Nails of the Dead

Phenomenon  in which the fingers of a vampire or a vampire victim remain clinging to the person even after they've been severed from the body. Once the fingernails contain something known as the poison of the dead , and once that reaches the heart, the afflicted person has at most a day to live. After discovering what three women claiming to have escaped from Castle Gaskell really are, Juke is struck down by the malady. This and leech grass are countered by the same plant, which grows in the garden in the court yard in Castel Gaskell's inner courtyard. Growing there along with the grass for the antidote are such plants as jupon de la neel and gatgaya cherian