Carver did not return for a good long while. And out of something between impatience and annoyance I followed him, without a thought that there might be something very terrible indeed, seeing as the stench was so strong. So when I did saunter after him it helped a great amount that I was not breathing, and there was no smell attacking my inner beast.
It was a blood bath. And not a descriptive term. Literally. Tens, maybe hundreds, of human bodies were scattered over the white white snow, and where they lay blood stained the ground with the colour of summer strawberries. Of the faces that were turned upwards I could see a variety of expressions, of ages, of gender, but overall they had one thing in common; they were pale like ghosts and every mouth was open as they screamed in frozen and everlasting terror.
Brother lay across lover, lay across mother, across great aunt Jessie, and I found myself gagging, not with pain from the thirst for blood, but with internal horror. This was a genocide, a world of death, where every being had been drained of their blood, and then their bodies discarded into this pile of waste. This was not the controlled, ideal life that our kind had dreamed of, peace with what humans we could get our hands on. This was insanity; a vampire, or indeed vampires, who wrought this much damage woud most definitely have some bitter reason for hating the huamsn this much.
Carver shivered, not with cold, but with fear. As he heard my approach his eyes glanced up, wide and pleading. Silently, I indicated to my firmly closed mouth and gestured if he had a spare peg to hold my nose closed. Unfortunately he did not, so I just had to hope I did not relax and let in a breath of air.
"What sort of demon?" Carver whispered.
One with wickedness in their heart, I heard myself say.
And it was true. I had never seen this much loss of control, especcially, it had to be said, in Aristocratic Vampirism.
"And why?"
That is what I want to know, I sighed to myself. Then, teasing a hankerchief from my pocket I fashioned a mask across my mouth and nose, and pointed upwards to the castle.
"Might as well try there," I said thickly, not wanting to use much air.
Carver agreed with me, and unsurprisingly happily, he turned away from the massacre sight and joined me as we walked away and up to the ruinous entrance.
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