"And you're sure that we will find a nest here?" Agatha asked. She rubbed her eyes, still groggy from her few hours of sleep as the last rays of evening sun cast rounded shadows over the graveyard. She dragged fingertips over the cool, porous stones as she walked.
"Not certain, no. But this is my best guess. I think it is the most likely of all the possibilities I found today."
"But a graveyard? Seems a bit obvious, no?"
"Of course, but it's obvious for a reason, Agatha. Because it is exactly what a vampire would do. That's also not the only piece of evidence we have."
"You're in charge of evidence, Charles. I'm in charge of killing." Answered Agatha, pulling a thick, wooden stake from Charles' jacket pocket and gripping it tightly.
"Yes, but I'd love for you to listen and at least try to comprehend our reasoning. Investigation is a part of your training as well, Agatha."
"You've told me. If they're holding large numbers of vampires, they must be turning them all at once. They would need an area to hide many bodies without their being noticed and they would need a place hidden away from sunlight. Sewers are likely as well, but they almost certainly started their operation where they felt most comfortable, in the crypts. Did I miss anything?"
Charles looked at her and smiled proudly. His breath was heavy as he marched over the soft dirt.
"And yet you let me waste my breath repeating myself." He chuckled.
"I wanted you to feel smart."
At this, he laughed loudly.
"I can assure you," said Charles "that I am quite smart. One of the highest exam scores the watchers' council has ever seen would attest to that."
"Ah, but I've never taken the Watchers' exam, now have I?"
"This is true. You are an unknown quantity to say the least."
It was the soft, bright rustle of grass which put Agatha on guard. At first, simply far off and behind her, but quickly she localized the rustle to just behind her right ear and about twenty feet away. The growing thump of rapid, soft steps on hardening mud told her it was approaching quickly, whatever it was. She noticed that the sun had fully fallen behind the horizon, giving them no natural protection. Suddenly, the thuds stopped and a change in the wind told Agatha that someone was leaping at them.
All of this had taken less than a second and she knew she couldn't turn quickly enough to catch their attacker. She settled for shoving Charles, hard. He left his feet and slammed heavily into a faded gravestone, knocking the breath from his lungs and leaving him squirming on the damp ground.
Agatha had only a moment to see his landing before cold skin and sinuous arms engulfed her and drove her into the dirt. She managed to kick and create enough space to turn onto her back and face her attacker.
She did this just in time to grip both of her hands tightly around the straining neck of a viciously aggressive vampire, stopping it from bringing its open mouth down upon her neck. Instead, it snapped loudly, slinging a mixture of spit and blood from its badly chapped lips onto her face.
"Charles! Charles! The stake!" Agatha shouted laboriously. The vampire snapped at her like a rabid coyote, flailing its arms wildly in the air. For this, Agatha was thankful, as she wasn't sure she had the strength to hold the beast at bay if it began to use its arms.
The vampire was bald, shirtless, and wore white pants which were as pale as its skin. Only the few spots of mud and red gashes on its arms and torso brought any color to the stringy monster.
Agatha looked to her side and saw Charles beginning to stir slowly. The beast followed her gaze and, seeing a much easier target, pushed up with both hands and began to lunge for him.
"No!" Agatha shouted. She tightened her grip around the vampire's neck and winced as she was dragged across the ground on her back beneath it. The pair was quickly approaching Charles' groggy body when Agatha had something of an idea. She wasn't sure if it would work, but it was all she could think of at the moment.
Just as the vampire neared her watcher, its foaming and bloody mouth on a course for his exposed neck, Agatha dug her heels into the mud and pushed up with all her strength. Just as she'd hoped, the vampire flew over Charles and collided, with its bald head leading the way, with the weathered grave stone behind him. The stone crumbled like a stack of cards and the rabid beast wriggled about on the ground, its head bleeding profusely.
The momentum had carried Agatha over the crumbled gravestone as well and, finally free of the vampire's weight, she rose to her feet. She pounced quickly on the vampire's pasty white back and felt thin muscles struggling mightily beneath her thighs. She looked back to Charles who was staggering about, searching frantically for the stake which had been tossed across the grass by the scramble. Agatha could feel the monster's strength returning and knew she couldn't wait for Charles.
Her gaze descended onto its bald head which was bleeding heavily from several gashes about the crown. She knew that it had connected with the stone with the top of its head first, and so, if she hoped to find any fractures, they would be there.
Interlacing her muddy fingers, Agatha brought her strong arms high above her head and brought them down hard into the top of the vampire's head. The beast squealed in pain and Agatha felt a slight crack. She repeated the strike and this time, the crack was loud and left a large dent in the bald, white head. The squirming had all but ceased as she'd knocked her foe unconscious.
Knowing that only one more blow may be necessary, she brought her clasped and now crimson red hands above her head and swung down one final time, throwing her back and shoulders into the strike. Her fists landed and the vampire's skull crumbled, first into a bloody, magnled heap and then into dust. The vampire's blood, cold and red, was all that remained on Agatha's hands.
Still in her heightened state, Agatha heard Charles approaching her long before he spoke.
"Here!" He shouted. "I found it. It was-well nevermind. Here is the stake."
Kneeling, Agatha wiped her hands on the wet grass.
"It's gone, Charles. But thank you." She stood and took the stake from Charles' hand. He was frozen and confused. "Beheaded." She said, calmly with a grin on her face.
"How? Did you tear off head with your bare hands? Even for a slayer, Agatha, that's..."
"Not so much tear off as bust in, but yes to the bare hands." She slid the stake into the waistband of her pants. "It seems to have come from this way." She pointed toward the shallow footprints that approached where the pair had been standing.
Charles didn't answer, his face still dumbfounded. Agatha began following the footprints, hearing her watcher walking behind and preparing for the reality that more such feral vampires may be lying in wait.
"I can't say, in all my readings, that I have ever heard of anyone crushing a vampire's skull with their hands." He said after a few silent steps.
"The gravestone helped. I'm also a slayer, Charles."
"Slayer or no. Gravestone or no. That was quite a feat."
The pride in Charles' voice brought a smile to Agatha's lips.
"Make sure to write it down in the diaries. Perhaps that could be my claim. My legacy. 'Agatha. The slayer who crushed a vampire's skull with her hands.' Perhaps shorten the title a bit. Something that will pop off the page. You know."
"I certainly wi-"
"Over there!" Agatha called and excitedly broke into a jog toward a rather new crypt who's black iron bars were swinging open in the breeze.
They reached the building and found a mess. The insides were covered in torn blankets, splatters of blood on the walls and floor, and three bodies lay still and pail, stacked in the center of the room. The bodies were covered in frantic bite marks, some opening large gashes on their arms and neck.
"Do you think they'll turn?" Asked Agatha solemnly.
"They look as if they've been dead for some time. I doubt they were intended to turn. They seem like meals for a nest that has fled."
"Fled or released?" Agatha wondered aloud, examining the gates for signs of a forced exit.
"Oh, they fled, I assure you."
Agatha felt the hairs on her neck stand on end and she instinctively pulled the sharp stake from her waistband upon hearing the voice which she recognized all too well.
"When they are released, you'll know it." The voice echoed once again from the stone walls making it hard for Agatha to localize. She stepped backward, fists clenched, until she felt her watcher against her back.
"Agatha, it's so good to see you again. I see you've found my little project."