“Well I guess we just wait now, huh?” With one fluid motion, Hadria hopped up onto her table and lied down on her side, propping her head up with her arm. Her skirt rode up slightly, exposing the bare skin of her lilywhite thighs coming out from her long black socks.

Not that I was looking or anything.

“Ryley…” Violetta whispered.

I choked on my spit and immediately started coughing. God damn it. I hadn’t even been staring that long. I mean, I hadn’t been staring at all.

“Oh my goodness, Ryley!” Violetta grabbed me from behind and wrapped her arms around my stomach. She my back against her breasts and squeezed with all her might. This would have been hot if it weren’t for the fact that she was making it one hundred percent worse.

“S-Stop!” I hacked. “Let... Let me go!"

“I’m sorry!” She quickly pulled her arms away. “I thought you were poisoned…”

Wait… what?

“Poisoned!?” I turned around, getting in her face. “You thought I was poisoned? Why did you do the Heimlich maneuver on me then?”

“The what?” Violetta furrowed her brow. “I was trying to make you throw up, silly.” Oh my god.

“I wonder if it’s possible to squeeze someone so hard that their guts pop out,” Hadria mused like she wasn’t asking the weirdest fucking question ever. Seriously, what the actual fuck?

Yeah, it was time to cut this off before her smug faced bodyguard offered her an answer.

“V-Violetta,” I stammered. “What… uh, what were you trying to say to me earlier?”

“Earlier?” Violetta tilted her head slightly. “Oh! I was going to say that we should use this time to ask Koln a few questions.” Wow. I had never seen someone alternate between stupid ideas and good ones so quickly.

“Alright,” I said, moving my eyes from Hadria’s thighs to Koln’s bald head. “So… you saw the garlic bottle in the garbage. Can I assume that means you didn’t kill Nimeni then?”

“No.” Koln’s heavy gaze bore into me. “I touched that bottle… If the garlic got on me and transferred to the cup, then I really did kill Nimeni.” Ugh. I clearly shouldn’t have even asked. It was like calling himself the murderer was his hobby.

I sighed. “Wouldn’t touching garlic, I don’t know, burn your skin or something?”

“I was wearing my leather gloves. I was dressed up for the ceremony.” Of course he was. Even with his newfound willingness to cooperate with us, he still wasn’t helping his case.

“You heard him.” Bani walked to the edge of the stage and sat down. “It looks like he did it. He said he did it. He did it.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth.” Inel walked up behind him and grabbed him by the bun.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Bani didn’t budge. “You shut yours.”

“I will when you shut yours.” Inel let go and sat down next to him. If I let this go on, they would probably never stop. I’d get another question I had off my mind.

“Ceai.” Mrs. Ceai? Mrs… Acula? Whatever, they didn’t seem to care that I had called her by her first name so I continued. “I’m assuming the ceremonial cup is stored in the tea room, but is there any way that… someone poisoned it before the ceremony began?”

“It’s impossible,” the succubus said bluntly. “The tearoom is locked when we aren’t using it, and there are no windows. I’m also the only one with this.” She held up her wrist to show me a small key dangling from a glittering diamond bracelet. “So no. There’s no, there’s no way. Unless you’d like to try and accuse me of killing him again?”

I mean… kind of? Anything to get the attention off Koln, really.

Just then, the doors burst open and a group of ten vampires rushed in.

“Count,” one wearing sunglasses said. “We… couldn’t find anything that looked like a small bottle.”

Yeah. Pretty much what I had expected. When were we going to catch a break? Also, it apparently took ten vampires to deliver that news. Judging from that, it would probably twice as many to screw in a lightbulb.

“I swear…” Koln mumbled, cupping his hands together in his lap. “There was a bottle there last night.”

“You do realize it doesn’t do us much good if we can’t find it, right?” I asked. Ugh. Obviously he should have had a psychic premonition predicting Nimeni’s death and kept the bottle as evidence. Amateur.

“Whelp…” Hadria flopped over onto her stomach. “So much for that.” She kicked her legs like she was throwing a very low energy tantrum.

“There is one thing though…” sunglasses guy continued. “It looked like some of the trash bags had been ripped open.”

“Ripped open?” the Count asked.

“It might have just been raccoons but…” Demons had raccoons? “I guess it might be possible that someone was digging through them.”

“I see…” The Count nodded to the men. “We should assemble everyone together to continue the trial then.” Uhh… no we shouldn’t. Did he not understand how important of a detail that was?

“Wait a second, Count,” I said. “I’d like to call for a temporary suspension of the trial.”

The scarred old man exchanged a look with his wife. “I suppose we could take a small break… but what for?”

“If the killer disposed of the garlic bottle in the kitchen, I’m assuming it was because they didn’t want to risk anyone finding it on them.” I was lawyer-talking the hell out of this. “If it’s not in the dumpster outside, it means they went back after the murder to dispose of the evidence.”

Violetta patted me on the arm. “Good going, Ryley.” Always nice to know my efforts were appreciated.

The Count squinted his eyes. “Mr. Allard… I’m afraid I still don’t understand why that warrants a break.”

“I need time to investigate the kitchen.” And time to figure out how I could get my client to stop saying he was a murderer. “They might have left another clue behind by mistake.”

The Count assumed the hand to chin position. “Alright. We’ll take a break then.” He pointed over at the vampires still standing in the doorway. “Let everyone know that we’re taking an hour break.”

“Yes, Count.” With that, they left as quickly as they had appeared.

“I guess we’ll be back then,” I said.

The Count nodded. “Please, let me know if you need anything.”

Just then, Nair moved his guns to point at us. “Count, I believe it would be best if someone accompanied Mr. Allard and his assistant on their trip to the kitchen.” Yeah, totally warranted gun pointing.

He nodded again. “I’ll leave it to you then.”

“Oh my gosh,” Hadria gasped. “I’m totally coming.” She rolled off the table, falling straight onto the stage with the grace of a walrus. “Ouch.”

Violetta winced. “Are you okay, Hadria!? Should I do the hind-lick?” Yes. Do the hind-lick, please.

Hadria jumped back up to her feet and adjusted the purple bow in her hair. “Come on, you two. I’ll show you where the grub gets made!”

Alright, I had managed to stall for some time. If my luck turned around, we might even find some evidence too.

“Let’s go, Ryley.” Violetta smiled. “I’m starving. I wonder if they’ll have snacks…”

Yeah, snacks. I bet they had bloody good ones.

Bloody. Because they… drink… blood.

I was really tired.