The eldest figure, Cesare, took a deep breath, locked eyes with Danni and began to speak.
“My brothers and I, that is to say Erik and Victor, are travellers. We go across the fields and farther, the land and lanes in search of what the night may bring us. We meant no harm, only wished to enjoy what the skies of might show. We followed the stars to this town and found ourselves enchanted by the quiet and… by the calm of the farms close by. But… please understand that there were limits to what we could withstand without sustenance. So, we began to drink from the cows and horses in their stalls. We only took our fill, and we swear that there was no concern for infection that may spread, but we had neglected one other thing. As we had grown inebriated by our drinking, we failed to realise that the sun had begun to rise… we tried to flee from the space, lest we be found by the farmers or, worse, caught in the glare of the gathering light… but… we were running out of time.” Cesare had a strangely formal way of speaking that didn’t suit him. His voice was clear and each word was said as if he had been given lessons in diction. He didn’t look like he could have been older than 40, that was being generous, but there was no knowing how old he might have been in truth.
That was Danni’s thinking though.
She withdrew her hands and crossed her arms, looking as if she were digesting what Cesare had told her. Loathe as she may be to admit it, there was logic to what he said. Of course, that all relied on her believing that they were actually vampires. That was where their story fell apart. If they had no way of proving this, that this wasn’t just a fantasy they were too invested in, then she would slam the door on them and see for herself what would happen as the sun rose. Even if that meant waiting here all night.
It wouldn’t be the first time she had watched the sun rise.
“Prove it.” She demanded as Cesare prepared to speak again. “Prove that you are what you say.”
“Was the garlic not enough, you crazy—!” The leather clad vampire snapped but Cesare held up a hand and his mouth snapped shut.
“Victor! Be quiet. She does not know so her suspicions are valid.” He ordered, his eyes never leaving Danni’s face. Straightening his posture, though when he already towered over her with his ramrod straight back, Danni failed to see the point, Cesare removed a small circular mirror from his pocket. “Admittedly, this may not be enough to convince you, but I pray you will extend clemency.” He flicked open the mirror and held up his hand before it. The reflective surface remained unchanged, reflecting onto the doorway. As if to banish any of her lingering doubts, Cesare held the mirror up to the side of his face. Once again, nothing was reflected.
Danni’s mind immediately sprang to conjuring thoughts of trick mirrors, or ways to fake this but her resolve was fading. People could be allergic to garlic, they could have a lust for blood, they could do a million more things… but that mirror was real as anything. This was real. All of this was real… so painfully real.
“Please… Keep going…” Danni shrank into herself as Cesare replaced the mirror back in his pocket.
“We were running without thought as to where we might go and… I admit, we were desperate. We were worried that we might be burned by the rising sun when we came across this place, this wonderful place that proved to be our sanctuary. At first, we thought that we would be forced to run onwards but Erik noticed that the window was open. Even now, we realise that it was a stretch, but we took this to be an invitation to enter. I swear, we only wished to hide until the night came again but… that was when you came down. We wanted to explain… but… Uhm… we… what happened, happened. I confess, watching you throw your hairbrush at my brother here was funny, but when you fled, we had to act quickly.” He explained, ignoring the vicious glare that his brother, Victor, was levelling at the back of his head.
“After that, we hid ourselves in the spare room… and I believe that Erik has something to say to you.” He looked over his shoulder. The smallest of the three was looking at them with watery eyes and, with an almighty sniff, he spoke.
“I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!” He insisted in a loud, rather high-pitched voice. Was that because he had been crying so hard until now?
The thought that she was the reason for his tears made Danni’s chest squeeze around her heart for a whole new reason.
Cesare looked mollified at the words and began to speak again. “After you fainted and were taken away by those two men you brought with you, we took the chance to retrieve our coffins from where we had been forced to stash them and brought them here… I swear, we only wished to stay the night, after we had explained ourselves but… it seems we have been left without much of a choice. Our plans were to wait for you to wake and hope we could catch you in the evening, as the sun was going down but you were out for so very long…”
“We were just so tired! Please don’t throw us out! We wanted to explain, but it all turned into a mess!” Erik begged, ignoring how Victor attempted to quieten him.
Danni’s heart ached, going out to them in a way that she had never experienced before. They… They had really meant no harm. After all, they had every chance to attack her when they had first arrived, but never acted upon it…
“Look… I… I have to say…” She was scrambling for things to say. But her brain felt so much heavier after all of this, she was lost for words. “Look, you say that this place was the closest you could find, but you have to admit that it wasn’t. I know that there are places further up the way that have to be shadier or at least bigger. Places that would be far better at hiding you from the sun.” She expressed, pressing her face into her hands, trying to banish the deep-seated feeling of guilt.
“It was the first place that we could find with an open window we could use as an invitation.” Cesare explained, only for Danni to shake her head.
“I maintain that wasn’t an invitation, but… Look, I’m going to need a better reason to keep you around. Just saying ‘you invited us in’ doesn’t work when we all know that I didn’t. That window was only open because I was too damn tired.” She expressed. “You’re going to have to give me a better reason to keep you around.”
“I can teach you magic.” That stopped Danni dead in her tracks. Cesare, eyes twinkling with hope, held his hands up, watching her face.
“You… what magic? You’re going to teach me to pull a rabbit from a hat?” She asked doubtfully, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. Partially, it was to keep herself warm in the encroaching cold of the growing darkness.
“If you’ll allow me? Let me show you.” Cesare coughed into his throat and extended his hand out towards the living room. “Esolc!”
The sound of fabric coming undone caught Danni’s ear. With great reluctance, she peeked around the corner, taking her eyes off the vampires for the first time, and, to her astonishment, the curtains she had kept secured up all this time had come free of their ties and were hanging loose!
“What did you do?” She demanded to know.
In answer, Cesare said “Nepo!” As if guided by invisible hands, they placed themselves back into position, the ties appearing to spring to alive as they wrapped themselves firmly around the curtains once more.
“Magic… I don’t believe it… Tell me, how did you do that?” Danni asked again, head darting from the living room to Cesare’s extended hand in rapid succession.
“It’s because of this house. Haven’t you realised that there is something odd about it?” Victor asked, wiping Erik’s face with the cuff of his sleeve and turning his annoyed face towards Danni. One that she returned with a baleful glare of her own. She was never one to back down.
“There’s nothing… About this house.” That was a filthy lie. She knew that to be an irrefutable truth.
“Have you seen the messages on the board?” Cesare pointed towards the fridge.
Danni’s head jerked back to look in that direction and true to form, there were fresh words on the board.
‘Greetings to our new visitors!’
Okay… what?
“Did you write that?” Danni asked, pointing a shaking finger towards the board.
“No! The house did! It’s been trying to communicate with you for days now!” Cesare explained, clearly seeing where this conversation was headed.
“How… WHAT? How do you know?” Danni demanded once more.
“The house told us.” Victor cut in, speaking as if what he was saying was the most natural, most obvious thing in the world.
That was where Danni drew the line. All this… magic and the house… the board… all of it was just too much for her!
Then why did it make sense? She had been wondering who had been leaving these messages when… it had been the house. She had seen magic be done with her own eyes! There were no wires or tricks with the curtains so…
Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, Danni stepped back until she was standing in the breakfast nook and she sank down into the seat, everything appearing to hit her all at once.
“This… I… This… I…” She had no other words. Her head was spinning with the reality of it all. What was worse, if she tried to tell anyone, she would surely be carted off to the nearest hospital or worse, the loony bin. That was assuming there were any still functioning in this part of the country. That was a fact she was less than keen to discover.
“If you would allow us to stay, I can teach you more. More about magic, about this house. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Cesare’s voice had taken on a more placating tone, as if he were bargaining with a child.
Danni wanted to snap back that she wasn’t going to let herself be talked to like this, but she was just too tired. This day felt as if it had lasted a week and all the fight had drained out of her, like there was a plug pulled from the soles of her feet.
“I… I want some conditions in place.” She insisted after a few moments of stillness had let her gather her wits about her.
There was some shuffling and whispers from the door, bringing Danni’s head up to look at the three vampires gathered in the doorway. When she had mentally switched to calling them such, she had no idea, but she was too tired to focus on that.
“What did you have in mind?” Cesare asked, perhaps a little cautiously. Though she was far from being in the best shape to fight them off, it said something that they appeared to be on the permanent back foot.
“I want you to promise me that, no matter what, you will not hurt anyone in town! So, help me God, if I find that you have so much as glanced at anyone’s throat, I’m throwing you out.” Each word seemed to fill Danni with strength until she was on her feet again.
“Well, we’ve been living off cows for now so—.” Victor’s casual tone did nothing to ease Danni’s frayed mind.
“Victor, shush!” Cesare snapped at him, receiving an impatient huff in exchange. “We swear. But we will need to consume something for sustenance. Will you be amenable to getting us this? We can consider it a trade for teaching you more magic?”
“Fine… But where, exactly, do you suggest I get any of this?”
“Oh! Oh! Farmers butcher their animals all the time and sometimes they collect the blood! You can ask them for it.”
“That is… so disgusting. But fine. I’ll see what I can rustle up and… if not… there’s got to be something I can substitute it for. But I’m not going to think about that now, I’m far too tired…” Danni insisted, hoping that the pain in her head was just the length of the day and not a sign that these three were doing some kind of vampire mind control weirdness on her. Gathering the last of her strength, she looked at each of them in turn. “But so help me God, I will drop you outside on your pale asses if I find anything weird going on.” She warned in what she hoped was a convincing tone.
“We swear, you will not hear a word about us. We promise! You won’t see hide nor hair of us.” Cesare insisted.
“I promise!” Erik was just as eager to repeat his brother’s words, but Victor needed a hard look to get him to speak.
“Fine. I promise.” He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his jackets. “Can we agree that this is over with? Someone needs to scrub off this crap, and we need to do something about that salt you threw at us.”
“Victor, that sounds like it’ll be your job. Now Miss, you must be tired. Perhaps it is time for you to go to bed?” Now that definitely sounded like he was weaving a spell over her. Still, it was a very good idea.
“Oh! Before you go!” Piped up Erik, digging in each of his pockets until he found what he was searching for and held it out for Danni.
Confused, Danni held out both hands to accept whatever it was and something round and rough feeling was deposited into her palms. When he pulled back, she discovered it to be a small, orangey-brown ball or maybe it was a stone?
“What’s… what’s this?” She asked, looking up at Erik who was positively vibrating with joy.
“It’s an Ox Bezoar! They use it a lot in medicine! I wanted to give it to you last night as thanks for letting us stay but uh… you fainted. I’m really sorry again!” He squeaked. With how he spoke, Danni had no way of knowing how old he was but looking at his fresh face, she had to surmise that he was maybe… 20, maybe? Couldn’t have been older than that.
“Uhm… thank you. But… I’m going to head to bed… I’m… I’m going to pretend that today didn’t happen…” She admitted the last part under her breath. Getting onto her feet, she stumbled more than walked up to her room, falling face first onto her bed’s waiting arms. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered a great many things.
She was still wearing Joey’s clothes, sans underwear. Her hair was still up, with roses tucked into it, her pockets still held garlic and salt, there were three vampires in her house…
This was the last thing she could think of before sleep knocked her out completely.