7. Anneliese
Letter to Lister's Castle
Dear Anneliese Jo.
My daughter (I have long since agreed), how have you been these days? I hope Mrs. Lister has not treated you badly.
At this time I was taking on a big case in Birmingham. The damned Reds had sued the Thomas family to Camarilla. There had been several accidents of "wild beasts" near the coffee plantation at St. Paul's, and the victims had a row of teeth marks on their necks, all drained of blood, and the Reds had asserted that the Bloods had done the injuries and had written to Camarilla to demand justice, or they would ask the hunters to do it (as the savages had already done). They brought in lawyers who were hunters to attend this trial.
I was sure that no one on my plantation would ever go out and bite like an animal and invite unnecessary trouble, but the Red Caste wasn't wrong in their decision, and the victim's injuries did look like they were the result of a Blood, which would make the problem even worse. I mean, with no other types of blood living near the coffee plantation, my servants become suspect, and I have to pay for it.
I'll be attending several trials in Birmingham over the next two months, so you can send your letters here, and may Satan bless you and me!
In my last letter, Eshmir told me that you had been attacked by wolves and had been badly wounded in the loins and torn out in the shoulder, and I was very worried. Forgive me for not being able to get there in time to attend to you, but as soon as the trial is over, if I am not guilty (which is certain), I will certainly be at Listergow within a day.
It has been three years since you left the manor, and although you have not found the Blood Sacrament, your perseverance has convinced Viscount Olaf to intercede with the Prince on your behalf, and I believe that soon the Prince will order a pardon for your sins, at which time you will be able to receive the rite of the first embrace, receive Satan's blessing, and officially step into Thomas Manor as a member of my family.
Just wait patiently! Joe.
Your Robert Thomas.
February 1, Birmingham Book
After lunch, Daniel wasn't up yet, so I went to his room door and knocked a few times, but no one answered. I thought maybe he was too tired.
But then another thought popped up that surprised me - Bloods are the ones who need to sleep during the day.
Oh, Satan! I think I'm asking for trouble.
So I went back to the kitchen and began to wash the dishes, and by the letter, I cleaned the living room and prepared to clean the whole ancient castle - I began to regret having dismissed the servants. While I was busy mopping, something more unfortunate happened; I think the wound on my lower back had opened up again, and at the moment it was vaguely guilty of pain. I guess I must have just mopped too vigorously. I sat down on the couch, ready to take a break before continuing, but my lower back suddenly went cold I reached down to feel it, and it was blood.
When I returned to my room I was still mentally contemplating hiring the servants back and dismissing them for twice the price, a decision I felt was crazy and foolish and I was the one who was losing out.
I untied the gauze wrapped around my waist, washed the reddened wound slightly with warm water, fetched the ointment the butler had given me and applied the ointment to the mirror. But a cut on my spine was out of reach - the maid used to apply it for me. I looked at the wide gash on my back in the mirror and couldn't help but feel a little cold.
So that's helplessness. That's loneliness.
The overflowing wounds crawled all over, like a red snake all over the winter snow, so open and unrestrained.
In the past, there were family, friends, and people who would go out of their way to watch over me when I was hurt, and now ...
"Do you need my help?" The thick, familiar, slightly raspy voice came across the air, and he was the only one in the ancient castle.
Daniel. It was Daniel. And I don't see him in the mirror.
I hastily turned my head to look, only to see Daniel right behind me. When I nervously looked in the mirror again, I saw that Daniel was still behind me.
At the same time, I realized I was naked, but Dany was still staring expressionlessly into the mirror, his chest very close to mine. In the mirror, he could only see my bruised back. He didn't do anything the least bit disrespectful, and I heard him whisper, "Excuse me." The next second he was instantly ripping off his coat and wrapping my body around it.
I buried my face in his cascading frilly-edged bow tie and smelled his faint body odor for the first time. His body was cold, but I felt warm. My heart was beating fast.
Daniel lowered his head and asked softly in my ear, "Didn't Eshmir heal your wounds?" My heart sank. Kashmir was Lady Lister's first name, and Daniel knew her and dared to call her by her first name?
"What the hell are you?" I was in his arms, my words slurred.
"Is it so important who I am?" His voice penetrated everything and reached my ears as if it were a faithful invitation from Satan. He slowly removed the clothing from my shoulders and then said, "I'll heal your wounds."
I felt like everything was on cloud nine as I was picked up by Daniel around my waist and put on the bed, he told me to roll over onto my back, which I did, but there was not a single pain in my body and the pain from my earlier wound was gone. I didn't have the extra strength to move, I could barely even keep my eyes open.
"I've hypnotized you, the wound is too deep and could easily become infected without healing." He spoke like a competent healer, "Eshmir's powers may not help you, don't worry, it may hurt a little, but I promise there will be absolutely no scarring."
Later it did seem like I was having minor surgery in a dream. This physician did not hold a knife or a needle, and there was only the faintest pain in the wound as if it were a small needle from an ant bite. His cold hand gently brushed over my wounds and in only a moment they miraculously healed, healing as if there were pins in the stitches, with a sensation of either pain or itch, I cannot say, but it was no more unpleasant than when they were bleeding.
Daniel healed all the wounds on my body, and as he treated each one, he covered the rest with clothing, and by that I mean, he didn't see what he wasn't supposed to.
By the time the hypnotic effect had passed and the wounds had long since all healed, I went to look in the mirror after Daniel left, and true to his word there were no scars, but the skin on the wounds I had just treated was a little red, and equally red was my face.
I tossed the blood-stained dress into the washroom along with his coat and changed into a clean bohemian dress, also white, and I loved the flawless beauty of it.
Incidentally, Robert writes from Birmingham, informing me that he has met with some trouble and is concerned about my injury, and I shall write back this afternoon or tomorrow telling him all about Daniel, and telling him what I have been wondering about for some days.
8. Anneliese
The blood was washed off the dress, but the white dress had lost its original sharpness, and remembering that a dilute solution of oxalic acid would remove the remnants of blood, I decided to go to Mrs. Lister's medicine room to find such a solution, but I returned disappointed. Instead, to my surprise and delight, the white dress had been washed and dried and was neatly folded on a rack in the lavatory, and Daniel's coat had disappeared.
He must have done it again, I'm sure.
Picking up the white dress that still had some residual heat, my heart suddenly beat fast, as if he was still around.
I didn't see him when I went downstairs to the living room, and I was surprised he wasn't hungry. Maybe he was too embarrassed to say so; after a night and a morning, any normal person would be hungry. Unless he wasn't human.
I made an excuse for myself to see him, and that happened yesterday afternoon. It happened suddenly, but without panic. I truly began to enjoy my time like a classy aristocrat instead of squandering it.
I brought the rigatoni and cheese to his room on a plate, and it's worth stating that it was made by my own hands and not frozen. I went in without knocking, I'm not in the habit of knocking, though I know sometimes I have to do that, but Daniel didn't blame me and I knew he wouldn't.
He was sitting at his desk writing, and when he heard my footsteps he put down his pen and stood up to face me, and when he saw the tray in my hand his mouth curled into a smile. "Thank you, Joe!" Of course, he knew it was for him!
I put the tray on the table and walked over to him, my breath becoming a little sharper. "You said last night that you would leave today, didn't you?" I asked him.
"Yes."
"Tonight?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, Joe."
"Can I not leave?" I suddenly flung out the question, a little embarrassed to face him, and I restrained myself from showing that embarrassment, like a nice greeting and retention to a friend, and that was it, yes, that was it.
I was convincing my insides when Daniel suddenly hugged me and I could smell that faint body scent again, only this time it wasn't hypnotic, and smelling it put me at ease quite a bit.
"Do I have good skin?" I felt my throat tighten and after I said the words I realized I had lost my temper, "I mean ..."
What am I talking about? I don't know! God knows what's wrong with me!
Daniel's hand loops around the back of my head, cupping the back of my head and lifting it slightly to brand a deep kiss on my forehead. I knew he was about to let go of me, and I didn't want to, so I clung to him and told him not to.
Everything was as quiet as ever in the old castle, not even the wind could rattle the windows, and the heating was probably turned up to a high temperature so I felt hot. The curtains in Daniel's room had been left open and darkness surrounded us. My heart had never beaten so fast, and my blood seemed to circulate so fast. I was powerless to resist the temptation of Eros and could only sink back into the cold lake, allowing my thoughts and actions to fall into a minefield.
Daniel was taking one step towards the bed, his steps slow, not sure if it was because holding me was an impediment to movement or if he was afraid of waking his "prey". I didn't refuse when he put me down on the soft Simmons. Everything that followed was logical.
Daniel, whom I loved (I finally admitted), had succeeded in conquering his prey. I drowned in the lake, the cold surrounding my body, the small whispers of love in my ears like the murmur of Satan, and fell into the lake as well. I looked into Daniel's gray eyes, wanting to remember them fondly, and I wished more than anything that the owner of those eyes would stay for me.
It was as if my soul was being torn apart and all consumed by him as his food. I cried out to him, "Don't go." I whimpered in his arms, begging him not to go. He held me, still silent, waiting for me to stop crying. Finally, in the faint scent of his body, I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke up, it was the morning of the second day.
Once again, I was hypnotized by that scent. Daniel was still gone. I saw a message and a sapphire ring by my pillow. But I realized it wasn't a sapphire ring, I mean, the gem was a blue liquid inside.
As I picked up the message, I mentally prayed to Satan that Daniel on the message could tell me where he would be going, but I opened the message and my heart went half cold.
My love, I have departed, leaving behind holy relics as a testament to your love and mine. Do not worry, stay and enjoy your brief singleness at Lister's Keep, I will eventually return to you and wait for my return.
Give you one last kiss before you go, I'll miss you.
Love you, Dan.
I ran out of the room the moment I put the message down. I'm going to find him! I'm going with him! I can't lose him.
God, I did something, but my body ignored my internal struggle and hesitation, and my feet didn't half hesitate.
The chill hit my entire body as I ran out beyond the castle, and goosebumps rose all over my body. I ran barefoot into the snow and felt my feet turn to ice, which was even colder than the marble tiles in the old castle. The elves of the wind whistled in my ears, and I couldn't care less about my frozen red skin as I scurried through the forest like a headless fly. The snow would leave footprints, and I didn't find enough to keep up with him as he left like the wind.
The snow was still falling one after the other, the flakes melting into the water on my skin as I shed tears and cried silently.
How helpless I am at the moment. I've never felt that way, but it's changed since I met him.
I was still driving around in circles in the forest, not wanting to go back; I wanted to clear my head and wait for the ancient European-dressed man figure to come and stay.
My feet were numb from the cold and my pace refused to stop.
I was like the girl in Hans Christian Andersen's red dancing shoes, which took her over the hills and down the ravines, which took her to the cemetery, to the bushes, to the places with nettles, where the weeds cut her legs and the stones choked her feet, but the red dancing shoes did not stop.
It wasn't until later that I found a puddle of blood on the snow. I crouched down to touch the puddle of blood, my hands were senseless. Who else could have come to the forest but him? But wasn't he powerful? How could he have shed so much blood when his powers were different from normal people?
My mind scrambled, I reached for my back and the injuries were indeed all gone. Everything in the old castle was real. I sat paralyzed on the floor, not knowing what to do.
I stayed by the blood for a long time, and then I heard a few wolves howling, and, fearing my last serious injury, I returned inexorably to the old castle.
The message and the ring were flipped over and over many times, only deepening how much I missed Daniel. My gut told me that he hadn't been hurt in any way and that the puddle of blood wasn't his. I would have preferred it to be mine as opposed to my earlier suspicions. I didn't want to see Daniel get hurt.
After that, I made a decision.
I had recovered from my injuries and had just been through the snow, so as the Chancellor had said, I was ready to go, and now I had to find Daniel in addition to the sacred weapon. I can't just cower in a hothouse and be a weakling. If life were only about waiting, I would never have taken the initiative to find the Bloods in the first place, let alone meet the one I love. The wait was long and painful, and I was unwilling to endure it; adventure was what I needed.
I shall write to Mrs. Lister to inform her of this, and to Robert.
Letter sent to Birmingham
Dear Father.
Forgive my humble foreign blood for calling you so.
I have recently been completely cured of my injuries by a stranger who was staying overnight at the old castle. Madame Lister is enjoying her social engagements at Versailles in Paris. I am very grateful to Viscount Olaurav for interceding on my behalf, but I ask you to trust in my ability to find all the blood sacred vessels as promised, and in so doing prove to the Prince that I am worthy to be a member of House Thomas, and I am working tirelessly to do so. Now that my injuries are no longer serious, I will bid farewell to the King's wife and begin my adventure, my next stop will be Paris, where I will send you a letter telling you of your next destination once I receive your reply.
Please, Father, don't worry about me. Wait for my good news.
Also, I suggested to my father that why not use the internet instead of letters and that the advances in science and technology should be shared by the Bloods with humanity.
Your Anneliese Jo
February 5, Lister's Old Castle Book
Letter to Versailles
Noble Duchess.
I have allowed a lost traveler to stay in the old castle without your permission, and I beg your pardon, I think it is necessary to mention that this traveler was able to call you by your first name, and he said his name was Daniel Edson. I wonder if the Baroness knows him?
In return (or perhaps it was) Mr. Edson healed all the wounds in my body, which facilitated an early start to my journey, and that is indeed what I decided.
I thank your ladyship for taking care of me for over a month, and after I get the information about Mr. Abel's holy weapon, I will leave the payment promised to you in the old castle and leave.
With best wishes. May you have a great time in Paris!
Yours faithfully, Anneliese Jo
February 5, Lister's Old Castle Book
9. Marrs
After I managed to get rid of the threat of the huntress, misfortune ensued.
The girl who opened the door for me in the old castle was another girl of Chinese ancestry, but I knew her.
I introduced her when I was a human, and she pestered me for a long time, asking me questions about this and that. And now, with Satan as her witness, she's found the Bloods herself.
"I give my name, Anneliese Jo Thomas, and you can just call me by my first or last name." A chill erupted in her gaze that shouldn't have been there at her age. And I knew that she hated me, or hated me. Without showing too much surprise at my arrival, she invited me to tea in the drawing-room like the hostess of an old castle, her smile cold, freezing the words I had prefaced to Mrs. Lister.
"Where's Mrs. Lister? Is she in?"
"Yes, she's in Paris."
Distraught, I couldn't even drink the black tea she poured, her eyes were like needles in my face, and the more upset I got, the deeper the needles stuck.
"Why are you here?" I asked her, feigning composure and acting like an elder concerned about a junior, "Do you know what this place is?"
I could already tell that she understood that she was in the ancient castle of the Bloods, and she knew I would be there.
"What about the information Mrs. Lister asked you to bring?"
"You answer my question first!"
"I have the right not to answer."
"And I have the right not to give it to you."
Her face grimaced, "Don't you dare!"
I had no desire to argue with her, but my instincts told me that I couldn't give her the information.
"I'll wait for Mrs. Lister to return and give it to her myself!"
"Hum, does that make sense? You know in your heart of hearts that Mrs. Lister was never interested in such things, and you gave her the information, and she would have given it to me directly, I was the one who asked her to help me find it. What you have to do - hand the information over to her yourself - is pointless and a waste of your time and mine!"
"I stand by my thoughts."
"Stubborn! You're just as stubborn as you were years ago!"
That was our entire conversation.
She's still the same - I mean, she's still a human. Yet that makes it harder for me to understand why she's in this old castle and not being used as food by Mrs. Lister. This world just keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it?
chap
10. Anneliese
Before the grief of Daniel's departure had passed, a new difficulty arrived. Damn Mars for not wanting to give me the information, the ignorant blood! He was an ignorant dumb ass when he was human! I cursed him in my mind in dirty rotten language. It was the first time in recent years, knowing that I never cursed before. Mars was a difficult character to handle, I had to do something to get the information over here!
Armed with the dagger Robert had given me, I went to his room as the night approached. As I drew the dagger and stabbed Mars, his surprise and anger exceeded my expectations.
"How did you get like this!" As he subdued me, I sliced at his left arm with my dagger, and horribly, I couldn't even feel the flesh that was supposed to be there. I mean, his arm that was hidden under a loose coat was like a log. It wasn't a soft indentation to cut through, but a hard one, nothing like the right hand he had grabbed my arm with. I reached to touch his left hand again, but he pushed me away with one hand.
"What's wrong with your hand?" I find the look of panic on his face more questionable than his hand. Meanwhile, I insisted on looking at his left hand, and as I stepped forward, he stepped back, and for some reason, I felt inexplicably excited. It was like I had grasped the biggest secret in the world, and suddenly my blood boiled. My heart was about to pop out of its original place, and I had never felt so excited and thrilled.
"Cain's left hand is right!" I noticed that what I said wasn't a question, and I wasn't sure why I was so sure. But after his blush deepened once more, I understood that what I had said was right.
One of the sacred weapons of the blood race is Cain's left hand. The hand symbolizes power, and Cain's left hand held a great secret that concerned the whole world, so his hand was cut off. When Mars was still human, I pestered him to ask everything about the Blood Sacred Weapon, and he didn't tell me everything, in fact, he only revealed to me one Blood Sacred Weapon, the Left Hand of Cain.
"I'm so sorry I didn't get an ax!"
This scramble would be a permanent memory for me. After all, I was still a human, and Mars hadn't been hurt by me - he was a Blood, and even if he had been, he might have healed himself. He fled, giving me a long, complicated stare on his way out, perhaps mixed with so many feelings that I was forced by that stare not to pursue him.
He jumped out the window with ease and left without taking anything he had brought with him, including the information about the sacrament. I laughed when I went crazy and rummaged through his luggage to find the large stack of information, I had won this time, I had won him by him fleeing in such a mess.
I think my smile became a little sickly, but that didn't take away from my good mood. I clutched the information to my chest, thanked my Lord Satan, and kicked over his box.
It's time to go.
11. Marrs
She has turned into a very crazy woman altogether.
Anneliese Jo - that's what I should call her because she's not the same girl with a Chinese name that she once was.
Her dagger touched my left hand and I knew she would notice it was Cain's left hand, she was clever, she just used it all at inopportune times, I saw a greedy light erupt in her eyes like one of those wolves in the forest outside Lister's Keep that I would encounter at any moment, luckily I dodged them but Anneliese Jo would not let me dodge easily. I was a little scared, she wasn't a night wolf or anything, she was just a girl with one-sixteenth Chinese blood, but I was just scared.
Why would she stay at Lister's Castle and have the right to let me stay there?
She had the keys to every room in the old castle-although she was not very skilled at using them, it was proof enough of one thing that Madame Lister knew her and cared for her, and that the information I had brought was, as she said, what Madame Lister had asked of me for her, in her search for the Blood Sacrament.
What will she do now that she knows I have Cain's left hand?
Given her character, she must have done whatever it took to get it. A voice in the back of my mind reminded me of this. I sat in the luxury suite of the hotel and felt a chill like I had never felt before.
12. Anneliese
Anneliese Jo: I have been thinking of Daniel all the time, and now that I have recovered from my injuries and am not in serious trouble, I will be leaving tomorrow. I must mention that I have learned of the whereabouts of a certain sacred artifact, which I came so close to getting today, but unfortunately its possessor is not as foolish as I thought. He is now a Blood - don't ask me why I specifically mean now, that's a story for another day.
Chancellor: Would I have the pleasure of hearing your "other story"? I would be more interested in knowing who the "Daniel" you are thinking of is.
Anneliese Jo: "Another story" is too sentimental, I would like to talk about Daniel, my beloved, and the wonderful and simple 24 hours we spent together. Modern science and technology should be put to good use, and if Daniel could see it, it would be the greatest boon Satan could give.
Chancellor: May God bless you with a speedy reunion with the one you love.
Last night I called to book train tickets to Paris.
After packing, I made one last trip to the room where Daniel had stayed, and when I walked in I kept staring at the ivory sheets where I saw the light stains of blood that remained. I'd washed the sheets after Daniel left, but I wasn't as good as he was at making them look brand new in an instant, and besides I hadn't found a dilute solution of oxalic acid.
I put the ring Daniel had given me on my thumb and when I looked again at the shimmering patterns in the round sapphire, I always thought I'd seen it somewhere, but couldn't remember for a moment, and eventually, I gave up.
At sunrise, I left Lister's, Old Castle. Walking out of the forest, I encountered many wolves, but none in packs, so as individuals they didn't dare to approach me, but just watched me, a monster walking on two feet, from a distance.
Outside the forest, I saw a long-awaited taxi, and it was obvious that the driver had been surprised why I had come out of the forest. The middle-aged French man even said caringly, "Miss, it's no fun to pitch a tent in the forest, it's often infested with wolves." He had plenty of body language and made a menacing gesture that, to me, was worse than a wolf.
Just as I was bored flipping through the sacred artifact information, a picture broke into my eyes of a round sapphire.
Giovanni Doom Sapphire. The information states that Giovanni is cursed to become Bloods because they murdered their masters, and they control several economic lifelines in the world today, so they have an inexhaustible amount of money. The Sapphire of Doom is the item that cleanses the curse, so drinking the blue liquid within the gem can turn a Blood into a human. The gem is not controlled by the Giovanni leaders, and it is possible that the liquid inside was used up 300 years ago.
No wonder I found the patterns in the gemstone all too familiar; I had skimmed through the information last night and was probably remembering the form of the Giovanni Doomsday Sapphire then. There was no doubt that the sapphire Daniel had given me was one of the Blood Sacred Artifacts. At the moment it was lying quietly in the recess of the silver ring.
I wore it without the excitement I felt yesterday when I learned that Cain's left hand was close at hand because one was unattainable and the other was already in my possession. This strong but subtle contrast didn't confuse me for long, and a complex of emotions replaced them.
Why would Daniel have the Blood Sacrament and that he would give it to me? I was self-aware; there was no way he would give away something as precious as a sacred artifact just because a girl he had just met a few hours ago had fallen in love with him. Besides, I didn't have any charms that would make someone fall in love all of a sudden, and I understood that this wasn't something he would give in return for me allowing him to borrow it.
Did I begin to speculate on his identity: a reclusive man? A magician? A nobleman? Royalty? None of it sounded very realistic.
He says he's a traveler. Good heavens! Anneliese Jo, how can you not doubt his word?
Two voices argued in my head, one telling me to believe him and one telling me to keep speculating. Maybe this was something Daniel had gotten by accident, and he had no idea how many people craved what he'd gotten. Wait, my reason immediately crushed my speculation once and for all. Daniel had told me long ago, "Leave the holy object as a witness to your love and mine," and didn't the holy object, mean a holy weapon? He knew it was a sacred object, yet he left it to me anyway.
I built up two guesses. The first was that he knew I needed the sacred weapon; the second was that he loved me. I preferred to believe the former, but why would he give me a blood vessel that I needed, that was so precious, that could be used to please other princes and nobles for untold riches? And why did he specify "to be a witness of your love and mine"?
I've always been a modest person, but the truth doesn't allow me to be modest-Daniel Edson is really in love with me.