VII.

Vanessa had managed to pass through the second and third gate and collect her bounty; not without effort, but she had managed, and began to be confident her task was not impossible. But what lay behind the fourth gate of the Duat came as worse than a surprise. The smell of oil that greeted her as she sailed through the gate was instant, and everywhere. When she looked down, she saw that there was no water around her barge anymore. All was oil, black and stinking, and when one of the birds dragging the barge flew too deep, the waves licked at its wings and made them stick. It tried to fly higher again, but the oil was everywhere on its feathers, and it fell on the white paper of Vanessa's boat, spraying bits of oil on it. Helplessly, it cried, until an oil drop got in its throat.

It was an evil creature, but she could not bear to see anything wild suffer this fate. Vanessa knelt, and broke its throat. It still kept moving, throwing itself around with wings full of oil and broken neck.

"Nothing here dies," a male voice said. "Because everything is already dead. Keep that in mind, you bitch."

She looked up. Out of the ocean rose a shape, still made of black oil; a torso with many heads that resembled those of jackals, snapping in her direction. The sigil of the scorpion on board her ship lit up in tiny flames that, for the moment, did not burn anything, including the paper they were drawn on.

"You had me torn apart by my own dogs," the voice said.

So this was what had become of Sir Geoffrey Hawkes.

"You murdered my friend Joan and branded me with iron," Vanessa said coldly. There were actions she deeply regretted, but killing this man wasn't among them. She still remembered becoming one with the dogs, and the hot satisfaction feeling his flesh and blood in her throat had left. "Death was too good for you. I'm glad you ended up here."

"And so have you, you whore!" the mouths made out of black dripping oil roared. Between torso and throats, there was something substantial on the creature, the only thing not black and made of oil. She could barely recognize it, but there it was. A silvery chain, and from it dangling, that part of a man Sir Geoffrey had valued most.

How eminently fitting. This must have been why the birds had dragged her here. Another part to collect. But in order to take it from him, Vanessa would have to lift the protection the Scorpion sigil gave her vessel. She couldn't command the birds to lift it; they would fall into the oily abyss, feathers irrevocably bound together. No, she would have to use magic, and she couldn't do that from behind a ward.

Yet she knew that the moment she lifted the protection, the creature would try to sink the barge and her on it into the black oil it consisted of. And then she would not die. No, she would spend eternity like the bird now rolling helpessly on board her ship did, suffocating in the oil he'd drenched Joan with forever.

"Not just suffocating," Geoffrey Hawkes hissed, hearing her fears aloud. "No, for you, I'll set myself on fire, bitch. And don't think you can command me. Mother of evil or no, you have no power over me. You murdered me when I was alive, and that makes me your victim. It means you cannot command me now we are both dead, no matter how strong your magic, and I have the right of vengeance on you."

The waves around her boat grew higher, as if they were whips running from his monstrous body, lashing out at her. The smell of oil engulfed her, as it had when she had watched him and his mob pour it over Joan's body before they set her friend on fire.

It was unbearable, the thought this petty, greedy fool who'd killed her friend for land and spite should be the one to bring her down, to allow Dracula to plague the world forever.

"Joan!" Vanessa cried. "Joan, I have need of you!"

There were no arms around her, as there had been when she had called her mother. There was no sense of warmth. There was nothing, nothing but the sickening smell of oil everywhere, the sound of barking laughter, and for a moment, she despaired. Then she resolved to risk it all, for she would not draw back. Vanessa drew within herself and raised her hands to lift the warding spell.

"Did I not teach my little scorpion to have patience?"

There she was, standing on the paper barge's heck, right as rain, and rain was what she brought with her: blessed water, water pouring from her fingertips into the oily sea.

"You shouldn't have called me now," Joan said, rough Scottish voice unchanged. "Should have waited. There are harder tasks ahead, my girl, and each of us can aid you only once."

"What's that?" all the dripping throats of the Geoffrey Hawkes creature yelled. Joan ignored him, as if he wasn't there. But the water was running from her into the oil, clear and true, and started to dissolve it. The black thickness began to resemble more of a brown brew.

"I have been other than you hoped I'd be," Vanessa said, drinking her sight in. Dr. Seward had been so like Joan, and yet not: not half as scarred, nor half as loving. "But every lesson that you taught helped save my life."

The roars of Geoffrey Hawkes were turning into whining as the water made his torso blurry, like a smudged sketch in what was now a yellowish fluid. "You can't do this, witch! I have the right of vengeance!"

Finally, Joan deigned to speak to him. "I have the right of vengeance," she said, "for you murdered me. And nothing here can die. Remember that."

The form of him dissolved at last as well into the water; became just as butter scratched on toast, endlessly scratched and torn and thinned. Just the silver collar and its pendant remained firm. Vanessa opened her palms, and lifting the ward, called it to her. As it moved towards her, air seemed to move with it, becoming wind, and the water flowing from Joan's hands started to change shape. It was as if it turned into tiny little drops, flowing no longer downwards but upwards. As if Joan herself was turning into cloud and rain.

"Joan!"

"Only one time, little scorpion" Joan's voice whispered mournfully. "But my heart stays with you, always."

Water, wind and rain engulfed Vanessa like a kiss. Then all were gone. In her hands, she held the collar and the pendant.