The curtain wall of the Château Rozay-en shone sickly green under the moonlight. Earlier that night its stones had been tightly fitted and of regular size, yet now, when looked upon from the inside, they were old, worn, and uneven. Clumps of mossy dirt had been stuffed in the gaps in place of mortar. From that dirt now sprouted vines, large and small, snaking their way up and down and across the wall on all sides, coating it in a lattice of thorns. The lattice extended, ethereal and insubstantial, into the sky, signaling that even the space above the wall was no longer safe to cross.
Noel scanned across the wall for holes from the other side of the front yard, feeling panic tighten its hold around her throat as it became clear that there would be no escape from the Château tonight.
She had fled without a second thought the moment Ciel failed. The moment Rita Rozay-en had proclaimed she would paint a portrait, Noel had turned and bounded away from the garden as fast as she could, running as if the devil himself was chasing her down. If arguably the greatest warrior of the Burial Division could not kill a vampire through underhanded methods, the most mediocre Executor stood no chance at all. It was the reasonable conclusion. Yet it was not reason that had led her to run, but terror and instinct. A young voice had screamed from the back of her mind, and she had obeyed. Her flight from the garden had led her to the edge of the roof, and now there was nowhere else to go. She could only stare, still and silent as stone, and sink into despair. Her breathing was unsteady, her muscles ached, her heart beat out of control, and she felt queasy, as if it were not Ciel but her who had lost a brutal battle seconds ago.
Noel now stood alone, drowning in silence. No one had come after her. Not yet.
What next? She repeated the question to herself. The answer was the same each time: There was no next. This was it. She'd get a few minutes' respite, perhaps, and then a fate worse than death. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she could avoid something worse than death. The ground below her was three storeys away. If one were to strike it head-first at the right angle, the results would be both quick and certain.
Close to where Noel stood was a turret that rose from the roof, perfectly overlooking the front yard. From it she picked up the sound of rushed steps on stairs, groaning wood, and the cold rasp of metal latches sliding. White hands threw open shutters that had been barred from within. A long face with sharp eyes and pale, curly hair, jutted out through one of the openings. The man scanned the roof, searching the shadows for signs of intruders.
"All clear!" he called out before a sharpened hunk of metal cleaved through his neck.
The man's body slumped over, bleeding down the side of the tower. Noel stood atop the spire above, one hand gripping the polearm that had until earlier been slung across her back, and the other holding aloft his severed head. She looked into its dull dead eyes and saw in their reflection a most pathetic sight – yet she found some amusement in it, nonetheless.
"Alas, poor Nightkin; I hardly knew ye," she said, then let out a sad giggle. "Oh, it's hopeless. No chance, no shot. Doesn't matter which circle it is, it's still Hell in the end. What am I to do, vampire? What will you do? All you know is parasitism. Every thought in that stupid empty head of yours revolves around blood. Dressing up like a man, talking, speaking human tongue when you're just an overgrown mosquito looking for his next fix!"
Noel reared back to hurl the head into the yard when something caught her eye and gave her pause. An off-white string, glossy with blood and easily mistaken for a stray bundle of hairs, extruded from the head like the fibers off an uprooted weed. Not a regular body part, nor an irregular one; she'd memorized enough high school biology teaching materials to know that. That little string had resisted the force of her weapon and merely been pulled from the body when she'd attacked with all her strength.
"It's really plant matter?" The thin root traveled up into the brain stem where it vanished completely. Noel shuddered at the implication of it. An insurance policy? An additional method of controlling her spawn? No self-respecting Dead Apostle should need such a thing. Perhaps if the man had been human, it would make more sense, but she was sure by the way his body sizzled beneath her holy water-soaked boots that he was not. "Ugh… this is no place for a dissection!"
With a muttered prayer and a few drops of water, the body was reduced to a pile of salt.
The next unfortunate undead who ventured up the tower caught only a glimpse of sky. Noel's boot left a burning imprint on his face as she deftly swung through the window feet-first. He tumbled back, clawing at his eyes, and she followed up by planting a black stake through his skull, pinning him to the stone wall of the spiral staircase and stopping his struggles forever.
"A vest? What are you, some kind of serving boy?" With trembling hands, and fully aware of the madness of speaking out loud to herself, Noel went through the man's pockets, producing a bottle opener, a napkin, and a paper with the day's orders scrawled across it in looping French. It was disappointingly mundane: water the indoor plants, organize the help to clean the west wing, and prepare wine for the family. The family surely being, in this case, the entire Rozay-en clan.
After stuffing the note into her robes, Noel ventured down the tight staircase, fresh out of hope and in the throes of a mania she could not explain.
When she emerged into a wide hall on the third floor, she was first struck by how gloomy it was. On either side of her stretched red-gold carpets and wall-mounted candlesticks in a regular pattern interrupted only by the odd wooden door. Everywhere that could bear art was carved or etched or embossed with patterns of vines and leaves and flowers. Yet one could hardly enjoy the décor in the dark; the only sources of illumination in the hall were the aforementioned candlesticks, only a few of which burned with flickering flames that cast more shadow than light. The electric lights on the ceiling were all switched off.
One flame was different from the rest. It broke from the pattern, shaking far too much to be natural. Estimated distance, only a few meters.
Noel surged forth from the doorway, swinging wide above the flame, taking aim at the neck of the human-shaped silhouette holding it. It let loose a mousy squeak and pulled away far too slowly. Steel kissed flesh and stayed there, halted in place by a last-minute change of mind.
"Oh? You're human."
"Y-yes!" The reply came instantly.
A sharp click summoned forth a bright cone of light. Noel angled the flashlight in her other hand into the target's eyes. The maid – and she had to be a maid; even Noel knew what it meant when a woman wore black and white and frills – recoiled from the light, squinting and uselessly flailing a hand in front of her face to try and block it out, while the other held tight a flickering oil lantern. She stammered something that sounded like an excuse or an apology, followed by a hushed "Please don't I swear I didn't mean it don't eat me I taste quite horrible ask anyone-!"
"If you move, it will cut," said Noel in French, putting a little more force into her polearm. The maid froze stiff, eyes squeezed shut, trembling like a leaf in the wind. "My, my," Noel continued, adjusting the light and running her eyes over the woman, scanning for traces of weaponry and finding nothing out of the ordinary besides a feather duster. "A collaborator," she hissed.
"No! Never!" the maid protested.
"Don't be shy, dear," Noel said. "You know whose floors you wipe clean of blood. Why should you keep your head?" She clicked off the flashlight and held her polearm with both hands, digging into the other woman's chin and forcing it up.
The maid's hands clutched the lantern tightly. She peeled her eyes open, and after flapping her gums like a fish, found her words again: "I – I pray every day, Sister, for the sun. We all do, surely." There was no reply from the steely-eyed nun, which the maid took as permission to continue. "I am a bank teller. My name is Louise; you must believe me. They take people, and then, they, they… the ones who survive are put to work, or else they are never seen again, and the rest-."
"Drained dry?" Noel interrupted. "Turned into thorny lawn ornaments? Perhaps buried in shallow graves, should there be need of walking dead?"
"How could you… w-what kind of nun are you?!" the woman cringed at the incredulity in her own voice, knowing that insults and backtalk would only bring punishment. She held aloft her dim lantern. Its light crawled upwards, illuminating the face of the nun in question. Revealing her shallow smile and tired eyes.
"The kind," said Noel. "That has too much work to do. But it's been tough lately, so let's take a break." She lowered her weapon. "How about somewhere more private, Louise? Wouldn't want gossip spreading. Oh, and lock that door." She pointed over her back, to the staircase. "It'd reflect poorly on the staff if the hall stank of blood."
It took no further threat for the maid to do as commanded. After ensuring the stairway was inaccessible, she scurried away like a mouse, with Noel following closely and quietly behind. Around the nearby corner was an identical length of hallway stretching into the dark. Louise rushed past three doors on the left and two on the right before she found one to her liking. Out came a jangling key ring. While Noel squinted nervously into the darkness, the maid pushed the door open and beckoned her in.
A quick scan with the flashlight revealed a strange room whose initial purpose eluded Noel's eye. The carpet floor turned to wood panel. A plain white bed was tucked into one corner and a small bookshelf into the other. The rest of the room, aside from narrow windows looking out onto the vine-strangled night sky, was completely bare of furniture, save for the framed paintings that covered the walls, and an easel and stool in the center.
"This is where Milady paints," Louise whispered as she shut and locked the door behind them. "No one comes here without permission except us, and only for cleaning."
"What if she shows up? I imagine you'd be in trouble."
"She won't," the maid said. "This room is but one of several across the manor, and it's her least favorite. She hasn't used it once in the time I have been here. When the skies are clear she prefers the garden… are you alright?"
Noel steadied her trembling hand, and with it the light dancing across the walls stilled. "Of course," she replied. "Just the adrenaline rush wearing off, is all. Get the lights, will you? This gloom is straining my eyes."
"H-haha…" Something in Noel's complaint drew a mad giggle from her companion. "Are you sure, Sister? Seeing the walls will strain you far more."
"Let me be the judge of that. I've seen the worst of what these parasites have to offer."
With a click, the surprisingly modern light on the ceiling switched on, casting sharp illumination across the room. Noel immediately realized what Louise had meant.
The paintings were awful. Each and every one. Not merely poor in terms of composition or colouring (though they were absolutely horribly done in that sense), but offensive to the soul in the same mesmerizing way as the sight of a brutal accident or the aftermath of an act of violence.
An orgy of naked apes, fornicating and feeding upon each other, filling the canvas like a demented page from an Où est Charlie book. A train running through a dead forest, perforated by branches in all directions, tiny forms impaled upon their lengths. A heap of corpses, upon which a wounded serpent menaced a pale woman, its last tooth gleaming like a dagger in the night. A carnival. A church. A casino. A cave. A crypt. All filled, in different ways, with blood and death.
Had Noel possessed the sanity of a regular person, she would've found herself forced to look away, her stomach turning and body revolting. These were not just pictures; she could smell the violence creeping into her brain, hear the dull roar of dark hunger, and feel her throat clogged with coppery slime. The red stayed with her even when she closed her eyes and tried to blink it away. It was not the red of blood; it was rose red. The same red, surely, as that woman's eyes.
It was fortunate, then, that Noel had already gone mad long ago. She tore herself away from the paintings and looked at Louise, whose eyes were glued to the floor.
"Lovely," she said. "Those wouldn't even be fit to launder money."
"Haha… d-don't let Milady hear you say that; she thinks she's quite good. The last one to imply otherwise never appeared again. And he was one of her own bloodsuckers!" Louise almost managed a smile, but it crumpled into misery. She seemed, to Noel, to be a most pathetic sight: a scrawny bespectacled woman dressed up like a doll, copper hair pulled into a complex bun and uniform drawn uncomfortably tight, while her face was coated in concealer to cover up stress lines. She felt a strange kinship with the girl.
"Sister, are you one of those Church agents they whisper of? Are you here to save us?" Louise asked. "There are rumours among the staff that the vampires do not go unopposed in their cruelty, that holy warriors hunt them down. One of the longest-serving told me of two men who once infiltrated this place and fought with scripture… and how one became the main course for the celebration they held afterwards, and the other a still-screaming dessert."
"Sister this, Sister that," Noel grumbled. "I have a name."
"But… you never told me?"
"Noel. It's Noel." Saying it had been a bad idea, but then, Noel had never been good at coming up with names. Unlike Ciel, who seemed to switch every mission. "Please don't expect a miracle, Louise. The man upstairs has been rather stingy lately, even for me."
"You… aren't here to help us?"
"I didn't say that. I just… look, can a girl get a minute to breathe? Please? Then we'll talk vampire hunting." Noel rubbed her eyes. It was not just the ever-present strain that had accompanied her ever since she'd left the Vatican, but an angry pounding that had begun moments ago. "God, this place is awful. Everywhere I look is giving me a headache. I've been running around all night. My hair must be a mess. Can't even get that freak to fix it…"
"Um," Louise adjusted her glasses nervously. "Do you need anything, Noel? I can't do much; they'll expect a report back soon. B-but I can tell you about this place! Or, um, if you don't want to think about that right now… I can give you a neck massage? For the headache? My boyfriend said I was pretty good…"
Noel wordlessly marched over to the stool and sat down.
As the maid's hesitant hands settled on her shoulders, Noel tried to think of nothing. A clear mind was a mind free of fear. She could hope for little better. Yet no matter where she fled, the darkness was at her back. The creeping vines were there. The wounds were there. The awareness of her own imminent demise was there and nothing she did would delay it. She could find no refuge within herself, nor in the small hands weakly squeezing her neck. There was nothing to hear, nothing to taste, nothing to smell… well, there was the smell of wet paint.
Noel looked up at the easel. There was a half-finished image on the canvas, yet to fully dry but clearly hours old. It was just as gruesome as the others, and just as sloppy.
This one was a closeup of a garden. A chiffon rose, torn to pieces, lay among leaves. Its center had been blown out and oozed red. The culprit was, quite plainly, a naked and broken doll, the same kind that a young girl might have on her shelf. The doll was wrapped in thorns, snaking into and through the cracks and holes in its porcelain. Its remaining hand clutched a toy sword adorned in tiny petals. And there, at the back, only vaguely sketched out in a few small brush strokes, stood a second doll. Around its foot curled another vine. Thorns dug tightly into its ankle.
"Um, Ms. Noel, your shoulders are really tense… is something wrong?"
Noel squeezed her eyes shut. "Everything," she said. "Everything's wrong."