64.

I arrived in time to see Chess hang, and to watch his mansion burn. It should have ended there, with the vampire’s second and final death. Yet like this war the tale has no conclusion yet; and like the unquiet grave, it seems, any finality it offers is temporary at best.

If the War Department wants my final assessment of what happened at Gum Spring, then let it have this: Private Hiram Morse should get a medal. Then he should be horsewhipped. The cur was good enough to search the burnt ruins of the Chess plantation and find the decrepit female still partially alive; or undead, or whatever the mot juste may be; and then to bring her down to where the Army Investigators waited, where they were already examining what remained of Obediah Chess. I would guess he was drunk with the praise he’d already received for giving them one vampire on the end of a rope. He must have thought his rewards would be doubled when he returned a second, and this one still capable of interrogation. Surely he cannot have known what vital knot he was unraveling. By recovering her body he may have changed the course of this war; yes, and of history. But he has also given me the most profane duty I ever hope to receive, and robbed all my future nights of sleep, however many they may be.

—THE PAPERS OF WILLIAM PITTENGER