Volume 3 Chapter 21
Willomina the blood mage sat in her underground cell, completely still as she stared listlessly at the ceiling. She was still clothed in the same rags she wore that night on the church’s roof, a dingy grey dress and a wrinkled, barely-there cloak to keep her warm. Her body was barely more than bones, her pale white skin stark against the stains left on her cheeks where dried tears left streaks in the dirt. But this was nothing compared to the thick, black iron cuffs that wrapped around her ankles, locking her to the wall. They were made for larger men, but they were more than enough for a girl.
Lucy inched forward, her paws tapping cautiously on the stone floor, like a pet investigating a new person brought into their home. Her curiosity drove her forward still, up to the thick iron bars that separated the hall from the mage’s cell. She lifted her nose at them, not to the girl, but the bars, before silently turning towards Willomina.
The bandit, the killer, the mage that made even Elane second guess our quest had not noticed my cat yet. Her eyes remained fixed on the stone ceiling.
Seemingly egged on by the lack of attention, Lucy pressed her face through the bars and into the cell. Still, Willomina did not notice her. Her legs were bent in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable and yet, it was as if she didn’t even notice.
I kept my eyes shut to maintain contact with Lucy and whispered, “Would Lucy hear you if you called her?”
“Hmm? I don’t know. Maybe? Why?”
“Call her back,” I urged.
“Eh? What happened?”
“Nothing, just…”
But it was too late. Lucy’s paws carried her onwards and, when Willomina still didn’t look her way, the cat’s snout rose into the air. It lifted for only a second before leveling out, almost like she’d meowed.
Willomina’s shoulders jerked as her head turned sharply, eyes wide with fear before softening as she seemed to reorient herself to the darkness.
She took one long look at Lucy, gulped and lowered her head, as if the cat were Death itself and she’d resigned herself to her fate.
“Big Bro?”
Mana drew closer, but I put up a hand to stop her. Something about what I was seeing wasn’t right.
Tentatively, Lucy inched forward until she pressed a paw on Willomina’s thigh. Then another. I watched in blank amazement as the cat lifted herself onto the blood mage’s lap. My jaw dropped when she then lifted herself again, pressing her forepaws onto the mage’s chest, not to cause a wardrobe malfunction like she had when she first met Mana, but to gaze directly into her eyes.
From up close, Willomina’s deep crimson eyes now looked instead like shades of dulled ruby to Lucy – to me. Fresh tears slid down her cheeks, but she hid them beneath her bangs when she turned away, exposing the slender nape of her neck.
Lucy sniffed her, then, seemingly satisfied, adjusted herself to sit on the mage’s lap.
Willomina looked back, eyes wide with shock. Hands shaking with trepidation so severe it reached her shoulders, she reached out and gently pat Lucy’s head.
She was just a girl – a weak, fragile thing in chains. No older than Yua. As she slowly pat the cat, she bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut to stem the tears. I cut my spell and opened my eyes.
“We’re going in,” I said and stood.
“But what’s in there? You went all quiet and wouldn’t answer me.”
“It’s… You’ll see. Just be ready for anything.”
I pushed the fake wall back into place and drew my sword out of my item box. We agreed on my dagger being enough, but considering who was in there…
Taking my orders to heart, Mana readied her bow and swiftly pulled an arrow out of her quiver. We moved to a deeper, darker part of the tower where light wouldn’t be seen and I cast Dimensional Step. The lights swirled into place and I put my guard up before passed through.
The moment I stepped in front of Willomina’s cell, all I saw was near complete darkness. All I had to see by was the dimmest of lights coming from a small, rectangular hole in the wall high above her head. The plant life outside it had become so overgrown, barely anything could be seen through the bars lining it.
I cast Fairy’s Light, only to find her face buried in Lucy’s fur as the cat quietly purred. Then, before the confusion could fully settle in, a chill ripped up my spine, causing a shiver that momentarily weakened my guard. It was not due to fear of the girl struggling to reign in her tears. We were deep underground and the already cool night’s temperature felt like it’d suddenly been cut in half. But that only made this all the more confusing.
Not only were Willomina’s feet completely bare, but her dress was painfully thin, like the fabric was painted directly onto her porcelain flesh and then pulled taught. The whole thing hugged her body like a glove that was two sizes too small. Add to this the deep, plunging neckline and it was safe to say she should have died from hypothermia hours ago.
And yet, she wasn’t even shivering. Her skin was still as white as snow, but that was as far as the comparison went – not even her shackled ankles showed any extra signs of damage.
Looking at her now, I couldn’t help but remember the ill-fit clothes Yua was forced to wear in the slave house.
Mana stepped out next to me and the portal disappeared. She took one look at Willomina and yanked on my cloak.
“Why did you bring us here? We weren’t supposed to let anyone see us, remember?”
Willomina pulled away from her fur pillow at the sound of Mana’s voice and, where I was expecting some sort of shock to reveal itself in her eyes, she instead sank deeper into herself.
Lucy, however, lifted her head at us and almost seemed to consider her options before hopping off Willomina and running back to me (to Mana). With a profoundly sullen look about her, Willomina watched the cat rub against Mana’s leg.
“I figured that familiar would have belonged to you,” she said weakly.
“Familiar?” I said, trying to feign ignorance to prevent more of our secrets from coming out. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s alright. You don’t need to lie. Respectfully, I most likely know much more about magic than you do, and I can say for certain that that cat is a familiar.”
Respectfully?
“And what exactly makes you so certain?”
Willomina’s gaze lifted up to me and I felt a distinct sharpness hidden there beneath the despair and dried tears. Suddenly, I felt as though I couldn’t look away.
“It’s actually quite simple,” she said. “A familiar is not like their natural born counterpart. They do not share that sense of imminent danger real animals do when faced with danger, because they don’t technically have lives to lose. On some level, they know that should they fall to a predator, all it’ll take to live again is for you, their summoner, to recast a spell.”
“And what does that have to do with Lucy?”
“Lucy is her name, then?” she questioned, but before I could chastise myself for letting that slip, Willomina’s gaze dropped to her hands in her lap. She clenched and unclenched her hands, watching her fingers move as if they weren’t hers. “… Because if that cat weren’t a familiar, it wouldn’t have dared to approach me.”
“What, are you just so dangerous that even a cat should know to keep away?”
I felt that now would have been the penultimate chance to raise my sword and remind her which of us was in control here, but my arm wouldn’t move. Lucy, however, took the hint and vanished from the room.
“I don’t want to be,” she said. “But I suppose I don’t have a say in that matter anymore.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t and, as I said, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here to kill me, correct? Then go ahead. I deserve that and more. All I ask is that you make it as painless as possible.”
Her tone making this sound like her last will and testament, Willomina pulled down her hood and swept her long white hair over her shoulder, bearing her neck.
“That enchanted sword you used on the church should do nicely. The key to this cell is on the wall to your right. Though, I suppose you don’t need it.”
She pointed and, sure enough, there was a rusted iron key hanging off a hook embedded in the wall, just out of her reach. Suddenly, my heart was trying to leap out of my throat.
“Wait. Wait. Wait. What? You want me to kill you? What happened to fighting back like that night?”
“You want me to fight back?” she asked with a tremor in her voice.
“No, I want to know why the leader of Villeverdure’s bandits is chained to a wall, and why she can’t use her magic to escape her shackles.”
She was perfectly capable of bursting into a fine red mist in time to dodge my sword, and we both witnessed her easily using that form to slip through a keyhole. Her chains didn’t look remotely magical, so there should be no conceivable reason why she could be trapped down here.
Willomina, however, shook her head and very nearly laughed.
“Leader? Me? As if I’d ever put myself at the head of a bunch of inept fools like these.”
“If you’ll allow me to quote you, don’t waste your time lying to us. We heard you giving them orders before I chased you.”
As if the concept of hearing reminded her of her job here, Mana’s ears perked under her hood and her eyes narrowed at the girl.
“Did your buddies betray you after our little scuffle and lock you down here?”
“Hardly. Like I said, I am not their leader. I want nothing to do with these gutter-dwelling, bloodthirsty, barbarous heathens.”
She sneered as she touched a hand to the golden collar around her neck and for a moment, a very brief second, her brow twisted with what might have been fear.
“This is no mere ornament. It used to be an educational tool used by the church on unruly children. It’d emit a small burst of holy magic, just enough to sting, to punish the little wrongdoer. Only now it is a malevolent artifact that compels me to submit to their orders, one of which is to not use any magic while I am stuck here. If I disobey, the collar will unleash a torrent of magical power that will pierce my very soul with an agony you could never dream of. I am little more than a puppet carried on their strings, forced to dance to their whims. I am effectively their slave.”
Grimacing at the comparison, but ever wary of the bandit tag in her info box, I decided to humor her. Silently, I cast Appraisal on her collar and, to my surprise, it read…
[Tallow’s Cincture of Benevolent Reformation]
It didn’t speak to any explosive effects, but it apparently wasn’t a fashion statement either. Not that this mattered.
“So, let me get this straight. They ordered you to command them? A slave giving her master orders? That’s just…”
“That is precisely what they ordered me to do.”
Her eyes locked with mine and I knew at once that there was no room for jokes or lies in those hollowed, sullen irises. Somehow, she was completely serious.
“I don’t follow.”
“You wouldn’t. Nobody would. It is the utmost, epitome of absurdity. They-are-buffoons… but I do have to admit, they are a crafty sort.”
“Crafty enough to imprison a blood mage of all people, apparently.”
Really have to wonder how all those low-level bandits managed it when I couldn’t even land a hit on her.
As I pondered, Willomina fixed me with a glare so profound, I nearly didn’t spot the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. She bit her lip and it was almost as if she were biting back a retort or some great insult.
“This foul magic is not my own,” she spat, just barely managing to keep her voice low. “They forced it upon me, forced me to study, so that I could help them commit their crimes! I do not want it! I hate it! I… this school of magic is the most disgusting form ever conceptualized! The ability to control the very essence of another’s life is… is…”
She choked, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“This sanguine nightmare is only a small part of why you must kill me now, before I am forced to kill anyone else! Please!”
Again, she presented us her neck and my foot moved back a step, the weight of her pleas was as shocking as it was heavy. The fight in her was gone. Or maybe it never even existed. I clenched my sword tighter and forcefully silenced the part of me that wanted to help a crying girl to remind myself of why I was here.
A known bandit just admitted to turning her magic on someone. This cannot be overlooked
“You’re in no position to make demands. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll decide how this night ends.”
She closed her eyes and her shoulders shook with quiet sobs. I glanced at Mana, thinking that I might have lost a few of her affection points just now, but her eyes and ears were focused on the crying girl.
“You obviously hate the bandits,” I said. “So, tell me about them. Why would they go out of their way to force you to learn blood magic?”
Willomina was quiet for a long moment, before she sniffled and wiped at her tears. Her eyes remained hidden behind a wall of pure white hair.
“… Because none of them were capable of learning it themselves. These… people are fools by nature, but so am I for letting them see that I am a genius.”
“A genius?”
I looked around the room, at the cell, the bars, the cobwebs in the corners. Mere seconds away from asking how a genius could end up in a place like this, I made a brief detour down memory lane and decided I had no right to speak.
“Yes,” she said, sniffling again. “In no uncertain terms, I am a genius. They realized as much after they captured me and they decided to use me instead of punish me.”
“Use you how?”
“You were not entirely wrong when you assumed I was at the head of what the bandits are doing. I’m just not their leader. They put me in this collar and forced me to become the mastermind behind their plot to rise to power in Villeverdure.”
Perhaps noticing that we weren’t going to end her suffering after a brief chat, Willomina wiped away her tears, tried hard not to fall altogether and slunk back against the side wall of her cell.
“So everything that’s going on in the city is your doing?”
A small grimace spread on her lips, but she didn’t deny a thing. She couldn’t. Not after claiming to be the brains of the operation.
“Not entirely,” she sniffled. “I can only claim about twenty-percent of the blame, but none of it was voluntary.”
“Because the collar? Was it Nerissa that made you wear it?”
With Tallow being in the name, there was little room for doubt and it seemed I was right, as she nodded.
“This is that harlot of a priestess’s doing, but ironically, if it weren’t for her, I’d already be dead. Once they had me tied up, they stood around me after I’d been caught, discussing what they should do with me. The consensus was that I needed to die so I couldn’t tell anyone what I saw. Or what I heard. She spared me. If you could call it that.”
“And what did you hear?”
“I heard that their plans were in ruins. That everything they’d built was about to come crashing down. The people were beginning to notice their movements and every time someone got close, they killed them. Needless to say, the people noticed this as well.”
“Okay, hold it. From what I’ve seen, the people here are all blissfully unaware that the bandits are even here. Let alone that anyone was killed.”
“Yes… I’m ashamed to say that that is also my doing.”
“And how’d you manage that? Do you know some sort of brainwashing magic?”
Nothing else made sense. Who in their right mind would actually believe that their family members just up and left for little to no reason? Only for them to wind up working the skeleton shift building houses in a run-down fort.
“I… I can’t tell you.”
“Why not? You seemed perfectly willing to speak until just now.”
“Because of the collar,” she said, gripping it. “I must obey their commands. And one of their commands is to never speak of their current plans.”
“Is that not what you were just doing?”
“No. Again, these people are fools. They commanded me not to speak of their current plans. The changes I’ve made to them are included in this. However, they’ve said nothing of speaking about their goals or their old plans.”
“I see… So, you’ve found loopholes in their orders?”
“I have found many, yes. As I keep telling you, these…”
“Yes, yes. The bandits are all a cavalcade of idiots. Can we please skip to the part where you tell us what they want?”
The potential of having one of the bandits themselves squeal on the rest was loads more useful than the information we’ve gathered so far tonight. I could feel myself starting to get impatient. Mana was the same, squinting her eyes at the girl in the cage and stepping closer to listen harder. Willomina took a breath and explained.
“At first, they wanted what any other bandit wants, to steal as much coin as possible without care for who they hurt along the way. The people here were weak-willed and short on intelligence, typical of a provincial village. They were easy for the bandits to bully, but all that shifted when their harlot priestess came along. What was once them sating their greed with others’ coin became expanding the city and in turn, the church. In the beginning, their daily take consisted of whatever scraps of coin they managed to pilfer from someone’s pocket, but now it is a constantly overflowing offering bowl at mass.”
“So, they want to sit on their asses and let the coin roll in through the church?”
“What they wanted is to rule the city from the shadows, collecting church tithes and taxes, all while breaking into houses for fun.”
“I don’t see how all these bandits expect to live off what the church brings in. Even if it’s a lot, the church itself still needs to keep some of the coin… Then again, I did hear something about the local businesses donating on top of that.”
“That’s only part of it. I can’t tell you exactly, but there is more to how they use their coin than that.”
“More to it, ay?” I thumbed my chin and thought for a moment before I asked, “If the bandits’ plan is to expand the city in order to rake in free money… Are they re-investing the coin they take from the church by building new shops, buildings, houses and then renting them out for cheap?”
Add onto that how all that is being built essentially for free, meaning you can rent them on the cheap, thus bringing in more and more people looking for a good deal, and you have a recipe to earn yourself a lot of illicit money.
Hell, if that’s what their whole plan is, then stealing from houses is just a game for them. A game that led us right to them.
Willomina’s eyes opened wide at this, her ruby irises growing just a little brighter before she looked away.
“My restrictions keep me from answering your question. But I must say, you are more intelligent than I would have thought.”
“Aw shucks. I’m blushing. Can you continue, please?”
She pressed her lips together, almost like she was trying to keep something from slipping out, but she continued after taking a slow breath.
“For a while, things were going perfectly for them. The population got bigger and bigger and the coin kept flooding in. This, however, was their biggest mistake. Their plan lacked proper structure and missed any and all foresight that wasn’t based on wishful thinking. In their folly, they failed to realize that the village had become a city. With cities come more eyes that can become witnesses and guards who can hear the terrified cries of those witnesses as they are snuffed out. It became too dangerous to break into houses, but they let their greed control them and did it anyway. They got caught – many times – and they killed every witness and disappeared the bodies using… church resources.”
Hearing the hesitation in her voice, I couldn’t help but latch onto the phrase church resources. Whatever she meant by that, must be related to their current plans.
“They were messy about it,” she continued. “Killing in broad daylight to save themselves. The people were beginning to notice when their loved ones weren’t showing up to church. That… That is when I arrived.”
“And they made you take over?”
She nodded slowly. “At the time, I wasn’t in my right mind. I begged for mercy and in so doing, I told them I heard about what they were doing and… and I offered to help fix their mess in return for mercy. I should have just let them kill me, but that harlot priestess convinced them to give me a chance.”
“How nice of her.”
“Hardly.”
“… What did they make you do?”
“Their first order to me was to clean up their mess so they wouldn’t ever have to worry about getting caught. Unfortunately, thanks to their reckless murder, it wasn’t as simple a matter as I thought it’d be. Because the harlot priestess specifically ordered me to clean up their mess, not try to clean it up, I had no choice but to divulge my abilities, as they were necessary.”
“I thought they were the ones that forced you to learn blood magic.”
“They were. And that’s not what I meant. Not entirely, anyways. Once my work began to show fruit, and the people’s suspicion all but completely vanished in the matter of weeks, I earned their trust. But instead of letting me go, they added another order – now I had to improve their plans. They forced those spell tomes into my hands to make that happen.”
She lifted her hands in front of her chest and stared down into them, as if looking into a book that wasn’t there.
“They knew little about the magic themselves, but they claimed it would help them in their thieving ways. They weren’t wrong. And due to my intelligence, among other reasons, I was the only one that could make use of them. So, I was made to study while I worked on their plans to build and takeover the city. And, again, unfortunately I am a quick study. I mastered the spells and implemented them into their takeover.”
“And I suppose that collar prevents you from telling us how they use your magic?”
“Mostly. But you’ve already seen it in action.”
“Right. Turning into mist and slipping into houses to unlock them from the inside. And those orders you gave them after you did that?”
“Those were merely suggestions on how to conduct themselves to keep them from screwing up their own plans with more needless murder. They think themselves intelligent because they ordered me to give advice when it was needed, but when they ignored my advice not to steal anymore, they continued to put themselves at risk.”
She gestured a hand at me and I had to admit, she was right. If they’d stuck to her plans, we wouldn’t have found her as fast as we did. Hell, with her stuck down here, who’s to say we ever would have found her if we didn’t know to keep looking?
“You said spells, plural. Would you tell me if you had anything to do with those skeletons up there building houses?”
“Restoring life to a corpse is beyond a Hemomage’s capabilities. I am no Necromancer.”
“Then, besides Sanguine Mist, what else did you learn?”
“I can’t tell you. And that is all I can tell you about the bandits, I’m afraid. Hopefully you can use what you’ve learned to put an end to their schemes… and to them.”
“Hold on a second. I can understand all that, but that can’t be it. There has to be more you can tell us.”
How the hell was I supposed to figure out their plans by just knowing their goals and a smidgen of how Willomina fits into them?
She, however, shook her head.
“I can’t tell you more without risking the consequences.”
Again, she touched a hand to her collar and I rubbed my eyes.
“Okay. I hate to point out the obvious on such a dark topic, but isn’t that what you want? Not five minutes after we showed up, you asked us to kill you. Why not let that collar go off?”
“Ha,” she almost laughed, a contemptuous crease arching her brow, not unlike a pretty cheerleader’s might after getting asked out by the class geek. “That’s absurd. As if I’d ever take my own life. Monsters don’t slay monsters, people do. Besides, I’d rather not give them the satisfaction.”
“Then why run from our fight?”
“Because, if I was going to die anyways, I figured I might as well do at least one bit of good with what’s left of this miserable life by helping you mop up the rest of these bandits. So, I led you to the church.”
“And then you tried to burn it down? How does that help?”
“I had no choice. Because of the collar, I am forced to obey their orders. And their orders on this matter were clear: If I am ever spotted when we’re out thieving, I am forbidden from speaking, unless it is to cast a spell that will aid in fleeing back to this cell. I may be just a tool to them, but I am a useful tool. They won’t risk my capture.”
“I don’t follow. You say you can’t speak if spotted, but, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re talking now, aren’t you?”
Willomina pressed her eyes shut and drew in a deep breath. I felt a small twinge of fear when the sight of her reminded of Yua trying to reign in her patience after Elane’s and my fooling around messed up the living room right after she cleaned it.
“They ordered me not to speak to anyone if I am spotted when we’re out thieving. Not if somebody spots me by stumbling upon my cell. They should have ordered me not to speak to anyone that isn’t a part of their gang, but fortunately for us, these people have all the foresight of a dungbeatle that thinks itself a lion among all the rest of the little bugs. Due again to their idiocy, they’ve allowed me to speak freely, so long as I am in this cell.”
“I’m sorry, but behind all those insults and bug talk, you make it sound like you attacked the church because you planned on me eventually finding you here.”
“Because I did.”
“Okay… but what about the church? Wouldn’t the bandits be pissed if you attacked their cash cow? I mean, Nerissa seems to think some other church attacked her, but why risk their ire?”
“That harlot thinks she was attacked by another church?”
“Forget that for now. Why set fire to the church? I mean, it definitely distracted me long enough for you to run away, but....”
“No, no, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Remember, I led you there. And remember that these bandits are dimwitted to the very core of the word. They allow me to use my magic to escape capture, but they didn’t restrict me on how I used it. They also never said I had to flee straight here. Or that I can’t make a detour to the church first. Only that I cannot speak.”
“That explains why you were so quiet then, but not why you attacked the church.”
“Yes, I know. I have to be careful with how I speak. Listen… I wasn’t attacking the church. Shooting a bit of lightning at it had the dual effect of aiding in my escape, and warning you. I couldn’t speak, so I had to show you. I had to show you what was happening inside that room.”
“In Nerissa’s bedroom?”
“Yes! Good. Now, did you look inside?”
“No, I didn’t have a chance. The guards showed up almost as soon as you left.”
At this, Willomina’s shoulders slumped so hard it nearly knocked her over. The groan that fell out of her mouth could have woken the dead.
“Was all that planning seriously for nothing?”
“What difference does it make if I looked? And why would you assume I would in the first place?”
I may reluctantly be a serial boob-looker-atter, but I’m not a peeping tom. At least, not when my wives weren’t involved.
“Because it was my only option! I thought you’d turn your focus to putting out the flames. And in so doing, you were supposed to wonder why I chose to attack that room instead of you while you were distracted. You were supposed to go up there and see for yourself.”
“See what, exactly? You can speak now. Just tell us.”
“Ugh…! I can’t tell you! Not directly, anyways. You must see and figure it out for yourself. I can only point you in the right direction.”
“And the right direction is… in Nerissa’s bedroom?”
“Yes. If you’d seen what I needed you to see in that harlot’s bedroom, you would have been able to figure out what they’re doing.”
“How can peeping into the bedroom of a literal priestess help me to figure out what’s going on?”
Her eyes narrowed at me and, for a moment, I felt as though the less I understood her intentions, the more she was considering taking back that compliment about my intelligence.
“I get you’re limited in what you can say, but this is all sounding pretty convoluted. We know you’re a bandit, too. So, how do we know you aren’t leading us into some sort of trap?”
If she’s really as smart as she claims, she could have come up with all that to get us to slip up. Asking us to kill her could just be her using reverse psychology to get us to do the opposite out of sympathy. Spying on Nerissa’s bedroom, which is in the most heavily guarded part of town, which is even more heavily guarded after what she herself did, could just be her way of getting rid of us without ever leaving her cell.
The sharpness in Willomina’s eyes faded once more and was replaced with what I recognized as self-loathing.
“What do you think? Were you able to tell if … Mana?”
When she didn’t respond, I turned to Mana, only to find her shaking. She jerked at the sound of her own name and leapt back, flying several feet away from the cell and out of sight behind me.
The strangled cry of a bowstring being pulled taut echoed throughout the prison. The shaft of Mana’s arrow clattered unsteadily against the wood frame. Her eyes were wide with fear, but they remained locked on Willomina, even as her hands and legs trembled violently. I threw up a hand to stop her.
“Hold on a second. I still want to talk. She might be able to tell us more.”
“N-No,” Mana said, her voice shaking. “I-I was listening to her heart like Big Sis does. To see if she was lying.”
To this, Willomina’s shoulders slumped and she nearly collapsed to the floor, like her desire to remain upright to make for an easy kill had just been dealt a devastating blow. Mana kept her arrow aimed at her.
“Was she lying to us?”
“I-I don’t know… She… I… I tried to listen, I really did, but…”
“Try to calm down and just tell me what you heard.”
She choked and her eyes filled with tears, but she refused to stop aiming at Willomina.
“I-I didn’t hear anything. She… She doesn’t have a heartbeat.”
“What…?”
“No… Even my heart is…? No…No…”
Willomina’s eyes widened with a cry of sheer, destitute loss, and she collapsed to the floor, clutching her chest as sobs wracked her body. The flames she’d been spitting at the bandits had died out in an instant. With a defeated thud, she slammed her fist against the stone floor, but her strength was gone.
What was more disturbing was her easy acceptance of Mana’s words. She didn’t try to argue or deny the truth, but instead seemed to accept it with a resigned understanding, as if she already knew the devastating truth, but was unwilling to confront it.
Mana’s ears flicked, then the shaking in her knees slowly lessened as the girl cried, until they stopped shaking all together. She eased up on the bowstring, but didn’t lower her arrow completely. What she heard, or didn’t hear, couldn’t be forgotten. Instead, she narrowed her eyes, searching for lies in those tears. It was impossible to say if she found any.
“What do you mean she doesn’t have a heartbeat?” I whispered.
“I mean I listened to her chest, but I didn’t hear anything. She’s breathing, but…”
There was no joy in her tone, this wasn’t a prank. Nor was this one of her random outbursts of misplaced, erotic truths. Mana was completely and absolutely serious. Which made it all the more confusing when a twinge of sympathy made her lower her bow further – she didn’t need to say Willomina’s tears were real.
No heartbeat. Footsteps so light even Yua couldn’t hear them. Incredibly pale skin and ruby red eyes...
I had a few ideas of what these details might add up to, but…
“Willomina,” I said. “Who… No, what are you?”
What, not who. For some reason, it stung to make that distinction. It was the same for her, as she had to suppress her sobs to answer from the floor. When she spoke, her voice was hollow.
“I-I’m a vampire.”
Pulling her lips back into a smile so wide it must have hurt, she showed us a pair of pointed, needle-like canines that extended well past the rest of her otherwise perfectly-shaped teeth. We saw them for only a second before she pressed a hand over her mouth and she shrank into herself, but she could not hide the truth anymore.
“How did this happen to you?”
“Is this not enough? Isn’t knowing what I am all the proof you need to do what is right? Why must I degrade myself further by recanting my past?”
“Because you’re the one in a cell, asking for mercy. And I’m the one with the sword.”
I turned my blade over so it shone under the fairy’s light and Willomina winced.
“… Are you not aware of what a vampire does by nature?”
“Oh, I’m aware. I am exceedingly aware.”
In fact, the little horror movie geek in me that I thought died back in high school was trying real hard to surface once again. A certain series of novels about the blood sucking undead that I used to love popped into my mind for the first time in years, but I pushed them aside harder than I did the shitty prequel series.
Having no other option in the face of my refusal to back down, Willomina turned her eyes towards the floating light before pulling her knees up to her chest, burying her face between them. Just when I thought she was going to refuse to talk, a fragile voice cracked the air.
“It’s always so dark down here. I can’t see much of anything out the window and with no sun or moon to keep track of the days, I’ve long since lost track of how many days it’s been since they took me prisoner. I tried to keep count by keeping a record of the meals they bring me, but they don’t exactly feed me every day. At least, not with food.”
Willomina lifted her head from her knees and, with her eyes shrouded by the long, messy white hair cascading over her face, she touched a finger to her lips before almost retching.
“I don’t know how long it’s been,” she said. “But it’s likely been several months since that man came to me in the middle of the night.”
“Who?”
“Baron Séverin Renaud. He lied his way into my bedroom, saying he’d come to talk business. I wish that was all it was. I was a fool for allowing that silver tongue of his to persuade me.”
“Why would you let a man into your room so late for business?”
“Because it wasn’t the first time. He’s been friends with my father since they were children. There shouldn’t have been any cause for concern.”
“What did he really want?” Mana asked, lowering her bow further. Hesitantly and without removing her eyes from the girl, she stepped closer to the cell once more.
Willomina looked to her, then to me, and with pain clear in her eyes, she looked away. She lowered her chin to hide her mouth behind her knees.
“Please. I’d rather not say. All you need to know is that I rejected his offer and he didn’t like that. He pinned me to the bed, held his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t use my magic and he… bit me.”
She rubbed at the left side of her neck.
“It was the worst pain I ever felt, but he latched on anyway. I hit and I slapped and I kicked and he… a-and he drank… until I couldn’t fight back anymore. I had to lay there, feeling my life drain away with every mouthful. My strength left me and so did my eyesight. I thought I was going to die, but suddenly, before I closed my eyes, all that dread just stopped.
“Suddenly, everything felt… off. Everything was wrong. Everything. It felt like the world I knew stopped existing for me and me alone. Like I was no longer allowed to be a part of it, and he forced me into another. It was when he finally let go, that I was no longer on Ternia. No longer in my bed or my bedroom. When my vision came back to me, everything looked the same, the sheets, the bookshelves, the door… but nothing felt familiar anymore.”
“He turned you?”
Willomina nodded slowly. Or maybe she didn’t even realize she was moving. Her eyes were wide open, but they were no longer fixed on anything.
“These started to grow,” she said, pressing a finger under her lip, to the blade that grew in her mouth. “When I felt these fangs cut into my gums and my mouth filled with my own blood, I realized I’d been clenching my teeth so hard that I couldn’t have said a word even if he’d let me.
“I didn’t know he was a vampire. Nobody did, or he would have been killed ages ago. He hid it so well that nobody could have guessed. Heavens know how he managed it, but when he stood back to admire what he’d done to me, it was painfully obvious that it wasn’t a sudden change.
“When it was done, he gloated, saying a woman was best turned young, so she’ll be forever at her most beautiful. As if it were some sick compliment. My senses came back to me and I hit him with a lightning bolt. He hit the floor and I ran. I ran as fast and as far as I could. For the first time in my life, I-I didn’t know what I was doing. I just used my magic and ran. Then I ended up here. I don’t even know if I killed him, but I doubt it.”
I took in her story with as much caution as humanly possible, then looked to Mana to see what she thought, only to find her fingers slack around her bow. Her knees were calm again, perhaps too calm. I yanked her back when she reached a hand toward the bars.
Willomina didn’t seem to notice. She ran her thumb over her fang until its razor tip pricked her thumb and she jerked her hand away.
“… Is that when you killed for the first time? When you got here?”
Her mouth fell open, almost like she wanted to say yes, but she closed her lips and chewed on her words for a moment before shaking her head.
“No… I… Blood is the most horrendous thing that could ever dare to disgrace a person’s tongue. It’s practically torture, but it is necessary for a vampire. They don’t need food. But after tasting my own, I refused to drink so much as a drop. I just kept running through the night, across the countryside, away from him, until the sun rose and I was forced to stop when my skin began to burn. And when night fell again, I ran. Because of that, I think I might have increased the need to drink.”
“Like getting hungry after a good workout?”
She didn’t stop to agree. Nor did she disagree. She just stared.
“I studied vampires extensively, and yet, I’d forgotten what happens to a vampire that refuses to drink. Blood Frenzy. It’s… haunting to have seen it for myself.”
“What happened?” Mana asked.
“I’m not sure, honestly. I just… All of the sudden, my vision went dark, my mind went blank and my body was no longer mine. It was like I’d fallen asleep, but my body kept moving all on its own. I have no idea how long I was like that, but when I woke again, I was standing over a man’s bed. A farmer, I think.”
Willomina’s breaths started to come in rapid, half-bursts, as if each successive syllable made it harder to breathe. The tears pooling in her widened eyes refused to fall as she stared at her hands.
“There were holes in his neck… and my lips were wet. I tasted copper and… and the farmer wasn’t breathing. He was so still. It was like someone swapped him out for a man-shaped rock before I came to, but he was supposed to be a person. A living, breathing person. And his wife, she was right next to him, just sleeping. Like nothing at all was wrong in the world. I tried to leave before she could notice me, but I bumped into something and knocked it over. It crashed. She woke and saw my face. I-I tried to apologize, tried to tell her I didn’t mean to do it, but the words wouldn’t come. I just ran again.”
“And then you ended up here?”
Finally snapping out of her daze, Willomina stopped and drew a deep breath that she held clenched behind her teeth. Slowly, quietly, she forced something resembling calm to settle over herself.
“I have a better understanding of Blood Frenzy now, I think. The consensus among monster scholars is that vampires just occasionally lose themselves to their desires for blood, but now I believe it’s more like there’s something deep inside us, an animalistic instinct that forces us to do whatever it takes to survive. Even if it means that instinct takes control. Even if it means killing.”
Part of me, a part I wasn’t even sure I liked, wanted to say that it might not have been her that killed that man, that if she didn’t see or remember it happening, that she might actually be innocent. It itched at the back of my mind, telling me that something about her whole situation was off. Something about all this still didn’t make sense, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And it wasn’t the fact that her Bandit tag proved my wishful thinking wrong.
I took another look at her collar. If it is a part of this Tallow religion, then it likely dished out some holy damage whenever the wearer broke the rules. Although, if it’s some sort of educational tool, then the damage dealt must be pretty minimal - to a human. But to her…
“That’s why you must kill me,” she said, the finality in her voice making her lip tremble. “I’ve tried to explain this to those barbarians, but they keep feeding me nothing but the blood of livestock and any animals they pick up off the streets. It is not enough and…”
“And you’re afraid of what you’ll do if they keep ignoring your needs?”
She nodded.
“If I lose control of myself with this collar on, I won’t be able to think my way through the darkness. I will attack them and I will break their orders to never hurt them… But I refuse to kill myself. You must be the one to do it. You have to…”
“Yea, I’m going to stop you right there.”
Gritting my teeth, I tried not to think about how her Blood Frenzy was oddly similar to Elane’s Berserker Rage. Nor did I let myself consider that her enfeebled state might show that she might be close to the breaking point. Something is not right.
I sheathed my sword. She watched, eyes filling with a growing terror, as her salvation of a swift mercy turned to dust and blew away with the wind when my blade was no longer able to hurt her.
“Wh-What are you doing?!”
“You see,” I said, throwing a thumb over my shoulder at Mana. “My vertically-challenged lie detector here is on the fritz right now, so I can’t tell if anything you just said is a lie.”
Reluctantly, Mana nodded. Her ears did occasionally twitch as Willomina spoke, but not once did she show signs of being able to discern fact from fiction. And I didn’t want either of us to fall prey to the emotion in her voice, or her story – it could all be fake.
“No, wait! Please, I’ve done nothing but tell the truth. I swear it! I even admitted to murder! You must kill me before you leave! I must be punished before I do it again! Please… W-Wait! If you need proof, I can give you proof that I’m not lying!”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I-I can tell you, but you have to promise not to raise your voice once I do. I know I haven’t been in complete control of my volume, but I feel it’s getting close to my feeding time… that is, if they decide to bring me anything tonight. We can’t risk them finding out that we spoke or all this will have been for nothing.”
“Alright, alright. I promise to keep quiet.”
Willomina nodded, then cautious, she looked to Mana.
“She promises, too. Go ahead and tell us.”
With another deep breath to steady herself, Willomina shifted to sit on her knees. She looked me dead in the eye and I, at least, knew she was trying to show how serious whatever she was about to say was, but with her gripping the hem of her skirt like a child bracing for a scolding, she looked more hopeful than honest.
One more deep breath later and she was ready.
“… I know Lucielle Evans is the one that hired you to kill the bandits.”
“What…?”
A chill ripped up my spine and I very nearly drew my sword again. Mana retreated a step or two, but it was impossible to say if she understood the full weight of what that statement meant.
“I have no idea what or who you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of any Lucielle. It’s an odd name, I would have remembered it if I heard it before.”
Sweat dripped down my temple, but Willomina’s serious look was penetrating. At least, it was until she raised a brow at us. She looked us over for a moment before some sort of realization dawned on her.
“Ah, right. Of course… If your guild is anything like the ones back home, you were probably told to keep your employer’s name confidential. Let me rephrase: I know Lucielle hired you, because I am the one that convinced her to do so.”
I looked to Mana, but all she did was shrug. I sighed.
Guess the cat’s out of the bag. So much for getting paid for all the trouble.
“But how? When I first told her about you, she looked just as surprised as… well, she would have said something.”
Was Lucielle seriously withholding the fact that she knew the person we thought was the bandits’ leader?
As if to dispel such thoughts, Willomina shook her head.
“She wouldn’t remember me. I made sure of that. See… Hmm? I do have to be careful in how I say this, but… How familiar are you with the Vampiric Charm ability?”
“I’d like to say I’m not, but…”
Goddess… I don’t like where this is going.
“It is an ability I gained after being cursed with this form. It allows me some degree of control over non-vampires whose minds are weaker than my own, which is most everyone.”
“Are you telling us that you’re the reason why neither Lucielle nor anybody else in the city seems aware of what’s going on? Did you enthrall everyone?”
“Heavens no. Even for someone like me, that’d be impossible. In Lucielle’s case,” she said, enunciating the words, like she meant to hint that she did the same for everyone else. “I cannot control anyone. Not entirely. What I can do is charm them into telling me what’d be the easiest lie for them to believe in regarding where their loved ones went. And from there, I can convince them that they aren’t lies and that they are, in fact, truths, so they’re easier to believe.”
“So you’re… brainwashing the people? Brainwashing Lucielle, I mean.”
We had to keep this about Lucielle, so we didn't trigger the collar. She was being careful with her wording, only telling us the potentials of her abilities, not explicitly stating that that was how she was using them. Which, in turn, meant the bandits were forcing her to do this.
I could see where she was going with this, even if she couldn’t say so herself.
The bandits get caught doing something stupid, and she clears up any witnesses by charming them into thinking something else, something more pleasant had happened. The sound of someone breaking into your house late at night could easily just become your dog knocking something over if you let yourself be fooled and don’t bother to check. And if someone liked to talk about making it big in some big city somewhere, then it wouldn’t be all that difficult to assume they really did just up and leave in the middle of the night.
Willomina nodded and, while she claimed herself to be a genius, she didn’t look remotely proud of what she’s done.
“It’s not always so easy. Lucielle is a stubborn girl. Until recently, this was a small village where most are born, live and die without ever leaving to see the outside world. So, as the daughter of a merchant that often dealt with travelers, she was uniquely aware of how to find an Adventurer’s guild. Despite this, she kept sticking her nose into the bandit’s business herself, talking to people, learning more and more until, one night, she tracked their movements and tried to confront us as one of the city’s guards. It was only thanks to me that she’s alive. I asked them to let me take her aside while they worked on ransacking a house and they were more than happy to dump the work of dealing with her onto me.
“And so,” Willomina continued. “After a charming little chat, I learned that Lucielle’s conviction was just reckless enough to suit my needs - our needs. I convinced her that she was the only one that knew the truth about the bandits and that her failed efforts to bring people on to her side, though my fault, meant she needed to keep it that way. From there, I implanted the idea of seeking aid from the Adventurer’s Guild. If she was the sort of person to put herself at risk, then I figure she might as well do it in a way that could actually work. And, here you are.”
She gestured to us and the pieces of the puzzle started sliding into place. That’s why she told them to bring any witnesses to her that night. She meant to spare their lives by making them forget about what they saw.
The people of Villeverdure did know about the bandits, Willomina just convinced them that they didn’t because it would allow them to continue what they’re doing without repercussions.
No wonder the bandits are keeping her alive. She really is the glue holding their whole operation together.
“But you couldn’t convince everyone, right? I mean, how could you trick someone into thinking their friend randomly decided to go on a journey, if they saw their body?”
Deep regret furrowed her brow, but she nodded. “I can’t…”
She paused again, thinking. Then her eyes widened with an epiphany. She opened her mouth to speak, but gripped her collar, grimaced, then spoke anyway with full confidence.
“I can’t tell you what happens to them. Not directly, I mean. What I can tell you, however, is that the undead make for excellent laborers.”
She looked at me with hope coloring her eyes, and I closed mine.
Can’t tell me directly, but she can suggest her answer in saying something else? The control her collar has on her must be weaker than a slave contract, since just the intention of betraying her master’s orders didn’t seem to hurt her.
“The ones you couldn’t convince are the ones they killed. And I’m guessing it was you that came up with the idea of using their skeletons as laborers?”
“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. However, did you know that expanding a city at the rate Villeverdure has expanded is impossible to do within the span of a normal human’s lifetime? Assuming, of course, that work is only done during the day. Having extra hands was always a part of their operation, but adding more had become difficult.”
“Right… They always used skeletons, but you had to help them add more to pick up the pace. I see your double-speak, but how exactly are you telling me this? You said you’re not allowed to speak about their plans.”
She’d already given us more than we could have hoped to learn on our own – assuming she could be trusted. But her collar wasn’t exactly exploding just yet.
“I’m not telling you their plans,” she said. “I’m telling you my plans, for Lucielle. Anything else you glean from that is on you.”
“And your plans are…?”
“To help you put an end to these bandits, as I’ve been saying. I’ve been waiting for someone from the Adventurer’s Guild to show up for months now.”
“So, if you can tell the truth through double speak, you do have more to say. Let’s start with this: If you’re not the leader, who is?”
Probably the most poignant question, given the apparent lack of leadership around the fort.
“Is it Sword Guy?” Mana asked, ears flicking.
“S-Sword Guy? I’m afraid I really don’t know who that is. Honestly.”
“She means Gino.”
“Oh. Then let me start by saying you don’t need to use that ridiculous alias. I know his true name is Giulio, but I cannot speak to who is in charge. It is not allowed. However, I can say that Giulio is the only one of these barbarians that has been kind to me. He is the only one that brings me real, edible food. He even stays to talk for a while when he does…”
“Really?”
“Yes. Unlike the others, he’s never raised a hand against me. He’s never even raised his voice in my presence.”
I was dumbstruck. What even is that man? Now he’s being nice to the girl they effectively kidnapped? Even going so far as to treat her like a person. How the hell was someone this nice supposed to be a killer?
“Again,” Willomina continued. “I can’t be specific, but despite his nicer qualities, the man is rather, well… oblivious. I learned what they were up to in the first place, because he was talking about it while lying in bed. I tried to wait until he went to sleep to feed on him, just a little, but they still caught me.”
“So, he’s not their leader? Can you think of a way to tell us who is? Do that, and I might just believe you.”
Once again, she turned her eyes towards the ceiling, but this time, she didn’t linger long enough to count the bricks. When she came back down to us and her ruby eyes glowed with satisfaction, I couldn’t help but gulp.
“… The ice witch of Trinavalle is a very dangerous person.”
I crossed my arms and nodded along, replaying her words in my head a dozen times until I came to a conclusion.
“Yea… I have no idea where Trinavalle is. Could I get another hint?”
“Wha… How is that not enough if you know about Giulio and me?”
“Hey, I’m not the genius here and was been incredibly difficult for me to accept that fact. So, could I get some cooperation please?”
“Okay. Okay. Just… give me a minute.”
Sighing, Willomina lifted her eyes to the ceiling, only to…
“Ah!” Mana gasped. “Someone’s coming!”
Thrusting her finger at the door we came in, she jumped over to yank on my cloak.
“Shit… Must be dinner time. We have to go.”
Clicking my tongue, I threw open a portal beside us and Mana jumped straight through.
“What?!” Willomina cried out, lunging to grab at the cell bars. “You can’t leave yet. Please, you have to kill me before it’s too late! I deserve to be punished! Please, before she comes back!”
“We can’t risk being spotted. They can’t know we were here!”
Behind me, I heard something that sounded an awful lot like the heavy footfalls of a man plodding against the stone floor of the prison. We didn’t have time.
“Quick, what about Nerissa’s bedroom? Will there be another chance for us to see what you wanted us to?”
Even if there is the risk that this is a trap, it’d still be worth looking into.
“But…”
“We don’t have time,” I hissed. “If you’re serious about helping, prove it to me now.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and thumped her head against the bars. When her shoulders started shaking and her teardrops splashed on the floor, I forced myself to turn back to the portal. The footsteps grew louder, as did a grunt of effort as a key slid into a lock and the light of a torch filled the far end of the hallway.
“W-Wait,” she called and I stopped. “… If one is lucky, tomorrow night will be the perfect chance to go out for a midnight stroll.”
So, we need to check her room tomorrow at midnight? But only if we’re lucky…? Oh, right. If she’s not sure what day it is, she can’t promise it’ll happen as she intended.
With that as our new goal, I stepped towards the portal.
“Please…” she cried, her voice weak with tears.
I stopped again and, perhaps against my better judgement, I decided to put a little trust in her. This girl swallowed by guilt, that clawed back out of the hole she dug for herself to try and do some good. Besides, it’s not like she tried to call for help once Mana pointed out someone was coming.
Pulling down my mask, turned a smile back at her.
“Don’t worry. So long as I have a say about it, nobody else is going to die.”
She looked back at me from behind the bars, face wracked with tears and disbelief. The door to the hall opened and I jumped through the portal.
“Kitty! Kitty! What’s wrong, Kitty?!”
… Only to step back out into the forest to find Mana collapsed on the ground before I could so much as breathe in the fresh air.
Elane lifted the girl’s limp body up by the shoulders and shook her, only for Mana’s head to bobble back and forth. Her once big, vibrantly blue eyes were glazed over and her skin was pale, as if she’d seen a ghost – or a vampire.
“What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask us,” Yua said, panicked. “What happened over there? Is she hurt? I don’t smell blood.”
“Nothing happened. She should be…”
“T-T-To high,” Mana muttered. “Too high up. We were… too high up. I don’t want to climb any more. No more Climbing. Too high is bad.”
“What does that mean, Kitty? Kitty?”
Elane shook the girl again, only for her to limply fall face-first into the blonde’s cleavage - or rather, where said cleavage would have been were it not for Elane’s breastplate. And for once, Elane removed the girl from her bosom and held her up by her armpits, only for the three of us to witness a warm stream trickle down from in between her legs onto the ground. Confused, Elane’s gaze drifted downwards, only for her brow to raise when she noticed the stain darkening Mana’s shorts.
Poor girl. She held on for so long, too.
Out of respect for her bravery, I said nothing. When the stream stopped, I hit her with some cleaning magic and Elane hugged her tight to her chest.
I did have to wonder how it was all the climbing we did that set her off and not our meeting with a literal member of the undead. We’re really going to have to work on her fear of heights.
Yua looked to me for the answer. The worry that had been knitting her brow quickly disappeared, replaced with a blunt frustration and disbelief.
“Alex. What. Happened?”
“A lot. We need to get back to the inn.”