Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
The servants in the house were all vampires, and they had been keeping the place clean while Shawn and Dietrich were away, so there was not much prep work that needed to be done before we were shown to our rooms. They apparently dusted, aired out the rooms, and turned down the beds. None of it took much time at all.
The room that Joaquin and I were in was a lot like our place back home. It was a little smaller, but it was more than adequate. And the bathroom was something that I had been missing while we were away. The tub was more than big enough for us to soak in together.
Talia and her guards were right down the hall from us. There was a room inside of her suite that they were able to sleep in. They seemed to prefer that, so that they would be close to her in the event that an emergency was to break out. Alexio was always very paranoid and protective of Talia. I was happy about that though. He took really good care of her at all times.
We spent a little while getting settled in. And Dietrich even assigned some of his staff to take care of us while we were here. They were, of course, vetted by Gabriel and Vincent before we allowed it. I knew that they were Dietrich’s people, and therefore should be trustworthy, but I needed to make sure. Not to mention, there was that incident with Octavius all those years ago. I guess I needed to make sure that these vampires hadn’t begun to lose their souls like he did.
They checked out though, and that was a good thing. After that, they were given permission to take care of our rooms while we were here. They were efficient too, putting everything away so quickly. They seemed to be relying on the use of shadow walking though. Which, by the way, was the same technique that Shawn had used to punch his brother across the room earlier.
With our things put away, it was time for us to sit down for a late lunch and to discuss what we were going to be doing today. We had lost an hour travelling here since the local time was later here than it was back in Wales. And it was already mid afternoon by the time that we were ready to leave the Alpha’s house and head here. That meant that it was approaching the evening.
As we talked things over, I decided that we would be better off waiting until the next day to start looking into the man that Dietrich once knew and where he lived. I didn’t want to run out of daylight or to risk anything that might happen when the sun went down. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, but there were clearly more magics that worked in the dark than in the light. That was not a comforting thought when you were searching for a group of murderous psychopaths.
After we ate our meal, we settled into our rooms and relaxed. It was just another day of us not needing to worry about the case or what to do at the moment. A little more time to rest our weary minds before we went back to the daily grind of it all.
I was a little on edge and antsy all evening. I wanted to be investigating, but I knew this was for the best. And it was just one more night, right?
****
Riviana
****
The next day we were all ready and set to go on our little find it mission. We were not going to rest until we found Alaric’s former home. And, hopefully, we would find a clue in the process. I doubted that these people were going to be involved, considering what their ancestors were like. Still, they might be able to point us in the right direction.
We gathered for breakfast in the dining hall, told Talia, Rudy and Alexio to stay behind, then left once we were all done eating. Talia was not happy, of course. She wanted to be part of the investigation as much as possible, but I didn’t care. She needed to stay here because this wasn’t a crime scene we were going to. It was the home of a former hunter. And we didn’t know what we were going to find there. Just to be safe, we needed to make sure that she was safe.
The path to the home that we were going to was bright and sunny. Not even Shawn or Dietrich could shadow walk on this path. There were no trees. There were no rocks. There was nothing. And it was not overgrown or anything like that. It was clear that someone was still living in this area. And they were taking good care of the property.
“I don’t get it.” Dietrich was confused when we were several hundred yards into the property. The house should be here. The mansion that I remember should be right here.” He was at a loss. “Someone is clearly still here, but the house is gone. What is going on here?”
…..
“Could it be further into the property?” Shane asked in the most serious tone he had. “Have we not gone far enough?”
“No. It should be right here. I spent enough time in that home to know where it is. I would not forget something like that. This was too important of a place for me to just lose track of or forget about. I lived in this home for several years, I helped make it into what it is. Or rather, what it used to be.”
I could tell that Dietrich was feeling lost and nostalgic at the same time. He was remembering the past and that past didn’t add up with the present. He was having trouble coping with it and it was hard to watch.
“Is it possible that the house is simply gone, and that people don’t like to see this place overgrown? Perhaps his descendants look after the property and keep it clean. Maybe they live nearby.” I was offering whatever advice that I could. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“No. There are no other homes in the area. And, as you know, we have already traveled far to get here from my place.”
That was true. Dietrich’s place was about twenty miles or so from this location. And the only place that was near here was Dietrich’s. There was nothing else that we had seen along the way. No roads. No barns. No sheds. No homes. Nothing at all. It was just open land here and Dietrich’s castle grounds back there.
“Well, something is going on here. Where did the house go? There isn’t even any evidence that there used to be a house here.” Joaquin was looking around. “Isn’t that the most odd thing about all of this? Wouldn’t you think there would be a hole in the ground where the dungeon had been. I would think that there would be some sort of ruins that were left behind. Nothing would be this clean and this filled in. Something is going on with this place.”
“You do have a point. There were multiple layers to the dungeon like the basement in this house. It would not have just filled itself back up with nothing to show for it. There is something truly wrong here.” Dietrich was spinning in a slow circle now, looking all around the clearing that we were in. “Someone is hiding it. Someone is doing this. I just know it.”
“Why? Why would they be hiding it? What purpose would that serve?” Shawn sounded calm on the surface, but I could see that he was unnerved about this. It was a strange place, wherever we were, it was definitely odd.
“Obviously, these people have something to hide.” Vincent glared at where Dietrich said the house would be. “There is no other reason for it than that.”
“Agreed.” Gabriel nodded along with Vincent.
“Let us search the area. I am sure that if we go far enough, we will find the spell or whatever they are using to hide this place. If we can find that, then we will be able to break it. Then we can confront these people.” I was pissed off right now. This was supposed to be a simple trip to visit the home of someone that Dietrich used to know. This should not have added to the intrigue of this case. Now that it had though, I was starting to get more and more suspicious of these people. And that meant that I was more and more convinced that they were the ones that were killing all of those people.
I wanted to find this place right now. After seeing this new mystery pop up, I was feeling more and more uneasy. With the schedule that these people were keeping right now, there were going to be more murders happening between tonight and tomorrow morning, depending on where the people were located. And if this group, this family, was involved with it, then I would make sure that they paid for what they had done.
We split into groups for the time being. We needed to make sure that we were able to search effectively. The problem was, we didn’t know how far out we needed to go. Where was the spell hidden at? What would it look like? Was it close to where the house should be or farther away from it? I didn’t know any of those answers, and that meant that I was not very happy.
I decided that I was going to search with my magic. Calling it to my eyes like I did to see the writing that was left at the crime scenes. That would let me know when I was close to the right place.
Joaquin and I started moving in a quarter circle. The area around the clearing was divided into sections and we were to head out from the center to the woods that surrounded the clearing. We walked back and forth over that area looking for things that were relevant to the case of the missing house.
We were moving slowly since we didn’t want to miss anything at all. So, after what felt like several hours, we were only halfway through our section of that clearing. And we still hadn’t found anything. Things were not looking good for us.
After a while longer, Joaquin and I made it to the line of trees, and still we hadn’t found anything.
“Let’s check in there. Maybe they hid it outside of the clearing.” I shrugged because it was all that I could think of.
And it was a damn good thing too. After we started to search the woods, I saw that there was a flash of magic light in the distance. That meant that my magical eyes were seeing something that was important.
“There!” I shouted at Joaquin. “I see something over there.” Taking his hand, I ran all the way over to where the tree was glowing. “Ther-.”