Tirgoviste. She could see the lights in the distance and urged her horse forward. She was tired, hungry and soaked through from the rain that had started pouring down from the sky hours ago with unrelenting pace, seemingly trying to drown her. She had to find him. She had to find Logan before the sunrise.
They had found out quickly enough what caused the uneasiness at Ravensholm. A small gathering of vampires, four of them. As soon as they had found them, they had gotten rid of three of them relatively easily. Fourth one had taken off and disappeared. Logan had been reluctant to leave, but Marie had assured him that she would be just fine. From the looks of it vampire had gotten scared, and wouldn’t be bothering the town for quite some time, and she had started to like their hosts. She was doing daily chores around the house with Catharine, and even John had warmed to her brave and lively way of handling things.
They hadn’t counted on the possibility of a fifth vampire. The leader of the gathering.
Tirgoviste was the exact opposite of Ravensholm. Though it was the early hours of dawn, narrow streets were buzzing with people, most of them overly drunk after having spent the entire night under the roofs of several taverns situated around the marketplace. They were noisy, obnoxious and oblivious to their surroundings, minding only their own business and getting in to fights over even smallest things. She steered her mount carefully through the crowd, not daring to step down from the saddle.
“Logan… Where the hell are you?” Marie muttered under her breath when the horse whinnied and took nervous sidesteps to avoid trampling a passed out drunkard under its hooves. Scent of feces, alcohol and sweet herbs floated thick in the air, making her stomach turn.
Finally, after what felt like hours of wandering around in the filth, she spotted a jeweler’s shop. She decided to stop and ask directions. Maybe Logan had been there. Maybe the jeweler could help finding him. Horizon was starting to pale already when she landed from the saddle and tied the reigns of her horse in front of the shop. She took a step towards the door, when a heavy hand suddenly landed on her shoulder. She gasped and spun around, her hand going to the handle of the sword that hung on her hip.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Logan demanded with an angry voice.
“I came looking for you. I found you!” Marie managed to utter. Suddenly world spun around her wildly. Her knees were giving up. Only thing holding her upright was Logan. She managed to grab a hold from the lapels of his jacket before she would have collapsed to the dirt in the ground. Logan cursed softly and hauled her up in his arms.
“What happened?” He asked. She let her whole body relax in to his embrace and let out a relieved sob.
“There were five of them.”
“Were you bitten?” Logan asked. He had carried her to the room he had gotten from the Inn when he first arrived to Tirgoviste two days earlier.
“No… I got out of there in time. But everybody else… John, Catharine, everybody in Ravensholm… They’re dead. It came as soon as the sun had set. Started going through houses. It wasn’t even eating, just killing people, tearing them to shreds with bare hands…”
“Are you sure it didn’t bite you? Scratch you?” Logan asked, narrowing his eyes and scanning her features with suspicion.
“It… I tried to stop it… It told me to watch and wait my turn. It was going to save me for the last…” She was still hungry and dizzy, but Logan had helped her to take off her wet clothes, and she was sitting in front of a fireplace, wrapped up to a blanket Logan had gotten from the bed. Logan was kneeling in front of her, both of her hands clasped to his, his eyes locked in to hers.
“Are you absolutely sure, Marie?” He asked and now she could hear the slight tremble in his voice. See the desperation burning in his eyes.
“I’m sure… What are you doing?” She asked when Logan started peeling off the blanket covering her nude body.
“Then what is this? Scrape from a branch on your way here?” He asked, placing his fingers over two, neat and scabbed puncture wounds on her thigh, near her crotch.
“I… I thought it was just a dream… Logan?” Logan was slowly backing away from her, towards the coat he had thrown carelessly over a chair in the corner.
“How long ago?”
“Logan, what…”
“How long ago it happened?” Logan asked, his face pale, nearly ashen when he pulled a wooden stake from the pocket sewn to the hem of the jacket.
“I’m not one of them! I’m not a vampire! Logan, you have to believe me!”
“Prove it,” Logan spat, taking the sharp end of the stake to his wrist and slicing the skin open.
Her first instinct should have been worry over him. Fear and repulsion towards the blood that dribbled from the wound to the floor.
“Oh, my Goddess…”
She dug her fingers to the armrests of the chair when the scent of his blood wafted over her, making her stomach cramp painfully, reminding her of the hunger that had gnawed her for the past day. For her utter terror she realized that her mouth was watering at the sight of the bright red liquid splashing on the floorboards.
“No… No! It was just a dream! I’m not one of them! I’m not…”
“A vampire. Yes, you are. Or at least becoming one. When did that bastard bit you?” Her confused mind finally managed to wrap around his question and translate it to understandable form. How long ago was she bitten? How long until she would turn?
“I was riding away from there. I had already gotten in to the forest. Horse… It got scared of something and threw me off from its back. I think I hit my head. I might have been unconscious. I could feel hands on me, but I though I just hit my head so hard that I was hallucinating… I thought…”
“How… Long… Ago?” Logan spoke slowly, inching closer to her, clutching the stake in white-knuckled grip.
“Two days. No longer. Two days. I’m pretty sure. Everything was bit hazy at first…” Now it all started to make sense to her. Urgent need to get away from the sun. Hunger that wouldn’t just go away no matter how many handfuls of berries and nuts she ate. Thirst that refused to be quenched with water she drank from the springs she found.
Stake clattered to the floor and Logan sank on his knees.
“It bit you only once. We still have five days left. Five days left to hunt it down and kill it.”
“What happens after that?” Marie asked.
“Its death should remove the curse from you. But we’ll have to go back, find the vampire that bit you and kill it in five days. If we’re late…” He didn’t have to finish his sentence.
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