She stood in the center of the town church, staring down the pews to the town council. Inside the church was cold and dim, even though the few candles arranged artfully throughout thoughtfully tried their best. She shifted, and a few dark crumbs of earth peeled off of her muddy clothes.
One of the councilmen followed the trail with his eyes, tightening his jaw as he saw the flecks hit the floor. Then his gaze snapped up to look at Natalia.
“You will be fined for this behavior.” the councilman furthest on the right spat. In the low light it was difficult to tell them apart, but Evan had a distinctive gravel to his voice.
Natalia nodded once. The muscles on her face twitched, and she gripped the shovel in her left hand and let the tendons in her hand tighten.
“It was inappropriate, foolish, and against ecclesiastical principles. How dare you even think of showing your face in church tomorrow? You will wear a rope around your neck, tied with a stone, and Hail Mary for her mercy in the field from dawn to dusk.” Evan’s mouth snapped shut, and soon it was as if he had never spoken at all, waiting among the other rustling councilmen- each as indistinct as each other.
Natalia blew up. “I was doing a service to the community, you rancid, liver-sucking, cowardly, hide-bound RATS! I killed him, I did the actual hard work of killing him, and this is the thanks I get? My arm is torn half to shreds, and I get punished? I saved the-”Natalia was shouting now, and the dust in the air was getting into her throat.
Another councilman interrupted her. Devon, she thought.
“You desecrated a grave. You desecrated a dead body. You insulted the church. All for some rumor of a fictional creature? And you expect us to let that go unpunished? Rewarded, even? No.”
“But four people were killed by the vampire. And I have witnesses.” she insisted.
“Drop it.” Evan again.
This time she did drop the subject, though she was still breathing hard. Natalia tossed the bloody stake she held in her right hand towards them, sending it skittering towards their feet. It stopped when it hit the foot of one of the wooden pews. It left a line of dark gore on the floor, spattered in uneven little droplets.
“I’ll drop it, then,” Natalia spat at them, “but trust me when I say that he was a vampire.” And before they could remind her of the stone and the rope and the Hail Mary’s- she stamped out the door, making sure to shake off as much dried blood and mud as she could onto the floor.
When the door slammed behind her, the men gathered together and started murmuring.
“She will be the death of us all.”
“She will find out sooner or later.”
“That idiot Peter would have had us burnt at the stake before the day was out. I say it is good that he died.”
“Sure, Peter was no great loss, but now she’s onto us. We can’t hide behind morals forever, especially when she had witnesses.”
“That won’t be too much of an issue if we get rid of the witnesses. It’s been a few weeks since the last feed, and I’m getting rather hungry.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s a consensus then? Excellent.”
They left the church in a shuffling mass, huddled against the light of the moon. And when they got to the window, they stopped, because Natalia’s footprints in the snow lingered there, leaving deep impressions. They then led toward the woods, separated by a great distance, as if made by someone running at a dead sprint. If one listened very closely, as if they had supernatural hearing, one could hear the sound of heavy breathing and the crunch of snow underfoot from far away, getting farther, gone. The council looked at each other, and then at the foot prints again.
She knew. And Natalia was a proven vampire hunter. The council hiss and spit and roiled at the footprints, but there was nothing they could do now but be on guard. Natalia would be back tomorrow, like they told her. They would all be prepared by the morning, each to the best of their abilities. Whoever triumphed, one thing was sure- there would be more blood on the pews by tomorrow evening.
THE STORY HAS NOW ENDED. Would you like to go back home?