Physically, the two women were identical, except for their full-face masks, one gray, one brown. They had the same cloaks, the same boots, the same gloves and the same knives on the same belts. Their demeanor could not have been more different. The gray-masked one stood with a straight back and had a steady poise about her not unlike that of Ophelia or Sylvia, while the brown masked one was slouched and leaned to side with one hand on her hip, and the other scratching stomach.
“What?” said Brown-Mask. “Move along.”
“What are you doing with him?” I asked.
“It’s just our friend,” said the other in a much less hostile tone. “He got drunk and tripped and hit his head.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “That’s funny, because I could have sworn he was just coming back from a Dungeon, not a tavern.”
“Then he drank in the Dungeon, obviously,” said the rude one. “Now, move along.”
“No.”
“Alright, then,” said Gray-Mask. “Come over here. If you’re that worried, you can help us carry him to a church to get healed.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “What are you going to do with him?”
“We’re going to get him healed and take him back home,” said Gray-Mask.
“Why did you knock him out?”
“We didn’t do anything,” said Gray-Mask. “He tripped and fell and hit his head.” Rafael stirred and groaned. “See, he’s fine. Now either help us or piss off.”
“Get away from him. I can take him myself. I don’t trust you.”
Brown-Mask sighed. “How long have you even known this guy? A week? Two? I bet you don’t even know his real name.”
“Yes, I do.”
She snorted. “Right. Sure. If that were true you would know what was going on here, and you wouldn’t be getting involved. Why do you care so much about him? Are you his girlfriend? His bed warmer? Just leave before you get yourself in deeper shit than you can dig yourself out of.”
“And if I don’t?”
She looked over at her partner. “Max?”
“I told you not to call me that,” said Gray-Mask before directing her attention to me. “Forget about us, turn around and walk away.”
[Pride] has nullified the effects of [Compel]
“No,” I said.
“Max?”
“Shut up,” grumbled Gray-Mask. “I said, Forget about us, turn around, and walk away.”
“No,” I repeated. “Stop wasting your time. That won’t work on me.”
“Max, what the hell?” asked Brown Mask.
“Shut up!”
“Listen here, lady,” said Brown-Mask, walking toward me. “This guy-” she pointed to Rafael who was starting to sit up. “He’s a criminal. We’re taking him in to the authorities. Whatever he told you about himself, he was lying. Now just leave and forget about him. It’s for the best.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
She stared at me for a second, then looked up and sighed. “Goddammit we’re not getting paid enough for this shit. Alright, you nosy bitch. This is your last chance. Get the fuck out of here before you get hurt.”
“L-Lucy?” said Rafael behind her, rubbing his eyes. “What’s-?”
“Silence,” said Max. “Don’t talk. Don’t move.”
Rafael’s eyes widened in surprise and panic as he froze in place, half-sitting.
“It’s fine, Rafael,” I said. “I’ll get you out of here.”
“Like hell you will,” said Brown-Mask. “We are going to get that bounty, whether we have to go through you or not. So what’s it gonna be?”
Rather than responding I leapt back and cast my quickest and most effective spell, [Stone Bullet] at her, using one of the cobblestones at our feet for the projectile. Before I had time to cast a second spell, there was a hand on the back of my head, a knife in my stomach, and a brown mask an inch from my face.
I almost used my bracelet to teleport back to Anatoly right then. The pain was immense, and it felt like I was dying. Fortunately, I still had the presence of mind to recall something that Anatoly had mentioned and checked my HUD instead.
HUD
Current
Max
[HP]
2063
2660
[MP]
3189
3360
[AP]
3010
3010
Satiety
76
100
As a vampire, my [HP] is less of a measure of how close to being dead I am and more of a measurement of how damaged my body is. If it reaches 0, yes, I’m dead, but I can die without it reaching 0 too if my Satiety reaches 0, and that happens when I run out of blood. That means that, even if I have a wound that would be fatal to living creatures, as long as my body isn’t completely destroyed and I don’t bleed out, I can recover quite easily. It also means that, with the help of [Deception], I can fake my own death well enough to fool just about anyone.
And that’s exactly what I did. I fired one last spell as a “death throe” and collapsed to the ground, clutching at my stomach as the blade slid out. I glared at the masked woman standing over me, and disabled [Imitate Life], “dying” with my eyes open.
“Stupid bitch,” she spat. “You thought that just because you knew a bit of magic you were invincible?”
“Did you really have to kill her?” asked her companion.
“I wouldn’t have if you were doing your job properly.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault! She’s got an artifact or something blocking mental skills. My skill wouldn’t even activate.”
I couldn’t see the face under the brown mask, but I imagine it was grimacing.
“Shit,” she said. “Should we just kill him then? Not worth the hassle to take him back alive if he’s got powerful friends.”
“Rich doesn’t mean powerful. And she seemed pretty stupid. I doubt anyone knows where she is. By the time they find her, we’ll be gone. Grab the mind-blocker and see if she’s got anything else good, and let’s go.”
Brown-Mask shrugged. “Ok, but if we get caught for this, I’m gonna say ‘I told you so.’”
She knelt down over me, and started rifling through my clothes. When her hands found the chain of my eye-changing amulet, and started moving down my chest, I decided to make my move.
“I think I found-”
Her words were cut off when a thin spear made of my own blood stabbed through her trachea. Max, who was tying Rafael up looked up just in time to see me sit up while using [Hemokinesis] to maneuver Brown-Mask’s blood into my mouth.
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“Lily!” she screamed as a blue window appeared in front of me.
You have consumed the blood of [Human] Liliane. Would you like to add a Thrall?
[Yes]
[No]
Yes, I thought, and Brown-Mask– Liliane– stopped struggling.
I hadn’t used the skill before, but as soon as I activated it, I knew exactly how it worked.
“Stand up,” I said, and she stood up, blood still flowing from the open wound on her neck. “Protect me.” She turned around and drew her knife, facing Max.
“Lily!” shouted Mask again. “What did you do to her? Lily! Snap out of it!”
“That won’t work,” I said. “Give up now and tell me who you are.”
“Stop! Please!” she pleaded. “She’ll die!”
“Then you’d better answer my questions fast,” I said. “Take off your masks.”
Liliane obeyed without hesitation, and Max followed her lead a moment later. With their masks off, it became obvious that they were twins. They were both ugly as sin, with droopy eyes, oversized lips, and noses that looked like someone had used tape to pull the tips up, but while Liliane seemed to have accepted her appearance and was barefaced, Max was still in denial. She looked like someone had tried putting makeup on an anorexic pig. Tears left deep mascara canyons in what looked like a quarter-inch layer of powder, and her lips were so red and shiny that they looked more like carnival balloons than something that belonged on a human’s face.
“Please, let us-” she started.
“Wait,” I said. “Give me some of your blood.”
She drew her knife and cut her arm open. “Please! She’s dying!”
“And why should I care?” I asked. “You guys tried to kill me.”
“I’ll do anything!” she begged, prostrating herself. “Just let me take her to a healer.”
“I will. In a moment. I don’t like killing. But first…” I grabbed some of her blood and siphoned it into my mouth.
You have consumed the blood of [Human] Maxine. Would you like to add a Thrall?
[Yes]
[No]
Like her sister, Maxine stopped moving after becoming a thrall, and her face became blank.
“Now listen up, both of you,” I said. “Neither of you will say a word about what happened here. You won’t write it either, or otherwise hint about it. You will not make any attempt to let anyone know what happened. You will not harm me or Rafael ever again. No, actually, you’ll never harm anyone for money or revenge ever again. And Maxine… No more makeup. It’s for your own good.
“Now, before I let you go, I need to ask you a few questions. Who put the bounty on his head?”
“There are two bounties,” said Maxine in a monotone “One is for 30000 gold if we bring him back to Vivaldi alive. The other is for 5000 gold if we kill him.”
“Why are there bounties on his head? Who put them there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Boss didn’t tell us.”
“Who’s Boss?”
“Boss is our boss.”
“Yes, but who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re useless.”
“I’m useless.”
“You guys can go. Awaken.”
The twins unfroze, and Liliane collapsed to the ground, gurgling, while Maxine scrambled to where she fell.
“Get out of here,” I said.
Maxine hefted her sister up into her arms, gave me one last hateful look, then sprinted out of the alley.
What I had just done was use what, in my opinion, is the most useful aspect of my [Create Thrall] skill, which is the ability to put a geas on my thralls. When in full control mode like they had been while I gave the geas, they were useful, but they had no agency, and could only do exactly what I told them. With the geas though, they could live and act like normal people, just with a few restrictions. It was not only more useful, but also far more humane than the total mind domination that came with the other mode.
I’m not sure exactly when in that exchange that Maxine released her control on Rafael, but he had been in too much shock to move or say anything, so he was still on the ground staring up at me with a mixture of fear and confusion.
“You’re safe now,” I said. “They won’t be coming back.”
“I- you- but-” He pointed vaguely at the bloody hole in my stomach.
“You already knew what I was. You shouldn’t be so surprised.”
“But… Are you- are you okay?”
“It hurts, but I’m fine,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“I- yeah- I think.” He stood up and inspected his body, then took a few deep breaths. “I’m okay. But are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “Look, I’m already almost healed.”
I pulled the tear in my dress open a bit and used [Hemokinesis] to wipe away the blood to show him my almost unblemished abdomen. He hid his face and looked away.
“What are you doing?!” he exclaimed.
“Seriously?” I asked “If I had actually been hurt, you’d have to see a lot more than this.”
“But… You’re a girl! You can’t just do that!”
“I can do whatever I want,” I retorted.
“A lady shouldn’t-”
“We have more important things to talk about. Like why those two were after you. Are you really a criminal?”
“I’m not!” he shouted. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t break any laws.”
“I didn’t do that either!” he said. “You have to believe me.”
“Yeah don’t worry, I do. You’re not the type.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Plus, you’re obviously just some rich kid who ran away and now your mommy is angry and trying to get you back.”
“How did you know?”
“I knew literally the moment we met. You are really bad at hiding things. It’s probably how they found you so easily. So, who are you? Who is it that put a bounty on your head?”
He glanced around. “Not here. Let’s go back to my hotel. There are privacy enchantments.”
“Alright,” I said. “But first, look away for a minute so I can change.”
He blushed and then hurried to bury his face in the corner while I worked.
“I’m done,” I said, tossing my ruined dress into [Inventory]. “Lead the way.”
He walked out of the alley, careful not to slip on any of the blood, and then paused at the street, looking both ways and hesitating.
“Follow me,” I said, walking past him. “I’ll get us back to the main streets and then you take us to your hotel.”
“Okay.”
It took half an hour to get to his hotel, an ostentatious white stone building with magical lights forming intricate, moving patterns all across the walls. His suite was one of the nicest ones, situated on the top floor in the corner, with one enormous bedroom, a bathroom with a tub the size of a small pool, and a sitting room almost as big as my entire apartment with tall, windowed doors leading to stone balconies that overlooked the city. We sat down on the couches, facing each other with a coffee table between us. For a few moments, neither of us spoke. Then, he took a deep breath, and looked me in the eye with the most serious expression I had ever seen him wear.
“My name… is not Rafael.”
“Yes, I knew that already.”
“My name is actually Valentino. Valentino Vivaldi.”
“Vivaldi?” I asked. “As in the nation of Vivaldi? Ruled by King Vivaldi? You’re a prince?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I’m not a legitimate prince though. I have no claim to the throne.”
He pulled his hood back for the first time I’d seen, revealing a full head of black hair punctuated by a pair of pointed ears.
“Right, because you’re a half-elf. So your mom was a princess?”
“Yes,” he said. “And she somehow managed to get them to let me take the Vivaldi name too. I don’t know how though. It doesn’t change the fact that the only way I can become king is if literally everyone else in the family dies first.”
“So why’d you run away then? Sick of the palace life? Bullied by the other princes and princesses? An unwanted marriage?” He flinched. “So it’s marriage. With who? Are they that ugly? Was it Maxine?”
“Lady Florence Berlioz,” he said, ignoring my joke. “The marriage was supposed to strengthen the alliance between the two kingdoms, but the first time I met Lady Berlioz, she said that if we got married, she would rather go to prison for murdering me than bear my children. ‘I’m not going to waste my life raising a bunch of mutts,’ she said.”
“She sounds nice.”
“And so I ran away,” he continued. “And now I’m here.”
“So you are. I suppose it was your family who put out the 30000 gold bounty for bringing you back alive, then. And Lady Berlioz who posted the 5000 one to kill you.”
“Yeah, probably,” he said, dejected.
“So, what are you going to do now?” I asked.
“Run away again, I guess,” he muttered. “But how did they find me so fast?”
“Fast? It’s been almost three weeks since I met you, and longer than that since you ran away. It’s a miracle you weren’t found sooner. You are really bad at hiding things. I’m pretty sure everyone you met realized you were a runaway noble, they were just too polite to say anything.”
He stared at me, then put his head down in his hands. “What do I do?”
“How should I know?” I said. “Try to survive, I guess. Hopefully you won’t have to hold out that long. I don’t really know anything about nobility, but I doubt that they’ll try to maintain your engagement for long when it’s so clear that neither party is actually interested. Then Lady Berlioz won’t need to try to kill you, so all you’ll have to worry about is your family’s bounty, which is annoying, but at least they won’t kill you.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But how? I don’t know what to do.”
“Just do whatever you can.”
He frowned evidently disliking my response, then a few seconds later looked up at me with a poor attempt at puppy-dog eyes.
“Can you help me?”
“Nope,” I said. “Not a chance.”
“But-”
“I’ve got enough shit to deal with on my own, I can’t be babysitting you too. And you need to learn to figure things out on your own. Stop waiting for other people to give you all the answers. Right now you’re weak. You can’t do anything by yourself. The only reason you’ve made it this far is luck and money, but those will both run out someday and you’ll be left with nothing but yourself, and if you stay as you are, that won’t be much.”
“But… how? How do I change?”
“I literally just told you. Stop depending on others for solutions. You need to find the answers on your own. If I tell you how to do things, you won’t learn how to be independent. You’ll just learn how to rely on me, and I don’t want that. I don’t need someone clinging to my leg and dragging me down just because they don’t want to learn how to swim.” I summoned the coins I owed from [Inventory] and set them down on the table. “Here’s the money I owe you, plus interest. I’ve now repaid all my debts, both money and blood. There’s nothing left between us. Goodbye.”
He gave me a final pleading look, but he didn’t stop me as I stood up and walked to the door.
Now, I know what all you readers are thinking. Lucy, that was really cruel! You had been through life and death together. Couldn’t you at least given him some advice? Yes, I could have, but it would have been counterintuitive. As his friend, a clean breaking of our relationship, and a few harsh words were the best things I could have given him. If I had even given him a sliver of hope that I might help him, he would just become a parasite, stealing away the time and energy I needed for myself. Besides, my enemies were frankly far more dangerous than his. If he had stayed with me, he would have been dragged into my conflicts, and neither of us wanted that.
It was well after sunset when I returned to the bookstore, and Anatoly was waiting for me behind his desk with a stern look. He fussed and nagged over me and asked where I was, as if he didn’t know, but I stayed firm on my stance that nothing had happened and that my conversation with Valentino had just run long. Once he decided he had bothered me enough he headed upstairs to his bedroom, leaving me alone with the books.