Who's to judge?

Chapter XIX

He looked gentle, but he cursed like a sailor. All the way to the house, the doctor fidgeted on Talon's shoulder with the most beautiful and fanciful swear words I had ever heard.

I opened the door for him and he entered.

"What nice things have you brought?" Valerio asked, amused, when he saw us enter. In reply, Talon slapped the doctor's butt, who let out a horrified scream.

"The good doctor!" he replied.

Valerio laughed lightly and went with us to the room with the bodies, where Leroy was waiting for us.

"Oh, you brought a souvenir!" the mixed commented. Talon lowered the still cursing doctor to the floor.

"This is an impertinence! How dare you treat me like this?" he started, but I ignored him and went to the covered head. Then I snapped my fingers, which drew the angry doctor's attention to me. When his eyes were on me, I uncovered my head. The doctor's eyes widened and filled with pure fear. He paled and put a hand over his mouth in horror.

The reason I brought him here was the fading smell of lemon I could smell on him. The smell of the recently deceased.

"Does she look familiar?" I asked, keeping a close eye on him. His every move was scrutinized. I saw tears slowly filling his blue eyes.

"Of course I know her. She's one of my patients." he replied in a shaky voice. "What happened?" he then asked.

"First, answer our questions, doctor." Said Talon, who was standing behind him, menacingly. The doctor winced and froze completely.

Leroy made his presence known and gave him a gentle smile. "Forgive him, he doesn't mean it. We just want some information, and we think you can give it to us. Are you okay with that?" His voice was so gentle that even I would have nodded to him. I saw something in the doctor's eyes for a moment. Irritation, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

"All right." He then said.

"What's your name?" asked Leroy. The doctor started patting his arm nervously, but answered anyway. "Elijah Sterling."

Leroy nodded and then pointed to himself, "My name is Leroy Mclane." He then pointed to his vigor beside him.

"This is Valerio Monterosa." The fullblood nodded to the doctor and said, "Piacere."

The doctor nodded back. Then the mixed pointed, "This is Thana and Talon. We have been dealing with some murder cases for quite some time and it seems one of the victims is connected to you. We don't want to hurt you, we just want to know when you last saw her." He then said. He was quiet the whole time, so the doctor had calmed down again and seemed to be less tense.

He began to think.

"She was with me a few days ago. Since she was a vampire, she didn't really need me, but she had a lot on her mind, so she needed someone to talk to."

His voice sounded murky. "What was on her mind, then?" I inquired. His eyes shot to me and I seemed to see anger, but again it quickly disappeared.

"I can't tell you that, it's confidential." He said, but my gut told me it was his gentle way of telling us "it's none of your business."

"She's dead, so she can't care if you break confidentiality." Threw in Valerio and got a little slap on the arm from his vigor, who also gave him a nasty look. The fullblood grumbled, "Ma scusa, ho ragione! Per morta è morta, non cambia niente."

I don't know what he had said, but it brought him another little blow, this time, however, he remained calm.

"We want to get to the bottom of all this, but we can only do that if you tell us everything, really everything."