Disposing of bodies was always an ordeal, and I did appreciate The Lady for usually having more professional hands handle it. Corpses and chunks of meat and bone collected, blood scrubbed, going all around the city dropping off one body at a time at select safe houses. Add onto that having to go all the way across town to drop off the Mercenary I’d found somewhere we could keep him a little longer, and the sun was coming up over Richmond by the time we reached Dante’s Inferno.
At the very least, three pairs of hands making the work go by a little faster.
My car parked near the front, a genuine surprise Vergil managed it when the club would have been open, and looking like he’d gone through the effort of bringing it through a car wash with a new air freshener hanging from the mirror. The parking lot as a whole otherwise empty except for an old muscle car I knew belonged to Vergil himself, and thankfully quiet as we walked up to the door.
My keys left with my car I was forced to buzz the intercom, the door unlocking with a heavy click and easily pushed open. The entrance hall relatively empty, the smell of incense overwhelming me a moment before I saw the burner sat on the front desk. The stick long ago burned through, with my keys sat next to it.
Perfect for me as I led everyone to the elevator, turning the key for the fourth floor and settling back as I took stock of everyone. Red already back into the clothes I’d met her in, a long red skirt and cloak included that made me wonder why she bothered changing, and the werewolf I’d nearly killed in a pair of borrowed sweats and shirt bent over the elevator railing. His own clothes hopelessly soaked in blood, more than a little my fault, and my own a temporary substitute.
My thoughts racing still trying to find out how I was going to talk things through with him when the door opened to the fourth floors kichen. Vergil darting around in front of the oven, balancing several pans at once in a Kiss the Cook apron that looked held together by strings and an equally rough pair of jeans and button down.
The door barely open before he called back, “perfect timing! Just finishing everything up, and the others decided to go do their own thing at the last minute! Hope you like some breakfast burritos — little bit of chorizo, egg, potato, throw it all together with-” the man luckily only holding a spatula as he turned to face us. Vergil scrambling back and nearly knocking a cast iron off the oven as he fell onto the floor with a, “fuck! Red?!”
The woman herself looking speechless a moment, lips thin and eyes wide before, “Vergil,” popped out of her like the word was forced, “that’s your name now?”
“It’s um… trying it out,” Vergil agreed, scrambling to his feet with hands raised. The man nearly shaking in place, hands barely lowering as he looked over the woman a long time before admitting, “you look… you look really good. Doing well for yourself? How’s Snow?”
“Still hates you, breakup arguably improved her opinion of you,” Red admitted, glancing back at me just long enough for me to catch the slightest hint of red in her cheeks before declaring, “I should go um… prisoner, right. I’ll… I’m leaving.”
“Dinner?”
“Tomorrow at nine,” Red agreed quickly, shoving me and the werewolf I’d brought along from the elevator with a surprising strength before tapping the ground floor button repeatedly.
The doors closing behind us, and Vergil looking like a love struck dog even as I asked, “I want to know?”
“Not at all,” the man agreed, seeming to finally notice the boy I’d brought along. The man looking at him confused for a long moment before saying, “I thought Marty was like, five? Whose the teen?”
“Four,” I corrected him, gesturing to the werewolf beside me, “this is, um… Bleeder. We made an agreement, and he’s leaving the Purists.”
The boy raised his hand in an awkward greeting, and I took a long moment to make sure he didn’t look too injured still. His posture more than a little rough, I’d nearly ripped him in half and then needed to get his help getting a massacre cleaned, the knowledge there was nothing done he couldn’t heal not making me feel any better about it. I’d still hurt him, would have killed him if I’d been a little rougher or felt like I could have taken my time, and he was…
He was a boy.
Young, brown hair messily cut around the ears, barely standing over five feet if I had to guess as loosely my clothes hung on him. My shirt loose on his frame, my sweatpants rolled up high on the legs and tied tight as they could, his thumb awkwardly playing with a scar tattoo in the shape of a sword on the back of his left forearm. His face a mess, dried blood and mud clinging to it without him even pretending to care, nails blackened and broken in irregular ways, thin trickles of blood on his lip where he kept chewing it.
Almost too much even as I told him, “Bleeder, this is Vergil, he’s a friend of mine.”
Vergil taking the initiative, walking forward and offering a hand as he admitted, “hey, I respect the choice. I was there for Mary here when she left The Purists, and if you ever need someone in your corner or just need a place to stay away from it all I’m here.” Bleeder only looking at the man’s hand with a look of disgust before Vergil raised his hands. Looking around a moment before he said, “those clothes look pretty big on you. I think one of my friends, Thea, she has some stuff closer to your size. You want I can go fetch you something to wear, take a shower before we eat, it’ll keep warm and give me time to heat some tortillas for-”
“I don’t want to wear girl clothes.”
Vergil looking unsure of what to say for a long moment before admitting, “well, you’re wearing Marys here already it looks like, and lucky for you Thea doesn’t really like dressing that girly. Cargo pants and tank tops work for you?”
Bleeder looking ready to complain before he gave a small nod, eyes scanning the floor nervously while I led him to the guest room and showed him the bathroom. A quick explanation of where Vergil kept the spare soaps and towels before leaving him to his business.
Vergil already coming back with a stack of clothes he sat on the bed before leading me out with a half-whispered, “where did you find the kid?”
“Purists,” I repeated, not really wanting to get into it even the man rolled his eyes and I told him, “look, I’ve had a… how much have you heard?”
Vergil sighing as he led me back to the kitchen, checking nothing had burned to his skillet as he admitted, “word on the grape vine is Purists ran an attack on one of The Lady’s properties. You were there?”
I nodded, and with words already starting to feel rotten as often as I’d need to say them told him, “Hunter died. Percy… Hunter attacked, I’m not sure what exactly happened but they were going after Marty and Percy stopped them.”
Vergil nodded, a hand slowly reached out to sit on my shoulder. The grip cold, a little too mechanical, and yet nice all the same as he told me, “If you ever need a shoulder to cry on… well, Calliope’s probably better, but you know I’m here too.”
“I’ll stick with Calliope if I need to talk to someone here,” I said with a failed attempt at humor, unsure of what else to say before continuing, “well… I went to track them down and nearly killed him, and when he transformed back…”
“He was a kid,” Vergil agreed, with a soft nod, a snorting smirk following, “well, can’t say I wouldn’t have hesitated myself. You know how old he is?”
I hadn’t asked, though I could also take a good guess he was in his teens even if it could be hard to tell with Purists. The sort of diet you ended up on with them, if you didn’t have the sense to try and make up for things yourself or go on binges regularly, you could end up looking young for a good few years longer than you should have. Malnutrition didn’t tend to be the best for puberty, and a lot of werewolves had their first transformation with the onset of it.
Which probably made actually learning more about him that much more important before I had to call The Lady about this. If he was lucky his family were werewolves, he wasn’t reported missing or dead, we could just get copies of his documents and it’d be fine. If he wasn’t…
Well, The Lady was about the only person you could rely on for the sort of depth of fake IDs that you needed long term as a werewolf.
Which made it harder to admit, “I didn’t really ask him all that much. I told him his pack had run off and I could either kill him or he could leave the Purists. He chose the same thing I did.”
The man nodding a moment, going about heating up tortillas as he told me, “Well, glad I made so much food. Lord’s getting his Christmas present from Calliope tailored, should be out soon, how about you get sat and I’ll make up a tray?”
Not much energy left in me to argue I walked into the main room, half-falling into a chair at the covered card table in the center and letting myself rest there only a moment. My chin sinking into my collar, eye closing a moment, and-
A clinking of plates jerked me awake, and I looked up to Vergil setting a tray of breakfast burritos on the table alongside a few plates, a cup of coffee already by my own. Bleeder sat across from me, wearing a pair of cargo pants and a black tank top that still looked a little loose on his near skeletal frame, arms crossed and looking hardly any better than he had before the shower.
His hair washed though hardly looking styled, a few spots where I assumed mats had formed sticking out to me. His eyes still dark, face gaunt, nails broken with a good bit of dirt still under them. Eyes darting around the room, shoulders rolled forward, looking ready to pounce on anyone even as Vergil pushed a plate with two burritos his way.
The man trying to be a little comforting as he told him, “I’d joke you’re among friends not wolves, though that might be a bit incorrect.” Bleeder not responding, pulling the plate closer and watching as I quickly scrambled to plate myself, “Well, I’ll stick around just in case you need me, but figure you two would probably get more out of talking. Mary was the Purist here.”
The words getting no response, Bleeder’s eyes wandering over me while he bent down and started eating. A quick and messy process, shoveling as much food as he could manage down his gullet, picking up loose bits as they fell, not pausing to do more than breath.
A process I was more than familiar with as I told him, “plenty of food to go around,” and downed my coffee in a few gulps before starting to eat myself.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
My words making him relax a little, his eyes focusing on the plate in the center for some confirmation even as he continued a frantic pace of eating. His body crouched over the food, arms forming a barried, head occasionally jerking to either side to make sure no one was attempting to steal from him.
Not relaxing until his plate was finally empty and he said, “This the part where you tell me how leaving the Purists was so good for you? I already agreed, you don’t need to sell it.”
I nodded, that much at least a small comfort even as I said, “well, help if I knew more about you. I um… I know it was rough when I left, I was fifteen when I joined, twenty when I left. Five years there, right? How about you?”
Bleeder not answering at first, eyes boring down into the tray in the center until I pushed it slightly closer his way. The boy immediately lunging forward, each hand grabbing a second burrito and stacking it on his plate. Furiously scarfing down the new plate with equal fervor even as he spoke through a full mouth, “Three years, three and a half.”
Near as long as me, and I had to let the words settle in even as I looked him over, not able to stop thinking about how young he looked. My mouth painfully dry as I broke down and asked, “how old are you? I guess that’ll… I’ll need to get The Lady’s help getting your papers in order depending on how you joined and stuff. Helps to know that.”
Bleeder nodding though not speaking until his plate was empty again, brow furrowed as he asked, “December right?”
“December.”
Bleeder nodding a few times before telling me, “Thirteen last month.”
The words hitting me like a truck, my mouth opening and closing a few times as I tried thinking of how to respond. Thirteen, younger than I’d even been when I joined, and already a Purist almost as long.
Thirteen and I’d nearly killed him.
Even Vergil looking a little surprised about it while I told him, “I was fifteen when I became a werewolf. My dad was a hunter, didn’t know my mom. Was your family…”
“Half-one,” he admitted coldly, moving to perch on his chair like a gargoyle, his eyes never resting anywhere other than the food longer than a few seconds. A small growl in his throat as he admitted, “mom at least. She said dad was a guitar player, but that’s about it. We lived in the mountains, they found me after I… family’s not around anymore.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that, and I nodded a few times before I forced myself to tell him, “I’m sorry.”
“They were half-ones, doesn’t matter,” Bleeder spat, his face half buried in his arm as he continued, “look, I agreed to leave, that’s enough right? Does any of that shit actually matter, or you just asking twenty questions?”
“I mean… okay, maybe start with the name. Bleeder’s a little Purist if you’re leaving, what can I call you?” I asked, not really sure how else to start beyond asking, “Last question I’ll ask about your past for now. What were you named before you joined the Purists? Has to be better than Bleeder.”
The boy flinching a moment at the comment, eyes hidden further in his arms as he admitted, “Susan, so… don’t think it’s working.”
No I understood that, and wasn’t sure what else to say as I confessed, “had the same problem. Hawk’s not a very good girl’s name.”
Bleeder’s eyes widening at the name as he raised his head, smile broad as he announced, “Badass though, can I steal it?”
“No.”
“Come on, you’re not using it.”
“It’d be weird,” I brushed off, looking at Vergil to back me up.
The man seeming to consider it for a moment before admitting, “could see it feeling weird, but he’s right would be a cool name. Maybe something similar… Oh! Snake, that’s a good one, ever seen those movies?”
“Fuck, yeah I like that! What movies are those?!” Bleeder half-cheered, a sigh escaping me as I tried to think of anything else to say.
In the end only able to tell him, “give it a little thought, you have a bit to choose something.”
Bleeder pouting once more at that, eyes rolling as he told me, “you’re not much fun, I see why you chose Mary.”
I blinked, “What the fuck does that mean?”
“You could pick any fucking name in the world and you went with Mary,” he drug out the name like it was the worst thing in the world, “come on, really?”
I was actually ready to snap at him for that one before I stopped myself, probably still sounding a little rude as I asked, “well, what the fuck would you have picked?”
“Fucking Fire or Katana or something,” Bleeder admitted like those were reasonable choices, looking to Vergil before asking, “What about Blade?”
“They already have a Knives at the Covenant, might be a bit weird,” Vergil at least saved Bleeder from that one. The man snapping his fingers and pointing at him before declaring, “Talos.”
“Fuck that sounds badass,” Bleeder muttered, and I sighed as I started the process of resigning myself to needing to confirm whatever name he chose with The Lady. Was his name, his choice, and I needed to remind myself of that even as he snaked a fifth burrito from the plate and went about eating it.
The fact he was eating well already at least a small comfort, though not exactly helping the fact I still knew nothing about what the Purists were even doing. Why so many of them, what they wanted with Marty, anything, and the longer I danced around it…
I sighed, not sure how else to start the conversation before asking, “what did Hunter want with Marty?”
Bleeder tilting his head at the words even as he continued eating, not even looking ready to start speaking until his plate was clear. The boy frowning as he admitted, “he asked Tracker if he could go, she told him to bring the kid back, put our pack in charge of it. I don’t fucking know much more other than she wanted the kid.”
The answer… somehow less of a comfort than any answer I could have expected while I tried figuring out what Tracker could have wanted with him. Tracker had been my first mentor, given me enough training to learn runes and our religion before leaving the state, we were on good terms. I didn’t even think she’d ever met my son and couldn’t imagine what she’d want with him.
I didn’t even have a way to contact her, maybe through Chaser but with everything else going on the only place I knew she’d be would be…
The party tonight.
Maybe another reason to go as I slowly ate my food and tried thinking of how to actually confront her about it.
Bleeder not making it any better as he told me, “She’s right you know.”
“About Marty?”
“No, just… half-ones,” Bleeder started, sneering at the word as he gestured to open air, “fucking pricks. Tracker she… she says we need to be ready to take the fight to them, that it’s just a matter of time before they find out who we are. Better if we make the first move, carve out some proper territory for ourselves, make sure werewolves know whose actually on their side. I mean, come one, how long is it going to be before they actually figure out who we are? Half-ones kill each other all the time, justify genocide, what the fuck do you think they’ll do when they find out we exist?”
His words settling on the air with an unchallenged silence, justifications I was more than familiar with. Something I couldn’t even properly argue with even as I asked him, “why leave then?”
The flinch he gave nearly making me apologize as he muttered, “I didn’t want to die, and those fuckers left me.”
I nodded, the three of us finishing our meal in silence, Bleeder encouraged into eating the last burrito while Vergil offered to make something else. Myself excused to get more coffee, going about slowly drinking the rest of the pot while I tried to think of how to even argue with what he’d said.
Humans were… hateful.
He was right, they killed their own kind more than we ever could, they could wipe werewolves off the face of the earth if they really wanted to. They had phones, cameras on every street corner, and how long was it before someone checking footage saw someone transforming? A vampire feeding? A fey walking out of a tree? Barbie had killed someone last year and the footage ended up on the news, and yet…
No one would be there for us.
We’d hidden away, the mortals supernaturals did know worked with us through treaties and bribes. Werewolves didn’t even usually have that much, we aged slower, had to rely on people with good connections to get us the IDs we needed to not get found out, didn’t live long enough to form strongholds like vampires and fey did. If humans knew we existed, cut off the usual methods for hiding ourselves, I couldn’t even begin to think of how many werewolves would go to the Purists just because they couldn’t get new IDs.
I couldn’t even think of how to argue with Bleeder about it, how to actually fight the fact beyond just…
The idea came to me like a hammer to the forehead, an impossibly blunt idea that I wouldn’t stop echoing in my head. A scar on my thoughts, impossible to get rid of even as I tried desperately to think of any other possible argument or point. Tried to admit it was wrong, that there were better options, as much as my mind started thinking out how to do it, how all the pieces could fit together.
Not leaving me until I gave in, “Vergil, can we talk in your office?”
The man looking up at me confused, brow furrowed while he whispered something to Bleeder and we both started toward the door. Vergil holding it for me while I stepped in and was briefly caught off guard by the sight of Lord laid on the desk.
Calliope floating nearby putting away her sewing supplies, and the cat himself wearing a cat sized version of a colonial gentleman’s coat. The cat sitting up proudly as he asked, how do I look, beautiful? Calliope says ladies like a sharp dressed man.
“Don’t have the energy for making a joke, so I’ll say it looks cute,” I admitted, smiling at the ghost as I asked the two of them, “can we have a moment? You should introduce yourself to Bleeder, I think I’m about to become his mentor so he’ll be hanging around more.”
Lord immediately running out screaming, New person! With Calliope not far behind while Vergil closed the door and moved to sit in his chair.
I remained standing, the two of us staring each other down before I tried starting my terrible pitch with a brief, “are you going to The Lady’s party tonight?”
“I like the cheese bar,” Vergil said, and while I couldn’t tell if it was a joke I needed to take it.
My voice shaking as I admitted, “someones going to try bombing it, I know who hired the mercenaries.”
Vergil quirked an eyebrow, leaning forward as he asked, “any reason you didn’t tell me earlier? Or, well, presumably anyone else?”
That one hard to admit, “I was considering letting it happen.”
“Now?”
“I want to do the dumbest fucking thing I could possibly do,” I said, laughing as I realized the half-formed plan I was about to admit, “will you help?”
Vergil at least considering his answer, the fact he didn’t blindly agree a small comfort that he might actually help once he heard before he asked, “how long have you been considering whatever you’re about to ask?”
“About two minutes.”
“Well, at least that means it’s probably something you’re passionate about,” he muttered, his laugh a deep cackle, “fine, how bad could it be?”
“I’m going to go there tonight and save The Lady without her knowing I went,” I led with the best of it, “and then I’m going to reveal that werewolves are real.”
The look Vergil gave me the sort of wide-eyed shock that I couldn’t really describe any better than “deer about to get hit by a roller coaster” before he asked, “and um, where do I come in on this suicide mission?”
“Making sure it’s not a suicide mission,” I said, the laugh I gave maybe a little manic, “tell everyone I’m here. Bleeder stays here. You tell everyone, The Lady included, I’m here helping the Purist I saved talk things out. I go visit my family, tell them I can’t stay past dinner because I’m coming back here, and then I do. You help me sneak out when you leave for the party, I do what I need to do, and… okay I haven’t really thought this through, but I’m going to make a show of it.”
“And how are you going to do that?” the man asked, sounding genuinely concerned as he looked me over, “you know what you’re doing right? If anyone finds out it was you, you’re going to get killed — you might get every fucking werewolf in the world killed, every fucking supernatural. What’s the plan here?”
“Simple,” I said like that word applied here at all, “a werewolf is going to publicly stop a building from blowing up, and…. Well, I have a couple hours to talk to the person who’s helping with the fallout and iron out the details. Will you help?”
Vergil still not looking convinced, shaking his head as he muttered “why did you get this in your head?”
“Werewolves join the Purists because they think humans will kill us all one day, that it’s safer,” I explained that at least, the man nodding even as he looked less than certain, “the Purists are organized, they have a leader now — probably a temporary one, but it’s a leader all the same — and if werewolves get revealed because of them it is going to end in us all dying. I mean… Vergil, what do you think happens if the first werewolves people hear about is a pack of Purists tearing a family apart? How long do you think it is before someone gets unlucky and gets filmed if they do get bold? What happens if I let a building blow up, and the news just gets to see supernatural monsters rising out of the rubble? I just… what if I soften that first blow? Make it where the first encounter with werewolves doesn’t fucking make people think of us as killing families? What if humans learning we exist doesn’t scare them enough that we have members go running to the Purists for safety before the worst of it even starts? I just… if they see my hybrid form, I’m a red head, that’ll narrow the pool of suspects. I need you to make sure everyone thinks I was here when it happened, that there’s some genuine doubt it could even be me.”
The words seeming to settle into the man, his face stone, lips thin as he finally told me, “it’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard, but… well, can’t deny the Purists would be worse about breaking the news.”
“So you’ll help?”
“Yeah, I’ll help,” the man muttered with no certainty behind his words, his hand fumbling with a drawer on his desk before he pulled out a whiskey bottle and a glass he poured for himself. His smile wide and laugh a genuine cackle as he admitted, “goes wrong, not like it’s the first time I’ve been the bad guy.”