บท 114: Chapter 59: Rome Residence (Part 1)

There is a two-storey house with an air of luxury around it. It looks to be owned by a rich family, named Chesham. However, last night, some really terrible news came to the nearby police station. Bodies of all the residents of the house save one was found hanging by the ceiling, all bruised and cut in different places, which showed that different methods of torture were used on them. The one resident of the house who wasn't found hanging to the ceiling was lying on the ground with a knife, the reason that she had ended up dying, stuck to her chest.

It is suspected that someone killed all of them for revenge against something. For a family as rich and powerful as them, it is a believable cover-up. The real story, that the clues lead to, seem to indicate something much more terrible. They indicate that Anna Chesham, the woman found dead with a knife on her heart, was responsible for so brutally killing all her family members. After that, she died by a heart-stab. Why did she kill them? Who stabbed her? And why? These are what the task force's real questions are?

And as the task force wonders about all of that, they see a man sitting at a bench by the street, alone and looking like a suspicious individual. He isn't acting suspicious or something like that but he just looks like he wants to kill someone.

This man has a muscular build with a square face and a straight nose. His downturned-aquamarine eyes are glowing with rage and his skin is colored like a marshmallow which makes the darkness in his eyes ever more visible. In short, he looks dangerous.

According to the data the task force has gathered, Anna Chesham was the fiancée of this man, Gabriel Washington. His rage would have been justified, had it just been on her murder. But his rage seemed to be on something else, something that the cops have no idea about. His rage is on the Vampire Kingdom.

However, regardless of how dangerous he looks, the cops have a job to do. And so, two of them step forward and walk towards him. He doesn't react in any way at all as he sees them coming. As they step in front of him, one of them says,

Cop: "We have a question for you, Mr. Washington."

Gabriel: "Oh? What a coincidence! I have a question for you too."

He says as turns his head to the cop who had asked the question and asks, in a calm voice, the voice that meant the coming of a storm,

Gabriel: "Do you work for The Vampire Kingdom?"

The cops frown as they hear his question.

Cop: "Is everything alright with you, sir?"

One of them asks, thinking of the possibility that the death of his in-laws and his fiancée might have affected his mental health. But,

Gabriel: "Your heartbeat didn't increase."

He says as he points out the sign of someone not lying, which he had picked up on from his aura-reading.

Gabriel: "You live another day!"

He says and smiles as if something genuinely good has happened to him. He gets up and before the cop could say anything,

Gabriel: "If you ever meet a vampire and find out that I haven��t lost my mind here, I want you to tell them this -"

He looks at the cop as if he is looking at an innocent and ignorant child, and says,

Gabriel: "'YOUR KINGDOM IS GOING TO BURN … IN A HELLFIRE'."

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A figure of a man with a devil's mask stands in the rain. His real name is unknown, sold and forgotten long ago. At present, he is only known by the name 'Abgere'. What this name means, most people don't know. But he knows, and his friend Ro Garland did, and that's enough for him.

Even if he did have some interest in telling people his name's meaning, who would he tell? The only man he ever converse to, the last friend he had left in the world, was killed a few days ago by a man named Ethan Kales.

Therefore, he now has no one left in the world to talk to.

He has no one left in the world to care about.

He has no one left in the world to share his problems with.

He has no one left in the world to stop him from giving up his humanity.

Therefore, there is no longer a reason to not dawn the mask of the devil. There is no longer a reason to not start the clean-up. There is no longer a reason to not fulfill what he believes to be his life's purpose.

And so, in order to fulfill that purpose, he now knocks on the door of a Hellfire.

Knock! Knock!

It takes a while after his knocking but the door does open. It is opened by a girl in her teens, about 14-16 years of age who says as she looks at him,

Girl: "Yes?"

She asks in a polite tone of voice, a voice that didn't have the respect one shows another from the heart, but has the respect one is trained by their elders to show despite their feelings.

Abgere: "I am a friend of Julius Rome."

Abgere lies in a plain tone as he takes the name of the owner of the house and one of the 9 remaining Hellfires. He states plainly the name of his target.

Girl: "What business do you have with father?"

She says in an anxious voice to which, the man wearing the devil's mask answers calmly,

Abgere: "I just want to meet my friend."

He tries to speak in a sweet voice so as to not frighten the kid or anything, which doesn't help much because of his face being covered by a devil's mask.

Girl: "Father is busy right now. He said to turn any visitors away."

The girl says while looking down in anxiety and a bit of fear. She feels like there's something threatening about the man standing at her door.

Abgere: "Hah!"

He sighs as he sees the girl stubbornly refusing to let him in or call her father.

Abgere: "Your father is in debt to me."

Seeing that that kind of lies won't work, he chooses a better one as he says so with a bit of scorn as he lowers his face to look, from the face of the devil, directly into the girl's eyes.

Abgere: "If you don't call him here or he refuses to come, there will be consequences."

A calm voice says so to the girl and she finds herself shaking in fear to it. She slowly steps back while keeping her gaze on Abgere and her mouth agape. She doesn't find the courage in herself to say anything as she then starts running to a closed room just a gallery away.

Using that time, Abgere invites himself into the house and casually sits on the sofa near the door after closing it, closing the knob, the closing the handle, closing every way to get out of the house.

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A pecan-brown-skinned muscular man in his early 40s sits on his chair, naked, except the towel around his lower portions. He looks at the clock with an annoyed expression as he taps his foot on the floor repeatedly. However, he finds himself at the verge of losing his patience as he has waited for about 30 minutes by now. So, he gets up from the chair, briskly walks up to the door of the bathroom and kicks it hard enough for a yelp to come out from the person inside.

Then, in an angry voice, Julius Rome says,

Julius: "It's been a freaking half an hour, bitch! Get your ass out here!"

He shouts at the woman who has occupied his bathroom for half an hour now.

Julius: "I'm not paying you to use my shower!"

He shouts at her from outside and the woman can only meekly say in response,

Woman: "Y-yes, p-please forgive me!"

Julius: "Tsk!"

He clicks his tongue in annoyance and knocks on the door with his leg once again as he says,

Julius: "Do you know who you are talking to, bitch!? I don't forgive. I make a person repent. Now get your ass over here so you can repent."

He shouts at the woman who just meekly jumps inside the bathroom and starts closing the shower in fright. Then,

Knock! Knock!

Girl: "Daddy! Someone has come to meet you!"

The voice of the girl who was too afraid to think anything comes and,

Julius: "Tsk!"

He clicks his tongue yet again and walks over to the closed door that connects his bedroom to the rest of the house. He opens it, looks at his panicked daughter and,

SLAP!

He hits her hard enough for her to get thrown on the ground.

Julius: "Alexa, did I or did I not tell you to turn anyone who comes looking for me away?"

He asks in a scornful voice and Alexa just holds her right cheek, which has grown red, and says,

Alexa: "B-but t-that man …"

Julius: "Hah!"

He sighs in exasperation before she could finish and,

Julius: "Get up!"

He says in a voice that clearly shows that he is holding back his anger. His daughter obeys his orders and gets up. And then,

SLAP!

She gets hit on her other cheek. That cheek too ends up growing red. Droplets start falling down her eyes and his father sees it,

Julius: "Bloody drama queen!"

He says as he walks around in anger and then kicks Alexa's stomach.

Alexa: "Agh!!!"

She screeches in pain. Julius, seeing that, only gets annoyed further. He then says,

Julius: "Go offer whoever has come to meet me some hospitality. I'll be coming in a while."

He says, walking back into his bedroom, and closing the door. Alexa then gets up, tears falling down her cheeks and both her cheeks red, the 15-year-old pecan-brown-skinned girl with cute features walks over to where their guest has seated himself.

As she walks away from the bedroom, she can hear, coming from the bedroom, the shouts of a woman accompanied by various sounds of hard impact happening against skin, i.e., the voices of slaps, kicks and punches. Eventually those voices dies down and the voice of painful moans of a woman start coming to her ears, along with the cursing voice of her father.

Alexa: "Tsk!"

She clicks her tongue, as that is the only thing she can do.

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