Pitt found the path of the rocks he had thrown from the roof. Holes and gouges marked where the trees had taken hits. He didn't see any blood. He must have missed the archer with his return fire.

He supposed it was okay not to be able to see in the dark.

He checked the ground around where the stones had come to a rest. He didn't see any tracks. Vampires were notoriously light on their feet.

What did he do now?

He decided they had to investigate the farms and see if they could do something about letting them stay out there. They could install holy symbols to protect the houses and animals.

Animals could be used for bait under the right circumstances. And he didn't think the farmers knew what they were dealing with out there.

At least there was only one monster in the neighborhood. If they could find the lair, the rest would be easy.

Pitt walked back to town. Defenses from the arrows had to be erected if they wanted to defend the town. A few arrows lighting up the right places would have caused the defenders to try to put the fires out and leave themselves vulnerable.

They would have lost some of the town in the ensuing chaos.

He walked through the town. The guards from the night before were changing with those for the daytime. There needed to be a watch. The town could crumble away while he tried to preserve it.

He found Gumm walking around the town, using his grants from the gods to cheer people up.

“We need some walls put up,” said Pitt. “I don't know how it can be done with what you have. I also need to go out to those farms to see if they are okay. They're a weak link for the town if something happens.”

“I will send runners to get things started,” said Gumm. “We have some carpenters who can do a quick job if they hurry.”

“Make sure to put something on them to ward off the vampire,” said Pitt. “Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll touch a symbol for Pantalus and burst into flame.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Gumm.

“Anything undead that touches one of his marks attracts his attention,” said Pitt. “I don't have to tell you what that means.”

Gumm nodded. Anything that Pantalus concentrated on would have sudden cessation of being problems. Clerics in the know called it the burning eye.

“I'm going to need a horse to get out to those farms,” said Pitt.

“I'll get you one, and a guide,” said Gumm. “That'll speed things up for you.”

“All right,” said Pitt. “Let's go deal with this problem if we can.”

“All right,” said the cleric. “Come along. We can get your horse at the smithy.”

The guards nodded at the cleric in gray, Mogen Farn's symbol on his tunic, and the adventurer in his coat. They smiled as the stranger struggled to roll up a cigarette. The two walked around to the doors of the smithy. A wagon should be able to fit inside the barn-like building.

Gumm knocked on the door. The right door opened a crack. A boy looked out. He hadn't been up long by the looks of it.

“We need a horse and a guide, Seamus,” said Gumm. “Is your father awake yet?”

“Not yet,” said the boy. He looked up at Pitt still trying to roll his smoke. “I don't know you.”

“William Pitt,” said Pitt. He didn't resist as the boy took the paper from him and rolled the cigarette. The boy handed the finished product back. “Thank you.”

“I don't know Da will want to talk to you,” said Seamus. “You have a bunch of sick people at the Temple.”

“They're not sick,” said Pitt. He lit the cigarette with a snap of his fingers. “Go ahead and get your Da. It will save me the trouble of dragging him out of bed.”

“You couldn't drag Da out of bed,” said Seamus. He grinned at the thought.

Pitt looked around. He saw some horseshoes hanging on the top rail of the corral fence for the smithy. He picked one up and showed the boy what it was. Then he crushed it between his hands until it was a spike. Then he did it again to make the spike a flat circle. He handed that to the boy.

“Give that to your Da, and tell him we're waiting for him for a bit,” said Pitt. “Eventually I will get tired of waiting and just take what I need.”

Seamus shut the door. His eyes were trying to jump out of his head. He had never seen anything like that. Hopefully, he never would again.

“That was something,” said Gumm. He shook his head.

“Sometimes you have to disallow excuses,” said Pitt. “It makes things easier in the long run.”

“A man flattening a piece of metal into a coin is not something I thought I would see in my lifetime,” said Gumm.

“So today has already been a treat for you,” said Pitt.

“I wouldn't say that,” said Gumm.

The smithy door opened a crack. A big man stood behind the door. He looked at the cleric and his companion. He didn't look that happy at the interference in his sleep.

“Gumm?,” said the smith. “What do you want?”

“We need to get a horse and someone to ride with Master Pitt here,” said Gumm. “He wants to make sure we're the only ones that saw action last night.”

“I don't know if I can just let you have a horse,” said the smith. “I don't own any of them.”

“I just need it to check the surrounding farms,” said Pitt. “I'll bring the horse back.”

“How do I know that?,” said the smith.

“Pantalus will guarantee the horse, Craggie,” said Gumm. “If anything happens to it, I will get the replacement money to give you.”

“I guess that will be okay,” said Craggie.

“Good,” said Gumm. He raised a hand. Light washed over the smith. “We need help building walls for the town. We need you to help us.”

“Nothing happened,” said Craggie. He waved at the bright morning. “The menace is gone.”

“The menace is a vampire,” said Pitt. “Do I have to explain to you and your family if the defense falters?”

“I guess not,” said the smith. “I'll show you a horse you can take. I'll get Seamus to go with you. He knows all the local places.”

'Thank you,” said Pitt. “I'll look out for him.”

“Did you really crush a horseshoe?,” asked Craggie.

Pitt walked over and grabbed a second horseshoe from the fence. He repeated the procedure he had used on the earlier horseshoe. He handed the smith another blank disc.

“I don't think I have ever seen someone that strong,” said Craggie. He flipped the disc in his hands. “I couldn't do this with a fifty pound hammer.”

“Let's get a saddle on a horse,” said Pitt. “I'm burning daylight.”

“Let me show you the other part of my business,” said Craggie. He stepped out of the building and walked around to the corral. He jumped over the fence and headed for where the horses waited in their den.

Pitt followed a bit more slowly. He knew how to ride horses, but he didn't like it. Anything he fought could go for the animal just out of pettines.

“This is Spotty,” said Craggie. “He's the most gentle animal staying here at the moment. I'm waiting for his owner to come and get him.”

“I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible,” said Pitt. “I'll be back by sundown, no matter what. Whatever happens, the town is going to be at the center of it. People will be in trouble for miles around if we don't figure out how to handle this.”

“Which is why we need people who can erect walls quickly so we'll have some kind of minimal defense,” said Gumm. “The holy symbols might have kept him out of town, but there's no telling what we will have to do if he can burn everything down because we don't have a barrier in place.”

“I'll help get a crew to help out,” said Craggie.

Pitt put the plainest saddle on Spotty. The horse neighed at the sudden weight. A bridle and bit went over the horse's head and in his mouth. He stroked the animal's neck to calm him down.

“Let me get Seamus,” said Craggie. “He'll take you around to where you want to go.”

“All right,” said Pitt. “I expect we'll see the end of this in a few days one way, or the other. More clerics will be flooding in to give us a hand, unless they run into trouble on the road.”

“A few days seems so easy, but we can still fail in that time,” said the smith.

“That's why I'm going out to look for him instead of waiting for him to get lucky,” said Pitt.

Seamus came out of the living quarters of the smithy. He buttoned a coat over a tunic and breeches. He tried to smooth his hair down with one hand. The effort failed.

“Do I have to go?,” said Seamus.

“You're the best one for this,” said Craggie. “Get back before the sun goes down so we can shut the smithy up.”

“We'll start close to the town, and work our way out,” said Pitt. “Don't get off your horse. If trouble happens, I want you to come back here and let Gumm know what happened.”

“I'll be glad to do that,” said the boy.

“Let's ride,” said Pitt. He waited for Seamus to get his own mount saddled. Then he led the way out of the corral.

Pitt let his guide lead the way out of town. He expected to find the farmers, some of them at least, still alive. The vampire couldn't have attacked the homesteads and shoot arrows half the night.

The pair searched the farms one by one. The people were gone, but the animals were still in place. There were minor signs of violence, but no one had escaped into the night.

Pitt gestured for the boy to lead on, but the signs seemed the same everywhere they went. He didn't like that.

“What do you think happened?,” asked Seamus.

“I don't know,” said Pitt. He worked on a cigarette. “I thought it took longer for new vampires to come from old ones. The problem might have grown while we were digging in.”

“So the town will be destroyed,” said Seamus.

“No,” said Pitt. He lit his cigarette and puffed on it. “We're going to hold the town until help arrives. I promise you that.”

“How can you promise something like that?,” said Seamus.

“This isn't my first time dealing with a pest,” said Pitt. “We might as well turn back. It looks like the rest will be the same as what we already found. We'll need to work on what kind of defenses we can use, and how much it would take to build them.”

Seamus led the way back to town. Pitt followed. He hadn't seen anything useful. He was afraid that the town would be wiped out despite anything he could do. He wished he had one of his brothers there to help out. Alex would be the guy to hold any line they agreed to set.

He wished he knew where the master of time was. A message might be enough to get him to show up and defend the town while Pitt did what he did best.

Maybe Gumm could get a message to the other demigod through his Temple. Alex's father might help out in this case.

Pitt put the idle speculation out of the way. When the vampire hit, he was going to have to kill the thing before villagers could be used as fodder.

The missing people bothered him, but he didn't know what to do about it. They could be on an acellerated turning. He might be facing more than one vampire before this was over.

He didn't like that idea better that the farmers might be buried on their land and would not stay there.

He could ask Gumm when they got back to the town. The cleric would probably know how many people had been lost because the stubborn farmers had decided to stick it out instead of getting cover. The town might collapse from having to kill their own instead of strangers.

He wondered how many he would have to put down personally. He hoped they weren't going to bring the kids back. That would too much for him.

He decided kid vampires storming whatever barricade they put up would be the worst thing for him to deal with after the battle. He hadn't thought his task would have something like this in the mix.

The horses walked into town. People worked on walls everywhere they looked. A lone vampire might have problems getting pass the holy symbols. There was no telling what would happen if more than one vampire was heading for the site.

He would have to do his best to kill however many showed up to confront him about what he was doing.

“Let's get these horses back to their stables,” said Pitt. “They'll be safer than us by this point.”

“All right,” said Seamus. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not really,” said Pitt. “Stay under the shield of whatever symbol you can put around the smithy.”

“It was bad that we didn't see any people, wasn't it?,” said Seamus.

“I'm going to have to say yes,” said Pitt. “The threat just became more that we'll have to handle to get clear. Don't go anywhere after the sun goes down.”

“They won't pick me off that easy,” said Seamus.