das Dorf in den Bergen

Frau Bauer remains in the study with the injured.

In the dissection room below, the village leaders face the mystery of the head’s disappearance. Although their deductions are imperfect, they guess enough to be prepared for what happens next.

There is a sudden clatter and a fluttering horror rises into view from a corner of the room. It is Simon’s head, but grown skull-like and fanged. Webbed, fan-like appendages sprout from either side of the monstrosity. The bizarre wings flutter weakly, struggling to keep the head afloat. But they have enough power to launch the fanged skull at the nearest of the three.

The Pfarrer's defiant show of strong faith seems to cast a shield around the heroes!

The monster recoils at the sight of the crucifix. It flaps awkwardly and loses height, almost brushing the chamber's stone flags. Its attack thwarted, the monster seeks to skirt the slab where the trio are gathered, winging its way clumsily to the door --and escape!

There is loud crack, a gush of smoke and flame, and the skull is shot from the air!

After the fight, the dissection chamber is filled with the night’s exhibits. A vampire skull and the remains of the three lake shamblers. Together with the headless corpse, it is a black collection indeed.

After the villagers’ wounds are cleansed and dressed, there is time at last for the village leaders to rest in the schloss’s fine study. Pipes, snuff, brandy, excellent local schnapps.

Frau Bauer leans forward on her couch.

"And so, meine Herren, has the fiend really been destroyed? Yet what, I wonder, earlier attacked Simon and bit him so?"

The Pfarrer recalls that the unholy thing shot down by Von Schwarzenwolff was cumbersome and clumsy. But the flying creature he saw flitting above the graveyard was nimble and quick.

Seeing that the three men are stumped, Frau Bauer asks no further questions.

Over the course of the next few days, the trio confer concerning their knowledge of lore. One particular matter becomes clear. It is the horrific fate of some killed by a vampire to rise in their destroyer’s likeness. In future, they must take care to ensure victims are staked and sanctified with garlic and holy wafers.

(Simon became a flying skull creature because that was the form of the vampire who infected him. The original creature , which Leopold saw flying about the scene, is the monster they must destroy to end this terror.)

They establish another matter of lore. The walking dead who emerged from the lake were not vampires but mere shambling corpses, no doubt animated by the vampire (the power of vampires to raise the bodies of improperly buried mortals is well known).

Leopold’s earlier studies had revealed that, after the Black Baron’s destruction, several of his minions and creations survived. The present vampire is most likely one of these surviving villains. But now Leopold’s exhaustive search reveals that records of these monsters are nowhere in his collection. He guesses a copy of the account might still be found in the church archives in Lindendorf. But the priest there is a wary, distrustful fellow.

The biggest breakthrough — a revelation! — comes when Von Schwarzenwolff lays eyes on his grandfather’s old sabre. It is an old-fashioned, clumsy weapon by contemporary standards but it reminds him of a tale his grandfather once told him in secret. A phantom coach haunted the road between Waldorf and Lindenberg for generations. Most who saw it disappeared and were found drained of blood. As a reckless young man he hunted the coach and one night pursued it on horseback. He leapt onto the coach and fought with its monstrous driver, beheading him in the combat. The coach and horses crashed into the lake. He managed to swim free of the wreck, saving just one of the poor horses. His grandfather said the plunge happened near the roadside shrine to Saint Walburga. Quite close to the spot where Simon’s body was found!

Von Schwarzenwolff had seldom later remembered the story, assuming it to be a tall tale told for his amusement.