Volume 7 - Clutching Coils, Chapter 48 - Sucker For Mystery

Four sets of eyes, well, six if you were counting Mara's three pairs, stared at Iormu like she was insane. Mara, Yuisu, and Haru had turned away from the maid's bedroom to look up in bafflement at the amateur detective. The maid Lyca was still frozen in shock with no idea what was going on, or why there were four women, two of them apparently naked, at her doorway.

Yuisu spoke first, from where she was cowering behind Haru's shoulder. "Are you insane?! She's covered in blood! She's dangerous, and you ask for a moment of her time?!"

Haru stepped up to Iormu, giving Lyca a clear but unwanted view of her perky tush. "Where's your sense of caution?! Wasn't there a crime, a murder by the sound of it? We should call the police!"

"Or at least Sari. She needs to know something happened in her inn," Yuisu added.

Iormu raised her arms. "Whoa, calm down everyone. There's no proof of any crime."

Mara did not calm down. "Someone was murdered!" she screamed.

"Oh, really? Who?" Iormu said with a grin.

Mara thought for a second, scratching her chin. "I, uh, I dunno. Maybe it was Lato! Let's check her bedroom." She started marching down the hallway, then turned around and skittered back. "Uh, which room is hers?"

Iormu set a claw-tipped hand on Mara's head. "That can wait. I'd like to talk to Lyca first." She slithered into the room, then lowered her upper body to bed height and addressed the pajama-clad wolf-girl. "What's the last thing you remember, Lyca?"

The wolf-girl sat up, blinked her red eyes, and tilted her head in thought. "Uh, I just took a shower after my shift, then went to bed." She looked down in growing horror at her blood-covered paws and pajamas. "I don't understand where this blood came from though…" She frowned up at Iormu and said, "I'm kind of scared!"

The wolf-girl's fear seemed genuine, and Yuisu and Mara's expressions softened. Haru wasn't so easily swayed, and she continued to glare at Lyca as if she was a threat. One that needed to be dealt with.

Iormu turned around and called back to the other women, "Yuisu, Haru, you should probably go get dressed while I talk to Lyca."

Yuisu remembered her nakedness for the first time in a while and she blushed red. "Uh, yeah. Good idea," she said, then grabbed Haru's wing and tugged her down the hall to their room.

The jormungand turned back to the bed, hoping that her monstrous serpentine appearance wasn't adding too much to Lyca's fear. "So you have no memories about that blood?"

Lyca shook her head and frowned. Her large furry ears were folded against her head, making her look like a lost puppy.

"Have you ever sleepwalked before?"

Mara and Lyca were both surprised by the strange question, but then Lyca nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do sleepwalk sometimes." She blushed as she added, "Usually just around the full moon, though."

"Have you recently changed your routine? Maybe started dieting?" Iormu asked.

Lyca's eyes widened at the personal question, then she looked down at her thighs. "Yeah, I'm on a diet. I want to look better in a bikini, so I can get a boyfriend…"

Mara thought Lyca had a fine body, but she had also seen Lyca's mouth full of terrifying sharp teeth. I don't think her bikini bod is the problem… For once, Mara knew better than to say anything and she kept her mouth shut.

Before Iormu could ask anything else, Haru and Yuisu returned wearing matching pajamas. Yuisu stepped into the room next to Iormu and said, "If you've got a plan to explain this whole mess, let's get it rolling. If there was a real crime, I want to let Sari know as soon as possible, and if not, I want to go to sleep."

With a smile, Iormu nodded. "Of course. Lyca, would you mind tagging along? It should explain everything and fill in the gaps in your memory."

The five women left Lyca's room and visited Lato's room first. Mara flung the door open and darted inside, but there was no one there. The only thing of interest was the pure white and black color scheme that encompassed the entire room, including her sheets, clothing, and even the furniture.

Mara elbowed Yuisu and whispered, "I bet her panties are all black and white too…"

Yuisu smiled, since she'd been thinking the same thing. Great minds think alike. Except that I don't actually say every ridiculous thing that crosses my mind, like Mara does. Focusing back on the issue at hand, Yuisu turned to Iormu and asked, "Lato's missing, so why aren't you more worried about all of this, Iormu?"

"Because I have a hunch, more of a theory really, about what really happened. Now I'm gathering evidence to confirm or refute my theory. Let's revisit the blood scene," Iormu said before folding back over herself and leading the group back down the hallway toward the stairs and the blood.

The shallow crimson pool was still undisturbed and claw-like splatters were still streaked up the wall. While the others were looking in disgust at all the blood, Iormu said, "Suppose that you encountered a terrifying monster in this hallway at night, and you let out a piercing scream. What would you do next?"

"Fight it, obviously," Haru said flatly.

"What would a normal girl do?" Iormu said with a smirk.

"Run and hide," Yuisu said.

"Exactly. But we've already been down to the end of this hallway and there's nowhere they could be hidden." Iormu pointed to a wooden door, clearly narrower than all the bedroom doors. "Except this closet."

Iormu flung the door open dramatically, and the golden light from the hallway lamps revealed the cyan-scales of a passed-out dragonewt, collapsed on a pile of towels and other linen. Iormu leaned in close and checked the sleeping dragonewt over. "Good, she's unharmed."

Mara squinted her eyes and said, "I don't get it. Why's Lato asleep in there? What even happened?"

Iormu smiled and said, "Let me start from the beginning." She brought her hands together and steepled her fingers. "Imagine, if you will, a werewolf rising from her bed in the dead of night. She starts to walk to the door of her room, but she's still very much asleep. She's sleepwalking, but not aimlessly. She's been dieting, and this beautiful werewolf is hungry."

Lyca blushed at the description, but kept quiet as Iormu continued her story.

"She stalks silently down the familiar hallways that she's cleaned a thousand times. Her goal is in the kitchen. There, she reaches into the meat cooler, grabbing the biggest, juiciest slab of steak, fresh from the butcher. Prize in hand, or paw as it may be, she scampers back upstairs to her bedroom." Iormu looked the other women in the eye, one by one, before continuing, "But she doesn't make it that far. The steak smells too delicious and the blood oozing from it is too tempting."

Iormu paused to gesture at the pool of blood. "The sleepwalker stops here, and switches to sleep-eating. Crouching, she tears into the steak, devouring it and dripping blood all over the floorboards. At that very moment, another less-fortunate maid wanders down the hall."

She pointed at the cute, sleeping form of Lato. "Distracted by her thoughts of the night to come, the innocent maid doesn't see the wolf until she nearly stumbles over her. The wolf, lost in the primal and base instincts of a predator, sees the maid as competition, here to steal her hard-earned meal."

"The werewolf has powerful self-restraint, even while asleep, so she doesn't result to violence. Instead, she puts on a threatening show of force, growling and baring her fearsome teeth, slashing the air with her free hand, sending blood flying from her claws. It works. Perhaps too well."

Iormu's voice took on a spooky tone as she switched perspectives. "The maid is terrified. She screams, she panics, and she flees through the nearest door, slamming it securely behind her… But it's a dead end! Now she's trapped inside the closet, and the terrible beast is growling and snarling just on the other side! Before long, her inescapable fear overwhelms her, and the poor dragonewt passes out. Luckily, she falls back against the linens that fill the well-stocked closet."

Iormu smiled at Lyca, who looked very relieved that Lato wasn't hurt. "The wolf's foe is scared off, and her meal is nearly finished, so the sleepwalker gobbles down the last bit of meat, then bounds down the hallway to her bedroom. She crawls into bed, her supernatural hunger sated, and returns to true slumber, remembering nothing of her sleepwalking adventure." Iormu lowered her arms and took a deep breath. "And you know the rest," she said with a grin.

Yuisu, Mara, and Haru started clapping lightly. Yuisu said, "Wow, that was amazing, Iormu! You somehow figured all of that out, and the way you told the story… I was hanging on every word."

"You're a great storyteller! You should be a writer or something!" Mara said, grinning, her mood much improved compared to earlier.

Iormu blushed a little and said, "It was elementary, really. I was just imitating the greats…"

Lyca smiled shyly, one fang peeking out. "Thanks for explaining everything, Iormu. I'm so sorry for scaring you all." She pointed down at the puddle of drying blood. "Oh, and I'll get this mess all cleaned up. I made the mess, so I should deal with it… and I am a maid, after all."

Haru and Yuisu started back towards their own room. Haru whispered, "I'm a bit tired to continue our fun from earlier. Sleep?"

Yuisu yawned then wrapped an arm around Haru's back. "Sleep," she agreed.

Mara pointed at the sleeping dragonewt in the closet. "What about her?"

Iormu smiled and said, "Don't you worry about Lato. I'll explain it to her when she wakes up."

Mara suddenly remembered Quess. "Crap, I should check on Quess. She was drinking a lot and passed out, so I need to make sure she's alright. Thanks for the adventure, Iormu!" she called back as she scuttled down the hallway.

As Iormu lifted the petite dragonewt into her arms, she wondered, Why would Quess be drinking that much, or at all?

The next morning was a dreary, sleepy slog, since none of the girls had gotten much in the way of sleep. Well, except for Quess, but her hangover was more than compensating for that. They were silent as they loaded their luggage back into the bus, and nearly as quiet on the long drive home.

Iormu had said her goodbyes to Lato, but she was struggling to truly let go of the relationship. As the bus pulled away from the inn, Iormu mumbled to herself, "It's okay. You had fun, she had fun, and it's over now. That's not a bad thing." She took a long, slow breath. "It's not a bad thing…"

Tsuen still wasn't talking to Mara, and Quess was too out of it to talk to anyone, so most of the conversation was just whispers and giggles between Haru and Yuisu.

In the early afternoon, the bus finally pulled into Yuisu's driveway and came to a stop. Tsuen was the first one off the bus, pausing briefly to stretch her legs before she grabbed her suitcases and darted inside the house without a word.

Mara got off next, holding a light jacket over her head to block out the sky. Her black and white umbrella was clearly sticking out of her backpack, but she didn't bother to use it.

Mara loves that umbrella, Yuisu thought. Things must be really bad with her and Tsuen if she won't even use it anymore…