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The Fox family vault sat in the basement of the manor's secondary building.
William pushed open the door and flipped the lights on. Instantly, the square chamber revealed itself in full to Hawk's eyes.
Calling it a vault was almost misleading.
The place had an oppressive, suffocating atmosphere.
Because...
Chairs made from hair.
Drinking vessels carved from skulls.
Chopsticks fashioned from bones.
...
Without exaggeration, if any of the contents of this vault ever saw the light of day, it would trigger an absolute firestorm.
Some people would fondly reminisce about that "Golden age."
Of course, Others would despise that era with every fiber of their being.
But—
Among all the treasures in the Fox family collection, what drew Hawk's attention most wasn't actually any of these artifacts made from slaves. It was a skeleton.
A...
Angel skeleton??
Hawk stared at the skeletal remains before him. Even reduced to bare bones, the skull, limbs, and the pair of wings on its back were bound tightly with iron chains, fastening it to the vault wall in a kneeling position. His heart stirred. He turned to William beside him.
"This..."
"Yes. An angel skeleton."
William Fox met Hawk's gaze with a smile, his tone confident. "A real angel skeleton."
Hawk raised an eyebrow.
William's gaze drifted to the kneeling skeleton, his eyes carrying a hint of nostalgia. "Hawk, that era was the most savage time... This angel skeleton was found by my grandfather after he disembarked from the ship and arrived here."
Hawk frowned slightly.
"He killed it?"
"Killed it?"
"No, no, no."
William shook his head, looking at Hawk. "This is an angel, Hawk. When the first generation of the Fox family came here and started building, they dug this up from the ground. And when they found it, the skeleton was already in this state."
That's right.
When they'd unearthed it, it had already looked like this.
The Fox family had also arrived aboard the Mayflower. When they came to this land and began constructing their home, they'd excavated this angel skeleton from the soil. Because of that discovery, they'd built the Fox estate here, constructed the secondary building, and permanently housed the skeleton in the family vault.
Hawk listened to William's account while his Sixth Sense circled the angel skeleton, examining it carefully.
He'd already figured out the skeleton's origins.
Earth had once been home to Yahweh and his angels.
Mephisto could attest to that.
Back in the day, human souls had belonged to the Heaven Dimension. Then Mephisto showed up. After a Divine war between angels and demons, Mephisto emerged victorious, while Yahweh, his angels, and the Heaven Dimension lost their authority over Earth's souls and the cycle of life and death.
So if Hawk's guess was correct, this angel skeleton was probably one of the angels who'd fallen during that war between the Hell Dimension and the Heaven Dimension.
However—
"These five chains are for..."
"Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. My grandfather told me never to touch these chains, and never to expose the skeleton to sunlight. Otherwise, it will come back to life."
"...Right."
Hawk smiled and nodded at that explanation.
Revival was impossible.
After all, resurrection required following certain basic laws, didn't it?
He'd needed both a soul and a body to bring his sister back.
This angel skeleton only had bones left. The flesh and soul were both long gone. For it to resurrect, Yahweh would have to be truly omnipotent.
But he wasn't.
Because Yahweh couldn't create a stone so heavy that even he couldn't lift it. Therefore, Yahweh was not omnipotent.
Still...
"Yahweh."
"Heaven."
"Angels..."
...
That evening.
After accompanying Gwen through dinner with Grandpa William Fox, Aunt Liz Forbes, and cousin Caroline, Hawk returned to the guest room and lay in bed. His mind kept drifting back to the angel skeleton he'd seen that afternoon in the Fox vault.
William bringing him to see the angel skeleton—supposedly the Fox family's greatest secret—hadn't been some spontaneous decision or passing whim.
Because Grandpa William wanted him to inherit the Fox estate.
It sounded absurd, but that's exactly what William had said.
The reason? William hadn't elaborated, and Hawk hadn't asked.
But if Hawk had to guess, it probably had something to do with William knowing his time was running out.
Yes.
William Fox was dying. He had maybe a year left, at most. So he wanted to find an heir for the Fox estate.
Hawk was curious why William had chosen him and Gwen.
But that wasn't what intrigued Hawk the most.
What really caught his attention was what he'd sensed when examining the angel skeleton with his Sixth Sense—a faint but unmistakable scent he'd encountered before.
That same familiar scent he'd detected on Dr. Merrick's soul.
Including this time, he'd now encountered it four times.
The first time: Damon, outside the estate.
The second: Caroline.
The third: Elena.
And the fourth: this angel skeleton.
If he ranked them by concentration from highest to lowest, Elena's scent was the strongest, followed closely by the angel skeleton.
But even Elena's soul didn't carry the exact same scent as Dr. Merrick's soul.
She'd just been exposed to it.
Still, Hawk had a pretty good idea who the scent's true owner was.
That was why, when he'd first seen Elena, he'd been momentarily confused before understanding dawned.
But whether his theory was correct—he still needed proof.
Just then, Gwen emerged from the bathroom, having finished her shower. She ran a brush through her long hair while looking at Hawk lying on the bed. "You sure you won't tell me what's actually in the vault?"
Hawk snapped back to attention and smiled. "Sorry. Grandfather told me not to."
Gwen shrugged. "You don't have to tell me. I can already guess. It's probably stuff that would give me nightmares."
She knew how the Fox family had made their fortune.
So—
She had a pretty good idea what might be in that vault.
If he wasn't going to tell her, fine. She'd probably have nightmares if she knew anyway.
"Alright, go take a shower."
"I'm planning to go out for a bit."
"Hm?"
Gwen blinked, then glanced through the window at the darkening sky outside. Her eyes lit up. "Right now? To see vampires? Can I come?"
Hawk laughed. "You already saw one."
Gwen blinked, thinking he meant the drive into town. "Where? When we drove in, you mentioned it once, but I didn't even see a shadow."
Hawk shook his head. "No. You saw one. In fact, you spent the entire afternoon with one."
I saw one and spent the whole afternoon with them?
Gwen froze at Hawk's words. Her mind raced through the day's events. Then something clicked. She turned to Hawk, her eyes widening.
"Are you saying my cousin..."
"Yes."
"Oh my God!"
Gwen gasped, completely shocked.
The next second, She shook her head.
"Wait, no."
"What's wrong?"
"If she's a vampire, shouldn't she not be able to walk in sunlight?"
"You didn't notice the ring on her hand?"
"I did. I even asked about it. She said it was a sister ring."
"That's a witch ring."
Hawk smiled faintly. "A witch cast a spell on that ring. When a vampire wears it, they can walk freely in sunlight."
Gwen's mouth fell open in astonishment. Her mind flashed back to how Aunt Liz and Caroline had reacted when Hawk first mentioned vampires.
"Then my aunt..."
"She's not."
"But she knows Caroline's a vampire?"
"Yeah."
Hawk nodded. "It's understandable. Your daughter turns into a vampire—you're not going to kill her. Of course you'd help cover for her. Besides, not all vampires are evil."
That much was undeniable.
Just like HYDRA.
Anna might be part of HYDRA, but she was a good person—at least in Hawk's eyes.
Gwen pressed her lips together and sat on the bed, handing Hawk the brush. "Was she forced to become a vampire? Or did she choose it?"
Hawk took the brush and naturally began running it through Gwen's hair, thinking back to the plot of The Vampire Diaries. "Do you know the steps to turn into a vampire?"
Gwen nodded. "I do."
Turning an ordinary person into a vampire wasn't easy. And you definitely couldn't become one just by getting bitten by a vampire and surviving.
That wasn't a vampire. That was a damn zombie.
To become a vampire, you didn't need to be drained by one—you needed to drink a vampire's blood.
That was only step one.
Step two: the person who drank vampire blood had to die. Because only through death would the vampire blood activate and spread throughout their body. Once the vampire blood fully saturated their system, the dead person would come back to life.
Which brought them to step three—the most critical step.
Once resurrected, the person entered the transformation period. They had twenty-four hours to drink human blood.
If they failed to drink human blood within that window—
Sorry.
Once the twenty-four hours were up, they'd die. Permanently. No coming back.
But if they did drink it?
Well...
After consuming human blood, they'd successfully complete the transformation into a vampire.
No longer human.
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