Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 194

This week's picture prompt is by i-am-JENius on DeviantArt. They call this The Vampire Hunter. It's not the first time I have used one of her pictures, and it probably won't be the last. She does some great art - worth checking out. 

This is another picture that Tricky wanted to take ownership of. It seems she wants me to explore some of the storylines for the next couple of books. This one is definitely interesting. (Last Tricky Tale was on Week 192)

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Dapper

Dapper, that’s the word. Oh yes, he looks dapper in that hat, and sinister. Although an axe in your hand would give that appearance. And what are his plans for that axe, Tricky wondered.

She turned another hand over the glass ball in her hands, but she could still only see the back of him walking through the trees. He couldn’t be planning to chop any trees down, not in that get-up, surely. He looked like something from the old world, one of those posh do-dahs they talked about, aristo-somethings they were called. Had lots of money they liked to show off about and wore silly tall hats and coats with twin flaps because they thought it made them look better than others – or maybe it was to wipe their bums. Stupid people they were; money had been their downfall. Although it wouldn’t be his; she would be

Tricky knew who it was alright; she didn’t need to see his face. That swagger and the silly outfit were a dead giveaway. She’d been watching him for a few days, after having found him again. He’d disappeared the night her mother had died. He’d known. The others had been naive enough to think they could get away with it, but he knew people wouldn’t stand for it.

And Linley might have been the killer, but this guy had set it up. Tricky had realised that shortly after. Dimitry Stanislav had been Vincent Linley’s right hand man and orchestrated that whole night, especially the uprising of the people. Once he’d gone they’d all been shame faced. Oh yes.

And where had he gone? It surely hadn’t been Ferriston. He hadn’t been here all that time. This place was too small to hide him. And people had looked.

He stopped walking and stood in front of something on the ground. She watched as he swung the axe, hitting something in a rhythmic fashion. Then he stopped and pulled up what looked like a hatch. He started to shrink, lower and lower. Stairs, he was descending some stairs underground. He’d been living underground! But if that was the case, why had he needed an axe to break his way in?

There were clearly many facets to this tale, and Tricky needed to learn them all. Why had he appeared after all this time? Did he think people would have forgotten? Or that they weren’t still looking? But she hadn’t had to look. He’d popped up in enough places that she’d heard, especially when you knew where to listen. You didn’t wander around woods in those clothes and think you’d be invisible. People really were ignorant of the trees.

But what was more curious than all of this was how she had been led here. She would never have come to Ferriston without the nudge from Dufray. She felt like she was being manipulated and there was a bigger picture she was missing – and her feelings were rarely wrong. Maybe she should turn the glass on Dufray and follow him for a bit. Tricky thought that was a good idea, but only after she’d noted down the co-ordinates of that door in the ground. She’d need a closer look.