Chapter 4
Vampires Are Living Creatures

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"Look at me." He cupped my hair, his hand gentle. Telling me, begging me, not to turn away yet. His other hand gently held onto my wrist, that was keeping me close to him.

"I'm not like the others." No monster out of fiction, I thought could stir my heart the way his voice did.

"...I'm just like you."

I stared into his eyes like I was in a trance, his voice so gentle and soothing did a magic to my ears and I nodded my head slowly. His hand slipped from my hair and his other hand also left my wrist but he still stood in my proximity.

But no wonder I wanted to trust him, but still I felt scared of everything... Of him. The trance that he had me in broke and I took several steps back.

"...So stop that." His deep voice once again reached my ears.

"Stop what exactly?" I asked perplexed as I tightly held onto the bag in my hands.

"Stop looking at me like you think I'm going to bite you. I wouldn't bite you even if I were a vampire."

"Can I still trust you?" My shaky voice came from somewhere as I held my breath.

"I'm telling the truth. But only you can decide whether you trust me or not. I don't see you in a romantic way." His words had me confused making me furrow my eyebrows.

That's all well and good but besides the point! Why are we even talking about romance?! This is my safety!
... But it would seem that I'm safe for now. Jackson is human, like me?

"Why did-?"

Jackson was gone. He was right there a second ago. I couldn't have lost sight of him in that short a time. It was like he just vanished.

In the dimness, I heard his voice, already distant.

"You're not going to stay there all night, are you?"

He's halfway back to the mansion! Is he human?! Because he moves really fast.

"Someone else might find you if you linger too long on your own."

"I was about to go inside!" I called from behind him as he continued to walk.

Inside were vampires but there were also humans. I ran after Jackson. I stuck with him until I got to my room. I shut and locked the door. Certain, this time.

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I stood in front of the mirror as I stared at my reflection, I had worn one of the dresses Hans has got me. I was wearing an old style white dress and a yellow on top, along with brown boots. The type of dress I only saw as a costume to be worn on Halloween but now I was wearing this dress to fit in, oh the Irony.

Quickly pulling my hair up in a ponytail, I got ready to leave the room for the answers I very desperately needed.

...First thing in the morning, I went to see Count Hans Isles. He wouldn't evade my questions again.

Or so I thought.

He insisted on breakfast. We sat in the garden at a table laden with sandwiches, cheese, and a plate of petite madeleines.

"Sir Hans, your tea." Sebastian handed a cup over to Hans who leisurely sat on the chair across from me while Sebastian stood by the table serving us both.

"Thank you, Sebastian." It was black tea with an infusion of strawberries, judging by the aroma.

"...what's this?" I asked staring at the meal reminding me of home and filling me with nostalgia.

"Fruit sandwiches with whipped cream, A dish from Mademoiselle's home country. I thought Mademoiselle would appreciate that." Sebastian spoke monotonously as if he had rehearsed beforehand.

"Yes, I recognized them, thank you! But I'm not talking about the sandwiches." I was here, sitting with him just for the answers that I deserved.

"Elsa, I haven't forgotten our agreement." Hans smiled, his eyes fastening on mine.

"You must have many questions about this mansion and the other residents here. And there are other things I must explain to you." He stated stirring a spoon in his tea, his leg crossed over the other and back leaned back on the chair.

"I'm looking forward to hearing this explanation, finally!" I seemed too excited but on the other hand I was much impatient. I left the hold I had on the cutlery and cleaned my mouth using the napkin.

"You shall. Though it is only for a month, you too are one of our treasured residents. That is why I asked Sebastian to prepare us breakfast in the garden."

"It is as Sir Hans says." Sebastian agreed with Hans standing by his chair.

"I find this scenery brightens the atmosphere, don't you agree, Elsa?" Hans was an experienced host. Before I knew it, I found myself relaxing.

"Yes, and thank you for the invitation. And for making me feel at home. Both of you." In everything that was going on, I had forgot to show my courtesy and thank them for taking me under their wing for the time being.

"It was our pleasure." He smiled gently and sat straight as he put the cup on the round table between us, "Now we have a lot to cover, so I hope you'll forgive me if I explain everything over tea."

...Breakfast with Hans. This was where I would get my answers.

"What would you like to ask first, Elsa?"

I have so many questions. But I know which of them is the most important.

"Is it true that your residents are all vampires?" I finally asked the question which had kept me awake and on guard since last night.

"Didn't Sebastian say as much to you?" Hans asked sparing a glance towards Sebastian.

"Yes, Sir Hans, I did. However, Mademoiselle thought I was... Joking." His arms were folded behind his back and his expression remained stoic as it was since I met him.

"And you didn't deny it!" I retorted quickly in my defense.

"‘You were so serious I almost believed you’ Those were your words. And I said, ‘But you see,’ Do you recall that conversation?" Sebastian almost robotically repeated the conversation just as and I sealed my lips finding him in the right.

"...Yes, I do."

"Then you mentioned the time and promptly returned to your room. Forgive me, but you really didn't give me the chance to tell you more."

No, he was right. I didn't.

Ugh, and he's being polite about it too.

Hans smiled.

"You didn't believe Sebastian at first? I see. What happened to change your mind?" He looked at me with something close to skepticism as he sipped on his tea.

"I ran into Flynn after you went inside yesterday. We got to talking and- "

"Came from that pretty skirt I fed off of just now, I suspect. Nothing stains like blood. A real bother to get out, too." I repeated last night's events.

"...Flynn. I should have anticipated that." Hans nodded his head with a deep sigh it was like he had expected as much.

"Should I speak to Sir Flynn about his juvenile games again, Sir Hans?" Sebastian suggested, his use of word for Flynn's actions had me raise my eyebrows in offense.

"Juvenile? You call him drinking blood and threatening to bite me juvenile?"

"Let us put Flynn's behavior aside for now. I'm curious why that alone was enough to convince you, Elsa?" Hans had one of his thick brows raised as he questioned me.

"Why is that curious?"

"You seemed so skeptical about traveling through time and of the residents here." Hans gestured for Sebastian to pour a cup of tea for me and handed it to me.

Two days ago, I would've been more skeptical about the blood too. But there comes a time when rationality is stretched too thin. Past that point, the fantastic must be true.

"I don't doubt what I see with my own eyes. I've experienced a number of enexplicable things since opening that door. But I had only your word as to what those experiences were really about. At this point, I'm ready to listen."

No more skepticism, I decided. Whatever Hans told me now, I would accept. Clearly, the world was vaster than my job had lead me to believe! Time-travel! What could possibly come next?

"I'm glad. That makes it easier to explain." Right now I was at the point where I could even believe if he told me Santa was real.

I sipped my cup of tea right away, hoping to avoid spitting it out in disbelief later.

"Let us start from the beginning... How do you suppose I gathered some of the greatest figures in history here?" 

"Time travel, right? I imagine they came through the same door that I did?"

Hans shook his head.

"You're the only one to arrive here by walking through that door." His reply had me confused.

"If they didn't use that door, how did they get here from separate times?"

"They woke up here. That was my doing. Everyone I brought here agreed to a certain condition of mine."

Is this some kind of a riddle?

"I don't understand. What conditions?" I placed my cup on the table and shifted on my seat in anticipation and hungry for answers.

"Yes, I suppose I need to explain that. Those I brought to this mansion were still human until the moment of their arrival. When they woke up here, they were vampires. I offered them a taste of eternity. And they accepted, one by one." Hans spoke as if he were talking about the weather. I was glad I had stopped sipping on my tea or else I would have spat it on his face.

"You said they woke up-?"

"...From death. They all died with regrets, you see, or left something unfinished."

"Sebastian, do you remember what those regrets were?"

Hans passed the conversation over to his butler as if they were talking about something other than the regrets of dying men.

"Yes, Sir Hans." Sebastian now put his attention on me once again, and started repeating everything like a wind up doll.

"Sir Tadashi said he wished he'd had a place of solitude, so that he could think. Master Eric wished he could have painted more pictures. Master  Aladdin said... What was it? ‘After all that, dying didn't turn out to be as fun as I thought it would be’ I believe."

"Yes, that's exactly it. He does say the funniest things, doesn't he, Sebastian?" Hans chuckled with mirth, refilling his cup with more tea.

Hold on. Hold on JUST one minute.

"They're all dead?" I think I was preparing myself for more shock and getting ready to pass out again and have one more bump added to the collection on my head.

"Yes,"

"That is correct." Sebastian agreed with his Sir Hans.

"Dead, as in they've all died already? Just like they did in history?"

I guess I should've assumed that, given that they're all vampires. And yet, somehow it's worse to have it spelled out!

Is that what Hans meant when he said I was the only one to 'walk' through the door? I didn't want to follow that grim train of thought to it's logical conclusion.

"They died once, but it is correct to say they are alive again in this time period. Yet they are neither zombies nor ghosts... Vampires are living creatures, you see." His deep voice had hints of mystery in them and the smile that remained on his thin lips told secrets of the unknown.

"That is correct. The historical greats residing here are living, breathing vampires. Do you understand?" Sebastian pieced together for me.

"...I'm following so far." I nodded slowly biting onto my lip, it was actually making sense but still a headache seemed to be rising from the back of my head.

This new 'believe everything I'm told' strategy of mine is great for cutting down on wasted mental energy. Or maybe that's the tea? It's very soothing. I should ask Sebastian for another cup.

"I'm so pleased to hear it." Hans nodded his head appreciatively, surprised by the fact that I was indeed taking it all much better than they had expected and also that I hadn't passed out like before.

"Onto my next question; are the two of you vampires as well?" Another realization slipped into my mind and my hands fisted on the skirt in my lap in nervousness.

"I'm as human as you are. And I'm from China. Be my best guess, we come from the same time period." Sebastian handed me another piece of information making me smile at him for the fact that there was at least a correct conclusion I came upon by myself.

"I knew you were Chinese. Your accent gave it away, also that Chinese dish from last night."

"Did you like it?" I nodded, thinking of asking for the recipe later on.

"Sebastian is the only human other than yourself residing here. We connected while abroad and I invited him to stay." Hans looked like he was proud for the decision he had made.

"I consider it a great honor to have been scouted by Sir Hans. Abandoning my previous life was an easy decision... Rest assured, I've never once died, and you won't find me in any history book." Sebastian had looked at my face and caught onto my thoughts quickly answering for them.

"Ah, yes. I was the one who gave him the name Sebastian. His real name is Ah Xuan." Hans added.

...what an incredibly normal name. He even has the most common last name in China. In this mansion, it's no wonder he's happy to be called Sebastian.

Wait, I'm getting distracted!

"And what are you, Hans?"

He can travel through time, know a person's dying wish, and bring them back to life as a vampire. What IS he?

"Me?" He pointed at himself and I nodded in return,"Let us leave that a secret for now." Once again he gave the same mystery ring to his voice.

"You're leaving that a secret?"

"Precisely." One flash of those emerald green eyes and I found myself unable to press him furthur.

Hold on. He said Sebastian is the only one other human here. But that's not right, is it?

"Look at me. I'm not like the others... I'm just like you." The events from last night came rushing back into my head when he invaded through my proximity and uttered those words to me.

I thought Jackson was telling he was human. Was I wrong?

"There's something else you wish to ask?" Noticing my curious and frustrated expression Hans asked me.

"What can you tell me about Jackson?"

"Yes, we should talk about him." He cleared his throat and gave me his full attention, staring into my eyes with his deep green ones, "He's... An exception."

"An exception to what, exactly?" I hadn't even known that I was holding my breath when I uttered that sentence.

"I did not offer him any contract; I have no memory of inviting him here at all." He himself seemed confused by the thought, it looked as if he did not have answers towards Jackson's existence in the mansion as well.

"But Jackson shouldn't be alive in this time period, right? How did he get here?" I asked sounding even more curious to how he was here.

"He simply arrived one day, out of the blue."

"That doesn't sound likely. A person from history stumbles uninvited upon a mansion of vampires who were equally important?" I questioned, his reply left me even more confused and skeptical.

"No, in fact it shouldn't be possible that he's here at all. It surprised the rest of us." Hans crossed the fingers of his both hands and placed them under his chin as his elbows rested on the table, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes still confused for the answers he had yet to seek.

"Most curious is that Monsieur Jackson confessed to us he heard no voices and had no regrets before his death. He doesn't know how he ended up here... He does not know why he is alive again." Even Sebastian was confused in Jackson's case.

"That's strange. What does it mean?"

"I'm not certain. I've never heard of a human becoming a vampire without being turned... Perhaps he came back because the world was not ready for him to die? That could also explain why he came back incomplete." Hans rubbed on his chin and came to an assumption that seemed the most plausible one. But it only left me more confused... Incomplete?

"He's incomplete? As a vampire, you mean?" My heart had seemed to stop for a moment and I swallowed on my saliva feeling my throat going parched.

"Yes, Jackson appears to be physically trapped between vampire and human... You could call him a demi- Vampire." Hans pointed towards another mystery that was of Jackson Overland Frost.

"Part human, part vampire?"

That's why he said he was like me. He must see himself as more human than vampire...

"... That's enough." My train of thoughts was interrupted by the very familiar voice from behind me. I turned, hearing that french but not quite french accent.

"Monsieur Frost!" I hardly stopped myself from standing from my seat as he made his presence known and sat on the chair beside mine.

The fact that I was sitting alongside a historical figure that too turned half vampire was still a hard pill to swallow.

"Who said you could talk about me behind my back?" Jackson supported a sour look on his face as his eyes fixated on Hans who remained unfazed as he gestured for Sebastian to present Jackson with tea as well.

"Pardon. However, she was going to learn eventually. You could say I saved you the trouble... Unless you were attempting to hide the information from her for some reason?" Hans smiled once again putting his hands under his chin, lazily looking into Jackson who narrowed his eyes even more at him.

"Stop insinuating when you know I wasn't." Jackson sighed as he turned away from Hans; he looked at me now.

"You're not alone today." He almost caught me off guard with his question but I recovered quickly.

"Not after last night, no."

"You're learning, good." He passed a smirk with his sentence looking at my dress and then focusing onto the tea placed in front of him.

Something about that cocky smile irked me. Hans's smile was more genuine.

"Jackson, I have a proposal." Hans cleared his throat returning to the matter at hand.

"...I'm not going to like this." Jackson muttered with the regret of coming here.

"I'd like you to be Elsa's guardian until the hourglass is empty." This statement of Hans even left me startled but I knew where he was coming from.

"You're assigning me a guard?" His blue eyes travelled on all of us and then back at Hans, "Why me?"

"Because Sebastian is busy and after him, you're the most human here. And besides, soldiers protect people, do they not?"

"You know exactly what my 'career' was." Jackson did not seem to be liking what Hans was suggesting, his eyes shifted towards me in all seriousness, "As long as you keep your guard up around a certain few, this place is not dangerous."

"A few? So there are more like Flynn?" My eyes widened, just how many shocks more was I going to recieve?

"One of our residents has a condition which gives him an atypical feeding schedule. However, all of them have strong principles against feeding off the unwilling." Sebastian explained like it was all normal and I had nothing to be  worried about.

"I wouldn't allow it any other way. But be warned, bloodlust is triggered by attraction." Hans's smile dropped and turned serious as he gave me a possible warning.

"Attraction?"

"Romantic attraction. When a vampire is near someone they're strikingly attracted to, they'll bite them and drink their blood." Sebastian's statement brought back the exchange I had with Jackson and pointed right to my nightmare, tinging my ears red.

Wonderful. That brought my nightmare right back to me.

"Jackson, you can see for yourself what beautiful woman Elsa is. I'm quite worried for her." At Hans's flattering words, Jackson's attention came on me as he stayed quiet and gave his shoulders a shrug which left me staring right back at him in offense.

"You might see this as an opportunity."

"How so?" He looked quite fazed by Hans's interpretation and looked into his eyes with his eyebrows furrowed.

"You and Elsa are strangers, lost in a world that isn't yours, without knowing why. Perhaps you're meant to be companions, so you can solve this riddle together?"

"You've got an eloquent way of giving me a chore." Jackson's choice of words left me shocked and irritated, I looked at him with a glare.

"I'm not a chore!" I retorted, he looked at me like I was the one who offended him.

"Ferme-la!" Saying that he looked back at Hans, my face had probably gone red in both anger and embarrassment.

'Shut up?' Shut yourself up! Ugh!

"I'm quite serious. There have been reports of disturbing incidents in Paris lately." That seemed to get through Jackson. I had no idea why. Nor did I care right now. This whole conversation left me feeling unenthused at the prospect of him accepting. But with a drawn out sigh, he did.

"...Alright, I'll protect her until the sand runs through the hourglass."

"Thank you, Jackson. I knew I could count on you."

"There you have it." He looked at me insinuating what I didn't know.

"And what do I have, exactly?" My newly appointed guardian didn't answer. He just turned and left.

Let him go! I scolded myself for even caring of his attitude towards me.

...No, this isn't how we should start things. The least I can do is thank him for accepting.

"I need to catch up to Jackson, there's something I forgot to say. I'll be right back, Hans!" I stood up and ran into the direction where Jackson had disappeared to.

"Oh-?"

Jackson was fast, but his navy blue long jacket stood in stark contrast to the green garden verge. It was the same part of the garden where he held me and told me that he was just like me.

"Wait, Monsieur Frost!" He waited while I caught my breath.

A jog like that shouldn't have winded me. I'd really had to chase him down.

"There's something I wanted to tell you." My chest heaved up and down as I breathed heavily.

"What is it?"

"First, I needed to say thank you. Second, I'll do my best not to be a chore for you... I'd like for us to get along." My bow was automatic. But I realized it wouldn't mean much to him. Was a handshake correct? I thrust out my hand.

"Lift your head." His cold hand came into contact with my very own, I raised my eyes to his.

Cyan blue eyes. Undeniably human eyes.

"I had something to tell you too."

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⚠️ Jackson's secret⚠️

An unintentional charmer, both men and women alike have fallen prey to his appeal.

~SiL3nT KiLl3r🦇