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“Viktor, my boy, this is very thorough, yes, very thorough,” Heimerdinger praises, reviewing his notes.
Viktor straightens under his praise, his fingers flexing on his cane and he says, his words soft in the quiet of the guildmaster’s sequestered office, “Thank you, sir. Given the age of the va–”
“But it is all conjecture, Viktor.”
Viktor’s jaw drops. He tightens his lips, glances to the side, and reaches for the overly sweetened tea on the desk in front of him. A kindness, a softness that the guildmaster provided to him…something that was unnecessary. Just like the vinegar candies that were thrust and tucked into his pocket already. “Sir?”
“Thorough, but you know that no vampire of that age has survived the purges. Your Brothers and Sisters would have found and eradicated such a menace,” Heimerdinger assures him. He taps the papers, “Especially one so…prone to interference.”
“Sir, but not to be impertinent,” Viktor interjects, “If he is as old as the records I have unearthed lead me to believe…is it not possible that he is simply…evading them? Not to besmirch the skills of my Brothers and Sisters.”
He never would. He never could match them.
He never would match them.
Not with his leg. And his lungs.
As he was reminded, he was lucky indeed to remain within the Brotherhood at all.
“There are no vampires of that age left,” Heimerdinger says firmly, and eyes him until Viktor reluctantly nods, his watery blue eyes red-rimmed from the newly installed gaslamps in the building. The lighting was better, but they left them all with lingering headaches. “Viktor, my boy, the archives will make you find ghosts where there are none. I am delighted by your dedication to your craft – you will make the Head Archivist proud, but you overstep by coming to me.”
Viktor bites his inner cheek, gritting his teeth. He looks to the desk, away from Heimerdinger’s eyes. “I see.”
“Archivist Reveck would have told you this,” Heimerdinger says, his tone kind. The artificial kindness of polite society, of pity. The politeness that made Viktor want to bury himself in paper,ink, and dusty tomes and never leave. It was easier, in so many ways, to handle the jeers and jests of the blunt and casual cruelties of his Brothers and Sisters who found him weaker.
“...I apologize then for interrupting your evening, Guildmaster,” Viktor says, his tone holding the same careful, polite neutrality..
“It is always good to see you, Viktor,” Heimerdinger says, waving his apology away. “Always good to see one of the Children having settled into their Callings.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Viktor murmurs, “I will take my leave now. May I?”
He gestures to his research, to his carefully made timeline of the vampire that has woven in out of their sights and remained. He could, of course, make it again from his notes. The presentation he provided the Guildmaster was a final draft, one that was carefully penned, and neatly bound that Viktor hoped he would overlook the impropriety of bringing it directly to him. Still, it hadn’t seemed to work.
“No, I believe I will keep this…best that you forget all about this, Viktor,” he says.
Viktor clenches his hand, his nails digging into his palm. He feels the sting, the bite as his palm gives way and he nods, “Of course, Sir.”
It was cruel and vindictive to keep it from him. The report would make its way back down to the Archives anyway. It would be categorized and indexed. It would be added to the thousands of resources and reports and like so many interviews. It too would be forgotten until someone else found it. Likely, he’d be long gone by then. At least, he hopes by then he’d be credited with finding it and people would praise him in memoriam for realizing something then that no one else saw.
He leaves, hard vinegar candies clicking together in his vest pocket, sweetened milk tea on his tongue, but everything tastes sour and bitter. His steps are muffled on the carpet as he takes the long walk back down through the halls to the Archives. He pauses at the barred staggering floor to ceiling radius windows that overlook the city. His eyes linger on the gaslamps that flicker and the moving silhouettes of the people below. A city of thousands of living in the shadow of the colossal bulwark silver wall.
His eyes drift to it.
It predates him. It was their best protection against the unnatural forces that hunted humans in the night. Some, of course, said that it was just a feeding corral. It rounded them up into little easy to find places and kept them together. He didn’t believe that. The silver kept them safe. The purifying properties within it made it difficult for any unnatural to cross through the gates or for them to burrow under the deep roots of the wall where the silver had seeped into the soil.
He would not have survived before the creation of the haven cities. Not with his twisted leg.
Viktor shakes his head and resumes his walk, the silvery bright moonlight and yellowy-orange, almost murky gaslight illuminating his walk as bright as day, through the large windows as he takes the stairs through the grand guild hall. He passes by his Brothers and Sisters, fully vested Hunters all, in their kits – well dressed in thickened, silver-reinforced leathers, blessed crosses around their necks, and their weapons at their sides. He does his best not to be envious. He thinks he manages it well after so long, but there are a few knowing looks.
He fishes out a vinegar candy and pops it into his mouth.
“Did you hear?”
“What?”
“About Vi?”
He pauses on the landing, half turned to look up the steps to look at the gossiping cluster of his Brothers. He shouldn’t eavesdrop but…
“What about her?”
They were so tightly clustered together that it is clear they do not mean to be overheard by the older Hunters. He leans a little closer.
“She’s defected.”
“What?”
Viktor nearly stumbles. Violet? Violet the Seventh? Violet the Red?
“I saw it…myself, out in a ramshackle Haven on its legs, dropped her gloves, her kit, everything, and left with a girl and one of the damned.”
It’s said in a hushed tone, in disgust. Viktor leaves before they can realize he is listening in. Desertion is grave…if she were to ever be found, it would mean death. But that means there is a Hunter missing. A full kit back in the armoury without a Hunter to its name and…
It’s a foolish plan.
But Heimerdinger did not believe it even though he presented all of the evidence to him. All of the evidence that there was a vampire out there still hunting people. His walk to the quiet of the library is quiet. He is able to sink into his thoughts. Could he do this? He is untrained but…that hardly means anything. He attended the same classes as his Brothers and Sisters. He knows the mechanics of a hunt, how to identify an unnatural and what traps he must lay down, even if he has never personally stepped out into the field.
The library is quiet at this time, the hive of desks half empty as most of his peers are off enjoying their mid evening tea or indulging in a rare respite from their obligations to the Guild. He takes possession of his desk, opens the drawer and pulls out the familiar stack of notes, his soul poured into them over the course of months. He reads his scrawl, the copied out snatches of interviews and even the carefully redrawn sketch.
His fingers trace over his own scratchy ink lines. He brushes his finger along the furrow between his brows, one of them sporting a small scar…The vampire was older. The descriptions were consistent in that. Most of the vampires the Hunters encountered tended to be on the youthful side – vanity, he thinks with scorn. But this man was older, his eyes had crows feet at the edges, and the descriptions mentioned that he had greying fingers weaving through his dark brown hair.
The monster’s lips are full, unhidden by a beard that is out of fashion now, similarly cut through, he imagines in his mind’s eye with grey.
He puts down the sketch, pulling out the interviews and absently chews on the edge of his fingernail while he reads.
“You’ll stain your tongue if you keep that up.”
“I haven’t touched ink in hours,” he protests softly, turning partly to smile a bit at the speaker. He fishes out some of the candies and passes a few to her.
“How did the meeting go?”
He considers it, and looks at his notes and makes a choice, and says, the smiling spreading a bit, “Well. It went well, Sky. The Guildmaster believes I am onto something I…ah, am to accompany one of the Brothers, in fact, tomorrow.”
“Accompany? That’s…” Sky sits down, pulling out her own projects, transcribing some of the oldest written records of the Guild, the kind of things that were written on whatever was available at the time. She tips her fountain pen into her inkwell and looks over at him, tapping it against the glass, “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“It is an unusual vampire,” he says. He waves it off, “I will be safe. Hardly out on a hunt, Sky. Just eh…there for guidance.”
“Guidance can be done in a report,” she says, turning her attention to her work, “...and it’s warmer here. Better for your leg…and we have new graduates coming in. Don’t leave me to mind them alone, Viktor.”
“Already?” Viktor says; he looks at the calendar and nods, “Oh, it is.”
“So you can’t,” she says, still writing, her attention off of him. “If you were to go, Reveck will put all of the responsibility on me, and then I won’t get any of my work done.”
He chuckles softly but…he doesn’t answer her. He doesn’t promise her that he will stay and help. He stays though, works through his own report and when they pack up for the evening, when the morning light starts to peek through the high transom windows that peek over the shelving of the stacks, he takes all of his notes, including the ones he held back from Heimerdinger. He knows that it comes from some deep unsettled need to be…wanted, appreciated. He wants to be useful. To be needed by the Brotherhood.
And what better way to be needed than to show the path that the vampire took.
The man has a pattern.
A pattern that Viktor knows now.
He packs everything up, takes supper as usual and keeps to his routines. It’s all the usual things. He keeps to his normal haunts and patterns as he should. It is all very normal indeed until he is back at his own cloistered little room. He steps into his room and shuts the door, locking it with finality. He packs lightly, taking his medicines primarily, a few changes of clothes. He does pen a letter. He does not wish to be accused of desertion. He will return when is successful.
He whispers, softly, a little assurance to himself, “I will return after I kill Jayce Talis.”
The promise is what keeps him steady as he waits the hours until he is sure most of the Guild will be in bed, when he is sure that he has the best chances of success for this. It is not easy but he does not suspect it should be easy to sneak into the armoury and steal a Hunter’s kit. None are specifically sized for him, and he is unused to the number of buckles and clasps, but soon he dons the unfamiliar weight of it. The leathers he covets are, for a moment, his. He straps his brace back on, cinching it around and…
Leaves.
It feels odd to leave like this. To skulk out during the day. He shields his eyes, hides a yawn as he slips out amongst the crowds of people and…it’s odd. The Guild operates on the same schedule of the monsters they hunt. He is not used to such crowds, the day folk were far more lively but…they also gave him more space and respect.
“A hunter.”
There is a blossoming shock of pride that settles in his chest. He cannot help the way his spine straightens, how he puffs out his chest and does his best to mask his limp even further. The leathers were distinctive, as were the tricorne hats favoured by the Guild– he should have known there was no way he would have walked through the city during the day without being recognized.
He hesitates on his way to the train. He normally would, as all Guild members should, take the armoured train out through the city walls and to the next city. But he’d have to put his name down on the register and where he was going. That would leave breadcrumbs.. Breadcrumbs that he was not ready for that…Not yet. Which only left him with the more expensive option.
His stomach twists a bit at that.
Viktor dislikes the idea of spending any of his meagre stipend but…
“Needs must,” he whispers to himself as he pivots away from the well tread path to the train station that his feet had automatically begun to take him to, and towards one of the private travel options. They were expensive. As one would expect. The drivers had to be trained to defend the patrons from brigands and, in theory, unnaturals, the horses had to be fast…and the carriages all had to be coated with special paints and silver and reinforced with the newly strengthened steel the foundries were making. However, the benefit, he does realize once he charters such a thing, is that he can have them take him directly to Sternenfal.
He settles into the carriage, looking through the slatted windows, further protected by the latticed grated window panes…and finally, for the first time in many hours, relaxes. His heart is still hammering in his chest. This could ruin him. He could be cast out from the Guild and…what would he be left with? Could he find work elsewhere? Would he have to find himself in the alms house?
His stomach twists.
“This will work,” he assures himself. “There is no great reward without great risk.”
He rubs his hands over his face.
He would prove himself. He would prove his theory, return a hero and…
And resume his position within the Archives and the next time he brought such a matter to the Guildmaster, he would be taken seriously.
–
Sternenfal is a coastal town, or rather, Viktor should say, is a partial coastal town. The barrier wall extends even into the ocean. Innovatively, he notes, to allow shipping and trade, they have a massive netted chain gate they raise from the bed of the ocean to seal themselves in. The town itself is an oddity, a relic of a bygone time, remnants of a gilded age when the Arcane was a permitted thing amongst the common folk, rather than relegated to the highest orders of the Arcanist Guild and only in service to the nobility, and on rare occasion to the Hunter’s guild if the hunt was deemed worthy enough of such a thing.
If he manages this act of insanity, returns to the Guild victorious, and is not immediately cast out, he thinks he would like to return and see what could be found. So much, he knows, is missing from the records. When the unnaturals sprang into existence…and back nearly into the dark ages until they found their way to defend themselves again. He spends his days, when he is not actively searching for Jayce Talis, slipping into old Arcane sites, feeling the lingering hold of its magic and seeing the marks of it on the walls, the spidery opalescent web patterns, echoing something grander than what he has seen Arcanists do.
The Archivist in him cannot help but journal what he finds, the little marks of history left behind. But the past is not his quarry. It is, he must admit, a bit of a shame. He knows what he is there to do. He’s made up his mind to hunt Jayce but still…
What if he isn’t strong enough?
Well, truthfully…he knows he isn’t strong enough.
He simply needs to be smarter than the vampire.
He quietly inquires about him sporadically over the course of his stay…about the man with dark hair, golden eyes, and a blue gemstone. His Guild leathers afford him respect and authority, they prompt people to trust him…and while at first there are no answers, soon little whispers do begin to come forward.
“Ah…Duke Talis?” Mr. Silas, the clerk at the teahouse where he has been taking his evening breakfast, asks. Viktor pauses in counting out the silver nibs to pay him. He glances up and nods.
“Yes, that is who I am looking for,” Viktor says. His heart picks up, a rabbit pace.
“I heard from my wife’s cousin’s niece – she’s a laundress that a large order of linens for the old fort came through…usually means Duke Talis is in town. He fits that description – but what’s the Guild need from him?”
Viktor hums and says, “Just some reports that he may have run into some unnaturals. I should like to interview him and determine the severity of the case. The fort you said?”
“Aye, but he is a scholar, Hunter, you might find him at the library,” Mr. Silas says.
“Thank you, Mr. Silas, you’ve been a great help,” Viktor assures him, and he adds an extra silver nib as a tip as he makes good on his bill. He normally could simply leave a tab and suggest the man reach out to the capital to request payment but…
If he is cast out he’d never see that ledger settled and it isn’t fair at all.
He picks up his hat and cape on his way out, leaning a little more heavily on his cane as he considers it. The sun has gone down, the last fingers of its light gone behind the seawall, and even the chain has been risen for the night. The lantern lights glow bright across the seawall, illuminating the edge of it eerily, a burning serpent…the motif continues around the entire town, leaving it engulfed in flame.
The larger cities no longer did that.
But a city this small did not have gaslamps installed. They still burnt wood and coal in braziers on the walltops. The air is thick with smoke. In a town this small, there is not the kind of bustle and evening affairs. Most places were beginning to close up. It left him feeling, if he were honest, lonely. A Guild Hunter didn’t have a day-light life; they lived at night like their quarry. But a small town like this…lived in the daylight hours. The library would be closed, or would it?
There is only one way to find out.
Between his options of finding the vampire on his own territory, in his fort, or at the library…He would prefer the library. At least there, he supposes they would both be at the same disadvantage. Though his stomach twists a bit at the idea of possibly damaging any of the books if he were to set off anything flammable or use the blessed waters…
“I’ll be careful,” he murmurs to the evening air.
His habit of talking to himself does get side-glances as he walks past a few of the townsfolk. He inclines his head, polite as ever, trying for a small smile. He does stop at his temporary lodgings to pick up his entire kit. He checks it over for everything. Stakes, blessed waters, a small set of silver dust grenades…poisons that would slow the unnatural. He even checks for the silver cross…there are several. Violet never was one to underpack. If he had her strength, he would have even taken the gauntlets she liked but he didn’t have her training as a brawler, nor could he lift such things.
But the protection of the Arcane enchanted silver laden gauntlets…
He shakes them from his mind.
“No use lamenting over something I cannot use,” he whispers to the cold and quiet room. He prepares the room by folding back the duvet to make the bed inviting. A promise to himself that he will return and sleep in it by the dawn’s light. He would survive the night. He would return.
He leaves a lantern burning low to keep the room lit. The fire in the hearth is low, nearly banked, the embers barely casting any heat but it would keep the small pitcher of water from freezing over. He locks the door and pockets the key. The stairs creak under him, the added weight of the hunting kit almost too much for the sea-salt steps. Viktor focuses on his breathing as he walks, as he makes his way to the library.
The streets are even emptier now.
Only a few of the city guards walk past him, he nods his head and gets the same nods of respect back. It's still a shock to him.
The library is located in what was once a Golden Age church based on the steeple and the old bell tower, but it has long since been hollowed out and reshaped into something more useful. Its modern cousin lacks such quaint charm – more designed for utility, size, and protection. The stained glass windows are still in place but the religious iconography has been pulled apart and replaced with birds and flowers. He can see from the lights shining through, casting colourful patterns on the street outside, that the glass is old…the ripples weighted and natural. Another relic of its time.
He loves it.
He only wishes that he could study it more.
The door should be locked, he thinks, based on the hours posted on the board outside, but the handle gives easily under his hand and opens on silent hinges. He exhales. He sneaks in, his steps as quiet as they can be. With equal care, he shuts the door behind him and checks for a lock. It is not unwise to lock himself in if there is a vampire. If someone else were to wander in, a vampire could feed from them and heal from any of their injuries and , ifhe has used up all of the materials in the kit, he would not survive the fight.
He finds a way to brace the door shut with some chairs. It would hold. He thinks, more like hopes, with a bit of a grimace.
The entry way is a simple one, a desk and beyond that stacks and aisles of carefully arranged books. It’s tidy and neat, not overly large, nor terribly impressive after coming from the capital but for a town of Sternanfal’s size…it was rather miraculous. The smell of paper, of aged ink, and bound leather is a balm to his fraying nerves and Viktor’s shoulders start to come down from his ears. He can breathe a little easier. Even the dust smells more like home to him. He has to walk all the more carefully through the library…his steps echo on the stone floors, and he winces as the sound bounces off of the high rafters.
If the vampire is here, he thinks with dismay, there is no way he is not aware of Viktor’s presence.
Viktor goes up and down each aisle, but there is nothing. There is no one.
‘But…’
He frowns. The library shouldn’t be unlocked. He looks around. It simply did not make any sense to him that the building be unlocked, that the lanterns be lit and there be no one there…It was an old church converted into a library which means there was likely…’Catacombs.’
He retraces his steps, heading towards the back of the building, towards where the rectory would be if it were a church, and opens the door. There is a carpeted office, and beyond the desk, an open door with steps leading down. He leaves the door behind him open. A quick escape if needed. He takes off his tricone hat and sets it down on the desk and removes his jacket. It would offer protection yes, but he fears it would trip him up more than anything else at this point. He rechecks his leathers and makes sure everything else is done and checks the neck guard and his bracers…and nods to himself.
'Time', he thinks, 'to descend.'
By his Brothers and Sisters, if it turned out that Talis was not down in the catacombs, not down in this basement, he may actually die from embarrassment.
He takes the steps cautiously, quietly.
His cane barely makes a noise, he angles his steps in just a way to keep his bad leg from scraping and dragging along the floor. It’s a long walk, longer than he thinks it should be but the air is drier down here, cooler. The kind of temperature controlled air that one would want to use to preserve the more fragile books, likely more rare tomes. He does come to a stop though when at the bottom of the stairs there is an open, iron gate, with thick bars. That…
He doesn’t like that.
What kind of things would be hidden down here that someone felt the need to lock them away?
He steps over the threshold and feels it, the ache of the Arcane. His breath catches and his stomach twists and he bites back a gasp. He looks at the sigils on either side of the wall. Spellwork. Strong and old. The kind that was from the Golden Age. This is…
He couldn’t let himself linger on that.
He can hear someone just ahead. The sound of someone murmuring to themselves. There is even a lantern. Someone’s shadow flickers on the ceiling, moving in between the aisles of the bookshelves down here. He can see them the top of their head – dark hair. He is tall. Very tall. That fits, partly the description. He walks forward on lighter steps. He leaves his cane. He could walk without it for short distances, though his gait is far more even with the cane than without it. But he cannot afford to look weak. He needs every advantage he can have.
“I know you’re there.”
He freezes.
His heartbeat skips.
“I don’t believe you should be down here, little mouse,” the man says, his voice is warm, a gentle confidence to it. There’s the sound of a page being turned. “It’s late.”
Viktor doesn’t respond. He doesn’t think it is wise. He simply needs to get his eyes on the man and make sure it’s Jayce Talis and if it is…
He reaches into his kit. He wraps his hand around one of the crosses, knuckles going white as he grips it tight. He feels more secure with it digging into his palm, feeling the bite of it into the meat of his fingers, the way the inscriptions mark his skin
“Cat got your tongue?”
There’s a soft chuckle, breathy.
Viktor stalks his way steadily towards him, counting the steps, counting the breaths. He is broad. Bigger than the descriptions gave him any right to be! None of the interviews did him justice…The books around Viktor, he can’t help but glance at their spines – it’s instinctive, it’s reactive – books on the Arcane, theses on multi-planar theory, heretical texts on divergent worlds, and fate. At least, he realizes with a pang, he knows why these books were hidden behind a gate. These are all banned texts. Someone hid them all here. Someone who thought the knowledge, despite being banned, still deserved to be preserved.
The man turns to look at him, Viktor’s eyes widen.
His lips part and before he can even speak, the vampire is upon him.
Jayce Talis is, as the interviews said, beautiful, a touch of grey settling at the corners of his temples, weaving through his hair. Viktor can concur with them most thoroughly as the vampire strikes. Between one blink and the next, Viktor finds himself pinned to the bookshelf. He gasps, a hand around his throat, the gorget protecting his neck keeping the grip from crushing his throat, and one of his wrists pinned. He is dangling, his feet almost kicking until a leg slides between his own and he is…
His cheeks go red to be left straddling the vampire’s leg as he pins him to the bookshelf. Jayce presses the length of his body to him, and there is no escape.
Jayce Talis is too close, nose to nose with him, his beard tickles Viktor’s chin.. He is nothing like the vampires Viktor knows about…he is not pale, he is tanned. A healthy tan as if he just came off of the fields or a beach. He made Viktor look unhealthily pale and more like the unnatural in comparison. But his eyes…oh his eyes told the truth of what he was, the cat-slit eyes with the red pupils betrayed all vampires.
And those pupils are so very dilated.
“...Hello,” Jayce breathes out, and Viktor freezes at the softness in his tone, the way he looks at him. The awe, the wonder. There is something in that voice, a brittle thread of ache and agony.
He wants to flinch from it but the depths of the emotion in it…it resonates deeply within him, flutters something alive within his soul that he…he cannot bear to look at. He cannot dare to look at. He shoves it down and tells himself it is fear he feels.
“Jayce Talis,” he says, and Viktor is proud of how his voice does not shake. “By the Guild, you are to atone for your crimes.”
“Crimes,” he sighs out, as if not really hearing the words, but only repeating them. Jayce searches his face for something though Viktor does not understand what it is, he cannot understand what the man is looking for. “You don’t…”
“You are a blight upon the world,” Viktor hisses.
His hand with the cross is free.
He could still do this. He could still become the hunter he wishes to be.
He swings it up, intending to catch him in the face.
But Jayce is faster, letting go of his one wrist to catch his hand, and then gathering up both and saying sharply, “No, none of that, Viktor.”
Both of his wrists are caught in his hand, in one hand, so easily pinned above his head and Viktor can feel the lack of effort it takes him to restrain him. Jayce barely presses down against his wrists as he leans in closer.
“How…” He asks, his voice cracking, “How do you know my name?”
Jayce’s other hand comes up from his throat and Viktor tenses, preparing for the worst but the Vampire touches his cheek ever so gently. His fingertips end in thickened black claws, the points sharp against his cheekbone, but so careful not to draw blood. His fingertips are calloused, catching on his skin, but the caress is so very tender.
“Finally,” Jayce whispers.
He is close enough to taste the lingering notes of his cologne, the smoke that clings to him, the ozone that seems trapped in his hair as if he has been struck by lightning. The heady acrid notes of blood linger on his breath and when Jayce’s lips part, Viktor can only see the gaping maw of fangs there. So many sharp fangs. His death.
“You’ve come back to me,” Jayce continues, as if he is unaware at all of the terror he is causing. “My Viktor.”
His nose brushes against Viktor’s. A smile curving at the monster’s full lips and he looks overjoyed.
It is the possessiveness in his voice, the wanton, abject belief of control in his eyes that spurs the hindbrain into action, the bit of animalistic desire to life, the desire to fight back. Viktor is not sure where the strength comes from but he lurches forward, sharp and panicked, and headbutts the vampire. Stars alight behind his eyes but he blinks through them, and it’s enough to startle the vampire. Jayce looks stunned. His grip slips on his wrists and Viktor takes the chance.
He yanks his hands down, clawing at the vampire’s face. There is no elegance, there is no training. He should rely on training, but the silver cross catches on his skin, the smell of burning flesh fills the room and Jayce stumbles back.
“Viktor,” he cries out, his words agonized. Betrayed.
Viktor’s fingers catch on something, a chain? He doesn’t know what truly, but in the fray, it snaps and he finds his fingers tangled around it and he does not stay to think long on it. He runs. He scrambles for his kit, grabs out the blessed water and throws it behind him, hearing the delicate glass bottles shatter and Jayce’s gasps of horror and pain as the splashes catch him.
He dares not look behind him. He barely dares to stop to grab his cane. The Arcane sigils seem to grab at him as he tries to cross them, invisible hands clinging to him, grabbing at his wrists and ankles, trying to still him in his escape. They tighten around his throat until–
He lurches through, slamming the gate behind him.
It will not buy him much in the way of time.
He just needs…
Needs to put distance between him and the vampire.
Him and Jayce…
‘Why did he look at me like that?’ Viktor wonders in circles. His cheek still feels the soft burning caress of his touch. The way he had looked at him…as if he…
As if he meant something.
As if Viktor, orphaned, crippled Viktor from the Guild was more than just an Archivist to him. More than just a would-be Hunter. But Someone.
“Viktor!”
The bellow from behind him spurs his feet forward, faster and the steps up seem treacherous and slippery. Or is it his panic that makes his steps so unsure. He is more bruised and harmed by them than the vampire himself by the time he makes it to the rectory office. He glances at his hat and jacket, he hasn’t the time to grab either, and instead passes by them and shuts the door behind him. Time, he just needs a little time.
Time to get through the library, time to get to the streets.
Time to get to the inn and time to hide.
By the Holy Light, he has truly, royally fucked this up.
The smallest consolation is that the streets, when he makes it to them, are empty. Blissfully so. He shuts the door, and tries to make his escape look calm, as if he has not just completely angered a vampire and run off like a coward. He chews on his inner cheek. He knows where Jayce Talis sleeps…he could still fix this. It would just…it would mean going into his lair. He could still make this right. He has to make this right.
He is still shaking by the time he makes it back to the inn.
By the time he makes it to his room, he is ready to collapse into his bed and take a brief nap, he reaches into his pocket and…
“Fuck,” he says softly. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the wood door, he hits his head once against it.
Twice.
Three times.
His key.
He lets the hunting kit slide from his fingers to the ground with a thunk. It’s almost satisfying,hearing the fragile things rattle inside…He should have, he realizes, just used the silver bolt reloader in the bag and been done with it. He could use that in the morning. He would go to the fort and he’d make amends…
The chain around his fingers aches and he finally looks at what he has brought back with him. Nestled into the palm of his hand is a golden locket, perfectly cupped in his palm, and the chain is wrapped around and woven between his fingers like a fishing line. He picks at it, trying to unsnare himself. The locket is, to his inexperienced eye, a pretty piece of work. He touches the etchings with care. The curlicues were worn with time, but still there…on the back there is an inscription…the words are faded, the pattern showing almost a habit of someone thumbing the back of it like a worry stone.
He can see perhaps a J and a V? And if he squints in the low light of the inn’s hallway, a date?
Curiosity is, and always will be, he knows, his greatest folly.
Viktor chews on his bottom lip and thumbs open the clasp to peer inside.
Despite having an inkling of what he will find, the proof of it still has him sinking to the floor. It is impossible. In the locket there is a portrait of himself. Except it is not him. Not completely. His hair is different for one but the face…everything is the same there, down to the placement of the moles. His hair in the portrait is longer, fading into blond or was that…time that has aged the portrait?
The clothes are…antique to say the least. Golden Era, before the Plague of Unnaturals, before the Fall…
What is more is…the man that wears his face looks happy. He looks fulfilled.
On the other side is…Jayce, but he does not think in this picture, at the time, he was a vampire. He couldn’t be if this was a photograph,was it a very detailed painting? He chews on his bottom lip and shakes his head. How…was this possible? Did he dare ask before killing the vampire? Did he just kill him and forget about this?
He brushes his finger lightly over the faint smile on his own unfamiliar face, the soft look of joy…when has he ever been so happy?
His chest aches.
The way Jayce had looked at him. He wraps a hand around his throat before…he scoffs and tears off the protective gorget with a snarl and stifles a small noise. He rubs his neck, trying to soothe himself. A thumb to his pulse, feeling the beat of his heart as he tries to time his own breathing. He shouldn’t be thinking about that look, the absolute agony and bliss of it. The way that, for a moment, it sent a thrill down his spine, even as he was terrified.
Viktor stretches out his bad leg, drawing his better one to his chest as he stares at the portraits. The Jayce in the portrait was younger, no grey in his hair…no crows feet showing at the edges of eyes. The clothing he wears in the old portrait was just as fine as what Viktor caught him in now, and he wonders if the man…did he have the paunch starting then? Or is that something he only gained in later years?
Viktor doesn’t have the answer.
He sits outside the door, his eyes unfocused, until he grows stiff from the chill, until his legs and hip protest. He can no longer wait. He forces himself up to his feet, the pins and needles an agonizing thing, as he debates with himself The locket finds its way into his vest pocket. He should, he knows, try to catch a little bit of a nap before…
“Before walking into my grave,” he murmurs, his voice rough. He should not be so sure of that. Mindset, he recalls from the classes he attended in his youth, is key to an effective hunt. Unnaturals, especially vampires, were stronger and oftentimes could be more cunning, but believing that one could succeed made all the difference. It was something that he knew Heimerdinger wanted studied, the effects of mental willpower on the limitations of the body.
He thumbs the locket, warmed from his touch. How many times had the vampire done the exact same thing?
The inn begins to wake. He hears it in the creaking of floorboards, the wheezing of coughs, the way the plumbing begins to groan, and the shuffling of feet. Dawn approaches and it is when he normally would retire. His stomach grumbles, aching for respite, for tea and supper, but instead he leans down, feeling his brace dig into his hips and rib cage as he collects his kit, and makes his way out. It is best, he thinks, he leave before he is seen by anyone.
Before any one clock that he is missing his jacket, the hat, that…he looks, he imagines…half frightened out of his mind.
Viktor doesn’t dare pause to catch a glance of himself in one of the silver backed warped mirrors, and cannot risk seeing his fear reflected back at him. He feels it enough welling in the pit of his stomach, feels it clawing up through his throat…If he sees it, he thinks he will lose what little courage he has left. It takes everything in him to trudge through the streets in daylight, everything to slink into the library and see if his hat and jacket are still there.
It is early enough that he can avoid anyone, but to his vexation, both are missing.
Stolen.
“Damn,” he mutters. It wasn’t that it was terribly cold but…It was cold enough that he would feel the bite of it by the time he made the trek to the fort where Jayce Talis made his lair. He shouldn’t have left anything behind. He does not linger long in the library, his disappointment biting at his heels, and the pale light of dawn gives way to daylight. It stings at his eyes, turning them red. Both from exhaustion and from unfamiliarity with the brightness of day.
He tries to blink away the ache of it.
It doesn’t work.
He hefts the hunter’s kit onto his back, leans more heavily onto his cane, and shields his eyes with his now freed hand and continues on his trek. His arm grows tired as he walks but he does not drop it. The scant protection of the shade his hand provides is all that keeps him from squinting in the early morning light.
No one stops Viktor as he approaches the gatehouse at the wall. The guards scarcely hesitate to raise the portcullis and open the silver reinforced iron gates. They salute him through, and he makes his way to the fort. It’s a slow march. He goes over his plan, in more detail. Jayce is an old vampire but none of the information he has pieced together in the archives implies that he is one who has created other vampires. The fort likely does not have any other unnaturals in it.
“At least,” he breathes out to the empty air, as he hikes to the fort he can see, scarcely, in the distance, his braced leg throbbing in time with his heartbeat, “I hope.”
One vampire, he could take.
And during the day, vampires were at their weakest. Their strength diminished unless they were freshly fed…but if there were no other humans aside from Viktor there, there would be no food sources. It was a safe bet. He could even, Viktor hopes, still be injured from their library scuffle earlier.
He hopes so.
Yet…despite all of his plans, a question burns in his mind, burns on the time of his tongue, eager to come out.
He wants to know about the man in the locket.
It burns like a small ember against his chest, tucked safely in his vest.
Not just wants to know, if he is to be perfectly frank with himself, he needs to know. Something deep in him, something in the very marrow of his bones, craves the answer as sure as the vampire looked at him as if he were absolution and sanctuary in a storm. As if he were…bliss.
Viktor’s treacherous heart skips a sullen beat.
He should not think like that.
Yet the two thoughts war with each other the entire way up the winding path up to the fort, and he is no closer to his answer. He knows what the Guild tells him he needs to do, but his heart…
His heart begs him to do another thing.
The gate is open at the fort and when he goes in, the door into the manor is closed, but upon the steps are his hat and jacket – folded neatly. As if…He knew he would come. As if he were waiting for him to come.
Viktor bites back a curse. Of course he knew he could come.
He leaves them on the steps as he goes to the door, it gives easy under his hand, opening, yawning open into the dark of a foyer and he takes a deep breath in. It smells not dank or decaying but…rather dusty. Newly aired out, yes, but unlived in for some time. It smells like a space that longs for people, for life…the smell of clean laundry lingers, lavender clinging to the air, and throughout the house, the smell of him. The lightning strike before the storm, the smell of soldering and forge…It seems to have permeated everything.
In the distance, there is a melody, quiet and…He cannot make it out. Music was never his forte but it sounds romantic, if not sorrowful.
Maybe Jayce did not just recently arrive as the locals thought, perhaps this is, Viktor realizes with a pang, where he made his nest more often than not.
He takes in the manor, the sweeping ceilings and the wooden beams, pitched dark in shadow now, and thinks they would be good places for a vampire to drop down and ambush him, but no such thing happens. He leaves the door open, leaving the shaft of light behind him, a beam of safety as he steps further into the manor. His steps do not echo, there are enough carpets, furniture – enough creature comforts, enough items that make the space feel lived in, and not a mockery of life, but truly lived in, a pair of boots haphazardly sit by the door even – in the manor to make it feel like a home. His eyes adjust to the dark. Not easily. He has to pull out a dim light lantern from his kit to trek through the building, heading up the stairs towards where bedrooms typically were.
The light catches on portraits – more of Talis. More of the man that is not him. They are waterstained and aged…but the frames were recently replaced.
He is drawn, like a moth to flame, to an open door at the end of the long hall, where there is light, the only light in the entire manor. He can hear the crackle of a fire. The sound of an old gramophone, a melancholy waltz…it drifts so sweetly through the quiet, coaxing him nearer. He sets down his lantern, pulls from his kit the crossbow with its silver bolts. It would just take one…one steady aim and this would be over. He would have completed his task and he could return to the Guild.
And yet…
His eyes drift to those portraits.
His mind wanders to the locket tucked into his pocket, to the smile of a dead man who wears his face.
Viktor makes his way into the room, the door doesn’t even creak – he expects it to creak, to announce him like a villain, to give Jayce Talis a chance to react, to give him the chance to look up at him. But it doesn’t. He is not prepared for him, the sight of him. He is slumped in a chair, his head in one hand, a glass of…well, he would want to call it brandy if it were not viscous and red, in the other. His suit jacket is off, thrown haphazardly over a chest of drawers at the foot of the massive bed that dominates the warm room.
Vampires didn’t feel cold…why is the room warm, he thinks?
The door was unlocked.
The fire was lit for…him?
No, don’t be stupid.
He raises the crossbow. He lines up his target in the sight and Jayce lifts his head and…
“Do it,” Jayce says, his voice a rasp. The agony is deep, bone wretched and soul crushing. “You don’t remember. What’s the point of waiting if you don’t remember, Viki?”
No one has called him that since he was a child, since his mother was lost to the plagues in the slums. His hands shake.
“I must,” he whispers, but even his own words sound hollow to his ears.
Jayce's smile is a sad thing, “You never used to fall in line.”
“I…” The trembling gets worse and…
The crossbow drops. He fumbles and yanks the locket from his pocket, “What does this mean?” He shakes it at the vampire, “Who…what does this mean – who is this?”
Jayce looks between him, the crossbow, and the locket. The burns on his face are healed, he looks…gods, he looks perfect. Slowly, oh so slowly, his expression softens, no longer prepared for death. He straightens, the cravat at his neck loose, the long red tails of it uneven and threatening to fall into his lap. He raises the glass to his lips and drinks.
Viktor cannot help the way he shudders in revulsion still at that. It’s ingrained. Someone died to feed him.
“It’s you,” Jayce says, as if that is meant to make sense to him. The confusion and disbelief must be obvious because he continues, “A past you, you…you wanted to save me. No, you did save me.”
“Saved…you?”
Jayce nods and sets the glass to the side and his voice loses the rough edge, he licks his lips and says, “It’s a long story, Viki – too long to tell in one night. Do you…You’re a Hunter. I thought I was careful.”
Viktor gives a bitter laugh. Sharp and resonant and says, “...Archivist. I…work in the archives. You were.”
Jayce’s eyes are honey-gold, the fire-light turns them a brighter yellow, rich and vibrant, there is such a warmth to them…and Viktor shivers at the look of pride. He looks at him with pride. Why? Why did he have to do that? “You and your books, I kept all of them safe too…all of our research.”
Your books. Our research.
The hidden library in the catacombs, protected by ancient sigils and wards? His heart beats faster. It’s not a trick of the light, he knows, when he sees Jayce’s eyes dilate, his nostrils flare, but the vampire does not move. He does not pounce,just remains where he sits…watching, waiting.
“You…and I…”
“Were partners,” Jayce says, the words a weighty thing. Partners is said with such nuance, such warmth, such…depth, that Viktor does not need to ask him to clarify that he means it in all things. The roving look Jayce gives him, the wistful way his eyes linger…the promise waiting in twitching fingers.
Viktor’s feet have a mind of their own, he thinks, as he steps further in, close to Jayce. The warmth to the room is a balm to him, bringing feeling back to cold chapped cheeks and chilled fingers. The carpet beneath his muddy boots is plush thing and he feels a pang of guilt for ruining it. Jayce has on slippers.
He comes to stop in front of him. He holds out the locket.
He wills himself not to tremble.
Jayce looks up at him.
Viktor has never been so close to one of the unnatural. Jayce’s legs bracket his own. He shouldn’t be so close to him. It wouldn’t take much for the vampire to grab him, to force him down and that would be it. He’d be prey, dead…damned.
Jayce reaches up to take the locket. His fingers are gentle, he caresses Viktor’s wrist, grazing his palm, and Viktor’s breath catches.
“I’m not him,” Viktor gasps out.
Jayce stills, “...You aren’t, and you are. You always said…we were…fragments cast through time and space. You were sure of it.”
Viktor swallows, and he whispers, “Those…those are heretical theories…”
Jayce’s smile is bright and true and Viktor would do so much to see it more often, and he hates himself for that thought. “But you know them?”
“I…yes,” he admits, “I…eh…” He clears his throat, “May have…keys to…certain…”
Jayce interrupts with a laugh.
It isn’t derisive.
It isn’t condescending.
It’s bright. It’s inviting. It’s…jubilant.
And when he looks at Viktor.
Viktor bites his inner cheek hard. He glances away.
He looks at him like he is amazing. He looks at him as if he has done something spectacular by admitting that he sneaks into forbidden sections of the archives late at night to read forbidden heretical texts and broaden his knowledge. As if he is a wonder, as if…
Jayce’s fingers are calloused to his cheek,the points of his claws teasing his skin. He stiffens a little under the touch, but Jayce doesn’t retreat, he turns his face and Viktor meets his gaze, albeit with stubborn sullen resistance. Jayce says, “...That sounds exactly like you.”
He shivers under that knowing look. Under the weight of being seen, being seen and exposed, and wanted still.
His breath hitches. He feels the first teardrop as it slides down and he hates it. He hasn’t cried in years.
Viktor says softly, “Don’t…don’t look at me and say things like that.”
Jayce’s eyes are rapt on his face, taking in everything, and Viktor has ever felt more witnessed. He glances away. Jayce’s hand doesn’t leave his cheek, but he doesn’t force him to meet his eyes now. Jayce’s voice is softer when he asks, “Does no one see your brilliance, Viktor?”
He bites his bottom lip hard, the crooked tooth nearly breaking skin. He forces himself to stop and says, “I stole the hunting kit. I thought…If I could prove myself a Hunter…things would change. But if I go back now…”
Jayce waits for him to finish.
“...they’ll remove me from the Guild, at worst,” he finishes. “If I’m lucky, they’ll just execute me.”
It is clearly the wrong thing to say.
He is dragged into the vampire’s lap. He doesn’t have time to gasp even, he is held in arms and pulled flush against his body. Viktor looks up into Jayce’s eyes and the vampire looks positively feral. His fangs, all of them, displayed. For a man, who moments ago, had been ready to die, he seems wholly unimpressed with the idea that Viktor was also preparing for his own demise.
Viktor blinks.
Jayce seems to realize his own reaction. His grip loosens to something…less imprisoning but…he does not let him go. Viktor finds that he does not quite mind.
“If you are lucky?” Jayce says, a growl in his voice. “That is your best outcome?”
“I’ve no skills outside of the Guild,” he says, morosely. Those stubborn, bastard tears still falling, silently. His voice is a shameful, watery thing. He rubs them away with the back of his hand and hates it, hates the display of weakness. It’s simply the exhaustion catching up with him and the pain. And the realization that he will never have the same joy as the Viktor in that painting… “I’d starve on the streets or end up in an alms house.”
Jayce’s hand on his back strokes up and down. It’s hard not to sink into the touch, to let himself be lulled into it even if his brace means he does not feel much of it. He can appreciate the soothing act of it. He shouldn’t be lulled, shouldn’t melt. Yet, increment by increment, like a glacier drifting into tropical waters, he melts into him.
He hides his face into Jayce’s neck, his nose pressed into the stiff starched collar of his shirt, inhaling the mix of smoke and cologne, “Why the fire?”
“...you always get cold, in every life-time. I imagine it would be the same,” Jayce says, but Viktor feels the vibration of the words the most.
He isn’t wrong. He is prone to feeling cold. “I was coming to kill you.”
There is a long pause. “...Maybe I was still hopeful that you could be reasoned with, Viki.”
“...No one calls me that anymore,” he whispers. He hates how his voice sounds, the watery ache of it. The way he can imagine his mothers fingers carding through his hair, the brief sense of love and comfort it brings.
Jayce’s answer is a rumble, “Do you want me to stop?”
Viktor’s fingers tangle in the fine cotton of his shirt, twisting creases into the crispness of it.
“...No,” he breathes out finally. Viktor lets himself be lulled in Jayce’s arms. It’s easy. The vampire’s touch is gentle – his hands are sure. Slowly his grip even turns more relaxed. There is a long silence between them. His thoughts turn inward.
Viktor…what was he going to do, he wonders privately to himself. He couldn’t kill him. He knows that much now. Not because he isn’t physically capable…it is more that he cannot bring himself to do it.
He cannot forget the resignation in his eyes.
Jayce would let him do it.
“I just wanted to protect people,” Viktor says finally, softly. “I wanted to prove myself.”
The words are bitter on his tongue. And once the deed is done, what would happen?
Viktor would return to the Guild and if he is lucky, they would take him back in without censure? They would take him in and see him as the hero he wishes to be? He would be allowed to return to his work in the Archives?
His stomach twists.
What…is the point of it all?
The way Jayce had looked at him in the hidden library, the heat of it…the spike of desire that coursed through him before the intelligent fear smothered it down. But what if he didn’t stifle that feeling, what if…
What if…he stayed?
Could he stay?
The Guild had his medication, had the doctors and the resources to keep him healthy and whole…despite the lingering conditions of his youth. Is he really considering this?
His thoughts spiral, twist and tangle, briars wrap and catch, and soon he finds himself too wound in them to find his way out. A cool palm cups his cheek, fingers coax his head up…Why does Jayce look at him so sweetly, so kindly, why must he look at him like he is…
“Oh, Viktor,” Jayce breathes out. His index finger brushes the bridge of his nose, the sharp cut of his cheeks. He says, his voice steady and so sure, no deceit in his eyes, “You have always been enough and those who do not see it are more the fools.”
Viktor’s breath catches.
His heart twists.
The earnestness in that look, the honesty in those words…it sings to his soul. It resonants deep within him, and the tears that he had stemmed trickle again. It’s foolish and stupid to cry over this, but to be acknowledged, to be seen…Jayce thumbs away the tears and murmurs, “Viki…”
He lunges up, not knowing where the courage comes from, and kisses him.
Jayce freezes, the predator become startled prey, and Viktor tangles his fingers in his hair and kisses him as if his life depends on it. Perhaps not his life, but the salvation of his soul. There is a desperation in the kiss, a visceral need. There is a pause, a startled moment where Jayce does not return it, and Viktor starts to pull away…and then Jayce growls.
The kiss becomes possessive, consuming.
Jayce pulls him closer, flush and tight to him and coaxes it into something that feels like a promise.
Where Viktor is desperate, he can see Jayce is measured, he tempers the kiss, slows it down into something lingering, he soothes the jagged edges of his aches and Viktor breaks away panting, his cheeks flushed. The vampire looks composed in only the barest sense of the word.
Jayce’s hair is mussed, his cheeks unflushed, but his eyes speak of a deep, aching want. His voice is ragged, “...It is late for you…you are tired.”
“I’m not,” Viktor protests, his blood singing under his skin, his heart racing. He is at once too awake, too aware, and too exhausted. Everything is too real and too fantastical. Is he dreaming?
“I don’t want you to regret this,” Jayce whispers, his eyes on his lips.
Viktor licks his dry lips, “I won’t. I want to stay.”
The room is a blur, the heat of it a comfortable thing, his attention solely on the man in front of him. Someone who searched for him through time…waited for him to return. Maybe he didn’t understand it fully, but he could understand it in time.
Jayce holds him for a moment, searches his face, as if he is trying to find any lick of hesitation. Viktor doesn’t steel himself, he doesn’t try to hide, he just looks back, meets those golden cat-slitted eyes, and whatever Jayce sees must be true because he kisses him, soft…gods, it is the softest kiss.
Viktor gasps into it.
His grip in Jayce’s hair loosens, his fingers carding through the dark strands, feeling the pomade give way under his nails. Jayce groans under the touch, melting.
He whispers against his lips, “I missed you, Viktor.”
Viktor wants to remind him that he is not the man but…the look he gives him, the way he pulls him into another kiss. He melts into it instead. Another time, he thinks to himself. Jayce picks him up as if he weighs nothing, he supposes compared to an unnatural, his weight is insubstantial, and carries him to the bed. He is laid out on it as if he is a treasure. He blinks up at Jayce and whispers, “I’m not delicate.”
“No,” he agrees.
But still, he treats him softly, clothes come off with care, with tenderness, interspaced with delicate touches, with caresses. Jayce pauses to kiss the scars left from surgeries to repair his spine, to correct his leg…the way he lingers and dotes. Viktor’s breath catches, his heart soars, Jayce is tender, slow.
The build-up is agony, he takes him apart little by little, has him sobbing his name, crying it to the heavens, and Jayce does not give him respite. He does not give him a reprieve. The way he devotes himself to the act of intimacy, of making love, it is as if he is a god of it, eager to share with one of his worshippers. Viktor falls apart on his fingers again, splayed open on them, and Jayce praises him in that warm tone…
It’s bliss.
It’s hell.
It’s everything.
And finally he sinks into him, takes him in the gentlest way.
Holds him, wraps around him, and tangles with him until they are one. Viktor’s breath ruffling Jayce’s hair, as he rolls his hips against him, rocking against him slow and sure until the pleasure builds and builds until…
It eclipses.
And then Jayce falls onto him. He is a heavy weight, a solid man. He is not cold. Not like Viktor had always assumed vampires to be…he was room temperature, warmed now by Viktor’s body. He nuzzles his neck, licks at the salt of Viktor’s skin…Viktor’s breath catches and for a moment he is worried he is going to bite.
Jayce doesn’t.
He murmurs against his skin softly, “...I’ll get something to wash you up.”
“Don’t,” he mumbles, his voice raw. He wraps around him tighter, holding him close. He’s wet with sweat, with spend and slick, but the idea of being left alone, even if the bed is comfortable, the room warm…He wants to keep Jayce, to keep the comfort of this moment a little longer.
He kisses Jayce’s temple. He mumbles, “It is…eh…no problem.”
“You’ll regret it in the evening,” Jayce chuckles, but he makes no move to leave his arms and Viktor relaxes. He traces the muscles over Jayce’s back with his fingertips, feeling the strength there. Even without the imbued powers of an unnatural, he would be a strong man. There is silence for a moment and Jayce asks, “...are you staying?”
Viktor knows the answer.
Maybe he understands Violet better now. He may not know her reasons for what she did but he understands his own. He pulls back a little bit, shifting so they can lay on their sides and look at each other…he cups Jayce’s cheek and Jayce leans into the touch. He traces the scar through his eyebrow with a finger.
The silence weighs between them.
Jayce’s shoulders start to fall, his expression dimming as the silence stretches on.
Viktor holds out his wrist to Jayce’s mouth, offering, but the answer to Jayce’s question shines in his eyes with the invitation to feed from him, “You should drink before we go to sleep…I expect you to carry me to the library tomorrow.”