The duo followed the scent trail for thirty minutes, stopping occasionally so Damian could reorient. When they paused at the back of an apartment building, where the scent trail split, Catherine voiced something that bothered her.

  “Are we going further into the residential area?”

  “Yeah, why?” Damian asked as he followed the trail that led behind a dumpster and found the bloodied blade wheel that he had lodged in the monster’s shoulder. The blades still covered in the scent of earth, lavender, and the metallic tang of blood.

  “Dearg due are the kind of vampires that return to their graves when they need to rest or seek safety. If I remember correctly, the closest graveyard is a mile or two in the opposite direction we are going.” Catherine said somberly.

  Damian grasped her concern quickly. If it returns to its grave and the dearg due is raised from the corpse of a woman who committed suicide? Then the poor woman was never given a proper burial. Her corpse was likely buried in a basement and forgotten about, no rights given, no consolation offered to her spirit. It was not a pleasant thought to consider. Bronze served to confirm the situation when she sent an image of the dearg due rushing inside a house on the outskirts of the district.

  “Bronze found her hiding place, and…...you were right.” Damian grimaced. He may not have any sympathy for the beast but he did find the whole situation distasteful.

  Following the route Bronze sent him, the duo quickly arrived at the street before the one the house was located on.

  Catherine stopped Damian when he went to continue forward. “Wait. Let’s stop here for now and wait for morning. As far as the dearg due is aware she escaped us, and can safely start to recover. If we head in now, we will be dealing with a wounded beast in a confined space. Better to start preparing the method to kill her.”

  Damian nodded and followed Catherine in collecting a large number of stones. Catherine explained that the only sure way to stop a dearg due was to cover her grave in heavy stones so she can’t dig her way out. Whether this actually kills her or not is unclear, as some believe the beast would disintegrate from hunger after a while, yet others are sure if the stones are ever moved, she will rise again.

  “Naturally, no one is suicidal enough to test which theory is correct. Once we cover her grave, we’ll need to inform the druid circle and leave them in charge of watching over the grave.” Catherine mused.

  It took until just after sunrise for the two to find enough heavy stones to cover the grave. Once sunlight was solidly over the horizon the duo cautiously made their way inside the home. It was a small home, with combined living room and kitchen, three and a half rooms leading to bedrooms and the pantry. When they investigated the pantry, they found a trap door that led to a storage cellar. They carefully and quietly, made there way into the cellar and arrived at an open grave.

  The dearg due was lying inside, eyes closed and expression surprisingly peaceful. As Catherine was about to start laying down stones Damian stopped her and pulled out a wooden stake he had prepared. He mimed stabbing it into the vampire and raised a questioning eyebrow at Catherine. She took a second to consider and shrugged, she wasn’t sure if it would work the same as other vampires but didn’t see the harm in trying. She crept her way to the beast’s head and held the heaviest stone they could find over it, ready to slam it down if the stake didn’t work.

  Damian knelt at the edge of the grave, aimed and plunged the stake through the dearg due’s chest. The beast’s eyes flew open but otherwise didn’t move. Her eyes betrayed the creatures rage, confusion, and fear. The duo observed for a second before letting loose a relieved sigh and starting to cover the grave in stones. Once the last one was in place they made their way back up and out of the house, only to find a mob of people waiting outside. Leading the mob was a confused looking druid and a wildly gesturing boy, the same one whose jaw Damian broke.

  Placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder to calm him the druid looked to Damian and Catherine, “Honored Exterminator the boy claims you assaulted him. Could you please explain what happened?”

  Noting the weary and slightly hostile stares in the mob Damian realized what happened and stepped forward, “Did the boy tell you why I pulverized his jaw?”

  The crowd turned to the boy who didn’t seem to have considered that his story would have been questioned. The bewildered look on his face seemed to relay the fact that he assumed his community would side with him over an outsider without need for justification.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The druid shook his head, “No. The boy only told us that he was attacked and that you did it. It is why I personally came to oversee the situation. Tempers have been frayed for the past few months due to the attacks. I wished for the situation to be illuminated before action is taken.”

  The crowd while still discontent about one of their own being harmed, looked to the druid with respect and were willing to follow his lead. Damian nodded as if he expected as much and addressed the crowd at large. “As all of you know, my partner and I were conducting investigations into the recent string of deaths that plagued the Five Points area. Our investigation led us to the conclusion that a dearg due was the culprit.”

  The crowd gasped and recoiled, many making warding gestures over their chests. The druid’s face grew serious, “Has the creature been dealt with and how does that relate to harming the boy?”

  Catherine stepped forward and took over, “The creature was staked, to hold her in place long enough for us to cover her grave in heavy stones. As long as the stones are not disturbed, she should never rise again. The reason my partner hit the boy, is that the dearg due was his sister and he was covering for her attacks. To the point that when we had almost defeated the creature on a secluded beach, he ambushed us and held a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me if we didn’t let the vampire escape. My partner took exception to that and retaliated the moment I was safe.”

  The boy wilted under the angry stares directed at him from the mob he had gathered. The druid looked the most infuriated as he raised his shillelagh and began to beat the boy himself while cursing. A man at the front of the mob stepped forward to join the beating but flinched at the ferocity behind each smack of the shillelagh and retreated to safety.

  “You stupid, ungrateful, bastard of a boy. We took you in when your family passed and this is how you repay us? By letting the beast who killed your immediate family claim the lives of others? If it wouldn’t harm our community to lose a druid due to prison time, I would conduct the ritual of slow decay and turn you into a tree! You stupid little shite!” The old druid rained blows down upon the boy until he collapsed from exhaustion and the boy was rendered unconscious from the pain.

  Being supported by members of the crowd, the druid thanked Damian and Catherine for stopping the dearg due and swore that he would arrange for the site to be constantly under guard. He took note of the injuries on Damian’s body and offered an herbal remedy and its corresponding recipe both to heal him and as a reward for their work. Damian took both with a smile and downed the remedy and immediately regretted it. The taste was foul, and after swallowing he felt the flesh around his injuries begin to squirm an itch as they slowly started to stich themselves back together. The schadenfreude on the old druid’s face revealed he had also experienced the unpleasant sensation before.

  Damian and Catherine took their leave and made their way to their inn. The walk back was made in companionable silence, something Damian was grateful for. With the unpleasant feeling coming from his wounds, he would probably have been rather snappy. Luckily, he was healed by the time they reached the street their inn was on.

  Catherine decided to ask a question when their inn came in sight. “Do you think we will need to wait out the full three months before we are let out or just until it is confirmed if the dearg due was our culprit.”

  Damian shook his head, “I don’t think she was our culprit. Her scent was wrong for the victims we investigated and something about the bodies bothered me.”

  “Oh? What seemed off?”

  “Well, I’m not a doctor, but I’m fairly certain the back of the neck doesn’t have many veins that are not around the spinal collum. My sister is a doctor and happened to have an obsession with vampires. I remember her getting angry when a book she was reading had the vampire love interest bite into the back of the main characters neck and suck out some blood, to avoid killing her. She went on a tirade about how dumb it was, she even organized a bunch of people to yell at the author until it was fixed.”

  Catherine snorted, “Funny, but how is that relevant?”

  “Do you remember the placement of the ‘fang’ marks, on the corpses. Didn’t they seem a bit to far back on the neck to you?” Damian asked.

  Catherine shrugged, “I have no idea, they were on the sides of the neck and that has a bunch of veins in it. It could have just taken them from behind and fed quickly.”

  “Maybe.” Damian allowed.

  “So, you have a sister?” Catherine asked.

  “Yeah. Her name is Amber. She was in California for a conference when the waves hit. I’ve been too scared to check if she and her family are among the lists of fatalities.” Damian responded in a low tone.

  Catherine put her hand on his arm, “I’m sure she’s fine big guy. When we get out of here, we’ll go together and check the lists.”

  Damain gave Catherine a thankful nod. They had just made it inside the inn, when the sound of struggle came from the kitchen. They rushed to the door leading to the kitchen, knocking over tables in their haste. They heard a crash and then silence come from the room. Bursting inside they saw the innkeeper on the floor of the large room, pale and struggling for breath. The air was filled with the scent of damp earth and sulfur. The door leading to the back of the inn was torn off its hinges, thrown outward as something, or someone fled. Catherine went to check the innkeeper while Damian rushed to outside hoping to catch a trace of the culprit. Unfortunately, after five minutes of tracking the scent vanished leaving no trace. Defeated Damian had no choice but to return to the inn, only to find Catherine and the dead body of the innkeeper.