"Oh, what are you making such a fuss about? It was only a few bathworths of peasants a year, and they replace themselves so quickly! They weren't even workers – I made sure to pick from the ones who were good for little else. Honestly, all the things I had to endure, raising you! Why couldn't you be more like your brother and sister? You were always an ungrateful little brat and when you ran off to the Manticore Knights to tramp around being publically Good I nearly died of shame. It's that dreadful wife of yours, who parades around in mens' clothing who put you up to his, isn't it? I never thought even you'd lock me up in a monastery! Well, so be it! Taste a mother's curse!"
– Madeline de la Vallière (née Ambracia)
...
The smoke-filled tomb was ablaze with screaming vampires. And it was just as well that it was made of stone, or it would also have been ablaze with fire. And a burning roof is an unpleasant end to a night's entertainment, at least when one is inside.
A vampire ran past the red-skinned minion's firing line. They did not technically have to set it on fire again, because that had already been done, but they still threw a few more fireballs in its general direction because vampires burned in an amusing way.
"You know," one of the red-skinned minions said, casually, "is we hurtin' cause of Evil with this? 'Cause there not be many vampys left 'round abouts in morning?"
"That hard to say," another one said, staring at the pink explosions on the other side of the hall which marked Louise indulging herself. "Vampys are Evil, but they is not us. Also, they is rude and kicks us."
"Oh, that mean killin' them is proper Evil," the first one said. "I just want them to burny less bright. We no is getting loots from them 'cause their clothies is catching on fire. Only the stuff in their their wallets. We see what they gots in their pocketes, but mostly that is ash. And the shinies go to overlady. I is feelin' a little cheated by this, you know what I is saying?"
The other minions looked at him with incredulity, or at least would have done so if they had known what the word meant. "No," was the answer he got, explained as if to an idiot. "Because we is setting stuff on fire that burn nicely."
"Oh yeah." A pause. "Want to set Cheem's ears on fire?"
"He red like us. He no burn."
...
Louise stared at her ancestor, pinned in his coffin by the fragment of the tower heart. What flesh was exposed from under her helmet was locked into a rictus of hatred.
Her ancestor stared back at her. "Okay," the man admitted, inclining his head, "you really are a wicked little girl. How many of those blasted little goblins do you have?"
"Enough," Louise said flatly, tilting her head back so she could look down her nose at him. "I am going to make you suffer. Although I don't think I can do one tenth of what you have c-coming to you, you... you dastard!"
"Oh no. Oh no. Whatever will I do. Incidentally, learn to swear properly, granddaughter; you sound like a baby. Here; I'll give you something to swear about. I suppose now is the time that I reveal that I've been saving Cattleya's lifeblood for ten years within my veins for just this moment?" he said, with a sudden smirk as he looked up, a sudden bloody aura igniting around him.
"Oh yes. You see, I had expected that my descendents might try to bind me – as I had after all been breeding you for mastery of the black arts which includes blood magic – and so by keeping her blood and breath... yes, I learned how to steal that while in Rub al Khali on my way to the Mystic East... trapped, I can weaken the binding whenever I want to. There is a certain magical artefact which I found long ago which allows me to do all kinds of interesting things with life force. Sadly the blood is stale, so I can't break your father's trap – and I had to spend no small amount of it to resist his compulsion which would have kept me sleeping, but..." his face twisted into sudden monstrosity, "... it should be enough."
The crimson glow intensified, forming six monstrous, spider-like limbs which dug into the ground. Pulsing like a heartbeat, he lifted himself upright, the coffin hanging from mid-air in the centre of a bloody nimbus. Strange, child-sized spectres floated around him, drawn from the ground below him into his growing aura.
"Oh yes," he continued. "I suppose I'll just have to shed your blood myself. And did I mention I didn't have anywhere near all my spawn in here. Your pathetic goblins are surrounded and outnumbered by the vampiric master race! Trust me on this." He grinned a needle-toothed grin. "This'll hurt you more than it hurts me. Ah ha."
"I expected something like this," Gnarl said calmly. "Do not die, my lady."
Louise screamed and ran away, as a blood-red glowing tendril whipped down towards her, splintering the granite floor and leaving it splattered with spectral gore.
...
"Uh," said Scyl, eyes wide. "This bad, right? The fact that vampy-grampy has evil glowing red tentacles an' is chasin' overlady and killing stoopid noobie minions who are chargin' it straight on? This not part of secret plan I no pay attention to?"
Maxy sighed. "Yeah. This real bad. And not the kind of bad we like, where we say 'oh, this is totally bad' and overlady get confused because she use Good language because of how she was bought up. We is more screwed that a screw that's gone screwy 'bout being screwed into something."
"This not something we can defeat," Fettid said, sadly. "Vampy-grampy not got feet on the tentacles."
Igni crossed his arms and pouted. "Stupid vampy! Bein' immune to fire is cheatin'."
There was a pause.
"Well," Maggat said. "Time we go lay down our lives for overlady, right? However many times it takes. Scyl, don't get killed."
"We is going to have such a rezzing headache in the morning," said Maxy, morosely.
...
All in all, Louise had but one opinion of this current chain of events.
It was, as Cattleya would have put it, complete and utter bull-sugar.
"Argh argh argh oh Founder drat it all why is this happening what kind of vampire can do this argh duck duck duck what did I do to deserve this?!"
"Why, you rejected my perfectly reasonable offer!" Louis de la Vallière called out from behind her, over the noise of shattering stone from the dreadful spider-scuttle of his red-glowing tendrils. Lousie threw herself to the left, ribs protesting at the motion, and gave silent thanks to the various enchantments Jessica had woven into her heels which meant she could actually run in them.
"Slow him down!" she shrieked in a generally minionly direction, and legged it. She certainly wasn't running away; she was just getting out of stone-breaking blood-tentacle reach of her vampiric relative who was specifically looking to kill her to unleash a great evil on the world. Which all in all was clearly the morally righteous thing to do, as well as being considerably better for her health. Behind her, she heard the gleeful cheer of minions who had been told to kill something, followed by various unpleasant organic noises and screams.
Jinking around one of the high stone columns, the girl gasped for breath. She licked her lips, desperately trying to wet her mouth. It was bone dry. Okay, she wouldn't be able to pronounce the lightning chant properly in this state. Which meant that she would have to see if she could at least... like, blind him with fire or something, because that way she could at least run away more when he couldn't see her. And fire crackled and stuff like that, so... so maybe he couldn't hear her! And it had a smell too!
Holding her free hand to her ribs, she ducked out from behind the cover of the pillar and levelled her staff one-handedly at her ancestor's head. In horror, she watched as he picked up a minion with two tendrils and wrung it out, squeezing it so the blood ran out over his face. Long months of practice with any magic she could get her hands on had paid off, and bolt after bolt of pink fire lashed out fuelled by hatred and, yes, fear.
Only to be absorbed by the crimson aura which enveloped the vampire. She poured in shot after shot, but with none getting through. The redness flared and surged to absorb each impact, getting brighter and brighter until, like shattering glass, one of the extra limbs fractured.
Louise ducked back behind the pillar, panting. She could feel a headache coming on, and her limbs felt like jelly. What with everything else that had occurred, her will was almost sapped. By a gut feeling, she had about enough left in her to do that once or twice more. And that wouldn't be enough, even if the vampire didn't have some cheating stupid blatantly unfair ability to repair them.
Maybe, just maybe, she was seeing why even her parents had only been able to bind him.
The pulsing on her arm from her gauntlet grew stronger, and she realised she had not been paying attention. She risked a little poke of her head around the corner, and shrieked as a red blast of light tore into the marble, cast by a too-close ancestor smeared in minion blood. The monster was even using one magical limb to wipe himself clean and feast upon the blood – his arms remained locked immobile. Or possibly he hadn't spared the blood to allow them to move.
Wait! He said he was using up the blood of Cattleya he had saved. Maybe if she kept on running, he'd run out of it and she could get him when he was paralysed again! Keep on running, drag things out, blow off more aura-limbs if she could because that might hurt him or hasten his demise. She took a deep breath, ignoring the protest of her chest, and poked her head out, ducking back in as quickly as possible. He was distracted by her red-skinned minions, who were killing the lesser vampires with hurled fireballs, but very soon he would have killed them all. She needed to act quickly, take advantage of this, and take him down now.
"Reds!" she ordered into her gauntlet. "Keep moving! Keep away from him, and scatter into smaller groups so he can't take you out all at once! Browns! Protect the reds and throw things at him! Blues, split up so there's two of you with each group! Make sure none of you die! Greens, get up high! Attack the roof supports above him! If you can drop rocks on him, you might be able to pin him! If that doesn't work, drop down and attack his limbs from behind, and then run away if he tries to pull you off! And the nearest group of minions should come to me! Everyone, focus on the limbs! If he gets close, run away! Keep him moving and distracted!"
She could do it! That was a good plan!
...
That had been a terrible plan, all things considered, Louise thought as she sailed backwards through the air. No, wait! Her plan had been fine! The problem was with her opponent! What kind of cheating vampire ignored the minions who were being nice distractions and charged straight for you as soon as he noticed you? And didn't care when you blew off two of his evil blood tentacle things if it meant he got close to you, rather than retreating like all the monsters in the stories did after being injured? That wasn't how this sort of thing was meant to work.
Then she hit the wall and her world – which had already been made of not-inconsiderable amounts of pain – was now made of agony. She could describe how she had sounded like a sack full of cutlery dropped from a height, or the fact that she was sure she had heard multiple bones snap, but really, it hurt too much for that kind of abstract thought.
Through the red and black haze, she could see her ancestor stalking up to her, his face leering down at her from within his coffin suspended from the tendrils. "Old age and treachery triumphs over youth and skill," he said, casually. "Except you weren't actually that skilled. Honestly, I was the skilled one, and you were the treacherous one for opposing me like that. Wait a moment. Let me think up some better last words to be the last thing you hear as a living being."
Louise groaned. Each breath felt like knives into her lungs, and her breath was coming in bubbling gasps.
"Ah yes! I'd like to thank my fans, for their undying support, and extend my best wishes to the people of Tristain, who'll be seeing my come-back tour very soon!" A pause. "No, not, not ironic enough. Hmm. I'll enjoy drinking deeply from your defeated and despondent despair? Eh, no. Let's see…"
There was the patter of feet at the edge of her hearing. Or possibly that was the pounding of her heart, beating like a butterfly's wings as it pumped out her lifeblood. She felt like she was drowning.
"Ah! Don't think of it as dying. Think of it as leaving early, to avoid the..."
"Right! Stick him in the melodrama!" someone yelled, a muffled voice from the edge of her hearing.
"Fire in the hole what is left by the thing what I am shooting at you!" yelled Igni, and fired his pistol at the Duke's face. Given it had been loaded by the mechanism of 'ramming bits of silver down the barrel', and its firing mechanism was a minionlock – more colloquially called 'Igni had his thumb on the pan' – it was a hazard to at least one person within 360 degrees of the weapon's opening. And in this case, the unfortunate someone happened to be the Duke de la Vallière (undeceased), who took a barrel's worth of tight-packed deniers to the knee.
He went over backwards in a clattering of his stone coffin, his bloody tendrils disintegrating, howling in pain. Louise laughed, a bubbling gasp that left her mouth splattered with her own blood.
"Don't move, overlady," she heard, over the fog of the pain. "Maxy, get the arms!" She would have shouted something at the minion who said something so utterly stupid, but she was in rather too much pain for such things and her breath just didn't seem to want to obey her. Ha. Ha ha ha. Clearly... clearly she should shout at it. Shout at her breath.
Ha. God, it hurt so much.
"Let go! What I ever do to you?"
"Fettid, got the knife? Good? That very stupid question, Bob. You gotta know I not forgive. And you too annoying to forget. On count of 'Cut', do it Fettid! One, two, five..."
"Three."
"... shuddit, Maxy, I very distracted right now. Three, cut!"
It was like soothing balm in her veins. It was not like the healing sensation of water magic; it felt better than that. It wasn't cold and didn't make her feel slightly sick. No, it felt like... living. Louise refocused her eyes and gasped, her breath coming cleanly and pain-free. Before her stood a cluster of shamelessly gore-covered minions and the slowly disintegrating corpse of another, dissolving into a pool of sticky black slime.
"What did you do?" she breathed, eyes wide.
"We explain later," Maxy said casually. "Vampy grampy biggest problem right now."
"I thought biggest problem was way roof is getting damaged," Scyl noted. "It bigger than he is, an' I no can bring minions back if they have become like... what the word? Food stuff. Rat-au-vin, that was it."
"I think now not time for bickering because vampy grampy is a little distracted but Igni not have any shots left so we need to run," Maggat said, cutting off any other debate with the threat of violence. "Try not to get splatted again overlady. It bad for your health."
No. Louise levered herself to her feet, wiping her mouth on her arm and thanking that she'd somehow managed to keep a hold on her staff. She spat blood out, onto the ground. No. No more running. No more hiding. She stared with abject, ice-cold fury down at her fallen ancestor, who was drawing in child-like spectres of red light from the ground itself, regrowing his blood-tendrils and beginning to pick himself upright.
"You still really rather hurt, overlady," Maggat cautioned. "You lot? Know another minion who annoy us and need using as health maker better for overlady?"
"I no like Monger," Igni contributed, tongue sticking out as he tried to frantically reload his pistol.
Louise spat again, to clean her mouth, and began to chant. Lightning crackled from her staff, from her gauntlet and from her armour. It earthed itself on the ground around her. The minions around her shaded their eyes from the burning brightness in the dark. So did the Bloody Duke who loomed over her in his spider-walking coffin, one leg a bloody mess.
And then she raised her left hand and shot him in the centre of the chest with a lightning bolt. The actinic blue light flared against the crystal in his chest, crackling and flaring. And then the red aura spiralled and churned, drawn in an inexorable vortex into the crystal and snuffed out as the energy flowed back into her gauntlet.
The coffin crashed down to the ground with a splintering sound.
The overlady stared at her hand with an expression of mild shock. She had been waiting all along to have a chance to aim for the obvious glowing crystal linked to her tower heart mounted in the middle of his chest which was tied into his binding, but... uh. Well, she hadn't expected it to do that.
The duke screamed in agony. There were words of some sort in there, possibly involving 'cheating' in some capacity, but they were rendered unintelligible by pain and fury. Already, a new red aura was springing to life around him, though, as the spectral child-sized figures flocked toward him.
"I told you! I told you that was my magical glowy crystal! And lightning is wind magic, not fire!" Louise shrieked in triumph. "Gnarl! Have you got the ritual ready! You better! Or I will cook him alive with my lightning! Cook him dead! Undead! Whatever!"
Someone groaned from behind her, and from under a pile of money – which was not there any more – Cattleya pulled herself to her feet. Louise glared at the minions who had been busy collecting it again, and waggled her fingers in the right way, filling her hand with more coins. "Stay down, Catt," she said, trying not to wince at the sight of her sister's face. She'd managed to fix most of her teeth, but she wasn't looking very pretty. And Louise had been the one to do it to her... in self-defence, yes, but still...
"Not... he's... too distracted. Hit him again. M-make him scream," Cattleya managed, drooling blood and swaying.
Louise did so, with pleasure, dispersing the red light forming around him which had begun to build up again with another blast of lightning. "How do you like that, you dog!" she crowed. "Oh, you thought you were so powerful? Not anymore! Ah ha ha ha!" She started coughing, as the laughter hurt her ribs. "Scream!"
"Than' you." Cattleya stared down at her armoured sister through a swelling black eye. "Out o' my way."
Louise blinked. "What?" she asked. But she knew all too well. There was a haggard look on her sister's face, something hateful and bitter.
"I... I need this. I... I was jus' ten. He... I can't make it not have happened. But he has to die."
"If you kill him, you can't bind him," Gnarl warned. "The knowledge! The abject humiliation! The humiliation of forcing him to provide the knowledge, and then possibly putting him in a cage hanging from the ceiling for a decade or so! But then again, you might come to rely on him... and then he could betray you. And I would be powerless to help if you hadn't been listening to me properly because you had been unwise enough to rely on him rather than me. Tricky, tricky. Hmm. Well, I have the books ready for the binding whatever you decide, your evilness."
Standing between them, lit from behind by the red light of the Bloody Duke's aura and the pulse of the tower heart, Louise froze.
"Move," Cattleya whispered, hands balled into fists, a fresh tooth extending from her gums like a snake's fangs unfolding.
... she shouldn't let Cattleya do it. It was wrong. This would be her killing someone... and probably draining their blood. That was bad. It was wrong. Killing did bad things to the minds of vampires, the stories said, that they weren't truly lost until they had first killed. She could stop her. Kill the Duke first. Rid the world of him. Or bind him, take him away from Cattleya, leave her safe with her parents. Or... she could kill them both. Put the blood-hungry, battered thing in front of her to rest, the beast with rending teeth and glowing eyes and claws, and remember her sister as she was, as she had been. As a kind, sweet girl; not something that had to prey on others. Not something which... which had ever looked like that thing before her.
Gnarl waited patiently.
But the way Cattleya looked at her. She was still her big sister. The raw, visceral need in her eyes. The pain, the inner pain which put whatever Louise might have done to stop her attacking to shame. She knew that need, that hatred, that desperation all too well; she had seen it in the mirror when she had blamed herself for another failure at magic. It must have been horrible for her all these years. Lying to her little sister, blaming her older sister, scared of Mother and Father in a way which Louise had been this past year. And she was... technically a vampire in some ways, because it seemed that one of the things that her minions had not told her was that they had a way of sacrificing themselves to heal her.
If it meant that much to Cattleya, then dr... then damn everything else.
Louise stepped aside, bowing her head, and Cattleya sprang.
Feeling sick, Louise tried her very best not to listen nor to cry. From everything. Her arm was hurting more, and every breath hurt. And she was hoping and praying that what she had done was for the best, but she didn't know and feared to find out.
Screwing her eyes shut, she turned around, and summoned a ball of fire in her hand. The next step would be to see if the thing which... to see if it was still her sister over there. But she didn't want to look. This... this was all her fault. This was exactly what Mother had spoken of, the weakness of choosing what felt easy over what she knew to be right. So she had to face it. She had to carry out the righteous action if it was necessary. And having done that...
"Uh. Louise?" Cattleya asked, curiously. "Why're you standing there with your eyes closed? Well, I mean, you've got that fancy helmet on, but I can't see your glowing eyes – oh! Your eyes are much nicer than mine, by the way; dull crimson is a horrid colour – where was I? Oh yes, I mean, what're you doing?"
That... definitely sounded like Cattleya rather than a blood-soaked queen of the damned. Louise opened her eyes, and reconsidered. How to put it? Well, Cattleya wasn't a queen, and her dominion of the damned was uncertain. That was about what could be said.
"Yeah," Cattleya said sheepishly, a adjective not usually applied to someone who looked like they had just had an 'accident' in an abattoir while wearing a hockey mask and chasing a mixed group of teenage stereotypes. "We do kind of need to find some still water for me to jump in. And this nightdress is probably ruined. Well, it'd definitely ruined. I lose lots of clothes to bloodstains, but this won't even be good as rags. You would not believe how much blood he had in him! I think he was regenerating it! And it was so good. Really, really good. I'm not going to have to eat for weeks." She hiccupped. "I mean, that was wonderful. Enough to heal everything you did to me – I totally forgive you for that, little sis, and am so so so sorry for what he made me do – and then more." She put a hand on her stomach. "I feel half-ready to burst! Like a tick or something! I wonder if that's what people mean by the sweet taste of revenge? And..."
Louise raised a hand. "Catt. No more, please." She took a deep breath. "I... I might have found out what you are and what you get up to, but... uh, can you not talk about... the whole v-word thing in such... such... I'm really not very comfortable with it!" She swallowed. "Is... he dead?"
"Well, yes. He's a vam... oh, right." Cattleya smiled a not very pleasant smile and jabbed a finger in the direction of the coffin. "See for yourself." Louise did so, and was presented by a shrivelled, desiccated corpse which looked like it had been dead for hundreds of years. Paper-thin skin, torn in places, was stretched tight over yellowed bone. The teeth had been smashed and broken, the limbs broken, and the corners of the mouth seemed to be locked in a rictus of agony.
Louise seized the fragment of the tower heart from his chest. The crystal glowed bright in her hands, sinking into her gauntlet, and she felt a sudden almost-contented charm from the stone in the gauntlet. Then she yanked the mantle off the corpse, tossing it to Cattleya. "Put that on," she said. "You're... uh, sort of," she made gestures around her chest, "... sort... the blood is making your nightie see-through and...and uh, one of the straps is broken and you're sort of... just put it on, Catt."
And then Louise turned and set fire to the duke's body, watching it burn. Something collapsed on the far side of the room as she did so, rubble throwing up dust which was painted pink by the fire.
"I'll just stay back here if you don't mind," Cattleya said nervously, edging away from the inferno.
"Minions," Louise commanded, before correcting herself, "well, reds. Collect the ash from the fire, and then we'll sprinkle it in flowing water. Well, some of it there. Some we'll put in a jar of holy water. And other such things. I want his ashes spread so far and wide anyone wanting to use dark magic to bring him back will have to start with fingernail-sized portions!"
Maggat coughed in an embarrassed fashion. "Uh, your evilness?" he said. "We die. A lot. I mean, double-die. Well, most of the ones who die is stoopid ex-goblins who never meet a vampire before, but still."
Louise paused, and shrugged. The remaining minions did look especially well-festooned in both minionly-gear and things like opera capes and monocles and other such accruements of the pseudo-aristocratic vampire. "Oh well. We can always get some replacements for the goblin-ones." She paused. Should she really be thinking like that? On the other hand, the ex-goblins were offensively stupid and a few had even made comments about her height and lack of a bust, so really, they had it coming. "How many can you save?" she asked.
Scyl stepped forward. "We got all the ones we can," he said frankly. "Vampies eat lifey-ness, so they got ways of killing us dead-dead easy."
Oh. Well, it was the vampires' fault, not hers. That made everything so much easier. They really were such a morally acceptable target, she thought smugly.
The vampire beside her sniffed, and stared over towards the other side of the room. "Through there," she said, pointing. "More vampires."
Louise cracked her knuckles. "Well, I suppose we – and by that I mean 'I and my fire-throwing minions' better go solve them," she said, cheerfully. You can keep back..." she trailed off, at the way that Cattleya had in the blink of an eye crossed half the room. Clanking, aching she made her way over to where her sister waited, and stared in shock at what she could see.
The damage to the underground chamber had smashed away a false wall which had revealed a secret room. Within could be seen... a mass of vampires, chained together. They were not the handsome, pretty vampires like the Duke de la Vallière (re-deceased) or even Cattleya; they were walking corpses, with monstrous fangs bared from lipless mouths. And what they were chained to, by red-glowing chains, was...
"A minion hive!" Gnarl exclaimed, sounding incredibly pleased with himself. "Not a true one, of course, but it looks like a fairly good copy. Your evilness, you must take that back to the tower at all costs! Ah ha! And that explains exactly how he was able to return from things which should have killed a normal vampire! He clearly was using it to feed off all kinds of life force! And even why your father needed a shard of a tower hear t to bind him! Well, well, well. I wonder how he got his hands on that? And from whom he got it from? And whether he was dead or not when he got it? Either way, taking it back may be the only way to ensure he remains dead!"
The overlady nodded. "Very well," she said, ignoring Gnarl's ponderings for the much more relevant 'bring it back', and threw a sputter of sparks. Given that had meant to be a fireball, that was a bad sign. She tried again, focussing, and got a damp belch of flame which barely made it past her finger tips. "One...small, teeny weeny problem," Louise said uneasily, panting. "Uh. I... seem to be out. This has never happened to me before! I... I've never had a problem with Evil magic!"
"Mmm?" Cattleya said, licking around her mouth and staring at the throats of the writhing mass of corpse-like bodies.
"It's a real problem! I'm... I've spent all my time learning magical things and I'm... uh, I could be better with my staff! And those vampires look really nasty."
Cattleya blinked, and grinned widely, her teeth notably lengthening and her whole face taking on an inhuman cast. "Oh, Louise," she said teasingly, "that's not a problem. Let me," said Cattleya gently. "I can handle this. In the proper manner."
Louise stepped back.
"Alright, you suckers!" Cattleya screamed at the top of her voice, lifting her two-handed sword high, "don't give us any sugar, or, may the blesséd Founder aid us, we will flipping end your foul existence!"
"This is your idea of a proper manner?" Louise hissed in shock.
"They're not a problem," her sister said cheerfully. "They're a meal. And killing them all counts as repentance for whatever bad deeds the two of us might have done tonight, right? I mean, it'd be wrong for us to leave them here where they might escape."
"You said you were full!" Louise blurted out, momentarily forgetting that she didn't want to hear that kind of thing from her sister.
"So I did! Turns out I was wrong," Cattleya said brightly, unhinging her jaw with a crackle of bone before she leapt.
There was something... very wrong with her sister, Louise could not help but conclude. More so than usual. More so than she had been before. Maybe it was the fact she'd killed the one who'd made her like this and that had boosted her confidence. Maybe Mother and Father had known exactly what they were doing when they'd kept her on a animal diet and now with all this blood – not even just human blood, vampire blood – that she'd gorged on, she was like some peasant child who'd never had honey in more than small mouthfuls being sat down at a noble banquet.
Louise's minions formed up around her. She told them to hold fire – literally – and then clarified that they could still shoot guns and the like, but throwing fire at her sister was right out. She then expanded on a few threats on what would happen to anyone who disobeyed her. It was relaxing.
Cattleya was a fanged whirlwind of inexpert sword blows. Then again, there was a certain school of thought which stated that a man-tall lump of sharpened steel being swung around like it was a twig by a vampire could not precisely be called an inexpert. Or a sword, exactly.
Either way, things which went within reach of her got body parts removed by a blade which whistled through the air. Those were probably the lucky ones, because the ones who got within biting range suffered altogether more unpleasant fates. Louise averted her eyes, paling at the sight of her kind gentle sister shaking a woman by the throat like a dog might a bone.
Either way, there was no way she could let her sister near Mother in this state. She'd have to take her with her. And not just because there was the nagging voice at the back of her head which sounded vaguely like Gnarl pointing out how useful that kind of loyal monster might be. Wait, not 'not just because'. Not at all!
"You know, your evilness," Gnarl began slyly, "you could..."
"Yes, I'm taking her with me," Louise said sharply, with a hint of regret that the voice hadn't actually been Gnarl. At least when he said horrible things, they weren't coming from her, and she could get properly outraged about them.
"Delightfully indulgent, your evilness. Certainly, the Duke would have been a useful slave if one was being pragmatic, but you wouldn't want to let a man like him constrain your actions. And he might have ended up a rival. A rival of you, of course. No one else."
"Finished!" called out Cattleya cheerfully, dropping a shrivelled husk of a vampire which began to disintegrate into dust when it hit the ground. She dug in her by-now-split-and-tattered nightgown and recovered an already-bloodstained handkerchief, before frowning at it. "Louise," she asked. "Uh... do you have a handkerchief? Mine is dirty and I need to wipe my mouth."
The overlady passed her sister a little white frippery, and winced at the mess which was made of it. "And... Cattleya?" Louise asked nervously. "Do you have to... uh, lick the sword like that?"
Her sister blushed, and hastily licked her lips. "Sorry, sorry," she apologised, "but it's just so nice! And I so rarely manage to get human blood. Mother and father – righteously, I might add – stop me from having it. It's raw steak and black pudding and animals, normally. But..." she sighed happily, "... it's so nice! No wonder most vampires are utterly horrible people! It's like honey and poppy juice, mixed together. And this vampire blood is... Founder, it's even better! I hadn't even thought that was possible! Louis was wonderful; I'm not entirely sure I can go back to bland bland bland animal blood again."
"Well, I think you've had enough!" Louise said hotly. "And I think you'll have to! Go back, that is!"
"I know, I know," Cattleya said sadly, before perking up. "I wonder if Mother would let me become a vampire hunter! I mean, once you get past all the horrific things happening tonight and how I was almost made to murder you – which totally wouldn't happen with any other vampire – tonight was pretty fun. I could do this all the time, and no one minds if you drain a vampire dry. We got to spend time together, I got really good meals... so, so good... and best of all, we made the world better! It was so good!"
There was a grumbling of irate noises from the minions.
"Steady, steady," Maxy said, hastily. "Remember, sister what is a vamp is like overlady and was raised by Good parents. They not know the proper meaning of words."
"Oh yeah."
"True, that."
"About that," Louise said, ignoring the rumbling of her murderous goblinoids, "... Cattleya? Rather than asking Mother, would you like to come with me and..."
She had been thinking of a sales pitch. A way of explaining it. A way to carefully persuade her sister that she should come with her, help her, and so – and this was the bit she wasn't going to mention – be kept away from mother when she seemed to be enjoying blood rather too much.
Any further attempts to carefully explain the benefits, however, were cut short when Cattleya locked her in a flying tackle and hugged her close. Louise tried very hard not to breathe, because her sister reeked of blood. She also did her best to put the state of her armour out of her mind, especially regarding how much she would need to pay Jessica to fix it again.
"Of course of course of course!" the older girl said gleefully. "Of course I will help you! Louise, thanks to you that horrid, horrid man is dead and I'm free! And you're my sister! We're family... and not the horrific blood-drinking cruel kind of family! We can go back to my room, your minions can move that magical rock thing you found, we can pick up some stuff, and then we can go right away!"
...
The wardrobe had been manhandled – or rather, vampiricfemalehandled – through the window, and was making its way off the estate, carried by three minions who had been told that if they made sure it was removed safely, they would each get a dress at the end of it. So too had the bed, which had turned out to have a mattress made of soil. Now, Cattleya was finishing a letter for their parents while Louise drank a warm milk which had been prepared for her by the maid, Anne. Louise had questioned her as to whether she was surprised by Cattleya coming back covered in blood, but apparently it was just a thing that happened and the maid was now working industriously on trying to remove the stains from the nightgown.
Louise felt it was futile, but the peasantry had their ways and they liked to feel busy. The fact that Fettid, still wearing one of her dresses, appeared to be helping her was... well, she wasn't going to question things. So instead she drank her milk and listened to the scratch of her sister's pen.
"It is finished," Cattleya said, suddenly appearing before her.
Louise spluttered, and milk went up her nose as she began to cough. "Can you... not do that, please?" she asked, once she had her choking under control.
"Oops?"
The overlady sighed, and began to read.
Dear Mother and Father,
By the time you read this letter I will be gone. I am writing this letter in the very best hope that you will understand what I am doing, and I hope and pray that you understand that every last word I write here is true. I will understand if you do not believe me, for I am not a trustworthy creature, but I can only hope that you will. At least this will let me get my story down, if we do not speak peacefully again.
This night, a calling I did not even know I had been feeling became too strong to resist, and I found myself drawn to the secret lake, to the tomb of Louis de la Vallière. I think he has been calling for quite some time, building in strength despite the wards and the running water which keeps him trapped. And I was not the only one who was drawn there, because the dark overlady from the north, the one who killed the comte de Mott, was also there. She was looking for the artefact of Evil you used to bind our hated ancestor, though – perhaps she had felt his lure amplified by her search for it. I do not know.
Before you worry, I have talked to her about the artefact and I believe her to be telling the truth when she says it is a fragment of an ancient thing of much malevolence called a 'tower heart' which must be kept whole. At some point, the tower heart was damaged, and the fragments sold off; this is bad, for damage to a tower heart can – she says – depopulate entire regions. I consider it wiser to allow a minor force of evil to exist than to risk losing perhaps the entire North, though I do not know for sure and you are of course wiser than me in such matters.
But that is a distraction. The overlady wished to see the vampire dead once she had discovered his existence, and... and I must admit I was weak. You know how much I hate what I am, that I am forced to live like this, and the chance for revenge was too much to pass up. I was prideful and foolish, though, and in my hate I ignored your warnings. He took control of me when we were in the tomb.
And this is where the terrifying thing comes in. Through some means, perhaps linked to the tower heart, the overlady had found a way to counter the immortality possessed by the Duke which exceeded even that of the normal undead. And she found a hidden artefact in the tomb which he used to anchor it, and broke his connection. Using the fragment in his chest, she drained his power, and... and she laughed and let me have my revenge on him.
I killed the Bloody Duke. Mother, father, this is the truth. I... I sunk my fangs into his neck, drained out his blood, and left him a husk drained of all blood and life. The overlady burned the body, and we scattered the ashes in the running water of the rivers.
He is dead. I am free from him.
And this is not the only other thing I must tell you. The overlady... she says she knows where Louise is, that she keeps her close at all times. She says Louise is not dead, but merely is not allowed to return home until whatever the overlady has planned comes to pass. Louise ran away from the shame of her failed summoning, trying to become an adventuring Hero as a way of proving herself, but stumbled into the tower of the overlady. She killed a vampire who had done many wicked things, but then ended up trapped. So I have gone with the overlady. I will make sure my little sister remains safe. I may be dead, but I will not allow her to die, too.
Please do not come looking for me. The dark overlady has hinted that she knows where Louise is at all times, and that if you came something terrible would happen to her. And I can feel – just feel in my heart – that she's telling the truth. When I get to where she's taking me, I will make sure to find out the truth. If she's lying... well, I will try to leave, but I am sure she is not! I will do my very best to make sure that Louise comes to no harm and to work within the dark lady's organisation in the name of righteousness and the crown!
I will try my very hardest not to indulge in my little illness and keep it from public knowledge, like I am meant to. If I am found out despite my best efforts... well, clearly it was the dark wicked overlady who infected a poor innocent girl with this dreadful condition, and you will mourn me for who I once was. I will try my very, very best to not bring shame on the family name.
If you never see me again, I just want you to know that I love you all so very much, and that I will be eternally grateful for these past ten years of continued life, when by rights I should have been put to death years ago. And I am so dreadfully sorry for whatever grief I may bring you.
I love you all. I will always love you, no matter what. And with the grace of God, the next time I see you I will have Louise safe with me.
Your loving daughter,
Ayelttac
Louise finished reading the letter. With mixed emotions, she put it down. Part of her knew how selfish she was being, how she was hurting her family by pretending to be dead. Oh, she'd known it before, but this brought things home to her. And now she was responsible for taking Cattleya – who was now, properly, a blood-sucking undead monster – away. She hoped her parents would never find out what she had done. And, guiltily, there was also glee, because now she'd have her big sister with her and someone to talk to and... well, a vampire would be useful in rescuing Princess Henrietta, right? She shouldn't think of Cattleya as a useful tool, but she would be.
But probably chief among the mixed emotions she was feeling was exasperation. "Cattleya," she said, wearily, "you've written your name backwards."
Her big sister winced, and massaged the back of her neck. "Sorry, sorry," she said sheepishly. She rapped on her skull with her knuckles. "Silly, silly hollow-headed me. I just do that sometimes when I get distracted. I'll go correct it right away." She took the letter back and scrawled out the signature, her tongue sticking out as she focussed on writing it again. "Is that better?"
Louise sniffed and wiped her eyes – it was just the dust, really! – and nodded. "Yes, it is," she said. "Now... take what you need to take, and we can go. Silently. I'll have the minions carry your baggage."
"I need to say goodbye to my animals," Cattleya said, nodding. "Well, most of them. I'll be taking a few of them along, because... well, I'll miss them too much otherwise. And... um, I might get hungry, because I don't think you'll have a proper set up to make sure I can eat. I'll be taking Anne too, because you can't expect me to go without her. I can't even do my morning toilet without her, because... well, no reflection. She has to do my plaits."
"Fine," Louise said, sadly, slumping down on a cushion-filled armchair. She winced at the tearing noise, as something gave way under her slightly-spiky armoured bulk. Hopefully Cattleya had not noticed.
From the side room, Louise could hear the barking of hounds and the cawing of birds, as her sister's menagerie welcomed her. "Sorry," her sister said. "I won't be able to feed you and you'll have to be good. I can only take some of you." There was a caterwauling. "No, there's no need to be like that. You can live here fine. No... down! Down boy!"
Louise smiled faintly.
"No! No, Ursa, I can't take you with me," Cattleya said, in response to what sounded like... a roar? "You're mother's, after all. You'll just have to go back to her room. She'll notice you're missing when she gets back."
A sad roar.
"There, there. I'll be back soon! Now, come on boys! Come with me!" The door opened again, and Louise boggled slightly.
"Catt?" she said, slowly, staring at the waist-high black-furred monsters padding beside her sister. "Those are wolves."
Cattleya shook her head. "Louise, Louise, Louise. All dogs are wolves."
"... no. Catt, those are wolves. With sharp teeth and glowing red eyes and..." Louise paused. "Cattleya, why do you have vampire wolves? What did you do to those poor creatures!"
"They're not vampires!" Cattelya said, sounding offended. "And trust me, Louise, dogs and wolves are the same kind of creature! They can have adorable little puppies together!"
"The details of what makes a wolf and what makes a dog different is not in question! Those are wolves! Vampire wolves!"
"They are not!" Cattleya paused. "I only enthralled them! Else they were too scared of me! And that makes them all tame and playful and friendly! Anyway, one of my vampire powers is I can summon wolves, and father doesn't mind that because he says that wolves are less dangerous than the black hounds he breeds for his hunting." She paused. "I can also turn into one," she added, as if this were a minor point that she had only just remembered.
Louise sighed. "Fine. Perfect. Why not? So you're taking them with us. Go ahead."
"I was thinking that your adorable cute minions could ride my puppies," Cattleya said, pouting.
There was a clatter from Fettid over by the washboard, as she dropped everything. "Overlady sister is best sister in whole world!" she said, gleefully.
…
