One after another figures moved through the silent night, their dark silhouettes blending with the shadows of the forest. Like moths attracted to the fire they moved in the same direction as if possessed. An indiscernible call that they could feel inside their minds beckoned them. This call was all-encompassing, and all filling, fully occupying their minds, breaking their wills, and making them unable to resist its order. 

At some point in the night, hundreds of villagers, whether they were already sleeping or busy with their house chores, suddenly stood up straight as if possessed, their eyes glazed and unresponsive. In total silence and without cooperation they all turned in the same direction, carefully listening to the voice of an unseen person that spoke directly to their minds. 

As the voice commanded, they all suddenly moved in total synchronicity, leaving the safety of their houses and walking toward the dark forest. They had no care for their appearance and state of dress. Whether they were in nighties, pants, or totally naked as they were in the middle of the bath at that moment, no one put a single thought to it. All they cared about was to obey the call that beckoned them.

Old and young, women, men, and children. Except for the smallest of babies that could not even walk, every villager answered the call and followed the order. One after another they entered the forest and walked in the direction of the kirk situated between the villages.

Suddenly one of the figures stumbled and fell in the darkness, but instead of hitting the ground, it hung unnaturally in the air. The figure tried to get free but the more it struggled the more constrained its body became. Soon it felt immobilized entirely. One after another the villagers started to stumble into webs spread around the forest that captured them like spider capture flies.

"Hahaha. Look at that." Sounded the shrill voice throughout the forest. "Small spider girl came out to play. Here I am thinking how good it would be to finally get rid of you little bitches targeting my throne, but had no idea how to get my hands on you. But you came to me on your own. This day just keeps getting better and better." Said the loud voice spreading through the forest.

"Marianna, stop this madness, if investigators find out about this, you and the entire Vespertine family would be under a hit." Answered Brianna's voice from the darkness.

"The matter of MY family is of no concern to YOU little bitch. It is mine! My family, my throne!" Answered the angry vampire woman.

"Marianna listen to yourself. You are not sounding sane. We need to talk. There is something wrong."

"Shut the fuck up you little sneaky bitch. You may have fooled that dumb bitch Cassandra, but you are not fooling me. Now I am a prodigy of the family, and I will become that bitches successor. You're plan now failed. Do you think I would allow you to sneak up on me like that idiot Theron? No bitch. You, that horny slut Priscilla and your fucking mother, I will make sure to tear you all apart for trying to steal from me." Sounded Marianna's voice in the forest.

"This is a lie. We never asked to be Cassandra's successors. This is a mistake."

"Mistake?" Murmured the vampire woman. "Blabbering with your mouth was a mistake."

Brianna sat in the huge tree crown with her eyes closed holding a braid of thin threads that spread around the forest. Feeling the minute changes of tightness and vibrations spreading through these threads she could perceive everything that was going on in the dark forest. Her senses spread everywhere that threads touched even a few kilometers distance. Yet she could not find the vampire's presence. This was strange. Usually Marianna or any other vampire in the Vespertine's family were nowhere near to challenge her or her sister. The only one who had a slight chance was Theron as Nosferatu possessed a much more powerful set of skills.

Whether hiding their presence or mana manipulation, once a vampire stepped into Nosferatu level, their ability would grow in leaps of several fold. And from the feeling that Brianna got, this Theron's fiance showed a skill of presence concealment far beyond any simple vampire, which could mean she somehow gained the power of a Nosferatu or made a sudden breakthrough all of a sudden. 

As Brianna got to this thought, she felt a barely perceptible vibration pass through one of the branches of a tree. She whirled around jumping to the side and knife-long fingernails passed her by just a few inches, slashing the tree and shredding away a huge chunk of its trunk.

"Tsk. Sleeky little bitch!" Hissed Marianna with irritation, angry at her miss. As Brianna dodged Marianna pointed her hand at her and streams of crimson red liquid gushed out of them like jets. These jets solidified mid-flight turning to sharp spikes. Brianna moved her hands and spikes suddenly stopped, entwined and pulled by the string into different sides. Mariana turned her hand palm up and snapped with her fingers. At that moment spikes blew up like water balloons turning back to liquid.

Using puppeteer skill Brianna pulled herself away from that liquid flying away with a flash-like speed and at the same time pulled out a silken cloth putting it between herself and the drops of crimson liquid. 

As the liquid splattered around, it painted nearby trees and bushes red and the next moment everything that was splattered with the liquid burst into vicious-looking red flames. 

Brianna threw away the cloth a moment before it was engulfed in fire, barely away from scorching herself with it.

Marianna did not stop and pressed her attack forward. New jets of red left her hands forming a huge sciythe in her hand that was already swinging at Brianna's head. However, her swing was stopped as the scythe got stuck on the strings startling the vampire woman for a split moment. That moment was enough for Brianna to make her counter. 

Several strings flashed at Marianna in arches like invisible beams, splitting apart trees no slower than they split the air.

Marianna dodged aside but was too slow. One of the strings passed through her left hand, separating it at the elbow in a perfect line. Yet Marianna did not even bat an eye.  She flashed away from Brianna, disappearing into the lush of forest in an instant.

The next moment Brianna felt vibration spread through one of the threads that she spread in the forest. Through her connecting with threads she sensed how the human that was captured in those strings was beheaded in a split moment and the blood flew from his body in a geyser, but instead of falling down that blood formed a stream that flew through air and connected to Marianna's stump of a hand, forming a new hand in just a few second.

"The forest may be your home ground, but all this fresh meat around us makes me the next best thing to immortal, bitch!" Screamed Marianna bursting into laughter.

"This is what a Nosferatu is! This is true power! My power!"

Brianna moved her hand and the strings that held the now-dead body, let go of the dead man and flashed in the vampire's direction. However, they were too slow to hit her as she was gone almost instantly.

"This forest will be your grave, little spider girl!" Hissed Marianna appearing behind Brianna and throwing new attacks at her.

Spider lady dodged by pulling the strings again, using herself as a puppet through the puppeteer's skill, then waved her hand, and branches, leaves, and debris flew up from the ground like a cloud blocking Marianna's view.

Vampire woman pointed her hand forward and a jet of crimson liquid pierced through that cloud like a beam, bursting everything into flames. But the next moment Mariana felt that her body was pulled by something, she immediately jerked to the side to dodge but could not get away. 

The cloud of debris was a distraction. Brianna attached her strings to the leaves and under their cover surrounded Mariana with her threads. But before Brianna could cheer in successfully capturing the opponent the vampire's body burst apart, turning to hundred bats, jetting in different directions.

Brianna quickly waved her hands again and strings regrouped attacking the bats and squishing several of them to death. However, all the bodies of bats turned to blood red vapor and flew like a cloud into the forest where Marianna soon reformed back to her human shape as the bloody cloud and bats merged back together, however, the crimson cloud took a lot longer to merge.

Brianna did not let the vampire reform fully, attacking her with her strings. Mariana had to abandon a part of her power dodging aside but while she dodged she threw a few blood spikes at one of the humans that was hanging in Brianna's strings and killed him instantly. The next moment the dead body dried as if it was sucked of all liquids and spikes burst into streams of liquid that flew back to Mariana. These streams not only quickly merged with her body, forming the missing body parts, but also seemed to give her a new source of power as she looked now even healthier than before. 

*****

"You know, it is easier to just kill her." Said Zinnia sitting on the tree branch leisurely swinging her legs.

"I know. But this situation is quite strange. We need to bring her to Aunt Cassandra to take a look. This sudden turning to Nosferatu needs to be investigated." Said Brianna sitting on the tree stump in her human shape with lots of agile spider legs sticking out of her back. The legs moved in quick succession manipulating myriads of strings attached to them.

At their side a cocoon of spider threads was hanging from a tree in which a vampire woman with her entire body constraint lay with her eyes closed as if she was sleeping. A bunch of plants and roots covered the cocoon penetrating it between the strings and attached to the head and body of the dormant Vampire. Marianna's eyes shuddered in quick movements behind her closed eyelids and her body jerked with occasional spasms as if she was seeing an intense dream.

Just like this cocoon, there were hundreds of other similar cocoons all over the forest where villagers were lying dormant. Unlike Theron's fiance, Marianna, who was shown dreams of how she is battling in this forest against Brianna, humans were shown a lot nicer dreams that simply put their minds to rest.

"So how many of the villagers are left?" Asked Zinnia.

"There are just a small bunch of them. I don't know what was pulling them toward the Kirk and why, but we managed to stop all of them from getting to that place." Said Aster coming out of the tree trunk as if she floated up from the water. "Spiders are finishing entwining them to lock their movements but we finished putting them all to sleep. Tomorrow they'll wake up in their beds and think it was just a dream." She added, throwing a quick look at the cocoon that held the Vampire woman.

"Good, now we just wait for Master Noah's return…." Said Zinnia then looked at her sister and raised her eyebrow. "What?"

"No, nothing…" said Aster.

"Speak." Said Zinnia crossing her hands.

"No, I just thought… Lady Brianna wants to show that woman to Duchess Vespertine, but… She seems a bit too arrogant in her dream. Why don't we put her in her place a bit, so that she would never dream of challenging Lady Brianna and Priscilla again." Said Aster.

Zinnia looked at her sister and her lips spread in a grin.

"Let's weave the best of horror dreams for this bitch." Said Zinnia.

"I wonder if Nosferatu can piss themselves from fright." Said Brianna with a wicked smile and Zinnia and Aster smiled back at her with mirroring wicked expressions as if taking her words as a challenge.