Chapter Four: Intelligence

Damien Fallow wiped cold sweat from his face and told himself that he was being a little too jumpy. The church was empty; all the Terrans had gone home, he knew that. A clock had struck two in the morning a while ago, and the church was dark, the scent of the old books rising into the air with the dust.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him.

He left the wings of the church and paced towards the main alter. It might have been ironic, for an atheistic Methuselah to hide in a church, but an exile like him had little choice if he wished to stay out of the sun. The old chapel had sheltered him well for many years, away from the eyes of Terrans.

Spinning around suddenly, he scanned the shadows near him. Didn't that sound like footsteps? "Who's there?" he hissed, feeling a little silly as he did so, but not silly enough to stop himself from moving to a more defendable position in the church, in a corner of the main hall. The one with the secret door in the wall, where he could slip away if he had to.

Nothing moved for several minutes. Then the chapel's clock struck three, the chimes ringing around the empty building. Still all was calm. "Maybe it's me," Fallow muttered, hitting the button behind him to open the door.

A smell wafted out of the secret passage, something sharp and sweet. Before he could turn to see what it was, something sank into his neck. A needle? He grabbed at it, but it was gone, and as he turned, he found himself staring straight at a man's chest, covered with a white shirt and tie. The white shirt was a beacon for his hand to find that man's heart and crush it for having the audacity to attack Damien Fallow. He reached out as the man retreated back down the passage, and he was forced to take a few steps forward. But he couldn't reach! The man's figure blurred right into the shadows…and so did the walls and the floor and the rest of the church. Suddenly, Fallow was on the ground, scrambling at the wooden floor with fingers that didn't want to obey his commands. But everything was going blurry, and he was in pain, his eyes burning and throat closing. There was a weight on his back, like that of an animal, or a child. His pain was intense…but soon over.

"You mean this wasn't the first attack?" Abel Nightroad asked.

The two Methuselah officials, Mattas and Bellenon, had sent Hammara from the room and sworn Abel, Tres and Marcus Henry to absolute secrecy; this information was to be kept within the very highest circles. Now Duchess Mattas shook her head. "No. To the best of our knowledge, there have been three before it."

"The first attack occurred in the city of Corum, nearly two months before this one," Speaker Bellenon continued. "The Methuselah's name was Revany, from the minor nobility. His death was reported to the public as an accident, and we arrested his brother because of several minor incidents between the two that had occurred over the years. However, the evidence did not suggest his guilt, and another attack occurred only two days later, in a similar style."

"Was he poisoned?" Abel asked.

"We could not tell from the body. Revany was torn to pieces, and he had…bled out." Bellenon cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Very little could be salvaged. He was buried quietly."

"And the second attack?"

"Occurred in Ródhos, one week later, at the house of another minor noble. The victim this time was Rasputin Petrovsky, one of the Methuselah who deal with the finances of our Empire. He, too, was torn and broken, and had little blood left in his body."

"Who found him?" asked Abel.

"One of his servants, a human woman named Leana. She called the authorities right afterward; when questioned, all she had to say was that she had found him. We took the entire household into custody, but…their story is authentic. None of them had anything to do with his murder."

"What evidence did you find, if I may ask?" asked Marcus Henry.

It was Mattas who replied. "Very little. The scene should have been very messy, but it had been cleaned. There was no trace of the one who had killed Petrovsky, and for a long time, no other attacks.

"Then, two weeks ago, another Methuselah was killed in Uskudar, just outside of our capital of Byzantium. She was not noble, merely a citizen of the empire, Adana Metoris. Like the others, broken and with little blood–but the killer did not have time to clean the area properly, because he was interrupted by the coming of two of Metoris' friends. They stopped by her house unexpectedly, and found someone fleeing. One gave chase, and the other went inside to find Metoris dead on the floor. The one chasing the killer caught up to him and was stabbed in the neck with a needle and injected with a sort of poison; he was rendered immobile almost immediately."

"Did he see the attacker?" Tres asked.

In response, Mattas tapped the stack of papers beside her. "His testimony is in the notes we have collected for you. Briefly, the attacker was over six feet tall, with graying hair, and black eyes. He was human."

Both Mattas and Bellenon stared at the Vatican priests with cold eyes that held unspoken judgment. Because they thought that the priests were human? No, Abel realized, more than that. They were human and with the Vatican, and since the attacker was human and had fled to Vatican territory…perhaps they assumed that the Vatican wished to see their empire in shambles.

Before he could say anything, Marcus Henry spoke. "We are much aggrieved to know that a human committed these acts. But how? How could a human, even one who apparently has great hatred for the Empire, murder three competent Methuselah?"

"There are certain poisons that are dangerous to Methuselah," Mattas replied, "and Terrans have killed our kind before. Take the Nithsgorg family, for instance, whose house we are inside."

"What? What happened to them?" Abel asked.

"The Count and Countess, the parents of the current Nithsgorgs, were killed by Terrans disguised as servants, many years ago."

"We are sorry for their loss," said Marcus Henry smoothly. Abel bowed his head. What was there to say, really? These Methuselah weren't looking for their sympathies, they were looking for a killer. Tres reached over and took the case files.

"These should provide us with the information necessary to find the attacker," he said.

Abel nodded. Normally he hated reading reports; this time, though, this time they would lead him straight to the person who had decided to murder vampires.

Mere days ago, Rory Manor had fought for his life against a vampire. Now, he was in front of one, offering to shake hands.

He decided that the world didn't make much sense.

The handshake had been a knee-jerk reaction, to try and cover up for his second of confusion. He'd thought she was another pilot or something, and only when he got closer did he realize his mistake: she wasn't human. With the faintly glowing eyes and skin and that distinctive otherworldly beauty, there was no way that she could be anything but Methuselah.

Plus, when he looked closer, her canines behind her slightly curled lip were pointed. Rory was reminded of the fairy tales his mother used to tell him at bedtime when he was a child: the creatures heroes met that seemed fair and acted foul. All the better to eat you with, my dear.

She was still staring at his hand with a rather incredulous expression, so he dropped it and put his hands in his pockets. "So, yes, I…was just wondering if you needed some…help with anything. I'm a pilot, and you're out here by the ships…but you're probably fine, and everything, so I'll leave you alone." Now was the time to stop babbling. He closed his mouth and smiled again, though not quite as brightly as before.

Her expression still was a mixture of confusion and disdain. Rory started to get a little angry: she could at least acknowledge that he was there. But he'd already said that he would leave her alone, so why was he still standing there? He turned around, and as he did, the Methuselah girl said, "You are a pilot for the Vatican."

He turned back. "Actually, no. I flew one of the priests here, but I only fly for myself."

Her expression was now more disapproving than confused. "Which priest?"

When Rory answered, her eyes grew angrier still. He couldn't remember the last time a gaze had scorched him so much; even the vampire that he fought in Venice hadn't given him such a look. "Him," she snarled. "You shouldn't have brought him. Do you have any idea of what state my brother is in because of him?"

"No, I don't—your brother, you said?" So he was talking with a Countess. Definitely not a pilot. When his father had told him to always help a woman in need, he surely hadn't foreseen scenarios like this!

Nothing like this girl, who nodded tightly, teeth clenched. "Tell that priest that Ramnoff will not be speaking to him again. Tell him that if he ever sets foot here again, I'll have him run out like a dog. Do you understand?"

"No," said Rory. "What did Abel do to be run off like a dog?"

She took a step forward. Though his legs didn't want to move, he forced himself to take a step forward as well. They were now within six feet of each other. She said, "Why does it matter to you what he did? He disturbed my brother, and Menicla Nithsgorg will not stand by for that kind of thing any longer!"

Menicla Nithsgorg had a very healthy snarl on her, too, one that said that she ate Terrans like him for breakfast, but she was attacking Abel. "Countess, he's trying to help. He doesn't mean any harm."

"Ramnoff doesn't want to remember! Tell him that! He doesn't want to remember!" The Methuselah's voice was almost a shout now.

"Of course not. No one wants to remember being attacked." Rory shrugged, making it as unaffected and casual as possible. "But it will help, Countess, I know it will. I trust Abel, and he's the best priest I ever met. Well, when it comes to fighting, anyway."

But Menicla didn't calm down, in spite of Rory's words and his quiet voice. "You do not know anything," she said bitterly, "Nothing! You know nothing!" For a second, her eyes burned with a terrible knowledge, something that Rory almost flinched–or at least, he told himself that he'd only almost flinched–to see. If she had run up and bitten him on the spot or broken his neck or started tearing her own hair out, he wouldn't have been surprised. Instead, she turned and moved back to her house, at a pace too slow to be called fleeing but definitely too fast to be called walking.

The other pilot approached him. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked. "I've never seen one of them get so angry like that!"

Rory mustered up the most reassuring smile he could manage at the moment. "I'm fine, really. And she does have reason to be worried, doesn't she? I need to get the ship ready for departure. It was a pleasure meeting you."

Only when he was back on his ship, smearing mustard on bread for Abel's sandwich, did his hands stop trembling. "Rory Manor," he muttered under his breath, "this is stupid. You are not afraid of vampires. You faced down a vampire in Venice that was ten times as scary as her Highness. You are not afraid of vampires."

He thought back to the look in Menicla's eyes, and had to wonder what she had seen that could make a Methuselah so afraid.

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to sorcerousfang, for their review, and also to the person/people who have checked this story every Friday for the past few weeks. I'm sorry to keep you waiting! I just wanted you to know that you've motivated me to write more on this story in a couple of months than I might in half a year normally. So, now we see some information and there's a new attack! And what exactly is bothering Meni? And will Abel like his sandwich? Review if you would like to; it always makes my day.

Disclaimer: I do not own Trinity Blood; only my characters answer to me (sometimes).