It’s not natural: a Sunset Coven Omake Episode 2 (Part II-d)

It’s (still) not natural!

Another Sunset Coven Omake: E2-P2c

‘… things haven’t been this intense since the Great War.’

It were the first words she thought of when she opened her eyes… Second was sunnavabitch. She didn’t even had to do a body check to know her left hand was still busted and badly. As she buried her teeth into her lower lip, she scanned her surroundings and gathered that she was at Kane’s… Resting on a bed.

‘You’ve woken up. Finally,’ he said as he entered and put down a cooler on the table. ‘I was getting worried. You slept like two days or something.’

‘How did I get out?’ she asked, trying to sit up.

‘With your own two feet,’ he answered. ‘Once you walked out of the Hypogeum, you told us to scram and collapsed. No way I was going to just leave you there, so I carried you from there to here. Thinking of it, your eyes were red, just like now, only it was like glow in the dark thing… You shouldn’t get up, well, I doubt you will be able to.’ He decoded the confused look on her face and recalled, ‘You destroyed half of the third sub-basement of the Hypogeum so that they wouldn’t be able to come up again. It was rather exciting,’ he admitted as he sat on the edge of the bed and tended a brown bag in hand. ‘Get well gift.’

Trice tried to rake her memories but not matter how she tried, she couldn’t go pas the moment she owned that burning bastard. No way she would destroy a national treasure. Admittedly, some called her insane, but this was pushing it…‘Don’t want it.’ Seeing Kane from up close, she noticed that the top of his ear seemed like chopped off in some sorts. ‘You’re not healed yet?’

‘I am,’ he answered and got where she headed at. ‘You’re asking because of my ears? It’s an old wound… You’re a vampire right?’ Immediately, Trice tensed up at the mention, but he calmly took out the contents of the bag, a pack of blood. ‘Since there’s a lot of stuff from the Lore that can’t walk in the sunlight, I had no way telling what you are. But when I told Mummy about your eyes, she said you were a vampire.’

So it was that old crone. ‘Heh.’ Was she then telling the truth about having seen her somewhere?

‘I’m  a changeling,’ he revealed in exchange. ‘Well… A defective elf really.’

‘There are elves in Malta?’ Trice couldn’t help wondering.

‘No, well, not that I know of. I’m not very good at this stuff… Anyway I was brought up by humans in England. That’s why my ears gotten a trim… I came here in the 70’s and I met Mummy here. She called me her child, Izzy. Probably she had a kid that name, anyway, I went along with it.’ He threw the pack on her lap. ‘Fresh from the hospital. We can take you to a healer tomorrow. There’s no passage to the underground here, so we’ll have to take the boat to Italy tomorrow.’

‘No need. I’ll be fine with this,’ she replied. Moreover, she doubted he knew a healer that would want to heal her. ‘Say, about the Hypogeum…’

‘No worries, the Maltese government doesn’t want to take the risk of investigating the unknown parts of the Hypogeum. I told you about that school of kids that went missing there right? They’re scared same will happen if they sent people down… They just covered it up by saying it was an earthquake and shut the whole thing down again. It isn’t the first time it gotten closed for the public… Anyway what was it? I mean, those hairy beasts we saw. And why so many?’ Since she didn’t reply he went on, ‘Maybe it doesn’t really matter since we gotten the bastards who killed Calypso and my brothers.’

‘No,’ Trice uttered.

‘Huh?’

‘Did you see how huge they are? Even if they were able to snatch humans remaining unseen in the area, there’s no way they could’ve done the same with Calypso in Mdina… It must’ve been something else.’ Actually, it might have been the doing of that something else all along. There was no way it could get through the shafts to get out. Moreover they didn’t look intelligent enough to take care of the security cameras…

‘Well maybe they had some magical powers and could like turn into a human or change size… I don’t know.’ He gotten up. ‘Anyway, don’t fret about it. I’m sure it’s okay. If you need anything just yell.’

‘Fine.’ Once gotten out, Trice dragged herself out of bed. Screw resting, she had to go back.

It was a tough task to change when your left hand was busted open and burned. The only good news was that her right arm was more or less healed. After she gotten all dressed, she started to pack. The only lead she had to find out who made deal with Franco was dead… Right. Franco. These creatures they faced were sure strong but looked in no way intelligent enough to talk and plot a murder on a Greek goddess. Size and hairiness wasn’t the only problem here.

Whatever, it was not her problem. Going home to Cookie-chan was her priority number one. How long it had been since she last saw that cute little face? She had lost count of the days that had passed already...

As she packed her belongings, the vamp paused at the sight of Franco’s books.  Amongst other she had gotten a book about beasts of the Mediterranean sea, several books on Peruvian folklore and such, not to mention a history book about Malta with a focus on the reign of the Knights Hospitaller … But also Franco’s journals.

She cursed her curiosity and unpacked everything.

As she went through the Franco’s writing, she discovered it was more a journal in which he penned down Perfidia’s condition than anything else. What she ate, how long it took for her to shed, how much she shed, how long it took her to transform into a human and back into a snake… Which probably explained why she was in that half-human half-anaconda state when Trice saw her.

His descriptions were more repetitive and slowly he wrote out his thoughts along, until he stopped writing…  It was a few days before the lion’s death. It had to be when he met the person who dragged him into the complot. Only, if Calypso was done for the next night, why didn’t he start feeding his sister on humans then? What did he wait for between then and now?

Frustrated that she didn’t come up with anything, Trice buried her head into the books and dissected her conversation with Perfidia.

Kane had such a blind fate that the Treaty will be respected. Was it because he knew Calypso was screwing the snakes over?

‘Calypso decided to carry on with this Treaty.’

She almost lost it out of her sight, but the Treaty also applied on the Maltese creatures… Did that means she would’ve kicked Kane’s ass if he didn’t respect it? To what end? Why did she even care?

‘Then was she the one to tell Valette about your identity?’

 ‘I’m not sure since I’ve never been in contact with Calypso myself, but my brother is sure it was someone else. I don’t know why he thought so, but he always suspected that it was one of Valette’s lovers who did. I think he had a child with her.’

Could a nymph bear a child? All that knowledge on creatures she had was so useless at such times. She eyed the history books on the Order and Malta. Her body was unwell, so while healing, she could waste some time on book reading anyway…

***

That were two hours spent on reading books that didn’t help. Well, she did know things now, but the things didn’t answer any of her questions.

‘What are you doing?’ Kane asked as he came in. Trice was doing a headstand, though she wasn’t fully healed yet. Under normal circumstances she would exercise a bit or drink at least. ‘You didn’t recover.’

‘Why are you here? I didn’t call you,’ Trice said and slowly put her legs down on the floor.

‘We were having a drink and it kinda felt wrong not having the protagonist among us,’ he admitted. From behind his back, his “mother” Agnes peeped. ‘You want? You’re paying after all…’

Right, she promised that. ‘Give me,’ Trice replied. Who knew she’d have better ideas when drunk. As Kane gave her the bottle and sat beside her on the floor, Agnes went away. She hadn’t been present during the whole Hypogeum operation, probably because she was nuts and useless. The old bag was obviously not some Maltese monster. It was English. Trice frowned and drank. ‘Agnes… Children’s skin… Of course, the Black Annis.’

‘What?’

‘Well, your, uhm, mom? Agnes… She’s an English boogeyman, right?’ she guessed as she toyed with her bottle. ‘I’ve been hanging around the UK for some time and people from Leicestershire told me about the Black Annis… British import?’

‘Really? You must be mistaken… I think she’s been here before the British you know,’ he said.

‘Then she’s a Maltese product?’

‘Don’t call Mommy a product,’ he snapped, offended. He downed the rest of his bottle and thought. ‘Now that you’re mentioning it… The way she speaks… But then again, I heard her talk in Maltese. You must be wrong.’

A black Annis that was supposed to be  English talking Maltese? Maybe she was thinking too much into this, but this was odd. Well unless Agnes actually learned it. Not everyone was like Trice who always had ambitions to learn all kind of languages, but ended up studying more about beasts instead. She observed Kane again. He had tucked his locks behind his ears, so she noted them once more until she was finally reminded that she had seen the same sort of “mutilation” of Agnes’s ears. ‘Ah… Eeeeh?’

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. He rubbed his eyes, feeling as though he had finished his bottle a little too fast.

‘Uhm, well, uhm.’ She scratched the back of her head. ‘Do you as an elf have something like an elf-dar? I mean, can you sense when others are elves?’

‘Honestly? No,’ he replied and yawned. ‘I’ve been passing more time with humans and other creatures from the Lore so I wouldn’t have a clue.’

‘Ah right,’ she replied but thought: You have one you call ‘mum’ and you don’t even recognise she’s an elf herself? A changeling to boot. ‘Hey, what’s the oldest creature in Malta you know?’

‘You saw him... In Mdina.’ He fell down, head in Trice’s lap.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked and shoved his head off her. He didn’t budge though he hit the floor pretty badly. ‘Ah that little snot is dead drunk again.’  Little snot, but he didn’t leave her behind though he could have done this perfectly. Moreover in spite of his limp, he even carried her.

Huh… He did say something about the war…

In her head she could hear a voice from the past, “I spotted that newbie from Kitchener’s mob. He’s a dirty looking fellow with black-greenish hair and a bad limp. I think his name is Kay or something”.

Quickly, the vampire scurried back and tried to remember whether she and Kane did meet before. Then again, he didn’t show any signs to recognise her. ‘Yeah, should be fine,’ she dismissed. It would be too much of a coincidence.

Then again, Agnes… Trice finally packed her bags and went.

***

‘Mom? Dad?’ a child cried as he ran through the fields. When his body started to become tired from all the running, he resorted to crying and yell louder after his parents. He should have listened to his grandmother. She had always warned him about going out at night as devils were lurking awaiting the perfect opportunity might snatch and drag him into hell. The boy hugged himself at the thought of being roasted by them in hell’s fire.

Finally, he spotted a house afar where the lights were burning. It looked like his friend’s place he meant going to. He lit up and picked up the speed. After running a good minute, it seemed to be still so far away.

A cold wind sliced through him, and he stumbled against a rock and fell down. He cried harder, but when he saw a figure standing in front of him he ceased. At first he was happy, thinking he had found some help, but soon his face smothered in tears twisted in fear as he saw the stranger’s hand with its 10ft long nails going approach him. ‘No… Nooo!’

The nails pressed against his body and slowly dug into his skin. ‘Mommyyyyyyy!’

‘it’ll be o'er lief, sweatheart…’ his assailant whispered and broke into a hideous scream when a screeching pain bolted in her arm. She jumped back and saw in horror that her hand had gotten cut off. ‘Who?!’

‘When the child says “no”, it’s “no,’ a voice said as it stepped towards the child that had lost consciousness. The tall figure who carried a flashlight, bent over and pulled the nails out of the child. ‘Ugh, nasty.’

Though no light was shed on the figure, from how its eyes blazed red, the old crone knew, ‘thou’re that vampire…’

Trice held the flashlight angled just under her chin and uttered flatly, ‘Boo.’ After a long pause, she finally shed back some light on the crone as she stepped away from the child. ‘Scary right?’

The two stared blankly at each other, until the crone broke the silence with a hiss, ‘what art thou doing hither?’ She tried to keep the distance between her and the vampire.

‘Uhm…I kinda want to have a chat, but I’m no good at whatever you’re talking in,’ Trice replied as she noted how the old crone was treading back. ‘Anyway, I’ll make it short since the parents of this kid are looking for him. They’ll arrive shortly.’

Agnes made a step sideways. ‘what doeth thou wanteth?’

‘Tell you about Agnes?’ the well demon asked as she he stared up from the darkness. He knew she couldn’t see him, but having a vampire dangling just above your head was just damn scary. She had gone down the well fearlessly relying on the old leather well bucket and the chain it was attached to. It was probably the first time he feared that someone would actually fall into the well. Normally that meant a feast and that was always good news.

‘Yea. You’ve been here for some time, right? Haven’t you heard stories about her and such?’

‘Hahaha? How could I, I mean,’ he laughed nervously, but stopped as he guessed just from the way she sighed that she was annoyed. ‘I mean, I only know what I’ve heard. You know, people tend to talk around this well, so I heard some things.’

‘I learned some interesting things about you, you know,’ Trice said as she took out her manchete. ‘Like your relationship with Valette and his child you bore. What’s her name? Isabelle? I read that she was assassinated by her own husband...’ As she talked, the vamp toyed with the handle of her weapon.

‘dun’s the mouse…’

‘… and that Valette couldn’t take it and died in grief,’ she continued. ‘Looks like it turned you mad.’

‘I said stop it,’ the crone repeated as her breathing became harder.

‘Hm, so you can talk normally too.’ Trice smirked. ‘Well, that’s not really what interested me though. When I came over here, I kept wondering how Valette never noticed you were a changeling. He was a human, but still he wasn’t stupid… Probably the most notorious hunter of his time. So he probably knew what you were and took advantage of-.’

‘No!’ she cut in. ‘No, he didn’t, he loved me.’ She started to pluck her remaining hair out as she shook her head. ‘I wanted to help so I…’

‘Screwed the snakes over,’ the vamp filled in. ‘Then, Calypso…’

‘It’s all her fault, it’s all her fault,’ the crone repeated frantically as she rocked herself back in forth. ‘Because of her he said he wouldn’t see me anymore. That bitch, that bitch had to die…’

Trice put her flashlight on the ground, with the light facing in the sky. ‘How were you able to kill her?’

Agnes stopped moving and stared blankly at her. ‘He told me. It was him.’

So it wasn’t as if that old loon had found out by herself, someone else had a hand in this. ‘Who is he?’

‘He…’ Agnes lifted her left hand and pointed towards her. ‘The one who carries your picture.’

Trice dropped the manchete in shock upon hearing this. In her whole life, she had only once her picture taken, that meant… ‘Where-‘ When Trice focused back on her target, Agnes had disappeared from her spot.

A branch snapped and the vampire leaped forward, just in time to avoid her own manchete to cut her in two.  The crone was perhaps a senile, but her survival instinct surely came handy so it seemed. ‘You better put that down,’ Trice warned.

The hag cackled and ran towards the Vampire, holding up the manchete tightly.

Trice clicked her tongue on her turn and charged. When they met halfway, Trice caught the crone’s head and ripped it off her body singlehandedly. Once they were past each other, Trice looked above her shoulder to witness the body collapse on the ground. She tossed the head up and down. ‘I warned you.’

***

Since he had woken up with a splitting headache, he was at first confused when he found a couple of euro notes. He read the memo saying “for the booze ‘n stuff” and finally understood it had to be Trice’s doing. After all she had promised buying drinks. Looked like she was a woman of her word.

When he saw she wasn’t in bed, he had the sinking feeling something was wrong. Immediately he searched the house and asked a couple of ghouls. Her bag was gone and so was she.

A couple of hours later, he learned that she was gone with the first boat for Italy. It was a matter of time before she’d be gone, after all she never let it appear as though she’d stay here for good. However Kane had wished she had remained a little longer…

Sulking, he went back to his room and after skimming through his CD collection, he crashed onto his bed. He let his mind be taken over by the few memories they had created while listening to “Love Hurts” by Nazareth.

Soon he got disturbed by a loud banging against his door. ‘Leave me alone,’ he yelled. The banging went on regardless. ‘Dammit, I said leave me alone,’ he repeated, gotten up and answered the door. ‘I  don’t want to see any… What? Mother went missing too?’

***

‘Daaamn, why are there so many people on the island though it’s winter?’ She undid her scarf as she entered her villa. It wasn’t perhaps as known as Casa Malaparte, but it was at least as difficult to reach. That was why she loved spending her winters here, nobody was going to disrupt her quiet time on her own…

As she entered the kitchen to put down her groceries she frowned at the sight of several emptied bottles of wine on the counter. ‘What the heck is that about?’ Then her frown smoothed out as she saw light coming from her bedroom. ‘Nooo waayyyyy…’ She ran towards her bedroom to find someone rummaging through her drawers. ‘Trice?’

The vamp looked over her shoulder. ‘Oh, yo Holly.’  Then went back on her search. ‘Say, where the hell do you keep a blow-drier? I couldn’t find it in the bathroom.’ Instead of replying, Holly took off her boot and hurled it at Trice’s head. She dodged it and scoffed. ‘What are you doing?’ Seeing, she took the other one off, Trice scurried further away. ‘Hooollyyyy, it’s been so long we’ve last seen each other. I know you’re happy to see me.’

Holly lowered her boot. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I told you I’d come right? After you delivered the goods so…’

‘Aaah, is that so?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Trice answered as she neared Holly.

Holly still cast the other boot on Trice, this time hitting her forehead. ‘Then why didn’t you come all the other times you’ve promised me?’

‘I’m here now, right?’ Trice pointed out and smoothed her wet hair away from her face.

‘Yea, and always in your fashion, drinking and causing a mess. Did you really have to drink all that?’

‘I need to store something, so I cleaned up your wine refrigerator,’ Trice explained.

‘And I have to believe this? Why not use my fridge then?’ Holly undid her coat and laid it on her bed. ‘Tsk, you don’t eat, you only booze, you drunk

‘I don’t think you’d be happy if used your fridge,’ Trice replied.

‘Why? What on earth did you have to store?’

‘A severed head.’

***

Holly ruffled one last time through Trice’s hair and then stopped the blow-drier. ‘Okay, so you went to Malta had a fight with what you think is an elf impersonating Black Annis for some reason and you take the head with you…’ She unplugged the engine and put it away in the only drawer Trice hadn’t had the chance to check. ‘And for some reason you keep it in my fridge. Why? Why do you do such things?’ Before Trice could even place a word, Holly continued, ‘You’re in trouble are you? I knew it, you’re in trouble. C’mooon, don’t give me that look. You only contact me to ask me for stuff. And the first time we met, you were in trouble.’

‘I’m not in trouble,’ Trice said, took a second to consider whether it was a lie or not. ‘Well, I mean, not much more than usual. And I don’t only call you up for stuff…’

‘Yes you do. Last time it was for blood, before it was for some monster book you wanted, and before that…’

‘But you’re some awesome at getting stuff. Must be cause you’re a witch,’ Trice mused, but gotten slapped on the back of her head. ‘Awww…’

‘I already told you a million of times that I’m not a witch,’ she retorted.

‘But wasn’t your father like a wizard or something?’ Trice asked.

‘He was a practitioner of the Benedicaria Traditions, a lousy one,’ she said and grabbed a brush.

‘Potayto-potahto.’

This vamp. When it came to beasts she was probably brain number one in the Lore, but she lacked interest in other beings. ‘Doesn’t matter. Anyway, what’s eating you?’ Although Trice said that she could brush her own hair, Holly insisted to do it. ‘And really, what’s with the head?’

‘I wanted to make sure she stayed dead. I burned her body and cleaned the job, but I felt uneasy about leaving the head too close from the ashes. You know, apparently there’s this author Tolkien who wrote that elves either die from sadness or from being slain… The fact her lover gotten a stroke didn’t keel her over, so how can I be sure chopping her head off would?’

‘Still not a reason to bring it with you,’ Holly muttered, tearing violently through the knots in Trice’s hair. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I thought of getting rid of it in the Alps or something,’ she said. ‘Or maybe I should burn it and throw it in some English lake…’

‘I don’t mean the head, I mean what happened in Malta and all. You looked like you had second thoughts about going back to dig the story a bit further.’

Trice narrowed her eyelids and touched her now healed left hand. ‘Myeah. I thought about it on my way here. There were a lot of things that bothered me, you know. About these snake siblings and Agnes. Well, especially Agnes… ‘

‘So, are you going back?’

‘No, I’m going to drop the matter,’ she replied.

Holly stopped brushing Trice’s hair and uttered in disbelief, ‘No way… You stopping?’ She looked at Trice getting up and putting on one of her knit dresses that looked like some ill-formed jumper on the vampire. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘Some mysteries are not meant to be resolved I guess…’ Trice noticed Holly beaming and asked, ‘What?’

‘I feel like you’ve finally grown up into a sane being, I’m proud,’ she said. ‘Okay, we have to celebrate this. You didn’t drink all the wine, right?’

‘There’s some left,’ she replied as she followed Holly back into the kitchen. ‘Oh right. Say, I’ve been reading about the Order of St John and all.’

‘So?’

‘Is it true that they moved their headquarters outside Europe? They really must’ve forgotten about their heritage as hunters.’

‘Well,’ Holly started as she attempted to uncork a bottle in vain. She handed it over to Trice who did the job with ease and continued, ‘I doubt their current members even know, only some big wigs of the HQ do and keep it under covers. Now they just focus on charity and things like that. But, there have been talks…’

‘About what?’ Trice cocked her brow.

‘Yeah, you know, it’s something more known among the Italian lore, but they say the few knights still active as hunters have their headquarters in Florence.’ Holly took out some glasses. ‘Wait, why you asking this? Are you going to stir some trouble again?’

‘No.’

Holly eyed her suspiciously and poured the wine into the glasses. ‘Is this because of the book that snake-woman told you about? You’re not believing it, right? You’re not going to…’

‘Of course not.’

‘You better not,’ Holly warned. ‘Remember why you’re being sought first place.’ She looked down to Trice’s chest.

‘You perv.’

However Holly didn’t crack a smile and asked, ‘Is your tattoo still there?’ Trice just bobbed her head and drank. Holly blew into her fringe. ‘Is it still working?’ This time, she just shrugged as an answer. ‘C’mon Trice, use words.’ Holly stepped forward, grabbed the hem of the pull Trice was wearing and shoved it up, alongside the shirt she wore under it.

‘You’re way too sober to get handsy, hon’’.

‘It’s fading.’ She let Trice go and emptied her glass in frustration. ‘I knew this was a stupid idea. You’ve been spending your time drinking some piss blood just to prevent your body from fading that post-mortem tattoo. I told you it wouldn’t work. You moved cause they found you in France right?’

‘Actually, I think it did work though,’ Trice replied.

‘What? Trice, you’ve weakened, you don’t even look like your usual self…’ She started to pour another glass for herself, but it was too light for her. As she went to dig into her kitchen for a bottle of scotch, she proposed, ‘Just stay here. I can get you human blood just like you asked last time. Vampires aren’t meant to live on cattle blood and you know it. Remember the symptoms of withdrawal you had?’

It was pretty ugly and not a topic she’d like to touch again. But if she had to be honest, she wasn’t 100 percent free from these episodes. After all her tatoo faded because she had one of these episodes. It was when she was in France, before Kristian’s disappearance she had spotted some hunter shooting down the only bear left in the mountains… Since she liked the bear, Trice lost it and killed the human, sucking him dry in the process. This had to be why they had found her whereabouts. ‘I’m fine now in Wherwell. You should drop by sometime…’

The conversation got cut by a dramatic sound.

‘Ah, my phone.’ Trice slipped her cellphone out of jeans pocket.

‘Was that the drama button?’ Holly asked.

Trice didn’t answer and checked the message she had gotten, which read as: “Hey, how U doing? jst wnt 2 lt U knO my hansum grandson iz comin 4 xbo eve. fEl frE 2 drop by @ my plAc thN. ;)) Cheers”

 ‘What does that even mean?’

Holly tiptoed to get a peek of Trice’s phone. ‘Are you keeping touch with a young millennial? Given our age we’ll always be considered as cradle robbers, but c’mon you could at least wait he’s legal.’

***

‘Cookie-chan looks healthy,’ Trice said as she stepped behind the bar where Sexy bartender was prepping for the opening.

‘We’ve followed your meal plan to a T and all,’ he replied.

‘Anyway, what’s new?’ she asked.

‘Nothing much, there have been a couple of fights, but nothing unusual.’ He held up a wine bottle Trice had brought back from Italy. ‘It looks like you didn’t just go to Malta?’

‘Yea, I made a few stops on my way back. I’ve brought some stuff from France and Belgium too.’

‘I’ve seen,’ he replied and tried to read the label of the bottle. ‘Tuscany, huh?’

Trice scanned her bar. It was oddly quiet today, save a few trolls and the orc’s buddies. ‘What’s up with tonight?’

‘It’s Christmas eve,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘Well, the human bar is closed, so maybe they aren’t coming?’

‘Bullshit, most of the customers don’t even use that entrance,’ she said and sighed. ‘Wait, that means the humans are now celebrating and stuff, right? I’ll take Cookie-chan for a walk.’

It was indeed quiet. Finally a moment to stroll casually in town and not be accosted by someone. It put her into a great mood and so she decided to walk to Harewood’s forest instead of taking her bike. It wasn’t that melting snow that would stop her.

As she walked along the High street, she did some Christmas decorations spotting and tried to decide who’d win the award for the ugliest.

Trice stopped a moment to get her iPod and as she was turning it on, she noticed there were many cars parked along the road. It was then she remembered what the Chief had said about her having to stop by for Christmas eve. ‘Oh right.’

While she sang along Radiohead’s “No surprises”, she walked on and made a brief stop at the Chief’s place. It wasn’t as if they would really wait for her to come so it was okay to skip out. Not that she cared, really. Trice sighed and soundlessly neared the white cottage house to peep through the fogged up window. ‘Huh?’ It looked like no one was in the living room, that was odd, the dinnerware was set on the table and candles were lit on and all. She circled around the cottage and looked through the back window. The kitchen was deserted as well. ‘Odd…’

She switched off her music and tried to intercept any sound or smell that would put a rest to the growing uneasiness that built in her mind. However there was no smell of a human or even turkey lingering. To be sure, she went back to the front and rang a few times. Since no one answered, she went to ring at the neighbour’s door, but the result was the same: no one answered and it didn’t look like anyone would as their home was equally empty. ‘What’s happening?’

Trice turned her heels and started to knock at each home for anyone to answer. After frantically knocking at the door of five different homes, she tried to reach the one who managed the human YOLO bar in her stead. “You are connected to the voicemail of…” ‘Dammit…’ She dialled another number, this time it was Sexy bartender’s. ‘Hey, did you go to Wherwell today? Did you see the kiddo? I can’t reach him… Yes I know it’s Christmas eve, but it doesn’t explain why every villager is gone. No, the lights are on, the table and set and all, but they’re just gone. What’s happening? Is this normal?’

The bells of St Peter And The Holy Cross sounded from afar.

‘Wait, do they go to service or something at this hour?’ She checked time on her ipod, it was 7:12 pm. ‘I’m going to the church. Then meet me there…’ Trice romped through the village immediately to the church. Something was off and she hated herself for not having noticed it earlier.

When she arrived in the church’s courtyard, the bells finally stopped calling. She eased into a walk as she scanned her surroundings, there was no one in sight.

The snow started to settle on the grass.

Trice hesitantly approached the church and grabbed the door, hoping that all she would find was a group of praying villagers. ‘It’s nothing, I’m sure it is,’ Trice said to herself and glared at her hand that started to shake. She slapped her left one atop of the other and creaked the door open.

A gust of air rolled out the church, carrying the thick scent of blood along. It was so heavy that Trice’s eyes turned red instantly, she immediately looked down and tried to hide her eyes. Since there was no reaction, she looked through her fingers into the unlit parish. It was too dark for her to discern what was inside so she stepped in cautiously as she grabbed her phone, hoping to cast a light.

Before she could do so, her foot hit something and the light suddenly went on.

A pool of blood covered the tiles of the church…and corpses were sprawled across the benches and floor. It dawned that what Trice had hit with her foot was the lifeless arm of a villager she recognised. She dropped her phone in shock and pressed her hands against her temples.

The sight and smell was overwhelming, her fangs elongated. Her body trembled as she tried to fight the urge to grab the first corpse on hand to feast on it. She shut her eyes and concentrated on stop fake-breathing first.

When she opened her eyes again, she finally noticed the message that had been written on the wall, just above an arch:  “❤⃛ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ )”

That son of a bitch.

***

‘So, anything interesting?’ Eliot asked as he covered his pancakes with syrup.

‘Hmmm, not really,’ Dorian answered. ‘At least not in the area.’

‘Why? Is there a case far from here?’

‘Wherwell, England,’ he replies, not minding that his coffee and food was turning cold.

‘What about it?’

‘A whole village disappeared.’

Eliot squeezed the bottle hard, not noticing that the whole pancake-syrup ratio was a total fiasco. ‘Disappeared?’

‘Yes. Apparently the parents of some kid were concerned his son didn’t come back from spending Christmas eve with the grandparents, so they went to Wherwell. The village was deserted when they arrived so they called the police…’

‘And?’ Eliot asked.

‘They went to check out the local church and it was covered in blood,’ he continued calmly. ‘But no bodies were found at all.’

They looked at each other for some time, until Rian uttered, ‘Ah.’

‘What?’

‘Your pancakes are drowning.’

‘What?’ Quickly Eliot flipped the bottle back and looked helplessly at his ruined pancakes. ‘Nooooo…’

‘That aside, for work, do you remember the granny that gauged her lovers eyes in New York?’

‘What that story again?’