Ephemeral - Chapter 11 - The Hunter

Chapter 11 - The Hunter

(Continued from Insatiable)

Two days earlier

A pair of eyes watched the Idelson estate from the shadows. The owner of that pair of eyes had stalked the trail of the vampires to the place a little late to spare the horror that had gone on inside. The bumbling guards had already entered the place and were likely making a bigger mess. The vampire scent was everywhere, though, so they must have been near. The hunter stole away in the shadows, waiting for her intuition to tell her the time was right.

Watching the open window on the top floor of the house, the hunter saw two shadowy forms leap out of it and diffuse into a smoky cloud. Cursing her inaction, the hunter sprang to her feet and cast a cone of freezing ice toward the gaseous forms in a desperate attempt to debilitate the two vampires. One transformed mid-air and fell to the ground, a sickening thud sounding where the grayish body impacted the cobbles. The other cloud disappeared into the growing morning air.

The hunter cautiously edged near to the fallen vampire, silver-edged sword drawn and ready to attack. The vampire sprang to life and lunged at the hunter, nearly knocking her off her feet, yet she had expected just such a thing to happen, and so was ready for this vile creature's murderous attempt on her very existence. She quickly raised her sword to relieve the thing of its head, but it was too swift and she found herself backing up to defend against nightmarish claws as they grasped for her throat.

She stumbled on a raised cobblestone and went to the ground, barely avoiding striking her head on the cold, wet, and terribly unforgiving surface of the street. The vampire fell forward with her, ready to sink its teeth into her but she rolled to the side at the last moment and it crashed into the street below, its face impacting with the raised curb. She jumped to her feet with a cat's grace as the bloodsucking vermin shook its head to clear the pain of colliding with the stone. Its grotesque member was erect and its lips spread in a grin, obviously still thinking her to be easy prey.

There was a loud crash from the building behind them as a door flung open, leaving the hollow interior of the looming structure to reveal a striking and lithe figure in the doorway, white robes billowing around it, and its hands raised high. A high-pitched voice screamed at the vampire. The hunter recognized it as a ward against evil, used by some clerics to vanquish the undead.

The thing turned its head to view this new threat and the hunter used the distraction to swing her sword. It followed a sweeping arc up toward the back of its head, silver edging connecting with its skin and slicing through the neck with the ease of a great ship plying through the waters of a becalmed cove. It fell, to the ground, twitching, a black ichor flowing from the stump above its shoulders. The hunter sank the blade up into its groin, separating its detestable member from its dying body and piercing the heart as the blade traveled up through the torso.

The hunter picked up the vampire's recently disjoined fleshstick and put it in a dark cloth bag she had produced from a satchel hanging on her side, and promptly placed it back, hiding it from the prying eyes of the priestess. The once solid vampire turned to heap of oily, grey ash.

"Why, ever, Miss, would you do such a thing?" The priestess implored, a look of abject terror on her face, indicating her satchel and its gruesome contents.

"This foul creature was not of your goddess, sister. What worry should one such as yourself have about what I do to its filthy carcass?" The hunter pulled the silver-embroidered edges of her hood closer to her face to better hide the smile she wore at the priestess's discomfort.

"Well," the holy woman stammered, "its unseemly! Now you've touched, and even possess, the dark parts of a most evil creature!"

Mostly under her breath, the hunter muttered, "It wouldn't be the worst thing I've possessed," and walked away toward the Idelson manor.

The priestess followed, hesitantly. "Please, Miss..."

Ignoring the comely priestess, the hunter continued to the manor and approached the tall wooden door. She heard the commotion of someone running inside and quickly ducked behind a tall, thick shrub to avoid being seen by who or what had caused the commotion. She wasn't quite hidden completely when the door burst open and a pair of humans, a young boy and a woman, somewhat older, who looked to have gone through quite an ordeal ran through it.

The hunter remained hidden, making a mental note of the direction the two had gone. When they had just disappeared from sight, a large, hulking, half-dressed man ran out and appeared to be looking for them. She wasn't sure how that related to the vampire presence, but she needed to get inside and see what was going on. She stole through the open door and used the shadows of the interior to conceal herself as she got her bearings.

Her keen senses detected the smell of blood coming from somewhere above so she stealthily padded up the first staircase she came upon. The odor of death on the upper floor hit her as soon as she neared the first open doorway. Silently drawing her sword, she crept nearer, listening intently for any activity, and hearing none.

The hunter steeled her nerves and entered the room. She had hunted and slain many of the murderous vampire-kind, yet she wasn't readily prepared for the grotesque mutilation she found in the room. Blood was everywhere, along with the horrendously mutilated body of some person. She stepped around the mess, skillfully avoiding trodding on the blood that was nearly everywhere.

The scene was highly unusual to the hunter. Vampires usually didn't carry on to this degree of malevolence. Their objective was to turn as many poor souls as possible into their slaves, not kill and mutilate them beyond recognition.

The smell of sex, blood, and excrement permeated the air. Clearly, the creatures had spent some time here savaging the hapless thing that was previously human. Judging by the mess of bodily fluids on the bed, another person was here as well. No other carcasses remained aside from the one on the floor, so she could only imagine, someone must have gotten away. A light breeze from the open window thankfully relieved the hunter of the odor for a moment, and, looking around intently, she spotted a bloody mix of bare footprints and boot prints leaving the room through another door.

She followed the prints into another room, a bedroom with an adjoining parlor and bathing room. The room was in disarray, as if there had been a scuffle here and blood stained the floor here and there, but the scene was nothing like the earlier room, although the smell of sex was strong here as well. The hunter had a strong feeling that the bumbling guards had something to do with this, rather than the erstwhile vampires.

"Someone pulled this out," she said to herself as she picked a spent and bloodied crossbow bolt off the floor and inspected it.  "It must've been an unsteady shot, or an inexperienced one."

Bloody hand prints on the wall and bits of human excrement in the the corner told a tale of possible anal rape. This scene in this room was puzzling, given what had gone on in the last room she had been in. Had the guards attacked one of the victims in here, who had fought back before or after being raped?

The thought was detestable. It was time to get a move on. As she was leaving the room, she caught a glint of light on the floor; a locket. She picked it up and opened it. In the dim light, the hunter could make out the vaguely feline face of a beautiful woman with long white hair. Pocketing the locket in one of the many pouches adorning her outfit, she quickly and silently rushed out of the room, treading quietly down the stairs without a sound, and out the still open front door. The hunter had some witnesses to find, so she ventured hurriedly off in the same direction as the couple who had fled the building earlier.

To Be Continued...