XIV - A Vampyre Revealed

  “A… vampyre?” Sybil said, her tongue suddenly heavy. “Dr. Frost?!”

  The word still felt peculiar to her ears, no matter how many times she heard it. Saying it out loud when one could possibly be so near felt almost taboo, as if merely voicing it would draw the creature to them. It had taken her a few moments to even fully comprehend what her mentor had said, and when she did, her mind was immediately flooded with memories of the day that continually haunted her many nightmares.

  Evidently she had spoken too loudly for Vlad’s liking, who glanced around quickly as if searching for interlopers. “Please, keep your voice down, Night Owl. We know not who may be listening.”

  She allowed a brief pause, then spoke again, quietly this time—barely above a whisper. “How can you be certain?”

  “Allow me to explain myself,” he said. “I admit that she excels at concealing her identity, Night Owl, but there are signs that cannot be ignored. For one, she never, at least in anybody’s presence, partakes in the consumption of food. Seeing as strigoi are unable to digest our food, this casts immediate suspicion upon her. Of course, she can easily do as she says she does and enjoy her meals quickly and in private, but of this, I am doubtful.

  “Beyond this, she is secretive with her knowledge of medicine. I believe this is because the medicine that she practices is likely from a bygone era, the knowledge of which has long been forgotten by mortals. She fears that to reveal her lost techniques would be to reveal her true age. That, and she likely wants to keep those secrets to herself in order to use them for her own personal gain.”

  Sybil was unconvinced. “Her dining habits and her caution with whom she shares her knowledge do not betray her as a creature of the night.”

  “You are correct, Night Owl,” Vlad said. “And in fact, were these my only clues of her true nature, I would not even have considered accusing her. But most damning, my apprentice, is the evidence that I gathered inside of the cadaver carriage.”

  “Cadaver carriage?” Sybil frowned.

  Vlad nodded. “It is where this caravan stores the recently deceased. I have been inside of this carriage, and what I discovered there has cast away any lingering shadows of doubt from my mind.” Sybil continued to frown, but she did not interrupt. “Earlier this evening I assisted Mr. Brant with transporting one such body to this carriage. When he was gone, I snuck inside so that I could study the corpse that we deposited there. At first I could find nothing out of the ordinary with this unfortunate cadaver, and in fact I thought that he very much could have died of Plague, as Mr. Brant and his men had believed. But then, I pulled away his shirt, and the truth was revealed to me.

  “Under his arm, beneath a thick layer of hair, I find a small incision—no more than the length of a finger nail. It was from this incision that I believe much of the blood in his body had been drained. And who could have made this precise, cleverly disguised cut? None other than the one person who had been tending to him prior to his death—none other than Dr. Frost.”

  Vlad paused, allowing Sybil a chance to speak. After a few moments of considering his words, she presented a question. “And you’re certain the incision was not merely a cut that the man had incurred through some other means?”

  “I am positive,” Vlad said. “There is not a doubt in my mind that the incision was made by a medical professional. Dr. Frost was clever to create the hidden incision so as not to leave behind any puncture marks with her fangs—clearly she has dealt with Plague doctors like us in the past, and has developed techniques for eluding us. But unfortunately for her, such tricks will not work on old Vlad Albescu.”

  Sybil further considered his words. “And you’re certain it is Dr. Frost and not Felice? She has been studying under the doctor, and would certainly know how to produce such an incision. Besides, her impeccable skill with a crossbow could be explained by unnaturally heightened reflexes.”

  “Felice has eaten in front of us,” Vlad said, “so I knew it could not be her. It is possible that she is Frost’s familiar, but nothing more.”

  “Frost’s familiar?”

  “I suppose we have not yet had a chance to discuss such a term,” Vlad said. “By feeding them trace amounts of their own blood, Vampyres are able to turn mortals into their familiars. Familiars, while not undead, possess slightly improved strength, senses, and reflexes when compared to other mortals, as well as other benefits such as slowed aging and resistance to disease.”

  “This would explain why Felice has never contracted Plague,” Sybil said. “I'm sure the regular consumption of Blight Bane can only protect her to a certain degree, but becoming Frost’s familiar would heighten her resistance even further.”

  “We are in agreement,” Vlad said. “In any event, the only person here capable of draining that body was Dr. Frost, and she is very proficient at her craft. It is clear that she has been doing this for quite the long time—which, obviously, makes her exceedingly dangerous. The older the strigoi, the more powerful they tend to become. And based on her knowledge of presumably very old medicine, I would wager that she is quite the aged strigoi indeed.”

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  “But I do not understand,” Sybil said. “Why would Dr. Frost help the people of this caravan if she is a vampyre?”

  “Her aid to these people serves as a means to an end,” Vlad explained. “By tending to this caravan’s sick, she gains their trust while also curating her victims. And while she is able to save some with her miracle cure, others perish from the ‘disease’—as is to be expected of Plague victims. Alas, the Plague is not the only implementor of death in this caravan. Her patients mean nothing more to her than their use as fast, safe, discrete meals. Perhaps she was a caring doctor once, but that was likely many centuries ago—such compassion, such humanity, no longer exists within her.

  “And she will continue to prey upon these poor folk until the day she arrives in Ardvent, where her reign of terror will then extend to the Ardventi people. Using her position at the university, she will continue to feed on the sick and the innocent under the facade that she is there to research and treat the Plague. But of course she will never truly work to eradicate the blight—to do so would only deprive her of the victims that will so readily throw themselves to her in hopes of being cured of the wretched disease.”

  “But Dr. Frost does treat people,” Sybil said. “Her Blight Bane actually works. I have seen the results of it for myself.”

  “Aye,” Vlad agreed, “she is certainly providing these people with legitimate medical care—when she is not feasting upon their very essence.”

  “Even still,” Sybil said, “there are folk in this caravan that only yet live because Dr. Frost treated them. It cannot be denied that she saves lives.”

  “That may be true,” Vlad said, “but it does not matter how many of them she saves, Night Owl, because the destruction that she leaves in her wake is far worse than any incidental ‘good’ that she might cause. As such, we cannot sit idly by and allow her to continue to prey upon these people. Her exploitation of them must end.”

  “So you would have us slay her in spite of the good that she does, even if it means dooming this caravan, and eventually the people of Ardvent, to the Plague?”

  “I would,” Vlad said plainly. “While I dislike the idea of condemning decent people to the blight, it is truly the lesser of two evils. It would be far worse to condemn them to the terror of a nosferatu.”

  Sybil took some time to consider all that had been said. She came to the conclusion that she did not like either alternative. “I… I don’t know if I can do it,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I can slay Dr. Frost knowing that she is the only thing standing between these people and the Plague.”

  “You must do it, Night Owl,” Vlad said. He stared at her with a sharp, icy gaze. “You must do it because you are a Plague doctor, and slaying vampyres is our duty. It is no mistake that she has made herself important—essential, even—to these people. She wants anybody who would slay her to doubt their resolve for long enough that she can tear out their throats.”

  Sybil sat trying to think of what she wanted to say. After a few moments she sighed. “Well, if that truly is her intention, then I must admit that it has worked on me.”

  “Think about your parents, Night Owl. Think about what they endured, and what you have endured in the time since their passing. Remember how much they suffered during the short spell that they were vampyres, and the nightmares that you have had every night since Three-Fang took them from you. Is this truly a fate you would place upon another merely to save them from becoming sick with Plague?”

  She knew the answer to his question, even if she did not want to speak it. “No,” she said. “No, it is not.”

  “Of that we are in agreement,” Vlad said, “because no matter how grizzly the Plague might be, no matter how effortlessly it manages to ravage the communities that it infects, it is still a better alternative to the other plague that you and I fight to destroy. To die from Plague is at the very least a natural death. I cannot say the same about perishing at the hands of a strigoi.”

  Sybil allowed the silence to wash over them for several lengthy seconds before she responded. She heard the feeble sound of crickets chirping nearby; they collectively sang a swan song for the final days of autumn, none of them realizing that their weakening voices served as a grim portent of the harsh winter that was to come. “You’re right,” the girl finally said. “Dr. Frost must be slain. I do not like it, but we have no other choice than to do away with her evil once and for all.”

  Vlad gave a kind smile. “Very good. I knew you would come around, my apprentice.”

  “So then what do we do?”

  “We wait until dawn,” the Plague doctor explained. “Dr. Frost will be weakened by the daylight, giving us our best chance to confront her. We will lure her away from the caravan, expose her as a creature of the night, and then we will strike.”

  “But if we wait until dawn, we give her a chance to prey upon another victim—potentially one that she has not yet touched, and who we would be condemning to die a slow, sickly death after she infects them with her bite.”

  Vlad nodded. “I know, and I have considered this, but this is a risk that we must take. Dr. Frost is clearly a very aged, experienced strigoi, and to attempt to battle her when she is at her full strength would be far too dangerous. We cannot risk failure.”

  Sybil considered this. “Very well. I suppose it cannot be helped.” A pause. “What about Felice? What if we are wrong about her being Dr. Frost’s familiar?”

  “If she has not yet been corrupted by Dr. Frost, then she will be in grave danger. Her safety cannot be overlooked. But this is something we can consider more thoroughly in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. For now, we should rest and prepare for what lies ahead. The challenge before us is far from a simple one, and yet it is one that we must face.” He once again looked at her with his cold, intense gaze. “Such is our lot in this dreadful life of ours.”

  ___

  The girl slipped away from the tree behind which she hid and crept into the nighttime darkness. She carefully made her way back to her carriage, and to her waiting master, who sat in the gloom reading her book.

  Dr. Frost looked up at her. The older woman did not need to speak. Felice knew what to say without being prompted. The two words slid effortlessly from her throat; as effortlessly as the vampyre’s blood had slid down it. “They know.”