The Death Card of the Major Arcana

It's over.

There never was a vampire. Just a girl who'd gone mad.

She had been abused by her stepfather, and it seems to have pushed her over the edge. Her face was disfigured by her father, and he died shortly after; when that happened, she started going insane and believed all sorts of legends about her ancestors being vampires. Her brother tried to protect her from anyone suspecting what she'd done, but that couldn't last forever.

A group of townspeople stormed their home; in the scuffle, the place lit on fire. The brother locked himself in a room with his sister while everyone else fled. The place burned to the groun. Earl Cain tried to go back for them but it wasn't any use.

I'll be glad to be rid of this place. We're returning to London in a few days. Earl Cain seems to blame himself for what happened; it'd be best if we left soon.

[He sat in one of the drawing room's large armchairs, lounging with his medical case in his lap. The woman who owned the house had left the fire burning, which was nice and warm in the middle of the night, especially with no lit candles nearby.

The rest of the house had been asleep for a while, even Cain. So there would be no one to notice if an odd stranger were to suddenly appear. Hopefully Hakuba had the sense to worldhop indoors; what with all the local murders, it was still dangerous to be out after dark.]

Someone's been poisoning Earl Cain's food.

I found residue of some substance in his teacup from the other day; I'm still unsure what it is, but for the moment I'm trying to get him away from his household so he can get better.

There's a friend of my father's who lives in the country; the Earl, his butler, his sister and myself are going to stay there for a while. Hopefully he gets better, but if not...well, that certainly limits the amount of suspects, since I doubt his ten year-old sister is lacing his food.

Of course, Cain didn't want to go at all until he heard there were supposed to be vampires in the area. He's...very strange.