Gentle Eyes of Evil

Chapter 24: Shopping Date

With Leo's funeral being over, Harriet began to focus her attention back on the crown and her coronation. The coronation itself wouldn't be taking place for the next few months as Leo's death had to be made official and announced to the public. With the entire Ezerath family remaining faceless from the public, and having each public appearance made by a staff member, the death of a royal won't be such a big event. The entirety of Lust had been ruled by faceless royalty since its creation, so, would Harriet be the member of royalty to break this pattern and let her new subjects see her face? If she did, the rumours about the royal family not existing would vanish, however it would also mean that any crime Harriet or her family committed would now have at least one face to it, hers.

Leo's funeral only took a matter of minutes in its entirety. By the end of it, his coffin had been lowered into a crudely dug up hole beside the morgue. For the rest of the day, Harriet decided to spend it with Josephine as she hadn't that morning. The two decided to go shopping for the day to get their minds off their 'missing' father, using his money of course. Sophie had already taken Leo's wallet from his room and was out on the town, so the girls would have to find a creative way to get the credit card from her, in order to get money for themselves from a nearby ATM.

To begin their genius plan of stealing their father's money from their mother, the pair first had to find their mother. Given the size of Lust's ring, Sophie could've been anywhere. Thankfully, both girls' had their magic to let them know when she was close, so they each kept an eye on their middle fingers as they walked around the city. After not too much walking, the sisters found themselves in one of Lust's more high-end streets, it was clear from the diamond jewels and even the quality of rubbish on the ground that Sophie would be here. Throughout their walk, Harriet kept Josephine close to her and the pair's hands were never separated.

As the sister's walked through this high-end street, they each noticed it. The small pink heart on their skin appeared faintly, they glanced to the left, then to the right, Sophie was on their right in a jewellery store that seemed to specialise in diamond-encrusted jewellery. The girls' looked at each other and gave a nod of confirmation to go ahead. Not a word of a plan had been spoken between either sister, yet they both knew their parts in this family bonding experience. The two girls' made their way inside the store, they pushed the door open and each heard the small ringing of a bell up above. Josephine's ears fluttered up and down as she looked up to confirm the sound she heard, after doing this she looked back ahead to her mother, who had just finished a purchase.

"Mother?" Harriet began, Josephine stayed close by her side and virtually wrapped her entire body around the girl's arm. Sophie jumped a little as she heard her daughter's voice, she turned her head to face them both, "What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?" She asked them. "Well, we just wanted to ask. Since father's gone and we don't exactly have anything to do...could we perhaps take his wallet from you? Just to pass some time, you know?" Harriet asked her as she put on her most innocent face, Josephine's naturally innocent look played a part here too.

Sophie seemed almost offended that they had asked that question. "You two really think you're deserving of your father's money after being so absent from his life? After trying to get him to leave me with your horrid lying?" The woman scoffed and turned her nose up at her daughters, literally, she clutched his wallet tightly in her hand. "You can have this wallet from my grave once I join the idiot." She told them snarkily. Harriet nodded to her, "Alright, fair enough.", what Sophie hadn't noticed was that Josephine had slipped away from Harriet's arm and found her way behind the woman, with a hand just over the wallet.

"Mother?" Harriet asked again, Sophie looked extremely unimpressed and growled lowly under her breath as she bared her fangs slightly. "What." She snarled, "Nothing, bye!" Harriet giggled as Josephine quickly snatched the wallet from Sophie's tight grasp and the two made their way out the door and down the street at an inhuman speed. Sophie's jaw dropped slightly as she stood there, shocked, she couldn't believe the speed at which she had just been robbed. Robbed of money that wasn't hers, of course. Either way, Sophie calmed down after a moment and shrugged, she had been out shopping for a good few hours now and thought about heading home anyway. She didn't exactly care what happened to Leo's money either, there was always a way to get more one way or another.

Sophie made her way back to the palace with her numerous bags in hand. She felt rather satisfied with herself, and didn't exactly seem to care where her daughters had gotten off to with that money. As for the sisters' themselves, Josephine had kept an eye out behind them to make sure Sophie didn't follow, and Harriet kept her eyes ahead to watch for danger. The two of them ran to a slightly more run-down area of Lust, windows were broken through, dried blood painted the streets, and women of the night were on almost every street corner. Some even yelled at each other through the desolate streets, their voices echoed with hate and other influences at play, yet none of them took a step towards each other.

Harriet immediately realised where they were, she only knew the area due to picking Eclipse up from danger there in the past on her bender nights. She sensed danger all around, with the broken glass scattered all over the ground, the various condom packets and stains on the floor, and the screaming adult workers, Harriet held Josephine's wrist tightly to keep her close. "Stay close to me, Josie. We don't know these people, or what they'll do to you." She whispered to Josephine before she began to walk back in the same direction as where they came from originally.

Josephine did as she was told and stayed close to Harriet, her body shook lightly as her eyes darted around the space frantically, her pupils thinned into diamond slits. The girls' both walked slowly and were as quiet as possible, that was until Harriet stood on a piece of glass which caused it to go into her foot. "Ah! Dammit!" She cried out, the space around them fell silent as Josephine took a look to her side and her grip on Harriet's arm tightened significantly. "Ow...What? What is it?" Harriet asked her, then looked herself. Every woman that was present on those street corners had all turned their heads to face the sisters, and were focused on them with piercing eyes.

Harriet froze for a second, she then took a step forward to try and leave with Josephine again which only made her step on another piece of glass. She looked down and sighed quietly. "Ok Josie, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Run!" She told the girl and grabbed onto her wrist, despite Josephine already being wrapped around her arm anyway, then made a dash for their exit. As expected, the girl's were chased by these crazed women and so the pair decided not to run home. The women weren't too fast due to being either overweight or underweight, none of them looked quite right. Instead, the sisters' ran back to the higher-end shopping area which seemed to scare the women off as they retreated back to their slums. Harriet took a minute to catch her breath and check on Josephine, Josephine herself was clearly shaken up as she clung onto Harriet's arm and had buried her head in the girl's shoulder.

Harriet noticed this and put her hand on top of Josephine's head to hold her close. "Shhh, it's alright. You're alright. It was just a little scare, that's all." She whispered, Harriet then looked down to Leo's wallet which she held tightly in her hand. She hadn't even realised that the glass was still in her foot. Thankfully Josephine did as she was looking downwards anyhow, she became slightly alarmed and pointed down to Harriet's foot which now pooled blood beneath it.

Harriet saw Josephine pointing down and looked down to her foot. After she noticed the blood, and the shard of glass in her foot, she also panicked a little. However, Harriet leaned her back against a brick wall and raised her foot. She took off her boot and tossed it onto the ground before she then got hold of the glass shard and quickly removed it from her foot herself. Josephine looked away and closed her eyes tightly as she heard the glass shard hit the floor. Harriet's foot gradually stopped bleeding after the shard was removed, she also used a healing spell which helped to speed up the healing process. Her foot was healed and good as new within a few minutes, with the bloody glass shard just being left on the ground. Harriet picked her boot back up from the floor, which now had a small hole in it due to the glass shard poking through, and slid it back onto her foot.

"There. Good as new." She told Josephine with a reassuring smile. Josephine cracked an eye open to see the bloody glass shard now on the floor and silently sighed in relief. She walked to Harriet and took the girls' arm again. Harriet looked at Josephine and kissed her forehead, then looked back down at the wallet. "Well, what do you say? Are we spending this or not?" She asked Josephine, who went on to nod profusely. "We didn't do this all for nothing!" Josephine wrote on her notepad. Harriet nodded to her and the pair went on to spend most of Leo's money on their own wants and desires. Exactly like he'd want them to.