Bambi And The Duke

Once he had disappeared horror came to form on her face.

She had thought she had imagined but it wasn\'t her imagination playing tricks. The storage room wasn\'t warm and was rather cold due to it being built below the council building floors. She hadn\'t noticed it when she had been standing up above on the ladder. It was after she had come down did she notice the sheen of sweat that had covered the man\'s face.

Dutan was a switcher...? The question started to haunt her. Her hand turned colder with every second that came to pass by wondering what she was to do. She had started to freak out inside her head in alarm. She would have told it to be the perspiration but no one could sweat in that amount, it didn\'t drip but the flame from the lantern had glittered and shone on his skin. The more she thought about it, the more her mind spiraled.

Leonard had told them that the guards were changed in the interval of two hours and with them, where they had stepped inside the room, an hour was yet to pass. Though she had turned to her former self, there was nothing she could clearly see when it came to the dark.

She looked at the tall racks of the boxes that had been labeled and stuffed with the person\'s respective belongings. What and how did it happen? Where was Dutan? The more she thought about it, the more questions came to emerge in her mind without a single answer in return.

It was evident that this person wasn\'t Dutan but since how long was he not? Had it been the entire time? The main question was how she was going to survive the remaining one hour twenty minutes in here with him. And he couldn\'t be the switcher because he would have told them. Right?

She rubbed the sides of her temple in worry. Taking the lantern and walking away from the rack while pushing the ladder away. Once she walked away from the ladder, she came to stand out in the middle of the passage which was parted into the left and right racks to see the man appear with the new lantern.

"The councilmen must have kept it in the next ones. Why don\'t you take the next rack and I will look for it here," said the man who was an imposter. He hadn\'t noticed it as it was light perspiration but Vivian had a sharper eye in the presence of the golden light illuminated from the lantern, "Do you need help, my lady?" he asked her when he heard no response come from her.

"I found some of the boxes which had been haphazardly placed where they are not meant to be. If the boxes what we are looking for have been misplaced, it is going to be harder to find it," she said not wanting to appear suspicious. The last thing she wanted was to alert the man.

"I found some of them too," he responded back, looking at the bo nearest to him.

"Let\'s get back to work. We need to find it within the hour of time," receiving a nod from him, Vivian went on her way with the lantern with her.

If he hadn\'t killed her yet, it meant that his intention wasn\'t about killing when it came to her where she wasn\'t his top priority right now. But she could be on his kill list. What was she going to do now?

She didn\'t have the pocket watch with her. She always carried it along with her, cursing her luck on it she bit her lip. Locked in the storage room which wasn\'t always used where no one entered in and out that often, she was stuck with a switcher she didn\'t know. She was positive that this wasn\'t the same switcher but would that mean until now there wasn\'t just one but two switchers in the council?

Going to the rack, she pulled the ladder which gave the same creaking sound like the one she had pulled before. There was no way of escape but spend the time with the unknown switcher. This was worse than the time she had spent during her second examination and the memories brought shivers to her mind. At that time there were people with her where one could step out but here, this was a limitation. Until the last minute of the two hours, the guards would not move an inch and it was only then she would be able to let the others know about this one.

Her brows furrowed, sadness beginning to fill at the thought that the actual Dutan had been killed.

The time where Vivian spent in the storage room with the imposter, Leonard was busy talking to Nicholas in his cabin.

"This is impressive," commented the Lord looking down at the chart where Leonard and the others had drawn the connections and the people involved in it, "Where are you taking it?" he asked when Leo pulled the chart from the table, walking to the fireplace he folded the chart to throw it into the fire.

"It is better if it doesn\'t get into anyone\'s hand," the parchment caught fire, slowly burning from the ends until it touched the very last piece.

Nicholas who had been sitting on the armchair saw his ghoul appear in the room. Speaking in its usual garbled voice making?Leo turned his back to the fireplace to see the ghoul.

"The storage room. It seems like they got in successfully," Nicholas reported to the Duke who didn\'t react as if it didn\'t concern him but it did. Leonard had sent Vivian in there in the hope to get some answers. Having him go with her would have been easy but there had to be someone who could handle outside the storage room, "Vivian is a capable woman. She will be fine," said Nicholas, picking up the glass that was sitting idly next to him.

"It is not that which concerns me."

"She turned to a pureblooded vampire," Leo nodded at Nicholas\' words.

"She did."

"What happened?" asked Nicholas curious to hear what happened because something like this was unheard. Though oddity ran in the four lands of the empire, there were some special cases like hers which came up once in a blue moon and it wasn\'t fortune what bought in there.

After Leonard filled him with the event, Nicholas hummed, sitting quietly and placing the glass back on the table, "You must take her to Murk," suggested the Lord.

Leonard would have taken her if the vampire doctor wasn\'t crazy. Now that Maximillian had passed away who knew what state of mind he was in. A slight bitterness came to settle on his tongue. Nicholas meant good to them but he was the Lord of a whole land. If ever something were to happen through Vivian there was no telling what would be brought up in the court.

"She is doing fine, Nick. She doesn\'t need the doctor," his voice was filled with iciness which was similar to the weather that had surrounded them which was cold and dry.

Nicholas raised his hand, "You don\'t have to be protective about her. I care for her too, Leo."

"But not enough," their eyes stared at each other for a long time and knowing how stubborn Leo could get, Nicholas was the one to break the ice.

The Lord sighed, "You said Isabelle is no more, wouldn\'t be safe to be careful than knowing things in the end. I am not saying there\'s something wrong with her. We just don\'t want anything unexpected. Do you understand that?"

Leo had his arms crossed across his chest, his eyes looking away as it turned to see the fireplace which showed no hint of the parchment map which he had thrown into it, "She just turned. Even if I do take her to Murk, there is a high possibility that nothing will come up. And even if everything is alright, the man keeps a record of the visitation. If the elder council finds it there\'s a chance that it would raise suspicion on why she is consulting for the tests."

"You have a point there," agreed Nicholas, nodding his head and getting up from the chair, "Are you alright, Leo?" the Lord was concerned as the younger man had lost one of his friends.

"Abel is Vivian\'s maternal uncle," Leo changed the topic. Both the eyebrows of Nicholas raised in absolute astonishment.

It made Nicholas wonder how they were even related. To think that Vivian who was a pure woman with no ill intention and a clear heart was connected to the family who had started and was to be blamed for this mess...he tched softly. It made him wonder if she was still living with them, they would have had to kill her too.

"She spoke about having a sibling. A younger brother to be specific."

"I cannot recall the Harlow\'s to have a child. There wasn\'t any evidence," the Lord gave it a thought before replying back, "I didn\'t pick any family portraits or any evidence that led to me to believe that they would have kin."

"I thought so too but she did see him."

"Do you think they gave the boy away just like they did to her?" that couldn\'t be possible, thought Leo.

"I doubt that that is the case. She was the only one to be corrupted."

The Lord\'s eyes narrowed, "Her parents are dead, her brother, as you said, has been missing from the frame which leaves the only living person who is Abel. The man will have all the answers to her questions. I have to say that I am surprised that you haven\'t gone to attack him yet. Did you finally learn to tame your temper?" Nicholas poked fun at Leo.

Leo didn\'t bother to react and chose to ignore the Lord\'s words, "I need you to send your ghoul to follow Creed. The man will be difficult to approach without any shreds of evidence in hand."

"He is a very meticulous man, Leo. If you asked me I would say as meticulous as me. Vivian\'s hunch might be true but getting anything against him is far than difficult."

"Isn\'t that why the three of them have gone to the storage room."

"Let\'s hope they find something. I will have my ghoul behind him," with one word about it, one of the ghouls who had been standing in room disappeared, "I would have sent Everest to help Vivian but the ghoul doesn\'t know to read and it would be like a puppy following its master," Nicholas gave a look towards the ghoul who was standing in the far corner which was the closest place to darkness, "But even that wouldn\'t be possible. There\'s some witchcraft that was spilt out of the room to avoid any other being like the witches to enter and take the information which has been stored in there."

"What kind is it?" questioned Leonard.

"The kind that doesn\'t allow my precious ghouls in there," Nicholas wasn\'t happy that he couldn\'t find more about it except for the word of mouth. Like many in the past and present, he had been curious when he had only joined the council but the ghouls could just not pass through and step in, "I heard it from the old guardsman here long ago that the higher council, the elders feared for the information to be manipulated or the black witches trying to use their voodoo black magic against them. To prevent it a white witch cast a spell which only she could takedown. The spell basically brings down the veil to show the true nature of a person. Interesting isn\'t it?"

"Hmm," Leo hummed in response. He pulled the pocket watch and checked the time before someone arrived at the door of the cabin. Knocking it twice where Nicholas asked the person to step in. It was one of the councilmen who was human whose breath was rushed as if he had run to come here.

"What brings you here, Johnathan?"

"Sir, they have caught the creature. The one who killed Mr. Gibbs," the man named Johnathan replied, his voice a little hoarse as he gave out the news, "The head council has placed up a direct session in the courtroom at the zeroth hour."