Now Vero found that she was in a tunnel almost devoid of light. She considered performing another working to grant herself night sight, but she already shed a great deal of blood casting her lures. She might also need further spells when she returned to destroy the coven. Coming over faint in combat would be fatal, it was too much to risk.

Instead, she strained her other senses.

At first, she listened for any sounds of the creatures in the dark, but heard nothing. Even if they were there, they would almost certainly be too quiet for her to hear, which did not make her feel any better.

Her sense of touch was more useful. Holding a hand out in front of her, she could feel a draft of air from somewhere nearby.

Following the cold gust towards its origin, Vero eventually rounded a corner and could see a small shaft of dim moonlight descending from above and in front of her. Moving closer, she found that it came from a storm drain on the street above her. There was just enough space for her to crawl her way through.

Vero made the sign of Luna over her heart and stowed her sword. She jumped up to grab the edge of the drain. On the first attempt her grip slipped. The second try was more successful and she began to pull herself out.

She was halfway free when something took a hold of her leg and tried to jerk her back down into the sewer. Kicking frantically, she loosened the thing’s grasp and bolted the rest of the way through. In horror, she watched the form of the rich fop crawling up after her out of the blackness. It pulled itself out far enough out to catch her leg again.

Vero drew her sword and cut the vampyre across the face, along the bridge of the nose. It released its grip to hold its face and screamed in agony. She scurried back, as it tried to follow her and attempted a few blind swipes with a clawed hand.

Once she was far enough away, Vero returned to her feet. She hoped to have gained some kind of advantage with her first attack, but the vampyre had also regained its senses. Its eyes were bloodshot and it lunged like a feral beast.

Vero was moving back, but stopped to meet his attack with a diagonal slash. The monster’s hand was severed. No blood fell.

The thing was still eager to fight, but too eager. It repeated the same maneuver with its remaining hand and she repeated her counterstroke. This time she removed finger tips, but it pulled its arm back in time to save most of the hand.

It did not stop its advance, instead charging forward to tackle her to the ground. She brought up her weapon just in time so that the thing impaled itself upon it, even as it succeeded in knocking her onto her back and pinning her underneath its now-limp body.

Vero took a moment to regain her wind, then bucked her hips to try and roll over to reverse their positions. The vampyre did not resist her, and she accomplished her goal without much effort by using the hilt of her sword as a lever.

Once she was in the top position, Vero tried to rise to her feet where she could pull out her sword. She was nearly upright when she felt someone catch her in a crude waist-lock from behind.

The second attacker pulled her back, away from her weapon, which remained lodged in the first vampyre. Fortunately, the fop seemed to have fallen into a deathlike state of suspended animation to heal itself.

Her foe was inhumanly strong, but did not seem to have any formal training at wrestling. Vero kept her head forwards. She hoped that the creature would release its unbreakable grip around her waist to try and grab her higher- to pull her head closer and bite her neck. Once the hold was released, Vero's superior grappling training would be enough to get her free in the scramble.

Unfortunately, the vampyre must have been the female, because their feet became tangled in its dress and they both fell backwards. The hold stayed in place and the undead striga had no wind to lose. Vero heard the gnashing of teeth behind and underneath her.

“Let her go!”

Vero looked over to see Dora taking aim at them with her crossbow.

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“No! Don’t-”

Dora fired.

The bolt flew inches away from Vero’s face, and planted itself harmlessly into the wall of the building, immediately adjacent to her and the vampyress.

Knocking the thing’s head against the stone roadwork would not injure the creature in any way, but vampyres still felt pain as a living person. If the bloodsucker had no practical experience in fighting, it could still be bested by pain submission.

Vero thrust her head backwards to smash her foewoman’s face. As she hoped, the grip released.

Vero was ready and immediately turned over into a mounted position. The monster had the same wounded look a novice takes the first time he is truly struck in a melee, but it could not be long before it became aware that there was no injury. She grabbed the bolt Dora fired by the shaft and snapped it off.

She needed a mallet- There! A loose cobblestone within reach.

The thing had just realized the necessity of continuing to defend itself when Vero plunged the thin length of wood between its ribs. She pounded once with the stone to break through the flesh and muscle of its chest.

The creature went into spasmatic fits like an epileptic.

Vero retreated at once as every limb began to swing about frantically with all their unnatural strength. She must have only grazed the heart. The reprieve might not last long, she moved to retrieve her sword.

Dora started to draw nearer.

Too near!

Vero did not have the wind to tell her to leave, but she waved for Dora to stay back.

Taking it by the hilt, Vero yanked her sword free of the body it lay in. Even as she did so, she felt a fumbling grasp at her ankle.

Now the first vampyre had recovered. It tried to pull itself into a position to bite her leg with what was left of its remaining hand, but Vero pinned it back with her other foot and decapitated it.

“Vero! The other one!” Dora pointed towards the remaining vampyre, which had jostled the crossbow shaft loose in its seizures and was returning to its feet.

It charged at Vero and ducked its head in a crude attempt to take Vero to the ground. Or perhaps it simply tripped over the long hem of its gown and grabbed for what it could hold. Vero sprawled her legs to defend herself, and easily came down on top of her enemy.

She brought her sword around to plunge it down through the base of the vampyre’s spine. There was a scream and Vero slipped out of the creature’s grasp before it recovered.

With its lower half paralyzed, Vero was eventually able to safely separate the head from its body.

“Oh Vero, you’ve done it!”

“Stay quiet.” Vero looked anxiously towards the drain, but nothing else had yet emerged.

She put her sword away and relieved Dora of the crossbow. They watched in silence for a few moments until their nerves faded.

Vero checked the bodies for anything that may help them, but found only some copper coins, quarters, and petty baubles that – on close examination – tried to look more expensive than Vero judged they were really worth. She took them all anyway, and they left before anyone else arrived.

Vero led Dora by the hand and the two of them ran as fast as possible across the brothel district back to Kitty’s theater. They were allowed into her office where the Madame sat smoking, as usual. Dora was winded from their retreat and practically fell into her chair; Vero remained standing to give her report.

“The coven’s haven has been established in a basement beneath the King’s Field, but it’s connected to the sewer system and allows access to the whole district.”

Kitty nodded and sucked on the end of her pipe, considering the news before replying. “So, what do we do now?”

“I would prefer to wait until I’ve had the chance to recover and prepare, but there’s too much risk now. They realized I was infiltrating them and we had to flee after I destroyed three of them. Fortunately, it’s a summer night, so it’s already too late for them to leave the city safely before sunrise. They’ll need time to arrange day shelter during their journey. Now that I know where they sleep, I can deal with them once the sun is up. They’ll be groggy during the day, if they can move at all, and I should be able to destroy most or all of the coven.”

Kitty just continued to nod in silence.

Dora looked up at Vero and spoke through heavy breaths. “You’re hurt! Are you sure that you’ll be able? Do we even know how many of them there are in the coven?”

Vero smiled and shrugged. “Very many. There’s no way to know exactly how many are down there, but it appears there are between half and a dozen remaining. It is dangerous, but the sand is dwindling. If we wait until night falls, they’ll vanish and we won’t find them again. Until they’re behind us with their teeth at our throats, that is.”

At this point, Kitty interposed again. “Should I hire men to help you?”

“I could use assistance clearing the clientele. But I’ll go below ground alone. Taking along mercenaries who are subject to vampyric influence would cause more problems than it would solve, I expect.”

Kitty rang a bell on her desk to summon one of her servants and then began rummaging through her desk drawers. “I’ll arrange for the men to meet you there. What time will you attack?”

“High noon, that’s when they’ll be at their weakest.”

“I took the liberty of arranging this for you.” Kitty produced a small vial of a clear liquid which looked like water, and pushed it across the desk where Vero took it. “It’s salt water. There’s a priest of the Sea Lord who frequents my establishment and I asked him to bless it for you.”

“This priest knew what he was doing?”

“He should. He’s a senior priest, and I caught him before he’d had more than one drink. Still, it is holy water made in a whorehouse as payment for services rendered.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Vero stored the vial away in a pouch at her belt.