Page 38 of Once Bitten, Twice Mine

Caroline nodded, unable to trust her voice. Her hands trembled, but she would believe Dr. Murnau as long as he had an answer for her. Because something strange was happening in her house. Something she certainly couldn’t explain on her own.

“I think you’ll find I’m willing to believe far more than you could imagine.”

“Tell me, have you ever heard of a vampir?”

Caroline shook her head as she racked her brain for the term, but didn’t come up with an answer.

“A vampir—or vampire as I think you English call it—is a bloodsucking demon who takes and takes until there is nothing left. The sickness is sudden, and I haven’t heard of any treatment.”

Caroline’s breath stuttered. Abhartach didn’t have a title beyond chieftain in her mother’s story, but the description sounded right.

“Do you have experience with vampires?”

“Not direct, but when I was a boy sometimes we would hear about the disappearances of entire villages in the mountains. My Oma would whisper of vampirs and cross herself before telling me to stay indoors after dark until it blew over. I don’t think I ever really believed her until now.”

“Did she ever tell you what to do if one of them got to you?”

“No, I always thought it was superstitious nonsense, but now I wish I listened.”

“When I was a girl, my mother told me an old folktale about an old Irish chieftain named Abhartach. Are you familiar?” When the doctor shook his head, she continued, “He was feared by his people for his use of dark magic. After he died, he kept coming back to demand more and more blood from his people.”

Caroline braced herself for his laughter. Even though he had told her about the vampirs of his youth, she still felt this entire discussion was foolish and that they were wasting time when they should have been researching plagues.

“Did they die from the blood he took?”

“I’m not sure; that part was left out of her story.”

She explained the rest of the story her mother told, about how to defeat the dark Abhartach. Dr. Murnau took to her story well enough, but she wasn’t going to mention that this memory came to her in a dream. Vampires were one thing, but dream magic was something else entirely.

“Between both of our folklore, blood loss is the constant, so we should start our research there.”

“Is there anything else you know as the mark of a vampire?”

“They don’t eat or drink normally, just survive on blood. They cannot walk in the daylight like you and I; instead, they are in an infernal slumber from which they cannot be roused. I have also heard rumors that say they cannot handle garlic or relics from the church, but those are unconfirmed.”

That certainly sounded like Valeria. She couldn’t believe she had let such a creature into her home. All she wanted from the doctor were answers, but now that she had them, she wanted anything else.

“Isn’t all of this little more than a rumor?” She released her hands from their tight grasp on her lap, and the blood rushed back into them. “If vampires were real, there would be some record outside of folklore.”

“Do you treat everything you haven’t personally seen as a rumor? Just because you have not personally witnessed something does not mean it doesn’t exist.”

Caroline could easily accept that fact when it came to giraffes, the Great Wall of China, or the Grand Canyon, but while hearing that logic applied to vampires was difficult to accept, a deeper part of her accepted this as fact.

“Look to your books to see if you can find more details on your Abhartach, and I’ll keep looking into other folklore sources. I’ve also written to a former classmate who has become an expert in infectious disease so he can help with a medical explanation for what’s happening.”

“Is there anything I should look for?”

“A cure or any treatment. I have yet to come across any records of anyone coming back once they’ve become so sick they’ve taken to bed.”

“Except for my father,” Caroline said, her voice small as she squeezed her skirts in her hands. For the first time she regretted sending her parents away.

“Precisely.” Dr. Murnau poured a cup of tea; she didn’t know how he kept his hand from shaking. “When I sent him away, I was even less sure of my hypothesis. I wasn’t sure if it would save him or if he would die somewhere else. I’m glad to hear of his improvement.”

“Why did you suggest he leave?”

“Sometimes when there’s an environmental illness, the patient will improve when they’re removed from the environment. You mainly see it with people who live in old houses when they get a respiratory illness. I wasn’t sure when I saw your father, but the puncture wounds told me I needed to try to separate him from whatever bit him.”

Caroline had nothing else to say to that, so the remainder of their lunch passed in silence as they ate for sustenance rather than appetite.