Chapter 40: Chapter 35

It felt a bit like I was back in my childhood when I sat in a rather luxurious tent with Arthur. There was so much furniture that I honestly couldn’t imagine how they carried it here, let alone for what he needed them. There were four chairs around a round table and I seriously couldn’t imagine why he would need four chairs. So far, I have only uncovered two of his closest allies, the maid and Markus. So even if every living friend of Arthur came into this place, there would only be two chairs needed. What a mystery.

He even had a very tempting bed and I had to fight my inner urges to throw myself on it right away. I knew why he got that one though. Sleeping on the carriage ground wasn’t very tempting …

Candles gave the tent a rather calm and relaxing atmosphere, and yet the conversation between us was quite heated.

“Do you have any idea how damaging this is to the morale of the army? Stop acting like you can do whatever you want, I am fed up with it!” He shouted rather hysterical. I didn’t know what his problem was. Considering how many humans I was going to murder while in the military, with and without his knowledge, it was rather troublesome that he already acted like this.

“What´s wrong with you? I already told you that it wasn’t me, so please, please stop blaming me!” I didn’t intend to take responsibility at all. Like always, I wanted to push the blame to someone else, which was one of the reasons I was there.

“And you want me to believe you?!” Yes, that would be great. I knew convincing him would take time, but I already understood exactly what I had to do. I stood up, showed him every nook and cranny of my dress and then twirled around once.

“Look, there is no blood on my clothing or my face and which idiot would stay at a murder scene?” That seemed to convince him somewhat, but doubts still remained for obvious reasons. I was largely unknown to him, which made it questionable if he would ever trust me fully.

“In that case, have you seen anyone else?” That was the point where I needed to imagine someone who I could successfully paint as a serial killer. As such, I decided to start with the basics and build his persona upon that.

“A man around your height. He wore a helmet and was already walking away.” My serial killer was a soldier, perfect for sowing distrust among my comrades, and because it could be nearly everyone.

“And you didn’t follow him?” asked he with a piercing gaze. I had to give him some proof the next time I murdered, otherwise, he would question me all the time.

“Am I a detective or what?” His question showed a flaw in my argumentation, forcing me to answer in a rather angry way. At least he asked me another easy question afterwards, albeit with a piercing gaze that allowed no errors.

“For what reason were you strolling around there?” asked he which was absolutely perfect. Now I could change topics away from my slight emotional hiccup without making it look odd.

“I wanted to find you?” It wasn’t a lie. I could even prove it just by introducing him to the boy I met earlier, but it seemed unnecessary for him.

“Why?” In fact, he was rather surprised. I immediately took the opportunity to grab the reigns of the conversation out of his hand. After all, I had everything I needed for controlling the flow, just by smelling the air once.

“You seem to have a fun hobby. I wanted to join you.” I declared while standing up and slowly walking to a closed-off area. I didn’t miss the breathing behind the cloth and was rather curious to find out what Arthur was doing at night.

“Join me? In doing what?” He tried to stop me from pulling the cloth to the side by holding my shoulders and in the beginning, I let him do that for a very simple reason. I didn’t struggle at all as whatever the man I murdered had on his hands now wandered to Arthur´s. I smirked because of this knowledge, but after three seconds, I couldn’t bear it anymore and struggled free with ease.

The depravity I found after pulling the cloth to the side was astonishing considering how I viewed Arthur so far. He was a power-hungry and calculative person, but he also had a side to him that I completely missed. Well, considering he asked a few of his underlings to poison Mary, the sight shouldn’t surprise me this much.

A woman laid in the middle of the table, bound by leather lashes and completely unconscious. A few of her fingernails were ripped off and thrown onto a tablet where a few teeth accompanied them. The woman was nearly whipped to death and the blood loss of several open wounds would finish her if she didn’t get immediate help. To every other person, this would have been a horrifying sight, but to me, it was normal. More than once, I have been this woman and I knew exactly what she was going through.

And yet, I felt incredibly detached from her fate. Death and pain have become two parts of me. I died and I murdered others. I got hurt and pained others. That was the circle of my life, always repeating thanks to my immortality. Thus, I didn’t care if someone died or not, I didn’t care if anyone got hurt. In fact, if it was beneficial to my goals, I would immediately hurt myself. Contrary to Arthur´s expectation, my first reaction wasn’t one of disgust, but rather one of happiness. This made everything so much easier.

“How amateurish.” I walked closer to the unconscious woman and inspected every wound I could find. The whipping was done decently as there was little to do wrong, but the stabbing for example wasn’t on point.

“What?” He questioned and went to the other side of her body.

“Look, if you pull someone´s nails out, do it slowly. Don’t yank them out like a troll on steroids.  And why are you using a normal dagger to do stabby stabby? You have to cauterize the wound to make her last longer.” I pointed at a few mistakes that were so obvious that they nearly broke my heart.

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“And you know that because?” If you journey with the god of death through purgatory, you are bound to pick up a few things here and there. But I couldn’t say that I was an insane vampire out of purgatory, could I? He would surely think of me as crazy.

“Everything is written down in a book. Anyway, how much did she cost?” said I as I glanced over to the barely clothed woman on the table.

“What do you mean?” He asked like he was an idiot.

“She is a prostitute, isn´t she? You aren’t doing this for information, because you could have stopped after the first nail in this case. Either they spill everything out then, or ripping out their nails won´t work. So, how much?” After a long pause where he stared at me, probably thinking about an answer that wouldn’t show him in an even worse light, I began to understand that not everything has a cost. “Ahh, you aren’t paying them at all, are you? She will never see the light of the day again after you kidnapped her from the supply area behind the army. Is that the plan?”

“Are you threatening me?” Going public with the information would hardly be enough for what I wanted. In addition to that, it would put me in a very precarious position where someone just had to point at my teeth and I was done for. As such, I could never threaten him directly, even if I wanted to.

“What? No! It is a good plan, although you certainly did at least one mistake.” I said while hiding the other flaw I noticed.

“What mistake?”

“You are done for if this comes to light.” If someone different than me accuses him though, said person might have a chance of seriously damaging the duke´s reputation. I already had a person in mind who could do such a thing. Not that I wanted him to do so.

“It never will.” No plan is truly perfect. If the man who abducted the woman got captured, it could become very bad very fast. To my knowledge, it already went south at least once.

“Is that so? I already met someone who knows that prostitutes are entering your tent. If this person now connects the dots to the missing whores …” I claimed while thinking about the boy with the weird name who I didn’t want to put in danger.

“Who is it?”

“I am not telling you. But I will make sure that said person never talks. You have to be more careful from now on. It is best if you find a scapegoat as well.” I said while making sure to keep eye contact. There shouldn’t be any indication that he was my scapegoat if I were to ally with Mary.

“And who would that be?” asked he with a dubious look. True, it was hard to find someone, especially for this. And yet, we had one big advantage. We could stop whenever we wanted, blame someone else using Arthur´s influence and nobody would suspect us afterwards when we stopped and the culprit was hanged.

“How about an imaginary vampire who somehow managed to infiltrate the army?” asked I with a smirk on my face.

“Why are you proposing this, considering that it would put you in danger?” Wasn’t it obvious by then? I thought Arthur understood what I wanted, at least somewhat.

“We somehow have to explain why there is no blood left in the victims.” I explained and picked up a nearby dagger that was already red with blood.

“I see … and I thought you were happy with animal blood.” Arthur said and made me wonder if I ever told him anything along those lines.

“It tastes horrible and makes me incredibly weak, just like this hateful sun. I want human blood. And I want to take part in your endeavours before they die. Is that acceptable?” Some of my words were a complete lie, most importantly that animal blood made me weaker. But it did taste like an old shoe sometimes, so I wasn’t really keen on drinking animal blood all the time.

“Alright”, said Arthur while the woman stirred a bit. She wasn’t awake yet, but it wouldn’t be too long until she was.

“Should I show you something interesting?” I asked with a smile on my lips. “Then do exactly what I say.”

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