The lazily named Bridge City was built on the land that connected two of the Floating Isles. It gatekept the shortest of two routes to the Godless Community; and it was the shortest by a few months of foot-travel. Ailaurus and Treyus had passed through it coming from the Godless Community and now they were on their return journey.

Being a city, its population was much greater than any village. Having more people, Ailaurus ran a greater risk of being recognized. This was a problem because Bridge City was a Zathirian city. It was the only city in the known isles that followed one god entirely. It was established long before it worshipped Zathiri and Zathiri was established as a god long before he reached the city.

Their plan now was the same as their plan then: wait for Sunday. Any other time in the week, soldiers stood at the entrances. On Sundays, they stood at the church with a few patrols in the streets. Even if they did get into trouble, they’d be able to get away before the entirety of Bridge City came down on them.

Ailaurus sat on a tree stump, eating an apple. Ganthy sat in the dirt near the fireplace, watching an insect crawl through the soot. Treyus napped. They didn’t have anywhere to go. Not yet. With Ailaurus grounded, he had the opportunity to wake up as a Banak should, which was when it felt good to.

Ailaurus watched Ganthy. She’d been having dreams of it; or what she thought was it. She saw nothing in the dreams. She only felt a warmth that could burn her, but didn’t. Whenever she felt that warmth, her mind told her it was Ganthy. It was hard to know the different between dreams and the sense of her spirits.

Was that what gods felt? Was that what Ododagon and Zathiri sensed in Ganthy? Was that warmth she felt in her dreams the power that they were after?

Treyus’ hand suddenly shot upwards and pointed at the sky. Ailaurus and Ganthy looked at him. The church bells sounded in the distance.

Treyus sat up and said, “Right on time.” He yawned.

They all gathered their things and made their way to Bridge City. As the forest cleared, the city showed itself. Off the edge of the isle that they stood on, they saw space and the stars and the other isle floating over it. A prism of stone connected the two and on that piece of land, the city was built from the forests around it. Each building stood almost as tall as the trees.

As planned, by the time they arrived there were no soldiers at the edge of the bridge. The stone path that stuck out of the city into nature was free for them to walk. It was a ghost town. It was as if everybody had disappeared. There were stacked, empty baskets where merchants would have been. There were full baskets of fruit where unprepared merchants didn’t have the time to close. Treyus picked from these as they passed, falling behind as he inspected the quality of the fruits.

Ailaurus looked over her shoulder at him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m foraging for food.”

“You’re stealing food.”

“I am sure Zathiri will bless them with more.”

With the pot over his shoulder half-full, he caught up with them. They stayed close to the walls of the buildings as they walked. Everything was built close together here. The first alley they found, they would take to.

Ganthy stared up at the tops of the buildings. Ailaurus watched it. She remembered her first time arriving at the Godless Community. It was her first time seeing buildings with more than one floor that wasn’t a church.

… The quietness made her uneasy. She knew they weren’t safe yet. Anything could happen anywhere between where they were and the other side of the bridge.

They arrived at an alley between two buildings and got off the main street, making their way deeper into the city. As they neared the centre, where the church was, they heard the sound of people.

Ailaurus stopped. Ganthy and Treyus looked at her.

“What?” Treyus asked, but she held up her hand to quiet him. She listened.

“… They don’t… sound like they’re at church.”

Treyus started listening closely as well. Ganthy wasn’t sure what was going on, but it listened too.

It wasn’t chanting. It wasn’t a choir. It wasn’t one voice reverberating in the halls of a church. In fact, it didn’t sound like it was indoors at all. It sounded like cheering was echoing through the alleys. It sounded like they were outside.

The alley turned left ahead. Ailaurus took the lead and checked around the corner. At the other end of the alley she saw a crowd. People stood from balconies and cheered with their fists in the air. It was that aggressive cheer. They were all frowning, but they were excited. If she had to guess, somebody was being flogged in front of the church. The good news was that they were halfway through the city. The bad news was that… well, church was outside today, but they were distracted at least.

Ailaurus looked back at the other two and said, “They’re all outside. We should still be able to make it through, but if we push too hard we might draw attention so try to act excited.”

Treyus nodded and took Ganthy by the wrist. They walked to the end of the alley, entering the crowd from the back. Ailaurus made her best impression of an eager citizen trying to get a good view of the show. She stretched out her neck to look over people’s shoulders and heads. Every few seconds she would squeeze through, pushing towards the church; a brown cube at the centre of the city with steps to its giant doors. Treyus followed behind, a bit slower, trying not to hit anybody in the chin with the pot, keeping Ganthy close. Ganthy tried to tuck away behind him, hiding from the noise.

If she listened closely, through the cheering, Ailaurus heard the screams of men. She wasn’t interested in whatever was happening, but over the shoulders of the crowd, she caught the sight of two men who seemed bare above the waist at least. Even in the glimpses she caught of their faces, she saw that same primal theme that she’d seen a few weeks ago in the followers of Ododagon. The more she saw, the more she pieced it together. There were two women with bruised faces there with them, but they were the ones doing the beating.

She’d never heard of a Zathirian woman beating a man unless she was a priestess, so it made even more sense that these men were stragglers from Ododagon’s followers. She wondered if Zathiri actually cared how those women were treated or if he just didn’t like Ododagon.

A thought for another time. She was almost out of the crowd. She figured if she just acted confident enough, nobody would doubt that she was one of them. Nobody would pay attention to her dark clothing or, “monolid eyes,” and figure out that she matched a description of the Woman of the Hell.

Treyus didn’t have the same pressure. Perhaps they’d give a tribesman a distasteful look. Other than that, he was fine. Everybody talked about the Woman of Hell. Barely anybody knew the Banak man who travelled with her. None of those who knew, cared to remember.

Ailaurus got close to the edge of the crowd and stayed there, careful not to single herself out. She was near an alley that ran alongside the church and was basically a straight route onto the main street out of Bridge City. She waited for the other two, but didn’t look at them. She pretended to watch the beating. When Treyus and Ganthy got to her, all three of them broke from the crowd and returned to the shadows of the alleys. The people they passed turned to look. They were okay with that. They could run. Nothing could stop them.

Except, possibly, the robed woman exiting the church door into the alley.

The three of them walked fast towards her. Ailaurus started to worry. Should she run? Would that be suspicious?

It didn’t matter. The old woman, eyes wide beneath her hood, stared at Ganthy. Treyus stopped because Ganthy stopped, staring back at the woman and trying to pull away and run the opposite direction.

“Guards!” the woman yelled so hard it was almost a scream. The people from crowd turned to look.

Ailaurus picked Ganthy up and sprinted. Treyus emptied the fruits from his pot onto the ground and ran with her. Ailaurus shouldered the woman to the ground as she passed and Treyus hurdled over her. They heard the clattering of armour behind them and ran faster.

Then the same sound came from ahead of them as soldiers blocked the alley and lowered their spears. Ailaurus and Treyus skid to a stop. Ailaurus put Ganthy down and unclipped her whip. The soldiers stepped forward, but their steps were indecisive. They knew her. They knew what she could do.

She approached them. She tried to pull the spirit forward.

It didn’t come.

She slowed to a stop… She tried to summon it again, but she couldn’t. Suddenly, she realised how alone she felt in her body. Her mind was quiet. There were no whispers from her subconscious in the back of her mind…

“I will make it hurt,” she bluffed.

The soldiers looked to each other, but none of them moved.

Behind them, the soldiers lowered their spears and forced Treyus and Ganthy forward.

“Seize them!” that old woman yelled. “She can’t use her powers! Seize her!”

Ailaurus looked over her shoulder. That woman did this? She looked back to the soldiers. They were still afraid, but in the moment she looked away, one of them stepped forward and had his spear coming for her stomach.

She twisted, using her wrist to knock the spear aside and whipping him at the same time. The helmet covered his head, but the whip snapped against his throat and the spear fell to the floor when he jumped back to over it.

Ailaurus coiled the whip into one hand. The other three soldiers came forward, realizing that she really was powerless.

They stuck close, side by side, stabbing at her to force her back. The fourth one stayed behind, panicking about his throat. Three wasn’t enough to cover the alley. There was space one either side of their formation. She could run around if she parried and do something from behind.

Then more soldiers came from behind them; two rows mounted the defences. Her plan was falling apart. Distracted, the blade of one of the spears almost impaled her as the men pushed forward. She backed up. They kept pushing her back. She kept stepping back until her she felt something against the back of her leg.

She looked and it was Ganthy, standing between her and Treyus. Ganthy looked up at her. It wasn’t scared, though. It just had that face that it had most of the time. That blank stare of acceptance, as if whatever it received was what it deserved. She looked at Treyus. In one hand, he held his knobkerrie out to the side and in his other he held the pot up high over his head. Just like her, he faced three rows of soldiers.

“Drop your weapons!” a soldier said in front of her. She looked at him.

No. She would find a way. She always found a way… No. Not always. If she didn’t find a way, the spirit did. Where was the spirit? She tried to summon it again, but nothing came.

“Drop your weapons!”

She couldn’t. She’d never been in a position she couldn’t get out of. This was new. Was this loss?

“Drop your—”

Treyus screamed behind. He flung the pot at one of the soldiers and his knobkerrie to beat their spears away as he ran in to fight them. She watched over her shoulder as he was quickly beaten down and then held on the ground. As she turned back to face the soldiers before her, a fist met her cheek. A second later, the ground met her other. Knees came down on her back; more than was necessary. They held her head down and she was forced to watch as one of the soldiers grabbed Ganthy behind its neck for some reason. It wasn’t as if it would go anywhere.

It looked at her. There was no fear. There was no sadness. It looked the same way it looked when she met it. It was that blank face that was always waiting to die.

Ailaurus closed her eyes. She tried to feel for some connection. She tried to feel for that cord that connected her to her spirits. That cord had been severed. The spirits were gone. She was alone.

In the middle of the street, the two followers of Ododagon lay. They were beaten till they could not move and left for their wounds to take them slowly. As they passed, the Zathirians mocked them and their god. They asked where Ododagon was now. They told them that Ododagon had failed them.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

With their bodies still in the street, the people gathered in front of the church. The old priestess, left here by the cult that passed through some time ago to improve their worship, stood atop the steps of the church with soldiers at her side. She announced that they captured The First Woman of Hell. She announced that they captured Zathiri’s Lamb. She announced that today, they would please Zathiri with many sacrifices and that Bridge City would surely be blessed because of it. The people cheered.

She told the people that the sacrifices would take place once the sun had set. The people of Bridge City gave one last cheer before she entered the church.

The only light that the inside of the church saw came from the dome of coloured glass in the ceiling, where the sun shone through. She would light the candles, once the sun had set. She walked up the steps near the entrance of the church that followed the walls to second floor overlooking the church. There were six rooms here; three on each side. Three of these rooms had their prisoners.

She entered one, a dark, empty room only lit by candles.

“Nature birthed us,” Treyus said with conviction. “We were not put here. We were blessed with an opportunity for life by nature.” He sat on a chair with his ankles tied to its legs and his hands tied behind him.

The priest stared at him, frowning. He was the first and original priest of Bridge City. When the cult passed through, they’d decided that what he did wasn’t enough.

“Who do you think made nature?” the priestess asked. They looked at her. “Zathiri made the nature that birthed you. Through the nature that you worship, Zathiri put you here.”

“So claims every other god.”

“But Zathiri is the only true one.”

“So claims every other god!” He became frustrated. “What makes Zathiri so special?”

“The people of Bridge City have seen him work. This city was struggling until they found Zathiri. Illness. Starvation. Depression.” She gestured to the priest that stood in front of Treyus. “And then the priest arrived to teach them of Zathiri. He taught them of the powerful god and how he could save this poor city if they would sacrifice to him. And all it took was one sacrifice and the city was saved. Food, medicine and happiness. How can you doubt a god who provides?”

“If your god is so powerful, why does he need sacrifices to provide? Why does he not simply give to the people?”

“We aren’t meant to understand out God’s intentions. He is divine and his thoughts our beyond our own.”

“If your god is so above us, why does he care for us? Why concern himself with the likes of us?”

“He doesn’t have to. We should be grateful that he does. Such a powerful being has chosen to grace us with its blessings.”

Treyus spat on the wooden floor. “Ha-aka. Perhaps your god made these people suffer. Perhaps this god wanted them to be desperate enough to worship him.”

“Why would a god do that?”

Treyus looked away from her and stared at the floor. “We’re not meant to understand God’s intentions.”

She frowned at him. She looked at the priest. “Break this man. Use soldiers if you must. If you are able to bring a tribesman to fear our god, you will have proven yourself capable of handling this city’s religion without me.”

She turned and left the room for the next. Behind her she heard the priest begin to loudly preach and she heard Treyus begin to sing songs of his tribe in response.

Ganthy sat on the floor, its back to the wall. Two soldiers stood at either side of the door. Its legs were crossed. It touched its stumps together, resting its elbows on its thighs. Its head hung and its eyes were closed. It felt inside itself for the warmth. It felt for the light that it held.

Soon, it knew, it would be led outside to be killed. No, not killed. Sacrificed. This was its purpose. When it died, it would wake in darkness. In this darkness, Zathiri would be waiting for it. It would approach Zathiri and it would deliver the light that it spent all its life harnessing. Ganthy’s death is a gift to Zathiri. Zathiri would be grateful and would bless all of the Zathirian people in return. This was Ganthy’s purpose. It was ready to give its life to feed the many.

… Just for a moment, it heard the memory of the star’s singing. Laa—

The door opened and the priestess entered. The fear that it felt for her was gone. This was supposed to happen. She would help it deliver its light to Zathiri.

“Oh, dear Lamb.”

Lamb, it thought. Ganthy.

She walked to the back of the room and kneeled in front of the sacrifice. “You are returned. That woman— that Woman of Hell, she took you from us. What happened on the day of your sacrifice? Did she kill them?”

The sacrifice nodded.

“All of them?”

It nodded again.

She shook her head. “She will pay for this. She will be punished”

It looked at the ground. Ailaurus, it thought. Bad...?

“Are you ready for Zathiri?”

It stared at the floor for a moment, then nodded.

The woman nodded back. “Good. Good. Your sacrifice will bless us all, Lamb. Remember that.”

It intended to nod again, but something within prevented it.

“Remember, your one life can save us all. We would be grateful for your sacrifice.” She stood and walked out of the room.

The sacrifice stared at the door.

… Lamb… Ganthy…

It thought about Ailaurus and Treyus. It realized that they were going to die too. They were going to be sacrificed. It felt funny. It felt something it didn’t like.

Their deaths will be for something greater than them…

It looked around at the room. It thought about the flowers.

Ailaurus closed her eyes. She was stripped of her weapons, tied to a chair. Her eyes were closed… Where were they? Why couldn’t she feel them? She’d lost her power, but more than that, she’d lost something that was there since her birth.

The door opened and she looked at the priestess. She wanted to cuss at her, but she knew how stupid she’d feel if all she could do was angrily spew words at somebody.

“What did you do?” she asked.

The priestess closed the door. “I haven’t done anything.” She walked towards Ailaurus. “Zathiri did it.” She couldn’t help smiling. “I’d had a dream. In this dream, Zathiri came to me and told me that he understood your powers now.”

Ailaurus felt cold.

“Thank you for coming here on our holy day… Thank you for coming here on the day when our god is strongest and he is closest to us.” She started to laugh, walked close to Ailaurus. “You and I lack the divinity to understand our powerful God, but he had found a way to strip you of your powers”

Ailaurus screamed. Forgetting that her ankles were tied, she tried to kick the woman multiple times, but it looked like she convulsed in the chair and it toppled over. The priestess looked down on her as if she were some pathetic dog.

“Tonight, you will be sacrificed.”

Ailaurus hung her head on the floor.

“Like you should have been so long ago.”

A moment passed. Then she looked up at the priestess with wide eyes, realizing the meaning of her words.

The priestess nodded. “In this dream, Zathiri also told me that… you were one of his when you were younger. You used to worship him… Oh how far you have strayed from him. Though, it does make sense that a person so powerful was once a follower of Zathiri.” She smirked. “Zathiri made you.”

The priestess waited, let her words settle, then left the room.

Ailaurus dropped her head to the ground. Tears welled up, ran over her nose and over her cheeks. She didn’t sob. She didn’t have the care to express herself wholly. In the end, Zathiri had won. After all she’d done and how far she’d come, he won anyway.

The breathing sun exhaled and the sky became dim. The brightest of the stars were already shining. The people gathered in the main street. Soldiers stood in a circle at the bottom of the steps to the church, keeping a space clear. Some people watched from the high view of their balconies again.

The church doors opened. The priestess, followed by the priest, came out and walked down the stairs. Behind them, Ailaurus and Treyus were brought out, each of them handled by two soldiers. Treyus held his chin high, but Ailaurus sagged and practically hung from the hands of the soldiers. The priestess began speaking to the people as the first of the sacrifices were brought down.

In the church, the voice of the priestess echoed from the doorway. Ganthy sat at the steps to the altar, soldiers surrounding it. It waited to achieve its purpose, but… somehow its purpose didn’t make sense anymore. It was okay with dying. It sometimes feared it, but it was okay with death.

At least, it used to be, when its name was Lamb. That was before it was saved. That was before it had heard the song. That was before it had met other children, the same age as it, and played with them. That was before it had seen the flowers of a forest. That was long before it had made friends with Ailaurus and Treyus… Friends, it thought. It felt that was right word.

A door opened and the sacrifice silenced its doubts. Treyus was dead. Ailaurus was dead. It was now its turn to be sacrificed.

“Stop!” one of the soldiers yelled and Ganthy jumped, looked at what they yelled at. “Who are you!?” It wasn’t the priestess, come to get the sacrifice.

It was a young man with deep, dark circles under his eyes and dirty, brown hair. His clothes hung on his starved body as if he were just a skeleton. He’d entered from the side door of the church and left it open.

“Stop!” the soldier yelled again, lowering his spear this time. The soldiers that circled Ganthy moved to one side to line up against this man, who didn’t stop and didn’t slow down.

All of the soldiers lowered their spears.

The soldier right in front of the man stabbed and the spear penetrated his stomach and he stopped. Blood stained his shirt. He didn’t even make a sound.

Then he kept walking forward, pulling on the spear as if tugging a rope, letting the spear go through him. All of the soldiers froze, too slow to react when the man put an arm on the soldier’s shoulder and the side of his helmet and pushed them to reveal the soldier’s neck. He bit into it pulled like a wolf ripping from carrion.

The other soldiers stepped back, froze, then all stabbed at the man. The man took the spears in his body, but didn’t stop. He raised the soldier into the air, turning him upside down and letting the blood run fast into his mouth. The soldiers pulled their spears and stabbed again.

image [https://i.imgur.com/G3cZc7E.png]

When the man had finished his drink, he threw his prey across the church. He slammed his forearms down and broke the spears that were inside of him. The soldiers all turned to escape. With blood running from his lips, his muscles swelled slightly. A soldier ran for the church doors. The man pounced, caught him by the ankle and swung the back of his head against the corner of a bench and he fed on what came from the wound.

All soldiers ran. None of them escaped.

Ganthy only watched as soldiers were overwhelmed by this one man whose frail figure grew with each person he killed.

The people, the soldiers, the priestess and priest, Treyus and Ailaurus, turned to look at the open doors of the church from which painful screams echoed. Treyus was on his knees, the priestess beside him with a knife in her hand. Ailaurus stood behind them between two soldiers.

It was quiet now.

The soldiers atop the steps turned to face the church, their weapons readied. Footsteps came when the man stepped from the carpet of the aisle onto the wooden floor. The soldiers gasped or flinched or stepped back.

Bloody holes in his body were barely hidden by the bloody tatters of his shirt. He’s frailty was replaced by a carnivorous strength. He held Ganthy, covered in blood, over his shoulder.

The soldiers prepared to strike, but the man, still holding Ganthy over his shoulder, darted forward between the spears, caught one of the soldiers by the head and flew down the stairs to bring his head to the ground, his spear clattering down the steps.

Treyus stayed where he was, watching over his shoulder. The priestess cried for the soldiers to do something. The two soldiers surround Ailaurus left her to attack the man, but in a flash, his arm went through the body and armour of one, then his nails dragged across neck of the other.

Even before the fear could freeze Ailaurus in the presence of this monster, he flowed around her and ripped the ropes from her wrists. She looked behind her. Still carrying Ganthy, he approached Treyus and the priestess backed away. The circular crowd of people deformed to a screaming amorphous blob as the people tried to get away from him.

Ailaurus looked ahead as soldiers came down the stairs. She picked the spear from one of the two fallen and readied herself. Before she or any of the soldiers could attack, three bodies, one after the other, flew overhead and knocked down the soldiers. She looked behind her.

The priestess was dead. Soldiers were approaching. Treyus was free and following this man as he ran past Ailaurus and up the stairs. “Let’s go!” Treyus said as he passed, quickly tugging on her hand then letting go and rushing up. She followed, avoiding the soldiers as they got back up. The man picked a live one and drank from its neck and cast it aside as they entered the church.

Ailaurus, Treyus, neither had any idea what was going on, but they were about to die before it happened so they went with it. Ganthy watched them over the man’s shoulder with its blank face. The man led them out of the church’s side door into the alley, where a few daring people risked coming this side of the city and screamed when they saw the four.

The man ignored them. He led the way out of the city. Through the dark alleys, they followed the sound of his heavy footsteps. The ground turned from stone, to dirt, to dry leaves and they ran a bit more until the cacophony behind them was too far to hear.

Out here in the open, the man didn’t hold back. When he stopped, Treyus and Ailaurus ran far to catch up with him before they stopped as well. They were in the dark, but the light from the stars that bled through the trees was just enough for them to see each other’s figures.

The man put Ganthy down, patted it on the head. Treyus paused to catch his breath. Ailaurus came forward and said, “Thank you. Thank you so much!”

“Ailaurus,” Treyus mumbled, straining himself.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Ailaurus!”

“What?” She looked at Treyus.

“He’s a vampire…”

The man turned to look at them.

“Oh,” she said. She looked at the man’s silhouette, Ganthy somewhere behind him. “Oh… Fuck.”

They watched each other’s shapes in the dark. He could see them as clear as day.

“… What do you want with us?” Ailaurus asked.

“Nothing… No. I do want something. I want to help.” He sounded young, but there was a rumble in his throat as he spoke.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I have been following you. Since the night of the sacrifice, I have been following you.”

“Why?”

“To make sure the he was safe!” He stepped forward eagerly. Treyus stepped back and Ailaurus pointed the spear at the vampire. The silence was uncomfortable. They could feel the offence he took.

“Please. I’d sustained my hunger. I sustained my craving so that, should my strength be needed, I could bring my strength forward on those who threatened you. I am in control of myself!”

“…”

“… I’d followed the three of you for weeks, starving! If I’d wanted you dead, I’d have fed on you already… Please. I am tired of being alone.”

Ganthy pushed pass the vampire and walked to Ailaurus, then behind her to Treyus. The vampire walked closer to them. Treyus stepped back but Ailaurus stood her ground, pointing the spear at his head. She was afraid. If he did try to kill her, she wasn’t sure she could do anything; not without the spirits at least.

“Do you know how a vampire is born?” he yelled at them. Standing closer, she could see his face. He wasn’t a boy anymore, but he wasn’t yet a man. “The same way as a human! My mother was a human. My father was a human. My sister was a human.” As he spoke, he walked side to side, throwing his hands around frantically. “I thought I was human too until one day I felt a craving in my bones, my heart, my mind, but not in my stomach. My body deformed to meet this craving… My kind are the echoes of a selfish god who wanted to use humans to hunt the souls of other humans. The souls of humans like him.” He pointed to Ganthy, who was a bright star in his eyes.

“I am a thrall. My affliction is to serve a god. A god who had long since passed… I am human… Please.” He got onto his knees and put his hands together, his face close to the tip of the spear that Ailaurus held. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Ailaurus stared at him. She knew what she was going to say, but she wouldn’t dare say it while he was in this state. She waited a moment.

“… I’m sorry, but you have to understand why we do not trust you…”

They stared at each other. Ailaurus felt her heart knocking on her throat. She wanted to stab. Right now. Take the chance to end him and save them.

He was around the spear, around her, then out of sight. The spear dropped a little from the shock. She could have died right then if he wanted to kill her.

She looked behind her. Treyus kept Ganthy behind him. The vampire walked back to Bridge City.

He was being sincere. She knew that. She felt horrible, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust something that could make death happen so easily. Even with holes through him, he continued, as if his body was just a shell to be used by something greater and cast aside when done.

Treyus picked Ganthy up they started walking. Ailaurus was too aware of the silence in her head. Ganthy watched the vampire over Treyus’ shoulder. The vampire stopped and turned. They watched each other. Ganthy raised one of its stumps and waved.

The vampire waved back, then continued to its new hunting ground.