Chocolate had always hated the cold, so much so that even Jenkins had to accommodate its preferences. The ghoul outside had committed a grave offense.
If not for the two humans behind it, the cat would have torn the thing outside to shreds. But it had to consider Jenkins's wishes, so it couldn't even resort to sothing like altering their mories afterward. In this ho, cat and human took care of each other.
The cat in the darkness slipped past the won, nudged aside the hanging clothes with its head, and approached the wardrobe door. Because of the soft pads on its paws, its steps were silent—so silent that Miss Mikhail and Miss Lawrence didn't even notice this tiny creature willingly walking toward danger.
The bedroom wasn't large. After checking behind the curtains and under the bed, the creature outside headed straight for the wardrobe. Miss Mikhail could practically hear the frantic heartbeat of Miss Lawrence, who was clinging to her, failing to realize her own heart was part of that frantic rhythm.
"Gods..."
She groaned inwardly, her short life flashing before her eyes. She thought of her parents, her lover, and finally, the mory of Jenkins's deadpan, goofy expression surfaced.
"I..."
"ow~"
The ow cut through her frantic thoughts. Both won looked toward the source of the sound. There was Chocolate, standing bravely before the wardrobe door, its fur on end, roaring at the wooden panel.
Of course, the "roar" was a product of Miss Mikhail's and Miss Lawrence's imaginations. Chocolate was a petite cat; no matter how hard it tried, it couldn't possibly make such a loud noise.
As if a miracle had occurred in that small space, or as if the gods themselves had intervened, the footsteps outside the wardrobe abruptly stopped after the ow. The won tried to stifle their ragged breaths, straining to hear anything else, but the only sound was the frantic beating of their own hearts.
"What in the world is happening today?"
Miss Lawrence had experienced more in this single day than in the past twenty years combined, but right now, she desperately craved the return of her quiet, ordinary life. Miss Mikhail assud it was a vicious criminal outside, but Miss Lawrence knew exactly what kind of monster was out there. And for that reason, she knew the only thing capable of scaring it off had to be the cat Jenkins had left behind.
She desperately wanted to reach out, scoop Chocolate into her arms, and hold it all night without letting go, but her body was frozen stiff with terror. She was sure Miss Mikhail felt the sa; otherwise, there was no explaining why they were both so still.
Thump—
Miss Lawrence and Miss Mikhail both felt their hearts skip a beat, as if they'd stopped entirely. After a few dozen seconds of silence, the footsteps outside the wardrobe resud. They were slow, but they were unmistakably heading in their direction.
"eeow~"
Chocolate let out another "vicious" cry, but this ti, the ow had no effect. Miss Lawrence could just make out Chocolate's silhouette in the darkness, its back arched and fur bristling. It was the small animal's instinctive reaction to danger.
"Anyone... please, save ..."
Thirty seconds later, the footsteps stopped right outside the door. After three seconds of silence, a heavy click sounded from the handle. Soone had taken hold of it.
Both ladies squeezed their eyes shut, bracing for the grueso fate that awaited them. Chocolate, however, continued to "roar" bravely at the door. In truth, aside from the first cry, which had carried a sliver of its power, the rest were just ordinary ows. It had already heard—
"Ah! What is that? Jenkins, get it!"
Hathaway's powerful voice rang out from further away, followed imdiately by the deafening crack of a gunshot.
Chaos erupted outside the wardrobe. Flickering light from candles and oil lamps spilled through the cracks in the door. After a horrifying shriek, the sound of shattering glass echoed from the other side of the room. The won stared wide-eyed into the darkness. Then, a blinding light flooded in. Jenkins's face was the first thing they saw. He reached in and lifted his cat out of the wardrobe. Hathaway quickly pushed her way to the door as well, gazing with a mixture of shock and uncertainty at the two girls huddled together.
A bone-chilling night wind blasted through the broken window, howling as it sent curtains and snowflakes dancing through the room. Jenkins and Hathaway stood side-by-side, bathed in the faint moonlight. Behind them, the bedroom was a wreck, spattered with dark stains of blood.
The blast of cold air made Miss Lawrence and Miss Mikhail shudder, realizing their clothes were soaked through with sweat. The man and woman reached in and pulled them to their feet; their legs felt about to give way.
It was only then that they noticed there was another light outside the window besides the moon. Looking closer, they could see sothing burning below the building.
"Well, it's a complicated story, but I've unraveled the whole thing. There is only one truth."
Jenkins took a pair of overcoats from a servant at the door and handed them to the two ladies, hastily explaining as he led them to a safer bedroom. "Um... it was the doctor who caused all this trouble. He's a mad scientist... You know what that ans, right? He was pretending to live a quiet life here at the villa, but in reality, he was conducting horrific live experints on the local wildlife. He discovered so strange virus in the animals nearby, and the man who just broke into your room was infected with it. That's why he beca so aggressive..."
"Is being afraid of cats also a symptom of that virus?"
Miss Mikhail asked, her eyes on the cat in Jenkins's arms. The extre terror had completely drained her; she was now teetering on the edge of consciousness. If Hathaway hadn't been supporting her, she would have already collapsed.
"Hmm?"
Jenkins imdiately understood what she was implying:
"Yes, coincidentally enough. The virus considers felines—like tigers and so on—to be its natural enemy. The waste from these animals is an antidote to the virus. Therefore, even if a human is infected, they absolutely will not go near a cat."
Everything Jenkins had just said was a lie he'd fabricated in the span of a single breath. His divine authority over lies made Miss Mikhail believe him without a shred of doubt, and she didn't connect the incident to the supernatural in the slightest.
Being too squeamish, she hadn't seen the burning ghoul, wrapped in a curtain, being thrown out the window, nor did she see the look of awe on Miss Lawrence's face as she gazed at Jenkins.
But at least one part was true: the culprit was indeed the doctor, Bray Decter. Whether it was the frenzied wolf pack in winter, the dosticated cliff spiders, or the ghoul from just now, all of it was the handiwork of this Enchanter who aspired to beco an expert in necromancy.
A few hours earlier, after leaving the second-floor bedroom, Jenkins and the others had discovered a secret passage behind a cupboard in the basent, but upon exploring it, they found the tunnel inside had long since collapsed. Just as the group was returning through the main hall of the villa, Hathaway suddenly threw open the main doors and returned from the blizzard. She revealed to Jenkins what had happened earlier that day, exposing the doctor's secret.
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