacle you made is well executed, not many people know how to fuse symbols like that, even if your penmanship is readable at best.” See? He really was like his evil math teacher. “You have a lot of talent.”

“O-Oh. Thanks, I guess?” Luca thought that it was a bit unfair to hear praise for the first time coming from the mouth of a stranger, and not his family or friends back home.

“But to answer your question, yes, I have devoted my life to Alchemy, and will continue to do so until death,” Alva added.

“Yet you don’t think the stone exists.”

That was, like, the number one principle of Alchemy.

“I did, for many years, but if it exists, then someone else already took it. I’ve learned that trying to find it is a waste of time and skills. That’s why I want you to work with me and help me create it from scratch.”

Huh?! Luca had to do a double take. Did he just say he was looking for a partner? 

Alva scratched his neck. “Years of solitude affect a person’s ability to come up with new ideas. You are young and possess talent and passion, while I have a significant amount of experience and knowledge. I think this collaboration can benefit us both. Ah, I hope my offer doesn’t come off as rude.”

Luca gaped a little, trying to process the information. He didn’t know this man at all. He seemed intelligent and well-mannered, and his clothes were clean and carefully sewn, which meant he was upper class, plus he practiced alchemy…

It was too good to be true, Luca should be smart and deny the proposition.

“My place is rather big, there’s a laboratory and an empty guest room where you could stay for free, since you seem to be out of money, but if you prefer this… picturesque brothel, then-”

“No, no, I’m coming!” Luca yelled, getting an unusual, almost imperceptible smile from Alva.

It was risky to follow that man but, as Flamel once said, discoveries and dangers were two essential components to success!

Ah, the young alchemist thought with trepidation, finally things were going somewhere. 

“There is only one way to learn... It's through action.”

Working with Alva was terribly fun, Luca learned.

The man lived in a beautiful cottage in the outskirts of Penvicor, popularly known as the “Vampire Capital” due to the powerful nobles that ruled it.

Alva didn’t care about politics or people, though. He seldom left the house, choosing to spend the mornings locked in his room, and the late evenings and nights in the laboratory, which was spacious and full of materials Luca was free to use, with a few delicate exceptions.

“Do you live alone?” Luca asked when they arrived. 

Besides three servants and a fluffy black cat, there wasn’t anyone else in the cottage. Alva looked to be in his late thirties, and around that age men already had a wife, several children, a written testament and one foot in the grave, but that didn’t seem to be his case.

“I prefer to be on my own.” Was the dry reply. “People are usually distracting, so I’ve gotten used to solitude, I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine, I won’t distract you,” Luca promised. “By the way, can I pet the cat? Did you know black cats are usually associated with bad luck, magic and death? What is his name? ”

‘Oh, this one is going to be distracting.’ 

“Patience,” Alva told himself.

“Hm... Weird name for a cat.”

The servants giggled and Alva ordered them to stop slacking and go back to work.

Luca spent the next weeks reviewing Alva’s work and experimenting in the lab. Despite his talkative and often messy personality, he was a quick learner. He would always come up with unexpected theories, waking up Alva in the middle of the day and forcing him to eat in the living room so they could keep brainstorming.

Alva missed the silence and solitude he had been enjoying for the past decades -he had always eaten alone in his room, and barely interacted with his servants- but… he had to admit it was nice to have someone to share his knowledge with on an equal level.

“The pentacle you used to fix my glasses is an equivalent exchange one, it can only trade things that possess the same value, like turning wood into a wooden chair. Lately, I’ve been working on Fusion alchemy, which consists of combining elements.”

“What’s the purpose of that?” Luca asked, moving his chair towards Alva’s desk.

“Well, I am more interested in the opposite, the extraction of the essential elements that compose something, distillation, but I haven’t managed to make that yet.”

Ah, Luca understood what Alva was trying to do. If you learned how to separate the components that made a living being, you would get the ‘ essence of life ’, which was the ingredient needed to create the philosophical stone.  

“If you perfect how to fuse things, then there’s a chance you learn how to separate them,” he deduced.

“Exactly,” Alva gave him a proud smile. “I’ve been fusing pigments to get new colors, and plants to create new species. Every time there’s a successful fusion, I write down the results in this notebook. I would like you to come up with something interesting, but don’t do anything dangerous. I don’t want anything bad to happen.”

“It’s fine, I won’t let your lab explode.”

“Huh, I wasn’t worried about the laboratory,” Alva replied, slightly puzzled. Luca was smart, but his observational skills left much to be desired sometimes.

A few days and self-contained detonations later…

Luca slammed the door of his mentor’s room with the force of a kid on a Christmas’ day.

“Alva… you won’t believe this,” he said, peeking from the door with excitement.

Alva had been reading on his bed with the windows closed, in complete darkness. He stood up, clearly annoyed to see Luca intruding in his private space. Once again. He was about to admonish him when he saw something translucent and delicate on Luca’s back.

“No way,” he deadpanned, completely serious. “Don’t tell me you fused yourself with an insect.”

Luca looked at him in silence. 

Alva’s left eye twitched. 

“Don’t worry!” Luca was quick to reassure, raising his hands in self defense. “The transmutation circle isn’t strong enough to last, so I will go back to normal in a few minutes! The cicada will be fine as well!” he twirled to show his wings. 

He fused with a cicada of all things and turned himself into a chimera! Did he have no concept of danger!? 

“I don’t care about the animal, that was extremely risky! What if the experiment went wrong and you couldn’t go back? What if you fused with a dog and traumatized an entire generation?”

“Ew. Wouldn’t that be fucked up or what?”

“Balsa.”

Luca rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry! Self-preservation is for losers, a true man of science will go beyond his body’s limits to find the light beyond the darkness.”

What a brat. Alva took a deep breath. “You know what? You are right. A true man of science would use this priceless time to inspect you, like the bug you are. After all, self-preservation is for losers,” he said, picking up a needle.

“Ah- Wait, no- You see, the wings are very sensitive and-”

The three servants giggled when they saw Luca rushing out of the room with their master close behind.

On the next day, Luca went to the laboratory and found Alva with cat ears.

“No way,” he tried not to grin and failed miserably. “Don’t tell me you fused with the cat!”

“ Patience ,” Alva told himself.

Luca laughed his ass off for the entire day, until Alva tragically lost his cat ears. Luca held a small, personal funeral for the lost comedy. He knew he would miss Catboy Lorenz dearly.

All in all, he was right. Working with Alva was extremely fun.

“Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold.”

They had a big fight.

It wasn’t unusual. In the past two years of working together, they had several disputes. It always started with a difference of opinion, ‘This mineral is white and yellow’ ‘No, it’s black and blue’ and ended in the silent treatment until Luca or Alva awkwardly asked ‘Have you fed Patience?’ and then everything would go back to normal.

Today’s fight was different, though. 

Alva had been excessively harsh with a mistake Luca made, wounding his pride to the point they screamed at each other and Alva slammed the door on his way out.

Luca’s blood boiled. He was deeply upset and tried to cool off by calling Alva insulting rock names as he paced around the laboratory. 

‘Dolostone! Gabbro! Rhyolite!’

Marienne, one of the servants, cleaned the room while she observed him with a pitiful smile.

“I think Alva finds me annoying,” Luca finally said, dropping his head on the desk.

“Yeah, he does,” Marienne agreed, so fast it was almost offensive.

Marienne was Luca’s favorite maid, an old woman who had been working there for many years. She always made sure Luca ate and went to sleep when he forgot, made the best pies and had a quirky sense of humor. This time, though, her joke wasn’t welcomed.

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me I’m wrong?” Luca mumbled, he regretted voicing his thoughts, the last thing he wanted to hear was how Alva hated him. 

Marienne discarded the broom and patted him on the back. “It’s the truth, dear. Every time I clean the master’s room, I can hear him complain about one of your shenanigans. He used to be so stoic before, but ever since you came he always wears a hilarious expression on his face!”

“Marienne!” Luca felt depressed. Was he that horrible to be around? Maybe he was the only idiot who thought they made a good team, but in reality Alva wanted to get rid of him.

They had been working nonstop for the past two years and made great advances, but they still hadn’t managed to create the philosopher's stone. What if Alva realized he wasn’t as talented as he had hoped? What if he got tired of him?

“Mr. Lorenz has changed a lot because of you,” the maid continued mercilessly.

“Yeah, for the worst,” Luca finished with a scowl.

“Not at all, dear, things are more lively since you are here. He is happier.” 

Huh?

She smiled kindly at his confusion. “He used to be a very cold master, he preferred to keep to himself and didn’t interact with anyone unless it was necessary. It made me wonder if he could feel any emotion besides obsession with his own work. But now, he eats with us, smiles when he thinks no one is looking, and gets frustrated with ridiculous tasks. Did you know the cat had no name before you came?”

Luca shook his head slowly. “...I didn’t.”

“See? I think that, deep down, Master Alva knew he was becoming too lonely, and that’s why he sought you. I’m sure he likes having you around, even if you annoy him sometimes,” she picked up the broom again and offered him a mischievous smile. “And, for what it’s worth, he always gets irritated on this day of the year, so don’t take that fight personally. Getting older must make him sensitive.”

Luca gasped, opening and closing his mouth several times like a fish. Today was Alva’s birthday? Now that he thought about it, they never celebrated such a thing, always too immersed with their work.

He was good at analyzing chemical reactions, but terrible at observing people and understanding their feelings. Did Alva really appreciate him? Marienne made it sound like that.

Somehow, that possibility made all of his anger and insecurity disappear.

“Maybe… We could make him a pie,” Luca muttered, feeling a bit silly.

At that suggestion, Marienne grinned broadly, as if she could read Luca like a children’s book. “That would be a wonderful idea! I would need a few ingredients, if you don’t mind getting them for me.”

And so, Luca rushed outside to buy strawberries and honey. 

He never came back alive.

It was curious how a kind decision made in the heat of a moment could change your life forever. It was dark outside, almost closing time, but Luca managed to get everything he needed at the local market. 

When Alva was in a sour mood, he would usually take a walk in the nearby forest for a few hours. If they wanted to surprise him with the pie, he should get home soon. He decided to cut through an alley to get there faster.

That ended up being his biggest mistake. 

Before he knew it, a crook came out of the shadows and stabbed him in the stomach. Luca felt the air leave his lungs at the sudden, excruciating pain. He tried to defend himself as well as he could, but the man threw him to the ground and kicked him repeatedly with a force that belonged to someone who spent their life fighting in the slums. 

When he stopped resisting, the crook took all of his money and ran away, leaving him heaving and shaking, with his failing organs pulsing to an irregular rhythm.

“H-Help…”

Disoriented and blinded by a throbbing ache, Luca tried to crawl towards the main street. He needed aid immediately but, deep down, knew he wasn’t going to make it. The pain was unbearable. He was losing a lot of blood and his body was shutting down.

How stupid. He was going to die, and all because of a pie.

In that dreadful moment, he remembered what he said a long time ago, about how men and women sacrificed their whole lives trying to accomplish great things, and died with nothing, making their existences unremarkable. 

‘But I won’t be like that,’ he always claimed.

He had been so immature and arrogant. The realization of ending up like that made him swallow his tears and keep crawling in fear. He was scared, he couldn’t die yet, not before creating the philosophical stone, not before doing something important with his life. 

He raised his hand, trying to reach for something, anything.

“Someone… H-help me,” he sobbed.

And when his heart beat for the last time, a vampire took his hand.

…

It wasn’t until a few hours later that Luca regained consciousness. Opening his eyes was a hard feat, his eyelids weighted like bricks, and the yellow light of the room didn’t help the dizziness he was feeling. 

He groaned in discomfort and groggily looked around, surprised to see that he was in his bed, back at home, or- well, Alva’s home.

For a second, he thought that everything had been a messed up nightmare. His body was fine, he touched his stomach and there wasn’t any stab wound, so it wasn’t as if someone brought him home and healed him. 

Jeez. He probably fell asleep in the lab and Marienne dragged him to his room.

But if it was a dream, why did he feel so… strange? There was a nagging sensation in the back of his head, as if a voice was telling him that something wasn’t right. 

Must be a fever. That’s what happened when one worked with dangerous chemicals for prolonged periods of time.

He most likely even dreamed that whole conversation with Marienne in his delirium. Alva changing because of him? How ridiculous. Now that he was more lucid, it made no sense for Marienne to say that. Alva only saw him as an annoying coworker, that’s all.

And talking about Alva… What was he doing in his room?

Luca had been so focused on his own state that he almost missed the tall man standing in the corner of the room. He had his back turned, and was talking in a hushed tone with Marienne at the door frame. 

Luca couldn’t hear their conversation, but he could see Marienne’s tearful face.

Why was she crying? 

Was she worried about him? Maybe his fever was worse than he thought. He raised his arm and touched his forehead to check the temperature, but instead of being hot, his hand was met with skin that was colder than ice. 

What?

“Don’t cry. It’s not your fault he got ambushed,” Luca heard Alva tell Marienne. “Take some air, and when you feel better, bring blood packages from my personal pantry. He will be thirsty when he wakes up,” he let out a sigh and added, as if talking to himself. “We don’t know how he will react, I haven't turned a human in decades…”

Luca remained in bed trying to process that information. Blood packages? Personal pantry? Thirsty?

Turned a human?!

What was he talking ab-

Oh.

And then it hit him like a runaway horse. He wasn’t ‘sick’ and Alva wasn’t human.

How stupid of him, no wonder he was so cold! He really died in that alley, and the person who brought him back must have been Alva. Of course the coworker who always slept during the mornings, never went out when it was sunny, and had too much knowledge for his age was a vampire!

Marienne sniffed, nodding at her master’s request and excusing herself, leaving them alone. When Alva thought no one was looking, his firm posture dropped in a way that made him look several years older, drained. He took off his glasses and brushed his eyes.

“Why do you wear glasses? You don’t need them.” Was the first thing Luca said. His tone was accusing, betrayed.

Alva was surprised by the question. He turned around and, despite his cold facade, Luca could tell he was relieved to see him awake. He walked towards the bed and sat on a chair nearby, before admitting:

“I didn't want you to be scared of me at first, so I didn’t reveal myself.” 

Luca held his breath. So he was right, Alva was a vampire.

“Why didn’t you tell me when I started living here? Even your servants know. ”

“I expected you to find out on your own, eventually. The fact you didn't suspect anything after two years is concerning,” Alva pointed out. “For a so-called-scientist your observational skills are worrying.”

Luca’s cheeks puffed in shame. “I simply thought you were a bit weird and obsessed with red wine, I was being kind and understanding! Also, this is so mean? I just got stabbed !”

His pout made Alva let out an unexpected laugh, which he quickly covered with his hand. A hand that was imperceptibly shaky, Luca noticed with a pang of guilt. He wondered if Alva had been worried about him as well, and that single thought provoked a knot in the pit of his stomach.

Luca stared at the blanket in silence, trying to organize his spiraling thoughts. This was a lot to take in. 

His coworker was a bloodsucker, and a powerful one at that, since normal vampires didn’t have the necessary strength to turn humans into one of them. Only a few chosen ones could do that, like the First Followers…

Luca squeezed the hem of the blanket. He shouldn’t trust him. He had been lying to him, even if it was by omission. All the vampires were the same, egoistic monsters who wasted their lives on mundane pleasures and murdered humans.

But Alva wasn’t like that, was he?

He remembered the conversation with Marienne. It wasn’t a dream as he had thought, it really did happen, and Alva proved to care enough to save his life, when he could have ignored him and found a more suitable companion.

He disliked vampires, but how could he hate Alva?

Alva, who never looked down or mocked his idealistic dreams like his family and everyone else did.

Luca raised his gaze and was met with resignation written all over his mentor’s features, as if Alva had accepted that he was going to leave after what happened that night. He simply was waiting for the young alchemist to say it out loud.

Luca took a deep breath, until it registered that he didn’t need that vital function anymore, and instead said:

“Happy Birthday, I’m sorry I couldn’t get you a pie.”

Alva’s eyes widened at his illogical words, and several emotions swirled in his golden eyes. Luca recognized astonishment, regret and, most of all, relief. 

He still felt a bit angry at Alva for keeping his identity a secret, and he knew that living as a vampire wouldn’t be easy, but… He was alive, and that’s all that mattered.

His dream could still be achieved, and all thanks to Alva.

“You are a peculiar one,” Alva ended up saying, with a small, grateful smile that hid years of loneliness. “But, given the circumstances, I should say Happy Birthday to you as well.”

He wasn’t wrong. After all, being turned into a Vampire was the same as being born again.

Chapter Text

“When you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward.”

Time was relative. When Luca worked with Alva on his passion project, he completely lost track of it. A full day of work could feel like a single minute to him, too absorbed in hypothesis and experiments.

That was the norm when he was human, so naturally it got even worse when he became an immortal vampire. Years could seem weeks, and days, seconds.

Before he knew it, several tombstones laid in front of him.

First, it was the lazy yet cuddly Patience.

Then, Marienne smiled one last time before closing her eyes.

And now, his parents.

It was a cloudy day, morbidly fitting for a visit at the cemetery. Several purple hyacinths’ petals flew from his bucket due to the freezing wind. 

Luca couldn’t feel cold anymore, bodily sensations and strong emotions became muddled for a vampire, an afterthought. 

Or so they said. Personally, he felt terrible right now.

He promised that he would come back home when he was successful in finding the philosopher’s stone, and there he was, breaking his promise. Returning as a failure to a family who wasn’t there anymore.

“I wanted to make them proud, show them that my dream could be achieved, but now it’s too late,” he confessed to Alva, who stood behind him in silence, like another tombstone.

(Luca didn’t ask him to come, but after so many years living together, the older vampire had learned to read him well, enough to know when his coworker needed support, even if Luca wouldn’t admit it)

It had been 40 years since Luca left his family to follow his passion. If it wasn’t for Alva’s immortal gift, he would be a wrinkly old man by now, but the truth was… He didn’t feel like an adult at all. 

Most people didn’t know this, but when a human was transformed into a vampire, they would not only keep the appearance of that moment in time forever, but also the mentality. They didn’t grow up in any sense. 

Luca had been converted when he was only 21. He still felt and thought like a young man, full of enthusiasm and confidence, perfect for a scientist, but that also meant he would never achieve the amount of wisdom nor maturity Alva had.

Confronting his dead family and the failure of his dream required a level-headedness that Luca didn’t possess. His disillusionment was clear as water in his features, and Alva doubted their future.

“Do you regret leaving home to become an alchemist?“ He eventually asked, softly. Hesitant.

“No!” Luca was quick to answer. He scratched the corners of his eyes and avoided his worried look. “I don’t regret my choice. It’s just that… I never thought it would end up like this.”

Alva sighed. Of course he didn’t, Luca was too overconfident, too optimistic. It was an endearing trait, but it could be equally destructive when things didn’t go his way.

Luca’s voice was uncharacteristically shy when he added, “Also, I would never regret meeting you.”

Alva gazed at him, surprised by the confession. 

“Then it’s not too late,” he said, feeling unspeakable relief, wondering if he should pat him on the shoulder or hug him, like humans did to comfort each other in difficult times, but deciding against it. “You can still fulfill part of the promise.”

“How? They are dead. My father was right, I am an immature fool.”

“You aren’t immature, just very idealistic,” Alva retorted with a rare smile, his hand landing over Luca’s head without thinking. “But it’s not too late, you only fail if you give up, and I’ll always be here.”

Maybe it was the unusually kind, fatherly gesture, or the encouraging words, but Alva’s actions must have shaken something within Luca’s core, because he stood there in silence. Then, he covered his eyes with trembling hands and laughed.

“So as long as we become successful, everything will be worth it?”

Alva nodded, resolute. “Of course-”

He couldn’t finish speaking, too perplexed by Luca’s sudden hug. 

Despite his extroverted, pushy -and often annoying- personality, Luca had never crossed any boundaries. He had always maintained a professional distance with him. That day became an exception.

“Thank you.” His wavering voice was muffled by his coat. “ Thank you. ”

It took Alva some time to return the gesture, too caught up in how nostalgic it felt (When was the last time he…?) and when he did, he realized with a certain ache that Luca’s shoulders were shaking.

The wind kept destroying the lovely bucket of flowers in front of the tombstone, and so he embraced Luca harder, trying to protect him from a cold none of them could feel. He understood how Luca felt. One never knew when would be the last time they cherished someone important to them.

“Everything will be fine. Remember, we have all the time in the world.”

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

There are centuries where nothing happens, and there are nights when everything happens.

It was a Monday of 1822 when Luca’s dream came true, and all because he had his stupidest idea so far.

“Can vampires get drunk?” He asked while they were working at the laboratory.

Alva hummed. “I don’t think so, we are more resilient than humans in every sense, so alcohol wouldn’t affect us.”

“But what if we drank a lot? Like, a huge amount.”

Alva looked up from the notes he was writing and sent him a tired glance. “Why do I feel like you want to get drunk?”

“Not drunk,” Luca grinned. “Wasted.”

“Why?”

Luca smiled in silence. He had been working with Alva for 200 years more or less, and even though they had their ups and downs, it was embarrassing to admit that he didn’t know anything about him.

When Alva turned him into a Vampire, Luca got very worried. There was a strict worldwide rule prohibiting vampires from converting humans into one of them. That law existed due to the amount of vampires turned in the past, causing a severe human blood shortage. Because of that, only a select amount of humans could be converted, and only if they met extremely specific qualifications, such as coming from a powerful family or being deemed so important for society that vampires allowed them the gift of immortality, so they could keep serving the world with their bright minds and ideas.

Even then, those remarkable humans could only be converted with the approval of a higher up. Luca wished he could be considered indispensable to society, but the harsh truth was that he didn't fit the criteria (yet). Alva had essentially turned someone who hadn't proved himself to the world and the consequences of that were dreadful.

Vampires who converted humans without permission were given a cruel punishment: 100 years imprisoned underground. They were forced to remain conscious in darkness, without blood, company nor hope. Most vampires went insane after they were released (if authorities remembered to do so after so many years. Sometimes paperwork got lost and... well. Administration, right?)

Because of that unfair sanction, it wasn't absurd for him to worry about his coworker getting buried until who knows when, but that never happened. Alva never delved into its details (he never did when it came to matters related to him) but he told him something about 'being forgiven thanks to his status' and left it at that.

What status!? Luca had wondered. How important was Alva? Why, where, when and how did he turn into a vampire? Why did he decide to become an alchemist? Why did he like cats so much?

Why, why, why.

Alva wouldn’t tell him anything, so he reached a mature conclusion:

Talking about it? Nah. This was a mystery that only alcohol could solve!

“Generally speaking, it takes about 3-4 beers for the average human to feel tipsy,” he rambled, excited about the idea. “and around 5-6 beers to become intoxicated. If a vampire is said to be 100 times stronger than a human, it would take us 500 beers to get drunk.”

“Well, too bad we don’t have 1000 beers.” 

“...”

“Please, tell me you didn’t hide 1000 beers in our basement.”

Luca blinked innocently and Alva groaned, not understanding where his coworker was going with all of this.

Luca was so serious and diligent when it came to their research. Why would he lose their unlimited yet precious time with something so foolish…?

Alva squinted his eyes in suspicion, Luca was bouncing like an idiot, he definitely had an ulterior motive.

Ah! He probably heard about how opium, magic mushrooms and other psychoactive drugs were popular among artists, inventors and scientists who wanted to take their creativity further, and came to the conclusion that getting drunk would help them find a way to make the philosopher’s stone. 

He hummed in silence. Drugs were bad, so at least Luca had come up with a less… invasive method? But it was sad to know that his pupil felt the need to get intoxicated to keep working. 

“You don’t need alcohol to come up with brilliant ideas, Luca.”

“What?”

Still, Alva thought hard about it. After his parents’ death, Luca had become a bit more desperate to achieve their dream. He didn’t mention it, but Alva could tell in the way his hands trembled when an experiment failed.

…

“You will have to clean the lab first. If any chemical falls over our work because you were too drunk to walk straight, it could explode the entire room.”

Who was he to deny this harmless experiment? After all, the worst that could happen was that they would wake up with a headache.

“Seriously?! Is that a yes?” Luca jumped, excited. “Yooo lets goo!!” 

-50 beers later-

“Are you drunk already?” Luca asked, looking at him with cunning eyes.

Alva drank another bottle as if it was water. “No.”

-200 beers later-

“Do you feel tipsy?” Luca asked again, the room was starting to spin. “Just a lil’ tiny bit?”

Alva let out a hiccup. “I feel sober enough to regret helping you with this.”

-500 beers later-

“Do you feel?” Luca slurred. “Do you- Do- feel-”

“I feel,” Alva nodded, and then proceeded to fall off his chair on top of several empty bottles.

Luca smiled victoriously. Perfect! Now that he was drunk, he could finally ask him everything that he wanted to know. He walked towards Alva but also tripped over the sea of bottles, and when he managed to stand up, he let out a dumb laugh.

“Wait. What did I want to ask you?”

“You wanted to know how to mix 345 elements,” Alva replied, still from the floor, drawing some messed up formulas on the wood board with his finger.

Luca stared at the pathetic old man and, oh boy, everything was so blurry and colorful and cool, but he needed to concentrate. He did all of this because he had a plan, but what was it…?

“Succeed will come, Luca, you can’ escape,” Alva kept saying as he scribbled incoherent words. “Everything will turn out fine. You have no choice.”

Luca snickered at Alva’s ominous positivity. He was so funny when he- No, no! He had to focus, why would he put his mentor through this? It had to be a good reason, something that he really wished to know… Ah!

“Alva, who really are you?” He crouched next to him with big, curious eyes. “You aren’t like the other lazy and evil vampires who kill humans because they feel like it. Why is that?”

That was right, ever since Luca turned into one of them, he had learned that Alva didn’t behave like an ordinary vampire. 

He had found a way to preserve blood without feeding directly from humans, so he hired servants that were okay with donating blood once in a while. Then, said liquid was stored in his pantry. It was a consensual agreement rarely seen between the two sides.

At first, Luca had been worried that he would have to start roaming the streets and feed from innocent people, but thanks to Alva’s unusual method, that never happened. They kept his humanity, in a way.

“You never talk about your past, and I think it’s because it doesn’t bring you good memories, but whatever happened, I want to know more about you,” Luca continued, glad that he could explain himself despite the alcohol. “I would never judge you.”

Alva looked at him for a long time with a hard expression, and Luca feared that he wasn’t as drunk as he had hoped, and would get mad at him for planning this ambush but, instead, Alva grabbed him by the neck, like an intoxicated gangster, and whispered in his ear:

“What a smart brat you are. Alright, don’t tell this to anyone, but…”

Luca gasped in shock as he heard the next words.

…

After that, the rest of the night became a hole in Luca’s consciousness. A black spot filled with stars, confessions and dreams that made him smile, even if he couldn’t recall why.

As comforting as that feeling was, he woke up the next day lying down on his own saliva and feeling like shit, like a loser. He whined and tried to stand up, but his legs were too shaky and so he fell on the floor again, like a double loser.

“Ouch, my head hurts…” 

He looked around and cringed at how messy the laboratory was. What the hell did they do while they were drunk? Did Alva tell him about his life? He couldn't remember anything, the whole point of the experiment had failed!

“I should invent something to record situations,” he tragically told himself, trying to stand up again and slipping over a paper.

Besides the bottles, the floor was full of them. Pages and pages of incoherent scribbles that made no sense. There was a small piece of paper that caught his attention, though.

It had written on it: ‘Alva Lorenz and Lorenz Jr. the great creators of the philosopher’s stone! ’

It wasn’t his own handwriting, so that meant…

Luca grinned like a dumbass. Alva had a cute side after all, he would definitely hate it when he saw what he wrote while he was intoxicated.

He looked up to find his mentor and was surprised to see that he was already awake and standing in the middle of the room, in front of their work table. He was so still that Luca thought he had fallen asleep standing up, like a horse. He approached him, bracing for a well-deserved scolding.

“Good- I mean, Neutral morning…?” Luca looked up, expecting to see the man with his eyes closed, but instead they were wide open, the amber of his irises glowing with wonder.

Luca followed his gaze and, when he reached the destiny, he let out a choked gasp.

There, in the middle of the messy lab table, lay a small yet bright red metal. 

The philosopher’s stone.

Luca could tell it was the real thing because Alva’s silver glasses were right next to it. How did he know? 

Because now they were gold .

“No way!” The young vampire opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish. He grabbed Alva’s arms with pure excitement. “How did you do it?!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Alva breathed, equally shocked. His lips were trembling, doing their best not to break into a wide smile and failing. “I don’t remember anything about last night.”

“I barely remember my own name,” Luca half-cried half-laughed, full of wonder. “I have no idea how we did it.”

“You have all that alcohol to thank for. Seriously, you and your crazy ideas…” Alva complained without meaning any of it. “How awful of us, to create our magnum opus and forget how we achieved it. Now we can’t replicate it, you know?”

Luca took the golden glasses from the table and put them on charmingly, facing Alva with the biggest smile in the world. Finally, his heart could feel at ease.

“Don’t worry, as long as we don’t lose it, it’s fine!”

“Losing your Magnum Opus is like losing yourself.”

They lost it.

They lost the fucking stone a week later. A  w e e k.

In retrospect, it was a very small stone, the size of a bullet, which was what Luca was going to use to kill himself if he didn’t find the damn stone.

It all happened very fast. They had been so preoccupied with their research in their secluded, cozy cottage, that they completely ignored what was going on in the real world and, oh boy - Big things were going on.

Big as in imminent War.

It started with a murder, a sacrifice of an innocent soul that shocked the entire world.

A faction of humans who hated vampires and didn’t see them as holy beings kidnapped Claude, the vampire prince and the Lord’s younger brother. They infiltrated the castle, tied him at the stake in the middle of the citadel and burned him alive. 

Claude had always been sick and weak compared to his kind but, even then, the fire shouldn’t have hurt him more than a slap on the wrist, as vampires were immortal and could survive through anything, but he died. 

Somehow, they killed him.

The Lord had protected his baby brother for centuries, too worried about his health, and humans took him away from him.

Claude’s death was the straw that broke the camel's back, and a huge fight broke between the vampires, who had lost their beloved prince and wanted revenge, and humans, who were tired of being treated as stock. 

Despite being outcasts when it came to politics and society, Alva and Luca, along with many other vampires, were summoned at the castle by Jack Whistler, the Lord’s right hand. 

“Something is very wrong,” Alva whispered to Luca once the reunion finished and they were tasked to roam the streets and, essentially, stop the uprising. “I had never seen Jack look this serious, there is something he isn’t telling us.”

“You know Jack?” Luca asked, wondering again about what kind of life Alva used to have before meeting him. “But is there something to worry about? It's not like humans have any chance to win against us. As much as it annoys me, it’s biologically impossible.”

“Yeah, they can’t do anything…” Alva agreed, albeit not very convinced.

His intuition ended up being right. The war should have been ridiculously easy to win, in the same way a colony of spiders would destroy an ant within seconds, but what Jack didn’t tell them -what was eating him alive- was that someone had stolen the ‘Tome of Prophecies’ .

It was a cursed, ancient book with yellowed, ‘empty’ pages and unknown origins. The legend said that if anyone ever managed to read its contents, they would be able to ask for any wish in the world.

Almost 2000 years ago, a common man who feared death to the point of madness succeeded in reading the Tome and wished for immortal life. That day, the first vampire was born. 

The origin of their species was thanks to that book.

After more than a thousand years, only a handful had managed to wish upon the Tome. It was meant for someone special, a chosen one, and it could quite literally destroy the world if it fell in the wrong hands, so the Vampire Lord kept the Tome of Prophecies in the castle’s library, safe from everyone.

But someone had stolen it, and Claude had been murdered by the humans.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Alva and Luca patrolled the dangerous streets of the capital and did their best to stop the rebels. While many vampires took advantage of the chaos and sucked humans’ blood to death, their approach was to knock them out and throw them in prisons for the time being, until the Lord could reach a compromise with the leader of the uprising, who was nowhere to be found.

They left the philosopher’s stone at home. Alva had suggested bringing it with them to heal the wounded with its powers, but Luca disagreed. 

During the past week, they had been experimenting with the stone by turning lead into gold, bringing little animals back to life and making powerful medicine. The results were so immediate and efficient it was scary to think about what would happen if a bad person put their hands on it. 

Because of that, Luca suggested they take a few medicines they prepared while leaving the source safe, in their laboratory.

Their plan was to slowly make the world a better place while keeping the stone’s existence a secret. It was too risky to bring it with them in the middle of a war, where anyone could steal it from them, he argued. Alva agreed.

They spent the next days containing the rebels. The chaos, cruelty and bloodshed seemed to be unstoppable, until the third night came and everything ended abruptly, and not in a way anyone could ever have imagined:

When the bells toll at midnight, a purple light as bright as a comet shot up from the tallest tower of the Lord’s castle, creating an explosion so big, so powerful that it covered the entire sky and blinded both sides.

Luca remembered staring at the expanding light in awe and thinking about how hauntingly beautiful it was. Like a tsunami, an ocean wave so magnificent, so imposing he knew he couldn’t escape it, so he just waited for it to swallow him.

“Luca, run!” he thought he heard Alva yell, and then everything turned black.

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

He woke up buried underground in a smelly, disgusting corpse pit.

Alva was unconscious next to him. Feeling a strong mix of claustrophobia and neurosis, Luca quickly grabbed him by the collar and started crawling back to the surface, getting his nails dirty with soil and other things he didn’t want to contemplate. For some reason, he lacked his usual inhuman strength, which made the task almost impossible.

“What the hell?! This feels like a nightmare!” he freaked out once they reached the top. They had been buried in the middle of a deserted, foggy valley.

The night sky was full of stars, even the milky way was clearly visible in such a desolate land. Luca stared at the green, wet grass and took a deep breath to calm down. At least, there was no one else around. 

Being buried alive was messed up enough, but getting rid of worms and other insects from their clothes was another circle of hell. Alva got lucky not to experience that, because he regained consciousness a few hours later.

“Luca? What happened?” He looked very disheveled and dirty, like a cat who just woke up from a bad nap, it would have been hilarious if it wasn’t for the macabre situation. 

“I wish I knew.”

It took them some time to find the way home, and when they finally did, they realized with horror that the cottage wasn’t there anymore.

No, it hadn’t been destroyed by the rebellion. It just wasn’t there. As if it had never been built in the first place. 

They stood there in silence, shoulder almost touching shoulder, staring at an empty spot. 

Then, Luca covered his mouth. He had left the philosopher’s stone inside the house.

Now there was no house… and no stone.

“How-”

Confusion wasn’t a strong enough word to describe what they were experiencing at the moment. Perplexity, commotion, heartbreak and, most of all, extreme disbelief.

What the hell had happened while they were gone?! 

They looked at each other, speechless, clearly trying to come up with an explanation for the disappearance of an entire house and their life’s work, but they came up with nothing. Then, as if they read each other’s minds, rushed towards the capital to get answers as soon as possible.

When they reached Penvicor, they got more questions than anything. 

They thought they were hallucinating, because even the capital looked completely different compared to the last time they saw it. 

There were no traces of any war happening, for one. No destroyed houses, no fires, no blood on the floor, no crying humans… It was unsettling, but the weirdest thing was that the buildings, sculptures, streets and many other things had disappeared too!

The Vampire Capital used to be the most beautiful, sacred place on Earth. Since the majority of the immortal royalty lived there, they had made sure to build thousands of cathedrals and breathtaking monuments over the centuries. 

Walking around Penvicor’s streets was like contemplating an overwhelming, dark gothic museum full of art.

But now, all the exuberance was gone. The stunning place had been replaced by what looked to be an ordinary -and quite mid, in Luca’s opinion- city called… London?

Huh? Even the names of the streets had changed. Luca and Alva felt gaslighted, was that even Penvicor or did they end up in a nearby, unknown town? 

…But they had followed the same path from their ‘home’ as always.

The feeling of apprehension grew in their hearts as a scary question arose. For how long had they been unconscious?

It wasn’t until they smelled the unmistakable scent of vampires, in one of the city’s catacombs, under the West Norwood’s cemetery -they were hiding, as if they were criminals on the run- that they finally found their brothers and sisters and learned the truth.

The news were as unexpected as horrible: 

“No, you haven’t been knocked out for decades, it has only been a couple of days since the war ended,” Fiona Gilman told them. 

They knew her as the eccentric vampire who sold them chemicals (and weed, for some reason) for their experiments. Now, she looked as dirty and upset as everyone else in that dark hole. 

“But how did everything change so much? The city is unrecognizable!” Luca accused.

“Did you see the strange light that shot up from the sky that day? That cursed thing engulfed the entire world. I don’t know what it was, but it killed most of our kind, like a vampire murder beam or something, but the weirdest thing is that it rewrote history.”

“Rewrote what?”

“History, Balsa, focus!” Fiona groaned. She used to be extremely easy-going, but even the tragedy had gotten on her nerves. “Humans don’t remember us anymore. It’s as if vampires had never existed! I woke up last night, thirsty and lost as hell, so I asked a woman on the street to give me her blood and, guess what?”

“She rejected you?”

“Worse! She looked at me as if I was nuts! She didn’t even remember that the war had happened at all. Then, I tried to climb a house to rest and could barely stick on the walls, it was as if most of my powers were gone.”

Luca’s eyes widened. He felt the same weakened senses when he crawled out of the pit.

‘It’s as if vampires had never existed’ 

That would explain why Penvicor looked so different and had a new name. If it weren’t for vampires, the city and those buildings wouldn’t exist, neither would the war and millions of other things.

Like their house with the stone in it.

“And that’s not all. Humans are ruled by other humans now, and if someone doesn’t give them cake, they cut their heads with a thing called nicotine in France!”

“What is France?”

“It's a dessert. And talking about food, wanna know the icing on the cake?” Fiona continued, venting all of her frustrations. “The fucking sun can kill us now. THE SUN! You are lucky you were buried and woke up at night, because the others weren’t as blessed, they are all literal dust now. Gosh… I’m so thirsty, but we can’t hunt humans like before... I don’t even know how many of us are left.”

Luca couldn’t wrap his head around this madness. They weren’t immortal anymore? The entire world forgot about them? People got murdered over cake? It was preposterous! 

“What the hell was that purple light?” he asked.

“I already told you that I have no idea, I had never seen or heard about something like that.”

“I did.” A man who was sitting near them chimed in, clearly interested in their conversation. 

Luca knew him from his visits at the library. Eli Clark, a friendly peregrin and the Lord’s counselor. He was always seen wearing a blue hood, a blindfold and an all-knowing smile.

Curiously, he was also the only vampire who didn’t look sad in that catacomb.

“It’s a legend from a long time ago that you all know very well,” Eli explained in a soothing voice. “An ordinary man climbed the tallest mountain of the land, read a magic tome and wished to become immortal, and so the sky turned purple and the world changed as much as it changed now.”

“The origin of the first vampire?”

Now that Luca thought about it, it was true that in some versions of the tale there was a mention of a purple light. 

But if that was true, that meant…

“Holy shit, Eli!” Fiona yelped, making all the sleeping vampires in the catacomb groan. “If you are implying it’s the same light, that means a repugnant human stole the Tome of Prophecies from the castle and wished for us to never exist. That’s why we are so weak and no one remembers us!”

“If that’s the case, why are some of us still alive?” Alva asked.

Fiona shrugged. “Well, I guess not even the Tome can get rid of everyone? Nevertheless, this is a good starting point. If there is a thief, we need to find and threaten them to wish for everything to go back to normal. Where is Jack?”

“He is somewhere safe with the Lord. After what happened, he doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“I understand why he wants to be left alone, but sulking won’t solve anything. Where are they?”

Fiona started bombarding Eli with more questions. She was very determined to fix everything, but Alva and Luca had their minds somewhere else. Even if they finally learned the possible reason of the catastrophe, it didn’t matter anymore, the conclusion was that they were done for.

They had lost their life’s work.

“...Well, that sucks,” Luca suddenly laughed, looking away with watery eyes. “More than 200 years of effort down Herman Balsa’s flushing toilet, and all because of an apocalyptic event no one could have predicted!”

Despite Fiona’s optimism, he knew it would be impossible to track down the Tome’s thief. It was over.

He was still wearing the same uniform he wore during the rebellion. If he had listened to Alva and brought the stone with him, maybe they wouldn’t have lost it. It would have stayed in his pocket, in the same way Alva’s gold glasses still framed his pale face.

It was his fault, wasn’t it?

“Luca…” Alva had worry written all over his face. Even if it was their shared dream, he knew that his coworker would be much more affected by their immeasurable loss. Even he, as stoic and rational as he was, had his fists trembling with rage at the unfairness.

Not directed at Luca -never at Luca- but at the realization that they would never fulfill their goal of making a better world, as there wasn’t even a ‘world’ to save anymore.

Maybe this was a sign for them to stop.

“This feels like a déjà vu, as if we got back to square one,” Luca joked through clenched teeth. Then, he managed a shaky, desperate smile. “But it’s not too late, right? You only fail if you give up.”

Despite the brave facade, he looked fragile, on the verge of a breakdown, as if a single word would save or destroy his soul. 

His behavior disturbed Alva.

He knew Luca was stubborn, but he didn’t expect him to suggest continuing what seemed to be a never-ending dream, a curse that had trapped them for too many years only to disappear when they finally achieved it.

For the first time in his life, Alva felt tired.

He didn’t think they should keep feeding what had become a damaging fixation, but seeing Luca’s big, begging eyes was enough to make him throw all logic out of the window and, once again, tell him what he wanted to hear the most:

“Of course.”

Just like that day in the cemetery, and despite his better judgment, Luca’s relieved breath was enough to make Alva believe he had made the right decision.

Maybe he was becoming too sentimental, but… since he couldn’t protect the stone, he thought he could at least protect Luca’s bright smile.

As they rested in the catacombs, waiting for the night to arrive so they could go out, Alva wondered about his priorities in life, and whether or not they had changed since he met Luca.

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

The next few decades were a blur for Luca. 

They spent all of their time adapting to the new, strange world ruled by humans. To do that, they moved into an abandoned house and covered all of the windows so the sun wouldn’t kill them, hunted homeless people in alleys, and generally lived like hermits.

While the Lord and many other vampires searched everywhere for the missing Tome without success, Alva and Luca got drunk, used hypnosis, and did everything in their power to remember how they created the red stone.

After 120 long, depressing years, they came up with nothing. 

It was maddening to know that they couldn’t replicate their only success. It felt like a divine punishment, a living hell.

Each day that passed, Luca felt his sanity leave his body. He constantly faulted himself for not taking better care of the stone when they still had it. Looking at Alva in the face became harder, too. Shameful.

When the older vampire had asked him to work together at the start, Luca had felt incredibly proud. He had always been overconfident in his skills and intelligence, but his family never believed in his potential, no one ever did.

Alva was the first person who chose to trust him.

He had been so giddy about it. Finally he would be able to show off all of his knowledge! 

That had been a long time ago. Now, he was starting to feel insecure for the first time in his life. He wondered if, deep down, Alva regretted giving him a chance. 

The Dunning-Kruger effect was a type of cognitive bias in which people believed they were smarter and more capable than they really were. Was he like that, a fraud? Or was he just going through imposter syndrome?

‘He will get tired of me if I don’t get results’ Luca found himself thinking on a daily basis.

He wasn’t one to delve into irrational worries, and he had never cared about what others thought about him, believing himself to be above their incorrect opinions, but Alva was an exception. He didn’t want to disappoint him, and his fear wasn’t unfounded either. 

Lately, Alva had been acting strange, unfocused, as if there was something bothering him.

Was Luca the source of his annoyance? Was he resentful of him?

One night, Alva peeked through the holes of the window with a gloomy gaze and said that if things continued like that, vampires would go extinct. 

“We have no place in this world,” he stated with a frown.

Oh.

Luca raised his eyebrows. Had he been worried about their species all this time?

“It’s no secret that our kind is bad at change,” Luca said, secretly relieved to know Alva wasn’t mad at him. “‘Improvise, adapt, overcome?’ Vampires have never heard of that.”

They had been at the top of the food chain for centuries, living like royalty, with humans adoring and fearing them equally, to the point they offered their blood with smiles and tears on their faces.

Now, eating without being discovered had become a life or death situation, and biting humans to turn them into one of them had stopped working, so they couldn’t create an army to take over cities. 

Those struggles were enough to make some of them give up and walk into the sunlight. 

“It’s a matter of time before we become a popular genre enjoyed by teens around the globe. A fantastic creature and nothing else,” Luca sighed. He wasn’t a negative person, those were facts.

Alva nodded, pensive, then a prolonged silence followed until he finally voiced the idea that had been keeping him up at day, the proposition that would change everything:

“What if we could prevent it?” he asked.

“Huh? The fall of our species?”

“When I became a vampire, one of the first things I did was develop a way to preserve blood so I wouldn’t have to feed directly from humans,” Alva stood up from his chair and paced around the room. “My formula allowed us to have a comfortable life and drink quality blood without hunting, and now, that invention might be able to save others. We don’t have to endanger our lives trying to get blood, because humans will give it to us.”

“Give us blood willingly? What sort of masochist would do that?”

“Blood banks do that.” Alva smiled smugly at Luca’s surprised reaction. 

The term ‘Blood Bank’ was very new, and it had become extremely popular since the Second World War started, five years ago. Humans in this world didn’t need vampires to be violent and start fights, apparently, but thanks to that, blood transfusions had become a valuable necessity.

“Humans are desperate to help wounded soldiers. If we start a Blood Bank, they will never suspect us, and we can use my formula to keep the taste and share it with our kind.”

As he said that, Alva put a firm, encouraging hand on his shoulder. “We shouldn’t need to hide, Luca, I’m sure we can create our own place in this world.”

Luca had no words.

Well, he actually had one: No.

He was against this idea. Not because it was stupid -none of Alva’s ideas had ever been stupid- but because starting such a big business would take all of their savings and time. Why would Alva suddenly want to use their efforts on something so… irrelevant? 

What about the stone?

A feeling of uneasiness came over him. Alva should forget about the vampires and focus on what was truly important. They had already wasted a lot of time, they couldn’t indulge in distractions. 

Luca wanted to tell him all of that, but for some reason, he couldn’t. 

It wasn’t out of kindness or altruism. It was the opposite, he was being selfish, a coward. 

He wanted Alva to keep helping him with the stone, but he knew that if he devalued his new idea, there was a chance Alva would be annoyed and leave him, and he couldn’t accept that outcome either. 

He was terrified of losing the only constant in his life. Vampires feared change, and he wasn’t the exception. 

Because of that, Luca convinced himself that this little enterprise would be positive and make Alva forget about their fruitless effort for a while, like a summer break before they got back to the real work. 

Yes. It definitely would help them with their obvious creative block. Just a short term project, and nothing else. A small sacrifice for the greater good.

“Of course, let's do it!” he grinned, trying to match Alva’s enthusiasm.

And just like that, Oletus Blood Bank was born.

It wasn’t easy to set everything up (Human laws and bureaucracy were so time consuming it was hard to believe they had a limited lifespan) but after many visits at the bank and city hall, Alva became the CEO and Luca his loyal assistant. 

They thought it would be hard to infiltrate the humans and work among them without being noticed, but it was easier than expected. Everyone was too busy with war news to pay them any unwanted attention. 

Surprisingly, in no time their business grew unimaginably.

After so many failures, Oletus became their very first success.

Luca didn’t expect the company to expand so much even after the war ended. As Alva had foreseen, it became an easy way to get blood, money, and it gave the lost, depressed vampires something to look forward to, a new way to perceive and live in this world. 

They learned that if they changed their outdated viewpoints, they could still thrive.

Many vampires even started working for them, while everyone else happily bought their quality blood. 

They adapted, improved, changed. Vampires stopped searching for the Tome and instead started amassing fortunes, enjoying fashion and rejoicing in the pleasures of the night. They regained their lost confidence and became a cult, a mafia of distinguished monsters.

A new golden era had started, and all thanks to Alva.

Everything kept getting better and better for everyone, everyone except for Luca, because the thing he feared the most, from the bottom of his heart, had happened: Alva had abandoned their dream.

After 79 years, their ‘short-term’ Oletus project had become their only work, and the thousands of notes, research about alchemy and the philosopher’s stone had been forgotten in dozens of boxes.

“You only fail if you give up, and I’ll always be here.” 

‘Always’. Alva had promised that a long time ago. What a liar.

It broke Luca’s heart. The philosopher’s stone had been his obsession for the past 400 years. He knew he would never be able to care about anything else. It was his everything, the reason he abandoned his family.

His entire life had been shaped around a myth he once held in his hand.

Now, his hands were empty and shaking.

His father had been a gambler. The inventions he created earned him a lot of money, but he couldn’t help but bet all of it at the Ridotto, a government-owned gambling-house.

Luca used to think Herman was a pathetic man. So smart for some things, yet stupid enough to lose their fortune in card games.  His mother tried to stop him several times, but he always relapsed, saying that he would win the next round and make them rich.

Luca heard that his family died without a cent, so that ‘next round’ never came.

Herman had been an addict, and it was just now that Luca started to understand his madness.

He also bet everything he had on the stone, and the next round wasn’t coming, but he just couldn’t give up, because… What if they were close to success? He had already lost too much to stop now.

Next time will be it, next time, next time.

Next time.

Luca slammed his hands down hard on the work table, sending papers flying everywhere. He was deeply upset at Alva, but most of all, he faulted himself. If he had been smarter and more resourceful, this wouldn’t have happened. 

Alva lost interest because he couldn’t keep up. 

Despite the bitterness, he hid his feelings and still worked diligently for Oletus. He helped Alva during the night in their mansion, located at the edge of a cliff, and spent the lonely mornings filling his study with transmutation circles, formulas and illegible scribbles. 

Sometimes, when he thought he came up with something groundbreaking, he would still visit Alva’s office to ask for his opinion. 

(He knew Alva felt uncomfortable with the topic of the stone, the guilt in his amber eyes made it clear that he was aware of the promise he silently broke.)

When that happened, Luca felt better in the worst kind of way. Maybe he wanted Alva to feel responsible for his pain.

It was screwed up, but deep down all of those childish theatrics were a desperate plea to get his coworker back.

“Alva, are you busy? There’s something I would like to discuss with you.”

Alva looked up from the computer and regarded him with an apologetic smile. Despite being 2021, he still dressed the same, dark and modest.

“Luca, I was thinking about you just now.” Luca’s heart skipped in his chest, like an abandoned dog being called by its master. “I’ve been busy with last week’s Charity event. The profits exceeded our expectations, so Joseph said he would come to discuss his next donation. I was trying to organize everything, but I can’t convert this Excel into a PDF.” 

Ah.

Luca tried to hide his disillusionment and pushed through with a short laugh. He walked towards Alva’s table, taking the mouse away from him.

“This is such a boomer thing to say,” he snorts.

“I think I’m far worse than a boomer. This is magic, I don’t know how you do it.”

“The great Alva Lorenz, beat by an Excel sheet.”

It was nice to still be able to banter with him, it gave him hope. As he clicked on the tabs, he spoke without taking his eyes off the screen.

“By the way, I think I finally found why my pentagram didn’t work the last time. I failed to consider the moon phase of the night we were successful. I looked it up and it was in the Last Quarter. Do you think nature might influence Alchemy more than we think?”

Alva’s shoulders tensed uncomfortably. “I did consider it. We tried it out during that moon phase twenty years ago, remember? It didn’t work.”

“Oh, did we? Damn, I forgot,” he laughed awkwardly.

“Luca…”

His tone was filled with pity, so Luca interrupted him before he could continue. “It’s fine! I have so much data and it gets lost. I will make sure to write it down so I take it into account next time.”

“Next time,” Alva let out, not even hiding his disappointment. 

“Yes, next time ,” Luca said with an edge in his voice, his pride hurt. “I would ask you to help me, but I can see you are very busy, so I will leave you alone.”

He didn’t look at Alva, didn’t even wait for him to reply. He got out of the room, closing the door with a loud thud. It was the first time he talked to him like that, without any respect nor adoration, and he felt ashamed of it, but he couldn’t help it.

He just felt so miserable all the time.

The next morning, while Alva was sleeping in his coffin, Luca got out of his room and wandered around the mansion. Alva had said it would be convenient to live in the same building since they worked together, and the place had so many rooms it felt like different apartments anyways.

The windows had been carefully customized so they would never open during the day, which allowed them to enjoy the beautiful sight of the sea at night, and be protected when the sun was out.

Without realizing, Luca ended up in the attic. It had been a long time since he went there, since they used it to store old things they accumulated throughout the years (imagine being a vampire with Diogenes syndrome, now that would be a problem) 

There were towers and towers of prototypes, simple inventions, paintings, gifts from friends, souvenirs from their travels and more. Luca sat on the floor and started opening boxes.

He was looking for something very dear to him.

It took him longer than he expected to find it. For some reason, it had ended up in a box that looked almost purposefully hidden at the back of a closet. When he opened the lid, a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia hit him.

‘Alva Lorenz and Lorenz Jr. the great creators of the philosopher’s stone!’

He had kept that paper with him during the war, safe in his pocket. It was the only memory that didn’t disappear. He took it out of the box and smoothed it out carefully.

As they say, nothing ever lasts forever.

A scientist should always look towards the future, yet there he was, trapped in a past he wasn’t able to let go, staring at a worn-out paper as if it was the sun he missed so much.

“Huh?” 

He noticed that, besides his treasure, there was a manuscript he had never seen before in that box. It had Alva’s clean handwriting and dated from more than 80 years ago. 

With a hum, Luca checked the alchemy symbols and annotations, at first with innocent curiosity, which quickly spiraled into uneasiness and hyperventilation as he kept reading.

An intense look of outrage dawned across his face once he understood what was in front of him.

The manuscript fell from his shaking hands as he stood up.

In his rage, Luca saw nothing but red.

“In order to obtain something, something else of equal value must be lost”

Alva was resting in his coffin, in the solitude of his own room, when Luca unlatched the lid with force and threw several papers at him with the finesse of a wrecking ball.

Saying that he woke up utterly shocked would be an understatement.

“Luca, what are you doing?” 

He blinked several times, making sure it wasn’t a dream nor a prank. He got out of the coffin and stared at his coworker as if he couldn’t recognize him.

“This is what I should ask you. What is this?!” Luca demanded. His voice dripped with betrayal.

Alva was taken back by the vitriol in his eyes. He couldn’t understand what had gotten onto him, until he picked up one of the papers thrown at him and cursed his entire bloodline.

‘100 immortal lives in exchange for a chance to fix the past.’  

It was an old, brilliant yet dangerous pentagram he had created and scrapped a long time ago. 

“You shouldn’t have seen this,” he said, thickly. 

“Oh, so you admit it, you made this 82 years ago and never told me about it!”

Alva drew an intake of breath. He never told him because he felt ashamed. He was tired of their constant failure and knew they wouldn’t be able to create the stone again, so he came up with a different perspective. 

Instead of making the stone, what if they went back to the past and took it from there?

It would have been perfect if it weren’t for the price to pay. He tried thousands of symbol combinations, but the only one that worked required them to sacrifice 100 vampires. 

A dark, desperate part of him felt tempted, that’s why he didn’t destroy his research, but ultimately he decided to hide it and forget about it. Luca finding it was a horrifying mistake, he should have burned it when he had the chance.

“I didn’t plan to go through with it,” he confessed.

“Why not?” Luca yelled in disbelief. “This was the answer to all of our prayers!”

In that precise moment, Alva realized that he had misunderstood Luca’s anger greatly. 

He wasn’t enraged because he did it, it was because he didn’t.

“We can’t kill a hundred of our kind, Luca. Do you hear yourself?”

“Then why did you consider it!?”

He hesitated at first. “I was tired of seeing you throw away your life over that stone. I thought this would be the only way to free you from that obsession, but the price was too high. That’s why I proposed Oletus instead.”

“Oletus?” Luca repeated, not even pretending to hide his disgust. “You changed this breakthrough for this fucking useless company?”

Alva would lie if he said those words didn’t feel like knives cutting him open. He was proud of what Oletus had accomplished, and wished for Luca to feel the same. 

“It’s not useless, it has helped many of us. I wanted it to help you find a new purpose in this world, too.”

The statement was meant to be comforting, but instead it ignited a new fire of indignation. 

“I don’t care about this world, I hate it. Everything has changed, you have changed!”

Years and years of keeping his feelings to himself had culminated in an explosion of cruel and childish honesty. It reminded Alva of a tantrum, the cry of a boy who never dared to speak the truth, and now it came out distorted through chapped lips.

He wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or pitiful. Under all that disdain, Luca had never looked this vulnerable and scared.

“Alchemy is about change,” he said, carefully. “Do you remember why we wanted the stone? To make the world a better place. I thought Oletus would make you happy, but you don’t want to move on.”

“Because you failed me-“

“Because you never cared about the world!” Alva interrupted him, raising his voice for the first time. “The only thing you have ever wanted is the satisfaction of creating the stone, and it’s killing you. Can’t you see?”

Alva knew he was being harsh, but he had the responsibility to make him face the truth.

As expected, Luca didn’t take the criticism well. He barked out a sarcastic laugh and snapped at him.

“You are such a hypocrite. You kept telling me we would continue our research. You found a solution on your own and hid it from me. You broke your promise and now I am the villain for wanting to use the pentagram and finish what we started?”

“Would you be willing to sacrifice that many lives for your selfish desires?”

“They are vampires!” Luca yelled, as if he wasn’t one, as if -after so many years- he had never stopped despising them. “You know they would deserve it.”

Alva couldn’t believe his ears. This wasn’t the bright, kind and friendly Luca he knew.

It was his fault. If he hadn’t enabled him all those times, this wouldn’t have happened.

“…You would get everyone killed to get the stone.” His disappointment ran deep. “Your pride and obsession won’t let you see what’s in front of you. You are acting like an entitled brat.”

Alva knew he had gone too far when, instead of fighting back, Luca recoiled and stared at him with a longing and agony so raw it sent chills to his spine. 

“Alright,” he eventually whispered, looking away, not allowing Alva to see his expression. “Alright.”

He took the page Alva wrote many years ago on a night of drunkeness, his most beloved possession, and turned it around. On the other side of the paper, he had drawn the finished transmutation circle.

Its red glow matched his eyes. 

“If you won’t help me, then I will do it myself.”

Alva took a step forward, tense.

“Luca, this is madness, you will hurt yourself.”

“Stop pretending to care about me!”

“Then stop being immature!” 

And, for a fraction of a second, Luca didn’t see Alva, but his dad.

His dad, who always looked down on him with indifference and neglect when he talked about his passion. 

His dad, whose last words before he left home were not ‘goodbye’, nor ‘take care’, but how immature he was.

Before he knew it, Luca had grabbed Alva by the collar and pushed him against a shelf, breaking the glass that protected several bottles of chemicals, which crashed loudly on the floor.

Luca didn’t remember what awful, empty insults he screamed that day.

But he did remember the toxic smell of Benzoxazole, Cacodyl oxide and Cadaverine that spread all over the room. The way Alva grabbed his shoulders with grief, only for his golden eyes to widen in realization -and terror- when he looked at the floor and saw where the paper with the transmutation circle had landed.

Luca must have dropped it in the middle of his fit of violence. It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t, and yet-

Alchemy was a dangerous practice. A single drop of the wrong chemical on a pentagram could create the biggest explosion imaginable.

And that’s exactly what happened. 

A bottle full of mercury spilled over the pentagram’s page and, like a silver ink pen, it signed their death sentence.

The impact of the explosion was immediate. A bright flash hit Luca’s eyes and, before he could even react nor understand what was going on, a blazing shockwave sent him flying across the room and knocked him against something hard.

The last thing he could hear was the crack of his own skull. Then, everything became silent.

He recovered his senses not long after.

A metallic taste filled his mouth, and he found himself lying down in a pile of rubble and ashes that invaded his lungs.

Everything hurt so much he couldn’t move. He had his eyes tightly shut and his ears kept ringing, leaving him muddled and disoriented. He knew he wouldn’t die over something like this, but the awful sensation was as close as it could get.

He let out a painful whimper. For some reason, his skin hurt abnormally, as if he was being burned alive. It was so agonizing that he wanted to scream and cry, but only pathetic sounds came out of his lips.

“Al- Help…” 

When the pain was becoming too unbearable, something strange happened. Like a gentle kiss over an open wound, he felt something soft cover him fully, from head to toes, and suddenly all the discomfort stopped.

He sighed in relief. There was a warm weight over him. In his daze, it reminded him of his mother, when she would tuck him in bed, making him feel safe and loved.

When Luca opened his eyes, he only saw the blue curtains that Alva had used to protect him from the sun.

The detonation had caused one of the walls facing the exterior to crumble, and now, the deadly sun was filling the room without mercy.

“Alva…?”

Like a childhood nightmare you see every time you close your eyes, Luca would never forget the sight of that day.

The sight of Alva’s tall, blurred and almost ghostly silhouette behind the curtain, crouched against the light, holding the cloth to shield him from death as if his life depended on it. Luca only saw his shadow. The sun framed his outline like a saint, a martyr.

It was like an eclipse that burned into his corneas.

He stared at him, breathless, as if time had stopped, and then the reality of the situation overtook him and he felt his world crumble.

“No, no, no- What are you doing!?” 

He tried to move, do something, anything, but his body was unresponsive. Alva didn’t reply, and Luca’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. 

He could do nothing but watch how the silhouette of his mentor started disappearing slowly, falling like sand, turning into dust.

The weight over him became lighter and lighter, until the warmth was gone and there was nothing left.

Luca remained under the curtain until the sun set, which was just a few, insulting minutes later. When the sky was dark and there wasn’t any more danger, he dully sat up, ignored the pain of his limbs and head and faced the consequences of his actions.

The only thing that remained of Alva was a pile of dust spread across the curtain, with his golden glasses on top of it.

Luca stared at them, unmoving, numb. As if he couldn’t believe what was in front of him. It took a while to register what happened, and when it did, it hit him with full force.

Alva died.  

The person who had been by his side for an eternity, who gave him a home and unconditional support when no one else did, was no longer in this world.

Alva had saved him in every possible way, and he-

Luca covered his mouth with shaking hands, but even then a broken sob escaped.

He killed Alva.

He killed his best friend.

Guilty tears started streaming down his face uncontrollably as he curled up. He didn’t want this to happen. He had felt so isolated and abandoned, but it was all in his head. Alva had always been there for him, he had been there and Luca took his life.

“Please, no…”

He couldn’t stop sobbing. The emptiness and desperation he had felt over his alchemist dream felt so distant and stupid right now. He thought he would never love anything as much as he loved the philosopher’s stone.

How wrong he was. 

“Balsa, what have you done…?” Someone said behind him. 

Luca froze and didn’t dare to turn around. He recognized that voice. It was Joseph. 

Right, he was supposed to meet Alva that evening to discuss business. For how long had he stood there, listening to their conversation? 

Did he see…?

Luca closed his eyes as more tears came out. For some reason, Joseph’s presence in the room made everything more real. He didn’t speak. There was nothing to say, he was guilty, he was so guilty.

He deserved whatever punishment they decided to inflict upon him. 

“And to think Alva had been hiding this from us,” Joseph whispered. He didn’t sound mad or accusatory. On the contrary, his eyes had never looked this vivid.

Luca’s lips trembled. “I didn’t want this to happen.”

“But it happened, and now Alva is gone because of you,” Joseph said, merciless. “What are you going to do about it?”

“W-What…?”

“You hated Oletus,” Joseph stated with conviction. “I despised it, too. Because of this company, all the vampires stopped looking for the Tome of Prophecies. They became too comfortable with this soulless world.”

“Alva just wanted to help,” Luca mumbled, as if he hadn’t insulted his efforts moments ago.

“And now he isn’t here anymore, just like Claude. Is there anything worth living for in this place anymore?”

Luca stared at the golden glasses, and couldn’t stand his reflection. 

“No.”

“Then we have no choice but to sacrifice 100 vampires and get that transmutation circle working,” Joseph ignored Luca’s caught up breath. “Let's go back to the good days. I will recover Claude, and you can pretend you never murdered your mentor. Wouldn’t that fix everything?”

His mind was spinning. He struggled to voice a response.

Joseph smiled slightly and walked towards him, stepping on the broken glass. “Jack will help us. He hates the way our kind have lost their spark and become like humans, and he is still my right hand, after all.”

He stopped right in front of him and, like the devil itself, offered a pale, inviting hand.

At that moment, Luca remembered why Joseph had been the Lord of the vampires, centuries ago. Despite his tragedy, his resolve was unbreakable, and his promise as sweet as honey.

When he was a little kid, he thought he would have given up everything for the stone, but that was a lie. There was something even more valuable.

“I would do anything to bring Claude back. How much does Alva mean to you?”

‘In order to obtain something, something else of equal value must be lost’

“Everything.”

Luca stared at the manor’s guests with a determined gaze as he came to the story’s conclusion.

“After that, we decided to poison all of you during this gathering, since it was the only time there would be a hundred vampires in the same place. We also fed you bad quality blood for a year, so that you would be too thirsty to suspect anything strange. I knew Alva’s formula from the start.”

“As for the hunting game, Jack planned it to divert your attention, but also because he wanted you to remember how it felt to be a real vampire one last time.”

Behind him, Jack, who was frighteningly calm, placed the huge painting Naib had seen in that secret chamber. The final piece of the auction.

Luca pointed at the painting. “Your death will help us fix the past. We will make sure the Tome never gets stolen and that the Last War doesn’t end in our defeat. That is all.”

Luca made a small reverence, as if he was a businessman who just told their employees to jump off a cliff to save the company.

The room was deadly quiet. 

For a second, Naib thought that maybe everything had been an elaborate, messed up joke.

Then, the first cough echoed through the room. 

And like a chain reaction, more of them followed.

During the story, every single vampire had drank the poisoned blood. Even Ada stood up and held her throat with fear and agony. Just like Luca had said, no one suspected anything until it was too late.

Even Emil and the other humans -except Aesop and himself- started passing out from blood loss. 

They fell one by one, like moths trapped in a lamp, and nobody was able to ask for help due to the poison constricting their windpipe. If they could, Naib was sure they would curse Luca to hell and back.

“As for what I promised at the start of the speech,” Luca said from the sidelines, ignoring the chaos with an unstable smile. “The truth about Alva is that he was a good man, and I killed him,” His eyes gleamed and he looked distressed for the first time. “This- This is the only way to bring him back, so I hope you understand.”

Understand? Amidst the havoc, Naib only understood two things.

One: Emil had been very wrong, Luca was slightly worse than Regina George. 

And two: Aesop and him were fucked up beyond all recognition.

Chapter Text

Aesop noticed how the cries of agony slowly faded as the vampires and humans died one by one, like the end of a grim song.

Ever since he discovered that the blood was poisoned, he imagined that something like this might happen. But still, watching it take place with his own eyes was...

And he didn’t do anything to stop it.

It’s not like he could have realistically prevented this massacre. Joseph didn’t take his eyes off him during the entire speech, and even if he asked Naib to find a solution, what were they supposed to do? They had no resources, they were just another screw in this grand, years-in-the-making scheme.

There was no reason to feel responsible for the deaths surrounding him, and yet he closed his fists as a feeling of impotence overwhelmed him. He knew it was going to end like this, but it didn’t matter, he couldn’t change the outcome.

He helplessly waited for the inevitable to happen, like a constant in his life.

His mother was mistreated by her family? He looked down and then cried with regret when she eventually took her own life. Jerry started drinking? He avoided the topic until Jerry was reduced to a violent alcoholic who beat him up. His life became miserable? He put up with it until he got scammed and ended up here.

Everything always came down to him watching and not being able to do anything.

“You don’t look well,” Joseph noticed. Unlike him, there was no trace of guilt in his eyes. “I have to thank you for not making a scene, I knew you were smart. As a prize, I will give you this.”

He took a small vial from his pocket and put it in his hand. The liquid inside of it was transparent and clean. Aesop stared at it hesitantly. 

“It’s the antidote. Make sure to drink all of it, I don’t want you to get sick.”

Ha. He tried not to roll his eyes at the irony of that statement and begrudgingly, shamefully, drank until the last drop, ignoring the other’s patronizing smile.

After hearing Luca’s story, he had a better understanding about what kind of person Joseph was and, well. He would have never expected the man sitting next to him to be the equivalent of a Medieval Dark Lord, a Dracula of sorts.

(Although that certainly explained why he behaved so arrogant and bossy all the time.)

Aesop understood very well the grief of losing a family member, but doing all of this to get his brother Claude back? Jerry had taught him that death was a natural and unchangeable part of life, something everyone had to accept to be able to move on, so he couldn’t agree with Joseph’s plan.

Plus, despite all of this new information, there was still something that didn’t make sense.

“Why are you keeping me alive?” 

Joseph didn’t lie when he promised that he would give him the antidote, which was a relief in the middle of so many misfortunes, but why were Naib and him the only ‘unharmed’ humans in that room? 

“I told you, didn’t I? I need you.” 

“Need me for what?”

“You will know soon enough,” Joseph said, annoyingly vague. Then, he made a disgusted expression that didn’t quite fit his handsome features. “The smell of the rotting blood is making me nauseous. Come, it’s time to get moving.” 

He stood up, fixed his tie with elegance and waited, as if he expected Aesop to obey him without complaints. 

Yeah, he definitely was used to being treated like a King. 

Aesop was tired of being treated like a lackey, though, so he remained in his seat with his arms crossed and a look of silent defiance.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” 

He said it with conviction, maybe with the hopes of regaining some control back. With the antidote down his throat, there was no reason to follow this man.

Joseph’s eye twitch was almost worth the disobedience, but he quickly realized that he had miscalculated the vampire’s patience when a firm hand lifted his chin, tilted his face up and forced him to look up. 

Joseph made sure his eyes were locked on him when he spoke calmly. 

“If you don’t come, do you know what will happen next? The cops will arrive and they will see you, alone, surrounded by a hundred corpses, and if you try to tell them it was the vampires who did it, I have a slight idea of the future that awaits you. Tell me, Aesop, what do you think about asylums?”

Aesop felt his resolve falter, but he still kept his gaze.

“I could get used to it.”

Joseph smiled. “Is that so? And what do you think about me carrying you like the baby you clearly are in front of the remaining guests?”

Aesop’s eyes widened, affronted. “You wouldn’t.”

Joseph stared at him with a raised eyebrow.

“What are they doing? ” Naib asked, looking at Aesop wriggling like a worm while Joseph carried him towards the stage.

Eli shrugged. “Poor Mr. Carl, I hope he survives Joseph’s whims. Once he's made up his mind to do something, he can’t be deterred.”

“Is that why you are helping him with this bullshit?”

“It’s not bullshit, you heard what happened-”

“Actually, the story was getting too long so I dissociated. Can you repeat it?”

“Naib…” Eli massaged his temples. “You are being difficult on purpose, aren't you?"

"Yeah, that's what you get for being an ass. Where is Campbell?"

Naib had reached his daily limit of nonsense -and he worked in customer service, so that was saying a LOT-. He was too angry to even care about making sense anymore. Ada and Emil were now lying on the floor, dead, and he was supposed to sit there and act normal? He didn’t know them, but they seemed nice, even if a bit bizarre...

Eli might be used to chilling in the middle of a bloodbath, but he wasn’t. The only reason he hadn’t lost his mind yet was because the situation was so surreal he hadn’t processed it yet. 

Right now, he only wanted to know where Norton was. As stupid as it sounded, Campbell was the only person that felt real in that place anymore. Even if they weren’t friends anymore, a dumb, irrational part of him still trusted him. 

“Where is Norton?” He asked again, getting mad at Eli’s silence.

"He is dead,” Jack said instead, approaching them while trying not to step on the vampires he had known for centuries. “He knew too much all of a sudden, so we took care of him. Did you have anything to do with that?”

Naib froze. Norton was dead?

His mouth hung open yet didn’t make a sound.

He could feel something inside of him crumble when he heard those words, and it was so ridiculous. Norton had betrayed him in the worst possible way. He was a bad person. A selfish, unashamed liar. A vampire. Out of all his problems, his death shouldn’t be something to be upset about.

Then why was he so heartbroken, as if he had lost a dear friend?

“Don’t look like that. He will be alive where we go,” Jack reassured nonchalantly.

Naib looked up, confused.

"We?" 

“I told you, didn’t I? You are my favorite guest, so of course I will bring you along on our little trip.”

Trip!? Naib took a step back and almost slipped on the blood covering the floor.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“But if you don’t come, I won’t give you this.” The tall vampire took out a small bottle and swung it around with temptation.

"Cool? I'm not drinking whatever that is.”

"If you don’t want the antidote for the poison that runs inside your veins, you do you, I guess-”

“Give me that!”

“Ah, ah,” Jack grinned, raising his hand so the bottle was out of Naib’s reach. “I will only give it to you if you come. If not, I shall let you know you have around 5 hours left before you die. It’s your choice.”

“That’s hardly a choice!” 

“Why are you making such a big deal, Mr Subedar? You just need to cross the portal with us.”

“WHAT PORTAL?!”

They started arguing as Eli shook his head at Jack’s antics. He had always been a playful sadistic. Loud, decent men who fought back like Naib were his favorite victims to bully. He hoped that at some point Naib would realize that he just made it worse, but he was so hot-headed he doubted it.

Even then, they should stop with the small talk and wrap this up soon. It was time.

He had left Robbie sleeping in one of the guest rooms. It had been a surprise for Luchino and Antonio to bring him to the event, and even though they planned to kill all the vampires in there, Eli still had a bit of heart to spare the kid. 

The only other vampire outside of the plan who had survived was ‘calmly’ speaking with Luca on the stage.

“Do you see my face?!” Fiona asked, angry. “This is my disappointed face. It’s the face I use when a friend tries to murder me, which doesn’t happen often.”

Luca flinched. “You see-”

“I can’t believe you’ve done this,” Fiona cut him, holding her iPad furiously. “If it wasn’t because I ate that delicious McMenu and my stomach was full, I would have drank the poisoned blood like everybody else and died. The McNuggets saved my life!”

“Fiona...”

“No, don’t ‘Fiona’ me with that wet dog voice. The cards tried to warn me. Hermit, Death and Reversed Judgment. You were a walking red flag, how didn’t I see this coming?” 

“Because Tarot is not a science.”

“Luca, I swear to-!” She took a deep breath, pinched the sides of her nose and tried to calm down. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened with Alva? You know I don’t usually judge morally gray idiots, and the implied homoerotism and angst of your relationship reached my lady’s heart.” 

“The what? I didn't imply anything, he is-was, my friend." 

"Whatever you say, beautiful."

"What?"

"Sorry, I thought it would be funny, I'm still assimilating the fact you didn't tell me shit."

“I couldn’t.” Luca’s shoulders tensed. “I considered it, at first. You were one of the first vampires who wanted to find the Tome and bring everything back to normal, I thought you might have agreed with our plan.”

“So?”

“You love this world as it is now. I can tell you adapted better than anybody else. You have fun with technology and like working at the company, you would have been against this.”

“Well, yeah!” Fiona sighed and crossed her arms. “I think you are making a huge mistake. Haven’t you seen all those time travel movies? If you don’t fix the past correctly, we might lose everything.”

Luca looked away. “I already did.”

Now it was Fiona’s time to stare at him with pity. “You are such a dumbass…” 

She glanced at the corpses sprawled across the room with disappointment, and then her eyes traveled to Jack’s painting, taking in every detail, every stroke of the place she used to call home. She had almost forgotten about how magical the cathedrals’ stained-glass windows had been, bathing the streets like kaleidoscopes. 

The main square where all sorts of events took place was also perfectly depicted. She used to dance and cause so much trouble in those festivities that didn’t exist anymore, and the shops drawn in every corner were identical to how they used to be, even her little shop was there, between the library and the bakery…

It had been so long since all of that, yet it surprised her how vivid and nostalgic it made her feel. 

“It’s true that I like this world, it’s modern and engaging, but you are wrong to assume I stopped thinking about the people we lost in that war,” she admitted with longing. “But Luca, you are going too far. Do you really think we can change that outcome?”

Luca didn’t miss a beat. “I have never been more sure of anything.”

Fiona studied him with skepticism, as if she was trying to see through the real extent of his resolve. After Luca didn’t budge, she closed her eyes with defeat and groaned. 

“Everyone is dead, so there is no point in trying to stop you now, so… I guess I’m coming with you all. Can I bring my iPad?”

“Girl, you won't do much without Wi-fi.”

“Fuck, you all are so sick for this.”

“Oh, it’s good to see Fiona is alive and joining us. That means we all are ready to go!” Eli intervened, clasping his hands together excitedly. 

When Luca looked around, he saw everyone gathered at the stage. On his right, Joseph was carrying subject 3 like a bag of shaking potatoes, while Jack had his hand lazily placed around subject 9’s forearm, preventing him from escaping despite the other jerking like a crazy dog on a leash.

“Hum. Why are you bringing these humans?” Fiona asked.

“We don’t want to be here!” Naib yelled at the same time Jack said, “A little snack for the trip.“ 

“WHAT?! This better be a joke, I’m not a bag of Doritos!” 

“No, you are more of a delicious bag full of Gummy Bears,” Jack grinned, ignoring Naib’s offended gasp and constant kicks.

“They are part of the plan, do not worry about it,” Eli whispered, equally unhelpful but less funny.

Aesop wasn’t whining as loud as Naib because he wasn’t a little bitch -Actually, he was too mortified to do so- but he did let out a sigh of relief when Joseph put him down, even if it was next to Eli, who made sure he wouldn’t go anywhere by putting a ‘friendly’ hand on his shoulder.

Then, Joseph walked towards the painting and turned around slowly, facing them one by one with a serious expression. With Jack’s huge canvas depicting the atrocities of the war behind him, he reminded Aesop of a fallen general.

“After 200 years, our time has finally come,” Joseph spoke firmly. “When I was your Lord, I ruled over the humans with more kindness and understanding than any of them deserved. They betrayed my goodwill and it cost us our lives. Now, I ask you to follow my lead one last time and help me correct my greatest sin.”

It wouldn’t have surprised Aesop if the vampires suddenly kneeled and sworn eternal loyalty. Judging by their solemn, unyielding gazes, it was clear they still had a lot of respect for the leader Joseph used to be.

Luca was the next to step forward. He stood near Joseph and touched the painting with his right hand while holding up three fingers with the left.

“For everything to work out, we have three goals,” he reminded them. “I won’t take my eyes off the Philosopher’s Stone so it never gets lost again.”

“I will hide the Tome of Prophecies so it can’t be stolen, find the person who tried to take it from us and make them pay,” Jack smiled dangerously, also putting his hand on the painting.

“And I will protect Claude,” Joseph finished, like an oath. 

When his pale hand got in contact with the painting, Aesop noticed that several hidden lines in the shape of a pentagram started to glow red, forming a big circle.

“If we do all of that, there’s no way things will remain the same,” Luca assured, confident. “We have until the last day of the war, when the purple light hits the sky at midnight, to accomplish it. After that, the bells will toll and we will be brought back to the present and see the results of our changes.”

Aesop and Naib exchanged worried glances. That plan might sound good from the vampires’ point of view, but it would completely mess up the world they knew. 

Aesop wanted to run away, but he had seen the way Joseph killed those vampires at the dock, he knew it was impossible to get out of that room alive. On the other hand, Naib hadn’t been given the antidote. If he managed to escape by miracle, he would die anyway.

“What happens if we fail?” Fiona asked, uncertain and not daring to touch the painting.

Jack pointed at the hundred vampires lying on the floor. “They will have died for nothing and will never return. Other than that, we already failed, so it can only get better, right?”

Fiona still looked hesitant, which prompted Eli to add, “If we work as a team, nothing should go wrong.”

“Team? You all literally tried to murder me, your coworker, a few minutes ago.”

“But we didn’t, take it as a team building moment!” Jack grinned from ear to ear, using the tone of a benevolent CEO. “Like that time in August when we went on an outdoor scavenger hunt to strengthen the bonds of our staff.”

“Jim from accountancy fell from a cliff and died that night,” Fiona pointed out. 

“Who?”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “...I’m convinced you are the worst people to have in a group project, but know what? I never really liked Jim so whatever. Let’s go, Cinderella Team!”

“Why Cinderella?” Eli asked.

“She had until midnight before her perfect life disappeared, just like us. Also, for marketing purposes.” 

As she said that -which didn’t make any sense- she slapped her manicured hand over the painting. Eli was the last one to join, making sure to return Aesop to Joseph, who held him close as the glow of the pentagram became brighter and brighter.

The dead vampires scattered across the room started to radiate an intense red gleam in response to the transmutation circle. It was as if the painting was absorbing their vital energy, their souls. Aesop wanted to break free, but Joseph kept him pressed against the canvas.

The floor started to shake, the windows broke one after another. At some point, the red light became so strong that Aesop had to close his eyes in pain as he felt his body disincorporate. It was a horrible sensation, like being in the middle of a hurricane or a vortex, he could tell he was being sucked into the portal.

In his terror, he clung to Joseph as if his life depended on it.

The last thing he could swear he heard before disappearing was Naib’s scream:

“I don’t want to get Isekai’d!!” 

He didn’t understand that reference. 

“Aesop, you let me down time and time again, why can’t you do anything right?!” 

Jerry Carl, one year ago.

“Aesop? What are you doing here? This party is for friends only. Oh my, don’t tell me that you thought…” 

Sarah, seven years ago.

“Aesop, if you hadn’t been such a burden, then your mother wouldn’t have…” 

Aunt Claire, eleven years ago.

“Don’t listen to them, Aesop, you are smart and kind. I love you.” 

Mom, eleven years and one day ago.

Time Traveling wasn’t a pleasant experience.

The echoes of the past and quick turns made his head spin. Aesop would compare it to being a rat or a fish called Nemo getting flushed down the toilet, drowning in raw sewage and hitting his head against several drain pipes until he went through the machine that shredded solids into tiny particles.

Oh, to be a shredded fish and not have to hear those voices.

His surroundings were blurry and moved at the speed of light, going against the principles of nature. He screamed in agony as everything became louder and louder until the chaos turned into absolute silence.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that he was lying down on top of something soft in a weirdly familiar place. 

He could tell he was inside a wooden coffin, not because he was a weirdo -any neurodivergent person working at a funeral home would have tried to sleep inside a coffin at least once- but because of the smell and space, bigger on the shoulders and then smaller as it got closer to his feet.

That fact didn’t alarm him as much as it should. What really scared him was that he wasn’t alone.

Someone lazily yawned next to his ear and suddenly two arms were embracing him in a tight hug. Aesop froze and laid there like a corpse (ha) while his heart was breaking the Guiness world record of fastest beating organ without dying of a heart attack.

“Joseph?” he whispered, holding his breath.

It was so dark he couldn’t see anything. Were they in the past? Did he travel to a day where the vampire was sleeping in his coffin and he happened to spawn next to him? 

While he tried to think on what to do, one of Joseph’s arms, which was holding him by the waist, traveled up in a way he didn’t like at all, until it reached his neck and started caressing his skin in small circles.

Aesop suppressed a gulp. The hand was very cold and the nails unexpectedly sharp. He felt chills all over his body and asked himself what he did to deserve such a strange torture. He needed to get out of that coffin before this awkward situation went on for any longer.

He reclined his body slightly and tried to open the lid slowly, so as not to make a single noise. It took him several excruciating minutes, he was sweating profusely and the vampire’s hand kept touching his neck. 

Once a bit of warm light entered the coffin, he squinted and finally managed to see Joseph, who was indeed sleeping next to him and looked… significantly different from before:

For starters, he wasn’t wearing an elegant suit anymore. Instead, it was one of those wide, white and frilly shirts that were always seen in sexy period dramas like Pride and Prejudice. His hair was still long and kept in a ponytail, but his expression was unusually serene, as if the weight of the world wasn’t on his shoulders. 

He had always thought of Joseph as a handsome man, that was as subjective of a fact as the moon came up at night. But now, he could really tell that Joseph hadn’t looked his best before. Despite his graceful smile, there had been a permanent sadness that wasn’t here anymore.

Aesop was aware that he had been staring for too long, as if the vampire was one of the corpses he was in charge of, making sure every hair was in its place before the family arrived for the ceremony. 

He let go of that thought and turned his eyes towards the lid, wanting to open it a bit more so he could get out, except he was met with a pair of unknown eyes staring back at him from outside the coffin.

Three things happened in quick succession:

Aesop immediately released the lid and screamed shitless.

Joseph, alerted by the yell, woke up and hit his head against the closed lid.

Whoever was outside started laughing unapologetically as he said,

“Oh my, brother, I didn’t know you were sleeping with someone. Who is he?”

Aesop was too shocked to make sense of any of those words. In his hasty wake, Joseph had grabbed him tightly, as if to protect him, until he heard the new voice.

Now, the vampire was in complete silence, so much that Aesop wondered if the slam knocked him out, until Joseph, with the most contained raw emotion he had ever heard, whispered:

“Claude?”

Oh.

Back in the darkness, he couldn’t see Joseph’s expression, but in that moment he wished he could. He imagined it would be similar to the one he would make if his mother came back and welcomed him with a carefree giggle. Absolute bliss.

Unaware of his brother’s turmoil, Claude opened the lid fully and stared at them with a cheeky, mischievous smile.

“Who else would it be? Good morning, Joseph!”

He looked a lot like his brother, to the point Aesop thanked that Claude’s hair was shorter and slightly ashier. They must be twins but unlike Joseph, who gave a more responsible older brother aura, Claude seemed friendlier, even if a bit… tired? 

The vampires he had met were ‘perfect’ when it came to looks, so it was strange to see dark circles under his blue eyes and chapped lips.

“Just yesterday you told me that you would never have a partner, and now I find you sleeping with a cute boy!” Claude joked in a good mood.

“I’m not cute,” Aesop objected. “And we are not together.” 

“Are you sure? That’s debatable,” the other grinned, pointing at them as a whole.

That’s when Aesop realized that he was pretty much entangled with Joseph, who still held him too close for comfort, clearly more preoccupied with looking at Claude as if he was an angel than minding about where his hands were going.

Now that the coffin was open, he could finally see the room they were in, which was, essentially, ridiculously beautiful. The manor had already been luxurious, but this place was on another level. It felt like a king’s bedroom, with highly ornate furniture and decorations even on the walls, huge windows and a cozy chimney.

“You seem like you are having fun at my expense, brother, I’m glad,” Joseph bantered.

His words were meant to sound casual, as if he hadn’t just sacrificed a hundred lives to get him back, but Aesop knew better. After all, Joseph was hiding his shaking hands under his jacket. 

“Fun? Well, I was bored so I came to see you, I didn’t mean to interrupt your date.”

“Aesop isn’t my partner, I was actually testing him.”

“Testing?”

“Yes! His taste it’s truly special.” Now it was Joseph’s time to smirk. He sat up, lifted Aesop with him and put an arm over his shoulder, as if they were colleagues. “I had never found a human with such compatible blood before. He is from a far away town, but he agreed to stay with us so he can help you get better.”

Alarms went off in Aesop’s head. Stay with them? Get better?

Claude’s bright smile fell, and he looked almost ashamed. “Ah, and I thought you finally decided to settle down.” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “I’m used to it, Joseph, you don’t need to keep looking for solutions. It is what it is.”

“No, I don’t want you to be unwell all your life. This time it will work, I promise.” 

Ah, right. Luca said that Claude had been an anomaly, a vampire with a strange chronic illness, that’s why he looked so tired. Joseph must have done everything in his power to cure him back then… 

Hold up, did that mean-

Before he could say anything, Joseph grabbed his right arm and pushed up the sleeve, making a quick and almost painless cut with his sharp nails on his wrist. Aesop hissed in surprise, but was even more shocked at the fact the blood that came out didn’t have a strange color anymore. 

Thank god, the antidote had worked, the poison had left his body.  

Joseph nodded satisfied, clearly thinking the same. “It looks healthy, doesn’t it?”

“Joseph-”

But the vampire ignored him and moved his arm towards Claude. “Come on, try it and tell me if you feel any better, you look more tired than usual today.” 

Was he being for real? Aesop’s blood boiled. It was absurd how kind the vampire sounded while he was basically offering someone else’s blood- HIS blood!

He wanted to fight back and take his arm away, but Joseph’s grip was too strong. Claude didn’t seem too convinced either, visibly having given up on getting his illness cured after so many years of failed attempts.

Aesop dared to think that maybe he was going to get away with it, but…

“Okay, but if it doesn’t work, you will stop bringing candidates,” Claude pouted. He got closer to his arm and let out a cold breath over the cut that made Aesop shiver.

As expected, no such thing as good luck in sight.

Two seconds later, the vampire was sucking his blood.

At first, Claude only used his tongue to lick the mess, but he must have liked the taste, because suddenly a pair of fangs were puncturing his skin, breaking it easily and making Aesop take a sharp inhale.

It was more painful than he expected. He let out a whimper and closed his eyes, bracing himself for a prolonged suffering session. Strangely, though, a weird fog settled into his mind, making his thoughts slow down, erasing the pain and soothing him into being complacent. 

It wasn’t that bad. It was almost-

In his stupor, Aesop thought of the Cobra Lily, a plant that lured insects with its sweet smell, and then exhausted them until they could no longer escape. 

“Stop-” He had to get away before he lost consciousness, but Joseph kept him caged between his arms and legs, holding him tightly so Claude could keep sucking.

Overwhelmed, he felt himself sinking into Joseph’s chest. He was very angry, and knew that if he had a knife with him, he would seriously consider using it on Joseph for making him go through this. He finally understood why the vampire had scammed him and brought him to the past.

He wanted to use him to cure his brother.

“Just a few more seconds.” Joseph leaned against his ear and whispered that with a hoarse voice. When he turned his head to the side, he realized that Joseph’s eyes were dark and bore into him.

As if he was making a considerable effort to control himself. 

Joseph cleared his throat, as if to regain composure. “Claude, that’s enough,” he ordered, aware that he was drinking too much. His plan wouldn’t work if Aesop died right there.

When Claude raised his head, the corners of his lips were red, and he looked even more dazzled than Aesop. “Did I go too far? I’m sorry!” His pale cheeks had a tint of healthy blush, and even his eye bags weren’t as visible as before. 

“How are you feeling?” Joseph’s voice was expectant, hopeful, but there was also an underlying anxiousness. 

Claude cleaned his mouth and waited a few seconds before replying, as if to assess the state of his body. “...You were right, his blood is different from any other I’ve tried. I think- I think this might help me.”

He hadn’t seemed convinced before, but now there was a new gleam in his eyes, an optimism that Joseph matched with the first sincere smile Aesop had ever seen coming from him. It would be an emotive moment if it weren’t because he felt really out of place. 

“I’m glad one of us is feeling better,” he mumbled, awkwardly dying between the two of them.

“Aesop!? Sorry again, I will bring bandages and something sweet to eat, don’t pass out!” If it wasn’t apparent before, Claude was definitely the nicer brother. Too bad Joseph was the devil reincarnated.

When the younger vampire left the room, it was almost comical how fast the ‘warm’ atmosphere disappeared completely. Without him, Joseph’s shoulders lowered and he let out a long, worn sigh as he jumped out of the coffin. 

He was decent enough to help him out, at least.

“This is why you brought me here. You need my blood to help your brother,” Aesop accused.

“Yes, my brother shouldn’t have died that day. Whether it was the Tome or his illness, he didn’t survive the fire because he was too weak. I won’t let that happen again. I will protect him and cure him so he can enjoy a long, healthy life for the first time.”

“So the reason you spoke with me at the funeral-”

“Your smell. I don’t know why, but you are the first person with perfect compatibility. Me and Claude are twins, so I hoped that if I found you special, Claude would too.”

As Joseph spoke, Aesop started seeing black spots everywhere, he really needed sugar in his body or he would drop unconscious on the carpet under his feet. Even then, he wasn’t afraid to let the vampire know he didn’t agree with this. 

“And that’s it? Am I supposed to let him drain me until I die?”

“You won’t die. I will protect you in the castle and give you a luxurious room, food, books and whatever you need, but in exchange, I want you to feed my brother until he is cured. We will do it in sessions so you can rest.” 

Joseph tried to make it sound easy, almost pleasant, but he had sounded the same when he convinced him to donate blood to Oletus, and Aesop had had enough of that nonsense.

“What if I don’t want to? What if I tell him everything about us coming from the future?”

Joseph hadn’t told the truth to Claude, he actively hid it from him. Maybe he thought Claude would get angry or disappointed if he knew that he killed lots of vampires just to help him. 

With a cold stare, Joseph grabbed him by the wounded wrist and dragged him towards one the windows. For a scary second, Aesop feared that he was going to throw him out, but he only forced him to look at the landscape. 

It was almost morning, so the pale light allowed him to see the world he was in for the first time: Penvicor, the vampire capital. The painting from the auction had been beautiful, but it didn’t do justice to the real thing. It truly was an ostentatious city, a gothic work of art that would have made Michelangelo cry.

“Do you see that tower?” Joseph said, pointing at a nearby stone building. “It leads to the dungeon, where traitors are held and tortured until they repent or become our drink. If you say anything to my brother, I will have no qualms to send you there. Don’t forget I only need your blood, you should be glad I’m being hospitable at all.”

If his goal was to stun Aesop into silence, he succeeded. The embalmer didn’t know what to say to that -he didn’t want to get tortured, that was obvious- but he still held Joseph’s gaze with resistance.

“You are hurting me,” he said with a dry tone.

Joseph’s smile was smug as he released his wrist. “My bad.”

He did not take his eyes away from him. The tense silence could have continued for an eternity if it weren’t for Claude loudly coming back with a tray of food, bandages and clean water. 

Joseph moved aside to let his brother take care of him and walked towards what Aesop assumed was the bathroom. Before he disappeared through the door, Aesop could swear he saw the vampire making a strange movement with his hand, the one that got dirty with his blood when he grabbed his wrist.

He wondered if his blood had bothered Joseph for some reason.

While he was attended by Claude, he stared back at the window. Despite the different, never seen before views, he felt as if nothing much changed. He was still trapped in a place where he didn’t belong, surrounded by strangers who didn’t care about him and merely put up with his presence because he might be useful.  

He allowed himself to think about Jerry, wondered if the man would notice his absence and call the police. Would he get mad and worried that he disappeared? Or would he hire a substitute on the next day, too focused on his job? 

He came up with a depressing conclusion, but it was almost comforting, knowing that if he didn’t get alive out of this, no one would really miss him. 

His mother probably thought the same back then. Of course, unlike him, she was wrong. 

He choked out a laugh at his misery, and when Claude asked if he was alright, he simply said that everything was okay.

Nothing was fucking okay!

Naib had woken up in the snow (Snow!) in the middle of a desolate pine tree forest (Pine tree forest!!)

What kind of Narnia bullshit was this? 

He looked at the fluffy orange and pink clouds filling the sky, it was almost dawn so at least he wasn’t lost at night, but he was freezing. He had lost a shoe during the ‘trip’ and now his sock was wet and his knee hurt a lot, probably due to the extreme change of temperature. 

Was this supposed to be the world 200 years ago, when the vampires still ruled Earth? He expected to land in some sort of cool gothic city, but maybe the experiment failed and now he was sentenced to wander in a limbo with only a shoe on.

He sneezed loudly and started walking… Somewhere. He had no idea where he was, but it’s not like standing there would magically fix his problems. His stomach hurt a lot, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything since he took the plane to England, almost a full day ago.

Man, he should have eaten that collar of onions when he had the chance. Was the snow edible? Or was it one of those things that gave you ten infections and made you see God? 

He had been a boy scout when he was 11 but he had only learned how to build a fire, recognize fifteen different species of birds, and that toxic masculinity could be fixed by reading the Lord of the Flies and also by tying up the tyrant kid on a big rock and leave him there as a peace offer for the mosquitoes.

Ah, good times.

Ok, he was getting delirious. It might or might not be related with the fact he was dying of poisoning because his asshole kidnapper didn’t give him the antidote, and now Jack was nowhere to be found in this random ass pine tree labyrinth.

As he kept walking, he tried not to think about how devastated his mother would be if he died here and his body was never found. That thought alone would be enough to make him throw up if it weren’t because there was nothing to puke.

‘Gurghhhh’

So true, stomach, what wouldn’t he do for a well-done steak and a soda.

‘Gurghhhh’

The second time he heard that gruesome growl, which sounded more lovecraftian than human, he realized that it didn’t come from his insides. He stopped abruptly and looked around, paranoid.

There was only snow, trees and more trees. It didn’t sound like a wolf, but he wouldn’t discard a bear, which was probably worse. He wouldn’t be able to outrun it, and climbing somewhere tall was out of the question due to his bad knee.

(Or maybe it was Narnia’s friendly, jesus-coded Lion, his lonely brain cell thought, clearly holding onto his only media reference.)

Naib took a deep breath and waited like a statue, hoping for the source of that sound to leave on its own. Once again, he thought about how awful it would be to die eaten in an unknown place, far away from home.

As minutes ticked by, the growl wasn’t heard again and he allowed himself to exhale in relief. His chest hurt from his heart beating too fast, and standing there unmoving in the cold had made his body lethargic. It was a miracle he hadn’t had a heart attack after so many shocks.

And then, another shock came in the form of something staring at him from the depths of the forest.

Naib held his breath and blinked several times, adjusting his eyes in disbelief, convinced that he was just imagining things, because that thing wasn’t a bear nor any animal he had ever seen before. 

What- What was that abomination?

It was like gazing into an abyss, a black hole made of deformed limbs, huge wings, sharp teeth and a white, human looking-face hidden behind feathers with an expression so void, so numb and disturbing that it felt like it was a porcelain mask.

Naib prided himself in being very brave. He had to, since he faced death every time he fought in the ring, when he punched and got punched by guys who doubled him in size, when he woke up every morning and faced his awful job with a smile.

He was brave, and yet. For some reason this thing made him feel true, innate terror. 

He was so paralyzed that he almost didn’t hear his own voice, screaming at him to get away from that monster.

Before he knew it, he was running in the opposite direction as if his life depended on it.

A loud, deafening screech echoed behind him, followed by the breaking of several branches and the terrifying sound of huge, irregular footsteps chasing directly after him at a galloping speed.

He was so freaked out that he didn’t even waste time to scream or wonder about what that creature was. He just ran as fast as his legs allowed, and then some more. 

In front of him, there was an area without any trees and where the snow had been moved aside. It looked like a man-made road for cars and other vehicles to cross. In such an open space, he wouldn’t be able to hide or protect himself!

He was so focused and desperate on what to do next, that he tripped on a bunch of roots sticking out and fell on the ground, hitting his head against a log.

Ignoring the pain, he instinctively sat up and grabbed the closest, thickest branch he saw, just in time to place it between his body and the monster, who jumped towards him with such ferocity that it made him wish it was a bear instead.

“Help!!” He screamed.

His arms were giving up, unable to contain the creature, whose strange limbs started to pin him down like a butterfly in a bug collection set.

It was happening. He really was going to die here. Fuck no, no, no-

Behind him, the sound of horses and wheels approaching came to a halt, and then the unmistakable creaking of a door being pushed open. In his frenzy, Naib realized that it had to be a carriage stopping in the middle of the road, and he almost cried of joy until he heard the infuriating voice that spoke next:

“Ah, there you are! I hate it when I time travel and my hand luggage gets lost.” 

Someday, Naib was going to put Jack in a blender, make a smoothie out of him and feed it to the eldritch horror currently attacking him, but for now-

“Help me!” He yelled, gagging at the foul stench coming out of the beast’s mouth.

Jack sighed dramatically. “You kicked me so hard when we got into the portal that I dropped you by mistake. I was wondering where you must have fallen off. How did you even get into this situation? Are you the Ultimate Death Chaser?”

“Jack!”

“If only you had behaved you would have woken up in my comfortable carriage, I have blankets and snacks here. This is your fault.”

“Jack, it’s going to eat me!”

“Before me? Oh, I don’t think so.” 

There was a metallic clank, a spark, and then a silver bullet impacted in the center of the monster’s forehead, making it screech and stagger backwards. It got off Naib, but not before some of its blood fell over his white shirt and pants, leaving rorschach-like stains behind.

“This will only startle it for a while, so I suggest you get in the car before it seeks retribution,” Jack informed, holding a long, red and overly ornate gun with a wicked smile.

Amid the snowy forest, he reminded Naib of a wolf, even more so when he offered his hand to him.

He quickly got up and hurried towards the carriage. His knee was at its limit, it hurt as if it had been pierced by several needles, so he had no choice but to take the vampire’s hand as support to reach the step of the tall vehicle.

“Where is your shoe?” Jack asked.

“I lost it.”

“Oh, that’s fitting.” Seeing Naib’s confused glare, he added, “Just like Cinderella.”

“I’m not Cinderella,” he spitted out, angry. “And this is not a car.”

Jack laughed. “True, I will have to get used to the old vocabulary.”

With a smooth sweep, he closed the door of the carriage and used the grip of the gun to knock on the front wall, likely to inform the driver -whom Naib had paid a total of 0 attention- to jerk the reins. 

The horses let out a loud neigh and they started moving, but not fast enough in Naib’s opinion. 

“Won’t it follow us?” He anxiously asked, letting himself drop in one of the seats. 

“Don’t worry, we will be fine,” he assured, sitting cross-legged in front of him. Then, he put the peculiar gun inside a container with a safety lock, and stored it under his seat, away from his reach.

Naib internally cursed. For a second, he had entertained the idea of using the weapon against Jack. Goodbye to his hopes and dreams of shooting the motherfucker in the face, take over the carriage and become a runaway cowboy.

“Fine? What was that freaking monster?!” 

“An old friend.”

“Can you hold a normal conversation for once? I swear I’m trying not to explode you with my mind.”

“With the way you look, I doubt you can even shove a baby duck,” Jack mocked while giving him a blanket. 

Naib reluctantly accepted it because he couldn’t feel his eyebrows. Falling on the snow had dampened all of his clothes, which were already thin and not appropriate for the weather to begin with. He couldn’t stop his shoulders from shivering like crazy. 

“I’m not joking. I knew him,” Jack continued with a furtive expression. “Vampires were born from a human’s wish to achieve immortality, but as it happens with all-too-good things, there is always a price to pay.”

Naib wrapped himself tightly with the blanket, like a burrito, and raised an eyebrow. “What price?” 

“Our humanity,” Jack said, with a rare spark behind his eyes. “Vampires are a perfect mix between humans and monsters, but when that balance is destroyed and we become too cruel, when we go too far and lose sight of who we are, then we slowly turn into a brainless beast like the one who attacked you. It’s our little curse.”

Was that why that monster had a human-like face? Because it used to be a vampire? When he saw it, he felt extremely unsettled, as if his whole being rejected such a heartless, void and unnatural existence.

“Even in your world there are some of them, but you humans call them Mothman, Bigfoot and other silly names. In truth, they used to be vampires, just like me and my colleagues. So yes, I knew him,” Jack finished, eyeing Naib curiously with a hand on his cheek. 

“Is that why you wear a mask?” 

Naib had found it strange how some vampires, even at the manor, wore masks that covered their faces partially. He assumed it was a masquerade party or a weird rich people kink, but…

Jack stared at him in silence, and then broke into a laugh. 

“No, this is merely a fashion statement.”

Oh. “Can the curse be reversed?”

“With a true love’s kiss, maybe. Haha, I’m joking, it’s too late for those poor bastards.”

Naib huffed. Dealing with this man for a prolonged period of time should be considered psychological torture. Instead of entertaining him further, he turned his head and looked out the window. Thankfully, nothing was chasing after them. 

Now that the fright of escaping from that monster had subsided and he wasn’t dying of hypothermia, he could finally worry about his imminent death by poisoning. As they say, one life-threatening matter at a time. 

(Not one had ever said that)

He was about to demand the antidote, but Jack anticipated his request as he took the small bottle and extended it in front of him. He was about to grab it, politeness aside, but Jack sang a patient ‘ah ah’ and took it away.

“I will give it to you, but I need you to listen to me first.”

“There’s no time left,” Naib hissed with clenched teeth, losing his sanity. The sun would rise at any moment, he could already feel his body malfunctioning.

“Don’t exaggerate, there’s like 10 minutes left.”

Unlike the last time, where the vampire held the bottle out of his reach, now they were in a small carriage with very little distance between each other, and that fact was enough for Naib to abandon all the self-restraint he had left and go bonkers. 

So he impulsively charged towards Jack like a madman.

“Give me the damn bottle!”

He didn’t punch him, but he used his body to slam him against the wall, shaking the whole vehicle in the process. Surprisingly -or not, who fucking knows-, Jack didn’t fight back. He remained on his seat and closed his fist around the antidote with such a firm grip that Naib almost considered biting his hand.

“I will give it to you once you hear why I brought you here,” he repeated calmly, unbothered by the situation.

“I’m dying!”

“Dear, you are so melodramatic. You are worse than an untrained dog. Should I teach you, then?” 

Naib didn’t understand what he meant by that, until Jack opened the bottle and drank the antidote. HIS antidote. Or more precisely, he held the liquid captive inside his mouth without swallowing it and then stared at him with knowing eyes and a mocking, tightly closed smile.

Naib froze, bewildered by the action. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”

He didn’t even realize he had ended up sitting on top of the vampire, straining him with his legs and holding his hand in what a victorian maiden or a conservative christian would call a ‘compromising position’, but that didn’t really matter because HE DRANK HIS ANTIDOTE.

“Spit it out!” He ordered, but quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to drink it either if Jack just spewed it all over his shirt. “Wait, don’t!” 

Thankfully, Jack didn’t spill it. Actually, he didn’t do anything, he still sat in silence, clearly amused and waiting for something to happen… but what? Did he want him to apologize? 

Leaving his pride aside for the greater good -literal survival- Naib groaned. “Okay, sorry! I will listen but don’t drink it!” 

At that, Jack’s smile widened, which made Naib think he had done the smart thing for once, except instead of returning the disgusting, salivated antidote inside the bottle, Jack raised his index finger and tapped over his own lips two times, and then pointed at Naib’s.

It took a while, but Naib connected the dots.

If anyone looked for rage and shame in the dictionary, they would find a picture of his face at that precise moment.

“I’m not- I’m not doing that!” He shouted, affronted. “I’m not kissing you!”

Jack shrugged.

“You are so sick and twisted and perverted!”

Jack nodded in agreement. 

“I will bite your tongue, I hope you know that, jerk,” Naib threatened.

Jack winked.

Too altered to think clearly, Naib put his hands on each side of the vampire’s face and leaned in for the most aggressive kiss of his life. At least, that was his intention, but before their lips touched, Jack loudly swallowed the medicine.

…

……..EH?!

“Pardon!” The vampire apologized. “Your expression was so hilarious I couldn’t hold it in.”

“Pardon? PARDON!? The antidote! You drank-”

“Shh, it’s still in my pocket, what I drank was water but look, on the bright side, now that you know what awaits you if you don’t pay attention, you will finally listen and-!”

Naib head-butted him. He head-butted him very hard. So hard a worrying ‘crack’ echoed in his ears. 

“OUGH!” He cursed in several languages because. Fucking hell. Jack’s head was as hard as a rock.

The vampire looked at him impressed. “Are you okay?” 

“No!” He groaned, too mentally and physically exhausted to deal with anything anymore. “Why did you bring me here? How do I fit in this plan of yours?”

Jack grinned. “Finally, we are getting somewhere.”

In an isolated cottage at the outskirts of the city, someone else also had a migraine for a very different reason.

“Ouch, my head hurts…” 

Luca woke up lying down on his own saliva. He whined and tried to stand up, but his legs were too shaky and so he fell on the floor again, like a loser.

His entire body felt drained, but he wasn’t missing any limb so he assumed the transmutation circle had worked, which was excellent considering no one had ever done that alchemy experiment before. 

He looked around and almost thought he was dreaming when he realized that he was in his messy laboratory, the one he shared with Alva many, many years ago before the light made it disappear. The floor was filled with bottles that stunk of alcohol and, in front of him, there was a small piece of paper.

‘Alva Lorenz and Lorenz Jr. the great creators of the philosopher’s stone!’

No way….

No way he just went back to that morning.

Luca raised his head and forgot how to breathe. 

There he was. Alva, standing in the middle of the room in front of their work table. 

He had dreamed of this moment so many times that it felt unreal. The pain of his body was completely forgotten as he stood up slowly. Fearing that if he took his eyes off his friend for a second, he would disappear, like in all of his recent nightmares.

He slowly walked towards him and once they stood side by side, he looked at Alva through the corner of his eyes. He was too absorbed in the treasure on the table to notice his presence. His amber eyes were shining with wonder, his thin lips were trembling with excitement and, if he’d had a heartbeat, Luca was sure it would have gone faster than any shooting star.

In the past, Luca had glanced at the table and shared that same feeling of marvel at the sight of the Philosopher’s stone. 

This time, though, he didn’t even look at it. All of his joy was directed at someone else.

Alva was alive.

“No way!” He said, remembering perfectly well the reaction he had the first time. “How did you do it?!”

“I didn’t do anything. I don’t remember anything about last night,” Alva grinned, so proud it was contagious, and everything was so perfect that Luca struggled not to break down.

The joy of working together on their passion, of being surrounded by the things he loved, of finally achieving their dreams, it was back.

He had missed this life so much. So, so much.

“Is there something on my face?” Alva suddenly asked, touching his cheek.

Ah, Luca laughed awkwardly. He must have been staring too much. Alva surely expected him to be jumping like a crazy frog instead of… Whatever he was doing right now, but he couldn’t help it. 

“Now that I look at it closely, it’s such a tiny, innocuous thing,” he whispered, staring at the red stone for the first time. “How can something this small be so troublesome?”

Alva snorted. “I ask myself the same thing every day.”

“Why are you looking at me?”

“You are imagining things,” Alva grinned, clearly in his best humor. “But seriously, I can’t believe the alcohol worked. How awful of us, to create our magnum opus and forget how we achieved it. Now we can’t replicate it, you know?”

Luca grinned and took the golden glasses on the table. In the past, he had put them on jokingly, but now he could only think about the golden frames covered in dust and tears. He shook his head to get rid of that memory and instead put them on Alva carefully.

“It’s fine, I promise you I won’t lose it this time.”

He said it warmly, while a small, dark voice in his head whispered that all those sacrifices had been worth it in the end. Everything would be okay.

“This time?” 

Alva studied him, confused by the unusual behavior. Luca was the loud one of the two, the restless brat who not even a few hours ago had suggested the crazy idea of drinking 100 liters of alcohol with a stupid smile on his face, yet he had barely paid any attention to the stone.

What had gotten onto him to be acting this pensive, this… different?

“Are you feeling okay?” 

As he asked this, he put a hand over Luca’s forehead without thinking about it twice. Vampires shouldn’t have fever, but they also shouldn’t drink enough to kill an entire pub, so it wouldn’t hurt to make sure.

Luca jumped at his touch, cheeks red. “Woah! I’m fine, I’m fine! See?!”

He started moving his arms up and down, like an hyperactive bat, as he gave a thumbs up all too excitedly. He even hit his hip with the corner of the table and let out a pathetic ‘Ouch!’

Alva chuckled. Well, that was more in line with what he expected of him, but he still ordered him to go wash his face and take it easy for the rest of the day. They would have all the time in the world to celebrate later (with non-alcoholic drinks, thanks).

Luca didn’t object, he did need to rest after all that happened, but instead of leaving, he awkwardly stalled in the middle of the room for no apparent reason, as if something was troubling him. Alva opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but got surprised with a heartfelt hug.

“It’s for celebration!” Luca quickly said, burying his face in the crook of his neck.

“Oh-” He eloquently blurted out, forgetting how to function for a second. 

Right, big discoveries like that deserved a more affectionate reaction. How rude of him, of course Luca had been acting strange, they accomplished their dream and he had been too perplexed to praise him properly!

“Congratulations, Luca. Thank you for helping me all these years.” He returned the embrace with genuine gratitude. “Without you this wouldn’t have been possible, so I hope we can keep working together for as long as you will have me.”

Luca laughed, full of indescribable emotion. That’s all he wanted.

“Me too, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Later that day, when he was finally alone in the bathroom, Luca couldn’t help but sit on the edge of the tub and let out a shaky, light-headed exhale. His hands involuntarily clasped on his chest as he looked into the mirror with a wide smile.

There he was, back at home.

So many things had happened, and yet, despite everything, it was still him.

His quivering smile slowly fell as he kept looking at himself in the mirror. He stood up and approached the reflective surface, going over his features with worry, and then realization.

“What the…”

Maybe not everything was going as perfect as he thought. His left eye had suddenly become dark, tainted, cursed . It was as if he had been botched by an ink pen in the way a black shadow smudged all over his iris and even part of the white sclera.

It didn’t hurt, but it was noticeable. The side effects of his selfish actions were starting to show on his appearance, and he swallowed at the thought of Alva finding out.

‘It will be fine,’ he thought, splashing more water on his face. ‘Everything will be okay,’ he repeated.

Chapter Text

“Dear Subedar, I want you to help me find the Tome’s thief.”

By all means, it was a normal sentence, but Naib needed a long moment to process Jack’s words because they didn’t make any sense.

“What?” he ended up blurting, because. What. “You only brought me here for this?!”

Jack nodded, unaware -or most likely ignoring- his disbelief. “Only? It’s a very important job! Whoever stole that book is most likely a human. I have a suspect in mind, but there is a problem: I have a terrible reputation for some ridiculous reason.”

“I wonder why.”

Jack sighed dramatically. “Humans are scared of me, which prevents me from getting close to them and personally finding our traitor. That’s why you are perfect! I want you to infiltrate among the populace and work as my little pawn!”

“Like a double agent? You ruined my life over something that anyone could have done?” 

Naib felt like jumping off a cliff. He didn’t know what reason to expect for his presence in the past, but it wasn’t this. This was stupid. Jack could have asked any human or even vampire to do that job. 

“You are wrong about that.” The vampire shook his head, looked around as if making sure there was no other soul in that carriage, and whispered, “Truth is, I can’t trust anyone in this world. Imagine if I ended up hiring someone related to the original stealing. A wrong move could provoke the failure of our plan. I need someone completely unrelated to this timeline. A brave human, with good instincts and lots of guts. That's you.”

He pointed at him with a charismatic smile meant to make him feel special, like a chosen one, and Naib didn’t believe him for a second. 

There had to be another reason, a real one, but Jack was hiding it from him.

“Why should I help you?” he asked instead. “I don’t want you to win. If you do, when we get back to the future there will be vampires everywhere and, no offense, but that would suck. Whoever stole the Tome is my friend, not you.”

Jack let out a short, scary laugh. “You are right, we are not friends. But are you sure whoever stole the tome is a good person?”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. He or she could have wished for the vampires to become humans again or for world peace but, instead, they wished for our extermination. Millions and millions of vampires with their own families and friends stopped existing because of someone’s whim. It was a genocide. Would a monster like that be your friend?”

That was… Something Naib had failed to consider. The person rightfully hated vampires, so it made sense to wish for them to disappear, just cut the problem from the root, right? But then he remembered Ada and the way she stared at Emil, or Alva and Luca. They stayed in their cottage and didn’t bother humans in the past. 

Some vampires had to be innocent to some degree, but because of someone’s wish, almost all of them died indiscriminately. 

Ugh… he was too poisoned to think about such complicated matters. 

It wasn’t all bad, though. Actually, it was great that he was in charge of finding that person. If he was successful, he could strike a deal with them to put the vampires at a disadvantage. He might even manage to sabotage their plan and save the future. 

“Alright, I will help you. Can you give me the antidote now?” He said half-heartedly.

Jack studied him with a patient, pensive expression. Then, he let out a tired exhale and gave him a different bottle.

“Unlike Joseph’s, this antidote doesn’t have a strong enough dose to cure you completely. You will have to drink one of these every morning for several days, so try to do something funny or escape from me, and the poison will get you.”

Naib cursed internally. Of course Jack didn’t expect him to collaborate. He would have to be more careful and think of a plan. But for now, he drank the medicine in one go and threw the empty bottle back at Jack, who grabbed it on the fly. “Whatever.” 

The vampire gave him one of his insufferable, satisfied smiles and then looked at the window, letting out a genuine gasp that scared the hell out of him because- was there something that could impress that sociopath? 

“Ah, how stunning!” Jack exclaimed, admiring the cozy rays rising from behind the snowy mountains. His red eyes looked even more vibrant than usual as the light hit them with warmth. ”It’s been a while since I saw the sun.” 

They traveled for another hour until they passed a metallic, gothic sign that had ‘Penvicor’ elegantly written on it with an arrow pointing ahead. The carriage stopped in front of a monumental structure, a Triumphal Arch of sorts decorated with carvings and sculptures of vampires looking all edgy and mighty.

It was majestic in an imposing way, no wonder this place was known as the Vampire Capital.

“Welcome to Penvicor! Oh, if it’s Lord Jack-” A middle-aged vampire with a dark uniform approached their window and made a reverence full of courtesy and perhaps a bit of fear. “You are back so soon, I hope you had a safe trip despite the snow, my Lord.”

Jack rolled down the window and gave the man a piece of paper. “Glad to see you too, Greg. It was a brief errand without complications. By the way, I brought a new citizen with me.”

“My name is Grog… and Mr. Subedar?” The man read the paper and glared at Naib, who stared back with confusion. “Fantastic! We always need more young, healthy humans in the capital.”

Grog took out the thickest book Naib had ever seen and started scribbling something on it. When he was done, he passed it on to him and pointed at an empty spot near his name.

“Sign here, please.”

He held the book with distrust and glared at Jack. “What is this? And how can you forget a name that rhymes with frog?”

Jack coughed. “Don’t make me laugh, and this is the Capital’s census. Sign and you will become a Penvicor local. Any human who stays here for any amount of time has to do it. This way, we can keep a head count of everyone.”

“Keep a record of every human? So you know how much food you have in your city-sized fridge?”

“Duh. Now sign it.”

“I don’t have a pen!”

“You don’t need one. Press your index finger on the paper.”

Idiot. It’s not like his fingers were dirty enough to leave any trace, but given the two vampires were waiting for him, Naib did what he was told and pressed his finger on the white spot near his name, not expecting the sudden sharp pain that followed.

“Ouch-” Something stung him! He raised his finger and found his own blood staining the paper, while a strange red mark with the shape of a water drop -or blood drop, he guessed- appeared on the back of his hand, like a minimalistic and overly-priced pinterest tattoo.

“Perfect. You are officially a Penvicor citizen!” Grog the not-frog informed, grabbing the book back with a satisfied, toothy smile. “I wish you both an enjoyable stay and remember: A Small Suck a Day Keeps the Vampires At Bay!” 

Naib choked. Jack tipped his hat in acknowledgment and ordered the driver to keep going. Once they were far enough from that arch, checkpoint or whatever, Naib showed him his hand.

“What is this? There was nothing sharp in the paper, but it made my finger bleed.”

“Want me to clean it for you?” Jack offered, licking his lips meaningfully. “Dear, I’m joking, don’t look at me like that. Our census uses a transmutation circle to mark every human, it’s alchemy.”

“I have been marked?” It sounded so wrong if he said it like that.

“It has many uses, you will see eventually. Alva designed this method centuries ago at Joseph's request. Luca is probably unaware since he only cares about that orange rock, but Alva has invented a lot of convenient, life-changing stuff.”

Naib pouted and stared at his hand’s new tattoo. He couldn’t see how that could be useful to anyone, but if he was being honest, he had no idea how this world worked at all. 

Vampires, alchemy, forest monsters, a magic tome… It felt like something out of a fairytale or Wattpad fanfiction.

They left behind the quiet, dense forest and sparsely populated outskirts and ventured towards the heart of the city. The carriage drove them through narrow winding streets crowded with people, horses, cathedrals and more. Naib couldn’t help but think he was on a movie set. 

A few years ago, when he was still a boxer in the prime of his career, he had been asked to work as a stuntman for a Streaming show called ‘The Towerton’, where everyone had to dress in period clothes and he got to kick ass while wearing a top hat and fake sideburns.

Fortunately, sideburns weren’t popular here, but he did see several people dressed in stylish, dark uniforms similar to Grog. Jack was also wearing one, even if it was red in his case. He wondered if that’s how most vampires made themselves known.

As for the other pedestrians, their clothes were a mix of victorian and medieval mixed with other stuff he had never seen, maybe because he had no idea of 1820s fashion, or because this timeline had different trends altogether. 

Besides the over-the-top architecture and yada yada, there was something else that caught his attention: The red and purple posters plastered all over the walls, streetlights and storefronts. It was impossible not to see them. He tried to read what they said, but the carriage was going too fast for him to make it out.

Judging by the small red and purple triangular flags hanging in rows above the streets, he imagined it was a big upcoming event for the city. Maybe Vampire Christmas?

“Home sweet home,” Jack commented, enjoying the lively metropolitan view.

“Where are we going?” 

Standing tall behind some cathedrals, he could see what must be Joseph’s castle. Aesop probably spawned there instead of in the middle of a snowy forest, the lucky bastard. It would be nice to see a familiar, unfriendly and deadpan face, but as he was going to ask if that was their destination, his stomach decided to complain again. Loudly.

Jack stared at him, as if he forgot human hunger existed, and clasped his hands together. “We are going to eat! But first, we should get you some proper winter clothes.”

For once, Naib agreed. He did need something warm. “And shoes.”

“A nice pair of shoes made of glass for the princess.”

“Drop it. I’m not a princess.”

“Not with that attitude.”

Meanwhile, in the castle, Aesop was weirdly feeling like one. 

After almost fainting due to blood loss, he had been given a three-course meal consisting of vermicelli soup, baked salmon and a delicious crepe, followed by a warm, needed bath, all while Claude made sure that his wrist would heal in no time. 

It was very strange, being pampered like that while a sinister presence (Joseph) stared at him as he awkwardly tried on several outfits they had chosen for him.

“I don’t think red suits you, a pastel or white attire would be better for your complexion,” Joseph commented with a hand on his chin, oddly invested. 

…Pervert.

“I prefer black,” Aesop said instead. 

“Claude, did you hear anything?”

“Just the sound of silence and resignation!” 

Ah, they were that kind of twins: a menace. Aesop braced for the worst. 

When they were finally satisfied with his appearance -regardless of his personal opinion on the matter- it was Joseph’s turn to make himself presentable for the day ahead. As he was fixing his ponytail,  Claude offered to prepare Aesop’s guest room, where he would stay until his ‘job’ was complete.

The embalmer thought that Claude must be bored out of his mind because why else would the equivalent of a Vampire Prince do such a commoner thing? He needed hobbies. The Internet could save this man.

Unexpectedly, Joseph let Claude be. He called a tall, stern-looking maid who was obediently waiting in the corridor and told her to follow his brother and help with the cleaning. Once those two left, he called another maid. This one was very short and had auburn hair. 

“He is Aesop, my new special guest. Keep an eye on him until I return,” he ordered. The maid giggled for some reason and nodded. 

“Wait-!” Aesop took a step forward.

Joseph stalled at the door frame for a second, threw him one last glance that pretty much said ‘Don’t do anything stupid’ and abandoned the room, closing the door without an explanation.

Aesop stood stiffly, wondering what just happened. Did Joseph leave to talk with Claude privately?

Or did he hurry to hide the Tome of Prophecies?

Luca had said that the book was in the castle’s library, so Joseph must be anxious to make sure it would be out of reach for anyone who tried to steal it. At least, that’s what Aesop would do if he was in his place.

He felt goosebumps. If the vampires changed such an important, pivotal point in history, the butterfly effect would be disastrous. This wasn’t some small change such as: ‘I travel to the past, avoid my friend’s dad from dying in a car crash and when I return to the present, the consequence of my action is that my friend ends up in a wheelchair.’ No, this was THE change. 

If this group of vampires successfully protected the Tome, his future would be unrecognizable. There even was the possibility that he wouldn’t exist anymore. 

That thought wasn’t as scary as it should be, as he had nothing to look forward to either way, but he kind of wanted to survive out of spite, so-

He should follow Joseph to see where he hid the Tome.

“Excuse me, where are you going?” The maid asked, placing herself between him and the door. 

Besides her small stature, she wore big, dust-covered glasses that hid her eyes and half of her face. She looked nerdy and not intimidating at all. If it came to a fight, Aesop was convinced that he would be able to win.

“I need to speak with Joseph, it’s important, uh-”

“Helena,” the maid introduced herself with a polite reverence. “Regrettably, you will have to wait here. On Mondays the Lord is very busy, he holds court for the most part of the day.” Aesop must have shown obvious ignorance, because she quickly explained: “He sits on the throne, listens to the complaints and issues of people and attempts to resolve them.”

Oh. He had read about that in history books, and there was also a scene about that in an awful streaming show called ‘The Towerton’. It was the medieval equivalent of customer attention service. 

Those were great news, though, since it meant Joseph wouldn’t have time to hide the Tome until later.

“He always works very hard, isn’t he inspiring?” Helena said earnestly, with a transparent admiration towards her boss. “He never lets anyone besides me and his brother in his chamber, so you must be important… and handsome! I can tell by your voice.” 

“M-My voice?”

“Yes, I have very low vision, um, practically blind, but my intuition is great. Plus, I’ve heard the Lord likes pretty things.”

Aesop felt his cheeks brighten. “I… This is not-” 

Helena laughed and grabbed a duster. “I have to clean now, but you can wait for the Lord to return while you read a book or, if you want, we can talk, though I’m the silent, shy type, haha.”

Aesop seriously doubted that.

Still, he picked up a random book titled ‘Foods To Feed Your Human To Make Them Tastier by Basil Baden’ and sat on the sofa near the chimney. Contrary to Helena, he actually was the silent type, but he was too curious about this place to miss the chance of free information.

“Are you a vampire?” Was his first question. He wasn’t going to assume anything, unlike some people.

(At the other side of the city, Luca sneezed)

Helena chuckled as she dusted off the candles. “I’m human. Half of the castle’s staff are, so the other half can feed without going outside. It’s very time-efficient.”

Huh. That sure was a way to see it. “And you are okay with that?”

“Who wouldn’t be? It’s the biggest honor to serve Lord Joseph. Don’t you think the same?”

Suddenly, her voice wasn’t as sweet, and Aesop felt as if he had stepped on a mine. A dangerous, may-explode-if-not-careful one.

“Eh- ah…” He didn’t want to disagree with her, but based on the rebels who killed Claude, he assumed humans hated being ruled by vampires. “I thought some people hated him.”

Helena pursed her lips. “Yes, but they are wrong. Joseph is a good man, everything he does is to help others even if they don’t want to admit it and are ungrateful.”

Joseph helping others? She was definitely brainwashed. Aesop reminded himself that in this timeline humans had coexisted with vampires for millennia, so he couldn’t judge the poor maid for thinking like that. 

Also, it didn’t go unnoticed the way she used Joseph’s first name instead of Lord. Oh, she was too far gone. 

“Why do you like him so much?” He couldn’t help but ask, but quickly waved his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you will understand when you spend more time with him,” Helena assured, confident. “I have had vision problems all my life. Because of that, no one believed me capable of doing anything, even though I can manage just fine. Joseph was the first person to trust me and even hire me as his main servant, over any other candidate out of thousands. Imagine how it made me feel.”

She smiled fondly, thankful, as she cleaned the chimney with a mop. It was a mystery how it hadn’t caught on fire yet. 

“Maybe you are right,” he muttered, more worried about her well-being than anything.

He shook his head and looked at a random page of the book he was holding. There was a picture of Vermicelli soup, baked salmon, a crepe… Wait. Did Joseph just give him food to make his blood tastier?!

He wasn’t a good person, he was a manipulator and gaslighter! 

“Don’t you think he hired you precisely because he doesn’t trust anyone to see his private documents?” he blurted out.

“W-What…” Helena stopped on her tracks, shocked, and after a long silence: “Nah, that’s very silly, Aesop!”

Well then.

He gave up on trying to make the girl see the truth or… well, anything, because now she was mopping the poor carpet, didn’t she notice the different texture? Then, it occurred to him that she was blind. Joseph thought so little of him that he sent a blind maid as his warden!

“Helena, does this castle have a library by any chance?”

“It sure does!” 

The chatty maid told him exactly where it was, and while she started singing some obscure nursery-rhythm that sounded sweet but had PG-18 lyrics, Aesop quietly got out of the room.

Great, now he could try to find the tome by himself. “That was easy.”

“A bit too much, mayhaps.” An irritatingly calm voice said behind him. “It appears we keep crossing paths every time you try to escape, what a coincidence.”

Ugh, Eli. 

“It’s not a coincidence,” Aesop retorted. 

“True, nothing in this life is a coincidence, everything happens for a reason called Joseph,” Eli confirmed his suspicions. Of course Joseph wasn’t stupid enough to leave him alone with Helena. “By the way, I am his advisor, so you will see me around quite a bit. I’m also the designated driver and occasional caretaker, among other things.”

“If you are his advisor, why aren’t you at that court meeting? Also, I don’t think you should drive.” 

“Haha, that hurt. And I should be there, actually! Want to come with me?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to leave the room?”

“Joseph doesn’t want you to. He is too overprotective for his own good, but as his loyal advisor, I think you should have more freedom. ”

Wouldn’t that be going against his boss’ direct orders? Eli didn’t look scared of getting in trouble, though. It made Aesop wonder about what kind of relationship the two vampires had. Were they strictly business partners or perhaps old friends? 

And if that was the case, for how long had they known each other?

“Follow me this way. Or, if you want, you can safely stay in that room with Helena,” Eli offered the illusion of choice.

Aesop sighed. Again, his curiosity took the best of him.

“Everyone is staring at us.”

“They are staring at me,” Jack corrected.

“You are sitting next to me, so I’m collateral damage.”

After getting new clothes (and nice, normal shoes) Jack had brought him to a cozy restaurant near the main square called ‘Flavor Garden’ and allowed him to order anything he wanted. Naib didn’t hold back and asked for a bit of everything: From meat, to pasta to cute, heart-shaped pastries.

All of it was delicious, but he could hardly enjoy it due to the amount of eyes staring at their table. The customers and servers hadn’t stopped looking at them ever since they entered the local, as if they had seen the ghost of the Queen of England.

“Are you famous or something?” he whispered. Judging by people’s scared yet amazed expressions, it was hard to tell if he was eating with Taylor Swift or Satan.

“Say, Naib. How old do you think I am?” 

Huh? Well, Norton had been 200-something, but Jack was Joseph’s right hand, so he must be older than that.

“300.”

“More.”

“500.”

“More.”

“800?”

“Be more daring, darling.”

What? Even more? “How old are you? A thousand?”

“Something like that,” Jack laughed at Naib’s shock. “So. When you are as old as me, you become a bit of a living legend. Everyone knows who I am. There are hundreds of rumors about me among humans, even cute songs such as ‘Sleep, child, sleep because Jack the Vampire is going to throw a die and eat you,’” he sang animatedly.

“What the fuck. Are you this world’s Bogeyman?” No wonder everyone got tense when they saw him. Even a baby started crying. “Why are they so scared of you?”

Jack was about to answer when a waitress approached their table with Naib’s last order. As she put down a plate with an amazing looking cheesecake in front of him, Jack reached for his glass of water -Naib had no idea why he ordered it, he assumed it was to pretend to do something so he wouldn’t eat alone-. but the glass slipped out of his hold and spilled over the waitress's right hand.

“Oh, dear, I’m very sorry,” Jack apologized, taking a handkerchief and cleaning the woman’s hand. “At least it was water and not boiling tea or coffee.” 

It might as well have been, with the way the waitress reacted: She retracted her hand extremely fast and hid it behind her back, as if she was disgusted or afraid of him. Naib thought her reaction was kind of extreme considering Jack wasn’t mad at her.

“I-I’m very sorry, sir. I will bring you another glass immediately,” she apologized, leaving as fast as it was professionally allowed without looking rude.

Jack didn’t make any comment. Instead, he folded the handkerchief he used to clean her hand and stored it in his pocket in silence. 

“Welp. That was so uncomfortable,” Naib whispered, playing with his fork. “Great, now I won’t be able to enjoy my cheesecake.”

“You can give it to me.”

An offended gasp. “Never.”

“Then finish it quickly. We have work to do, Mr. Detective,” Jack winked. He didn’t look affected by the waitress’ behavior. Was he used to it?

Naib groaned, but deep down -as silly as it may sound- he felt something akin to thrill for being called ‘Detective’. He remembered his childhood dream, and thought life was strange for bringing that back in such bizarre circumstances.

“I don’t think I had seen you smile until now,” Jack noticed, sharp as a hawk. “Is it something I said?”

“No, it’s not that,” he blushed, embarrassed, because it should be a crime to show any emotion besides anger towards his kidnapper. “I just remembered something.”

“Go on,” Jack cooed, sitting comfortably and moving his hat from the table to the window still to get a better view of him.

Naib was going to reject the request, but then it occurred to him that Jack was probably trying to make the mood less awkward after what happened with the waitress, so he decided to entertain him, even if just this once.

“I wanted to become a detective when I was a kid. I had a Sherlock Holmes phase, read all the books and even made a comic called ‘The adventures of Mr. Inference’. I was just thinking about how unpredictable life is for that to be sort of relevant now.”

Jack smiled, entertained. “You wanted to solve cases and here I am, offering you the mystery of the millennia, how nice of me.” Then, something hit him. “Sherlock is good at boxing, is that why you learned how to fight?”

Naib didn’t say anything. Instead, he covered his face, ashamed for being such a nerd.

The vampire laughed. “If you wanted to be a detective so badly, why did you become a boxer?”

“Huh- I guess because I was good at it and it brought money home.”

He wasn’t only good, he had been described as a prodigy with a bright future. His mother hated it because she was worried about him getting hurt, which was a valid concern, but that never mattered to him as long as he could earn enough to give her a better life, and repay all the sacrifices she had made for him.

“Is that all? Just because of money?” Jack asked, his red eyes fixated on him. “Humans’ lives are so short, yet somehow you always manage to waste them on things you aren’t passionate about. Then you get old, lonely, wrinkly and cry about all the chances you missed.”

Naib remembered his past years working at the soap shop and felt a knot in his stomach. “It’s not that simple and you know it.”

“No, it actually is,” Jack said without doubt. “Take it from someone who has lived longer than it should be allowed.”

Naib rolled his eyes and stared at the untouched cheesecake with a sour face. He wouldn’t take advice from someone whose mere presence made babies cry and waitresses flinch. He didn’t know why the topic changed into this, but he hated it. It made his palms sweat and heart rate increase with dread.

“You said you had a suspect in mind. Who is it?” He managed to ask.

Jack didn’t comment on the obvious distraction. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. “So you are curious, after all.”

“I wouldn’t say-”

At that moment, bells started to toll and a melody reminiscent of a classical song resonated from the outside. It was 12 pm so he didn’t pay it any mind at first, but then he realized that all the customers of the restaurant were staring at their hands.  

It was creepy how synchronized they were.

Since their table was next to the window, Naib peeked outside and saw everyone stopping doing their things -walking, working, stealing bread- to do the same. 

What the-

He thought they were checking the hour in their wrist-watches, but then realized it was something else: He stared at his own hand and was surprised to see that the mark he had been given a few hours ago was bright red.

It wasn’t blood, just a glow very similar to the alchemy circle ones… 

The couple sitting at a table nearby were looking at their hands and their marks weren’t shining. The couple let out a breath of relief and kept eating, as if they had avoided inconvenient news.

Naib had a bad feeling.

“You just arrived and have already been chosen,” Jack mocked, staring at his mark. “You really are the Ultimate Unlucky Guy.”

“What does that mean?”

The vampire stood up, dusted off his pants and left a bunch of money on the table. “It’s starting now, come with me.” 

“What is starting?” Asked Naib, following him close behind, trying not to freak out while holding a plate in his hands.

Wherever they were going, the cheesecake was coming with him.

“You are very level-headed,” Eli commented as they walked through a long, dark blue corridor towards the throne room. “If anyone else traveled to the past with a group of murderous vampires and woke up in an unknown castle, they would freak out.”

“It’s not like I can do anything about it, so there is no point to stress more than necessary.” 

Eli laughed. “That’s a rational way to see it. I wonder if there’s any other reason.”

Aesop wasn’t sure. He dealt with death since he was very young, maybe that made him more apathetic towards nerve-wracking circumstances. That didn’t mean he was fine with any of this, though, he just wasn’t loud about it, unlike some people.

(At the other side of the city, Naib sneezed)

As they crossed the corridor, he contemplated the row of statues on the left side of the path and how, between each one, there were paintings depicting events he had never seen or heard of, all full of vampires, humans and… Monsters? Nah. That must be a metaphor.

“By the way, what do you think about Helena?” 

Aesop sighed at Eli’s question. He was surrounded by people who loved small talk.

“I don’t understand her. She called Joseph a good man.” 

Eli’s steps were light, casual. “Is that so hard to believe? He sacrificed a lot for Claude.”

“A lot of people . That doesn’t make him good, it makes him terrible. And selfish.”

“Selfish?” Eli laughed. “That’s one way to see it but, believe it or not, he is very responsible and a beloved figure among the majority of humans, since he was the first person to find a way for us to coexist together.” 

“Is he that important?” he asked, surprised.

Eli nodded, reminiscent. “Back at the very start, when Vampires realized they could turn other humans into one of them, guess what happened: Absolute chaos. Life expectancy was very low, so humans would beg and pay fortunes to be bitten so they could live forever.”

Eli pointed at one of the paintings. It was a woman in the middle of a beautiful garden. It reminded Aesop of Eve and the Snake, since it showed the girl giving a precious golden apple to a white snake with big, promising fangs.

“Humans who didn’t get turned would be hunted and killed without mercy by other vampires. At some point, there were so many vampires and so little humans that it was hard to find blood to feed ourselves. We were causing our own extinction. Greed at its finest.”

It didn’t surprise Aesop, it was a general fact that human stupidity was the cause of all problems. Twitter was proof enough.

“But you can live forever in this timeline, right? Even if you don’t drink blood.”

“Yes, but that is also our curse, being forced to remain alive despite dying of thirst is the worst kind of torture. If things had continued like that, this world would only be populated by hungry monsters. That’s when Joseph came and offered a solution.”

As they kept walking, Eli stopped in front of another painting. Aesop easily recognized Joseph: blond, beautiful and with sharp, intelligent eyes. He looked like an angel helping the dead get out of their self-made tombs.

“He funded Penvicor and made strict rules everyone had to follow: He banned vampires from turning humans or killing them. Instead, humans would willingly offer their blood and, in exchange, vampires would leave them alone. If any faction broke those rules, they would be severely punished.”

“And people were fine with that?” 

“Absolutely! The city grew very fast, everyone wanted to live here. Humans wouldn’t have to fear for their life ever again if they behaved, and vampires would never be hungry.” They reached a flight of stairs and Eli straightened his posture. “We are close to the throne room.”

Aesop involuntarily straightened his posture too.

“Anyways, after him, many other cities and then countries started doing the same, but he was the Blueprint. That’s why Penvicor is called The Vampire Capital, and the reason many people see him as a savior.”

Aesop frowned, unconvinced by the vampire propaganda. “So he turned a horrible place into a bad one.”

“It may not seem much to you but, to most locals, it’s more than enough. It’s all they know. Would you be able to come up with a better solution for both factions?”

Aesop tried to brainstorm some genius idea, but Eli got him there. It was hard to think of a fair way for predators and prey to coexist without one of them getting the short end of the stick. Still, something got him very curious.

“What pushed Joseph to do all of this?”

“That’s a great question.” Eli flashed a mysterious smile. “You should ask him.”

He crossed his hands in denial. “No. He hates me, he has been acting strange ever since Claude drank my blood.”

“Ah…” Eli suppressed a grin, as if he imagined the reason, and put an index finger over his lips. “This backdoor leads to the throne room. Keep quiet, okay?”

Aesop gulped and nodded. Eli grabbed the doorknob and turned it slowly, trying not to make noise, and held the door open for him. Aesop’s first thought was that the room smelled like an old church. It was a musty yet perfumed scent that gave the place a sacred and solemn atmosphere.

Eli had picked a discreet door at one of the sides of the large chamber, perfect if they wanted to go unnoticed. 

Aesop kept himself close to the walls and looked around. He quickly found Joseph sitting on a throne at the end of the room, surrounded by the same level of opulence the rest of the castle flaunted, while a red carpet connected him to the main door several meters away, where a group of people queued, supervised by royal guards.

A vampire holding a long list called the names of the subjects one by one, while a woman sitting at a desk full of precariously balanced stacks of papers kept track of the decisions Joseph made during court.

The process was simple enough: Guard calls name, subject tells the Lord their problem, Joseph gives a solution, woman writes the conversation down, rinse and repeat.

Aesop had to admit that he was very intrigued about what kind of issues people living in this Vampire World would have. He quietly observed an old man kneel in front of Joseph and waited for him to expose his serious trouble: 

“My Lord, a thief walked into my store and stole a 100 echoes bill from the register without my knowledge. He then bought 70 echoes worth of goods using the 100 echoes bill and I gave 30 echoes in change. How much money did I lose so I can reclaim it?”

The embalmer blinked several times. What.

“My Lord, there are two melons in my box. Together they weigh 11 kg. The weight of green is 3 kilograms lower than three times the weight of yellow. What is the weight of the green melon?”

“Why is he getting math problems?!” Aesop lost it.

Eli scratched the back of his neck with a grimace. “I’m in charge of filtering the candidates so he only listens to relevant issues, but since I had to make sure you didn’t escape, I… forgor.” 

The embalmer pinched the sides of his nose, no wonder Joseph looked annoyed at everyone.

Wait, not everyone. He was looking at him-

Now he was sending him a death glare! As if he was yelling ‘What are YOU doing here!?’

He sweated and pointed at Eli, zero comradery.

“Wow, you ratted me so easily,” Eli gasped. “But don’t worry, he isn’t angry at you. I think he wants us to sneak the answer to him,” he lied.

“It’s 7.5 kg!” Aesop shouted, like a moron.

The entire court, guards, clerk, vampires and humans turned around to look at them. Eli headpalmed so hard it echoed across the room. Aesop could swear he saw Joseph’s left eye twitch.

The Lord smiled tightly at the melon seller. “You heard that! I hope this knowledge changes your life for the better. You can leave.” Aesop almost let out a relieved breath, but then: “And Aesop, I’m glad to see you here. Why don’t you come and help me today, since you clearly are so talented at it.”

Aesop gulped. It was amazing how much passive-aggressiveness Joseph could fit in his tone. 

He felt as if he had his hours -no, minutes, seconds- numbered and recoiled, but Eli grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him forward as he mumbled a half-assed apology. 

Traitor.

He felt all eyes on him as he nervously walked towards the throne. He ignored the numerous murmurs of people asking each other if anyone knew who he was, and stood next to Joseph, as tense as a tree struck by lightning. 

“We will talk about your behavior later,” Joseph promised in a whisper, not showing the extent of his displeasure. “Are you good at math?”

“...Eh? I think so.”

A relieved sigh. “Great, because I’m done with these people. I didn’t remember how tiring it was to be a ruler. You can be my advisor for today.”

His advisor!? Aesop tilted his head in confusion. Joseph wasn’t as furious as he had expected, but he was definitely bullying him now. He couldn’t do this, no way-

“Don’t look so nervous. I know you will do a good job,” Joseph waved his hand nonchalantly. 

“No, I will mess up. There are too many people.” He was going to make a fool of himself, and then Joseph would be disappointed and punish him, just like Jerry did when he-

“Don’t mind the others, just focus on me,” Joseph interrupted his thoughts. “I can tell you are a perfectionist and care about others’ needs. Just like the flowers you chose at that funeral.” 

“The flowers?” 

…Right, back when they first met, Joseph had been the only person to notice the thought he put on picking the deceased’s flowers. He had been convinced that the vampire only complimented him that day to manipulate him, but… 

“You meant that?”

The answer was quick, certain. “Of course, I had no reason to lie.”

Aesop short circuited for a second, because. He wasn’t used to- He never-

Joseph smiled slightly at his awkwardness and turned his face forward, telling the guard to call the next person on the list. He sounded authoritarian, charming, but Aesop realized that behind the strong facade he was exhausted.

He wondered why Joseph was doing this instead of spending time with the brother he just got back or hiding the Tome. Maybe Eli was right and he was responsible to a fault with his royal duties, or perhaps there was another reason for him not to miss this court.

Aesop scanned the queue full of different kinds of people, all with their own lives and problems waiting to be heard and fixed by Joseph.

And to think that some of them eventually turned on him and killed Claude.

Joseph had said that he wouldn’t show them mercy this time, but he was acting nice, as if nothing changed. He had a bad feeling about this. 

As shivers ran down his spine with anticipation, a lady kneeled in front of Joseph and said: 

“My Lord, the other day a man bought me a horse for 3000 echoes. He sold it for 4000. He then bought the horse back for 5000. And he sold it again for 6000. In the end, how much money did…”

“Do you like math?” Jack asked.

Naib hissed, like an animal. “I hate anything that has to do with numbers.”

“As an artist, I feel you. They are boring,” Jack agreed. “But you might find it interesting to know that Penvicor has around 800.000 humans and 8.000 vampires living in it. Those quantities aren’t accidental, though.”

“There’s a vampire for every 100 humans?” 

“Yep! So we have enough manpower to control them in case of rebellion or war.”

“Didn’t work out too well last time,” Naib uttered under his breath, following him through the busy street.

Jack brought him to Posy Square, located a few minutes away from the restaurant. It was a major public space for pedestrians with benches, fountains surrounded by white flowers, and a big statue of a woman biting another woman’s neck in such a seductive way that Naib could tell the artist had been horny while sculpting that.

Circling the statue, many colored tiles in the shape of a pentagram decorated the floor. It reminded Naib of the magical gateway of Barbie in The 12 Dancing Princesses.

(He only knew that because one time he babysitted a little girl. Seriously. For real.)

Anyways, people had started gathering around the statue and stood still on the pretty tiles. Just like him, the mark on their hands was glowing red, so they had been chosen too, but for what?

“Remember when I told you this had many uses?” Jack asked, grabbing his hand and tip-tapping on the mark in a way it gave him shivers. “There’s an alchemy equation in there. Twice a day, the transmutation circle picks 4.000 random humans. If your mark glows, it means you have been chosen to feed a vampire.”

Naib blinked several times. “I have to what?!”

“This square is a Feeding Point. You have to stand on one of the tiles and wait for a vampire to take a sip. This is how we take our daily meal, unless we prefer to break the rules and hunt on our own,” he winked, making it obvious that he had never done anything legal in his life.

“And they are okay with it?” He asked, flabbergasted, staring at the humans passively waiting to get bitten.

Jack shrugged. “They have to, it’s the law. If they break the contract with the mark, it will be notified to the authorities and they will be punished. It’s an equivalent exchange pentagram: You can live here, but only if you compromise to feed people like me. You signed it with your blood.”

So that’s how that stupid census book worked. “I need to have some words with the asshole who came up with this.”

(At the other side of the city, Alva sneezed)

“Don’t be mad. His method is the pillar that allows Vampires and Humans to coexist in Penvicor, no one can escape that responsibility.”

Naib groaned. This was so unfair. How the fuck did he get chosen out of 800.000 people? That wasn’t bad luck, that was next level, someone-up-there-personally-hated-him luck.

But wait! “Isn’t my blood still poisoned?”

“Technically yes, but we can’t die in this timeline, so at most the vampire who sucks your blood will tell you that you need to stop eating mushrooms.”

“You are being an unhelpful asshole. Are you going to bite someone too?”

“Nope! I already found a lost, tasty traveler while looking for you in the forest. Now be a brave, law-abiding citizen and go. I will wait in a bench and feed the pigeons.” 

Jack shoved him towards the statue as if he was a kid who didn’t want to go to school. It was so humiliating that he brushed him off and walked there on his own, with loud and angry steps. 

He stood on one of those tiles with the nastiest expression and waited with his untouched cheesecake, like a dumbass. 

How delusional. So this was how the 8.000 vampires living here got fed every day. One half at midday, and the other half who knows when. 

“Hey, Lucilde, how are you doing? I hope you are as delicious as ever!” A lady Vampire happily approached a girl standing next to him and, after some formalities, started sucking her blood.

More vampires kept coming one after another. Once they were done, humans would leave Posy Square with shaky legs, a hand on their wounded necks, and the glow of their marks gone.

Some of them looked annoyed or used to it, resigned, while others appeared almost excited, the kinky fucks. Naib was so absorbed with their reactions that he didn’t notice the hand tapping on his shoulder.

“Hey, you look nervous. You must be new here,” an awfully familiar voice said. “If you don’t want to get bitten, I can take your place for 60 echoes.”

That cocky, ambitious tone. Naib closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. He turned around and his face contorted into something hard to describe when he saw who it was.

Norton.

Norton was alive.

Chapter Text

“You are alive.” 

Naib blurted out those words and regretted them as soon as they came out of his mouth. How stupid, of course Campbell was alive, they were in the past. 

Norton looked understandably confused. “Is this a threat?”

It was shocking how different he looked from his future version. The Norton he knew liked to dress trendy to an exaggerated degree. Naib always joked about him being the definition of fuckboy, and he always smelled great.

(Because they worked at the bath bomb shop, don’t get it wrong)

On the other hand, the clothes of this Norton were tattered on the edges, too used to even be called secondhand, and his scent reminded him of his own smell after a full day of workout. 

Plus, he was offering to get bitten in his stead for a few coins, which meant…

“You are a human!” 

“And you aren’t the brightest tourist,” Campbell retorted. Appearance aside, his sharp tongue hadn’t changed. “If you don’t want my offer just say so and stop wasting my time.”

“I don’t have money.” Dickhead.  

“You don’t?” Norton raised an eyebrow, looking at the nice coat and shoes Jack got him, not buying that excuse at all. He clicked his tongue. “Alright. How about you give me this?”

He pointed at the cheesecake.

‘Not Samantha!’ Naib internally yelled, he had already named the precious dessert. It was his emotional support cake.

“Sure,” he said instead, because he was a mature adult. 

Norton started eating it right there, manners found dead in Florida. “Why are you surprised that I am a human? I think it’s pretty obvious. Though, you are right, I won’t be a human for much longer.”

Naib was aware. Future Norton had told him that he got turned into a vampire right before the Last War, but how did this Norton know?

“Have you made a deal with a vampire or something?” 

“Nah, that’s against the law, but I plan to win this,” he took out a crumpled paper from his pocket and opened it. It was the poster Naib had seen plastered all over the city, now he finally got to read its contents:

✶ Join TransFest 1822! ✶

300 Humans - Only 1 Winner

Show us what you are made of, pass all the trials and eternal life will be granted to you.

The chance of becoming a vampire is in your hands, will you take it? 

Organized by Ada Mesmer with the approval of The Lord.

“Trans people rights, so true," Naib nodded.

"Huh? TransFest comes from Transformation Festival."

"Oh. So it’s like a challenge."

“It’s a huge contest that Mrs. Mesmer holds every 3 years. Players go through several obstacles and the winner gets turned into a Vampire by her. I have participated since I was a teen, I spent all my savings on it so I plan to win this year.”

So that’s why he was extra poor. “Does this Ada Mesmer want to be a psychologist or falls easily in love by any chance?”

“That’s weirdly specific, but sometimes the contest does feel like a social experiment. There’s also a rumor that she created it to find an ideal partner, since most winners are ‘her type’”.

Yep, It had to be the same Ada he met at the manor. It was a bit tragic to know that she didn’t find her true love until many years later, right before dying. “Well, I have good news for you. You are going to win this time.”

“Huh? Why do you think so?”

Oh, shit, he shouldn't have said that. Would it change the future if he revealed events that had not happened yet? He had to be careful. If for some reason Norton lost the contest, he wouldn’t be turned into a vampire and would die of old age, so they would not meet in the future. 

But wait, he got into this mess because of Campbell! So it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have never met him. If he hadn’t gone to the manor, he would still have his comfortable, normal life.

A life full of rude clients, exploitative bosses, bills piling up and existential crisis.

Ok, it wasn’t the best life, but it was better than whatever his current situation was. For sure. 

“I was just being polite, I don’t actually know if you will win,” he ended up saying.

“Boo.” Norton licked his fingers and returned the plate wiped clean. “You are really annoying, shorty.” 

Naib almost quipped back, but a sudden wave of sentimentality made him bite his tongue. For a second, it felt like he was bantering with the Norton he knew, and it was hard to come into terms that it wasn’t the case, his Norton was dead. 

This guy was just a stranger that begged on the streets for food and money.

“Are you sure the cheesecake is enough?” He asked, hiding the pity in his voice. 

Thankfully, Norton didn’t seem to care. Instead, he scanned him from head to toes, with a pensive hand on his chin, until his eyes brightened.

“I want your shoes too.”

Naib sighed. Was the world against him or what?

After giving him the shoes, Campbell clasped their hands together and recited some strange words in a low whisper. Suddenly, the glow of his mark transferred to Norton’s hand. He said something about how he had learned advanced alchemy to do this trick, and that it wasn’t legal to take someone’s place, but it would be fine as long as they kept their mouths shut.

“Why is it illegal?” Naib hushed, like a criminal.

“Man, you really are a tourist. It’s the first rule. Every human who lives here has to feed vampires. Someone taking your place is seen as an act of disrespect and treason.”

Jeez, what a nice, friendly place. He hoped Jack wouldn’t mind, the man clearly broke several rules before he had breakfast so he should be fine. 

As he was thinking about that, a thirsty vampire arrived and Norton signaled for him to leave, their deal was complete. Even then, Naib stalled, unsure. 

“You really don’t remember me, right?” he heard himself ask, hopeful, pathetic.

He thought Norton was going to make a fool of him again, but he just shook his head awkwardly. “Sorry, I don’t.”  

Jack was trying to -unsuccessfully- convince pigeons to trust him when Naib returned barefoot. He was about to comment on it but the boxer was faster.

“DON’T MENTION IT!” He yelled. “Just get me new ones.”

“What am I, your sugar daddy?” Jack mocked, standing up and scaring all the birds. He noticed his untouched neck and didn’t comment on it. “Alright, we'll go shopping and then return to the restaurant.”

Naib’s eyes widened, hopeful. “To get more cheesecake?”

“No, to get my hat back. I forgot it there.” 

The vampire said it with a strange smile on his face, as if it had been anything but a mistake, and Naib wondered if he had overlooked something important. 

“A big group of rats has been destroying my crops,” a young freckled farmer said, standing in front of the throne. “I have put traps to spook them away, but they are smart and always return for more. They have enough food in the wild, but they prefer to ruin what is dear to me. How do I get rid of them?”

Aesop had no idea how many random questions he had already answered that day, so his reply was automatic:

“A rat needs to eat around 20 grams of food per day. If a seed weights an average of 0.24 grams, that means-”

“Excuse me, sir.” The girl interrupted. “This isn’t a math question. I’m looking for an actual solution.”

Oh .

Joseph suppressed a snicker and took charge of the conversation. “Visit Bourbon’s drug shop, she has a chemical with a sweet, innocuous smell that will poison your little visitors when they eat your crops.”

“Won’t it kill other animals too, like birds?” The farmer asked, curious.

“It’s hard to exterminate rats completely. You need to tackle them all at once or they will come back. Don’t you think so, Aesop?”

The embalmer tensed. He liked mice, he found small animals cute and wasn’t fond of Joseph's answer. With a small voice, he proposed another idea: rats primarily used their sense of smell to find food. If the farmer sprayed her crops with a different smell, the rats might disregard it and search somewhere else to avoid wasting energy.

Objecting the Lord in front of the whole court was an insolent thing to do. Aesop was aware and expected some sort of reprimand, but Joseph simply looked at the farmer and said:

“There you go, two solutions for the price of one. Which one do you prefer?”

The girl looked sweet, a lover of nature and animals. Aesop thought she was going to pick his option, that’s why he was surprised when she said she would think about it at home. 

With a kind smile, she turned around and left. Aesop closed his fists. He probably put her in a tight situation, he was an idiot for speaking up. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. Not everyone is as gentle as you, nor seeks a compassionate solution, but it was a valid suggestion. Claude would have suggested the same, he loves animals.”

He had only known Claude for an hour or so, but he did come across as forgiving and compassionate; maybe his illness made him more prone to empathize with the weak.  

“Eli’s position is in trouble, you aren’t bad at this,” Joseph continued good humored, Aesop had trouble discerning if it was a joke or he meant it. “At least this circus is almost over, what a bunch of absurd questions and waste of time.” 

“Then why are you doing this?” He couldn’t stop himself this time. “I mean- I thought hiding the Tome would be your priority.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Eli already took care of it first thing in the morning and put a fake copy in its place.” Joseph’s smile was smug, confident. “We are several steps ahead, little mouse.”

Aesop pressed his lips into a thin line. Goodbye to his delusion of getting the Tome first, then. He had to stop underestimating Joseph, he had been planning this scheme for a year, he must have calculated every single variable. 

No wonder he always looked so sure of himself, so calm. As Eli had said, nothing was a coincidence. That fact made him realize something disturbing.

“You aren’t listening to these complaints because of duty. You are here for another reason.”

It took him a while, but he was learning to read Joseph’s crooked personality, who he truly was behind the charming smile. He knew he was right because the vampire’s eyes widened, first in surprise, and then there was a spark of interest in his eyes, as if he had found something rare and valuable.

“I knew your blood wasn’t the only intriguing thing about you.”

Aesop tilted his head, and then the next citizen kneeled in front of them. This time, it was a man around his age that looked quite troubled. He clasped his hands together and stared at Joseph with reverence.

“My Lord, a sickness has tormented my mother for the past months and her full recovery is nowhere in sight. She got chosen by the mark today, but she is very weak. I beg you to forgive her and let me give my blood in her stead.”

“What would you suggest to do, Aesop?” 

Joseph had asked him the same question with the farmer but, oddly, this time his tone was very different. There was an underlying coldness that made him shiver.

“I think it’s fine to wait until his mother feels better,” his answer came out easily, he could empathize with that guy. He would do the same.

“But, you see, that wouldn’t be fair towards the other humans who follow the rules, we can’t make exceptions like that,” Joseph said with a patronizing smile, staring at the man harshly. “If your mother can’t feed my kind, she doesn’t deserve to live here.”

“But- My lord, it’s just this time! Once she is healthy she will collaborate again, I promise.”

“You promise? Human words are worth nothing. You would made up anything to get rid of your responsibilities.”

“I-It’s not a lie, I have her doctor’s diagnosis here!” He raised a crumpled paper with shaky hands.”

“Is the doctor human?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then it might as well be a lie, you protect each other like ants. Your mom will leave the capital today and not return until she can donate blood. You can accompany her, since you love her so much.”

The young man’s eyes filled with tears. He looked at Joseph with astonishment, as if he hadn’t expected the meeting to go like this, to be faced with such cruelty. 

“My lord, she always speaks highly of you. She is caring and selfless and always follows the rules. Please, she means everything to me, have some mercy, she is too sick to travel.”

Joseph looked at his nails, bored, indifferent. “That’s none of my concern. Disobey the rules, and we will detain your entire family. Don’t forget what your place is. That’s all, now leave.”

“No, please, help me!” Ignoring the protocol, the man suddenly locked eyes with Aesop and ran towards him, taking him by the hands desperately. “You- You are a human like me! Are you the Lord’s close friend? Please, tell him to help me, I beg you!”

Aesop took a step back, startled. He didn’t know what to say. He felt all eyes on him -Joseph’s icy eyes on him- and despite his own beliefs, he didn’t dare speak up.

“I-I’m sorry…” He looked away, ashamed, but not quick enough to miss the look of hate and betrayal from the man.

“Fucking parasite,” was whispered to him, and Aesop was sure the man would have spit on him if it weren’t for the couple of guards that dragged him out of the room. A sharp silence engulfed the place after that, and was not broken until Eli, with a neutral expression, announced that audience hours were over.

As people quietly abandoned the room through the main gate, Joseph left through one of the concealed backdoors. Aesop followed close behind. It didn’t occur to him that maybe he should have gone back to Eli, he was too shaken up about what had transpired. 

It was too unfair.  

“He didn’t deserve that,” he said behind Joseph. The corridor they were in was narrow and dimly lit, not the best place to confront a man who doomed an innocent family.  “His mom is sick. I expected you to feel empathy, considering Claude-”

His head hit hard against the patterned wall when a pale hand pressed on his throat, tight enough to be considered a warning. He could barely breathe. 

“Do you want to know why I wasted my morning listening to stupid complaints? He is the reason why,” Joseph’s face was impossibly close, looming over him like a bad omen. “I remember him from the last timeline. He came and asked the same favor, and I granted it without thinking about it twice. After all, I know how painful it is to have a sick family member.”

The candles hanging on the walls gave his blue eyes a red, threatening sparkle. 

“Imagine my surprise when I was made aware that he was among the crowd that cheered and laughed when my little brother was murdered.”

That… That was… 

Aesop’s words got stuck at the back of his throat. This is why Eli didn’t look surprised at all when Joseph gave that unfair answer. The whole thing had been orchestrated to give that guy a taste of his own medicine.

“He might have got it coming, but even then,” he tried, his voice raspy due to the pressure on his Adam's apple. “His mother doesn’t deserve to die because of her stupid son's actions.”

“You are wrong. She needs to die so he knows how it feels .”

Joseph was too angry, too worked up to come to his senses. Aesop wondered how many years he had been thinking about this revenge. The time travel quest wasn’t only about avoiding extinction, it was also a way for Joseph to inflict pain upon everyone who betrayed him.

“I don’t think Claude would like this side of you.”   

He didn’t know why he said those words, but it was a low blow.

It’s not like he knew either of them enough to make such a statement, but he was disappointed and, deep down, sensed that these words would hurt Joseph. Based on the way the hand tightened even more around his throat, his assumption wasn’t too far off. 

Joseph got even closer, to the point he was the only thing occupying his vision and mind. “Look at you, always acting so quiet and defenseless, but when you open your mouth your audacity knows no bounds. Why do you care so much about a random woman? Are you compensating for some unresolved issue?”

What? No- Caught off guard, he foolishly averted his gaze, which might as well be the same as admitting guilt. Joseph raised an eyebrow and then laughed at his hypocrisy. Two could play this game, but Aesop was not fit to win. 

“I don’t know why Eli allowed you to come to the throne room, but you are here to be my brother’s blood bag and nothing else, so don’t cross the line. Now leave.”

Aesop would be happy to oblique and get away from him but, despite the clear order, Joseph’s hand stayed on his neck, not allowing him to move. 

He swallowed hard as a shiver ran down his spine. “Jos-” 

“Don’t. Don’t talk.”

His voice was low and cut through the oppressive atmosphere. Aesop raised his head, expecting to see Joseph looking down on him. The surprise came when he realized that his eyes had traveled to his neck instead and stayed there, too enthralled to move.

‘ Don’t cross the line ’ 

Those words weren’t meant for him. The wide pupils, the uneven breath. Joseph was trying to convince himself not to bite him.

Aesop tried to move away, but the vampire lowered himself until his lips hovered over his neck. He pinned him against the wall and remained there, unmoving, unsure. Almost tasting paradise but not quite. 

“I won’t do it,” he whispered, and Aesop felt the struggle in every syllable. 

Why was he acting like this all of a sudden? Joseph had seen him bleed quite a lot in the manor, although back then his blood was poisoned, but he also stood close when Claude drank his blood.

Had he been restraining himself since that moment? If his blood was perfect for Claude, it must be the same for his brother. He said they were compatible.

The closeness made him feel claustrophobic, dizzy. “Joseph-” 

“I told you not to talk. Why is your voice so-”

He let that sentence linger, to slowly die in that hidden corridor, and Aesop started to doubt the vampire would be able to control himself. The temperature was rising, his cheeks were hot and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he push him away? Did he want to?

It was a strange and unknown feeling, to have someone fight their urges so strongly over a nobody like him. For a humiliating second, he almost felt wanted. 

Would it be that bad if he-

“Aesop, your room is ready! I have been looking everywhere for- Oh. Ohhh .”

For the second time that day, Claude found them in a compromising and highly misleading situation. 

Joseph gained distance from him incredibly fast, as if he got burned. Aesop expected him to keep it cool and say something like ‘I was just checking your medicine’ but he was nowhere close.

The guilt he had not seen in Joseph’s eyes during the whole trial appeared now. It was as clear as day that he felt ashamed, but why?

Even Claude sensed the weird atmosphere. “Do you want me to leave so you can-”

“No, of course not,” Joseph cut, regaining his smile. “I’ve been so busy I forgot to eat, and Aesop happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t worry, I will treat myself with one of the butlers while you show him his room.”

He patted Claude on the back as a friendly gesture that came off as forced, and left without another word. 

Claude looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I have never seen him this flustered, what did you do to my brother?”

Aesop touched his neck, feeling a strange tingling sensation. “I… I don’t know.”

“Do you want to come with me or wait outside?” Jack asked once they were in front of the restaurant. 

“If you aren’t buying me food I’m not moving.” Naib leaned on a streetlight. Jack was only going to grab his hat, there was no point in looking at the delicious desserts knowing that he wouldn’t get to eat them.

Jack seemed to consider something, and then nodded. “...Yes, it will be better this way.” He fixed his jacket and disappeared through the door with a strange, excited gall. 

Naib rolled his eyes and yawned. Man, he hadn’t slept in what, 48 hours? He was going to tell Jack to find him the comfiest bed in the world once he came back. 

As he waited in the street, his eyelids started closing and his mind wandered to random places. He thought about Norton, the lesbian statue, the opening credits of the second Deadpool movie, blood splashing on the restaurant’s windows….

Wait, BLOOD splashing on the restaurant’s windows?!

Screams were heard from inside the building, and several clients rushed out with terrified expressions, as if they had witnessed something worse than burned pancakes.  

“What the hell is going on?” Naib approached a scared woman.

“It’s him, that Monster. He started punishing the staff and- Ah, he really is as scary as the rumors said. My sons will have nightmares for days.”

She hurriedly left with her family along with many others, while some still lurked around, too curious and morbid to know what was transpiring inside. Naib couldn’t stand there and do nothing, so he pushed through the growing crowd and entered the restaurant with angry steps.

“Dude, you just had to get your hat!” He complained once he saw Jack and, damn, the whole place was a mess. It was giving him war flashbacks of the auction room all over again, with dead people everywhere. Judging by their uniforms, they were only staff as the woman had told him.

“I thought you were going to wait outside,” Jack casually said, sitting on a table and covered in blood. His hat was back on, and his clothes were oddly ripped in the seams, as if they had become too small for him, which made no sense as they fit him perfectly.

Under him, the waitress that served them was trembling like a poor animal. Naib had almost forgotten how crazy this motherfucker was. 

“Is this because of what happened earlier?” He asked. Jack had spilled a glass of water and she had acted a bit strange, but this was too extreme!  

“Don’t be silly, I’m not that heartless. I respect retail workers,” Jack took out the handkerchief he used to clean the woman’s hand and showed it to him. The white cloth was slightly dirty. “She thought I wouldn’t notice how her blood mark was painted on!”

The waitress cowered in fear as Jack jumped off the table and kneeled in front of her.

“You and the rest of this restaurant’s staff went to a nearby town to get your marks removed so you wouldn’t feed Penvicor’s vampires ever again, right? I had to take a short trip to get that information out of the alchemist you contacted. He is… was. Very shocked to be caught.”

Naib held his breath. So that’s the ‘business’ Jack had mentioned to Grog and the reason he was in the forest. He had also thrown the glass of water to the waitress on purpose to clean her fake mark, that’s why she had looked so scared. 

“Sadistic bastard, you didn’t have to go so far!” He shouted, positioning herself between him and the woman. “What are you, a social injustice warrior?” 

“I’m merely doing my job.”

“Sure, your job… Huh.” 

He had a job?? For some reason, he thought Jack’s job was ‘vampire’, but that wouldn’t be very efficient.

“As Joseph’s right-hand man, I’ve been punishing and instilling fear in humans who don’t follow the rules for as long as I can remember. Someone has to keep order.”

Said the most chaotic and fraudulent man Naib had ever met. The audacity! No wonder everyone was scared of him and even wrote songs. What was it? ‘Sleep, child, sleep because Jack the Vampire is going to throw a dice and eat you’?

The dice thing did not make any sense, though. The lyrics probably got distorted due to word of mouth.

“Please, forgive me, I won’t do it ever again,” The woman seemed to find her voice again, although it was hard to understand due to how shaky and frightened she was. 

“That’s not for me to decide, fate will do it for us,” said Jack, showing a gold and triangular four-sided die. “Even number and you get to live, odd and you follow your friends!” 

The woman let out a whimper and Naib’s mouth hung open. “You can’t be serious.”

Like a professional gambler, Jack opened his palm in front of him. “Come on, blow on it to influence lady luck.”

He didn’t. He stared at him as if he was completely insane, and Jack had the nerve to shrug .

“You see, the most beautiful part about my job is watching their eyes glow or tear up as the number determines whether they get to live or not. That’s when you can see how much their short, meaningless lives matter to them. A window to the soul.” 

Jack didn’t tear his gaze away from the woman as he threw the die. The triangular shape spun on the broken table, the gold shining mesmerizingly, ominously, until it stopped.

Naib held his breath.

Despite having memory issues at times due to the sheer quantity of lived experiences, Luca remembered the day they got the Philosopher’s stone minute by minute, as if it happened yesterday.

How could he forget the best day of his life?

-In the morning, came the initial shock and happiness upon finding said miracle on their desk. He excitedly started discussing all the new possibilities, until Alva sheepishly suggested they rest due to the hangover. 

-He didn’t wake up until 4pm. Energetic as ever, he decided to go buy ingredients for a celebratory cake (this time without getting murdered in the process, thanks) The weather outside was sunny, perfect. People must have thought he was an idiot because he did little skips while walking, too joyful to pretend to be a ‘proper’ gentleman.

-At 7pm the dining table was ready with a delicious cake, more food and, of course, fresh blood in their best crockery. Alva woke up then, looking crusty as hell. Luca remembered laughing, the man couldn’t handle hangovers.

-After the party, they spent the night on the roof, glancing at the clear sky and shining stars, talking about their future like old friends until the warm sunrise.  

Looking back at it, besides the grand discovery in the morning, the rest of the day had not been that groundbreaking. They didn’t get a round of applause, nor had newspapers articles written about them. It was almost like an ordinary Monday, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now, things were a bit different. 

Alva had gone to rest in his room like in the last timeline, but he couldn’t afford the same luxury. His left eye was black, cursed. If he left it like that, Alva would ask questions when he woke up.

In other words, he had until 7pm to find a way to fix this mess.

He was currently workshopping an eyepatch in the lab -maybe he could make it pass as a pirate phase, Alva wouldn’t understand his advanced sense of fashion and just let him be- as he considered his next actions:

Now that the Philosopher’s Stone was safe, they just had to catch the thief, which was going to be relatively easy. Their group had planned every possible outcome, from plan A to Y.

The first and most important rule was not to change the past more than necessary. It would be easy to close the castle’s library so no one would get in but, if they did that, they would never catch the thief, and who knew if he or she would try to steal the Tome again in the future? 

No, they had to let the crime happen so they could apprehend the person and get rid of them right then and there. Because of that, they had to follow the last timeline as closely as possible.

Besides that, Luca also had an important mission.

The Tome could only be read by a chosen one. If that was the case, how did the thief know that they would be able to make a wish once they got it? That was a huge, unanswered enigma. Maybe he or she went to a medium who told them they possessed such power?

“I will have to search for spiritualist shops and see if I can get any clue,” he thought out loud.

“I could help you with that,” a voice said behind him, making him jump from the chair. 

Thank god it wasn’t Alva -he reminded himself that it couldn’t be, it was too early- but then who was it? He was completely alone in the laboratory, except for a butterfly that, looking at it closer, was made of paper.

“It’s me,” the butterfly said with Fiona’s voice.

Maybe the hangover was taking a toll on his mind.

“Don’t look so surprised! Eli told me to hide in the castle’s library and arrest anyone who tries to steal the fake Tome, and since there isn’t much to do here until that happens, I read an asian alchemy book and-”

“You turned into a butterfly?”

“No, bitch, I found a trick to communicate with the exterior. It’s like a drone-phone but without apps.”

Oh, woah. “How are you doing there?”

“Bored, accepting my new life as a security camera.”

“It was going to be Eli’s job, but since you came with us…” 

Fiona sighed. “I bet I’m being punished for letting number three escape through that chimney, but don’t worry, I will make sure I catch the suspect! More importantly, how are you doing?”

Luca wondered if Fiona was genuinely curious or just needed entertainment. Staying hidden  and on the lookout for hours must be dull for someone like her (insane). Luckily, vampires didn’t have human needs, so she could survive there for days, but mentally speaking it was another story. 

“I’m fine. Alva is also doing okay. You know, same as always. It’s… It’s great, honestly,” he smiled fondly.

He could tell Fiona was grinning on the other side. “And the Philosopher’s Stone?”

“Ah, it’s safe as well.”

“Luca, not everyone gets a second chance as drastic as this one, so make it count where it matters,” she said, unusually nice, almost like an older sister. “And going back to what I wanted to say before my butterfly disintegrates -because I bullshitted this trick- I know several places that offer legit tarot and fate readings. I will give you a list so note it down.” 

Luca grabbed a pen and started writing. He had always considered Fiona’s passion towards the occult a baseless delusion, he never imagined that her hobby would end up being useful in a moment like this. 

Once the list was complete (She put a lot of emphasis on a shop called ‘Dream Witch’ so he circled it several times) the butterfly started to descend. 

“One more thing, Fio,” Luca quickly added, feeling his eye sting. “Can you see me?”

“I can only hear your voice. Why?”

“...It’s nothing.” 

She wanted to say more, but time was up and the butterfly lifelessly fell on the floor. Luca picked it up and placed it on the window still.

He felt a bit embarrassed, first Alva, and now Fiona were calling him out for not appearing as interested in the stone as he should be, but he was! He just had too many things on his mind, how could he think about that when his eye got possessed-

Wait. Hold up. That was it!

He grabbed the stone with a piece of cloth, as if it was a newborn baby he had to protect with his life, and smacked it on his eye. The stone could literally revive someone, so curing an eye should be no problem, how dumb of him not to consider that option.

He held it against his face for several seconds, as if it was an ice pack for pain. 

“What are you doing?” uttered another voice behind him, making him jump for the second time.

Alva?! How the hell- It was only 5pm!  “W-Why are you awake?”

His coworker wasn’t supposed to get out of bed until two hours later, why was it different this time? Did his chat with Fiona wake him up? But that was impossible, they had been very quiet, and last time he was much louder while making the cake.

Alva tilted his head, confused. “I feel rested enough. What are you doing with the stone?” 

He walked towards him, grabbed his face and tilted it up as if he was a doctor. He stared at his bad eye profusely. 

Luca didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Shit. He got caught. How was he going to explain that he got the vampire curse for being a terrible person, how-

“Does your eye hurt? I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Alva said instead, unaware, checking the skin surrounding the area with his thumb.

Did… Did the Stone work? His eye got healed that fast?

“It was itchy, I wanted it to stop,” he lied, not giving away his surprise.

Alva studied him for a few seconds. He took a step back and grabbed the stone from his hand. “Don’t be reckless. We don’t know if it’s safe yet, you could have hurt yourself. Alchemy is dangerous if you are not careful.”

Luca felt a pang of remorse. He knew that very well.

“I’m sorry.” For everything. 

“The prideful Luca Balsa apologizing? What’s gotten into you today?” Joked Alva, putting the stone back on the desk and taking notice of the list. “Dream Witch’s shop? I thought you hated those sorts of places. What are you planning?” 

“She- She has something that I really want.” 

“And that is?”

Damn. Why was Alva so perceptive? “A tarot reading for- for my love life!”

Alva remained silent for a torturous amount of time and then made a disgusted face. “What.” 

“Don’t judge me! I know it’s stupid and goes against science, but as a 400 year old single vampire, I’m worried and curious about my future partner!” 

Goodbye world. No way his coworker would believe this in any capacity.

The reaction was a tired groan. “I thought I was bad with hangovers, but I think you are much more affected. You are only 200, for starters, too young to think about such mundane things.”

Mundane? “Have you ever been married, Alva?”

The man almost chocked at the personal question. They had never talked about that. “Of course I have, in the past, and I learnt that feelings only bring trouble and pain in the long run, that’s why we should focus on our work.”

It was a simple comment but, in that moment, Luca saw the extent of how much Alva had changed in the future. From someone who avoided getting attached, who only cared about his personal projects and scowled at the idea of unnecessary emotions, to sacrificing himself for an ungrateful brat like him. He had been right in the end, feelings only brought pain.

Alva noticed the sudden gloom in his eyes and cleared his throat. “But… if you are that curious about your love life, we can go to that shop tomorrow together. You need your mind clear of worries to be able to focus on our projects.”

“That. That would be nice, yeah, we can do that,” Luca swallowed, regaining his composure. “Where are you going now?”

“I promised we would celebrate our discovery, didn't I? I will go to the market and buy ingredients before the weather gets worse. You can prepare the table meanwhile.”

Once the door softly closed behind him, Luca’s legs gave up and he fell on the floor. That had been close. Why was he acting so carelessly? He just had this one chance, he couldn't’ mess up.

His only victory was that the stone had cured his eye, at least for a few minutes. He could already feel the weird itchiness return. He stood up with shaky legs and faced the window, observing sourly on the reflection how the darkness slowly overtook his iris again.

He would have to find a permanent solution at some point before Alva inevitably found out.

But wait, did Alva say ‘Before the weather gets worse’ ?

He looked at the sky and gasped. Big clouds were painting the horizon with several shades of gray. The atmosphere was cold and heavy, the clear promise of a storm.

He was pretty sure that it didn’t rain the last time. 

The paper butterfly that lay on the windowsill suddenly fell, its wings flapping delicately, giving the effect of a real one.

Jack and Naib spent the rest of the afternoon at a law enforcement building. Jack ‘diligently’ reported everything that happened in the restaurant to the officers, who were also vampires, while Naib was forced to sit next to him and wait until all the bureaucracy was processed.

He disassociated the entire time, his bad mood preventing him from paying any attention. 

When they were finally done and back on the streets, a water drop hit the top of his head, then another and another until it became a downpour. In the distance, Joseph’s castle was surrounded by mist. They would get hit by the storm on their way there, so Jack suggested they spend the night at a nearby hotel instead. 

“Aren’t you going to complain about the rain?” Jack asked as they walked in a fast pace, trying not to get soaked. “I expected you to say something like ‘Damn this day can’t get worse’ or ‘Fuck, my precious new-new shoes!’” His impression was truly terrible. " You have been very quiet, it doesn’t suit you.”

Naib ignored him and kept walking. “I’m tired, and I don’t curse in every sentence, asshole.” 

The only good thing about the rain was that it washed away some of the blood in Jack’s clothes, but it wasn’t enough to stop the woman at the hotel’s reception from raising a concerned eyebrow at them. Thankfully, she gave them the room key without commenting on it.

Naib wondered if the citizens of Penvicor were used to seeing lots of blood in their daily life.

The room wasn’t big enough in his opinion but, to be honest, he would need it to be football field-sized to feel comfortable, considering the person he had to share it with. For a random hotel, the quality was decent at least, it had a nice bed, a bathroom, and a few other pieces of furniture and decorations.

Wait. One bed?

“...Why is there only one bed?”

He didn’t want to speak with Jack, he was angry and promised himself to end the day without uttering a single word to him. Of course, that couldn't be possible if there was only one.goddamned.bed. 

Several images crossed his mind, one worse than the last. This couldn’t be. His life couldn’t be a bad movie trope after another, except this genre was horror, crime, psychological thriller, eastern european gay porn-

“The bed is for you. I much prefer the coffin right there,” Jack interrupted his spiraling thoughts, pointing at a rectangular coffin next to the bed which he confused for a table.

Ah… Oh.

The vampire chuckled and started undressing, starting with the wet hat and jacket. “You can take a bath first, there should be a change of clothes in there. They also have a laundry service.”

Good, because the bottom of his pants got heavily stained with mud. The problem with 1822 was that, despite the city being beautiful, it still dealt with the filthiness expected of that time period, mostly because of the horse dung on the streets. 

He expected to freeze while bathing, since hot water heating systems were not a thing yet, but surprisingly the water came out warm and he almost cried of joy. Some vampire or human must have come up with this invention earlier in this timeline. It was confusing but very appreciated.

It wasn’t until he was clean, dressed in cozy clothes, and ready to lose consciousness for a few hours in bed, that a metaphorical bucket of cold water was thrown at him.

“Don’t fall asleep yet, I have to chain you to the bed.” Were Jack’s freezing words.

“Excuse me?” BONDAGE?! 

“It would be extremely dumb of you to escape knowing that you need my antidote in the morning. Regretfully, I can see you doing just that, so for my peace of mind I will have to chain you. I’m not being a pervert.”

Naib covered himself with the blanket, like a horrified maid. “Then why are the handcuffs red with leopard print!?”

An uncomfortable silence followed.

“Ok. Technically I got them at a kink shop,” Jack admitted, shameless. “But it’s because they come with padded insides so they won’t hurt your wrist while you sleep. Am I not nice and thoughtful?”

“Bullshit, you are bad and a liar.”

Jack rolled his eyes, ignored his protests, kicks and punches, and chained his left hand to the bedpost. Shit, he was right, the cuffs were fluffy and pleasant to the touch. “There you go! Are you scared of sleeping in the same room as me? Don’t worry, you are not my type.”

“Pff as if I care!” He yelled, face red and not offended. Not at all. 

He pitied whoever was unfortunate enough to be Jack’s type. What kind of person would the vampire even fancy? A fragile and shy lady so he could torture her more easily? Or a narcissistic and sadistic man so they had lots of things in common?

“What's your type?” 

He genuinely didn’t care, he was just a bit curious.

Jack winked. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.”

…That was it. He pulled the blanket over his body, turned off the nightstand’s light and rolled on the bed so his back was facing Jack. He wasn’t speaking to him for the rest of the day.

He heard a low, amused hum and the soft clink of a door closing, likely the bathroom one. He released a deep breath and stared tiredly at the dark blue wallpaper in front of him. Now that there was silence, he thought everything would be slightly better but, instead, a feeling of uneasiness suffocated him.

What was he really doing here, so far away from home?

The sensation of dread reminded him of when he was a kid and had to move from Nepal to the US. The first night in his new home had been depressing. Everything was different, he missed his friends, his old room and the quietness of the night. Here, the noise of sirens and drunks kept waking him up in a state of disconcert.

He had matured a lot since that night, but despite all the years that passed, sometimes he still felt the same. With a heavy heart, he closed his eyes. 

It wasn’t until a few hours later, when the rain and wind hit the windows relentlessly and the rumble of thunder kept roaring in the distance, that he woke up. The room was completely dark and he was surprised to discover that he hadn’t been bitten while he was asleep. 

He rolled over as much as the handcuff allowed him. The coffin on his right was open, but he couldn’t see if Jack was inside. 

He glared at it for a while, hesitant. He was exhausted, but there was a question that was plaguing his mind. He doubted he would fall asleep again unless Jack told him what he wanted to know. 

“Did you know the die would fall on three?” He whispered, not really waiting for a reply.

Jack’s voice came low and clear from inside the coffin, making him wonder if he had been awake this whole time. “I didn’t. It fell on two the last time, in the old timeline.”

“Is that why you spared her?”

“Of course not,” The vampire laughed softly. “I thought you would get mad at me if I killed her in front of you, but you got angry anyway.”

“Other people’s lives are not a game.”

“Everything is a game if you want it to be. For example, right now we are playing ‘Among Us’”.

Naib groaned. It was impossible to speak seriously with him, it was like talking to a wall, but that reminded him of something. “Who do you think stole the Tome?” 

They had been interrupted the last time, so he never learned anything about the person Jack distrusted.

“My main suspect has green eyes.”

Well, that didn’t say a lot. “Is it a man or a woman?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nonbinary?”

“No idea.”

“What about their age?”

“A mystery.”

Naib gave his best ‘Are you messing with me?’ face to the world, which Jack couldn’t even see. “...Do you have a single clue of who it is besides the green eyes?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Jack’s voice was nonchalant. “You see, there’s no one who has punished more humans than I have. That’s my job, so if someone despises us enough to exterminate our kind, I most likely have crossed paths with them at some point. The problem is, it’s impossible for me to remember that many faces.”

“But you remember the eye color?”

“I enjoy looking at the desperation in their gazes, and there is one pair of green eyes I can’t seem to forget. I don’t remember when it happened, nor their face, gender or age, just their eyes. Someone once looked at me with so much hatred that it gave me chills , it was the first time I felt like that.”

Jack sat up and looked at him with a hand resting on his cheek. The room was too dark to make out his expression, but Naib could tell he was smiling. 

“If someone stole the tome and made that wish, it has to be that person,” he concluded, meaningfully.

Naib stared at the ceiling and tried to digest the new information. If what Jack was saying was true, that meant there was no real suspect, just a green-eyed hater in a city of over 800.000 people. 

Not even the infamous London’s Ripper would be that impossible to catch. 

“There’s no real proof, just your intuition,” he determined.

“When you have lived for as long as I have, intuition is all you need. It has to be that person.”

Jack looked so convinced that Naib almost believed him. “Unless you plan to make a casting call with suspiciously specific physical attributes, how do you plan to find this person?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said in a tone that made him worry. “I have something fun in mind.”

“...”

“Aren’t you going to ask what it is?”

“I think I will go back to sleep.”

Jack let out a breathy laugh and nodded, lying down in his coffin again. Naib closed his eyes. The storm was right on top of them, if the loud thunders were anything to go by. Now that he knew the person they were looking for could be anybody, he would be able to sleep more peacefully. 

“Brave and with a good heart.”

Huh? “What do you mean?” Naib asked, confused.

“I was replying to your question.”

He hadn’t asked anything, though? Jack must be more tired than he let on. They both should sleep, tomorrow would surely be A Day. 

Chapter Text

Blood tasted sour in Naib’s mouth.

Why was his mouth filled with it? And why were people screaming around him? Wait, not screaming, they were cheering . Who in their right mind would cheer at someone being hurt? Deranged psychopaths for sure.

Above the flashes, cries and howls, someone was counting close to his ear. “Six, seven…”

Naib groaned. His knee hurt as if it had been run over by a truck, and his face was doing no better. He had been beaten up pretty badly, but that was to be expected when his opponent was considered one of the best boxers in the world.

His opponent…? Ah, that’s what he was doing!

Before the referee could keep counting, Naib fiercely opened his green eyes and stood up by supporting himself on the ring’s ropes. He heard gasps of shock. No one expected him to regain consciousness after such a knockdown.

Well, that was too bad because he wasn’t done. 

Someone once said ‘Get your head in the game’ . Naib didn’t remember who it was due to his incipient concussion, but it must be an important philosopher. 

And so, he bit down on his mouth guard, raised his fists and fought.

One more round, and it was over.

His opponent was known as Mr. MonStar, a ruthless killer whose fighting style was aggressive, accurate, and full of sharp combinations that bludgeoned his opponents into submission.

Despite all odds and bets, Naib won against that killing machine. At the end of the sixth round, he caught MonStar in the chin and blasted him on the body, causing an immediate knockout that stunned everyone into silence, and then a thunderous applause.

And thus, a new boxing star was born, a 25 year-old prodigy.

Naib’s smile couldn’t be wider when he raised the golden belt trophy for everyone to see. He couldn’t hear his own heartbeat over the clamor and, in that moment of euphoria, he realized that he made it. He did not only win this match, he won in life, and at such a young age no less!

“What made you stand up after that hit? Anyone else would have passed out!” The reporters asked, impressed.

“I told myself that I couldn’t lose against someone called MonStar,” he joked, making the press laugh.

(Truth is, he had just paid off his family debts and bought a house for his mother. He had to win or he would go broke, but they didn’t need to know that.)

An amazing, intoxicating feeling accompanied him during the ceremony. He took selfies with fans, signed their sweaty, tattooed bodies and made a little victory dance with his trainer in the locker room. There were lots of people waiting for him at the entrance, and he was supposed to attend an afterparty, but… 

His knee hurt a lot. 

He shouldn’t have done that cartwheel and backflip after winning.

He didn’t want to look weak in his proudest moment, that’s why he made the smart choice of leaving the building secretly through the backdoor. 

The alleyways of New York were dark and cold in December, but the fresh air was not unwelcomed. He planned to take a cab and get home as soon as possible so he could pass out for the next few hours. He sent a message to his trainer and hundreds of notifications popped up, all congratulating him.

He smiled dumbly, happily, as he thought about the best place to put the trophy (On his desk, next to the Sherlock special edition mug, perhaps?) but when he looked up, he stopped in his tracks.

A few steps in front of him, under a blinking, lonely streetlight, a young woman was being mugged at knifepoint.

Naib felt sorry. Not for the girl but for the robber, because he wouldn’t be able to open his eyes once he was done with him. How unlucky, to steal from a girl in front of the best boxer of New York! He cracked his knuckles and gathered momentum. 

“Get away from her, shithead!” He shouted as he jumped and threw a clean strike on his ribs, making the man fall on the ground like a plastic doll.

The girl yelped and covered her mouth, too surprised to speak. Naib grabbed her hand and smiled. He planned to take her to the main street before the man recovered, but when they tried to leave, several other men cut their route and surrounded them. 

His cocky smile slowly fell once he realized that this wasn’t a simple one-on-one robbery. This had to be one of those organized gangs he had heard about, where one guy worked as bait and the rest waited in the shadows until a samaritan fell for the trick. 

There were five of them. His body tensed and his heartbeat sped up. With a reassuring voice so the girl wouldn’t get more scared, he put himself in front of her, letting her know that he wouldn’t abandon her. 

Whatever happened next, he would protect her. “Stay behind me, you will be alrigh-” 

He couldn’t finish. A sudden sharp pain made him see red and drove all the air out of his lungs. It felt as if he had been stabbed in the back, but that was impossible because behind him there only was…

‘Ah,’ Naib thought as he dropped on the ground. ‘Six. She is one of them too’.

These gangs were getting creative, and to think there was more than one bait. 

His head hit the cold pavement, and the rest- he would rather forget. They took everything; his wallet, his phone, his trophy. He screamed, tried to reach out toward the golden belt to get it back, and that’s when the kicking started. In the arms, ribs, head, knee .

Too much pain flooded his senses. He should have died that day.

He had no idea why he didn’t. Some angel must have brought him to the hospital, but he couldn’t remember anything. 

After that, he never fully recovered. He used all of his money to pay for the medical bills, but his knee was too damaged and would need more operations. He didn’t tell anyone what happened either because it felt too humiliating to be wrecked by some street criminals after defeating one of the best boxers in the world. 

Whenever anyone asked why he quit boxing so abruptly, he would say MonStar injured his knee and that he got into crypto.

(He didn’t like crypto, but mentioning it usually made cool people stop asking questions. Except Campbell, but that’s because he was lame.)

More often than not, he would have nightmares about that night. It always started with the girl laughing at him for being so naive, then his body would get ripped into pieces, until the pain was so unbearable he woke up in a sweat, stared at his desk -at the empty spot next to the Sherlock mug- and wept.

The dream never went further than that, until today.

He was exceptionally tired, so that might explain why. After the usual beating, instead of waking up, Naib felt his body being carried. There were no images, no faces, only a white background (the hospital?) and someone holding his hand, telling him….

“Gay gay homosexual gay.”

“WHA-” He opened his eyes. The white room and silhouette faded into a blue ceiling and Jack’s shit-eating grin. 

“Finally, I was running out of words to wake you up. Should I change your name to Mr. Sunshine?” 

Naib pushed him aside and sat up, disconcerted, trying to chase the dream but failing to recall what he just saw, being left with the uncomfortable feeling that he forgot something important.

He shivered with cold and looked at the window. It was closed, but there were some drops of water that had not dried on the carpet. Did Jack open it during the stormy night? 

“Not an early bird, are you?“ The culprit who tested his morals said, freeing his chained hand from the bed. “Drink the antidote before you die on me and wash your face. We have many evil, scheming and depraved things to do today.” 

“Do these depraved activities come with a coffee first?” He grumbled.

Jack smiled as someone knocked on the door. “Better: Breakfast in bed!”

Naib forgot about his dream and gasped, finally some fucking food. 

Except the breakfast ended up being another traumatizing experience, because he had to eat scrambled eggs and bacon (in bed, very good) while Jack got to drink the hotel employee’s blood (in the same bed, very bad) since apparently a whole human came included with the deluxe service.   

“You made me feel very uncomfortable back there, next time don’t look at me while I eat,” Jack shyly said.

“I SHOULD BE THE ONE SAYING THAT!” 

Naib almost burst a blood vessel. They were in the carriage on their way to the castle now that the rain had stopped. The uneven road and puddles made the journey less than desirable, but he had to admit he was curious about their destination. He had never been in a castle. 

He would also get to see Aesop, his goth comrade, the prince to his pauper, the introvert to his extrovert, the weird smart guy who would definitely help him plan something to get out of there.

The only problem was that Jack said the Tome’s culprit would likely be in the castle that day. With concern, Naib had asked him why he thought that, but the vampire kept quiet and said that he would tell him when they got there.

“You talk so much, but when it matters you shut up like a bitch,” Naib bitterly complained, crossing his arms.

“Says the pot to the kettle. For your information, you talk in your sleep,” Jack teased. “I thought you were calling me a monster so I woke up with my feelings terribly, fatally hurt, but when I checked on you, I realized you were passed out, drooling even!”

Naib flushed. Fuck, he dreamed about that day , so he was probably calling Mr. MonStar’s name. “I-I didn’t say anything else, right?”

“Wrong! You said super embarrassing stuff! Now I am burdened with your darkest secrets.” At Naib’s horrified expression, Jack broke into a laugh. “I’m joking. But you were complaining a lot. Does your knee hurt?”

Ah. So he gave away more than necessary. Great. “It’s nothing, it gets like this when the weather is bad.”

Jack stared at the morning fog outside of the window. “Have you ever fantasized about going to the past to fix your ‘mistake’?”

“My knee getting fucked wasn’t my fault. My boxing opponent was a brute who didn’t control his strength.”

Of course, that was a lie. 

He had fantasized about going back to that night a million times. If he had not done that arrogant backflip and hurt his knee. If he had attended the afterparty like he was expected to. If he had not slipped away through a clearly dangerous alley. If, if, if…

He ruined his perfect, hard-earned life due to a stupid choice made in the heat of the moment. After two years he still couldn’t bear to admit it to anyone, to say out loud that everything was his fault. 

He kept telling himself that if he could repeat that day, he wouldn’t endanger himself again over a stranger. 

Jack hummed, his expression not giving away his thoughts. “It’s good that you don’t blame yourself. Remorse is a very strong feeling. If Claude and Alva had died a natural death, do you think Joseph or Luca would have done all of this to bring them back?”

“Yeah?” They were doing it out of love for the people they lost.

“I don’t think so,” Jack disagreed. “I won’t deny affection is a strong driving force, but guilt is what truly pushes them. They are stuck, unable to move on due to their regrets. It’s like a paradox: Sometimes, to go forward you need to go back.”

Naib blinked several times. Even if it was frustrating, Jack had a point. His life had also been on standby since that night. He hadn’t allowed himself to progress until he fixed his knee, until he amended his mistake. 

“Is this why you agreed to help them? Do you also regret something?” he asked, intrigued.

Jack smiled, nonchalant, carefree. “I have zero regrets in my life.” 

A thousand year old Vampire without anything to feel guilty about? Even someone like Jack had to have feelings . “Liar.”

“Ah, but so are you.”

Naib's heart skipped a beat. Once again, he wondered how much Jack knew about what happened to him. It was impossible he spilled everything in his sleep, right? 

Back at the manor, Jack told him that he knew about his knee injury because of Norton.

But he had also lied to Campbell. 

Then, why was he calling him a liar? How did Jack know…?

He raised his head and noticed that Jack was studying him with quiet anticipation, as if he was waiting for something to happen, and a strange sensation of déjà vu -the same one he felt when he woke up- embraced him, leaving him breathless.

‘Have we ever met before?’

Naib almost said that out of nowhere, but managed to keep quiet. Gosh, that would have been a stupid thing to ask. 

There was only one bed.

And it was exclusively for himself! Aesop happily thought before going to sleep that night, covered in fur blankets and protected from the rainstorm outside. 

But if that really was the case… Then why did he have to wake up next to- to-?! 

Aesop clenched his teeth as he recalled what happened a few hours ago.

He was sleeping soundly, like a millionaire couple's baby -yes, the bed was that soft- recovering his energy after the intense interactions he had to go through during the day, when a cracking sound woke him up.

It was dark, the only source of light coming from the chimney, but there was no doubt: Someone was standing menacingly at the door frame. He froze. The dark silhouette looked like- 

Instinctively, he covered his neck. Why was Joseph visiting him this late? Was he serious when he threatened to punish him? Did he plan to continue what he started in that lonely corridor?

With trepidation, he grabbed the closest thing he had nearby, which was a vase of yellow roses, and stood up on the bed, ready to fight for his honor, except he didn’t have to do any of that when the silhouette stepped into the light and was no one other than Claude. 

“Aesop, I’m sorry,” Claude’s pale lips said, forming an agonizing smile. “I didn’t want to worry Joseph.”

And then he started to throw up.

Aesop blinked several times, utterly confused. He felt like a mother whose sick son came to her room to vomit on her carpet. Though in this case the son was a vampire, and instead of porridge, whatever was coming out of Claude’s body was extremely messed up. 

For a second, he wondered if he had been poisoned, but the vampire didn’t seem that perturbed nor worried. He looked clearly uncomfortable but also resigned, as if he was very, very used to this happening to him.

So this was the strange illness Joseph talked about. 

The puke wasn’t like anything he had seen before, not in his job nor on TV. It was unnatural, perturbing. 

“Use this.” Snapping out of his initial shock, he jumped off the bed, threw the roses and crouched next to Claude, offering the vase while peeking on the liquid on the floor. It was viscous and greedy, almost like black oil.

“I’m sorry you have to see this,” Claude heaved, weak and ashamed. His mouth was dark, a big contrast with his skin, so pale that Aesop could perfectly see his veins.

“It’s fine, I work with corpses, I’ve seen worse,” he said, deadpan, and then proceeded to explain with full detail some examples of REALLY gross stuff he had to do as an embalmer.

He thought he was being reassuring, but his tale about sewing assholes made Claude throw up even more.

“EURGH”

Aesop panicked, so instead he told Claude something a bit more meaningful, like the plot of Requiem for a Dream.

“URGHHHH”

He threw up even more! Holy hell, he was going to get Claude killed. Joseph was going to murder him! 

Like an oil spill shipwreck, Claude wouldn’t stop puking, to the point Aesop got genuinely concerned for his life. He was about to ask for help when something even more unusual happened. 

He knew it wasn’t normal because Claude looked as bewildered as him. The vampire had been sick and suffering these symptoms for hundreds of years, what could make him react with such shock?

The answer came when a small tentacle or worm (WORM?!) came out of his mouth.

It was so repulsive, bizarre and random that, without thinking about it twice, Aesop smashed it dead with his hand. He shuddered at the slimy texture and let out a pathetic whimper that sounded close to ‘ew’. What was that thing?! It looked like it came from space, or worse, Australia.

Right after the worm was eliminated, the puking stopped like clockwork, leaving the both of them at a loss of words. Claude cleaned his mouth with a tremulous hand and stared at him wide-eyed, aghast, as if he had killed the monster under his bed and not just a weird insect.  

When Joseph arrived, disheveled and unable to hide his worry, the spectacle was already over. 

“Eli told me he saw Claude going into your room. What happened?” 

Aesop raised his head tiredly and glanced at him while Claude, unaware, drank blood from his arm. They must look like a mess, sitting on the floor surrounded by black liquid, yellow roses and a smashed worm.

Claude was very weak after losing that much liquid so, despite his reservations and rationality, Aesop offered to feed him by his own volition. He knew he shouldn’t. He didn’t owe him anything. On the contrary, he should refuse to help Claude as a way to protest against Joseph and the situation he put him in.

Stupidly enough, he couldn’t. Claude had been nothing but kind to him.

Even more, why should he care if a vampire feed from him? Joseph was going to kill him anyway. Considering the extreme and unusual way Claude threw up, it was obvious that his blood wasn’t the miracle Joseph had expected. He wasn’t the cure Claude desperately needed.

He got scammed and brought to the past for nothing.

That realization made his insides churn and his eyes involuntarily water, out of desperation or unfairness, he didn’t know. Joseph crouched next to them and Aesop was unable to look him in the eyes. 

“You…” He saw Joseph’s hand move towards him and flinched, scared now that his usefulness had expired. Joseph’s hand wavered for a second, unusually hesitant, and was withdrawn and placed on Claude’s shoulder instead.

“Brother, stop, Aesop looks unwell.”

Did he? Before he could assess how well -or bad, mostly bad- he was feeling, the room started getting darker. He turned his head towards the chimney, thinking that the fire was dying down, but it looked the same. Ah, so it was him.

He woke up much later on his bed, except ‘his’ had now become ‘theirs’. 

For some forsaken reason, Claude was sleeping soundly behind him, thin arms holding his waist softly, while Joseph sat in front of him on a small sofa he had moved next to the bed. 

Aesop smelled wood and lavender, they must have cleaned the putrid goo on the floor while he was unconscious. 

“Are you hungry? Do you want water?” Joseph whispered, so gently it gave him whiplash.

“I’m fine.” 

“The scent of your blood calms my brother, so I asked him to rest next to you. He will regain his strength faster like this,” the vampire quickly explained. Then, more carefully, added: “He told me what happened.”

Aesop’s heart dropped. Trapped by Claude’s embrace and unable to move, he had no choice but to face Joseph and whatever judgment he inflicted upon him. It was over, he was going to get his head cut or thrown to prison.

“Thank you.”

Then they would take his nails one by o- wait. Thank you?

Joseph’s smile was elated, shaky. His blue eyes hid a sea of emotions. “It worked. Claude’s body finally started rejecting the parasite that has been making him sick, you are curing him.”

His breath hitched. He actually helped Claude? 

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t you ask a doctor?”

A chuckle escaped from Joseph’s lips. “I’ve been trying to cure my brother for a thousand years. If anyone is qualified to judge the success of the treatment, it’s me. Plus, I’ve had time to study every discipline, from fine arts to medicine, so I’m better than any doctor.”

And more humble too, Aesop didn’t say.

“W-What was that thing, though?” he asked, remembering the worm he smashed into oblivion.

“It’s a parasite that feeds from my brother,” Joseph’s expression darkened. “Any blood he drinks gets consumed by that leech instead, leaving him chronically sick and nauseous. As a vampire, he can’t die, but he has been living on the brink of death for too long.”

A perpetual condemnation. Just imagining it made Aesop shiver. “But now it’s out of his body, so it’s over, right?”

A sigh. “There could be more than one. It’s a rare disease, all I know is that your blood is forcing them to abandon Claude’s system. I would like you to keep feeding him until I’m sure he is free from this nightmare.”

He made it sound like a petition, but Aesop knew Joseph wouldn’t accept a ‘no’ for an answer and… Well, as long as he didn’t die of blood loss, it was fine. Claude had suffered a lot, he deserved to live without pain. 

As an embalmer, he had always helped people who were already dead. The idea of saving someone who was alive…

Ah! But he still didn’t want the vampires to win, he had to find a way to make sure the real Tome got stolen and the thief wished for them to disappear. He wasn’t giving up his future, even if it wasn’t ideal in any capacity. 

If he remembered well, the ‘Last war’ started with Claude being sacrificed by the human masses. Because of that, vampires and humans fought mercilessly for three days until someone made a wish and most vampires in the world disappeared.

Now Joseph was going to make sure this war didn’t happen again, but that's alright, Claude surviving had to be unrelated to the Tome’s wish, since his death happened three days before the purple light shot up in the sky.

Unless he had been the first tome’s victim…? But Aesop doubted it. The fact he died despite being immortal was strange, but not impossible. He was an uncommon vampire to begin with, his sickness likely took a toll on him.  

He had other questions, too. Why was his blood specifically this parasite’s Kryptonite? His health was extremely average, no unusual genes or anything. Was it because of the compatibility Joseph talked about? He still didn’t know how that worked.

And there was something that intrigued him more.

“How did Claude catch the disease?”

Joseph didn’t answer immediately. His breath came to a halt and looked behind him, as if he was making sure his brother wouldn’t hear his next words. “It was my fault.”

He didn’t elaborate and Aesop didn’t insist. They weren’t close, he had no right to demand such private and touchy information.

(But also, he may or may not plan to ask Claude about it later anyway.)

“You know…” He started ominously, getting Joseph’s full attention. “For someone who studied all disciplines, you struggle with math.”

He thought changing the topic to something lighter would be better and he was right for once. Joseph’s snort almost woke up Claude. He shook his head, amused, and with a naughty smile he climbed on his side of the bed, lied down and left him sandwiched between him and Claude.

Aesop felt his remaining blood rush to his cheeks. “W-What are you doing?” 

“Punishing you. You struggle with proximity, don’t you? I bet you have never shared a bed with anyone, lonely embalmer.”

Aesop gaped. This- This man had no shame! His heart fluttered unreasonably, apprehensively, in his chest. 

Who did Joseph think he was?! 

“And you struggle with my blood, so don’t get close.” He retorted with sudden fervor.

“I can control myself,” Joseph assured, getting more comfortable next to him to prove a point. His smile was smug, light, as if the burdens of the world had been lifted once he learned Claude had a chance to heal. 

Aesop thought he only said that because he drank a lot of blood from his servants before coming here; it didn’t escape him how his arm had been bandaged with several extra layers this time. 

Joseph grinned at his pout and released a deep breath. “I am aware you changed the topic on purpose. You also helped Claude on your own, even though I insulted and almost bit you a few hours ago. You are too kind.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It can be troublesome, too.” 

What did he mean by that? Joseph had a really odd temper. He could go from charming, to impatient, to happy and thoughtful very fast, it was hard to keep up with him. 

“I will help Claude, but I want to ask you a favor,” he dared to request.

“It depends.” 

“Help the sick mother, she doesn’t deserve to die.”

A slight irritation was back on Joseph’s striking features. He closed his eyes, as if to say the conversation was over. Aesop’s shoulders dropped and his lips pressed tight out of disappointment, but after a few proud seconds, the vampire spoke without opening his eyes: 

“Alright. Now sleep.”

His reply was so unexpected that Aesop stared at him with big eyes. He quickly nodded and closed his eyes obediently, chasing the small victory.

Behind him, Claude grinned too.

The three of them stayed there, in peaceful silence, until dawn broke.

Luca was acting strange, Alva noticed.

Not strange as in he fused himself with an insect (that was normal, unfortunately) but as in ‘Who are you and what have you done to Luca Balsa’ strange.

It was a miracle in itself that he noticed, as he reserved his attention to science and not human or vampire behavior. He wasn’t good with emotions, but he was good with patterns. The way Luca acted might look eccentric or arbitrary to unknown eyes, but there was always a predictability in that unpredictability.

The reaction he had when he saw the Philosopher’s stone broke that pattern. 

Alva expected him to jump and obsess over it like the dork he was, but he had been so… Pensive? Bittersweet?

It left him disconcerted, and that was hard to achieve.

His head hurt from all the alcohol they ingested so he planned to sleep until night, but that was for naught. His rest kept getting interrupted because he couldn’t help but wonder why Luca didn’t look as excited as he imagined. 

It was as if he landed on the moon and, instead of gazing at the Earth, he decided that his belly button was more interesting.

If the creation of the stone was the biggest mystery of the universe, Luca acting like that was equally if not even more puzzling. 

Then there was that other thing. The thing Luca said about suddenly wanting to find a soulmate. A lover. Out of the blue. In the peak of their career. Seriously. What was that?

His lifelong work partner leaving him to start a family would be upsetting to say the least, and not the first time it happened to him. Still, he was no one to private Luca from finding love. At the end of the day, they were just coworkers.

But still, the timing was so, so wrong-

Why would any person be more important than the Philosopher’s stone-? Ah, he had to stop being bitter about it, it was immature. 

The smart course of action would be to go along with it until Luca himself realized that getting into love affairs was a waste of time. For that, they had to go to The Dream Witch’s shop and get his future love reading.

“Welcome, dear customers. Ah! Long time no see, Alva,” slurred the owner, a strange looking woman nicknamed D.W. “You haven’t changed at all, how nice.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

D.W wasn’t human. She was barely a vampire anymore. The curse had spread through her, it was a matter of time before she lost her humanity and became a full, brainless monster like those wandering the forests and the seas. Luckily for now, only the bottom half was a beast.

One had to wonder what kind of deals and crimes she committed to get her body to that point.

In Alva’s experience, most vampires turned into monsters when they lost ‘The Point’.  

‘The point’ of something was the reason for doing it. What’s the point of living? What’s the point of waking up? Eating? Breathing? After many years, vampires forgot or couldn’t find a reason to keep existing, and that’s when the curse got them, like a slow but lethal depression.

The explanation behind that was that they were born from a wish of immortality, so losing the will to live went directly against the source of their creation. Thus, the punishment was the curse.

The other reason vampires turned into monsters happened when they fully lost their humanity due to an unforgivable crime. They killed humans for a living, so the crime had to be exceptionally horrendous for it to count.

Alva had never worried about the curse. He had no interest in hurting anyone and his biggest motivation and passion was the Philosopher’s Stone, so he would never lose ‘The Point’. 

Thankfully the same applied to Luca.

As for D.W… She looked enthusiastic enough about life, so the other option left was that she ate children, was a war criminal or did some other unthinkable felony. Maybe she fused her last employee with a dog, who knows.

Alva had no idea, but her unnerving appearance was enough to not want to have anything to do with her. 

Unlike D.W, who seemed to enjoy making people uncomfortable with her looks, most vampires in the middle of turning into monsters tried to hide their transformation out of shame: a very popular method was a mask, then there were hats, long dresses and -if it got too bad- not going outside. 

The curse showed differently for everyone. Some started getting black stains on their face, others would grow extremely long fangs or extra limbs, while a select few would show no signs, and instead would transform into a monster at random times and return to normality, until one day they couldn’t go back.

Some transformations happened fast, within days, while others -the worst ones, in Alva’s opinion- were extremely slow. It could take years, and the vampire had to live with the knowledge that they were losing themselves until they forgot who they were.

Until they became a beast. The curse couldn’t be stopped, there was no cure.

D.W’s transformation was a slow one. Instead of dark stains, the symptoms of her curse were her inhumanely long arms and her legs, which could hardly be called that anymore, she was almost like a snake.

“I thought you didn’t believe in my future readings, I’m glad you finally opened your mind,” she smiled from behind the counter. 

“I’m not the one who wants your services.” 

“Oh, believe me I know, but I think you need it more than him, considering…” She let that sentence hang while looking pointedly at Luca.

His coworker flinched, obviously put off by her looks. Alva remained unbothered, she was just messing with them to get their money.

“I’ve come for a future partner prediction,” Luca mumbled. “I want to know what kind of person they will be; What is their stance on phlogiston? Do they think the execution penalty for alchemists found guilty of attempting to deceive the king is fair? Considering they are hung from a gallows covered in gold-colored foil... Do they like sweets? You know, normal stuff.”

“There’s nothing normal about that, but I’ll see what I can do.” She drew a curtain that hid a small backroom and made the motion to follow her. “Do you want to know anything about your love life too, Alva?” 

He suppressed a snort. “No.”

“Better, there was nothing to see anyway.” Eh? “You will have to wait here until I’m done with your friend. Don’t touch anything or the demons will haunt you!”

“But-” ‘Thud’

Aaaand he was left alone, like an old dog parked in the street. 

Alva sighed. He didn’t believe in future predictions, but he had been slightly curious about Luca’s hypothetical partner. Since he had no idea how much time the reading would take, he decided to roam around the labyrinthic aisles. 

‘Cluttered’ would be a kind word to describe the Dream Witch shop. Either D.W had a hoarding disorder, or all those bizarre and colorful objects scattered and piled on top of each other were invaluable. Probably a bit of both.

It felt like checking a crow’s nest full of shiny but useless junk. Nothing caught his attention, not even the observing giant squid eye, until he reached the far back corner of the store and saw it.

Ah, that mirror wasn’t junk.

He had last seen it in a king’s chamber hundreds of years ago. The mirror was said to reflect what you wanted the most. Then, a little girl called Yima would appear and, like a snake or siren song, she would whisper to the victim how to achieve their goal if they made a deal with her goddess. 

Alva told the ambitious king not to trust the mirror, but he must have ignored his advice because he was never seen again. Alva was then accused of regicide by the royal family and had to flee from that faraway country.

Whenever he tried to help, he always got hurt somehow. At least his current life was quiet and drama-free.

Unlike the greedy king, he never made a deal with the mirror, but he remembered what he saw in his reflection: Himself proudly holding the Philosopher’s Stone.

So many years had passed since that, and he could finally say the reflection became reality without Yima’s help. He smiled faintly at that thought, at how rewarding his and Luca’s genuine effort had been.

Now that he accomplished his dream… What would the mirror show him?

The intrigue was too hard to resist, so he stood in front of the dusty relic and waited, waited and waited.

But he saw nothing. He had no reflection. 

“Is it because there’s nothing else I can dream of?” It was unlikely, though. There were so many more things to look forward to now that they had the stone. The first thing coming to mind was finding a way to improve the current, messy state of the world.

“It’s not that.” Yima’s voice echoed unsettlingly as her pale figure slowly appeared inside the mirror. She looked as creepy and young as the last time. “You don’t have a reflection because you shouldn’t be here.”

“What does that mean?”

Yima tilted her head inhumanely as she offered a hollow, decrepit smile. “This place, this time, you. Nothing should be here. You are living on borrowed time, Alva.”

“What does that mean?” He asked again as an indescribable feeling of impending doom overtook him.

“Make a deal with my goddess, and she will tell you everything you need to know.”

Was she trying to instill panic in his heart? He didn’t believe in baseless prophecies. He really didn’t, but something in his gut, in Yima’s ancient and knowing eyes, made him doubt, if only for a short second. “I’m afraid I will have to refuse.”

“Then, why don’t you ask him?” She whispered, pointing at something behind him before crawling back to the depths of the mirror.

When Alva turned around and saw Luca, frozen in place like a deer caught in headlights, gazing at him with a thin, forced smile that didn’t- couldn’t reach his eyes, he doubted again. Asked himself again why Luca was acting so strange, so distant, so-

“The reading is over, we can go home,” Luca happily said, his eyes darting between him and the mirror. 

Alva offered the same kind of smile and nodded. 

As they crossed the wonderland that was the shop and the busy streets celebrating the beginning of TransFest, as he listened to Luca complain about how D.W told him that he would be unlucky with love because his requirements were too high, Alva couldn’t help but throw a piercing gaze to his coworker’s back and wonder, 

‘Luca, what have you done?’

Naib didn’t know what he was doing with his life, which wasn’t unusual in hindsight, but also, this was going too far!

“Why do I have to dress like a butler?!”

Jack gave him a clipboard with a list of names and grinned. “Shhh trust the process.”

They had arrived an hour ago at the castle. Naib thought it would be like a big house, but it was more like a small village with several buildings, gardens and shops. It reminded him of a college campus with residences, libraries and classes but with the cool addition of towers and a prison for war criminals.

Entering hadn’t been easy either, the place was more guarded than an airport during a bomb threat. 

He had to go through an intense interrogatory in which Jack explained -lied- about why his presence was needed in the castle, and then a high security control with suspiciously familiar rules such as:

• Throw away any liquids before crossing the control. Blood included. 
• Ensure pockets are empty (knives, snacks, rats, etc.) and remove your shoes, gloves and capes.
• Don’t try to fly over or skip control, there are snipers.
• Remember to check the bins and collect all belongings (except knives and rats) after going through vampire teeth inspection.

“What are they inspecting?” Naib had asked. “Your cavities?”

“Funny. It’s to make sure humans don’t enter disguised as a vampire. There are other ways, like stabbing them and seeing if they heal, but teeth inspection is nicer, don’t you think?”

What a bunch of lunatics. “Is the castle always this guarded?”

“Yes, of course.” At Naib’s visible concern, Jack hummed. “You must be thinking it’s hard for an outsider to infiltrate without being noticed, and you are right! Whoever stole the Tome must have used a unique opportunity to enter these walls unnoticed.”

What opportunity could that be? As they crossed several corridors and hallways full of guards, butlers and maids, Naib got his answer when they reached the garden on the southern side of the castle.

It was a dreamy venue, a perfect location for those over-the-top weddings rich people liked to brag about on tiktok. The garden was filled with guests enjoying themselves, surrounded by generous swirls of catmint, box-edged beds of roses and tempiettos housing statues.

More importantly, there were tables full of food and numerous lines of chairs facing the backdrop of the castle. They were clearly celebrating something important, and Naib guessed what it was when he noticed the purple and red little flags hanging everywhere.

It was the competition Norton was participating in! 

What was it called?

“TransFest is a long time tradition,” Jack filled in, leaning on a column and observing the guests -participants- from the shadows. “It’s held every three years and sponsored by our dear Lord Joseph, which is why the opening ceremony is held in the castle. Isn’t it nice of him?”

“Is this why we are here? You think the thief is among them?”

“Is it a bad assumption? He or she could have stolen the Tome any time of the year, but it disappeared around the week of Transformation Festival, which coincidentally is the only time so many humans are allowed to access the castle.” Jack explained, then took out a paper and scribbled something on it. "Here is the timeline of the original events, pay attention:" 

>Luca and Alva create the Philosopher's stone. <-The Tome is still in the castle.
>Transformation Festival's games start. First is the opening ceremony (Today!) then one day for every trial, three in total.
>After the trials, there's the Celebratory Ball at the castle, two things happen that night:
-Norton, the winner, is turned into a vampire.
-Claude is kidnapped by a mob and burned at the stake. <-We realize the Tome is missing after his death. 
>'The Last War' a fight between humans and vampires starts due to Joseph's anger.
>On the third day of said war, a purple beam shots up to the sky and history is rewritten as if vampires had never existed. The thief asked the wish then.

Naib read the list with a deep frown. Looking at it like that, it was pretty clear that the Tome had been stolen during one of those days in the middle, between the opening ceremony and the celebratory ball. Unfortunately, Jack was right, the participants of TransFest were the biggest suspects, and those were horrible news. If one of the participants was the thief, that meant the list of suspects went down from 800.000 citizens to 300 guys conveniently gathered in a pretty garden.

“I heard England has around 25% of people with green eyes,” Jack stated, walking to the back and returning a few seconds later with something on his hands. “That means we got approximately 75 potential thieves. Not a bad start, now put on this butler uniform!”

“.......Eh?”

And this is how he went from boxer prodigy, to depressed bath bomb seller, to confused (and unpaid) butler in a vampire castle.

According to Jack, a good detective would disguise themselves and subtly interrogate the participants, which is why he gave him a clipboard with a list of names and sent him to the party, alleging that he had to remain hidden so as not to cause any fear among the humans and raise suspicions.

“I will observe you from here. Good luck, Mr. Inference!” The cheeky bastard said, waving from behind the column like a lame stalker.

Naib fixed his stupid red bow and walked to the garden with a shit face. Jack was ridiculous. How was he supposed to interrogate these people? And more importantly, why should he do that? It’s not like he wanted to discover who the thief was. 

Jack was very wrong if he thought that calling him Mr. Inference was going to pull at his heart strings and make him follow his orders in a weak attempt to accomplish his childhood dreams. Not a chance. 

He should do what he did when the bath bomb shop had no clients: walk aimlessly while pretending to be a productive member of society.

“Mr. Butler, when is the speech going to start?”

It took him a while to realize the person was talking to him. He turned around and was met with an old man, maybe around 70 years old or more. He had white hair, held a cane with a tremulous hand and his face was full of wrinkles, age spots and… he had green eyes.

Naib gulped. “Sorry, dude, I have no idea.”

The old man frowned at his unprofessionalism and let himself fall on a nearby chair. “My legs are killing me. How much more do I have to wait until the pleasantries are over and we get to the main point?”

Was he a contestant? Naib looked at the list. “Excuse me, what’s your name?”

A groan. “Burke Lapadura.”

He checked the letter ‘L’ and found him. He had no idea what this contest entailed or how hard or physical the trials were, but it surprised him that someone of his age decided to participate. His thoughts must have shown on his face because Burke raised an eyebrow.

“I know what you are thinking, kid. ‘What is this old geezer doing here?’ as if the answer isn’t obvious. I don’t have much time left, so my only chance to live is to win this joke and become a vampire.”

Oh, okay. That made sense. The idea of looking old forever wasn’t super tempting, but he imagined that was better than the dying option.

Burke’s eyes were a pale shade of green, the kind that looked misty and wise. He had a good reason to participate and no motive to erase vampires from existence. Naib doubted he could be a suspect, so he was going to cross him from the list but something made him stop.

“Mr. Lapadura, is that a snake under your chair?!”

Burke energetically jumped off the chair and pointed his cane towards the dangerous animal, but there was nothing under the chair. “Where is it?!”

“Oh man, I must have confused it with a stick. I’m glad your legs are feeling better though, see you around.”

Burke’s face was bright red when Naib left to another side of the garden. He held the list and wrote ‘Sus’ next to the old man’s name. As someone who had an actual leg injury, the way Burke moved had been a bit strange, forced. Now it was clear the man was pretending to be weaker than he actually was. 

Was it because he wanted the other participants to underestimate him? Or had he lied about everything else? He didn’t know, but catching him red handed had been satisfying. 

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to find the thief. If he did, he could warn them about how dangerous it would be to steal the Tome right now, and ask them to do it more carefully when the vampires least expected it.

He gazed towards a far away column and saw a tall shadow. Jack probably expected him to betray him or give him false information about his findings, but that was fine, he would worry about that after he had interrogated all the green eyed suspects. 

Against all odds, Mr. Inference was back.

“Hello! I’m Naib Subedar from TransFest’s operation team. We are conducting a survey to improve TransFest’s experience, your opinion as a participant is extremely important to us. The data of this survey will totally not be used for any other purposes.”

He had not been (almost) named customer service king three times for nothing. He got this.

“Why do you want to become a vampire?” He inquired as he held the pen as if it was a pipe. 

“Vampires poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague unto our houses. I can’t fight them as a human, so I will become one of them and destroy them from the inside.” Ganji Gupta. 21. Shonen protagonist. Extremely suspicious, so much it might not be him.

“I just think they are neat!” Emma Woods. 22. Happy, freckled. Probably a farmer considering she held a potato while saying that. Wait, was she talking about the potato or vampires? 

“My family disowned me. I can’t go back home until I become worthy of the Baden title or die while trying.” Jose Baden. 35. Edgy, alpha male. Fighting his demons. 

“I ate my twin in the womb. I drank his blood. Doesn’t that already make me a vampire? I’m so fucked up.” Frederick Kreiburg. 33. Needs psychological help. 

“My reason is none of your business. I don’t owe you an explanation nor my time, this is the reality we live in.” Vera Nair. 27. Eldest daughter syndrome. Probably INFJ. Suspicious or burdened by expectations.

“Don’t tell this to anyone, but I don’t really care about becoming a vampire. I’m participating because I. Well- I want Mrs. Mesmer to notice me. She is so beautiful and smart, maybe if I win I’ll have a chance.” Emile Mondavarious. 32. A guy in love who happens to look like…

Naib stopped scribbling and stared at Emile. He looked familiar, even his name reminded him of the dude Ada bought at the auction. Could it be a coincidence? Fate? What if Ada fell in love with future Emil because he reminded her of this guy!

Ohhh. Star crossed lovers. 

“You don’t need to win this contest to get Ada’s attention, I think she already likes you,” Naib promised, patting him on the back with a knowing smile. 

“W-What, Mrs. Mesmer likes me?! How do you know?”

“I just do. You should go talk to her and see for yourself, you won’t regret it.”

Emile’s cheeks brightened as he played with the hem of his shirt. “W-Well, maybe I should give it a try and seek her when she finishes her speech, I wouldn’t like to die in the crocodile pit trial if I can help it.”

Naib did a double take. The crocodile what?

Um. Leaving that aside, he felt something akin to whatever joy cupid felt when pairing straight couples. He became a detective and matchmaker, who would have thought. But where was Ada? She should be presiding over this ‘party’ as the organizer, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Just as he wondered about that, the band of the garden (yes, there was a band playing classical music) changed their monotonous tune into trumpets and drums. Everyone stopped what they were doing and instead redirected their gazes to a prominent balcony from the castle. 

There he saw Ada, Joseph and someone who looked very similar to him standing on what must be the second floor. Far away from the ‘plebs’ but close enough so their voices could be heard over the crowd.

“Welcome to our new edition of the Transformation Festival!” Ada started, dressed in fancy black leather. Naib overheard Emile’s whimper of adoration. “Many hundreds of years ago, a law was made to prevent vampires from creating more of our kind carelessly. This was the right call for everyone involved, but you puny humans lost your chance of immortality like the pathetic little dogs you are.”

“Did she just call us pathetic dogs?” Naib whispered, bewildered.

Emile smiled dumbly. “She always talks like that… It’s so hot. If she wants me to bark, then-”

Naib closed his ears. Once Ada finished giving her very offensive but weirdly effective dominatrix talk, Joseph took a step forward and the guests started applauding. Naib didn’t bother listening to his speech, instead he closely observed the expressions of the participants, trying to see the slight frown, glare or scowl. 

He searched for anything that could give him a clue about the thief. He tried to remember Jack’s words about listening to his instincts, and his eyes slowly moved towards…

No, it made no sense.

He sighed, frustrated. This wasn’t like the novels he read where Sherlock could easily find hints in the clothes, nails, gestures or even the color of a woman’s lipstick. It was impossible to guess right. Jack had to be messing with him. 

He wished Aesop was there. The guy had good instincts, he was the only person in the manor who suspected the blood was poisoned and even managed to escape for like an hour. He should have been the ‘detective’ and not him.

Why did they even kidnap Aesop? Was he also given a stupid placeholder reason like him? Had he been tasked to do something impossible or so remotely generic that anyone could have taken his place?

Naib directed his gaze at the balcony again. Aesop was supposed to be with Joseph, right? So where was he?

“Joseph is too dignified when it comes to public speaking, but today he can’t help but smile," Eli commented as he observed the opening presentation. “It must be because Claude looks healthy.”

Aesop and him were alone in an adjacent room, sitting on a window nook and ‘enjoying’ the ceremony from afar. Eli should have been in that balcony, but his task of babysitter had more weight. 

His observation was right, though, Joseph was unusually relaxed because Claude was full of life, even his crouched and tired posture had improved overnight. Aesop couldn’t help but smile in relief, feeling something akin to pride.

“You know, yesterday Joseph almost threw me from the tallest tower because I brought you to the throne room,“ Eli continued.

"What's the point of doing that when vampires can fly?"

“Instant gratification?” Eli laughed, his voice light and free. "You got me there, but he was very angry and flustered. It was an unusual, interesting sight.”

Good to know someone found it entertaining. Aesop had been anxious during the whole confrontation in that corridor. At least Joseph and him seemed to be on decent terms for now. “You were determined to make me stay near him. Why?”

“I think he needs you.”

“Yeah, my blood."

"Not just that."

What did he mean by that? He studied Eli in silence, waiting for a clarification that didn’t come. The vampire’s tendency of talking in riddles was extremely bothersome. Despite looking so open and friendly, it was impossible to know what was going through that head, even more so than Joseph.

At least he knew what Joseph wanted, what he feared and what he loathed. He was an impatient and arrogant man who cared too much about his only family member left. 

On the other hand, Eli was a complete mystery, a blank slate character who smiled all the time and who hid a severed finger, traffic tickets and a strange drawing of him next to a god-like creature in the glove compartment of his car. 

Just who was Eli Clark? 

“Why do you want to fix the past, Eli? What do you gain from it?” Joseph wanted to bring back Claude, Luca had Alva and the stone to save, Jack seemed to miss the old times, but what about him?

“I wonder,” Eli hummed as he looked down at the garden party. The participants were listening to the speech intently, the music was on standby, the sky was still blue. “I guess I wanted to see what would happen.”

“You guess?”

Eli tilted his head, amused. “I’m kind of old. I stopped having grandiose goals a long time ago, now I prefer to be a spectator rather than a participant.” He moved towards him, closing the distance to the point Aesop could slightly see his blue eyes through the blindfold. “I might help if I see fit, but the truth is that I’m more of an outsider in this plan, and in life.”

It was strange, but Aesop related to that feeling. Always observing and quietly judging other people’s lives at the funeral home, never participating nor being the protagonist of the main event, as if they were inside of a bubble full of ambitions, emotions and worries and he didn’t belong.

“I am like that too,” he said with sudden honesty. 

The vampire shook his head. “I disagree. I think you can change Joseph for the better.”

Change him for the better? Aesop almost burst into laughter. That was another level of delusion. He couldn’t even make his mother stay, and his father had gone mad while living with him. One would think his presence made people change for the worse.

“You will have to find someone else. I’m like a living bottle of ibuprofen to him, a cure for his brother and nothing more. He has no other option but to put up with me.”

Eli’s deep blue eyes reflected pity. “Isn’t it a bit sad to have that mentality?”

“It’s the truth.” 

No matter what Eli said next, he wouldn’t change an opinion that had accompanied him during his whole life. Luckily, the vampire didn’t have that chance since the door opened.

“Aesop! Did you like the speech?” Claude asked cheerfully.

He was followed close behind by Joseph, who glared at him as if looks could kill. Was he waiting for his answer?

“It was touching. It even made me want to participate,” Aesop said, extremely deadpan.

Joseph’s semblance softened with pride. Eli snorted quietly. “Now that the opening ceremony is over, there will be some more entertainment for the guests until night, then they will go home to rest until the actual competition starts tomorrow.”

Aesop nodded. Eli had explained the main points of this tradition to him: 

The first day of TransFest was celebrated at the castle with a speech, some games and food. Then, on the next day, the actual challenge would take place in a Dome located in the city and would last for three days. Finally, when the winner was chosen, there would be a huge banquet and ball back at the castle with everyone invited. That’s when Ada would give the immortal kiss.

If anyone wanted to steal the Tome, he imagined it would be either today or the last day, but not during the competition itself. If that was the case, should he try to-?

“Aesop, you should put on a scarf or you will get cold,” Claude admonished, interrupting his thoughts.

Eh? But the room temperature was warm. “I’m fine.” 

“You won’t be when you come outside. There are lots of spectacles planned, plus fireworks when it gets dark. We can see them together.”

Together? Oh- he was being included out of pity. Claude probably felt bad for what happened last night and this was his way to make up for it, but Joseph wouldn’t allow that. “It’s alright, you can enjoy the party with your brother,” he said before it got too awkward.

“But Joseph wanted you to come with us, too…”

What? He looked at Joseph with confusion.

The vampire cleared his throat. “I don’t expect someone like you to appreciate the liveliness of this event, but you might enjoy the flowers.”

Aesop blinked once, twice. Was- Was he being invited for real? But why?

“Not so much a bottle of ibuprofen, right?” Eli smiled coyly.

“What’s ibuprofen?” Claude asked. 

“Err. Cocaine for bears.”

“What.”

“Joseph! Can you come with me for a second?” Ada interrupted the moment, entering the room with a rare, youthful grin that clashed with her mature demeanor. “One of the participants approached me. He is called Emile and… Anyways, we talked for a bit and he made me realize I want to change some things for the competition.” 

Joseph and Eli exchanged disconcerted glances, as if they didn’t expect this disturbance to happen. As if it hadn’t happened in the last timeline. 

“You want to make changes now ?” Joseph rubbed his temple and quickly regained his composure. “Okay, I’m coming. Claude, Aesop, wait me here. Eli, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Whatever you need.” 

“Pick two guards and send them to the young man's house from yesterday. He shall be told his family doesn’t need to leave the city and that his mother will be fine,” he uttered that last sentence while locking eyes with Aesop, as if he was letting him know that he kept his promise. 

Aesop felt an unfamiliar warmth inside and, not sure about how to react, he nodded almost shyly.

Joseph couldn’t contain a pleased smile before he left with Ada. When Eli got ready to leave, he passed in front of him and whispered, “See? Change for the better.”

Aesop didn’t have time to tell Eli that he was being ridiculous. In the blink of an eye, he and Claude were alone in the room without much to do but wait for Joseph to return.

Claude sat on the window nook and patted on the cushion next to him. “We can see the party from here for the time being.”

“Do you like this event?” He asked, making himself comfortable. Now that Eli and Joseph were gone, he felt like he could breathe a little bit better. He didn’t know why he got so nervous with some people, while with Claude he felt at ease.

It was hard to explain, but his aura was pure and kind, without ulterior motives or bad intentions. Talking with him didn’t feel like a mind game with rules he didn’t know.

“This will be my first time. For the past years I observed the guests from here, since being under the sun exhausted me. Now that the treatment is working, Joseph said I should try to have fun.”

That was surprising. Aesop expected Joseph to be like those crazy overprotective brothers and keep Claude in a birdcage, but maybe he was smarter than that. Their time in the past wasn’t limited, he must want to make sure Claude was completely cured before they had to return, and that couldn’t be achieved if he forced him to stay inside.

“Joseph told me that it was his fault that you got like this,” he brought up, well aware that he might be pushing it, but this was the perfect chance to know more about them. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

Claude’s hands visibly shook, making Aesop realize that he went too far.

“It’s- It wasn’t his fault, he is too harsh on himself.” Curiously, he didn’t sound very convinced. “Even if I tell him he is not, he feels responsible. He doesn’t want me to die.”

“That’s normal.”

“No, it’s not. He has been trying to keep me alive for a thousand years. How is that normal?”

And just like that, Claude wasn’t as defenseless and pure as he had assumed. There was an edge to his voice, a strong, brewing, deep-seated feeling hidden in those words. What feeling was it? Aesop wasn’t sure.

He internally hit himself. Somehow he managed to turn a festive atmosphere into a tense one. He uncomfortably looked away, planning to change the topic into whatever the guests were doing in the garden when his eyes widened.

Hold up. The butler who limped looked a lot like Naib.

Now he was stealing food while no one looked, it was definitely Naib! 

What was he doing there?!

“By the way, I wonder what Eli meant when he said cocaine for bears,” Claude wondered out loud, deciding to be the bigger person and change the topic himself. “I had never heard of this ibuprofen potion, he knows a lot about so many topics. I guess it’s because he spends a lot of time in the library. Maybe that’s why he took the Tome yesterday.”

What. 

Aesop’s heart skipped a beat. “Excuse me?”

Claude smiled, unaware. “Yeah, yesterday I couldn’t rest due to pain so I wandered around the castle and saw him grabbing the Tome in the early morning. Then I went to see Joseph and that’s when I met you.”

“Did you see where he took the Tome?” He held his breath. No way, no way…

“Hm? Oh yes, I did.”

Aesop couldn’t believe his luck. Claude told him exactly where Eli hid the Tome, the real Tome! Blood rushed through his ears in excitement and shock. Suddenly, the future could be saved, he had the chance to stop the vampires!

He glared at the door. Joseph was still outside talking with Ada. If only he could reunite with Naib without him noticing, but that was impossible. He couldn’t get out of that room without catching Joseph’s attention.

…Unless. 

“Claude, as a vampire you can fly, right?”

“Eh? Well, my condition makes me too weak, so I haven’t tried it in uh- the past 500 years.”

“But you feel better now. To make sure the treatment is working, we should test it.”

Claude smiled nervously. “I guess, but what do you mean by ‘test it’?”

Instead of explaining, Aesop jumped out of the window.

Claude almost shat himself. 

“Did a man just fall from there?” A young girl choked, pointing her finger towards the castle. 

“Studies have shown that it do be like that sometimes,” Naib ignored that silly excuse. People would say anything not to answer a simple survey. “Now, Tracy, tell me what is so compelling about becoming a vampire-”

“NAIB!” 

Holy shit. “Aesop?!”

The second he heard that voice, he forgot about the interrogation and turned around. He couldn’t believe it, it was really him, his Hunger Games buddy was safe and sound! Actually, he was more than safe, Aesop looked as if he had gone on a seven-day wellness retreat in Switzerland.

“Dude, what’s up with that cool outfit? Were you given a royalty title while I was out there surviving in the wild and getting chained on a bed?”

Several guests suddenly stared at him with a judging, raised eyebrow.

“You were what!?” Aesop whispered, cheeks red. “Are you okay?”

“Of course, I’m extremely okay! I can’t wait to write ‘finally chased by a cosmic monster’ on my milestones calendar!”

“Stop being dramatic, there are no monsters.”

Naib gasped, offended. “My sweet summer child, you really know nothing. Privilege has made you blind to the daily struggles of the working class, my Prince.”

Aesop rolled his eyes and Naib finally let out a grin. “I’m glad you are okay,” he smiled, giving him a heartfelt hug. Jokes aside, he was genuinely happy to see Aesop alive and unhurt. Now that they were reunited, he felt less lonely in this place.

“Prince?” A new voice asked, poking his head from behind Aesop. It was the Joseph lookalike, the sick brother from the sad backstory whose name he had forgotten. 

Aesop almost jumped, as if he had forgotten that person was there. “Claude, this is Naib. Naib, this is Claude.”

“Hi Claude.”

“Hi Naib.”

“Hi Claude- Damn, this is addicting.”

“I don’t think I have ever seen you among the staff, you must be pretty new. Nice to meet you.” Claude shook his hand. He said it so casually it didn’t come off as a threat or suspicion. Honestly, compared to Joseph the guy seemed pretty chill at first sight. 

“I’m a temp. I only got hired for the festival,” he said, like a liar. “I’m an old friend of Aesop, though, and wanted to…”

“Oh, right! I will let you two catch up while I greet the guests, I’ve been so sheltered they probably forgot Joseph had a brother, haha.”

Aesop and him waved their hands with a friendly smile as Claude left with a happy gall. When the vampire finally was out of sight, their expressions immediately changed into those of alarm.

“Naib, I know where the real Tome is,” Aesop confided in a hurry. “We need to get it before Joseph realizes I jumped off the window.”

He what? Wait what?! The real Tome? Naib made an effort to keep up with the abrupt drop of information. Stealing the book themselves didn’t sound like a bad idea, especially if they could later find the thief and ask them to make the wish, but Aesop was getting ahead of himself.

“I can’t come. Jack is observing me right now,” he whispered, his eyes glued to Aesop despite the instinctive need to check if the shadow was still behind that column. “He told me to dress as a butler and investigate. He thinks the thief is one of the participants here.”

Aesop noticed the list he was holding, which had several annotations depending on the level of suspicion, and his eyes widened. “Is this why he brought you to the past? Are you some sort of detective?”

“Be honest. Do I look like a detective to you?”

“Maybe with a mustache-”

“Not a chance! Jack gave me this task out of nowhere, it's so obvious we were kidnapped for nothing since we are absolutely irrelevant in this scheme.”

Aesop looked a bit troubled. “Are you sure about that? I was brought because my blood is helping Claude get better. It's too long to explain, but it's really working.”

... 

Naib laughed in disbelief. “This has to be a joke, right? No way I’m the only one who doesn’t have a real role in this.” Great. Excellent. Amazing. Joseph had taken Aesop for a reason. It sucked balls, but at least there was a REASON for him to be there. 

He had been suspecting it for some time, but it really started to look like Jack only took him as a hostage for fun, because he felt like it. ‘Pretend to be a detective?’ It made no sense. He had to be messing with him.

The motherfucker probably ruined his life because he thought it would be hilarious, like giving a ball to a monkey so it did some silly tricks before it got eaten by a tiger.

Jack said it, didn’t he? Everything was a game to him. His mom would never find his body and it wouldn’t matter because at least he got a laugh out of the funny boxer!

“Naib,” Aesop frowned, worried. “I know you are angry, but we need to get the tome, I don’t have much time-”

“Hey tourist, you didn't tell me you worked as a butler!” 

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Campbell found him. It didn’t exactly take him by surprise, he knew Norton would be at the ceremony since he was a participant, but he had secretly hoped not to cross paths with him.  

Naib looked at the big bulge in Norton’s pants. “Are you happy to see me or are you storing the entire buffet in there? I could snitch on you.” 

“I know you won’t, because we are crime buddies,” Norton said confidently, throwing fruit in there and making a ‘shh’ gesture to a very flabbergasted Aesop. “I might die in the crocodile pit tomorrow, so I deserve a last good meal.”

“The crocodile what-” Aesop repeated, and then. “Wait, I saw you stealing food too, Naib.”

Naib put a hand over his mouth as Campbell snorted a chuckle. His eyes were brown, so at least he didn’t have to worry about him being a suspect, as well as it wouldn’t make sense for him to get rid of vampires given his story. "You won't die, don't worry."

“Are you trying to be fake nice again? But you never know. The first thing I heard this morning was that the last survivor of Flavor Garden ’s staff had been murdered at night. I don’t remember her name, but she was nice, even gave me free food sometimes.”

He blinked, confused. “Was it a waitress?”

“Yeah, I heard the Lord’s right hand spared her at first, but he probably changed his mind. He is an evil one.”

Naib shook his head. That was impossible, Jack and him had left the woman at the police station and after that they didn’t leave the hotel, he even spoke with him in the middle of the night, so it’s not like he sneaked out during the storm.

…The storm.

Suddenly, he remembered how cold the room was when he woke up. He remembered the water drops on the carpet, right under the window.

“Is that why you spared her?” he had asked Jack.

“Of course not. I thought you would get mad at me if I killed her in front of you.”

Did- Did Jack sneak out to murder that waitress right after saying that?!

His face contorted with rage and a hundred emotions. “I’m going to kill him!” 

“Who?” Asked Norton at the same time Aesop yelled, “Naib, the plan!”

He ignored them both as he stormed out. He was done, genuinely done. He already felt stupid pretending to be a detective when he was more useless than a rock, and now Jack had lied to his face about that woman too. He had been treated like an absolute fool for too long. 

To hell with it. No more surveys, antidotes nor allowing that asshole to order him around like a damn dog. He was going to die either way since it was impossible to stop their plan, so he might as well do it with the little dignity he had left.

“Oh dear, you look red! Did you get a food allergy?” Jack asked, surprised to see him so soon.

He was still ‘hiding’ in the covered walkway with columns that surrounded the perimeter of the garden, a perfect place for Naib to throw the list of suspects at his face without disturbing the party.

“FUCK YOU!” He shouted, definitely not causing a scene. “You fucking liar!”

Jack picked up the clipboard from the floor and stared at him with confusion. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“Why did you bring me here!?” He exploded with fire in his eyes. “Aesop has a reason, but you keep lying to me about everything!”

Jack didn’t seem to be affected by his outburst. “I already told you. You are here to help me catch the thief.”

“Do you still expect me to believe that?” 

“Yes.”

Breathless with anger, he pushed Jack with both hands. It didn’t do much, but at that point he wasn’t thinking straight. “Then how about you tell me why did you feel the need to escape at night to kill that waitress? Seriously, what’s your problem?!”

That finally got him a reaction. Jack’s eyes widened, most certainly due to being found out. His lips tightened and his jaw tensed. “I couldn’t help it.”

He couldn’t help it.

Naib waited for something more, something that made sense, but Jack stood there, fists clenched by his sides. That was all the confirmation he needed. Jack really was a demented psychopath.

He had known this from the start, but a part of him thought that there might be something more to him, something good underneath that madness. He didn’t know why he thought that. There wasn’t. 

“I promise you will get what you deserve,” he threatened.

Jack laughed, humorless. “Doesn’t mean much since you can’t keep a promise.”

“And what does that mean?!” 

He was ready to go on another round of pushing Jack against the column, but a hand on his wrist stopped him. It was Aesop. His gray eyes were darting between Jack and him anxiously, it was obvious he had never dared to stop any sort of confrontation before.

“Naib, please, stop,” he said as firm as he could manage. “Let's go back to the party, you have work to do.” His voice was civil, amicable. He was trying very hard to get him away from Jack in one piece.

Naib suddenly felt bad. He had ditched Aesop because his emotions got the best of him, and now Aesop might get in big trouble with Joseph. He had every right to fight Jack, but in doing so he had been selfish towards his only friend in this place. 

He clenched his jaw and nodded, an apology ready to be said when they got far enough. He took the clipboard from Jack’s hold without sparing him another glance and marched with Aesop.

Jack let them go without uttering any witty remarks nor threats. Just unusual silence. 

He thought the worst was over, but of course he should have known better. Aesop and him hadn’t given 20 steps when something unexpected happened. 

A young man in his early twenties ran towards Aesop. At first, Naib didn’t make much of it, he thought he might want to tell him something urgent, but then he saw the way Aesop’s shoulders tensed with recognition as his eyes moved downwards.

His heart almost dropped. The man was holding a knife. 

Everything happened too fast yet too slow.

The knife was going straight to the stomach. He knew Aesop wouldn’t be able to avoid it, he was too shocked, too unfamiliar with self-defense techniques to react or move at all. Naib was confused, who was this man? Why was he targeting Aesop? 

But all of these questions were meaningless because Aesop was going to get stabbed to death in front of his own eyes. It was unavoidable.

He remembered that black alley, the stabbing and the pain that came afterwards, and so, like the worst kind of coward, he closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.

He kept telling himself that if he could repeat that day, he wouldn’t endanger himself again over a stranger. 

But Aesop wasn’t a stranger. 

In the last second, before he could regret his actions or learn about past mistakes, he pushed Aesop just in time for the knife to miss his stomach. Instead, it landed almost perfectly on his own chest.  

Naib heard a scream, but it couldn’t be himself as he let out a silent gasp. If getting stabbed on the back had been distressful, having his chest torn open was agonizing. Too much pain flooded his senses. His ears started ringing, his vision turned red and his heart throbbed so much his legs gave out.

As he saw his blood taint the garden’s white tiles and fresh grass, he could barely make out some sentences yelled on top of him.

“This is for my mother!” Yelled someone. “I can’t kill the Lord but I can kill his human pet”

“Stop… your mother is fine… Joseph sent… your home.” Aesop was the one speaking, but the ringing of his ears was getting louder, what was he saying?

“Liar… I will…you!”

He couldn’t understand anything anymore. His eyelids were too heavy. He felt cold. His bowtie was asphyxiating him. He wished he could take it off, but his hands felt like jelly, and soon enough his cheek touched the ground.

Maybe it was due to the familiarity of the pain and the shock, but when he started to lose consciousness and drift off, he dreamed of that awful night again. About the boxing fight, the alleway, the beating.

And then, for the first time in two years, the dream continued. He felt his body being carried. He saw the white ceiling of the hospital, and someone was holding his hand…

“Welcome to the world of the living, Mr. Sunshine,” the stranger said.

Everything hurt like a bitch, which meant he was indeed alive. Not so much of a Sunshine, though. He was bitter beyond words for what had happened, but now it wasn’t the moment to complain. He had been extremely lucky that a good man happened to see him in that alley and bring him to the hospital.

“T-Thank you for helping me.” He had several broken bones and wasn’t in the best state of mind, but that wouldn’t stop him from thanking the stranger who saved him. “Mr…”

“Jack,” the man replied. He was remarkably tall and sat in a chair next to his bed. He was dressed all in black, making him stand out in that white room. “It seems you got in serious trouble trying to play the hero.” 

Naib tried to laugh but his ribs protested. “Ugh. Yeah. I admit I wasn’t very smart, but I had to, it was the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do,” Jack repeated, thoughtful. “You are a good person.” 

He said it in such a way Naib could tell it was a high compliment. 

“You are too.” 

Jack laughed.

“I’m being serious! You saved my life. I owe you. If you ever need help, tell me.” He didn’t know that man at all, but he felt indebted. Not only had he picked him up from the street, he even kept him company all night. What kind of respected New Yorker did that?

“I appreciate the sentiment, but my problems can’t be fixed that easily,” Jack brushed off.

“Not if you keep them to yourself. Come on, try me.”

He laughed again and Naib felt a faint blush rise to his cheeks. He had a nice voice, deep and husky, capable of lulling anyone to sleep. “What if I told you that I’m cursed beyond repair? Sometimes, I turn into a monster and do horrible things. Would you break my curse?”

“Yes, of course.”

He spoke without hesitation. He didn’t properly understand the magnitude of Jack’s words or how surrealist they were in nature. Something was clearly troubling him, and that was enough reason for him to offer his help. 

Jack looked taken by surprise, as if he had anticipated all existing answers in the world except a short, simple ‘Yes’. When he spoke again, his voice was careful, cynical. “Really? Would you do that for me?”

Underneath the skepticism, Naib noticed, there was a glint of desperate, soul crushing hope.

“Yes.” He gazed up at him without doubt. He wasn’t one to jump into random deals with strangers, and he knew he might sound pushy or corny, but something compelled him to say that. That man looked as if he really needed a friend. “It's a promise.”

“Promise is a huge word. You say this now because you feel grateful for being saved, but it will pass in the morning. You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, or you might regret it later.” 

“I won’t.”

“Even if it’s scary?”

“I wouldn’t be where I am today if I got scared easily. I fight for a living,” he said with pride, even though he was slowly falling into slumber, the morphine forcing his body to rest. “You saved my life, you deserve to be saved too.” 

The last thing he could remember was Jack’s expression. It wasn’t cocky nor nonchalant. Instead, it was-

“I will look for you when it’s time,” Jack promised back. “Thank you, Naib.”

Wait, did he tell him his name? Maybe he saw it on his card, though it got stolen…

“URGH!”

The pain of the stabbing brought him back to the present, where Aesop was pressing a cloth on his wound, making sure he didn’t bleed out until aid arrived. Naib coughed painfully, confusedly, and made an effort to focus his eyes. 

Aesop was fine, that was all that mattered, but where was the dangerous man?

It couldn’t be the person who was being torn apart by a monster, right?

A monster that had come out of nowhere, who looked very similar to the one he saw in the forest and who, despite its inhuman appearance, wore a very familiar top hat. 

Wait.

Don’t tell him that scary monster was-

And like a well-deserved slap on the face (or two, or twenty) all the memories returned to him in one furious go. From the conversation in the hospital, to the time he met Jack again when he got discharged a few weeks later.

It could hardly be called a ‘meeting’. He had been so overdosed with painkillers that he forgot everything about him. Even worse, he was so upset and mad about the recent news of his injured knee that he started sobbing in the street, and when Jack tried to approach him, he thought that he was an annoying fan. 

…So he told him to fuck off in the rudest, most selfish way— 

Oh

Oh no.

Naib opened his mouth with mortification once he finally realized -remembered- what he had done.

“His heart rate is going too fast and his face is extremely pale, please send help!” He heard Aesop yell. 

Of course he was pale! Two years ago, in a delirious state of mind, he promised a vampire that he would help him break his curse, then forgot about it and told him to get lost. The reason he ended up here in the past was- was- 

Ohhh.

He was an absolute idiot.

Chapter Text

“To be loved is to be changed.”

The Dream Witch said as she placed several tarot cards on the small, round table in a similar manner Fiona used to do. Luca waited patiently, looking for the right moment to tell her that he didn’t care about his love life, he was here for something important . 

“Now that you mention change, have you ever tried to find a way to change…” he awkwardly pointed at her as a whole. “That? ”

“It’s widely known that the curse can’t be stopped. It is inevitable, just like your fate.” 

She raised a card, it was The World reversed.

Luca snorted, skeptical. “Well, I’m pretty good at challenging fate.” Alva was alive, the stone was in his grasp, and all thanks to his time tinkering. If someone could fight against fate, that was him. “So you don’t know any way to stop it?” 

“I thought you wanted to talk about love. Do you know what this card means?”

“That my other half lives in Australia?”

“The World Reversed can signify that you want to fulfill a big goal, but you’re not taking all the steps necessary to get there,” the Dream Witch’s eyes were sharp, tearing right into his soul “You are going through an intensely personal journey, but you need to let go of the past and move on, or your world will crash.”

‘Let go of the past’ was a funny one, considering he was living in it, literally. “That’s such a generic thing to say, I bet you tell this to everyone-” 

She bonked him in the head. “So arrogant and prideful and deflective , no wonder Alva took a liking to you, that man has horrible taste for company.”

Luca whined. She was kind of right there. He had been a mistake in Alva’s life, but that’s why he was trying to fix it. “Any other thing I should know?” 

“Only 20% of orange cats are female,” she offered. “Oh, and the reason the curse can’t be avoided is because once the sinful crime is committed, you can’t undo it, and when a vampire loses the will to live, they never find it again. Which one troubles you?”

Luca’s heart skipped a beat as he looked away. She laughed.

“I bet it’s a huge crime, I can recognize a fellow monster when I see one.”  

He felt that bothersome itch in his eye again. There was no doubt, he was turning into a beast. He shook his head and tried to focus on his main task: Ask the Witch about her last clients to see if anyone had been curious about the Tome and the possibility of being able to make a wish. 

Once he had all the information he could gather from that woman -and money, she had sucked him dry- he stood up to leave, but she whispered one last ominous warning. 

“Be careful, Mr Balsa. When I said your world will crash, it wasn’t a metaphor.” At his confused expression, she darkly added, “my predictions are always right, and yesterday it was not supposed to rain.”

Luca felt a shiver run down his spine and hurriedly abandoned the room. 

On his way to the cottage, he lied to Alva about what the Witch told him, making up a believable story about why he was meant to stay single forever due to being too smart and attractive, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her real words. 

It was just rain, why did it matter? 

Alchemy was an obscure science that played with the forces of nature, going to the past had been a risky move, so a few weather changes were expected consequences. There was nothing to worry about, he repeated himself as he and Alva hanged their coats once they got home.

Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about!

And then someone threw their door down.

“The guards are on their way to notify the mother that she is forgiven and can stay in Penvicor without donating blood. She will be very thankful to the Lord for his mercy, I bet her son will be happ…. EH ?” 

When Eli Clark came back to the garden party, everything was on fire. Not literally, but it might as well be because. it got. bad.

Starting with Aesop and Naib, who for some reason were on the ground covered in blood, followed by a monster who was killing the son of said thankful mother, and Joseph- Oh Joseph. He was going to murder someone.

Eli almost brought his hands to his head. He had been away for a few minutes!

“Claude, what happened?” He observed the scene from a safe distance, like the rest of the guests. If he intervened now, he would likely get his head cut off.

Claude pouted. “I don’t know, but I doubt we will see the fireworks together.”

His priorities were concerning, but at least his heart was in the right place. Or something. Eli felt a headache incoming. 

Ah, what a mess.

Joseph ordered the guards to retire the son’s dead body and Aesop from everyone’s sight while the monster -who was Jack, Eli quickly realized- took Naib and flew away, like a dragon kidnapping a half-dead damsel. 

Once they were gone, Joseph stepped forward and started applauding.

The shocked guests quickly followed, believing that it was a tragic but beautiful representation of the true meaning of the Transformation Festival.

“Sacrifice, death and rebirth! They went hard this year, the blood looked so real.” The reviews were great.

After that totally planned ‘performance’, the celebration continued without any more disturbances or unexpected deaths, until night came and the sky got painted with colorful, flower-shaped fireworks.

Claude contemplated them alone in the garden, his expression hidden by his hair. Eli, a few steps behind, checked on him from time to time, but his main focus kept being diverted to one of the castle’s windows, where a fierce fight took place.

At least, the loud sounds of the fireworks veiled Joseph and Aesop’s discussion. 

“Last night you agreed to help Claude, yet the second I turn away, you convince my brother to let you escape with Jack’s pet and almost get murdered.”

“I didn’t escape, I just wanted to see Naib-” Aesop insisted, keeping his version of the events, even if they weren’t completely true.

Joseph had no idea he knew where the real Tome was, and he couldn’t find out.

Their argument had been going on for long, so long that the blood on his suit had already dried. Naib’s blood. Aesop’s heart sank. He didn’t expect the man from the throne room to join the festival as a candidate just to attack him.

It was painfully ironic. He had done his best so this guy’s mother could be helped, and the son, unknowingly, tried to kill him. Aesop had stood frozen in place, and when he managed to move, Naib had already been stabbed in his stead.

His eyes were burning, yet he did his best not to break in front of Joseph.

He had asked him several times why Jack turned into a literal monster, where had he taken Naib, what was going on , but Joseph kept pushing his own concerns. He was so focused on scolding him that he didn’t care to lit the room, so they were almost in complete darkness except for the intervals of time in which the fireworks illuminated the place.

“Don’t you see I can’t allow you to die?” Joseph grabbed his wrist possessively. “You- You are important to-” He struggled to form a sentence, as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. “-to Claude.” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Aesop faltered. 

“Of course you didn’t. I don’t even know why I decided to listen to you. I should have killed that rat when I had the chance.”

On the contrary, Aesop thought, if only he had helped him from the start... 

The Butterfly Effect was scary. Joseph being unfair to that man might have seemed a small change from the past, but it had developed into a murder attempt.

But was it really an attempt?

He still didn’t know if Naib was alive. God . He shouldn’t have left the room, he had been so impulsive and for what? Now someone else paid the price, just like-

“I tried to be nice to you, Aesop, I thought we- Whatever… You have proven to be as disappointing and deceitful as the rest of humans. I should have expected this, it’s always the same.” 

Joseph sounded genuinely upset, hurt. He wanted to keep arguing, but something made him pause.

Maybe he finally noticed the way Aesop was trying not to cry, swallowed in guilt. 

Joseph halted, took a deep breath and relented. “I won’t lock you up in a tower yet , but from now on you won’t leave my side, not for a second.” 

Aesop didn’t reply, gaze glued to the floor. After a prolonged silence, Joseph raised his chin, probably to chastise him, only to be met with tears rolling down his cheeks. His eyes widened as Aesop looked away in shame. 

He did it. He ruined everything. Eli was so wrong, implying he could change anything for the better. Why did it always end like this? 

With his thumb, Joseph wiped away the tears, and he was so unfairly careful about it. “Is it that bad to stay close to me?” He asked, keeping his voice quiet, hiding his emotions. “Are you scared?”

“No.”

“I can hear your heartbeat, it’s a loud drumming song.”

“Must be the fireworks.” 

“Perhaps.” Joseph sighed. From the darkness of the room, he stared at the colorful sky. It almost felt as if it was mocking them.

This was not how the night was supposed to go.

When Naib woke up, nothing hurt.

The extreme relief he felt was soon replaced by confusion and then dread, because it was impossible that he didn’t feel any pain. Even if he got treated, he would at least feel mild discomfort, which could only mean one thing in this world.

He had been turned into a vampire.

No, no, no, no-

He jumped out of the bed, not caring to check his surroundings, and ran towards the first mirror he saw on top of a dresser, opening his mouth and touching his fangs, trying to see if they were suspiciously pointy. 

Huh. They weren’t?

“This brings back memories, I also woke up disoriented in this bed when Alva turned me into a vampire,” Luca said behind him. In his shock, Naib hadn’t noticed him. It was just the two of them in the small, wooden homey bedroom.

How did he end up in that house!? 

Luca crossed his arms. “Seriously, I can’t believe Jack destroyed our entrance looking like a beast, Alva almost shot him, but then he dropped you on our hall’s floor like a cat leaving a wounded bird, and I realized what happened.”

“Am I a vampire?” Naib asked, breathless, direct.

“No. I told Jack that it would be better if he turned you into one since you were dying, but he didn’t want to, so we healed you with the Philosopher’s stone.”

Naib almost fainted. God bless that fucking miraculous rock. If he had been turned into a vampire he would have killed himself, except he wouldn’t be able to. Now he could kill himself whenever he wanted, good for him.

“Where is Jack?”

“Downstairs, chatting with Alva in the living room.” Luca scratched the back of his head. He seemed very inconvenienced, worried. “Alva had so many questions, like why Jack knew we had the stone when we hadn’t made a public announcement yet.”

“What did Jack say?”

“After regaining his vampire form, he blurted out that he knew we were working on it, so ‘he hoped for the best’. Alva seemed to believe him and didn’t miss the chance to finally try the stone on you, but…” Luca sighed. “Now they are catching up, talking about the past like old geezers.”  

So Jack bullshitted it, nothing surprising.

And speaking of Jack.

Naib felt a shiver run down his spine. Ohhhh. Suddenly death by stabbing didn’t sound that bad. How was he supposed to face him after he remembered what really happened? It was so embarrassing, so monumentally stupid. He forgot their promise, alright-

But Jack could have reminded him instead of acting like a butthurt crazy ex??

“Did you know he could turn into a monster?” Naib asked.

“Of course not. He kept so quiet about it. I mean, given the way he is it’s not that unexpected, but I wonder when did his curse start.”

At least two years ago, Naib thought, considering his stay at the hospital. “Is- Is there a way to, like-” 

“No, not even our Deus Ex Machina Stone can do anything about it,” Luca muttered, strangely somber.

So there was no way to stop the curse… Just what he got himself into?

“Ah, Mr. Sunshine woke up! When I heard the ceiling creak I knew you were jumping with joy, isn’t the gift of life beautiful!” Said no one other than Jack, entering the room and closing the door behind him. 

“Do I look happy to be alive to you?” Naib retorted at the same time Luca asked where Alva was.

“He won’t bother us for a while. He said he was going to fix the hole I made in the entrance. What a handy, responsible man he is, I almost missed his boring sermons.” 

Naib avoided the vampire’s gaze, too awkward to know how to react. The seams of Jack’s jacket were all torn up, he remembered them looking the same after everyone shouted there was a ‘Monster’ inside the restaurant. Jack probably had transformed into one when he killed the staff.

Now he was human-looking again, and acted as laid-back and brazenly condescending as always, but there had to be more under that display of indifference, he had been so… vulnerable in the hospital. 

Should he apologize to Jack? Absolutely not. Should he pretend not to remember their first encounter? Absolutely yes. 

Admitting it would be like accepting he had to help him, and he didn’t want to. He meant that promise when he thought Jack was a troubled, good man, not the devil himself. It still didn’t sit well with him to break his word, but playing dumb sounded like the best course of action for the time being.

“In that forest, I asked if you were a monster like the one who attacked me,” he accused. “And you said you weren’t, liar.”

Jack shrugged. “Nope, you asked if I wore my mask to hide my curse, and I don’t. My mask really is a fashion statement! But I also happen to turn into a monster, what a surprising turn of events must that be for you!” 

Naib froze, unsure if Jack was proving him. He had a glint in his cunning eyes, but Luca stopped their back-and-forth by drawing the curtains and making sure the door was locked.

“Sorry to interrupt your drama, but before Alva returns I have something to tell you. I assume you still haven’t found who stole the Tome?”

“We are on it.” Jack said, not taking his eyes from Naib.

“”Do you have any leads at least?”

“I think it’s a TransFest participant.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope!” 

Naib found it strange, the way Jack omitted the clue about the green eyes, but he kept quiet.

“Well, this might help.” Luca crouched and searched for something hidden under the bed. “I visited the Dream Witch this afternoon, and asked if she had any clients who came to her looking for answers to very specific questions.”

“Such as ‘Will I be able to make a wish upon the Tome? ’” 

“Yes, and apparently she sold this to several clients.” Luca made an ‘aha!’ sound when he found what he was looking for, raising his hand to show it to them. “It’s a Magic Candle. You ask a question while you hold it, and if the answer is [yes] it emits a red flame. If the answer is [no] the flame is black. After one use, the wax melts and you can’t use it ever again, even if you buy another candle.”

So one question per person, Naib guessed. “Wait. Why is it pink with flowers?” That candle looked like a discount extra he would sell during Valentine’s Day.

“Err, according to the Witch, most clients’ questions are: ‘Does this person love me?’ so she decorated them like that for marketing reasons, Fiona would be floored. Ah, but you can ask any question.”

Jack put a hand on his chin. “Can we have a list of the clients who bought these?”

“She said it was private and I couldn’t convince her.” Luca’s shoulders dropped. “Even then, the candle wax is made of… um, anyways- weird medium stuff, so it’s not like they are 100% reliable. More like 13%, they only lit up with a question that ‘truly matters’ to your heart, whatever that means.”

As a demonstration, he raised the candle and asked: “Will we find the thief? Will we change the past? Will I become the best alchemist in the world?”

The candle didn’t lit up with any of those questions. Naib expected to see a red or black flame, but there was nothing. He wondered if the Witch had scammed this dumb vampire. Based on Luca’s eye twitch, he also thought the same. 

“This is why I hate this spiritistic junk, it’s not real science, just vibes!” He complained. “Does this even work?”

Suddenly, the candle lit up with a red flame. Then the pink wax melted until it was half of its original size.

“Yes? Yes?! This wasn’t even a heartfelt question!?” 

“The candle got an attitude,” Jack snorted. “Maybe this is why it didn’t melt completely. It’s giving you another chance if you behave.”

“Well, of course, the question was stupid!” Luca beefed with the inanimate object. “Whatever, I bought two more so you can take them. Use them if the opportunity arises, or try to see if your suspects recognize it. We don’t have much time left.”

Jack was given a red and rustic cylindrical candle, to which he looked at with intrigue. Naib could only guess what must go through his head. Maybe he was thinking about asking if his curse could be stopped, or if Naib remembered their deal. 

He gulped nervously. That candle could be a pain in the ass on the wrong hands, but he quickly forgot about it because he was given a white one with the shape of a-

He looked at Luca. “Why does mine look like a dildo?”

The vampire didn’t meet his eyes. “It was the last one in stock… Marketing? Fiona would be floored…” 

When Alva came back, he overheard Jack laughing like a maniac upstairs, then a whine as if he got kicked in the balls while another voice yelled ‘Get dicked!’ 

Alva silently stared at the horizon as he thought he was too old for this shit.

In the end, Naib and Jack spent the whole night at the alchemists’ house by Alva’s suggestion. He wanted to check Naib’s progress for a little longer in an attempt to learn more about the healing properties of the stone.

It was the first time Naib saw Alva in person. He decided he was the most vampire-looking guy he had ever seen. Tall, white hair and with an air of austere solemnity. It was a miracle no one had ever wondered why the CEO of a goddamn blood bank looked like Dracula.

During his stay, he became friends with a cat named Patience #15 and learned that the Philosopher’s Stone couldn’t cure everything. It could be used to make gold, heal extreme wounds and revive recently deceased animals, but it didn’t work with curses. When Alva said that, Luca quickly asked why he knew.

“I tried the stone on Jack while you were upstairs, but I’m afraid the idiot has no cure.”

“Aw, don’t be so mean to your old friend!” Jack whined.

Alva ignored him and Naib felt newborn empathy. “My hypothesis is that the stone is connected with nature, so it cannot ‘fix’ supernatural conditions such as curses or derivatives. It’s unfortunate, since I had something in mind.”

Jack rested his hand on his cheek. They were in the living room. He was seated next to Naib on a sofa, while Alva and Luca were on another. “So that’s why you came to the castle and tried to help Claude, unsuccessfully.”

“What? I planned to visit Joseph in a few days. How do you know?”

“Ah, my bad,” Jack laughed as Luca threw daggers at him. “I assumed you would try to help the brother of our troubled friend.”

Naib tried to understand what was going on. It seemed that in the last timeline Alva had tried to cure Claude with the stone and it had not worked. This explained why Joseph kidnapped Aesop as a last resort. He already knew the stone would be useless.

…But that also meant that whatever sickness Claude had was not ‘natural’. Huh.

“You never told me!” Luca jumped. 

“Ah… You are against taking the stone out of the house in case it gets lost, so I didn’t want to worry you. I apologize.”    

Luca crossed his arms. “Jeez, it’s fine. But you keep too many secrets, next time be more honest.”

Brat. Alva seemed to want to say something, but he stopped himself. He regarded Luca with a strange look and quickly changed his glance to Jack.

“So, why did you want to save this human so badly? What is he to you? A… roommate ?” 

He pronounced the last word in the same way an old lady would see lesbians and call them good friends. Naib gasped. “We aren’t roommates ! Why would you think that?” 

Alva drily pointed at his canildo (candle+dildo), which was sticking out of his pocket because it was too damn big. Naib hid the nsfw out of sight. “Huh- Have you never seen someone carry a wax dick in their pocket? Weirdo.”

“Eh-”

“Naib and I are associates,” explained Jack, putting an arm around his shoulder to shut him up. “We had some ups and downs, he even failed his extremely easy task today, but it’s fine because he will make up for it by participating in TransFest tomorrow!”

Alva’s eyes widened. “I see, I wish you good luck.”

Naib nodded. “Thank you, I appreci- Wait, what?!”

Fast forward to a few hours, fights, breakfast, more fights, Luca telling them to shut up and leave, and a carriage ride later…

“You have to be kidding me,” Naib repeated as they entered the Red Dome.

It was a huge building with the shape of the upper half of a sphere, located in the north of the city. Naib had been in similar places during boxing matches and sport tournaments, but this one looked extra majestic due to the frescoes and stained glass decorating its interior.

Apparently, the guy who stabbed him yesterday paid someone to get their place in the competition so he could infiltrate the castle, but since he died, Jack used the last empty slot to register him.

He was given a red jacket with the number ‘300’ sewn on the back and told to wait with the remaining 299 participants, who queued nervously in a stuffy tunnel with horrible ventilation and dust.

Thousands of shouts full of excitement could be overheard coming from the other side of the gate, in the grandstand of the stadium. 

He and Jack stayed a few meters behind the last participant.

“I’m not a damn Gladiator, I can’t do this,” Naib complained.

“Relax, you just need to keep a close eye on the participants. I thought the garden party would be enough to interrogate them all, but since it got interrupted this is the only way.”

“But that’s too close. I could die.”

“And I can bring you back, remember?”

Ha. He was referring to the Philosopher’s stone, but that was easy to say when you weren’t the one enduring a near-death experience. During the ride to the Dome, Jack had told him what would be three trials and how to get to the finals without getting hurt, but even then he was worried about the damn crocodile pit.

“You don’t need to win. Just play normally and analyze anyone with green eyes. Make personal questions, they will be so focused on winning that someone might slip.” 

“I also have a personal question, why didn’t you turn me into a vampire?” 

He had been mulling over it all night. If he had gotten turned into one, he would have had no choice but to collaborate with Jack's plans without complaints, since if he didn’t stop the extinction, he would be affected by the purple beam and disappear. 

It was weird Jack hadn't manipulated him with that trick. Maybe he was scared of not being able to control him if he was a vampire?

“Have you noticed something different with your body?” Jack asked.

“No?”

“Exactly. I only cured your stab wound and left your knee injured. Do you know why? Because if you tell me one name after this competition is over, I promise to heal your knee and keep you safe until we return to the future. That will be your reward for helping me.”

It was the first time Jack talked about his future and even offered a recompense, a glint of hope for being coerced into participating in this madness of a plan. 

It sounded too nice to be true, but maybe he meant it. Is this why he didn’t turn him into a vampire, because he knew he would hate it and wouldn’t be able to ‘make up’ for it? 

Naib groaned. “Alright, I will give you a name, but don’t expect me to guess right.”

“On the contrary, I have high expectations. I wouldn’t ask you this if I didn’t believe in you.”

He said that as he put a confident hand on his shoulder. Was he trying to get on his good side? It felt strange for someone to trust him so blindly, considering he was a failure in every sense. Naib tried to ignore the way his praise made him feel.

“Why do you care so much about finding the thief before they steal the Tome? You can catch them red handed when the time comes.” 

“No, it has to be now,” Jack moved his hand to his chest. Naib held his breath for a second, until he felt something slip into his pocket, it was Jack's triangular, golden die. “For good luck, Naib.”

The sound of a Bong  echoed across the tunnel and the participants were ordered to walk towards the center of the dome. When Naib looked back, Jack was nowhere to be seen. 

Better like this, he thought, slapping his face. For some reason, his cheeks and ears burned.

He took a deep breath. At least the first trial wasn’t hard, it was just a game of tag.

“Ladies and Gentleman, humans and vampires, our first game is Musical Chairs!” 

Um. What.

No, seriously. What.

“What does she mean Musical chairs?!” he yelled as he crossed the getaway into the arena. Instead of an empty space for the players to run freely, there were hundreds of black chairs positioned in a big circle and facing the audience. 

“Oh, you are the butler from yesterday!” Someone said next to him, it was Emil 2.0, or Emile. “I wanted to thank you! I listened to your suggestion and went to speak with Ada, she is so dreamy, she even told me she would change the trials to make them less violent!”

Naib stared at an invisible camera as if he was in The Office. “You are welcome.”

The unexpected change was almost worth it, only because he managed to find Jack among the public and he looked as confused as him. He didn’t see that coming.

In the middle of the circle of chairs, there was a monumental statue of men and women climbing over each other, as if they were trying to reach the sky. The statue on top was a little girl with open bat-like wings. 

All the statues covered their eyes with one or both hands.

“It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the new edition of the Transformation Festival!” Ada spoke standing next to the statue, getting an uproar of cheers. “As you can see, there are 250 chairs and 300 participants. A song will play and they will have to run in circles. When the music stops, they will sit on a chair. Whoever doesn’t get a chair is disqualified! Easy, right?” 

Oh, so it really was an average musical chair game. Naib smiled, this wouldn’t be as awful as he had thought.

“Hey, Tourist, I thought you died yesterday, then they said it was a performance and now you are a participant. What’s up with that?”

Ah, Campbell. “I’m full of surprises.” Wait. This was bad, Norton was supposed to win the contest, but now that the games had changed, wouldn’t that heavily affect the outcome? “What do you think about this trial? Since it’s based on luck and not hard work.” 

“Wrong. There is no such thing as luck.”

Norton pointedly stared at the floor. It was red, at least he thought so at first, then he realized it was the reflection of the stained glass on the ceiling. So that’s why it was called the Red Dome, it made the place feel as if it was submerged in hell.

“What are those symbols?” Naib pointed at the marks painted on the floor around the chairs. Norton knew a bit of alchemy, so he must recognize their meaning.

“Let’s just say you better get a chair when the time comes.”

Ok, very useful and totally not ominous information.

Suddenly, a song started playing and everyone went on the move, running in circles around the chairs. The music seemed to come from the statue and it got mixed by the shouts of the audience. It was overwhelming, there could easily be 50,000 spectators. 

Naib felt like a roman, but instead of fighting tigers and men that didn’t deserve to be there, he was playing a game marketed towards 3 to 8 years old. 

“Have you seen that? The Lord is sitting next to a human. I heard he was seen with him in the throne room too.” Frederick, one of the contestants running in front of him, told another as he gestured towards an elevated cubiculum among the audience. 

The other man, Ganji, followed his gaze. “It's the first time he comes to the games with a human. Maybe his blood is that good, or he just likes him because he is a pretty boy.”

Frederick and Ganji were talking about Aesop! Naib was happy to see that he came to see the competition. He had feared for his safety and wondered if Joseph might have punished him, but he was dressed nicely and sat on the King’s right while Claude was on the left. 

Despite the first good impression, Aesop wore a miserable expression, and Naib soon understood it was because of his golden bracelet. 

He almost mistook it for an accessory, but Joseph was wearing the same one, and a discreet chain was connecting both. The psycho had chained their wrists so Aesop couldn’t sneak anywhere…? Shit.

He wished to call Aesop and tell him that he was alive, but he doubted he would see him among 300 people running.

“Prince Claude looks like he is having fun.” Ganji continued. “How entertaining it must be for him to see us fight, while he is the culprit of this city being in decay.”

Naib’s eyes widened. “Excuse me, what do you mean? I’m new here.”

“Hah, then you should leave. Penvicor used to be an oasis for humans, since at least the law protected us, but over the years the Lord has been so obsessed with his sick brother that he has forgotten us. Now the council does whatever they want.”

Frederick nodded. “Maybe if Claude died the Lord would focus again on his duties.”

The music stopped.

Naib almost forgot that he was playing a game, but thankfully he was quick enough to snatch a chair in time. Two women behind him weren’t as lucky, their brown eyes looking everywhere in vain.

Well, at least they could just go back home, Naib thought, and that’s when the entire floor of the arena opened under their feet, swallowing the twenty participants who couldn’t get a chair. The screams resonated until there was absolute silence.

The music started playing again. 

In shock, Naib and the others stood up and ran, less leisurely as before. So that’s what the symbols were for. They made the floor disappear when the music halted, and that fucker of Campbell didn’t warn him!

“The first eliminations are here!” Ada shouted, full of whimsy. “Each round we will take more and more chairs until there’s only 10 players left!”

Only 10 participants out of 300 could win this shit!? That was insane, he wasn’t going to make it. “Did they die?”

“Of course not. Vampires wouldn’t waste their food like that, but the fall must have hurt.” Someone replied. It was another woman he had interviewed yesterday: the snob one with olive green eyes. “It’s their fault for not paying attention, idiots.”

“Oh, Vera, as kind as always,” mocked Jose, another interviewee, the hot one who had to win this competition due to daddy issues or whatever. “You would make a perfect winner.”

“Because I actually worked hard for it?”

“No, because you are as coldhearted and arrogant as a vampire.”

Vera punched Jose in the gut and kept running. He whined and almost stopped in his tracks, Naib jogged next to him. “Dude, are you okay? What’s her issue?”

“It's fine, we have known each other for some time. She is bitter because her twin sister won the competition when she was eighteen and got turned into a vampire, yet Vera loses year after year. I think she is jealous.”

Naib hummed. A twin with the gift of youth while the other kept getting older. Could she be the thief? Maybe she had a breakdown after losing and decided to get rid of all vampires so she wouldn’t have to compete with her sister.

“What about you?” he asked Jose. He seemed friendly, handsome and intelligent, why would his family disown him? 

Jose smiled ashamedly. “It’s a long story. My lineage has proudly served vampires for generations, but we got blacklisted due to a mistake I made some time ago. We lost all of our possessions and privileges. I was told to never show my face again.”

“So you think that if you get turned, you will be on good terms with vampires and bring honor to your family?”

The music stopped. 

Jose and him quickly sat in nearby chairs. Many people around them weren’t as lucky and got sent to the depths of the arena. Once the floor came back, flying vampire staff removed more chairs and everyone resumed the run.

“Yes, if I win I’m sure I will be forgiven,” Jose smiled valiantly, his sea green eyes full of yearning. “And if I don’t, I will keep trying, hope is the last thing you lose, my friend.”

He was a good man (and very handsome, why was he so handsome?) Naib doubted he had anything to do with the Tome. He patted him on the back and wished him luck on his way to redemption. 

In his opinion, Jose deserved to win, at least more than Norton.

After that little chat, the game continued for several rounds. He didn’t manage to talk with anyone else, but he did a lot of observing:

He saw the way Campbell would grab people by their shirts to get the chair first, or how some participants would punch each other and end up falling into the abyss. He also noticed the way Burke, the old man, tripped, too tired from running, and when someone crouched next to him to aid, Burke shoved them and stole the chair.

What a great display of the worst qualities of human nature.

“Good job, everyone!” Ada praised, bathed by the red light. “There are 100 participants left, but it’s getting a bit repetitive, isn’t it? That’s a big no-no! Let’s make the game a bit more interesting!” 

This time, not a single chair was retrieved, leaving the circle with 100 chairs for 100 players. 

The song resumed.

“Wait, everyone will be able to sit,” Naib realized. He felt relieved and slowed down, so much running was starting to affect his knee. Damn Jack and his unwillingness to cure him.

When the music stopped, everyone sat in a chair without fighting and there was a moment of tranquility and peace. Cleaning the sweat from his brow, Naib looked up and saw twenty vampires flying around the dome, expectant, as if they were waiting for something.

Then, all of a sudden, several chairs exploded in a way that sent whoever sat on them flying and screaming, and that’s when the vampires picked them up in the air before they could fall to their deaths.

The participants looked mortified as Ada laughed. “The floor won’t fall anymore! Now, the ‘rocket chairs’ will fly, so be careful where you sit!!”

Naib was on the verge of a fucking heart attack. His ears ringed and his legs wobbled. How was he supposed to know which chair he was supposed to avoid? Fuck, fuck-

Norton had said that winning the trials wasn’t based on luck, so maybe there was a pattern?

He desperately tried to check the chairs as he ran, praying to see a mark, shape, or hint that differentiated them, that gave any sort of clue. All the participants did the same, but every black chair looked identical.

Shit. The music was going to stop at any moment and he was going to get sent away like Team Rocket! 

Frantic, he looked at the public, towards the only smart person who could help him.

No, not Jack.

He waved his hands, hoping that Aesop would notice him now that there were less participants. Unfortunately, he was not looking in his direction, instead focusing his attention on whatever Joseph blabbed about.

Oh boy. There was no other option, then.

Naib turned around and began running in the opposite direction while making broadway worthy dance jumps and twirls, as if he was in La La Land. The participants and audience looked at him as if he had lost it. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Campbell said when they crossed paths.

“Subverting expectations.”

The goal was not to clown himself in front of an audience the size of a small country, but he did make them laugh and point at ‘The nutcase who had gone insane’ to the point the king, prince AND human noticed him.

When he saw Aesop’s expression going from unhappy to genuine relief, he knew he had made it. 

His gray restless eyes brightened, even Joseph looked surprised to see him there. Aesop waved at him, but his smile quickly turned timid and guilty. He was far away, but Naib could see it as if he was right in front of him.

“You didn’t do anything wrong!!” He screamed as he moonwalked, hoping to let Aesop know he was not angry at him, he saved him because he wanted to.

Aesop let out a restrained laugh at his antics, probably thinking that he was an idiot. Naib smiled and pointed at the chairs. He put his hands together in a begging gesture.

Aesop understood the ‘Help me’ message and, after a few seconds of anticipation, he covered his eyes with his hands.

He… covered his eyes?

Oh god it was so over. Even Aesop had no idea what to do. He veiled his eyes so he wouldn’t see his imminent failure and- 

Oh wait.

The statue. 

Every participant was so focused on checking the chairs and the floor for patterns that they failed to notice the statues had moved! They weren’t covering their eyes anymore. On the contrary, each statue was suspiciously looking at a different area of chairs.

Maybe those were the safe chairs!

When the music stopped, Naib snatched one that was in the field of view of a statue. He waited anxiously to get ejected into the air, but it didn’t happen. 

He internally thanked Aesop, the power of friendship, and cheating.

But how come the statues moved? As the music continued, he realized that they weren’t statues, but vampires painted as such, like a living work of art or a performance he would see on the street. 

The little girl at the top, still with her eyes closed, was the one singing the folk ballad he was starting to hate. He knew the lyrics by memory at this point even if they made no sense.

Almost two thousand years ago

They hanged a man and let him rot

But after three days of holy death

A wish returned him to our Earth

His sacrifice made him the First

And eternal life shall we be gifted

The story sounded weirdly familiar, but he wasn’t sure why. The girl running next to him sang along. She had a pretty voice, like a bird.

“Do you like the song?” She asked, noticing his stare. It was Emma, the freckled farmer.

He made a face. “After the competition is over I don’t want to hear it ever again.”

Emma laughed. “Me neither!” 

They kept playing until there were only 20 participants and 10 chairs left. Naib couldn’t believe he had gotten so far, maybe Jack really gave him a lucky dice. He was ready to run some more and get it done with, but fate decided to change the rules once more. 

“First of all, I want to congratulate all of you!” Said fate, also known as Ada Mesmer. “This trial has been less bloody than past editions, but you made it worth watching. Becoming immortal is a big responsibility, the world will never get rid of you, so how can I know who truly deserves it? Which one of you can bear the weight of living forever?”

As she spoke, several vampires brought something to the arena and left it on the chairs. When Naib realized what it was, he paled.

“I want to know how far you are willing to go to live forever! Come on, show me this isn’t a mere whim!”

Two knives were left on every chair, twenty in total. The participants were supposed to pick them and fight each other for the last chairs once the music stopped.

“She is insane if she believes we will kill each other over this, right?” Naib asked with a smile, and when everyone ran to pick a knife, he sweated. “ Right? ”

He got completely ignored. Norton and Burke grabbed the weapons without thinking about it twice; Ganji, Frederick and Vera followed; even Jose, Emma and Emile picked a knife despite showing some doubt. Soon, the other finalists whose names he had not learned were holding a knife, everyone but him.

“This is ridiculous, do you really plan to stab someone over a chair? Do you see yourselves?!” Naib asked. Maybe he was being too emotional about this, but he had been stabbed a few hours ago, so it was personal. “You have to be kidding.”

“I’m dying, do you think I care about what happens to anyone else? I am my one and only priority. Call me selfish if you want,” Burke retorted.

“No one will give up this chance over an ‘ethical dilemma’” Frederick added. “It’s you or them.”

“Eat or be eaten,” Campbell agreed. “I’m tired of being seen as food.”

“So you will become one of them?” Naib asked.

“Yeah? Plus I’m not taking advice from the idiot who started dancing out of the blue.” 

“That was an intelligent strategy, you moron!” 

Vera put herself between them and threw him a pissed look. “Why did you join the competition if you weren’t ready to make any sacrifice? Insecure trash like you shouldn’t be allowed here.” 

Wow, alright. Things were getting heated. Naib remembered that he didn’t have to win, he could just walk away and look at these fools inflicting serious wounds to each other, just like the rest of the audience.

“Okay, do whatever you want, become vampires’ bitches, you all are a bunch of hypocrites,” he mocked. “So much complaining yet you suck their pale dicks anyway!” 

He got a chorus of scandalized gasps, maybe his language was too avantgarde for the 1800s.

“And what do you want us to do? It’s not like we can change how things work,” rationalized Jose.

“Yeah, if vampires didn’t exist, this wouldn’t be happening.”

If vampires didn’t exist…

Naib’s heart stopped. Those were the words he had been waiting for, and they came from no other than-

Ganji Gupta, the young man who had been loud and clear about his hate from the start. 

But could it be that easy? Naib was thrilled for a moment, tasting the victory of Sherlock Holmes, but once he looked around, he quickly realized that it was more complex than that. Even though Ganji was the one who voiced that confession, he wasn’t the only one thinking that.

It was written in all of their faces, spread across their harsh and tired expressions. He could feel it. Almost everyone wanted vampires gone.

His sacrifice made him the First

And eternal life shall we be-

The music stopped and chaos ensued.

Naib didn’t move, he stood with crossed arms and observed his ‘playmates’ going batshit insane over furniture. He had accepted defeat, it was fine. As he always said in his minimum wage job: He was not getting paid enough for this shit. 

The only thing bothering him was the thought that Jack was going to be upset at his loss, which was stupid! Why should he care about Jack’s opinion? He had trusted him to win and he failed, but he was used to being a disappointment.

He really shouldn’t be this bummed over it…

And that’s when two random participants, in their violent quest to take the last chair, accidentally kicked it, sending it flying until it landed right in front of him.

Naib stared at the chair. The chair stared back.

He sat on it.

A ‘DONG’ sounded across the Dome, signaling that the time was up. 

Against all bets and common sense, Naib had passed the trial without fighting or doing pretty much anything. The audience went wild at his feat, he even heard people chanting ‘300!’ ‘300!’ 

The other nine players who won were Norton, Burke, Jose, Vera, Emma, Frederick, Emile, Ganji and a strong looking woman. 

Some of them had cuts and bruises, but nothing serious. He overheard Emile saying something like ‘A bit of blood is fine if I get to live forever with Ada’. 

Was it a coincidence that most of the green-eyed people he interviewed passed? Or was fate feeling playful? Whatever it was, at least that meant he would have one more chance to interrogate them in the next trial.

Even then, he felt restless. 

“I’m dying, do you think I care about what happens to anyone else? I am my one and only priority. Call me selfish if you want.”

He didn’t know why, but Burke’s words kept repeating themselves in his head like a broken record. Why, thought? 

It wasn’t until he saw Jack applauding him with a big, proud smile that he realized why.

Burke reminded him of Jack.

Jack was also dying in a way, wasn’t he? Not a normal death, but the curse was the closest thing to it and couldn’t be stopped. If that was the case…

Why did Jack care about vampires going extinct? He wouldn’t be around for much longer, so why did he bother to come to the past and help Joseph and Luca? For friendship? No, he was too selfish for that.

Then why…? 

Even more, if he suspected a green eyed person, why didn’t he just kill all the participants who fit that description? It would be cruel since many innocents would die, but not unlike Jack to do something like that.

Could it be that he didn’t want to kill them? But for what reason would he want them aliv-

Oh.

Naib finally understood.

He understood why Jack needed to find the thief before anyone else, why he didn’t reveal to Luca that he knew more than it showed. 

He had never given a fuck about the extinction.

The reason Jack wanted to catch the thief was because he planned to force them to use the Tome and wish for his curse to disappear.

Chapter Text

Things one usually can see in the night sky: the moon, stars, clouds, a plane or two.

Things one usually does NOT see in the night sky: A giant eye orb.

Aesop blinked, wondering if he was dreaming. He had to be, right? An eye in the sky was not normal. Unless it was common for vampires, but he doubted it. His chain connecting him to his captor made a metallic noise when he stood up to wake Joseph.

“There’s an eye looming menacingly in the sky,” he whispered.

But when the vampire stared at the window upon his request, there wasn’t anything anymore.

“You dreamed it,” Joseph said. “Or was this an excuse to talk with me?”

Aesop made a face. Due to their arrangement, which consisted of having their wrists chained as if they were in a buddy cop movie, they had to be together all the time, and that unfortunately included the night. 

After the first trial of TransFest was over, they returned to the castle and Aesop was forced to follow Joseph whenever he went, like a shadow. He didn’t know what was worse, the shocked stares, the fangirling maids, or having to hear him discuss politics with old men.

In hindsight, it could have been more unbearable. At least he knew Naib was alive. He almost forgot how to breathe when he saw him running in the arena with other participants, full of energy, as if he had never been stabbed. 

It lifted a heavy weight off his chest, even if he had no idea why he was there or how he could be so healthy. 

“I bet Jack went to Luca’s place to revive him with the Philosopher’s stone,” Joseph had muttered under his breath. “I guess some are just that lucky.”

Something Aesop had learned after staying near Joseph uninterruptedly was the way he acted when he dealt with people versus when he thought no one was looking.

When talking with maids, Joseph would be demanding in a charming way that had them swooning all over him. When it came to politics, he would be cunning and detached, leaving most of the decision making to the council. When it came to Claude, he was warm and playful.

When he was alone -Aesop considered his own presence to be so unremarkable that it didn’t count- he became contemplative, exhausted. There wasn’t any charm or arrogance, just a man who had been pushing himself for too long.

Was that the real Joseph? 

Aesop had been thinking about that the entire night. He was lying in a bed next to a coffin, with Joseph inside of it. They must make a macabre image, an embalmer sleeping next to a coffin, but the chains didn’t allow for a better arrangement. 

He would rather die than sleep in the same coffin as Joseph, so.

“If I wanted to talk, I wouldn’t have used an eye in the sky as an excuse,” he retorted, at the same time his stomach decided to growl loudly. 

“So you woke me up because you are hungry?”

“...I’m not.”

“Then go back to sleep,” Joseph yawned and returned to his coffin. Aesop lied down too, but after a few seconds, Joseph sat up again. “Wait, did you eat today?”

He hadn’t. He felt too guilty about Naib’s potential death in the morning, and he spent the afternoon with Joseph, but in no moment the vampire ate, nor he offered him food.

Technically he could have asked for it like a normal person, but he assumed Joseph was punishing him by making him starve.

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t eat?!” Oh, he was wrong. “Come, I’m sure there are some leftovers in the kitchen.” 

“It’s not necessary, I can wait until mor-”

Joseph threw him a white nightgown to shut him up. He put on a navy blue one and marched towards the door, taking him along with a frown. Was he embarrassed that he forgot humans ate?

The empty, tall and long hallways of the castle were imposing at night, like a blue and white tunnel without end. The only sound came from their chains: pieces of metal striking, one against the other.

“There are no guards,” Aesop noticed. 

“I told them to rest. I want the thief to feel confident.”

It was very late, there shouldn’t have been anyone in the kitchen, but yellow light was coming from under the door, accompanied by whispers. Aesop put himself behind Joseph, worried that they had walked into a conspiracy meeting or thieves.  

Joseph motioned for him to be quiet and opened the door just a little, enough to sneak on the ‘rebels’, which were no other than servants who had decided to finish the leftovers from the party, like a child sneaking out at night to devour a chocolate cake. 

“The only good thing about TransFest is the food,” commented a maid, sitting on the table in a very unladylike manner and eating sausages. “My back is killing me from the ball preparations.”

“Do you think we will get surprising news during the banquet?” asked a butler, also festing on pastries.

“What do you mean?”

“Our Lord has always ruled alone, but all of a sudden he won’t separate from that human, Mr. Carl. Maybe we should expect a wedding announcement.”

“You are delusional, Joseph would never marry him.”

“Because he is a man?”

“No, because he is not interested in anyone. Hundreds of people have tried to court him, but he always rejects everyone with that polite ‘leave me alone’ smile… Hold up, why do you look so upset?”

“...I just love weddings.”

“Be thankful there isn’t one, it would be even worse to organize than the banquet. Plus, even if Lord Joseph is nice to us, I’ve heard rumors that he actually hates humans because they caused Claude’s illness, so he would never marry one.”

Humans did what? Aesop’s eyes widened as he looked at the vampire. Joseph had been quiet while eavesdropping, even rolled his eyes amusedly at the wedding, but his expression quickly darkened at the mention of Claude.

“That makes no sense. Why would he create and rule Penvicor if he hates us?” Another servant continued.

“Do you call that ruling? He only shows up to events and pretends to hear complaints, that’s not-”

Before the bold maid could dig her grave further, Joseph opened the door and regarded everyone with an icy smile. “Good night, hardworking staff. My special guest is hungry, are there any leftovers or have you finished everything like the gluttons you are?”

Aesop could swear he saw the soul leaving these poor people’s bodies. The maid almost choked with the last sausage. “S-Sir?! W-We will make something right now.”

Everyone hurried to their positions as if their lives depended on it (they probably did). Joseph crossed his arms and made himself look intimidating, which easily worked on the fearful servants. Despite the menacing display, Aesop noticed a quiet disappointment in his blue eyes.

Even if he was a king, it had to hurt to hear people badmouth him behind his back. He knew that feeling very well.

“They can leave, I can cook something for myself,” he offered. 

“It’s their job, Aesop.”

“It’s alright, I would rather be alone with you.” 

Maybe he shouldn’t have worded it like that. All the servants gasped and blushed, misinterpreting the situation. Joseph studied him in silence for a while, sighed and ordered them to leave. Aesop could swear he heard the wedding guy mutter something like ‘See!’ as he slipped away.

Once they were alone, Joseph pinched the sides of his nose. “Why did you say that?”

“I thought you might want them gone, they were being rude,” Aesop played with the hem of the shirt. “Um… How does this kitchen work?”

Joseph was speechless for a second. “You did this for-” He halted. His voice had a raspy tone, he coughed. “You don’t know how to cook?”

“I do, with tools from my century, I didn’t expect them to be so different here.” 

Actually, he was pretty sure kitchen utensils weren’t supposed to look like this in the 1800s, maybe a vampire invented the oven in this timeline and that’s why everything looked so different, as if he was piloting an alien spaceship and not trying to make soup.

“Do you want me to call the servants?” Joseph sighed.

“No, no, I can do it!” It would be horribly awkward to make them come back!

He picked up some ingredients from the pantry and got to work, all while Joseph followed him around due to the chain. He planned to do something simple and fast, a bread with jam and cheese would be enough to keep him full until breakfast.

It couldn’t be that hard, he thought as he grabbed a random knife.

Somehow, he provoked a fire. Joseph had to extinguish it.

“W-What happened?” Aesop felt like an idiot sandwich, holding the bread’s ashes as if it were cremated corpses.

“You are so useless, give me space.” Joseph took the knife from him and stared at the disaster. “You should eat something nutritious, like chicken broth and a fruit tart.”

“Do you need help with-”

“No, I will do it myself. Just observe the master.”

Aesop nodded firmly. He was a bit surprised that Joseph, a king with an army of servants, wanted to cook for a nobody like him. He was curious about the mouthwatering fancy dish he would make.

At least that’s what he thought.

Somehow, Joseph provoked a fire. Aesop had to extinguish it.

“You don’t know how to cook?” He asked, unable to hide his disappointment.

“Why should I?! It’s not like I eat human food. And why is this kitchen so complicated? It should be intuitive, not a fly trap!” Yeah, his pride got hurt.

Aesop stared at the ‘food’, if it could be called that. “Maybe we should call the servants…” 

“Of course not, I will cook you something delicious. Pass me the salt!” 

After many tries and failures, hopes and broken dreams, heaven and hell, Aesop ended up eating an apple while Joseph sulked next to him. 

“If I’m being honest, I really wasn’t that hungry,” Aesop mumbled.

“Oh, shut up .” 

Joseph’s hair was dirty and burnt on the ends. Everytime he failed a dish he would drink a full bottle of whisky and continue trying. He looked so devastated that Aesop couldn’t help but break into a laugh, first reserved, shy, until he couldn’t hold it in. 

The kitchen was unrecognizable, as if a flour bomb had exploded in the middle of it. It was too ridiculous.

“A vampire trying to cook, I never thought I would see something like that. The servants will wonder who died when they see this mess,” he chuckled, covering his mouth.

Joseph was offended at first, but eventually he cracked and started laughing too. It was the first time he did so in such a carefree way. He looked younger, less burdened. It suited him.

“Maybe we should throw in some rice, since they like weddings so much,” he joked.

Aesop wasn’t sure what happened, maybe it was the exhaustion, the unusual situation, the weird location, or the fact they were high on flour and whatever spices they inhaled, but once they regained their breath and stopped laughing, he found himself chatting almost normally.

The ‘almost’ was because Joseph had gotten drunk. For a vampire, his tolerance was very low. 

“I got married once.” He revealed as he opened another bottle. “With Mary, a good friend who reigned in the continent in 1300. We didn’t like each other in that way, I think we had a good reason for doing so.”

“You don’t remember why you got married?”

“To discourage one of her suitors? Living for so long makes it hard to remember small details,” he said, as if marriage could be considered a small thing. “I used to write diaries at first to document my life, but after filling up a library I gave up. There’s no point in recording a collection of nothing.”

“I think building a country is more than nothing.”

“Maybe at first, but the servants are right, I don’t care about ruling.”

“You don’t?”

“Why should I? When Claude got sick, he was weak and defenseless. I knew he wouldn’t survive in this chaotic world. That’s why I built Penvicor. I wanted him to have a peaceful place that he could call home. Humans and vampires would live together without fear and, in exchange, I would get samples of their blood to find a cure.”

Joseph looked at the bottle, disappointed that he emptied it. 

“Once Claude got better, he would be able to visit the center of the city, the monuments, the shops, the gardens… This place was supposed to be for him, but he never got better. Hundreds of years passed, I still ruled but kept wondering why, when Claude couldn’t enjoy any of it. At some point the council took over, but I didn’t care.”

Aesop was stunned. That would explain the dissonance between opinions regarding Joseph. Those who loved him for what he did, and those who hated him for abandoning them. The country he made as a gift became something he loathed.

As his advisor, Eli must have been aware of his decline and loss of interest, but couldn’t find a way to help him. For some reason, he believed Aesop could.

Help him how? Make Joseph realize that he had to take care of a country that reminded him of his failure on a daily basis and make its people suffer because of it?

To him, the solution was very different.

“You can stop,” he said quietly after a while.

“What? Why would I? I’m the King.” 

“But you don’t want to be.”

He knew it wasn’t his place to tell someone how they felt, but the way Joseph paused and took a sharp breath made him think that he needed to hear it.

“You are doing this for Claude, but have you asked him if this is what he wants? I’m sure he would be okay if you stopped-” 

A frustrated laugh cut him.

“This is why I detest you, always making assumptions. You think you know me so well.” His words were slurred, drunk. Harsh yet soft at the same time. “You did the same thing when I met you.”

What? But he never-

“Don’t look so surprised. I assisted at a funeral because an acquaintance of mine died and I had nothing better to do. That’s when I saw you; bruised cheek, pale and sad, doing your best to comfort the deceased’s brother.” 

Aesop’s eyes widened in recognition. He remembered the man crying.

“I heard everything you told him,” Joseph smiled softly. “The way you made it sound as if his death wasn’t such a bad, scary thing, and even though those words weren’t meant for me, that was the first time I felt as if I could finally move on and accept Claude’s parting.”

His eyes had never been this blue and intense, like a storm in the middle of the sea. 

“I got angry at you for making me have such an unforgivable thought. I planned to ambush you after the ceremony, but then I smelled it.” His hand hovered over his neck and pushed away his ponytail. “I realized your blood was special, I had to take you with me.”

Aesop didn’t move. His mind felt static, full of swirling thoughts that he could not process, even less with the man being so close. Despite his initial eloquence, Joseph seemed to be in the same confused state.

“It makes no sense. Your existence makes me angry and happy at the same time.” 

His head lowered to his neck, and Aesop waited for the pain to come, for the fangs to break his skin, but it never happened. Just a small brush of lips and then steady breath. 

Joseph had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

He stayed immobile for a few minutes, willing his heart rate to calm down. For some reason, his legs were shaking. His hands were shaking. All of him was. He was thankful that he was seated or he would have melted to the floor like jelly. 

There were so many things to consider, but his brain went back to one single thought:

This was the first time someone said he made them happy. 

A very old wound was opening or closing in his chest, he didn’t know which was yet. He tried to call Joseph’s name, but he didn’t bulge, he was sound asleep. 

If the servants saw them now, there would be rumors all over the country. He could try to carry him to his room, but he wasn’t that strong. Plus, the floor was slippery with sauces and-

Wait.

What was he thinking? Joseph was asleep. Shouldn’t he try to use the chance to escape and get the real Tome?

How could he forget about that?

He… He might not dislike Joseph’s company as much as he had thought, but he couldn’t keep being his prisoner. Vampires were bad. Even if he got along with a couple of them, that changed nothing.

It changed nothing, he repeated in his mind.

He knew where the real Tome was, he just had to find a way to get rid of the chains.

He repositioned Joseph back to his chair, grabbed a bottle of oil lying on the counter and spilled the contents on his wrist. He hoped for his hand to squeeze out of the metal thanks to its viscous texture, but the chain was too tight on his skin. 

Upset, he grabbed a knife and-

No, cutting his hand would hurt a lot, this wasn’t Saw.

Unless…?

No! Focus, Aesop. But what could he do? The chain was made of metal and gold so cutting it was impossible, plus he had no idea where the key was, so how could he get to the Tome room when he was stuck with-

Oh. 

His eyes fell on a 3-layer steel food cart with wheels. It was really big because they used it to carry many dishes around the castle.

…

Could it also carry a vampire?

“Joseph, please don’t wake up.” 

And that’s how he ran around the castle with the king wasted on a food cart, fully covered with a white blanket. It reminded him of the corpses back at home, when he moved them to the refrigerator. The experience was kinda nostalgic in a bizarre way. 

He had taken a knife and a pack of wooden matches from the kitchen just in case Joseph regained consciousness, so he could kill himself before the vampire did. 

He was committing the worst kind of treason.

The worst part of the secret trip was the stairs.

Oh how he missed ramps and elevators. He tried to do his best so the cart wouldn’t tumble over, but the wheels got stuck and poor Joseph fell.

And then he followed.

“Ouch!” He whimpered at his bruised hand, but quickly forgot about the pain because there was no way Joseph wouldn’t wake up from that, except he didn’t. He was still sleeping soundly. Was he normal?

‘I’m going to hell,’ he sweated as he carried the vampire to the cart again.

At least there were no guards, otherwise this would have been impossible to accomplish.

After several trials and tribulations, he reached the room Claude had mentioned. It was a small and dusty storage located in the west wing of the castle; a forgotten basement. The full moon peeked from a round window and offered enough light to display a shelf full of books. 

He navigated the aisle with Joseph in the cart. Due to the size of the room it shouldn’t be too hard to find the Tome even if he had no idea how it looked. He squinted his eyes trying to read the titles of the books.

“Joseph Desaulniers Memories, 1500-1530.” So this is where he kept his diaries.

He hummed. Picked one, opened and closed it immediately. No! He couldn’t be nosy right now, he was on a mission! 

…But maybe just a little sneak peak: ‘Dear Claude, All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. I went for a walk on a winter's day-’

He closed it again. Joseph was the kind of guy who wrote melancholic, poetic stuff. He returned the diary and that’s when he saw it. A book that didn’t fit with the rest of the sad diaries. 

It was old, simple and purple, with a lonely drawing of a silver shooting star on the cover. The Tome of Prophecies.

He could feel it in the tingling of his fingers, there was an otherworldly, timeless energy coming from it. He swallowed and slowly opened it. The yellowed pages were all blank, not a single word written on them. 

Right, only the chosen ones could read its contents and ask for a wish, and he wasn’t one of them. Figures.

“Can you read it?” A soft voice asked, sending Aesop’s soul to hell and back.

“Eli? What are you-”

“Fiona is guarding the fake tome. What made you think I wouldn’t be guarding the real one?” He smiled without malice. He was leaning on a ladder near a shelf, covering the moon with his body and making the room darker. “By the way, is that Joseph on a food cart?”

Um. “...He got drunk and is sleeping.”

“But you covered him entirely.”

“I don’t like seeing his face,” he mumbled, eliciting a chuckle from Eli. “Are you going to tell him about this?” 

Eli tilted his head playfully. “Hmm should I?”

“No.” He mumbled and stared at the Tome between his hands. “Eli, the thief needs to steal this book. You saw what happened when we changed the past slightly, a man tried to kill me. You all are making a grave mistake by playing god and I think you know it.”

Eli wasn’t blinded by guilt like Alva and Joseph, or nostalgia like Fiona and Jack. If anyone could understand how dangerous this whole plan was, it had to be him. He seemed rational, maybe he could become his ally and- 

“Return the Tome to the shelf, Aesop.”

He frowned. “Why? Why won’t you help me?”

“I am. I won’t tell Joseph about what you tried to do tonight, this is as far as I will go for you. I’m a spectator, remember?”

The lightness in those words made him think that maybe Eli was worse than the rest. A man who knew doom was coming and didn’t care. 

“Then spectate this.”

He couldn’t just discard the Tome now that he had it, he would never get an opportunity like this again. If words didn’t work, there was only one other option. He grabbed the knife he had taken from the kitchen and charged towards him.

Without the slight reaction, Eli raised his hand and easily cut the knife in two. What he didn’t foresee was that Aesop had also put the chain in the middle, getting it slashed and freeing him from Joseph.

“Ah-” 

Without wasting any time, Aesop lit a match and threw it over the rest of the books, Joseph’s beloved diaries. He knew they were very valuable, Eli wouldn’t be able to ignore them. 

And he didn’t. While he hissed and tried to save the books, Aesop abandoned the room with the Tome protected between his arms.

His heart was beating like crazy as he crossed several dark hallways. Eli wouldn’t wake Joseph or call for help, that would be like admitting that he let him go, so he had a few minutes before Eli extinguished the fire and found him again.

He couldn’t return the Tome to the good library, not when Fiona would catch him. The only option was to bring it to the city, announce to all the humans that it was the real one, and hope that the thief was among them so they could make that damn wish.

After that, Joseph would imprison him forever, but at least he would have avoided something horrible. He was convinced that the eye he saw in the sky wasn’t a delusion, but a bad omen. 

A deadly consequence to what they were about to do.

Now he only had to find a way to get out of the castle and-

“Aesop, you can’t just burn other people’s diaries, that’s very rude.”

W-What?

It had only been a few seconds, how did Eli already catch up to him?! He was blocking his way, and even though there was no hostility in his tone, Aesop knew that his patience wouldn’t last forever. 

Holding the Tome closer to his chest, he ran in the opposite direction and entered a random room, locking it to gain a few more seconds to think. 

But just as he turned around, Eli was already behind him.

With a shriek, he recoiled and pressed his body against the door, panicked.

“Don’t be scared,” Eli reassured. “It’s a small trick, just like this one.”

Eli wouldn’t hurt him, Aesop thought, but when the vampire got closer, he shut his eyes with fear, only for Eli to grab him by the waist as if he was weightless and start flying.

And hell, if Eli couldn't drive, his flying was. It was.

Even worse. 

Aesop grabbed onto him for dear life, wondering if he planned to throw him to the crocodile pit (He didn’t know where that was, but its existence was concerning) Thankfully, Eli had other plans and brought him to the tallest tower of the castle, where a misstep would make him crash and die irreparably. 

The wind was blowing strong and cold at that height. He was still in a nightgown and socks, the roof tiles were wet and slippery. He had nowhere to run.

“I want to tell you something,” Eli said, holding him close for precaution.

“Here?!”

“I wanted to bring you to your room, but we ended up in the tower. It’s the wind currents.”

Lies, he couldn’t fly properly at all! 

“Joseph hasn’t told you anything about the first vampire, has he?” 

The first vampire? Aesop shook his head. Why was Eli bringing that up all of a sudden? Everything he knew came from Luca’s story, the tale about a human who had wished for immortality, thus became the creator of the rest of the vampires. 

But if Eli was asking him about him, it must be important, he realized. 

“Why? What kind of person was he?” 

“A good one,” Eli replied, as if talking about a close friend. “He was a selfless human who loved to help people. Ever since he was born, he heard a voice telling him that he was special, the chosen one. At first, he made small good deeds, then they became more and more extraordinary, until he made a following of people who believed in his kindness and words.”

Aesop had no idea where Eli was going with this, but he listened intently. 

“Despite that, he was also hated by men whose greediness was exposed due to his acts, so they decided to kill him. The selfless man felt lonely and scared. He knew he was going to die and couldn’t accept it, it was unfair. He went to a mountain and cried, and that’s when he found it, buried next to a tree, a magic Tome.”

Aesop’s eyes widened.

“Yes, it was the Tome of Prophecies,” Eli smiled. “The man thought it was sent by God, the voice he had been hearing from the start, and so, in his extreme fear for the fate that awaited him, he wished for immortality.”

Aesop nodded slowly, but something was bothering him. Then he recalled the song that the girl-statue sang during the musical chairs. What did the lyrics say exactly? 

‘Almost two thousand years ago, they hanged a man and let him rot, but after three days of holy death, a wish returned him to our Earth.’

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but why is the story so similar to Jesus’?” 

Eli chuckled awkwardly. “Erm.. Well, the world was rewritten as if vampires never existed, right? So the tale of the first vampire changed into Jesus’ story. In our version, he became a vampire after three days, in your version, he became the holy spirit. It’s kinda funny if you think about it.”

No?! 

“Isn’t that heresy!?”

“Well, christianity doesn’t exist in this timeline. Instead, a religion surrounding vampires was born. I could lend you a book about it, if you return this one.”

“Are you trying to convert me?” 

“Are you interested?”

Hm…

Eli smiled, entertained. “Anyway, after the first vampire, some other humans managed to read the tome, but no one asked anything world changing. It was mostly fame, health, fortune… a Queen once asked to become a goddess, but she ended up trapped in a mirror.”

It sounded like the Tome worked more like a monkey’s paw. You asked for immortality and suddenly you turned people into monsters, you asked to become a genie and you ended up trapped in a lamp. 

“What makes someone worthy of making a wish?”

“It’s a mystery, but the point I’m making is that wishes were fairly inoffensive. That is, until a man asked for something so evil that it could have destroyed the world. When that happened, Joseph managed to kill him and guarded the Tome in this castle so no one else would use its power for evil, and that’s how it’s been for centuries.”

“Until someone wished for the vampires to have never existed,” Aesop finished.

Eli nodded. “Yes. Isn’t that wicked?”

It was, Aesop wouldn’t deny that. Many vampires died, but so did humans after years of being treated as cattle.

“I’m not saying what happened to vampires is just, but reverting it will kill many humans too,” he said. “The first vampire changed the world many years ago, and someone brought it back to how it was supposed to be. A place without vampires.”

Eli pursed his lips. “No, God sent the Tome to the first vampire for a reason, he was the chosen one. His version of the world is The Correct One. This is why I can’t help you.”

Eli, who had always come off as neutral and easygoing, suddenly had a flame of passion in his eyes. Unlike the others, who wanted their loved ones back, he believed in something higher, powerful and abstract. 

He believed in a world with vampires because of God’s will. 

Aesop didn’t take Eli as that sort of person, but was it that unexpected? He remembered the drawing he found in his car, of him standing next to a god-like monster, and had a bad feeling. 

After all, didn’t Eli know a little too much about the first vampire? 

Could it be that…?

“Say, Aesop,” Eli called, his voice back to a calm whisper. ”If you could make a wish, what would you ask for?” 

A cold gust of wind swept over them, Eli raised one of his wings and covered him kindly. His brown, messy hair danced with the breeze, his ancient eyes reflected the stars and moonlight.

Aesop blinked, mesmerized, and stared at the Tome. 

‘Go back home unscattered’ sounded like a decent wish, but would that be enough? Jerry would be there. His old life would be there. He could ask for his mom to come back, but… What if she became unhappy again? That thought paralyzed him. 

Was there anything that he truly wanted? 

“Maybe… Make people happy or,” Be loved. “I don’t know. You?”

“That’s sweet,” Eli gave him a sincere smile. “As for me, well,” he stared at something behind him. “I would ask for the eye to stop looking at us.”

Aesop followed his gaze and his heart dropped. The giant, red orb was there again, bigger and scarier than before. Shivers and a horror too big and cosmic to describe overcame him. He opened his mouth to scream and-

Woke up.

W-What?

He looked around, shocked to find himself in the kitchen. His cheek felt numb, when he touched it his finger came full of flour. 

Next to him, Joseph was still sleeping, face resting on the table and equally white with flour. Their wrists were connected by the unbroken chains, and the food cart was in its original place. It must already be morning, because some servants were observing them from the door, too scared to intervene.

Ah, the rumors would never stop now.

Had everything been a fever dream?

Jesus as the first vampire, of course it was a dream! Only his twisted mind would come up with that nonsense. He sighed at his subconscious and shook Joseph awake, but in doing so, he flinched in pain.

As the vampire slowly came back to his senses, Aesop realized with confusion that his hand had a slight bruise, right in the same place where he had fallen off the stairs in his ‘dream’.

…Eh?

“The second trial will begin in five minutes. Please, get ready!” 

The sun was high in the sky and the Dome’s capacity was fuller than the previous day. Since there were only 10 participants left, attendees had started to place bets on who they thought the winner was going to be, sold merchandise such as flags, and some even had their faces painted.

Was this the equivalent of the Super Bowl for medieval people? 

“Is it a tradition to wear white makeup on the second day?” Naib wondered out loud.

“Didn’t you hear?” Campbell, who was observing the audience next to him, snorted. “A rumor says the King was seen wearing white powder this morning.”

“So they are following a trend that started six hours ago?”

“It’s the King, so yeah. Rumors also say that he will propose to his boyfriend during the celebratory banquet in two days.”

Boyfriend? What boyfriend? “Aesop?!” 

“And there’s more, apparently the King’s advisor, Mr. Clark, has romantic feelings for Aesop, making it a complex love triangle in which the human will have to choose between the arrogant and troubled king, or the gentle yet mysterious childhood friend.”

“What.”

“Yes, yes. They even had sex in the kitchen and in a tower. People are expecting Joseph and Eli to fight for his hand, but overall everyone is excited for the upcoming wedding.”

WEDDING?! 

No. Seriously. Who was making up those rumors?!

(A servant sneezed)

“Isn’t Aesop your friend? I thought you would know,” Norton frowned. “Sometimes you act as if you spawned in this world just a week ago, but you know a lot of influential people. I’m not sure if you are just dumb or a spy.”

Naib swallowed. He forgot how perceptive Campbell could be, no wonder he always managed to manipulate coworkers and clients into thinking he was pleasant and not just a social climber. 

He took a look at his jacket. It had the number 1 sewn on it. Considering he was number 300, that meant Norton was the first to register for the competition. He really wanted to win this.

“I’m not a spy and I don’t have good connections. If you want me to put a good word for you, you are out of luck.”

“But you are friends with the Lord’s right-hand man.”

“Ew. Jack is not my friend.”

“Then why is he waving a huge flag with your face on it?”

Naib followed his gaze and cringed. Jack had bought merch of him, and not only that, it was ugly as fuck. His face was drawn like the infamous botched Jesus painting. The messed up one that looked like a sloth.

“That’s psychological torture, this proves he is my enemy!” He cried. Norton’s face was drawn on another flag as if he was a Greek god, scar, pecs and all. 

Call him paranoid, but the artist might have favoritism. 

“Hmm if you say so,” Campbell muttered, not convinced.  

Suddenly, a round of applause echoed across the dome, letting them know the crocodile race had ended. Naib had learned that TransFest celebrated more than just their game. Circus performances, sport matches and concerts were also part of the entertainment, which was staged over the course of each day. Thus, for many spectators, visits were an all-day outing even if the main trial itself lasted less than an hour.

(As for the crocodile race, he guessed they came up with it after canceling the pit. They had to use the crocodiles in some other way, good for them.)

“All the participants, please stand on the platforms,” Ada ordered, dressed even more spectacularly than yesterday.

This time, there were no chairs nor human-made statues. Instead, ten round platform risers were distributed randomly across the arena. They weren’t very big or high, Naib calculated they had similar dimensions to a round mattress. 

He stood in the one furthest from Jack, who made it his goal to embarrass him in front of everyone with that stupid flag. 

Seriously, did he have beef with him? 

Maybe it had something to do with what happened last night between them. He remembered the events with a grimace:

It all started when they returned to the hotel after the first trial concluded. Naib had wanted to confront him about his real, not bullshit plan, but then what? Jack might as well lie, he was a professional at that.

“I knew you could make it, with or without my lucky dice,” Jack had said with a smile.

His praise felt sweet and bitter at the same time because, did he really mean it?

He had been lying about so many things, everything actually. Pretending to care about his fellow vampires, pretending they didn’t meet two years ago, pretending he wasn’t cursed and turning into a monster-

Being surrounded by people who hid their true intentions as if their lives depended on it started to weigh him down. Not that he was any better, but still, there were too many secrets between them.

If he was honest and told Jack that he remembered their first encounter, their promise, would Jack be sincere as well? Like a mutual understanding instead of so much scheming and lies.

How would it feel to talk normally, sincerely, even if just once?

Naib considered himself a direct person. Honest to a fault. If he had a problem with someone, he wasn’t afraid to confront them face to face, never behind their back. Maybe that’s why he’d had so many problems in life, but being true to himself was all he had left.

Ah, fuck it.

“I know you saved me that day,” he dropped the bomb, loud and clear, as he stared at the wooden tiles. “It took a while, but I finally remember now.”

He waited for a reply, anything, but after getting radio silence, he braced himself and continued. 

“Look, I was grateful and wanted to repay your kindness. I guess- I guess I noticed how troubled you looked and made that promise to you, but I had no idea that the curse you mentioned was real, now I do.”

This was harder than he expected, he couldn’t even look Jack in the eyes.

“I think I know why you are doing all of this. You plan to force the thief to wish for a cure, right? But I can’t agree to that. The thief can only ask for one wish, and it has to be for the vampires to disappear or the future will be ruined for all the humans.”

He shut his eyes and closed his fists.

“I can’t help you. I really can’t. I’m sorry for breaking the promise.”

“Breaking what? Bad?” Jack asked, coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. 

Naib stared at him for a long, long time, speechless.

“My eyes are up here,” Jack grinned.

“IT’S NOT THAT! YOU WEREN’T LISTENING TO ME?”

“I told you I was going to take a bath, maybe you are the one who does not listen.”

Naib gasped. He was so focused on whether or not to tell Jack the truth that he might have ignored him, but then…

Everything he said fell on deaf ears.

“Am I doomed by the narrative or what?” He let himself drop on the bed, defeated. He thought Jack was going to make a witty remark, but the vampire returned to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Maybe the world was sending him a signal not to say anything. After a minute of brooding, he heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering in the bathroom. Before he could ask what happened, Jack spoke from the other side of the door:

“Wear shoes if you come into the bathroom, the mirror fell.” 

His voice was weirdly cold, monotonous. It lacked the rises and falls, the musicality that always accompanied his flippant tone.

But most of all, he sounded enraged. 

Naib stared at the closed bathroom door, heart in his throat, and quietly wondered if Jack had actually heard everything.

Oh, this was bad.

…

“-And these are the rules of the second trial. Do you have any questions?” Ada said, bringing him back to the present.

Naib blinked. Shit. Did he miss anything important?

He raised his hand. “Can you explain everything again?”

The whole stage groaned in unison.

“Jeez, have you ever learned a new game? Some of us need the rules explained twice because we physically cannot listen.” 

Ada threw him a deadly glare. “As I said , This game is called ‘There’s a Vampire Among Us’ . Unlike the first trial, it’s not physical. Instead, it will require you to use your brains because… Surprise! One of you has been a vampire from the start. You have to discover who the real vampire is before it’s too late!”

“Too late?” Emile asked.

Ada winked. “You will see.”

For a second, Naib thought her wink provoked an earthquake in Emile’s heart, but no, the entire arena was shaking. The platforms they were on quickly ascended, like a tree growing to its full size in seconds. 

“W-Whoah-” Naib spread his legs to maintain balance. 

Before they knew it, all of them were at least three floors above the ground, standing on their respective platforms which had become pillars.

“I hope none of you have vertigo,” continued Ada. “You have five minutes to discuss who the infiltrated vampire is. When you come to a decision, say their exact name out loud and the person will be disqualified. If you are wrong, there will be more rounds. If you are correct, the remaining participants will move to the last trial.”

So it really was a vampire version Among Us. 

But hold up, one of them was a vampire? Since when?! Naib stared at his ‘teammates’ with suspicion:

Norton, the ambitious winner.

Jose, the handsome jock.

Ganji, the justice seeker.

Vera, the sister issues haver.

Emile, the blind lover.

Emma, the happy farmer.

Burke, the cunning old man.

Frederick, the paranoid snob.

Martha, the strong woman.

Either a vampire cleverly disguised as one of them for today, or the impostor had been among them from the very start, though in that case Jack could have given him a heads up…

It wasn’t Norton nor him, so that left him with eight suspects.

Naib brought a hand to his chin. Ada was right, this was a deduction game. They were isolated in pillars because violence or direct touch was out of the equation, the only way to discover the truth would be through teamwork and making the right questions.

Which was… great, actually. It was the perfect excuse to learn more about them and uncover who wanted to steal the Tome!  

Everyone would have to prove that they were human, and whoever failed would be judged and eliminated. It would be an intense mind game, a cat-and-mouse chase, a Light and L situationship, a-

“It’s Vera,” Martha said. 

Eh?

“WHAT? I mean- Why!?” Yelled Vera, shocked.

“You are too stuck up,” Martha explained, short yet convincing. She was the only finalist with brown eyes, so Naib hadn’t had the opportunity to speak with her.

“That’s not a good reason! You are just saying that because I dumped you.”

The audience gasped dramatically.

“We could have made it work if you didn’t obsess so much over being perfect!” Continued Martha. “This competition is changing you.”

Jose coughed and raised his hand. “I agree with Martha, I think it’s Vera.”

Naib’s left eye twitched. “Are you saying that because she punched you yesterday?” 

“...”

“You totally are! Guys, this is a psychological game. Please take it seriously!”

“I’m voting Vera, who is with me?"

A chorus of ‘Alright.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Okie.’ followed as all the participants announced, in unison:

“The vampire is Vera Nair!” 

Naib was trying not to throw himself into the void when a cloud of gray smoke surrounded them, making it impossible to see anything beyond the tip of his nose. The uneasy silence was broken by a freezing scream that was undoubtedly Vera’s.

The smoke slowly dissipated, only to reveal her lying unconscious on her platform. The real vampire had used the smoke to fly over and bite her!

“It wasn’t Vera Nair. The Vampire is still among you!” Ada smiled, very amused. “Let’s see if you are luckier andsmarter,” she added very quickly, “in the second round!”

“Oh, it wasn’t her…” Jose mourned.

“OF COURSE IT WASN’T, WE DIDN’T EVEN TRY!” Naib lost it.

This was supposed to be a game that proved their intelligence and deductive skills. Why were these idiots pointing fingers randomly at the first person who slightly bothered them? What was this, twitter?!

“Number 300 is so annoying, we should vote him out next,” Ganji proposed, getting several nods of approval.

Naib gasped. “NO?! You are going to lose if you keep bullshitting this!”

“Actually, I have a good reason to believe it’s you,” frowned Burke. “For starters, I have never seen you in the city before. Then, out of the blue, you work in the castle, as an actor, and a participant. You are the most suspicious guy here.”

“Now that he mentions it, that’s true,” At least Jose looked a bit guilty. “You interviewed us as an outsider even though you planned to participate, that’s odd.”

“He also didn’t fight yesterday, as if he didn’t want to show his true powers,” Frederick added fuel to the fire.

Naib held his hands up, like a criminal. “No! I’m not a vampire! I’m 100% human, you have to believe me.”

“Why should we? Prove it. That’s the point of this game, isn’t it?” Dared Ganji.

Oh, so NOW they wanted to play properly.

He was fucked. How was he going to demonstrate that he was a normal guy? Anything he said would be perceived as a lie. After all, he really was the only outsider, it was obvious he didn’t belong in this world, age, society, anything.

He couldn’t just say ‘Source: dude, just trust me’.

Shit, shit, shit.

There was only one thing he could do, but it would be painful, traumatic, even. 

“Alright… You give me no other choice.” With a somber look, he grabbed something from his pocket and took it out for the entire world to see.

The participants, the audience and Ada yelped.

It was the Canildo.

“There are kids in the audience, you degenerate!!” Accused Martha.

“It’s a candle!” Naib promised. “Ignore the shape and listen to me-”

“How are we supposed to ignore that?!”

“Just do it!” He insisted. “This is a magic candle. A CANDLE. Made of magic wax. It lights up with a red flame to confirm almost any question, so I will ask if I’m a human to prove to you that I am one.”

“You just made that up,” Burke snorted.

Curiously, Emile spoke up. “He is telling the truth, I used a candle like this once and it works as he says.”

Naib sent him a grateful nod. He knew the candle barely worked and would most likely not lit up due to the stupid question, but that wasn’t the point. If he was going to get eliminated in this round, he might as well use it as a last resort to uncover the thief. 

He had observed everyone’s reactions when he showed the candle and, curiously, several participants didn’t look shocked at all: Emile, Emma, Jose and Ganji.

Why weren’t they surprised? Could it be because they were freaks or, like Emile, used a similar candle in the past to ask for something?

Interesting. 

“Candle, am I human?” He asked with zero expectations. The shitty thing didn’t light up. “Candle, am I a vampire?” It didn’t light up either. “Um… Sometimes it doesn’t work.”

“This is ridiculous and a waste of time, we should vote him out. It’s obvious he is the vampire,” said Burke.

Everyone nodded again. 

Naib sweated, imagining the future that awaited him: He would get bitten by the real vampire, pass out, and then wake up with Jack judging him for being a fool.

The game was over for him. 

“Naib is definitely human.” 

Or maybe he would get to keep playing for a little longer.

All eyes turned towards Norton, the owner of that statement. Naib had to do a double take, because.

Campbell? Campbell of all people defending him? 

RIGHT! Norton had helped him with the blood mark in Posy Square. Only humans had those marks, and he knew first hand that his mark wasn’t fake because he used alchemy to swap their places in exchange for cheesecake.

Why was he helping him, though? Norton wouldn’t gain anything from it, and he was all about gaining. 

Unless he was being too harsh on him, Naib realized with something akin to shame. This wasn’t the Norton he knew, he was 200 years younger, a struggling human living in a horrible world.

This was a Norton who wanted a better life, who had helped him twice and never betrayed him. 

He had to stop comparing them, it wasn’t fair. Future Norton betrayed him in the worst possible way and he still felt hurt by it, but this one reminded him of the friend he lost. 

“Naib is a bit stupid, but I can confirm he is human. I saw him feeding a vampire two days ago.” Norton changed the story a little, but it worked, suddenly everyone seemed less suspicious of him. “On the other hand, I can’t say the same about Mr. Lapadura.”

The old man jumped. “What are you on, brat?”

“You were very insistent on getting Naib out, but how come you didn’t die of a heart attack after so much running yesterday, old man?”

Naib’s eyes widened. “Right, he also pretended to limp in the garden party. He is very strong for his age, only a vampire could have that much stamina.” 

“D-Don’t be stupid, I exercise and have a healthy diet!” Burke defended himself against a new wave of accusing glares. “I spent most of my life working as a lumberjack outside of the capital, in remote areas far from medical assistance, filled by beasts who could devour me, so I trained my body.” 

“Sure grandpa, let's get you to bed,” mocked Martha. “You have been working at Mark Reznik’s shop fixing watches and making random gadgets for years, liar.” 

Burke’s face turned red. “I’m telling the truth! I never said I was a lumberjack because I thought I would be looked down upon, but when I lived in the woods I created machines. This is why I moved to the capital, so I could keep developing my inventions. I don’t have much time left, that’s why I want to become a vampire to keep creating!”

Was Burke telling the truth, or did he make up a fake past to confuse them? Naib wavered. The shine that appeared in his rude eyes seemed genuine. 

If that was the case, he couldn’t be the thief. Someone like him wouldn’t pass up the chance to live forever.

The rest of the participants didn’t believe the old man, though, and when the time came, all of them accused him of being the Vampire in disguise.

The smoke came in and out in the blink of an eye, and almost everyone was shocked to discover that Burke was, in fact, human. One that laid unconscious in his pillar, just like Vera.

Martha scratched the back of her head awkwardly. “So it really was exercise and a good diet.”

Naib felt like a horrible person, they doomed a sick grandpa who just happened to work out.

“We should be more mindful from now on,” Campbell proposed, taking charge of the circus. “Let’s talk about ourselves so we can make a decision based on facts. Does anyone object?”

Frederick raised his hand. “Me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like talking about myself.”

“Ok. Who wants to vote Frederick out?” 

“NO, NO, ALRIGHT, I WILL SPEAK!” He cleared his throat. “I will tell you my story, but I must warn you, it’s long, and there will be mentions of horses.”

“What’s wrong with horses?” Emma asked.

“Oh, after I’m done you will fear them.” 

The tips of his fingers had turned black, Luca quietly realized in the laboratory.

Alva was seated across from him, focused on reviving a moth that kept flying into a lamp with the stone, amazed at the insect’s low intelligence. With a hum, Luca put his gloves back on under the work table. 

In a way, his curse’s symptoms were similar to those of necrosis, at least in appearance. 

“I’m surprised it took so long to get the curse.” Alva broke the silence.

He said it so casually, so neutrally, that Luca almost missed it, and when it hit him, he froze . His hands shook and he slowly looked up, pale as if he had seen a ghost.

Alva tilted his head at his reaction. “Sorry, I was thinking out loud. I’m impressed Jack didn’t get the curse until now, considering his extensive history of misdeeds.”

If he could, Luca would have yelled at Alva for almost giving him a heart attack. 

“You have known Jack for a long time, right? Has he always been… like that ?”

The moth flew into the light and died, again. Dumbass. Alva massaged his temple. “Yes, the first time we met I was in Pompeii, in the year 79. Even back then my first impression of Jack was that he was a weird one.”

He revealed that as if he was talking about the weather and went back to work like nothing, leaving Luca gaping with daze and excitement. 

“Hold up, hold up. THE Pompeii?”

“Hm? Yes, I was a vampire traveling the continent. I happened to be in that city when Mount Vesuvius erupted. I remember leaving right as ash and pumice began to fall, and that’s when I bumped into Jack, who was going in the opposite direction.”

“Towards the volcano?”

“I couldn’t believe it either, so I asked him why he wasn’t escaping like everyone else. I still remember his answer to this day. He said it would be ‘a waste to miss such stunning scenery.’” 

Luca tried to imagine Jack walking towards an active volcano as the sky fell and the city burned in lava and flames. It would be hard to forget a sight like that.

“A few years later, I saw a painting depicting that event nearly to perfection, perhaps a bit more apocalyptic,” Alva continued. “I asked who the artist was and that’s how we got properly introduced. He was mad, a lunatic, but at the same time I came to the realization that he was born to be a vampire.”

Luca hugged his legs with childlike interest. “You never told me that. Was he still called Jack during ancient Rome?”

Alva rolled his eyes. “No, he signed his works as Biggus Dickus.” A snort came from Luca. “He was immature. Still is. I wonder why the First chose him.”

“You, Jack and Joseph are first followers, right? That means you were turned by the first vampire. How was he?”

“I don’t know. I was dying when he turned me, I couldn’t see his face. It’s the same case for the others.”

Luca hummed. So the original vampire preferred to hide his identity. It was said that vampires turned directly by him were stronger, so he probably wanted to remain anonymous.

“By the way, Alva, how did you die?” 

Alva had entertained his curiosity so far, but that one question made him visibly flinch. 

Luca realized too late that he had been insensitive. Alva was there when he died, mugged by a scummy thief on his way to buy cake ingredients, so he thought it would be alright to ask, but maybe his experience had been too painful to be brought up so casually.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer,” he quickly added.

“Why do you ask?” Alva deflected. “It’s unlike you to care about personal matters. Are you too lazy to work and decided to pester me with irrelevant questions?”

What?  

He opened his mouth, closed it. Stared at him, offended. “I’m not interested in other people’s business, but you are my fr- coworker, of course I want to learn more about you. I feel as if I barely know you!”

That wasn’t exactly true, he knew a lot about Alva. He knew he had a soft spot for fluffy cats, enjoyed reading the newspaper but only on Mondays, and had a messy penmanship that he hid by rewriting everything more carefully so he could read his notes later.

He knew a lot about him, but he had no idea about his previous, amazing life before they met. 

Alva looked surprised at the ‘sudden’ interest, probably because Luca had always maintained his distance in those matters, a commendable fact considering how nosy he was.

“My life isn’t that interesting.”

“But it is! See? This is why I wanted you to get drunk, so you would tell m-” 

Oh shit.

Alva raised an eyebrow. “You what ?”

“Pretend you didn’t hear that. Actually, in my defense I will say I don’t remember a single thing of what we talked about because of how wasted I was.”

He thought Alva was going to get angry or worse, disappointed at his machination, so his amused smile came as a surprise. 

“Are you saying the Philosopher’s stone we made, after years of failure, is the consequence of your poor plan to learn more about me? You could have just asked me.”

“It wasn’t a poor plan, it was brilliant,” he pouted. “And I couldn’t, we have lived together for so long, it would have been awkward to ask all of a sudden.”

The humiliation was big, but Alva seemed endeared, moved that someone went so far just to get to know him better. There was unusual warmth and hesitance in his tone when he spoke next:

“I was born in Lutetia when it was still part of the Roman Empire. I was trained in mathematics, astronomy and philosophy, and worked as a tutor to a well-off family.”

Luca’s eyes widened when he realized what Alva was doing. He sat straighter, almost too on the edge of the chair. He was positively beaming.

“So you used to be a Math teacher, that explains so many things.”

“Do you want me to continue?”

“Sorry, sir. Yes, sir.”

Alva bit out a smile. “In that city, I met the woman who became my wife. She had red hair, like a rose, and loved all sorts of legends and tales. I wanted to spend my life with her, but the family I worked for traveled a lot, and gave me the opportunity to accompany them. I should have rejected their offer.”

But he didn’t, Luca read the regret in his eyes. He understood the desire to visit new places, but it must have been hard to leave his wife. 

“I met many influential people during my travels, even Tiberius himself, the current emperor of Rome. My plan was to earn enough money so I could buy a villa for my wife, give her all the comforts she deserved. I worked hard for that goal, encouraged by the stories she sent me every month. I was reading her favorite, a fascinating tale about a magic stone, when I got killed.”

Luca’s smile dropped. “What happened?”

Alva looked slightly hesitant, he took off his glasses and cleaned them even though they weren’t dirty, maybe as an excuse not to look him in the eyes. 

Luca wondered if he had ever told this to anyone else. Probably not.

“The family I worked for was more influential than I expected and had many enemies, I was just a casualty. When my legs began to shake and I fell on the floor, someone approached me, a blur in the shape of a person. I thought they were going to help me, but I only felt a burning sting on my neck, a bite. After that, I passed out.”

As he said that, the reckless moth flew into the light and died again. 

“When I woke up, everything was dark and there was a heavy weight above me. Pounds and pounds of soil. I had been buried in a deep pit, I couldn’t breath yet I was still alive. I had been turned into a vampire, a new and uncommon kind at my time. I should have been able to crawl up, but I was too weak. Later on, I learned that new vampires need to drink blood at least once to come into their powers, but there was nothing around me.”

“What did you do?” Luca felt asphyxiated just by imagining the situation. He remembered the time he woke up in a pit, after the vampires were erased from Earth. 

It had been a nightmare. 

“I did the only thing I could; I started digging up slowly, using my remaining strength. I don’t know how long it took me. Any other man would have gone insane and turned into a monster, but I couldn’t give up, I had to get back home.”

His hands started shaking, and Luca felt horrible. 

Now he understood why Alva had never shared anything about his past life.

“When I finally reached the surface, I was thirsty and exhausted. I killed the first human I saw without thinking about it twice, drank all of his blood like crazy, like a traveler who found an Oasis after months of drought, and for the first time I felt powerful enough to move. I could finally return home.”

Luca swallowed. He didn’t know what to expect, or maybe he did and didn’t want it to be true. 

“I crossed the door and didn’t focus on anything, details didn’t exist, I just wanted to embrace my wife, but she was nowhere. I only found an old woman resting on a bed, in what used to be our bedroom. I couldn’t understand who it was, and then, among the wrinkles and grayness, I saw a lock of red hair.”

Luca felt tears well up in his eyes. “For how long did you stay buried in that pit?”

A thick, suffocating silence fell. 

“Forty years.” 

The number felt like a punch in the gut.  

Alva’s voice did not break, but it was close. “My appearance hadn’t changed, but she had grown older and alone in my absence. When we locked eyes, she whispered my name and smiled, as if she was seeing a vision, as if she had imagined that scene so, so many times. Her eyes sparkled like they always used to, and then, she-”

He couldn’t continue talking. No words could describe that sort of pain. Luca got dizzy.

“...Anyway. After that, I tried to find the Philosopher’s stone. I guess I wanted her favorite legend to be true. It’s taken a few centuries, but we proved it, and it’s all thanks to you, Luca.” 

He smiled for the first time since the story began, doing his best to end the tragedy on a happy note, but Luca couldn’t do the same. His eyes burned and the lump in his throat wouldn’t let him speak. 

Was that the reason Alva had been looking for the Philosopher’s stone? He had lived with that burden all of his life, to the point he became a hermit and avoided getting attached to anyone so he wouldn’t see his loved ones die ever again.

“Luca…?”

And when he finally decided to move on and trust someone again, he killed him.

“Hey, are you-?”

Compared to Alva, his motivation had been so selfish. He had been a terrible friend, and meanwhile Alva was there, thanking him. 

Shit. His eyes kept burning and itching, it was getting annoying. He scratched them with anger until Alva stood up, circled the table and grabbed him by the wrists. 

He looked concerned at first, ready to tell him not to cry over an old man’s story. The past was in the past, he had gotten over it, but then his eyes widened with dread and recognition.

When he spoke next, Luca felt his world fall.

“Luca, what’s wrong with your eye?”

Chapter Text

It made no sense. 

Alva wasn’t mad. Of course he wasn’t. Luca was cursed but it wasn’t his fault. 

He was just worried. Confused. Heartbroken.

“Since when?” He asked, voice even, trying to be in control of a situation that overcame him.  

“Three days ago, but it’s okay, Alva, it’s not that bad-”

Three days ago…?

That’s when they created the stone. He stared at Luca in distress, his left eye was completely black, poisoned beyond recognition as a viscous liquid of the same color fell from it, tainting his white shirt and pants. 

Alva grabbed a cloth and held it over his eye to make it stop, Luca looked away and stayed quiet, like a statue. His jaw was tense and he wouldn’t stop scratching his hand nervously. He was the living image of guilt.

Guilt for what? Again, it wasn't his fault. Alva took a deep breath. Suddenly, Luca’s strange behavior started to make sense: The way he acted when he saw the philosopher’s stone for the first time, as if he suddenly lost all interest in it, or his abrupt need to visit the Dream Witch shop, a place known for its cursed owner. 

He wanted to ask her for help, not look for a lover.

Alva tried to come into terms with the news, but he couldn’t. Despair was starting to take hold on his heart, muddling his thoughts with little mercy.

Luca had never hurt anyone, and he knew for a fact that he never would, it wasn’t in his nature, so the only logical explanation for the curse was that he lost all of his motivation to live, his ‘raison d'être’, the moment he became successful in creating the stone. 

What for Alva felt like a moment of triumph and a stepping stone to change the world, Luca’s heart must have decided that it was over, nothing would ever top that moment. Therefore, there was no point in continuing to live.

Alva would be lying if he said he didn’t feel hurt by that mindset.

He knew the philosopher’s stone was important for both of them, but Luca had also become a big part of the reason he didn’t lose himself after so many failures. Working together all those years had been as rewarding as their success. 

That didn’t seem to be the case for his coworker, who gave up as soon as he got what he wanted.  

Alva guessed he didn’t play as much of a big part in Luca’s life. After all, he was a cranky old man whose only friends had been cats and books.

“Does it hurt?” He asked, once the black ‘tears’ had stopped flowing. 

“No, it just itches a little, as if a mosquito bit my eye, repeatedly,” Luca mumbled, extending his arm to pick up the stone and smacking it to his face. “This is the only thing that can make it disappear for minutes or hours, it’s pretty cool.”

Just like he said, the darkness slowly backed away and his eye returned to normal, but it was only in appearance, the problem was still there, deep seated within his apathetic soul.

‘It’s pretty cool,’ he had said.

It was obvious he was trying to downplay it, but Alva couldn’t pretend. Wouldn't dare to joke about it.

Luca was turning into a monster. 

His bright, prideful and passionate coworker would suffer, break and mutate until he became unrecognizable. Until he forgot everything of his past, their past. A brainless beast.

Alva couldn’t allow it.

…

“I think I know how to cure you,” he said after a hard, prolonged silence. “Give me the stone.”

Luca, who had tried to keep it cool, broke his facade. His mouth hung open in shock and his eyes reflected hope. “Y-You know a way?! Alva, you are a genius! Not that I ever doubted you. I mean- What is it?” He immediately handed him the stone.

Not explaining himself, Alva grabbed a big, tungsten pot and placed it on the floor, in the middle of the laboratory. He filled it with water and then went to a cabinet and picked several materials, throwing them in the pot one by one.

Luca paced around like a fly. Observed him with wonder as he threw fire, rocks and added an alchemy symbol on top of it. “Are you fusing these elements to create lava? I know we can’t die, but this medicine will hurt my throat… a little.”

Alva picked the philosopher’s stone and held it over the burning, scalding pot.

“It’s not medicine.”

He threw the stone in the lava.

Luca’s scream was so high-pitched it could have shattered any glass.

With panic, he jumped and grabbed the stone before it could melt in the flames. He held it in his hands as if he had just saved a newborn, his cheeks were puffed out and he was sweating. He had never looked this offended before. “What are you doing?! You- You almost destroyed it!”

“It’s the only solution,” Alva said. “Completing the stone is what made you lose your will to live. Therefore, if I get rid of it, you will feel unfulfilled again and you will regain your motivation to create it again.”

Luca stared at him, speechless. “...Lost my motivation?”

“Yes, you are cursed because you lost your motivation, that's the only explanation since you haven’t committed any sin.”

Luca stared at him speechless, again.

“Ah .”

“Give me the stone and let’s get it done with. Vampires usually never get their will to live back, but your curse is very recent, and based on your reaction, you still care to some extent about our creation. It will work,” he reassured.

Alva was convinced Luca would want to try this. As an alchemist, he had always enjoyed extreme solutions to complicated problems, but instead, he seemed reluctant, against it. 

“I-It’s taken us so many years to make it,” Luca stammered. “More than a thousand in your case! We don’t even know how to make it again, and you would destroy your dream just to cure me?”

Oh.

Right. Alva didn’t even consider it. 

He had always thought he would give his life to protect the stone if he ever managed to get his hands on it, and yet, the reply came as easily as the formulas and tales he memorized.

“Yes, no doubt.”

Instead of relief, Luca’s reaction was unexpected again. The guilt in his eyes came back, he bit on his lower lip and tugged at his hair with force, harming himself.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. 

“It’s not your fault. Come on, give me the stone.”

“No.”

“Why?” 

Silence.

Alva frowned. He was being very patient, he didn't mind getting rid of the stone. It was a huge sacrifice and it pained him due to the effort it took them, but there was no other option, so why was Luca acting like that? Why did he look so terrified? Could it have anything to do with the girl in the mirror pointing at him?

“Is there anything else I should know? You look unwell.”

Luca swallowed hard. “Alva, I…” He looked away. Faltered. “It’s- It’s because the lava is making the whole room boil! Don’t you feel sweaty too?” He grabbed the pot and threw its contents out of the window. 

“My garden is down there,” Alva pointed out. 

The lava melted the plants he had carefully grown for their experiments. Luca dropped the pot.

“I- Oh, shit! I will- I will check if something survived.”

“Luca.”

“We can discuss better options later. Seriously, I’m fine!”

He jumped out of the window. Or more precisely, 'escaped’ since there was no other way to describe his erratic behavior. All alone, Alva took his glasses off and stood there, not knowing what to do, how to handle any of this. 

There was an odd noise coming from the corner of the room, small but noticeable enough to arouse suspicion. He grabbed a book and threw it in that direction.

“ACK!” A woman shrieked.

Something fell on the floor, a butterfly made of paper. 

Alva frowned at the seemingly inoffensive object. He couldn't be deceived, that was an ancient trick alchemists used to spy on people many years ago. A woman had been in the room listening to their conversation through that paper animal. He picked up the butterfly by the wings with a scowl. He wasn't in the mood for more unwanted disturbances.

“Who are you?”

“-And this is why I’m tormented by horse Luis,” Frederick finished solemnly.

Everyone in the audience was mortified, shocked, flabbergasted. Babies were crying, men were holding back tears and women had abandoned any notion to be normal again.  

Naib decided that Frederick was guilty. Not of stealing the Tome or being the infiltrated vampire, no. He was guilty of changing his perception of horses for the rest of his life. Nothing would ever be the same. 

Who knew horses could be so dangerous?

“What’s wrong with you?” Ada asked, disgusted. “I mean- The time is up, do you have a suspect?”

They didn’t, Frederick had used all of their discussion time to tell that messed up story. Since there were no leads nor new clues, they decided to vote him out. Some crimes could not be forgiven.

“I opened up to you and this is what I get?!” Was the last thing Frederick said before the smoke enveloped them and the real vampire, whoever it was, left him unconscious.

A new round started, but the mood felt wrong.

“I don’t even feel like playing anymore, I’m devastated,” said Emile. “I want to go home.”

“Come on. It wasn’t that awful,” Norton lied.

“I know it’s hard to continue, but we must be strong,” Martha kept her spirit up, she was a fighter. “Do you have anything to say, Ganji?”

“Why are you singling me out?! I have no opinion on horses.”

“Not horses! And I am talking to you because you always blab about how much you hate vampires, but that could be a strategy. You probably think we won’t suspect you if you pretended to hate your kind.”

Reverse psychology? Naib thought her accusation sounded a bit far fetched. Martha had no proof -like any accusation in this goddamn game, actually- she kept throwing spaghetti at the wall until something stuck but, to him, Ganji’s hatred towards vampires seemed genuine.

Or maybe that was the point. What if he was a great actor and Martha was right? 

“Why do you hate vampires?” He asked Ganji. If he gave a general, wishy-washy answer there was a chance he might be lying.

“Because I’m a hater,” Ganji replied.

Naib stared at him with a stiff smile. “Can you elaborate, please? This is important.”

Ganji crossed his arms. “Well, vampires treat us like scum. We can’t get good jobs because there’s a 300-year-old vampire hoarding that position, we can’t celebrate anything because there’s a chance we will get summoned to donate blood, we can’t even call out their misbehavior because the council will side with them. And this happens in the capital, the ‘safest’ city for humans, outside is a lot worse. Have I said enough?”

He did. Naib had only stayed in Penvicor for four days, but he could already tell things were less than ideal. Vampires were like a mafia; give humans power and immortal life and watch them become assholes, a tale as old as time. 

He believed in Ganji, there was no way he was a vampire, but he might really be the thief.

“I don’t think he is the vamp-” he started, but got cut by Emma.

“What will you do when you become a vampire, Ganji?”

That was an intriguing question. Everyone looked at Ganji, who blushed a little.

“So. You see,” he mumbled, suddenly shy, taking out a small notebook from his pocket. “I have some ideas on how to make this place better, that is, when I become a vampire and I’m taken seriously, but I dunno...”

“I want to hear them!” Clapped Emma, supportive.

Ganji fidgeted, took a big breath, and proceeded to read his manifesto. Naib couldn’t say he understood the entirety of it, since he didn’t know the context behind why beef between new and old blood was gatekeeping the housing market.

Overall, his beliefs, aims and policies sounded surprisingly considerate to both sides without it being too idealistic. He had worked hard on this. 

Naib realized that all of his suggestions took into account humans and vampires. Not just humans. Ganji wanted them to collaborate to make the capital a better place, which was weird. If he expected vampires to disappear, he wouldn’t have included them. 

Shit, that meant he couldn’t be the thief, right?

Once Ganji finished speaking, Emma applauded effusively and told him that she was going to vote for him. For what, Naib had no idea. He wondered if there were even elections, considering this was a monarchy, but he applauded too.

Everyone agreed that they would vote for Ganji. What an upstanding citizen.

Ada smiled. “So you vote Ganji Gupta?”

“Yes! Wait, hold up-”

“Alright, Ganji Gupta is voted as the infiltrated vampire!”

And just like that, they got rid of this poor young man who just wanted the best for everyone. Once the cloud of smoke dissipated, Ganji laid unconscious in his pillar.

Naib wanted to kill someone. “No way.” 

“We got too caught up in the moment again,” Campbell said in the driest tone known to man. “Whoopies.”

“DON’T ‘WHOOPSIES’ THIS!!” 

“I know who the vampire is,” Jose said all of a sudden. He had been quiet, observant until now. “Everyone we voted so far had their blood sucked by the vampire, right? That means the traitor could still have traces of blood in their mouth.”

He turned his sea green eyes towards Martha.

“Just like you do.”

Everyone followed his gaze and held their breaths. Martha was standing on her pillar, the furthest from Naib, but even he managed to see something red in the left corner of her lip. There was no doubt, it was blood. 

Jose had solved the mystery! Not only was he handsome, he was smart too!

“You are wrong!” Yelled Martha, clenching her jaw. “I bit my lip because I was anxious and felt bad for Ganji, I didn’t drink anyone’s blood, it’s not me!” She was very insistent. Naib squinted his eyes to see the cut on her lip, but due to the distance it was impossible to make sure if she was telling the truth.

Jose was very convinced, though. “I don’t believe her, I say we vote her out.”

“You fucker…” Martha was having none of it. “I bet you are the real vampire, I should have expected no less from the man who betrayed his family in cold blood.”

Jose’s face suddenly paled. Naib quickly stepped forward. “That’s not true, he made a mistake, but he only wants to become a vampire to be accepted by his family.”

Jose had told him that his lineage had served vampires for generations, but due to a mistake he made, they lost their privileges. He wanted to become a vampire to regain his honor and be forgiven, he didn’t betray anyone!

“Plus,” he added. “He is too handsome to do wrong!”

Everyone raised an eyebrow and side-eyed him. He heard a ‘boo’ coming from the audience. It sounded suspiciously like Jack.

Martha laughed.

“Oh man, is this what Jose told you? The truth is that his father was committing fraud and stealing from the vampires they were serving, and Jose decided to expose him just so vampires would reward him, but he got fucked too,” she shook her head. “He is so power hungry that he threw his own dad under a carriage for a chance to become best buddies with vampires.”

The way she said it, as if she knew all the main, juicy details, made Naib think that this event had been huge news in the capital when it happened. He turned his head towards Jose, waiting for an explanation, but he was looking down, furious.

He didn’t deny any of it.

Disappointment settled in Naib’s heart. He had thought Jose was an honest (and hot) guy who wanted to get his family back, but reality seemed to be more complex than that.

Norton sighed as he faced Jose. “Your mistake was thinking that ratting your family would make those vampires your allies. It doesn’t work like that. You got played.”

“You don’t say,” Jose barked, full of sarcasm. “My father was a horrible man, he deserved what he got, and I deserve immortality for being useful- It’s what they promised!” 

There was desperation under the anger, it was obvious the vampires lied and manipulated him, using his weak spot to get what they wanted. Naib’s disappointment turned into pity. It was time to vote, but he wasn’t sure what to do. The accusations made Jose sound like an ungrateful son, but wasn’t he also a victim in a way?

As for Martha, despite her impulsive personality, she had strong convictions. She reminded him of his past self in a way, loud and impulsive yet incapable of betraying anyone, but the blood in her mouth told a different story…

He looked at the audience, wishing that Aesop would help him make a decision, but he wasn’t there. For some reason, Joseph, Claude and him hadn’t attended the trial today, he hoped nothing bad happened in the castle.

“I vote for Jose Baden,” said Martha, Emma and Emile.

“I vote for Martha Behamfil,” said Jose, Naib and Norton.

“Oh-ho, we got our first tie!” Cheered Ada, keeping the spectators at the edge of their seats. “We shall see if you got it right this time!”

(They didn’t)

It wasn’t either Martha or Jose. They got bit by the real vampire and fainted.

Naib groaned. Maybe they just fucking sucked at this game.

He had no idea they could get rid of two participants as long as they got an equal number of votes, but that didn’t mean much since they kept messing up. 

There were only four participants left: Norton, Emile, Emma and him. The suspects list grew smaller and smaller, but so did his own personal, secret list:

Jose couldn’t be the Tome’s thief. He had a toxic love and hate relationship with vampirism: their existence ruined his life, but he still wanted to become one, not get rid of them. The same happened with Burke, Frederick and poor Ganji. 

That only meant one thing. 

Naib stared at Emma and Emile. The girl who smiled and the boy who loved. Could any of these two airheads have ulterior motives?

“Well, this makes things easier for us,” Norton hummed, taking the initiative. “The fewer people that remain in this round, the easier it will be to win the third trial. I know it’s not Naib, so start talking to you two.”

He pointed at them accusingly. Emma wasn’t offended by his rude demeanor, but Emile frowned. “And what about you? I don’t care if you donated blood two days ago, you could have been converted right before this trial.”

“As if a vampire would turn someone like me all of a sudden,” Campbell snorted, self-deprecating. “I'm a nobody. You, on the other hand…”

Emile went tense. “What? What about me?”

Naib pursed his lips and fell into thought. “Norton is right. You told me you spoke with Ada privately the other day. You suggested she make changes for these trials, she could have turned you then,” he realized. 

Maybe they were finally getting somewhere. He knew that Ada genuinely liked Emile, and thanks to his intervention they got to meet, so what if they bonded and Ada decided to help him win so they could be together as vampires? It made complete sense.

“Of course not! What would be the point of these games, then? She would never cheat and play favorites, she is better than that!”

“Better? She is the caesar and this is her coliseum,” Norton sneered. Emma and Naib exchanged worried glances. “She is holding these games for her own sick entertainment, do you think she wants to help us? Wake up.”

“She does!” Emile raised his voice, then faltered. Bit his lip, looked at Ada, as if deciding whether to say what was on his mind or not. 

He inhaled. 

“She- She is a good person. Years ago, when I struggled in the streets during a cold night, she approached me. I had heard rumors calling her being vile and ruthless. I thought she was going to kill me, but instead she just glared at me and left.” 

He stared at his trembling hands, a soft smile slowly crept across his face.

“I assumed that was it, but after a while she returned and gave me a scarf she had bought at a nearby shop, and warm bread. I survived that night thanks to her,” he finally looked up at Ada. “I don’t care about the mean rumors, I know what kind of person she is.”

Naib was glad this wasn’t a popularity contest, because Emile won everyone’s hearts, and most importantly, Ada’s. His shaky, clumsy words had left her speechless, yearning. Whatever happened at the end of this trial, he knew those two would find each other.

Norton rolled his eyes, like the unromantic he was. 

Naib wondered if Emile could be the thief. He would never wish for the vampires to disappear, of course, but what if it was a badly worded wish? What if he wished for vampires to disappear, expecting Ada to become human so they could be together?

He wasn’t exactly familiar with love -his partners had been few and never worked out, never quite matched- but he knew love made people do and say stupid things. Jack thought the wish had been done in bad faith, but he thought it was a theory worth considering, how far would someone go for love?

He caught himself slipping and coughed awkwardly. “How about you, Emma?” 

“I’m single.”

“I- Alright, me too. I was asking if you can prove you are human. We don’t have a lot of time left, do you have anyone who can confirm you are not a vampire?”

“Hmm not really. I live alone since I’m an orphan.”

Ouch. “I’m sorry.”

“It's alright, my mom left me when I was little, and my dad was killed,” her smile dimmed.

Naib felt bad for pushing her, but he had to know more. “By whom?”

“A huge rat.”

“Oh .”

The fuck? Did this city have mutant rats or what? Maybe if they cleaned the damn streets full of horse shit this wouldn’t be happeni- Focus. Focus.

“Why do you want to become a vampire?”

Emma stared at the sky, muddled by the beautiful stained red glass covering the dome. “I want to fly like they do. Wouldn’t that be great?” A semblance of a smile returned to her face, and her gaze softened.

“Ah, makes sense,” nodded Naib.

“It doesn’t!?” Emile jumped. “No matter how you think about it, that’s such a weak reason,” he stared at Emma with suspicion.

Emma ignored him. “What about you, Naib?”

As if he would ever want to be a vampire. Naib opened and closed his mouth like a fish, trying to think of an answer, but got interrupted by Ada -still flushed by the confession-, announcing that their time was finally up. They had to choose who to eliminate.

But who should he vote for? He had no idea this time, and they couldn’t allow themselves to mess up again, at this pace the vampire was going to win and Norton would lose his chance to become a vampire in this timeline. 

Emma or Emile? Emma or Emile? Emma or-

“Hey Naib,” Campbell called with a familiar look of complicity. Naib didn’t know what it was, but the way he said it brought him back to the soap shop. Norton would always share that same look when customers or bosses were being unreasonable, as if saying ‘They are being assholes, right?’

They understood each other like that, no words needed. A wave of nostalgia hit him again. 

“What is it?”

“I trust you.”

What did he mean by that? Campbell looked at him as if he was trying to communicate ‘you know what to do’. Naib's head tilted in puzzlement, then Norton stared pointedly at Emma and Emile.

At that moment, Naib got the message. 

He never thought he would say this ever again -for completely valid reasons- but he trusted Norton too. 

“I vote for Emile,” said Norton and Emma.

“I vote for Emma,” said Naib and Emile.

Norton’s plan was perfect. Naib knew Emma and Norton were going to vote Emile due to their growing suspicion, and Emile showed signs of distrust towards Emma at the last moment, so as long as he voted Emile and Norton voted Emma, there would be another tie.

No matter which one of those two was the real vampire, they would be disqualified at the same time, leaving only Norton and him left. 

Oh man, they would definitely win!

Norton’s lips quirked into one last smirk before the smoke surrounded them. Naib let out a relieved sign, finally it was over.

What he didn’t expect, though, was seeing both Emma and Emile lying unconscious on their platforms.

Ada’s laugh echoed across the dome, so loud and amused that Naib was convinced he would be forever haunted by it. “It seems you haven’t found the vampire yet!”

He froze. The audience roared in absolute, indisputable shock, making his ears ring. 

Naib stared at Norton.

Norton stared at him.

…

No way.

“Do you think we are missing anything important by not attending TransFest?” Aesop asked.

Joseph thought about it for one second. “I doubt it, it’s usually boring and predictable.”

Aesop hummed. 

After waking up in the kitchen, face sprinkled with flour, bruised hand and the dooming sensation that Eli revealed something huge only to hit him with the ‘it was all a dream’ beam, he was in a weird state of mind to say the least. 

His only comfort, even if small, was that he wasn’t alone in his misery. After drinking himself to sleep, Joseph had woken up in a terrible mood and ‘inexplicable’ headache, which made him decide not to attend the second trial, and by extension, neither would Aesop nor Claude. 

“We attended on the first day, that should be enough to maintain the royal public image,” he had reasoned.

Aesop had no interest in the games either, but he was worried about Naib. Would he be okay without him there to help him and whisper the answers? Naib was skilled and creative when it mattered, he could manage on his own.

But then again, he couldn’t tell onions apart from garlic, so. 

He was worried. Very worried.

That concern followed him like a shadow the entire morning, just like he followed Joseph like a dog on a leash. Luckily, the vampire didn’t seem to remember anything weird about last night except for their conversation, which created a strange, yet not exactly negative tension between them.

Aesop thought he would want to rest in his room, but Joseph drank the blood of a servant as if it was black coffee and got back to work.

“We will walk quite a bit today, I have to discuss future plans with several members of the council scattered around the castle. If you are hungry, tell me, don’t keep quiet this time.”

He still ordered him around as if it was second nature, but he was softer, kinder about it. Aesop almost felt bad for betraying his trust. Joseph had opened up to him, told him about his hopes, disappointment and burnout. And what did he do? 

Threw him over the stairs and attempted to burn his diaries.

“Our talk opened my eyes,” Joseph admitted with newborn energy. “I allowed my bad experiences to taint the way I view and rule this kingdom, but Penvicor is Claude’s present, and he finally is getting better. I need to become the king I am supposed to be.”

Well, that was unexpected.

Aesop had told him that he should stop ruling since it made him unhappy, but instead of giving up, Joseph was making an effort to care again.

Was that the right choice, though? It sounded like a positive, responsible decision, but he might be pushing himself again for the wrong reasons.

He wished he would at least ask Claude about it.

“By the way, where is your brother?” He asked.

“In his room, most likely. He always stays there reading or chatting with the servants.” 

‘Always?’ 

Aesop hummed. 

He hadn’t properly spoken with Claude since the garden party fiasco. They had seen each other in the tourney -Claude had looked at their chain with raised eyebrows. Aesop expected him to comment on it, but he didn’t. He was probably being polite, or just didn’t want to deal with his brother’s antics-. 

After that, Joseph had gone back to his duties, leaving Claude on his own devices.

There was a beat before he spoke again, careful. “Don’t you want to spend more time with him?” 

Joseph halted for a second, shook his head and continued walking, firm, adamant.

“There’s no time. We will be brought back to the future in a few days. Now that he is healing, I need to make sure Penvicor will resist any revolts that might happen between those 200 years. I will give the senior officials strict guidelines they must follow so Claude can live without danger.”

So that’s why he arranged so many meetings. If the vampire extinction was prevented, Penvicor wouldn’t turn into London. The vampire capital would remain as it is until the present day, as long as it resisted any conflicts that might arise.

“Claude can wait. There will be enough time for us to spend together in the future, when everything is fixed,” Joseph added, unprompted. Maybe he saw his upset expression, or maybe he tried to convince himself.

Aesop understood his reasoning, he really did, but he couldn’t help but think this wasn’t alright. 

In trying so hard, so desperately to save him, wasn’t Joseph neglecting Claude, in a way? 

The hallway they were crossing was long and decorated with paintings of shooting stars in the ceilings. Big, arched windows with doves resting on them let the sun rays illuminate their way. Despite it being winter, the weather today was warm.

The white doves were sleeping peacefully, reminding him of his clients. 

“You know,” he said in a quiet tone, as if not to wake them up. “Something I used to hear quite frequently at my job was people regretting not having spent enough time with their loved ones. Leaving important things for later can be a gamble.” 

The kingdom could wait. Claude was here, now.

He remembered the way Claude’s eyes sparkled with immeasurable joy when he asked them to see the fireworks together. Was that a normal reaction? Or a consequence of Joseph’s doing? 

“Joseph has been trying to keep me alive for a thousand years. How is that normal?”

When Claude said that, it was the first time he expressed his true feelings. Joseph had been obsessively searching for a solution to his sickness for centuries, and that also meant Claude had been forced to remain in the castle, suffering in silence. Talking with maids who might not care and reading books. 

What was worse? A short life filled with happiness, or an eternal one full of suffering?

Aesop was starting to think that Joseph and Claude’s answers might differ a lot. 

“I know I’m no one to say this, but I think what Claude needs is a brother, not a protector, nor a perfect king,” he said, gray eyes locked on blue ones. 

His words made Joseph stop in his tracks, frown, hesitate. He was about to say something, but a melody coming from a room at the end of the corridor caught his full attention.

“Who is playing the piano?” Aesop asked.

“Claude.” 

Judging by his expression, Joseph recognized the song. It was beautiful, yet it felt strangely incomplete. Aesop was trying to pinpoint what was missing when the vampire put a hand on his forehead.

“How are you feeling? Are you hungry? Dizzy?”

“I-I’m fine, why?”

“Good, because I would like you to feed my brother again. Let's see if those worms have gone for good.”

He got goosebumps thinking about the disgusting worms. His face made Joseph laugh despite the tension. 

The piano room was neat and spacious. Several sofas and small tables were placed on the corners while the white piano became the center piece. Claude stopped playing when he heard them enter, his lips widening into a big smile.

“Have you come to hear me play?”

Joseph patted Aesop’s back. “That too, but first you must take your dose of Aesop.”

“My favorite medicine,” they snickered and Aesop looked upwards in exasperation.

He had heard one should always wait at least two months between each blood donation, since it took several weeks for all the red cells to be replaced. Of course, his circumstances weren’t ‘normal’, Joseph didn’t have that sort of time. 

His low iron levels would have to put up with it.

He endured Claude’s bite and blood sucking, slowly drowning on the sofa. He had become used to the initial pain. If he was being honest, the pleasure that came after was worse, especially when he was being pierced so intensely by Joseph’s gaze.

He held his breath, waiting for it to be over. At some point, he gripped a cushion with force, only to realize that was Joseph’s sleeve. He quickly retrieved his hand, embarrassed, but Joseph slipped his hand into his, curling around his fingers and giving him a small squeeze as if to comfort him.

Aesop was sure his face would have gone red if there wasn’t someone actively taking his blood. He closed his eyes and squeezed his hand back.

“Did I drink too much?” Claude apologized once he was done, bringing him snacks and water.

“It’s alright, I just need to sit for a while.” 

“Do you notice anything strange?” Joseph asked, expectant. He threw a short glance at Aesop’s neck, allured by the smell, but kept his desire under control.

Claude grinned. “Well, feeling this good is strange! No nausea, no parasites! I think I have enough strength to fly towards the sun.”

His confidence was contagious, and his healthy appearance let them know he wasn’t lying. Compared to the first time Aesop saw him, it’s as if Claude had gone from a terminal patient with no chance to survive, to a bright young man with his whole life ahead of him. 

That thought made him smile. “What were you playing?”

“Oh, did you like it? It’s a song Joseph and I used to play a long time ago, we composed it together,” Claude shared a playful look with his brother. 

“It’s actually a four-hand piece,” Joseph added arrogantly.

So that’s why the song felt incomplete, Joseph was the missing part. Aesop had played piano when he was little, he would practice constantly so he could make his mother proud during school recitals. She always told him she loved it.

After her parting he stopped playing, but he had always had a good ear when it came to music. 

“You are talented,” he complimented. The song was melancholic and slow in a calming way.

“Do you want to hear the real version?” Claude asked in a total rhetorical fashion, since he immediately walked towards the piano. He looked like an excited child. “Joseph, it’s been so long since we played together, let's show Aesop!” 

“Now?”

“Why not? Aesop needs to rest, so it’s not like he can leave if he hates it.”

The joke brought a smile out of Joseph. He seemed unsure at first, but eventually gave in as the same childish excitement settled in his heart. 

Then, someone knocked on the door.

“My Lord, are you in there? Counselor Barriere is waiting for you in the left wing, should I tell him the meeting has been canceled?”

And just like that, in a fraction of a second, Aesop saw Claude’s smile fall, so imperceptibly that he might have imagined it if it weren’t for his blue eyes losing their light. As if he was thinking, ‘Here we go again’.

Joseph stalled, debated on what to do. What to be. A brother, or a savior? 

“Sorry, I have to go,” he apologized, cold.

“You could leave it for later-” Aesop complained, but Claude interrupted him with a kind, plastic smile.

“It’s alright, my brother is always busy, I entertained him for too long.”

No, this was wrong.

Joseph remembered their chain. “I can’t take you with me like this, you can barely walk. I will call Eli.”

“No, no, it’s alright, I will just stay here!” Aesop fidgeted, anxious.

He didn’t want to deal with Eli right now. He was slightly terrified of him, and needed some more time to come to terms with the sky orb, the God that offered the Tome to mankind, and the fact Eli was most likely the first vampire, even if he hadn’t admitted it.

“If you say so…” Joseph said, confused at his reaction. He took the key from his pocket (It was there?! No way, what do you mean he could have escaped so easily?) and released him. 

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Aesop found himself whispering one last time, convinced that Joseph was making a mistake. A voice told him that this had nothing to do with him. He ignored it. “ He is here, now.” 

Joseph frowned, hesitated. Looked at them one last time and left.

Aesop tried not to show his disappointment. 

“What were you whispering?” Claude asked next to his ear, making his heart skip a beat.

“Nothing important.”

“Hmmmm I see, I see,” he stared at the discarded chains. “Was it something I wasn’t supposed to hear? Something steamy? My brother is a bit of a flirt when he wants, and into a lot of nasty stuff as well-”

“Of course not!” Claude liked to speak with the maids, god knows what sort of macabre theories they told him, he needed to clean his name. “We aren’t getting married.”

“Well, that’s sad because I think you would make him happy,” Claude broke into a laugh. “Don’t worry, I know. He chained you because he was afraid you would escape, right? Since your blood is working, he can’t allow you to leave,” he tilted his head. “He has trapped you here too.”

“Too?”

The kind smile never left Claude’s lips, it gave Aesop whiplash.

“Do you want to play the piano with me?” Claude asked instead, throwing him for a loop. Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed his hands and helped him stand up, bringing him to the instrument.

“I haven’t played in a long time,” Aesop admitted as he sat on the duet bench, Claude taking a seat on his left.

“You used to play? That’s great, it will be easier for me to teach you!”

Aesop sighed, defeated. Ignoring his opinions seemed to run in the family genes. 

“I don’t know Joseph’s part, but I can teach you mine, it’s easier than it seems. Look.” 

Claude spent the next few minutes playing the song slowly, hitting the low notes with ease. Since there was no sheet, Aesop had no other choice but to observe, remember, and replay next to him with the keys of the middle. The higher end of the piano was left untouched, since that part belonged to Joseph. 

Claude was a patient teacher and Aesop a diligent student. As he repeated the keys after him, he spoke: 

“Why don’t you tell Joseph that you feel trapped here?” 

Claude’s hands shook for a second, then continued as a weak exhale escaped from his lips. “He has done so much for me, it would be inconsiderate- no, cruel, to dismiss his hard work and do whatever I want.”

“What do you want?”

At this point, Aesop was confident that he knew the first twenty seconds of the song without making any mistakes. He had his head down as his fingers glided over the keys. It wasn’t until Claude spoke next that he slipped up, breaking the harmony:

“I wanted to die.”

 He tried to keep up with the rhythm, unfocused. “And now?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, quietly. “I’ve been sick for so long. I guess… I would have liked you to hear the full song.”

Such a small wish. Aesop messed up another key, and then another, and another. Claude only wanted to perform a song with his brother, spend time with him without feeling like a nuisance. He just wanted to live an ordinary, happy life.

And what did Joseph do? He left him to meet with a count, for the so-called ‘greater good’.

“Joseph is an idiot,” he blurted out.

At that moment, someone sat on his right and started playing a different melody, one that accompanied their part, making it complete. “I was starting to like you, so I will pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Joseph?” Claude asked, surprised. 

Aesop was stunned as well. And squished. The duet bench wasn’t made for three people. “What about the meeting?”

Joseph shrugged. “I told them to leave it for another day, I have better plans.” He poked his leg against Aesop’s under the piano, a discreet apology and thank you. “Can’t let you two have all the fun without me. Shall we play, then?”

Aesop’s heart fluttered. Claude quickly nodded, alive and happy. 

Aesop’s first instinct was to stand up to leave and give them space, but they insisted he stay between them, inviting him to play along as if he belonged. As if they wanted him there.

For a while, he forgot about his circumstances and simply enjoyed the music. Curiously, the nostalgic song turned into a happy, hopeful one when Joseph’s missing part was added. 

‘So that’s how it was supposed to be’ That thought made him smile in more ways than one.

Maybe Joseph wasn’t such a lost cause. 

He was such a lost cause!

Naib couldn’t believe that Campbell was the vampire. How? When? Why?! And the worst thing is that he had trusted him. Again.

What was he? A lab rat that kept getting electrocuted on the same trap? Scientists would be so disappointed in his intelligence.

Seriously, was he stupid?

Life kept reminding him that Norton Campbell couldn’t be trusted. When would he learn the lesson?

“You- You are the vampire?!”

And then things got more insane, because no one other than Norton asked that question.

“I should ask you that!” Naib shouted, angry. “YOU are the vampire!” 

“I’m not a vampire, YOU are!” Norton barked back, equally angry and… betrayed? Wow, the audacity.

They pointed at each other like morons.

“Why keep acting? I know what you are,” Naib accused.

“Say it. Out loud. Say it.”

“Homosexual! I mean- a vampire!”

The audience was absolutely thrilled. They munched the equivalent of medieval popcorn as they observed their banter with excited smiles. Who was the real vampire? Bets were going off like crazy in Jack’s booth. The asshole had decided to gamble all of his money in Naib’s favor against the majority. 

At least someone would get rich out of this. 

Ada observed them with a poker face, not giving anything away. “So, who are you going to vote for?”

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” said Norton, throwing daggers at him.

He was right, it’s not like they had more choices. He would vote for Norton, and Norton would vote for him. 

“Wait!” Naib shouted, his brain working at full speed. There was something weird about this. “Wouldn’t that be another tie? What if we get disqualified?”

“That won’t happen because one of us will be right: Me.”

Naib blinked several times, confused like a baby bird. Was Norton doing the role of his life, or was there something they were not seeing? Something they missed? Time was running out, and what seemed to be the obvious answer didn’t convince him anymore.

“Are you sure you are not a vampire?” He asked Campbell again, dead serious. 

“No.”

Alright, then.

Naib grabbed his canildo and threw it to Campbell with the strength of an angry baseball player. The dick-shaped candle almost hit Norton in the head with the speed of a meteorite. He avoided it just in time, nearly falling off his platform in the process.

“The fuck is wrong with you?! Are you trying to kill me?”

“I believe you,” Naib concluded, surprising everyone. “You wouldn’t care about falling if you were a vampire, but just now you looked scared as shit.”

Norton’s eyes widened. “Are you admitting you are the vampire, then?” 

“I’m not, neither of us is.”

The crowd let out shocked gasps, a random citizen shouted that this contest was better than sex. Ada approached them with a cautious smile. “Is that your answer, Naib Subedar?”

Of course not. She had said that there was a vampire among them, it would be unfair if she lied about the rules, and even worse, it would make the public mad. Ada was into psychology, she would try to avoid any negative reaction to the games, instead making up something that left everyone satisfied and thoroughly entertained.

Naib brought his hand to his chin. Wait a second. 

“Norton, do you remember the rules?”

“Did you forget them again? Dude, this is the third time-”

“Tell them to me!”

“You don’t boss me around.” Campbell rolled his eyes in exasperation. “But I know them by memory at this point thanks to someone , so-” he repeated Ada’s words as closely as he could. Naib knew he had a good memory, he learned all the stupid bath bombs names on the first day, even the infamous Bombastic Beezow Doo-Doo Zoppitybop-bop-bop.

“…When you come to a decision, say their exact name out loud and the person will be disqualified. If you are wrong, there will be more rounds, and-”

“That’s it!” Naib yelled. 

He had an epiphany. THE epiphany. The sort of realization that always happened at the end of mystery novels, when the detective pieced all the clues together thanks to his great powers of observation and superior mind, and made the big, unexpected reveal. 

Mr. Inference was so back.

“We messed up from the very start!” He explained to Norton and the audience. “There is a vampire among us, but we didn’t say their exact name, so it didn’t count!”

“What are you talking about? We mispronounced it?”

“No, it’s not that simple. Think about it. Who, in this group of people, wanted to win the competition badly because she had a twin sister that was already a vampire?”

Norton’s initial skepticism turned into disbelief. “That would be Vera. Why?” He stopped. “Wait! Are you implying-?”

Naib nodded. He would have to thank Jose later for telling him about Vera during the chair game:

“She is bitter because her twin sister won the competition when she was eighteen and got turned into a vampire, yet Vera loses year after year.”

Naib paced around his platform. “Vera didn’t participate in this trial. Her sister put on a disguise and pretended to be her. They are twins, a bit of makeup and we wouldn’t notice the age difference, and when ‘Vera Nair’ was voted out, she faked getting bitten and falling unconscious, but every time the smoke surrounded us, she flew over the participants and bit them!” 

He pointed at her unmoving body, still lying on the pillar. 

“We stopped paying attention to her once she was eliminated, but I’m convinced her hair was posed differently before. She has been moving!”

The audience was having the time of their life, even Ada’s poker expression had changed into one of admiration.

“The rules stated that we had to say the exact name of the vampire, so we failed from the start. If we had voted for each other now, we would have lost and Vera and her sister would have won without the need for a third trial,” Naib smiled. “But not anymore. There is only one question left: Do you know the name of the sister?”

Campbell was speechless at first, but he quickly recovered as a huge grin appeared on his face.

“I vote for Chloe Nair.”

“I vote for Chloe Nair too.” 

There was a moment of silence, so absolute that Naib could hear his own thundering heartbeat, and then an explosion of confetti surrounded them, filling the entire dome with colorful, irregular shaped papers as Ada announced their victory. 

They won. Naib couldn’t believe it. His first, proper deduction was right. 

They won! 

Over 30,000 spectators started chanting his name. His little detective show had made him the indisputable favorite participant in this round. Norton sighed in relief and gave him a thumbs up. Even Jack winked at him as he collected all the money he made in bets. 

Seriously, he better share that with him.

As for Chloe Nair, she stopped pretending to be unconscious, stood up and smiled sadly at her sister, who was waiting for her in the stands. Naib felt sorry for them, Chloe probably accepted Ada’s request of becoming the infiltrated vampire to help Vera win the competition.

Even though they lost, he hoped the sisters would be able to move on and forget the jealousy separating them. When Chloe flew to Vera and they hugged with tears and apologies, he knew they would be able to work it out.

“Ugh… My neck hurts. What did I miss?” Asked Martha, waking up.

“You confused your ex-girlfriend with her sister,” said Norton.

Martha passed out again.

Naib smiled at her theatrics. Martha probably knew from the start that it was Chloe, and helped her by forcing everyone to vote Vera Nair, diverting their attention. Despite being cold and detached, Vera had good people who cared about her, Naib doubted she was the thief. 

He put a finger on his lips cheekily, letting Martha know he would keep her secret. 

“Man, you really are full of surprises,” Norton said once they were alone in the private quarters, essentially the Red Dome’s locker room, a level below the amphitheater’s main stage. “Bad start at first, but by the end you had the audience eating out of the palm of your hand, I start to see why Jack is so interested in you.”

“I told you he is not,” Naib denied in good humor. Then added, “We make a good team.”

“We do,” Norton admitted after a while. “I will reach the third trial thanks to you. I owe you, tourist,” he hit him playfully on the shoulder and Naib laughed. 

Truthfully, he hadn’t felt this happy since his last boxing match. He hadn’t realized how much his pride and confidence had been hurting until he managed to win again in anything, to stop feeling like a constant failure. Slowly, his old self was coming back.

He also managed to shorten the suspects’ list to Emile and Emma, but most of all, he was glad that Norton hadn’t lied to him. It might sound lame, but his heart needed solace and friendship after his betrayal. In a way, it’s as if he got the old Norton back.

Just two friends against the world. 

He caught himself getting emotional and coughed. 

“Here,” Norton passed him a bottle of water and patted him on the back before taking his leave. “Rest well, Subedar.”

Naib sat in one of the benches and drank as he let his knee rest. The locker room was different from the ones he was used to, which were gray and meant to serve a concrete purpose. Instead, everything in the vampire capital was heavily decorated, cared for, when art was still part of everyday’s life.

The dark wood lockers and red carpet were really fancy, or maybe his good mood was making him view everything with rose-tinted glasses.

“There you are, my lucky race horse!” Jack entered the room with open arms, breaking the quietude with his impossible to ignore presence. Somehow, this time it didn’t bother Naib.

“Please don’t mention horses, it’s too soon,” he joked, then added joyfully, in disbelief. “I won.”

“I saw.”

And then, something unexpected happened. Truly unexpected. More than Chloe being the infiltrated vampire, or Norton not turning out to be a back-stabbing snake in this timeline. 

Jack tilted his head with a profound gaze full of fascination, 

and kissed him. 

It wasn’t a short, chaste kiss by any means. It was long, demanding and heated. Naib opened his mouth, taken aback. He wanted to curse, but instead a moan escaped his lips as Jack’s tongue invited itself in, stealing his breath away.

His back hit against one of the lockers, and the height difference made his spine arch and his face tilt upwards in an uncomfortable position that Jack quickly fixed by placing a hand on the back of his head. 

In his daze, Naib realized that he could push Jack at any moment. His first instinct was to grab him by the coat, but instead of shoving him away, his hands stayed there, fists in clothes. 

He felt Jack’s smug smile against his lips and almost kicked him in the leg. Maybe he would when this -whatever this was- was over. It’s just that- 

There was something annoyingly rewarding about kissing Jack in a locker room after winning a competition.

He would probably regret it later, but who cares, he was already used to making bad life choices. 

The problem came when ‘later’ arrived sooner than expected. After another languid, wet kiss, Jack slowly pulled apart. He licked his lips with a somber look and clicked his tongue. 

“Just as I thought. Poison.”

Naib didn’t understand what he meant. He understood even less when Jack proceeded to punch him in the stomach, so hard and fast it made him crouch in pain. The butterflies he felt, along with his collapsed intestines made him throw up immediately.

The luxurious carpet got ruined with something red that smelled sour.

Naib stared at it with bafflement. Did Jack say poison?

And then, he remembered the water Norton had politely given him before leaving. Such a kind and friendly gesture, so unlike the Norton Campbell he knew, who would throw anyone under the bus to get what he wanted the most.

And what he wanted the most was to become a vampire. 

How stupid. Stupid and blind and deaf.

Norton tried to get rid of him so he could win the third trial. With Naib out of the picture, he would be the only participant left. Naib closed his eyes really hard and gripped the carpet under his feet. His surroundings started moving and shaking. 

Jack crouched next to him and massaged his back in silence, observing his reaction closely. “It’s okay, you don’t need to compete anymore, we got what we wanted.”

Right, for a moment he forgot he wasn’t even supposed to win. Still, tears pricked on the corners of his eyes. Jack’s bittersweet taste still lingered in his mouth, making his lips tremble because not only Campbell had tried to kill him- 

Jack just kissed him because he expected this to happen, not because he... 

Fuck. Fuck. 

“Fuck no,” he growled, standing up on wobbly legs. He was tired of being a damn punching bag, to hell with that. “I will kick Campbell’s ass. If he wants to fight, so be it.”

Oddly, Jack didn’t oppose the idea. He smirked at the glimpse of his past self, at the bold boxer that would never refuse a fight, at the fierce green eyes that promised to free him from the curse.

And if Jack’s dark red eyes lingered on Naib’s quivering lips a tad too long,

well. How could he not? 

Poison or not, the taste had been to die for.

Chapter Text

How boring. How pointless.

That was the last thought that crossed Jack’s mind before everything went pitch black. When he opened his eyes again, he wasn’t in his room anymore. Instead, he found himself in an abandoned alley, with two dead humans in front of him. Their necks had been severed and there was no blood in their bodies.

Where did that blood go? Jack licked his lips and found it there. Curious.

It was raining, tip, tap, tip, tap on his hat, and when he looked at the puddle under him, he didn’t recognize his own reflection. The water made it muddy and wobbly, but there was no doubt:

The monster looking back was him.

It was at that moment that Jack realized he had been hit by the curse. He was finally turning into a beast.

That happened in 2020.

He was not surprised, not sad, not even upset. He expected it to happen. He had been called a monster since he was a kid, it was impressive it took him that long to actually become one. The cause of the curse was easy to pinpoint as well: He got bored of living.

He was not made to be a vampire in modern society.

He missed the good old days, the golden era when he could cause chaos, travel, kill and fly without the worry of being found out by the humans who used to be his prey, when he could hunt in broad daylight without being burned by the scorching sun. 

It had been almost two hundred years since vampires lost most of their powers, and the world had just become unbearably mediocre and uninteresting.

“It was fun while it lasted,” he said to the fading stars, standing at the edge on the top of a building. 

Times Square was lively even at six in the morning, with pulsing neon lights, digital screens, billboards and sky-high advertisements everywhere.

He didn’t look like a monster anymore, but he knew how the curse worked, he would go back and forth until he became a permanent beast. He had seen many of his acquaintances succumb to the curse, a slow form of psychological torture. His fate was sealed, and he would rather skip the annoying part.

The sun would rise at any moment and he would turn into dust.

It was a boring ending for someone like him, who didn’t even have a last dying wish, but well, not being dramatic for once wouldn’t kill him. Or it would. Haha. 

As he waited for the sun to peak, he used his last breathing moments wisely; by gazing at the advertisements in front of him: A new iPhone with one button less, an energetic drink for grandmas, a broadway show about sad homosexuals, a boxing championship held in Madison Square Garden-

Hm?

Somehow, Jack found himself mesmerized by the sports ad or, more precisely, by the hotshot rookie displayed on the screen.

His green eyes were so full of life, passion and defiance as he fought opponents much larger than him. So special. Jack hadn’t seen eyes like those since… well, a long time ago. Even when the boxer was close to losing, he stood up and fought again with such a ferocious look that made him shiver from excitement.

The sun was slowly rising, but Jack couldn’t stop staring at that young man for some reason. His name was Naib Subedar, the ad showcased, and he was going to fight in one brutal, final match tonight.

So soon! And the avenue was so close to his location. He wondered how it would be to see him combat in person. Would he be fiercer? Brighter? Even Shorter? 

And just like that, Jack caught himself thinking about the future.

Why? Why was he suddenly thinking about tonight? 

The stars were gone and the sun was starting to reach the tallest buildings but, somehow, ending his life didn’t look as alluring -as immediate- anymore, and he couldn’t comprehend why. 

With a shaky breath, he reached for his pocket and held up his beloved die, one he had kept for as long as he could remember. He told himself that if it fell on an even number he would go see Mr. Subedar. If odd number, he would get a nice tan.

He threw the die and…

ignored the result. Who was he lying to? He had already made up his mind.

His death would have to be postponed for a few hours. 

Whistling an upbeat song, he strolled back to his apartment, put on his fanciest suit, and counted the minutes until the sun set so he could go back outside, to the boxing match. He got one of the best seats, close to the front, and prayed that this human wouldn’t disappoint him.

Oh, and he was anything but disappointing.

What a delightful, wonderful and intriguing specimen. Seeing Naib Subedar fight in person was an experience he would never forget, and as someone who had lived for two thousand years, that was high praise. 

That man awoke something in him, who had lost interest in everything. 

Naib’s blood didn’t smell particularly extraordinary, so it had to be something else that attracted him so much. Love at first sight? He laughed at the ridiculous idea. Once the prizes were delivered and the celebration concluded, he decided that he would speak with him to discover what kind of person he was.

Jack waited with the rest of his fans, and when the boxer didn’t arrive, he tracked him back until he found him in a dark alley, being beaten to death by a group of scoundrels. Naib looked so pained, so hurt trying to reach for his trophy. 

Jack saw red for a second, and then everything went black. Like a déjà vu, when he opened his eyes, his hands were bloody and the muggers were dead. Deservedly.

He carried Naib to the nearest hospital. 

For hours on end, he sat next to the bed, admiring his bruised face with intrigue. His facial features weren’t as robust and harsh as one would expect from his profession, there was something soft about him, as if he didn’t belong in that violent place, except he was the best at it. He liked that contrast.

When Naib woke up, they spoke for the first time and, again, the experience was anything but disappointing. Naib even promised to find a way to cure his curse. Why? Why would he say that? Jack froze, and something inside him churned and bloomed at the same time. 

Love at first sight? Suddenly it didn’t feel like a laughing matter anymore. 

He didn’t want to die anymore. 

All of a sudden, he had a reason to live, a reason to survive in this colorless, putrid world.

And then the disappointment finally came. 

Just a few weeks later, Naib was discharged from the hospital and looked at him as if he didn’t know who he was. As if he was a nobody, a faceless fan on the street. 

A stake in his heart would have hurt less. Naib had forgotten so easily something he would always remember, something that kept him alive. The excitement and thrill he felt got tainted, and, with a thin smile, he returned to his apartment, threw the bucket of flowers he bought, and wondered if he should have listened to his die, after all.

Maybe he should really end it all.

“Jack, there is a way,” Joseph called him one night, his voice erratic. “There is a way to fix everything, to make the world go back to how it used to be.”

Jack thought Joseph had finally lost his mind -everyone knew it was going to happen sooner or later, bets were made- but since he had nothing else to do, he listened to him blab about Luca killing Alva, something about murdering a hundred vampires and asking him to become Oletus’ Blood Bank boss, among other fraudulent crimes.

Eh. The plan sounded pretty entertaining, but so what? Even if they fixed the past, he was going to turn into a monster sooner or later, he was too late to the party.

Unless he managed to snatch the Tome and make the thief wish to cure his curse…?

“I’m in, but I have a small petition,” he said with a sly grin. “I want to bring a human with me- No, he won’t cause any trouble. You see, he promised me he would help me.”

Naib had disappointed him tremendously and, in normal circumstances, Jack would have killed him without a second thought, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. He kept thinking about him, and was surprised to find out that, after their encounter, Naib had ended up working at a mall, too sinked in debt and injured to go back to boxing. 

What a waste of talent. The lovely shine in his green eyes had disappeared, and even though Jack was still angry, he decided that he would do anything to see those fiery eyes again. 

Oh, and if he had to drag him to the past and terrorize Naib for sport so he could take back his old self, so be it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, humans and vampires, the third trial: ‘A fight to the death’ starts now!” Announced Ada, wearing yet the most impressive suit. “Please, enjoy the conclusion of this TransFest edition and support the brave finalists, Norton Campbell and Naib Subedar!”

Ada had fun with the previous silly games, but she knew that a proper ending needed blood and high stakes, that’s what the people came for.

Jack got one of the best seats, close to the front, and prayed that Naib wouldn’t disappoint him. When he saw him enter the arena with a dead serious expression, so ready to get revenge on Campbell, he held his breath. 

The stage had been modified into an elevated square of 24 feet by 24 feet, with a deep pit surrounding it. The game was simple: throw the opponent off the square, or beat them up to death, no weapons allowed.

Death and hole aside, it was almost like a boxing ring.

With an eager smile, Ada brought a whistle to her lips and blew it. Naib didn’t miss a beat and charged towards Campbell like a bull, landing a clean punch on his face. Norton clenched his jaw in pain and returned it, but Naib was quicker and pulled his head back, the fist only impacting on his right shoulder.

He had a disadvantage, one that had dragged him for the past two years: his bad knee made him slower and gave him a clear weak spot, but it didn’t matter, it didn’t because he was too furious, too angry to remember the pain, and even though Campbell was physically bigger, he was struggling mentally. 

How could he not? He didn’t expect Naib to be able to participate after poisoning him. Him being there, alive, and with a killing expression was throwing him off the loop.

They were going all out in silence. No yelling, no insults, just punches and grunts, and the audience was eating it up, cheering for their favorite participant without shame. Several minutes passed where neither Naib nor Norton gave up, it was a constant rain of blows to the face, ribs, stomach, everywhere. 

“How?!” Norton snapped at one point, his face a mess.

Naib tasted blood in his mouth, he spit it out, cleaned the sweat on his forehead and rushed in to grab Norton by the jacket.

“How? How?! You are a fucking moron!” He finally screamed, letting all the anger and hurt out. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Norton also spit blood and regarded him with a dark look. “I have to win.”

The lack of guilt in his voice shook Naib to the core, made him drop his guard, so much that he didn’t manage to dodge Norton’s next punch to the stomach and. Fuck. His breath got cut and his balance faltered. Norton used that opportunity to throw him to the ground and put his hands around his neck, strangling him.

His hands were calloused and rough from labor, Naib faintly noticed as he struggled relentlessly. The corners of his vision started to blur and he could only lock eyes with Norton. 

He cursed his entire existence and the day they met.

Fuck Norton. Seriously, fuck Norton Campbell.

Was his life really so miserable that he didn’t care about poisoning him? Choking him to death? What made him become like this? He used to be hardworking, resourceful. Lots of women had fancied him at work, guys too, he was good with words, with people. So why?

Naib had known he wasn’t completely honest, there was always a glint of greed behind his cunning eyes, but he had thought that, despite everything, there was good in him.

Shit, even now while Norton was killing him, he still wanted to believe that he would stop. That he would turn good at the last second because they were friends, but he was dying and Norton wasn’t stopping, he wasn’t stopping at all.

He hated this. 

He hated how desperate Norton looked from this angle.

When he first saw him in this timeline, so alive and human and so himself, rigging the system to get the most of it, sharing a cheesecake, playing together, celebrating their success, Naib had convinced himself that he could fix their friendship, even if this man wasn’t his Norton.

But it didn’t matter; past, present or future, Norton would always betray him, and Naib would feel stupid for having tried at all. 

Maybe there really was no good in him.

The flow of oxygen to his brain was cutting off and he must have started hallucinating, because he could almost hear the referee's count: five, six, seven, eight-

Slowly, Norton’s face mixed with MonStar's, his last opponent, the strongest boxer in the world whom he had won with blood, sweat and tears. He had put up a great fight back then, why couldn’t he do it now?

Why did it hurt so much? Why did he change so much? 

He was dying, his ears were ringing and his brain was shutting down. Despite that, he heard a distinctive voice among the public’s yells and shouts:

“Don’t give up. Live !”

Was it a real person, or was it also a ghost from the past? He could swear he had heard the same voice back then, waking him up, urging him to live. Someone believed in him even when he didn’t and Naib felt like weeping. 

It would be rude to disappoint his last fan. 

He blinked back the tears and allowed the rage to fill his body, his soul. He had to stop being weak, stop allowing himself to be pushed. 

“I jst wnted ngh iend bak,” he managed to choke out.

Norton’s face was red and confused when he grunted: “What?”

“I said,” Naib grabbed Norton’s wrists. “That I just wanted my friend back!!”

With all of his remaining strength and fury, he placed his legs on Campbell’s stomach and kicked hard. Hard enough to shake the world. A flash of violent green was the last thing Norton saw before he got sent flying backwards, out of the square and towards an imminent death.

His scream was chilling as he fell down to the abyss, and only went quiet when Naib, beaten up and gasping for air, clutched him by the hand and said:

“Norton, you idiot!” His voice broke at the end and, suddenly, Cambpell felt hot tears fall on his face. Naib was crying. “I was going to let you win, moron!”  

And finally, just finally, there was a semblance of guilt in Norton’s expression. 

“I… I had to do it. You don’t understand how much I’ve wanted this,” he said, not daring to look at the hole under him. “This is all or nothing for me. I used all of my savings to participate, my job is killing me. I doubt I will be alive for the next competition in three years, and you-” 

He took a deep, ragged breath. 

“Suddenly a tourist visits the capital, becomes friends with the big shots and gets to the finals, even though you clearly don’t care about becoming a vampire. It’s so unfair.” Norton clenched his teeth with torment. “I didn’t want to betray you, but this is all I ever wanted, once I become a vampire I won’t hurt anyone again.”

After a long silence, Naib pulled him out of danger, back to the square, and laughed.

“Liar.”

“I’m not-”

“Yes, you are,” Naib cut, cleaning the tears away. “ ‘Once I become a vampire I won’t hurt anyone?’ Bullshit. You will keep betraying your friends until you die all alone because, despite having all this power, it was never enough for you. You always want more.”

“You don't know that,” Norton spat.

“I do. Wanna know why?” He got very close to Campbell and whispered in his ear: “Because I come from the future.”

Norton looked at him as if he was insane, completely out of his mind, and Naib grinned for the first time since the match started. Even if Norton didn’t believe him, it felt fucking good to say that. 

He stood up and raised his hand. “I surrender.”

Norton’s eyes widened. The audience was shocked and Ada frowned, clearly against his decision. She promised a fight to the death, but the favorite contestant was backing off, and right in the best moment? 

“This is the first time something like this happens,” she bit her lip, unsure, then eyed the two of them as an idea crossed her mind. “Ladies and gentlemen, participant number 300 has decided to give up on immortality to help participant number 1, if that isn’t the biggest showcase of friendship, I don’t know what it is!”

What was more entertaining than seeing two men killing each other? The answer was an act of selfless sacrifice. The spectators admired the unexpected ending, moved by Naib’s decision, and just like that, Norton was named the winner of TransFest.

Trumpets and drums and music played to commemorate the heartfelt outcome. Naib left the arena as the losing party, but he felt anything but that.

A heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. 

He sighed in relief and walked towards the exit of the Red Dome, following a long, empty and gray corridor. On his way, he crossed paths with Emma, who had come to return her jacket.

“I saw what happened, you were so close to winning! Are you sure you won’t regret it?” She asked with a kind smile.

Naib put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Nah, it’s fine like this. I had a life changing realization, I don’t want to be a vampire anymore, living forever would suck, sucking people would also suck.”

Emma laughed. “That’s true, maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t win. I heard the third trial was going to consist of a song competition, and whoever didn’t sing as good would get shot. So sad I couldn’t hear you sing…”

“M-Maybe it’s better like that,” Naib sweated. He took his hand out of the pocket to wave Emma goodbye, but a die fell. The golden, triangular one Jack had given him for good luck. He was about to crouch and get it back, but something made him stop. Freeze.

Emma was staring at the die with a very strange expression. It only lasted a fragment of a second, but her happy smile disappeared, and her eyes-

God, her eyes.

The vitriol in them made Naib shiver. 

“There is one pair of green eyes I can’t seem to forget,” Jack had said. “I don’t remember when it happened, nor their face, gender or age, just their eyes. Someone once looked at me with so much hatred that it gave me chills, it was the first time I felt like that.”

Could Emma Woods really be…?

“Sorry, it’s not mine,” Naib found his voice again. “T-The die, I mean.”

“Oh, I know!” Emma’s expression was back to normal in the blink of an eye, it was scary how fast it changed. “It belongs to that rat.” 

She smiled sweetly and returned him the die. 

‘That rat?’ Naib’s brain short-circuited at that information. He felt as if he was going insane. “Emma, when you talk about rats, are you actually talking about…?” 

In the second trial, Emma said that a big rat killed his dad. He assumed she meant the animal, but if she viewed vampires as rats, if she called Jack a rat… Wouldn’t that mean he was the one who killed her father?

And Jack only remembered the way she looked at him, just like how she did now.

He swallowed. It was her. it had to be her.

Emma didn’t reply to his question, she kept smiling in that unconcerned fashion that made him want to throw up. He had found the thief, the tome’s thief, he had to do something, the world’s future was in his hands. He took a step forward, as close as he could to Emma:

“They swapped the Tome and hid the real one in another room, it’s a trap.” 

She had to know this, they couldn’t kill her. If they did, it was over. As long as they didn’t catch her, she would have another opportunity to steal the Tome and fix their future. 

He thought he had done a great thing, but-

Emma tilted her head. “Sorry, what do you mean?”

Naib smiled nervously. She was pretending not to know, right? Before he could say anything else, Emma excused herself with a friendly nod and left.

…

Did… Did it work? Was his intuition wrong? Man, what an awkward conversation. He wasn’t sure if he had monumentally fucked up or not. He stared at the direction she left deep in thought, until Jack arrived and picked him up from behind, making them do a dramatic twirl.

“There you are, my favorite second place! What were you talking about?” He asked, maneuvering him around as if he was a doll. Naib kicked his legs like a distressed cat until he was gently pulled down. 

“Stop it! We just talked about rats,” he frowned and looked away with a faint blush.

He was still mad at Jack. After what happened yesterday, he hadn’t spoken to him a single time. How could he? The bastard kissed him just to check if he was poisoned, and the worst part of that interaction is that he didn’t push him away immediately. Didn’t say, ‘Hey, stop?!’

Instead, he- he went along with it and almost enjoyed it.

God, he was so mortified.

For starters, what kind of well-adjusted adult kissed someone for that weird ass reason? Of course Jack was anything but normal, but still, the nerve! If they had been coworkers, Naib would have filed a leave of absence, moved to another country and changed his name to Naibert Stupidar.

Tragically, that was not an option, so from now on he would have to live with a chronic ‘earth swallow me’ feeling.

At least Jack hadn’t brought that up, which was very strange considering how much he loved to rile him up.

“Rats? Disgusting animals,” The vampire waved his hand in dismissal. “Come, I have a reward for you.”

Naib made a sour face. He wasn’t ready for more surprises.

“Surprise, Fiona, I brought you a drink!” Eli said, entering the grand library with a blood bag.

The castle was livelier than ever today, with staff running around like crazy, finalizing the last details for tomorrow’s exquisite banquet, ball and the ‘coronation’ of the TransFest’s winner. Compared to the other rooms, the library was a sanctuary of silence. 

Eli stood in front of the Tome. The fake one, that is, and turned around, to the shelf in front of it. It contained cannibalism and cooking guides, nothing out of the ordinary, but if he looked closer, a strand of red hair could be seen.

Eli moved a few books and there she was, Fiona in her little hideout, her head barely sticking out of the shelf like an owl in a tree hole, ready to catch whoever tried to steal the fake Tome by surprise.

Eli expected her to be happy to see him. The poor woman had been stuck in this vigilant position for days, she must want company, he thought, yet she looked anything but cheerful, on the contrary, she might as well be officiating a funeral. 

“Fiona?” Did her iPad run out of battery?

She finally looked up, as if validating his presence, and proceeded to drop her head. “Oh Eli, Luca is turning into a monster.”

That certainly couldn’t be fixed by a universal charger. Eli blinked. “What?” 

“His ‘amazing’ plan about killing a hundred vampires had consequences, who would have known?” She spatted, frustrated. It was hard to take her seriously, seeing as she was a talking head between cannibal books. 

“Wait, wait-” Eli slowed her down. “How do you know that? Did you go see him?”

“Of course not, I’m not leaving this place. At least not in person, but I did pay him a visit, and then…”

“Who are you?” Alva asked, holding the paper butterfly by its wings, a deep frown carved in his factions. Fiona internally cursed, she had to think of something clever.

“I’m your conscience.”

“Your voice is familiar. Aren’t you the shopkeeper from Wanderling Street, the one that tries to sell us weed on Fridays? Fiona Gilman?”

“Look, boss-” Fiona said. Then, realizing her mistake. “I mean- client! My shop’s client, the client that comes to my shop where I am the boss-”

Shit. She had worked at Oletus Manor for so many decades that she was used to calling Alva her boss. Being locked in that library for so many days had atrophied her social and lying skills as well.

“Are you okay?” 

“When have I ever been okay-? I mean, yes, boss- CLIENT! haha.” She mentally slapped herself. Focus, girl! “I’m sorry for intruding in your home like this, I wasn’t spying. I’m on a trip outside the city so I made this butterfly to come and talk to Luca.”

The silence that followed made her think that Alva didn’t buy any of that. “Well, as you can tell, now it isn’t a good moment for that.”

“I’m very sorry.” Her shoulders slouched. “To think Luca of all people would end up like this...”

“It’s not too late, there must be a way to fix it,” Alva retorted, more to himself than to her, and it was like listening to a more mature, yet equally idealistic and stubborn version of Luca.

Fiona smiled sadly. “You two are more alike than I thought, but there is no solution. What Luca did cannot be undone.”

“What he did?”

“Eh? I mean-” No, no, no. “Well, Luca has gone through a lot.”

“Did he tell you anything? I wasn’t aware you two were that close,” Alva didn’t sound mistrustful, just desperate for answers, confused, left out. As a boss, he had been stern, cold and came off as arrogant. This was a new side Fiona had never seen before.

She felt pity, and understood why Luca couldn’t tell him the truth, but hiding it wasn’t making matters any better. He was shattering Alva’s heart, rewriting his happy memories of creating the stone and turning them into a nightmare. She thought they went to the past to fix things, not break them in a different way.

Stupid, stupid Luca, did he not foresee the possibility of getting the curse after killing that many vampires? Or was he aware, yet he ignored it because he could only think of getting Alva back? 

Fiona didn’t understand to what extent that accident had impacted him until she overheard their conversation, until she saw the repercussions.

For a second, she considered telling Alva the truth. 

Luca was too prideful, a coward who unknowingly hurt others and then avoided responsibility when consequences quite literally exploded in his face. She had no idea how Alva would react, if he would despise Luca or forgive him, but he deserved to know.

“My tarot readings never lie.” And yet, that decision wasn’t hers to make, even if it was frustrating. “Luca doesn’t tell me a lot either, he is the type to bottle up his feelings. If you want to know why he ended up like this, you should pay attention.”

“Why ‘he ended up like this’?” Alva repeated, wary.

“Time is almost up,” she noticed, talking about her butterfly. The alchemy keeping it functional was vanishing, she could feel it. 

Alva asked one last thing: “Wait, what did you want to talk about with Luca?”

“Oh- Right! Er…”

“I didn’t know what to say, so I invited them to tomorrow’s banquet,” Fiona sniffed.

Eli pinched the sides of his nose. “That’s alright. They didn’t come in the last timeline, but I doubt that deviation will change anything important. Maybe it will be good for them to go out and have fun.”

“One last party before…” Fiona didn’t finish her sentence, got angry again. “It’s so unfair, being immortal is already a curse in itself, why do we have to worry about turning into literal monsters too?”

Eli’s smile became strained. “I thought you liked being immortal.”

“I got to live until the internet was invented, so that’s one good -and bad- thing, but let's be honest, what was the first vampire thinking when he made that wish?”

“Maybe he wanted everyone to be happy, not worry about death.”

“And look where that took us, all of us are insane.”

Eli didn’t reply.

Fiona continued, unaware of his slight change of mood. “The Tome was a mistake. It doesn’t even follow the wishes as one would expect, there’s always a catch, if only it could be destroyed.”

Even if it was thrown into a volcano, the Tome would always reappear somewhere else, like a dispatched haunted doll. It was also true that it never gave you exactly what you wished for. It always found a way to distort and misinterpret your words, turning a good intentioned wish into…

Well.

“That makes me think,” Fiona mumbled, deep in thought. “I do wonder if the person who stole the Tome actually asked for the vampires’ extinction. That was the result, but maybe their wish was different? I can’t think of anything that would cause that outcome, though. You?”

Eli remained silent for a while, then shrugged with an apologetic smile. “I have no idea.” 

“I guessed so… I really hope this plan works. Luca is already in deep shit, and if Claude dies again, lord knows Joseph will become insufferable.”

“Claude is fine, they went to the beach today.”

Fiona stared at him from the uncomfortable and beach-less hole in the shelf. “Say what?”

“I was surprised too,” Eli laughed. “I don’t remember the last time Joseph went to the beach or took a break from work.”

“Did he hit his head while falling off the stairs? What came over him?”

“‘Who’ would be a better question,” he said, his smile as mysterious and unreadable as always. 

Aesop was currently grabbing onto Claude for dear life.

It’s not like Claude didn’t know how to fly. Unlike Eli, he was talented, careful and aware of the laws of aviation, but they were so high that he couldn’t help but feel vertigo. 

When Claude suggested they go to the beach, he thought they would take a carriage, not Desaulniers airlines. He had his legs wrapped around the vampire’s waist and hid his face on his neck to avoid the strong wind and impending death thoughts.

It was a mystery how Joseph had accepted such a random beach episode request. More than that, yesterday he had come back to play the piano with Claude despite being so busy. Aesop thought that he would leave after that, but something inside Joseph switched, as if a wave of nostalgia brought by the song made him realize how much he had longed for a normal moment like that.

Joseph did not leave. On the contrary, he spent the rest of the day doing ordinary activities with them, like taking a walk through the garden, fencing with Claude (and him, though he easily lost) and chatting about anything and everything in front of the chimney at night.

At first, Aesop thought he was just overcompensating, trying to prove that he wasn’t ignoring his brother all the time, and maybe it was true at first, but then it became less of that, and more a genuine yearning to connect with Claude again.

He was an only child, so he didn’t know how sibling relationships worked, but that was the first time he truly saw Joseph and Claude as brothers and not a mountain of unresolved issues. 

The fact they wanted him to participate in their activities and even come to the beach was lost on him, though. 

“Maybe I should carry Aesop,” Joseph offered, flying next to them.

“Why, brother?” Claude asked, hugging him closer. “We are doing fine, I want him to be with me.”

Joseph opened his mouth and closed it again. “Ah.”

Aesop softly tapped on Claude’s back. “I think he is worried for your health.”

“It’s not that,” Claude whispered back and, with a cheeky grin, gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Joseph’s wings had a seizure and he almost fell. Claude chuckled and Aesop sighed, he didn’t understand what was going on. Must be brother things.

The beach they went to was on the west coast. A large and empty portion of white sand with views to the Atlantic ocean. The sky was gray, but not dark enough to forecast rain. In his opinion -which had always been described as somber- winter was the best season to visit the beach.

When they landed, Claude took off his shoes and marched excitedly to the water.

“Won’t it be very cold?” Aesop wondered.

Joseph raised an eyebrow. “Just wait.”

He counted to one, two, three-

“IT’S COLD!” Claude yelped.

Joseph shook his head and Aesop smiled. The smell of the saltwater and seaweed was refreshing and briny, it brought back childhood memories of sandcastles, guessing cloud shapes and being wrapped with a warm towel. So many things had changed since those peaceful days, yet the horizon remained the same.

When he turned around, he realized Joseph had been quietly staring at him.

“Sorry, were you saying something?” His cheeks got warm. He must have been in his own world and failed to pay attention.

Joseph looked away. “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

He raised an eyebrow. “If you try to throw me in the water, I might die of hypothermia.”

“I was not thinking about that.”

“Joseph, Aesop, do you want to go take a walk?” Claude pointed in a random direction, legs wet and hilariously shaky from the freezing water.

Joseph nodded and started walking towards him, but stopped when the embalmer didn’t follow. “Are you okay?”

Aesop gave a thumbs up, but still sat on the soft sand. “The flight gave me a bit of vertigo. I will wait here, you can go together.”

He had intruded enough in their business, they needed time to catch up alone. Joseph hadn’t bothered to chain him again since yesterday, which meant he trusted him enough not to do anything stupid. Not like he would escape on that random beach from 200 years ago, he had nowhere to go.

“I won’t leave,” he assured, just in case.

Joseph frowned. “It’s not that. I want- We want you to come.”

He smiled, not believing it for a second. “It’s fine, really. I will rest a bit.”

Joseph wasn’t satisfied with his answer, it showed in the way his body was slightly turned downwards, ready to crouch and forcefully grab him by the hand. But he didn’t, and when he left with Claude, sinking their feet on the far shoreline, Aesop sighed.

Now they could finally spend time together, without him in the middle sticking out like a sore thumb. He hugged his legs and rested his head on his knees. There was something comforting, familiar, about observing people from his own bubble, not forming part of the main story.

Maybe he was too used to it. Always preparing funerals for strangers, always staring from the sidelines, listening quietly to problems that didn’t have anything to do with him, being excluded from activities in school, friends and what remained of his family. 

Joseph and Claude acted as if they wanted him there and not just his blood, and he couldn’t understand why. 

He could think of a reason, but didn’t dare to.

The idea that they just enjoyed his company was too scary.

He quietly watched the horizon for half an hour or so, until the sky went from a clear gray, to beautiful oranges, purples and pinks. He expected the brothers to return in high spirits after a pleasant walk, but instead they came back disheveled, carrying a ton of-

Aesop’s left eye twitched. “W-What is that?” 

Claude scratched the back of his head. “So. We found a cute seashell. Joseph said it had the same color as your eyes-”

“HEY.”

“-So he picked it up. Then we kept finding more and more shells and thought you would like them,” he stared at their loot. “Maybe we went overboard…”

Maybe?! They brought half of the coastal ecosystem!

He was stunned beyond words just by how ridiculous they looked. Two Vampires. A king and a prince. Brought shells to him at the beach. Somehow he felt as if he had adopted two dogs. The silly image made him laugh and grab a shell from their haul, the one that was said to have his eye color.

“My mom and I used to put them in a bottle, it’s nice for decoration,” he recalled softly. “Thank you.”

Joseph and Claude shared a victorious smile and dropped next to him on the sand. The sunset would start soon, and that was something Claude was very excited about, the main reason he had asked them to come. 

“By the way, where is your mom, Aesop?” He asked as they waited.

Ah. “She died when I was a kid.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry, was she sick?”

“Something like that,” Aesop forced the words out, unsure if he should continue, yet something urged him to keep talking. “She was unhappy with her life, so she left.”

It had happened at a beach like this one, back then. He was just a child, a naive and shy kid playing with his mom. She laughed a lot that day, her yellow summer dress with little white dots got dirty as they built a sandcastle, but she didn’t seem to care. From time to time, she would longingly look at the sea, until-

“Don’t listen to them, Aesop, you are smart and kind. I love you.” 

He didn’t understand what she meant by ‘them’. Don’t listen to whom? No one was being rude or cruel, at least not right now. Today was a great day, the best day with no classmates making fun of him, just his mom and him at the beach. He looked up, wanting to ask her what that meant, but she wasn’t there anymore.

She had walked towards the sea, the waves, deep and deep into the ocean.

He was too young, too different from the rest to understand . When people asked him what happened, he said his mom had become a mermaid, and then the insults came and he finally realized what she meant by ‘Don’t listen to them’.

“How can you be so stupid and immature?” His classmates became merciless. “Mermaids don’t exist. What will be next? Vampires?

His breathing became shallow.

‘She was unhappy with her life, so she left.’  

Despite the dryness, the neutrality in which he pronounced those words, his heart ached. He realized that he had never talked about this with anyone, not even Jerry. How hypocritical of him, to help his clients navigate through their grief but never open up about his own.

‘She was unhappy with her life, so she left.’  

…

Saying it out loud left him breathless. She was so miserable that she couldn’t live for him. Choose to stay for him. The wave of distressing thoughts made him blink a couple of times. He smiled apologetically, awkwardly.

“Sorry.” He shouldn’t have said anything, there was a reason he never did. Why did he think it would be okay to tell that? and in such an inappropriate moment. They would be weirded out and-

Joseph bonked him on the head.

“BROTHER?!” Claude yelped.

“Don’t say sorry,” Joseph admonished with a deep frown. “I’m glad you told us. You should talk more about yourself.”

Claude whined. “I agree, but you didn’t need to hit him-”

Aesop stroked the top of his head, too stunned to speak. The sudden whack made him forget about the pain in his chest and lightened the mood after such a heavy confession but, more importantly, did Joseph say that he wanted to know more?

About him? 

“I didn’t mean to ruin the mood,” he apologized.

“You can’t ruin anything even if you propose to,” Joseph stated, his skin blessed by the bright, blinding sun. “We want you here, Aesop.”

His breath stuttered and his stomach bubbled, as if it was filled with countless butterflies. Was it still the vertigo from the flight? 

“Hey look, it’s starting!” Claude interrupted excitedly, making them turn to gaze at the sunset, and what a view it was.

After the past few days full of conspiracies, math problems, failed escape plans and cooking disasters, Aesop had to admit the scenery felt like a respite, a silent pause for him to appreciate the fact that he was still alive to see the sky painted with the most stunning colors.

In this timeline, vampires didn't die due to sun exposure, but Claude was an exception, he had been too weak to stand it until recently, and Joseph, who had lived in a reality where the sun could kill him, had been too busy to enjoy this pleasure until now.

Aesop had initially thought the beach excursion was ill-timed and unnecessary, but he changed his mind. Claude’s decisions may seem capricious, but it couldn’t be further from the truth, he knew exactly what he wanted, what truly mattered.

“We should go to the moon next,” Claude coughed.

Joseph bonked him on the head too. “Don’t get cocky.”

He complained and Aesop smiled. There was something impossible and cute about observing the sunset with two vampires. He couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s beautiful,” Claude said after a while.

“Yeah,” Aesop and Joseph replied in unison, one looking at the horizon, and the other looking at someone else.

Once the sun was swallowed by the horizon and the stars started to decorate the sky like a splash of white paint, they stood up, dusted off the sand and got ready to leave. 

“Come walk with us next time, okay? We don’t bite. Well, at least I don’t,” Joseph joked, more as an order than a suggestion.

Next time…?  

“Aesoop, come here, I will carry you.” Claude dramatically flailed his arms around, but instead of embracing him, he got a bag of shells thrown at him.

“Carry this instead, dear brother. I will take care of Aesop on the way back.”

Joseph wrapped an arm around his shoulder and smiled charmingly, thrivingly, while Claude kept insisting that he was better suited to carry him. They started bantering for some unknown reason that Aesop decided to call ‘Brother things’ from now on. 

“Can’t we just take a carriage?” He proposed.

“NO.”

He rolled his eyes and looked at the sky, and what he saw made him freeze. For a second, he could have sworn there were dozens of shooting stars falling to the sea, like a rain of meteorites that could be considered one of the seven wonders of the world, or the deadly sins.

“Did you see that?” He gasped, scratching his eyes.

“What? The sky looks beautiful,” They replied, happily unaware.

Naib was almost happy.

Contrary to popular belief, Jack’s reward ended up being something strangely ordinary and murderfree, enjoyable even.

After a bath and a few hours of sleep in the inn, the vampire invited him to dinner at an elegant restaurant. The place was called ‘Deaplate’ and its decoration reminded Naib of a fancy french bistro -not that he would know, for the past two years he had been eating at Taco Bell to save money-.

Unlike the first restaurant they went to, which Jack destroyed by getting its staff fired (from life) the customers of this bistro minded their own business and left them alone, no judging nor scared stares, Naib soon realized it was because most of them were vampires.

“Even if we only need blood to satiate our thirst and hunger, many vampires enjoy eating at a nice place from time to time,” Jack explained. “It doesn’t matter if the food isn’t nutritious and the blood isn’t fresh, it’s more about spending quality time together.”

Naib nodded. Eating with company was an activity most people enjoyed, but vampires couldn’t really do that, could they? They had to drink the blood directly from humans who hated being there. In this restaurant, they could pretend to be normal, even if the food wasn’t as delicious to them. 

He could understand that way of thinking, even if it was sad.

“Of course, there are other VIP restaurants fully catered to us, where the waiters and waitresses are the food served in skimpy outfits, there’s shows, monologues, orgies, that sort of fun stuff, but I thought you might prefer the vanilla option.”

“Wow. How could you tell?” 

“Aw, I notice a slight bitterness in your tone, are you still angry at me?”

“Of course not,” he lied, definitely not staring at his lips.

Jack hummed and cut his steak. Naib did the same, it looked like heaven. Jack’s presence aside, he could finally relax a little and enjoy this little moment of peace in a normal restaura-

“Hey! Aren’t you Kreacher Pierson? You owe me money!” One of the customers suddenly stood up, pointing at a vampire eating on the other side of the restaurant.

“W-What?! M-Me? I w-would never, how dare you?!”

“I lent you a grant 300 years ago, bastard! You think I would forget?”

The vampire named Kreacher mumbled something under his breath that suspiciously sounded like: “Well, yes.”

“What did you just say?!”

And just like that, the nice evening turned into mayhem, with chairs, dishes AND people flying everywhere. Naib had never seen vampires fight against each other, but considering their powers, it was as chaotic as anyone could imagine. 

A poor waitress came to their table with a nervous smile and lettuce on her hair. “I’m so sorry, sirs, it seems we will have to close for the night.”

Naib looked at his barely touched steak with heartbreak while Jack stood up. “It’s alright, I know of another place.”

“Another? You don’t mean…” Naib shook his head repeatedly.

“It’s not that bad,” Jack promised. 

It was that bad, Naib thought as they entered the VIP vampire restaurant, the one with the criminally short outfits and morally reprehensible practices. Thankfully, the orgy started in an hour, so currently there was only one sad looking vampire doing a monologue.

“I was sucking the blood of this girl and she tasted very depressed! I asked her why so sad, and she replied: "Well, I’m B negative!”

One person applauded and two coughed.

Naib clenched his teeth. “Why couldn’t we go to a normal place?”

“I’m not exactly welcome in human friendly spaces, for the love of me I have no idea why.”

He knew damn well why. Naib missed his steak. Since they didn’t serve normal human food in this restaurant, they had made an exception and cooked him fried potatoes, as if he was a kid. Meanwhile, Jack was having the time of his life in front of him, being ‘attended’ by a ‘waiter’.

And yes, all in quotes because one; That guy might be a waiter on his contract, but he was definitely not dressed as one, and two; he was serving anything but food. The shameless man sat on Jack’s lap and put his neck right next to the vampire’s mouth, making sensual movements and stupid moans when Jack took a bite and started sucking.

“Sure, why not give him a lap dance too, just pretend I’m not here,” Naib rolled his eyes, his blood boiling so much it might as well turn B negative.

He didn’t know what was worse, the fact Jack was staring provocatively at him during the whole act, as if the waiter did not exist, as if he was inviting him to shove that guy and come over; or the way he reacted, his own heartbeat going crazy with an emotion that he decided to call anger.

What was he so angry about? Jack had done the same thing for breakfast the other day at the hotel. It was how things worked in this world, but somehow this felt different, more personal and suffocating and hard to stand.

He reminded himself that their kiss meant anything. Jack had just been playing around, found a creative and fucked up way to tell him that he got poisoned, he should be used to his games by now.

The kiss meant nothing, so there was no reason to feel jealous. 

Whatever he did with that waiter was none of his business. None at all.

If Naib stood up and left the restaurant, it was only because he needed fresh air. Just that. 

He may have also brought the fried potatoes with him and chewed them violently on the empty and foggy street. Damn, the moon sure was beautiful tonight!! 

“I thought you weren’t angry,” Jack teased, coming after him just a minute later. A cloud of cold air came out of his lips.

“I’m not!” He said, angry. “Your reward just sucks ass.”

The vampire titled his head. “I still haven’t given you the reward.”

“Then what the hell is it? Another voyeur session against my will?”

Jack studied him for a while, in a way that made Naib feel nervous, pierced, and then he took a fast, purposeful step forward and closed the distance between them. It was so sudden that, for a second, Naib’s mind flashed back to the locker room. He flinched, expecting something-

Something that didn’t happen.

Instead, Jack halted in front of him and took out something from his coat that Naib quickly recognized. His eyebrows shot up, not quite believing his eyes and looked up to Jack with an indescribable emotion. 

“Is this…?”

“Your reward for almost winning TransFest, and for winning the boxing championship.”

It was his medal, the actual medal he was given when he defeated MonStar two years ago, and was taken from him by the street gang. 

The round, golden object used to be inserted in a leather boxing belt, but Jack must have taken it out to carry it easily in his pocket. Why did he have it? Naib’s brain stopped working. He could only mutter a lame: “How?”

Jack cocked his head and smiled faintly. “I saw that fight. Both of them, your boxing match and the alley’s ambush, thought I arrived too late to the second. I saw how much that trophy mattered to you, so I picked it up after taking care of the trash.”

By taking care of the trash, he meant…?

“I wanted to give it to you at the hospital,” Jack continued, unbothered by the admission. “But after our eventful talk, I honestly forgot, so I decided to return it once you got discharged, and that’s when you yelled at me, making it very clear that our talk hadn’t been as eventful as I thought.”

Naib winced. So the cat was out of the bag, no more pretense, Jack was aware that he remembered everything, their first talk, the promise, the screaming. But wait-

“Why did you come to my boxing match?” 

All this time, he assumed Jack saving him had been a mere coincidence, that he just happened to stroll around the area and heard him yell in pain, but he said he came to the finals. Was he into boxing? Was it another coincidence, or-

“I’m your biggest fan,” Jack said.

Oh, come on. “Your lies used to be believable.”

“I’m not lying,” he assured, so easily it made Naib doubt, then get anxious, then laugh deprecatingly.

“Well, then it must have been very disappointing to meet me.”

Passed out on the street, not keeping his promise, crying outside of the hospital. He had been so pathetic. No wonder he lost all of his fans after he announced his decision to quit, not giving the best explanation why. Everyone who had supported him until then had been so upset and mad, and he couldn’t fault them.

“You are anything but disappointing, Naib.”

And then there was this horrible, sadistic and crazy vampire, saying stuff like that, making heat spread through his body at the praise. He felt his cheeks get progressively warmer, the fried potatoes almost slipped from his hold. Why was Jack so…?

He looked away.

“Am I supposed to feel flattered that someone like you thinks so?” He forced himself to say. 

Jack shrugged with a playful smile. “Probably not.” The muffled laughs and music coming from the restaurant filled the cold winter air. There was a streetlight with a flickering flame, he leaned on it, making it shake. 

“At least it was worth it. This adventure of ours is about to end.” 

“Huh?”

“Tomorrow is the ceremony, and also the night Claude got kidnapped and burned at the stake, the same night we discovered the Tome had disappeared.”

It was tomorrow already? He had almost forgotten about it, about why he was here. The sudden anticipation and anxiety made him feel light-headed. 

The fake Tome still remained in the library, which meant Emma planned to steal it tomorrow, during the ball. He had made the right decision by warning her in time, unless he was wrong and she wasn’t the culprit, but he was convinced of it.

He had no idea Claude died that same night, and in the next three moons, there would be a violent war between humans and vampires, like the one displayed in Jack’s painting, until the purple light born from the wish killed most of the vampires. Only then they would return to the present, whether they changed the past or not.

The moment he had feared the most since he got brought to the past was looming over him, he couldn’t escape it.

“If we catch the thief, no one will have to die,” Jack whispered, voice dripped with honey, his face barely illuminated by the streetlight. “And I will ask him -or her- to wish for my curse to stop.”

Naib inhaled slowly. It was just as he thought, that had been Jack’s plan from the start. Not only catching the suspect, but forcing her to fix his personal issue. Based on his lack of reaction, Jack must have realized that he had solved that mystery.

“You don’t look surprised, but I expected no less from you,” he sounded proud.

Then he got closer, took Naib’s face in both hands and smiled down at him, and it was unlike any smile he had made before. He looked resigned yet hopeful at the same time. It reminded Naib of the expression he made at the hospital, when he couldn’t believe someone wanted to help him get rid of his monster. 

“Tell me, Mr. Inference,” Jack said, voice low and quiet. “Who do you think the culprit is?”

Naib was not going to rat Emma out.

He couldn’t do that to her. To Aesop. To humanity. To the future he knew. 

Jack’s hands were cold on his cheeks, steady in appearance yet Naib could swear they trembled once, and that was enough to make his stomach drop, because despite his nonchalant attitude, he could feel Jack’s desperation, his loneliness. 

He still hoped that Naib would help him, that he would keep his promise, and even though Jack was undeserving of many things, Naib felt guilty. He hadn’t maintained his word. He had given hope to a hopeless man. A man who had kept his gold medal all this time, just so he could give it back when he felt ready.

He shouldn’t be conflicted about this, but he did. 

It was easy to get lost in Jack’s red eyes, in his scent, in the way his shoulders tensed as if he was afraid of the answer, an answer that Naib gave with an unwavering voice that didn’t feel his:

“It’s Emile.”

Chapter Text

“Emile,” Jack repeated, tasting the name on his tongue, his red eyes not giving away his thoughts. “You think he wished for the vampires to disappear so he could stay with Ada, both as humans. A pure wish that got twisted. Is that so?”

Naib nodded, maintaining his gaze, doing a monumental job at not wavering, that is, until Jack caught him by surprise in a tight and sudden hug. 

He was warm and smelled of leather and expensive perfume, the scents of the restaurant must have stuck in his coat. His wide shoulders surrounded him completely, and Naib was unable to see anything besides the dark sky. Jack’s voice was low and raspy when he asked again:

“Are you sure Emile is the thief?” 

Naib closed his eyes, breathless. He was thankful that his face couldn’t be seen from this angle, because his mouth switched. He only hoped that his heartbeat could behave for a few more seconds, just a few more seconds, please. 

“Yes, it’s him.”

Jack’s hold tightened, and Naib felt a small current of warm air on his back, which was strange since the weather was cold.

“Alright,” Jack slowly moved away. “Alright.” His smile looked the same as always, but Naib couldn’t tell if it reached his eyes. “Love will make people do the stupidest things, right?” He took off his coat and put it over his shoulders. “It’s freezing, let's go back inside. I heard they changed the orgy for a bingo night.”

Naib was taken aback. Was that all? Did he believe him?

While he followed the vampire inside the restaurant, he noticed a bit of wax on Jack’s otherwise pristine glove. Was the wax there before? He wasn’t sure, maybe a candle fell over him when the waiter did that annoying lap dance. 

Whatever. He was too exhausted to think about it. 

It must be nothing to worry about. 

“If you are in contact with this candle and ask a question, the flame will turn red if the answer is ‘Yes’ and black if it’s ‘No’. After that, the candle will melt and turn into wax, so don’t hold it with bare hands or you might get hurt.”

Alva sighed at the Dream Witch’s explanation. “I didn’t come to buy one of your candles.”

“Why not? They are very useful, perfect for interrogating people, just smack the candle on their body and make them answer any question that is eating you up.”

Alva wouldn’t do that to Luca. That was an invasive and filthy tactic that only someone lacking morality would do.

Jack’s face came to mind for no reason in particular. 

After speaking with Fiona yesterday, Alva spent the whole night wide awake, thinking about her words, analyzing Luca’s situation. He was convinced that the stone was the source of his curse, any rational individual would reach that conclusion.

If that was true, then why couldn’t he help but feel uneasy? 

Would the passionate Luca he knew give up on life after creating the Philosopher’s stone? That seemed to be the case, but then Alva kept remembering all the things Luca used to say when they worked together, about the uses he would give the stone to change the world. He had been very ambitious from the start, even more than him.

But now he just gave up?

Something didn’t add up.

How ridiculous. He managed to invent so many complex pentagrams and engines, yet he was lost when it came to his 200 year old coworker and friend.

It didn’t help that Luca was being extremely evasive, so if he wanted to get answers, he would have to look somewhere else. The only other person who fit that role was, unfortunately, Yima. The little girl who resided inside the damned mirror, and who had pointed at Luca in an ominous way the other day.

Even if Alva hated to admit it, the girl probably knew something. It wouldn’t hurt to try and ask again. 

“I would like to buy the mirror you have at the back of the store. The talkative one,” he asked.

The D.W smiled apologetically. “Oh, you are too late. I got rid of the mirror this morning.”

“This morning? Who-”

“Joseph, our dear King. A month ago he bought it from me, but I couldn’t send it to the castle until today because I wanted to fix it first. The poor thing was so shattered and dusty.”

Alva internally cursed. He knew Joseph very well, he had always been obsessed with doomed objects. He never used them. Instead, he guarded them, preventing people from making any bad use, just like the infamous Tome he kept in his library. 

Some would say Joseph was hoarding knowledge and power, but Alva was aware it was nothing like that. Joseph needed to have everything under control, and for his peace of mind that included potentially dangerous relics. 

Thankfully, they got along and Fiona invited him to the ball tonight, so he was sure Joseph wouldn’t mind if he asked to check the mirror later.

“You look stressed. More than usual, anyway,” D.W noted with a cheeky grin that was anything but cute. “I assume you finally learned about your coworker’s… ‘condition’.” 

Alva strained. So Luca really asked her for help. “Is there a way to motivate him again?” 

“Hm? Oh dear, his problem is not lack of motivation.” 

“He has not hurt anyone.” 

“You look hurt.” 

“That's not-” He shook his head. Speaking with this woman was always a frustrating experience. Her eyes were hidden behind a blindfold, yet it was as if she could easily see through him. “I mean he has not killed anyone.” 

D.W smiled knowingly. “Do you want me to read your future?” 

“What? No, this isn’t about me.”

He came here to find a way to help Luca, not learn more about his own future, that wouldn’t solve anything. This was a waste of time, it was obvious she was trying to scam him a few extra echoes.

“Do you want me to read your future?” She asked again.

“No, thank you. I think this will be all. Thank you for your… wisdom.”

“Do you want me to read your future?”

So insistent. Alva wondered if this aggressive marketing method worked on anyone. If he had a subscription, he would cancel it.

“Do you want me to read your future?”

This was getting strange. “You already said that.” 

“Ah, did I? Right…” The Dream Witch suddenly looked lost, disoriented. Uncharacteristically out of herself. What had gotten onto her? They were speaking normally not even a minute ago.

Alva paid attention, and noticed with a hint of fear how her face, which was already altered by the curse, had quickly gotten worse in the span of a few seconds, like a dead animal rotting at an unnatural and disturbing speed. 

“Are you okay?” He asked with concern, expecting the worst. She looked nothing like the sarcastic and arrogant woman he knew her as. 

Despite the ugliness, she smiled at him, and it was such a pitiful sight. “Who- who are you? What a handsome man...” 

Her voice was uneven, cracked, as if she was a baby learning how to speak for the first time, and Alva realized with helplessness that it was over. The curse was taking her right in front of his own eyes.

“S-So handsome…” She repeated, her limbs and skin and bones breaking, changing and transforming, making the most bone-chilling sounds. “H-Help me…”

As if waking from a trance, Alva went behind the counter and picked her up. He had to take her out of the shop, out of the city, to the forest, where she wouldn’t hurt anyone when she turned into a monster. He did it almost mechanically, mind blank-

Doing his best not to think about how Luca would go through the same hell.

About how he would forget and break until he was nothing.

Meanwhile, Luca was fighting his own demons.

“How do I tie a tie?” He asked out loud in front of the mirror. Youtube tutorials would have saved him.

Whatever, he was ready for the ball. White suit on, an opaque monocle over his bad eye, and white, fancy gloves that covered his darkening hands. He still had no idea why Fiona came to their house and spoke with Alva of all people, but he told himself that she probably happened to find him first.

Why did she invite them to the ball, though? 

Well, the crime would surely take place tonight, it would be smart to gather the… What did she call it? ‘Cinderella Team’ in the same place so they could deal with the thief together.

Once the thief was off the map, their plan would be deemed a success, and Alva would get to live a fulfilling life, one where he never lost the stone, didn’t experience an extinction, created a blood bank, nor died at his hands. 

When Luca thought about all the good things that would come out of this, his sins didn’t matter at all. 

“I’m fancy and ready for tonight! Where did you go?” He asked when Alva came back to their cottage. He looked slightly dirty, mud stuck under his boots and stains on his face. He must have gone for a walk in the forest and tripped over a log. 

He was such an old man. 

Luca snickered at the thought, but instead of getting mildly irritated, Alva just stared at him in silence, until his eyes fell somewhere under his neck.

“Your tie is poorly tied,” he criticized in a hollow tone.

“Oh, is it?” Luca walked towards the mirror and, yeah, it was all backwards, how lame. He undid it and tried again, but it came out messy again. Weird, he was pretty sure that’s how the knot was done? He came from a noble lineage, he should know how to do this as much as he knew table manners. 

Youtube tutorials would have saved him.

Wait, didn’t he already think that?

“You don’t remember…?” Alva asked, and it was such a simple question, yet he looked extremely pale and torn up. It shocked Luca to see him like this. Did something happen in the forest? Before he could ask, Alva approached him and helped with his tie.

It was the first time in 400 years Alva did something like that, and Luca didn’t know where to look, what to do with his hands. It was awkward, but there was also something very nostalgic about standing still and waiting for someone to fix his tie. He felt like a kid in his grand salon, with his mom and dad teaching him all sorts of wonderful things. 

He had forgotten their faces too. 

Too?

“There, perfect,” Alva said with a weak smile, his eyes glassy, as if he wanted to- 

After that strange display, he went to take a bath and get ready for the night, leaving Luca alone, wondering if he had done something awfully wrong.

“I know there will be many people in the castle tonight, but was it necessary for Joseph to hire two bodyguards? To protect me from what? Small talk?” Claude asked in his room.

“Please don’t mind us, pretend we don’t exist!!” Said vampire bodyguard #1, also known as Florian.

“That would be easier if you didn’t yell,” whispered vampire bodyguard #2, also known as Matthias. “I hate my job.”

Aesop stared at the comedy duo- pardon, the bodyguards, and sighed. Joseph had privately told him this morning that Claude got kidnapped during the ball in the last timeline. Apparently, he had not assisted since he felt very sick, so he must have been wandering the empty hallways and that’s how they got him.

Luckily, that was not going to happen again for several reasons:

For one, Claude was healthy so he would be able to fight any human who tried to hurt him; Two, he would come to the ball, so he wasn’t an easy target; and third and just in case, Joseph had given him two bodyguards.

Claude didn’t know any of that, so he must think Joseph was being overly protective, but that was a small price to pay for his safety.

“Is it obligatory for you to dress in white?” Aesop asked, trying to change the topic.

It was only the two of them and the bodyguards in Claude’s room, which looked like the aftermath of a fashion war. Suits, ribbons, makeup and shoes were thrown everywhere after they -only Claude, actually- spent the afternoon deciding their fit, like some sort of girls’ night before prom.

Aesop’s conclusion was that if The Devil wears Prada, then The Vampire wears Dior.

“Yes! In this ceremony, vampires dress in white and humans in red,” Claude excitedly explained, finishing the last touches to his hair. “It represents the truce between both factions and the birth of a new vampire. It’s also a rule that the dancing is between a vampire and a human.”

“So your dance partner has to be a human?” 

“Yep! I would have asked you, but you are already taken.”

Aesop was confused at first, then bit back an exasperated sigh. “Joseph wouldn’t-”

“He would. In fact, he did,” Claude interrupted with a playful grin. “Why else do you have that white rose in your vest’s pocket? That’s how the ball invitation works. They offer you a rose, and if you keep it, that means you accepted the proposal.” 

“No, Joseph only told me to hold onto this rose until midnight because he couldn’t find a fitting vase and- Eh?”

Claude and the bodyguards were trying their hardest not to break into laughter. Aesop frowned. It was not an invitation! He was just told to keep the rose and so he did!

“Aesop… The castle is full of vases, that was just- Oh, my brother is so cruel.”

The embalmer tried to deny it, but the longer he thought about it, the less sense Joseph’s request made. 

The castle really was full of vases. 

Did Joseph just- No way. He had been walking around with that rose the entire morning, wondering why people were giggling at him. 

His face went bright red. If his brain was a computer, it would have [error] popping up all over the place.

“Guys, can you wait outside for a second?” Claude asked Florian and Matthias, taking pity on Aesop. Once they were alone, he patted him on the back animatedly. “I hope you know how to dance.”

He was a decent dancer, thank you. “That’s irrelevant. The reason I came here was to cure you, and it worked, you recovered and I’m thankful for that, so I don’t know why Joseph still keeps me around.”

He didn’t mean to sound so bitter and accusatory, but it was too late to fix that now.

“Because he enjoys your company?” Claude said as a matter of fact, surprised by his sudden outburst. 

Even then, Aesop couldn’t conceive that. No one had ever wanted him around so why would Joseph be any different? There must be something else, maybe he still needed his blood and had to make sure he wouldn’t leave. Dancing together would be like chaining him, a way to control him.

Claude must have noticed his reticence, his unwillingness to accept that reason, because he said: “What you told us yesterday, I hope you know that even if your mom was unhappy, she loved you.”

Aesop flinched, defensive. “Why are you bringing that up?” 

Claude smiled sadly. “Because I understand how it feels to want to… ‘leave’ and never come back, and even if I did, I would still love Joseph. I’m sure she endured as much as she could because you were there.”

“You don’t know that.” His throat felt dry.

“I do. I also want you here, and Joseph does too. You make us happy.” Claude went as far as to hug him. A gentle and heartfelt embrace. “If it weren’t for you, I think I would have given up, so thank you.” 

Aesop felt overwhelmed. 

Claude’s words were as sweet as honey, they were everything he had wanted to hear many years ago, and maybe that’s why he couldn’t believe it, his body almost physically rejecting it, wanting to escape from Claude.

The scam, the kidnapping, the blood games, everything he had gone through in the past few days would have been horrible for any ordinary person, and yet it wasn’t that bad for him, because he was used to things never going his way. The suffering, the beatings, the disappointment, he could manage.

But then, Claude and Joseph made him feel safe, welcomed, and he didn’t know what to do with that. He could come to terms with vampires and sacrifices, and yet there he was, brewing a storm in his heart when good things happened to him.

Living with so much apathy had become so easy, and now that he was given warmth, he was lost.

Noticing his inner turmoil, Claude softly held his hands. “You know, during our walk at the beach, Joseph told me that you have to leave the capital in three days, but that we will meet again in the future. He asked me if it would be okay if you stayed with us when that happens.”

Stay with them in the future? Aesop felt a lump in his throat. 

The ‘future’ Joseph meant must be his present. All of this started because he wanted to escape, get away from Jerry, but then, did that mean Joseph was willing to- That would be-

“Hey, don’t look so anxious.” Claude caressed his hands with his thumbs, bringing back the attention to him. “Just know that if you haven’t found a home, we are here.”

Aesop dipped his head. He couldn’t reply, his voice was stuck somewhere between his brain and heart, so he closed his eyes and squeezed his hands, hoping the small gesture would convey feelings that could not be expressed in words.

Claude’s happiness could light up the entire world. “I’m glad.”

“Would you hold this rose for me? It’s very heavy,” Jack asked as they got out of the carriage. It was night time and the castle looked more impressive than ever due to the celebration. 

The entrance had a red carpet that introduced the guests to a large octagonal hall, where a group of vampires were playing the harp and dancing in the air, as if they were angels serenading them to go up the grand and lateral staircases, filled to the brim with red and white flowers.

Naib felt as if he was climbing the stairway to heaven. The place smelled too good, looked too stunning, it was almost like an overdose of elegance. Is this how Cinderella felt? One amazing party before everything went downhill?

He glared at the rose Jack offered with a raised eyebrow. “Does it have a hidden meaning?”

The vampire brought a hand to his chest, offended. “Of course not.”

“...”

“Okay, it means you are taken. Therefore no one will ask you out to dance, which will be good for everyone involved.”

“W-Why?” 

Could it be that he didn’t want him to dance with anyone else?

“Campbell told me what you did when you got upset at the soap shop. How was it called? Breakdancing . I wouldn’t let you taint such an elegant ball with those flavorless movements.” 

Wow. “Classist.”

“I’m a gentleman, and there’s a time and place for everything.”

“Wrong, you are a walking cautionary tale, and how about here and now?” He crouched.

“Naib, no.”

“Naib, yes,” he said as he started breakdancing at the top of the staircase. Guests stopped to stare at his performance. The reviews were mixed, some applauded at the spectacle while others thought he had squirrels in his pants.

Naib was aware that he was acting a bit too insane, but he was stressed. Ever since he arrived at the castle, he had been looking everywhere for Emma. Would she still come and try to steal the Tome? Would she listen to him and leave it for another day, confirming that she was indeed guilty?

So far, he had not seen her, which was good, very good, but at the same time he couldn’t help but feel dizzy every time he saw a girl with short brown hair, only for her to turn around and be someone else. 

Then there was the matter of Jack. He had lied to him and thrown Emile to the sharks in the process. He didn’t know why he said that name, he wasn’t a functional quick thinker, but still. He couldn’t help but feel unhappy.

He told himself again and again that he made the right choice. Objectively, he really did. It’s just that now his stomach churned every time Jack smiled at him, lent him his coat for warmth, or gave him a rose. 

Not only had he broken their promise, he actively doomed Jack to become a monster for eternity. 

He tried to brush those thoughts away, but they were slowly suffocating him. What would happen now? How would Jack look at him, when the night ended and Emile did not steal the Tome?

Trying to imagine his expression was enough to make him want to throw up.

God, he was the worst.

Those weren’t the best thoughts to have while breakdancing, which is why one of his kicks ended up landing on someone’s back. Naib gasped and stood up, ready to apologize until he saw the person he kicked.

“You didn’t have enough yesterday? Gotta annoy me today too?” Campbell asked with a frown.

“Why are you dressed in black?” Naib asked, trying to hide his surprise. “It’s white for vampires and red for humans, learn etiquette.”

“Says the one who was dancing like a possessed roomba,” Jack muttered under his breath.

“The winner dresses in black to symbolize that tonight I die as a human and revive as a vampire,” Norton explained, arms crossed. “But of course you didn’t know that, tourist.”

Naib opened his mouth and closed it, like an idiot trash can. An awkward silence followed in which neither of them said anything. For his part, Naib had already told Campbell everything during the third trial, but Norton didn’t look satisfied, he clearly wanted to bring something up. 

“Anyway, have fun tonight,” he ended up saying, unusually awkward and… nice? What? “I heard there’s delicious cheesecake in the buffet area, you might want to check it out.” 

He quickly left, not giving Naib a chance to reply.

Could it be that he attempted to apologize? What a shitass way to do it. He might be stupid, but Norton was stupider. Naib let out a faint smile and shook his head. He looked at Jack, who had disappeared from his side. 

Huh. Where did he go?!

The ballroom was the grandest and most exquisite room, gold baroque style and decorated with mirrors all over the walls which only reflected humans. It was designed like that on purpose, so during the dance it would seem as if they were floating as their vampire partners held them up in the air. An eerie yet romantic sight.

When Alva and Luca arrived, they didn’t expect to get surrounded by waves of human ladies and men holding roses, asking them to be their dance partners. Actually, most of them flocked towards Alva, pushing Luca aside, who stared open mouthed at his friend.

Alva had more game than him? Since when?! They had never gone to big events. Actually, since Alva had always preferred to be alone, Luca didn't expect him to be that popular.

“Excuse me, why him?” He whispered to a lady on the queue. 

“Oh dear, this is the first time Mr. Lorenz comes to a ball, it can only mean he has finally gotten over his past lover. He must look for a new partner!”

Luca blinked. There were rumors about Alva? Women liked soggy widowers?

“He is tall, with a stern and arrogant appearance, a renowned inventor who never leaves his home, so mysterious,” she continued, dreamy. “But deep inside he must be kind and humble, waiting for the right partner who will open his heart. The perfect man.”

Technically she was not wrong, but woah. “You must like Pride and Prejudice.”

“What?”

Ah, right. In this timeline Jane Austen’s book had a different title. “Blood and Bias?”

“Yes, I love that novel!”

“Luca-” Alva grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away from the crowd. It was funny to see his ever solemn mentor escape from the masses, hair disheveled and crooked glasses.

Now he understood why Alva didn’t like parties, it’s not because he ended up alone drinking in a corner; on the contrary, he was too popular. He had been given so many roses that he was holding an entire bucket. 

“What are you going to do with all of these?” Luca asked.

“Plant them in the garden? I don’t know,” Alva didn’t plan on dancing with anyone, but people would think he was a womanizer if they saw him holding so many ‘invitations’.

That’s when Luca saw Norton entering the ballroom and was hit with a bright idea.

“Mr. Campbell, you are the winner, right? Congratulations from the Flower committee!” Luca cheered, pretending not to know Norton, as if he hadn’t pushed him off the stairs and killed him in the future. “My friend and I are delighted to give you this!” Luca passed Alva’s bucket on to Norton.

“These are for me? Thanks.” Norton seemed satisfied with the attention and free gifts. 

Luca winked at Alva as if saying ‘ Job done ’ but Alva simply rolled his eyes, Luca was such a gremlin. “I heard the last trial was a tough one. You must have put up a great fight.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Norton looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “As if I would know what Naib was thinking,” he mumbled to himself.

“Mr. Subedar was your opponent? I didn’t expect Jack’s ‘roommate’ to get so far.”

“You know Naib? Ugh. Of course you do, he knows every single important vampire here,” Norton wasn’t polite nor cared enough to hide his complicated feelings. 

“He didn’t seem like a bad guy,” Alva hummed. Luca nodded as he grabbed a glass of wine from one of the butlers and took a sip.

Norton shook his head in denial. “No, no, he is insane. He said he comes from the future.”

Luca spilled the wine everywhere and coughed like crazy.

“Are you alright?” 

“Yes, the wine is just… too spicy.” 

Luca looked deeply troubled. Alva wondered if his eye hurt, and remembered the reason why he came to the party. He quietly excused himself and went to look for Joseph. Luca didn’t seem to mind his absence, actually he almost looked relieved to be left alone with Norton.

Alva didn’t think much of it.

As the king and host, Joseph’s duty was to make sure everything ran smoothly. He walked around the ballroom, chatting with the most distinguished guests, who flattered him to an embarrassing degree. The main event had not started yet since invitees were still arriving, so people used that precious time to eat, catch up, or get to know each other in hopes to find a partner.

A dance partner. Joseph wondered if Aesop knew how to dance.

The embalmer had shown to be graceful and elegant without trying, even if a bit tense at times. He really was like a cat, quiet and observant, only meowing when he had something important to say, he was also very smooth to the touch-

Catching himself, he stopped that string of thoughts. 

He had to focus, tonight was extremely important. What was supposed to be a normal day in the last timeline, it ended up becoming his worst nightmare. He still remembered the way he froze when he was informed that Claude had been kidnapped.

He hurried to the center of the city as fast as he could, but it was too late. The mob was screaming and yelling, the stake was on fire, and Claude… His baby brother had been burned to death by his own citizens.

Joseph killed everyone that got in his way, and when he returned to the castle, holding Claude’s body in his arms in a state of shock, Jack informed him that the Tome had disappeared. 

Joseph barely remembered the rest. The war that followed, his ruthless orders, his hatred and pain, it was all a distant, distorted and ugly memory. A memory that would get rewritten soon, freeing him from his suffering. 

When all of this ended, he would finally be happy.

Joseph smiled when he saw Claude and Aesop entering the ballroom. Claude was brimming with joy and health, while Aesop looked adorably fidgety, following Claude around like the introvert he was. The white rose was still on him, he noticed with anticipation.

“What’s up with that lovestruck face? Were you looking for mee?” Someone sang next to him.

“Jack.”

“It’s been a while, boss.” 

“Do you know who it is?” He asked, not bothering to be more specific. Jack knew what they were talking about.

Jack nodded with a smirk. “Emile. He is an average human, thirty years old, working class, used to fight in a clandestine club. In love with our dear friend Ada. He is currently in the room, talking with her.” 

“Do you think they work together?”

“No, Ada came up with TransFest, she wants more vampires in the world, not the other way around. Emile lost this year’s competition and might want to eliminate what sets them apart, Romeo and Juliet style. His wish likely got misunderstood.” 

“I see. We will keep an eye on him, but pretend nothing is out of the ordinary. If everything is like the last time, Fiona will catch him.” Joseph’s resolve was firm. “But I want to ask, why do you think it’s him?”

A pause.

“Intuition.”

Joseph would have gotten mad at such a weak reason if he didn’t know Jack. It was almost scary, but that man’s intuition never failed. They were old and had worked together for a long time, enough for Joseph to accept that Jack had a sixth sense when it came to judging people. 

Maybe it wasn’t a sixth sense, but an accumulation of experiences worth two thousand years. Whatever it was, he trusted his right-hand man in that regard. 

He wasn’t naive, though. He was aware Jack’s methods were unethical and that he wasn’t the most trustworthy vampire, but their objectives often aligned so there was no reason to suspect foul play. Besides Subedar and Aesop, everyone in their ‘Team’ wanted the same thing. 

He only hoped Subedar hadn’t been too involved in Jack’s ‘intuitive’ decision. 

“Is your brother doing well?” Jack changed the topic, taking two glasses of wine and offering one to him.

Joseph displayed a smug smile as he took a sip. “We went to the beach yesterday, actually.”

“Beach? So either Claude got completely healed or the world is ending.”

“Ha ha.”

“Claude recovered?” A voice asked behind them. When they turned around it was no one other than Alva. 

“Alva! Can you believe this?” Jack welcomed him into their group with pats on his back. “The three of us together again, it’s like a high school reunion. Class of 669!” 

“You are so immature,” Joseph said at the same time Alva muttered a low, “You never graduated.”

“Mean! I have a career. Scientists and their unwillingness to respect arts and humanities. Oh my god you studied numbers? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Einstein?”

“Who?”

Joseph hit Jack on the stomach and stepped between the two of them. “You seem troubled, Alva, is something the matter?” 

The alchemist had always disliked social gatherings, which is why Joseph stopped inviting him to this event, so why did Alva come this time? Well, at least it was good to see him alive. Luca must be relieved, he finally got what he wanted.

“Sorry for not keeping in touch lately, I’ve been busy,” Alva politely apologized. “The truth is I’ve come to ask for a favor. I heard you own the Dream Witch’s mirror, I would like to see it.”

That was unexpected. Maybe Luca and him had started another experiment? “Of course, I trust that you will be careful with it, but beware of its evil influence. May I ask why you need it?”

There was silence, until Alva swallowed, got closer to them and whispered: “Luca recently got the vampire curse, so I want to ask the mirror why he got it.”

Joseph and Jack spilled the wine everywhere and coughed like crazy.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, the wine was just too… sweet?” Jack said, choking.

“I can’t lend you the mirror,” Joseph cleaned the corners of his mouth with a nervous laugh.

“But you said-”

“Oh, I say many things I don’t mean.”

“Yeah, you know how delusional Joseph is.” Jack unhelpfully added.

“Says the sleep paralysis demon.” 

Jack put an arm around Alva’s shoulder. “If you want to know how to deal with a cursed vampire, I can give you some tips as one! Let's take a walk, the night is young and you are turning this party into a funeral. See? This is why you don’t get invited, Maleficent.”

Alva rejected the invitation. “I don’t want to know how to deal with the curse, I would do anything to make it stop.”

“Anything, you say? Then let's have a private talk,” Jack insisted, a cunning smile forming on his lips. “I’m sure you will find my suggestion extremely valuable.”

The mystery of it intrigued Alva, who ended up accepting, letting himself be dragged away by Jack. Joseph looked at their backs with slight concern. Something in Jack’s tone had set off alarm bells in his head.

He told himself he was being paranoid. 

“Excuse me.” A young human holding several papers bowed slightly. “My name is Ganji and-”

“Sorry, I have matters to attend to.” Joseph brushed him away. He wanted to look for Aesop.

“It will be a moment, sir!” Ganji got on his way. Was he brave or an idiot? “I know this isn’t the best time, but I would like to discuss with you some ideas that would benefit the capital, I was told they were good.”

Ha, so he was one of those . Every time he held a party, a few humans would bring their brilliant, world changing proposals that would surely solve a society as unbalanced as theirs, as if he hadn’t tried everything already.

He grabbed one of Ganji’s papers and read a few lines to amuse himself. Humans were too young, too naive to consider every single variable, but wait-

Hmm… “These aren’t half bad.” He admitted, frowning as he kept reading. “Better than anything the council could come up with even if they were held at gunpoint. Can I read more?”

Ganji nodded, proud.

“I don’t think anyone wants to dance with me,” Claude pointed out, dejected. “The ball will start in a few minutes and I didn’t get a rose.”

Aesop glanced at the dozens of fangirls stalking Claude from a safe distance. “I think they are scared of asking.”

“Right, because of the age gap...”

Was that a topic of discourse in this society? “No, because you are the prince.”

“Oh, right.” Claude really forgot his position, didn’t he? “By the way, where is Eli? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“He must be busy.” Aesop looked away. Eli had to be in that room with Joseph’s diaries, guarding the real Tome. He wished he hadn’t avoided him since that night, he still had so many questions. 

Maybe it was a good time to learn a bit more.

“What do you think about him?”

“About Eli?” Claude brought a hand to his chin. “He has been my brother’s counselor since he established Penvicor. He is always there for us, but often keeps his distance. Now that I think about it, he never talks much about himself- Oh, but he is very kind, he fixed my broken window the other day.”

“Was it made of wood?”

“How did you know?”

“A carpenter, of course.” Jesus. Aesop wanted to cover his face in shame. “Why did Eli want to help Joseph?” Was he an empath or did he have ulterior motives?

“I think he was unhappy with the way vampires and humans hurt each other, and shared Joseph’s goal of making a place where we could coexist together.”

Aesop bit his lip. If Eli was indeed the first vampire, it could be that he felt responsible for the way the world changed due to his wish, and wanted to amend it. 

Claude continued talking. “Sometimes I feel bad. Eli has been very patient with my brother and I despite seeing us in our worst moments. Maybe it’s due to bad timing, since Joseph and him met the day I got sick.” 

Aesop blinked. They met on the same day? Was that a coincidence, or- 

“Where the fuck did Jack go?” Naib asked out loud before bumping into Claude. “Woah, sorry!”

“Oh, you are the butler from last time! Hi, Naib.”

“Hi, Claude.”

“Hi, Naib.”

“Hi, Cl- We gotta stop doing that!” Naib shook his head and turned his head towards Aesop. “You are alive!”

“I should be the one saying that,” Aesop smiled, forgetting the prior conversation. What was Naib doing here!? He had no idea, but it was a great surprise. He didn’t get to see the second and third trial, but he heard Naib got second place which made him sigh in relief. In the end, there was no reason to worry about him. “I- Thank you for what you did the other day.”

For getting stabbed in his stead. 

“It’s alright. I have an untreated hero complex,” Naib admitted nonchalantly, brushing it aside as if it was nothing. He was holding several plates full of small cakes. Had he been looking for Jack only in the buffet area?

“I think you have several untreated issues,” Aesop joked lightly, relieved to know Naib wasn’t angry at him. “And why do you have a rose?” He cringed, pointing at the flower sticking out of his pocket.

Naib blushed furiously. “W-What about you?!”

“My brother gave it to him,” Claude informed with joy.

Naib almost dropped the cake. “So the rumors are true? Are you getting married?!” 

If he could, Aesop would have embalmed him alive. “Of course not, and don’t raise your voice!” His face also got red, it was good to see neither of them had changed much, as expected from two idiots who got scammed. “Why are you looking for Jack?”

Naib’s eyes darted to Claude before going back to Aesop, as if saying he couldn’t speak freely in front of the vampire. “It’s about that book you liked, I heard Emma Woods also likes it a lot.”

Aesop froze. Naib had to be talking about the Tome, and by liking a lot, he must mean Emma Woods was the thief? 

Hold up. That name sounded familiar. Where did he hear it…? 

Ah! The farmer from the throne room! The one that came to ask advice about her rats. Aesop made an effort to remember her words.

“A big group of rats has been destroying my crops,” she had said. “I have put traps to spook them away, but they are smart and always return for more. They have enough food in the wild, but they prefer to ruin what is dear to me. How do I get rid of them?”

…Could it be that the ‘rats’ she mentioned were vampires? Did she come all the way to the throne room to ask to their face how to kill all of them? That was a mad move, and Joseph’s answer had been-

“It’s hard to exterminate rats completely. You need to tackle them all at once or they will come back. Don’t you think so, Aesop?”

‘Tackle all of them at once’. 

Oh, no. Joseph almost invited her to kill all of them, didn’t he? 

Aesop also remembered his own answer. He liked animals, so he offered a peaceful solution without murder. In the end, Emma said she would think about it, but if she was the thief, her answer was clear. 

“Does Jack know? A-About Emma liking my favorite book, I mean.” He asked, nervous.

“Of course not! I gave him a different name, Emile.”

“This book seems very popular,” Claude intruded, trying and failing to keep up. “But you should leave that discussion for later, it’s about to start.” 

“What is about to start?” They asked at the same time the lights turned off.

An anticipating, charged silence surrounded the huge room. All the guests, who had been chatting animatedly, went dead quiet and moved away from the center, creating an empty circle. When a few faint, flickering red lights lit up, Ada and Norton appeared in the middle of said circle.

Naib, Aesop and Claude made their way through the crowd to have a better view of what was going on. Just like the rest of vampires, Ada was dressed in pure white, a beautiful contrast to Norton’s pitch black.

Naib expected her to make some sort of congratulatory speech and bite Norton, but she remained in silence. Instead, the orchestra at the end of the room started playing a classical piece with harp and violins. 

Norton and Ada bowed at each other and… Started dancing?

Their bodies moved together in perfect synchrony. It was weird to see Norton dance -and not suck at it- he clearly took this very seriously, proving that he had been waiting for this moment his entire life. 

“The best part comes now,” Claude whispered next to them, enjoying the performance.

Naib didn’t know what to expect, but Ada spreading her wings and starting to dance in the air was not on his bingo. She led gracefully and held Norton close so he wouldn’t fall. Claude was right, it was a hypnotic sight, a macabre version of Peter Pan and Wendy drifting among fairies. 

The mirrors around them only reflected Norton, giving the scene an otherworldly and eerie sensation, as if he was levitating alone.

When the music came to its climax, Ada, whose long hair was floating in the air like a ghost, opened her mouth and bit Norton’s neck with her pearly fangs. 

Naib could almost hear his grunt of pain as she sucked his blood. 

Last night, Jack had explained to him how vampires turned humans into one of them. It was very similar to the books he had read: The human had to be bitten by a vampire first, then they had to drink the blood of the vampire that bit them.

“Simple in appearance, yet there are many ‘but’s’” Jack had warned.

If the human was too sick, too wounded or had lost too much blood, the transformation wouldn’t work and the human would die, with no option to be brought back to life.

“Not even with the Philosopher’s stone?” Naib asked.

“Based on what Alva told me while you were unconscious, the stone and vampires don’t mix well. A human who has been killed by a vampire is considered an unnatural death and the stone cannot bring them back. Luckily, you only got stabbed.”

Naib shivered. The transformation process was more complex than it seemed. A small mistake and it was over.

Remembering the conversation, Naib watched Ada drink Norton’s blood with anxiety, hoping that she would stop in time. When she deemed her prey to be ready, Ada bit her own lip and kissed him tenderly, passing onto him her own blood so the transformation would be complete.

Thankfully, there were no incidents. 

The crowd applauded and Naib sighed with an exasperated smile. Despite all the changes and alterations they made in the past, Norton managed to become a vampire in this timeline too. A part of him asked himself if Norton had been lucky, or if fate was immovable. What if the past was meant to repeat itself against their efforts? He tried not to think too much about it.

Ada slowly descended with an unconscious Norton in her arms. He had fainted and would wake up as a vampire after a few hours. 

“I saw a similar performance in a BDSM night club once,” Aesop commented out of the blue. “I think it was called Shibari.”

“Literally what the fuck? You go to those places?”

“Not really. I was told BDSM stood for ‘Buried Decayed Souls in Melancholy’. As an embalmer, it sounded like my sort of thing.”

“Totally unrelated question, do you get scammed often?” 

Aesop looked away in a sad, telling way and Naib rolled his eyes. Anyway, that had been an interesting show. Watching Norton kiss a woman was hilarious for reasons he wouldn’t mention.

But wait. Norton didn’t get kissed by any woman, it was THE woman. Ada! How would Emile feel? Naib tried to look for him among the crowd and when he found him, he almost had a heart attack.

Emile looked like shit, heartbroken, but that wasn’t the problem, the problem had a name, wore a tall hat, and stood next to him like a devil.

Fuck. Jack was whispering something to Emile.

In a panic, Naib abandoned Aesop and Claude and hurried towards them as if his life depended on it. He had to stop Jack, stop him from interacting with Emile so he wouldn’t realize he was not the real culprit. 

He had no idea what Jack was saying, his best bet was that he was threatening Emile, telling him something like ‘I know what you plan to do tonight, I won’t kill you if you wish for something else instead’.

Then Emile would say ‘What are you saying, weirdo?’ and he, Naib Subedar, would die.

Shit, shit, shit.

After pushing people aside New Yorker style, he finally reached them. Not wasting any time, he tapped on Jack’s shoulder. Emile noticed him first, and Naib was confused to see that he didn’t look scared at all. Did he not get threatened? 

When Jack turned around and saw him, panting and worried, he gleamed as he elegantly took his hand.

“Ah, I thought you would never ask me!” 

“What?” 

And that’s how the lights returned to the room, and they became the first proper couple to initiate the general ball.

WHAT?!

Naib was mortified. He didn’t know how to dance something slow and proper like this, and in front of so many people! He found Aesop staring at him from the public as if saying ‘What the fuck, Naib?’

What the fuck, Naib, indeed.

“Shouldn’t the king open the dance?” A vampire lady complained out loud. 

“That human is Subedar, he got second place in the competition. They must be changing traditions,” a human replied, then proceeded to bow to the lady. “May you dance with me?”

Slowly, the center of the room started to fill with couples, white and red dancing against the parquet wood floor and the marble and golden walls. Claude enjoyed the dreamy sight from afar, his blue eyes shining more than any of the 44 chandeliers hanging above them.

Aesop remembered what Joseph said, about Claude being too sick to participate in any of these events. He must have been lonely, so close yet so far to a happy life.

Joseph was still busy reading some documents next to a young man, always the workaholic, so Aesop decided to do something very uncharacteristic and ask Claude to dance with him.

“I can’t promise I’m decent at it, though,” he warned.

“No, you are perfect , ” Claude looked genuinely moved, and Aesop felt as if he had done something right for once. 

Meanwhile, Naib was fighting for his life not to step on Jack’s foot (on purpose). “What were you saying to Emile?”

“Are you getting jealous again? Should I stop speaking with other men? That’s toxic but kinda hot.”

“O-Of course not! I would never be a controlling boyfriend- Wait, that wasn’t the point!”

“The point this, the point that- There’s no point to anything, let's just have fun.”

Jack eagerly clasped their hands together and put the other on his lower back, taking a step forward and leading their dance with intention. Naib had never danced with anyone, but something pushed him to keep Jack’s pace. Despite the difficulty, dancing and boxing weren’t that different.  

Both required smart footwork and choreography. Timing, balance, and coordination. Jack found his attempt to lead amusing and didn’t go easy on him, making sure to keep him on his toes, as he always did. 

Before he knew it, he realized that Jack was right, he was enjoying this. How come they sucked monumentally when it came to communication, but danced as if they had known each other their entire lives? 

Their synchrony was so perfect it was almost shameful. 

“We should dance more and talk less from now on,” Jack commented, as if reading his mind. 

“Scientists say that wouldn’t be necessary if you weren’t such a dick half of the time.”

“What am I during the other half?” Jack raised an eyebrow with a shit-eating grin.  

“Insufferable.”

Jack laughed. With a quick, assertive movement, he made him swirl until Naib’s back was against his chest, his head right under Jack’s chin. It was a common dance move Naib had seen in movies, but he would have never expected it to feel that intimate, as if he got caged between his arms.

“Am I wrong to think you like it?” Jack whispered in his ear. 

Naib thanked the gods that he had his back turned away. “See? Ruining everything with words…”

The song changed into something slower. People around them would change their partners from time to time, something that neither Jack nor Naib considered for a second. Their dancing stopped being as sharp and entered into a swaying rhythm. Banter aside, Jack looked pleased, a fond glint rested on his eyes as he looked at him in a way that made Naib’s heart pound. 

“What are you thinking?” Naib asked. He was glad for the steadiness of his voice.

“Luca got a curse like mine too,” Jack disclosed with a bitter smile. “It’s not unexpected considering his recent actions. Alva is heartbroken. They would do anything to help each other, isn’t that wonderful?”

The vampire let out a breathy laugh before continuing.

“Joseph also spent all of his life trying to find a way to cure Claude. I thought it was a waste of time, a lost cause, but he finally got what he wanted. Now they can get their happily ever after,” he smiled. “I’m jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Having someone who would save you despite being a monster. I always wondered how that would feel. It’s not like I deserve such mercy, but it was fun to dream for a while.” 

The song ended, but instead of preparing for the next one, Jack got closer and kissed him on the cheek. It was short, it barely touched his skin, but it felt more personal than the last one. 

“Regardless of how this ends, I hope you know you look beautiful tonight. Red suits you.” 

Naib’s hold on Jack’s hand weakened. His heart pounded harder than before, he couldn’t look him in the eyes. The room started spinning. It was not the food, he wasn’t sick, but he wanted to scream. Something inside urged him, begged him to utter those words. 

He wanted to tell Jack it was Emma. 

Against all logic, he wanted to help him.

And that’s why he left the dance floor in a hurry. Aesop saw the scene and, worried, excused himself and followed him. 

He found Naib in an empty corridor outside, leaning his back against the wall, as if it would prevent him from falling, crumbling to the floor. “He kissed you,” Aesop said. 

“No way, I didn’t notice.” 

“...Naib, do you like Jack?”

“Of course not! Do I look insane to you? He is a vampire!”

Aesop flinched, took a step back. “Sorry, while you were dancing it looked like-”

“Do you think I would have lied to him if I liked him!?” Naib interrupted, riled up and frustrated. He couldn’t control himself. “Thanks to me, he will become a monster and we will return to the world we belong to, without vampires! Isn’t that what you want too?” 

He expected Aesop to nod. Say yes. It’s the least thing he could do, but instead Aesop got fucking quiet. His silence was so loud, so telling that Naib couldn’t believe it.

“Don’t tell me that living in a castle for a couple of days with a fancy room and pretty outfits made you side with them,” he accused. “Was life that good here? Because I should let you know everything sucks out there.” 

“I know,” Aesop bit his lip, frustrated. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it? Because I thought we were in this together.”

Before Aesop could answer, Ganji approached their totally not tense discussion with a big, oblivious grin. “Subedar, I was looking for you! I showed the King my ideas to fix Penvicor and he hired me. Can you believe it?”

“Hired you?”

An excited nod. “Yes, he says they are doable. He even plans to fire the council because they suck- well, he didn’t say it like that, but those old geezers make everything worse, so he wants to start anew and fix the capital!” He let out a gasp. “Balls! I need to get home and review these, for a new beginning!”

Ganji left as quickly as he came, but his excitement was not contagious. Naib forgot about the interruption and planned to continue the discussion. Unlike him, though, Ganji’s words seemed to have touched Aesop. 

“Joseph really wants to fix everything,” he mumbled to himself, voice low. “Naib, Claude is the reason Joseph disregarded this place, but he wants to amend it. Maybe- Maybe there’s a way to coexist together, or-”

“What are you talking about? Aesop, they have to disappear!”

“But if there’s another way-”

“There isn’t! Do you want to return to a messed up future? Come back to a place full of monsters?”

“I have nothing to come back to!” Aesop raised his voice for the first time, and his words came out as jumbled, raw and messy as his thoughts. “They told me that I could- That if I wanted I could stay with them.”

“And you believed them?” Naib was aware that he was being too harsh, but he was angry. The only person who could understand him in this situation was siding with the vampires. How could he be so selfish? It wasn’t fair! 

He didn’t want to lie to Jack either!

“Aesop, they aren’t your friends, they only want you for your blood. You don’t really matter to them.”

Naib knew he had gone too far when Aesop recoiled and his lips trembled. Shit. “I’m sorr-”

“Aesop, I was looking everywhere for you.” Of course, Joseph chose the worst possible moment to arrive. The vampire stared at the both of them, but his eyes locked on Naib with suspicion. “Is something the matter, short one?”

Naib frowned and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Jack conveniently appeared at his side. “They were taking a break from the ball, right?”

He didn’t reply, and Joseph didn’t believe it for a second, but he let it go. “We should return inside. I lost sight of Emile a while ago.” 

“I have an answer for that,” Eli announced, strolling leisurely towards them, waving at Aesop with a secretive smile that made the embalmer shiver. Luca followed him close behind. It seemed as if the ‘Cinderella Team’ had unspokenly decided to reunite in the corridor. 

Joseph snapped at Eli. “What are you doing here? You should be guarding the real Tome.”

“It’s not necessary anymore.” Eli said with a mysterious tone and opened his hand. There was a paper butterfly resting on it.

“Fiona present with wonderful news: I captured the thief!” The butterfly said, catching everyone off guard. “Green eyes, young-looking, short hair! Come to the library and kill him quickly, I want to assist to the ball too!”

Naib paused, blinked. “Him?”

“Yes! He called himself Emile before I tied him up!” She sounded extremely satisfied. 

Aesop and Naib stared at each other in shock. 

W H A T.

…It wasn’t Emma!?

“Good job, Naib! I knew you were an excellent detective!” Jack patted him on the shoulder, in a way it was hard to tell if he was proud or mocking. Naib didn’t react, his focus was lost, he didn’ know what was happening anymore.

What do you mean Fiona caught Emile?

He got it wrong? But- But he was so sure it was Emma! H-Her eyes, her behavior, she seemed to be so full of rage and-

No way. 

“Everything went just as planned. I told you that time travel would be a success!” Luca cheered. “ Even if some of you couldn’t keep your mouths shut about that ,” he glared at Naib in particular, but then broke into a laugh full of relief. “Oh my God. We did it, guys!”

The vampires celebrated the victory with huge, toothy smiles, and how couldn’t they, after succeeding at such an amazing feat? There was no doubt the extinction had been avoided, the future would be filled with vampires again!

Their rejoice sounded like buzzing in Naib’s ears, as if he was far, far away, under the water. He couldn’t think properly. 

“I really want to talk with this Emile, I’m curious about what he had in mind,” Eli pondered in the midst of the small celebration. 

Joseph sighed. “I admit I’m curious too, but we shouldn’t be greedy, it’s best to eliminate him as soon as possible.”

Luca nodded. Then, as if he had forgotten something: “By the way, have any of you seen Alva?”

Jack shrugged with an innocuous expression. “I have no idea where he is.”

“Hm. He must be dancing. Anyway, let’s get rid of the thief first. Afterwards, I’m inviting all of you to a free alchemy masterclass!”

“No one wants that, nerd,” Butterfly Fiona retorted, getting a chuckle out of the group.

All the vampires -except Joseph- didn’t waste any more time and marched to the library, impatient to finish their mission. Realizing what was going to happen, Naib snapped out of his trance and ran after them. He needed to see it with his own eyes. “I-I’m coming too!” 

Joseph and Aesop were the only ones who remained in the corridor in what could only be described as a pensive silence. 

Aesop was as startled at the outcome as his partner in crime. When Naib pointed fingers at Emma, he believed him. Despite their limited interaction, it made sense that it would be her, there was something dark and unsettling in her behavior, but their theory ended up being wrong.

He didn’t fault Naib for the wrong assumption. He never had much faith in their possibilities, the vampires had too much advantage from the start, but still, it was bogging to see the world change its course before his own eyes.

It was over, then.

Yet somehow, he didn’t feel that sad. 

“Aren’t you going?” He asked.

A small smile crept up its way into Joseph's face.

“I will let them take care of it. You still owe me a dance.”

It was almost midnight. Aesop had hoped people would have already left the party, but when they entered the ballroom, it was more packed and loud than ever. That is, until the guests saw them come in, their King holding his arm and guiding him towards the dancefloor. Then, the room became a cemetery. 

(An enchanted one, since the silence would get broken by several gasps and squeals. Considering the rising rumors, he imagined half of the room expected a wedding proposal.) To say everyone was thrilled would be an understatement. He could swear the guy at the piano had a stroke before recomposing himself and ordering the orchestra to play something more ‘fitting’.

Aesop still didn’t know how he went from restoring dead bodies for a living to this. 

“Don’t be so tense,” Joseph said, as if it was that easy. As if hundreds of eyes weren’t poking holes at him. “You danced with Claude just fine.”

“This is different.” 

Joseph put an arm on his lower back and cooed him to start dancing. “Good or bad different?”  

“Just different,” he replied. Interacting with Claude was easy, reassuring, he was like the childhood friend he never had, while Joseph was the opposite. His mere presence destabilized his world, threw him off his comfort zone, but not in a bad way. 

If Claude felt like home, safe and soft, Joseph was like a hurricane, intense and inevitable, grabbing him by the hand and forcing him to leave his self made box and face the world. 

“You don’t look upset,” Joseph pointed out, a smirk on his face.

“You dance well.”

A snort. “I wasn’t referring to that. I know you and Subedar were against our plan. I thought you would be angry at our success.” 

Aesop stared at the floor, not knowing what to say. Would Joseph also think he was spineless, a traitor to humanity? He didn’t fully comprehend why he was so okay with it. 

Joseph brought their bodies closer, urged him to look up, back to him.

“When we first met, your cheek was bruised and you looked miserable. You were so desperate to escape from that place,” he recalled with sympathy. “Things will change a lot from now on, but I have a new reason to work hard, make everything better and- Well, as you can see, the castle is very big...”

Joseph offered an inviting smile, and Aesop got lost in his eyes. It was impressive how much he spoke like a king when he wasn’t shackled by worries. Years of failures had tried to bring him down, but the real Joseph was in front of him, an arrogant, confident and hopeful man.

He finally understood why people used to love him.

“Yeah, castles are usually big,” he said, deadpan.

Joseph didn’t bonk him, but he did something worse. He raised him in a bold dance move and held him there, between his arms, making sure he got his undivided attention. Aesop’s heart beat very hard.

The clock of the castle began to strike twelve. It was midnight.

“Aesop, do you want to…”

And suddenly, just like Cinderella, with each strike of the clock, the magic spell that filled Joseph’s eyes with happiness slowly disappeared as he focused his eyes on someone else behind him.

When Aesop turned around, he realized what made Joseph’s breath fill with pure dread.

It was Claude.

Claude was barely standing in the public. He looked extremely pale, so much that black veins were visible through his skin. He had a hand covering his mouth, and when he moved it away to cough, a smudge of black goo tainted his face. 

The illness was back or, more precisely, never left. He lifted his head and god , his eyes were so tearful and scared. 

It was then that Aesop knew the dream was over.  

The next events were a blur. Joseph grabbed Claude and left the ball, not caring about everyone’s reactions. The bodyguards and Aesop followed them to an empty room, away from the party.

Aesop stood far from them, glued to the door, paralyzed. His body begged him to leave that room and avoid the truth before his eyes. The fact that, despite all of their efforts, Claude was still dying.

One of the bodyguards had been ordered to call for a royal court doctor. Joseph wasn’t in the right state of mind, he needed a second opinion. Claude wouldn’t stop puking that black disgusting thing with worms -not just one, several- but that view wasn’t as upsetting as seeing Joseph crumble next to his brother.

Right, what truly affected Aesop was Joseph. The way he held Claude as if he was his entire world, whispering to himself why. Why was this happening? 

Why Aesop’s blood did not work.

When the doctor arrived, she quickly evaluated the symptoms, the goo and the worm-looking creatures. Claude wasn’t puking anymore, but he was heaving profusely, out of breath. He looked worse than the first time Aesop saw him.

“He was getting better,” Joseph assured with a small voice, unable to accept it. “I thought the blood was working.”

“It was,” the doctor softly nodded, cleaning Claude’s mouth. “The blood was helping. It’s an unusual illness so I cannot confirm this assumption, but I believe that the reason the parasites have multiplied is because the dose was too low.” 

“Too low?”

“I don’t know how to say this, but I think Claude should drink the entirety of it in one go. Parasites won’t be able to fight back such a high dose and will most likely be eradicated for good. By giving him smaller doses, they have gotten stronger.”

Aesop blinked slowly.

…What?

Claude had to drink all of his blood to survive?

But then-

“No, if I did that Aesop would die!” Claude was quick to reject the idea. He found enough strength to stand up, and it was such a dreadful sight. His white outfit was sputtered with black, his skin was sweaty and his hair stuck to his face. 

He looked terrible, which hurt even more when he smiled at his brother. “We can’t even be sure that will work so it’s not worth trying. We will find another way. Right, Joseph?”

…

“Joseph?”

But Joseph didn’t reply, and it was the scariest silence Aesop ever went through because, deep down, he knew what he would say. Of course he knew.  

“...Aesop, he is my brother.”

Of course he knew.

It took a beat for his words to set in, and when they did-

“You can’t be serious,” Claude whispered, and Aesop winced at the indignation, at the absolute disbelief. “We are talking about Aesop.”

“There is no other option-”

“You don’t mean it.”

Aesop couldn’t see their expressions. His entire view had shrunk to the red carpet under his feet. He was unable to look up, unable to form words. His entire body started shaking. 

“I can’t let you die, Claude,” Joseph said, wobbly, frantic.

"But Aesop-"

"Forget Aesop!" Joseph yelled. "I never cared about him, I was just being nice so he would comply! I did everything and gave up everything for you and will continue to do so-"

A harsh slap cut Joseph short. 

Aesop flinched and shut his eyes. A thick, suffocating silence fell, and then hell broke loose.

“Stop trying to keep me alive at the cost of everything you love!!” Claude finally exploded. Aesop didn’t know he was capable of getting angry or lashing out at anyone, less at Joseph, but it was happening. His voice accumulated the rage and desperation of years. The bitterness and pain was coming out with full force. “Why are you lying!? Aesop makes you truly happy, but you would kill him for me, as if I would ever want that!”

Joseph didn’t reply at first and, in his daze, Aesop wondered if he was touching his cheek, unable to fathom that Claude had hit him. 

“Then tell me what else am I supposed to do?” Joseph whispered, begged. “You are like this because of me. It's my fault. I have to cure you. My feelings don't matter.”

“And what about mine!?" Claude cried. “I'm tired of living with the knowledge that I'm making you miserable, knowing that you are ruining your life for me. I would rather die tonight, after all the happy memories we made these past few days, than spend an eternity living like this!”

A harsh breath followed, and Joseph covered his face with his hands. “Please, don’t say that.” 

His voice broke in such a way that Aesop couldn’t take it anymore and left the room.

He didn’t know where he was going. His heartbeat was too loud, pulsating in his ears and chest as if it wanted to rip out, escape and not return ever again. The pounding was everything he could hear, messing with his head and sense of direction. 

“Aesop, they aren’t your friends, they only want you for your blood. You don’t really matter to them.”

He had known that from the start. Claude only defended him because he felt pity for him, but he would eventually get convinced by Joseph, because that’s how it was supposed to go. 

No one had ever chosen him, so why would it be any different now?

"I never cared about him, I was just being nice so he would comply."

His breath hitched and he stopped walking. The sob was building up, he couldn’t even see where he was anymore, everything was too blurry. The beautiful corridor became a mesh of colors as tears started streaming down his face.

He had put up so many walls so he wouldn’t get hurt, yet the one time he decided to trust and believe that anyone would want him–

He stood there, unmoving, and wept. 

Nothing. Nothing would ever hurt as much as this. His shoulders shook as tears wouldn’t stop coming.

The frustration and disappointment wouldn't even let him breathe, choking him without mercy. He got the confirmation that he always knew was there, but was too scared to acknowledge. 

He had no one. 

His senses were muddled, too shaky to notice his surroundings, so when he heard people approaching, it was already too late to react or shout. They covered his head with a sack and tied him up.

In the middle of the struggle, confusion and helplessness, Aesop remembered how, in the last timeline, a mob kidnapped Claude, but now he had Joseph, he had bodyguards. He wasn’t a proper target, but someone else, someone people thought Joseph cared about, was.

He felt his right shoe fall as the mob dragged him down the stairs, away from the castle.

Chapter Text

“I don’t think vampires should exist,” Mr. Desaulniers said.

“You are making a grave mistake! I offer the gift of immortality to you and your family and you refuse it? You must be insane, brother.”

Joseph and Claude were only seven years old when they overheard their father and uncle argue in the throne room. The boys were hidden behind a door, and even though Joseph was too young to understand the world, in his opinion, his uncle was right. 

“Why is father against uncle turning us into vampires? I also want to be one,” he said that night as their mother lovingly tucked them into bed.

“Ah, so you heard them,” his mother rolled her eyes with a patient smile. “Sneaky, you two.”

Joseph and Claude were princes, and their father and mother, the king and queen of a small kingdom. Vampires had existed for a while already. At first, there weren’t many, it almost felt like a faraway legend, a myth, but slowly it became more and more real as more people got turned, like a small snowball falling down a hill.

The snowball kept getting bigger and bigger, and by the time it reached the bottom of the hill, it collided with the entire civilization, reshaping it forever.

Before anyone knew it, vampires had spread like wildfire and began to rule the world, either by killing those in positions of power and taking their place, or by giving the gift of immortality to kings, emperors and generals so they could continue their eternal legacy.

It was a hard time for everyone.

Religions were a mess, cults were everywhere, society fell into chaos. Maybe it was due to their kingdom being small, but the Desaulniers must be the last royal family where its members were still humans and had not fallen into the sinful temptation, or been murdered by fanged monsters who wanted to replace them.

Even their uncle had paid a generous sum of money and gotten turned into a vampire.

“I want to fly like them,” Claude agreed with his brother. “Why is father so against it?”

“I am against it too, you know,” their mother smiled, surprising them. “I know being a vampire might seem alluring and full of advantages, too good to be true, but all that glitters isn’t gold. Humans aren’t made to live forever.”

“But I don’t want to become old and die,” Joseph fought back.

“Dying is part of what makes us human, too. It helps us appreciate the limited time we have in this world. Your father believes that living forever is the biggest curse of all, everything would stop mattering, and you would eventually lose yourselves.”

“But the flying…” Claude insisted.

Joseph pouted. He wasn’t buying that reasoning at all. Eternal life sounded amazing. So what if time passed and things changed? He would always find new ways to have fun. His father was a coward for rejecting such an amazing opportunity.

“Plus,” their mother added. “Thanks to being human, I got to experience the joy of having you, my dear Joseph and Claude. I want to see you grow up into adult, charming men.”

She kissed their foreheads and wished them good night before leaving. Joseph let out a long sigh in the darkness of their room. “Maybe we could ask uncle to turn us in secret.”

“Brother!”

“What? You want to become a vampire too, right?”

“I’m not sure,” Claude admitted weakly. “I want to fly, but I don’t like the idea of drinking blood. Some vampires are scary.”

“We would be good vampires,” Joseph promised, he also didn’t want to kill or hurt anyone. “Just think about it, travel all over the world, get to be there when new inventions drop… like a horseless carriage! Or when something insane gets discovered, like the Earth rotating around the Sun.”

“That’s silly. All the stars rotate around Earth.”

Joseph laughed. “Obviously, it was just an example, but see? There would be so many things to do and learn. Claude, we could live forever.”

Joseph was full of enthusiasm. Claude stared at the ceiling and could almost imagine his blue eyes sparkling with wonder, but he couldn’t share that same excitement. His mother’s wise words resonated with him, and the more he thought about it, the more scary and unnatural vampires seemed. 

“Forever is a very long time, Joseph.”

Deep down, he had wanted to be more direct, tell Joseph that their parents were right, and that an eternity alive would crush even the strongest soul, but the idea of disagreeing with the brother he admired so much was alien to him, inconceivable, and so he kept quiet and closed his eyes.

“Father and mother were right.” 

Claude’s words fell like fragile glass, shattering their argument into silence. He had been too many years late, but he finally said it. The doctor and the bodyguards, Florian and Matthias, pretended not to be in the room as the fight escalated. 

The mention of their parents hurt Joseph. 

“No, they were wrong,” he snarled. They hadn’t spoken about them in centuries. It was a sensitive topic, an elephant in the room they knew it was better not to bring up. “If father had taken uncle’s offer in time, none of this would have happened.”

“He wanted the best for us.”

“I want the best for you!”

“...The best?” Claude halted for a second, then stared at himself, dirty and sick and dying, as a drained smile appeared on his face. “Look at me, Joseph, depending on our friend’s blood to survive. I never asked for this . ”

“Then what do you want?”

Claude’s eyes stared into his soul, and his silence was loud enough. Joseph knew what it meant, but ignored it. He didn’t want to accept, couldn’t. There was no way he would give up on his brother, let him die after all this time. They just needed to find a solution, they were so close to-

“Excuse me, I don’t want to interrupt, but…” Matthias mumbled, doing his best to become a wallflower. “Mr. Carl left.”

“He looked very sad, as if he was about to cry,” Florian unhelpfully added.

Joseph and Claude exchanged concerned glances. They had been so absorbed in their fight that they didn’t check on the person who had the most say on this matter. Claude’s relapse had affected Joseph to the point he could only think obsessively about his well-being, his mind shutting down anything else.

Hearing the state in which Aesop left made the fog in his brain vanish for a fraction of a second.

‘He looked as if he was about to cry’

“I-I will go look for him,” he said, out of it, tumbling towards the door.

“Don’t hurt him!” Claude begged between painful coughs. “Joseph, you love him.”

Joseph clenched his teeth and, again, pretended not to listen. Aesop probably ran away after listening to what he planned to do with him, and he couldn’t fault him for it, but he had to find him. He needed him. Claude wouldn’t survive without his blood, and that was everything that mattered. 

“Claude, I swear I will make you get better.”  Was Joseph’s last promise before crossing the door and the invisible line separating them.

The silence of his departure was deafening. Claude stood there, in the middle of the room, crushed under the force of his words. That wasn’t a promise, it was a curse, a curse that had trapped him in this castle for millennia. In a low voice, he ordered the bodyguards and the doctor to leave.

“But Joseph told us to protect y-”

Florian immediately closed his mouth when Claude glared at him in such a disturbingly dark way that not even he dared to disobey him. All of them abandoned the room one by one with fear crawling in their bones.

Once alone, Claude laughed out of desperation. The last days had been so perfect, so bright and fun and colorful, that he had the nerve to hope for a better life, made an effort to believe that even someone as hopeless as him had a chance at happiness, but there he was, back to square one.

Oh, he was so tired.

The castle’s library was a few hallways ahead, a few mere hallways separated Naib from a total loss. Actually, who was he kidding? He had already lost. Going there and watching the vampires turn Emile into Swiss cheese was a mere formality. 

The unexpected defeat was hard to swallow, and all because he warned Emma not to come instead of Emile. He had been so sure it was her. Seriously, what happened? What was the opposite of ‘failed task successfully’? He was the dumbest dumbass to ever dumb. 

As they advanced, he couldn’t help but feel responsible for messing up so monumentally. His failure might destroy the future in an irreparable way, and he would never forgive himself for it yet, at the same time, there was selfish relief buried in his heart. He fucked up, but the weight of the world wasn’t on his shoulders anymore, for better or worse, the anxiety that had kept him up at night was over. 

Aesop had said that he believed there was a way for things to turn out okay even if vampires stayed. Naib had been a dick to him because he never considered that option, and then it was too late to backtrack, but now he wanted to trust in Aesop. 

And… He also felt relief due to something else. Something way more selfish.

He stared at Jack’s back and, before he knew it, his legs slowed down until he stopped altogether. Jack noticed his reluctance and stopped too, while the other vampires didn’t pay attention and continued on their way to the library.

Now that they were alone, Jack studied him with interest. “Is there anything you want to say that can’t wait until we reach the library?”

There was. Naib took a deep, shaky breath. “I lied to you,” he admitted.

Short, direct, fatal. His confession echoed in the long, empty and red hallway. Jack tilted his head and crossed his arms. “Oh?” Strangely, he didn’t look surprised. 

“I-I thought the thief was Emma Woods. I told you it was Emile to confuse you. I had no idea it would be him.”

Silence. Then Jack broke into a short laugh, one that didn’t hide the disappointment in his voice. “Why are you telling me this now? You could have kept it to yourself and let me think you did something good for me. Do you need me to know how badly you despise me?” 

Naib shook his head. “No, it’s not that!” He looked away, frowned. “I’m unhappy with the result because it will affect the future, but that’s out of my hands now, so I…” 

He mumbled, stumbled over his words like a child. He thought about Larry, the sweet and elderly coworker of the soap shop, about how he spent his life regretting all the things he didn’t do nor say, and decided that he didn’t want to be like him. 

“I’m sorry for breaking the promise I made two years ago. I just wanted you to know that I considered telling you the truth. I didn't, but I wanted to.”

That might be the first time he genuinely took Jack off guard. His body stood still, wary, as if he couldn’t believe it. It reminded him of the hospital, that same wariness found in people who had never trusted anyone impregnated his tone when he asked: “Why?”

“I-I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want you to turn into a monster. You aren’t that bad, so- Don’t feel jealous of others.”

Naib ducked his head, felt as if he had said too much, but it was the truth. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, he wanted to help Jack. He told himself that he didn’t like the vampire, that he was a sadistic asshole that deserved every consequence that came his way, and yet the guilt that followed him like a ghost when they danced had been real. 

Jack needed to know that he didn’t have to feel jealous of others because, even if they lied to each other and didn’t get along half of the time, Naib was there. 

He expected Jack to make fun of his sappiness with a playful reply or a smartass remark, it would have been in character for him, who never took anything seriously, but his reaction was one he didn’t anticipate.

His words must have meant something, because Jack took a step back and… blushed? Naib wasn’t sure because the vampire almost immediately covered his face with his hand. 

“Oh.” Jack said, eloquently. Then, “Oh . You are gonna hate me for this.” 

“Eh?”

“Where is Jack?” Luca asked once they were in front of the library.

“I think Naib had something important to discuss with him,” Eli guessed.

“They are making out in the corridor, aren’t they? Whatever, I don’t want to know,” Luca brushed it off and opened the door with suspense. “Time for the reveal!” He exclaimed, as if he was a father popping a balloon in a baby shower. Is it a boy? Is it a girl? It’s a war criminal!

The real Fiona -not the butterfly- was eagerly waiting for them in an unusual posture, mostly because she was sitting on top of a professionally tied Emile -if Aesop hadn’t been kidnaped he would have called it Shibari-. The poor man struggled under her, trying to speak without being able to due to the tape over his mouth. 

If it had been Ada, he wouldn’t have complained as much.

At the sight of her colleagues, Fiona jumped and crossed the room to give them a bear crushing hug. “Don’t take it personally, even someone as independent and unapproachable as me misses vampire contact.”

She had been alone, locked in that library for many days, so it made sense. Eli and Luca exchanged patient smiles, as if saying ‘She smells, but we care for her.’

“By the way, I expected it from Jack, but is Joseph not coming either?” Fiona asked, looking at the empty spot behind them.

“He is having fun at the party with Aesop,” Eli smiled.

“Aren’t you too enthusiastic about those two?” Luca sighed. “What are you, a matchmaker?”

“Let him ship. Don’t like, don’t look,” Fiona defended. Then, crouched next to Emile and took the tape off his mouth. “You, speak. Why the hell did you want to steal the Tome? Do you realize how messed up your wish is? You degenerate.” 

Emile looked bewildered, his green eyes staring at the three of them with fear and… confusion? “W-What are you talking about? I wasn’t stealing it!”

“That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard,” Fiona rolled her eyes. “What were you doing then? Sniffing the pages? Did they smell of murder dust or treason wood?”

Luca and Eli exchanged glances once again, Fiona was killing the interrogation, what a queen. Luca took a step forward and showed his sharp fangs. “We can’t expect him to tell us the truth, let's kill him and get it done with.” 

He manhandled Emile into a sitting position, but the man screamed and shook his head repeatedly. “Wh- No! I swear I wasn’t stealing it! A vampire told me to come here and pick up this book for Ada!”

“Ada Mesmer wouldn’t ask for that,” Eli assured, confused.

“What vampire told you that!?” Luca demanded, grabbing him by the hair. 

Emile looked as scared as honest when he spoke: “T-The scary one, how was he called…? Zack? Mack? The King’s right-hand man!”

…

‘Jack wouldn’t do that’ No one thought in that room. 

“I swear I’m telling the truth!” Emile insisted. “He came to me at the party and told me to come here and pick up this book in particular because Ada wanted me to prove my love to her! What’s going on? Did I do anything illegal?”

Luca, Fiona and Eli stood there, in dumbfounded silence, like clowns, until their expressions morphed from disbelief into straight up murder. 

“JACK!!!”

“Ah, they found out,” Jack oopsied as he took Naib outside of the castle. Alva was waiting for them, hidden in a corner at the bottom of the stairs and wearing a hooded cloak to hide his identity.

“What's going on?” Naib asked, confused as hell. 

He had tried to be honest with Jack, but instead of getting mad or annoyed, the vampire had grabbed him by the hand and ran in the opposite direction of the library. Why!? Didn’t he want to force Emile to make his wish? Why was he suddenly giving up his only chance to get rid of his curse?

“So! Do you remember when I hugged you last night?” Jack said as they went down the long stairs.

“No! W-Why are you bringing that up!?”

“You were so cuddly and short, I could have rested my chin on your head for eternity, but that aside-”

“THAT ASIDE?”

“I was actually checking if you were telling me the truth about Emile being the thief,” Jack hummed, ignoring the way Naib’s entire body tensed. “Do you recall when Luca gave us the magic candles? You used yours in the second trial, in a very… unconventional way.” 

Naib remembered. He had thrown the dick shaped candle to Norton, and it was thoroughly deserved, but he didn’t know where Jack was going with this. What do you mean he checked whether or not he was telling the truth?

“I kept the candle Luca gave me,” Jack continued. “I hugged you and pressed it against your body, and when you said it was Emile, the candle's flame turned black. That’s how I knew you were lying and that it wasn't Emile.”

“The flame will turn red if the answer is ‘yes’, and black if the answer is ‘no’” Luca had told them.

Naib’s blood froze. Is this why he felt a strange current of warm air on his back when Jack hugged him? Because the candle lit up in a black flame? And the reason Jack had melted wax on his glove… But then-

Jack had known it wasn’t Emile from the start. He was aware that Naib lied to him.

That- that was-

“During the ball, I learned that Luca got hit by the curse, just like me,” Jack resumed, he seemed to be enjoying this moment. “Alva was desperate to find a cure, so I took him aside and told him that there was an easy solution. He just had to grab the real Tome when Eli left that room, and wait for me outside, just like he is doing now. In normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have agreed to do something like this, but that’s real friendship for you.”

The more Jack went on, the more Naib’s eyes widened in complete and utter shock. “Then, when I saw you speaking with Emile near the dance floor…”

“Yes, I wasn’t threatening him. In reality, I told him that Ada had a secret and very personal trial for him, and that if he had romantic feelings for her, he should pick up the Tome from the library and take it to her. Very romantic, right? He fell so easily!”

Naib’s brain was going to explode. So Jack used Emile as a red herring, he manipulated him to steal the fake tome, which made Eli leave the real one unprotected since all the vampires thought their plan had been successful, and while everyone went to interrogate Emile, Alva silently got the real one and waited for jack outside of the castle. 

“YOU-!” Naib managed to say despite his brewing anger. “YOU LIED TO ME!”

“We are even now, haha!” Jack’s smile was too smug for his own good.

They had reached Alva’s hiding spot, but the alchemist wasn’t in the same humorous mood. “Jack, what we have done could be considered treason. Stealing the Tome is a huge crime and being Joseph’s friends won’t exempt us from the consequences. We should be quick. Do you know who can read the tome?”

Jack grinned. “A little bird told me it was Emma Woods.”

…

Eh?

Suddenly, Naib remembered his heartfelt confession from a few minutes ago.

“I-I thought the thief was Emma Woods. I told you it was Emile to confuse you. I had no idea it would be him.”

EHHHH!?

While a deranged and heavily altered circus song played on repeat in Naib’s head, Alva spread his huge wings. “Alright, then let's not waste more time and visit Ms. Woods. I hope she will help us.”

“Oh, I’m great at making people do what I want,” Jack winked playfully as he picked Naib up princess style and took off to the farmer’s home. 

In different circumstances, Naib would have screamed and kicked his legs like crazy, as he was scared of heights (no one must know) but he had no words. None. He had felt so unbelievably guilty about lying to Jack, for breaking their promise and making him suffer a painful fate. He could barely sleep last night thinking about it.

For God’s sake, he wanted to puke every time Jack smiled at him, unaware of his treason.

‘Unaware’ his ass!

“You are the biggest asshole I have ever met,” he managed to say, which was a big insult coming from him, considering he had been recently poisoned by another, decently sized asshole. “You have no idea of how bad I felt all this time, and meanwhile you- you!” 

“I pretended to believe you,” Jack completed. “Even though I knew you didn’t choose me.”

Naib looked down, angry.

“I couldn’t, the humans-” He defended himself weakly.

“Yeah, I’m aware. I’m aware,” Jack repeated, and a small shadow of sadness overtook his expression. “I accepted your choice because I know you are brave and loyal, that’s what I like about you after all. But despite that, it still hurt me,” he admitted, so raw Naib felt the need to look up, to see his face. “I know the kind of man that I am, who would want to help a monster like me? So I didn’t get angry at your decision… But then, you told me the truth, you said that you considered it. I didn’t expect that. It made me so happy.”

Jack looked back at him, and his smile was more tender than the moon illuminating the dark sky. He meant all of it, Naib realized, and subconsciously his hands clenched around his coat. 

“I only said that I wanted to help you because I- I…”

“Because you like me?” Jack finished, his eyes too soft to be mere banter. “Good, because I like you too.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth!” Naib grumbled. He wanted to be angrier. He had the right to be because he had been played in the most dishonest way, and yet, how could he? When Jack looked at him as if he was so precious? “And you are wrong in one thing,” he added, face heating up, looking away. “You are not a monster, you have a heart.”

Jack’s red eyes widened and his bat-like wings suddenly flew higher, as if his soul wanted to reach the stars. Naib yelled at the altitude and Jack laughed. 

“Thank you for reminding me.” 

Meanwhile, Alva looked at the two and rolled his eyes. In all of his years, he had never seen Jack so involved with a human. He didn’t think it was possible for him to form a meaningful connection at all, but watching them interact made him wonder if he had been wrong all along, and Jack simply never had the chance to meet someone who matched his freak. 

Oh, well, he just hoped that Emma Woods was kind enough to grant their wish, and that Joseph wouldn’t be too bothered by the missing Tome. 

Joseph found a missing shoe on the stairs leading outside and had a bad feeling. 

He had gifted Aesop a beautiful outfit for the ball. It was a unique set of clothing made with the utmost care by the royal seamstresses and shoemakers. He would recognize that shoe anywhere.

It made no sense. Even if Aesop ran away in a hurry, he wouldn’t have continued without a shoe on, something must have happened. With his heart pounding in his chest, Joseph ran across the gardens, looking for him as the fireworks from the party lightened the sky in greens, pinks and blues. 

The guards should have seen something suspicious, but they were laughing, dancing, staring at the sky, and Joseph realized with dread that he had already lived this moment. 

The sound of the fireworks, the feeling of something being wrong, the kidnapping-

His grip on Aesop’s shoe tightened as his hands started shaking. It couldn’t be that, right?

Before he knew it, he found himself running towards the center of the city.

The pavement under him was steady even though his heartbeat wasn’t. He was all dressed up in white, anyone would recognize him immediately, so he used abandoned alleyways and grabbed a discarded cloak from the trash. The closer he got to the main square, the harder it became to breathe. 

He could hear the distant shouts of a multitude and the smell of fire. He realized that he had been repeating ‘It can’t be happening again. It can’t.’ under his breath all this time.

He ran faster, and as he did, the image of Aesop’s soft smile during their day at the beach played in his head, like a lovely record, and so did his quiet laugh as they played the piano, the way his gray eyes lit up when he held him up as they danced, all of those instances filled his mind and, like a wave, guilt started catching up to him.

What was he doing?  

He made Claude wish he was dead. He made Aesop cry. He told him that he didn’t care about him. He made him think that his life meant nothing. 

Seriously. What was he doing?  

He didn’t know when he started praying. Every step closer was like walking on needles, sharp and unforgiving, he begged with all of his heart, and when he finally arrived at the old marketplace -where Claude got killed the last time- he stopped believing in any god.

It was happening again.

He had dreamed about this moment. The night of Claude’s death. He always imagined himself getting there before they could burn him. He would fly to the platform and untie Claude from the stake, safe from the fire, then he would kill the assassins one by one, telling them that they should have never defied their King.

In his dreams, he didn’t allow Claude to see his worry. He protected him with a smile on his face, as expected from a reliable older brother… but now, seeing the backs of the angry mob yelling and shouting at a tied up and bloodied Aesop, he couldn’t move. 

“Down with the King! Down with the King!”

His knees buckled, his face crumbled and twisted into anguish. Why… Why was it happening again? Why didn’t Claude get any better again? Why did someone he loved get kidnapped again? Why did he go to the past, only to relive all the suffering without being able to change anything?

The mob kept screaming and Joseph had to shut his eyes. The floor was unstable under his feet as memories from the past started overlapping with the present. 

Why did it always end in pain? 

...

“Down with the King! Down with the King!” The townspeople cried savagely.

Joseph and Claude were eighteen years old when their lives took an unexpected turn. 

Strange monsters had started appearing in the nearby forest, eating every human that crossed paths with them. They weren’t vampires. They couldn’t talk. No one knew what they were, just that they had a disgusting appearance and were more dangerous than any vampire, as no one could try to reason with them. 

Joseph’s father, the king, organized several huntings to get rid of these new creatures, but it wasn’t enough to placate their rage. The monsters destroyed farms, cattle and terrorized the Kingdom. The Royal family, who had always been beloved by its people, lost their trust and admiration, and slowly, the desperate masses began to loathe them.

After all, a King that couldn’t protect its citizens didn’t deserve to rule. 

Tensions kept rising, and on a dark night, a mob finally broke into the castle. They couldn’t kill the monsters outside, but at least the blood of the Royal family would satiate the anger and helplessness in their hearts. 

Joseph and Claude saw with their own eyes how their home got destroyed. They saw Joseph’s paintings getting torn to pieces and Claude’s books being thrown into a pyre as people sneered and grinned from ear to ear.

In the blink of an eye, their perfect life burned like the piano they used to play together.  

The only good thing that came out of that tragic night was the fact their family managed to escape safely through a hidden passageway, but there was nothing else to celebrate. Their father had lost contact with their uncle many years ago, no one would come to their aid. 

In the following weeks, they had to survive in the wild as exiles. It was harsh, unfamiliar, and during those dark moments, Joseph bitterly thought about how this wouldn’t have happened if they had been turned into vampires.

His parents’ ridiculous love for a mortal life made them weak, and ultimately caused them to lose the throne, their home, everything. He never brought it up, but Claude saw the resentment in his eyes. 

The next few years weren't kind either, but a mash of fear, anxiety and disappointment. They traveled across the continent, moved from town to town in hopes to settle and start a new, anonymous life, but the monsters had spread everywhere and vampires still lurked around. 

The safety they had taken for granted during their upbringing became a nostalgic, faraway memory.

“Have you heard? There’s a rumor about a human who can banish those monsters at will! Everyone treats him like a god. Thanks to his divine powers, the citizens named him their king.”

“The king of where?”

“Ha! As if I would tell you!”

While cutting wood one morning, Joseph overheard the conversation between two merchants. His eyes widened in surprise and, perhaps, new purpose. He approached the two men and, with his silver tongue, managed to get all the information he needed. After that, he returned to the pitiful shack his family lived in with a big, optimistic smile.

“Where is the wood?” Claude asked.

“Forget about that, we are going to Penvicor.”

His parents were reluctant at first, they believed those rumors to be lies spread by frauds, no human could control those monsters, but Joseph was insistent enough, ambitious enough to convince them to leave this place and cross the sea to meet that miraculous man.

Oh, and miracles he did. 

His name was Orpheus, and he wasn’t any fraud. The Desaulniers’ family crossed the gates, reached the center of the city and saw how he used his powers to cast away the monsters that invaded the town’s square. Like a shepherd to a flock of sheep, the beasts cowered in his presence and ran away to the forest, leaving the citizens alone.

The cheers were deafening. It wasn’t just love, it was adoration. Everyone bowed to Orpheus, the great king, one who protected and didn’t abandon his people. Joseph felt a mix of sadness and jealousy. A simple human succeeded in what his family failed to accomplish.

“How does he do that?” Claude wondered, amazed.

No one could answer that question. ‘You don’t ask God how he makes rain, he just does’ the townspeople said. They believed Orpheus was the chosen one, a gift fallen from the sky after all the suffering mankind had gone through.

“He is very kind. Don’t be afraid to ask him for help. He is always there for us.”

Allured by the promise of a better life, Joseph and his family moved into an old farm at the outskirts of the city. They didn’t have enough money left for something better, but they were assured monsters didn’t approach that area. Everyone was safe in Penvicor. 

As he cut wood and tended the harvest under the scorching sun, Joseph couldn’t help but think about Orpheus, about all the praises people sang about him. It really was amazing that someone -a human no less- had that amount of power and used it to aid others. Joseph had been very trusting in his childhood, but that naivety had disappeared once he grew up and was forced to live in the real world. Even then, he wanted to believe again, trust in Orpheus.

“We should tell Orpheus who we really are,” he told Claude, who was planting potato seeds nearby. “As a fellow king, he might sympathize with our struggles and help us.”

Claude hummed, face dirty with soil. “I don’t know. Father and mother want us to stay low.”

“We have stayed hidden for too long. I’m tired of living as a commoner, we can do so much more than growing potatoes and cabbages,” Joseph complained, throwing away the shovel. “We were raised to be kings, we received high education. Oh, Claude, we know how to write! Almost no one even knows how to read.”

Claude laughed at his brother’s theatrics. “You know, it’s not that bad here,” he tried. “I also miss the piano, my books and the variety of food. I know it’s not perfect like back then, but we still have each other.”

Joseph raised an eyebrow. “Does each other include the caterpillar crawling in your hair?”

Claude gasped and jumped like a bunny. After bonking him on the head -in an attempt to kill the bug- Joseph got Claude’s approval.

It took him a long time to get an audience with Orpheus as he was a very busy man, but he did it. Before marching to the castle, Joseph saw his mother sitting near the window, sewing another shirt Claude had torn while working. Her hands, which he had memorized profusely when she taught them how to play the piano, had become rough, and her skin got filled with freckles after so much manual labor outside. No one would ever guess she used to be a queen.

He also crossed paths with his dad, who was putting up a scarecrow in the middle of the garden. He had been excellent at politics, but also enjoyed art, as anyone could tell by looking at the design he had given the scarecrow.

“He looks like Claude,” Joseph said.

“It’s actually meant to be you.” His father chuckled at his grimace. “No, really, you look so much alike, with the exact same frown. Your brother would be this flower,” he said, pointing at a daisy blooming under the scarecrow. “resting safely in your shadow.”

Scarecrow? Flower? What was he talking about? 

“That much sun exposure is making you delusional, father.” There was hurt hidden in his banter. It pained Joseph to see the man he admired lose his pride, become a runaway hated by the citizens he worked so hard to please. It was not fair. “You used to be so much m-” 

He stopped himself and looked down.

His father laughed again, then patted him on the back with a soft, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry things didn’t turn out as you expected, Joseph.” The wrinkles on his eyes were kind, wise. “I know you are better than all of this. You would have become an excellent king.”

They had avoided that topic for years, so Joseph didn’t know how to react. He nodded awkwardly, with feeling, and promised himself that he would do anything in his power to convince Orpheus to help them. If everything worked out, his family would smile proudly again. 

He wasn’t stuck in the past, it’s just that they deserved a good life, and Joseph would do anything to give it to them. 

It was in one of the castle’s waiting rooms that Joseph met someone else, an odd looking vampire who also had an audience with the King. The vampire, who wore a blue hood and a permanent smile, introduced himself as Eli Clark. 

There was something unusual about him, Joseph thought. Unlike the other visitors who sat on the comfortable chairs and waited for their turn, Eli had been observing the sculptures decorating the room, all of them depicting Orpheus in an epic light except one, which was Orpheus simply holding a book.

“What book do you think he is reading?” Eli asked him, pointing at the sculpture.

Joseph hummed at the weird question. “Who knows. ‘How to look smart’ ?”

The vampire laughed. “Not many commoners would jest so freely about the king.” 

“Would you believe me if I told you I used to be a prince? Casted away by ungrateful citizens and hoping to gain Orpheus’ favor?” 

Eli looked at him, deep into his eyes, and grinned. “Yes.”

Oh, that was new. Joseph decided that Eli was an intriguing fellow. “Are you a traveler?”

“Something like that. The rumors brought me here, I wanted to see with my own eyes the miracles people spoke of.” 

“It’s incredible, isn’t it? Orpheus is amazing.”  

“Very,” Eli agreed. “The monsters do as he says. It’s very intriguing.” 

“These beasts used to be vampires, right?” Joseph asked. He had heard tales about vampires so evil that a curse turned them into literal monsters.  

Eli crossed his arms and made a face. “Everyone seems to think so, but I disagree. Vampires turned into monsters and these beasts… They are different species.”

They weren’t related? Joseph put a hand on his chin, pensive. Both creatures were pitch dark, but it was true that vampire-monsters were said to have the appearance of a deformed, quadruped humanoid, while these new beasts looked more like… worms. 

“Whatever they are, people hate them,” he concluded.

“People seem to hate vampires too,” the traveler replied with bittersweet acceptance.

“I don’t. I think immortality is an amazing gift,” Joseph retorted, catching Eli off guard. “Most vampires terrorize humans and act like greedy criminals, they have made a bad use of a well-intentioned wish, but it shouldn’t be like that. I would be a good vampire.” 

When Joseph finished, he realized how childish he sounded and wanted to take it back, but Eli’s smile made him stop.

“I believe you would,” he said, with a spark of interest. 

When Joseph’s turn came and he finally met Orpheus, the man was sitting on a throne made of gold, surrounded by more statues of himself made of gold, and drinking from a cup made of, of course, gold. 

If he was being honest, Joseph expected a more humble approach, or at least a less tacky one.

Despite the first impression, Joseph still exposed his story, told him about his noble family, about how they had to flee from their kingdom due to those monsters, and how they found out about his miracles and started living in a poor farm at the outskirts of Penvicor. 

“So you were born to be a King,” were Orpheus’ first words, cunning, observant. “What do you want from me? Have you come to reclaim my throne after losing yours?” 

“What? No, I would never-”

Orpheus laughed, smug. “I was merely jesting. I assume you want a place in my court, so you and your family can recuperate your privileges.”

“Not for free, we will work. My father ruled our kingdom for decades, he could be your counselor if you so desired. My brother and I were also instructed in all political matters accordingly as well.” He stood firm, took a deep breath. “I just want to get my family out of our current situation.”

There was a long silence in which Orpheus deliberated. Joseph feared he had been discourteous, but lady luck must be on his side, since he nodded, sympathetic.

“I agree, an honorable family like yours isn’t made for living” he breathed in, smiled, “on a farm.”

Joseph spent the rest of the afternoon in good humor, trading with merchants at the citadel; he wanted to make extra money before he went home and announced the good news. The sky had a faint orange color when he met Eli again, this time in the main street.

“Joseph, I had been looking for you,” the vampire said, his previous smile replaced with an odd, sour look. “How did it go with the King?” 

He smiled, happy. “He was amazing, and agreed to help my family.” 

“Did he?” Eli asked, unsure, then mulled over his words carefully. “He came off as very arrogant and ambitious to me. Don’t trust that man.”

Joseph tilted his head, confused at the sudden coldness. Did Eli’s audience with Orpheus go that badly? “It’s true that he has too many sculptures of himself, but that shouldn’t be reason enough to distrust him.”

Eli pressed his mouth into a thin line, as if he was debating whether or not to share his thoughts and deciding it was necessary. “The truth is, I visited this country because I suspected he had ill intentions.”

Orpheus? Bad intentions?

“I offered to turn him into a vampire, but he denied my proposal,” Eli revealed. Joseph’s eyes widened. “Strange, right? Someone that ambitious would want to become a vampire, the peak of manpower.” 

“Maybe he prefers to remain human.” 

Eli shook his head. “No, I saw it in his eyes: it’s because he knows that if he became a vampire, he would get the curse. He has committed an unforgivable sin and is aware of it.”

“What sin?” Joseph was starting to think Eli was insane. What a shame. “Orpheus is helping people, he is saving them from those monsters.”

“And where do these monsters come from? Why can he control them?” Eli asked. Again, the golden question no one had an answer for, but he seemed to have reached a conclusion: “Because he made them. He wished for these monsters to exist with the help of the Tome of Prophecies, that’s why they obey him.” 

The Tome from the legends? Joseph had heard about the story of how it could grant any wish to special people, that’s how vampires came to be, but what Eli said was ridiculous. That book couldn’t have been used for such a disgusting purpose. 

“This is slander. What proof do you have for all these claims?”

Eli didn’t offer any proof. Instead, he took a book out of his bag. It wasn’t the Tome. His book wasn’t even made of paper, it was marble, white marble. Joseph remembered it, it was the book from the sculpture they had contemplated before. Did Eli steal it?

The vampire raised the book and immediately threw it on the ground with unexpected force, breaking the sculpture in pieces. Inside, like a pearl inside a clam, appeared a real, purple book that brimmed with magic.

Joseph only needed a single look to realize it was the Tome. Had Orpheus hidden it there? He blinked, dumbfounded, then remembered how those monsters had appeared a few years ago, at the same time Orpheus had started his reign. 

All of a sudden, Eli didn’t seem like a charlatan anymore but, if he was right, that would mean Orpheus had killed thousands of people. He would be the reason Joseph lost his home in the first place.

“If that’s what really happened… Why would he wish for that?” He asked, throat dry.

Eli stored the Tome in his bag and sighed. “To become a savior; create a problem and be the only one capable of solving it. So much power has corrupted him.” Despite the gravity of his words, he offered a kind smile. “Joseph, when we spoke this morning I saw a lot of myself in you. Your ambitions are pure and I’m sure you will do great things, which is why I’m warning you: I don’t think Orpheus likes the idea of your family, real royalty, to stay here. He might see you as opposition. You should be careful.” 

Joseph froze at the implication. Orpheus wouldn’t hurt his family, they hadn’t done anything wrong. He said he would help them. 

‘Have you come to reclaim my throne after losing yours?’

He was joking. He said so. But, if he wasn’t- If he could control those monsters at will, then-

“Joseph, wait-!” 

Eli’s call got lost as he ran away to the farm. He was sure Eli was exaggerating, his family would be okay, nothing would happen to them because they didn’t deserve it. They had suffered so much already, things were going to get better.

'I agree, an honorable family like yours isn’t made for living…'

When he arrived, his chest hurting from running for over ten minutes, Joseph didn’t see anything unusual. The breeze moved the trees rhythmically, there were puffs of smoke coming from the chimney due to his mother’s cooking, and his father was outside, standing still in the garden, looking at something…

Joseph followed his gaze and understood immediately why he  wasn’t moving.

Behind the calm trees, like a silent shark, there was a monster waiting; black, slimy and long, like a worm, staring directly at their house. It wasn’t alone.

They were promised there weren’t monsters in that area.

His father noticed his presence despite the distance and whispered something. Joseph was too far away to hear it, but he read his lips. He wished he didn’t.

‘Joseph, leave.’

That was an impossible request. He would never leave his family, and so when the monsters crawled out of the forest and charged with a speed that would make an adult man cry, he didn’t leave. They were all going to his house, as if commanded by someone, and Joseph didn't have time to ask for help. He ran towards them in an attempt to stop it, to stop everything from happening, and that’s when one of those monsters hit him extremely hard on the ribs.

The last thing he heard was the grotesque sound of his skull cracking when he collided against a tree and, just like that, everything went black.

When he woke up, the sky was already dark, starless. How many hours…?

His head didn’t hurt anymore, as if it had never been broken in the first place, but his neck did. It wouldn’t be until later that he learned he had been turned into a vampire by someone, a mysterious man he didn’t see. He couldn’t care about that, what truly scared him was the silence that welcomed him into the living world.

The monsters had left, destroying the farm in the process, as if a hurricane had put the house upside down. He walked slowly towards the remains, unsteady, dazed, as if he was in a nightmare. He looked for his family, but the place was so empty, 

like a plate after a delicious meal.

He felt numb, couldn’t process anything. It had been him, the one who asked his parents and Claude to come to this kingdom. It had been him, who told Orpheus about their real identities despite his parents' warnings. The monsters had killed them but, did they?

It had been him.

Why did he survive?

“Ngh-"

Joseph heard a small whimper and looked down. His tears fell more easily in that angle, making it hard to see, but he managed to find Claude. He was hidden under the rubble, lying down in a fetal position. Speechless, Joseph crouched and held him slowly, tightly, close to his chest, and stroked his hair. Claude had a horrible, dark wound next to his heart.

“Hey, it’s me, I’m here,” Joseph whispered when he found his voice. It wavered, but there was comfort in it, as if he was pulling him to sleep just like when they were kids and Claude had a nightmare. He had always acted as the older brother even though they were twins. He liked to brag about being born a few minutes earlier.

Claude had his eyes closed, but he breathed, he still breathed and Joseph couldn’t stop shaking. He blinked away the tears, trying not to break down, and his eyes fell on the garden.

Despite the destruction, the scarecrow -with his own face drawn on it by his father- had protected the small, delicate daisy from the monsters and crows. Its white and yellow petals were slightly torn, but the flower still lived.

In the darkness of the night, Joseph wondered if that was what his father meant when he compared him to the scarecrow, and said Claude was like the flower. He had wanted him to protect Claude, didn’t he? For Claude to rest in his shadow while he took care of everything and banished the monsters away.

Joseph sobbed as he hugged his baby brother closer. 

“I’m sorry, Claude. I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again.”

The next events became a blur. Before Claude could die of blood loss, Joseph realized his condition as a vampire and offered him the gift of immortality, the gift they should have been given much earlier. Claude struggled in pain, but Joseph believed that he would be alright once he got turned into a vampire.

(He would have never guessed that the remains of the monster in his wound would stay with him forever, a strange and incurable illness that infested his heart and blood. Unknowingly, he burdened his brother with eternal suffering.)

As for Orpheus, Joseph showed no mercy. The next morning, in front of a huge crowd, he accused the King of being a farsant, a murderer, the creator of the monsters that had eaten so many loved ones. The citizens didn’t believe him at first, but when Joseph attempted to kill the King and those same monsters appeared to protect him, everyone saw the truth.

Orpheus had to die.

In the end, it didn’t matter how many monsters Orpheus hid behind. Joseph, whose grief blinded him to no end, was a very powerful vampire, even for normal standards. Common vampires had struggled to fight against these worms, but Joseph didn’t break a sweat. This could only mean that the vampire who turned him was the first, the legend from the Tome. Joseph didn’t know who did it, but his powers left no doubt about that.

When he finally managed to avenge his family with blood, all the worm-like monsters died with his creator, leaving only bad memories and parasites in Claude’s body behind.

There were cheers, applause and tears of happiness. His name became known across the continent as the runaway prince turned vampire that had defeated the monsters. Like a cosmic joke, Penvicor offered him the crown so he could become their new King.

“The Tome of Prophecies does everything for a reason. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe this was meant to happen,” Eli had told him during the funeral, quiet and understanding. “As for me, I think there isn’t anyone more fit than you to rule. I will help you if that’s what you decide.”

“You would have become an excellent King.” His father’s words resonated in his heart. 

In the past years, Joseph had lost his home, the crown and his family… But that wasn’t exactly true. Claude was still there, he had to take care of him. He could remake their home, a place where vampires and humans would coexist, where they would play the piano together and paint and read and be the kings they were born to be.

The Tome would be protected in the castle so no one else could ever use it for evil, and when Claude finally got better, they would laugh again.

It was a good dream to have.

“Down with the King!” The mob yelled. 

It was a good dream to have, but he ruined it. 

“Down with the King!” They raised their fists, sneering at Aesop. 

He ruined everything again.

A man with a beard climbed the platform and roughly grabbed Aesop by the chin, forcing him to face the crowd with a scornful grin. “Does the King’s lover have any last words?” 

The mob laughed, cruel and mocking. Joseph’s heart dropped. Aesop was bloodied and bruised. He had dried tears on his face and could barely stand, the rope tying him to the stake being the only thing that kept him up. He had done that to him. It was his fault.

“...You are wrong,” Aesop mumbled. 

“We can’t hear you!” “Speak louder!”

“You are wrong!” Aesop raised his voice, it was hoarse and his chest was heaving. Joseph expected him to deny any sort of relationship with him, but instead- “Joseph isn’t the evil vampire you think he is!” 

Silence. Then a chorus of incredulous laughs. “You only say that because he favors you!”

“Favors…? He wants me-” Dead . Aesop didn’t finish. A streak of blood fell over his eye. He licked his dry lips and glared at them with spite. “I hate Joseph! He is a selfish man who doesn’t listen! He thinks he is self-sacrificing, that what he does is noble, but he ends up hurting people who love him!”

The mob stared at each other, confused. At the far back, Joseph lowered his gaze in resignation. There was nothing to rebate, he had failed them.

“But-” Aesop inhaled painfully, trying not to crumble, “he wants to be better, wants to fix his mistakes. Grief consumed him, it made him forget how to take care of this place, of its people, brother and himself. I can’t even begin to comprehend how much suffering he has gone through, but despite that he still tries so hard to make it work. None of you have seen how much he actually cares- !”

The man with the beard noticed hesitating faces among the multitude and quickly put a wadded up cloth in Aesop’s mouth, shutting it. “Look how hard he tries to defend the King, he is in love!”

There were more laughs, but none of them reached Joseph, who stared at Aesop with wide eyes. His expression was keen and wide open, vulnerable. Aesop had spoken so vividly, with so much conviction that it made him dizzy. 

It made him want to cry.

Aesop was right. He had spent so many decades putting Claude’s well-being over everything else that he forgot to enjoy their time together, to appreciate what was in front of him, to ask Claude what he truly wanted, and to give himself a chance to be happy.

Joseph covered his mouth at the sudden tightness in his throat, and allowed himself to feel . 

He loved Aesop. He loved him. He didn’t want him to die. He didn’t want to lose him. Why did he say all of those hurtful things? When did he become such a horrible king, brother and partner?

As he watched the bearded man walk towards Aesop with a huge, lit up torch, Joseph finally understood why this was happening again. The reason he hadn’t managed to change the past was because he had to be the one to change.

"Mph...!"

On the platform, Aesop’s skin crawled when the torch was thrown on the straw under him. The rope tying him to the wooden stake was too tight, making sharp cuts on his wrists and ankles. The straw tickled him on the foot that didn’t have the shoe on, and he distantly thought about the irony of being cremated as an embalmer. 

The flames spread fast, too fast, but he tried not to show any fear. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. Ever since his mom left him, yellow sundress glistening at the beach, he had been so scared of dying alone and unloved, and now that it was finally happening, he could only stare at the fire with emptiness.

He remembered the night when Eli asked him what he would wish for if he had the Tome. He had been unsure back then but, in his final moments, it became so crystal clear. 

He didn’t want to be abandoned. He wanted someone who loved him enough to stay by his side. 

That thought turned out to be too much. Aesop bit the inside of his mouth. That wish would never come true, so he might as well wish for something more realistic, like the fire not hurting too much, but even that was impossible. He closed his eyes and braced himself.

Then, in the eerie darkness, he felt the entire platform shake, as if something had dropped from a huge height. He forced himself to open his eyes and, behind the curtain of smoke, saw the back of a vampire, bat-like wings fully spread as if he was the devil. He was holding the bearded man by the collar.

…Joseph?

Without mercy, the vampire threw the man towards the crowd and kicked the burning straw away from him, in the direction of the mob who screamed and scattered so they wouldn’t get their faces and eyes burned. Without the dark smoke in the middle, Aesop realized that he wasn’t imagining things, it really was Joseph. 

His bloodshot eyes made the blue irises look icier than ever, full of rage, so much it made everyone shiver and go dead quiet.

“I want to kill all of you right now,” Joseph threatened, cold. Making sure everyone and their future bloodlines remembered his words. “You almost murdered an innocent man. If it wasn’t him, it would have been my brother. I have every right to send you to your early graves. But I won’t, because Aesop is right, I want to change, and I want this to be a better kingdom, so I will allow you the grace of a just trial.”

With a snap of his fingers, he summoned a bunch of vampire guards that had been patrolling nearby streets. They heard the strong call of their master and slid out of the alleyways, circling the mob and restraining them one by one. Some tried to run away, but there was no point in fighting, all of them would be apprehended. 

The sacrifice and carnage that led to ‘The Last War’ in the previous timeline had been avoided. Finally, he had made a real change.

With a relieved sigh, Joseph turned around and took the cloth out of Aesop’s mouth with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry for being lat-"

"Why did you have to come!?" Aesop suddenly shouted, the angriest Joseph had ever seen him. “I was ready to die! I had accepted my fate, but you suddenly appear, pretending to save me when you only want my blood, it's not fair!" He yelled, hurt.

“Aesop-”

“Ever since I met you, my life has been hell. At least, I knew what to expect before. It wasn’t good, not even bearable, but it was familiar, yet you convinced me things could get better!”

The embalmer bit his lip. He was doing a monumental effort to hold back angry tears, but the anxiety was so high some of them slipped anyway as anger morphed into heartbreak. 

“It’s not fair,” he sobbed, frustrated. “I'm tired of getting my hopes up and becoming disappointed when nothing goes my way, and it’s all my fault. It’s my fault for thinking that you could ever love m-”

Joseph kissed him.

It was unexpected, it made the world stop. Aesop’s first kiss, tied up at a stake in a forgotten time. He had nothing to compare it to, but he thought that if all of them were like that, then it made sense why people would get addicted to that feeling.

Joseph’s lips were soft against his, yearning and longing, as if he had waited for this moment for an entire lifetime. His hands moved to cup his face, carefully cleaning the blood on his cheeks, and kissed him again, slower and slower until they were out of breath. 

When they separated, Aesop's frown still was there, but his gray, deer-like eyes and open mouth showed how vulnerable and confused he felt. He was still tied, so he couldn't hide or brush away his tears. He couldn’t run away as he always did.

"I hate you," he sniffed, weak, in a way it made Joseph smile because he knew it meant anything but that. "But Claude..."

“We will find another way to cure him, together,” Joseph promised, soothing, and his expression was free from the worry and burden that had plagued him for so long.

Who had saved whom?

Joseph crouched, took his missing shoe from his cloak and carefully put it on Aesop as he grabbed his leg with adoration. "I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. I don’t deserve anything, but can I… Can I at least have you? I won’t allow you to leave my side ever again.”

Aesop opened his mouth, closed it. Blinked.

The words he had always wanted to hear, uttered by the person he wished to hear it from the most.

“You still sound too bossy,” he laughed, and for once, his tears weren’t made of sadness. 

If Naib could pick a superpower, he would choose invisibility because, man, he wanted to disappear right now.

“When you told me not to steal the Tome, I thought you wanted to help me, Naib,” Emma said, her voice slow and cold. “But I realize you only wanted to ambush me in my own home.”

Long story short, Jack, Alva and him had broken into Emma’s house as delicately as possible (no) and Jack had been as diplomatic as one could expect (no) when he confronted Emma about her plan to steal the Tome. Basically, he outright accused her of being a thief.

Of course, Emma took it incredibly well. (also no)

“A few months ago, I went to the Dream Witch’s shop and bought a magic candle,” she said, sharp. “That candle that told me I was the chosen one, that I could wish for anything if I got my hands on the tome… I have no idea how you knew about my plan, but I trusted your warning and stayed home, and now you brought him here.” 

She stared at Jack with contempt. 

“Traitor.”

Naib was speechless. Emma was acting so different from her cheerful persona it was hard to get used to it, but more importantly, she confirmed their suspicions, she really was the thief. A girl so angry about Jack killing her father that she wished for all the vampires to never exist.

Naib looked down. He hated the idea of Emma thinking he had betrayed her. “This wasn’t my intention, I don’t want you to get hurt-”

“But he does,” Emma pointed at Jack, she never took her eyes off him. “Just like how he hurt my dad, he will kill me too, and I will never get the chance to make justice.” 

It was an extremely tense situation. Alva remained quiet, observant, slowly taking in all the information Jack clearly didn’t bother to tell him. Naib expected the world to explode. 

“I don’t remember killing your father,” Jack said, and Naib could almost hear the ticking of the bomb’s countdown. Liar.

Emma looked hurt for a second, then laughed in disbelief. “Of course you don’t remember, you don’t care! My mom abandoned us, and my father, Leo Beck, was everything I had. He didn’t do anything wrong, but you still threw your dice and killed him. My father died because a die fell on the number three.”

The silence was so heavy that Naib could hear his own heavy breathing. There was no way Jack could salvage this mess, Emma was never going to wish for what he wanted.

“I don’t remember killing your father because I wasn’t being myself,” Jack suddenly said. Then, he stood still in deep concentration and slowly raised his arm. Naib realized with horror that his hand looked bigger, darker and deformed. 

No way- Jack was trying to control the monster that was inside of him. 

“I have the curse,” Jack said between clenched teeth. “I black out, kill indiscriminately, and wake up not remembering what I did. I’m truly sorry.”

His arm turned back to normal and he let out an exhale of relief. Naib looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

…Hold up. He doubted Jack had the curse 200 years ago. He totally made that up, didn’t he? He must have killed Leo simply because he was an ass, and now he was blaming the curse?!

Actually, Naib had been wondering how the fuck Jack planned to convince Emma to wish for the curse to disappear. At first, he assumed Jack was going to threaten her, tell her to wish for what he wanted or he would kill her, but it wasn't that simple. The second Emma had the Tome in her hands, she could ignore Jack and wish for all of them to die. A threat wouldn't work, it was more complicated than that, and Naib was starting to see why Jack had done this behind his friends' backs. An error and it would be over. 

The only way for this plan to work was by convincing Emma to do it on her own will, but she would never do that, unless...

“I’m truly sorry,” Jack said again, with sympathy. “I never intended to murder your father, but that’s why I want to ask for your help.”

“My help?” Emma repeated, as if she thought him insane for daring to say that.

Jack nodded, careful. “I understand why you hate vampires and want us gone, but why not wish for our curse to disappear?” He held the Tome towards her, like an apple to Eve. “It’s a sickness that affects us all sooner or later. If you wish for this, you will prevent many unfair deaths in the future, like your father’s.”

Oh. This damn cunning vampire. Naib wanted to slap that man.

“Please, Ms. Woods,” Alva said, speaking up for the first time. “I have an apprentice– no, he is family to me, his name is Luca. He is a reckless vampire, albeit a good one, but the curse is taking him away. It’s making him forget who he is and I can’t do anything besides seeing it happen, powerless.”

Alva approached Emma and took her hands, which looked so very small in his, and squeezed them softly, begging.

“If you really can wish upon the Tome, that means you are the only person who can save him so, please-” 

Naib felt bad. Unlike someone -Jack coughed- Alva’s words were genuine, he cared so much about Luca, but the way he said that, so warm and honest, made him realize that Alva didn’t know anything about what Luca had done. How many people he had killed.

“I don’t owe anything to a vampire,” Emma retorted, harshly. “I have no reason to help you!” She suddenly looked at Naib. “Don’t you think so? Wouldn’t you ignore them?” 

Everyone stared at him. Naib gulped and, again, wished he was invisible.

What should he say? Despite his better judgment, he didn’t want Jack to turn into a monster, and he also felt pity for Alva, but Emma was right. This was her wish, why should she use it to help those who had ruined her life? 

…What would he do if he was in her shoes? 

“I can’t understand how you feel,” he found himself saying. “In the time I’ve been here, I saw how unfair some things were. Unfortunately, I can say that even without vampires, the world would still be a shitty place for many other reasons, guess that’s how humans are, but… I have also seen vampires suffering from loss, falling in love, trying to do better-”

“True-” Jack nodded.

“You are barely trying,” Naib shut him up. “What I’m saying is that you must be very special to be able to read this shitty Tome, so… Don’t wish for something you will regret later. As my friendly neighbor says, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.”

It wasn’t his place to tell Emma what to do, it was her wish and it only belonged to her.

“What a wise neighbor,” Alva nodded, tragically unaware of spider man's existence.

Emma fell into a deep silence, seemingly mulling over his words. Naib wondered if he had reached her heart, but it was impossible to know for sure. All he knew is that she looked up and said, firm: “Give me the Tome.”

Jack took a step forward but Alva grabbed his arm, whispered: “Jack, I’m not sure about this anymore. It’s too dangerous.”

“As I always say, life is a gamble.” Jack patted Alva on the back and stopped right in front of Emma as equals. “I’m sorry for what happened, this is my apology: Now it’s your turn to decide how the dice falls.”

He gave her the Tome, and Emma’s eyes sparkled with the same green that had given him chills many years ago. 

Luca, Eli and Fiona were flying all over the city, looking for Jack, when they saw a very familiar purple beam shoot up to the sky with the power of a hundred suns. They stared at it with horror. Someone had made a wish, but what wish?

“I’m going to put Jack into a blender!” Fiona threatened, worried to the bone. 

“It came from there!” Luca pointed, wasting no time to get there. 

The entrance of the farm had the owner’s name: Emma Woods. The trio threw down the door without thinking about it twice and quickly realized that something went terribly, horribly wrong: the room was all upside down, as if a tornado of magic had gone through it. An unknown girl who must be Emma Woods was holding the book with a smile, and Jack and Alva’s expressions were… 

Not good. Whatever Emma wished for wasn’t what they expected. 

“Alva…?” Luca asked, confused.

“Luca, what are you doing here?” Alva had the same question.

“Forget about that! What did she wish for?!” Fiona shouted with anger, pointing accusingly at Emma, the clear culprit as she still had some traces of powerful, purple aura around her.

Emma looked at all of them with defiance, her green eyes glinted with hatred, everyone expected the worst, until someone new entered the house with weak, irregular steps: it was a bulky man with a confused expression.

“Emma, what am I doing here?” 

“Father!” Emma’s frown disappeared and ran towards the man, embracing him in a tight hug as tears flowed through her eyes. “It worked! You are alive!” 

She had wished for her father to come back to life.

Luca, Fiona and Eli almost fainted. For a second, they thought she had wished for the vampires to disappear, again.

“Maaan, I can’t believe my plan didn’t work out,” Jack complained. He was sitting on a chair, watching the father-daughter reunion with a bored expression. “Welp, it is what it is.”

“DON’T ‘WELP’ THIS, ASSHOLE!” Fiona hit him with another chair. It didn’t do anything, but it felt good.

“That was extremely dangerous. Do you understand how irresponsible that was?” Eli admonished Jack and Alva, unusually strict and shaken.

“Why did you lie to us and gave her the Tome?!” Luca wanted to know as well, his legs were shaking so much he had to sit down in the remaining chair of the small living room.

“We wanted her to wish for the vampire curse to go away,” Jack admitted nonchalantly, but Naib could tell that deep inside he was upset. “It was the only chance to avoid my fate. I knew you wouldn’t want to gamble on it, so I took matters into my own hands. Sadly, luck wasn’t on my side this time!” 

Eli and Fiona were still angry, but Jack’s explanation was enough to make them understand why such a risk had been taken, and despite the selfish nature of his treason, they felt pity for him. 

As for Luca, he stared at Alva with wide, shocked eyes. Jack said they wanted to stop the curse, did Alva help him for that same reason? So Luca would have a chance not to become a monster…?

Alva noticed his heartbroken stare and smiled with guilt. “Sorry, Luca, I really thought it would work.”

Luca felt a knot on his stomach. “You-” 

“Hey, come on, let’s not get super depressed,” Fiona tried to cheer them up. “At least we avoided the bad-bad ending!” She nudged Luca, as if saying their plan had still been a success.

“I recognize you from the throne room,” Eli said more calmly as he approached Emma, who was still hugging her dad as if nothing else mattered in the world. “You talked about getting rid of rats, but in reality you meant something else, didn’t you? Why did you change your mind?”

‘Why didn’t you wish to kill us?’ 

Emma turned and faced him with coldness. “The King’s advice about killing all the rats was very tempting, but Mr. Carl’s suggestion reminded me of something that my father always taught me; kindness is stronger than hate or revenge.” 

Emma smiled softly, then looked at Naib. 

“And Naib too. Seeing him help Campbell in the last trial, and how relieved he looked after, opened my eyes, made me realize the only thing that would make me truly happy is not revenge, but to bring my father back.”

“H-Hold up!” Naib raised his hands in a time-out gesture. “Are you saying that, without knowing, Aesop and I have helped the vampires avoid extinction?” Their task failed successfully again?!

“Sorta, yeah!”

Jack snickered at Naib, who had frozen in an expression that could only be described as The Scream, 1893. He really should apply to clown school, maybe that was his calling, and his boxing and detective era had been a one time hit.

“But you are wrong about something,” Emma pointed out. “I would have never wished for all the vampires to stop existing. It was very tempting, but it wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Wait,” Luca said, confused. “Then what did you want to wish for initially?”

“I only wanted Jack to die to avenge my father. Wasn’t it obvious?”

Huh. Only Jack…?

Fiona looked at the rest with a bad feeling. “That doesn’t make sense, because Jack didn’t die in the last timeline. Instead, almost all of us-” 

“Last timeline?” Alva asked, but got drowned by other confused voices and Jack’s pathetic ‘yay’ over not dying.

Luca grabbed Emma by the shoulders and stared at her intensely, startling her. “Are you sure you only wanted to wish for that? You never wanted all of us to die or disappear?”

It really made no sense. In the past, almost all of the vampires went extinct, disappeared from history, as if they had never existed, but Jack specifically didn’t die. Even if the Tome of Prophecies had misinterpreted some wishes in the past, Emma’s wish didn’t fit the events that took place at all.

Everyone observed them in a tense silence, no one in that room dared to breathe until Emma nodded, so sure of herself it was definitive. “I hate vampires, but I would have never wished for that.” 

Luca took a step back, shaken. The rest glared at each other with bewilderment.