Bambi and the Duke

”Wait, boy,” Nicholas halted the boy before he could run to the others to give away the information, ”Do you know who it is?”

”It is the man who has been working with councilman Creed. Lancelot Knight,” he gave away the answer before excusing himself from the room.

At first, anger coursed through Leo’s veins. The thought that the switcher had gone to kill his friend but then it couldn’t be. The man had sworn to be on the deceased witch’s side and that that was the only reason why he was still in the council.

”The council has turned to be more twisted than before,” commented Nicholas once the door was shut close.

”We need to get to him before the court proceedings start,” said Leo readying himself.

”I will come with you,” said Nicholas. Picking up the glass, he downed the drink and followed Leo out of the room.

Back in the storage room, Vivian had climbed the ladder as if she were going through the boxes to see if she could get anything. Feigning ignorance to who the man was, she behaved as if she were busy. The imposter had already come to visit her once in the middle of her lying search where she actually wasn’t searching anything. Though there was still Maximillian’s belongings to be searched, she wondered if it was safe or had already been sabotaged by the person in the room.

If she kept asking him the time, there was a chance that he would find something was and it wasn’t what she wanted to do right now.

The man had stayed with them the entire time when they had drafted the facts they had acquired until now. Had they spoken about her ability? Yes, they did. She closed her eyes, her head coming to lean on the rung of the ladder in front of her while she stood in the air with the leaning ladder against the rack.

What was she going to do? Running out of this forbidden room right now wasn’t possible. She would not only be caught but the scandal of being with another man in a place where no one entered while also going to a place which was not meant for them to step, not to forget the important files that were hidden here. She shook her head. That would be her inviting problem, not just for her but for the rest of her team which would include the elder councilman.

But what was important? If she didn’t flee from here while she could with the switcher as her only company, there was a probability of her ending dead. And who knew if he would take her form and would impose her to be the one person which would lead to a lot of revelation.

Worried as the time passed, she stepped down walking to where the imposter was going through the boxes as he stood on the ladder himself.

”Dutan, could you pass me your pocket watch?” she asked going near him.

The man fished his hand into his pocket, pulling out the watch through its chain. Vivian spread her hand into a catch position and caught hold of it, ”What do you need it for?” he asked her, his eyes curiously looking down at her as he stood on the ladder.

What did she need it for? She needed to make sure that they were going to get out of this place at sharp time of two hours. That was their only window before they would have to wait for another two hours and God only knew that Vivian had no such plans.

”I want to make sure we have enough time to search. Each rack is taking a lot of time,” she gave out her excuse to him. It could be an agreeable truth as this was no small library. This was like a cave which was big and dark with racks of boxes that reached higher than a normal ceiling.

Leo could have asked for Hueren to come along with her but instead, he had asked Dutan as the man was reliable but this wasn’t Dutan! Thought Vivian to herself.

”I think you should go check from the last racks. We have been looking here at the front for a long time no,” the man suggested as if they would get something from there. She gave him a nod, carrying the watch in one hand while holding the lantern in another as she made her way back to the racks.

Walking with her feet with utmost care so that it wouldn’t make noise she went to the last rack which held cobwebs in some of the racks as they hadn’t been used it sometime now. Playing safe was the easiest route where she would have to behave that she hadn’t found anything but the only question that appeared in her mind was what if...what if he would kill her?

She had found Oliver’s belongings but what about Maximilian’s? Stepping up the ladder as she pushed it from right to left, she started to read the boxes. And the more she moved the more cobwebs were found on her way. She came to believe that the box wouldn’t be here. Standing at the rung of the ladder, she looked behind where she came to see the rack behind the current one. When she tried to peek out, she could see the light where the lantern was coming from. He was still there where she had left him. The man wasn’t even looking through the names.

Of course, why would he? He could be the person who had murdered Mr Gibbs. The same time she wondered if the man who had taken the form of Dutan felt like a vampire or if it was just a mask. She climbed further the rungs, making her way to almost top until she came to hang the lantern on the hook of the rack. Bringing the watch close to the light she saw the minute hand ticking away and it seemed like they had close to thirty more minutes before they would be stepping out of this room without anyone’s notice.

There was an option where she could quickly reach the doors and though it wouldn’t be good for her temporarily, in the long run, the man would be caught once she would tell it to the guards but would they understand than first put her in the prison? And what if the man would catch up to her and slice her neck before she would have the opportunity to go to the door.

Even when the light in her lantern had dispaaered he had offered to go bring the lantern himself without letting her go get it. She would have considered it to be him being polite before but right now her mind was overthinking or was it giving out facts?

Carefully, she moved the ladder as it creaked slightly, moving it to the other side and then she stepped down from it. Okay, that wasn’t hard, thought Vivian to herself. She tiptoed, instead of going through the middle when she had gone to borrow his pocket watch from her, she moved from the other side of the room. Walking in the shadows so that he wouldn’t notice.

She had placed the lantern so that he would think that she was still there. The point was to make him think and when she came to the parrel rack where he was, she peeked her head while keeping herself hidden.

From where she stood she could see him look into a box, taking out the parchments and sniffing a cloth that was found inside. She didn’t know what he was up to but it was evident with the way he hadn’t moved from the spot she had last left him in that he was only wasting his time. All she could right now was to rely on herself.

She wondered if he had the vampire abilities now that he had stolen Dutan’s identity. Where was Dutan? None of the switchers until now had left their imposter being alive and if it was, it was just the one who had taken the form of Isabelle. Not breathing loudly or making a sound, she quickly moved to the next rack when he was reading the parchments.

Assuming that he hadn’t noticed her moving from one rack to another, she went to peek again this time. Her heart hitting hard as she tried to calm down. And when it was, she saw the man still reading the parchment and she was glad that he was occupied with it.

At one point as she moved around from the sides of the room she felt her nose itch. The dust had made its way towards her and it needed to get out as it tickled the insides of her nose. Halting her footsteps, she scrunched her nose and touched it. Please don’t sneeze right now, she said to herself. The timing was bad and if she sneezed it would echo in the large room to let the man know where exactly she was.

Once her nose had calmed down, she proceeded to walk around the racks to stand in front of the first corner one. Until now where she had read every one of them she had come across none of them had Mr Gibbs belongings on that side. Her only guess was that it was placed somewhere on this side of the room.

But...

It had taken her more than an hour to go through half the racks on the left side where she stood now. How was she going to go through the right side?

She bit her lip thinking about what to do. Less than half an hour and she had to do it before the man would catch her. She looked left and right. Going to walk to the left as quiet as she could, she read the years and then went to the first rack on the right to read the year that was written on the box there. It seemed that the end she had just come from was the oldest members belongings which were dated decades old. And the one where she stood seemed somewhat to be a continuation of halfway where she had left. Had the council shuffled them around? Though she didn’t understand why they would do it, she didn’t think about it and instead concentrated on where this year could be found. The one for today.

Oliver died this year but he was found somewhere in the middle. If it was kept in order then she would have been able to find Mr Gibbs too after a few lines but she hadn’t.

The death had taken place this morning, and it had been chaotic. No one would have shown it but it had caused an internal misbalance. For everyone to find out that there was something called a switcher where the person could steal identities and morph into them. The idea was disturbing and worrisome.

If a councilman entered in here to keep it, she doubted it would have been taken too far. No one had so much time. It should be somewhere in the front, thought Vivian and with that, she walked forward in the dark before she realized it was dark. Great. What now?

Though transformed back into a vampire, a pureblooded vampire she could not see anything in dark. She wasn’t a wolf or a dog to be able to see it.

Time was ticking and the darkness of the storage room didn’t help. Going to the sides again, she lurked to looked at the lantern which had been now moved one step forward in the rack. Good, he was occupied.

Then it hit her. She didn’t need light when she had the ability of touch. Swallowing the saliva down her throat, she stepped closer to the racks and ran her hand on the boxes. As it was dark and quiet she didn’t feel the need to close her eyes