“I’m a necromancer and I’m pretty up close and personal with the vampires, but I don’t know any of them that could do what you’re describing,” I said.
“The vampire that was mistress of Ireland before she lost control can feed upon fear,” Nim said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve met other vampires that could do it, but no one as good as she was once.”
“Do you know for certain that she lost power? Why couldn’t she be the one behind all these new vampires?” Nathaniel asked.
It was a little odd for him to be asking the crime-busting questions, but they were good questions, so I just waited for some good answers to match them.
“Moroven was never a necromancer. It is not her magic.”
“Did you know her before she became a vampire?” I asked.
“I did, and she was never a necromancer, a fearful thing in her way, but she never possessed power over the dead.”
“What made her fearful in her way?”
“You know she is a night hag who can feed upon fear.”
“Yes, but that’s a power she gained after she became a vampire.”
“No, she was always able to feed on nightmares and terror.”
“Really?” I said. “I’ve never met a person who could do that unless it was a talent they acquired after they became a master vampire.”
“Is night hag what you call those once human who can feed on fear in vampire form?”
“Yes.”
“Then she is more than that and we must add new words to her power. She can cause terror in others so that she may feed upon it.”
“Damian has memories of her doing terrible things,” Nathaniel said. “Anyone would be afraid after that.”
The old woman shook her head. “No, Graison, I do not mean she frightened people with torture and then fed upon their emotion. I mean she could cause fear in someone with a touch, or less, and feed upon that.”
“You’re saying that the fear she was able to cause in Damian wasn’t just from his memories of her?”
“I am saying that she was a mara, a nightmare, able to create fear so she could feast upon it.”
“Wait. You mean she could feed on people in their dreams, not just when they were awake?”
“She began as something that fed on bad dreams, took them away from the sleepers, helped take away their night terrors, but over the long years, she turned her gift into something less gentle. If there were not enough nightmares to feed upon, she would enter people’s sleep and give them bad dreams so she could feed.”
“Are you saying she was supposed to be a sort of dream keeper and help people have fewer nightmares?” I asked.
“In the beginning.”
Flannery added, “The authorities here have seen a few night hags over the years: people who fed on bad dreams, but the more they fed, the worse the dreams got and they drained the person’s life away through the nightmares.”
“You have people in Ireland that are that good at feeding through dreams?” I asked.
“It’s common enough here to be classed as a psychic ability.”
“Not magic,” I said.
“No, because the ability can be stopped with modern drugs. When Auntie Nim told me that the master vampire of Ireland was a type of night hag, I went back through the files of other cases. In most of them, the people exhibiting the behavior say they aren’t doing it on purpose. It’s like they sleepwalk, except that they’re sleepwalking through other people’s dreams.”
“Are you saying, that if modern antipsychotics or antidepressants can stop a person’s abilities, then it gets classified as psychic, but if drugs don’t work, then it’s classified as magic here in Ireland?” I asked.
Flannery said, “That’s one of the ways we differentiate between the two, yes. You don’t do it that way in America?”
“No, we don’t give meds like that to people unless they’re really depressed or psychotic.”
“How do you stop people who are using their abilities for evil purposes?”
“If we can prove someone has deliberately harmed another person via magic, it’s an automatic prison term or death sentence.”
The look on Flannery’s face showed clearly what he thought of our idea of justice. “That’s barbaric,” he said.
“Can your night hags drain a person to death?”
“Yes, but we spot them before it gets that far.”
“If they’ve already drained someone to death, what do you do with them? How do you keep the rest of your law-abiding citizens safe?”
“Appropriate drugs and treatment until they’re no longer a danger to others.”
“How many drugs do you have to give them to make them safe?” Nathaniel asked.
Flannery looked down and then back up, but he had trouble meeting Nathaniel’s eyes. Maybe it was the weight of my gaze right next to his, or maybe it was just the weight of innocence in his. I’d found that Nathaniel had that almost childlike belief in what the right thing should be; it didn’t mean he believed people would always do the right thing, but he had a way of making you want to live up to his better ideals.
“Go on, nephew, answer him.”
Flannery looked at her, but not like he was happy with her either. “The dosage is appropriate to render them harmless to others.”
“That’s a way of not answering the question,” I said.