Senka dreamed while her body lay in torpor during the day.

Exciting dreams which echoed her revelry.

Bats with eerie emerald eyes swarmed in the skies while she danced through Vienna’s cobbled streets. Blood pooled in the gutters and bodies were left to rot where they fell.

Death danced behind her.

Her army was a foul and twisted band of demons, eyes burning with venomous green Fel energy. Ecstatic, they sang unholy songs born in the deepest pits of Hell.

Songs of murder.

Songs of doom.

Songs of perverse and bestial lust.

Drums beat the rhythm, a constant pulse which measured the frenzy of battles fought, won, and celebrated.

She danced among her horde, stealing blood and kisses.

Whirling into the air, she hovered above the city. Now her city.

Her glittering eyes watched as Felfire erupted from the ground, spewing more demons into the streets. They floundered on uncertain legs. Then rose, ready to fight.

She laughed as St Stephen’s Cathedral burned. Consumed by foul green flame.

Laughed as wailing screams played their own demented tune from the hill on which thousands were skewered on heavy wooden stakes. Their agonies amplified by torments devised and inflicted by droves of demons with exotic tools of torture hung from their belts.

Ardent passion consumed the vampire as she spun, eyes absorbing the violence.

She looked down at her hands. Clawed nails dripping blood.

And saw veins glowing green beneath her pale skin.

Shaking, she held them up in front of her.

What was this? The bright lights throbbed inside her flesh.

A demon roared. A thunderous and bestial sound which made her stomach churn as shock gripped her by her neck.

The song... It wasn’t a battle song. It was the song of Fel. The Felstone. The corrupted heart of Hell was singing to her.

Singing through her.

“Hailwic,” she croaked. “Hailwic! What’s happening to me?”

“What are you complaining about now, Senka?” Hailwic sighed from behind.

Senka turned. Hailwic’s eyes burned bright with green Felfire.

Black horns dominated her forehead, long and curved. Fingers unnaturally elongated and ending in cruel red claws. Mouth filled with wide sharp teeth like blades. The terrible beauty remained, but now she looked more powerful.

Evil armor embraced her lithe form like a living carapace.

Hailwic wasn’t Hailwic anymore.

She was a demon.

Senka screamed.

And screamed again as her body erupted from torpor to the alluring smell of fresh blood and the peeling air of death.

Vasilja leapt on her, the vampire shoving hand across Senka’s mouth. “Hush, sister! Hush. It’s alright. You’re safe. Listen to me, Senka. Stop screaming. Listen! It’s alright.”

Panic still darting through her mind, Senka’s eyes rolled as she struggled to break free. Then quieted when she saw Hailwic.

Beautiful Hailwic.

No horns. No strange armour.

The blonde vampire stood quivering with rage.

It was that rage which softened Senka’s struggles and froze her to stillness. Was Hailwic angry with her? Had she found out about them biting the two men?

Hailwic’s eyes burned with anger, making Senka flinch into her coffin.

“I’m sorry, Hailwic,” she mewed. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Mean what?”

Senka looked from Hailwic to Vasilja. Not sure what was happening.

Looked down.

Her white dress was wet with blood. From chin to navel.

“Senka,” Vasilja hissed. “Hush.”

And there was a body at the foot of her coffin. A man she’d seen in the coffeeshop. An old man whose stare she’d captured more than once. She’d dismissed him as little more than a pervert.

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Now he lay on his back. A big knife buried to its hilt in his belly.

His bruised and battered face looked sightless to the ceiling. Mouth open, leaking drool and blood. Ghastly emptiness to him as his eyes, milky and dry, stared into death.

He wore an old white shirt. Collar and armpits stained with sweat and travel.

Pants of tweed. Patched at the knees.

He’d come into their room, forcing the lock. Seen them in their coffins. How long had he stood there? Staring at her?

Then he draped his coat over a chair. Rolled up his sleeves.

Opened his bag.

Senka’s mouth dropped open as she saw the stake and hammer by his gnarled hands. Hands now curled in death.

Before dying, those hands had gripped the stake with every intention to nail it into her heart.

“Senka?” Vasilja helped her climb out of her coffin, lifting the younger vampire with ease. Held her close. “Senka, are you alright? Do you need air?”

“I don’t know.” She blinked rapidly, not knowing what to think. “Vasilja, what happened? He tried to kill us?”

“Dimiti was here,” Hailwic said. “He kept us safe.”

“He’s a good man,” Vasilja said. “You did very well, Dimiti.”

“I tried, Lady.”

The old man’s voice was weak, and Senka shot a glance to where he sat on the floor against the wall. One knee up. One arm across the knee. The other across his belly.

Blood ribboned down from a wide gashing wound in his neck.

Another hole in his chest soaked his shirt black with blood. Wide pool stretching across the floor around him.

“Dimiti?” Senka swallowed hard. “You saved me, Dimiti? You?”

“Aye, Miss.”

“But he must have been standing right in front of me.”

“Had the stake to your heart, he did. When I came in. It were a close thing, Miss.” He coughed, blood flecking is lips. “Close thing.”

“But I wanted to bite you,” she said. Struggled to understand why he’d saved her.

“Aye, Miss.”

She pushed away from Vasilja and knelt beside him. Blood tang sweet in the back of her mouth, but she pushed it aside. Pressed a hand to his shoulder and stared in confusion at his wounds.

Looked up to Vasilja. “Have you called for a doctor?”

Amusement twinkled the vampire’s eyes. “He doesn’t need one, Senka. He drank my blood, remember? He’ll heal. It might hurt for a little while, though, and there’s nothing a doctor can do about that.”

“Can’t we do anything for him? Dimiti? Do you want anything? Tea? Would you like tea? All the old men drink tea. They say it’s good for their health and makes them feel better.” She flew to her coat. “I’ll get you tea!”

“It’s fine, Miss.”

“Tea.” More firmly.

“Senka?” Vasilja called as the younger vampire whipped the door open. “Wait!”

“Go with her,” Hailwic said. Voice clipped.

“But-”

“There might be others. Go with her. At the very least you can stop the hotel staff from panicking when they see her covered in blood.”

Sigh. “This is a terrible idea. And you shouldn’t keep letting her do what she wants like this.”

“Just follow your sister, Vasilja. Protect her. Now isn’t the time to force her to use her brain.”

Vasilja ran, kicking the door shut behind her.

Leaving Hailwic to stare down at the body of the vampire hunter.

“Have you seen him before, Dimiti?”

“No, Miss.”

“He wasn’t hanging around the hotel? Or the wagons?”

“No. I’m sure I would’ve seen him, even if I didn’t know what he was. When I opened the door and saw him, it was the first time I’d ever clapped eyes on him, I swear.”

She nodded.

Moved to the coat and began rummaging. Searching for papers. Finding them, she squinted at them beneath the gaslight lamp. “Holmwood. Arthur Holmwood. Do you know the name?”

“No, Miss.”

She opened the dead man’s bag. A heavy leather thing with dull wooden handle. Initials on a brass plate.

Inside, a bottle which she guessed was holy water.

Crucifix, which she flung aside with a hiss of contempt.

Change of clothes. Small wallet of folded paper money.

And a diary.

The vampire hovered in the middle of the room, swiftly turning page after page and looking more and more angry as she did.

“He came from London,” she said. “Via Paris and Munich. He was looking for us. He left England before Dracula left Transylvania. A man named Van Helsing sent him. They know too much about us. Much too much.”

The old man stared back at her, not sure what to say.

Dabbed a cloth to the ripped wound on his throat.

Nodded as much as it would allow.

“They were expecting you, Miss,” he said, knowing it was a lame thing to say.

“Yes, I think so.” She tucked the diary into a pocket inside her coffin. “It doesn’t say if there were others with him. Or how many this Van Helsing person sent. But I think we can expect there will be.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open, Miss.”

“Are you a man of weapons? Have you had any training?”

Hesitated. “I can use a gun, if that’s what you mean.”

“But you only carried a knife.”

“There’s a shotgun on the wagon. John never kept it clean. He weren’t a violent man at heart and hated the thing. It’s not good for anything but scaring off the occasional highwayman.”

“Are there places you might find guns in Vienna?”

“If you’ve a mind to, Miss. I know a few unsavoury types.”

“Then, as soon as you can walk, I want you to go buy what you think you need. Vasilja will give you enough to cover it.”

“How long, Miss? Until my neck heals, I mean?”

“A few days, maybe. You’ll need to wear a scarf, I should think. Given it’s still Winter, you shouldn’t attract much attention wearing one.”

“A scarf? Aye, Miss. A scarf it’ll be.”

“You don’t like scarfs?”

“I was a born traveller on roads which didn’t like my kind too much. Made me appreciate the value of not having anything around my neck. If you get my meaning.”

“I do.” She looked down at him with kinder eyes. “We have a lot in common, Dimiti. We both know what it’s like to be hunted for what we are.”

The old man said nothing.

Didn’t need to as Senka burst back into the room like a whirlwind, a tray in her hands and determination in her eye.

A look which brought an unbidden smile to the old man’s cheeks.

A smile which left quickly as pain shot down his neck. He couldn’t yet feel anything in his chest. The man called Holmwood had stabbed between his ribs with the stake. Used it like a knife.

Had belted him across the face with the hammer, too.

It had been a surreal encounter.

He’d felt his pulse sling itself along in rapid bursts and there were brief moments as he wrestled Holmwood when time seemed to be sucked into a vortex. Left him hovering between one moment to the next.

When the stake had pierced his chest, he hadn’t even noticed it.

Didn’t feel it at all.

Had been so overwhelmed by the desperate desire to protect the three Brides that he’d cared nothing for what wounds he received in exchange.

The fight ended inevitably when he buried his blade in Holmwood’s guts.

Felt a flash of satisfaction which left him reeling in ecstatic glee over Holmwood’s crawling form. Then he’d rolled Holmwood onto his back. And stared into those frightened eyes while strangling the last breath from the man’s body.

It had, Dimiti thought, felt incredible.

He’d never felt so alive even as he should’ve been dying from the hole in his neck.

When it was over, he’d collapsed and lay there against the wall until night returned to the world. For a while, he’d thought he was dying and was surprised to find it didn’t bother him at all.

“Here, Dimiti,” Senka was saying as she poured tea into a small orange cup. “Drink this. They said it’s their best tea. There’s none better, they said. Even the Prince comes to drink it sometimes.”

Dimiti drank.

And, though he’d never dare say it to her, thought it tasted like piss.