It is, and in person - the resemblance is somehow more, tiny details in the shading on her skin matching stunningly - Dani knows the exact fullness of Carmilla's lips when she smiles like that. The artist, whoever it was, must have been remarkably talented.

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

Dani... doesn't even know what to do.

No one interrupts her staring at the portrait, or even really seems to notice her.

So... There were other pictures, right, some of them looked like they should also be in this gallery...

Only the ones of Mircalla Karnstein - though her family's pictures are here, too, along with some age ranges on a few that bring up a distant memory of hearing about how Mircalla's parents were brutally murdered in their sleep - all the doors and windows locked from the inside, no sign of intrusion - and her sisters sickened and died within the year after her death.

That's kinda... yeah. Though those dates- If the Black Cat Killer went back in time- Those would match up.

The first identified potential spree is in fact exactly thirteen years after Mircalla Karnstein's death.

There's no way, though... That would be ridiculous, right?

Dani needs to go to the library, try to track down the source of some of the other pictures online.

There's a lot - not so many in the earlier years, most of which have their subject only distantly.

The 1861 set - a smattering of records about one Illamarc Kyteler. One newspaper clipping - with a street photo and in the background of that, only barely recognizable - a woman with Carmilla's bearing and hair. No other pictures of her, though there are obituaries and records and tombstone photographs of the women who died, a far more comprehensive record than the forum-goers have been able to put together this far back, including of another three women who slowly sickened and died. Illamarc appears in the records for more than a year - she seems to show up a year before the spree begins, and vanishes after the death of the last of the three lingering deaths - months after the last violent killing. 

1874 - records about one Lamilcra Fisher. She's present for the same time frame around the sprees as Illamarc, and there's a few more pictures of her. Only one set doesn't have her at a distance. She's standing with another woman, one whose figure is gaunt but who bears a wan smile, and Lamilcra looks worried and uneasy - and the woman in the picture with her has an obituary dated a month later, her death due to a wasting illness. There's other pictures from that same sitting - Lamilcra's smiling in only one of them, in baffled delight at her companion. (There's only the one lingering death this time, but more violent deaths.)

1887 - records about one Callmira Bender, though when Dani tries to search her name she gets results asking her if she meant Elvira Bender, a member of a family of serial killers from the mid-1800s. More pictures, more scattered - Callmira doesn't seem to have intentionally sat for any - and four lingering deaths, far fewer violent deaths. 

1900 - Carlalim Zwanziger. She was a garment factory worker for a time, and the main identifiable picture is of her with several other workers. (And two of those are later recorded as a lingering death.) And in the newspaper clippings - a middle-aged woman who claims to have seen the spirit of her friend Lamilcra who vanished twenty six years before, and the spirit hadn't aged a day. (This, too, is when the black cat nightmare is first recorded - one of the two lingering deaths spoke about it in her letters.)

And a parade after, every thirteen years, pictures and records becoming ever more thorough, more easily verified. And several of the odder last names - if Dani looks them up, they're associated with a famous female serial killer. (If she looks up a list of female serial killers, they all are - right up to Bathory.) (And Dani's own dream of the black cat happened during the previous spree, in 2004 - Millarca Gunness that year, and there were three victims with lingering deaths - )

There's patterns beyond that. Her first name always contains the same letters. The more lingering deaths there are in a spree, the fewer violent deaths - disproportionately so, though never by a consistent amount. No years have zero lingering deaths - and the Carmilla-alike each time is an associate of every one of them - and the years with only one are often followed by years with four or more. 

And just about all of it can be verified. The Carmilla-alikes are associated with the university decently often, though not always in ways that get their picture posted somewhere public. (Though Allamric Vermilya, 1991, was part of one of the sports teams and has her picture in a crowded trophy case.)

There's a lot. 

...Yeah. That is. A lot.

Dani.

Dani needs some time to think.

Today is Friday. It's Thanksgiving next week.

She goes back to their room and jams some things into a bag and calls a taxi to take her home. She'll email her professors tomorrow or something saying she's sick. Whatever. Right now she just wants to go collapse in her own bed. Her safe bed.

The dreams follow her - as does a concerned text from Carmilla.

Dani flicks the notification away without reading it. She just- can't, right now.

She doesn't get further texts.

sry ill be back next week not feeling good went home early

kay

rest well

A pause, and:

lmk if i can do anything? 

love you. wanna help

She puts her phone away again.

Then pulls it back out, and starts looking up legends of magic creatures that look human.

There's a lot! A very wide assortment of shapeshifters especially - there's a decent number of themes and broad groupings at least. Werewolves, witches, fairies, serpent-women, fox-women, vampires, gods... And other things too, such as the spirits of the restless dead. 

Prrrrobably not a ghost. Given, uh, things. Tactile, uh, sensations.

Maybe a witch? Or... (Dani touches her breast.) Are there shapechanging vampires?

Vampiric creatures - which live off the vital essence of living beings, usually taking their blood but not always - are apparently both extremely common in folklore and extremely varied.

According to her wiki dive, there's...

Empusai - servants of Hecate, who seduce young men and devour them. 

Alukah - a 'leech,' a blood-drinking human who can fly and turn into a wolf, and will die if it goes too long without drinking blood.

Lilith - (the medieval version) turns into a cat, is immensely beautiful and charming and possibly magically makes victims think she's benevolent. 

Shtriga - transforms into a moth or other insect, mostly preys on infants, the only one who can cure her victims.

Strigoi - apparently the source of a lot of modern vampire fiction tropes. Torment their family first, and then move on to other victims if they aren't stopped. Tend to take blood directly from the heart. 

And many, many others.

There's common themes... Vampires that can pass for living humans are incredibly attractive and often very seductive and lustful (one vampire type apparently only targets her husband, gradually draining his life through her immense sexual appetite, then moves on and takes a new husband after his death). They often prey on their own family first, preferentially, or solely, and otherwise go for babies or else comely young men/ women. They're often tied to the location they died or that their body is buried, sometimes only until some mythic condition is met. They don't die easily, often requiring decapitation. Most of them are revenant spirits, though not all need to die to become vampires, and some were never human.

They lie, too. The myths are pretty sure about that. They're soulless monsters, and need to be killed for the good of everyone, and any semblance of life or soul or love or morality is merely an illusion. 

Okay. Well. Some of these fit better than others...

Dani should- talk to her parents. Explain what's been happening to her. Some of it, at least. Maybe they can tell her nothing supernatural is going on.

- They are very alarmed and aren't exactly saying so immediately but do in fact seem to suspect the supernatural.

And, also, they want her to cut off all contact with Carmilla. Separate them - from her father's dark look, he's willing to do so violently. 

No! Um. No. She doesn't want to do that. There's- there's no solid evidence against her and she hasn't done anything wrong and-

Sweetie - her mother starts - 

(Her parents seem to think Dani's been misled. Tricked. Seduced. Her father's stern about it, her mother soft and sure and worried.)

No. Dani can- Dani's old enough to make her own decisions. She's not going to cut out Carmilla, not without a better reason.