The blood in front of me is just too fascinating and I linger when the others move away fast. One of my duties is to lead investigations and this looks like it could get very interesting. I gently touch Tristan's shoulder once to let him know I will not let that deed get away unpunished before I fully step to the table and the body in front of me. Bowing down to the wounds of Warlow I nearly stick my nose in there. Tristan and I shared most of our second life together, which means, I do not always need to say what I mean.

Beside the disgusted and shocked noises of the other vampires in the room, when I come so close to the dead blood, I can hear Tristan instructing the servants. "We need to get the council members to come back. Hurry, they shouldn't be that far away already." Even in his nearly paralyzed stage, he does not forget about his leadership duties.

After a few moments of a pause, it seems like he also remembers about the guest in the room. Dr. Nowak is covering his mouth with his hand and carefully tries to look everywhere but the bodies on the table. "Excuse the chaos Dr. Nowak, but it seems like you have chosen a really bad day to arrive in our otherwise pretty peaceful empire. Eve, please bring our guest into a room where he can rest over the daytime."

"Ah, that's not necessary, Lord Blackwood. I got a room in the city," Dr. Nowak replies.

"I'm afraid it is," Tristan states. "But, Tristan, I am..." Eve starts to protest. "Now!" Our Lord commands without leaving room for further discussions. While I am still untangling the scents on Warlow I have to grin. Only Eve would contradict Tristan like that in public, and I am also happy that he follows my protocols, to not let a guest go anywhere when an incident happens.

"Well then, follow me, Doctor. I guess we are not needed here anymore," Eve pouts before leaving the room. I barely hear her whining, because I am about to do, why people fear and hate me. Sticking my little finger in the wound I pull out some blood and get my nose away from it. Trying the blood, I am pretty sure now about my conclusion.

To be on the safe side, I do the same with the second body. Most people in the room simply do not understand what I do. For them, I am just a brute in fine clothes, with no respect for death and no empathy. Besides that, I am happy that I know that Tristan knows exactly that I get my information mostly by scent and taste. Eyes can be betrayed so easily, but a missing soul is something you cannot see.

When I am done and still looking at the dead woman, I can feel Tristan stepping next to me quite close and leaning forward, supporting himself with his hands on the table and making sure nobody can hear us. Well, he may also do that to even out the height difference between us. He grants me the time I need before I nearly whisper in his direction.

"My Lord." I take a side look at him to see his state of mind. "Tristan," I start again when I see him wrinkling his forehead. "This wasn't an animal attack I'm afraid. It was also not a human lucky punch. This deed was caused by a vampire. Both were killed by the same guy," I tell my conclusion.

Tristan simply nods but I can see him clenching his teeth. This is our highest of all laws. Vampires must not kill vampires. Killing another vampire does not always only mean to take away a life. It means to suck in all the other vampires being, to gain strength through blood, but could come with a cost.

Some go mad after killing like that. It puts you in complete ecstasy and gets you into an uncontrollable stage, where your feelings feel even more intense. Everybody reacts a bit different, but it's sure that it costs a lot of energy to cause such wounds and take in all the blood you can get.

It is especially tiring when the deed is done and your mind clears again after the ecstasy. The good thing is, there is a certain spirit that surrounds you after this. Maybe it is a special mechanism from nature to warn others. I do not know why but I had those spirits for a very long time around me and it gained me everything from respect to pure hate from others.

"We need to gather and then investigate how this could have happened... They must have been screaming during this torture... there have to be witnesses... There must...." Tristan presses out and leaves the sentence unfinished. I am sure now that he is not only upset but also getting nervous and worried a lot. Most of the vampires already try to avoid to look at the bodies, and also especially at me, at the moment anyway, so I secretly lay down my hand onto Tristan's to give him a chance to calm.

"We will find out what happened," I start. "But Tristan, they were pinned with knives, Eve said. That means somebody had to ram those through them. Somebody, who has a lot of strength, somebody who wanted us to find them, and if they are placed, they most probably died somewhere else."

I try to catch Tristan's look as he still stares at the corpse in front of us. "They may be killed," I struggle to say that because it's totally not what I smelled, but we have to consider it, "outside."

He still does not look at me when he answers. "Yes, this deed is meant to attack us; to attack me." Tristan nods slowly. "I also thought about the outsiders, but somehow I doubt they would dare to cross the city's border just to bring the corpses back here and to even take the time to 'decorate' them for us. Their minds are not ordered enough to plan something like that. Don't you think? Besides that, I know the leader of the tribe of the beasts, he wouldn't allow that." Tristan's eyes finally find mine. "Don't you think it's too easy?" He wants to know.

"I think it's essential to stay calm and to not over hesitate anything. We will not be able to do a lot during daytime anyway. We will not tell the council the details yet. Do you understand me? You will not give them any information I just told you. I will talk to Eve later but I think she at least won't tell everybody."

Eve should not have brought the corpses here in the first place. That was stupid. She should have told me in a less popular way and environment, but I cannot change that anymore. "I won't let you alone today, Tristan. If this was a warning of any kind, I couldn't take the responsibility if something happens to you, or Eve, today," I point out as a matter of fact, but even I realize that this sounds pure heartless.

"We've been through these situations before. We'll handle it," I add while moving my hand away from Tristan's. I thought this would sound calming, but maybe it just makes it worst. I give up on that and instantly hate myself for the warm feeling in my guts that the soft stroke of Tristan's hand gives me.

At least, this finally seems to have brought Tristan back and out of his paralysis. He nods once more before turning around and commanding the guards who brought the bodies in. "Bring them out, into the dungeons. Quick!" I bet he wants to avoid the rest of the council members to see this first when they come back.

The guards nearly instantly follow the orders and wrap up the bodies again to bring them out. The cloth is so soaked already that they leave a bloody trace of droplets. Some of our vampire servants catch it very fast and one is hurrying after the guards while another one is already starting to clean the table and the floor in the big meeting room.

Tristan looks after them and most probably processing what I just said before because he all of a sudden stands right in front of me again. His look is now drilling into mine and he does not try to come down to eye level with me. I can nearly feel him tensing up.

"What do you think I am supposed to tell them? I need an explanation for that!" He nearly snaps the words at me but still maintaining a silence tone so that the people around will not understand but only see our Lord building up in front of me. I already took my old stance where I have my hands crossed behind my back, but this time I am not even close to being able to puff up.

I straight out to not look too little and to avoid looking weak in front of Tristan. In the end, Tristan is the ruler. I need to remind myself that I am not allowed to tell him what to do, but I have the privilege that he is listening to my advice now and then. "Dr. Erwin Johnson," I say silently while trying to avoid his forceful look and instead I look somewhere behind him. Tristan lifts his head while he keeps on looking at me. "You want me to tell them, that we need his advice on this matter?"

I nod silently, but as Tristan stays silent, I feel the need to explain myself. While forcing myself to meet Tristan's look I talk in a humiliating way. "I will do whatever you order, my Lord." For sure he got the hint. Most of the council members are afraid that Tristan trusts me too much in nearly everything.

They are afraid that a simple guard has more power by being heard by the Lord that they have. It does not matter to them that I was already here before most of them even knew who Tristan is. With consulting another vampire who is trained in medicine, Tristan would show them, that he is not just blindly following my advice. It's my turn now to feel a bit sick in my stomach. I hate to drive him away from trusting me but I owe him.

"All right, I will ask him for advice and tell the council that we do so," he murmurs. "See that you can get him in here as quickly as possible." He gives me my orders. "Yes, Sir!" I answer far louder than the rest of our conversation was and salute in front of Tristan; quiet visible and easy to hear.

With a fast turnaround, I move my eyes away from Tristan and clap my hands while yelling into the room. "Ladies and Gentleman, the show is over! If you are not a council member please leave the room now." I nod to the remaining guards with a grim expression to make sure to execute my words before leaving the room myself.

Why we just did not send a servant to get Dr. Johnson? Well, Doctor Erwin Johnson is a very special person. I guess that is the nicest way to say it. At first, it was a pretty straight and clear recruitment from my side. I was searching for someone who could help us with the dead bodies we leave behind.

There were times when it was easy to hide corpses. People went missing all the time and nobody cared too much. Either people were running away from something or to something else and of course, accidents happen a lot. As time passed by, we figured it was becoming more and more necessary to understand more about how to deal with our most precious source: blood. It was also necessary to have benefits for the human servants that keep their mouth shut and their body healthy to produce enough blood for us.

It took me over a year to slowly show Erwin what I am and what is going on in the world. He then started to study death instead of human medicine only. I got him so curious after two more years that he accepted my offer to come into our society and take a look from the inside.

What I was not prepared for, was Erwin's reaction to the inability to taste food. In the beginning, he insisted that this is just a side effect that he could easily heal. As you maybe can tell, it was not and he was depressed and never stopped to silently hope to find the cure.

I guess in the end he accepted his fate to never taste apple pie again but instead he started to study the different tastes that different humans have. Therefore, he likes the variety of servants we have. When it comes to me, I accepted that this is his weak spot and try to avoid mentioning food when we meet for our weekly card games. That works.

Even though I act as if he is my fosterling, he, in fact, was not turned by me. Tristan is his creator, even though nobody knows, besides the three of us, of course. The official version is that I am responsible for him. End of story. You need to know that turning somebody is not really a deeper bound per se, but our law states that the creator is responsible for his newborn until the newborn is able to care for one's self and is for sure not a danger for the other vampires and the society.

Tristan would have been happy to be that. Most vampires only see the ruler but I know him. He has a far too kind soul. It is better to only have one official fosterling from the ruler and Eve is already a hand full. It's also just another weak spot that would be needed to get considered all the time. I do not want to get Tristan into trouble just because I do not want to turn anybody, but that is a completely different story.

I am still a bit sunken in my thoughts when I enter Erwin's rooms in the dungeons. Well, he lives not exactly in the dungeons – but next to it in the basement. Erwin likes silence and serenity. "Erwin?" I yell into the room. We gave him three rooms here after he insisted on a healthy work environment; whatever that means. For me a healthy work environment is a place where people have all their body parts in place and working, but if he insists, what should I have done?

He is a hermit and lives only in these rooms and barely leaves them. The first one, where I stand now, is the room where he anatomizes the corpses he gets, but also treat the humans with injuries. It is mostly tidy here, but this is not a gaining from Erwin, but more of the busy maids. In the second one, he does his work and studies, with glasses full of alcohol and body parts and other materials stored. The last one is a usual bed and living room, furnished as most of our private rooms are.

I can hear Erwin cursing rather loud after a blunt bounce can be heard, followed by a noise of breaking glass. It seems that he startled at my yelling. Good. He should lock his rooms if he does not want that to happen.

"Yes, yes... one moment, " his answer is clear now. I narrow my eyes at the closed door. What is he doing again in there? "Erwin, do you need help?" I ask without real intention to help with anything while I move to the door. Right the moment when I want to open it Erwin slips out and looks at me in surprise. "Is it already time for our card game again? I would've bet it's not been another week already," he starts while wandering to the sink in one corner. His white working coat is full of black powder and one of his sleeves is slightly burned.

"No, it's not, Erwin."

"Good, good. Did you bring me a corpse?" he asks while starting to wash his hands and face.

"Not directly. Lord Blackwood needs your advice. Please hurry to tidy up yourself. We need to take a look at two dead bodies and you will have to answer questions to the council afterward," I tell him what is going on. He stops within his movement.

"What? In... in front of... of so many vampires?" he starts but then looks puzzled into my direction. "Why didn't you inspect them?" he asks. "I did..." I started and he instantly relaxes and turns around again. "Why do you need me then? I have important experiments going on in the other room that should not be let alone. Lord Blackwood trusts your judgment more than mine anyway," he sighs.

He tries to get his reputation as the best vampire doctor, but unfortunately, there are not a lot of opportunities. We just do not get sick as humans do and we live in a way that the humans do not even recognize we are here. Before I tricked him into this life, he was a prestigious member of the chamber of medicine and science in London. He still has correspondences going on with others in his field, using different aliases of course.

"Stop questioning me and get ready!" I look at him with slightly glowing eyes. "Alright, alright!" he throws his hands in the air dramatically. "Whatever you and our Lord commands, but please let me change my coat, I somehow burnt mine." He shows me his sleeve with a serious expression.

I nod. "The dead body is a council member," I tell him while he wanders around in the room to the little cabinet. "What are you doing in there? Body parts usually do not catch fire. Also, I can't remember that fire is used to heal our servants," I question him while watching him getting another white coat.

"Ethan, I am a man of science and have an eternity to cover with gaining knowledge. There is no time to lose. Did you know that the most important discoveries were made by accident?"

"So you figured that if you create as many accidents as possible you will find one faster?" I look at him grimly but he seriously nods. Closing my eyes for a moment, I take a deep breath. I really like this man for his honesty and integrity but sometimes I wonder if he really knows what he is saying.

"No explosions and no fire in the headquarters, do you understand that, Erwin?" I narrow my eyes at him. As I get no reaction within the first moment, I once more add with a sharp commanding tone, "Do you understand me, Erwin!" He sighs. "Yes, Sir," he answers unwillingly.

One thing you need to know about Dr. Erwin Johnson. He would never talk to me like that in public. Actually, he never really says something emotional in public and only corrects someone, when they get a fact wrong within his sciences. Even that he does with respect.

Finally, he was done changing and we were able to walk to the corpses first and then back to the big hall where the council will meet once more tonight. At the corpses, I could see Erwin doing nearly the same as I did. The only difference is that he also has little vessels with him where he puts in some blood.

I guess to prove it further after the meeting. Erwin is obviously nervous when we get closer to the big hall. He walks next to me, mingling his hands in front of him. "So, I just need to tell them what I found and answer their questions?" he asks me before I open the big door. "Yes, it will be fine," I assure him before getting in and bringing him to Tristan.

All the council members come back rather quickly as Tristan has foreseen, they have not been too far away. He starts the meeting by sending me outside along with all the others that are not members of the council itself. At least now, everybody knows that something bad happened.