The house was quiet when I went back inside. I went to the ballroom, and a servant was scrubbing the floor clean of Clara's blood. We'd be getting married on that very spot the next day.
"Where is he?" I snapped, and it came out in a monstrous growl. The servant looked up at me. She had been crying.
"He went to his office," She quivered under my glare. I softened.
"Thank you," I said. I noticed she was still crying. "Did you know Clara?"
"She was the only one who was nice to me," She said quietly.
"Yeah," I said. "Me too."
"I want him to pay," She whispered.
"He will," I said. "Promise."
She smiled sadly, but continued to scrub the blood. I left the ballroom, and when I shut the door, I was filled with a renewed sense of vengeance. Elias was killing innocent people. He was ruining the lives of those around him. What I knew of the shapeshifters was that they were hard to kill. He had to be filled with a lot of hatred to be able to kill one. The one thing I couldn't understand was why it was Maggie. Maggie was probably the most passive of them all. To my knowledge, she never wronged Elias. It was, as Ahriman alluded to, out of pure rage and frustration. He didn't have Alex around to kill, so he thought that the best solution would be to kill his sister, and cause him even more torment.
I made it to his office, and entered without knocking. Sasha was in there with him, and they were laughing. I could not believe he was acting like nothing had just happened.
"Nina," Elias looked happy, not unlike when he proposed to me. The band of my engagement ring itched the more I thought about it. "Did I call for you?"
"No," I said. "I need to speak with you."
"I'm busy with Sasha, Nina," He said. "I think Clara's in the library. She'd probably love to see you. I'll be there soon."
My mouth literally fell open. Just an hour before, he had twisted her head off and threw it across the room, and he was seriously pretending that he hadn't done any of it? That he hadn't almost popped my head off in a headlock, and laughed like a bad super villain. Nothing was registering with this psychopath?
"Clara isn't in the library," Was all I could manage.
"Well," He shut the notebook he had been writing in. I wondered if he and Sasha were having this secret meeting to plot the end of the world. It seemed the most logical. "I won't be much longer. Then, I'll take you to the city. We can have one last date as single people."
He was smiling like a moron. I just left the office, completely dumbfounded. Sasha had glared at me the entire time I was there, and as I turned to leave, our eyes met. She knew what had happened. She was glad.
I went to my room, and stared at myself in the mirror. The minutes passed, and all I could do is stare, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Did Elias really think that he didn't kill Clara? That I hadn't found Maggie's bloody slipper? No. It wasn't possible.
"Nina?" Elias knocked the door. I jumped, and when he came in, he smiled, but then looked confused. "Dear, what's wrong?"
"Elias," I said. "Do you really not remember what you've done?"
"What I've done?" He looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Elias," I said. "Clara is dead. You killed her."
There was silence then as Elias just stared at me, completely confused.
"Are you tired, darling? I'm worried. I don't think you've been getting enough sleep," He said. "I realize that Sasha was quite hard on you yesterday. I hope that her blood didn't affect you too much."
I cried out in frustration. He was either a really good actor, or a complete moron.
"What is it?" He laughed.
"You're not listening to me," I cried. 'That's what. Elias, you killed Clara. You killed your progeny. Haven't you wondered why you can't feel her presence?"
"No," He said. "Because I can. She's here, in the house, and I don't understand why you're saying that I killed her."
I walked up to Elias, and slapped him across the face.
"Snap out of it, you megalomaniacal twit!" I snapped. "I saw you. You killed her."
"You were hallucinating," He said. "An aftereffect of the blood that Sasha made you drink. Darling, you need to sleep this off. This thinking isn't healthy."
"I am not hallucinating!" I shouted.
"Shh," He grabbed me by the arms, as if to soothe me. When I resisted, he grabbed me by the back of the head so I could see him, straight on.
"Calm down," He said. "Do not make me do things I will only regret later."
"Like what? You're going to kill me now, too?" I hissed. He slapped me, and it sent me falling to the floor.
"I'm sorry," He didn't sound sorry at all. "I can't control my impulses around you. When you make me that angry, I can't help myself. The idea that you would think I'd kill you. It's unbearably cruel."
"You killed her!" I screamed.
"Where did you even get these ideas?" He look surprised.
"Clara woke me up tonight, and found one of Maggie Switzer's ballet shoes, covered in her blood. You killed her, and took it as a souvenir," I realized I sounded a little crazy, but I didn't care.
"You're still on a blood high, sweetheart," He looked pained. "We need to get you detoxed."
"No," I growled. "I know what I saw. What I felt. You killed Maggie, and you killed Clara."
"Come with me," He led me by my elbow out of the room. He walked down the hallway to the library, and opened the door. Clara was standing in the library, looking confused. She had heard us fighting.
"Nina," She said. "What are you saying? I'm right here."
"No," I shook my head. "I saw it. I saw him kill you."