Robarte couldn’t help but not smile looking at the mess his older sister was in.
“Stop smiling so much. I have already dragged your name in it,” smiled the woman giving him a look that had the smile disappear from his face instantly, “I told them you have been helping me.”
“That cannot be true unless you let go one of the witch hunters who is working for the black witches,” stated Robarte, “Tell me you didn’t do it,” he demanded from her who chuckled. Looking up at the sky she smiled more.
“You were taking your own sweet time to find this time. How long has it been this time?”
“Just a bit longer than the last,” answered Robarte who gave a look at the witch hunter and then started to walk away from it to be followed by Laurae.
“Bit?” Laurae asked, appalled by it. Her black witch features finally surfacing to the scaly skin she was born with, “It has been more than twelve years,” she accused him.
“I didn’t think you would be needing my help for anything. You were the capable black witch sister, what happened?” asked Robarte who didn’t bother to turn as he could hear the sounds of the wet footsteps following him from behind, “And I don’t think the witch hunter would be reliable. I met the councilwoman some days ago. She relayed the message on what was happening and I must say, Sabbi is angry that you are killing the witch hunters.”
Laurae scoffed loudly, “Do you think I am interested to be the bait or be killed right now?”
“You know it isn’t about the book. She doesn’t like the fact that you have been turning famous. One string from the dress will pull out the rest of the strings or thread out in the open,” when his elder sister finally caught up to walk next to him, he said, “If you weren’t selfish you would have let me know. But you and I both know that you want to fare better than me and the others and look at what that’s gotten you into,” he tched her.
Laurae didn’t comment on it and she then asked, “How is my daughter dear doing?”
“Excellent. I have been trying to get her to drown in the water but she caught on to the voodoo magic,” a gentle smile settled on his face as he said this, “A shame that I haven’t been able to catch hold of her.”
Laurae knew that her brother enjoyed killing people more than she did and since the time he had found her daughter, he had been wanting to have her next to her so he could torture her but it was Laurae who had denied to give her daughter as she needed the girl to survive in the village.
After a woman reached and passed her prime age to marry, these people were mostly frowned upon but more than that, the villagers and townsmen looked upon the unmarried woman as witches which made it difficult to survive. She had kept her daughter as long as she needed and when the time came, she discarded her like she was nothing but a pair of shoes that were torn and not usable anymore.
And when things were of no use, Laurae always made sure to throw them.
“You don’t mind if I have her do you, sister?” asked the man, his vampire-like eyes moving to the corner to look at her.
Laurae gave him a bored look, “I don’t care what you do with her.”
Robarte smiled at his sister’s words, “How kind of you. We need to find a healthy looking vampire,” he added. The woman gave him a questionable look.
“You are a vampire, not a pureblooded vampire to drink blood from them. Why do you want to hunt a vampire?” she asked him.
“I wish we could get a pureblood vampire, but that will need me to go into hibernation for many more years. I think my body is malfunctioning and I need a change of organs,” he reminded her as it was Laurae who had transformed him into a black witch with the organs and appearance of a vampire.
Robarte was a black witch like her but as he had gone through the knives of the black witches, especially by the hand of Laurae, his appearance had changed over the years to make him look like a vampire. Before Laurae had married the white witch, she had worked with the Artemis to create a prototype of modified witches.
As years had passed by, they had tried to improve the existence of the witches but most of them always failed but her brother had been one of the successful experiments.
He raised his hand, pulling out the glove from it to show the hand that appeared to be decaying, “My butler is already showing the signs of aging. I cannot ask him to go anywhere because people would only suspect if he went with an appearance something like this. You understand that, right sister?”
“Don’t think I am willing to do it for free,” she stated, Robarte chuckled quickly.
“You wouldn’t be my sister if you didn’t ask anything in return. What is it?” he asked her.
Laurae said, “You will help me get out of this mess that has been created. Either find me the book that had gone missing or help me deflect the threat that is coming from Sabbi.”
Robarte couldn’t stop himself from laughing, “Do you think Sabbi is easy to take down? The amount of black witches who stand along with the witch hunters between is too great. I am only asking you to fix me not revive me. I can go to the next black witch who knows to operate the organs,” he offered her a sweet smile, “Don’t worry though, sister. I won’t put you under threat. I will see what I can do to keep you safe for now but if a time comes where my own life is put in threat you know the pact we have,” Robarte’s face showed the scaly features finally on his face, the skin turning hard and black like a snake’s skin would.
“I remember it,” how could she forget it.
It was something they had done between them so that both Robarte and Laurae wouldn’t come to depend on feeling obliged to save the other while risking their lives. They were a set of black witches after all. Their own survival came first and then came the next person and it didn’t matter even if they shared the same blood.
