I stood there, dumbly staring at the body on the ground. My spine was tingling from the intense attention that the room was diverting this way.
A woman was shrieking, “Oh, my God—it’s Tomas; he’s dead!”
I did not have time to give her much heed. Instead, I found myself locked on the corpse, somewhat morbidly fascinated by the body.
I was not used to bodies, you see. I had seen in my seven-hundred years, perhaps a dozen deaths not of natural causes: my brother’s, a few other vampires and some British soldiers during World War One. Now, in less than a week, I had been the finder of two horrific deaths. Oh, I had seen old men and women, relatively natural deaths, but very few such as what I had now been exposed to. Plague was a part of life, heart-attacks, accidents; but violent deaths… those were rare.
Unless the man was in costume, he seemed to be a werewolf—a lycanthrope—and he had died with a wolf’s muzzle, large clawed hands, and lots of fur. His chest had been pulled open in a move that was nothing short of grizzly. His head lolled stupidly to one side and drool had collected under his mouth. Whoever had killed him had done it with incredible strength—truly abnormal power—and also in complete silence.
It was done without anyone noticing the act.
That is, unless if this was nothing more than an elaborate prank, but based on the sudden activity around me, I doubted that.
This was the second body I had found that had been quite brutally murdered without anyone hearing anything of the fight, or seeing when the body was moved to such a public location.
Two was a more than a coincidence. Something was going on.
“Jester, come here,” I looked up, seeing the anger on the Spider’s face. Oh yeah, this did look bad.
I went to him, trying not to hug myself and remain calm. I do not know what my face showed because his gaze drifted away quite quickly. My fear was there for anyone to see, and it was shameful. I had to compose myself before I was killed for embarrassing him.
“Don’t move. Wait here while I talk to the were-animals; say nothing.”
He left, moving through the crowd. I had been left standing beside Dianna and the two underlings, both of which were staring at me like I had grown a second head.
This week really could not get any worse.
“Avery... you didn’t...?” Diana was staring at the dead body like it was the first time she had ever seen one; it probably was.
I shook my head. I did not even know who this Tomas was. I doubted that he had deserved to die such a death, but who was I to know? I knew next to nothing about shape-shifters, Kami, fairies, or witches and wizards—nothing more than I had read in books, seen on the screen or played in games.
And then I had an awful thought—was the killer here the same one who had murdered the King? The deaths were very different; the King had been beheaded, the werewolf gutted. But there was something about that thought which gnawed at me—a phrase that caught in my mind. It was a connection that I had made almost unconsciously; it burrowed at the tip of my brain but refused to come to the forefront.
Or was I simply seeing a connection where there was none?
The room was perhaps a hundred bodies at the moment, although there was a crowd gathering at the table, no-one seemed all that upset or shocked, besides Diana. Was this some sort of common occurrence?
“Where did he come from? I didn’t see anyone dragging in a body,” Diana apparently did not understand how to be quiet.
I held up a hand to silence her, “Remain quiet, Diana.”
She frowned at me, and then, with an imperious toss of her head, she continued right on through—fucking feminism, “You just found a dead guy, and you want me to just stand here quietly with you while Daddy Spider fixes everything?”
I levelled my ancient, dark gaze at her. When common sense goes out, intimidation works best, “Yes.”
“Well, who killed him? That’s Tomas over there! He was a friend; we were supposed to have lunch next Tuesday! And now he’s dead! And you found him, but you don’t have anything to say!”
Then again, some people do not know when to shut up. She was almost crying with her pent-up emotional overflow. This was just plain embarrassing, “Diana, shut up, stand still and stop talking. You are embarrassing everyone.”
It was awfully rude and direct, but I did have seniority over her.
The Spider was speaking hurriedly with a young man in the corner, gesturing vaguely back to the corpse that was now being examined by three different people, all being very quiet and careful.
I wondered if any of them had the powers of observation like the Investigator. However, I almost hoped one of them worked in a morgue or hospital; real scientific examination would have ruled out any involvement on my part. Too bad that the paranormal community tended to shun modern scientific practices.
Despite my mulling over the implications and the thoughts on two murders of this deadly nature, Diana was not easily intimidated and she became angrier still.
Flame crackled up her arm, warning me that the little thing was about to lose her temper. The two underlings all but teleported halfway across the room when she flared up; vampires did not do well around flame.
“Don’t talk to me like that! I’m just as powerful as you are!”
I will admit, what happened next was mostly my frayed nerves and own fears manifesting into something physical. I did not have to touch her to smack her down, but she needed to learn that not everyone was afraid of her just because she had flame. She also needed to figure out the simple nature of vampires—that age made right.
I raised my hand up toward her mouth, and a thick wad of towel sprang from my palm, right into her open gob. It stuffed itself in deep, even as her eyes widened to comical proportions and her fingers flew to try and pull it away.
I was not done. A strap ran across her mouth that secured at the back of her head, keeping the towel lodged in her throat and jaw. She could no longer speak, and breathing was neigh-on- impossible.
All thoughts suddenly on removing the protrusion, Diana’s flame died as she began tugging at the apparatus. It was both real and illusion. She could not simply tear it off, for it held on with a vampire’s strength-—mine—and the cloth was not real. But she could still choke to death on it; or, at least, a human might have. Vampires did not need air, although the younger ones often forget this fact.
Her face went red as she struggled to breathe, her chest heaving frantically. She could not breathe through either her nose or mouth. Her eyes showed too much white panic.
I felt a laugh coming on; she was so young that the simple art of not having to breathe had not fully deposited itself in her head. For now, such a simple distraction was more than enough to totally incapacitate her.
One of the underlings, Sven, hid a smirk behind his jacket collar. He was masking his amusement because she was still a Dominus, and he would cop hell for openly gloating at her misfortune when he was her underling.
I could have watched her writhing all night; her face had gone purple, her hands scrabbling at the tie desperately, and she was making small, helpless noises. It was as if she was going to hyperventilate and pass out.
Vampires could not hyperventilate. Although, I suddenly I was curious to see if they could try.
“Jester!” The Spider’s voice cut through my annoyance and sent a chill down my spine.
I waved the phantasm away with a hand, aware that my little discipline show had taken attention away from the body.
He was frowning at me and I bowed, “She was speaking out of turn, Milord.”
His gaze shifted to Diana as she laid coughing and cringing against the pillar, trembling too hard to pick herself up. He excused himself briefly and walked to her.
“Does the Jester speak the truth, Diana? Did you refuse his direction?”
She managed to get her feet under her and stood shakily, her eyes were wild and the demon was just below the surface, “He told me to shut up—like some… some house wife!”
To my credit, she had a bit of a rasp in her voice. The Spider touched her cheek, whispering soothing words to her. Then he told her to go and wash up.
Like she had nothing to be sorry for.
Great, she was his little favourite. She glared at me all the way to the women’s bathroom.
I did not move.
“Jester, you cannot be so harsh on the young ones. She is barely thirty years old; she does not understand these things.”
“Milord, as it is only my place to amuse and entertain, perhaps I should relate the story of Andromeda? She was a beautiful Greek princess whom was spoiled above all others, and eventually brought down the wrath of the gods for her pride and vanity,” I bowed low.
“Do not presume to tell me my business with my progeny! You have none of your own; you could not know how it is.”
“But when one Dominus raises a hand against another, I am within my right to establish that I am not to be taken lightly. I had the control to only wound her; she would have killed me with the flame. She attacked first; I reacted before our weaker forces were caught in the crossfire.”
The Spider looked at Sven and Caleb, “Did Diana raise the flame first?”
“Yes, Milord. She was getting emotional over Tomas. The Jester was merely following your commands,” Caleb, the younger of the two answered after a moment.
He was in my good books. I’d remember this later when he needed a favour.
The Spider let all the air out of his lungs, “Then I must apologize for my Child’s uncouth behaviour and my fatherly reaction. You were disciplining her, and giving her a valuable life- lesson. I stopped you from showing her that decorum is more important than emotion,” He bowed his head, “We will talk later on how I can make it up to you.”
I bowed my head in return, “I should not have made such a scene. I am not good around dead bodies and, I see links to other deaths. I am on edge.”
He held up a hand, “We will talk later. For now, I must deal with the were-animals and you might wish to greet the newly arrived guests.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the entrance where the lift doors were sliding open.
The thoughts of dead things were fading.
The fairies were arriving.
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