FOURTEEN
Everything about it sounded like … honestly not much different than vampires back home. Couldn't handle sunlight, needed blood to survive—the blood of family, or at least someone familiar it seemed, being the preference. Or perhaps it was necessity rather than preference that it had to be the blood of someone familiar? That part wasn't exactly clear. It didn't appear this was passed on through a bite like the sort of vampires she was used to reading about, but rather …. Oh, this was just frustrating, even a bit rubbishy sounding. She could completely understand being cursed if you killed someone, but there was a point in the passage that revealed something about wearing a dirty shirt possibly causing the affliction?
Shaking her head, she shrugged that part off as superstition that had somehow bled into the accounts. They could turn into animals and mist, but no one was really certain what the extent of their abilities might be. The red eyes certainly fit with what she'd seen.
She was going to get to the bottom of this.
Finishing eating, Hermione thanked Oksana and told her she was going to turn in early tonight. She washed out and dried her dishes, gathered the many books in her arms and headed to her room.
With the door shut firmly behind her and the books stacked atop the rickety little table beside her bed, Hermione tried to think. A vampire made sense. No, not a vampire per se, an upir, she mentally corrected herself. Although, from what she'd read, they were such similar creatures she would not be surprised to learn they came from a singular common ancestor, or if—like the whole Veela/Vila thing—the vampire as she knew it was descended from the upir.
… Wait.
That nip on her thigh last night … She'd been admittedly distracted, what she'd thought was a moment of accidentally nibbling too hard could've easily been a bite. The sensation of his lips and tongue moving over her skin afterward him sucking the blood ...
Hermione forced herself to ignore remembering what it had felt like. She hadn't noticed anything earlier, but then she'd not really been looking.
Hiking up the length of her robes, she ran a hand along the inside of her thigh. Her fingertip traced over two already-healing holes in her skin.
Her brows shooting upward, she let the fabric fall back around her. "A vampire? Honestly!" she hissed in a fierce whisper, not wanting her words to reach beyond her door. But where would she have attracted the attention of such a—
"Oh my God! The cemetery?" Her shoulders drooped and she rolled her eyes. "Are you trying to be cliché, whoever you are?"
Yes, whoever he was. Familiar blood, a voice she recognized.
She glanced toward the door. Oksana had expressed concern over young witches traveling about alone at night, and Hermione couldn't imagine explaining why she needed to go back to the cemetery without raising alarm bells all over the village.
She'd been entirely vulnerable last night, if the culprit wanted to kill her, he could've easily done so; could've drained her unconscious leaving her unable to realize what was happening and fight back, could've taken every last drop from her veins. That he'd taken so little ... well, she wasn't certain what that meant, but she certainly didn't want it to mean villagers storming the cemetery with wands aimed and fire charms at the ready like Muggles with torches and pitchforks.
Hermione could only see one way to get to the bottom of this.
The thought of sneaking out—of Oksana panicking should she come into the room and find it empty—bothered Hermione greatly, but she had to go. Had to find out who that had been last night.
She's simply hurry back, that was all.
Fetching her wand, Hermione opened the shuttered window and slipped out into the night.
