Chapter 204 - Red Handed- Part 1

Belle walked away from the scene, taking Lucas along with her, "The body is not there. They have it in the carriage," she informed Lucas before saying, "He killed Greed? I mean the councilman."

"That's a switcher," revealed Lucas to her. 

"What?!" Belle stopped walking but she was pulled by Lucas.

"Keep walking, little Belle. You don't want to make it look suspicious," and they walked away from the village but took a different route to get to the carriage which Dutan mentioned. 

"Why are we not going to do anything about him?" she asked, her eyes looking up at him questioningly. Switchers were not good news and they were better to be removed from these lands than be kept alive and create more mess in the already existing troubles they had. She then saw Lucas pull out his watch that showed the time of death. 

"Take a look," he said to her and Belle looked down the needle that showed one day when being pointed towards Dutan. 

"He's going to die…"

"His death is already written and it's less than the next twenty-four hours. We don't have to concern ourselves with him right now but concern what he's doing here," obviously there were no other councilmen who had accompanied him from his own team. They stood behind the carriage that belonged to the councilmen and Lucas pulled open the carriage's door. 

Belle took herself to get in, with her back hunched and she saw a cloth that was wrapped around the possible bones. She had never gone touching bones until now and it somewhere made her skin crawl. 

"Close your eyes," Lucas instructed, noticing her hesitating hand that was hanging up in the air. 

Belle did as requested and she touched the bones to recollect a man's memory and she pulled away, "This is not the woman's corpse. The actual body must be elsewhere," she said to have Lucas wipe her hand with his kerchief, "What's going on?" she asked him. Surely, this was no random visit. 

"The woman who got burnt down was a white witch and it wasn't villagers who killed her."

If it were the villagers, there would have been an uproar about how they had killed a witch in their village so it wasn't people from here, "Where do you think her body is?" 

"Somewhere possibly in the woods."

"Who's there?" asked the coachman who heard whisperings from inside the carriage. By the time the coachman came around to see who it was, both Lucas and Belle had disappeared from there. 

Entering the mansion back, Belle asked him, "You know when I asked the switcher about the murderer being caught, he didn't speak of it as one individual. It was as if there were more than two or three people involved in the murder." 

"He was snooping around there so we can draw to the conclusion that it wasn't a person from a village but it had something to do with the black witches. I have been hearing whispers on how white witches have been getting killed not here but in the land of Mythweald."

"In the south?" 

Lucas gave a nod, "Isabell was trying to kill the black witches who resided in here and it feels like they are trying to balance out but it should be more than just balancing, isn't it?" 

He had told her that the first star was going to die in the next seven weeks and even though it appeared that they had time, they didn't. If Belle didn't come up with the plan on how to keep the girl alive, it would mean everything that was done until now would be pointless. 

The ghoul had come to meet her as if for help but she hadn't seen it again. How was she going to help?

"How do you call a ghoul?"

"Depends on what kind you are calling. Are you speaking about the Lord's ghouls?" he asked her. 

"Yes, one of them," she had met only one so far. 

They continued to walk into the mansion when they realized how quiet the mansion was. Whenever Lucas and Belle stepped out of the mansion, the maids and the servants would talk in their normal frequency of their voice. Laughing and chit chatting about things in the mansion. 

"Seems quiet today," murmured Lucas and Belle was glad that it wasn't just her who had noticed it. She dreaded to think if one of the Grim's had set themselves free.

When they continued to walk, Belle and Lucas noticed something they were definitely not expecting. Mr. Fluffs, Barron was nailed on the wall and his body had turned muddy. His shoulders and hands were nailed to the wall and the seven servants who worked inside the mansion held different objects in their hands. 

The servants had a look of shock and fear on their face. And Barron instead of being quiet and acting like a doll was trying to get away from the nails. 

"How dare you pin me to the wall! I am Barron the Fourth Grim!"

Belle pursed her lips along with Lucas who had a stoic expression on his face. All Lucas had asked was to look after the mansion but instead of doing that he had got himself caught and was now nailed to the wall. 

Noticing Belle and Lucas' presence in the hall as they had returned back, one of the maids named Peyton came forward who was holding the statue in her hand as if she was ready to smack the rabbit if it were to set itself free. 

"Miss Belle! Sir Lucas! The rabbit is still possessed!"

"Yes! He talks and moves!" 

"There's a demon in the mansion!" came the opinions of the servants who looked at Barron.

"HOW DARE YOU CALL ME DEMON! I will kill you!!" yelled Barron, "How dare you pin me like some portrait, get me out from here!" instead of staying quiet, he was making the situation even worse. 

Belle wondered how they were going to get out of this. But first of all, how did Barron get caught?!