I made it a habit to visit Sirius every day after school. During the first few days, he mostly just slept, but I didn’t mind watching over him. Or, well, watching him. He was getting better, but the progress was extremely slow. Even after several days, he was barely strong enough to hold a book in his hands. He was still feeling sick, and he was in pain, and his wounds just refused to close.

On Friday, I had to ask why.

“I’m technically dead,” Sirius said while I was studying his stitched wound. “Dead bodies don’t heal on their own, so I need to get my vampire essence back.”

“Essence?” I repeated.

“The thing that makes me a vampire. Our… essence,” he said and smirked apologetically. “There are no scientific explanations on how we work, I’m afraid.”

“I see. And the poison destroyed that essence?”

He nodded. “It burned it, leaving me vulnerable and weak.”

“Is the poison actual blood?”

“Yes, taken from a dead body,” he said.

“How does that turn it into poison?” I asked. “You drink from blood bags. Isn’t that the same thing?”

“It has something to do with the death of the spirit. That dead essence is poison to our essence, just like walking into a church would start eating away at it.”

“So the tales are true? You can’t go to a church? And cross would burn you?” I asked and he nodded. “Is garlic bad?”

“No, that was Dracula’s thing. He couldn’t stand it…”

“Dracula was real?”

“Uh-huh. He loved the attention, but he made things a hell of a lot harder for the rest of us.”

“So… do you burn if sunlight touches you?” I asked, and he nodded.

“But there are magical items that make us immune to it. I have one at home…” he trailed off when he realized what he just said. “I left it at home,” he repeated, looking very disappointed in himself.

“And you can’t go get it,” I nodded slowly. “I could go get it for you?”

He shook his head. “If there is someone watching my mansion, they will notice you.”

“You live in a mansion.”

“That I do. Or… did,” he said and sighed. “It’s… been my home for all my life. And now I don’t even know if I can ever return there.”

“You will,” I said. “We will find a way to stop your enemy.”

He gave me a smile, but it was a sad one.

“Can you get a new magical item, then?” I asked.

“They are rare, but there should be someone selling them in this city. But they usually cost ten grand, so I’d rather not spend so much on something I already have.”

“Ten grand,” I repeated with wide eyes. “Ten thousand dollars?”

“They’re really rare,” he said, leaning back against his pillows.

It was clear all this talking was draining his energy, so I decided not to ask any more questions. I sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled the covers back over him.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“No,” he said sternly. He’d refused to drink my blood after he lost control of himself on Monday.

“Not even blood bags?”

He shook his head, trying to hide his disgust. He was now able to drink them, but it was like feeding broccoli to a three-year-old. And they made him momentarily sick.

“Anything else you need?” I asked.

“Just… I’d like to get out of here already,” he muttered.

“Should we take a look at what kind of apartments they have for sale?” I asked, peering at my school bag. I had my laptop with me.

That brought up his mood, so I went to get the laptop and returned to him. I made myself comfortable next to him and turned the laptop on.

“So what are we looking for?” I asked him.

“Something with good security. Try Storm Enterprises first. They sell houses for our kind.”

“You guys have your own companies?”

“Yeah. This company is a big one. It’s owned by orcs. We need jobs too, and we usually work for our own kind. Much easier than trying to come up with excuses why we can’t work after sunrise.”

I wasn’t sure why I found it so odd, especially while sitting in a clinic owned by a werewolf. But it sure was cool.

“I honestly can’t wait to see more about your world,” I told him with a smile, then searched for the company he mentioned. “This one?”

Sirius didn’t reply to me, so I glanced at him. He was staring at me with a tiny smile on his lips.

“What?” I asked with a chuckle.

“I’d love to show you my world,” he said quietly. “If I ever can…”

“You will, and you can,” I promised him.

Sirius smiled and turned his attention to my laptop. “That’s the one. See what they have for sale.”

It took a moment to find the right category. This company owned dozens of smaller companies ranging from daycares to construction and transportation, but I finally spotted the word housing.

“Wow, that’s a big list…” I muttered when the page showed over three thousand houses and apartments.

“Narrow it down to our city,” Sirius said.

There were still over fifty results, which was great.

“Do we need to narrow it down even more?” I asked.

“Show the houses by price,” he asked, and I did, from lowest to highest. “The other way around.”

I slowly turned to look at him. “From highest to lowest?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sirius.”

“I just want to take a look,” he said in an innocent voice.

I chuckled and reordered the results. I raised my eyebrows at the first result.

“I want to take a look at that,” he said, pointing at that exact apartment.

“It’s one and a half million,” I noted.

“Just curious.”

I turned to look at him.

“It’s a penthouse.”

“Just curious.”

“By the beach.”

“I swear I’m just curious,” he said, but that boyish grin on his face didn’t convince me.

I clicked on the apartment and moved the laptop closer to Sirius so he could take a better look. He started scrolling through the pictures, and I had to admit the place was to die for.

And oh my god, the views in the living room… Two of the walls were just windows. The floors were a nice shade of gray, the tray ceiling had soft lights hiding under the edges and small spotlights all around the lower part of it. I could see a part of a massive balcony with a freaking jacuzzi through the windows.

The kitchen was black and white marble, had a massive kitchen island, and a massive glass case for wine, working as a wall to separate a big part of the kitchen from the living room. The back wall was dark gray and was full of racks for bottles. As I read the description, I learned that it was refrigerated. And it could fit over four hundred bottles inside.

The place also had three bedrooms, one of which was located on the second floor with a big space for an office and another living room. Each bedroom had their own walk-in closets and fully equipped bathrooms with showers and bathtubs. All of them just screamed money. Everything about the penthouse was pure luxury. The master bedroom alone was probably bigger than my parents’ apartment.

I turned to look at Sirius as he stopped scrolling through the pictures and started reading the big block of text below them.

“Sirius. I thought we were supposed to look for a safe apartment where you can hide for a while,” I told him.

“Of course,” he said and continued reading.

“You’re not actually going to buy a penthouse, right? You’re just curious, right?”

“Sure, sure…”

I would’ve believed he just wanted to see the penthouse, but his home was a mansion. He owned part of this city. There were creatures willing to kill him for his land.

“I just realized you’re rich,” I said.

He smirked at me.