Sabra settled in, senses alert. She’d have had to wait anyway; this added company was merely an unexpected complication. It would be most interesting to question the professor, but later, when she could hypnotically control him.
If he survived the night. Even a young Nosferatu was a deadly opponent to ordinary mortals. Sabra hoped the men had armed themselves. And with the right weapons.
A distant clock struck the quarter-hours. Slowly, most slowly. She found no fault with the other guardians in their determination; it was a weary vigil and in such a place as to excite the morbid side of one’s imagination. Cemeteries held no fear for her, but she did not approve of them, disliking the idea of all those bodies lying corrupt in the good earth.
The ancient Britons had sensibly exposed their dead, letting the elements and animals have their way with the flesh until naught remained but clean bones, which were then tidily interred.
For a time they’d adapted the northern custom of burning the corpse, setting off a spectacular blaze none of the gods could miss, releasing the spirit to soar free from its clay prison.
Either way, there would be no doubt to anyone that the deceased, and any illness he or she carried, was indeed dead and would remain firmly, safely, and harmlessly on its own side of the veil. This relatively new custom of burying bodies in the ground or leaving them boxed up in mausoleums was indecent, not to mention unhealthy. Far better to let the natural corruption of the flesh take place in the cleansing wash of open sky or by purifying fire than to hide it away to fester and rot in the airless dark.
Well, if one must have such dreary spots, best that they be on holy ground, which was good for certain numinous matters. But there were some types of magic that ran beyond the bounds of the ordinary rituals of faith…
The clock struck two, and moments later she heard the old man’s hiss of warning. The group’s whole attention riveted upon something coming up the yew-tree avenue. Sabra ventured out a bit for a glimpse.
A young woman clad in filmy grave garments, the same one from the scrying-vision. She walked slowly, ghost-like, not yet aware of the men. There was no mistaking what she’d become, but that dark bundle she held close to her lithe body… a child? Sabra was aghast at this cruel turn of appetite, and set herself to leap forward and to intervene, devil take the consequences.
But matters moved too swiftly; the instant of intervention passed when the men startled the girl, who cast the child away. She should have fled, but instead turned the full power of her charm upon one of them, apparently her husband. It was as though none of the others existed for her. She’d have ensnared him on the spot, but the professor stepped between, using a crucifix to thwart her. Only then did the girl seem to realize her danger and darted for the tomb—to be repulsed by the Host. The change should not have left her vulnerable to such holy objects; it was the corruption of the European’s dark magics that had done that to her.
Sabra’s heart sank. This was bad. Very bad.
The professor removed a portion of the putty so the girl could slip inside the tomb, which she did, her ability to do so adding to their consternation. He replaced it, then announced that they would return on the morrow. They quickly left, taking the child.
What a terrible little drama, Sabra thought, and alas for the grieving husband. He was the most shattered, but then who would not be? To have a loved one die, then return from the grave so hideously changed as to turn that love into loathing would break the strongest heart and will. She trusted that his friends would see him through the worst of it; there was nothing she could do for him but seek the source of his loss: the European.
She left the cypress and tried the door of the tomb. Locked, and Sabra was not in the habit of carrying skeleton keys. On the other side she sensed the girl’s roiling feelings: rage, frustration, confusion, pain, and terror, the mindless terror of an animal.
With as much reverence as she could summon, Sabra peeled away some of the putty, then pressed her hands flat against the cold stone of the tomb.
Come forth! she commanded.
Strong as she must be in her new state, the girl had no defense against such a Summoning. Within seconds she’d seeped through the thin opening and stood trembling on the grass. She’d been pretty in life; in the death-that-was-not-death she was radiant.
And from the look in her wide eyes, she was also quite mad.
Once a helpless innocent, now returned to prey upon the most helpless innocents of all. She had no restraints and no reason left in her addled brain. Little wonder she’d reacted so foolishly to the hunters, seeking sanctuary in a place no longer safe. She was like a child pulling a blanket overhead to keep out the monsters.
Sabra tried to fasten her attention with hypnosis, hoping to draw her from the darkness, but to no avail. What remained of the girl’s mind was quicksilver elusive; she voiced only vague ramblings about being lonely and hungry. Her eyes focused once—on Sabra’s throat—and she started eagerly forward, but Sabra put a stop to that with a rebuffing word and gesture, freezing her in place. The girl subsided, moaning miserably.
Most of the converted made the transition with little or no shock to the mind. Of course, it helped when their lovers took the trouble to acquaint them with what to expect. Sabra asked the girl for the European’s name, but she didn’t even know that much. Less than the poor lunatic from the asylum.
With no small disgust—for the European, not his pathetic victim—Sabra released the girl to return to her hiding place. She was malleable to some forms of suggestion, so Sabra took care to instruct her to sleep deeply for the next few days and nights. It would ease her sufferings. By then the old professor and his friends would have had time to return and deal with the wretch. She was entirely lost to insanity and the European’s magic; death would at least free her spirit. A tragedy, but there was no other help for it.
As for the heartless bastard who had done this to her…
Sabra returned to her hotel, sleeping lightly until midmorning, when she donned her widow’s weeds, paid the accounting, and set forth for Carfax, carrying a carpetbag of such items as she might need for an outdoor adventure. It would be only a slight rough-out for her; she’d camped in worse places in her varied travels. But, oh, the abbey was so filthy, the dust a foot deep in some places. Why were some men such pigs? She’d known wonderful exceptions over the centuries, but this European was not in their number.
She gathered wood, twigs, and vines and made a broom, the first to cross the threshold in several decades. She swept out an inner room of the house, banished its resident nest of rats, and blessed it to make it a place of power. Then she sat cross-legged in the middle of the circle she’d chalked on the floor. Before her was the scrying bowl, its water muddied by earth taken from the boxes. There she focused the whole of her concentration, trying to contact him through that link. The possibility existed he would go to ground, but from his vile treatment of the girl and the murder of the ship’s crew, Sabra judged he would be more curious than cautious. If he was that arrogant he might think himself immune to harm—a weakness she could exploit.
Sabra lost track of time. She surfaced once, days later, drawn out one night by a strange commotion in the attached abbey. The hunters were there, apparently having followed the same trail of boxes as she, and busily opening them and blessing their contents. A convocation of rats turned up, one of the European’s devisings meant to discourage burglars, but the men countered with some fierce terriers to chase them off, and continued with their work, placing pieces of the Host in each box. She smiled approval for their cleverness. It would not please their quarry.