She couldn’t’ve been more than 14.
She was a wiry pegasus with stringy hair and a dirty cap she clutched to herself like a talisman. Her mouth was clamped shut, as if she was afraid to breathe. She was whimpering, rocking back and forth in the center of an improvised wooden cage. Hailey had thrown it together with planks and nails and put a tarp over the top to keep the rain out.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. I tried to inch closer than ten feet to the cage, but Homeguard held up a leg to stop me. “She’s just a kid. Why would Speckle do something like that?”
“A blow to morale. Psychological tactics,” said Homeguard. “Can you imagine attempting to fight an opponent of that age? Possible sociopathy. There is little limit to what you can do when people are merely tools to be used.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “That’s-” I was so sickened, so disgusted, so morally repulsed that I couldn’t find the words. It was wrong, plain and simple. “What’d you say her name was? Bay Vanner?” I took another step forward.
Homeguard pushed me back again. “Yes,” he said with a scowl, “and for the last time, do not approach her. She is already stressed enough; do not make it worse by letting her smell you. You should not even be here!”
“Yeah, well, I am, and I’m not leaving.”
The moment I’d heard about Homeguard and Hailey protecting a vampire, I’d insisted on going to see her.
“No,” Homeguard said. “You should not see her. It is for the best. She should not be near ponies just yet.”
“Oh, stop protecting me,” I snapped. “I can-”
“It is not for your protection,” Homeguard said quickly. “It is for hers. She is still young and does not yet have a complete grasp on her instincts. She still needs instruction. Swan, through no fault of her own, the second she smells you, she will want to kill you. While Hailey and I could restrain her if she escaped, do you really wish to cause her that pain?”
“Well, I-” To be honest, I didn’t really have a “right” to see the new vampire. Why? Just because I wanted to? But I soon had an answer for that. “Just once,” I said. “I need to know what’s going on with her, and I want to put a face to her.”
Homeguard exhaled halfway between a groan and a sigh. “Very well. But just this once, until she gains better control.”
I immediately told Levanta that we were safe, but I needed to head out for a little bit. As we ran for Homeguard’s cottage, I gasped out, “So what- happened- in Seaddle?”
“Hailey and I scented vampire trails, presumably Speckle’s, all across the city,” Homeguard said. “Tracking them was a trivial manner. But when we found their source, we found naught but ash. All the fledglings had been murdered, either staked or burned.”
I tripped in shock and Homeguard had to stop to let me catch up. “Dead? Just like that?”
Homeguard nodded gravely. “Unfortunately. They were loose ends. They knew of Speckle. They had to be disposed of.”
“Son of a… Okay, so- what about- this vampire?”
“We are unaware of how she escaped notice. Perhaps her power is a form of invisibility. We certainly missed her on our first inspection of the hideout, and it was only through her alerting us to her presence that we noticed her at all. She begged us for help, pleaded us to take her with us. She was terrified, still thought Speckle would return and kill her, and had nowhere to run.”
“That- doesn’t sound- like a- vampire.”
“She is… younger than you are expecting.”
“How young?”
Hailey returned from her hunting trip, dropping from the sky with a dead cougar over her withers. “Still warm,” she said, shrugging the body off. “Ought to be a good first meal for her.”
Part of me wanted Homeguard and Hailey to sugarcoat it. Bay was still fourteen, after all. But I knew that really, what was the point? It’d get torn away anyway, like a band-aid. I swallowed and locked my knees.
Homeguard lifted the body onto his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “Would you like to come in, or…?”
“I…” Hailey nervously clicked her teeth, glanced at Bay, then looked away. “I… don’t think I’d be much help. I… I’m not-”
“I understand,” said Homeguard. Hailey dashed back inside the cottage. Homeguard carried the body to one side of the cage; for the first time, I noticed a door, jury-rigged from blanks, ropes, and bungee cords. He pulled up a pole, which I guess was serving as the “lock”, and opened the door. He stopped two or three yards away from Bay and placed the cougar between them. Bay didn’t seem to notice, keeping her eyes shut and not even so much as swiveling her ears towards him.
“Hello, Bay,” said Homeguard.
Bay opened her eyes, which were very vividly red and quite wet. “H-hey,” she mumbled.
“Speckle told you what you are, right?”
“Yeah. A- A vampire.” She sniffed in a movement detached from motivation, like an alcoholic habitually reaching for the bottle. “I can smell the pony outside. Why does she- smell like- like that?” I twitched and took a few steps away from the cage.
“It is a part of who you are,” responded Homeguard. “A distasteful part that can never be quelled, most unfortunately. You must learn to ignore it. Until then, you must-”
“Yeah,” choked out Bay. She waved a hoof around the cage. “I- I know. Hailey told me.” She sobbed once; it took all my self-control to stop myself from running in to comfort her.
“Right now,” said Homeguard, “you know that she can lessen the pain you are feeling, yes? Fortunately, so can this.” He pushed the cougar’s body towards Bay. “It may not seem as appealing, but you must drink of it, rather than of ponies.”
Bay looked at the body. She licked her lips, then flinched and turned away. “I- I can’t,” she whimpered. “It’s- But I- I shouldn’t- I was-”
“Listen to me,” Homeguard said softly. “It is not your fault. I was no better than you, once. For now, follow your instincts. I do not expect perfection the moment you begin your new life.”
Bay blinked at Homeguard, her eyes still glistening. She nodded stiffly and approached the cougar. Feeling the need to give her some privacy, I turned away. The sounds were messy, tearing, wet. I shivered. Eventually, the noise subsided to an uneasy sucking.
Homeguard spoke. “It feels better, does it not? Whenever you consume blood, regardless of the source, your pain shall withdraw temporarily. It-”
“I- I wanna go home.”
I cringed. Homeguard took a moment to respond. “I- I am sorry. That is impossible.”
“I- I know.” Bay’s voice was just barely holding back sobs. “I- I just- How do you stand it?” I turned back around; she pressed her hooves to her forehead and keened, a sound that pierced through the air. “It hurts.”
“I know.”
“When’s it gonna stop?”
“…Never.”
I’d thought Bay had been barely holding it together before. When her only reaction was a tiny wail, I realized she was so broken there wasn’t much left to break down. Coming here was a mistake; just not for the reasons Homeguard had assumed. I couldn’t hold myself any longer. I trotted up to the cage and put my head at one of the holes. Homeguard gave me an angry look, but didn’t say anything. “Hey,” I said. “Bay.”
Bay sniffed, then twitched and quickly turned away, hanging her cap over her nose. She mumbled something. I couldn’t tell what.
“It feels bad, but you can get through this.”
Bay looked over at me. I forced myself to stare into her sanguine eyes. After a moment, she flinched and looked away again. “You…” she mumbled, “you don’t know what it’s like.”
I have a teenage daughter. I’ve heard all the “you can’t imagine what I’m going through!” malarkey. Something about Bay’s voice told me that this wasn’t malarkey in the slightest. It wasn’t whiny. It had a… deep undercurrent that you shouldn’t hear from somepony that young. She wasn’t telling me what it was like because she genuinely didn’t know what it was like. “No,” I said. “I don’t.” I pointed at Homeguard. “But he does. Please, please listen to him. Trust me. He’s smart. He’ll help you get through this.”
Bay didn’t move for a moment. Then she swallowed and whispered, “Okay. I- I’ll try.”
Homeguard glanced at me and nodded briefly. I nodded back and headed inside the cottage. I’d seen enough.
Hailey was staring intently at the wall, her head twitching back and forth. She kept flicking her tail and muttering to herself. I cleared my throat. “Um. Hailey?”
Hailey’s eyes refocused and she turned to me. “Oh. Hey, Swan.” She stood up and flexed her wings. “Trying to force a vision. I’ve got a headache, and that usually means something super big’s about to go down, so I want to see it as soon as possible, and…” She shrugged. “Plus, I don’t like headaches.”
“Oh. Does it work?”
“Dunno. Probably not. But it gives me something to focus on.”
“Right. So, uh, did you learn anything from Bay? Homeguard wasn’t exactly clear on that.”
“Kinda. It’s weird,” said Hailey. “You’d think Speckle woulda had to know we were in Seaddle before she started killing the fledglings, but from the approximate time Bay gave, the massacre started, I dunno, maybe half an hour after we left, and we weren’t even three-quarters to Seaddle yet! And Homeguard said Speckle popped in around noon and said hi, right? Well, to get there at that time and not have us smell her, she woulda had to leave just after we left.”
“Can vampires have more than one power? Maybe she’s also a scrier,” I started to say. What I got out was, “Can va-”
“Never seen it,” interrupted Hailey. “Don’t think it’s possible. Unicorns still have their magic, but that doesn’t count, and she was a pegasus, anyway. Besides, she left before all the fledglings got deaded, so she wasn’t the one to kill them, anyway!” She started pacing. “Obviously, she had help. Somevamp who could scry us and was totally onboard with risking Crystalline potentially dropping the thunder on their heads.”
An uneasy idea came to me. I stood one of my hooves on its edge and twisted it. The second I opened my mouth, Hailey twitched. “Well,” I said, “does Crystalline have all the scrying vampires?”
“I think so,” whispered Hailey. “Please, please let that not be true.”
“Well, if-”
Homeguard banged the door open. “I have done what I can for Bay. I hate to leave her, but we — all of us — need to talk. And, Hailey? You were right. Speckle’s power was a form of psychic cloaking. I could not perceive her mind until I actually saw her. I would not be surprised if her power was blotting her out from your visions, if not preventing them from forming entirely.”
“That’d kinda make sense. Totally didn’t see anything about the vampire army coming, even though I shoulda.”
“Very well. Now, about Bay-”
I coughed. “Um, yeah, about that…” I whirled on Hailey. “You locked her in a cage? What were you thinking? She’s only-”
“Well, I don’t know!” yelled Hailey, spreading her wings and flailing her legs. “I panicked! I don’t know how teens work! It was the first thing that came to mind! It was just something to hold her until we come up with a better idea that’s less dungeony! She needed something non-pony to drink and I had to be sure she wouldn’t let her instincts get the better of her and run off while I was gone! When she has control, if she wants to spend the next year punching my face in, I’ll give her tips for maximum punchage!”
“With Speckle dead,” added Homeguard, “at the very least, we do not have to spend all our time protecting you. We let her out, watch her while she’s out, and be available if she wants to talk.” He glanced over his shoulder and muttered, “Which may still be quite some time.”
Homeguard and Hailey were now probably in the pool I’d been in just last week: a lot of things happening at once when they’d never happened before. I had some reflexive responses, but I bit my tongue. Now wasn’t the time for that.
Homeguard eyed me, as if I was going to respond, but when I didn’t, he changed topics. “I interrogated Speckle when I arrived at Swan’s house, and what I found was… intriguing. She and River seemed to have been examining Delta for some sort of… ritual.”
Some part of me already knew where that was going. A weight settled into my stomach. “It wouldn’t happen to involve pony sacrifice, would it?” I wondered what my life was like that that didn’t surprise me at all.
“Yes,” responded Homeguard. “She was voluntarily unaware of the true nature of the ritual, so as to prevent it from being discovered in case her mind was read. Which proved to be prescient.” He smirked. “River was similarly unaware, although he had better control over his thoughts, hence why I only learned of this from Speckle. They were both testing the waters to see how much trouble would have to happen in rural areas such as Delta to garner a response from the Court.” He bit his lip and tapped his hoof on the floor. “I cannot say what Crystalline thought of the results. I am unsure if-”
“Hold up,” I said. “They were working for Crystalline, right?”
“I am aware of what you and Hailey think,” said Homeguard, “and… while it would explain much, we ought not to make assumptions.”
“Right. Okay.” It seemed a bit too coincidental for me, but if it was just a coincidence, I had one less thing to worry about.
“Either way, I don’t think we’ll need to worry about them here any more, though,” said Hailey. “Ever since you popped in and started hanging around here, Delta’s been an awful lot of trouble for them. It’s not like-”
Then her eyes unfocused and she stared off into the distance. She inhaled sharply and went stone-still. Homeguard’s jaw dropped and he also froze. For five seconds, neither of them moved.
“Uh, guys?” I asked nervously. “What’s going on?”
“It is-” Homeguard stammered. “They- They are-”
“What? What? Who?”
“It’s Crystalline,” Hailey choked out. “They’re coming to kill us. All of them.”