Well... certainly a shower.
Definitely soft, anyway.
Agnes hadn't seen a mob like this before. Mobs, in her limited experience, were noisy. This one was silent. Most of the town was in it, and to Agnes's surprise they'd brought along many of the children.
It didn't surprise Perdita. They're going to kill the vampires, she said, and the children will watch.
Good, thought Agnes, that's exactly right.
Perdita was horrified. It'll give them nightmares!
No, thought Agnes. It'll take the nightmares away. Sometimes everyone has to know the monster is dead, and remember, so that they can tell their grandchildren.
'They tried to turn people into things,' she said aloud.
'Sorry, miss?' said Piotr.
'Oh... just thinking aloud.'
And where had she got that other idea? Perdita wondered, the one where she'd told the villagers to send runners out to other towns to report on the night's work. That was unusually nasty of her.
But she remembered the look of horror on the mayor's face and, later, the blank engrossed expression when he was trying to throttle the Count with his chain of office. The vampire had killed him with a blow that had almost broken him in half.
She fingered the wounds on her neck. She was pretty certain vampires didn't miss, but Vlad must have done, because she dearly wasn't a vampire. She didn't even like the idea of rare steak. She'd tried to see if she could fly, when she thought people weren't looking, but she was as attractive to gravity as ever. The blood-sucking... no, never that, even if it was the ultimate diet programme, but she'd have liked the flying.
It's changed you, said Perdita.
'How?'
'Sorry, miss?'
You're sharper... edgier... nastier.
'Maybe it's about time I was, then.'
'Sorry, miss?'
'Oh, nothing. Do you have a spare sickle?'
The vampires travelled fast but erratically, appearing not so much to fly as to be promising entries in the world long-jump championships.
'We'll burn that ungrateful place to the ground,' moaned the Countess, landing heavily.
'Afterwards we'll burn that place to the ground,' said Lacrimosa. 'This is what kindness leads to, Father. I do hope you're paying attention.'
'After you paid for that belltower, too,' said the Countess.
The Count rubbed his throat, where the links of the gold chain still showed as a red weal. He wouldn't have believed that a human could be so strong.
'Yes, that might be a good course of action,' he said. 'We would have to make sure the news got around, of course.'
'You think this news won't get around?' said Lacrimosa, landing beside him.
'It will be dawn soon, Lacci,' said the Count, with heavy patience. 'Because of my training, you will regard it as rather a nuisance, not a reason to crumble into a little pile of dust. Reflect on this.'
'That Weatherwax woman did this, didn't she?' said Lacrimosa, ignoring this call to count her blessings. 'She put her self somewhere and she's attacking us. She can't be in the baby. I suppose she wasn't in your fat girl, Vlad? Plenty of room in there. Are you listening, brother?'
'What?' said Vlad distantly as they turned a corner in the road and saw the castle ahead of them.