Pitt walked down the road to the first victim's house. He felt like he didn't know what he was doing. He killed things. Most of the time he didn't have to look for them.

He decided a quick lookaround wouldn't hurt anything. Maybe he would find something that would point him in the direction he needed to go.

Pantalus's involvement was the clearest thing about his task. The god of the dead frowned on things not dying and staying dead. Anything that moved around when it was supposed to be put down somewhere forever made him a little cranky.

Vampires and liches were at the top of his list of things that needed to put down for good.

Pitt spotted the dog sign and looked around. He expected that the vampire took this woman first because she was out in the middle of nowhere. The town had destroyed the body before she could turn someone else.

She probably wasn't the first victim.

The first victim was probably who had been taken close to the widow woman's house. Then he had earned his fangs preying on her. All the plague victims probably came after that.

He should have asked Gumm where the sick people lived. If they all lived near each other, that would make his job a little easier.

The vampires had probably dug into the ground somewhere close to the dead woman's, and the sick people's, houses. Searching for them would just need a blessing on the suspected area.

One blessing would send a vampire up in smoke if it was close to the cleric when he cast the action.

Two vampires already in the area just meant they had come to the area as a pair, or one of them had turned the other and was the master, or mistress, vampire. Every other vampire would serve that head of the clan until a new death.

He wondered if the vampires had tried to turn the old woman to gain her property. Everyone would think it was infested with plague. No one would think a vampire was close by, and going about their business.

He reached the house and looked up at the sky. He still had plenty of time before sunset to look around. He might as well do what he could before the town ate itself.

It wouldn't be the first time a town turned on itself because of a vampire. The sickened and innocent went up in smoke first. The vampires fed the fire, picking off anyone who might guess what was going on. At the end, the master took his clan to a new town and started the whole thing over.

Eventually if no one stopped the spread fast enough, whole cities could be eaten by the vampires and be added to their numbers. When things got that bad, people farms were set up for the blood.

Pitt had seen enough of those to last him the rest of his long life. Stopping such a thing from forming would save the region some trouble for years to come.

It might get him a horse to ride the rest of the way home to his Highlands.

Pitt started his search in the house. He went through the rooms fast, concentrating on spaces big enough for a person to hide in. He saved the basement for last. If a vampire was around, the chances were they were buried in the dirt under the house.

If he didn't find anything in the basement, he would expand his search. The vampires didn't need much, but they would need cover from the sun. That was one of the rules of their nature they couldn't change.

He figured they might have taken a house from either the first victim, or from someone no one would miss. He would have to ask Gumm if there was such a person in the neighborhood.

He knew that he might be in for a fight if he was away from the town after the sun went down. He didn't mind. It would make his job easier if they did come for him. It had been a long time since he had ripped an undead monster apart with his bare hands.

Pitt went over the dirt floor of the room under the house. It seemed the same solid sheet that had been there for years before he had come along and started looking. He slapped the dirt with his hand. There was a small bow wave from the ground before it subsided. Nothing surfaced for him.

That just meant the vampires weren't using the house as their staging point.

Where should he go next? He couldn't let the town die. Maybe he should start asking the neighbors if they knew anything.

He climbed out of the underground room and went to the door. The Sun looked down from its place in the sky. He looked around until he saw the house of a neighbor in the distance. If he could get over there, he might be able to talk to the people about the dead woman.

He decided that he wasn't going to ask any questions after sundown. The residents would be afraid. He didn't need to kill some harmless villager who thought he was trouble for showing up after sunset and asking questions about dead neighbors.

If he couldn't find out anything, he would try his luck in town. Eventually something would cause his enemy to attack. When they did, he would be ready.

He had a real fear that he would lose the town to the vampires and they would be able to break free from him and go somewhere else to spread.

The chances were good that if they knew who he was, and that he had been summoned to the temple, the vampires would flee. Any cleric would be able to destroy them with a blessing, and he might be seen as a cleric that was in the way.

Gumm might be seen as a minor problem since he had every god to serve. Some would want more than others.

Pitt reached the neighboring house. He looked around but he didn't see any signs of life. Had the resident died without being noticed by the town? He decided that he should knock on the door at least.

If there was a problem, he would fix it like he always fixed problems.

If there wasn't, he would walk around for a bit, then head back to town. He wondered if Gumm had a blessing that would handle smelling the undead.

He knocked on the wooden door. He waited. The sun was going down. If he had to go back, he would be walking in the dark. That would make him prime prey material in his opinion.

Would the vampire think he was harmless? That part was a little harder to judge.

The door swung open. A thin pale face looked around the edge of the wooden barrier. He didn't look reassured to see Pitt standing on his porch with hands in pockets.

“Who are you?,” asked the resident. A small dot of blood leaked from his nose. “Why are you bothering me?”

“I came over to ask you some questions about your neighbor,” said Pitt. “Can I come in so we can talk in chairs like good fellas.”

“I have nothing to say about her,” said the neighbor. “And if I did, I wouldn't say it to some stranger.”

“Are you feeling all right?,” asked Pitt.

“Go away,” said the neighbor. “I don't have anything to say to you about anything.”

Pitt punched him in the face. He tried to be gentle. He was there to try to be gentle in his mission, but some people were obstructions that needed to be removed.

The neighbor dropped on his back. Both hands went to his face to help him get over the pain.

Pitt stepped inside the house. It was more ramshakle than the other house he had searched.

He punched the neighbor again. He wanted someone he could get information from without killing them.

On the other hand, he wasn't ready to ask any questions. He just needed the guy out of the way until he had searched the house. Once he had the lay of the land, he could wake the guy up and ask him about any vampires he might have seen.

He had a feeling that the bloodsuckers had been showing an interest in his subject. He might have the bait he needed to deal with the monsters. With any luck, he could wrap things up when the sun went down, and move on in the morning.

He went through the house quickly. Chaos reigned. It looked like the neighbor hadn't did anything for himself, or his residence, for days. That fit in with the widow dying since he might have been doing things to impress her, or had hired her as a cleaner.

Once she had died, things had gotten messy fast.

The bloodsuckers must have targeted him next, but he hadn't succumbed yet. It was only a matter of another bite to cause him to die and start changing.

Would they come for their recruit that night? How much trouble was Gumm causing with his roundup? Was he getting the people who needed to be taken, or was the sickness a decoy for some other thing that was going to happen?

Pitt hoped the cleric could handle himself in case the people he was gathering was already going over the line to becoming vampires. Getting them all in one place might be a mistake for the defenders.

He mentally shrugged. He couldn't be everywhere. And they knew they were dealing with two vampires. If Gumm could wrap things up on his own, that would be one last headache for him.

His witness groaned, trying to sit up from where he had fallen. He glared at his attacker with bloodshot eyes.

“How long until the vampires come for you?,” asked Pitt. He rolled up a cigarette and lit it with a snap of his fingers. He puffed on it gently.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said the neighbor.

“Okay,” said Pitt. “You're almost a vampire yourself. They'll be here to finish the job sooner, or later.”

The sun outside the window started to descend out of sight.

“It won't be long,” said Pitt.