Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 39

Hi!

I read a book about writing the other day, and there was one 'rule' that stuck in my mind. I think it's the most important one: As a writer you should always tell the truth - in the sense that your characters and your writing have to be real and come from the heart / from what you know. (At least that's my take on it.) So here I am, trying to tell the truth about those two characters Alexander and Anna, and learning a hell of a lot about myself, while at it. So thanks for reading and sticking with this story!

Lara

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Chapter 39

"And what makes you think that this is sufficient, little witch?"

I was seated in a black leather chair in an office in the Blood Line Hotel, facing a vampire that was about 500 years old. He could probably smell a lie from a mile away and for all I knew he could enter my mind without putting much effort into it if he cared to.

I just told the creature that I hadn't found anyone matching the description of his current most wanted persons. Technically I didn't tell an outright lie. Tony hadn't been at the club, and since I was the second one of said persons, I hadn't found that person in the club either.

The play of words should be close enough to the truth to work. Initially I planned on coming up with a crafty subterfuge on my way to the hotel. With already one foot in the grave, I couldn't help but think that it didn't really matter what I told him.

The punch line? It looked like I was having second thoughts – or should I say something coming close to a queasy conscience, that funny, twisting feeling in my stomach that told me what I was doing wasn't right. Trust issues? Conflicted about my sense of loyalty? Hah! It was something I thought was off the cards. I mean, we were talking about the head vamp here.

And still, this twisted, two-edged game of truth and lie was gnawing at something inside of me. I owed him for saving Ryan's life, and, yeah, I planned on remaining his human servant for five months. Part of me wanted to come clean and tell the truth. It was just that I didn't know what Alexander would do if he had proof the Bloody Warden members were the perpetrators, that spiking blood barrels was probably only one 'crime' among many. If he knew, what would he do to the half-witches?

I had no idea. I did a mental head shake. No matter what, they weren't going to die under my watch.

Alexander got up from his sitting position and walked over to the window, the breath-taking skyline of the over-lit Crimson District displayed behind him like a piece of art. Right hand pressed flatly against the glass, Alexander leaned against the window. The dark outlines of the granite table and his unmoving shadowy figure added to the notion that this was an arranged, well-wrought composition; that everything had been arranged and placed just to create this dark mood.

The lights of the Crimson District were only a whisper of the colourful, bustling life raging outside. The office itself was void of any source of light. By all appearances the head vampire preferred to work in the dark. Or maybe he just liked to annoy me. In comparison to him I was blind as a bat.

Alexander turned around and faced me again, his whole front cast in shadows.

"You will go there again tomorrow night, little witch. I need to know who has been insolent enough to attack a vampire club right in the heart of my territory. And I need the information now."

I did a mental sigh. It looked like Alexander wasn't buying what I fed him with.

Fine. If you can't convince them, confuse them, I deduced. The only question that remained was if he would smell a rat. It was time to test the theory – I was going to lie like a trooper and pray he wouldn't notice.