The man turned to the carriage. "It's alright, my love, I'm here." His voice was softer when he spoke to the wife that Ludovic couldn't see.

Another moan, and then a snarl – a ragged noise that raised the hair on the back of Ludovic's neck. That didn't even sound human.

"What was that?" Benoit asked, shrinking back.

"Jehanne?" the man said, presumably still speaking to his wife.

For the first time since they'd stopped his carriage, Ludovic heard fear in his voice. But that didn't make sense – why would this man be afraid of his wife?

Something stirred inside the carriage, two shining pinpricks of red moving in the darkness, then with a broken shriek, a shape leaped out.

A woman in a long satin gown crashed into her husband, knocking him to the ground with such force that Ludovic was sure he heard something snap.

"Jehanne, no," he cried, but she snapped at him with teeth that suddenly seemed too long. He shoved his forearm against her throat, forcing her head up, keeping those snapping teeth away from him. He was twice her size – holding her off should have been easy, but he was grunting with the effort.

Finally she tore away from him, and rounded on the men who'd thought to rob her.

Gustave's jaw was tightly clenched, but he didn't back down as Jehanne advanced on him, softly snarling.

"What are you?" he asked.

She cocked her head to one side, as if she was considering his question, then she snarled again and charged.

Gustave shot her.

She reeled from the force of the shot, blood blossoming in a red flower across her torso, and Ludovic waited for her to fall, waited for the world to go back to being the one that he knew, and not this place of monsters and nightmares.

Jehanne didn't fall.

Her lips peeled back from her teeth, and they weren't teeth, they were fangs, and her eyes were burning red, like hot coals. Blood drenched her dress, and Ludovic's instincts screamed at him to run but he couldn't seem to move.

Neither, it seemed, could Gustave.

He gaped at Jehanne when she didn't fall, then looked down at his flintlock. That hesitation proved fatal.

Like a wild animal, Jehanne leaped at him. He went down with Jehanne clinging to his shoulders, and his prized pistol flew out of his hand. He had time for a single scream before the woman buried those awful teeth in his throat and tore, blood and thicker things spraying everywhere.

Her husband lunged, grabbing her shoulders and trying to haul her back, and she twisted, sinking her teeth into his wrist and worrying him like a dog with a rat.

Frantically swearing, Paul darted around Gustave's body, his throat a raw ruin, glistening in the moonlight, and scooped up the pistol.

Just as fast, Jehanne let her husband go, and rounded on Paul.

Ludovic didn't know if Paul actually knew how to use the flintlock, and in the end it didn't matter. In the blink of an eye, Jehanne's hands were on his neck, forcing his head back so she could savage his throat, like she'd done to Gustave. He tried to pull away, and she bit his face, tearing off a long strip of flesh. He screamed.

Finally Ludovic could move again. He lunged forward, Alain moving with him, but Jehanne's husband got there first. He pushed Ludovic out of the way, hard enough to send Ludovic slamming into the side of the carriage. His head struck hard wood, and everything went hazy.

Screams shredded the air, and the awful stink of blood and spilled bowels crawled into his nose, making him choke. Something fell to the ground near him. Someone roared and then there was a crunching thud.

Ludovic pulled himself into a sitting position, trying to reorient the world around him, blinking away the fog in his eyes.

Alain lay in front of him, his throat a ragged mess, still pumping blood, and further away from him were Paul and Gustave and the carriage driver, all three of them reduced to twisted heaps of lifeless limbs. He cast about for Benoit, hoping that his friend had managed to escape, but that hope died when he saw another crumpled form a few feet away. Benoit had tried to run, but he hadn't got far before Jehanne had caught him, taking him to the ground so she could tear at him. She was crouched over him now, her face buried in the side of his neck, slurping at the horrible wound she had made.

Her husband lay a short distance beyond Benoit's body, at the base of a huge tree where he appeared to have been thrown. He wasn't moving. Even the horses that had pulled the carriage were dead.

There was no one left but Ludovic.

He should have stayed completely still. If the monster wearing a woman's skin thought that he was already dead, maybe she would leave him alone.

But the thought had barely crossed his mind when Jehanne stiffened, lifting her face from Benoit's body and growling.

Her face, when she turned to Ludovic, was like nothing he had ever seen. She was covered in blood, drenched in it. Red dripped from her chin, her mouth, darker than the colour of her eyes, and her hair had come loose. Thick hanks of it were matted to her cheeks, her bloody throat, the crimson-painted edges of her collarbone, sliding down between her breasts and soaking her dress.

She rose to her feet, and there was nothing human in the way she moved.

She charged forward, and Ludovic scrambled away, but she was impossibly fast. She seized him with one gore-soaked hand and flung him back against the carriage. His head fell back, exposing his throat, and her eyes flared even brighter. She charged again.

Pure luck saved him.

Jehanne was so intent on her latest kill that she forgot about Alain's body, lying in front of her. Even her inhuman speed didn't stop her from tripping over Alain's legs. She fell against the carriage with a hoarse grunt.

Ludovic ran.

If he could get beyond that line of trees up ahead then he had a chance to lose himself in the woods beyond. It was pitch-black in there, and Ludovic wouldn't be able to see a thing. But neither would the monster.

He had just passed Jehanne's motionless husband, when something hit him in the back. The reek of blood made him gag, and he twisted even as he fell, trying to dislodge Jehanne. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, bruising his skin, and he rolled again, managing to shake one of her hands off.

But even one of Jehanne's hands was stronger than both of his, and she yanked him back towards her. Instinctively he threw up his arm as that terrible mouth descended, the way he'd seen her husband do, but he raised his arm too high and instead of pushing at her throat, he met her mouth. Razored teeth slashed through skin and flesh, grating against bone, and he screamed.

Desperately, he tried to throw her off, but she was so strong. Tearing a chunk from his arm, she roared at him, spraying his face with blood – his own and that of his friends.

His eyes burned with tears as every regret of his short life crashed through him.

Never looking for Jacqueline once he left home.

Not protecting Clemmie.

Not protecting the rest of the family.

Abandoning them all.

Not Maurice, though. As much as that terrible night still haunted his dreams, he would never regret killing the bastard.

Then Jehanne sank vicious teeth into his throat, and every thought fled, except the grim realisation that this was it. Veins shredded under her mouth, and blood poured out, splashing over the carpet of autumn leaves, over Jehanne's dress. She looked like she had bathed in blood.

She sucked eagerly at his neck, making little whimpering noises, and Ludovic's only comfort was that it would be over soon. He could feel his strength fading away as his blood pumped out, the world turning grey around him. Soon he would slip into the dark and maybe that would be alright. Maybe Clemmie would be waiting there for him.

He whispered her name through a throat choked with his own blood.

Jehanne lifted her head, lips curling back from her teeth like a rabid dog. Someone stood over him – Jehanne's husband, Ludovic dully realised. Not dead, after all, then. Maybe he alone would survive this night.

"I'm sorry," the man whispered. "This wasn't supposed to happen." Moonlight glinted off something in his hand – a long silver knife. "I love you, Jehanne. I will never stop loving you," he said, then he plunged the knife into her heart.

Ludovic expected her to ignore the wound the way she had done when Gustave shot her. But an agonised cry broke from her bloodied lips, and she fell back. Her husband moved with her, and as she collapsed onto the ground, he stabbed her again, and again, driving the knife into her chest until the only sound in the night was the wet sucking noise it made, and the wracking sobs of a man forced to kill the woman he loved.

And then it all stopped.

Ludovic wanted to touch his throat, but his hands were too heavy to move.

Footsteps crunched through the leaves and a face swam above him. Jehanne's husband. He'd stopped crying, but his eyes shone red like hers, and blood speckled his face. He was a monster too, then.

He stared down at Ludovic for a moment, then turned to leave, then stopped again.

"You're just a boy," he muttered.

Any other time, Ludovic would have protested. At twenty-one, he hadn't been a boy in years, but he was younger than any of his friends by more than a decade.

The man knelt beside Ludovic, his face blurring in and out of focus as Ludovic fought to remain conscious. "You're a fool," he said to himself, pushing a hand through his hair. "A soft-hearted old fool." He studied Ludovic's face. "So young, and I think not like the others. You would have let us go."

Ludovic couldn't speak. Blood spilled from his mouth.

The man made a noise of frustration and then lifted Ludovic's head into his lap. "I may live to regret this, but you're so young and I saw kindness in you tonight. You would have given me the chance to get my wife to safety, and for that, I will give you something in return. The chance at a new life. I suggest you use it more wisely than you did your human one."

Bending over Ludovic, he bit his neck, on the other side to the wound that Jehanne had left, and Ludovic closed his eyes as the darkness pulled him under. He was vaguely aware of something being pushed against his mouth, but he didn't know what it was, and it was too late to save him anyway.

At least it didn't hurt anymore.

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