More importantly, he could manipulate it.Vik,he pushed through their bond, his mental voice still shaky but getting stronger.Stay with me. I need to push deeper.
Viktor’s presence radiated alarm.Babe, you nearly…
I know.Ant gathered his fractured awareness, pulling the pieces back together with Viktor’s warmth as his foundation.But I can control it now. You’re anchoring me. I can see the whole scene, not just the murder.
He felt Viktor’s reluctance, the instinctive need to pull Ant out of the vision entirely and never let him near anything more traumatic than a broken fingernail again. But part of their connection was built on them knowing what each other needed, and after a moment, Viktor’s presence solidified further.
I’m not letting go.
I know. Please don’t.
Ant turned his attention back to the vision. Instead of letting it play forward into Ronald’s death, he pushed backward, following the threads of magical residue to the hours before the murder. It wasn’t anything he’d tried to do before, but then he’d never been as deep into a vision as he was in that moment. The loop resisted - it was intent on having him relive poor Finch’sdeath over and over again - but with Viktor anchoring him, Ant had the strength to fight it.
The scene rewound. Ronald stood up from the chair, walking backward to the door. The guest room dissolved and was replaced by the estate’s marble hallway. Ant followed Ronald’s echo through the corridors, watching time run in reverse until he found what he needed.
The vision stabilized. Roughly eleven hours before the murder, Ronald Finch had crept through the manor’s east wing, constantly watching over his shoulder as he made his way down a hallway. His hands were shaking, and the man flinched at every creak of a floorboard, but Ronald seemed determined.
Ant watched as Ronald approached a door at the end of the hallway. He guessed it was Claudius’s private study, which would’ve been the same one Viktor had scouted while invisible. Viktor’s approval through their bond seemed to confirm that.
Ronald glanced over his shoulder, then pulled a small magical talisman from his pocket. It pulsed with detection-dampening enchantments, the kind used by investigators sometimes, and Ant wondered where he’d gotten it from.
Perhaps the fact that the murder happened in a coven wasn’t the only reason the Justiciary was called in.
Ronald pressed the talisman against the study door’s lock, whispered an unlocking charm, and within seconds, the door clicked open.
There,Ant thought.That’s how he accessed the records.
Ronald slipped inside, and Ant went with him. The study was opulent in the way only centuries of accumulated wealth could create - leather-bound books, antique furniture, and more of those gothic-style portraits painted in oils. Ronald ignored allof it, moving directly to a section of the wall behind Claudius’s desk.
His fingers traced the wood paneling until he found what he was looking for. He pressed three specific points in sequence, and a section of the wall fell into his hands, revealing the safe Viktor had mentioned. Heavy ward-magic shimmered across its surface, but the safe door stood open.
Ant couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Viktor had said the safe had been locked when he had found it. But this time…Claudius left it unlocked? Was he honestly that careless, or had Claudius left it that way deliberately?The planning behind Finch’s murder suddenly seemed so much more ominous.
Ronald pulled a camera from his jacket and began photographing the contents. Ant watched as page after page of ledgers appeared in the camera’s viewfinder. Names. Dates. Account numbers. Signatures on legal documents transferring property and fortunes to shell corporations.
But it was the smaller journal buried under those papers that made Ant’s breath catch. It was filled with handwritten pages, done in a small, tight script. Ronald photographed several pages, and Ant guessed the handwriting had to be Claudius’s. If that was true, and it was Claudius’s, then the vampire had kept meticulous records of every vampiric trance he’d performed, noting which humans he’d enthralled, for how long, and which assets he’d convinced them to sign over while their minds were compromised.
That’s definitely premeditation,Ant realized.He documented his own crimes.
Ronald finished photographing the evidence and carefully returned everything to its original position. He closed the safe,reset the wall panel, and slipped back out of the study, using the talisman to lock the door behind him.
The scene shifted forward. Ant followed the timeline, watching as Ronald returned to his assigned guest room and backed up the photographs to a secure cloud server. He watched Ronald compose a message to whoever he was working for, explaining what he’d found and requesting immediate backup.
But Ronald never got to send that message...because of the dampening wards.
The vision jumped again, and Ant felt the fear as if it was real, even though he knew he was still in his vision state. Claudius was standing in his study, staring at the safe, and as Ant watched, the vampire pulled out his phone and watched the recent security footage. Every second of Ronald’s find had been caught on camera.
“Edmund,” Claudius called.
The younger vampire appeared in the doorway. “My lord?”
“The human accountant has seen the ledgers.” Claudius’s voice was emotionless. “He photographed the journals. We cannot allow him to leave this estate alive.”
“Should we retrieve his devices first? Destroy the evidence?”
“No.” Claudius turned, and his pale gray eyes glittered as his fangs dropped. “I’m feeling a little peckish and in the mood for a late-night snack. If we search his belongings, he’ll know we’re aware of his activities, and I might miss out, and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”
Edmund quickly shook his head. “When did you want to do this?”
