Where was the mysterious creature that offered you refuge? An oppressive sense of being watched prickled at your skin. You moved quickly yet cautiously, discovering abandoned rooms dust-coated and bearing scant signs of former inhabitants. 

At the top of a spiral staircase, a sliver of light beckoned. You emerged onto a parapet open to raging skies, lashed by punishing winds. Here you halted, transfixed. 

A figure stood silhouetted against the tempest, clad all in black. Long hair whipped about a face upturned to the heavens, porcelain features etched with an unnamed sorrow. You started at the flash of crimson irises when your gazes met.

“You wished answers,” said the vampire, voice carrying easily over the storm’s din. “Yet fled from the one who could provide them. Tell me, what be your name?"

You hesitate a long moment before answering "Evelonia"

"What a beautiful name…" The vampire mused as he stood there in total quiet and calm.

You take a deep breath and gather tattered courage. “My distrust was not personal. I know not whom to trust in this place.”

The vampire considered you, an inscrutable statue. At last he gestured to the house spreading vast below you both. “This was once a refuge for my kind, when we walked openly among mortals. Now I alone remain, as you see, here at least, I am King among my kind, but few we are these long and lonely nights.” 

He turned fully to you, cloak billowing wildly. “My name is Jack. This estate is my domain, and you my charge until the skies calm. I mean you no harm.”

Something in Jack’s frank demeanor disarmed your suspicions. An ageless melancholy imbued his features, at odds with rumors of vampiric cruelty. Lost in private mourning, was this creature truly so dangerous?