Acts of the Night (5)

Away from the house of Mr. Malphus where Sthena, Perdita, and Mr. Perkin were about to knock heads together, and in the house of Perdita was Marco the brother of Perdita.

He paced around in their small house constantly looking out of the window and door to see if Perdita was coming back. It had been hours since he came back from the construction site and he had not seen Perdita or anyone that looked like her.

The first few hours, he had thought Perdita was caught up with something, maybe her stall, and that was why she hadn't returned home. But after waiting for more hours, his thought changed. He had the hunch that something might have gone wrong. Was she perhaps in Mr. Malphus's house because of the pills? He questioned himself. They had agreed that she will be the one to buy the advanced pills Mr. Malphus told her about. Was she caught?

Sensing something was amiss, Marco decided to look for his sister. Maybe she was in the house of Mr. Malphus.

Back in the house of Mr. Malphus,

"Mr. Perkin?" Perdita called in a shocked tone "What are you doing here?"

Mr. Perkin lay on the ground where he had fallen a while ago, and it seemed he had broken some bones. He cursed under his breath at his clumsiness. He wanted to escape and not break his bone. What was he going to do now in front of these blood-sucking leeches?!

"Y…you a…are a…a" Perkin squealed as he tried to get the words that seemed to tighten his chest as his wild eyes held great fear in them. He didn't know that Perdita and her brother were vampires, and on top of that, there were others too in their village that practiced magic.

Just as he was eager to discover what Perdita and her brother were up to, he couldn't say he was eager to die! Now caught by them where this vampire man looked like he would eat him up, he needed to run and inform the villagers. But how could he? When his hip seem to have broken somewhere! Such unfortunate timing! Perkin lamented in his head while also trying to stand up and run.

"My, my, my," Sthena said in a sing-song tone while clapping his hands "What do we have here? A snoopy old peasant?" The mockery and uncertain danger couldn't be mistaken in the tone of Sthena even though he appeared to be nonchalant about what was happening. In fact, everything was happening according to how he planned it and even more than he did. Now he caught one of the men who were responsible for the production of the pills, he could dig out more information from him about his master.

Perdita rubbed her greased forehead tired of the night drama. What was she going to do now?! Mr. Perkin must have heard everything! How was she going to continue living in the village with her brother? Speaking of her brother, he must be worried sick about her. She thought to herself.

Perdita tightened her hand on the bag that hung on across her shoulders. It's best if she rushed home to her brother so they could get away before they are killed by the villagers. What she has been scared about happened when she didn't imagine it to happen.

At the same time, Daemon ran into the scene. His black hair looked disheveled because of the wind that blew on his face when he was running.

On their way to Malphus's house, he and Sthena had separated ways when they saw the four men walking on the other side of the forest. One of the men had come in this direction, while the rest took another road.

Sthena had been the one to suggest they split in two. While he followed Clayton to Mr. Malphus's house, Daemon chased after the other three.

"Your Ma…"

"You two work for the king?"

Daemon and Perdita spoke at the same time, but Perdita's voice was higher in tone because of her astonishment to find out that this red-haired vampire was also working for the king. If only she had kept quiet, she would have found out that not only was Sthena working for the king, but he was the king himself if she let Daemon finish speaking.

When Perdita saw Daemon, she became nervous. She still remembered their encounter some days back, and now she knew he worked for the king, it made her want to run away more than ever. Wait! So this red-haired vampire also worked for the king? She questioned in her mind as realization dawned on her. Forget running away, she will soon be imprisoned by the king if these men reported her. But she was innocent!

Perdita lost in her thought didn't notice the smug and amused look on Daemon's and Sthena's faces.

While they were busy staring at each other with different thoughts in their heads, they did not notice that Mr. Perkin took advantage of their distraction and slipped into the darkness.

Sthena didn't correct or speak to Perdita, it was as if she hasn't said a word. He turned to Daemon and said " Go inside and take care of our prince charming that's unconscious and also take the bag of pills inside. I'll meet with you later." Deamon bowed before turning to carry out the new order.

Now the distraction was over, both Sthena and Perdita noticed that their big parrot has escaped. A big parrot that could, because of his mouth cause unknown chaos in the kingdom if he mentioned what transpired here to anyone that could reach the church.

If it was anything about vampires killing or causing harm to anyone, the church was ready to take a big turn around even if they were in the middle of the road to somewhere, they would make sure they appeared at the scene. And that was the last thing he wanted. He didn't want to involve the church, at least not now until he had accomplished his goal.

"What a little ugly kitten running away from his new handsome master?!" Sthena exclaimed in a dramatic tone as if he was talking about a cat he bought that ran away from him.

Perdita sucked in a deep breath to calm her nerves. Everything was turning out bad this night. If she had known, she would have gone home when Mr. Malphus said that the pills were not available. Look what her curiosity to know what Malphus was hiding got her into. She needed to find Perkin before he spilled anything that would be the doom of her and Marco.

"What are you doing standing there? Won't you look for the monitoring spirit that had been following you and had discovered your little secret?" Sthena questioned in a bored tone and started walking in the direction where Perkin had run to. He shouldn't have gone far seeing how he must have broken some bones. Sthena thought to himself.

Perdita quickly followed behind him while her eyes roamed the area in search of Perkin. Sthena all the while was observing Perdita who was deep in thought. He said to her "I see you're still healthy after taking those pills"

"W…what?" Perdita questioned in a more shocked tone when she realized that her secret was no longer a secret as more than three persons knew about her being a vampire and also about the pills.

Sthena waved his hand in front of him "No need to hide it, I know everything that goes on in this village."

Perdita nodded knowingly, not finding what Sthena said amiss. Her thought was that he was one of the king's men assigned to this village, so he ought to know everything. She turned to look at Sthena and pleaded "Please, don't report what happened here to the king"

Sthena cast Perdita an amused look. He mumbled under his breath "How can a king report to himself?"

"What did you say?"

"I said okay," Sthena said gesturing with his thumb and index finger placed together.

"What's your name? And why did you say the pills are dangerous?" Perdita suddenly questioned. The man knew her name while she didn't. At least she needed to know her savior and also her destroyer's name.

"Shouldn't you be looking for your fellow villager? Why are you suddenly interested in my name?" Sthena replied with his own question skipping the part about the pills.

"I…I" Perdita wanted to retort when she saw a movement by her side. She stopped before walking towards the dark corner hoping to find Perkin. Suddenly, the man jumped on her while holding a sharp rod he had found in the alley in his right hand so he could kill Perdita.

Perdita startled at the sudden attack couldn't dodge it on time as the stake in Perkin's hand missed her chest and stuck to her stomach.

"Ahhh!" Perdita gasped because of the pain in her lower abdomen. She stared in horror at Perkin who was determined to kill her.

Sthena sighed softly. He walked towards them and heard Perkin threaten him.

"Don't come any closer, I'll kill her!"

"Go ahead," Sthena said as he now stood in front of them.

Perkin did not realize that Sthena was not speaking to him but to Perdita who had removed the sharp rod from her stomach. One of the advantages of being a vampire, Perdita thought. The ability to heal faster than humans had saved her from death.

The next thing that happened, Perdita used the same rod she removed from her stomach to hit his head, hard enough to make Perkin unconscious.