The Werewolf Count and the Trickster Tailor, Volume 2

by Yuruka Morisaki

  The concept wasn’t particularly appreciated or followed in the slums, but it seemed to have already taken root in the imperial capital, and the area around the shopping district was especially busy on that day. Since it was a day when peddlers and people from all classes walked the streets in large numbers, it was also an ample opportunity for thieves to slip in from the slums to pick pockets or commit other crimes.

  It made sense for the Brotherhood to have their worship service then.

  ♚♚♚

  IT was the sunny, windless day before Market Day.

  Rock slipped away from Lord and Lady Alexis’s watchful eyes and released the white dove from her bedroom balcony.

  “Cute little bird, please let everyone know.”

  A thinly folded letter was securely strapped to the rock dove’s leg as it took flight. The letter explained Rock would be accompanying her aunt and uncle to their next Werewolf Brotherhood worship service on Market Day and that she believed Krister might be there.

  Rock had no way of knowing if the dove successfully returned home.

  Either way, Market Day came, and Lord and Lady Alexis departed their manor by carriage, with Rock in tow, after breakfast.

  Their carriage soon left the aristocrat district and leisurely ran through the busy shopping district.

  Rock frequently glanced out the window and searched for Ebel and Phoebe. But there were no blatant signs of them pursuing the carriage as it proceeded out of the imperial capital.

  “You needn’t worry. We aren’t going that far,” Placido said, assuming Rock’s fixation with the window was out of fear of leaving the capital. “We’ll be back in time for dinner. It’s right outside the capital.”

  No sooner did he say that than the carriage stopped on a small hill overlooking the city.

  There was a double-leaf stone door hidden behind tall grass in the shadow of the hill. The door, which looked large enough for the carriage to pass through, appeared too old to have been built recently.

  The imperial capital was surrounded by ancient ruins that’d been abandoned and forgotten. Most of them were little more than collapsed stone pillars wrapped in thick vines with fragments of their moss-covered foundation left intact, but a few of the buildings remained standing in their original form. During his mercenary days, Phoebe used to explore those ruins for antiques.

  Phoebe often told Rock that bandits and other devious groups liked to turn those ruins into their secret bases, making exploring them even more dangerous than just avoiding traps.

  This was her first time seeing one for herself, though.

  Placido opened the doors just as Rock thought that this couldn’t be the place.

  “The Brotherhood’s church is located here. Follow me.”

  Beyond the heavy stone door, a set of stairs gently descended into the unknown.

  The long stone staircase was intermittently illuminated by lantern light. Although it was an ancient ruin, the air wasn’t stagnant, likely because it had frequent foot traffic. The sweet scent of burning fragrant wood incense drifted up from somewhere below.

  The ruins seemed to have retained their original shape, and once Rock descended the final step, she saw the gate of an old cathedral supported by stone pillars. There was a large sanctuary beyond the gate decorated with elaborate wolf reliefs where people clad in blue robes sat on benches with their heads bowed.

  “I’m going to go greet the bishop,” Placido said, dressed in the same blue robe.

  Lauretta nodded. She was wearing the robe Rock had mended.

  “I’ll show Roxy around the sanctuary.”

  “Please do. I’ll meet up with you later.”

  Husband and wife shared a loving look before Lauretta took Rock into a hallway beside the sanctuary.

  The hallway led to several smaller rooms, leading Rock to believe it was some kind of residential area. The simple hearth showed traces of food being cooked recently, and there were shelves lined with pots and plates, giving it a more lifelike atmosphere than the sanctuary. Plain beds could be seen behind the cloth partitions, making it seem like people lived there.

  After passing through several wooden doors that looked like they’d recently been installed, they finally arrived at one of the small rooms.

  “Pardon me. Are you here, Mr. Tailor?” Lauretta called into the dimly lit room, and the man who’d been sitting on a chair in the corner looked up.

  “Oh, Lady Alexis. Hello—”

  The man was in the middle of giving a robotic greeting when he noticed Rock standing beside the lady. His cloudy eyes rounded. His sunken cheeks twitched, and his charcoal eyes wavered as if life had been breathed back into them.

  “…It can’t be—”

  Rock remained a step behind Lauretta and shook her head before he could finish speaking.

  Please bear with it a little longer, she urged him with her eyes.

  28-year-old male, slender, silver hair, charcoal-black eyes—he’d lost a lot of weight compared to his portrait in the missing person poster.

  His silver hair had lost its luster and was a mess of split ends.

  But Rock would never mistake the face of the man who was once her nuisance of a rival.

  Today marked exactly one month since she’d last seen Krister Gionet and they were finally reunited.

  ♚Chapter 5: Wolves Form Packs

  KRISTER’S room smelled faintly of mold.

  The walls were made of rough limestone, and the cramped space was furnished with only two work tables and the chair he sat on. It was far too small for a tailor’s workshop and too dark, lacking any windows to let in natural light.

  But pincushions, measuring tape, scissors, and punch needles were scattered about. Several clothes were hanging on the back wall, further testifying that he was indeed working there.

  “Mr. Tailor, this is our daughter,” Lauretta introduced Rock to Krister. “Her name is Roxy. She’s interested in sewing and seemed very taken by your embroidery.”

  “Roxy…?” Krister repeated that name in a hoarse, cracked voice.

  Of course, he had no way of knowing. All of the slum dwellers, including him, believed the owner of Floria Clothes Shop was a young man called Rock Floria.

  And today, Rock was wearing a blue dress with amber embroidery to match the robes her aunt and uncle wore. A gold, gem-lined hairclip decorated her wine-colored tresses. It’d be impossible to mistake her for anything other than a woman unless you knew otherwise.

  That was probably why Krister looked so terribly distraught.

  He gave Rock a wild-eyed stare, completely disregarding Lauretta in the process.

  Rock silently scowled, stopping the flustered tailor from saying something that could get them both killed.

  “Is something the matter, Mr. Tailor?” Lauretta asked, suspicion edging into her voice.

  “N-No, nothing’s wrong…” Krister responded as if he was coming up for air after being held underwater, his eyes still anchored on Rock.

  Lauretta turned to follow his gaze, so Rock hurriedly injected herself into the conversation.

  “He must be terribly busy, Auntie. His work table is cluttered with projects.”

  “Oh dear, I didn’t realize…” Lauretta held her hand up to her lips in dismay, then apologetically continued, “Shall we come back another time, Roxy?”

  “No, I—”

  “I can at least chat if you don’t mind me working at the same time,” Krister said faster than Rock could. He glanced at Rock before turning back to Lauretta and saying, “I am humbled she has taken an interest in my embroidery. I know it’s rude to converse while I’m working, but I would love to speak with your daughter.”

  “Really? I don’t mind if it doesn’t bother you, but…”

  Lauretta seemed reluctant.

  Perhaps she didn’t feel comfortable leaving Rock alone at the church during her first visit. But Rock also needed Lauretta to leave if she was ever going to get anywhere with her investigation.
>
  “I’ll come find you as soon as we are finished talking shop, Auntie. Please tell me where I can find you.”

  “I… I guess I will join my husband in speaking with the bishop,” Lauretta said, then she bowed to Krister. “I’m sorry to impose on you when you’re busy, Mr. Tailor. Please speak with my daughter for a little while.”

  And then she left the cramped room without suspecting a thing.

  The two tailors remained silent in the muffled underground room until the footsteps retreated into the distance. Once they were sure she was out of earshot, Krister looked up at Rock and cautiously asked:

  “You’re…Rock Floria, aren’t ya?”

  “I am. Long time no see, Krister.”

  When Rock confirmed her identity, Krister leaned toward her to get a better look at her confounding appearance.

  “Why’re ya dressed like a girl? Phoebe rub off on you?”

  “That’s the first thing you want to ask?” Exasperated, Rock shrugged. “Spies need disguises, no?”

  “That’s not all. Weren’t you just introduced as a noblewoman’s daughter? And not just any noblewoman, but that Lady Alexis!” Krister uttered her name as if it was the most terrifying one in the world.

  That bothered Rock, but she decided to answer him first.

  “Don’t worry about the small things. I’m more interested in your situation.”

  “My situation…?”

  “Why are you with the Werewolf Brotherhood? Tell me the truth.”

  When Rock urged him to speak, terror filled Krister’s gaunt face. He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper.

  “I was kidnapped by the freakin’ cultists. They’re monsters, I tell ya! They just broke into my house in the middle of the night!”

  His apartment definitely showed signs of a break-in. Phoebe said that if it was a kidnapping, it had to be a skilled group’s work. His guess seemed to be right on the money.

  “Why were you kidnapped? You aren’t a werewolf, right?”

  Krister’s eyes were the same charcoal-black that was listed on the missing person posters. He trembled like a tree in the middle of a tornado at the question.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Like hell I’d willingly become a damn werewolf!”

  “Did they tell you to become one?”

  “They told me they’d gladly grant me the power if I wanted it. But they only kidnapped me to work here.”

  If they could offer the power that easily, then that meant someone in the Brotherhood had the ability to bestow the werewolf curse on others.

  The same statue that turned Placido into a werewolf must still be somewhere in these ruins, she thought.

  “They started off as ordinary customers.” Krister exhaled a shaky breath, as if recalling a traumatic memory. “I thought the money was too good to be true. But then they put in a huge order for thirty robes and were willing to pay for any expenses along the way. I jumped on the opportunity, and the customer was pretty nice at first, too.”

  There’s always a catch when something sounds too good to be true.

  Phoebe always stuck by that saying, but Krister didn’t. He stupidly accepted a job that smelled fishy.

  “They couldn’t place that order in the capital. Blue robes are considered damned by that city’s churches, so no reputable tailor would touch that order with a thirty-foot pole. That’s why they came all the way out to the slums to find a tailor they could make disappear, if ya know what I mean. They settled on me, but it turns out they looked into you too.” Krister dropped his voice to an even more terrifying whisper, “They knew where you live.”

  “What…?” Rock was speechless. Then she suddenly remembered the night she ran into Krister in front of her apartment. “Is that how you knew where I lived?”

  “Yeah. They told me.”

  “That’s hella creepy… And hey, shouldn’t that have freaked you out too?”

  Shouldn’t there be a limit to how much caution and conscience someone’s willing to throw away in pursuit of riches?! Rock scowled, earning a bitter smile from him.

  “You can say that again. I was a fool.” Sighing, he continued, “I got too full of myself. I deliberately delayed delivering the end product, hopin’ to milk ’em for all I could. I said crap like, ‘It’s taking longer than expected to get a hold of the fabric you wanted.’ That started to piss ’em off or somethin’, because the next thing I knew, I was trapped here, forced to do their bidding.”

  “You reap what you sow.”

  Krister seemed to have had that lesson burned into his very soul—he didn’t object to her criticism.

  “But they’re still a hella crazy bunch, even without me screwing around. They broke my right leg the day they kidnapped me, saying it was to stop me from runnin’ away.”

  “Your leg?”

  Rock looked at Krister’s leg with a start.

  Maybe the reason he’d never got up from his chair to greet them was because he couldn’t stand up. Was his right leg bandaged under his pants? It looked oddly bumpy and swollen around his knee.

  “That’s horrible… Can you walk?”

  “I can’t run, but I can manage if I drag the thing,” Krister replied bitterly, hugging his shoulders to stop shaking. “But that’s only where this nightmare began. Those bastards were the ones who broke my damn leg, but the second I said I’d work for ’em here, they suddenly started pitying me. They treated my injuries like they’d forgotten they were the damn monsters who caused them!!!”

  Krister angrily shook his head, his shaking growing out of control.

  “The bloody bastards are the nicest people in the world if you work for the Brotherhood. Like, eerily nice. It’s like they’ve forgotten they ever kidnapped me. They seem to think I came here of my own will.”

  Rock sucked in a quiet breath.

  His situation sounded eerily like hers. It was the same as how the Alexises doted on her like their own daughter, after they’d smashed her carriage apart and kidnapped her.

  That was probably the curse’s effect.

  It made people’s desires irresistible.

  And once they had their desires fulfilled, they regained their original personalities and treated others with an unnatural level of kindness.

  The werewolf curse is becoming more terrifying the more I learn about it, Rock lamented.

  “You came to save me, didn’t you?” Krister asked, his eyes begging her for help.

  “I’d love to say that’s the case, but I’ve got my hands full taking care of myself.”

  Rock estimated she’d passed over a dozen cultists since entering the underground cathedral. She didn’t know how many were werewolves. There was at least one—her uncle.

  Meanwhile, Rock lacked physical strength, and Krister could barely stand. Ebel and the others would come to their aid if her dove made it to them, but she’d no way of knowing if it had.

  “Please! Help me! Get me outta this hellhole!” Krister pitifully cried out.

  It’s not like she didn’t want to help him, but Rock didn’t have the strength to escape while supporting him.

  “Don’t whine, Krister,” she rushed to placate him before he drew attention. “If everything goes right, help will come. And if it does, I promise to break you out too.”

  “Only if it goes right? What happens if it goes wrong?” Krister asked, his voice trembling with fear of the answer.

  “I’m trying not to think about it.”

  I’m not alone.

  That thought kept Rock going.

  Of course, it was unfair to ask Krister to think the same way when he’d been isolated and helpless for so long.

  “I can trust ya, can’t I…Rock Floria?”

  Apprehension darkened his features, so Rock brought up the one thing she thought might lift his spirits.

  “You don’t want Nisha seeing you look so scared, right?”

  Mentioning her name had an immediate effect. Life returned to Krister’s face, and his glassy eyes reg
ained their former mirth.

  “Nisha… You met her?”

  “Yeah. She was looking for you. She coughed up a pretty penny to put up missing person posters all over the slums.”

  Nisha must’ve invested a lot of money in those posters. It would be a real shame if Krister didn’t make it back to her alive.

  “Don’t waste her money. You’d better make it back alive, Krister.”

  Those were the most effective words for a fellow money-lover.

  “Nothing worse than wastin’ money! Thank you, Rock.” Krister bowed his head and wiped under his eyes. “I thought she’d have moved on by now.”

  “You know she’s not that shallow. I would’ve never cared about finding you if not for her,” Rock snorted.

  Krister frowned with unease. “I ain’t givin’ you Nisha.”

  “You’d better not even try. Nisha ain’t gonna let ya go,” Rock retorted, using her best slum accent.

  Seeing him get his spunk back was a real relief.

  Rock wanted nothing more than to help him escape his underground prison that very day, but when she turned around looking for something to help her make that happen, she saw someone who wasn’t there before.

  Placido Alexis was looming directly behind her.

  He stood in the small room’s doorway, less noticeable than invisible gases in the air. How long had he been there?

  “U-Uncle…” Rock uttered in shock, and Krister let out a terrified yelp.

  Placido was all smiles in the face of their sheer panic.

  “Roxy, doesn’t the tailor have a lot of work to do? You mustn’t overstay your welcome,” he said, his gold eyes narrowed on them in such a way that Rock couldn’t discern the emotion behind them.

  But his smile gave her the chills.

  How much of their conversation had he overheard? She hoped it was none, but he was a werewolf. He might have heard everything—

  “Th-Thank you for your time, Mr. Tailor,” Rock hastily said goodbye to Krister.

  Krister said nothing in return, his eyes nailed on Placido, his expression frozen in fear.

  Rock followed Placido out of the room.

  Her uncle turned around to face her after they’d proceeded a little ways down the narrow hallway. “Are you…acquainted with that tailor?”