Henry, Earl of Surrey, turned his horse's head to the east and with a wave of his arm signaled the men with him to follow. They cantered along the wagon track, the horses blowing and nodding against the bit and the hounds milling about underfoot, their noses to the ground. They emerged from the woods into the moonlit grass of the headlands at Boddin Point. The sun had long ago dropped behind the tree tops and the moon was climbing to her rightful throne as Queen of the Sky.
Drover had been a most excellent hound, fearless and strong, and the demon had tossed him to his death over the edge of the cliff two nights ago. Surrey mourned his loss. Though he had seen the demon's dark shape silhouetted against the moon, with arms spread, drop over the same cliff, without the creature's body he was not convinced that they had put an end to the threat. Had they not found Drover's broken body washed up on the beach the next morning?
Dragging on the reins he turned his horse's head as he reached the cliff side and dismounted. That night, though they had ridden in haste to the south and had finally been able to descend to the beach, there had been no sign of the demon. The hounds had lost the trail. They had spent the next night scouring the beaches to the south of the Ferryden. Nothing, not a trace of the scent...perhaps the creature had moved on.
Surrey kicked through the coarse grass at the cliff's edge...nothing. I should never have believed the drunken lout with his sour breath and the odor of fish hanging about him. A vampyre stole his selchie wife from him and then drank his blood. He said that we would find the creature here by the cliffs but nothing.
He moved to lean out gazing down on the white surf that crashed and foamed on the rocks below, the material of his rich black cloak flowed on the wind around him. No human could have survived that fall, but the demon spawned? There was no way to be sure, not until he had the demon's head.
He reached into the pocket hanging by his side and pulled the tattered remnant of the creature's cloak that he had saved from the dogs. He signaled his Houndsman to whistle up the hounds and as they approached he handed his Houndsman the scrap. He swung back into the saddle and cantered to the rest of his party as the Houndsman, after giving the dogs the scent, dispersed them to search with a broad swing of his arm.
Noses to the ground the pack quested, working in unison searching for the scent in ever widening circles.
It was Belle who sent up the first alarm, her voice swollen with the sound that said she had picked up the scent, the sound that sent the rest of the pack swarming back across the headlands towards the trees.
The horses were wheeled about and curses rang in the air as the hunters realized that the creature's trail led back towards Ferryden and away from the cliffs. Soon the men were pounding across the turf with cloaks billowing out behind as they strove to catch up with the hounds.
Thank God, Surrey thought, that I had the foresight to move Mary and her attendant to the church. The Spawn of Hell cannot venture onto sacred ground so they will be safe in the sanctuary of the church.
The riders were forced to slow their headlong flight as they entered the path between the trees. The hunters could hear the hounds ahead in the woods. The barking took on the distinctive sound of their questing, they had lost the scent.
***
Pushing aside the reeds the vampyre emerged from the stream soaked to the skin and shivering.
The night was too cold to be wading chest deep through the water. He had been listening to the excited barking of the hounds in the distance. When their barking had assumed the persistent trumpeting of the pack on the scent, then he had taken to the water.
Twice he had left the stream to move in a blur, through the trees to lay false trails and then retraced his steps to wade shivering into the water again.
He lifted his head, listening carefully. The voices of the hounds floated to him on the night air, they were barking again as they circled having lost his scent...after a few moments they renewed the sustained note of the chase.
He had skirted the edge of the town where he had heard the shouts of the men in the streets, and seen the torches. He feared that the villagers were raised against him, the baying of the hounds on the wind a strong incentive to violence.
He could run, and faster than any mortal, but not forever, neither could he be caught without shelter when the day approached. His sanctuary in the cave by the cliffs was cut off by the approaching hunt. The Fledgling ran a hand through his hair. He needed to hide, hide in a place where they could not find him.
The bulk of the church was clearly visible to his eyes, separated from the town on a small rise perhaps a mile distant. They would not suspect that he could enter holy ground. The church would be his refuge. He needed to be rid of the hounds.
The Fledgling moved quickly and quietly between the shelter of houses as he edged back towards the stream and a small boat drawn up on the shore.
His attention was focused on the voices of the hounds and the final few yards of open space between his last shelter and the boat, Henry failed to hear the heartbeat of the human until he was upon him.
He was bowled over from behind and went down onto his face in the earthen street, the weight of a large body pressing down on top of him.
The vampyre twisted and writhed away from the clutching beefy hands as the stink of fish and ale surrounded him. Henry half turned his upper body, his fingers scrabbling on the ground for purchase.
He hissed aloud and his fangs dropped as he saw the flash of movement in his peripheral vision and then felt the explosion of pain in his shoulder as the wood of the stake pierced his flesh.
In shock and wide eyed, he looked into the face of the selchie's fisherman husband. The human's face was contorted with grief and pain, his heart hammering and his hand still grasping the stake that protruded from the Fledgling's shoulder. "Gone," he whispered into Henry's face, "gone back to the sea. It's all your fault Vampyre."
The Fledgling reached out his good hand and with a twist snapped the human's neck in one smooth movement, and once again the night quieted.
For a moment, Henry sat, head bowed and panting on the ground, gathering his resolve. Then he curled his fingers around the end of the stake that stood from his shoulder. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood; he breathed in deeply once more and then setting his lips, pulled the stake free.
The world grayed and spun, tilting sideways. I must not pass out, he thought, or my end will be a stake through the heart and burned on the pyre.
Struggling to his feet the vampyre staggered, laboriously dragging the human's body to the stream's edge and rolling it inside the boat. Using his dwindling strength and all his weight he pushed the boat into the water and then wading to his hips flung himself in, to lie atop of the corpse. The stream flowed placidly onward and the boat and its "passengers" were caught up in its current and went drifting away downstream in the dark.
His shoulder burned and pained him, he needed to feed, but even a Fledgling knew that he could not drink the blood of the dead. As they drifted the vampyre laid his head down on the grimy shirt of the corpse, but he could take no comfort in the fact that the dead man's flesh was still warmer than was his own.
When the boat was almost parallel to the church he slipped over the side into the chest deep water, the boat drifted on into the dark without him.
There was a thicket of gnarled and hoary willow trees that clung close to the stream, their boughs reaching out over the water. The vampyre hauled himself, dripping, up onto such a bough and then nimbly picked his way across, and then from that tree, he crossed to another and then another, never touching the ground that was cloaked in the yellow drifts of last year's willow leaves. In this way he was able to move close enough to leap to the high stone wall that ran around the perimeter of the church yard and from there to the roof of a low building that leaned up against the church proper.
Looking back over his shoulder, he felt sure that the hounds would not be able to pick up his scent where he had left the stream.
Tilting his head back he could see the barely discernible flickering candlelight escaping through the window openings above. His shoulder pained him greatly but he could feel the tissue slowly regenerating, beneath the still open wound. He could hear the distant barking of the hounds on the wind. Spreading his fingers wide, his strong hands finding purchase easily, the vampyre swarmed up the wall and slipped through one of the openings into the shadowed rafters.
As he clung to an upright beam, the Fledgling's eyes were drawn down to a painted carving of the Blessed Mother, standing with arms outstretched in a niche below. Her smiling face was illuminated by the bank of candles at her feet. He hardly dared to look upon her and yet he felt drawn inexorable towards her.
He lowered himself carefully down the ornate woodwork of the interior of the church. His fingers clamped over the carvings, he glanced continually over his shoulder at the Virgin's face, expecting to see her countenance alter to one of loathing or disgust. But the smooth planes of her cheeks and brow stayed in place and her gentle and welcoming smile beckoned him onward.
For a moment he feared as his feet touched the floor, that he would be expelled from this sacred place. He breathed out a heartfelt sigh of relief when he was not. From the shadows he could hear the soft voices of women and human heartbeats in the transept but approaching the altar was not his goal at this point.
A part of the Fledgling's mind calculated that he would be able to seek shelter from the day in the tombs below the church, but the most part of his thoughts were focused on the image of the Virgin glowing softly lit across the nave.
Hugging the wall of the triforium at the back of the nave, he slipped from shadow to shadow pausing only to go unsteadily to one knee and cross his breast as he passed by the altar. The fingers of his right hand stained red where they brushed his shoulder.
The closer he approached the statue the more he became convinced that the Virgin's calm gaze followed him, the soft bow of her lips encouraging him, one who had fallen so far… His eyes narrowed in the light of the candles lit at her feet, and he fell heavily to his knees in front of her. Astounded that she had allowed his approach, despite the stain upon his soul, he bowed his forehead to the ground at her feet, his wet hair falling in ringlets from his neck to the floor. He could hear nothing but his own strange and slow heartbeat and a ringing, as though the bells were calling all to Mass…
