5

Paracelsus sighed heavily as she sat amidst a pile of roots, fungi and dead leaves. She couldn't stop thinking about the monster they had encountered in the Ruins. Reynauld had said it was part of the Crimson Curse. She had no idea what that meant, she had never heard of this Curse. Was it a disease? Or a fortune teller's curse? Would the gypsy that sold trinkets by the statue of the Ancestor know anything about it?

The Heir had been kind enough to allow the Plague Doctor access to her Ancestor's library. She hadn't found anything of use amidst the dusty, dust-covered tomes. What she did learn though, sent a shiver down her spine. The more she got to know this Ancestor, the creepier he got. From what she gathered from Dismas and Reynauld, it was a form of vampirism. A real form of vampirism.

She had wanted to scoff at that. Vampires weren't real… she sighed again, annoyed at herself. Monsters weren't supposed to be real either, but they were. She had seen them with her own eyes. Giants, monstrous and terrible. This place was overrun with them… it was a wonder the Hamlet had any human life, between the pig men, the bandits and the undead.

The fungi and leaves swirled in front of her eyes as she lost herself in her own thoughts. There was nothing in any medical texts. Vampirism was considered a myth and only zealots and fanatics believed in that nonsense, not trained professionals. She scoured her brain, re-reading books she'd memorized in university. Nothing. Absolutely nothing .

A muttered curse escaped her tightly pressed lips from behind her mask as she gathered her plants and stuffed them in her satchel. She needed a specimen, preferably many to be honest, of the vampire monsters. If there was a disease afoot, Paracelsus was positive she could cure it. Or at the very least find a way to slow its progress.

If she could get her hands on a corpse or two. How she would find these corpses, she still had to figure out, but she was nothing if not resourceful. Maybe a short expedition might be in order… she just had to figure out where the most likely place would be to find a vampire. Who could she take on this expedition…

A long shadow fell over her as she cautiously got to her feet and shouldered her sack. It was Tardif, the bounty hunter. She blinked at him from behind her dark goggles, mildly surprised to see him. What was he doing here? She no longer owned him, it had been for one mission, he had no reason to come looking for her.

He stood silently watching her for a moment before he jerked his head behind him, indicating for her to follow him. Ooo this was interesting! Her heart accelerated excitedly.

"What is it?" She asked as she walked behind him.

"Something you might be interested in," he replied, leading her towards the weathered Tavern. For her?! He didn't hold the door open for her, and she noticed he threw a small pouch of gold at the barkeep as he led her towards a trap door behind a giant wooden cask, in a corner of the room.

The stairs creaked ominously as she followed him down into the damp cellar, lanterns provided an orange glow that barely banished the darkness. There were wooden crates stacked haphazardly all over the area and more casks along the far wall, cobwebs lined the ceiling. There was a large, oak table near one of the supporting columns.

She saw the decapitated corpse at the same time she smelt the blood over the incenses in her beak. Her eyes widened and she reached out and grabbed Tardif's scaled armour along his arm with a black, leather glove. The bounty hunter stopped beside the table and nodded down at the bloody body.

"I reckon you needed one of these," he murmured without looking at her.

She squealed loudly and wrapped her arms tightly about his armoured neck as she hugged him. She was practically vibrating in her excitement. "You are the best!" She shrieked in his ear, unable to contain herself.

He grunted and winced as he pried her off him. She dropped her satchel without hesitation and unsheathed her flamberge dagger. Paracelsus dug through her sack and retrieved her notebook and a small pencil. The pencil rolled off the table as she shoved everything on its surface hurriedly. She chased after it clumsily, almost tripping over her own two feet in the process.

Tardif was silent as he watched her calivate about the room before she returned brandishing her pencil triumphantly. She was quick to sketch the dead bloodsucker. He'd run into the creature on a walk he had taken around the perimeter of town. He'd almost been ambushed, his keen hearing had saved him, their incessant buzzing impossible to ignore. The sycophants had fallen quickly, and he had decapitated the Gatekeeper as the little beastie had fled.

The barkeep had not put up much of a fight after Tardif paid him handsomely for the basement. Technically, this was his home now. He had paid for the area handsomely. He had wanted a secure place for the doctor to do her work. He hadn't wanted the nuns from the infirmary hovering. The church had already forbade the demons to enter on their hallowed ground.

He watched as she sketched the head from a different angle. She used her dagger to move, poke, and cut. She snapped an evil looking contraption into the mouth, and cranked the lever so that it forced the jaws apart. He grimaced behind his helm as she jotted in her notebook.

"It's got a human tongue too," she murmured under her breath. She wasn't looking at him, so Tardif figured she was speaking to herself. He had noticed she did that a lot.

He let her work while he moved towards another corner of the room, not far from the stairs. His gear, along with Jason's, were side by side, he had set up his bed roll already. He removed his helmet and placed it on a crate close to his bed. Tardif ran a hand through his short, disheveled black hair. A three day stubble lined his cleft chin, and square jaw He scratched at his neck, and ran a hand down his face.

She worked through the night, sketching, slicing and making small noises of satisfaction and excitement. He found his dark eyes fixated on her back as he settled within his bed roll. He'd removed his boots and weapons. He sat with his back against a crate, watching her, and wondering what she looked like beneath that ridiculous outfit she wore. He'd known from his extensive traveling that most plague doctors were charlatans, out to make a quick silver on simple people. They weren't even real doctors.

He snorted as he realized he was willing to bet she was though. She was too interested in the dead thing to not be. Too calculated, despite her awkward enthusiasm, to be a fake. So what had brought her here? What made her don the plague doctor's mask if she was the real thing?

Tardif fell asleep, staring at her.