laughter rings out once again, but Dracul continues to look at the house, his gaze unfaltering.
Matilda, still leaning on the windowsill, suddenly lets out a shriek and jumps back. An old man is there, his face stenciled with the lines of age. A tangle of white hair, disheveled and dirty, limply hangs over his brow. His clothing appears to be in ruins, torn and stained. He smiles at her, his teeth yellow and gummed with grime. Two of the teeth extend down over his cracked lips, the tips sharp. He runs a pink tongue over them and smiles again, reaching for Matilda with a gnarled hand. She raises her Webley and aims it at his chest. “Back!” she commands.
This warning does nothing but incite him further; he appears more amused than frightened.
Vambéry pulls a crucifix from one of their bags and shoves it in the man’s face. He shrinks back with a hiss, spittle flying from his lips. Vambéry then hands the cross to Matilda. “Keep this displayed in the window. Do not let them get close.” He tosses another cross to Thornley. “You—watch the front.”
Bram’s eyes are locked on Dracul; he has moved to the foot of the hill. “I don’t think they can get in, not unless invited,” he says softly.
“I am not sure I want to test that theory,” Vambéry replies. “There must be two hundred of them out there, maybe more.”
At Bram’s back, Ellen pushes past, and he turns around. The tarpaulin that had covered the body of Deaglan O’Cuiv has been folded down to his waist, revealing the large cavity in his chest, his severed arms and head all lying in grotesque repose around the torso on the table. Patrick and Maggie O’Cuiv stand alongside him.
“Can you do something?” Bram asks.
Ellen says nothing in return. Instead, her eyes lock with Patrick O’Cuiv’s. They are communicating, of this Bram is most certain, but he is not party to their thoughts.
Patrick O’Cuiv nods, then goes to the door. He pulls it open and steps out into the masses of undead.
“No! You mustn’t!” Vambéry shouts. He races to the door with a crucifix of his own in hand and tries to pull it shut. Maggie O’Cuiv reaches for his wrist and yanks him back, her eyes avoiding the talisman he holds.
Bram watches Patrick O’Cuiv step out into the clearing. He approaches the remains of the Szgany, reaches down, and lifts one of the bodies by its arm, pulling it from the undead feeding upon the flesh. The body is riddled with bite marks, a gash in the neck runs with blood.
A small child, a little girl, watches this spectacle with lustful eyes. Then she springs at him, traversing a distance of no less than ten feet, and lands upon the Szgany’s body, her lips pressing to the open neck wound. Patrick swats her away, as one would swat away a mosquito, and carries the body into the house. Maggie slams the door at his back.
“They drained him nearly dry,” Patrick says in his thick Irish brogue. “The others fared no better.”
Maggie moves in a blur; one moment she is standing at the door, the next she is behind Vambéry, restraining him with his arms pinned behind his back. The crucifix he is clutching clatters to the floor. “We should use this one,” she says.
Vambéry tries to pull free, but she is too strong.
Bram moves towards her, drawing his bowie knife.
Ellen frowns. “We will do no such thing; release him.”
Maggie hesitates for a moment, then does as she is told. Vambéry snags the cross from the floor and backs into a corner, holding it up before him.
Ellen takes the body of the Szgany from Patrick and carries it over to the table. She drapes it over Deaglan’s remains, then turns to Bram. “I need your knife.”
Bram hesitates for a second, then hands the bowie to her.
In a series of swift motions, she slices down the length of the Szgany’s arms, legs, and body—a number of long slashes through his clothing and flesh. The man lets out a soft whimper, and Bram is surprised to see he