Let me see if I can remember how Giradin told me this one...

Fulk forced the witch down onto the inn's cold floor. Giradin winced when her knees smacked the stone. Fulk shoved an accusing finger in her face. "Breathe one Latin word, and I'll bash your skull in!" he snapped his head to his left. "Mu, make sure we're not interrupted!"

"Yes, my lord!" Mu responded, his voice full of such vigor it was clearly sarcasm.

Mu closed the door behind him, leaving the other three men and the witch inside their room at the inn. Shlomo slipped a wooden bar over the door to prevent entry, then pulled the ragged curtains over the window.

"Umm... F-Fulk?" Giradin stammered, "What are you going to do?" His eyes glanced between his murderous teammate and the injured witch on the floor. The witch's dress had ripped, exposing her pale legs. Were her knees not so purple with bruises, Giradin might have taken a moment to secretly admire her strong, smooth calves. As it was, instead of lust his heart was filled with pity.

Without looking at him, Fulk raised a finger in front of Giradin's face. "You do anything to interfere and I'll break your damn neck. Shlomo! Watch him!"

"Yes, your majesty," said Shlomo with a dramatic bow of his upper body. Outside the door, Mu laughed out loud.

"Start with your name, witch!" Fulk hissed behind his unfeeling steel mask. "Now!"

"My name is Lillith," said the witch.

"Horse-shit!" Fulk bellowed and raised his fist. "You think I'm stupid? This isn't my first encounter with the occult! Tell me your real name!"

The witch cowered from Fulk and shrunk away. "L-Levanna!" she said. "My name's Levanna."

Giradin gestured to get Fulk's attention, moving his fingers into the murderer's limited line of sight. "Hey! She might be more likely to cooperate if you don't frighten her!"

"Piss off, Giradin!" Fulk shook the same fist at him, but the face of his mask did not leave Levanna. "Now, tell me, what was that thing we killed out there?"

Levanna shifted until she sat on the stone floor with her knees raised to her chest. She rubbed both her knees, and the skirt of her dress fell back around her hips. Giradin's face burned, and he looked up, over her head so he was less likely to see what lay between her legs.

"He used to be called Teebald," she said between gasps and seethes as she massaged her own knees and shins out of Giradin's line of sight.

"I didn't ask you who he was!" Fulk snarled.

"Though, to be fair," Shlomo chimed in, "That is helpful information."

Fulk glanced back at Shlomo and grunted, then lowered and unclenched his fists. "That is, yes," he conceded, his voice a little calmer. His beak turned back to Levanna. "Thank you. Keep that up and we won't have to hurt you anymore." Though the words were far from gentle, Fulk spoke them as if he were a father reassuring his child that there were no monsters outside his window. "Teebald was supposed to be dead. And visible! Yes, visible, last I heard about him. What was he?"

Levanna hugged both her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth. Against Giradin's will, his gaze fell to the movement. Her thighs were so supple and soft that Giradin's heart was ablaze inside him with the desire to lie between them.

Shlomo slid up closer to him and muttered. "I feel it too, brother. It's just heartburn."

Under his mask, Giradin gave Shlomo a confused look.

"What's that in your hand?" Fulk lunged at Levanna, seized her wrist, and forced her up to her feet in his grip. Levanna moaned and screwed her eyes shut. Both her hands she held in tight fists, one slightly bigger than the other. She fought and flailed in his grip, utterly unable to pull her wrists away. With one hand locked around both her wrists, Fulk's other gauntlet reached up to force her bigger fist open. But he couldn't get his bulky fingers under her nails. "Open your hand, damn it!" Fulk barked. "I told you, I'm not afraid to BEAT a woman!"

Levanna's eyes locked with Fulk's goggles and, with a brow of full confidence, she said, "Yes, you are."

Fulk flinched at her words.

Her eyes remained on his dark lenses, and Giradin's heart froze when he heard her say, "You're as terrified of hurting me as he is." She pointed at Giradin. "Because you've seen a broken woman before, Dashiel." She spat the name like an accusation.

Fulk twisted Levanna's wrists and forced her down onto her knees again. Her cries of pain stung Giradin's every nerve. The murderer towered over her, his left hand clenched into a shaking fist. Giradin could hear the leather stretching tight over Fulk's knuckles. His voice sounded more animal than man when he said, "Say that name again and I'll cut you open!"

"No," Levanna groaned. "You won't." She hissed through gritted teeth, her eyes clenched shut in pain. "You will hurt me, but you will never break me. You never want to see a broken woman again."

Though Shlomo surely tried to be discreet, Giradin heard him mutter, "Zine beh-sechel..." and shake his head.

Fulk threw her wrists away from him. "Even if you're right about me, the people outside would love to burn a witch, and you know it! Now, open your hands!"

Levanna spat at him.

"Fine!" he grunted. "You can't use whatever's in your palm unless you open your fingers anyway." He leaned in, resting his hands on both knees and nodding his head. His voice cruel and patronizing, he said, "So, tell me, you shit! What was Teebald?"

The billowing sleeves of Levanna's dress had fallen down around her armpits, leaving her arms bare up to her shoulders. Giradin's eyes fell upon the bruises on her shoulders and forearms. She rubbed her wrists, her long, sharp nails a stark contrast to her soft, inviting flesh.

"A strigoi," said Levanna.

Giradin shook his head and stared just over her raven-colored hair.

"That's what the gypsies call it," she continued. "It's a vampire. They say when someone takes his own life, he comes back from the pit of Hell as a monster. They're the ones who are only seen if they want to be seen, so they say."

"Why would he want us to see him?" Fulk grunted and he rose to his feet again.

"It didn't," said Levanna, a confident smirk tugging the corners of her blood-red lips. "He wanted me to see him. Because a spell made him see me as one of his own." Levanna massaged up her own arms, her sharp nails gently gliding against her ivory skin. "There's nothing worse for a monster in this world than to feel he's all alone. Some of the abominations in this world are so vile, so hated, that they will willingly embrace death if they can fend off the loneliness for just a moment."

Fulk snorted and crossed his arms. "You're telling me that an immortal, murderous, demon dead-man made himself vulnerable because he just wanted to be loved?"

Levanna's eyes met Fulk's lenses again and narrowed to slits. "The only thing valuable to such a pariah is a cure for solitude. You know this is true, for even in prison the worst your jailers could do to you--" she rose to kneel with her back upright, "--was to leave you alone for a full day."

Fulk stumbled a step back from her and shook his head as if trying to wake himself up. "I see..." he stared in silence through his dark lenses, his face hidden behind that iron beak. "Fair enough."

"What is Eternity if you have to spend it alone?" Levanna said.

"Yes, thank you!" Fulk snapped. "So... out of all that we did, which thing killed it?"

Levanna shrugged.

"You don't know what killed it?" Fulk raised his fist. "You expect me to believe that, you rotten shit?"

Levanna breathed out the softest laughter, her lips a stream of sweet wine across her star-white teeth. "When you men encountered this beast you tried everything you could think of all at once. So has everyone else who has ever fought a strigoi. Is it any wonder that we don't know which method works?"

Fulk grunted. "You can at least narrow the field for us! What didn't work? So help me, witch... stop dancing around what we want to know. I'll turn you over to the church, I swear it!"

"Are you sure you want that?" Levanna tilted her head to one side. "There are countless different kinds of vampires out there. Each of you used a method that might work on some kind of vampire... It might be better if you just keep trying them all."

Fulk pulled back as if he was about to hit her, but she did not flinch. "Stop stalling! Just tell us how you kill the fucking invisible monster!" He stamped his foot hard and lowered his fist again.

"A silver dagger to the heart might do it," said Levanna, unable to hide her arrogant smirk any longer. "Though, it might have died from burning. It could have died from the spell I cast, of simple disease and rot, or from the sting of betrayal the one time it no longer felt alone. Or, it might have died when the handsome one beheaded it."

Levanna gestured to Giradin when she said "handsome." His cheeks burned and his heart raced at the thought that such an enchantress found him attractive. When he heard her chuckle, he realized he'd raised his hand to his pounding chest, an obvious tell of the sway she had over him.

She laughed a little louder, her giggles playful and strangely uplifting. "I'm sorry, you're just so sweet and funny!" she covered her lips with the back of her left hand, her bruised wrists rising back up into view. "You're hidden behind a mask and costume. Did you really think I thought you were handsome?"

Later, Giradin would recall this incident and feel humiliated, but in the moment he laughed at his own mistake.

Which earned him a deadly glare from Fulk. Though he could not see his eyes, the posture of Fulk's neck and back made him look about to lunge. Giradin forced himself to stop laughing and cleared his throat. Two words flung from Fulk's mouth like the sharpest daggers. "Piss. Off." The murderer pointed to the witch's hands again. "Now, stop confusing us with all your silly words and show me what's in your hand!"

With no further protest, the witch held out her open palm with a vial in it. "Poison," she said, with a hint of pride.

Shlomo drew his short sword. Giradin rattled his head and brought out his seax.

"Poison for us?" Fulk asked, his voice unnervingly calm.

She shook her head. "Imp's kiss."

"So... for you?" Fulk said.

"Yes, a poison meant for suicide. My way to avoid the stake."

The witch and Fulk exchanged a long silence, his lenses locked on her emerald eyes.

"Brothers?" called Mu from outside the door. "The other guests have all left their rooms and gone down the hall. At least, I'm guessing that's all of them, because it's been quiet out here for a while. And... and now I'm hearing a commotion outside."

Levanna shuddered and crawled on her knees toward Fulk. The murderer backed away from her, and Shlomo brought the tip of his sword closer to her face. She stopped just when the blade touched her cheek. "Please!" she begged, her voice and face desperate. "I've helped you. Now let me at least die a painless death." She held up the vial.

Fulk nodded. "Very well. Drink your poison."

Levanna popped the cork and swallowed the poison in one gulp.

"I can hear them coming down the hall!" Mu called through the door.

Shlomo rested a hand on Fulk's shoulder. "What do we tell them? We have a dead girl here and a burned man out in the streets..."

"Plague," said Fulk with a nod of his head. "It's a simple enough explanation. The man outside had plague and refused to cooperate with us, so we killed and burned him. This woman had touched him, so she feared she too had plague and took poison rather than risk spreading it."

"Brothers," Mu called from the other side of the door. "They're coming down the hall, and most of them have weapons..."