Something is not quite right, all the while Hood has been pacing across the cabin roof. Something is not quite right: he can feel it. Or more accurately the crow can sense it. Its feathers feel like they are standing up, like the hackles of a dog. Hood tilts his head from side to side, his neck feathers ruffled. As Nudge hauls in the cargo onto the deck, Hood hops onto the starboard rail and carefully wanders along it, all the while fixated on the wooden casket. There’s something not quite right about it, not quite white about it, almost like its suffused in pink hues. As he peers closer, his beedy eyes intently examining the crate, thin red tendrils seem to emanate from within, seeping out from between cracks, writhing and coiling - not like the thin red line from the dead rodent that he saw earlier, no, these ones seem to have a life of their own and they do not make him wish to feed, the urge is very definitely not that. No, the urge is to flee.

Hood likes magic, Hood likes logic. Hood puts two and two together and shrieks out a caw to warn them all. And just as he does, as the three turn in shocked surprise at his warning, something from within the crate slams against its wooden boards, causing the three to immediately turn back, horrified. Something slams against the wooden boards again, and a crack splinters down the crate’s centre.

Then heart thumping silence…

“What in the nine hells was that!” exclaims Nudge, white faced and trembling.

Wink whimpers as Nudge scrambles to his feet. Hood lets out another warning, Madeleine edges closer, drawing her dagger. “What’s the worst that could happen, right?” she says, directing her remark to Nudge.

Still nothing…

Then a soft sound growing louder, almost as if something is scraping the inside of the crate, slowly from top to bottom a scraping sound growing higher and higher in pitch until it jars the nerves of all in attendance.

Silence again… The three look at one another, each tensed, coiled like a spring, before fixing their attention back on the crate, but they cannot see what Hood sees, cannot see the gathering tendrils which suddenly suck themselves back in. Cannot see the unearthly glow of death alive that rots inside. Hood shrieks out a third warning as the crate explodes, in splinters and rope fibres, and out jumps a thing of nightmares. A dead thing, a living-dead thing. A humanoid, bald and naked, all claws and teeth. Sharp, jagged death - a vampir.

“Is this bad enough for you?” screams Madeleine at Nudge, as she draws now her sword as well. The vampir slowly surveys the scene, its mouth opening and closing, its sharp pointed teeth clenching and unclenching, gathered about one large central sabred tooth, sharp and lethal, that curls beyond its natural bite to extend down just beyond its chin. Flexing its hands, the long-curved fingernails clack together, and with twitching and flaring nostrils, streaming with mucus, it lets out an unearthly hiss before pouncing with lightning speed at Madeleine.

But Hood can read its intentions, can perceive how the tendrils coil and twist with consideration for its potential actions, and although Madeleine is quick, and the vampir quicker, Hood is quicker still. As the vampir pounces Hood is already aflight and barrels into the vampir, slams into its face, a whirl of talons, beak and feathers, enough to curb its attack, enough distraction for Madeleine to bring up her sword against its outstretched hand and slash its ribs with her dagger.

A clawed hand drops with a thump, red ooze pooling onto the deck. Hood feels sharp fingers grasp and throw him like a rag doll, end over end, to slam against the boat’s side. And as he lies gasping, he continues to hear a thump, over and over…He thinks for a moment that he is dying, that the crow is dying, that the sound is the heavy beat of his/its heart…Thump, thump…Lying there, he watches as even though wounded the vampir fights on as if its missing limb were merely a scratch.

Fire erupts on deck, Wink has dropped the lantern in fright, and in doing so has set himself aflame. Thump, thump…With eyes wide in panic and horror, screaming, he runs mindlessly backwards and forwards across the deck, the fire fed by his movement, before barrelling over the side and splashing into the sea. The vampir claws at Madeleine with its remaining hand, its fingernails raking her mask, gouging rents across it, which throws her to her knees but as it does so Nudge, overcoming his fear, grabs it by the neck from behind, lifts it off its feet and punches it as hard as he can in the head. Thump, thump…Nudge goes to punch it again, coughing as he breathes in a mouthful of smoke, but with its one good hand the vampir rakes its claws across the back of Nudge’s hand, slicing through skin and tendons. Nudge screams in pain, letting go of its neck, he staggers backwards, clutching at his wound, hitting the side of the stern and keeling overboard, to follow his companion into the sea.

Amidst the heat, smoke and flames, the vampir slowly picks itself up, and, shaking its head, thick red gunk oozing from its severed wrist, turns once more to Madeleine. Thump, thump…

Hood can do nothing but watch, try as he might to scramble to his feet, he cannot. Madeleine breathes deeply and stands, slowly backing away. Poised with sword raised in front of her, and dagger held below, she backs towards the cabin as the flames take hold of the tied sail and whoosh up the mast. Thump, thump, thump. thump…Hood!

Aware of Hood she turns her smile and stares at the battered crow, fire reflected in its eyes. Thump, thump, Hood! Thump, thump, Hood!…“Well Hood, what say you now?” her soft voice resonating with the mask, but the crow just seems to disintegrate as if it was never there.