Bambi and the Duke

As Jan looked at the carriage leave the mansion, his mind feeling unsettled due to the fact of knowing that Mr Sullivan Carmichael despised humans to the very core of his heart. It made it suspicious of why he would take Vivian who had nothing to do with the accident of the massacre that took place in the far village of Bonelake.

Mass murders weren’t uncommon to hear at least for people like him who picked words and information from the market when he went to pick up groceries and other necessary supplies for the mansion. There had been a lot of death occurrence taking place which most of the time weren’t written in the newsletter as the bodies would be cleared by the council’s words before it fell to the public eye.

When one of the councilmen had come to relay the information of what happened, Leonard had already gotten ready as he had received the news from Lord Nicholas. Before he had left, Jan had seen him step into the lady’s room and come out after a minute to order him to inform her that she didn’t have to go and visit Sister Isabelle. With the amount of death that took place, the Duke must have been worried not to have the Lady outside the mansion when he wasn’t around and if something were to happen, it would be hard for him to get back due to the distance.

He only hoped the older pureblooded vampire would keep his word in bringing back the lady unharmed.

In the carriage that rode to the ambushed village, the four horses pulled the fancy carriage which belonged to Sullivan Carmichael. Sullivan who hadn’t spoken much to her while in the mansion, sat with his arms crossed while his face was turned away from hers to look outside the window with least interest. Vivian had been excited when Leo’s uncle had told Jan that she would be going with him and though his words couldn’t rebuke any murmur of disagreement, she had willingly come along with him.

And now that she was here, using the same space of air as him, she wondered why he had decided to bring her along with him. Knowing the hate and the condescending attitude he had against the humans she couldn’t help now but question his motive. The housekeeper had told that the journey to the village wouldn’t take more than twenty to thirty minutes but sitting with Sullivan Carmichael, the few minutes that had passed seemed like an eternity.

Looking outside from her side of the window, she tried distracting the heavy atmosphere inside the carriage by looking at the trees where she came to see trees that turned green from white due to the...snow?

Leaning closer towards the window, she saw that it was snow that was beginning to cover the land of Bonelake along with the trees as if Christmas was already here until she realized this part of the Bonelake was where the snow mansion was. From where she sat, when she looked up at the hills, she could slightly see the mansion where she had once been to with Leonard.

”You might be surprised but this is where the second Lord of Bonelake once resided. Shame that the man didn’t live up to his subjects expectation. It has a beautiful mansion up there as you can see,” stated Sullivan looking in the direction of her window which Vivian had been staring at.

”It’s a beautiful mansion,” agreed Vivian for the man to raise one of his eyebrows. The snow mansion was a restricted area that didn’t allow mere humans inside, taking a guess he believed that his nephew must have taken her there. He saw her turn to look at him and ask, ”Mr Carmichael, may I ask you how the second Lord passed away?”

When she had asked Leonard about it, he had answered her that it was old age but she knew there was something that Leonard held back. A little piece of information which he must have found out by himself or from someone which was not to be spoken of. The pureblooded vampire here was older so he must be surely have something he would have heard or known, thought Vivian.

Sullivan stared at the human girl, his red eyes gauging her before he decided to reply to her question, ”Old age,” were his crisp words for her, wondering if that was what she was going to get she sighed internally but to hear the man continue, ”That’s what everyone tells. That he died of old age.”

”But he didn’t, did he?” asked a curious Vivian.

”The ones who went to collect his body didn’t believe it was due to old age. I was one of them before I resigned my post,” he worked for the council? This was something new to her but it would mean he was admitted to the council at a young age at that time, ”I didn’t work for the council. My father had connections and my brother, Giles had only entered the council after the exam. I didn’t pass through the second exam and after several attempts, I decided to pick another career. There were a lot of deaths taking place in the lands, the chaos between humans and vampires waging war as the Lord of Bonelake had fallen down and was received by death. It was by pure luck I was sent there in place of my brother to fetch the body.”

”What happened to him?”

Sullivan rolled his eyes at her, ”How would I know. I wasn’t there during the time of his death but it looked nothing to be close to a man who died out of old age. For a vampire, he wasn’t that old. All I can say is it didn’t look like a natural death,” pondering over his words and seeing that he didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t push her luck more.

As the carriage continued to pull towards the unholy site, something about Sullivan’s conversation dawned in her mind as if she just realized what he had said while explaining about the second Lord. The man had entered to take part in the council examination several times to only fail in the second part of the exam. Was the exam hard for a pureblooded vampire like him? Then it must be true that very few get selected after the exams are concluded.

She shouldn’t feel like this yet she felt proud that she had passed her first exam. Maybe if she passed the second exam, her value as a person could elevate in Leonard’s eyes. Though the man held contempt towards humanity, he was still Leonard’s family, his blood uncle who cared for him. Vivian was a pureblooded vampire but only Leonard and Sister Isabelle knew the truth but there was no way she could prove it to anyone else.

The first time Leonard had tried turning her had made her stick to the bed unconscious for two straight days. There was no saying if the effect would be the same or different if she tried to turn herself. There was also part of Vivian that was worried about taking in the venom into her body at the fear of corrupting her core if it still existed after she turned to a human.

The land started to look less white and more green until they were far away from the place that snowed. The reins of the horses were pulled after a few minutes for the carriage to come to a halt. The coachman hopped on the ground to come and open the door for Mr Sullivan to step out of it where the Lady followed him.

The coachman had stopped the carriage far away from the village where it would take a minute to walk to get there as some of the houses looked as if they had only finished burning with the smoke which thickly moved up to thin and disappear in the air.

The village looked quiet, like a natural calamity that had been struck, to which the villagers had departed from there but in this case, the villagers had not got the opportunity to even endure before death had arrived and struck at them.

Seeing the smoke appear from the bottom and disappear as it moved up, Vivian wondered if the place had been set on fire as nothing about fire had been mentioned in the newsletter. Vivian almost had to watch over her footing when she nearly tripped over a rock which she had missed while looking at the houses. Sullivan Carmichael didn’t wait for her or show any concern when she missed her footing and instead he walked ahead of her.

Looking down at her feet where the black gravel of mud had come to settle around the soles of her shows, she stood up straight to walk towards a log which laid on the ground, one of its end resting in a puddle of water.

Seeing Mr Carmichael disappear in one of the alleys before she could catch up, she decided to remove the mud from the top of her shoe. Taking her feet there, she moved the sole back and forth to remove the mud. Just as she did, she saw a line of water that continued to follow in a certain path. The weather here seemed to be much colder than where she lived. As if the snow was present but not visible to the eyes. Not heeding much thought on it, she caught up to where Sullivan was to only receive a bad stench of smell that surrounded the houses when she entered a certain perimeter.

Vivian raised her hand, covering her nose and mouth with the back of her long overcoat sleeves. Taking one step after another while avoiding puddles of water that came in her path she came to stop in front of the houses where the doors were open. It was no surprise that there was no one in sight who would have come to stumble upon this place to only scurry away from the village. It was often told that places that had the mass occurrence of death were filled with negativity where the souls of the dead would only curse upon the souls of the living.

Pushing the door which was half open, she looked at the bodies that laid on the ground distortedly. The house she stepped into, a woman laid sprawled on the ground a few feet away from her with her front resting on the ground and her face turned in the door direction. A child laid dead next to her and a man who was half on the bed with his legs dangling on the ground. The sight was enough to tell how brutal and cruelly they were murdered not sparing even the child.

Something told Vivian that whoever killed them or the rest of the village was a killer who was well trained as the objects in the houses didn’t look scattered nor was blood splattered across every inch of the room. The only blood that could be seen was around the bodies.

Vivian had wanted to come here to see if she could find anything but now that she had come at the scene, she looked at the bodies with her brows that had drawn together in concentration. The only dead body Vivian had touched was Charlotte’s a person whom she knew personally, to touch another being felt odd but not giving much thought on it she went to bend down when she heard Sullivan appear behind her.

”What are you doing?” in the eerie silence his voice startled her making her retrace her hand back, ”Don’t touch the bodies,” he said walking inside the room, ”The council would want to look at the bodies when they arrive here for inspection. Don’t contaminate the body,” he narrowed his eyes.

”Why hasn’t any authorities come here yet?” she asked looking at the female who had her eyes open with her mouth slightly parted. Wasn’t it necessary to guard a place which had been subjected to mass murder or was it that the officials didn’t care about it as it was a no man’s land?

”Entering a dead land needs permission,” they did? That was something she didn’t know but then if it was so, what were they doing here? A little alarmed she looked at the older pureblooded vampire to hear him speak, ”We aren’t part of the council so it is fine to look at things.”

Contaminate? Apart from them, the rest of the people in the vicinity were dead. There was nothing to contaminate, especially with her black gloves still on her hands.

As if not believing what she might do, Sullivan said, ”Come with me and stick close. We aren’t sure if the person who was responsible to do this might appear or not,” seeing him wait for her, she stood up, giving a look at the woman her eyes hauntingly beautiful. To have someone kill so ruthlessly, thought Vivian to herself while leaving the house and the bodies behind her.

When both Vivian and Sullivan left the shabby house, the woman who laid on the ground motionless, her blue eyes blinked.