Vlad: XVII.

6 July 1997,
Lugano

Dear Yukio:

By now you have probably heard what happened to me. I know you have probably gone to the Golden Thread school, and they will have told you everything. I’m truly sorry I didn't say goodbye to you. You are one of the best friends I've ever had. But I felt too ashamed. I decided to leave Taiwan, and the vampires from class 411 have come back to Europe with me.

You were right, Yukio. A vampire should never fall in love. After Candy learned I was a vampire, she immediately started planning to get rid of me. I trusted my love and thought my love would inspire her with love too, but of course it didn't. I am 422 years old now, but I was behaving like an immature school boy. I should have listened to you.

We are now in Lugano, Switzerland. It's a beautiful city in the south, not far from Italy. There are mountains all around, and there is a beautiful lake. I bought a mansion overlooking the lake, and the other vampires and I all live together in the mansion. They're all studying Italian because that is the language spoken in this part of Switzerland.

We have opened up a Chinese restaurant in Lugano. I know you will be surprised at this. It’s called Fang's Chinese Restaurant, or Ristorante Fang in Italian. Grace suggested we do it just to keep ourselves busy and also as a way to find victims. But there was the problem with the garlic. I did some research and found out there was a Dutch company that produces a garlic substitute: it looks like garlic powder, it smells and tastes like garlic, but there’s no real garlic in it. We use the garlic substitute in our food, and we even sometimes use it for cooking here at home. All the vampires miss the Chinese food in Taipei--Kurt and Felicia even cried about it once--and so they are happy to be able to make some dishes here in the mansion.

At the restaurant Kurt is usually the maitre d', and Lon is the bartender. The rest of us work as waiters or in the kitchen. Every night we invite some customers to visit us up at the mansion. There are a lot of tourists in this city. Usually the customers accept our invitation, and when they come to the mansion we drink their blood. It works very well.

I invite you to come to Lugano to visit us or even live with us. I know you will probably not come because you love Taipei. But still I want to invite you.

If you see Candy, tell her she is a monster and that she has no heart. Tell her I hope she gets bitten by a werewolf and spends the rest of her life howling at the moon. Then she will know what it's like.

Your Friend,

Vlad