4. Origins of the Vampyre (Conclusion)

Game IV – The Origins of the Vampyre [conclusion]

3rd May, 2019.

Act I

Scene i: The Derelict Watermill.

As the winter light faded behind the weathered teeth of the mountains, there stirred within the abandoned watermill four figures whom had used its ruined walls for refuge. Limping along the floor, Johann shadowed the meditative doctor, whom was lost in his own memories as he held an enamel portrait in his palm. Alerted to the encroaching curiosity of the Nosferatu, Friedrich quickly clasped the heirloom picture and turned to greet his coterie companion. In the brief seconds before its removal Johann could only discern a pair of figures seated before a garden field.

Johann apologized for his intrusion, as he had only intended to speak with the doctor on a personal matter that had been raised previously in their travels; the study of his leprous affliction in the hopes that it would lead to a cure. Friedrich was elated to be given such an opportunity, agreeing that after their return to the states north of Hungary he could begin an examination.

Watching the slow drift of snow as it cascaded over the wilderness, Sir Logan spoke with the fur-covered Janos outside the crumbling mill. The Gangrel had explored much ground since their arrival, mapping out the distant farms and settlements around Medvega in his patrols for the white mare’s return (or worse). With the arrival of the remaining pair (Johann & Friedrich), the Viennese chosen addressed their ambitions for the night ahead, already having an appointment to witness a ‘vampyre’ with the help of the Priest, Father Miklos.

The Nosferatu was eager to find the priest before the appointed meeting, suggesting they enter the village incase they should chance upon him. Friedrich was also interested in returning to the village so that he could meet again with Glaser and examine any evidence the army physicians had ‘dug up’ that day. As for Logan and Janos, they offered to wait at the widower’s cottage where the meeting would take place, watching the night for any subterfuge or revelation as to what this vukodluk might truly be...

Scene ii: The Carriage House.

By casual glance the doctor appeared to be alone as he walked the white streets of the village, his Nosferatu companion remaining unseen in his shadow by the time they arrived near the guest house. Some older officers were gathered near the house, smoking clay pipes as they laughed in the bitter wind. Another man had opened the door of the guest house, a negative outline exposed against the warm lit interior. Stepping closer to the building allowed both Friedrich and Johann to recognize the waiting man as Glaser, whom had been searching for the ‘En-glich’ doctor.

After evening courtesies, Glaser answered Friedrich’s questions about the epidemic. There had been no trouble in digging now that the priest had been placated (the physician asked that Friedrich send his thanks to Logan), and that they had found little evidence of the supernatural aside from the eerily fresh condition of the corpses. A ‘sample’ body had been arranged for the doctor to examine, having been left in the carriage house behind the street, commandeered by the Imperial Army to serve as a temporary morgue. Unable to continue the discussion due to the meal being served within, Glaser excuses himself from the cold wind and snow, eager to hear ‘Alistair’s’ (aka Friedrich’s) theories post surgery.

* * *

Once the flame took to the wick of the lantern the void of the carriage house was drawn aside to reveal a cloth covered table, the contoured shape of the fabric suggestive of the feminine. Surgical tools employed by the army physicians, along with water buckets and linen had been left alongside the body.

Folding back a corner of the sheet unveiled a young woman, the same one that Johann had peaked at in the chapel the previous night. He informed Friedrich of this fact, and that her name had been ‘Milosova’. Her grave marker listed her death three months prior, during the autumn. Fascinated by the remarkable condition of the pale corpse, the doctor washed his leather gloves as he set to work delving into the mysteries of her un-death...

Scene iii: The Widower’s Cottage.

As for Logan and Janos, their wandering path through the driven snow had placed them outside a lone house on the far side of Medvega, a rustic building that winked with the light of a candle behind the shuttered window. Prowling just outside this same window, the two kindred listened to the low voices of serfs, engaged in a tense debate. Being foreign to the Balkan regions the discussion made little sense to Logan, but Janos was able to translate their words once they both retired to a far hedge to continue observations.

According to the Gangrel the speech of those in the cottage was amongst local hedjuk soldiers from the Turkish wars, who were now in fear of the revived dead vampyres. They were asking Father Miklos for advice on how to banish the curse of Arnold Paole, the original undead that had began (in the hedjuk’s minds) the outbreak of vampirism three years previously. The Ventrue confirmed the backgrounds of the men in the house when they would emerge from time to time, many of them scarred like himself by shrapnel from the wars of the continent as he watched their faces and injured limbs in the open light of the door frame.

Janos returned to his eavesdropping, allowing Logan ample time to study more of the departing villagers, the numbers within the home dwindling until only the priest and four others remained.

An hour or more passed as thick clouds of wind and ice piled on the features of the cottage and landscape, the Gangrel returning unseen to Logan’s side as he added further information about the gossip overheard; Arnold had been betrothed to a local beauty named Nina after his return from the wars, whom had since married and taken up residence outside Medvega. Perhaps her intimate friendship with the departed soldier (and original suspect) could direct them to uncovering the source of the outbreak and more?

Agreeing that the young lady might know something of these ‘vampyres’, Logan suggested they pursue that inquiry later, after the midnight rendezvous had passed...

Scene iv: Carriage House (cont.).

Wiping away the viscera and blood from his apron and gloves at the completion of the autopsy, Friedrich cleaned himself with the water and linen provided, arranging the surgical tools into neat lines of descending shape and purpose on a side table as Johann approached, pausing momentarily when his eyes glanced on the ‘unfinished’ condition the doctor had left the poor woman’s open body.

Friedrich was confident he had discovered something in the fresh blood of the corpse, some agent that was keeping the flesh limber. However, it was also slowly becoming a poison were it changed hue from red to bruised purple at the extremities, something he could not yet account for.

Commenting on such cold respect for the deceased, Friedrich laughed in his unnerving faux-innocent guffaw at the Nosferatu when he explained that he had no belief in souls, an old superstition of the church that would be eradicated in time by the natural philosophies (science). Slightly wounded that the doctor had tried to dismiss such a profound truth of the bible and Johann’s upbringing by Dominican monks, he tried to reason with the uncaring Tremere until a third voice offered his own opinion.

Turning in surprise, the two kindred scanned the wide interior of the carriage sheds until they settled on a seemingly empty covered chaise. Stepping down from its seat, a handsome dark man with a Greek accent countered that he had evidence of life after death, a proof that there was a ‘soul’ of some description separate from mortal flesh.

The stranger introduced himself as Civan, the contact Dietmar had secretly instructed Friedrich to meet before his departure from Vienna. Unsure how to approach this suave Cainite, the Tremere questioned his curious introduction by scaring them in the dark. Johann was also cautious of the mystery man, whom was trying to separate them so he could speak with Friedrich alone. Taking no chances, the Nosferatu offered that he had been sent as a bodyguard to ward Friedrich’s unlife, and would not be excluded from conversation. It was at this moment that Johann learnt that the Greek merchant was withholding an unnamed ‘package’, teasing Friedrich to be patient, as he would deliver it before they left the village.

Bending to clan obligations, Friedrich dared to step aside and whisper to the handsome stranger away from his Nosferatu ally. When Civan whispered his response the evident shock on the doctor’s face told Johann enough to realize that Civan had planted some seed in his mind, into what poisonous bloom it would grow was as yet unknown to all except the Tremere and Giovanni merchant.

What had Civan said to Friedrich? He had spoken the doctor’s true name, as given by his mortal parents in another land. He had not used the title since leaving for Austria many years prior, and could come to no rational conclusion as to how the man could have learnt it. When pressed to answer how he came by this knowledge, the dark man replied ‘Magdalene’.

Magdalene had been dead for eight years.

* * *

Civan’s departure from the carriage house was tracked by Johann, refusing to let the merchant leave without explaining how he had surprised them. Playing a game with the stalking Nosferatu, the Greek trader casually strolled along the lanes behind the village, travelling in frustrating circles until Johann snarled in realization that the stranger would toy with him like a cat’s paw until the dawn.

Returning to the carriage house after the chase, the pair of Cainites collected their belongings and left to find the others at the widower’s cottage. Unaware that Father Miklos was already present at the meeting house, Johann had steered himself and the doctor past the church incase he was there attending his duties. Candles flickered under the gilt ikons of saints and kings, seen through the doors that had been left ajar. Kneeling in prayer, a familiar figure was bowed before the rows of candlight, a shark’s grin on his face. It was Civan, taunting them again with his presence until they left the scene behind them, Johann ignoring the trap of being delayed further.

Act II.

Scene i: Meeting the Vampyre.

Meeting Logan and Janos on the snow covered roads before the lonely house, the four kindred exchanged news of the past few hours they had been separated, trudging through the white nightscape toward the pale light in the distance. As they arrived at the serf’s cottage, Janos excused himself to keep watch outside, departing from their company as the broad shadow of Father Miklos was cast on the screen of crystal flakes descending from the night.

Greeting the three ‘demons’ whom had come to drive away the village curse, Miklos warned them that the mood was tense amongst the four men inside the house. Logan asked of the men’s hedjuk/soldiering past, which was connected again to the first vukodluk Arnold Paole. He also broached the topic of Arnold’s once betrothed, the beauty Nina, asking if the ‘curse’ had ever reached her, and why she would be immune if otherwise?

* * *

Father Miklos returned from the cold with two foreign ‘observers’, introducing Logan and the masked Doctor to the uneasy villagers and relative of the visiting corpse. Unbeknownst to these men, Johann was also within the gloom of the one room abode, perched like a spider to observe all that transpired. In his mortal life the Nosferatu had lived in neighbouring Hungary and Southern Austria, understanding the local dialects enough to know that the men gathered here did not like their affairs being intruded on by the two foreign guests.

Extra chairs were sought for as the grim company made room at the table and its single light, a candle veined with beads of dripping wax. Before the men settled again, an extra chair was left empty at the head of the table which faced the cottage door. Some would glance that way as the conversation went silent, their apprehensions and fears a tangible atmosphere within the dim interior, waiting for the devil to join them.

The creaking note of the door sung like a discordant violin, wisps of trailing snow spreading over the threshold as a gaunt figure stood within the frame. Walking slowly to the empty stool, the dead youth dragged it over the floor to seat itself amongst the mute serfs. The father of the ‘vampyre’ paled as the words caught in his throat, until at last he called the stripling ‘Nanette’ with a tearful cracking voice.

Leaning as close as they dared without upsetting those present, Logan and the Doctor could hear a laboured hiss with each exhalation of Nanette, communicating with a weird dull speech that had no volume as it whispered across the table to its living father, whom seemed to understand the questions and denied any knowledge with a shake of his head.

Johann knew what the stripling was saying, a repetitive gurgle that asked:

“Where is Arnold?.... Where are the heyjuks of his company?....”

Nanette’s father swore that Arnold had died three years ago, his body burnt near the river. The second question alarmed the other witnesses, but they remained speechless with their eyes fixed on the talking corpse they had buried weeks before.

Again and again the stripling youth asked them in his wheezing gravel voice, until Father Miklos explained that his father had spoken the truth, he had witnessed the burning of Arnold’s body. As for the soldiers, the priest offered that they had died in the wars or moved on, he did not know either way.

Rising from the table, Nanette opened the groaning door, the incoming wind snuffing the only candle out to plunge the room in darkness. In the confusion Johann slipped through the doorframe to pursue the departed figure, using the pattern of footprints leading away into the night to disguise his own movements.

* * *

Moving with no great impetus, Nanette was easier to follow once Johann had him in sight, heading toward the tree line of the Morava river. The revenant figure glided through the wild elements until it paused under the bowers of oak and alder that fenced the north bank. Parting from the wall of trees, another figure came to stand beside Johann’s target, making the Nosferatu cautious to find an alternate path lest he be discovered in the open snow field.

Through a wide reconnoitre from the west the Cainite crept within a safe distance to observe Nanette and the other, poised on a high branch that overlooked the scene below. Dressed in a black leather suit held tight over her lithe form with neat buckles, the femme fatale questioned the creature as though it were an automaton, nodding or shaking its mute head as she purred each question with a Levant accent. Whatever answers she had learnt from the walking corpse did not evidently please her, dismissing the revenant servant away with a wave of her hand.

Johann observed Nanette’s body stumble back into the snowfields until the haze of the drift absorbed his thin frame into the horizon. He was alone now with the exotic woman, assuming her to be a Cainite of some unknown clan. Remaining unseen, his suspicions were answered when she entered the river as though walking down a hill, submerged completely in a graceful descent.

Smiling, the wily witch hunter had learnt new tricks also since his embrace, drawing on a great reserve of strength to leap across the river as a shadow to land just shy of the southern bank. His leap had taken him ahead of the other, giving Johann ample time to climb again into the canopy and await the armoured stranger...

* * *

Meanwhile, those whom had gathered inside the widower’s cottage spoke in brief exchanges about the unearthly phenomena of Nanette’s return, whispering that Arnold’s curse was still loose in Medvega. The priest prayed with the men before he departed, offering them hope for the dawn to come.

Having missed any understanding of what had transpired due to the local dialect, Logan and Friedrich quickly caught up with the bearded Father outside to answer their questions. Logan felt that Father Miklos was not telling them the full story of Arnold, and what curse he had brought back from Ottoman lands during the wars.

Tired of the secret’s burden, the priest recounts to them what Arnold had confessed to him on his return from the Levant: their company of local hedjuks had been serving under the Hapsburg armies where they helped secure a town close to Constantinople. After the siege had broken, the men ambushed a fleeing baggage cart and claimed the riches for themselves, making a pact to not reveal the fortune since the Austrians would take it from them and claim it under some military legality.

Father Miklos had noticed Arnold’s pretty young bride Nina wearing a gold medallion not long after the war, seated beside her betrothed on a cart passing him on the road. The bauble was brought up by the priest when he was alone with Arnold, whom had then made the confession to him of the looted gold. He (Arnold) had felt something stalking him since the siege, an eerie presence that haunted his steps, a curse he had received from a vampire the night after he and the other hedjuks had recovered the Turkman’s gold. He had eaten earth from a grave, and bathed in remedies to banish the spell, which would only alleviate the melancholy humours for days or weeks at best.

Questioned further, the priest denied any further knowledge of what the treasure was, or its location. Father Miklos had come to see the war treasure as the source of the village curse, believing that with its removal the dead would finally rest.

Scene ii: West Morava River

The tracks of Nanette led Friedrich and Logan to the banks of the Morava, where they deduced from the strange prints that their companion had leapt the span of churning waters. Seeing now the opportunity to repay the Doctor for the mischief he had caused some nights previous, Logan took a running charge toward the water’s edge and propelled himself across the river, forcing his companion to swim in the deep current.

The crossing was a trial for Friedrich, whom would have drowned numerous times if not for the fact he were already ‘dead’ from the clinical viewpoint. Dragging himself out of the mud and weeds into the Ventrue’s sight, Friedrich complained that the little game of tit-for-tat had cost them valuable time. Laughing, Logan turned to continue exploring the southern bank for their fellow Cainite.

* * *

Having trailed the suspicious woman further away from the murmur of the restless Morava, their own game of hunter and hunted had folded once the Assamite halted in her tracks, calling out to the dark in differing languages until Johann could understand.

Fading into the air like a spirit, the leather figure was suddenly gone from Johann’s sight. Not wanting to lose track of the woman, he revealed himself to tempt her back, a ruse that granted him an intimate meeting with the jade eyed beauty as she materialized before his face to mesmerize his senses.

Without revealing her name, the siren warned her would-be pursuer that she had already removed his predecessor, the missing Nosferatu named Gregor, in answer to Johann’s croaking voice. As this speech rolled from her wanton lips, the assassin had withdrawn a fang shaped jambiya from her thigh, gripped to strike until a sound echoed from the river. Spooked by the arrival of the Ventrue and Tremere, her bell like laughter teased Johann as she faded to nothing, leaving him alone to explain the curious encounter with the others once they found him.

* * *

Returning across the river toward Medvega, the three kindred decided they would follow the last prints left by Nanette after he had been dismissed by the leather clad foreigner. The shallow tracks arrived back at the cemetery they had visited the night before, a scratching sound issuing from the grounds around the neighbouring chapel.

On investigating the noise, the coterie came upon Nanette digging in the snow, making attempts in different places to claw the frozen soil with his bare hands. In a trance, the figure ignored them, until a rooster began to sing from a distant farm. With dawn so close, the kindred retired to the haunted mill to seek refuge from the sun, prepared to return to this locale and others the following twilight.

Act III.

Scene i: Nina’s Cottage.

During the events mentioned above Janos had searched for the one named Nina, directing the three neonates to a secluded valley west of the main village on the proceeding night. Here, in a modest home that bordered the pine forests, a young woman worked at her embroidery by lamplight, stitching the last lines of a psalm and flowers when a rapping knock came at the door.

Frightened of bandits or worse, Nina froze still in the chance they had not heard her already, listening for any response until a man spoke in German and asked if there was anyone home. He was a representative from the Austrian army, he claimed, recording any illness or deaths related to the vukodluk outbreak. Calling back through the closed door, she informed the stranger that there were no sick or dead in the house, nor would she open her home to any further investigation as she was a god fearing woman and the hour was too late.

Thanking her for the trouble, the ‘soldiers’ soon left her alone again, reconvening on the road with their third silent companion, the Nosferatu Johann who had warned the Doctor earlier she would startle at their bold gestures to gain admittance to her home.

Waiting outside in the winter elements, Johann crept into the cottage after the lamplight had died out in the window. By all appearances there was no wealth on display, no hints as to Arnold’s curse. He tested the slats of the walls and ceiling, behind portraits and cooking irons for some hint of the unusual. One portrait showed the likeness of a young soldier, a relaxed posture as he displayed the rifle and uniform proudly for the artist. Johann wondered if it were not Arnold himself, a keepsake to Nina.

Coming to search the bed and its occupant last, Johann’s overgrown nails drew back the long dark tresses of the sleeping woman, working slowly to find the clasp of the medallion before easing the chain links away from the nape of her exposed neck. Having never experienced carnal love in his mortal life, the exercise was made more difficult for the witch hunter as he fought to ignore the rising temptation of deadly sins.

At the foot of the bed, Johann spied a miscoloured floorboard that was difficult to lever out of its flush alignment with the rest of the timber. The sound of his talons scratching at the joinery stirred the woman to cry out in fright, feeling for her bedside candle and tinder to light it with. Opening the loose board as the flame took to the wick, Johann whispered to one of his rat companions to “bring him the shiny” before depositing it into the revealed sub-space.

* * *

Sometime later a small rodent bounded over the snow drift to raise itself at Joahnn’s twisted feet, offering a torn corner of manuscript pinned with its long incisors. Cradling his loyal pet up from the snow, the Nosferatu accepted the rat’s recovered evidence, torn from a larger volume of Semitic script. The three neonates puzzled over the piece of text, contemplating if perhaps Father Miklos could interpret anything from the discovery.

As for the medallion, its moulded faces and latin text ‘Ordo Draconis’ hinted at Arnold’s military past, the iconography of St George and the Dragon particularly associated with past conflicts against the Ottoman empire, a rallying symbol used by Voivode rulers to summon Christian soldiers and states.

Scene ii: Church of St Lazar.

Returning to the empty village streets of Medvega by midnight, Johann led his two companions to the closed gates of the local church, a tall mass of stone and mortar that protected the villagers in times of conflict within its sturdy bastion. Shifting one of the reinforced doors with a push of his crippled hand, nothing barred them from entering the unlit avenue of the nave, investigating the aisles as they passed the iconostasis and hollow alcoves.

A discreet door to one side of the pews led them through an enclosed passage to the rectory, whose door was wedged shut against ordinary resistance when tested. Guessing the priest was resting on the other side, Logan called for him to stir, to which his voice answered in apology as he asked for some time to waken. Feeling uneasy that Miklos would not immediately show himself, as though feigning an excuse for time, Johann struck the door aside to reveal the abode was empty. Singing laughter like silver bells cut the air around them as their unseen antagonist left them again in frustration, the same timbre as the woman from the encounter across the river on the previous night.

The hinges of the church door sung open, alerting them to the arrival (or return) of someone unknown into the Church of St Lazar. Peering around the stone edge of the passage leading back into the greater building, they focused on the large bearded priest walking toward the altar as though innocently returning from some destination in the village. Friedrich was apprehensive of the supposed priest’s arrival, bringing attention to the fact that he had not noticed them again, as he had on previous occasions sensed them quite easily.

Taking no risks, the Nosferatu agreed, leaving the shadow of a pillar to clutch the man’s throat before he could act against them. Shocked by the violence that pinched away his breath, Father Miklos struggled to release himself from the monster’s grip until the coterie realized he was who he claimed to be.

Asking for profound forgiveness in the mistaken assault, the three Cainites explained their actions as a consequence of the mystery woman who haunted them like a succubus, one from some unseen contingent that had taken an interest in Arnold and Medvega.

Passing along the vellum fragment, Johann asked the priest if he was familiar with the style of ancient script. The words were Aramaic, Miklos explained once he had lit a candle from the iconostasis, a dead tongue that was current around the time of Christ and the Roman Empire. As far as he could understand the torn sentence, only the phrase ‘City of Enoch’ was left, a possible hint to a lineage or tribe in the Old Testament.

Even after this exchange, Father Miklos no longer trusted the three vampires now that they had revealed their terrifying potential, how easily they could break a man’s neck like a twig. This would be their last meeting, as he feared that further contact would endanger the villagers and himself. Offering them a prayer to find the cursed treasure and remove it from these lands, he bade them farewell and to seek their salvation before it was too late.

Scene iii: Medvega Cemetery

With no further leads, the Viennese Coterie made their way through winter’s black hour to the graveyard overlooking the village. Winding between the rows of white crosses toward the chapel, Johann cast his eyes back toward the staked markers of the heretics outside holy ground, reflecting if they were a piece of the proverbial puzzle they hadn’t accounted for yet.

Logan retraced his steps around the shallow diggings Nanette had attempted near the chapel. Joined by the other kindred, they tried to account for any pattern until Johann left them to walk back through the paths between the graves, reading all their names and dates until he paused beside a crucifix, carved into the horizontal arm was the simple initials and date: ‘A. P. - 1729’. As if by fate, the wind rose at this revelation, keening through the leafless boughs and white cross memorials of the cemetery.

Recovering a shovel nearby, Logan joined the Nosferatu in digging up the cold earth of A.P.’s resting place. Johann scratched handfuls of earth and flung them between his bent knees as would a dog in search of bones, whilst Friedrich looked on with disinterest, never one to indulge in the vice of manual labour.

Their efforts were rewarded with an echo thump when the shovel head tapped the casket lid. Sweeping aside more of the dirt, Johann struck through the planking to confirm once and for all if Arnold Paole had been burnt to ashes and scattered on the Morava.

Inside the rectangular coffin was nothing but stale air, empty of the hedjuk’s body. Cursing the dead end after another night of false leads, Logan stepped away from the pit to collect his thoughts until the Nosferatu called him back; there was something inside the coffin after all...

Taking a look for himself, gold coins spilled from under an aged tome that he removed to look upon in the moonlight. From a cursory examination it was the remaining half of a greater volume, the front binding and pages lost sometime before its burial here in Medvega. The angular script itself was also similar in style to the Aramaic fragment recovered from Nina’s house earlier that evening.

Eager to examine the pages for themselves, Johann and Friedrich moved to look over the Ventrue’s shoulders. With lightning celerity two shadows blinked between the Doctor and Logan, seizing their attention from the book as they fought the coterie for its possession.

The jade eyes of the leather clad assassin stole Friedrich’s reasoning as she mouthed a spell of suggestion. Entranced with the urge to injure Logan by any means, the Doctor gripped a pair of scalpels as he ran to his goal. Logan himself held fast to the manuscript as an Arab noble, dressed in black like his apprentice, attempted to wrestle it out of his control. Moving with a dexterity faster than his eyes could account for, the black garbed villain retrieved the book as Friedrich struck from nowhere, using the clash to merge as vaporous fog into the cold wind.

Fighting against the boiling blood that was splitting the capillaries under his skin from the assassins magic, Johann resisted the pain long enough to leap at the leather vixen, clutching the dirt from where she had once stood, bourn away into the winds like her master with the book in his clasp.

Stunned with fury that the mystery pair had trumped them on the eve of discovery, the three Cainites stared with baleful eyes into the empty fields and forests as they wondered if they were not still out there, helpless to their exotic disciplines (Vampiric talents).

* * *

Scooping out the Turk-minted coins into a makeshift pouch, Logan emptied the casket before it was buried to hide the evidence of their nocturnal activities. Remaining aloof from the other kindred, Friedrich recognized a spectator to their troubles in the cemetery. Advancing from the cover of a tree, Civan apologised for having not arrived sooner to aide them against the Assamites (as he identified them), but since they had all remained relatively intact he could now conclude his own business with Friedrich (and his Sire).

Impressing a vial firmly into Friedrich’s hand, he reminded him in whispers that its contents had been dearly paid for by Dietmar and the Tremere, Civan also asked if he might pass on two messages; one for Dietmar as a thankyou for his continued patronage, the other a warning from ‘Magdalene’. As before, when the merchant had revealed his mortal name, this next crumb of truth struck deep into the Doctor’s psyche; Magdalene had told Civan the identity of her murderer, it was their father, Alphonse.

Act IV.

Scene i: Head Physician’s Final Report for the Epidemic of 1731-32.

By the end of January, in the year of Our Lord seventeen-hundred and thirty-two the head field physicians Johann Fluckinger and Friedrich Glaser (sharing a common Christian name with the Nosferatu and Tremere by odd coincidence) retired from the lands of the West Morava with their written reports on the local testament and condition of the bodies unearthed in the local cemetery, which had shown remarkable signs of preservation.

During the winter months of the outbreak, Glaser’s own father had been correlating his son’s correspondence into a popular report of Arnold Paole and the Vampires of Serbia. The publication spread quickly into the fashionable parlours and debates of the early century, the concept myth that would become the gothic legend of later eras, introducing the term “Vampyre” into the contemporary poems and ghost stories published in the German states of mid 1700’s. Fluckinger was welcomed back in Vienna that spring by the esteemed company of the ruling Habsburg court to personally recount the events of that winter and it’s blood drinking ghouls. As for Glaser, no record is left of his years after the epidemic. Some rumours persisted years after that he had disappeared one night after accepting a carriage ride from a masked stranger...

The coterie returned north with the army as planned, hidden away in the storage crates without discovery by the Austrian soldiers. A keepsake was left behind, one piece of gold Logan could not consciously hold onto with the coins of Arnold’s grave. The medallion of St George was waiting for Nina by her bedside table one dawn, making her smile at the memory of Arnold, the young soldier walking beside her in those summer days long ago.

Scene ii: Schloss Belvedere, Vienna

After the military convoys return to the Hapsburg Empire, Janos and the three neonates were present during a grand affair in one of the more secluded wings of the Belvedere palatial mansion. Around midnight the once bright hall has half lit in the pale golden auras of the remaining candles, the mortal guests leaving the ballroom so that Prince Lotharius and the elders of Bohemia (as the kindred referred to Austria and Northern Hungary) could attend their nocturnal court.

Seated on a rococo gilt throne, and flanked by the silhouettes of sycophant followers, Lotharius called for Johann to give a verbal report on the true events of Medvega. Complying with the Prince’s request, a chronological account was given of their travels and investigation beside the army physicians. When the Nosferatu came to the part recalling the discovery of the book, the Prince’s ears were whispered into by excited elders beside him, who interpreted its loss into criticisms that blackened Lotharius’ temperament as he frowned.

Friedrich spoke next, filling in his own interpretation where needed. On trying to add further information, Logan was scolded by the Tremere elder (Loth) for speaking out of turn. By the conclusion of the three accounts the court had no further questions for the Childer, allowed to leave the piercing gaze of the collective court.

Unbeknownst to Lotharius and the elders, each neonate had withheld some secret from them: Johann had passed along the torn vellum to his Sire, the Lady of Sorrows, whom had sealed his lips from speaking the priest’s translation before the court. Friedrich had made no mention of Civan and the vial he had delivered to his own Sire, Dietmar. And as for Logan, he made no mention of the gold currency found alongside the stolen book, flipping a coin between his fingers as he walked away from the interview with the pompous Tremere, whom he would be glad to distance himself from now that his obligation to his own Sire was concluded... for now.