Carmilla* awoke with a stiff back and the dry burning pangs in her throat and stomach from several days lack of proper sustenance as the carriage ran over a hefty bump.
She'd been on the lamb for weeks, though she couldn't recall exactly how long as time slurred together, her mind fogging up from severe lack of sleep and general bodily exhaustion.
Her mouth and throat burned with dire thirst, her stomach twisted in knots feeling burst with cysts. A decent helping of blood would slake the general pangs and work to heal her body back to an optimal condition. But she had enjoyed little more than a drop here and there on her escape, supplemented by the occasional woodland creature that, at most, worked only to alleviate her thirst momentarily.
The kindly old man whose carriage she'd hitched a ride with folded his paper down, noticing his passenger had awoken. He offered a warm smile before handing her a treat in wrapping.
"Chocolate?" He asked.
"Thank you," Carmilla let the treat drop in her palm and held herself back from ripping into it like she was a wild animal. She reminded herself to speak in her English accent, now that she had snuck into England.
She sat up, the large scratchy blanket on her falling from her shoulders. She had no need to keep it around her. Even in her weakened state, the cold posed no danger to her. Also, her companion was an old man in a rickety carriage while an early cold front was doing its best to beat the coming winter.
"Here," she said, offering the man the blanket. "I am warm now."
He waved the notion aside as silly, his laugh lines creasing all about his face. "No, no. If I am to die from the cold, let it at least be from my chivalry. It is a rare gift for a man my age to still exert such virtuosity."
She shrugged. There was no way to convince her 'savior' without giving herself away for what she was.
She'd originally found passage upon the carriage by laying as if mugged and passed-out in the road. The man had been quick to take the poor waif with him in minimum need of answers of how she'd gotten there.
The scene had been the easiest to set, as her strenuous journey had left her clothes torn and muddy, her skin bruised and scratched, and the stress of it all elevating her heart-beats to feel like one close to death, the equivalent to her heart racing as opposed to its customary handful of beats per minute.
She rubbed her bagging eyes. "How near are we to London?"
"Oh, only a few kilometers now. We should reach the city before nightfall."
Carmilla didn't hold out much hope for the idea. The nearer they drew to the city, the more concentrated the Lord Xenosia's* forces would be. It wouldn't surprise her if they would be checking every carriage entering London.
Right as she considered when would be best to hop off the carriage and hoof it herself, hollers from outside caused the driver to slow them down.
Damn, she swore. This was going to get messy.
The old gentleman looked at his companion, reading into her raising the blanket back up to her chin.
"Don't worry," he said. "I am sure it will all be fine."
Carmilla shook her head, but lowered the blanket, realizing how she'd subconsciously used it. "Those men out there, they will kill me. I know them."
The old gentleman had a sad look in his eye. He didn't believe she could know that.
There were dogs barking outside. Carmilla could smell the men, their clothes made from animal hides, the gunpowder, their travel stink, the garlic, even though that herb acting as her weakness was a mere myth. A myth, she suspected, to be one of the many weaknesses Xenosia had purposefully spread with the onslaught of methods to deal with her, so that the Hunters would have trouble distinguishing the misdirects from the facts.
However, the old gentleman did believe in his passenger's fear. "I'll go outside and make sure everything is fine."
Carmilla grabbed his arm, her eyes wide.
He put a finger to his lips. "Don't worry. As far as anyone will know, I am traveling alone."
With that, he stepped outside, careful in his step to block the view of the inside of the carriage from those on the other side before closing the door behind him.
"Hullo," came the now muffled voice of the old gentleman in a congenial manner.
"Sorry for the trouble, sir," came an unfamiliar voice with an English accent, sounding like a young man with authority.
One of Xenosia's redcoats, she guessed. Part of the brigade monitoring carriage traffic.
Unfortunately, the next voice was loud and wiry, like a roughly plucked string in the wrong key, in an Austrian accent. "Sorry to bother you, sir. I am here on orders from my master, a Lord whose daughter was expected to arrive several days ago in the city. Have you happened across any young ladies traveling by themselves, possibly in dire straits?"
There was a pause before the old gentleman's reply. "No. Heaven's no, only me and my driver on a sad, cold trek. You have me worried now for this poor lady's safety. Who is she a daughter of?"
Carmilla knew. The hunter she'd heard had tracked her all the way from Styria. The strange looking man with the golden glasses, Vordenburg*. He would see through the old man's lie. He knew she was in the carriage.
As the conversation went on outside, the man in golden glasses prying more and more, the old gentleman's excuses becoming flimsier, Carmilla crouched poised in the carriage, ready for the inevitable confrontation.
As things stood, she was cornered, the advantage belonging to her enemies. Her next move needed to be fast, a surprise, and it needed to be grand.
Well… grandish, considering her circumstances and how depleted she was.
Grabbing the hinges to the door she began forcing them to become colder.
Coldening things was part of her greater power, the one she was too weak to tap, and not really that impressive in most circumstances.
As the metal hinges froze over, ice grew out from its segments and made the metal brittle.
Outside she heard Vordenburg losing his patience with the old gentleman. Weapons were shuffling around in the arms of the group of men he'd brought with him.
Carmilla backed as far as she could on the opposite side of the carriage from the door.
Her nature made her physically stronger, the approximate equivalent to a large and burly man. That amount of strength constricted into the slight frame of a short young woman made it so she could throw her weight around with a greater force and speed than either those her size, who were weaker than her or those as strong as her, as they would be hampered by all their extra mass.
One foot planted on the floor, the other scooted up the wall, both pulled taut before she sprang into the door like a bullet.
The hinges shattered on impact and she flew with the bulk of wood and upholstery. As she landed, she kept hold of the door.
The hunting dogs barked into an uproar.
A bullet shot and hit the other side of the door, meaning it was doing its job as a shield.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw three hirsute men to that side, all with hide leather and fur outfits, Germanic features, and muskets. One of which fired and shot her in the stomach, causing a trickle of thick blood to dribble a glob or two.
A wound to her body was less damaging than to her than a normal human, especially as it was probably impossible for her to bleed out, and her blood bled like molasses. It still hurt her as much as anyone.
Already the bullet wound had stopped bleeding. Her flesh began to mend around the hot ball of lead instead of pushing it out, which is what should have happened if she was working at normal efficiency.
She flashed teeth at the man who shot her and growled with inhuman ferocity.
"Hold your fire," Vordenburg said in a languid tone. "And keep those mutts leashed. We have her surrounded and outgunned."
The hunters facing Carmilla kept their muskets trained on her. The one who had already shot her threw his gun over his shoulder and began loading a crossbow. That would be worse to get hit by than a bullet.
She kept moving, dragging the door with her through the mud at a steady clip, glaring down the hunters.
"Whoa there, little lady," Vordenburg blocked her path, though still stood a good distance away. He was a tall and lanky, his limbs looking too long even for a man his size. He odd sunken in quality about him, in his eyes and skin, as if everything about him was too tight against his skeleton. In his arms, he wielded a sharpened woodcutting axe, a weapon of little consequence to Carmilla.
She kept moving with just as much fervor at a decent clip, dragging the door through the wet mush on the ground where snow had melted. Her gaze fixed upon Vordenburg. She would love to suck the life out of him.
Vordenburg, the man with golden glasses was proving her most ardent pursuer. With how many men Lord Xenosia had employed to catch her on her excursion to London, and how many trappers and fur traders those men had employed, Vordenburg had been the most dogged and effective, consistently finding her and whittling her wits down each confrontation. He also had the truest understanding of her weaknesses.
"Keep those dogs leashed," Vordenburg told his men. "We have her."
With a signal from Vordenburg, an out-of-tune fiddle was plucked with ferocity. Accompanying the sudden burst of music came a talentless singer belting out a Catholic hymn.
Carmilla leered behind her back to the culprit. It was a mountebank* with a hunched back plucking on a sun-faded old instrument. He was covered with dozens of strings of garlic and crudely sawn crucifixes.
The noise of his song felt in her ears like fork tines were scraping against her molars. It would take more than a hymn to weaken or even harm her, but the sound was a painful distraction.
Vordenburg sneered at Carmilla with delight.
This would be so much easier if I would kill them all.
The three hunters to her exposed flank had their weapons loaded. Two had crossbows, each with bolts connected to each other by a string of onions.
They shot at Carmilla, the bolts missing her, the sharp points piercing into the wood of the door. The garlic strand flung into her shoulder, digging into her flesh and pinning her against the door.
Carmilla acted stung by the garlic. No reason to make them give up the idea it was an effective weapon against her.
She tore the string off and continued her ascent upon Vordenburg. Several yards past him was a tree line. A little bit farther and she could give them the slip and make a run for it. It would be easy to lose them in the forest.
"Should we just shoot her?" One of the crossbowmen said.
Vordenbug shrugged. He was still refraining from giving the impression he was worried how close Carmilla was getting to him. "Sure, but only in the legs."
Carmilla was prepared for it. The moment Vordenburg had given the all clear, two more bolts from the three hunters flew at her. From her peripheral vision, she predicted the projectiles trajectories and moved her body out of the way.
Two more bolts pierced the door by her legs, making walking beside it a bit more challenging.
Unfortunately for Vordenburg, Carmilla had seen the trap he was setting for her. She could smell the trapper on the broad shielding side of the door. She knew about the net, so when the trapper tossed it over the door she dove away to safety.
The door tilted before thudding into the mud, splattering muck all across Carmilla.
From the ground she arched her back, reaming on all fours. With a burst like she'd used to tackle the carriage door off its hinges, she would pounce into Vordenburg. She would steal a glug of blood from him. No more. Only enough to put some oil in her lamp, maybe weaken him in the knees a bit.
But she wouldn't kill him. Not even Vordenburg. She was done killing, and she wasn't about to let a pest like him test her conviction.
After the door had toppled, revealed on that side was the rest of Vordenburg's retinue.
A man in the distance had five leashed dogs growing incessant with their barks. The trapper with the net oddly had no coat or furs clothing him, only a shivering body with a buttoned shirt.
Beside the trapper was a loosed dog wrapped in a fur and a young hunter in two coats and a tricorn hat armed with a riding crop and an ornate crucifix.
Ah, she thought. Dressed the boy and the dog in the trapper's clothes, masking their scent in his.
Carmilla swore at Vordenburg as she reared to pounce.
Before she could, she noted another inbound crossbow bolt. With a shift of her legs, it hit the mud at her hip, close enough she could feel the feathers on the shaft brush against her.
The second bolt hit home in the meat of her thigh.
That one she could feel the point scrape against her femur. She lost her balance, landing on her side in the mushy muck, Her plans of pouncing Vordenburg thwarted.
The infernal hunchbacked bard at her back sliced at her ears with his Catholic hymns. Three marksmen had her dead-to-rights with their crossbows, the trapper reeled in his net, the dog-handler was prepared to send his animals on the attack if the need should arise, and the fur wearing dog closed in with is fangs bared with the young huntsman a foot behind.
Carmilla's mouth bloomed into a wide smile.
I think, she rose a mud-caked arm to meet the hunting dog's bite, I'm in for a real scrap.
*Carmilla: The titular character from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla.
*Lord Xenosia: !
*Vordenberg: The weird looking vampire hunter who shows up in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla.
*Mountebank: Sort of an old-timey conman; a purveyor of counterfeit holy relics.