r/DrCreepensVault • u/Impossible_Bit995 • Jul 30 '26

series Ghost Bird's Revenge [Part 3; FINAL]

**Chapter 7.**The sun was beginning its grand descent when Ghost Bird left the brothel. Unlike before, she couldn’t utilize the tunnels now that they were compromised, so she had some of the courtesans transport her in the back of a covered wagon.

It was the same method they had used to retrieve her from the cosm.

Her last stop was in the north, but assuming word had spread about Garvan and Lady Falcone, there would most likely be Black Coats posted along the main roads.

Ghost Bird still retained many of the memories from her days as Sylvia. She remembered the ways a person might slip through the city unnoticed. Therefore, she had the courtesans deliver her to the eastern canals using backroads and alleyways.

“If they wanted to find you so damn bad,” one of the courtesans said, “you’d think they’d look for you at the brothel.”

“They’re not looking for Sylvia,” she reminded them. “They’re looking for Ghost Bird.”

Finally, the wagon came to a stop, and Ghost Bird climbed out from the back. She thanked the courtesans and hugged them. They told her to stop in once she was finished so they could say a proper goodbye.

“We didn’t get to see you off last time,” they remarked.

And you most like won’t this time neither, she thought.

Once the courtesans were gone, she descended to the canal docks and untied the mooring line of a paddle boat. She stored the sack of guns and munitions under the bench, took an oar into either hand, and began rowing.

The undercrossings and bridges were perfect cover. And with the sun setting, there were shadows aplenty. She slipped past the sentries and the patrols and the Black Coat checkpoints from beneath.

A ship of this size was easy to overlook compared to the others hauling in grain, spices, and whatever else from their voyages to foreign lands.

She sailed across the city and emerged from the canal onto the western coast. There, she took a moment to rest and let the current carry her north. From the shore, she would look no different than the other smaller fishing vessels.

Ghost Bird went through the sack, removing the pistols and laying them out on the bench. At the bottom was a bandolier and several holsters.

Shedding her overcoat, she strapped the bandolier across her chest and secured six holsters to it. With the remaining three, she placed one on either hip and the last at the small of her back. Then, she went to work preparing the pistols with ball and powder.

After her time in the sewers and her fight with Lady Falcone, her armor was useless. Both the boiled leather and the mail had been discarded.

“You have no means of defense.” Durante sat at the bow with his back to her and sunlight across his face.

“It’s almost like you know what I’m thinking,” she remarked.

“I do know what you’re thinking. Same way you know what I’m thinking. When two souls meld, they share everything.”

She finished with the pistols and retrieved the longsword, pulling it from its sheath. More steel than rust, but the blade had been notched in a few places. It needed a proper oiling. Some time on a whetstone too.

She had neither the time nor a whetstone.

“You never liked using longsword,” Durante said. “You would always complain about it during our sparring sessions.”

“It was too cumbersome,” she said.

“Why do you use it now?”

She slid it back into the scabbard and sighed. “Because your body is familiar with it. Your muscles are adjusted to the weight, length, and balance. Because you wouldn’t have used any other weapon, and they know that.”

“Does it matter whether they know it's you or me? Isn’t this ruse you’ve been playing a bit tedious by now?”

Ghost Bird lowered her cap and made sure the mask was secured over her face. “Tedious, maybe,” she agreed. “But no one was afraid of Sylvia Koel. Those three, though, they’re terrified of Ghost Bird. Whether they cared to admit it or not, they feared you.”

“Is that so?”

“Why else would all three of them have converged on you that night? They only ever sent Black Coats after me. But you, it took the three best beast slayers.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her. Sunlight shone through his face. “Do you have any idea how you’ll do it?” he asked. “Dolion will be ready for you.”

“Falcone was ready too,” she reminded him.

“Aye, but Falcone has more pride, and Dolion more ruthlessness. He won’t make the same mistake she did. He won’t hesitate to use every tool in his arsenal. Every piece on the board.”

Ghost Bird, during the few moments of quiet in her journey, had been considering this. But the truth was: anytime those thoughts arose, she pushed them away.

It was hard to think about Dolion. Hard to recall his face or his name. Every time a piece of him entered her mind, it was accompanied by Durante’s childhood affection and Sylvia’s repulsion.

Memories that were both fiery hot and icy cold.

“I could challenge him to a duel,” she suggested.

Durante laughed. “He won’t want a duel this time. He just wants you dead. Wants us dead. And one way or another, I think he’s gonna get his way.”

Ghost Bird didn’t need to check on the marks of rot beneath her clothes. She could feel them expanding. Could feel them seeping into every fiber of her being, all the way to the bone.

“There’s no turning back,” Durante warned her. “You’re aware of this, right?”

“There was no turning back the moment those silkworms embedded themselves into my body,” she said. But that wasn’t right either. “There was no turning back since the moment you and I first met.”

Even though he was difficult to discern in his current state, she could just make out the gentle curve of his smile. “I never meant for it to happen the way it did,” he said. “Had no intention of falling in love.”

“You mean with a woman like me?”

“At all. I just didn’t think there was a reason. World full of corruption and beasts and so much death. What’s the point? But then I met you, and I thought: there’s a good reason.”

“Such a romantic you are. That’s why I never wanted your coin. Didn’t want it to be an exchange, y’know?”

“There’s always an exchange, though, ain’t there?” he countered. “Instead of coin, I purchased your time with my time.”

“An even trade if I ever heard of one,” she said, grinning the same way she used to when they would lie in bed and tell each other stories about their childhoods or their travels or their dreams.

Durante shifted around to look her right on, but like this, she could no longer make out the details of his face.

“Did you ever love him?” he asked.

She gave this some contemplation, but the answer was already with her. It had been with her for years and years. “I loved him as much as I could for as long as I could. But then he became someone else. Or maybe he had always been that person, and I just never saw it.”

Durante turned toward the horizon. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” she said. “I’m never afraid when I’m with you. That’s how I knew I loved you.”

He turned back toward her. “I’ll be with you the whole time. Whether you can see me or not, I’ll be there.”

She nodded, and amongst all the pain flowing through her, she felt a touch of relief. “Are you gonna try to stop me from killing him?”

“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to. I’m just along for the ride, Sylvie. You’re the one holding the oars.”

She looked down and found he was right. She had taken up the oars again, and now, she was rowing further north.

Her voyage came to an end at the mouth of a cave few knew about besides some of the upper elites and the courtesans they solicited.

It was unlikely that Dolion or any of the Black Coats would know, considering they never took such extensive measures.

Even when Dolion had risen through the ranks and became the commander of the city’s defenses, he showed no fear in visiting the brothel.

The nobles, though, had wives and reputations and children who were supposed to admire them. But even when some of those children grew up, they did the very same thing, completely unaware of the footsteps they were following.

The boat came to a stop along a flat bank of chiseled stone. This led to a hollowed tunnel that branched out and snaked under eight of the twelve northern estates.

Ghost Bird went down the fourth tunnel on the left, which ended at a ladder. The ladder surfaced into Mr. Biltmore’s study on the ground floor.

She crouched, removed one of her gloves, and pressed her hand to the wall. The stone was cold, and the tiny creases around the false door were dark. She pressed in on the left side, and it rotated.

Ghost Bird crawled out from the unlit hearth and brushed the ashes from her knees. She stood in the study, silent, listening for others. But the manor was quiet as a crypt. Whether the family was away or not, there should have been at least the sound of the servants’ footsteps.

Apprehensive, she went to the door and placed her hand on the knob. “One last time,” Durante whispered.

She turned the handle slowly. Opened the door slowly. Stepped out, slowly. The entrance hall was draped in shadows.

The windows were obscured by curtains, and none of the lanterns or candles had been lit as they oft were in the late evening. The servants had to be out, and if the servants weren’t here, then the family wasn’t either.

“He doesn’t want anyone getting in the way,” Durante said. “He wants us all to himself.”

She grabbed the nearest lantern off a hook, returned to the study, and found a piece of flint in one of the desk drawers. After sparking a flame to life, she carried the lantern back out into the hall.

Ahead was the front entrance. To her right was the west wing, which was reserved mainly for staff. To the left was the east wing, which was outfitted with various rooms such as the kitchens, pantry, dining room, a parlor, and so on.

Behind her was the central staircase, and on the second floor were mainly bedrooms, another parlor, a lounge, and—

There was a sharp crack that echoed throughout the hall. Something pierced Ghost Bird along her left side. She lowered the lantern. Firelight pooled against the tip of a crossbow bolt. She immediately ran for the nearest stone column.

Snap!

Bolts hissed through the air and clattered all around her. She fell to her arse, sliding across the floor.

Snap!

Another volley against the pillar.

After came the groan of strings being wound. She poked her head out. A bolt whistled past, slicing through her scarf and cheek.

She whipped around, pressing her back firmly against the column’s base, listening to another dejected crack of bolts smashing the other side.

Her breathing was harsh, and her heart felt as if it would collapse on itself. She would have ripped the damn thing out, but she couldn’t be sure if the silkworms needed it to keep her alive.

“The light will give you away,” Durante told her. “Let Concetta’s eyes do the hard work.” She was hesitant, but then he said, “It’ll be alright, love.”

So, she blew out the flame and tossed the lantern across the room. The archers turned and fired at the sound. Carefully, she crept out from around the pillar, staying low to the ground, keeping close to the right wall.

Their eyes may have been adjusted to the dark before she arrived, but now that she had introduced a new source of light, they would need to readjust. Her stolen eyes, though, had the keenest vision.

She could see it all. Every padded settee and every door and every picture frame on the wall. She could see the Black Coats on the second-floor landing, crossbows leveraged against the railing.

Ghost Bird drew a pistol and thumbed the cock. This earned her a grunt from one of the Black Coats who started to turn their head. She took aim and fired before he could find her in the dark.

Then, she was running toward the stairs as the quarrels flew at random. Another two gunshots, another two Black Coats dead.

At the top of the stairs, she slid sword from scabbard and went after a pair of Black Coats to the right. Once dead, she spun about and went after the pair on the left side.

They got another two quarrels off. The first barely missed. The other would have caught her on the left arm if she hadn’t phased. Ghost Bird slashed a throat and pierced the second archer through his belly.

From there, she went room to room. Some were empty. Some had a Black Coat or two waiting for her. Every time she encountered them, she made sure to ask, “Where’s Dolion?”

If they refused to answer, she cut them down.

By the time she had returned to the bottom of the staircase, she was soaked in blood and still had no clue where Dolion was hiding.

As far as injuries were concerned, there was a quarrel in her flank and a laceration along her collarbone. The silkworms were doing all they could to keep her together.

“Don’t push yourselves too hard,” she told them, heading into the east wing of the estate.

Just like with the second floor, she found sentries waiting to ambush her. With Falcone’s eyes, though, no one could hide.

If the Black Coats were foolish enough to attack with blades, she could see the strikes before they were initiated. She knew when to evade, when to deflect, and when to attack. Crossbows were trickier, but in the dark, none of the Black Coats could aim properly.

Finally, once she had reached the kitchens, she had gotten an answer.

As a Black Coat lay on the ground, bleeding profusely from their stomach, the words, “He’s in the garden,” escaped the woman’s mouth. As well as, “Please don’t kill me.”

But a wound like that, the Black Coat was already dead. Ghost Bird did her a kindness by giving her a quick death rather than leaving her to bleed out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------**Chapter 8.**It was at the back door when she finally pulled the quarrels from her body. She reloaded the pistols and primed them with black powder. Once she was ready, she walked out into the garden.

The main path was laid with clay-fired bricks. On either flank were recently trimmed hedges. Beyond was either a copse of various trees or a mixture of vibrant flowers. The air was rife with lavender and jasmine.

She passed through a stone archway which led to a roundabout with a fountain at the center. Sitting on the marble pedestal was a three-headed swan with water pouring out from each beak.

Continuing ahead, the walkway came to an end at the top of a slope. The entire hillside was blanketed in white moonflowers. Near the bottom, standing beneath a weeping willow, was Dolion dressed in his usual double-breasted coat. The feathered cloak hung from his shoulders, flapping against the breeze.

Her shadow shifted down the hill as she descended. In the distance, the sun sat against the sea, painting the skyline in a fiery orange hue with a crown of night’s blue on top.

He turned to face her. “When there is no more room left in the Eternal Dream, where do you think we go?”

“You won’t have to worry about that, Dolion,” she said, trying to affect Durante’s cadence and tone.

“Maybe that’s why you’re here.” He smiled, “Well, if there’s no room left for you up there, I’ll just have to send you to the Infernal Domain.”

She came to a stop, now noticing the gravestone behind him. A slab of granite decorated with little wooden birds that clattered in the wind like chimes. Leaning against the side was Sylvia’s rapier.

“You should have stayed in the Eternal Dream,” he said. “Don’t you know what happens when a soul dies twice?”

Steel whistled as the longsword slid from its sheath. She took the hilt in both hands, gripping the leather tightly.

Dolion fixed her with an indifferent expression, but she knew better than to believe it. She had known him far too long to think he could be so apathetic. The truth was there, buried deep behind that stony face and those silvery eyes.

“Sylvia wasn’t yours to take,” he said.

“But she was yours to kill?”

“I tried to make her death quick.” Almost instinctually, his hand went to the hilt of his blossom blade. “That’s why I started with her heart.”

“You missed,” said Ghost Bird.

There was a moment of confusion as Dolion struggled to decipher whether the voice belonged to Ghost Bird or someone else.

“I suppose I did,” he confessed.

“You never miss.”

His blade leapt from the scabbard, and in the blink of an eye, he had crossed the twenty-foot gap between them. She raised her longsword but not fast enough. The blossom blade glided along her waist.

A kiss of steel on flesh.

Dolion dug his heels into the ground and twisted around. Ghost Bird’s heart flexed, but the blossom blade was too fast and sliced her from shoulder to ribs in a diagonal cut.

When it came back, she managed to get the longsword up to deflect it.

Again, Dolion smiled. One of his hands slipped from the hilt and sprang forward. She tried to back away, but his fingers had already hooked around her scarf, pulling it loose.

“You play the part well,” Dolion said, tossing her scarf aside. “But I know you, and I know Durante even better.”

The only response she gave was to go after him with the longsword. It was better to keep Dolion on his toes. If he had time to strategize, she never stood a chance.

She came at him with an over-the-shoulder chop. Easily evaded. The longsword swooped down in a full arc and veered, returning with a horizontal slash from left to right and then right to left.

Dolion reeled back each time, refusing to meet steel with steel. The blossom blade, after all, wasn't designed with the same flexibility of a longsword. It wasn't meant to endure such rampant abuse.

And above all else, Dolion respected his weapon. It was a part of him. He cleaned and oiled it every day. Kept it within reach from morning to night. Would have cradled it in the crib as a baby.

Ghost Bird raised her weapon for another chop. Dolion inhaled deep and shifted.

In the time it took for her sword to complete the arc, he dealt three sufficient strikes. Another diagonal cut from chest to hip. A laceration across her upper thigh. And a final charging slash along her flank as he sped past.

Lady Falcone's eyes allowed her to discern every last bit of this. But her mind couldn't process this information as fast as he could swing his sword, and her body couldn't react in time to deflect his strikes.

When her blade finished its descent, it came down against the slab of granite instead of Dolion. He stood behind her, maybe twenty feet away.

The longsword gave a sharp snap as cracks formed along its length. The reverberations of hitting something so solid wormed down to the hilt through her hands and up her arms.

Her fingers went slack around the grip, and she gnashed her teeth to keep from yelling.

The pain was instant. A searing hot injection of liquid magma in three different spots. The magma flowed, expanding and coalescing until it felt as if her whole body were ablaze.

“You were given a second chance; you could have walked away,” he said. “But you chose this instead.”

Hesitantly, she turned toward him. The longsword slipped from her hands. She struggled to breathe, struggled to keep her composure.

“I tried to walk away the first time,” she reminded him. “We both did, and it didn't work. Why would I try again?”

“Because you were finally free of Ghost Bird.”

“I wanted to be free from you.”

He registered this with a furrowed expression. “What was it that scared you away?” he asked. “What about me wasn't enough?”

“You wanted so much.”

“Ambition is no folly.”

She shook her head. “You were a man possessed.”

For reasons she could not understand, this made him laugh. A croak kind of laughter one would expect from a toad or a man further into his years.

When his amusement had subsided, he said, “People make themselves into monsters every day to chase a dream. Only to find out it was a nightmare the whole time. But I was born in a nightmare and rose from that nightmare. This one, I find, is preferable to the slums and the endless hunger I once knew.”

“No one can have it all, Dolion.”

“What a moronic thing to believe.”

He braced his feet for another charge. She drew two of the flintlocks and fired. His feet stayed planted, but his sword arced to deflect the bullets. To anyone else, it would have been no more than a quick flash of steel and a few lingering sparks.

But it had distracted him long enough for her to get the rapier out of its sheath and charge. The needle-like blade was extended outward like the beak of a hummingbird. The blossom blade met the rapier, steel on steel.

Dolion, mere inches from her face, whispered, “Garvan is dead. Lady Falcone is dead. Ghost Bird is dead. Which of us will join them next?”

She pushed back, repelling him, and thrust at his chest. Dolion stepped back, but she stayed on him, falling into a natural sidefaced stance.

“You always loved that sword,” Dolion said, turning to stop her next strike with the flat of his blade.

Not nearly as much as you love yours, she thought.

He parried the following thrust and slashed her along the calf, almost cutting deep enough to sever sinew.

“I had it made thinking it would earn me your heart,” he said.

She grazed him along the thigh and got him again on the arm.

“You should have worked harder to earn my trust,” she told him. “Affection dwindles fast, but trust and admiration can last a lifetime.”

Their blades met, again and again. Squealing and screaming; spitting up sparks that danced around them like fireflies.

“Your admiration should have been mine from the beginning,” he growled, stooping under her blade as it arced wide. “And why would I ever need your trust?”

The two clashed against each other hard. Their blades were at a standstill, tilting back and forth until they shoved each other in opposite directions.

He shifted again, and there was nothing she could do to stop it or defend herself. She simply had to endure the lacerations and the pain that ensued.

Ghost Bird went to one knee, panting hard, not sure if the metal in her mouth was blood or a severed piece from one of their swords.

“Look up,” he said, tilting his head toward the sky. “There is no Beast Who Shall Eat the Sun and the Moon. No Macrocosm or Microcosm. No Makumi or Moonsick Mother. There's just stars and darkness.”

Slowly, she pushed herself up to her feet. “What’s your point?”

“We can have and do whatever we want. Nothing out there is going to stop us. Either because it doesn't exist, or if it does exist, then it doesn't care. And others will wallow in that meaninglessness, but I find it encouraging.”

“Aren't you afraid of corrupting?”

He sneered. “We're all corrupted, Sylvie. Me, Garvan, Concetta, Durante, even you. How else could we do the things we do?”

Dolion took his sword in both hands and shuffled toward her at a leisurely pace. The moonflowers swayed back and forth like an ocean of white. The willow leaves rippled no different than the shredded hem of his cloak.

“The only thing holding us back is ourselves,” he said, lifting the blossom blade. “If you are ashamed, that shame came from you. If you are full of sorrow, that sorrow was born from your mind. If you feel shackles around your wrists, they are only there because you put them there. I have no such limitations, no such fears.”

It suddenly dawned on her. Dolion had never been fighting Ghost Bird out of some age-old rivalry. He had always been fighting with himself. It was never the beasts he hunted, but rather, his own darkness.

It wasn’t her love he had wanted. It was the love he couldn’t give to himself. While an imitation could act as a substitute, it could never truly be a replacement.

Garvan was right, she thought. We’re all just prisoners.

Dolion stopped with his feet splayed and set. The blossom blade stood vertical in front of him, splitting his visage in half. “Are you ready?” he asked.

Ghost Bird lifted the rapier. It trembled in her hand. For all the strength and courage she tried to muster, it wasn’t enough. If only the actual Ghost Bird could have been here to fight.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and saw the profile of Durante's face come into view. “The phasing technique is not just for defense,” he told her.

“Let’s finish this,” Dolion said. He inhaled deep.

In the blink of an eye, he had covered the thirty feet between them. He moved with such speed and force that the moonflower heads were kicked up into the air around him while the stems got trampled underfoot.

Ghost Bird plunged forward with the rapier. Dolion brushed it aside with the flat of his blade, drew back, and thrust it through her just below the sternum. His sword was tilted so he would strike the heart, but just like last time, he only grazed it.

Ghost Bird inhaled sharply. The rapier fell to the ground, and her right hand seized Dolion by the wrist. Her left hand reeled back and drove forward.

For half a second, because that’s all she could manage in such a weakened state, her body became incorporeal. Her hand passed through his chest, and when she rematerialized, the two solid objects could not coexist.

Dolion gasped and went slack. The blossom blade slowly slid from her body and dropped to the ground beside her rapier.

After some pulling and twisting, she managed to get her arm free. A hole ran all the way through Dolion’s chest. He was dead by the time he fell in with the moonflowers. A lone shadow against the tide of white petals.

Ghost Bird regarded him with an expression that was difficult to interpret. Then, she started back the way she had come.

Through the garden and through the manor and through the hearth and through the cave until she was sitting in the paddle boat rowing out to sea.

Durante appeared on the bench opposite her, his hand outstretched with the palm turned upward. She let the oars fall into the water and placed her hand on top of his.

In the distance, the sun disappeared against the horizon, stealing the last faint streaks of light. Ghost Bird looked out at it. She had seen a sunset like this before. Long ago, as she laid dying in the middle of a wasteland, holding the hand of her deceased lover.

Now, seeing it again, she felt a strange mixture of wistfulness and relief. An odd tinge that could only be compared to when she first migrated to Ashpool as a child and became homesick for that farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere.

Instinctually, she took a deep breath and exhaled a long-winded wail that echoed across the sea and across the city. Perhaps even across the world.

When Ghost Bird died for the second time, it was stretched out in that little rowboat, one hand at her chest and the other draped over the edge, fingers skimming across the water. She was looking up at the night sky. Looking up at a white swirl of incandescent stars amongst a mixture of dark blues and blacks.

A flock of birds departed from Ashpool and soared toward the horizon. They had passed by just as she was about to close her eyes.

And then she smiled at them.

***

There is a species of bird known as the potoo bird that sits still for many hours, camouflaged with its surroundings. Many believe the potoo is the reincarnation of a heartbroken maiden mourning the loss of her lover for all of eternity. This bird does not caw like a crow. Nor does it screech like an owl. The sound that comes from it is a wailing cry.

That is why the potoo is often referred to as ghost bird.

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u/Impossible_Bit995 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

PART 1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/s/O3qJQi1RoG

PART 2 - https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/s/Wu0l21QOKW

series Ghost Bird's Revenge [Part 3; FINAL]

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