Death wasn’t new to Belle as she often heard people dying but she had never seen someone die right in front of her. Worried, she jumped directly from the patio on the ground. Thankfully, there was no one to catch her jumping as her mother said it didn’t suit a lady but Belle didn’t care much about it.

She had grown to be free spirited in some ways and made her way quickly towards the mansion’s gates. The latch on the gate creaked, and she turned it around to step out of the mansion. Staring at the man who laid down in the ground, she saw him convulsing. His body continued to wreck and she moved closer to see the black smoke that was around the man that had disappeared.

Before she could go any closer, someone caught hold of her arm, “Don’t go any closer,” it was Lucas.

She turned her head to him and said, “He was walking and he fell down,” she looked evidently worried even though she didn’t know the man personally and it was the first time she had seen him here. Looking back at the man, the man continued to convulse and from where she stood, she could hear him making some gargling voice in his throat.

“Get back, Miss Belle,” he pulled her behind her. Belle frowned, not knowing what was going on. For a second she was still taking in what he just said and in the next one, the man who had been lying on the ground stood up. On a closer look, she noticed that the person in front of them was a deranged vampire.

With the hierarchy and the need to push through the world to climb the status quickly while also increasing their life span, humans often sought to turn to a vampire but not all humans had a successful transformation. When the human body couldn’t take in the venom after the bite, their body and mind broke down to the point where they turned insane.

“What’s that thing around him?” Belle whispered seeing the smoke return behind him. The smoke looked similar to a person who took an extremely hot bath where their skin appeared to be steaming.

Before anyone could speak anything more, the deranged vampire, a human who had not turned out well came straight to attack them as they were the only ones on the road. Lucas looked around them to see if there was any sign of a grim reaper who had come to collect the soul but there was none and he took the opportunity. Before the deranged vampire could reach them, Lucas pulled out the glove that he wore and raised his hand to flick his finger right against the creature for the creature to fall back with full force on the ground with the deranged vampire’s body dragging across the ground.

“That should do.”

“Did you kill him?” she asked with a little shock in her voice.

“You weren’t expecting him to come to infect or kill you, were you?” he gave her a pointed look.

Belle leaned to the side with her eyes staring at the man who didn’t move anymore. Did she just see her butler use his fingers to flick the deranged vampire’s forehead? Seeing Lucas walk towards the man, she quickly followed to see the man who appeared to be unmoving.

“Go back inside. It’s going to rain,” he advised but she wanted to hang out here.

“What are you going to do with him?”

Going to hold the deranged vampire’s hand, he said, “Taking him somewhere he can rest,” Belle wondered what use rest would be as once a person turned to a deranged vampire there was no turning back. The resultant was often them being caught and executed somewhere away from the public’s eye or worse case they were killed in front of people without showing any mercy.

When he started to drag the man, Belle followed him on toes not caring if it was going to rain right now, “Isn’t it necessary to let the magistrate know about it?” She took a look at the mansion to see no one outside and diligently followed Lucas.

Their mansion was close to the forest and they stepped in there.

“I don’t think there would be much difference in what they will be doing. The bodies often taken by the council are either used by people in there to pull out the blood from their bodies or are thrown in a place which is forbidden,” the butler said to her.

“You are going to give him a grave?” she asked him as they passed through the lush trees one after another. In Belle’s eyes, the respect that she had for her butler moved ten steps more and her red eyes shone. Her butler was such a good man, thought Belle to herself and she continued to follow him.

“Hmm,” Lucas hummed, not giving her a proper reply. He didn’t want to tell her that the man was going to live a few more hours and he had decided to knock his soul out of his body not wanting grim reapers hovering near the mansion.

After spending the first five years working in the Adams mansion, Lucas had come to the conclusion that his powers were not going to return and he was rather enjoying his time here than picking up souls. And in the next few years, he lived the way he wanted to.

A grim reaper who was free and not bound to work or follow any rules. He had gone full rogue when it came to knocking out souls that were troublesome before discarding the body somewhere safe but he placed the bodies elsewhere because he knew there were some people, the same creatures as him who were involved with the council, the law that ran in the four lands here.

He had been trying to find the councilmen who were involved with his kind for their own greed. It is where he had decided to look for, than look for who had framed him which was currently on hold.

If the council found the body, the report would go not only to them but someone would find out he had flicked his fingers to kick the soul out but then what was the fun in following rules? Thought Lucas to himself. By throwing off the souls out, they would wander and it would cause trouble to the grim reapers and the higher-ups who looked through it as they had to track down where the souls went to only find empty shells of the body that would take up days or months of time.

He had to say, he enjoyed what he was doing right now because he was invisible to his very own people. Lucas didn’t care about them. His heart was colder than the rest of the grim reapers, a wicked smile on his lips with a lack of sympathy for anyone. One way if he looked at it, he was a man who didn’t care about anyone.

He had different plans now and in dark, he had been sharpening the knife he had acquired.

“Are we going deep into the forest?” he heard Belle question him. The clouds had begun to clash against each other and it was only a matter of time before the rain started pouring down on them.

The reason why he had allowed the girl to follow him into the forest was that he wanted to ask her something.

Belle had mixed emotions right now as she hadn’t seen anyone except for a priest to pray and get the body in the casket. She looked around and asked, “Are you going to dig a grave?” she asked him curiously.

“We are going to leave him right here, Miss Belle. This way someone will find him and take him back where he will be buried,” the butler answered her with a polite smile, “I haven’t ever dug the ground for a body before. Only plants. It would take a lot of time to dig and put the mud back again,” she nodded her head, understandingly. He was right. Her parents would worry where both the butler and she had disappeared to.

“Would it be easier for his family to find him near the town?” Belle asked him as bringing him all the way here sounded to be a tedious task.

Smart Belle, thought the butler to himself, “His body will come back to normal with the venom settling down making him appear more human.”

“I never read that in the book,” she said with a frown. If she wasn’t wrong, the deranged vampires were often staked by woods in the heart and killed but her butler had only used his fingers to flick the man’s head.

“It is called knocking the person out. Obviously we didn’t stake the man else he would have turned dry like a leaf in summer,” answered Lucas to her. Seeing Belle stare at the man where Lucas had made him sit upright with his back against the tree, he asked, “Miss Belle, you said about seeing something earlier.”

Belle’s gaze shifted from the dead man to the butler. Her eyebrows furrowed as she said, “I don’t know if I was hallucinating,” she laughed awkwardly, “I kept seeing this black steam around the man like smoke before he passed out and before you knocked him out.”

Lucas stared at his young miss with a passive expression. Bell was waiting for him to smile and tell her she needed some sleep but instead, he opened his pocket watch which was strange-looking.

“That thing doesn’t tell time,” Belle said as in the past she had once or twice peeked at it. He looked at the watch he held and then her before flipping it and putting it back in his pocket.

“Let’s head back. It wil-” and raindrops started to fall from the sky, “-l start to rain…”