Chapitre Sept: Ne Pas y Aller de Main Morte

The next morning, the rest woke to find Illyan brewing some mysterious concoction over their campfire and conferring seriously with his mother. He waved them off after breakfast, insisting the potion needed more time to simmer, so the others strolled around the Clan Rambeaut campsite. Even after the events of the previous night, the color and the life of the Vistani visitors stood out in stark contrast to the dreariness of Barovy village around them. Or, perhaps, Valentina thought she should call them ex-Vistani now. Their cheer was somewhat subdued compared to what they had all seen at the Daggerford camp—less laughter, fewer children running wild. That only made sense. Many of the adults were still speaking (or weeping) in little knots, alternating between grief and anger. But even the ones who were clearly making the attempt to go about their day as normal had an air more like business than pleasure. The industry of that business was still an extreme difference compared to the absolute lassitude of the village. Even subdued conversation was more conversation than the utter silence of the Barovian streets.

To Sveta’s surprise, there were even a few Barovians milling around the camp now. It took her a few minutes to be completely certain; the main way to tell the Barovians from the Vistani was sartorial. They moved among the camp like drab sparrows pecking for feed among mille fleur hens. What color there was in Barovian clothes tended towards the gloomy, as opposed to the Vistani’s jewel tones, and with little embroidery or jewelry. Neither women nor men covered their hair, which was common among all sexes and races of Vistani. Come to that, the vast majority of Barovians were human, though this was more difficult to see in a mixed group. Even the minority of non-humans among Vistani was a comparatively significant diversity.

The Barovians in camp seemed to be conducting business. A few were chatting with artisans, commissioning this or that needed textile or ironwork. Most were browsing the tables and blankets which had been set out in front of family vardos. Arranged on these displays were a myriad of items imported from the world beyond the valley. A few Barovians with extra life in them stood haggling over desired goods such as barrels of fruit and sacks of salt. Among the highest-interest items were various bottles of liquid, some of which Sveta recognized as alcohol from across the Forgotten Realms and others which swirled glowing, misty white within corked glass bulbs. Left lying forgotten were luxuries such as magical items. Sveta walked past a completely deserted display of wands “manned” by a preteen tiefling Vistana who was mostly just playing with her dog.

“We have money now,” Valentina commented, noting the direction of her gaze. “I counted it. 46 of those jewels you stole were fake, but 18 were real. Even the fake stuff should sell for a little bit. Maybe more than that, if we tell them we took it from those Mercier jerks. We can probably safely say we’ve got 5k gp, not even counting what Strahd gave me last night.”

“Is true.” She considered it. “...Maybe we wait until purchase is necessary. Right now, we do not know what we may need.”

“The point of having money is to spend it on things that make your life easier!” Valentina protested.

“You have how much?” Oskar, who had eight gold pieces in his pocket, half-snarled.

“Archeology is lucrative career,” Sveta told him.

“If you can spare some, we desperately need potions of healing. Val’s had to haul my dead body off the ground in almost every fight we’ve picked.” Oskar threw up his hands, refusing to engage with her about archaeology versus theft any longer.

“Unconscious, not dead!” Valentina chirped. “Though, it’s probably a good idea for the future to get some diamonds in case I do need to revivify someone. Actually-dead requires material components to heal. I haven’t got the trick of it yet, but I’m sure I’ll get it sometime soon. Oh, and Illyan needs a gem to bring back his homunculus, don’t they?”

What followed was several minutes of Valentina hauling an indifferent Sveta, Oskar, and Aeon around the Rambeaut camp market, searching for the required goods. She ended up with five little bottles of scintillating red liquid and two flasks of a similar color with sparkling bubbles popping throughout. On top, she secreted two thumb-sized diamonds and one thumbnail-sized fire opal into her pocket for spell components. Illyan caught up with them once more before the teenage tiefling’s table of magic wands, eyeing one in particular which had a flange at the end shaped almost like an ornate brass key.

“...how many thousand?” Valentina gasped.

“They ain’t markin’ you up ‘cause they know I’m with you, are they?” Illyan asked. Where once this might have been a tease, now there was no mirth to be found in his face or voice. The unusually subdued genasi idly swung a flask of a silver-streaked clear liquid in one hand, shoulders sloping as they walked. Even the ends of their hair hung more limp than usual, smoldering like a banked fire.

“No! Magic items are expensive!” the teenager defended herself. Her dog yapped agreement and pounced on her feet. She was briefly distracted when the mutt got one of her horns in his mouth and began to shake. After a struggle to free herself, she added, sulkily, “Papa says your Maman’s the new Clan Rambeau elder, anyway. I wouldn’t cheat you.”

“Is that true?” Oskar asked.

Illyan sighed. “Ouais. Ariane retired last night. Said Maman could lead us into ‘ell if she wanted officially now. What are we looking at?”

“Is Wand of Knock,” Sveta explained. “I recognize.”

“I got a set of lockpicks, me,” Illyan shrugged.

“...I do as well…” Aeon admitted.

There was a brief silence.

“You? Why?”

“...Just in case…?”

“Da, da, but can anybody use?”

“Deft enough.” Illyan thrust out his silvered potion. “Brewed this up this morning. Got an inspiration while I was tendin’ the leeches. It should make whoever drinks it run faster.”

“Should?”

“Well, I ain’t ever made it before. ‘Ere, look, don’t drink it now. Aeon, you hang on to it and someone can drink it if we get into another fight.”

Aeon accepted the potion dubiously. “...Are we going to get into another fight…?”

“At this point, I don’t feel safe nowhere in this valley.”

Valentina patted the glum Illyan’s shoulder reassuringly. “There, there. Perk up. I got you an opal so you can make your bird again. And think of it this way, now that there’s no Vicomte and your mom’s in charge of the clan here, she’s basically the mayor of Barovy!”

“Thanks, Néné.” The nickname slipped out without him realizing, but Valentina didn’t seem to react to it.

“Okay, so no wand? We can afford it, I think, but it’d wipe us pretty much out.”

“No wand,” Sveta decided. “We make do without.”

They left the Morning Glory and their horses at the camp for a well-earned rest. Marie Séraphine had promised Illyan to give them a good rub-down and some tasty oats while they checked on Dorian. Ten minutes later, they approached Père Donatien’s church up the decrepit path.

The little church was no more cheerful by the light of a misty morning. It was slightly more full of birds–little brown ones for once, not crows, chasing one another around and through the open windows in acrobatic displays and peeping fiercely. The nubby finger of the truncated bell tower pointed towards the heavens like the supplicant hand of someone being pulled beneath the earth. Beyond the bell tower, beyond the treetops, the mist was thin enough to show the shadowed silhouette of the mountain range which they had circled in the night. Somewhere within that shadow, Castle Ravenloft watched their approach.

A heavy padlock hung from a dull, fat chain wound through the front door’s handles. Sveta honestly could not remember if that had been there before, merely open, or if it was new.

“Aeon or Illyan, who will pick?” she asked.

“I could give it a shot, me,” Illyan volunteered.

“...Or we could knock…?” Aeon said, uncertainly.

“We did not buy Wand of Knock. Said we did not need.”

“That’s the last time I hesitate to spend money!” Valentina complained.

“No point walkin’ back all that way.”

“...I meant with our hands…”

A creak and a crunch drew everyone’s attention to the side-path. Père Donatien stood at the gate leading to the church’s tiny cemetery, wearing gardening gloves and an apron over his vestments. He eyed the group with significantly more wariness than he had shown the day before.

“Mademoiselle Imbert? Desolée, the church is closed for today. I ‘ave work to do in the yard.”

Illyan lit up. “Père Donatien, we were lookin’ for you! You get our Père interred alright?” He approached with a sprightly gait, as if it were a bright, sunny day and they were encountering an old friend on the street. Valentina quickly followed suit. For his part, Père Donatien watched the youths’ approach as if it were a moonless night and he was encountering a wolf in the woods. He was swept up between the two of them, who bore him back into the cemetery with a cacophony of idle chatter. Confused but willing to keep the “siblings” away from his church, Donatien complied.

“...So knocking won’t work anyway…” Aeon noted. The church’s only resident was outside, after all. With a sigh, he extracted a folded piece of blue velvet from his cuirass. Within was a set of neat, silver lockpicks. He set to work with these on the padlock.

For minutes, the only sound was the soft scrape of metal.

“This is taking too long. He’s going to notice what the rest of us are doing,” Oskar growled.

Sveta nodded. “Grandma will go get Wand. Give potion of fast-walking.” Aeon handed this over and she downed it in one long, unbroken pull. Smacking her lips after, she added, “You wait.” With no more said, she spun on her heel and marched back up the road towards the village. Far more vigorous than she had been since the weakening Vistana curse, she adopted a rhythmic pace with elbows at right angles, powering forward at a steady rate. Her hips and shoulders swayed in exaggerated counterpoint against one another. As usual, it was an extremely awkward set of motions on an otherwise elegantly beautiful lady. She did seem to be walking very slightly faster than usual. Probably around 30%. Oskar watched her go with dissatisfaction in his single, golden eye.

“That’s going to take even longer,” he growled. Despite Aeon’s presence, the comment was less directed at him and more of a complaint to the air. Without consulting, he, too, spun on his heel and marched away. His chosen direction was around the church, towards the far side which faced the Savaliche Woods. There, he found the series of broken windows just as he remembered them from their last visit. It was the easiest thing in the world to simply… step inside.

Within, Oskar found himself once more in the ruined nave. The place was absolutely still. The beams of watery light which fell through the holes in roof and in wall served to obscure rather than illuminate the place by making the eye unable to adjust to the darkness of the other sections. Oskar crept forward almost blindly, splinters shifting beneath his boots as if threatening to plunge him into an abyss below just as the roof had. He briefly ignored his own dazzled eyes and focused all his attention on his ears.

The valley of Barovy was always eerily silent, to a man so used to the normal sounds of animals within a forest. Even the scents here were dampened by the ever-present mist. What sounds and scents could be tracked were most often sweet with rot and muffled with despair. This church was no different. Soft, extremely faint sounds could be heard irregularly. If he hadn’t previously heard that voice crying out, Oskar might have dismissed the noises he heard now as scavenging rodents. He followed the sound of them down the hall which led towards the locked front door. Only one of the four small rooms here had its door shut, though thankfully there was no padlock in evidence. A quick glance proved the open ones to be unremarkable; a rustic kitchen and two unkempt bedrooms.

The closed room turned out to be a storage room, of some sort. It was almost entirely bare save for two stacked wooden crates and a single barrel which smelled like wine. The sounds were clearer, from here. Intermittent, breathless sobs. The sound of someone who had cried until they were entirely out of tears, until their throat was dry and sore, until they were too exhausted to continue even though they were also too upset to stop. Still muffled, though. And the room was far too small to contain anyone aside from Oskar himself.

He sank into a crouch, inspecting the floor carefully. There were obvious footprints in the dirt, trails going in and out of this room many times a day. With only one occupant, it was not hard to guess who might have left those. They led towards the back corner of the room, around the stacked boxes.

Rounding this corner, Oskar found a wooden cellar door. This was also secured with a padlock and a thick chain lacing it shut.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Oskar called.

The sobs stopped immediately. A whispery voice replied, “‘Ello?”

“Are you…” Oskar stopped. Wracked his brains. No, he had no idea what name Aeon had said yesterday. “...Chevalier Aeon’s friend?”

“Aeon? Yes, I am ‘is friend. Will you let me out? I am so ‘ungry…”

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“Has your father been keeping you locked down there?”

“Yes. ‘E brings me only water. I am starving to death. Please let me out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know… Is ‘e mad at me? I don’t know… ‘Urry, please, I am so ‘ungry…!”

Resolving to discover the problem after he had freed the boy, Oskar set his claws into the frame of the cellar door and heaved with all his might. The ancient wood splintered and cracked away from the hinges, allowing him to pry it free without removing the solid chain or padlock.

He had only a moment to see that the cellar stairs were equally flimsy wood, descending a short distance into complete darkness. After that, the whole frame was filled with a skeletal face, eyes bulging, mouth open in a wild scream.

A lion’s roar is audible from up to five miles away, so Oskar’s reaction was more than clear from the other side of the front door. Aeon, sweating profusely, selected a new lockpick and inserted it into the padlock. Three discarded picks stuck out from his mouth, where he had stashed them rather than waste time fitting them back into their places in the velvet.

“...That sounds bad…” he noted, through the mouthful. Being that he was alone on the stoop, the comment had been addressed to no one. He nearly leaped straight out of his skin when someone answered.

“I will help,” said Xiao Jinghua. Then, fast as she had arrived, she was gone. She raced around the corner of the building, following the way Oskar had gone.

Aeon sighed and tried a different pick.

Jinghua leaped through the broken window into a scene of blood and chaos. Somehow, within only seconds, Oskar’s entire left side was matted with blood. The fluff of his silver mane was slicked close and dark to the massive wound in the side of his neck, a waterfall of blood pouring and pooling in the neckline of his leather armor. Droplets scattered as he spun wildly, eye fixed upwards. Following his gaze up, Jinghua caught sight of their foe.

He was a skeletal young man around Valentina and Illyan’s age, his skin the exact color and texture as brown parcel paper. His clothes and hair were so grimed with mud and blood that their original color was impossible to tell. His mouth all but swung with every movement he made, gaping horribly open at all times to reveal a maw of bloodstained fangs. His eyes above gaped almost as widely. It was a horrible, alien expression of pure suffering. Jinghua could not help but feel an immediate surge of pity. What horrible fate had befallen this boy?

The pitiful boy dropped from the ceiling onto Oskar. The tabaxi was able to get an arm up this time to protect his mangled neck, and the young man’s fangs fastened only into unliving leather. Oskar used the grip to fling the boy–Dorian?–away, but in the tight confines of the church’s hallway, he hardly bought himself a few inches. Despite his emaciated frame, the boy hardly seemed to notice being flung around bodily, instantly finding his feet and locking onto the new target.

Jinghua’s longsword bit deeply into him as he lunged for her. Unlike Oskar, his blood fell as sluggishly as winter sap. Again, he hardly seemed to notice the hit, all of his focus on the way his arms wrapped around the monk in a parody of a loving embrace. His claws sunk into the nape of her neck and the base of her skull. His fangs sunk into her neck. She could feel the horrible suction as he began to feed.

An arrow sprouted from his back. Then two. Still, the young vampire did not release her. Jinghua struggled futilely against his iron grip, leading them in an awkward dance that slammed the both of them alternately into the walls. No hit shook him loose. No attack took as much as a sliver of his attention away from the mouthfuls of hot blood he was gulping down. Jinghua felt ice stealing through her veins. She shook as if caught in the bitterest winter wind. Her vision faded at the edges.

Oskar was there, sinking his own claws into the vampire to tear him away from the young woman. Jinghua couldn’t keep track of them beyond noticing that she was free enough to slide to her knees, one hand against the wall. She would have ended up fully prone on the ground had she not happened to fetch up against that wall. Everything was so close, the quarters were so tight. They were all but locked in a box with a tiger. Numb, floating on a cloud of exhaustion, Jinghua lifted a hand to her neck, whether to probe the damage or to stem the blood she didn’t know. She couldn’t feel it. Not with her fingers and not on the wound. She had no idea if she was applying pressure or applying it to the right area.

A huge, gloved hand dropped onto the top of her head, before her bound ears. “Survive!”

Oskar’s growl rolled through her like a shiver of heat, like the first moment of standing in front of a fire after having come in from the snow. Pain returned, stinging through her neck and jaw and down into her shoulder, worse where she was pressing on it. Her vision cleared.

The first thing she saw was that hungry pit of a face. She threw herself to the side, barely dodging another bite. The young vampire hit the wall behind her and swarmed straight up it, back to the relative safety of the ceiling. Oskar took the moment to press a hand to his own fountain of a neck and grind out, “Survive!” The waterfall slowed to a trickle. His big frame was still unsteady on his feet, the skin beneath the fur utterly drained of color. His own pearly white fangs showed between parted lips as he panted for breath against the sapping weakness of blood loss.

Jinghua climbed to her feet. The effort made her head swim. Oskar’s stopgap healing may have prevented them both from bleeding out immediately, but they were badly losing the battle of attrition. The young vampire was strengthened by their stolen blood. Jinghua gathered all of her strength to leap into the air and swipe at the inverted vampire, scoring a hit at the cost of nearly falling prone when her knees buckled on the landing.

“Shit. Shit!” Oskar snarled, his sword-tip bouncing off of a doorframe as he tried to aim a swing upwards. It was ridiculous and impossible for them to fight in this tiny hallway. The young man took that moment, weapon knocked wide, to drop on him once more. The tabaxi crumpled with a noise more like a yowl than a roar. Jinghua flung herself forward, hacking at maybe-Dorian’s back, only to watch as the wounds sealed themselves back up almost as quickly as she could inflict them. The last thing she saw was that horrible, gaping mouth swinging towards her.

In the churchyard, Valentina and Illyan were midway through making up a fake Vistani death ritual over their dead father when they heard the leonine roar. Valentina grimaced right into Père Donatien’s face where he had been bent over just in front of her to light the incense she was holding in her cleavage (she was holding lit tapers in either hand and couldn’t do it herself). His eyes were somehow even rounder now then they had been a second ago, trying to put match to incense stick without looking at where that incense stick originated. Illyan, doing some form of belly dance with bells in his hands, redoubled his motions.

“That’s thunder! It’s a good omen for Vistani funerals!”

Père Donatien frowned querulously. “I do not… per’aps I should check on the church…”

“Please, Father, people grieve in different ways. Let my brother grieve in his,” Valentina whispered. At his unsure nod, she beamed. “Great! Hold these!” In a moment, the lit incense sticks had been transferred from décolletage to Roman collar. Père Donatien was occupied for a few moments with coughing and removing the burning tapers from his clothing without burning his fingers or face. By the time he had succeeded, he discovered himself alone in the churchyard, Valentina and Illyan having slipped through the broken windows on their side of the building.

On the road between western Barovy and the church on the northern outskirts, clutching a magic wand in her fist, Sveta also heard the echoed roar of a lion. Sighing through her nose, she let the change wash over her. Moonlight smoothed her body into the shape of a white wolf which scooped up the wand into her mouth and broke into a sprint.

In the church, Valentina and Illyan paused at the foot of the nave, peering down the dark, narrow hallway at a scene of utter carnage. Valentina reeled back, drawing a piece of parchment from her belt which caught aflame as she cried, “Rise, my soul, and meet the benediction of the sky!” A shimmer of roseate light surrounded Jinghua, bloodied and barely standing in the wake of fending off another attack. Her other hand pointed a palm towards the sky as if to hold up the ceiling. “An enemy must be worthy of engagement!” A ghostly spotlight surrounded the vampire as he scuttled back up onto the ceiling, banishing the gloom of the tiny hallway and allowing all present to see him clearly. Even from outside the hall, they could see as his pupils contracted to pinpricks and right down his gaping gullet as he screeched in pain.

Illyan reached into one of the many pockets on his belt and withdrew a fat, hollow bamboo stalk about five inches long in one hand and a bundle of dried herbs in the other. “Valentina, move!”

“What?!” She hit her knees just in time. Illyan placed the bamboo over top of a piece of loose rubble on the floor, then stomped one foot. Whether it was the stomp or the spell, something made a KABOOM loud enough to rattle what glass was left in the windows. A rock shot out of the end of the bamboo tube with the force of a ballistic missile, slamming into the vampire’s spine with a crack that blew out the spotlight of Valentina’s spell like a candle. He hissed and shook himself, apparently hardly damaged by what would have been a massive blow to any other creature.

Without hesitating at the failure, Illyan shoved the packet of dried herbs into his own mouth, sparks flying like spittle as he said, “Ashes denote that fire was! Respect the grayest pile!” The sparks caught on the herbs and became a sudden billow of smoke, which Illyan exhaled like a dragon. The tendrils spread like fast-motion weeds across the space between the genasi and the fallen tabaxi until they wreathed Oskar like a rippling cocoon. Spitting out the half-chewed herbs, he added, “That’ll protect ‘im for a minute.”

Before she could respond, the young vampire was swarming across the ceiling towards them. Valentina and Illyan stood in the comparatively more open space of the church proper, where the ceiling rose beyond the doorway. When the vampire hit that doorway, he sprang forward, pouncing like some kind of inverted leopard, and fell upon Valentina.

“Wake!”

He hit her in an explosion of reflexive, defensive light and bore her sprawling to the floor. Her head cracked against the floor.

She had thought it had hurt when Strahd had bitten her neck. Compared to this, that had been the too-harsh nip of an enthusiastic puppy. Practically a polite greeting. There was nothing polite about this bite. This was the messy, devouring, tearing bite of a wild wolf. His fangs pried at her flesh, worrying the wounds wide and jagged. His tongue wiggled obscenely into the punctures, scooping and gulping and pressing out fresh blood. Every motion yanked at handfuls of her hair which had gotten in the way and ended up being bitten along with her neck. The whole bony body of him pressed down on her on all sides, stinking and grasping and touching. He stank of pus and iron.

Jinghua all but fell atop the prone pair herself, stabbing down again and again. The vampire fed, heedless of the steel gouging chunks out of his back. And why should he heed them? They were already closing back…

The monk blinked, gasped. They weren’t. The wounds were no longer closing! What had hurt him? Their swords had barely made a dent and he’d healed from them easily. He hadn’t seemed to care about the missile Illyan launched either. But he’d screamed at..

“Valentina, create more light!” she ordered.

“Nngh…” she craned her head away from the attached vampire as far as she could, struggling to bring her hand up to her lips so that she could speak against the wide, golden ring there. “An angel, robed in spotless white… bent down and kissed the sleeping Night… Night woke to blush… the sprite was gone… Men saw the blush and called it Dawn!”

The church bloomed with the sparkle of a golden sunrise. The vampire let his fangs slip from Valentina’s flesh and reared back, screaming and clutching his face. The inhuman scream was all that could keep the posture from inciting deep pity in the witnesses, the very attitude of a young man in terrible pain. He sprang away, back to the ceiling once more.

Illyan’s hands on Valentina encouraged her up to a seated position against the doorframe. A cold squirm on her forearm let her know he had also deposited a leech. Just what she needed; another tiny bloodsucker. He muttered, “These li’l brown wizards ‘ave spells in their bones!” It didn’t seem to do anything for Valentina, but Jinghua, several feet away, jolted in surprise at a sudden zip of energy through her.

“How did you do that without a leech?” she asked.

Sheepishly, Illyan admitted, “When they bite on you, they… well, the chemicals I bred into ‘em also get into you, a bit. It’s not as strong without Tit-Marie ‘ere.”

“Do you feed them cocaine croissants, too?” Valentina asked woozily.

Illyan favored her with a stressed smirk. “Not telling you my patent.”

Surreal, to banter like this in the middle of a nightmare. She was seated in an absolute lake of Oskar’s, Jinghua’s, and her own blood, soaking into her dress. Her silver bodice was caked with blood between every facet and her hair was matted into stringy ropes on one side. They weren’t going to last. Oskar was half-conscious and if he attacked, he lost the protection of Illyan’s smoke. Valentina had the energy remaining for only one or two more spells. Illyan was distracted keeping them all on this side of death, Aeon was dutifully plucking away at an impossible task for him, and Sveta was Morninglord knew where. They were going to be ripped apart by a vampire in this hallway.

“Oh Sun of righteousness, Thou glorious One, Lord of Morning…” She was going to meet him, very soon. Maybe then she’d get to ask him all the questions she had about love. About life. About her family…

Half on her back, she flung a dagger upwards at the vampire clinging to the ceiling. Illyan swore and yanked her aside from it as it fell back down. Jinghua leaped crazily upwards, swiping and slashing like a child attempting to hit a pinata. The young vampire scuttled like a spider, zigzagging around her wild swings. When he dropped, it was straight through the wreath of protective smoke and onto Oskar. Somehow, fueled by the desperation of the dying, Oskar managed to roll the vampire beneath him. They clawed at one another just feet away from Valentina’s useless, exhausted body. Snarling, tearing, spraying blood. She couldn’t throw a dagger again without hitting Oskar, too. She clutched the wall to keep herself upright and pointed the other, palm-up, towards the ceiling and the hidden sun so, so far above. “An enemy must be worthy of engagement…”

Amidst the halo of light, Oskar bore down with his shortsword against the vampire’s neck.

A hollow BOOM shook the building. It felt like a punch to Valentina’s gut. The hall filled with a veritable hurricane of wind, scattering dirt and leaves all over. Natural, unspelled light poured into the ruined church.

The vampire’s severed head rolled to a stop at the foot of Chevalier Aeon Spellblade. He stared into those bulging eyes with his own sunken ones and a mouth almost as agape.

“...Dorian…”

Behind Aeon, beside Sveta who leaned heavily on her staff and held a wand up and leveled at the door, Père Donatien let out a heart-rending wail.

“Dorian! My son!”

Valentina let her head fall back against the wall. Fuck.

----------------------------------------

Sveta inhaled deeply through her nose. Honestly, though. If anyone had just waited for her to get back with the wand, they could have all gone in together. Young people were so impatient these days. She knew Oskar fancied himself something of an up-and-coming vampire slayer but… well, just, honestly! What kind of stupid idea was it to go up against an unknown foe, all alone? He was lucky it had been a young, starving spawn and not a healthy, older vampire! Young people these days! Thought they were experts in everything!

Her exasperation was just about equaled by her exhaustion. Even now that she was free of the awful vertigo of that curse, her sealed powers made her feel limp and feeble. A ten minute walk to the Vistani camp and back had felt like a full marathon. She was breathing hard and leaning on her cane as if her body was as old as… well, as it really was. Or half that, at least.

Nevertheless, she hobbled forward, thrusting the Wand of Knock into her satchel to free up a hand that she could pet through Oskar’s bloody mess of a mane. “Byloye nado razlyubit.”

She frowned as the words stemmed his outpouring of blood, but didn’t seem to restore much strength to his limbs. Normally, even a weak healing spell like that would replenish blood and vitality as well as close wounds. The same thing happened when she spoke the words over Jinghua. Though their wounds evaporated like spilled water in the sun and theoretically they were at full health, both of them trembled like newborn fawns when they climbed to their feet. Valentina was swaying on her feet even after a leech treatment, too. This time, Sveta sighed deeply through her nose. This was the last thing they needed: more physically compromised group members. They were more or less down to Illyan, herself, and Aeon.

A glance to the side caused her to amend that statement. They were more or less down to herself and Illyan. Chevalier Aeon Spellblade was on his knees, shaking and staring at the severed head of his former friend. That was expected, but he wasn’t actually really looking at Dorian’s body. His eyes were far, far away. Lost in a memory, just as he had been when he’d killed that Vistana on the road and when he had seen the gallows at the crossroads. It occurred to Sveta for the first time that perhaps Aeon was one of those humans who had been forever changed by war and that was why he had been free to simply take up a random job for total strangers on the spot. Sveta couldn’t really relate. She had been involved in war and violence for centuries now and it hadn’t affected her at all. Perhaps her brain was simply constructed differently.

Sveta clapped her hands. “Okay. Who is ready to burn body?”

The grieving priest sobbed harder, clutching the headless husk that had once been his son.

“How did this even happen to him?” Valentina wondered, in the priest’s direction.

Illyan sucked in a sharp breath. “We ‘appened to ‘im, cher!”

“No, jeez. I mean how did he end up a vampire and locked in your basement?”

“‘E… ‘e came back from the rebellion this way…” Pere Donatien sniffled. “They said all were dead, but then Aeon returned and told me ‘e saw Dorian fall… But then Dorian returned as well! I couldn’t… I tried to keep ‘im safe…”

“Strahd is messy eater,” Sveta decided.

“We need to be concerned about that,” Oskar growled, pushing himself up off his hands and knees. “Bites are how vampires make other vampires. Jinghua, Valentina, and I were all bitten by Dorian.”

Jinghua, who was submitting to one of Illyan’s leeches, took this information calmly. “How do we know if we’ve been turned?”

“That… I’m not sure about,” he admitted. “Not before the obvious, anyway.”

Sveta, who had been born as a vampire, said, “We are ready to burn body now?”

“...That really necessary, Mémé?” Illyan wondered.

“Da. Different kind of vampire can heal from different kinds of deaths. Sometimes need stake in heart, sometimes need different wood for stake in heart, sometimes need decapitation, sometimes need iron needle… When you do not know kind of vampire, safest way is to try them all.” She gestured broadly. “Have already done the decapitation. Grandma will stake. Then we can burn.”

For some reason, this made the priest wail loudly, as if he himself had just been staked through the heart. Well, so be it. Sveta directed Illyan, the last able-bodied one of them, to drag the dead vamp’s remains over to the graveyard where Papa Imbert had been interred. Père Donatien staggered after him, still making awful noises and clutching the head. Illyan further led the charge when it came to digging the grave and setting the body alight. Valentina trotted over to say a few words over the crackle of flame and the continued horrific noises of the priest. She was somehow spotlessly white again, with not a speck of blood on her entire body. Nor in her cheeks, either.

Sveta left Illyan to fill in the grave and rejoined the others after the tiny service, where she got to see the mechanism for this miraculous cleaning. Valentina flicked her wrist at the blood-sodden Oskar and sang, “I’ve clad the hills in purple and freshened all the air!” The blood crusted in his fur and on his armor was scrubbed away like chalk wiped by an invisible hand. Simply gone, in a moment. What convenient magic. She had to cast it several times in order to get every part of Oskar’s body, though, and then the hall as well. Probably for the best. If the priest was so upset by a dead vampire, he might have been really upset to see his church looking like an abattoir. Mortals were so fragile.

There was a brief discussion afterwards. Nobody was entirely certain that their countermeasures would keep the supposedly-dispatched vampire underground. Nobody felt well enough to hike back to Barovy proper to sleep in the empty Imbert mansion or to cram into the Imbert vardo (except Illyan, but of course he also had a bed waiting for him in both locations). Nobody wanted to expose Clan Rambeaut or innocent Barovians to themselves, if it turned out they were going to turn into ravening monsters in the night. Nobody was thrilled with the idea of bedding down in the ruined church to keep an eye on things.

They did anyway. Illyan, unhurt but claiming a bad back, took over Dorian’s old bedroom. It seemed as if he would get a bed no matter what tonight. Sveta, Aeon, and Oskar laid out their bedrolls on the few intact pew benches remaining. Jinghua, on first watch, sat cross-legged in the aisle, back as straight as an iron bar. Valentina spread out her own bedroll atop the altar, but arranged herself to lie completely on top of the blankets, hands folded over her chest and her skirt and hair spread out prettily to either side. Too exhausted to be uncomfortable, they fell asleep within moments.