The old woman offered the first glass to Lucas, a gentle yet kind smile on her lips. She then moved to the girl who she had spoken to a few days ago,

"I thought it would be hard to get here,

" said the woman,

"Because I am the only one who lives near the woods. It gets a little hard when people come looking for me. I mean the family,

" she added.

"Belle said that she saw you walking this way and we decided to look for you. Sorry for imposing on you so suddenly,

" Lucas bowed his head at the woman whose nails looked almost rotten, and if a person's nails were rotten in this world, it only meant one thing.

The person was a black witch who was only posing to be a human.

"Oh, that's okay. I did ask her to come to join me for some tea and cookies that day. It would be rude…

" the woman trailed, looking at the two people sitting there who were yet to take a sip from the glass,

"I made sure to warm the water. The weather outside is cold, isn't it?

" she made small talk with them,

"What is it that you wanted to know about the family?

" she asked.

Lucas raised his glass and took a sip from it before putting it down as it appeared that the witch was anticipating him to take a drink,

"Could you tell us what happened the day the Clifton's died?

"

The woman gave some thought and then said,

"They got killed by their son, isn't it?

"

"Is that something that you heard or saw?

" asked Lucas and to his words, the woman smiled.

"How can I see death when I wasn't there? I heard it from the officials who work in the town that the boy killed his parents. At first, they made this strange assumption that the boy was under some influence.

"

"What do you think?

" Lucas continued with his questions.

"I don't think he was under any influence. I think he wanted to kill his parents! Rumour was that as the family was rich, the boy decided to be the sole inheritor, to everything for himself and killed his parents and then the other servants who witnessed that gore-filled night. Children can be ungrateful little beings,

" the woman shook her head.

Lucas wondered if this was how actual rumours were spread. The witch here was lying and if there were one person's words he believed it was Belle's who had told that George had confessed what happened to him. And this was not the version he had received from Belle which the witch iterated now.

"Would you want another glass of water? Maybe warmer?

" asked the woman to Portia, but Portia shook her head with a sweet smile on her face.

"I am fine with this,

" answered Portia as she had not bothered to take a drink from the glass. What she wanted was fresh blood to suck and slurp on. Since from the time she had switched her soul with Belle, entering the land of the living, she was thirsty, and all she could think of was taking a bite into the woman's neck, failing to see that the woman with them was not a human but a black witch.

"That's sad to hear. I don't think we pegged George to be that kind of person,

" claimed Lucas and the woman shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, the councilmen said it was something to do under the influence that turned the person into a corrupted vampire,

" answered the woman. She then got up to say,

"Let me get you some freshly baked cookies that I made this morning.

"

The water that Lucas drank; it would never come to affect him as he wasn't a creature of this land but belonged to the dead. It might have worked on a vampire, human or a pureblooded vampire but not him which was why he had taken sips. The vampiress with him was smart enough not to drink something that was given by a stranger.

Seeing the woman leave, Lucas said,

"Milady. I think you dropped something,

" and this had the woman turn to see what it was. Lucas held a white handkerchief in his hand up in the air for the woman to take it. The woman stared at the handkerchief for a few seconds and then said,

"It is not mine,

" she smiled, looking at Lucas, refusing to take it from him.

"You sure?

" asked Lucas and the woman's eyes shifted from the handkerchief to look at Lucas and in a blink of an eye, the woman pulled out powder from her dress and threw it on the ground. The entire house was filled with dust, not letting anyone see things around them. When the dust had settled down, Lucas stood holding the vampiress' hand in his to make sure the witch would not have taken her.

"What happened?

" she asked, looking at him.

"She was a black witch in disguise. She must not have gone too far!

" and they left the house behind to trail the black witch.

Both of them ran in search of the black witch who was suspicious enough to lie about what happened with the Clifton's. When they finally caught up to the black witch, Lucas caught hold of the black witch's leg to have her fall down on the ground. Her body rolled to the side to stand up and try to run again, but Lucas had pulled out a tape that was made of wire, to put it around the witch's body so that she was tied to the tree and wouldn't escape.

The black witch snarled, shedding her skin of being a human to turn to a scaly creature. Her eyes turned to slits, and her tongue slithered out of her mouth like a snake.

Lucas, who had successfully got the witch tied turned his eyes on the vampiress to see how her eyes had turned wide as she had never seen anything like this before.

.

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