Over the following hours, as more adults were included in their rather peculiar line of questioning, what had long been expected became increasingly clear: no one believed in the supposed vampire. In fact, many shared Dom's opinion, doubting that the children had ever encountered any kind of monster at all.

The only ones who seemed to take the legends seriously were—unsurprisingly—the children, the drunkards (since, once again, it had been proven that within the village tavern, anything was possible), and Count Sforza.

None of the other villagers seemed to pay the matter much attention. And even when they heard about the reward, most of them reacted with skepticism and hearty laughter, as if they'd just been told the best joke in the world.

"Do you really think His Lordship is going to pay for this?" they had asked Dom more than once. "With how stingy he is, the real surprise is that he didn't hide his coin purse the second he saw you come through the door. Why do you think no one else is out hunting this vampire?"

And honestly, they had a point.

While a reward of fifty escudos wasn't exactly a fortune—at least not one that would lure bounty hunters from across the peninsula or beyond—one would still expect the locals to show a bit more involvement.

Well, one would expect that if said locals believed in supernatural beings or had even the slightest trust that Sforza would actually follow through with his word. But so far, aside from the four drunkards who'd asked about the investigation more out of nosiness than any real fear of the unknown, no one seemed interested in how the whole thing would end.

When their inquiries were finally done, Dom and Raffaele returned to the castle. Tired, and with significantly less hope that things might turn out well, they shared dinner in each other's company before retreating to their respective rooms for the night.

Nothing had been decided yet, but Dom assumed that the next day would be spent talking to more people until... well, perhaps until Raffaele lost his patience and his faith in humanity altogether. Once upon a time, Dom might've waited for that exact moment to propose an alternate plan—one that would allow them to claim the reward no matter what. But now, knowing that there was no guarantee Sforza would pay anything at all, even that plan felt shaky.

Still very much awake by midnight, Dom couldn't help but resign himself to the gloomy facts: he would likely spend a week here, two at most. He would enjoy all the comforts Raffaele offered him, and once that time was up, he'd thank him for his hospitality and set off toward an uncertain destination.

The thought put him in a foul mood.

One could say it was a necessary evil, something to endure with grace. After all, this wouldn't be the first—or the twenty-fourth—time he'd had to move on, whether because he wasn't welcome somewhere, or because, as in this case, he simply felt there was nothing left to gain. Still, that didn't make the impending departure hurt any less than usual.

Of course, this had nothing to do with Raffaele's ever-kind smile, nor with the way he seemed eager to accommodate Dom without asking for anything in return. And certainly, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with all the subtle gestures Dom had noticed—the way Raffaele adapted meals to suit his tastes, or took the lead when dealing with villagers Dom didn't feel comfortable speaking to.

Dom was reluctant to leave solely because of the luxury he'd been afforded over the last forty-eight hours.

Luxuries that, even if he were to return to his old habits and start stealing again out of desperation, he'd likely never experience again.

Maybe... maybe he could ask Raffaele if it would be alright for him to stay there on a more permanent basis?

The idea came suddenly, like a ridiculous impulse to hold onto something that could never be. Because really, it wasn't like Dom planned to stay for free: maybe he could convince Raffaele to let him work on the garden. Or maybe he'd be more useful in the kitchen, to show him once and for all what he'd been missing in terms of culinary delight... Not that Dom was an expert in either of those things, but the place was in such disarray that even the smallest help would be a blessing.

Raffaele would accept without hesitation. He might even try to convince Dom that he didn't need to do anything at all, that he could live in the castle indefinitely with no responsibilities—just like he had done with Ciro.

That was the kind of man Raffaele was: generous to a fault. And for the first time in years, Dom found that he had no desire to take advantage of that generosity.

Having given up on sleep, Dom rose from his bed and made his way toward the service area.

Maybe he just needed to stretch his legs, maybe get a glass of water, before trying again to surrender to sleep. If it weren't still so chilly at night, he might've even taken a walk through the cloister, odd as that sounded.

But when he reached the kitchen, he hesitated before filling his glass. His eyes wandered across the many shelves that lined the room and soon fell upon the same bottle of wine Raffaele had served during dinner. And honestly, who in their right mind would settle for water at this hour when there was wine like that available?

Dom, who hadn't had access to wine of such quality since his days with the monks—when he and his student friends would sneak into the cellar to pilfer a bottle or two—didn't hesitate to pour himself a generous glass.

He felt no guilt. He'd already noticed that Raffaele had plenty of bottles with the same label. The one they'd used earlier had already been opened, and he doubted his host would miss one more glass.

"It's a very special wine," Raffaele had said. "From Bordeaux. Over a hundred years old. I harvested it myself."

Dom, who knew just enough about rich-people drinks to get by, didn't find that statement strange enough to press further. Wines from that region of France were quite well-known, and surely there were madmen who hoarded bottles for decades without ever opening them. That must have been what Raffaele meant by harvested, Dom figured—these aristocrats often had a peculiar way of seeing things.

He, just as he had back then, simply enjoyed the wine without giving it too much thought.

Although... this time, there was something else that caught his attention. Perhaps because of how close it was, Dom couldn't help but glance once more at the stairs that led directly into the castle's mysterious basement.

What if he went down for a look? Raffaele wasn't a monster, and as for Ciro, it was pretty clear that no trace of a corpse was going to be found down there. Ergo, no matter how dark that place was, there couldn't possibly be any real threat—not despite what certain someone insisted about it being a sinister place best left alone.

Dom wasn't afraid anymore. So, once he'd emptied his glass, he picked up the lantern he'd been using to navigate the castle and made his way down the steep staircase leading to the underground.

Which, as it turned out, was closer than he'd imagined. Dom let out a relieved sigh as he reached the final step without suffering a single misstep, and as he looked around, he felt even calmer realizing that the macabre legends Raffaele had once mentioned didn't seem to have any place down here.

Yes, it was true that the space below was full of narrow passageways and what looked like cells, complete with their rusted iron bars corroded by time—but there wasn't a single scrap of human flesh hanging anywhere. And that, while it still didn't inspire him to curl up and take a nap down there, only stirred in him a mild kind of fear.

In any case, there was no reason for anything to happen.

The place felt like a sewer—though there was no visible stream nearby, he could hear running water in the distance. Dom could feel the moisture on the floors and walls as he advanced with no clear direction, weaving through the many corridors.

He wasn't going to get lost. He'd made the conscious decision to move in as straight a line as possible, taking as few turns as he could. This time—unlike what had happened with the wardrobe—he was convinced that there would be no Raffaele swooping in to rescue him if things went wrong... and frankly, he didn't want him to. Dom believed he could handle this on his own. And knowing just how terrified Raffaele was of the underground, he wouldn't dream of forcing him to come down here.

So, Dom paid close attention to avoid getting turned around. He kept to what appeared to be the main corridor, not stepping into any cells or side passages.

His primary goal was to see how far this tunnel led. If the exploration proved worthwhile, he could always return another day—during daylight hours, preferably—for a more thorough investigation.

Along the way, he noticed that someone had carved markings into a few of the walls, likely indicating which tunnels led to which exit. Dom assumed that's what the arrows meant, given the history of such fortresses.

Perhaps, if he'd been paying closer attention to the cells he passed rather than the path ahead, Dom might have noticed the skeleton chained to one of the walls. Maybe, had he glanced that way, he'd have realized that it wasn't the only corpse to be found.

Because in the neighboring cells, more bodies were still shackled in the positions they had died.

A little further down, had Dom deigned to look, he might have even come across an entire room stacked high with coffins—as though waiting to be used.

Knowing all this, maybe it was better that Dom hadn't noticed the macabre treasures hidden within the castle. Still, even as distracted as he was on this nocturnal walk, he couldn't ignore all the signs that something wasn't quite right.

What stopped Dom wasn't a glimpse of mummified remains out of the corner of his eye. He didn't notice the newest coffin, propped against a wall, which looked like it had been recently cleaned. No—what made him stop was a strange sound.

At first, he thought he'd imagined it. The rushing water was growing louder as he approached it, after all. But as he sharpened his hearing, trying to distinguish it better, he realized there was something out there, hidden in the dark—too far ahead for his lantern to catch.

Had it been a growl? It had sounded like one.

Dom only managed to take three more tentative steps before he heard it again, this time unmistakably: the deep, guttural roar of a monster, so powerful it might well have made the very walls of the catacombs tremble.

Recognizing the threat—barely having time to remember he still carried a weapon tucked into his boot, one he definitely knew how to use—Dom made a decision. The only decision a former soldier of his caliber could have made in that moment.

Which was: to run back the way he'd come before the monster—whatever it was—devoured him whole.