Dom had never been flattered by his eloquence, or by any other positive trait he might possess, whether in his work as a salesman or in any of the thousand other things he had done before arriving in San Cipriano dei Monti. In fact, he didn't consider himself particularly good at anything. But he was willing to live on the expectation that, since Raffaele had been so kind to him, things might turn out differently.

It wasn't just that he hadn't been killed—since when had Dom begun to measure people's kindness by that?—but the fact that the man had gone to great lengths to make his guest feel comfortable.

Dom hadn't noticed it at the time, but shouldn't he have been given a more humble room? Perhaps a servant's quarters, since even though Raffaele had already made it clear that he didn't need anyone for such tasks, it seemed implicit that a fortress of such size would have an area designated for servants and other low-ranking guests to sleep.

What sense did it make for Raffaele to assign him, a nobody, such a luxurious bedroom?

And the attentions hadn't stopped there. Discounting the uncomfortable incident earlier that morning, Raffaele had attended to him with the promptness and competence of the best butler—if such a comparison could be made. Dom even realized, when he ventured out into the castle's inner gardens, that the same fruits Raffaele had offered him for breakfast were hanging from trees planted there.

Could it be that Raffaele had noticed he wasn't too thrilled with the dinner menu and had gone to the trouble of remedying it himself, doing the work of a mere servant?

This shouldn't have seemed strange, considering the eccentricity of the whole setup. Because, after all, if the castle didn't have staff, wasn't it normal for Raffaele to take care of everything? This would obviously include attending to the guests, fulfilling their whims, and making sure they didn't get into trouble during their stay.

Dom wanted to believe that everything he'd experienced was normal, but it was clear that, regardless of the roles Raffaele had overstepped, the damn man had been incredibly kind. And kindness, well, Dom could appreciate that.

So, trying not to grumble too much, he let himself be led through the village in search of witnesses to question about the alleged vampire attacks.

"It won't be difficult," Raffaele had assured him again, before leaving the forest and heading into the streets of San Cipriano. "You'll see, before long, people will even line up to talk to us!"

It was an exaggeration; both of them knew that. But it wasn't an exaggeration that was completely off the mark.

And it wasn't due to any supposed talent Dom might have as a salesman. Despite the fear and accusations against Raffaele, the attitude the villagers had toward him, when they saw him walking through the streets, was that of helpful townsfolk who had never spoken ill of him in their lives and were even willing to have a civilized conversation with him. They even went so far as to offer him food and other gifts.

Dom was stunned.

He had even expected the children to run away as soon as they saw them coming, but the opposite happened: The boys actually gathered in a huddle to exchange a few words with Raffaele!

It was the new neighbor they were interested in, Dom wasn't fooled. If he had come alone again, they wouldn't have looked at him twice.

Who knew what kind of treasures Raffaele might have promised them to have them so enchanted... Or maybe such things weren't even necessary. Perhaps, given his wealth and social status, that was enough to make the villagers go out of their way to please him. Which, by the way, made no sense when compared to what Fredo had warned him.

Did these people really think Raffaele was a vampire or not? Because, no matter what the answer was, one thing was clear: they weren't afraid of him.

One could think, seeing this, that they were now in luck in getting some information. And yet, that wasn't the case. Although the children seemed eager to answer their questions, it was clear they didn't have their stories straight. Each one told a more fantastic tale than the last, showing off that need for attention that inspired anything but confidence in Dom.

"The vampire showed up one night at my house," said one of the children, "and, taking advantage of the fact that we were all asleep, he opened the barn door so all the livestock would get out. If it weren't for our dog barking, we would've spent the whole night chasing goats around the mountains!"

"Didn't he attack any animals?"

"No, but he almost did, I'm sure! He probably opened the door just because he was excited about the chase, you know? Like those nobles who go hunting for partridges they released only five minutes before."

Raffaele nodded solemnly, as though the explanation seemed reasonable to him. Dom, for his part, had to be the voice of skepticism and suggested:

"Couldn't it be that someone forgot to close the barn that afternoon, after bringing in the livestock?"

"Nobody in my family would make such a silly mistake!" The child shot Dom a murderous look, making him back off, even though he was almost convinced a human had been to blame for this particular incident.

"The vampire has a history of entering houses without permission," another boy said. "Last week, he snuck into mine, also in the early hours of the morning, and started rummaging through my grandmother's stockings."

"I thought we had established he only attacked children," Dom whispered so only Raffaele could hear.

"That's what they told you, but maybe he's a vampire who doesn't discriminate," Raffaele replied in the same tone. "Besides, adults usually have more pride than their children. If one of them were attacked by something beyond their comprehension, they might be too embarrassed to admit it."

The pride card was a double-edged sword, because the children, in the present moment, seemed quite proud of showing off the terrible things they had witnessed and how, in their innate resilience, they had overcome them.

Anyway, Dom didn't say anything more and just kept listening.

"I realized right away, and since my grandmother was still asleep and hadn't heard of such an outrage, I confronted the monster!" The boy went on. "I told him to leave the stockings in place and leave, but he was insistent... even aggressive. He wouldn't leave until he got what he wanted."

"And what did you do? Did you fight him?"

Once again, Raffaele seemed fully immersed in the story.

"I fully intended to, yes. But the vampire begged me for mercy, telling me he would leave my grandmother's things alone and go, in exchange for the chestnut cake on the kitchen table. And since I'm a person who doesn't get intimidated, but also respects the enemy, I agreed to let him have it."

"How strange that a vampire would ask for such a trade, considering their difficulty feeding on human food," Dom commented.

The boy shrugged.

"Maybe he mistook the grape must he had on him for blood," he suggested. "It has a similar color, and maybe it was too dark to notice much."

"The vampire tried to kidnap me just on the day we were supposed to go to the market in the neighboring village!" a girl suddenly exclaimed. "I think he intended to lock me in a tower and not let me out until... I don't know when, but it would've been a long time!"

"That sounds terrifying," Raffaele said, growing more concerned with each new story. "So we can confirm that this creature lives in a place large enough to have a tower?"

"I don't know, I never saw him: I kicked him when I saw he was starting to take me toward the woods, and that's how I managed to escape. The vampire searched for me for a while, so I thought the best thing was to hide and not go back home until I was sure the danger had passed."

"It must have been complicated."

"It was! It was a very rainy morning, and the carriage we were supposed to take to the next town with all the merchandise broke down, so we had to go on foot... But with the vampire trying to catch me, my family had to leave without me while I hid in a haystack in our barn."

That sounded to Dom like a trick to avoid a tedious walk while carrying heavy things through a storm. He could have voiced his doubts, but there was no need. All of these anecdotes, when put together, should have made even someone as naive as Raffaele suspicious.

After all, despite the numerous schemes organized by the supposed vampire, none of these children were able to provide a reliable description of the creature in question.

In fact, it seemed there were only two types of people: Those who claimed to have no idea what the vampire looked like, blaming it on the weather conditions, and those who said they could describe it... which always led to arguments, because, as Raffaele and Dom found out, no two descriptions were the same.

Each child seemed to have their own version, and some even contradicted each other on something as basic as the date the incidents happened.

"Let's not despair, I know what we need to do," Raffaele said confidently, as if after all the nonsense, he had finally found a reasonable solution to their problems. "We need to find the first child who was attacked by the vampire. That's where it all started. Then we can start sorting through the testimonies... or just figure out what to do with them. The important thing is to get the beginning of the timeline clear."

And with this plan, which Dom actually thought made sense, Raffaele turned to the crowd to ask them exactly that same question: Who had been the first victim of the supernatural?

As soon as this question left his mouth, almost all the children raised their hands and began shouting over each other, claiming that it had been this one or that one, begging to be heard. It didn't make any sense anymore—if anything, it was clear they were making fun of them.

In the end, they couldn't make sense of anything, and after hastily saying goodbye to the crowd, they had to flee through the streets again, hoping not to be followed.

"Alright, maybe I was a bit too optimistic in blindly trusting what those kids could offer," Raffaele admitted, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead after their impromptu run. "But with the adults, it has to be different, right?"

The hope sounded weak, even to someone like Raffaele, who just moments before had been convinced that they would make some progress in their investigation.

Dom didn't know what to say. On one hand, he wanted to dismiss the adults in the story too, to save himself from more hours of incoherent ramblings that would only give him a headache. On the other hand, he didn't want to destroy the last hope Raffaele had of being useful to the new neighborhood.

Dom sympathized with Raffaele—not because he particularly liked him, he told himself, but because he was the first nobleman he had met who genuinely cared about the common folk. And that, in the end, deserved special treatment.

Just as Dom was about to decide how to respond to Raffaele's doubts, a middle-aged woman called out to them, interrupting any thought that had been forming in his mind.

"Are you the ones looking for the vampire?"

"Yes, why? Have you seen it?"

"No, nothing like that." The woman waved her hand as though dismissing it. Another one who didn't believe in these supernatural legends. "But since you're here, maybe you could do me a favor and find out what's going on with the disappearances that have been happening lately."

"Have any children been kidnapped?" Raffaele asked with surprising eagerness, then quickly corrected his tone. Perhaps thinking it wouldn't be good for his reputation to be seen as too enthusiastic about a crime happening nearby. "I mean, I hope this monster isn't planning to take anyone."

"The kids didn't tell us anything about any kidnappings," Dom whispered, just so Raffaele could hear.

And even though those kids had the credibility of a drunk serial killer with a persecution complex, Dom didn't think they would leave out such a detail. Even if only to embellish their story a bit more.

"Forget about the kids. Let the little brats have it! I wouldn't care if he took them all and made a puree out of them. They've been driving me crazy, always causing a ruckus at odd hours and playing where they've been told they can't go. The other day, they almost broke a window with their heads!" Raffaele seemed about to ask more about this, and to be honest, Dom was curious too. However, the woman had other plans.

"No, what I'm talking about is the cats."

"Cats?"

"Stray cats that used to roam all over the village, and that I, along with a few neighbors, used to feed," she explained. "For a little over a month, they started disappearing, showing up less and less in the village. And now, for the past few weeks... nothing! It's as if the earth swallowed them up."

"And how do you know it could be the vampire?" Dom asked. "The cats disappearing could have been caused by some wild animal."

"Are you silly, young man? When did I say it was a vampire?"

"Since you stopped us asking if we were the ones investigating this..."

"Exactly. Since you're going to be poking your noses into other people's business anyway, what's it to you to find this out for me?"

"S-Sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea," Raffaele said, visibly nervous, surprising Dom, who never expected to see the day when this guy would refuse to help someone in need. "We were recruited to figure out what's happening with the attacks on the children, and that's the priority. We shouldn't get distracted with other things, no matter how important they might be."

"Although, if we find anything regarding the cats, we'll let you know," Dom added, not missing the shiver that ran through Raffaele when he heard this.

"You'd better," the woman said before dismissing them. "I don't know who's responsible for what happened to the cats. But I don't care if it's a vampire, a human, or the devil himself; when I get my hands on him, they're going to have to arrest me for what I plan to do with him."

The violence was implied by how the woman waved the broom she had been using to sweep the entrance of her house, and Raffaele turned pale.

"You didn't have anything to do with the disappearances of the cats, did you?" Dom didn't waste any time asking this as soon as they were far enough away from the woman.

"Me? What absurdity!" Raffaele let out a nervous laugh. He definitely wasn't the best liar in the world. "Do I look like an animal kidnapper?"

"No, but you have a property big enough and far enough from the village to house as many animals as you want, without anyone seeing. And you have to admit, your behavior right now seems a bit suspicious."

"A-come on, it's not that bad. Let's focus on what we came here to do: the vampire! Let's stop its evil plans, and afterward, if you want, we'll look for the kitties."

And with that, Raffaele started walking a bit faster than he should have, urging Dom to follow him, definitely not wanting to talk about that uncomfortable topic any longer.