Meanwhile, upstairs in the master dining room, Tara was frantically trying to cover her nakedness while her Mistress just quietly sipped at her drink, still pretending she was dressed in her finest Parisian gown even though she wore nothing more than a black pearl necklace and a scarlet shade of lipstick.
"Suppose she doesn't return, Mistress Westenra?" asked Tara.
Lucy just smiled and said, "Oh, she'll be back. That kind always comes back."
"Suppose she refuses to cooperate?" asked Tara.
"She'll co-operate," said Lucy. "We outnumber her and thanks to Susan and Brunhilde, we now have more than one pointed stick. Plus Fifi was kind of us to lend us her cross while Brunhilde made some new ones from scratch. In short, she can't deal with us the same way she dealt with Jane. Why to do that, she would have to have something on her side that does not fear crosses or pointed sticks -- and that's not likely for a vampire."
Just then, the door to the master dining room opened and in came the biggest wolf Lucy and Mina had ever seen -- a wolf that was even larger than the one they had seen on the train. Behind it was the blonde vampire whom Jane knew as Sarah, only this time she was not cringing from fear at the sight of the cross but smirking from what seemed like a very funny joke.
Instead of explaining what the wolf was for, Sarah just smiled, pointed at Lucy, and said to the wolf in Latin, "Kill, Cerberus! Kill!"
The enormous wolf sprang forward, only to stop when Lucy leaned forward and growled a very nonhuman growl. At which point the wolf immediately turned and ran out of the master dining room, all the while whimpering like a beaten puppy.
"Surely you meant 'kiss, Cerberus, kiss', right, my dear?" asked Lucy. "But then Latin has always been such a tricky language."
At this point, the blood drained from Sarah's face and she collapsed upon the floor by the master dining room door.
"Okay, you win," she said. "Now what do you want?"
"Well, to begin with," said Lucy. "Let's establish your bona fides. Then you go get us some clothes."
"How do I establish my bona fides?" asked Sarah.
"You know how," said Lucy. "Right now you're the only woman in the room with clothes on so it's only right that you get undressed and hand your clothes over to us."
"You want me to what?" asked Sarah.
Then Sarah saw the crowd of crosses and pointed sticks aimed in her direction and with a sigh, she started slowly undressing.
Just wait till the Master returns, she thought. Just wait till the Master returns.
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