Thorold Hafnon led the three of them, Edwin, Hadrian and Daniel, to the cemetery after they have settled the kids. He seemed to be a man who got straight to business. Or so Edwin thought.

The hedge healer looked at Daniel, who was limping slightly. Despite the flaying and the freezing, the tree bark like warts spread to his legs. He took that like a champion and didn’t complain.

Despite that, he wore a permanently pained expression on his face. Edwin wanted to do something for him, truly, but there was no cure for tree man syndrome.

“We are here,” Thorold opened the rusted gate of the cemetery and the four of them entered. There, sitting by a tombstone and surrounded by men who laughed and preened, was a woman wearing a tight-fitting red dress.

She sipped from a goblet and had a strawberry in her hand. There was cream near her too. Edwin’s blood boiled. He was a necromancer and so no stranger to desecrating the dead. But this people were doing so without a purpose!

“The party is over! Leave, now!” Snapped Edwin and he extended his mana. Not close enough, so these people could get sick, but close enough, so they could feel the thread.

“Ah, the Boliarin appears!” Came from the woman. She had an exotic accent. Something light and playful that Edwin couldn’t pinpoint. She stood up and curtsied, and then burst out in laughter. The men didn’t appear to be noticing any of this. They still behaved as if she hadn’t moved.

Edwin scanned her mana, careful with none of his to enter her system. This was no human.

“Haedi, I presume?” Edwin felt for the nearest two corpses in the soil and began pulling them up. A hand shot up from the earth and a groan was heard.

“I come in peace, dear. As you can see, everyone who came to search for me is here and accounted for,” the demoness made a swooping motion with her hand. Now, Edwin could see even more men sitting by tombstones. Laughing and appearing as if drugged.

“Why even come here? The Alanqian citizens are not welcome in any of the civilized countries. Which is to say, the entire world,” the succubus smirked at him and sat back down on the grave.

“We may be demons, one and all, but we are not barbarians. Come, the strawberries are delicious,” Hadrian chose this time to make himself known. He took a step forward and bowed. When the demoness nodded and made even more space on the grave, shooing away one of the men, he went and sat by her.

“Harry?” Edwin was confused. Hadrian was a vampire, yes, but…where did he say he was from again?

“It is ok, Eddy. The lass is good-natured. You wouldn’t make me a liar, would you, my lady?” Asked Hadrian with his signature smile. Haedi’s eyes shone with unspoken mirth.

Then her eyes travelled to Daniel, who had sat down on the ground, a little blood staining his pants.

“I can help with that,” spoke Haedi huskily. “We demons can heal one wound, regardless of what it is, in our lifetimes. And the person we heal will never suffer from it again.”

“That is just a myth,” Edwin was not going to believe a folk tale. Like the previous king of Duria, Garion the Naïve, Valyr’s father.

“You are Durian, no? Well, if it makes you feel any better, that wraith was truly tricking your king fifty years ago. But you weren’t even born back then, so you only know the rumors. Would you doom a sick woman over rumors?” Haedi unwound her shall and Edwin saw broken skin and scratch marks.

“Harry, get away from her! She has scabies!” Yelled Edwin. Daniel smiled at the thought of the vampire being eaten by parasites, and pulled out some jerky to eat.

“Is that what it was? And here I thought it was something sexually transmitted,” shrugged Haedi. Hadrian stood up like burned. Then he looked around.

“Eddy, we have a problem,” he said as he stared at a nearby man. “He also has dried up, broken, skin.”

“This is an outbreak!” Whispered Thorold to himself. While scabies was not deadly, it was unpleasant.

“We will need a mix of clove and lavender oil. Mister Hafnon, can you make sure that all these people stay in the cemetery?” Asked Edwin, now in healer mode.

“I am not going to die?” Haedi looked relieved at that.

“You have parasites borrowing into your skin,” answered Edwin. While the two were talking, Hadrian had gone back to the main group and had all but hid behind Edwin. All sicknesses that a normal person could have were amplified for a vampire.

“Well, and here I thought I had cancer. That is why I was looking for a Boliarin,” Haedi picked up another strawberry and ate it, now completely calm.

“It is best if you keep the men under your influence,” suggested Edwin after a minute of thought. “So, they won’t panic and spread the scabies to Wandermere.”

“Yes, I will do so,” agreed the succubus.

After a mana check up on Hadrian to make sure he was not infected, the four of them exited the cemetery.

“We can’t rule out that she has spread this to the town already. She was in caves outside Wandermere, correct, Mister Hafnon?” Edwin was frowning at his words. This was a disaster. Didn’t the Alanqian Empire have healers, for Harika’s sake?

“How contagious are the scabies? And call me Thorold,” Thorold was ashen. He had seen Haedi’s skin. It looked uncomfortable, and he preferred not to be sick of this.

“Do you think she can cure me? She couldn’t even cure herself,” Daniel was skeptical of Haedi’s offer, but he was sick of being flayed.

“What she says is the truth, Dany. She can heal just one sickness. She was probably saving her ability for a payment of some sort,” said Hadrian, and then he smiled. “You will be right as rain after we get her free of the bugs.”

Daniel hoped his friend was correct. Because, no matter how careful Edwin was to make sure Daniel was under anesthesia during the treatment, the dragon slayer could still feel the pain.