The teenage girls' soft snoring echoed throughout the room, steadily and rhythmically. They were curled up into balls against Annabelle, flanking her on each side. The girls were snuggling against each other, or rather on top of each other, on the worn-out leather couch, fast asleep after the good meal they had eaten a moment earlier.
Once their bellies were filled to the brim, fatigue came crashing in. Their drowsiness had taken them by surprise, too quick and fierce for the teenage girls to bear. Dragging their bodies forward suddenly became too demanding, as their legs had turned into jelly, and their eyelids shut down on their own.
In that state, venturing further inside the haunted house had become out of the question. It would be too dangerous, even with the hunter and the demon watching their backs.
They had tempted fate too many times already.
"If you want," Annabelle had said to her brother, aware that he wasn't satisfied with today's progress, "you can explore the corridor a bit more on your own."
"Don't be silly," was his answer.
This particular corridor might be a stable axis in the mess that was the spacio-temporal array, but it was still better for the group not to separate too often. Jules took the chance earlier, mainly because his sister and her friends needed to eat, and coming across edible monsters was a rarity here. He couldn't let the opportunity slip through his fingers, lest he wanted to watch them starve to death.
The situation was different now.
Thus, they decided to take a break in a room, which Jules and Bastien took upon themselves to clean up. It seemed to be an office, with a vintage desk, an intricate rug that had seen better days, bookshelves filled with dusty books, a stained glass window with old-fashioned curtains, and a worn-out couch from the Renaissance era. The girls took possession of it after Bastien and Jules got rid of the dozen bats furiously flapping around.
Those that did not attack, the hunter and the demon grabbed them by the scruff of their neck and threw them out in the corridor, ignoring the shrieks and closing the door shut behind them before locking it up.
For once, cleaning up the room had been uncannily easy and quick, allowing the girls to take a breather in the snap of a finger. It didn't take long before they were sound-asleep.
"So, can I have my dessert now?" Bastien asked in a whisper, trying not to disturb the girls' rest.
"Stop thinking with your stomach," Jules rolled his eyes, well-aware that the incubus was asking out of gourmandise. He had eaten more than enough earlier. And if not? It wasn't his problem. As the feeder, he knew just how much the demon had taken, and he feared he'd overdose in the long run. Jules was a half-blood, but his angelic lineage had long tainted his life force. One of them had to be the voice of reason, and he doubted it'd be the demon. "We have other matters to discuss right now, don't we?"
"So, you noticed," Bastien hummed, not discouraged. He didn't push the matter and instead shrugged, "This place truly is peculiar. I can't tell if the supernatural beings are trapped here with us, or if we've somehow entered a realm of monsters, a lost heaven even I didn't know about. We did meet a few strong individuals, but most of them were weak beings that would be killed in an instant in the outside world. Your organization is hell-bent on massacring them all and making a world free of other beings; they want a world shaped for oh-so-mighty humans, after all."
"Only the radical ones," Jules grimaced, trying not to think of the power dynamic and games of politics the higher-ups were up to. "But I guess, fundamentally, you're right. Hunters usually don't give a shit about low-level monsters and slaughter them without asking questions, just in case."
"Better safe than sorry, right?"
Ignoring the jab, Jules brought back up the subject at hand, "It's strange how some rooms resemble shelters frozen in time, like this one."
"I doubt this is a coincidence."
Jules sighed. It was something he didn't want to think about, and something he had tried to avoid thinking about. Pushing aside the horrid things he had seen, he could tell that the people who wandered inside the haunted house were nothing more than a food source, offerings to keep the monsters inside from starving. The food was distributed fairly across the mansion, but some supernatural beings didn't necessarily go after the humans. The child ghoul hidden under the bed in the doll bedroom was such a being, and they had come across a few others these past few days. Jules pretended not to notice those.
"So?" Bastien tilted his toward a bookshelf, a smile lingering on his lips. "What do we do about this?"
"That's a good question," Jules clicked his tongue, eyeing the bookshelf, then the sleeping girls. Maybe they should take care of this while they were still stuck in dreamland, because depending on how it went, this could end up as another trauma for them. Not necessarily due to a gruesome sight, all the contrary, even, but because of the cruelty of it.
With that in mind, Jules gestured to the bookshelf and said to Bastien, "After you."
The demon didn't need to be told twice, and with one long stride, he reached the bookshelf, then pulled on an odd-looking statuette. It was the only thing that wasn't covered in a thick layer of dust, the head wiped clean by frequent touch. It was even a bit shiny, almost polished. Needless to say, it stood out amid the dusty books.
A faint rumbling sound echoed throughout the office as the bookshelf slowly flung open, revealing a secret room behind. Jules peered over his shoulder at the girls, making sure they were still asleep, before stepping inside with the demon. The door was locked, and his sister and her friends were only a room away. They should be alright.
In any case, the danger lay in the secret room, not in the office.
Inside, a spotless and neat bedroom appeared. It wasn't massively big, but not too small either. It was decorated in a Renaissance style, with curtains over the massive bed, ornamented furniture, and tapestries on the walls. There were no mirrors, however.
But there were people, a young man and two children, cuddled near the bed.
"Y-you! What are y-you do–" the young man's words came to a sudden halt when his eyes landed on Jules' wings. He forgot what he wanted to say, and his mouth fell agape. He looked silly with the three-branch candle holder in his hands, which he probably had grabbed as a makeshift weapon. Not like it would do anything against Jules or Bastien.
Even if the young man were to swing it with all of his strength, it wouldn't do much damage, considering this lanky body of his that seemed to lack muscle mass underneath that hoodie.
Jules ignored him and instead shifted his attention to the children behind him, who seemingly had tried to pull the man back, probably in an attempt to protect him. Now, they looked at Jules, frozen with fear. And yet, they forced their mouths to move, saying in a desperate voice:
"He's human! Don't hurt him!"
"I know, and I have no intention of hurting him," Jules frowned.
He didn't like the discomfort that was twisting his belly.
The children, a pair of twins, seemed younger than ten years old, but Jules got the feeling they weren't exactly that age, nor were they humans—their crimson eyes and fangs told him they weren't. The boys, however, were emaciated beyond belief, their cheeks so sunken that the cheekbones and jawbone were practically visible. Their bony hands and wrists looked brittle, enough for a light breeze to shatter them. No wonder they couldn't drag the young man behind them; they didn't have the strength.
"How long has it been since you last ate?" Jules asked, eyeing the young man in search of bite marks. There were none on his neck.
"We're not hungry!" the kids vehemently snarled, glaring at him. "We eat regularly! Rats are small but they fill our bellies just fine!"
"Is that so," Jules squinted his eerily pale grey eyes, and the boys jolted in fright, gripping the young man's trousers with a bit more strength. Indeed, rats were often seen roaming the corridors of the haunted house, but vampires couldn't exactly sustain themselves on these. "Bastien, how long do you think it has been since their last meal? I mean, proper meal."
"Hm, considering their state, I'd say over a hundred years, if not two."
"That long? Don't vampires go berserk when they're hungry?"
The underlying question was: why hadn't they jumped on the human in front of them and sucked him dry yet? The food had been delivered to their doorsteps, and they were obviously starved, so why not eat?
"Oh, that," Bastien smiled knowingly, stirring up the emotions that had barely calmed down in the pit of his stomach. "It's a myth, an excuse hunters used to hunt them down in the past, although they do get irritable. But who isn't a little cranky on an empty stomach?"
"…"
"Anyway, at the time, the problem lay in the vampire society's way of thinking. Humans were seen as cattle, and who cares about cattle's feelings? If anything, humans certainly don't, and eat meat without a second thought. The same went for the vampires in that era. It's a matter of perception."
"Fair enough," Jules tilted his head in acknowledgement, and he also didn't want to enter that debate. It was hard to say who was right and wrong when it came down to food and survival. No one wanted to die, be it the predator or the prey. "The kid forms, though?"
"That's a thing purebloods do sometimes. It makes it easier to control their outbursts," Bastien winked, pretending he hadn't noticed the embarrassed look on the boys' faces. If they didn't want to cooperate and talk, he'd do it for them. "They are hungry, after all, and their instinct is to take a bite. But in a child form, they're weaker, and their bodies require less energy to function. It's like putting yourself in a half-hibernating state."
"We learn every day, don't we?" Jules pinched the bridge of his nose. Perhaps these old books needed some revision after all. Now, he doubted his own knowledge. Not like he hadn't doubted it since his arrival in the haunted house, but still. Whatever. He had other matters to take care of first. "Names? The three of you."
The trio stared at each other, unsure of what to do. However, Jules' stare was oppressive, scarier than any monsters they had ever met, and they soon gave their names.
"Felix," the human said.
"Vincent," one of the twins said.
"Arthur," the other said.
"Alright, Felix, Vincent, and Arthur, let's have a little talk, shall we?" Jules smiled, although the smile didn't reach his eyes, sending shivers down the trio's spines.