Carlo, the young boy whose identity had been revealed to them thanks to the unfortunate cooperation of Count Sforza, turned out to be a child of about twelve or thirteen years old. He kept his distance from the games of the younger children in the village and carried an air of self-sufficiency that was hard to penetrate.

Dom had seen him attend mass with his family, and interact with one or two others who were presumably his friends. But beyond that, Carlo didn't stand out. He didn't seem to be a noisy kid, and so, needless to say, he hadn't participated in the commotion when Raffaele and Dom had tried to question the crowds about any vampire sightings.

Carlo had stayed away from all of that. And maybe, more than trying to hide something, it was because he didn't move in the same circles as the more imaginative children.

"Are you the ones going around asking everyone if they've been attacked by a vampire?" Carlo asked, completely unimpressed, as soon as they introduced themselves.

"That's right," confirmed Raffaele, using the gentle tone he always tried to employ so that children would feel comfortable answering his questions. "We've been told that you were the first to suffer the misfortune of confronting that evil."

"And so it was, yes."

"And we were wondering if you would be kind enough to walk us through what happened, with as much detail as possible."

"Nothing would please me more," said Carlo, who until that moment had remained serious but now smiled: like most boys his age, he seemed to enjoy being the protagonist of his own story. "You see, it all happened about two and a half months ago, when I had just finished closing the chicken coop for the night and was heading back home."

According to Carlo, the said chicken coop was less than twenty meters from his house, and even so, someone managed to stalk him: the vampire.

This infernal creature, which the boy described with the usual vagueness of someone using darkness as an excuse to avoid providing identifiable details, started chasing him in a sickly race through the fields. Luckily, Carlo was faster and managed to lock himself inside his house before being caught.

The vampire, furious at not having captured him while he was outside, began banging on the windows of the house. Carlo tried to keep the shutters closed and the doors blocked, piling up some furniture to make it impossible to open them from the outside. But he hadn't counted on the vampire being clever enough to turn into mist and slip through a hole in the wall!

"And how did you get away then?" Raffaele asked, deeply engrossed in the story, and rightly so, for out of all the tales they had heard, this was one of the few where the supernatural predator had gotten close enough to actually harm someone. "Were your parents with you, perhaps?"

"No, no, they didn't hear a thing! The poor folks were already snoring away! Same with my siblings, it was just me, alone against danger," Carlo said, puffing out his chest. "Anyway, as I was saying, the vampire turned back into human form once inside my home. And at that moment, since I was in the kitchen, I grabbed a handful of garlic and threw it in his face!"

"Oh no..."

"That blinded him for a few seconds, enough time for me to run to the woodshed where we keep the firewood and grab a stake. The vampire, still confused, didn't react when I climbed onto his back and threw him to the ground," Carlo continued, proud of his feat. "Then, flipping him over with barely any resistance on his part — he was still rubbing his eyes furiously — I sat on his stomach and raised the stake high to land the final blow..."

"I think that's enough, don't you?" Dom interrupted. It wasn't that he didn't want to know how the story ended — far from it — but he had noticed Raffaele turning pale and shaky as the violence in the tale escalated.

Dom would have liked to hold his hand in support, but he couldn't. Not when they weren't alone yet.

"We get the general idea," he concluded.

"Are you sure? The best part was coming up," Carlo frowned; he clearly wasn't used to being interrupted right at the climax of his story. "It's when the vampire begged me for mercy, asking me to spare his life. And in the end, he left by turning into a bat, swearing he would never again attack me or my family."

"Well, you're alive, so we figured it must have ended well."

"Did we?" Raffaele looked at Dom, visibly unsettled, and for a moment, Dom feared he was about to faint. "I mean — of course we did! It was obvious, sure."

"Well, what's your verdict then?" Carlo asked, probably already labeling them as unwelcome spectators. "Did you like the story?"

"'Like' might not be the right word..."

"Was that the goal? For us to like it?" Dom ventured. "Because, let me tell you, you and your friends aren't going to attract many visitors with these kinds of tales."

At this mild reprimand, Carlo looked surprised.

"So you're not going to pay me?"

"What?"

"I'm not trying to scare outsiders — it's the townsfolk I'm supposed to scare with these vampire stories!" Without giving them a chance to react, he continued, "I thought you guys also wanted to hire me to make up another story, or even embellish the one I've already got. Why else would you be asking me about the monster?"

Dom needed a few seconds to compose himself. All these days... Had he been chasing a mystery that didn't even exist? No — he had suspected that ever since hearing the first absurd testimony. It was just that, until now, there had always been a reasonable doubt to keep investigating.

A doubt that allowed one, even without blaming everything on a supernatural creature, to at least fault a human or some force of nature. But now, no — it turned out it was all a farce from beginning to end.

Raffaele was still a bit pale but, at least, knowing there was no real threat was helping him regain some color.

"Have they been paying all of you to spread lies?" Dom asked, trying to keep his rising anger in check. How dare they try to scam a scammer? He was the one who should have the exclusive right to deceive these villagers, not the other way around!

"Of course not!" Carlo snapped, visibly indignant, as if Dom had just said the stupidest thing ever. "I'm the one getting paid to make things up, since I'm the only one with any business sense in this whole village. The others spread rumors for free, probably because they heard me talking about my 'heroic' battles against the vampire and didn't want to be left out."

"You little..."

"I followed the instructions I was given to the letter. Maybe I added a few little details here and there, but if you didn't like the story, that's not my fault! I don't accept complaints unless they come with a handful of gold coins!"

"As if we were going to pay you after all this! For your information, we've spent the last two days running all over the village because of your nonsense."

"Only two days? Amateurs. I've been perfecting the art of deception for months now. Come back when you've got more street smarts."

Carlo's audacity seemed to know no bounds, and Dom was about to teach him a lesson. Who did this little punk think he was? Dom had been surviving under his own rules for decades, long before this empowered half-pint was even born! And he was going to make sure he knew it, plain and simple.

Or, well, that was the idea — an idea that never got the chance to fully form, because Raffaele beat him to it:

"Who paid you to tell these stories?"

The question was asked calmly, avoiding any absurd arguments. Still, Carlo turned to Raffaele as if realizing he had just revealed something he shouldn't have.

"Shit..." he muttered. "I wasn't supposed to reveal that I was hired, under any circumstances. Nor was I supposed to say who paid me!"

"But you'll understand that, for this case—"

"I'm not paid to understand, either! Goodbye!"

And with that abrupt farewell, Carlo took off running before either of them could even think about chasing him.