The soft drumming of the rain was a constant reminder of the passing
time, the inside of the limo silent as they were driven through the
streets of Richmond. Cynthia making the final checks of her weapons
while Christopher sat back in his chair with his lips thin. Neither
of them wanting to be the first to speak, the call for a meeting as
unexpected for them as it was a bad sign of the romantic week they
had planned.
Hank getting into a new woodcarving project, Marty deciding to go
spend a couple weeks at some friend’s family hunting cabin, it was
supposed to be the perfect way for them to get back into their
groove. A month of their spark being a little dulled at no fault of
their own, the time together was supposed to help both of them relax.
Christopher still wounded from the attempt on his life a month prior,
whoever had planted the bomb having nearly burned the man into two
halves. The pale white flesh on the right side of his face still
twisted around on itself, looking near boiled from its slow healing.
A hand that was more thin flesh stretched over bone tapping a clawed
fingers on the silver bat head of his cane.
His lover’s eyes unable to help feeling a little concerned as she
asked, “would you like me to lead? The Styrian said it was under
control, but it’d-”
“I am more capable of battle than you even in my state, darling,”
the vampire interrupted her, a rough attempt at a smile not bringing
much comfort, “trust, I am unsure of The Styrian’s intentions as
you.”
Cynthia nodded, fumbling for the box of shells at her feet and
letting her hand hover over the selection inside for a long moment.
Unsure of what to load, if The Styrian had even said if there was
a potential threat
or if the meeting being an emergency needing
her was more to
make a point.
Ready to load the normal combination of shells before deciding to
check, “did you… did The Styrian tell us what sort of firepower
we should bring? I mean, she just said you’d bring me and-”
“Human,” the man interrupted once more, an ice cold hand resting
on her thigh even as his crimson eyes refused to look her way, “the
situation is handled. I was told to bring you, you were already
present, I know nothing more.”
The huntress nodded, sticking with iron pellets only while she loaded
her weapon, checked the revolver on her ankle was similarly loaded,
and made sure her knife could shave a patch off her arm. Everything
satisfactory, and it bringing no comfort to the woman as their car
finally pulled onto The Styrian’s street. A half dozen cop cars and
two fire engines greeting them, a few people idly pacing the streets
looking around curiously even this late at night.
Christopher cursing in a language Cynthia couldn’t identify, the
man reaching under his seat and pulling out a wide brimmed hat he
slipped on. A lace mourning veil around the brim almost feminine in
appearance, but all the same obscuring his appearance as he threw a
hand in the air, “foolishness! The Styrian could at least remove
the mortals, no?!”
Cynthia not wanting to add to the complaints even as their driver
pulled up to a line of vehicles, a quick exchange of names getting
the officers to form a gap for them to drive through and up to the
front door. Her vampire quick to climb out, clearing the space to the
door perhaps a little faster than a human should have, though staying
there long enough for her to catch up.
The vampire opening the door for her, a cold hand on her lower back
as he led her through the lobby and into the elevator. His clawed
hand waved through the air and a button on the control panel pressing
itself, door barely closed before he tossed his hat on the ground.
The man crossing his arms in a pout that Cynthia couldn’t help but
smile a little at knowing how much it would scare those unused
to his tantrums. A small break from the previous tension, even if he
was acting strange.
Even his silence…
Annoyed, angry even if not at her, something he’d been above before
the last month, and only tonight seemed to truly indulge. A night
meant to be romantic, making love upon the werewolf pelt he’d
brought her, to celebrate everything they had going for them. A nice
summer romance to mark a year, maybe a little more, until she was
finally to be embraced as one of the immortals.
Ruined by The Styrian of all people, and Cynthia could only hope they
could salvage their week even as the elevator door opened once more.
Blood, trailing across the hardwood floor in a deep streak gently
floating in an ocean of murky water to a desk in the center of the
room where The Styrian’s assistant Alfred laid with the witch
Elizabeth at his side. The man’s shirt open, long black hair across
a sweat stained face, looking half awake with a pile of silver
floating in the water nearby. A dozen cuts across his chest
surrounded in charcoal runes while the witch chanted over a mortar
and pestle in her hands.
Neither even looking at elevator as the two entered, the smell of
gunpowder and silver thick on the air. Cynthia’s eyes barely
needing to look around the room before finding the source in a large
hole in the wall — blasted out and charred with several metal pipes
bent at various angles. A corpse nearby looking like it’d been
flayed of flesh, the front blasted with enough flame and shrapnel
Cynthia didn’t want to try and guess the gender.
The hunter still trying to figure out what had happened when Alfred
finally spoke, the man grumbling as he sat up on the desk and said,
“Lady’s in my office, her floor got hit a whole lot worse —
bombs got sent through the pneumatic tubes. She-”
The man cut off by a finger press into one of the holes on his chest,
hissing as he fell back across the ground and Elizabeth sighed. The
woman wiping her finger off on a rag as she turned back and informed
the new comers, “three bomb sites, one hit here, one her office,
and one in the actual basement of the building — no idea how they
got down there, only The Lady’s enforcers have that key. Had a lot
of fire and silver in here, top floor nearly got blown off the
building, I got told only half the bombs down stairs actually went
off so the building’s stable for now. Boss’s in Alfred’s
office, we needed to drag her somewhere she could start healing and
he has a bed in there.”
Cynthia nodded quickly and Christopher barely looked like he cared
about what was said as they both started down the short hallway
nearby. A wall of towels around an open door marking an attempt to
keep out the sprinkler system’s downpour, and the smell coming from
the room unmistakable.
Blood, and a lot of it.
A near wall of the metallic stench radiating from the room as Cynthia
took a moment to prepare herself before walking in with Christopher.
The room too small for the size of the bed in it and the bloody mess
curled in the center of the once blue sheets almost too damaged to
call human in appearance. The Styrian’s dress, maybe once a dark
green under the crimson that stained her, ripped and near torn to
rags hanging on a half-human frame. Face a paper white that looked
almost pulled back on her skull, fangs long and dripping with blood,
one remaining eye a bright crimson with the other and her nose a hole
on a bubbling face showing off the skull under. Her clawed hands, one
near bones ending in twisted knives, digging into the fabric of the
bed like it was a raft in a storm.
On the floor around her a half dozen bodies, girls, nearly pale as
her and sprawled out with faces twisted in horror.
She spoke, her words more of a hiss than an actual language and what
words came through certainly not a modern one. Maybe a form of Greek,
Cynthia thought she picked out a few words from a semester with the
modern version, though nothing she could begin to translate.
Christopher at least seeming to understand, the man openly laughing
at her and replying in turn in the shared language. The Styrian
attempting to crawl across the bed, growling as a skeletal hand swung
through the air with Christopher easily stepping back while she fell
forward. A twisted noise escaping her, an almost hiccup of a noise,
her head low a moment while the man blankly stared down at her.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Cynthia trying to not look too concerned even as the vampire looked
up at her, single eye not in a glare but wide, a trail of blood
running like a tear down her cheek. Almost pleading for something
Cynthia couldn’t even begin to guess before Christopher sighed,
“Too pitiful an end for even you.” Her vampire finally announcing
something in the language only the two understood.
The Styrian looking like she might have relaxed only a little while
Cynthia asked, “is there anything I can do?”
“Keep away from this one’s mouth,” the man replied, the sleeve
of his suit pulled up a few inches while he offered his wrist. The
Styrian, hardly able to lift her mouth to it, letting her fangs dig
into the elder’s flesh; looking up at him half disgust while she
drank. His free hand reaching down with a gentleness that made
Cynthia want to shoot the woman there, peeling a few loose strands
away from her blood soaked forehead and carefully combing her locks
into a half-groomed state.
Only as the hunter was about to step in The Styrian pulled away, the
flesh that marked the edges of her wounds seeming to bubble with the
new blood. The vampire speaking again, still the old language, and
the man laughing as he replied in turn. Both speaking with one
another for a time until Christopher broke down laughing and The
Styrian hissed.
“You will need learn the old Greek soon, you miss much here,”
Christopher said to Cynthia in English, his joy at The Styrian’s
condition obvious, “language of the vampire, all the old world
spoke it or knew one who did.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Cynthia muttered, still trying to
figure out why she was here, “did she just need blood? What’s
going on.”
Her vampire hummed, and the two began speaking once more in their
Greek; Cynthia a little surprised at how naturally The Styrian seemed
to sound when using it. Even injured, each word a hiss that barely
sounded like a word, her speech at least a little more natural in
pace, less of the pauses she was used to hearing.
The Styrian’s words near barking one moment and then weak the next,
Christopher’s cocky and then slowly slipping serious, both
regularly looking her way. Each trying to speak over the other,
Christopher gesturing wildly, pointing down at the woman, sounding
ready to tear her apart until he slowly returned to his usual calm.
Neither returning to English until Christopher suddenly broke mid
sentence to tell Cynthia, “you should return.”
“The Styrian wanted me-”
“I will handle,” the man interrupted, an icy hand wrapping around
her wrist, dragging his hunter out of the door and toward the
elevator. Not hurting her, he knew how to cause pain well enough, but
too firm to do more than feebly pull against while he dragged her
along.
What protests she was forming stopped dead as they near turned into
the men coming their way.
Two cops in uniform, though neither looked like they were planning to
do their actual job, dragging a figure between them. A tall and thin
boy wearing a pair of dirty jeans and a ripped flannel shirt, his
black hair messy and stained in the same blood that spotted his face.
Nose looking broke, a dozen bruises swelling across his face though
recognizable all the same as even Christopher stopped dead in his
tracks.
His grip leaving Cynthia, and the woman’s shotgun slipping from her
fingers onto the floor while she ran to grab her son from the men.
Both stepped back, one with his hands raised and the other barely
getting his hand on his gun before Christopher waved his hand through
the air. The man’s head twisting around on itself with a pop,
falling to the ground and moved out of the way just as fast.
Cynthia not caring as she pawed at Marty, tried brushing the dirt and
dust off him, tried to wipe his face before he jerked away at the
slightest touch to his bruises, not even knowing where to start as
she asked, “what the fuck happened?! I… what did you do?! He’s
seventeen, what the fuck did you-”
“I’m just doing my fucking job!” the remaining officer yelled,
Christopher moving to Cynthia’s side enough to make the man fall
back, slip on the ground and fall back into the water with a yelp.
Nearly twisting into the fetal position as he yelled, “look we
caught him coming by the building again! He had fucking spare bombs
in his bag, The Lady wanted us to find the person who did it, told us
to bring him up when you got here!”
His words not processing, rattling around in the woman’s head a
dozen times before she even began understanding what it meant. No
matter how impossible it was, how silly the prospect had to be as she
looked between her son and the chaos around her.
It didn’t matter he knew how to make bombs, that he could
have done that, he couldn’t have done this. A human fucking
died, more people would have died if the basement had actually
done what he was trying. The Styrian wasn’t even someone hunters
went after, they had a fucking treaty, Martin knew that and he…
“The Styrian wished you to be executioner,” Christopher confessed
coldly, staring down at the two of them. His face a blank slate as he
admitted, “I negotiated. Would have dealt with matter. No pain to
you.”
His words almost as impossible to process even as the hunter said,
“he’s my son.”
Christopher nodded, Marty grumbling as he seemed to be coming to
process the world around him finally, “he is traitor, threat. Quick
death, better than The Styrian would demand, no? Would you prefer I
give him the stake? I flay the boy for her pleasure? Let him become
bag of blood to be drunk ‘till-”
“He’s my son!” Cynthia yelled, arm’s wrapped tight around the
boy, his head cradled to her chest, eyes blurring, “Christopher,
you love me, you told me you’d protect me, protect him. What
part of killing my son is part of that?”
Her vampire’s face turning down, refusing to look at her as he near
growled, “he is trouble. Probably reason for my injury, no? Or
shall we believe two attempt to destroy the Triumvirate?”
Cynthia shook her head, a crooked sob escaping her, face buried in
Marty’s hair, trying and failing to form a hundred words. Any sort
of plea or begging lost in her disbelief, refusing to let go of her
son even for a second before Christopher could take him, not sure
what she could say until the man spoke once more in some dead
language.
Christopher moving faster than a mortal could see to stomp his foot
into the remaining cop’s head, a mist of blood and bone shooting
through the air. His breath heavy, shoulders heaving as he told her,
“go. I negotiate with Styrian, see what I can do. You… It would
be easier to kill boy.”
“He’s my son.”
The man refusing to show it if the words actually had any meaning to
him, his eyes cold as he looked the two over and told her, “if he
lives, he is owned.”
She nodded, helping Marty off the ground, the boy’s eyes burrowing
into the ground, refusing to speak if he even could. Cynthia unsure
of what to say except, “what would you have me do?”
Christopher’s stare enough an answer, the vampire leaving them to
return to The Styrian, and Cynthia looking after him. Only as he
disappeared through the door, not even offering her a final glance,
she started to lead Marty to the elevator.
Slow, Marty limped with each step and hissed with each movement of
his ribs; the boy smart enough to not speak. Not until they’d
reached the elevator, gotten out into the lobby, onto the sidewalk
and down a block. Cynthia flipping her phone open long enough to call
Hank, her husband answering with a dull, “I’m not into listening,
though I do have a nice raven statue going if you want to hear about
that.”
No wit left in her as she told him, “I’m at The Styrian’s
building, I need a ride home… please,” hanging up before he say
anything else.
A sidewalk bench her spot to wait, Marty stood still as could be
watching her until he finally tried saying, “I’m sorry.”
“We’ll talk about it,” said with all the finality she could
muster, and her son nodding as he half fell beside her. Cynthia
refusing to look at him as she said as much to herself as Marty, “you
were staying with a friend.”
Marty hesitating to answer, barely starting, “I can explain, I
just-”
“You said you were on a summer school trip last month,” she
snapped, and Marty flinched enough she would have regretted it if she
could, “Christopher got near blown up in New York during that trip,
was that you too? What, fucking get it in your head you’re going to
be the next William Taylor? Kill a few big names, ride off into the
sunset as a legend? Write the new edition of the family catalog?”
“Mom, I-”
“We’ll talk about it,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes as she
finally rose to her feet and fumbled with her back pocket. Her money
clip fetched, tossed into his lap as she told him, “school starts
in three weeks, I don’t want to see you until then. If you’re
lucky you’re fucking father isn’t going to hear about this, but
more than likely I’ll be spending the time I should have had with
Christopher putting out your fires. I…” what were you
thinking, what’s wrong with you, what did I do wrong all on her
tongue before she finished it, “you obviously have someone you can
stay with. Three weeks you come back and if the kitchen curtains are
red it means it’s not safe for you to come back. Your friends can
get you to New York of all places, see if they can get you to
your cousins.”
The boy silent, tears streaking down his cheeks, and all the same
taking the money while he forced himself to his feet. Every movement
stopped with a wince, holding himself close as he started down the
street and Cynthia looked after him.
Only as he turned the corner she felt doubt creep in, her foot
tapping on the ground, shifting in her spot trying to count the
seconds. Cynthia rising to her feet, pacing a ten foot line on the
sidewalk a dozen times before it was too much for her. The tears on
her cheeks impossible to ignore, the pain in her chest all consuming,
her feet starting after Marty in a near run.
Around the corner onto an empty street.