In the early morning, the old man opened the door of the Grand House and was about to angrily scold the visitors who ignored the closing sign! But when James saw the two dark circles under his eyes, he closed his wide-open mouth, snorted heavily, and complained to the Great Dane next to Alice: "Kim! Your brother is here to see you!"
James was unable to fight back against Old Hank's taunts and moved into the Grand House, "Where is Zach?"
"He's resting." Wiping the coffin in the display area every morning with Old Hank was Alice's regular activity. Now she was holding a velvet rag and answered James' question.
Mist-like lights and shadows converged, and in the blink of an eye, the translucent Ryan, who looked like Connor Herman and was wearing a football jacket with 'Quarterback' printed on it, stood in front of James and faced Ally. Si shouted: "Why is he here! He is a murderer! Let him go! I don't want to see him!"
Alice flinched and backed away. The Great Dane Jin opened his mouth, pointed his sharp teeth into the air, and let out a low, threatening howl.
"That new guy?" Old Hank looked at Alice, frowned, raised the poker in his hand, and waved it in the air! The Great Dane raised its front paws and pointed forward. Old Hank said "oh" and reached forward with the poker in his hand, finally hitting the translucent Ryan. The light and shadow faded and Ryan disappeared.
Alice looked at the confused James apologetically: "Zach is in the basement."
James lowered his head and quickly walked inside without thanking him.
The basement of the Grand House is much colder than the basement of ordinary homes. For those who don't know this place, it may have something to do with the fact that there is a compartment here for storing remains. But in fact, there is a dedicated basement stairwell on the south side of the Grand House. The basement where the remains are stored is not connected to the place where Zach lives, but is directly below the coffin display area on the first floor.
It's not like James doesn't know the people here. He knows that this deliberate coldness is to relax the vampire's senses and make it easier for them to enter a dormant state.
"Zach! Zach! Wake up!" James kept his distance and shouted as he looked at the vampire lying on the wide stone platform.
"You are rude." Zach lay flat on the stone platform, opening and closing his lips: "Interrupting other people's rest."
"We need to talk." James looked around, but couldn't find a chair. He moved a stack of old newspapers and sat on them without bothering with the dust on them.
Zach sighed, stood up helplessly, picked up the robe beside him, and put it on, "You can see Ryan because you are the one who recited the soul-inducing spell. If this is what you want to ask."
"I've almost thought of it." James hung his head, his voice weak, obviously because he didn't get much rest last night: "I want to ask about other things."
Zach closed his eyes and carefully adjusted his heartbeat, "If you are troubled by him calling you a 'murderer', don't be like this. Death is an angry thing. He is just venting his anger. At this stage, he will In the past, although his was the truth.”
"That's it!" James' drooping head suddenly raised, and in the dark basement, his dark circles under his eyes were even more conspicuous, "Why does he make me a murderer!"
Zach opened his eyes, and the red in his eyes slowly faded. There are two moments when vampires are most vulnerable. The first is naturally in dormancy, when the vampire's heart stops beating and the blood no longer flows. They are no different from dead bodies. You can follow the method of 'How to kill a vampire' in my notes and slowly choose the method you like...
The second one is when the blood starts flowing again, which is when the vampire wakes up. At this time, the vampire has just recovered from the state of a corpse and is adapting to his body again. All senses and control powers have to go from nothing to chaos and finally to control.
Zach glanced at the excited James, "Don't you think you are a murderer?"
"Why should I think so!" James stood up and walked towards Zach, who was still sitting.
Zach felt the control of his body gradually returning, and raised his hand to stop James' intention to continue approaching. Accompanying the restoration of the senses of the vampire group is the hunger of the same group. This one is no different from ordinary people.
Zach looked at James again: "Then why do you look like shit."
Well, when it comes to waking up angry, vampires are also very similar to ordinary people...
James opened his mouth, slumped back to the pile of old newspapers, and sat down. Last night, his intermittent sleep probably didn't add up to an hour! The vampire says to his 'Have a sweet dream! 'As if it was a curse, he kept being awakened by nightmares, and then tossed and turned. The image of Connor struggling in the flames, being stuffed into the trunk, desperately escaping only to be caught by Ravenci repeatedly appeared in his mind. Until he fell asleep in a daze, and then was awakened by the burning, transparent image of Connor, tossing and turning again... and so on!
So James hopped on the first bus to Barton South and arrived at Grand House. As for why a bus? Naturally, it was to prevent being followed by Ravenci and exposing the Grand House for the second time. Although James was tortured by something, his thinking was very clear.
"You should feel grateful." Zach stood up and began to move his limbs. "At least he used the third person to refer to it, otherwise your guilt will be even deeper."
"You! You are deliberately disrupting my thinking!" James glared at the vampire who seemed to be recovering, "You just want to use this to draw a line between me and the hunter!"
"I agree with your last sentence." Zach stopped and sat back on the stone platform. He had returned to his usual appearance and looked at James with a smile: "But I didn't disturb your thinking. I didn't even know You will be there." Zach untied the robe that he had tied casually before and began to try fancy knotting techniques. "What you should think about is why Ravenci took you there. No matter what, he was going to commit murder. , and you’re a police detective.”
"No!" James shook his head, but there was already a trace of doubt in his eyes. Zach's question caught his attention, but now he wanted to refute Zach: "He didn't kill anyone, he just wanted to..." James pressed. He frowned, thinking about the wording, "He just wants to eliminate an 'Earth-Binding Spirit', even if it is his younger brother!"
"Oh?" Zach chuckled, "Are you moved by this 'righteousness'?"
James kept his mouth shut. Regarding the Earthbinder, he had already asked Anthony on the phone last night. This is a process that all living things will go through after death. Some last for a long time, several years, until the body finally returns to the dust, while some last for a short time, just a blink of an eye.
They have no ability to affect anything, that is, Ryan is not harming anyone, including the body he uses later. His possession was just a matter of luck in encountering an empty shell in the place of death where he was bound.
"Then let me ask you a question, Detective Lance." Zach raised his eyebrows: "When William Herman reported the disappearance of his son, Connor Herman, who had just become a football star, who knew the truth? What will you do?"
James curled up the palms of his legs and made fists, his joints turning white under the exertion. The vampire's question answered his doubts about Raven's purpose!
Will he hide the truth because Connor is a alien possessed by the Earthbinder, or will he report the crimes of Ravenclaw Storm like a real police detective
"No!" James, whose thinking had reached a dead end, repeated his previous words like fragments! "He didn't kill anyone, he just eliminated an Earthbinder! Connor Herman was already dead, he just pushed the incident back to its original track!"
"Yes." The translucent Ryan condensed and appeared in the cold basement: "Use the method of kidnapping me into an empty basement, nailing me to rotten boards, and finally burning me."
James' eyes flickered as he stared at the sudden appearance of the Earthbinder, who still looked like Connor.
"And the only thing I did was be a good quarterback!"
"No!" James stood up suddenly and stared at Ryan! "You're not a quarterback, you died three years ago! You just stole another poor guy's identity!"
"Look at me!" The light and shadow all over Ryan's body trembled, like a broken TV screen, "I am Connor Herman!"
"Okay." The smile on Zach's face disappeared. He realized what James really meant, which made the vampire lose his smile. "James Lance, look." Zach walked towards James, ignoring He resisted and pulled out the police badge from his waist, holding it in front of the detective who looked like 'bad shit'.
"You are protecting Barton, so you have this." Zach put the police badge back into James' hand: "What I want to ask is, if one day, I, Benjamin, Alice, were attacked, what would you do? Protect us? Or are you going to let us get attacked and just protect old Hank?"
James opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Zach before he could make a sound.
"Perhaps I should change the law. If our people in the Grand House are attacked, you will only accept the report from Old Hank. And refuse to go to arrest our attackers?"
James opened his mouth again, but was interrupted again by Zach.
"Perhaps I should change the law. If we, the Grand House people, are attacked. Will you only put the person who hurt old Hank in jail as punishment, and ignore the person who hurt us?"
James' eyes widened and he opened his mouth, only to be interrupted again.
"Yeah." Zach shook his head, "None of them are right. It should be like this. If someone hurts someone in the Grand House, only the person who attacked Old Hank is the perpetrator, and the others." Zach looked sideways Head: "They are not guilty, is that right?"
"In fact, Detective Lance, you know very well that such a thing has already happened." There were only cold words from the vampire in the basement, "If I am burned to dust in the flames, and Benjamin is impaled by a steel cone and becomes a corpse, Alice and Kim were nailed to the wall and losing their breath, and only old Hank was still alive. Will you make excuses for our murderers like you do now?"
"You will, I have heard you." The vampire turned his back to James, "You will: 'It was just a vampire, a werewolf, a banshee, and a dog, old Hank, you should be grateful Those people, they pushed your life onto the normal path.'" The vampire turned his head and looked at James with light green eyes: "Is that so?"
The vampire took off his robe and lay down on the stone platform. "You should leave. I should remind you that I am not only angry now, but also hungry."