In the chaos of the moment, I found myself staring at the Count. I expected him to use his microphone to shut everyone up, but he just stared down at the floor in silence. Was the revelation that Nimeni wanted out that much of a surprise to him?

Seriously, this couldn’t possibly be the first time someone had thought about quitting when they were going to become a full member. Even with their tough guy faces on, Koln and Inel had to be regretting their choice to join these nutcases.

Why the hell was I still trying to think logically about this? These two were obviously just as crazy as the rest of them.

“Hey!” Hadria cupped her hands around her mouth and faced the crowd. “Can you guys shut up for a second? I’m trying to be Lyili over here and you’re throwing off my concentration.”

Everyone froze, going completely quiet. Then, just like that, they all sat back down like nothing had happened. Jeez. The Acula’s rivaled the royal family in ‘shut the fuck up I’m talking’ power.

Hadria smiled a little too widely. “So… where were we?” She turned back in my direction, her eye locking with mine. “Seriously, where were we? I don’t remember at all.”

“Uhh… Inel was just telling us about Nimeni wanting to leave the family…”

“Oh, yeah. That was it,” Hadria said. “So there we go. That’s why Koln did it. He was angry that Nimeni was going to leave the family and so he killed him. Huh. That’s not so bad now that I think about it.” The crowd started whispering. The Count still had his eyes faced firmly to the ground.

“It’s… not that bad?” Violetta asked.

“Of course not.” Nair said, still holding his ridiculous pose. “Nimeni knew full well what it meant to take part in the blood ceremony. And he knew the punishment for leaving the family.”

“So it doesn’t matter that he died then?” I asked. Even for vampire standards, that seemed pretty… cold blooded. That’s right, the vampire puns kept coming. No, I wasn’t going to say them out loud.

“The only thing a traitor deserves is death,” Nair continued, his voice calm. “It would seem that Koln has done us a great service.”

“Damn it…” Hadria slammed her fists down and rested her face on her table. “I can’t believe I lost…” Hey, at least she was getting the full Lyili experience.

That said, none of this added up. If Koln really did kill Nimeni, why the fuck would he do it in such a complicated way? If he had just told the Count, it would have been taken care of. Why would he feel the need to do it in secret?

“Count Acula.” Nair finally lowered his guns. “Although his methods were unusual, I believe Koln’s heart was in the correct place.”

The Count looked up, the sharpness of his glare returning to his eyes. “But… why would he hide it from us like this?” Exactly.

Nair shrugged. “Perhaps he simply wished to preserve Nimeni’s honor and allow us all to believe he died faithful to the family.”

“I… suppose that would make sense…”

Hadria still had her head buried in the table. “Who knew someone so ugly could be so thoughtful?” she whined.

This… wasn’t going exactly how I expected it to, but I was apparently about to win. The trial would end, I would go home, and I would finally be able to get some sleep. I couldn’t ask for an easier conclusion to this. So… why the fuck was I opening my mouth?

“Objection!”

The Count’s eyebrows shot up. “Mr. Allard? Is something wrong?”

Yes, something was wrong. Very wrong. For some reason, I was about to keep this trial going.

“Hadria brought up a good point earlier…” I said.

Hadria’s head snapped back up fast enough to give me second-hand whiplash from just seeing it. “I did?”

“Right now, we’re putting words in Koln’s mouth, aren’t we?” I pointed over at my client’s shining bald head. “Why don’t we just ask him ourselves?”

“Wow, I’m doing a pretty good job at this…” Hadria said, seemingly to herself. I mean, not really. But then again, she wasn’t actively trying to stop herself from winning like I was.

There was a brief moment of silence before the Count spoke in his grating raspy voice. “You’re absolutely right. We should hear from Koln first.”

“My apologies, Count.” Nair bowed his head. “I spoke out of turn.” When he put his head back up, he brought his guns with him, placing them back on Koln and Inel. Neat.

“Ryley!” Violetta smiled up at me. “That was really cool.” She clearly had a very low threshold for coolness, but I wasn’t going to argue with her.

“So Koln…” I slammed my hands down. That’s right, if I was going to be an idiot and keep this trial going, I was going to put my all into it. “Did Nimeni ever tell you that he was thinking of quitting the family?”

“No,” Koln responded immediately. “He never told me he felt that way.”

“And there you have it,” I said. “If Koln didn’t know, then that takes away his entire reason for wanting to kill him.”

Hadria fumbled with her eyepatch. “Couldn’t he just be lying?”

“He’s already admitted to the crime. It doesn’t make any sense for him to lie about a detail like this.”

“Oh.” Hadria paused. “I guess that doesn’t make any sense, huh?”

“But then… why would Koln do it?” the Count asked.

“It’s simple… He wouldn’t.” I pointed at the spiky haired asshole standing at the center of the stage. “But Inel might.”

“That’s right!” Violetta added, copying my pointing pose. She didn’t look as badass as I did, but I guess it was good enough as far as assistants went. “Mr. Inel knew that Mr. Nimeni wanted to quit.”

“Alright, hold it, punk!” Inel roared.

Violetta immediately dropped her pose and grabbed onto her horns. “I-I’m sorry!”

“Did you already forget?” Inel looked around the room. “Nimeni drank from the ceremonial cup before I did. How the hell would I have poisoned it without touching it, huh?”

He… had a point.

“Do… vampires have any other powers I don’t know about?” My finger pointing pose was starting to feel a lot less cool.

“Just hypnotic suggestion.” Hadria threw up her finger at me. Not exactly the right moment to be doing that, but whatever.

“Okay… is it possible to hypnotize an insect or something?” I asked. “If someone could control a fly, they might be able to use it to put the garlic on the cup.”

“Mr. Allard, I’m afraid that’s not possible.” The Count shook his head. “Hypnotic suggestion only works on demons, no exceptions. Even if someone could hypnotize a fly, I doubt it would be able to apply that much garlic to the cup.”

“I was in charge of preparing the ceremonial cup,” Ceai added. “I would have never allowed something so disgusting to touch something my husband would be drinking from.” I mean, he was drinking from something filled with his own blood, but apparently that wasn’t disgusting.

“Well… maybe Nimeni was poisoned before the ceremony even started then…” I had to keep my momentum. “Then, when everyone was distracted by his death, they applied the garlic to the cup to make it look like that was what killed him!”

“Wow! I didn’t think of that.” Violetta clapped. Thanks, I would be here all night.

The Count sighed. “I’m afraid that’s impossible too…” Come on, couldn’t it be just a little possible?

“Garlic kills vampires within two minutes,” Ceai said. “If Nimeni had been exposed to it before the blood pact, then he would have died before we even started drinking. The poisoning could have only happened during the ceremony.”

Well… fuck.

I was running out of ideas fast. Out of all the suspects, Koln was the only one that touched the cup before Nimeni did. If I couldn’t figure out how someone else could have put the garlic on it, then this was the end.

Suddenly, Violetta spoke up next to me. “Mr. Inel, can I ask you a question?” What was she doing?

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Inel shouted.

“I… I said I want to ask you a question.” Violetta stood her ground. “You were friends with Mr. Nimeni, weren’t you?”

Inel lowered his voice a little. “Of course I was.”

“And what about Mr. Koln?” Violetta looked straight ahead. “He’s your friend too, isn’t he?”

“Friend?” Inel’s eyes darted around. “Yeah… we’re friends. So what?”

“As a friend, do you think Mr. Koln really killed Mr. Nimeni?”

Inel clenched his teeth, and a thick tension filled the air. “No…” he said. “No. I… don’t think Koln could have done something like that.”

“Thank you for answering, Mr. Inel.” Violetta smiled. Holy shit, that was awesome.

“Just because you think that didn’t do it doesn’t mean he didn’t do it though,” Hadria cut in. “Besides, who else could have done it?”

“Bani…” Inel grunted, still clenching his teeth. “If anyone wanted Nimeni dead, it was Bani.”

Just then, a chair came flying from the audience, just narrowly missing Inel’s head. It slammed into the wall and landed with a clatter.

“What the fuck did you just say you piece of shit!?” someone screamed. “You want to say that to my fucking face?”

A vampire with a man-bun was standing near the back, and he was furious. Yeah, I think it was safe to say this was Bani.

Inel bent his knees and threw his arms open. “Yeah I’ll say it to your face, get your ass up here!”

“You just made the biggest mistake of your life,” Bani shouted. The crowd jumped to their feet and cheered them on.

I quickly turned to Violetta and whispered to her. “You’re amazing.”

“A-Amazing?” Violetta’s cheeks turned red. “You… really think so?”

“Yeah, you totally took all the attention off of Koln. Great job.” I really meant it too.

“O-Oh…” She grabbed onto her horns with both hands. “It was nothing!”

Bani hopped onto the stage and the two of them faced off. And by faced off, I meant they smashed their foreheads together and showed their top shelf tough guy faces just an inch away from each other.

“Inel x Bani forever!” someone yelled.

“Now… Now kiss!” Wait, what?

“They hate each other! That means they wanna fuck!”

Oh no. What had Violetta just unleashed?