Chapter Fourteen: Deadly History

Hours had passed, and Alucard decided to check on Aeon. He knocked on the door to his room, getting no answer. So he came in.

"Hey," he greeted, seeing Aeon sitting on the end of his bed. Aeon didn't even look at him. Alucard shut the door. "It's just me. What's going through your mind?"

"I don't know what to do,"Aeon said. "I need to go back to our time, brush up on some history of this town. It's just too much for me to handle right now. If that music guy has a career then we are all screwed! I made a mess of things here, and I hope to God I can fix it."

"Okay, you bring some books back. I'll stay here in case there's anything we don't know about. I'll page through the books with you. See what we can find on this place. I don't recall any commoners getting entertainment careers until way later than this. I mean, unless there was a bigger town near here but there isn't. Being closer to the king would mean entertainment at feasts and such, but we aren't anywhere near there. That guy can't have too much going for him...but I suppose it never hurts to check," Alucard rambled.

Aeon knew Alucard could very well be right, but he wasn't taking any more chances. His luck was pretty shitty at the moment.

"But, I feel bad about leaving again," Aeon said truthfully. "I already left her once, and merely for a day. It's been less than that already and I'm leaving again..."

"You can't help that," Alucard said. "Time keeper. Duty first." Aeon hated knowing Alucard was correct. He broke the news to everyone, and he really didn't want to see the look on Synthia's face. It made him not want to leave even more. He would try to make this a quick visit back to his world. Everything should be as it was when he left...he hoped.

Thankfully, he was right for once this time. With Alucard behind, he could think a little more clearly. The time keeper decided to study a little when he was in his own time without the vampire. He found his books, but only a few of them mentioned that little town at all. Not much he found eventful, and still no Synthia in any of the books. He paged though countless pages and glanced into them, soaking up any useful information.

He had no idea how much time had passed since he left...but he knew it was late when he closed the 54th book. That was the last one, and he only took with him the six most useful books to him and Alucard. Aeon didn't even want to look at a clock for once in his life. He just wanted to go back to Synthia.

When he did, he saw it was pitch black outside. At least no one would see him, and he did have some useful information for them. Aeon went to Alucard's room to find him standing near the window.

"You took your time," the vampire said. "Find anything useful?"

"Actually yes," Aeon said. "For the current matter, the musician. We can kill him. He becomes nothing famous, probably won't be missed if no one's come looking for him yet." Alucard nodded as Aeon set the six texts on a desk.

The vampire looked though one of the books, seeing no mention of Synthia.

"As far as James is concerned?" Alucard began...

"I don't know," Aeon quickly stated. "That's what I have you for. You're going to help me decide on what to do with him." Alucard sat a while and thought about this. He just wanted everything to go as easily and smoothly as possible. Alucard didn't like helping Aeon clean up his messes, especially with history. He asked if Aeon could do anything else to the guy to make him forget everything that had ever happened. Aeon countered Alucard's argument with the excuse of Dracula, which was always a good excuse. The last thing they wanted was to unleash Dracula. That was make a colossal mess.

Aeon yawned multiple times, a sign to Alucard that the time keeper had been up longer than he thought. He told Aeon to rest. After all, everyone else was. He'd look through the books now, trying, as Aeon had, to make sense of them and think of a way to fix their problem.

"Get up." Aeon was being shaken awake, and he wasn't appreciating it one bit. He'd been in a deep sleep from last night. It was Alucard, saying that Smiddy and Synthia went to the blacksmith's shop. Only Marry was here. Aeon slowly woke up and asked if the vampire had any luck in coming up with a plan.

"Kind of," Alucard told him. Of course, Aeon thought, never specific. "We kill the music guy. With James, you should do some kind of hypnoses thing so he forgets everything. If you don't want to do that, then you're on your own. I don't know. He either has to forget or he has to die. I know you want to kill the bastard but maybe him just forgetting is better."

"I want to keep Synthia safe and then see what Dracula will do to him when he doesn't show up with her," Aeon admitted. "If James's future killer doesn't mention the killing to many people then the story dies. So will a disappearance." Alucard wanted to know what Aeon was planning, but he knew he'd never understand the methods of a time keeper, even if he'd known that time keeper for a long time.

"So, we can kill the music man then?" Marry asked. Aeon nodded. "Good! He's such a hassle to watch. Sleepwalks a lot. Sort of creepy. I'll let Smiddy kill him, he's got the equipment." When Synthia and Smiddy came back from errands, they took the music guy into the blacksmith shop.

"I hate for a life to end like this," Synthia said.

"He won't feel a thing," Alucard reassured her, drawing a sword.

"I thought we were gonna burn him..." Smiddy said. These people sure take death as no big deal, Aeon thought. It's almost barbaric.

"What good is a body burning alive and screaming?" Alucard said. "We kill, THEN we burn. Less noise, less questions." Smiddy nodded. Alucard stabbed the man through his heart to make sure he was dead. Then he and Smiddy threw him into the pit of burning coals.

"One down, hopefully only one to go," Synthia said, walking away from the scene and back to Marry's, Aeon close behind her.