'About time,' said Nanny, hurrying in. 'It's really clammy out here.'
'They've gone to look at the mob. But there's other vampires here, not just the guards! The rest must've come in on the carts! They're like... not quite servants but they take orders.'
'How many are there?' said Magrat.
'I haven't found out! Vlad is trying to get to know me better!'
'Good plan,' said Nanny. 'See if he talks in his sleep.'
'Nanny!'
'Let's see his lordship in action, shall we?' said Nanny. 'We can nip into the old guardroom alongside the door and look through the squint.'
'I want to get Verence!' said Magrat.
'He's not going anywhere,' said Nanny, striding into the little room by the door. 'And I don't reckon they're planning to kill him. Anyway, he's got some protection now.'
'I think these really are new vampires,' said Agnes. 'They really aren't like the old sort.'
'Then we face 'em here and now,' said Nanny. 'That's what Esme would do, sure enough.'
'But are we strong enough?' said Agnes. Granny wouldn't have asked, said Perdita.
'There's three of us, isn't there?' said Nanny. She produced a flask and uncorked it. 'And a bit of help. Anyone else want some?'
'That's brandy, Nanny!' said Magrat. 'Do you want to face the vampires drunk?'
'Sounds a whole lot better than facin' them sober,' said Nanny, taking a gulp and shuddering. 'Only sensible bit of advice Agnes got from Mister Oats, I reckon. Vampire hunters need to be a little bit tipsy, he said. Well, I always listen to good advice...'
Even inside Mightily Oats's tent the candle streamed in the wind. He sat gingerly on his camp bed, because sudden movements made it fold up with nail-blackening viciousness, and leafed through his notebooks in a state of growing panic.
He hadn't come here to be a vampire expert. 'Revenants and Ungodly Creatures' had been a one-hour lecture from deaf Deacon Thrope every fortnight, for Om's sake! it hadn't even counted towards the final examination score! They'd spent twenty times that on Comparative Theology, and right now he wished, he really wished, that they'd found time to tell him, for example, exactly where the heart was and how much force you needed to drive a stake through it.
Ah... here they were, a few pages of scribble, saved only because the notes for his essay on Thrum's Lives of the Prophets were on the other side.
'... The blood is the life... vampires are subservient to the one who turned them into a vampire... allyl disulphide, active ingredient in garlic... porphyria, lack of? Learned reaction?... native soil v. important... as many as possible will drink of a victim so that he is the slave of all... "clustersuck"... blood as an unholy sacrament... Vampire controls: bats, rats, creatures of the night, weather... contrary to legend, most victims merely become passive, NOT vampires... intended vampire sufers terrible torments et craving for blood... socks... Garlic, holy icons... sunlight-deadly?... kill vampire, release all victims... physical strength &...'
Why hadn't anyone told them this was important? He'd covered half the page with a drawing of Deacon Thrope, which was practically a still life.
Oats dropped the book into his pocket and grasped his medallion hopefully. After four years of theological college he wasn't at all certain of what he believed, and this was partly because the Church had schismed so often that occasionally the entire curriculum would alter in the space of one afternoon. But also-
They had been warned about it. Don't expect it, they'd said. It doesn't happen to anyone except the prophets. Om doesn't work like that. Om works from inside.
-but he'd hoped that, just once, Om would make himself known in some obvious and unequivocal way that couldn't be mistaken for wind or a guilty conscience. Just once he'd like the clouds to part for the space of ten seconds and a voice to cry out, 'YES, MIGHTILYPRAISEWORTHY-ARE-YE-WHO-EXALTETH-OM OATS! IT'S ALL COMPLETELY TRUE! INCIDENTALLY, THAT WAS A VERY THOUGHTFUL PAPER YOU WROTE ON THE CRISIS OF RELIGION IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY!'
It wasn't that he'd lacked faith. But faith wasn't enough. He'd wanted knowledge.
Right now he'd settle for a reliable manual of vampire disposal.
He stood up. Behind him, unheeded, the terrible camp bed sprang shut.
He'd found knowledge, and knowledge hadn't helped.
Had not Jotto caused the Leviathan of Terror to throw itself on to the land and the seas to turn red with blood? Had not Orda, strong in his faith, caused a sudden famine thoughout the land of Smale?
They certainly had. He believed it utterly. But a part of him also couldn't forget reading about the tiny little creatures that caused the rare red tides off the coast of Urt and the effect this apparently had on local sea life, and about the odd wind cycle that sometimes kept rainclouds away from Smale for years at a time.
This had been... worrying.