The Blood Count (1)
Night had drawn its curtain over Blarose County.
A curfew was in effect, and the streets lay nearly deserted. The county guard and holy knights dispatched by the Lumenic Church made their rounds in steady patrols.
A red-haired woman slipped past their gazes, moving in secret along the shadows. She headed for the back alleys.
Wherever people gathered in such numbers, a gulf between rich and poor was inevitable. And the impoverished were always pushed into places dark, filthy, and damp. The houses here were all so dilapidated that a door would give under the strength of her bare hands.
Choosing a moment when the patrols' eyes were elsewhere, the woman seized a doorknob and squeezed.
A low crack of splintering wood answered her grip.
"Hm?"
Deeper in the alley, a girl with white hair came into view. The distance was considerable, but the woman's exceptional senses locked onto the child with perfect clarity.
How long had it been since she had seen a girl so beautiful?
She licked her lips.
And yet — perhaps because of the slight frame — the girl's presence felt strangely thin. An ordinary person, she thought, would never have noticed the child at this range.
"Hey. It's dangerous to wander around at this hour."
"Y-yes?"
Without a sound, without catching a single watchful eye, the woman closed the distance in an instant and stood at the girl's side.
"You should hurry home, shouldn't you?"
"Ah… um… I… I'm… from another region, so… I… I got lost…"
"Oh my. Is that so? Well then — shall I take you to a decent inn?"
"I… really? If you would… I'd be grateful…"
The woman laid a hand on the girl's shoulder and gently steered her in the direction she wanted — little by little, deeper into the dark.
"Are you out alone?"
"Ah… n-no… I had companions, but…"
"You ought to stick together. Do you have any idea how many people out there would target a pretty little thing like you?"
"I… is that so…?"
"It most certainly is. By the way — what's your name?"
"Ah… Alexander…"
"Alexander? That's rather a boy's name, isn't it?"
"That's… th-th-th-th-th…"
"Hm? What's wrong?"
As if seized by a sudden fit, the girl began to stammer. Her body trembled violently, and cold sweat poured down her skin without pause.
A scene would be inconvenient. She could not afford to let this chance slip away.
The woman took the girl's face in her hands, trying to calm her.
"Hey. Settle down and take a breath. Look at me."
"Th-th…"
There was no sign of the girl calming. And time was short.
I could just drink her here and now.
The woman parted her lips, bare fangs gleaming — and then:
"TH-TH-THAT'S BECAUSE I AM A GUY, YOU CRAZY BITCH!!!!"
A sudden torrent of curses — and the roar of some unidentifiable beast.
— KRAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
Behind the child, filling the entire field of vision, a colossal beast had appeared.
The woman never even managed to grasp what was happening before a crushing impact snuffed out her consciousness.
"…Not the one we were after."
"Indeed. Didn't see that coming."
The underground dungeon beneath Count Blarose's manor. Inside a cell, the red-haired woman lay unconscious and restrained — the one afflicted with the Curse of Vampirism we had captured the night before.
Agnes must have hit her far too hard; morning had come and she still had not woken.
We had come to Blarose County to catch the dark magic test subjects. Those cursed with vampirism, wandering in a craving for the blood of their own kind.
In Luke's Biography, only the Blood Count had appeared, so I had not known — but the dark mage's test subjects were not one person. There were two. One man, one woman. The man was the one who would become the Blood Count in the future.
Veronica had decided to lure the man first. By using ourselves as bait.
The two vampires preferred different prey. The man favored boys; the woman, girls.
For male bait we had myself and Alexander, but we had no suitable girl. Dorothy and Agnes, with those ears on their heads, would be recognized as cursed at a glance — no vampire would risk touching them. Veronica was no good either. If a vampire bit her on impulse, it would realize at once that she was no ordinary being and flee immediately.
Using a civilian as bait was madness. Using Maria as bait was even worse. She carried the bloodline of a nation's sovereign, after all.
"Th-this isn't the one…?"
Who would have guessed she would take one look at Alexander's face, fall head over heels, and mistake him for a girl? I had expected those keen senses to at least register that he was male.
Those under the Curse of Vampirism grew stronger the more blood they drank, and their senses sharpened accordingly. These two had already consumed a considerable amount before we arrived. They had managed to find Alexander, after all, despite the Curse of the Hermit thinning his presence to nearly nothing — though if Alexander had truly set his mind to hiding, even they would have failed.
But it did not matter. I simply paid closer attention to the man because I knew his future as the Blood Count. We had to catch both vampires either way.
"…It didn't go as planned, but that's fine. …We have to catch them both regardless. …You did well, Alexander. …Truly."
"Mhm…!"
Alexander's face lit up with a bright smile at Veronica's words. When she had carefully asked him to serve as bait, he had been overjoyed — saying that if not for something like this, when would he ever be of any use? His self-esteem seemed remarkably low.
"…If one had shown up on the Baron's end as well, we could have caught them both. A shame. …I wonder why none appeared."
Like Alexander, I too had served as bait, circulating through a different district. Just as Agnes had hidden in Alexander's shadow, Dorothy had hidden in mine.
I had assumed the dark magic that stowed objects inside shadows — Shadow Blade — would be the harder technique. Agnes and Alexander could not manage that one, but they already knew Shadow Hide. Dorothy picked it up readily enough once I taught her. From the perspective of someone who had learned both with ease, the difficulty curve of dark magic was impossible to pin down.
"Heh-heh. Why do you think? Because Karl looks far too frail. That one wants healthy blood too, I'd wager."
"…Fair enough. …You may be right."
"See, that's why I told you to put on some rouge at least."
Maria, wrapped in a cloak the same way Alexander was, giggled. She was concealing her identity for convenience. If word got out that someone of higher rank than the local lord had arrived, the vampires would raise their guard.
"Still, you're handsome, so don't worry about it."
"…"
"Hah… I have no choice but to admit it. Captain Veronica. Dark magic proved useful."
A heresy inquisitor in a gas mask approached us. Jeremy — captain of the Second Execution Division, known by the epithet Flame Gate for the enormous spiked shield he always carried.
In Luke's Biography, he was mentioned only as a figure long dead at the hands of the Blood Count. If this operation went well, he would survive.
"We considered using bait ourselves, but even if the lure succeeded, we had no means of taking them alive. And no girls available, either."
Killing the vampires would not have been difficult for the Second Execution Division. In the process, though, they would have burned half the county to ash. Means of live capture were scarce. An ambush would be sensed; a trap, avoided. Hiding in the bait's shadow with dark magic, the way Agnes and Dorothy had done, had been the effective approach.
"Sorry for the cold treatment. I was being childish."
"…"
Jeremy apologized for his attitude and held out a hand to Veronica. She took it without a word — he wore no silver ring, after all.
Had Jeremy treated us poorly, though? I knew the other heresy inquisitors looked down on us. But the Execution Division wore gas masks, so their expressions were impossible to read. I had simply assumed he had nothing to say and kept quiet.
"We'll handle the interrogation. She may know something about the other one. You lot rest until nightfall."
"You're not going to kill her right away, are you?"
"Of course not. Burnings are done all at once. That's why we kept the dark mage alive as well."
While the sun was up, there was little for us to do. Even a vampire would not be mad enough to stroll about in broad daylight.
The Special Task Force decided to catch up on scarce sleep and headed to their respective rooms. I had intended to do the same — until Count Blarose summoned me for a meal.
"Catching one in a single day! Truly Christopher's son! I knew I could count on you! Come, eat!"
"Thank you."
I helped myself to the dishes crowding the table and watched him sip wine across from me. A bald, heavyset man in middle age — Count Blarose. He was said to be on friendly terms with my father, Christopher Manfred. I had heard that during the war, Christopher in his mercenary days had once saved the Count's life.
It was the Count who had called for the Special Task Force. He still kept in contact with Christopher, and so had already known I had become a heresy inquisitor. When the holy knights and inquisitors made little progress, he had requested us.
"Truth be told, aside from this dark magic business, there is another matter I wished to discuss with you."
"Please, go ahead."
"You have a younger sister, do you not? I wondered whether you might consider betrothing her to my son."
"Have you spoken with my father about this?"
"I intend to raise it with Christopher as well, of course — but I hear you are the head of the house now."
I glanced at the seat beside the Count, where a pink-haired boy sat with a tense expression. Anton Blarose, the Count's son. He looked about my age.
"I have no intention of forcing the matter. Not on my son, and not on your sister."
"Well… Clara would probably like the idea, but as for a count's house… hmm…"
Not being a proper noble myself, I had no idea how to deflect this gracefully. He seemed to want a political marriage — but what advantage could there be in tying himself to a rural barony like ours?
"What help would it be to us, you mean? I don't care about that. I owe Christopher my life."
The Count turned his eyes toward Anton as he spoke.
"If I may indulge a personal wish… I have many children. I want each of them married into a proper family. But Anton worries me. The boy has no boldness whatsoever."
"He looks quite dependable to me."
"Th-thank you, Sir Karl."
Anton offered his thanks in a trembling voice. I had a fair idea of what "no boldness" meant.
A betrothal candidate for Clara. In the end it would be her decision — but as the Count said, I could not treat the matter lightly as head of the house.
"In that case, while I'm here…"
I was about to suggest that Anton spend more time talking with me when I saw it — Anton's body wrapped in shadow. He hid his trembling hands beneath the table.
The phantom visible only on those who bore a curse. It did not always appear even when I looked at the cursed, so it was not guaranteed — but never once had that phantom shown itself without some connection to a curse.
"Hm? What is it, Sir Karl?"
"Ah — nothing. A brief spell of dizziness. I'm fine now."
"Dear me. You must be exhausted. Finish your meal and get some rest."
The Count had shown no particular reluctance about meeting the Special Task Force. He was the sort who treated the cursed without discrimination, I supposed.
Even so, concealing a curse in a matter involving marriage was a problem. Unless Anton was hiding the curse from the Count as well.
All that tension might not be because I was a noble — but because I was a heresy inquisitor.