Epilogue

It was still early morning. The usual frenzy and chaos hadn't gripped the heart of Rome yet as both the tourists and citizens alike had decided to indulge in an extra hour or so of sleep.

The streets and piazzas were desolate, save for an odd taxi or a smelly old bus trotting down the still-cool asphalt, and some pidgeons which were already starting to descend upon the city's myriad of fountains for a drink and a bath.

However, albeit the city was still only starting to wake up, the same could not be said for the nature. The warm June sun was already up, poking over the roofs of even the tallest buildings, and casting its warm light over the Eternal City.

The Verano cemetary was steeped in idlyic tranquility throughout the day, but at this hour it was even more surrealy peaceful than usual. The air was warm but not stagnant thanks to a gentle zephyr breezing through the pathways and collonades. The sweet smell of ancient pines permeated the air and soothed one's nerves. Only one or two lonely visitors strolled beneath the thick black branches, walking along the tree-lined avenues softly and slowly, careful not to disturb the serenity of the cemetary.

The only sound to be heard was the relentless staccato of the cicadas.

In a secluded part of the graveyard, far from the areas frequented by tourists, a lone priest stood over a grave in silent contemplation. He was neither praying nor reciting a Psalm, but merely stood in front of the inconspicious tombstone with a blank look, his empty and dark eyes fixed on a tiny picture near the upper left corner of the stone.

The woman who looked back at him from the picture could not be called a beauty. She was sickly pale, her protruding cheekbones a sign of a disease, and her hair was whiter than snow. Her eyes, seemingly locked with the priest's, seemed weary but not sad.

One could tell from only the small photo that the woman possessed great strength in spite of being obviously very sick.

'Claudia Hortensia'.

The letters on the tombstone were new and shiny, glittering under the rays of the bright summer sun. Stark contrast to the worn out picture next to it.

The priest, Kotomine Kirei, had laid a single white rose on the woman's grave. He did so more out of politeness and duty rather than affection or mourning. As the matter of fact, he was unsure why he had even come to this place at all. The grave of his wife could only bring back painful memories and open wider the still fresh wound in his heart.

However, the wound wasn't the one of a grieving man, mourning a terrible loss of his love. No – Kotomine Kirei did not once feel love for the woman that lay under the cold tombstone. And it was this that made his heart hurt and his mind to go into a turmoil.

A failed experiment, that was all that she was to Kirei. An act of desparation in his frenzied fight against his nature. In his quest to become a normal human.

Barely a week had passed since her death, and the memory of that day was already becoming hazy. Still, one thing he clearly remembered, the thing he was certain to remember for the rest of his life, was the feeling of disappointment and lamentation that gripped his heart when the frail woman took her own life.

Lamentation over not killing her himself. Regret that he couldn't savour her despair after lowring a knife in her weak chest and proving to her, in her dying moments, that she was wrong about him all along. Despair as that saint realises that her efforts to save him were in vain since the very beginning.

But he couldn't dwell on that memory for long.

Remembering his feelings from back then only strained his already crippled mind. He felt like his escape had to come to an end soon. He couldn't keep running away from his nature for much longer. The death of his wife was definitely a turning point.

His meeting with the devil called Narbareck was the second.

He had to admit - she had frightened him. She could see deep into his rotten soul with a single look, and it terrified him. He was aware of his own nature all too well, but having it brought up and pointed out to him by someone else left Kirei shaken.

What troubled him the most, though, was her attitude towards her own nature; accepting herself and acting on her wishes and impulses, with no regard to the moral code or fettered with the concepts of good and evil, she was the direct opposite to him, who had spent his entire existence denying his true self.

The monstrous Director of the Burial Agency had shaken Kirei to his core.

First there was his wife's death.

Then there was a meeting with the demon girl Narbareck.

He wondered what God had in store for him next; whether there'd be a third pivotal point on his path, a third person to confront him about his nature, one who might finally push him over the edge.

Such thoughts had preoccupied Kirei's mind for the previous two days, ever since he got back to Rome from the hunt with Narbareck.

Then, on the second night, a most extraordinary thing happened.

Red markings had appeared at the back of his left hand, forming a strange pattern all the way from his wrist to his fingers. It surprised Kirei, to say the least, and left him thoroughly perplexed.

Bewildered at this strange event, he had contacted his father Risei, who immediately flew in from Japan. The old man was bound to come here at any minute and take Kirei along to Turin. It was an unusual meeting place, far from Kirei's quarters near the Vatican, but his father hadn't asked any questions about it when they arranged it.

The old priest was full of understanding for his son, no doubt thinking that Kirei wanted a bit of time to say farewell to his beloved wife before leaving the city. And, in a way, he was right; even Kirei had to admit as much.

It was just his feelings towards the dead woman that father Risei got wrong.

Kirei had completely lost track of time, so absorbed in his thoughts as he stood in the shadow of a large black pine before his wife's grave that he wasn't even registering the aria of the cicadas anymore.

Finally, a soft pat on his shoulder woke him from his trance.

"Kirei."

The young priest turned around without a slightest flinch, coming face to face with his father. The old man was squinting as usual, but he seemed fresh and energetic, and his black robes were perfectly neat as usual.

Kirei greeted his father with just a quick nod.

"Are you ready to go, son?"

Kirei said nothing, his empty eyes fixed on a distant tree behind his father.

His mind was still in turmoil, and he had barely registered his father's presence.

"Alright. Come – the Church has provided us with a car. The driver is waiting for us outside the cemetery gates. The train leaves in half an hour."

"You go on, father, I'll be right with you in a moment."

The old priest hummed a little, looking at the simple grave behind Kirei. With a nod of understanding, he turned around towards the nearby alley.

"I understand. Don't take long, though."

Father Risei promptly left his son alone again, and Kirei turned back to his wife's grave.

The pale woman continued to look back at him from the worn-out photograph. The young priest found her gaze hard to bear.

After a short while, he finally took a step back.

Sparing one last glance at the grave, Kirei turned on his heel and left without any parting words. He felt the wild beating of his heart as he left his wife behind him once and for all, heading for the exit from the vast, sprawling cemetery. Regardless of where it might take him, he was certain; he was on the threshold of a life-changing journey.

Just as Kirei left the secluded grove, a cold gust rose and blew through the cemetary.

The white rose on the grave of Claudia Hortensia shivered under the sudden, strong rush of wind.

A single petal got torn off and blown up towards the blue skies above.

(...)

"Congratulations on the successful hunt, Narbareck".

"Thanks Merem. It really was a good one. Shame that it's over now."

"Well, you know how the saying goes: 'All good things must come to an end'."

"Thanks. That really cheers me up."

Merem chuckled a little at his Captain's last sentence – he liked that he had the ability to provoke that kind of reactions from her. With everyone else – though it sometimes included him, too - she was either manipulative or sadistic, so it was nice to know that she, too, could be teased.

Following the great hunt in Bohemia, things went back to normal for the Director of the Burial Agency.

The Cardinals thanked her for eliminating a dangerous and powerful vampire, commened her skill and courage, expressed satisfaction about the cooperation between the different branches of the Holy Church, and were overall full of words of praise and thank.

But then they put her back under 'home-arrest' as before, and put even stricter surveillance over the building to make sure that she doesn't leave again. It seemed that her life was exactly the way it had been before this.

'Well, not exactly the same way,' she thought to herself.

There was a silver plate with a beautiful white-and-blue tea set on the table, as well as a bowl of vanilla-flavoured biscuits. It was a gift from Merem, who took pity on his Captain for always having to drink cheap fruit teas from stained coffee mugs, and thus bought her an antique tea set and a year-worth supply of finest teas.

At the moment, they were drinking Earl Grey. For this special occasion he even came to the Burial Agency HQ in person, rather than sending the old priest that was his right hand.

And his efforts did not fail to yield results; probably for the fist time in his life, he saw Narbareck genuinely smile. It wasn't a feigned smile nor a twisted, sadistic smirk, but an honest smile brought about by something as simple as good tea, a bowl of biscuits, and the opportunity to speak face to face with the only person whom she considered a friend.

It was a somewhat surreal scene; a psychopathic vampire hunter and a Dead Apostle Ancestor with the appearance of a fourteen-year-old boy were having a tea party, and were chatting about the most trivial things. The windows were open, bathing the entire office in warm June sunshine, and the muffled sounds of Rome's bustling streets filled the air.

"The weather is lovely."

"Yeah... too bad I can't leave the building. I figure they've even put snipers around this place."

"Well, maybe we could smuggle you out somehow?"

"I guess. What would we do, though? Go shopping? Sightseening?"

"Well, I know this really great little restaurant in Borgo Pio, just a few blocks away. I definitely recommend it."

"What do they cook?"

"Italian, mostly."

"I don't feel like eating Italian. Any good places that make Chinese or Indian?"

"I'm sure I could find a place or two."

"Great. Now I only have to find a way to leave this dump unseen."

"Have you tried dressing yourself as a cleaning lady?" Merem said nonchalantly.

Narbareck stopped in the mid of a sip after hearing his comment, to suppress a small giggle.

"Nah, this damn hair is way too conspicuous."

"Perhaps you should dye it?"

"Never."

"Oh, well."

A few minutes passed in silence. The two continued to sip their tea, gazing through the wide-open window over the sun-bathed streets and buildings below. The atmosphere in the room was simply... cozy, and neither felt like interrupting the pleasant tranquility.

Finally, Narbareck broke the silence as her thoughts eventually drifted to a man she had met on her hunt:

"Say, Merem, remember that priest I told you about?" Narbareck suddenly said.

"That Kotomine guy? Yes, what about him?"

"He was a really interesting man. I wonder where he's now."

"I actually checked him out. I knew you'd be interested in him, so I tracked him a little."

"And?"

"And only a few days after you got back, he suddenly went to Turin, along with his father."

"What's he doing in Turin?"

"Funnily enough, he's no longer in Turin. He's not in Italy, nor Europe, for that matter. He's returned to his home country, Japan."

"Ah, such a shame... I was hoping that we'd get to talk again. He's a very... peculiar person."

"How do you know; you only knew the man for two days."

"Women's intuition, dear Merem," she said, chuckling.

"Well, maybe one day you'll meet him again. And there's also mail, you know? Letters, postcards... you know."

"I guess. I just think it's such a shame that he left so suddenly. Ah well... more tea?"

The idyllic atmosphere was short lived, though, as Merem was forced to interrupt their light-hearted conversation with more serious matter:

"Narbareck, I'm sorry I have to interrupt, but I'm afraid there is a piece of news that I should really tell you about as soon as possible."

"Ah, 'business' again! Why must you always ruin our conversations with such things?"

"Sorry, but this is really important. It's actually one of the main reasons why I've come."

"And here I was thinking it was because you wanted to have a chat with me."

"That was the main reason, yes. I've only received these news this morning, and thought you should know.

"Oh, fine, spit it out – what's going on?"

"Well, it seems that an entire town in central France has completely disappeared. The Church suspects that it's a work of a vampire."

"Wouldn't surprise me, really. But... it's strange; France is Ortenrosse's territory. I thought he had a firm control over his lands. Such things don't really happen in places under his control."

"Yeah, that's the problem really."

"Yes?"

"The Church doesn't think it's some of Ortenrosse's vampires."

"Then who?"

"Well... nothing's been confirmed yet... but they believe it might be Valdamjong."

Narbareck was struck speechless for a few seconds after hearing that.

And then her lips curled into a twisted smile.

The End.