It had been two days since the last time she did a job for Mattoro. Again, Joan was having a pretty ordinary day. She was sitting at a bench on a sidewalk in Baska when she noticed that someone was watching her. She did not really mind this, to be quite honest. If they wanted to watch her, she would let them watch her all day. But this was not just anyone, it was the client that she was working for the past week or so. Mattoro approached her, not being subtle about it in any way. Joan did not beat around the bush. She had an idea of what he would want her to do this time around and simply asked him, “Is it time for the other one to go?” She was always straightforward. Most of the time she would just keep her mouth shut and follow instructions, but when she did decide to speak, she was usually direct. She did not like beating around the bush. That just wasted time. Mattoro nodded his head in response. He did not seem all too happy about talking about this. He then expressed how bad he felt for the family of their target, but that did not concern the vampyress at all. However, she allowed him to continue speaking. What she needed was a clear explanation of what he wanted her to do, like always, which he got into right after he was done with saying how sorry he felt for having to do all this.

“I’m the one doing this, not you. The blood is on my hands,” Joan said, hoping that reassured him somehow. He gave her a confused yet understanding look and started reciting a list of instructions like he had it memorized or something. The instructions were clear. This time Mattoro wanted to give some sort of message. He wanted her to kill Giroud without being subtle about it. Well, she did need to do the killing part without getting caught in the act, but she would have to make sure that people knew he was dead. No, Mattoro wanted to make sure that people knew he was killed. Joan nodded and looked around. There were people walking around, so Mattoro had to keep his voice down and shut up for a few seconds when someone walked past them. Joan found this quite funny. He was requesting her to take over a prominent part of his operation, and he was discussing it on a bench on the sidewalk, as if he was having a normal conversation. He could have at least invited her to the abandoned warehouse, but it was definitely urgent and he probably wanted to make sure that Joan would agree to help. The vampyress asked if that was all he had to say and when he nodded, she got up from the bench. Since there was no reliable timetable for Giroud, she would have to find the man before she could kill him.

She was given no information whatsoever concerning where Giroud would be at what time, unlike the time with Kalaus. So she would have to go and actually look for this time. She decided to get some hot coffee before she even started with this. She would have to think about where he could possibly be. Baska was not a huge town, so she would find him anyway. It was only a matter of time. She stopped at the same cafe she had been getting her daily dose of caffeine from everyday for the past week. She got herself hot coffee. It did not take long for her order to be ready, so the vampyress hurried left the cafe with her coffee. The girl was on a mission. Getting coffee was necessary for her since she liked to have at least one cup each day, but otherwise she was not going to waste time since she wanted the job done before it was too late. The vampyress walked hurriedly as she looked everywhere. The only thing she knew was what he looked like. Well, if she did not know what he looked like there was no way for her to find out where he was. She would have to go around literally tapping everyone she saw on their shoulders and asking if their name was Giroud. Joan did not have time for that and if that was what she was supposed to do, she would have declined the request, of course.

It took a long time for Joan to actually see the man in real life. She had never seen him before, and this was her first time so she was making sure she got the right guy. He did look like what he was supposed to look like according to the description she was given. The vampyress started stalking him basically, after finding out that he was the target. He seemed to be busy with something, probably something was related to the mines, since he was a contractor and all that. She wondered if he had noticed that his partner in crime was dead and gone, or he already knew this and already got over him. There was nothing he could do anyway. He would have to accept it and move on, and carry on with his work. He was alone, now, however in all the shit that he was supposed to be doing with his late partner Kalaus. Joan wondered how he was feeling. If he was in a negative mood, she could use that as an advantage. After all, losing a partner you were doing some deep dark shit with was no easy thing to get over. The vampyress did not know this, because she had not experienced anything like that before. Although she had experienced losing people she cared about. It did some serious mental damage to her and she thought that Giroud could possibly be going through something similar to what she went through too before.

Giroud was going from one building to another. He seemed tired and desperate to get things over with. Joan followed him everywhere, but since she was told to lay low until it was the right time to strike, the vampyress made sure she was not noticed. Not only by Giroud, but also the people around her. She did not want anyone to notice that she was stalking Giroud. People of Baska Town probably knew about the whole mine thing since rumors spread like wildfire and she was pretty sure that that news had already made its way to every nook and corner of Baska Town. She didn’t care, though. She had been succeeding in every task she was asked to do by Mattoro and she was only doing part of the entire operation, while the Cold Colliers handled the rest. This made her wonder why Mattoro wanted her to kill the contractors instead of his men. Did the contractors use magic like herself? This sort of information was not provided by Mattoro or the innocent contractor. All sorts of thoughts flooded her mind as she followed Giroud. She could not find the right time yet, especially because everywhere he went, there were people around and he seemed to be in a hurry. Probably not a good idea to kill him right now. The vampyress was patient. She had all day to follow him. She wasn’t going to wait until nightfall, however. She was patient, but not that patient.

It was almost four in the evening when Giroud stepped out of a building and appeared relieved for some reason. Joan noticed this and assumed that he was probably done with all his work for the day and would finally give her an opportunity to kill him. She watched closely, though from afar, as the contractor headed in a certain direction that she’d walk in if she wanted a coffee. With the hot coffee in her hands, she watched him as he made his way to a nearby cafe. It was not the one that Joan usually went to, but it was close by. The vampyress sat on a bench and sipped from her drink. Giroud went into the cafe, sat down on his own with some files and things like that on the other chair. It seemed he was going to have coffee alone. No one was going to join him. He was lacking security, as if he did not care if someone just came to kill him right now. When he placed his order, Joan realised that he was going to actually have a meal before doing whatever he was going to do next. Her hot coffee was almost halfway done and that was irritating because she wanted it to last until she met Giroud face to face. Giroud’s order arrived about a few minutes later. It was a big meal. A waitress placed a cup of coffee on the table as well, and then went back into the kitchen.

Giroud seemed like an average hardworking guy who was ruined thanks to bad influence like Kalaus, the one that ended up dead. Giroud ate his meal calmly and slowly, as if he was savoring every part of the meal. The vampyress just hoped that he was not going to take too long. Time was not limited for Joan, but it would definitely be nice if she could get this over with quickly. She sat there sipping her coffee while keeping her eyes on the target. She had never been in a situation where she lost sight of her targets because she liked to be precise with everything, especially if she was being paid. She was dressed in a pretty ordinary outfit compared to her usual attire that would normally grab a lot of attention. However, she still got stares from certain people who were walking past. This was something she could never get used to. Not that she got all embarrassed and shy when people stared at her. In fact it was the opposite. She wanted to poke their eyeballs or snap their necks like twigs so that they would stop staring at her. As she almost finished her coffee, her target wiped his mouth gently with a napkin and called for a waiter for the bill, probably. Once the waiter arrived, he took a look at the receipt and brought out his wallet to pay for his food. Soon he would be out of that building, and the opportunity to kill him would be presented to Joan.

Now that Giroud had left the restaurant, he started walking again. For someone who was supposed to be rich and prideful, this guy did not even bother to get a carriage. He was walking the whole time. Even though the buildings he was visiting were quite close to each other, this time he was walking a longer distance, and to where, Joan had no idea. But her job was to follow him and find out. The vampyress threw the empty cup of coffee in the trash and shoved her hands into the pockets in her pants. Giroud made his way past a block of office buildings and was now walking away from the center of town. It was clear where he was going now, although Joan was not sure, so she just kept following. This was the way she walked to get to the mines last week. So she was pretty sure Giroud was making his way to the mines too. The sun was beginning to set, and soon the town would be enveloped in darkness of the night. She wondered why he would travel alone. After all, he could be a bit more careful to make sure that he did not end up like his friend Kalaus. He seemed a little too confident for someone who had been conducting some dirty business. Joan wondered if he was hoping to be killed as well so that he was out of this mess.

The contractor came closer and closer to the location of the mine, and the sun was close to completely disappearing from the sky. As the sky turned into a deep orange, Joan fastened her pace to close the distance between herself and the contractor. It was before he entered the mine when she decided to strike. Before she did so, she made sure that there were no workers at the mine to see what she was about to do. For some reason, there was not a single soul apart from herself and the contractor, after looking carefully, which made her job much easier now. The vampyress snuck up on the contractor, and right before he reached the mine, Joan covered his mouth and grabbed him from his arm so that he could not cry out for help or run away from her. Even then, she would be able to catch him, but so as not to waste extra energy for things like that, she made sure he could not move in the first place. Turning him around so that he faced her, she stared into his eyes. He seemed extremely frightened and unable to even move from the shock. She told him that if he did not make a sound, she would remove her hand over his mouth. He nodded his head vigorously, eyes welling up as he did so. He was so horrified she could not help but smile. The contractor whimpered in fear when she removed her hand from his mouth.

The man then started to explain himself, telling her how he was in this mess in the first place and it was all because of Kalaus, just like Joan had expected. She allowed him to speak in case there was extra information she could bring to Mattoro later. He already knew that he would die by Mattoro’s hands because of how vengeful Mattoro was at this point, doing everything in his power to ruin the contractor’s dirty plans. He did not make a single scream or shout for help. Maybe Joan was right in thinking that he wanted out of this mess already when he found out Kalaus was gone. Joan asked to make sure if that was what he wanted, and he stopped speaking for a long while, then told her that it would have been better that way. The vampyress nodded and killed him on the spot. She did not get any extra information, but that was alright. Her job was to kill him and Mattoro did not add that he wanted her to interrogate him before she killed him. She was just doing it in case it would be useful. Once she had finished with that, she brought his body to the entrance of the mine, thinking of how she would leave it so that people could see the next day. She was thinking of being creative with it. All sorts of ideas came to her mind. She knew how she would do this.

After carrying him to the entrance of the mine, she clawed his heart -- that was no longer beating -- out of his chest and dragged his lifeless body so that it was placed right in the center of the entrance. She would do more than what she was going to do now if she felt like it, but she was feeling kind of lazy after following the guy around for half of the day, so she decided this would be enough. Once she had his body in the center of the entrance, she yanked his mouth wide open and placed the heart in it. Then, she brought his legs together and her hands on his chest with the fingers laced so that it seemed like he was sleeping peacefully, but with his heart in his mouth. She wiped the blood on his shirt -- she did not want to lick it off her fingers because it was a dead man’s blood. Otherwise, she would have probably done that. Now that her job was done, she decided to head back to Mattoro’s little hideout in the middle of nowhere. She did not have to waste too much energy doing this job, so she just made her way there on foot. She felt like taking a walk after what she had done. With a small smile on her lips, the vampryess walked along a dark sidewalk to the abandoned warehouse. This part of town did not really have a lot of streetlamps like the area where her inn was.

It took about fifteen to twenty minutes for Joan to arrive at the abandoned warehouse. The Cold Colliers recognized her as usual, and welcomed her with delighted grins. She gave them a smile as well and walked into the warehouse, and directly to where Mattoro was sitting as always. The man stood up, with a look of satisfaction. He had been anticipating her arrival, and now that she was here, he could not contain his excitement. Joan returned his smile and took a seat in the chair in front of his desk. The first thing she told him was that the job had been done, and that anyone who came to or walked by the mine would find his dead body laying there. Mattoro nodded with the same look of satisfaction, that was slightly more intense now. She was thanked for helping him out. He asked if there was any difficulty in killing the man, to which Joan shook her head in response, describing the look of fear on the contractor’s face when he realised that he was going to be killed. She also mentioned how carefree he was concerning his safety after what happened to Kalaus, and how he agreed when asked if he would prefer being killed. Mattoro raised his eyebrows and laughed a bit, fishing through his drawer for something. Then he brought out a pouch of jewels placing it on the desk in front of him that Joan took and left.