“V-Violetta?” I slowly moved one foot out of the bath, keeping my eyes locked on the blade in her hand. “What are you doing with that?”

She stayed silent, bringing the knife up so that it pointed downward in a stabbing position. Okay. I guess that answered my question. She was stabbing with it.

“Fuck…” I brought my other foot out of the tub, practically slipping in the process. What was this? Betrayal? No, Violetta was too dumb to double-cross me. This had to be mind-control. So yeah, I guess Violetta had brain after all.

The light caught the metal of the knife as she took a step forward. No time left to think. Only one thing to do.

I screamed at the top of my lungs.

A second later, she was swinging it down at me. I threw my hands up and caught her wrist, holding it in place. Holy shit, it took both my arms just to stop her.

She wrapped her other hand around the hilt of the knife and pushed down. I couldn’t hold her. “Violetta!” I yelled. “Violetta, snap out of it!” It was just an inch away from my chest now. “Uhh… you’re stronger than this. You… would never let someone control you!” Yeah, total movie bullshit, but I was running out of options here. What was taking those goddamn vampires so long?

Legs. I needed to do something with my legs. Should I kick her? Wouldn’t I just lose my footing and get a chest-full of knife instead? If I was going to move one of my feet, I was going to have to make it count. My eyes darted to the bath to the right of us.

Here went nothing.

I kicked out my right leg, hooking her left ankle from the outside. At the same time, I jerked her wrist, using my body weight to pull us toward the bath. I felt a drop in my chest as my feet left the ground, sending us both falling. We hit the water, the warm liquid enveloping me like a blanket.

In the chaos, I felt her grip go limp on the knife. I grabbed the handle, standing up in the bath as quickly as I could. “It… actually worked,” I hacked, coughing up water. Thank god video game close quarter combat training translates to real life.

“Ouch…” Violetta sat up in the bath, rubbing her head. “What… What’s going on?” Her eyes drifted up to me. “Why do you have that knife? And… why are you n-n-naked!?” As if she hadn’t seen it before.

“Alright, stop right there!” I yelled. “This isn’t what it looks like.” I wasn’t even sure what this looked like, but I wasn’t about to let her jump to conclusions. “You were being mind-controlled or something and you tried to kill me.”

“Oh my gosh…” Violetta put her hands over her mouth. “I tried to kill you?”

“Yeah, whatever, it doesn’t matter.” I threw the knife to the tiled ground with a clatter. “More importantly, who did it? Who controlled you?”

“I… don’t know.” Violetta stood up, her leather outfit dripping wet. “I went to my room to lie down… and then I just woke up here.” Fuck. I guess mind-control murder wouldn’t work very well if the one you controlled remembered who you were.

“Well I think it’s safe to say that whoever did it is the killer,” I said. “They don’t want me exposing them.”

“I guess so…” Violetta frowned. “There are a lot of Vampires here though.”

“Wait a minute…” I narrowed my eyes. “Are you saying mind-control is something all vampires can do?”

“Of course, silly. Everyone knows Vampires can do that, silly.” Call me silly. Call me silly one more time.

Ryley rage exploded inside of me. First it was the succubus fire, now it was this. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I yelled. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Violetta shrunk back. “You… You didn’t ask…”

“You’re my assistant aren’t you? Assist me!” I stamped my foot in the water, splashing it everywhere. “You have to tell me this shit.”

“I’m… sorry.” Violetta’s bottom lip quivered. “I’m a… bad assistant!” Alright, I was probably going a little overboard here. But only a little. I had almost just been stabbed with a knife, after all.

“What else can vampires do?” I said, still having a hard time not yelling. “Turn into bats? Fly? Sparkle? Whatever they do, I need to know. Everything.”

“I think it’s just the mind-control thing…” Violetta sniveled. “And the blood sucking thing.”

“Alright, I can work with that.” I stepped out of the bath and walked toward the door. “Come on, we’re going downstairs.”

“R-Right now?”

“Yes. Right now.”

“But… I’m all wet.” Hot.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m pissed.”

“But… you’re naked.”

I glanced down at myself. “Good point. We should, uh, probably get changed first.”

We went to her room together. There was no way I was leaving her by herself again. We didn’t have any clothes of our own with us, so we had to settle for some white bathrobes that we found in the closet. In fact, that was literally the only thing to choose from. Apparently, vampires were big bath fans.

Okay, time to storm. I made sure my footsteps were extra loud as I went down the stairs. “Count Accula,” I yelled. “Get out here!”

When we got to the first floor, we were greeted by Nair. “Is something the matter, Mr. Allard?”

“Yeah, something’s the matter.” I got in his face, but he didn’t even flinch. “Didn’t you hear me screaming up there?”

“Indeed, I did.” Uh, okay. Didn’t expect him to say that.

I backed up a little. “W-Well… Why didn’t you come to see what was wrong?”

“I thought you might be engaging in sexual activity. Loudly.”

“I-I’m not that kind of girl, I’ll have you know!” Violetta pushed past me. “I’m his assistant!” Whew, at least she didn’t say

‘I would never do it with a guy like him’ or something. Not that I wanted to, of course. I was just glad my fragile ego hadn’t been bruised.

“The two of you live together,” Nair said, his eyes full of disinterest. “I don’t believe the conclusion I came to is that unusual.” I mean… I guess?

“Listen up,” I started again. “Someone just used mind-control on my assistant and tried to have her kill me. That’s what I was screaming about.”

“Hypnotic suggestion,” Nair said.

“Excuse me?”

“Hypnotic suggestion,” Nair repeated himself in exactly the same tone. “Not mind-control.” Oh of course. And sucking blood was totally different from sucking life force too.

“Get the Count out here!” I yelled.

As if on cue, I heard a door slide open down the hall. Hadria emerged in dark purple pajamas covered in little skulls. “Hey, what are you guys doing down here? Did you already finish?” Seriously? Her too?

“That’s not what we were doing!” Violetta’s voice was so shrill that it practically shattered my brain.

Another door opened. This time, it was Count Smokula. For some reason, he had the exact same pajamas on that Hadria did. I would laugh about that later. “Is everything alright?” he asked.

“No, everything is not alright,” I said, lowering my voice slightly. “Did you not lock up the three suspects?”

“Lock them up?” The Count raised an eyebrow. “Why would I do something like that?”

“Why? So that the murderer doesn’t escape or mind-control my assistant into trying to kill me!”

“Hypnotic suggestion…” Nair said under his breath.

Violetta leaned over to me and whispered. “Hypnotic suggestion, Ryley.” Yeah, I got that. I just wasn’t going to say it.

“I assure you, my security is top-notch, Mr. Allard.” The Count crossed his arms. “Nothing of the sort will happen here.”

“It literally just did. That’s why I’m yelling right now!”

“That’s… very upsetting,” the Count said, his expression growing hard. “Such behavior is an insult to my guests. An insult to my guests is an insult to me.”

“You can stop calling us your ‘guests’,” I snapped. “We were forced to come here. I know how you work. We know all about how you fixed the bocce world series.”

I heard the sound of a gun cocking to my side. “I suggest you shut your mouth, Mr. Allard,” Nair’s voice was cold. Oops, I might have said a little too much there.

“Put that away,” the Count barked.

Nair didn’t waste a second, returning the gun to the inside of his suit blazer. “As you wish, Count Acula.”

The grizzled old bloodsucker walked down the hall slowly, finally stopping right in front of me. “I won’t deny it, but I don’t think you’re being fair, Mr. Allard,” he said, staring me straight in the eyes. “My family may occasionally do things that are… frowned upon… but that’s not the same as doing something that’s against the law.”

‘Law’? Before I got here, demons didn’t even know what that word meant. I had only been here a few days. I guess it was possible that he had picked it up from the king or something, but it still struck me as odd.

Before I could say anything, the Count continued. “So, wouldn’t you say that it isn’t fair to judge me over things that weren’t technically illegal at the time I did them?” He had a point, but I couldn’t admit that to him. After all, this entire justice system was predicated on making the laws as I encountered the crimes. Also, I really didn’t want to lose the argument.

I decided to drop it. “Do you have a room large enough to fit everyone in the mansion?” I asked.

The Count smiled. “Of course.”

“Call everyone there,” I sighed. “We’re having the trial right now.” Fuck it. I was going to tear this case apart.

“But… But what about sleep?” Violetta sounded like her spirit was leaving her body. “What about sleeping, Ryley?”

“Awesome!” Hadria jumped up and down. “Oh! I get to be Lyili. One second, I gotta get changed. I’ll be right out. Don’t start without me. Seriously, you better not start.” She slammed her sliding door shut.

“Come on, Violetta,” I said.

Wait… What did Hadria mean by ‘she gets to be Lyili’?