The cats led the way up the apartment stairs.  Demitri was waiting out front and held the doors open as Laura raced Abby upstairs to her apartment.

Katrina was there boiling water.  She had set out an old sheet to cover Laura's bed.  Clean towels were set beside the bed.

Laura set Abby on the bed and collapsed on the floor.  Katrina took a pan of hot water over to the bed and started cleaning out the horrible gashes accorss Abby's back.  The were already festering. The area around of the wounds had turned an angry red.  The edges of the wound were black, while the center was a pale sickly yellow.  Pus was already leaking from the wounds.

Tomo and Demitri retreated to the bathroom.  Cee walked over to where Laura was laying and butted her side with his massive head.  He was still covered with Abby's blood.  He walked up and sat in front of Laura's face.  He waited until she started to stir then poked her in the nose with his paw.

"Go away."

Poke.

"Go away I can't move."

Poke.

Laura flailed her arm weekly to show him away.

Poke.

"Okay -- I get it.  Scooby-Dooby-Doo, where are you? We've got some work to do now."

Laura got up and went to her computer.

"Katrina, is her pulse still racing?"

Katrina checked.  The pulse was a blurr. "It is beating impossibly fast."

"I hope her enhanced physical body can take the strain.  Let's work on the pulse first."

Laura's fingers flew across the keyboard.  She found that she didn't even need the mouse anymore.  The computer had become an extension of her.  SHe could manipulate it with out giving it a thought.

"There we go -- foxglove tea!  I even have some!  Laura flew to her kitchen cupboard and opened up her tea pot.  There, stuffed in with the other herbal teas she had received in a sampler, was a bag of foxglove tea.  She emptied the pot of its teabags and filled it from the pot of boiling water.  She put the foxglove teabag into the pot and set it down on her dresser to steep.

"We have to get her to sit so we can pour the tea into her."  Laura positioned herself on the farside of the bed, accross from Katrina.  Cee jumped on the bed to do his part.  They proped up pillows and blankets to support Abby's back without putting too much pressure on her oozing wounds. Cee got up onto the pillows and started to lick Abby's face to rouse her.

"... stinky ... cat .. breath .... "  Abby moaned and tried to roll over.

"Oh no you don't."  Laura  caught her by the shoulders and guided her back down.

Katrina got the tea pot off the dresser and poured a mug. She brought it up to Abby's lips.  Abby tried to resist, but was to weak.  The tea went in.  They let her [digest] for a minute or so, then they rolled her on her side to releive the pressure on her back.  Cee sniffed the wounds and curled his nose in disgust.

Katrina stayed by Abby's side.  Laura went to work on her computer again.  "The wounds are gangreenous, but they are progressing to quickly.  Wounds like this should take days.  I need to know what is causing them to deteriorate so quickly."

Abby roused herself.  The tea was having an effect and had lowered her heart rate to a point where she felt almost normal.  Almost Normal for someone who had festering wounds in her back.

"... it ... was ... a vampire.  A weird ... vampire ... that looked ... more like ... a zombie...."

This piece of information was the key.  Laura quickly located the required information on a fan site for a popular Online game.

"Say here that this type of wound is common to the swamp vampire.  The swamp vampire lives in the swamp and uses that bacteria there in a method similar to the kimodo dragon.  It attacks its victim then leaves it to die from infection."

"But does it say how we can cure Abby?"

"We need to make a poutice out of olive oil and garlic.  Where can we get garloc in the middle of the night?"

"I have lots of garlic.  I love cooking with it." Katrina left Laura's and ran accross the hallway and past the stairs to her own apartment.  She found her garlic braid and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil.  She raced back to Laura's and started mashing the garlic and oil together.  Laura sacrificed one of her tea towels to hold the mess together.  They tied it off and put the package on Abby's back.

The effect was immediate.

The magical qualities of garlic have been known for centuries.  The healing properties that are being discovered today by modern science had arleady been known for eons by witch women and their magic bags of herbs. It was useful for releiving the symptoms of colds, flu, and infection.  It is also use for protection from evil spirits. And one of its lesser known abilities is for exorcism.

The infected areas touched by the poutice turned black and sloughed off.  The light in the apartment dimmed momentarily.  In that moment a faint sound, like the snapping of an elastic band, could be heard.  It was the link between Abby life and Graveshade losing its hold and breaking. Abby gave a gasp of relief.  The pus was gone from the wounds.  The redness was also gone. Now they looked more like scrapes than gaping wounds.

 

On the other side of downtoen Fredericton, Graveshade knew he had lost his prey.