My Servant Is An Elf-Knight From Another World

Chapter 22

The blade of the box cutter jutted in and out of its slit with every nudge I gave with my thumb which was set firmly against its clasp.

In and out, in and out.

Irene stared at me from across the room, her dark pupils shrouded by the darkness of the night.

"You know what to do," she said.

The plan, true to her word, was simple enough to follow. I was to be the bait, fresh blood for the wandering, starving Matriarch. I was to be abducted by her, held captive with no way of escape, to willingly let myself be feasted on while I placed all my hopes on Irene to come save me. Because, as Irene had put it...

"Vampires are at their most vulnerable when they eat. That's when I'll show up."

So, one thing would lead to another, Irene will show up, do some demonic succubus-thing that will hopefully immobilize the Matriarchs. Of course, I'm just summarizing here, I'm sure the actual details are a bit more intricate... if only she wasn't so vague about it.

As I went to draw the curtains close, I had a thought.

"There's two of them."

Of course, there was really no way of sugar-coating what that meant for me, not that Irene even bothered to anyway.

"Looks like they'll be sharing then," she said, looking at me with a strained expression.

There was no backing out for me, especially not when we had come this far already. One Matriarch, two Matriarchs... either way, my blood will be drunk upon. Didn't matter if it were from two fangs or four.

Moonlight shone from the fabric of the blindings, and the clock hanging on the wall struck eight. It was nearly time to start. Yet there were still more questions I needed to ask.

"Two Matriarchs," I said, leaving the box cutter's blade unsheathed. "Which one of the two will be coming to pick me up?"

A bandaged hand, a slight limp as she walked, and the small wince of pain with every movement, things I couldn't help but notice as Irene paced about.

"For your sake," she said, holding her injured hand with her other palm. "Pray that it is not the frenzied."

"And if it is?"

"I'll protect you."

How she looked at me then, the way her eyes glimmered with certainty, how her words rang out at me with a certain kind of resolve to them. For a moment, I thought of Ash, about how she had made that very same proclamation to me and what soon ended up happening to her following that statement.

After everything that has happened, I found that I didn't like that sentence very much.

I readied the blade over the palm of my hand and stared directly at Irene.

"Whatever ends up happening," I muttered, breathing in deep. "Remember, don't kill yourself over me."

In the silence that followed, I felt the tip of the blade touch my skin, felt my hand clutch the box cutter as tight as it could, afterwards, well... I didn't even remember pressing the knife down, didn't even remember how deep it plunged into my skin.

One moment, there was nothing, then the next, a searing pain was spreading across my entire palm, a tingling sensation from the narrow gash in the middle of it all. Blood started to trickle out and around my palm before dribbling down my wrist and spilling onto the floor in sporadic drips.

"Hypocrite," Irene said, shaking her head with a sigh, and before I could even say anything, she had already moved on to giving me instructions. "Do a lap. Cover every inch with your blood, the bed too, make sure she'll be able to smell it."