Vicious Magick (17 page)

“Fine. We’ll stay. I’ll keep a watch while
you guys sleep.”

Novanostrum sits on the rocking chair on the
house’s front porch, gazing at the ominous dual full moons shining
in the sky. Inside, Zanther, Madra, and Sogbottom snore vigorously.
Novanostrum lights his pipe, surveying the dark fields.

The horse whinnies, and Novanostrum snaps his
head in the direction of the commotion, but sees nothing. He walks
over to the horse, but continues to sees nothing.

A breeze stirs the grasses and a crow caws
somewhere in the distant night.

Nove, you’re being paranoid.
He steps
inside the house and locks the door behind him. He sits on a bed,
feeling an immense fatigue he hadn’t noticed before. The snoring of
the others is cacophonous, extreme. Also, he hasn’t known Zanther
to be a snorer. That is because…because…

Zanther doesn’t snore.

Novanostrum rolls out of bed and into a
defensive crouch.

“Hey! Wake up!” he shouts.

The others don’t stir.

Novanostrum apparates his staff from his
sleeve and slams the end of it onto the floorboards, rattling the
house’s foundation and calling forth an earsplitting sonic wave
audible for miles in every direction.

They continue sleeping.

It’s now when the scratching starts.
Scratching at the windows, scratching at the door, scratching on
the walls. Novanostrum swears he even hears scratching inside the
room. Inside the chimney, he can hear tiny claws scraping on
stone.

A bat falls out of the chimney, squeaking and
seizing on the flame in the fireplace. It chirps as it zips out at
Novanostrum, sinking a few claws into his forearm and causing him
to drop his staff. What he doesn’t notice during this encounter is
the viper poised to strike behind his ankle.

With a snap, the viper clamps down on calf.
Novanostrum shrieks in pain.

Busy simultaneously trying to stomp the snake
and swat at the bat, the windows at each end of the house are
shattered as pale, skinny bodies fling themselves inside and
surround Novanostrum. One of them picks up his staff and flings a
fireball at him, blasting him across the room and in between
Zanther and Madra’s beds.

On the ground, Novanostrum tries to produce
his own fireball, his own earthquake, something. Whether it’s due
to the viper’s poison or the incapacitation of his left arm, he
doesn’t know, but his magick is not forthcoming.

“Time to go old-school, I guess,” he says,
picking Zanther’s longknife up from the floor and charging into the
crowd of invaders.

They bare their sharp canines at him and
swarm.

“Nosfers,” he says, realizing the extent of
his predicament.

The Nosfer

The Nosfer are a sunlight-hating breed of
humanoid parasite. They’re immortal in the way a tree is immortal:
they can live forever unless they’re cut down. Most practical
knowledge about Nosfers concerns ways to kill them, because of
their inherent threat to humanity and common decency. Sure, they
drink human blood, but the main reason they are hated is for their
glamour and large endowments. The males with their pulsating
members, the females with their generous bosoms. They are experts
in seduction and manipulation.

How do you kill one? Garlic won’t do it. A
stake to the heart, well, that’s a damn fine way to piss one off.
The only real way to kill one is to sever the head and burn the
remains to ash using a fire, or sunlight, if you’ve got some. Now,
if you happen to be an apothecary and you have access to the blood
of a seagoat, and if you can make a Nosfer drink it, this will
render them mortal.

However, seagoats and apothecaries (with the
relatively recent advent of Guild-based Physickal Insurance
schemes) are both considered to be largely apocryphal.

He tries to beat them away with the
longknife, but they start to overpower him. One of them grabs his
arm, inadvertently twisting the outer ring on the face of his
wristwatch.

Time slows, and Novanostrum finds himself
suddenly able to move with great celerity. The powerful blade comes
down again and again, each time severing a Nosfer head from its
body. With the undead dead, he chops the snake into pieces. He
picks up his staff and shoots a fireball at the bat still flapping
around the room, blasting it right out the window and probably
halfway to Phoebe.

Time picks up again as he collapses onto his
bed. Outside, the first traces of dawn are visible, giving every
indication that this sunrise will be a brilliant one. The first
sunbeams of the day enter the room, seeking out the bloody,
contorted Nosfer remains. Upon contact with this sunlight, the
bodies and heads melt to ash.

Zanther stretches his arms and yawns. He sits
up in his bed and yells at Novanostrum.

“Hey! Thought you were gonna stay up and keep
watch, and here you are, asleep on the job! You’d never be able to
cut it as a guard.”

Zanther is surprised to see his longknife fly
by his head, lodging itself in the wall.