1 A familiar problem

"So... Owen, you know Chloe is a vampire, right?"

Without a warning, Mr. Drake dropped the bomb while we were having dessert.

The room was silent, except for the sound of something breaking.

I glanced to my right at Chloe, who was staring at her own hand. She had unknowingly crushed the crystal goblet she was holding earlier. The wine was flowing along her arm and droplets fell from her elbow. There was not a single scratch on her perfect white skin.

I looked down at my own dessert, an elegant sundae made of velvety ice cream and an assortment of exotic fruits, arranged so artfully that it almost pained me to eat.

I look across the table at Mr. Drake. We were sitting at a massive table in the fancy dining room in the Drake family's gigantic mansion. In the middle of the table was an ice sculpture depicting a vampire fighting a werewolf. The workmanship was impeccable, the sculpture was surprisingly intricate and lifelike for something that would probably not last past midnight.

Also frozen like the sculpture were Chloe's brother and sister, their food brought halfway to their mouths. Mrs. Drake, Chloe's mother, was staring at her husband as if wondering what the hell he was doing. They were probably planning on breaking it to me gently and not with such an explosive opening.

The freeze-framed scene was broken by an impeccably dressed servant. He glided over next to Chloe, swept away the crystal fragments, replaced her goblet and napkin, cleaned her arm, then retreated with inhuman efficiency.

"Yeah. I do, sir." I finally replied. I turned and gave Chloe a slight smile. Her face was a mixture of shock, confusion, and relief.

"Oh? How did you figure that?" One eyebrow quirked up, Mr. Drake asked with a smile.

"Well, she always insisted on being invited before coming into my house. I gave her my apartment keys but she never used it." There was one time I was out late. When I got home, she was still sitting outside my apartment in the freezing weather. She told me she forgot to bring the keys, but when I helped her take off her pants (They were frozen solid and were difficult to take off, okay? Get your mind out of the gutter!) the keys dropped right off her pocket. Since then, she always called to make sure I was home before coming over.

"Go on..." Mr. Drake continued as Chloe fidgeted nervously next to me. I reached over and held her hand.

"... She always wears a long-sleeved shirt and pants and a wide-brimmed hat whenever we go out. And she also slathers on an inch of sunscreen on her face." Also, she always insisted on sitting at the place with the least sunshine.

"Hmmm, what else?"

"... I gifted her a silver pendant one and she seemed to be in great pain while wearing it. Now she doesn't wear it anymore." In fact, 'seemed to be in pain' was an understatement. The spot on her skin that came in contact with the pendant began smoking and I smelled burning flesh. Later, I even saw the burn mark when we were… ahem, never mind. As I looked at her, Chloe nervously touched the pendant on her neck. It was an almost perfect replica of my gift, but I could tell at a glance that it wasn't made of silver.

"Anything else?" Mr. Drake prodded me, while Chloe's white skin was now flushed red to her ears.

"... The other day she mistakenly ate a piece of garlic bread at a restaurant. And she vomited at my face. Violently." That vomiting session lasted nearly half an hour. Several guests at the restaurant fainted. The staff were horrified and called the ambulance. Before the ambulance arrived, however, Chloe insisted she was fine and dragged me away. Only when we got home did I remember I forgot to pay. So at least there was something good coming out of that.

"I assume there are more." Mr. Drake continued nonchalantly. Chloe was sweating bullets. Her hand inside mine was sweaty. Mrs. Drake was keeping a dignified pose, but obviously, she was trying to suppress her laughter. Chloe's siblings were biting on their napkins, but I could tell from their shaking shoulders that they were also finding Chloe's misadventures hilarious. The servants had quietly retreated from the room, presumably to be able to laugh out loud.

"Yes, there are." Her aversion to running water, over-reactions to anything mildly stake-shaped, her rather strange fascination with blood, and more.

"So you've known for quite a while now." Mr. Drake asked, as his eyes seemed to stare into my soul.

"Yeah. After we started dating for a month, I've pretty much figured it out." I replied, not turning away from his gaze.

"So that makes it... what? Three years now?"

"Three and a half year, yeah."

"Yet you still stick around. Why?"

"I think she's a really sweet girl. And I believe she'll never hurt me." I slightly squeezed Chloe's trembling hand and turned to look at her. Her eyes were moist and she was sniffling. She turned away in embarrassment.

"Well, that's one more thing off the list for tonight! That was easier than I thought!" Mr. Drake clapped his hands once, his tone unchanged, but I sensed a hint of relief.

"That means you allow us to continue dating, sir?"

"What? Oh, of course! We have a non-interfering policy when it comes to our children's love life." Mr. Drake assured me with a wave of his hand. "Come on, let's finish dessert!"

We finished the rest of the dessert. Grace and Abram, Chloe's siblings, were excused. Mr. Drake, Mrs. Drake, Chloe and I made our way to his study. After we were comfortably seated, with tea and snack within reach, Mr. Drake continued the discussion.

"That brings me to the next thing. There's a sort of... family reunion coming up one month from now. Our patriarch of the New York branch, Patriarch Petyr, had summoned my family to his mansion for the gathering."

He paused for me to digest the information, and continued.

"And since Chloe has become of age, it is expected of her to bring along a familiar of her own."

"A familiar, sir?" I know what a familiar is. A human who serves a vampire, in hope of being turned into a vampire himself. But that was just in regular vampire lore, so I asked for a verification.

"Well, to put it simply, it's a... " He paused, glancing at his smartphone "... a human who serves a vampire, in hope of being turned into a vampire himself." So he was reading from the same wiki page as I did.

"So you want me to be her familiar?"

"Exactly. You're quick, aren't you?" Mr. Drake nodded approvingly.

"I'm happy to help. How long does this reunion last, sir?"

"One week, from November 8th to November 14th. You will be provided with food and drink and lodging, of course. Do you have anything on your schedule?"

I mentally checked my schedule. I had a painting to be submitted to the local gallery before November 10th, so I had better hurry up and finish it early. Other than that, I had no other obligations.

"No, sir. I can come with your family to the reunion."

"Good, good. That's a relief!"

"Now there are only two matters left. One, you'll need to study some of the etiquettes that are expected of familiars of esteemed families. Chloe told me you are a quick learner, and from our little talk, I've concluded the same. So there's probably no problem. Stella... " he gestured to his wife "... can come over to your place in your free time and coach you on the manner of dress, the honorifics, and so on. Is that okay with you?"

"No problem, sir." I was intrigued and a little excited. What kind of culture did the vampire society have?

"The last problem is, as you can expect, a bit of a hurdle." Mr. Drake paused, sipping his tea as he gauged my reaction. Mrs. Drake and Chloe shifted anxiously in their seats.

"A familiar is also expected to regularly serve snacks to the master."

"Snack, sir?" I summoned up a mental image of myself standing next to Chloe with a fan in one hand and a plate of junk food in the other.

"Hmmm... How do I say this? Oh, screw it, what the hell! She's expected to occasionally drink your blood!"

"Oh..." I couldn't say I didn't see this one coming, but it was still a little scary. How much blood were we talking about here?

"Is it like, she's gonna bite on my neck, or someone will draw my blood with a syringe and put it in a glass or something?"

"Normally that would be the case. Unfortunately, our Chloe is a little bit different."

He paused and considered his words. I was a little more than anxious now. "A little bit different" how? What kind of barbaric manner of eating did she have? Did she have to bite off one of my digits to chew along with the blood? No, it didn't seem like her. She's such a timid, sweet young woman...

...

...

...

"She's got blood allergy."

"... Come again?" I asked in reflex, forgetting my manners.

"She's allergic to blood. Whenever she drinks blood, she had an allergic reaction. It could be anything, from rashes to full-body convulsion or even a coma. She has been subsisting on a type of synthetic blood since she was one year old."

"Oh... umm... wow!" That was all I could manage to say. A vampire who was allergic to blood. Who saw that coming?

"Aww come on! Don't give me that. Have you ever tried Googling 'types of food allergy'? You non-vampires are also allergic to almost anything edible!"

Touche, touche. "Oh. Sorry, sir! I'm just surprised, is all."

"The thing is, no one outside my family knows of this. And we prefer to keep it that way. Her condition will be considered a disgrace to the vampire 'race'." He said that last word with a grimace.

"So, we have to somehow make it look convincing. Her drinking my blood, I mean." I finished for him.

"Yes, we do." Mr. Drake nodded.

What had I gotten myself into?