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WITH nothing else left to gain from the church, Rock and Ebel boarded their carriage and departed the holy church district. An exhausted Phoebe welcomed them outside Mateus Manor when they finally returned.
“Roxy, you’re finally back!”
Lured by the sound of the carriage, he appeared out front as if scrambling away from some monster within the manor.
“What’s wrong, Father?” Rock asked as soon as she stepped out of the carriage.
Phoebe let out a long-suffering sigh before he got to his complaint.
“That maid could be the poster child for all that is annoying. At first, she pestered me with a barrage of worthless questions, and when I said I wasn’t interested in answering, she started blathering on and on by herself. You’d think the girl doesn’t need air with how long her stories go without pause…”
Apparently, Phoebe hadn’t been allowed to spend the time in peace and quiet as he’d wanted. Johanna quickly came running out to meet them, her expression apologetic.
“Was I really that annoying, Master Phoebe? You were yawning so much, I thought you were bored of waiting…”
“I was just tired,” Phoebe snarled at her.
As Rock was trying to decide the best way to console her father, Ebel apologized to him first.
“I apologize for the trouble my maid caused you.”
“Are you stuck listening to this never-ending prattling every day, Your Excellency?” Phoebe asked with a wry smile.
“Yes. There aren’t many people in my house, so I’m grateful for Johanna’s lively energy,” Ebel responded without hesitation. Then he added, “Though I must admit I often haven’t a clue what she’s saying…”
How in the world did Johanna process what her employer said? For some reason, she tilted her head and let out a girlish giggle.
“I know it’s not much, but I do my part to make sure Mateus Manor is always filled with cheer.”
“But Johanna, you should know they are both my esteemed guests.” Ebel rubbed his temples to indicate he wasn’t praising her. “It’s rude to ask a bunch of questions just to satisfy your curiosity. Refrain from doing so in the future.”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” Johanna responded cheerfully.
Rock also believed that the manor would never become dark and gloomy with her around. But she doubted she could follow Johanna’s conversational topics if Ebel and Phoebe couldn’t.
“Please prepare tea for us as well.”
“At once, Your Excellency.”
At Ebel’s request, Johanna hurried back inside the manor before showing Rock and the others to the reception room.
It was the same reception room with a portrait of a young Ebel and his father Cyrille that Rock had been shown to during her last visit. Rock studied the painting that captured the father and son before their lives were cursed with a completely different outlook.
The young boy had lost the tender green hue of his eyes and remained within the manor as a werewolf. Meanwhile, his father had passed away and was laid to rest within the quiet mausoleum. Both of them had a gentle kindness to them that’d been lost to the grave.
“I’ve brought your tea.”
Rock and Ebel took a much-needed break over the tea Johanna brewed. After enjoying a few sips, Rock divulged the information they’d obtained at the church to Phoebe. While they hadn’t gathered much news, Phoebe was still fascinated about the details pertaining to the blue robes they’d garnered from their visit.
“Damned robes, huh? Who’d willingly order something like that?”
“If only we could figure that out, we’d probably be able to pin down Krister’s whereabouts.”
The missing person posters were steadily disappearing from the slums.
Some were peeled off by the rain, while others were ripped down by drunks and children playing bad pranks. Nisha seemed to create and rehang new ones every time, but it was only a matter of time before she ran out of energy and money.
“The incense is another important find. If some sorta clergyman really is involved in this, then…”
Rock and Ebel were able to confirm the church smelled of incense that very day.
What if Krister was forced to make the damned blue robes and was harmed after he did? Rock didn’t know what reasons or objectives the customer had for doing that, but she felt they were getting closer to the truth.
“We could use a few more clues,” Phoebe groaned with his arms folded. Then his gaze suddenly shifted to Ebel, who was sitting across from him.
Rock followed his gaze and noticed the deep creases in Ebel’s handsome forehead. He seemed to be contemplating something.
“What’s the matter, Ebel?” she asked, getting him to slowly raise his gaze to meet hers.
“Do you remember the well-dressed man inside the church?”
“Yes.”
He could only mean the middle-aged man who had stormed out of the church while Ebel was speaking with the priest.
“Something about him really bothers me,” he muttered with a grim look. “I heard him run at full speed a few moments after he exited the sanctuary. He seemed to have suddenly remembered he had urgent business while I was talking to the priest.”
Rock also found it strange.
He was supposedly a man who was so devout, he attended church every day to pray. Would such a man really run out of church after not only failing to say goodbye to the priest but even going so far as to ignore him simply because he remembered some urgent business?
However, there was nothing suspicious about him aside from his quick departure, and they had nothing to go off of to prove he was involved in anything, even if they chose to suspect him.
“Nothing about this sits right.”
“You can say that again…”
“Honestly…”
Phoebe, Rock, and Ebel thought alike here, their expressions equally sullen.
Suddenly, Rock noticed the gaze eating into her. The owner of said gaze was Johanna, and she broke into a big grin when Rock looked at her.
Her purple eyes sparkled with curiosity—maybe she wanted to join the conversation or to ask Rock a question.
“What is it, Johanna?”
Rock’s question was immediately followed by Phoebe clearing his throat loudly beside her. His way of saying “Don’t get her started!”
That gesture alone told Rock just how much trouble her father had dealing with the blond maid while she was away. She always had this image of her father as invincible, so it was surprising he couldn’t hold his own against a teenage girl.
“Johanna, don’t forget your manners.”
Ebel’s reminder caused her to clamp her mouth shut before she rattled off her inquiry. But their serious conversation had hit a dead end, and Rock wanted a change of pace.
“…Oh right, I heard from His Excellency,” Rock began, addressing Johanna to get the conversation going. “Is it true you come from a line of werewolf hunters?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Rock saw Phoebe lean forward with great interest as soon as she brought that topic up. On the other hand, Johanna’s cheery expression instantly fell.
“Do you believe the stories, Master Rock?” she asked in nervous tones.
What she expected to be a light conversation starter proved the opposite with the way Johanna reacted. Rock reflexively shot Ebel a look, but he just carried his teacup to his lips to hide his amused smile. Thinking it strange, Rock decided to just honestly answer her.
“I believed it.”
Johanna smiled bashfully. “Both my parents and my grandfather seem to believe it too.”
“You don’t, Johanna?”
“I hope it is true…” She suddenly started fidgeting and pulling on her pigtails. “But the thing is, neither my parents nor grandfather nor anyone in my parents’ generation had ever seen a werewolf.” Then she glanced at Ebel and sighed. “No one—not a single member of my clan—had until we met His Excellency.”
“Then how did you know you were a clan of werewolf hunters?” Rock asked the most obvious question.
“Because our homes are filled with items that fit the tales,” Johanna replied. “Everything from horrifying executioner swords with nicks in the blade to traps for capturing werewolves to large shackles and torture devices. Yet no one remembers ever using them. We’ve only the stories passed down from generation to generation.”
That sounded like quite a dangerous set of items to have passed down through the generations. It didn’t seem too far-fetched to believe the tales with all that evidence, but Johanna appeared doubtful.
“So, our clan basically threw a huge party when we received the request to serve the Mateus family. My father, mother, and grandfather were ecstatic… They seemed relieved from the bottom of their hearts to learn there really are werewolves out there,” Johanna said with a dry smile. “But as you can see, I’m just an ordinary girl who likes to talk a little more than the rest. If I’m truly the descendant of werewolf hunters, I should have some sort of power to protect His Excellency with…”
“Don’t let that bother you,” Ebel interrupted to console her. “You do your job very well. That’s all that matters.”
“Thank you very much, Your Excellency.” Despite expressing her gratitude, Johanna appeared ashamed deep down. Pouting, she muttered, “I always wished I had some kind of special power or some skill that would awaken in a moment of crisis.”
As far as Rock knew, the Ancient Empire the Werewolf Brotherhood was most active during perished hundreds of years ago. The current imperial dynasty began after that, and since then, it’d reigned as an empire without major wars or political changes.
The reason they didn’t know the exact timeframe since the change in dynasties was because the history books had almost all been burned. In any event, centuries had passed, and while some families passed down tales of their Ancient Empire glory days, others ceased to believe it.
Until Rock met Ebel, she too lumped werewolves in with the rest of the ghost stories told in the slums. Rumors abounded about them in the shantytown, but she’d assumed drunks had mistaken a large, hairy man for a werewolf. Of course, she couldn’t doubt their existence after she had met one in person.
The real question was: why did the werewolf curse still exist in the modern world?
As Rock became lost in thought, Ebel rose from his chair. His eyes were locked on something outside the window.
“There’s a carriage. I didn’t plan for any other guests today, though…”