***

In the meantime that Leora and Elijah were conversing with Elizabeth, Josephine had found that the lockless roof door led to a hallway.

She had taken her time down the hallway, looking for a place to put Telera’s spying device. The hallway was adorned with a row of paintings on both sides. All of them are people of vague familiarity from her history class in middle school. Her eyes perked up when she recognized George Washington in one of the paintings.

Is this the original? Josephine reached out to inspect it. If it was real, she was going to steal it. Vampires were always loaded with such antiques and she was all too happy to relieve them of it.

She had touched the frame when she noticed the gleam of a door off the glass surface over the painting. A door down the hallway would be the most expected thing. However, what caught her attention was that the door was slightly ajar.

Unprotected roof, lockless door, and now this? thought Josephine.

Curious as well as judging the master vampire, Elizabeth, as careless, Josephine approached the door quietly. She stopped and waited for a few moments. Assured that no visions came, she proceeded to open the door wider.

The room was filled with more antiques. There were furniture, more oil paintings and even a set of armor. Past the canopy bed was an ornate desk. A woman was sitting there busily polishing something metallic black with a piece of cloth.

A bedroom is a good place to stick Telera’s gadgets, she thought. Also, it’s only one vampire. Her eyes then spotted a glass case. That looks like a good place, she thought.

Josephine quietly entered the room and quickly slinked behind the glass display case that held a flintlock pistol and a tripod hat. She placed Telera’s device on the floor at the base of the glass case, taking particular care to nestle it between a spacing where the slight uneven case met the floor. No one would notice it here.

Time for the escape. She took out a pocket sized mirror and used it to see past the display case. She observed the back of the woman whose white hair was rolled into a haphazard braid.

From what Josephine could tell, the woman was slender but had some musculature bulk from what she can observe from the bare shoulders. The woman was pale with a grey-bluish tinge and wore a black tank top with tight black pants. Possibly yoga pants, but she wasn’t sure. The woman didn’t seem to have heard her. Good.

Josephine had put away her mirror when the woman stopped polishing and held up a sword.

“Are you going to hide there forever?” said the woman. Her voice was warm yet commanding.