The air was thick with a rich fragrance, but compared to that scent, I preferred garlic wreaths.
They could not kill vampires either; they could only drive them away. According to Van Helsing, vampires disliked the smell.
As a novice, I followed behind Van Helsing, trudging through the mist-shrouded forest, leaping from one patch of grass to another, blindly pressing on without knowing where we were going.
Every so often, we saw a statue, proof that this place had once been a garden. I had always feared terrible things. Though I was not a person of firm faith, I was still willing to believe in things I knew of but could not prove existed.
There was no rustle of wind through the grass. Moonlight could not penetrate the dense canopy; there was only silence and darkness. Even death and fate seemed frozen. I suggested lighting a lamp to Van Helsing. It might let certain beings know we had arrived, but without a lamp, we could see nothing anyway.
"That would be foolish," Van Helsing insisted.
Then I heard a dreamlike song, sung by a woman.
I gestured for Van Helsing to listen carefully too. He heard it as well, but advised us to ignore it, since it was very likely a trap.
We continued onward until a low arched doorway appeared before us, surrounded by ruined walls and broken masonry.
This seemed to have once been a small chapel. A stone cross was still visible, covered in thorns.
If we had come a few months later, the roses should have been blooming. It would have looked beautiful. But now, the chapel was filled with a stale odor mixed with an indescribable stench, filth tinged with the scent of earth.
I gathered some more soil. Several enormous rats were in the