After a few seconds, Henry finally shook his head and said, "That's unfair…How about I give you a Lithos crystal for it?"
"Huh?!" Damon was about to launch into a tirade of ridicule, but quickly suppressed his irritation.
'It's too soon to start again.' With a sigh, he slung his arm around Henry's shoulder and whispered, "Have you thought this through? We don't have to give this guy anything."
"It doesn't feel right to take both of his weapons for nothing, and he might report us later if we don't." Henry leaned in closer and suppressed his tone as he glanced at the man dazed with avarice.
Interestingly, he had been thinking much further ahead!
Unlike specters not affiliated with any churches and those that had no stable benefactors, the man before them was either of nobility himself or had deep ties to it. Thus, even the tiniest indignation could eventually grow into a greater threat if they were not to tread lightly.
Worst of all, if he chooses to air those grievances upon meeting Lady Lorelei, the devout Deaconess would undoubtedly attempt to detain them for an unwanted sermon on moral standards.
After realizing this, Damon was momentarily left speechless. He now looked at the man with conflicting emotions, but did his best to smile politely.
'Ugh. Why did I overlook something so obvious? ' Damon retrieved two Lithos crystals the size of marbles from his inventory.
He had taken a liking to these in particular due to their odd density.
The smaller outer surface seemed to require less spiritual energy from the environment to form and allowed for that energy to further solidify, slowing the eventual change of the affinity contained within over time. Consequently, each one weighed exactly forty kilograms, double the weight of the one Damon had offered Cecil previously.
"I'm sorry for taking your belongings and threatening you, Mister."
As he spoke, Damon cupped his hands together and held them out with a slight bow. "Consider these as payment for both weapons, and I'll even throw in a third blended with Death affinity once we find Josephine."
Just as his words fell, the weight in his palms disappeared. Looking up, he noticed the man's posture had suddenly straightened. His blue eyes flashed a golden hue as he inspected the glowing marbles and said, "Quite pristine indeed. From henceforth, you may address me as La Pasión."
"I don't think we'll be calling you that, mister." Said Henry.
"Let him be, it doesn't really matter since he's not planning to share his real name," Damon replied, straightening his back.
As they made their way back down the hallway, descending to the second floor, the man who zestfully adopted the nom de plume La Pasión briefed the duo on the history of Josephine Franz.
The boys did not realize it, but the man did this solely to stifle his discomfit upon seeing the rigid forms of people he was acquainted with.
From his stories of her childhood, a glaring contrast between who the woman really was and who Cecil thought her to be started to appear.
While everyone in the manor pandered to her needs till they fell under her cruel thumb, anger grew in her heart as the years went by and her antics continued to escalate from simple pranks to acts of murder with the aid of her two cousins, Jerome and Jeremiah.
The only other specters in the family.
After Pasion admitted he had trained both men, Damon was hoping he would confirm if their bodies were among those littering the halls. Yet he was left disappointed after the conversation deviated toward a one-sided rant instead. The man's Selyrian accent seemed to thicken with a southwestern dialect the more he rambled on.
This manner of speaking was commonly referred to as castellano throughout the eras, being one of the only to persist past The Collapse and the age of Najat.
"You cannot imagine how cathartic it was to hear the little hiena had been passed up for the main Actuación of this year's festividad.''
"We heard about that, but I thought she was chosen after the first performer went missing?" inquired Henry as they followed closely.
"There had been whispers of such events among the servants, but not a single person in the building was willing to be seen discussing it with me," Pasión replied ruminatively. "And although my last confidante was worth his weight in gold, I woke up one morning to find his head resting in front of my room door! tsk.. Perdón, it seems I went off subject…."
Without waiting for either brother to reply, the man clenched his fist and lowered his tone. "Anyways, the matter was already handled by the policemen, and the victim's familia were properly compensated."
'Yeah, right...'Rubbing his chin, Damon sank into thought and said, "If things were that bad, why didn't you retaliate? With family like that, it would be understandable if you did k—"
"You have the wrong idea, Muchacho." The man suavely snapped his finger twice and interrupted him before he could finish.
"It is because they were my Familia that I precisely did nothing. Besides Josephine, none of the twenty-one residents here was born to nobility, yet received the status through her. How could any of them retaliate against her? let alone a mere galgo [Hunting dog] who cannot even use the affinity his people were well known for."
"There are Desterians that can't use the Death Affinity ..?" Damon asked thoughtlessly.
It may have been a sore spot for the man, but he had not expected that.
Having prepared for the question, Pasión halted before the large kitchen doors. "Sí, I do not possess it myself as my heritage descends from the smallest of the four tribus[tribes]. I relied on those weapons to imbue my strikes with it until I could receive the blessing myself".
Whilst it was not common knowledge within the lands of Ethiopia, beyond it, the Desterians further divided throughout the globe after two hundred years of exploration, tribal warfare, and exploitation.
During the age of Najat, when these battles seemed unending, a myth was born about a Desterian woman who had been granted immortality through sacrifices offered upon Destined Death; therefore, all Desterians were potentially a threat to the cycle of life. However, this was later revealed to be a narrative concocted by a wandering member of the Snobor, despite their tribe's denial.
Both weapons were found after divination uncovered the truth of the man's descendants mingling with Desterian blood. However, this was not something Pasión was in a hurry to disclose to the brothers.
Opening the doors, they entered the spacious kitchen in haste and looked around the room.
"Weren't we heading for the stairs?" Damon eyed the man suspiciously and said.
"There are actually two rooms on this floor that lead to the outside staircase. The servants mainly used this route for quicker access to the grounds," the man explained and walked toward a door at the far end of the kitchen.
Soon after, they took a left turn and pushed open two more wooden doors, leading outside.
Whoosh…The night air promptly rushed in, carrying the scent of flowers and wet soil that tickled their enhanced noses.
Below the winding staircase, he saw a familiar sprawling garden with pomes, muscadines, and pride peaches as far as the eye could see, surrounded by taller lantern-lit trees and evergreen shrubs reaching down the hill.
"Everything's the same…" Damon murmured. His position was different from the last time; nonetheless, the view had not changed one bit.
"Is that?"
"I think so…" As Henry stood beside him and followed his gaze, he spotted three figures approaching from the stone path.
Detective Rǔchuān walked at the front as he tightly gripped the arm of a dishevelled Josephine. The woman's puffy eyes stared at the ground with still pupils as she moved inertly. Her once-elegant black dress was wrinkled and stained at the hem with mud as if she had fallen not too long ago.
Behind them, Lady Lorelei carried a figure wrapped in white cloth. The bundle shifted in the nightly gales, the fabric pressing against the contours of a human form.
Having sensed she was being gawked at, Lorelei looked up.
"It seems the Redhills made it in the end…." Her face quickly broke into a tender smile, and she saw the shorter of the two brothers wave towards her.
"So we're finally done?" Henry's voice carried a note of cautious hope. He was already thinking about what loose ends needed tying before he could finally accept the comforts of their Motel.
Before responding, Damon glanced at Pasión. The man had strangely fallen silent immediately after they reached outside, yet made no attempt to distance himself.
'Well, I can tell he's still afraid, but of what..?'
"We'll still need to deal with Mr. La Pasión here. But yeah."
"You wound my heart, niños. I thought we had a deal?!"
Suddenly, as his mellow voice rose a pitch, Josephine's hollow eyes flickered with a mixture of hope and expectation.
"Valentino…?" Josephine muttered slowly.
Lifting her head, she focused on the man's face as they drew closer, and her chest began to tighten.
"Brother Valentino!" she shouted, straining against the detective's grip. "Hollowed be thy shepherd's name, you survived! Please, you must help me! These people, they're here to take me away!"
'Brother?' At that moment, Damon and Henry exchanged glances.
"Now you call me brother?" The man scoffed and turned around. "I am afraid my hands are tied, Primá."
Immediately, Josephine's expression began to crumble. Even so, Valentino continued, his voice layered with whimsy.
"With evidence like that in the church's hands its doubtful any lawyer could prove you innocent. But do not fret, once I'm occupied with matters of the estate, I will still schedule time to come visit you on your father's behalf."
"What!?" she shouted once more, disbelief and fury colliding in her voice.