Chapter 56 Blood and Blame

Chapter 56 Blood and Blame

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in one of Francis’s guest rooms, staring at my reflection.

My face was a mess.

Dried blood had crusted along my cheek and near my hairline where the mallet had struck me. I soaked a washcloth under the running tap, wrung it out, and slowly began wiping the blood away.

The cold water stung the bruises.

Behind me, Timi was pacing the bathroom like a storm ready to explode.

“How could you let this happen?!” he shouted.

I kept my eyes on the mirror and said nothing, focusing on scrubbing the dried blood from my skin.

“They kidnapped her right in front of you, Daniel!” he continued, his voice echoing against the tiled walls.

“They came at me out of nowhere,” I muttered quietly.

That only made him angrier.

“You’re a vampire!” he snapped. “Use your senses, goddammit!”

I stopped wiping for a moment but didn’t turn around.

There was nothing I could say that would make this better.

So I let him rant.

I went back to cleaning my face, slowly wiping the last streaks of blood from my jaw while his anger filled the room.

Timi ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Now we have no idea where she is,” he said.

His voice dropped slightly, but the anger was still there.

“And you know how fragile she is, Daniel.”

I stared at my reflection again.

“You know how she is.”

The anger in my chest finally boiled over.

I turned around to face him.

“Well if you were so worried about her,” I snapped, “maybe you should have been by her side instead of me.”

Timi stopped pacing.

His eyes locked onto mine.

“I’ve been spending all my time trying to figure out a way to cure her,” he shot back.

I shook my head bitterly.

“Your grandmother already said there is no cure.”

My voice hardened.

“You’re just wasting the little time she has left trying to erase the guilt of ripping her away from her family.”

The words landed harder than I expected.

Timi’s expression changed instantly.

The anger in his face darkened into something colder.

“I’m not the one who was stupid enough to let her drink my blood without even knowing it,” he said sharply.

He stepped closer.

“How stupid can you be to let a girl like that knock you unconscious and drain your blood without you realizing what was happening?”

My jaw tightened.

The bloody washcloth was still in my hand.

I squeezed it hard, water and diluted blood dripping onto the floor.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then I threw the cloth into the trash bin.

“You know what?” I said coldly.

“I’m done.”

I turned and opened the bathroom door.

Before I could step out, Timi grabbed my shoulder and yanked me backward.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

Something inside me snapped.

I spun around and punched him straight in the mouth.

The moment my fist connected, time seemed to freeze.

My mind caught up with what I had just done.

I had just punched one of the strongest vampires in the world.

Timi’s head slowly turned back toward me.

His eyes lifted.

They were filled with pure murder.

Before I could even react—

His leg moved.

The kick landed in my chest like a truck.

I went crashing through the bathroom door, the wood exploding apart as my body flew into the bedroom. My back slammed violently against the wall on the other side.

Pain shot through my spine.

I slid down the wall, gasping.

Every breath burned.

I forced myself to stand, my legs shaking as I pushed off the floor.

Through the broken doorway I saw Timi walking toward me.

Slow.

Calm.

Deadly.

Then he disappeared.

In the next instant he was right in front of me, moving with speed.

His hand shot out and grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling me toward his face.

But before he could do anything else—

A blur rushed into the room.

Juliet.

She slammed into Timi and threw him off me.

Timi was sent flying backward. His body rolled through the air before he crashed into the wardrobe beside the shattered bathroom doorway.

The furniture rattled violently from the impact.

Juliet stepped between us, breathing hard.

Her eyes moved from me to Timi.

“What the hell is happening here?!” she shouted.

Timi and I spoke at the same time.

“He started it.”

Juliet closed her eyes for a moment and sighed in frustration.

“Ayara is out there alone and scared, and you two are in here fighting like children.”

The words hung in the air.

Timi and I slowly stood up.

Neither of us said anything.

After a moment, Timi turned and walked out of the room.

I followed toward the door.

“Daniel.”

I stopped and turned around.

“I don’t need your help,” I said.

Juliet crossed her arms.

“If you’re picking a fight with a five-hundred-year-old vampire, you need all the help you can get.”

I didn’t respond.

But deep down, I knew she was right.

Juliet rubbed her forehead.

“Look, I don’t have time to ask what the fight was about.”

She looked straight at me.

“So pull yourself together… and let’s go find Ayara.”

Then she walked out of the room.

I stood there for a moment before brushing the splinters of broken wood off my shirt and shoulders.

Then I followed.

\---

When I reached the dining room, everyone was already there.

The large wooden table sat in the center of the room under a hanging chandelier.

Waje was seated at the head of the table, calm but visibly concerned.

Beside her sat Francis, leaning slightly forward with his elbows resting on the table as if deep in thought.

Across from them, Timi sat stiffly in his chair, his arms crossed and his expression unreadable.

Juliet stood beside the table, one hand resting on the back of a chair.

I didn’t sit.

Instead, I leaned against the wall in the corner of the room, watching everyone silently.

The tension in the room was thick.

After a moment, Waje spoke.

“We can try a finding spell,” she suggested calmly. “It may allow us to locate where Ayara is.”

Juliet shook her head slightly.

“I already thought of that,” she said.

“But Ayara didn’t bring any of her personal belongings from Nhim.”

She gestured helplessly.

“Everything she owns was bought just a week ago. There’s nothing with enough connection to her for a spell to work.”

Silence filled the room again.

Then Francis cleared his throat.

“Maybe we should just file a report with the police,” he suggested.

Timi suddenly snapped.

“We don’t have time for that,” he said sharply. “We need to find her now.”

Francis looked a little taken aback.

“But it’s past midnight already,” he replied. “The police stations are still open but—”

Juliet cut in before he could finish.

“Daniel,” she said, turning toward me, “do you remember anything about those boys?”

I looked up.

“A tattoo… a scar… hair color… anything?”

I tried to think.

I closed my eyes for a moment and forced my mind back to the alley.

The dark corner.

Ayara’s scream.

Then—

The mallet.

The first blow crashing into my head.

The second one.

The repeated strikes across my body while I lay on the ground.

My jaw tightened.

That was all I could remember.

Then another detail surfaced.

The sound of metal hitting the pavement beside me.

My eyes opened.

“I remember something,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

The boy who attacked me dropped a mallet beside me.”

The room went quiet.

“What if we go back there,” I continued, “and get it… and use it to track them down?”

Juliet and Timi exchanged a look.

Then they both turned toward Waje.

She didn’t speak, but the look on her face suggested she was thinking it through.

I looked at them.

“Would that work?”

Without answering, Timi and Juliet both stood up from their chairs at the same time.

Juliet gestured toward the door.

“Come,” she said. “Show us where it happened.”

We started moving toward the exit of the mansion.

As we stepped outside into the cool night air, I looked at them again.

“So it will work… right?”

For a few seconds nobody said anything.

Then Timi finally spoke as we started moving down the street.

“Yeah,” he said.

“If the guy has been using that mallet for more than a month… and it’s still there…”

He glanced at me.

“It will work.”

That was all I needed to hear.

The three of us took off down the street, racing through the night.

I told them to stay behind me.

“I know where it happened,” I said.

The three of us sped through the empty streets, moving fast enough that the wind rushed past our ears. Streetlights blurred as we raced across the city until we reached the darker part of the neighborhood.

The same street.

The same corner.

The same dumpster.

I slowed down and walked toward the spot where I had fallen earlier.

My eyes scanned the ground desperately.

But the mallet wasn’t there.

“No… no… no…” I muttered.

I stepped closer, looking around the pavement.

“It was right here,” I said, my voice rising in frustration. “It was right fucking here.”

Behind me, I could feel the shift in the air.

Juliet and Timi both looked disappointed.

Juliet rubbed the back of her neck while Timi stared at the ground, clearly realizing the lead might have just disappeared.

My chest tightened.

Then something caught my eye.

Right beside the dried blood on the pavement… there was a small piece of wood.

A splinter.

I crouched down and picked it up.

The end of it was jagged, as if it had snapped from something larger.

The handle.

My eyes widened slightly.

I stood up and held it out.

“Look.”

Juliet leaned closer.

Then she tapped Timi on the shoulder.

Timi turned and saw it.

He stepped forward and took the splinter from my hand, examining it carefully.

His eyes lifted to meet mine.

“It’s from the mallet,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

Without another word, he walked over to the dumpster and placed the wooden splinter on top of it.

Juliet and I stepped closer.

The three of us gathered around the dumpster in the dim light of the streetlamp.

Timi placed both hands around the splinter and closed his eyes.

The air around us grew strangely still.

Then he began the finding spell.

His voice dropped into an ancient language, the words slow and deliberate. The tone carried a strange weight to it, echoing softly in the quiet alley.

The wind seemed to react.

The air grew colder.

The small wooden splinter trembled where it rested.

Then it began to spin.

Slowly at first.

Then faster.

And faster.

Soon it was spinning so rapidly that it looked like a blur of wood against the metal surface of the dumpster.

The sound of the spell grew deeper as Timi continued speaking.

Juliet and I watched silently.

Then suddenly—

The splinter stopped.

It shifted slightly.

And pointed toward the west.

Timi opened his eyes.

He picked up the splinter and placed it carefully in the center of his palm.

It rested there like the needle of a compass, pointing in the same direction.

West.

I stared at the splinter resting in Timi’s palm.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

Timi didn’t look up.

“The splinter will lead us to him.”

He adjusted his hand slightly so the piece of wood could move freely, like the needle of a compass.

“Just follow it.”

So we did.

The three of us moved through the quiet streets, letting the splinter guide our direction. Every time Timi shifted his hand, the broken piece of wood would subtly turn, always pointing the way forward.

The city had grown almost completely silent.

Streetlights glowed faintly above empty sidewalks, and the occasional passing car in the distance was the only sign that the world was still awake.

We followed the splinter for a long time.

Through one street.

Then another.

Eventually the buildings around us changed. The busy city roads faded into a quieter suburban neighborhood filled with neat houses, trimmed lawns, and parked cars lining the curb.

Everything looked peaceful.

Normal.

The kind of place where nothing bad was supposed to happen.

The splinter slowly stopped turning.

Timi lifted his hand slightly.

It was pointing directly at one of the houses across the street.

A simple two-story home with the porch light on and curtains drawn over the windows.

We stopped in front of it.

“This is it,” Timi said quietly.

My chest tightened.

Without waiting another second, I walked up the short path to the front door.

I raised my hand and knocked.

Before my knuckles could even touch the wood—

The door handle twisted.