Chapter Text
October, 1884.
It’d been five days since Mikaela had left his residence.
He missed the comfort and safety of his castle, lonely located in a hill surrounded by a dense forest in the north of the country. He wanted to go back. He missed the generous daily doses of blood, the absence of humans; there was only him and his servants. The fog around the forest and the building used to difficult people to found them. And when they did… It never turned out well for their side.
The vampire sighed, by the thousandth time he had during those last days. He had drunk the last portion of remaining blood when at the inn where he had spent the second night, disguised as human, since that city was way more populated than others usually were, as a measure to evict himself from attacking humans.
He was thirsty.
Originally, he carried with him enough blood for the journey. However, unfortunately, he was taking more time than expected. The humans looked enthusiastic about something. Holidays? Good news? Whatever was the motive, for him it was an annoying inconvenience. They were everywhere. Mikaela didn’t want to fail with his duty, much less disappoint Krul.
He was in debt with Krul Tepes. If it wasn’t her, he wouldn’t be alive anymore. She gave him a place where he could live as he wanted, servants and blood. In exchange, he was her servant and had paid her with loyalty during more than one entire century. It wasn’t a big deal. She used to say that was all she needed from him: to occasionally do small tasks for her, such as visiting other important vampires, inform them about her situation and asking what was going on recently.
Mikaela still insisted. Was that enough payment for someone who’d saved his life?
“You are really a stubborn vampire.” Krul often responded to his worries. “I already said that this is all I want from you. I received lots of your fellows and every single one accepted this. I doubt there aren’t a few of them that see me as an opportunity to live without efforts. It doesn’t matter to me: I have only one objective in mind, and, in order to achieve it, you keep doing what you do is very important. That is the best way you could pay the debt you talk about so many times.”
Regardless his simple obligations towards Krul, Mikaela, like every vampire, had to submit to the vampire king: Lest Karr. He governed that bloodthirsty world, with the support of a council that Krul was part of. As a noble, Mikaela had to show up at uncountable meetings with vampires from all around the world, just to listen to a twelve hours speech about how their community was prospering. At the end of each, he used to be oddly questioned about what was going on in Great Britain by austere looking vampires he had never seen before. He commonly responded politely, before starting to avoid them when Krul told him to be careful and to try not getting asked questions.
Mikaela never knew why: that was, along with what was her so called ‘objective’, one of the only questions she always refused to answer.
He felt his legs get slightly weaker.
He was on his way to “pay” Krul. A week ago, she had asked him to visit a noble, that as well made part of the council, he happened to dislike. A lot. He wasn’t particularly fond of that fact. He would have to stay for, at least, more three days to discuss Krul’s matters and rest from the trip. Oh, three days of teasing and restraining himself from punching Ferid Bathory right in the face. However, he had no choice but to hurry, as he had ran out of blood.
It was night, so he could walk more freely and faster due to the lack of sunlight. It was easier for him: since he hadn’t drunk any blood in the last three days, he was starting to feel weaker and weaker. He had now arrived in a small quiet village. It was the typical place where you could see rich farmers, poor farmers, big proprietaries, small proprietaries.
“Don’t take a carriage. Carriages are slow and Ferid said this was urgent.” Krul had advised.
Of course carriages were slow compared to vampires. And he had to walk and interact with humans for five days long. He wondered what Ferid Bathory had to say it couldn’t wait. That was probably the most difficult task he had ever done under Krul’s service.
His sensitive audition could hear humans laughing and singing from, much probably, a bar. He touched his throat. There must be lots of humans there. Many of them. He slowly shook his head, trying to get the thought away from him. He shouldn’t attract any attention. If he just hurried to Ferid’s mansion instead of thinking those kinds of things, he would evict problems.
He discreetly continued walking through the dirt road, that, the further he advanced, it slowly was turning to cobblestone. Mikaela checked his pocket watch. It was only 8pm. However, it was everything so silent and there was no light coming from any house.
Well, any house except the establishment from where he had heard, and was still hearing, the, probably drunk, human voices. That was, perhaps, the only illuminated place in that village.
He aggressively turned around, startled by steps behind him. A young, high class looking woman with long ashen hair and brown eyes wearing a blueish grey dress spoke to him.
“Excuse me, sir, are you a foreigner?”
Mikaela stared at her, caught off guard by that question. He tried to keep his self-control.
There was a human. There was a human in front of him.
He straightened his posture and lied the best he could. “Yes, I am, my lady. May I know the purpose of the question?” He trembled, speaking as politely as he could, considering his actual state. Go away, he silently pleaded.
“I beg you, be careful, please. Lately, there have been numerous serial murders around this zone. Corpses have been found nearly drained out of blood. The authorities have been investigating it, but unfortunately there aren’t any clues that lead to the author of this hideous crime. Everyone stays at home past 7pm because they’re afraid. I would suggest that you stay in an inn. It would be safer.”
“Oh, I see. I am on my way to visit a very dear relative of me.” Hell if Ferid Bathory was a «very dear relative of me», he thought. “He doesn’t reside too far from here, so I thought there wouldn’t be any problems in going somewhat later. I didn’t know about that, so I’m very thankful for the warning. In that case, I’m going to stay here for a night. My condolences for those of your land that have been killed in such a revolting way.”
Vampires, Mikaela guessed. There were vampires around that area and they weren’t following Krul’s orders.
The woman innocently approached “There’s an inn not too far from here, but, sadly, I don’t know its exact location. May you come with me? My brother could lead you the way; I’m sure it won’t bother him.”
Mikaela stepped back, breathing heavily.
“There’s no need of it, thank you very much. I saw it when I was entering the village.” He faked a smile, as he did so many times when talking with humans.
“Oh, I think I’ll go back then. I hope you get there safely.” She finished, and, after turning her back to Mikaela, slowly walked away towards the opposite direction.
“Thank you very much.” He said in a low voice tone.
She hadn’t walked two meters far yet, Mikaela didn’t think twice, his bloodthirst overtaking him.
Unable to control himself, he ran towards the woman and buried his fangs in her neck, hearing a scream coming from her mouth.
His conscience around one minute after was what prevented him from killing that human. He let her fall on the floor, unconscious.
He took a deep breath. It hasn’t been enough blood; however, he couldn’t raise human’s suspicions. Sooner or later, humans would eventually discover the existence of his species, if killings continued there and over there.
Our secret is our safety, Krul often repeated.
Then he heard an older woman’s voice.
“Mahiru?”
It came from a figure stood at the door of the loud bar.
“MAHIRU!” she screamed, running towards the ashen haired girl’s unconscious body.
The bar wasn’t loud anymore.
“What’s wrong?” a man’s harsh voice echoed in the deadly silence. Meanwhile, the woman reached the body.
“Our daughter, Tenri! Come here, come here!!” She cried. And, for the first time, she perceived Mikaela’s presence, who stood there, in the shadows, petrified. “You…” her eyes widened in horror, as she wrapped his daughter’s body in her arms, trembling. Mika stepped back, falling on the floor. “YOU MONSTER!” She screamed, her voice distorted by her fear. “GET AWAY FROM US!”
“Kureto, Seishirou, come with me!” The man, Tenri, ordered. “Or, I mean, everyone! Except you, and you,…” He appointed inside the building. He ran towards the three, accompanied by around eight more people. “Bring what you know!” he demanded.
Mikaela stood up with difficulty, put on his cloak’s hood and ran as fast as his weakness allowed him. It hasn’t been enough. Not enough blood. Not enough blood, his mind repeated over and over again.
Two of the nine people stood next to the woman, while the human called Tenri, along with the remaining men, ran towards Mikaela. No doubt they intended to pursue him.
“It went that way!” The man shouted to his comrades.
It?
They were fast, but Mikaela was faster. Though he was feeling slower and tired.
Not enough blood, his mind turned to echo.
Was it possible that those people know who were they dealing with?
He looked back. The humans were closer. Were they getting faster?
Or it was him getting slower?
He strived to increase his speed and continued running for what seemed like an eternity. This time, Krul wasn’t present to save him.
Uncontrollably panting, he looked back again. He had managed to get a temporary safe distance, as he couldn’t see them anymore.
Exhausted, he walked towards a big and isolated typical house of that century. It wasn’t in a bad state, but he couldn’t feel any human presences: it was abandoned. As quickly as he could, he dragged himself to force the lock and entered it.
From the inside, he approached one of the façade’s windows. The human Tenri and his group were already in that zone. He held his breath at the sight of what they were carrying with them.
Guns. Swords. Wooden stakes. And the content inside their bags shouldn’t be any better.
He sat on the floor, placing a hand on his forehead.
Those people knew vampires existed and they were prepared for hunting them.
Yuuichirou could have a worse life.
Everytime he and his father told people what they do – sell what they produced with hard exhaustive work for ridiculous low prices, because otherwise nobody would buy them – their facial expressions instantaneously turned to pity.
Poor people who can barely feed themselves.
And there were those:
Who said to that snotty man to live sustained by his wife’s health? He deserved her death. Now he’s lost everything and quite probably is starving, along with his son. The poor woman’s family did well in claim her possessions, as it was proved that Ichinose couldn’t maintain them.
Or:
He was probably a terrible husband. See, she didn’t even left him anything!
Yuuichirou often had to make an incredible effort to not slap those rich and arrogant people right in their artificially clean faces and fancy clothing. Couldn’t they stop sticking their nose in other people’s businesses? It wasn’t true. Regardless his mother’s money, his father always had worked hard to get his own. Sadly, it had never been better than it was now.
He didn’t think it was so bad like that: after all, he had lost his mother, and, for much it hurt him, his father was still there. Yes, they lived in the misery; but they lived together.
In truth, Guren wasn’t actually his father.
His mother had divorced from Yuuichirou’s biological father when he was six years old.
Several times he had witnessed his “father” mistreating her. He used to treat him, saying that if he told someone something way worse would happen. One day, he ended up losing his sanity, and, if it wasn’t his grandfather walking in, he would have reached to the limit of beating her.
The following was chaos: Yuuichirou’s grandfather announced if his father didn’t left immediately that house, he would shoot at him with his shotgun. His uncle, always more mindful, resolved to call the authorities before any blood was shed.
His grandfather always had been temperamental like that. Just like him, Yuuichirou used to exceed himself and, as a consequence, made hot-headed decisions. Everyone used to think they were very much alike. He remembered that day very well. He felt scared. Really, really scared. Although… he wasn’t sure if he could ever be able to protect someone using the possibility of death as a weapon, like the elder had done that time.
Yuuichirou, Yuu, as his grandfather had nicknamed him when he was four, was twelve when Guren and his mother got married. Guren was way younger than his mother, which was rather uncommon. They had met in an acquaintance’s of both marriage and kept contact for one whole year since then.
It lasted two years, until his mother suddenly got ill and eventually died from it.
She was mourned by every single member of her family in the day of the funeral. If Yuu closed his eyes, he could feel his father’s warm and comforting big hand holding his during the ceremony.
It was said by his uncle she hadn’t left any will. Guren had lifted an eyebrow to that statement. She was at the doors of death and she was conscious of that fact.
Of course, her family, Yuu’s family, used this distrust against him. As he had grown up, Yuu came up to realize that they and Guren didn’t get along very well. They didn’t agree at all with a second marriage, much less with someone coming from a poor family of farmers like he did.
Soon they managed to take everything from him, their house, which belonged to his deceased wife, included. They had to move in to Guren’s family house, an abandoned (now, not anymore) farm in the south of England that once belonged to his parents.
It wasn’t too long ago the first time Yuu wondered why his mother’s family didn’t want him to live with them. He suspected that it was because he physically resembled his father. However, it also could be due to the fact that they knew Guren would never abandon him.
“Yuu” his father called him in the morning, shaking him.
It wasn’t unusual for him to be woken up early, as they needed to start working as soon as they could. But, this time, it was different.
“I’m going to the city.” He announced right after Yuu sat on the bed.
Yuu widened his sleepy green eyes, act which only resulted in them being hurt by the sunlight coming through the window.
The city wasn’t a random urbanization near the countryside where their house was located. That expression, since long ago, meant one solely thing; the place they used to live before Yuu’s mother death, also where her family still resided.
“To what?!” he asked, surprised.
“Close your mouth. You know there are lots of flies here.” He made fun of him, before his expression got serious. “I’m going to deal with some business I should’ve dealt long ago.” He explained vaguely. “You don’t need to work today, brat.” He ruffled his hair. “I’ll be off most of the day. Don’t worry. I might just be back tomorrow or later, so get your ass out of that bed and go have some fun. I left lunch in the table and you can eat from our saves if I’m back late. Oh, and it’s also 11am.”
“I-It’s late” Yuu stuttered. Normally, he would wake up around 6am. “How are you going?...”
“I’m taking a carriage. I’ve been saving money for this day.” He showed him a melancholic smile. “I’m sorry. This is all going to end.”
“Huh?”
“See you. You’d better make the bed.” He picked up a bag.
“I know, I know!” He grumbled. “Wait, are you going, like, now?”
“Correction: I need to go, like, now. The carriage won’t wait for me. It’s also going to take some more people.”
“Goodbye” Yuu stared at him, processing, without blinking. What was that all of a sudden?
“I’m going to give you a better life” he heard his dad mumble to himself, after waving at him and before closing the door behind him.