Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This… this couldn’t be happening… get up! Get. Up. Even at the urging of his own anger, his own frustration, his muscles wouldn’t move. There was no way… this… this had to be some sort of nightmare, it was the only explanation. You should’ve planned better, shouldn’t have rushed in, whispered the tiny traitorous voice in the back of his head. The monster wearing a man’s face stalked closer

“We are the guardians of justice! Priwen shall prevail!” he spat, he knew that even should he fall, his compatriots would come after the monster that stood before him, he’d taught them well. Still, he hoped that the words would give him the motivation, the couple of breaths’ reprieve to get his feet back under him. McCullum wasn’t sure if it was the effects of the relic wearing off or if it had simply been the length and ferocity of the fight. There was a gentle click of fine shoes on the wood ahead of him.

“You can’t accept that we’re not enemies can you?” the snake said, calm and collected as though he’d just finished a stroll in the park… bastard. McCullum lowered his head, trying to will the spots out of his vision

“We always have been and we always will be! Of all the evils that threaten mankind, your kind are the worst.” he snapped, the rage burning in his veins giving him enough strength to lift his head but little more, his arms and legs were trembling with the effort to remain even partially upright.

“Perhaps you’re right…” the leech said and McCullum felt a brief flash of surprise before the monster continued speaking “Maybe I am a monster that deserves no mercy, but that’s not all I am.” The pressed lines of the dead man’s pants, mussed from the fight, came into view. Geoffrey would’ve scoffed at him if he’d had the breath.

“You’re nothing but a corpse animated by evil, Doctor, don’t try and fool yourself.” 

“There is no way you’ll ever let me be McCullum?” the Doctor’s voice was finally starting to sound agitated and the guard couldn’t help but feel a bit proud for finally getting under the monster’s skin, even if it meant his death “You’ll always hunt me down won’t you?”

“There is no escape leech. Kill me now for there is no way you can sway me to your ideals.” he spat, trying to goad the monster into it. He flinched when a hand wrapped under his chin, pulling his head up, all his muscles protesting the movement.

“That’s… where you’re mistaken.” the monster said and McCullum felt the sweat run cold down his spine

“What do you mean?” his traitorous heart suddenly thundering in his ears with the leech’s ominous words. The hand holding onto his chin suddenly yanked him upward and he flailed, grabbing onto the dead man’s arm as he fought for balance and then he was staring directly into the monster’s red, red eyes as it spoke.

“I’ll make you a vampire McCullum. I’ll make you one of us .” 

“No!” Geoffrey felt his stomach plummet as the words sank in “Kill me!” he pleaded. The Doctor released him but he didn’t even have the strength to stand and fell back to his hands and knees. He couldn’t see what was happening but he could hear a brief grunt from the leech somewhere above his head.

“Prepare yourself hunter, you’re about to be hunted, just like me…”

“No! No!” the hunter flailed, trying to push the monster back, but he might as well have been a kitten for all the good that did him. A cold hand closed around his throat, just below his jaw. The beast was still muttering

“When I kissed my poor Mary goodbye I had no idea what I was doing, but now I do, consider this my kiss of Judas.” those monstrous eyes were staring him down as he still struggled, trying to push the leech, to escape, to cut his own throat on those claws, it didn’t matter, he just did not want this .

Cold, wet lips pressed against his own and he squeezed his eyes shut, nostrils flaring as he refused to part them, he would not yield, he’d rather die. Claws dug deep into his shoulder and the gasp he gave in response was automatic and then the cold, wretched blood was seeping down into his mouth. The inhalation sent the horrible liquid straight into his lungs and he choked on it, coughing and sputtering. The hands holding him up released him and he fell, spitting some the cursed stuff back onto the ground, but deep down he knew… it didn’t matter. It was already inside him. He could feel his nerves jolting, feeling like pins and needles and somehow more leaden than before. The coughing didn’t subside as he collapsed onto his side, each breath felt like it didn’t have enough air, his heart felt like it was going to hammer out of his chest. McCullum could feel his limbs twitching on the ground, could hear the Doctor march away, stating coldly

“Welcome to the world through the looking glass.” before the gates slammed closed. Feeling his own heart skip a beat, and then another, before giving out entirely, only cemented the horror of the situation as his vision blurred and he felt consciousness slipping away from his scrambling, desperate grip…

The world returned with all the gentleness of a bucket of cold water and Geoffrey found himself shooting up gasping for air as though he’d just awoken from a nightmare. The sense of unease and tension did not lessen upon waking however, instead the hunter found himself feeling exceptionally wary though he couldn’t say why. His mind felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton, as though he’d gone on a particularly ill-advised rager. Everything hurt… his head, his limbs… his stomach clenched in hunger. He hissed in a breath through his teeth, putting an arm around himself as though that would ease the cramping sensation.

“Think dammit.” he grumbled, trying to forcibly shake himself out of the strange sensations. Everything felt just so slightly off and he couldn’t put his finger on it, he was struggling to string thoughts together and it was starting to piss him off. His stomach cramped again and he curled in on himself, taking quick, shallow breaths that felt strangely hollow.

“What the hell…” the hunter grumbled, trying to pull himself together. He’d had his fair share mornings waking up hungry but this just felt… wrong on some level. Deep breaths , he thought to himself, he had to find out where he was, how he’d gotten there. Everything seemed to be tinged with a strange grey color, which he’d first attributed to it being dark but… there wasn’t a lack of light, just color. McCullum blinked, then rubbed his eyes when that didn’t solve the problem. When that still didn’t work he decided to work with it, ignoring the issue until he could get back to base and ask their medic about it.

Looking around told him he was in the attic at the Pembroke, why the ever living hell why was he here and why were the recent memories so fuzzy? He got to his feet, a little shaky at first but quickly stabilizing despite the shaky weakness in his limbs. It was the same sort of weakness that he’d felt after getting over the flu a year or so ago when Thomas and his other men had had to practically force him back to bed to recover. The hunter shook his head at the memory, and took further stock of his surroundings, his clothes were more roughed up than usual and he was missing a fair number of bolts for his crossbow. Okay so he’d been in a fight and based off of waking up on the ground it hadn’t gone well for him. A glance around the room and he found his sword laying on the ground. At least, he presumed it was his sword, the blade was glowing strangely, or parts of it were. With a heavy frown he stooped to pick it up and was startled that despite the shaking muscles the longsword felt far lighter than normal. He ran a finger over the glowing portion and it smeared onto his hand, and suddenly the smell struck him.

Overpowering and metallic and it made his stomach clench with want . Before considering it he’d already brought his hand to his mouth and laved his tongue over the bright smear of color coating his fingers. A shiver wracked its way down his spine and he sighed, quickly running his fingers through the mess on the blade again in much the same way he’d done as a child when his mother had handed him the bowl coated in cake batter.

“Hnn…” the noise eeked its way from his throat before he could stop it and he was considering abandoning all pretenses and running his tongue down the blade itself… He stopped. The sword clattered to the floor. What the hell was he doing?

“No…” there was only one thing that would reasonably be covering his blade… The hunter could feel his hands shaking as he probed his mouth with his tongue… 

“No! Fuck!” he shouted, this can’t be happening… As if to spite him his stomach clenched in hunger again throbbing in time with the fangs that he’d noticed in his mouth. The memories of recent events were clear enough now to remember the order of events, if not the specifics. Geoffrey cursed under his breath, trying to get a handle on himself, to feel a bit less unhinged but it was extremely hard to think through the icy cold craving that tore through his insides.

He was sorely tempted to pull out his pistol then and there and put an end to this madness here and now. The image of the leech doctor’s horrific eyes flashed through his mind. He’d heard tales of such monstrous leeches but had never faced one himself. He had to warn his men at the very least. Perhaps one of them would do him the kindness of putting him out of his misery. The hunter swallowed fruitlessly and wiped his blade with the edge of his coat despite how much he wanted to lick the blood straight from the metal. Despite the fact that he no longer needed to, the deep breaths helped to calm his nerves. First thing was first he needed to get out of this building and exiting the way he came in was a bad idea. This was a hospital. There were people wounded and bleeding down there. The thought alone was enough to remind him of the hunger surging within and he shook his head as though he could knock the horrible ideas loose. He sheathed his sword and wandered over to the singular window and poked his head out. It was a hell of a drop to the ground but there were some promising looking pipes running down the length of the building. Geoffrey heaved a sigh and carefully worked his way out of the window, it was a tight fit for someone as tall as himself but he was able to make it work. He reached for the pipes and only made it about two steps down before the one he placed a boot onto gave way beneath his weight and he found himself falling toward the ground.

Slamming into the cobbles outside the hospital hurt just as much as he would’ve thought but there was no sound of breaking bones so it could’ve been much worse. To his surprise though the pain faded quickly but it only made the throbbing in his teeth so much more prominent.

“Fuck…” he managed, brushing himself off as best he could. There was the sound of someone calling out a faint

“Who’s there?” but Geoffrey was already on the move, not trusting himself to approach anyone in his current state. It looked much brighter now than what he would’ve expected for the middle of the night, and there was no sign of the sun on the horizon. He stalked down the streets quickly, keeping his collar flipped up and his eyes down, thanking all of his lucky stars that he didn’t run into anyone on his way away from the hospital. 

Halfway back to headquarters he stopped, he couldn’t go in there like this… He didn’t think he could go in at all, not without every one of the Guard gunning him down before he could warn them. It made him both strangely proud and frustrated, they were welcome to kill him after he told them what happened. He looked around himself again, getting a brief bearing of his surroundings. It was surprisingly difficult to do so when the color was drained out of the world around him but the hunter was fairly certain that there was a safehouse in the nearby streets. That would at least keep him from the sun in the morning. He started toward it only to stop at the throb of dull red that he could see echoing down an alleyway, it’s just registered only for him to suddenly hear the screech of a Skal in the same direction.

Geoffrey took off in the direction of it, sword already in hand, years of honed hunting instincts compelling him forward before he could even think about it. He rounded the corner, still seeing in the strange grey world, there was a splatter of bright red on the ground and the duller pulsing red hovered above it in an almost humanoid shape. There was the screech of the Skal and McCullum dodged to the side out of reflex, surprised and stumbling when the motion sent him farther than he anticipated. There was no time to consider what had happened as pain flared bright white hot in his guts. The creature had gotten a lucky shot in at his torso, a wound like this would’ve killed him quickly just the previous night. Instead he just bared his teeth at the monster, a snarl wrenching its way out of his throat as he leaned forward, grabbing the leech back, aching teeth sinking into a grimy throat. He couldn’t have stopped even if he wanted to, the Skal’s blood was lukewarm at best but it helped to warm his freezing limbs and calmed the ferocious hunger clawing at his belly.

The hunter followed the creature down to the ground as its legs slowly began to give out beneath it, paying no mind to the weaker and weaker flailing of arms against his body and face, too distracted by the relief that was pouring into his mouth. When the blood quit pulsing into his mouth he wrenched his face away, remnants dripping off his fangs onto the corpse below him. He was panting, trembling even, unable to control the wondrous joy that surged through him unchecked. When the trembling started to fade and he’d gotten a bit of a handle on his own breathing the realization of what he’d just done hit him like a punch to the face. He couldn’t have stopped… what if they’d been human? This was too much… He wanted to do it again…

Geoffrey wiped a hand over his face, looking at the dark thick blood that coated the back of his fist and barely contained the urge to lap it off like some kind of perverse dog. With the influx of blood color had at last returned to the world, though looking down at the mess he’d created caused it to slip again, briefly, before he was able to clamp down on the surging hunger within. The woman that the Skal had found was long dead, her remains barely recognizable for what they were. He sighed and picked up his sword from where he’d dropped it, he still couldn’t believe that he’d just dropped it like it meant nothing , and cut the leech’s head off for good measure. 

At least it’d only been a Skal… he had to get out of here, he needed to think. To decide where to go from here. His boots quickly ate up the pavement on the way to the safehouse, the windows were boarded up and the door still locked. A couple moments of dexterous fingers later and it clicked open, blissfully, thankfully empty. He quickly peeled off his scarf and coat and tossed them aside, unsure if they were even salvageable at this point but he needed to get this blood off of himself. There was a rickety old sink basin in the other room with a just as beat up mirror hanging, cracked and foggy, above it. Someone had filled a water pitcher last time they’d been in the safehouse and at this point Geoffrey wasn’t going to complain that the water was musty. He grabbed a cleanish rag that had been left near the sink and dipped it in the water, wiping the worst of the blood from his hands, wincing as some of it stuck and pulled at his skin. Once the worst was gone he pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it to meet the same indeterminate fate as his coat and scarf. He then looked at his face in the mirror, instinctively shivering at the blood covered sight that met him.

It only helped to cement what had happened in his mind and the hunter didn’t much care for it. He swiftly wiped at his face, splashing the water over and over, scrubbing at his jaw until it hurt. There was a long, slow, deep breath and he looked up at the mirror again, forcing himself to take it in. He needed to remember what he was doing, he was just going to warn his men of what the doctor had become, then he’d turn himself in to whatever method of death they thought was best. He hoped they’d at least make it quick.

The veins that encircled his eyes were still faded, but evident enough to point him out as inhuman to anyone who knew how to look. The blue eyes that looked back at him were a little paler than he was used to but the sense of relief that they were still his eyes was unexpected. He paused slightly before baring his teeth, taking in the points of the fangs that still hadn’t retreated. It made his stomach turn unpleasantly just looking at them, knowing what they represented, what had become of himself. He looked away, disgusted, that was enough of that… There was a faint pale light beginning to seep in from around the curtains not quite dawn but it was fast approaching, the heavy weight that was starting to weigh on his mind reminding McCullum that he would never again enjoy the sun’s rays upon his face. That alone was far more a saddening thought than his own impending death at the hands of his own men.

It must’ve been morbid curiosity that pushed him to do so but he could not help reaching his hand into the morning’s light that was swiftly starting to stream around the edges of the curtains. The second his hand crossed into the beam he yanked it back, cursing and swearing up a storm as he watched in fascination as the wound swiftly began to scab over and peel off as though it had never happened.

“Sucks nearly as much as it looks to.” Geoffrey grumbled to himself, rubbing over the freshly healed skin, intrigued that it felt similarly ‘new’ in the same way a peeled scab did. His stomach clenched in desperate hunger and the hunter bit back a growl. How bad would it be in the morning? Would he be able to keep himself long enough to get in contact with his men? Either way with the sun streaming in the window there wasn’t much he could do about it now. Sleep wouldn’t cure all wounds in this case but it would at least provide a bit of respite.

The vampire hunter’s dreams were full of heat. Red hot rage and anger and rich hot blood and the sweet satisfaction of vengeance taken. When he woke he felt neither satisfied nor rested and a strange list of materials and ingredients echoing through his mind. McCullum shook his head, rubbing a hand through his hair, grimacing as it stuck in the way he pushed it. Those lists… the anger… those weren’t his thoughts… He wracked his head for anything he might’ve read on the topic, coming up blank, Priwen weren’t really the ones to do deep research into the abilities of vampires, beyond how to counter them. He swore though, if those turned out to be the damn doctor’s… He’d kill him twice over for that alone. The last thing he wanted was to be in the man’s head. Well it was a problem for another time. He had other issues to handle at the moment. A glance out the window revealed that it was in fact nighttime, nothing but a darkness flowing in. A darkness that the hunter still found lacking, having been granted eyes that were meant for it. McCullum was pondering how best to approach his men as he dressed and opened the door into the night. 

The very last thing he was expecting was to open the door straight into a patrol rounding a corner, chatting and joking as though they weren’t out to hunt the very things that went bump in the night. He froze. They froze. The young man who was clearly in charge of the unit, who McCullum knew had been introduced to him on more than one occasion but couldn’t remember his name for the life of him, stepped forward, squinting in the darkness of the alleyway that the safehouse was located in.

“Mister McCullum?” he said, raising his torch to get a better look at the man. Geoffrey raised a hand to block the light from his eyes just in the knick of time until the young man lowered it with a swift apology. “Mister McCullum! That’s a relief! After you didn’t return from the fight with the doctor, we feared the worst, thank God you’re okay!” The young man was beaming from ear to ear and his sentiment was echoed in some of his compatriots in soft mumbles around them.

Geoffrey just blinked a couple of times, not entirely sure of how to react, they sounded genuinely pleased to have found him but… did they not notice? Clearly some training was lacking in these recruits if they couldn’t recognize a leech right in front of them but the hunter wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Aye, I needed a place to rest after, nurse my wounds.” he said. The patrol all nodded, as though it made perfect sense that their leader had just walked away from a fight with a powerful leech with nothing but a few flesh wounds. If they were going to be gullible, so be it, at least it would work to his advantage and he’d tell his captains to give them a good verbal whipping before they sent him off. “Could one of you send for Lloyd? Not sure I’m up for the whole slog back to headquarters just yet.”

“Of course!” the leader of the squad piped up “Do you need one of us to stay with you?”

“No.” McCullum said, perhaps too quickly as the squad leader paused before nodding.

“Alright, Alvin, Russel, you two are the quickest, go and fetch Mister Morton for Mister McCullum, the rest of you are with me, we’ve a fair bit further to go tonight.” the young man gave a quick salute to McCullum and waved the rest of his group with him. Two broke off, pelting back down the alleyway the way they had come; the smell of the pair, sweat and damp wool and fresh blood… Geoffrey flinched, vision flickering dark and pulsing in time with the fangs in his mouth. This wasn’t good… he clenched his teeth and his fingers curled into fists against his will but the group of men didn’t turn back. He stood there, stiff as a board, until they were completely out of range of his senses. When they finally did he felt all of the air rush out of him in a woosh, unaware that he’d been holding it until it left. The hunger was still clawing viciously at his stomach and pulsing in his teeth but the temptation was no longer standing in front of him.

“I need to do something about this before I speak to Lloyd…” he grumbled under his breath, turning and heading down the alleyway, pointedly turning the opposite way that the patrol had. It didn’t take him long to hear the sounds of a sewer beast snuffling and snarling in a particularly dirty corner of the twisting roads. The hunter felt the eagerness to fight roll over his frame before he remembered why he was searching for the damn thing in the first place. His stomach roiled with revulsion for what he was about to do and nearly thought of turning back but it turned and noticed him, eyes glinting the lamplight back at McCullum in an eerie green glow. It growled at him and Geoffrey growled right back, feeling the sensation actually reverberate in his chest as he darted forward, ducking low under the attack that he already knew was coming. He slashed up with one hand, bright red suddenly decorating the air and his breath caught seeing it, mouth suddenly flooding with saliva as he wrenched his gaze back to the fight at hand. They tangoed for only a moment longer, the beast attempting to gut him with one long clawed mitt, the hunter caught it by the wrist, feeling far faster than he used to. He used its forward momentum to wrench the arm behind its back and force it to its knees allowing him unimpeded access to its throat. He should’ve been mortified, disgusted, repelled by the feeling of his own fangs tearing through flesh in a desperate bid for the blood that pulsed beneath. Instead… instead he just groaned in pleasure, clawing tighter at the monster that he’d trapped in his grip, jaw clenching and fangs tearing at the skin and releasing more cool blood down his throat.

He still had the monster’s flesh clenched between his teeth when he came down from the high this time and had to actively relax his jaw and extricate himself from the beast. Geoffrey’s breath was coming in and out in heady pants as he stood despite the fact that it hadn’t been a very strenuous fight and it took several long moments before he managed to calm it. He wiped his mouth with his already severely bloodied scarf and only then took note of the claws decorating the ends of his fingers.

“Fuck…” He grumbled, flexing them several times, taking in the horrifying appearance even as they started to recede, the darkened bloodied color flowing up his wrists before disappearing under his sleeves. McCullum tried to pay attention to how it happened, the way he could feel the flow of it, ready to be called upon again at a moments' notice. He couldn’t help running his tongue over his teeth, sucking the remaining blood off of them before shivering. Whether it was out of pleasure or revulsion was not something the hunter was willing to explore at the moment. He needed to get back to the hideout, to clean up before Lloyd got there. Not that that would fool the man but he didn’t exactly want to be wearing the evidence of his kill all over his face when his captain showed up.

-Twisted Fate-

Geoffrey was starting to feel a bit more like himself after cleaning up as best he could with the meager supplies of the safehouse. It surprised him that he was able to feel so… human, despite his now monstrous nature. He looked in the beat up mirror again, the fangs hadn’t receded entirely but they weren’t as obvious as they had been, he was fairly certain that his captain could walk in here without him feeling the need to tear his old friend’s throat out. McCullum busied the rest of his time doing what he could to clean up his scarf and coat and maintain his weapons. It was soothing, nearly meditative, to do the usual maintenance on his crossbow and to clean and oil and sharpen his blade with neat, even strokes. By the time there was a gentle knock on the door he was nearly done with the process.

“Come in,” he said. He didn’t even look up as Lloyd let himself in, the door thunking softly behind him. Geoffrey took a deep breath and looked up at his captain, his second in command if he was being truly honest with himself, he was prepared to see disgust, to watch as a man he’d grown up around pulled a weapon on him. Instead there was just an expression of relief that spread across Lloyd’s face as he walked forward, clapping a hand on McCullum’s shoulder.

“Geoffrey, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see you.” he said, smiling wearily. There were bags under Lloyd’s eyes and a weariness in the slope of his shoulders that the hunter immediately felt responsible for. The man had probably been shouldering the majority of the leadership of Priwen in Geoffrey’s absence. But… did he not notice? How could he not? He’d known McCullum for ages, the signs should be incredibly obvious. Perhaps… perhaps he was just being kind, gentle for old times sake…

“You went to confront that doctor and then when you didn’t return that night… well we all feared the worst. I was certainly more than a little surprised when those two scouts came to me with news that you were holed up over here… and to see you alive and well…” he paused and smiled genuinely at his leader “It’s a damn nice stroke of luck.” he said. Geoffrey couldn’t help but pause, could he actually not tell?

“I…” Geoffrey trailed off, did he play along? Did he force the other man to acknowledge the truth? The indecision must’ve been obvious on his face as Lloyd just patted his shoulder good-naturedly.

“You don’t have to talk about the confrontation right now if you don’t want to. Heal up a bit first then we’ll file the report, okay?” he said, his expression so genuine that McCullum felt his gut clench in guilt. He hadn’t actually said much of anything but he still felt as though he were lying to one of his few friends. He swallowed, the hunger settling in a low burn in his stomach and reminding him of what had happened. What he had become. The horrible mental image of just giving in and digging his teeth into Lloyd’s throat flashed, unbidden through his mind, just as quickly replaced with the image of the monster that had done this to him in the first place. There was concern hanging like a heavy cloud over the captain as he watched his friend.

“He must’ve really done a number on you huh?” he asked, catching Geoffrey’s attention once more from the nightmare it’d wandered off to.

“Yes.” Was the harsh reply that fell from the hunter’s lips. He needed to tell them what the doctor had become… but… what good would it do? Could they even hope to stand up to such a monster? The ease with which he’d fought both the Skal and the Sewer Beast came to mind and at first he dismissed it out of habit. He’d become that which they fought, he needed to turn himself in! But perhaps with his own monstrous abilities… Maybe they stood a sliver of chance… “I’m lucky to have come away as well as I did.” he said, resolve hardening as he opened his mouth to speak. He too was a creature of deceit now wasn’t he? Lloyd watched him for a bit longer, still appearing worried before a grin broke out on his face.

“Well! The important thing is that you made it back alive and in one piece, we can worry about the details more tomorrow evening when you’ve got some of your strength back. I’m just thankful to have ya’ back Geoffrey.” Lloyd didn’t often call him by his first name, it was just another sign of how worried the other man had been. It all piled in to make McCullum feel all the more guilty for playing into the man’s lack of insight. The other hunter straightened, shifting his coat a bit in the chilly room before looking back at his commander

“I’m going to go join that patrol that passed through recently, unless you’d like me to stay?” Lloyd suggested.

“No.” Geoffrey said, perhaps a bit too quickly as his friend gave him a sideways glance “No, I’ll be alright, I’ll make my way back tomorrow evening, like you said, make my report on the battle then.” he continued. Lloyd just nodded along, rising to his feet and giving his leader one more hard stare.

“Take care of yourself McCullum, I don’t know what we’d do without you.” he said seriously before collecting his own sword and slamming the flimsy door behind himself. The fledgling vampire let out a sigh, tension bleeding out of his frame as he fell backward onto the bed. He still wasn’t sure how on God's green Earth Lloyd hadn’t noticed what had become of him, the man had known him since he was a spindly angry teenager. Perhaps that was part of the problem. Perhaps his friend didn’t want to see the changes in him, and the patrol squad were just too green… He snorted, yeah and he was the King of France… it was all just too unlikely.

The larger question was what had he done to force them not to be able to see? Geoffrey was experienced enough to know about the nasty mental tricks that they could pull. He was usually able to push through or around them himself. Most of his captains were able to do the same and a good number of the recruits were able to see past the usual glamour that surrounded a vampire well enough to identify them on sight. The leech doctor hadn’t been able to fool him, he’d known the moment he’d laid eyes on the monster, and he knew many patrols had tried to stop the damn leech in the streets. Meaning they too had seen through the glamour. Those had been rough reports to file, too many young men’s lives cut short… It only strengthened his resolve to end the damn doctor himself before turning himself in. If he died trying… well it was no real loss at this point… 

What did he have to work with? He’d be able to restock his weapons tomorrow when he went back to the small office that they used as their headquarters. He somehow had managed a glamour that his own men couldn’t see through, though he couldn’t tell what it looked like himself. That was also something he wasn’t sure he could count on… So that was a maybe. He had more strength than he had before, but the winding snarling hunger within reminded him how quickly that would fade unless he… McCullum closed his eyes, took a single breath in and out and pushed the details from his mind. He’d keep his strength up. Somehow. There were other leech tricks too. He’d managed to manifest the claws when he’d been fighting the Sewer Beast but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do it again, or any of the other things that he’d seen other leeches do. His limited understanding was that it took practice and a sort of innate power of ones’ bloodline, if the rumors he’d heard from the stuck up pricks from Ascalon held any water. No option but to practice… he supposed, face scrunching up in distaste.

Chapter Text

Geoffrey took a deep breath through his nose, trying for what felt like the hundredth time to manifest the claws on his hands. When he opened his eyes and looked down at his fingers though, nothing had changed. There was tension in the joints but nothing else. He swore, wanting to punch something, why wasn’t this working? There were the briefest flashes of red-hot rage that flowed through his frame, anger that didn’t feel entirely his own and then it was gone. That was enough to give him pause. He swallowed, tried to ignore the coppery taste that clung to the back of his throat and push the thoughts out of his mind. The damned snake’s thoughts invading his own was concerning, he had no idea how long he could ignore them for, how long it would be before those thoughts actually started manipulating him, forcing his hand… 

“Dammit. Focus.” he growled to himself, shaking his head. There had to be some trick to this, just like focusing one’s faith to repel vampires. A trick he’d never excelled at to be sure but he had been able to figure it out under the guidance of the priests that Priwen kept in their employ. He had no teacher this time but it couldn’t be that much harder. Besides, he’d done it once already. The hunter tried to think of what he’d been feeling when he’d been fighting that Sewer Beast… his stomach clenched in hunger and he felt his lips pull back from his teeth almost unconsciously as a strange crawling sensation pulsed through his sluggishly beating veins. He’d just killed that beast after awakening for the evening, why was he still hungry?

“Fuck…” he growled, opening his eyes that he didn’t quite remember closing. When he looked down though, the dark bloody claws had actually appeared on his fingers. As he pushed the hunger to the back of his focus however there was that strange crawling sensation once more, the claws disappearing just as they had earlier that evening, this time though he was able to pay better attention to how it happened. So… the ability to manifest them was at least partly tied to his hunger, or at least it seemed that way. Geoffrey shook his head, took a deep breath and tried again.

It took several attempts but not nearly as long as the first time he’d tried before the claws manifested again. He paused, breathing a bit heavier than he had been before. McCullum didn’t know how long that would stick around, he’d seen many older leeches that didn’t seem to breathe at all other than to speak, it was damned eerie and he couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before he forgot to do that himself. It didn’t matter, he thought to himself, he wouldn’t be around long enough to find out. He just needed to kill the damned doctor and then he’d surrender himself to his men. Again, he told himself, looking back down at his hands. He kept at it until the slight tremor in his fingers and the way he could feel his pulse in his teeth forced him to stop. It was a lot more tiring than he thought it would be and looking at the window he could tell it was a much deeper night than it had been when he’d started. It wasn’t much different from when he practiced with his blade or crossbow however, practice and repetition made the motions easier and second nature. 

Geoffrey considered his options. He needed to get back to headquarters tomorrow and despite having fed earlier in the evening he could still feel the hunger gnawing at the pits of his stomach. The hunter wanted to head out as soon as dusk struck tomorrow and didn’t want to be fighting the desire to feed on his own men. He sighed, that pretty much forced the matter didn’t it? He looked at the sky through the window, there was still plenty of time before dawn and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to get more monsters off the streets. The fledgling strapped his sword to his waist and opened the door once more to head out into the night to find trouble.

As he walked through the cold night he considered what he already knew; that the higher the body count that a leech had, the more powerful they were. Though that seemed to be partly dependent on their bloodline as well. He’d already done research on who the doctor had been before he’d died, he knew that the man hadn’t been a leech for very long, a newborn in terms of a vampire. There was no way he should have been as powerful as he was. That was what had caused them to suspect that he was the progeny of Marshal in the first place. No leech should be able to rise from the grave and do what that monster had done just days after awakening. Geoffrey didn’t know if the fact that all the power of that bloodline being passed onto him was a relief or a curse. It may help him in taking down the monster that had forced this onto him, but it was frustrating to know that even if they’d brought the whole Guard in, it still wouldn’t have been enough to take the leech doctor down. They were horribly outclassed in this fight. McCullum was used to being the underdog, that was just how it went when fighting the blood-sucking monsters but this was in a world all of its own.

The screech of a skal drew his attention and he started off in its direction, pulling his sword from its sheath tightening his grip on the hilt. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that he felt his fangs lengthening in anticipation of the fight or that his jump into range of the creature had him instinctually yanking on the shadows to assist him. He tried to fight as a human would. He needed to practice doing it if he was going to be alongside his men long enough to take down his maker. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell too long on, the idea of tricking his men, of not turning himself over right away. No. He needed to give them all the assistance he could in getting rid of the monster that had taken his life. Having virtually beaten the monster already he struck forward, biting down hard in the direction of the things’ throat. It wasn’t a good strike, and the way the Skal was struggling had caused him to miss the main artery in its throat, causing the trickle of blood to be much slower and the whole process to take a lot longer than it should’ve. Irritated with the whole process, Geoffrey released the monster, letting the body fall to the ground loudly, trying to suppress the ecstasy flowing like fire over his nerves.

“Fuck…” he grumbled, limbs trembling even as he lifted his sword to chop the poor creatures head off for good measure. It had been harder than he expected not to rely on his new enhanced strength or his ability to pull on the shadows. This had only been for the past night and half, why was it so easy to fall onto those new abilities? He swallowed, trying to ignore the way the Skal’s blood clung to the inside of his mouth. He needed to get cleaned up as best he could before the trial that the following night was sure to present…

-Twisted Fate-

The following night was just as cold and dreary as when he’d headed out to face down the doctor leech. The similarities alone were enough to set him on edge, let alone having dreams filled with the anger and the damned doctor’s icy cold thirst settling on top of his own. Geoffrey grumbled to himself, used his hands to comb his hair into something less like a mess and turned his collar up against the cold. His scarf was stuffed into one of his many pockets, too bloodstained for him to deal with in the limited facilities of the safehouse but he couldn’t bring himself to part with it just yet. Not that there was really anything special about it, it was just a woolen red scarf that he’d liked the look of a few years back and decided to splurge on.

Walking back to headquarters didn’t take quite as long as he had originally expected, perhaps it was the briskness the cold added to his step. It was too bad that becoming a leech hadn’t made the cold bite any less. Oh he was certain that it wouldn’t hurt him like it had when he was… before, but it still stung his face and had him squinting his watering eyes. The hunter had to fight to not keep reaching into the shadows to move faster through the cold night, all the same he arrived back at headquarters in record time, slamming the door behind himself and marching right over to the fire that had already been lit in the small, sturdy wood stove in the corner. He shoved his hands in front of it and sighed as the tingling sensation crept through the frozen joints. Lloyd looked up from whatever he was working long enough to give him a smile and a nod, the other captains hovering around, asking after his health and what had happened during the fight and dozens of other smaller anecdotes.

“Lemme get in the door and some warmth in my bones.” he grumbled, they all fell quiet and McCullum was just waiting for one of them to notice, to call him out and for all of them to descend on him and take his head. One breath, two, it didn’t happen, none of them could tell. How could none of them notice? Many of them went back to what they were doing, Murphy headed out to lead a patrol on the streets, his face set in a grim mask. Someone set a cup of tea on a table near him. It all went straight back to what a normal evening looked like for all of them, even with the extra workload that the pandemic had hefted onto all of them and it made Geoffrey want to crawl out of his own skin. 

When he was starting to feel a bit thawed he grabbed the mug of tea, granted he knew better than to drink it but it felt comforting to hold. His captains took that as a sign that he was ready to be bombarded with questions. Most of them wanted to know what had happened after he’d gone off to fight the leech doctor. They knew that the leech had survived, he’d attacked their temporary setup in the theater, clearly going after Swansea. Although those who survived the attack on the theater said that he’d drained Swansea, killed him where they’d been interrogating him. Had he had enough of the Brotherhood pansy? Had Swansea’s usefulness run up? Or was it something else? Geoffrey put visiting the theater high up on his mental to-do list, he may be able to find some clues as to where the snake had slithered off to. 

After his captains had finally seemed to run out of questions and updates to fill him in on Geoffrey was able to get a few moments to himself, filing the report that he’d promised Lloyd about his fight with the leech doctor, he kept the details as accurate as he felt comfortable, leaving it up for debate why on earth the leech hadn’t just killed him outright. He checked over the rotation lists that the other captains had left with him for his seal of approval. Most were fine, though there were a few that he updated and shifted some names around, balancing the teams better. Finally feeling more himself and more on top of things Geoffrey tracked down Lloyd. There were some documents he needed to get his hands on. He found his captain in the largest closet in the small building, taking stock of their inventory. It was a job that no one wanted to do, for certain but at the very least it was out of the cold night.

“Lloyd.” he said, surprised when the other man started, whipping around to face him, his hand reaching for a weapon that was sitting on a table outside the closet.

“Jesus Geoffrey, don’t scare me like that.” the older man said, taking a deep breath and putting a hand on his chest. Geoffrey could hear Lloyd’s heart start to settle and swallowed against the sudden flood of saliva in his mouth. His vision had started to tinge into the monochrome for a second before he forced himself to take visual stock of what Lloyd had been counting up.

“Not my fault your hearing’s going.” the hunter said, hoping that the light teasing would distract his right hand man from noticing how intensely he had been staring at him just a moment ago.

“Har har.” Lloyd said, stepping out of the closet and settling into one of the chairs in the room. “What can I do for you?” he asked “Now that the rest of the captains are done pestering you half to death.”

“I’m looking for the documents we have on Dragons.” McCullum said “And any we might have on the bond between leech and their progeny.” he continued. Lloyd gave him a strange look

“What on earth do you need to look into that for?” he asked, but he was already making a note on the back of one of the inventory sheets that he had set aside.

“If the doctor really was sired by Marshall we may be able to lure the old bat out of hiding. But I need to check our notes regarding the topic first. No point in introducing extra risk to ourselves if we don’t need to.” Geoffrey said quickly, hoping that his friend bought his lie. He hated lying to the man but… it needed to be done, he needed to know how much the damned snake was going to be able to manipulate him.

“I’ll dig up what I can but I think most of our books were lost in our last move. Most of the men are here to fight, not to take records. We’re not the Brotherhood.” Lloyd said, rising to his feet with a tired grunt.

“Never thought we were but know thy enemy and all that…” the fledgling waved a hand. Lloyd chuckled

“I hear you, I’ll see what I can find but I need to finish this inventory first. I think we’re awfully low on fuel for the flamethrowers, and it’s gotten harder to get more.” the older man said, glancing at his sheets. Geoffrey nodded

“I’ll see what I can do about… scrounging up some more.” Geoffrey said. He hated the idea of stealing any but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides they never took anything from anyone who couldn’t spare it.

“I appreciate it McCullum.” Lloyd said to his retreating back.

-Twisted Fate-

It felt good to sleep in his own bed. If sleep was what he could call it. He still dreamt but he didn’t wake between dawn and dusk, waking in the exact same position in which he’d finally succumbed to the weight of the drowsiness that the sun brought. He knew, had searched out leeches in the past in the midst of the day when they were most vulnerable and they had barely been able to rouse themselves before they met their ends on the business side of his sword. However it still made him uncomfortable to consider that he bore the same weakness now. He rose slowly, stretching and yawning, the fangs felt heavy and far too large in his mouth, the hunger snarling in his belly like a rabid beast. He knew that he’d have to hunt tonight, there was no putting it off, not if he wanted to be in the presence of his men. 

There was a small pile on his desk that hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep. A collection of papers and a few books in addition to a plate of food. It smelled just as good as he remembered Joan’s cooking smelling but he knew better than to eat any of it. He felt terrible wasting any of the food when they were all struggling to scrounge up enough of what they needed but it wouldn’t do for any of his men to find out about his fate just yet so he scraped most of it into the trash regretfully. There was a note on the top of the books and papers and Geoffrey looked at it after taking care of the food.

Here are all the things that you mentioned yesterday that I could find. You were out hard when I stopped by but I managed to scrape together something to eat for ya too. I’ll be with Johnson’s patrol tonight.

-Lloyd

Reading it just made Geoffrey feel worse about the food he’d just tossed but there was nothing to be done for it. He set the books and notes at his bedside table, he’d look into them later, first he needed to hunt…

McCullum didn’t like the fact that it was getting easier to control his newfound abilities, to only use them when he wanted to and to be able to fight like the man he had so recently been. But just because he didn’t like it didn’t mean that it was progress in the right direction. He knew that leeches gained power through blood and if he was going to fight the damned doctor and take him out for good he was going to need to get more powerful. He wiped the blood from his face, it seemed that practice didn’t keep him from making a mess… He refused to take a human life, he wouldn’t, no matter how much he could smell the blood pounding beneath the skin of his men, no matter how much the smell appealed… But in order to rid the world of Marshall’s progeny he needed power… Geoffrey sighed, splashing some water from a flask onto his hands and then to his face to get rid of the remainder of the mess. This was a bit of a sticking point. How did he gain power without taking human life? Killing Skals, while worthwhile and satisfying, wouldn’t get him very far. Would going after more powerful vampires get him any farther? The hunter scoffed to himself, at the very least it’d be a few less leeches in the world. Not really any downsides there. That didn’t even go into the fact that he had nothing to lose now…

He slowly made his way back to headquarters, stopping first in the bathroom to be sure that the most damning of the mess he’d made of himself had been washed away. Looking into the mirror he still wasn’t sure how none of his men had noticed, it seemed so obvious to himself. The waxen sheen to his skin, the more prominent veins around his eyes. There had to be some reason that they didn’t notice… He looked back up to dry his face and was startled to see the red and black eyes of the dragon before they faded away. He jolted slightly, it must’ve been the bit of the leech doctor that was still haunting his mind. That was probably the most concerning thing that the doctor was still lingering within his mind… The hunter sighed, he desperately needed to go through the documents that Lloyd had given him.

He paused in the postage stamp sized meeting room, spoke with a few of the squad leaders that were passing back through the headquarters, took a cup of tea, pretended to drink it, and then headed back to his room to take a look at the pile of papers still sitting on his desk. McCullum sighed, dumped the tea out the window and sat down in the least creaky chair that he’d managed to hide away up in his room and set about reading what was in front of him.

After approximately an hour and a half all the hunter felt he’d accomplished was making himself irritable, hungry and given himself a headache. He let the most recent journal fall back onto the desk with a flop that was loud enough to almost make him jump. Damned sensitive hearing… The journals that Lloyd had dug up were old and worn and the handwriting within was painful to decipher. If he hadn’t thought that whomever he assigned to it would leave on the spot, he’d have some of the rookies type these out on the typewriter that broke as often as it functioned.  The contents that he could make out wasn’t telling him much more than he already knew; Dragons were Ekons that took lives at an almost astounding pace, gleefully glutting themselves on the humanity that they killed. There were mentions of other types of vampires, even a few that Geoffrey hadn’t heard of, and a couple that the writer hadn’t heard of themselves and speculated that they may be different names for the ones already discovered. That made sense, most of this information wasn’t well known and while many Ekons kept in touch with one another, or used each other like some warped game of chess, they were still few and far between, there were probably names for Ekons that most Ekons hadn’t heard of. Geoffrey groaned, he was starting to sound like those Stole bastards… He needed to get up and do something so he stood and made his way down to the small kitchen, giving a grateful rookie a hand with some of the dishes that had piled up there. The kid thanked him with a barely squeaked out word before fleeing to whomever he’d been assigned to this week. One of the captains filed in after the kid and scoffed.

“What’d ya do now McCullum?” Johnson asked, leaning against the doorway. Geoffrey rolled his eyes as he slowly began putting the mismatched mugs and cups into the cupboard.

“Nothing, kid’s damned starstruck is what he is.” the leader said, glancing between his captain and the remaining dishes until the other man got the hint and assisted in the cleaning process “That or the pipsqueak’s scared of a bit of authority.”

“Or he knows mean spirited when he sees it.” Johnson joked casually.

“I’d take my chances in here wit’ me than running past you then.” McCullum shot back. Johnson just chuckled and they continued on with the menial chores that came with running the covert group.

As the evening wore on, the hunter was certain he was going to drive himself mad. He had started to notice whenever one of his men came through the door, whether he was in the room or not, many of them arriving back injured and he had to clench his jaw and try his damndest to ignore the scent of copper as it tinged the air, as it made his fangs itch and throb. His charade must’ve been decent as the worst he received was an odd look from one of his captains before they shrugged it off and moved along. Lloyd wandered up as everyone was dispersing in the early hours of the morning, offering the flask that he usually kept tucked at his hip. Geoffrey waved off the silent offer, Lloyd raised a brow but tossed the flask back regardless.

“Suit yourself,” he grumbled “did you see the files I left for you?”

“Yeah, tried to parse them ‘till I started gettin’ stir-crazy.” McCullum nodded, glancing at the short report the last arriving squad had left. It wasn’t good, talk about Skals on nearly every street they checked. They had taken out a few of the stragglers but hadn’t felt equipped to take on some of the larger groups. He certainly preferred that they take the route of caution, come back to fight another day rather than lose their lives to the beasts on the streets.

“Are you planning on joining a patrol tomorrow?” Lloyd asked suddenly, snapping the fledgling from his musings.

“Ah,” was his first response, he paused, tried to collect his thoughts and then continued “maybe, I was considering staking out some of the snootier leeches, see if I can’t learn anything.”

“Recover from our last attack against Ascalon, watch while they’re still reeling.” Lloyd nodded and Geoffrey couldn’t help but mentally pat himself on the back for the quick thinking. Bringing Ascalon to mind also brought up a red hot flash of anger. They should’ve done more to prepare, McCullum wasn’t too big of a man to admit that, but it didn’t do anything to diminish the rage that burned when he thought of the damned leeches tearing down his men like it was just a walk in the park. He quickly found himself trying to suppress the growl that wanted to reverberate in his chest. The involuntary reaction was just a cause to be more pissed off. Thankfully Lloyd didn’t seem to notice or react as McCullum cleared his throat instead.

“Are you going to assemble a team for it?” his captain asked, looking over one of the reports himself. 

“No,” Geoffrey shook his head “the fewer the men the better. I want to be discreet, just one man might tip them off, especially when they’re still on edge from our last raid.”

“Geoffrey,” Lloyd said, the hunter looked to his captain, hoping that the older man wasn’t about to tell him that he couldn’t do it, that he wouldn’t be allowed to “be careful. Please. The world won’t end if you take a couple more days to recover.”

“Try telling that to those whose lives get torn apart by leeches.” McCullum scoffed, turning to the lists of the known bastards of the Ascalon club that they still had. One of their lists had gone missing, likely with the group that had raided the club. Lloyd gave a long suffering sigh and bade him a good evening before disappearing out the door.

Geoffrey spent the rest of his night picking out a target for his test, searching for any information that he could find on them. He settled on one Lord Humphrey. Not a man who had a large amount of power in the club but they had more information on him than on some of the other members. Humphrey didn’t seem to have come from a powerful bloodline but he was still an Ekon, which would allow Geoffrey to test his theory on whether he’d be able to gain more power himself through the blood of a more powerful vampire. Satisfied with the knowledge he’d gathered he checked through a few more reports and then lay down to rest when he couldn’t resist the drowsiness of the sun any longer…

-Twisted Fate-

The stakeout portion of any mission was always the most boring, after an hour or so the anticipating excitement wore off and then you were just trying to not fall asleep on your feet. Geoffrey stifled a yawn and kept his eyes glued on the home in front of him. It was small… for a mansion, so still far larger than any one man really needed, in the hunter’s opinion. He had taken the first part of the evening to take out a few Skals, drinking his fill as he did. The pure euphoria that accompanied every single one of the kills hadn’t diminished from the first time he’d sunk desperate teeth into flesh and that concerned him. The power that flashed through his limbs when the luke-warm blood was flooding his mouth was addicting and he wondered, not for the first time, whether he’d be able to resist long enough to confront his maker or if his men would find him with his teeth latched in some poor innocent.

Motion at the door of the house pulled the fledgling from his thoughts and he focused in on it. Humphrey was stepping outside, placing an absolutely gaudy hat on top of his head before looking around and heading down the street at a brisk pace. Geoffrey stood from his hiding place when he was sure that the man could no longer sense him and followed after. The enhanced senses were definitely proving their worth now as he was able to follow from a much further distance than he would’ve had he still been human. He watched from a far distance as the man went to a couple shops, made some likely very boring purchases and went on his way, the perfect mask of an ordinary gentleman. The hunter knew better however as he peered down from above on one of the rooftops that he’d jumped up to to avoid walking straight down the street. He knew that someone of his standing would stick out like a sore thumb here and his ability to follow Humphrey would fall apart immediately. The ease of travelling by the rooftops surprised him though, and while he tailed the man he tried to think of a subtle way to encourage his men to look up, he couldn’t be the first leech to take to the building tops to travel out of view of the public. Humphrey started making his way toward the docks, and Geoffrey raised an eyebrow, where was he going? The hunter followed up above as long as he could before dropping down to the ground and continuing his pursuit. Humphrey turned down an alleyway that came to a deadend and stopped.

“I didn’t live this long without being able to tell when I’m being followed.” he said, in what Geoffrey was sure the leech considered an imposing voice. Instead it just came out whiny and nasally. McCullum stepped out from where he’d been hiding to face his foe.

“I think you and I have different definitions of ‘living.’” Geoffrey said as the lamplight that leaked into the alleyway illuminated his form.

“That may be so.” Humphrey said with an inclination of his head. “I’ll give you one chance to take your leave boy, run back to those dogs that you call hunters and we can let this blow over.” the Ekon sneered and McCullum was surprised to realize he could feel the other leech pulling on the magic in his blood before there were any outward signs that it was happening. He wasn’t going to let me go, the hunter mused to himself as he stepped to the side and the spear of blood and shadows darted past him. It was clumsy and Geoffrey was sure that it wouldn’t have surprised him even before his change.

“Right, you see there’s a few problems with that,” he started moving toward the leech “first of all, you had no intention of letting me leave, and second, I’ve got a bit of a problem with letting leeches like yourself just roam the streets.” the hunter swung his sword as he finished the last word and Humphrey dodged backward, swirls of shadow following him, and laughed.

“You think that you have any hope of taking me down? Alone?” the Ekon tossed another blood spear that Geoffrey wasn’t sure would’ve hit even if he hadn’t moved forward. He darted this time, pulling on the shadows himself, feeling the blood coalesce around his fingers as he slashed upward, claws digging directly into the other leech’s flesh and squelched in such a way that made the hunter’s stomach clench with want. The presence of his fangs were suddenly heavy and prominent in his mouth.

“ What ?!” Humphrey said, flinching and trying to pull away, the claws in his guts clenching tighter as Geoffrey tried to keep him there with a growl.

“What are you?” the Ekon gasped through the pain.

“I…” McCullum grinned at him, enjoying the shock on the Ekon’s face at his fangs “am a hunter.” He wrapped the fingers of his other hand in Humphrey’s hair and wrenched his head to the side before sinking his fangs into the leech. He thought that he’d experienced joy before, when drinking from Skals or the Sewer Beast that he’d taken down but oh, how wrong he’d been… pure, unadulterated euphoria spread over his limbs at the taste, his hands clenching, eyes falling shut without his permission. Why had he not done this sooner…? The body in his arms bucked, so he just bit harder, ignoring the pinpricks of pain until they faded, instead relishing in the wondrous flavor as it flowed down his throat.

The blood had long stopped flowing by the time he opened his eyes and let go of Humphrey’s body. Even longer to feel like his breathing had settled into a more normal rhythm and the shaking to stop. He extracted his claws from the leech’s guts and couldn’t help himself but bring them to his mouth, laving his tongue over each one, a fresh set of trembling washing down his spine and making his breath hitch in his throat every time his tongue made another pass. It took far, far too long to come to his senses, to be able to think in coherent thoughts, to comprehend what he’d just done. He swallowed, fighting back the pleasure that came with the taste that coated the back of his throat and picked up his sword from where it had fallen in the thrill of the hunt. Wiping the blade on the leech’s clothing and sheathing it were safe motions, things he’d done a hundred thousand times before and helped him start to feel more in control of himself despite every nerve feeling like fireworks were going off on them. The claws were still there and at this point Geoffrey wasn’t entirely sure how to make them go away. At least, not when he was still riding so high from the fight. He tried to slow his breathing and all it helped him succeed in was taking jittery inhale and a rapid exhale with an annoyed growl. If this was going to happen every time he needed to try harder to get a handle on himself.

“Fuck…” he sank down with his back to the alley wall, hoping that the bracing of the solid brick would help. It didn’t. At least not as quickly as he would’ve hoped. Eventually he felt more like himself and felt the tingle of the blood pulling away from his fingers as the claws retracted. The first taste of blood hadn’t been like this… this felt… far more intense. Geoffrey almost lifted a hand to his face before remembering the mess that he’d made of himself. Slowly he stood back up and pulled the leech’s body somewhere where the sun would take care of the remains and then looked around to get a bearing on his surroundings. He had a lot of time before dawn remaining and he needed to at the very least get the worst of the blood off of his face. The hunter looked up to the sky, the moon was hidden behind the thick London clouds, just as gloomy as the mood that settled over him. This was his new reality, wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

Geoffrey was sitting at his desk, internally debating if he should mark Humphrey as disposed of in their listing. He knew most of his captains would put two and two together of his little outing and the sudden checking off of an Ekon on their list. At the same time however it would be a waste of resources to send men to do reconnaissance of a man who was already dead.  He gave a heavy sigh and decided that it was better to just leave well enough alone. He could always update the list before he resigned himself to his fate at the hands of his men. The hunter put the list aside and instead tried to be more productive, looking over some of the lists of supplies needed from some of his captains, it… wasn’t going well, he still felt off kilter and too full of energy from his outing earlier in the evening. When was that feeling going to wear off? He wasn’t sure if he felt more powerful or just plain antsy. Unable to focus, McCullum got to his feet and wandered to the main hall to speak with his captains.

As soon as he entered the room every muscle in his body tensed up as the heavy smell of blood clogged the room. Geoffrey had to fight the instinct to bare his fangs, if any of his men had looked at him he was sure his fragile cover would have been blown. He wasn’t sure if he was thankful that they were all staring at the man, boy really, who was laying between the rest of his squad with a hand pressed to his ribs. Before… before it would have been hard to wager how badly he’d been hurt but now he could tell that the cut must be deep just based on the amount of the blood that was being wasted on the floor. His vision wobbled into that strange monochrome briefly, and he could see exactly where the boy had been cut open… He swallowed and shook his head as the captain who was likely in charge of this squad approached him, barely dragging his focus away from the enticing horror before him.

“Sir, Peterson says they were set on by a whole pack of those feral skals… they’re lucky they got away at all.” he said, still looking at the boy on the floor and not at his leader.

“We’ll see about that…” McCullum growled “Did anyone get ahold of the medic?” he turned back to the captain.

“Well they just got in-” the other man started before Geoffrey stalked away with a wordless growl. At the very least going to retrieve whoever was on hand tonight gave him an excuse to step away from what was spilling all over the floorboards. He took the briefest of moments just outside the door, taking deep, unnecessary breaths of air that wasn’t overwhelmed by the smell of blood. It didn’t matter that that hunt had only been earlier this evening, the hunger curled and snarled in his stomach as though it were a separate creature from himself, trying to bend him to its will, to turn him into something that he wasn’t. He ran his tongue over the fangs that refused to recede, shuddered, and went to find whomever was around tonight who could try to keep this kid alive.

McCullum stormed out after retrieving Peters, who had been tending to an infected bite wound at the time, with a muttered excuse of trying to scope out where they had been attacked. Walking the streets, he wasn’t entirely sure where he was going, he considered briefly walking to the graveyard but he didn’t think that he could face Carl’s ghost as he was. Instead he simply wandered, hungry and angry, until he started to feel a bit more in control. The cold bitter wind helped to clear his head and after about an hour he started to make his way to the area that he had caught in the turbulence of the conversation with Peters and the captain. It didn’t take long to find the area that they had been ambushed in; the screeches of the Skals were a dead giveaway. Geoffrey started stalking toward the point from which he’d just heard a howl. Unfortunately, he didn’t hear the one behind him until it was already trying to leap onto his back. Whirling around he lifted a hand, initially intending to mitigate some of the damage and blinked when the Skal collapsed to the ground, a bloody spear dissipating into mist as it gave it’s final twitches. The hunter blinked, startled further out of his anger and looked at his hand. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d done that but that was definitely something that they’d only seen more powerful Ekons do. Another one of the Skals screeched and he turned back to the direction he’d first been facing and raised his sword for the fight.

Clearing out a whole nest of Skals on his own was something that would have been suicide a week ago. It would have taken a lot of planning and anticipating the loss of several men. But now…? Now it was child’s play. The skills he’d had before paired with the natural endurance and strength made for a deadly combination and that was before he accounted for the cursed abilities that he was developing and learning to use. Throughout the fight he’d mostly figured out the trick of throwing blood spears… mostly. It was rather tiring and he found his crossbow more reliable and easier to aim however. He was pushing dawn when he finally found his way back to headquarters. McCullum’s plan had been to scurry back to his room and crash before anyone found him but Lloyd was still up, scrubbing fruitlessly at the stained floor. Geoffrey felt his nostrils flare at the mixed smell of cleaning chemicals and blood and hoped that his friend didn’t notice.

“Rodger’s in bed, Peters says if he makes it through the night that he has high hopes.”

“That’s good,” Geoffrey coughed slightly at the smell, turning his head away and taking a few steps over to start taking the crossbow off of his arm “not good that he’s still touch and go, but good that Peters’ has hope.” the hunter grumbled. He flexed his fingers a few times, hoping that that would ease some of the cold in the bones and would make it easier to work the straps loose from his arm. There was still some blood under his fingernails from where he’d slashed a Skal open with his own claws, but it was no worse that it would get from a regular fight. At least he hoped not.

“Are you alright boss?” Lloyd asked, looking up from what he was doing.

“Yeah?” McCullum said, breathing a sigh of relief when the strap finally came unstuck and the top half of the crossbow thunked gently to the table.

“You seem out of it, I know it’s frustrating when they come back injured but there’s nothing that you could’ve done.” Lloyd said, giving the floor one more solid scrub with the brush before seeming to decide that it was a lost cause and dropping it back into the bucket with a splash. The hunter realized that the other man was taking his twitchiness from the hunt as guilt for a man injured. It was definitely preferable but now Geoffrey was just feeling guilty for not feeling guilty.

“I know, doesn’t make it any easier.” he said, he wasn’t even sure if he was lying at this point. There was something he could’ve done though, he could’ve been there with them, kept them from getting hurt. He was just too much of a coward to face the repercussions of his own actions. To let his men see what had happened and to let them rid the world of him easily. Lloyd stood, grunting as his joints popped in the process and walked over to the younger hunter, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Geoffrey flinched slightly, suddenly hyper aware of the pulse that he could swear that he could feel through the captain’s fingertips and the intense smell of cleaning chemicals that still clung to his skin.

“You know that I’m always here for you Geoffrey?” Lloyd said “If you need to talk, or even if you just want to drink and forget the evening, I think I’ve got a bottle stashed up in my bunk somewhere.” he nudged the leader in the shoulder and McCullum could feel just about every muscle in his body clenched tightly.

“Thanks but what I need tonight is some sleep.” Geoffrey said gruffly, trying desperately to ignore the fangs throbbing in his gums and turned to walk away. He could feel Lloyd’s stare into the back of his shoulders but he didn’t turn back, didn’t trust himself not to bare fangs in the process.

He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow and his dreams were stained in red and drowned in sweet relief. He awakens the next evening half expecting to see blood coating his hands and a body in his arms. Instead it’s just the ceiling of his room, a blessedly boring relief. Were the dreams his own sick and warped desires coming to light or was it the influence of the damned doctor? He couldn’t tell anymore and it made a cold snake of fear worm its way down his spine at that thought. How long would it be until he couldn’t keep them isolated to his dreams? The hunter swallowed, trying to ignore the icy cold pulsing of want in his throat and stomach. He had work to get through first.

The other early showing captains and recruits greeted him pleasantly as he heads down the main room to work on some of the files and reports that have been stacking up. He nods at them in turn and forces himself to focus on the more tedious bits of running a vampire hunting group. A cup of tea is set at his elbow and he picks it up and takes a sip before the idea even truly registers with him. Immediately his stomach turns, as though he’d taken a gulp of soured milk. McCullum rises swiftly, trying to mask the disgust that must be evident all over his face as he made his way over to the closet of a bathroom that they had and turned on the water to mask the sound of his retching into the bowl. He stood there for several moments longer than was probably necessary, his stomach still trying to dry heave as the only thing that had been in it was so quickly evacuated. When he left the bathroom he received nary a glance, which meant that they were all trying desperately to pretend that they hadn’t heard that or he’d been more covert than he’d thought. Geoffrey didn’t know which was better but thankfully none of his men brought it up to him.

He continued to work through the paperwork they had and looked back into the list that they had compiled of the leeches known to be associated with the Ascalon club. He planned to continue to thin their numbers but he was musing whether he should continue to go after the small fry or just gun straight for the top. Storming the main building wouldn’t do any good, their last, poor attempt had proven that with surefire clarity. He scanned the list of names again. Some of them didn’t seem to keep up with the Club’s goings on regularly, probably best to start with them, no one would notice for some time if they just… disappeared without a trace. Then he could try to go after those closer to the top, see if their bloodlines were as powerful as they claimed… Geoffrey made a mental note of his next quandary and then made his rounds, speaking to the captains and recruits alike, boosting morale where he could and providing guidance where he couldn’t.

Geoffrey waited to head out until most of the rest of the patrols had left for the evening. He checked his ammo and touched the sword at his side in comfortable habit as he reached for the door. He froze when Lloyd’s voice stopped him at the door.

“Sir?” the older man’s voice sounded slightly worried and McCullum almost flinched. It wasn’t as though he’d been caught doing anything he shouldn’t have been, so why was he so uptight about it?

“Yeah?” he asked, turning to face the captain. Lloyd looked worried, which either meant that he was onto Geoffrey or that the hunter was about to get a lecture about pushing himself too hard. That thought made him scoff, how could he push himself too hard anymore? He was a dead man walking.

“Where are you going?” the older captain asked. Geoffrey noticed that he looked ready to go out himself, that was a rarity these days. They both knew that Lloyd was getting older and slower, he was of much more use to them back here at base, keeping things running and teaching the newer recruits the ropes than he was out in the field.

“Out. Does it matter?” Geoffrey asked, taking a step back from the door in order to better face the man.

“Geoffrey.” Lloyd sighed, leaning back against the wall “I’m worried about you. You’ve barely been back from that fight with the leech doctor and you keep wandering out, alone.”

“I can take care of myself.” McCullum growled. Lloyd raised his hands in a placating matter and shook his head

“I’m not saying that you can’t, I’m just saying that you haven’t been entirely yourself. I’m concerned, let the old man have his worries.” the captain said

“You didn’t see what he’s become Lloyd….” Geoffrey said honestly, shivering as he thought of the night that he’d attempted to fight the monster that the prodigious Doctor Reid had become. “I don’t say this lightly… but I believe we have a Dragon on our hands. I… I’m still not sure how I made it out of there…” He hated lying to Lloyd, but it was necessary, he needed to keep himself in one piece long enough to assist in taking down that leech.

“Are you sure Geoffrey?” Lloyd asked, deadly serious now. McCullum nodded, clenching his fists and trying desperately not to call on his claws. “How are you so sure?”

“I looked into that monsters’ eyes… I thought I’d seen true evil before that but I was wrong. I looked into the devil’s eyes that night. We need to keep the rest of London from falling to this monster.” Geoffrey said

“And how does you wandering the streets help with that?” Lloyd asked, a frown creasing his face as he cut back to the original accusation.

“I’ve been doing some reconnaissance.” Geoffrey grumbled “I told you this, the fewer men are involved, the less likely we are to be found out.” he had turned back to the door, ready to walk out on the conversation even if it ended up being a bit childish. Lloyd gave a world weary sigh and stood back up, moving away from the wall.

“Alright, you’ve made your point sir, but can you at least inform us of where you’re going? If you don’t return in a day or so I want to know where to look for a body.” he said, wrapping his own scarf a bit tighter around his neck, clearly preparing to head out the door into the cold London night.

“I was headed to West End.” the leader said before opening the door, and ending the conversation.

-Twisted Fate-

The Ekon that he’d decided upon tonight was even easier to take care of than Humphrey had been. The damned leech had been practicing his fancy fencing in his gardens, it made Geoffrey scoff, how someone could have all the time in the world and not put some time into some legitimate swordplay was beyond the hunter. He dropped down and was able to completely sneak up on the bastard before he was even noticed. The Ekon had sneered at him, another who seemed completely incapable of discerning that he wasn’t human any longer. He was glad that he was in a secluded area when he drained the bastard as he needed to sit. He still couldn’t control the shaking, trembling feeling that overcame him when the blood poured down his throat. Not as powerful as Humphrey, though damned if he could explain how he knew that to anyone. Instead he leaned back against one of the trees that was probably more valuable than the entire headquarters and just tried to ride out the euphoria that trembled in his veins. There was a click somewhere nearby, the sound of a gun cocking and Geoffrey froze, the feeling amplified after the shock of blood into his system.

“How long?” the voice caused a stone to drop straight through McCullum’s stomach. It was Lloyd. He must’ve followed him here, how much had he seen? Did it matter when the evidence was plastered all over his face?

“How. Long?” it was a command this time. He could hear Lloyd’s heart hammering in his chest.

“Only a few nights.” Geoffrey said, shifting slightly, despite the shaking in his hands making it difficult to do.

“Why?” Lloyd sounded choked. It probably pained him to see the man that he’d had a hand in raising become the very thing they’d all sworn to kill.

“It wasn’t…. by choice.” Geoffrey growled, pausing as another shiver of euphoria rocked down his spine.

“The doctor…” Lloyd stepped out into the clearing of the garden into plain view. Geoffrey regarded him through half lidded eyes before nodding.

“Aye, I… well I didn’t exactly make it out of the fight alive.” he said with half a smirk. The idea at humor didn’t seem to go over very well as Lloyd frowned.

“You didn’t…” the captain hesitated. They both knew what he should’ve done, Lloyd clearly wanted to know why Geoffrey hadn’t gone through with falling on his sword as he should’ve done.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I faced down a Dragon. You’re gonna need every scrap of help you can get.” McCullum said carefully. The frown on his captain’s face just deepened.

“Priwen doesn’t collaborate with leeches.” he spouted, hand tightening on his gun. Geoffrey sighed

“Neither do we kill humans. I haven’t forgotten that Lloyd.” the leader rumbled. “Nor have I broken that.”

“Why should I believe you? You’ve been parading around, pretending to still be one of us for the past several days.” Lloyd said.

“Look in my eyes Lloyd, you know that the eyes don’t lie.” Geoffrey looked at the older man. Lloyd flinched like he’d slapped him.

“I’ll have none of your tricks!” he snapped before it was followed with the sharp retort of the pistol. Geoffrey flinched at the bullet tore through his shoulder, the pain was intense but it helped to bring him back to reality, down from the high that the blood had brought him to.

“It’s not… a trick.” McCullum ground out. He knew that if Lloyd had wanted to end him with that shot, he could’ve, that had been a warning. The wound was quickly closing, the fresh blood in his system being put to immediate work. There was pressure on his chest that swiftly turned to pain and the leader looked up to see his captain slowly pressing a stake into his chest, easing underneath the sternum. Geoffrey resisted the urge to shove the other man off of him, if this was how he was dealt with, so be it.

“Tell me now… leech.” Lloyd spat the words as if they were poison in his mouth. McCullum grit his teeth, fighting through the pain to give an answer.

“I haven’t forgotten my values, all leeches need to die. Even me. But you need me. Reid is… has become… a Dragon. Take my head… but take my help first…” he managed, the stake was definitely pressing into one of his lungs now, the blood spurting out of the wound around Lloyd’s gloved hand. The older man stared him down for another moment that felt like it stretched into eternity before slowly removing the stake from his chest. The removal of the wood left his skin itching and squirming and he resisted the urge to lift a hand to rub at it.

“It rubs me the wrong way… but if what you say is true and he is a Dragon… we’re going to need all the help we can get.” Lloyd grumbled, taking a step back from him, wiping the blood from the stake on his coat. Geoffrey sat up a bit more, cautiously, he didn’t want to startle Lloyd into shooting him.

“I certainly have no reason to lie to ya.” he said, taking a full breath, unimpeded this time and spat some of his own blood off to the side.

“No reason but your own nature.” Lloyd said, tensing up as McCullum rose to his feet. The leader sighed.

“I didn’t want this Lloyd.”

“That’s what makes it hard Geoffrey.” Lloyd said, finally looking at him. “We’ve all seen this. We all know how it goes.”

“I know.” the younger man said, he thought of all the men he’d seen over the years, turned out of spite or accident, it didn’t matter, they all lost themselves eventually. Most had the foresight to turn themselves in, but there were one or two every few years that had to be hunted down. “I… can feel it, Lloyd. The yearning to just bury myself in the bliss and never come up again…” he flexed his hands, the blood obeying his call and wrapping around his fingers in the dark claws they’d all seen shred through skin and muscle alike. “I don’t know how long I have.” he admitted, it was harder to say out loud than he’d thought. He already knew that he was walking on borrowed time but every kill he made made him think that he could just keep going, just like he had always done.

“Then we best work fast.” the older hunter said, and then looked uncomfortably at the claws on Geoffrey’s hands “How many of those tricks you got?”

“I don’t know.” Geoffrey said honestly “The…” he hesitated, unsure how much of this information that Lloyd would actually want to know “the more that I… consume, the more of them seem to appear.” he said. The older hunter gave him a disgusted look and McCullum sighed, letting the claws go and starting back toward headquarters, rubbing the blood from his face as they went. Lloyd followed after him a moment later and the fledgling could feel the captains’ gaze burning a hole in the back of his coat.

“What is it?” he asked, pausing to look behind him. Lloyd looked at his face, seeming slightly more comfortable now that the evidence of what his leader had become was no longer in plain view.

“Who was he?” Lloyd asked, jerking his head back toward the garden that they’d just left.

“Thompson.” Goeffrey said “Some minor lord associated on the fringes of the Ascalon club. “Technically” a member but our records don’t show him leaving his manor much. I didn’t want to rise too much suspicion out of the club too fast, figured this one wouldn’t be missed.” the leader shrugged, he was trying to act as though it’d been more about disposing of the member of the Club rather than filling his belly with the power that the other leech had. 

“I… see. So this is why you wanted our data on the Club? To start getting rid of them?” Lloyd said, matching his pace now and keeping his eyes shifting from corner to corner. Goeffrey hadn’t thought much of how much easier it was to see in the dark but it was now blatantly obvious that his captain was struggling to see through the dark corners.

“Yes.” McCullum nodded “I… The damned doctor’s powerful, too powerful for me right now. I needed to increase my own power and the Club has been a thorn in our sides for so long now. I figured two birds, one stone.” He could see Lloyd shiver out of the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything. The other man kept quiet as well as they continued on their way back to headquarters. Dawn was just starting to peek over the edges of the building as they made their way inside, much to Geoffrey’s relief. Being caught out in the sun didn’t seem like it would help in his quest much. There was no one else in the main room as they entered and Lloyd went into the kitchen to fix a cup of tea. McCullum sighed and settled down in one of the chairs for the talk that he was certain was coming his way.

“So.” Lloyd said after getting the kettle on and settling across from him. “What is your plan?”

“Take out as many members of the club as I need in order to be able to have the power to take care of the leech doctor, turn myself in, hope you make it quick.” It felt strange to rattle off his own death in a short to do list but it was the honest truth and the more he reminded himself of the fact, the easier he hoped it would become to swallow.

“And how many is that? All of them? A few? What if you get rid of the entire Club and it’s still not enough, what if it’s never enough?” Lloyd pressed. “Geoffrey you said yourself that it’s hard to resist, what happens when other leeches aren’t enough.”

“It won’t come to that.” Geoffrey said quickly

“And what if it does?” the older man said

“I hope that one of you would stop me long before that.” McCullum said, trying to stifle the yawn that was trying to work its way out. The rising presence of the sun was starting to weigh heavily on his consciousness, he wanted nothing more than to sleep but he knew that this conversation needed to happen and Lloyd brought up some good points.

“If it were that easy I would’ve already put that stake the rest of the way in ya.” Lloyd said. “So how far are ya gonna take it?”

“With… how everything has been so far…” Geoffrey tried to consider what he had already found himself capable of and what he’d seen the leech doctor do during their fight. “Taking out the inner circle within the club will probably put me at enough of an advantage to give me a fighting chance. If our sources are correct, the inner circle are from old bloodlines and are old blood themselves. If our sources aren’t correct… well then I suppose it’ll be a bit of a challenge against the doctor but I’ve always liked a tough fight.” McCullum said, trying to insert a bit of humor into the moment. Lloyd clearly wasn’t having any of it as he stood to take care of the now whistling kettle. Geoffrey struggled to keep his eyes open as he could hear the older man moving about the kitchen. Daytime was… a struggle. He’d jerked himself awake at least twice when the captain returned with a steaming mug and a pile of papers.

“So… this is our current list. We can cross Thompson off, any others?” Lloyd said, though the words were blurring together a bit for the leader. “McCullum?” Lloyd asked, raising a brow at him. Geoffrey shook his head

“Humphrey. Can this wait until the evening?” he asked, succumbing to the yawn this time, sure that he accidentally flashed his fangs at the captain based on the worried expression he got when he opened his eyes again.

“...it would be best if we could settle on a target prior to going to bed. In the evening I can send some scouts out to confirm some locations for the others while we go on your hunt.” Lloyd said, looking back down at the papers in his hands. Part of that statement stuck with Geoffrey.

“We?”

“I’m not going to let you go alone. Someone needs to keep a leash on ya.”

“Alright, hand them over,” Geoffrey sighed, gesturing at the small pile of papers. The captain grimly passed them along so McCullum could choose his next target.

-Twisted Fate-

The following evening started just like any other, though McCullum was still adjusting to being forced to sleep until sundown. He didn’t like the fact that his new status took some of his normal working time from him. Not that it would matter for long… he sighed, signing off on the few remaining bits of paperwork that needed to be done. Lloyd had already sent scouts out on the other members of the inner circle that they’d pinpointed the previous morning; they were hoping to get more information on their residences while it was still daylight and any leeches would still be holed up inside. Meanwhile himself and Lloyd would make their way to Atkinson’s residence as soon as the usual routine was handled back at headquarters. Geoffrey checked his crossbow, the edge of his sword and the pistol at his hip before heading out into the cold of the London night. Lloyd was waiting for him, rifle slung across his back.

“Are you ready?” he asked his leader. McCullum nodded, leading the way through the quarantined districts, pausing now and again to let the older man catch up until he stopped, ears catching the sound of a Skal’s howl in the distance.

“What is it?” Lloyd asked.

“Skal, this way.” the younger hunter said, continuing forward without checking that the captain had followed. He used the shadows to slip up to the top of a short building nearby and then peered over the edge. The Skal was howling near a bin, probably trying to paw through it for something that it deemed edible. Geoffrey dropped down to the cobbles behind it as silently as the shadows would let him. The Skal still turned to face him with a vicious screech despite his efforts. McCullum just snarled back, baring his own fangs at it before moving forward with his sword. As he did he could feel the shadows around him, and pulled on them ever so slightly, wrapping them around the blade just as easily as he would a bit of fabric. And then the cold metal and shadow bit into the Skals’ flesh, shadows bursting out into spikes at the slightest provocation and doing enough damage to stagger the beast back. Geoffrey could feel the low growl work its way from his chest as he stalked forward, about to dive for the jugular when there was a sound like thunder and the Skal fell back, blood oozing from the neat hole in its head. Geoffrey turned to see Lloyd, gun still smoking where he stood at the end of the alleyway. The older hunter looked between the body and Geoffrey briefly before holstering his weapon.

“C’mon, we still have a bit to go before we get to the house.” he said, clearly not wanting to acknowledge what he’d seen in his commander only moments before.

“Right.” McCullum didn’t exactly want to talk about it either and followed after his second. The silence between them was no longer that of simple companions but that which could nearly be cut with a knife it was so tense. 

Geoffrey was about to open his mouth to speak on the matter, awkwardness be damned, when Lloyd nodded at the house at the end of the street, where they could both see lights on in the parlor. McCullum looked up and down the street, keeping an eye out for the cops. Two men of their appearance would not go unnoticed on the nicer streets and it wouldn’t be the first time that the hunter would have to back down from a hunt just because someone had called the coppers on them. Thankfully the streets were devoid of anyone, the cold probably shooing even the nightowls off into their homes. Geoffrey gave a sigh, stuffing his hands even deeper into his pockets and looked over to the older hunter who just gave him a shrug.

“Now what?” McCullum asked, he glanced back to the house, gaze slipping into that which he’d first awakened to, Lloyd’s heart become a veritable beacon next to him while those inside the house were more muted by the walls. Atkinson was clearly not the only one in his home, there seemed to be a fair amount of staff there as well.

“What do you mean? I figured you’d just… well you know.” Lloyd said, gesturing vaguely at the house. “I can’t exactly make the same plans that I would since you’re one of them now…”

“Lloyd,” Geoffrey let the strange change in his vision drop to better look at the older hunter. “I can’t even get in the building like this.”

“Can’t you command one of them to let you in? Not that I approve of such manipulation but it is an option.”

“It’s not.” McCullum growled

“I know that you may not want to-”

“It’s not a matter of want, I don’t know how.” Geoffrey admitted. Lloyd pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Great, not only am I working with a leech, I’m working with an incompetent one.” he grumbled. Geoffrey growled slightly at the implication and Lloyd gave him a suddenly wary look. It was only expected that the man would mistrust him, but McCullum hadn’t anticipated that it would hurt this much. The leader paused, looking at the building again, musing. This first one would be harder, they hadn’t had a lot of time to prepare, and a lot of their plan would have to be improvised. A trickle of an idea sprung to mind and he began heading toward the back, waving Lloyd to follow him.

“Follow my lead.” he said, stashing his sword in the bushes. He hated to leave it behind but he needed to set it aside for this to work. After that he walked up to the back door and gave a quick knock. There was a pause and then he could hear someone coming before the door opened a crack, revealing a suspicious looking older woman.

“Excuse me ma’am, my associate an’ I, we couldn’t help but notice that yer chimney looks as though it could use a good sweep. We’re on our way to another job, but if you or your boss would like, we’d be more than happy to talk about our prices with ya.” Geoffrey let his accent slip a bit deeper and tried to give the most earnest look he could, as though he really were just a man looking for a bit more work to make ends meet. The older woman brutally stared them down for so long that Geoffrey was sure she was going to turn them away. And then she sighed and fully opened the door.

“You’re in luck,” she said “we’ve been in the market, please come in, and I’ll see if Master Atkinson is able to take a visitor.” She turned away from the door and McCullum was grateful that her invitation was qualified enough to let him in the building. Lloyd followed cautiously after him, trying not to let his coat float open to reveal the firearm within.

“Please wait here.” she said upon arriving in the kitchens. The pair of guards stood, waiting silently while other servants scuttled about with different tasks until the older woman returned.

“He can see you now.” she said, waving a hand briefly and not looking to see if they actually followed. She knocked briefly on a nice wooden door before opening it and gesturing them inside. Atkinson was working on something at his desk when the older woman shut the door behind them and didn’t look up until the steps receded down the hall. When he did his face was that of surprise

“You.” he spat

“Me.” Geoffrey grinned

Chapter Text

Geoffrey wished that he could capture the look of shock on Atkinson’s face as the leader of the Guard of Priwen was walked calmly into his office. He’d stood and was pointing an accusing finger at the hunter. He opened his mouth, clearly about to yell or speak or do something but Geoffrey was already on the move, shifting with the shadows to slash at the other Ekon with his claws. Atkinson hastily threw up a blood shield and blocked the brunt of the blow though McCullum did get in a solid scrape up the leech’s arm before it came up in the way. If the shock was great before Atkinson was going to have to pick his jaw up off the ground at this rate.

“How…?” the Ekon growled, trying unsuccessfully to shove Geoffrey away from him. The hunter grinned as he leaned forward toward the leech, the shield starting to crumple beneath his claws, the shadows starting to swirl at his feet.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he asked, about to shove Atkinson back to get another good swipe in when he realized the swirling shadows were not under his control at all. He darted back for Lloyd back before he had the chance to think about it, the shadows leaping up from the floor and tearing into clothes and flesh alike. Geoffrey grunted, vision turning dark as he started to rise back to his feet. All he could see was the bright red of the blood nearby, calling to him… his eyes caught on it briefly, considering, before the deeper more complex smell of the dimmer red caught his attention and McCullum turned to it, launching himself at it with no further hesitation. There were a few bright bursts of pain, but then there was blood oozing over his claws and he grinned with delight, it was so close… Something caught his side, tearing through flesh and muscle to bury itself there and the hunter snarled. The bright, bright red moved; there was an ear splitting bang and the prey before him eased its struggling. Geoffrey moved immediately to bury his fangs in the cool ecstasy that washed over him in waves. As the motions of the leech in his arms slowed, his mind started to come back to him, though it was clouded in a pleasant buzz sort of way that made the past several moments sting a little less. 

When he was finished he staked Atkinson with shaking hands, just to be sure. There was a bang on the door, probably the staff having heard what Geoffrey had deduced was Lloyd’s gun. He wanted to just sit down and enjoy the warm feeling tingling through his limbs but there was no time for that, instead McCullum threw open the window and looked down. The drop would be easy for him, but Lloyd? He didn’t see any obvious handholds.

“Take my hand.” he told the older hunter, who just watched him with wary eyes before scoffing lightly at him.

“Are you serious? Why the hell-”

“Damn it Lloyd, do you want to shove your way through the staff or not? Take my feckin’ hand.” Geoffrey had no idea if what he was thinking would work, but they had limited options up here with the staff and soon likely the police; bearing down on them. The captain's rough grip grabbed his own and McCullum reached for the shadows, wrapping them around them both and pulled them to the ground. Geoffrey stumbled and could hear Lloyd cry out as a knee banged into the ground, but a bruise far beat out a broken bone or time in a cell so he’d take it. They both kept moving, pausing only so Geoffrey could grab his sword from the bushes and not slowing until they’d left that district behind. As they rested, Lloyd bent over his legs and panting in a nondescript alleyway, the older hunter gave him an angry glare.

“Do not. Under any circumstances. Do that again.” he managed between breaths.

“What were my other options Lloyd?” Geoffrey said “Like I said, it was that or fight our way through the staff.” the Ekon didn’t receive a response beyond the grumbling of the older hunter but the man seemed to be calming down from their flight from the mansion. He looked up at McCullum a few moments later and gave him a good long stare, long enough that Geoffrey raised a brow

“What?” he asked.

“There’s still blood on your face.” Lloyd said, pointing vaguely at Geoffrey’s face. Geoffrey frowned but wiped at it, hand coming away sticky and he had to fight the urge to lick it clean. Instead he smeared it off on his coat, lifting a sleeve to smear at his face as well.

“It’s damned eerie.” Lloyd continued “To see ya like this… For a moment there I thought I was looking my death in the eye, I thought you were going to gun for me.”

“I-” Geoffrey paused when he thought back on the instinct, adrenalin fueled moment, there was no way for him to say that he hadn’t considered it.

“That’s what I thought. Guess I’m lucky that you seem to prefer leech blood.” the older hunter shook his head “We’re playin’ with fire here sir.” he said. McCullum could feel his cheeks burn in irritation, a feat only possible due to the stolen blood in his veins.

“Well then let’s hope that we don’t get burned.” Geoffrey said, feeling that his face was clean enough to get away with, and started back for headquarters. Lloyd followed him and said no more, he’d obviously put out what he had to say. Just the same as the window, Geoffrey didn’t have any better ideas, better him, cursed as he was, taking down the doctor leech rather than send wave upon wave of his men to die under the Dragon’s fangs.

-Twisted Fate-

Thankfully by the time they’d made their way back, most of the blissful energy surging in his veins had worn down. Men pestering him with questions also helped the feeling of normalcy that fell over him. By the time he found himself with any time to himself, he was exhausted and ready to let the sleep of the dead take him. Lloyd came up behind him and Geoffrey just barely stopped himself from groaning out loud.

“Yes Captain?” he asked, he could hear the sound of the older man’s footsteps cease.

“We should go over the information that the crews brought in on the other targets.” Lloyd said. This did warrant the heavy sigh that McCullum gave, or at least he thought so.

“Lloyd I have already killed one of the Ascalon members and managed to not get either of us killed in the process tonight, on top of all the other usual duties, excuse me if I’m not all that keen to deal with whatever the patrols were able to scrounge up.” Geoffrey turned to continue up to his room but was stopped by Lloyd’s hand on his arm.

“Frankly sir, you can sleep when you’re dead, so forgive me if I’m not willing to accept that as an excuse.” Lloyd said before turning and walking back to the fire and slapping the pile of papers onto the small table and staring at the leader pointedly. McCullum gave a world weary sigh and wandered over to the table to join him.

It took far, far longer than either of them would have wanted to go through the information, trying to parse what was actually useful and what was just superfluous. They were both extremely agitated by the time it was over and Geoffrey was just barely able to keep himself from growling at Lloyd with each word. They had managed to cobble together a bare minimum of a timeline however and the hunter was feeling more confident in his plan to take out the leech doctor than he had been before all of this. Before it had been more of an angry pushing forward, now it felt a bit more calculated. He collapsed onto his bed and he barely felt the impact before he was drifting off to sleep.

The twilight came too soon in McCullum’s opinion. So did the evening’s activities, Lloyd and Geoffrey scouted out the next position, deciding in the process that it was for the best to put it off for one more night. They needed a decent distraction to get the leech out of the house so that McCullum could do what he needed to. At the very least they had come upon a couple packs of Skals in their scouting; something that Geoffrey would have considered suicide not long ago but now it was barely enough to quench his thirst, let alone entertain. Lloyd peeled off after the first group, going to check in with one of the patrols that should be in the nearby area. As soon as he was gone Geoffrey sighed. It wasn’t that he was afraid of hurting Lloyd, he would’ve done so already if that were truly a risk, no he had been concerned about the older man holding him back when he was around. He hadn’t wanted to put his all into the moves that he was doing, afraid of pushing the old captain’s allowance too far and having to put too much focus onto keeping track of Lloyd to keep from pulling too far ahead. The screams and squalls of the second pack of Skals had him grinning though, this… this he could really test his skills on. He was starting to get a better handle on his manipulation of the shadows and his own blood and had, for the briefest moment, sworn that he could feel the blood of the Blinker Skal as it had rematerialized behind him. 

The second fight was far easier than the first but far more destructive and McCullum found himself sneaking back into headquarters through a window instead of through the front door so that he could change and clean himself up in peace. He’d cleaned the blood from his face and tossed his clothes in a basket when there was a loud knock on the door and the voice of one of the other captains echoing through the thin frame.

“McCullum? You in?” Jenkins said as though he couldn’t hear Geoffrey’s bootsteps on the other side. McCullum gave a heavy sigh, and glanced in the mirror to ensure there wasn’t still blood on his face.

“Aye, I’m in, what d’ya need?” he called back over his shoulder, pulling his sword from his belt and placing it gently alongside his desk where he could clean it later. Jenkins didn’t hesitate before opening the door, much to the commander’s annoyance. The captain paused upon seeing McCullum standing half dressed in the room.

“Well?” Geoffrey asked, wandering back to the basin on the dresser to continue to wipe the blood from his limbs.

“I… Sir what happened? Are you okay?” Jenkins asked instead. Geoffrey shot him a glare

“What? I have to be impeccable when I hunt now?” he snapped, tossing the rag back onto the basin and turning to face the man. “I’m not injured, it was just a damn messy fight, now what did you need to see me for?” he crossed his arms. He could see the indecision in Jenkins’ gaze as he waffled back and forth on whether to leave his boss alone.

“It can wait.” he finally said, a bit of a flush dusting his cheeks in a way that McCullum needed to look away from before he started staring. He may have fed well on the Skals that he’d been fighting, but that didn’t make the reminder of blood beneath his men’s skin any less appealing. The door clicked shut behind the man and Geoffrey had just gotten back to attempting to wring some of the bloody water from the rag when there was another knock.

“Fer fuck’s sake.” he grumbled turning and stomping over to wrench it open. Lloyd stood on the other side, looking less than pleased. Good. The captain’s mood matched his own. “Now what?” Geoffrey rumbled, standing back to let the other man in.

“I take it the rest of your hunt went well.” Lloyd said as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

“Aye.” McCullum said, not bothering to hide his modesty around the other man. Lloyd had half raised him, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t already seen. “Just more Skals, but that’s fewer of the pests on the streets.” he said

“That’s one blessing mixed in amongst all of this.” the captain conceded with an incline of his head. He sat down in the chair at the leader’s desk and looked at him attempting to clean some of the blood from the scarf that still decorated his neck, despite the fact that it would be doing very little to protect him at this time. McCullum sighed and looked back at the captain

“What do you want Lloyd?” he asked, turning and leaning against the dresser. 

“I want to go over what we learned today. Make sure we’ve got all of our ducks in a row for tomorrow evening.” Lloyd said, gesturing to the notebook he’d pulled from a pocket “Also there’s a few discussion points on food supply that Johnson reminded me of.”

“Alright.” Geoffrey said, after hanging his head and taking a deep breath. “Let’s get it over with.”

-Twisted Fate-

The next couple days followed a bit of a pattern, he’d even call them normal, if there was any semblance of that left in his life. He would wake upon the sun setting, usually without having gotten to sleep until well after its rising the previous morning. He would handle what needed to be handled at the start of an evening in the headquarters and then head out to hunt with Lloyd. Two more of the inner circle of Ascalon had been killed and consumed. The second had been much more difficult, with more security added to his mansion and they’d had a hell of a time trying to get Geoffrey in the door. Clearly the Club had started to notice that some of their midst had disappeared and were starting to suspect that they’d been killed, or at least gotten out of the way. Geoffrey’s own power had increased exponentially with the blood that he’d gotten from the other two members of the Club, one had been particularly more potent than the other. Shockingly that it had been the one who’d been easier to take down who’d been more powerful, he supposed that the vermin were more paranoid than those who were overconfident in their abilities. Regardless, the hunter was starting to wonder if he’d come far enough, if he had enough abilities to be able to take on the leech doctor. Lloyd had been hinting at it the previous evening and after having time to himself to think he wondered if the older captain was right. He took a deep breath, looking to his sword and crossbow sitting near his desk before rising to his feet, mind made up.

Lloyd regarded him as he came down the stairs, gear already hooked to his person. The older man said nothing but raised a brow. Geoffrey met his gaze and asked

“Where was the last place we spotted the leech doctor?”

“We’ve had a few sparse sightings around the theater and the hospital but he seems to be laying low.” Lloyd said, his tone grave “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, and if I don’t make it back, it’ll save you the trouble of taking me out yourself. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle the guard in my absence.” Geoffrey said, trying to sound joking but Lloyd just frowned. He looked at his leader before reaching out a tentative hand and clapping on the younger man’s shoulder.

“Sir…” Lloyd paused and Geoffrey looked at him before he continued “it’s been an honor. Good hunting.” And then he stood aside, letting the commander pass him by. McCullum felt his heart clench, this was as close to a goodbye as he was going to get wasn’t it?

“Thank you.” he said, steeling his reaction and stepping out into the cold night. London’s weather was as dreary as ever and he looked up at the cloudy night with a scowl

“What a fuckin’ dreadful night to die.” he grumbled before starting first for the hospital.

The doctor was not at the hospital, in fact, the place looked near abandoned. He knew that there had been more Skals than usual in that area, but he didn’t know that it had gotten this bad. He took out what he could find, feeding along the way. He’d quit gaining much power from Skals but they still soothed his thirst to a more bearable level. Continuing on to the theater also revealed little, there were the remains of the temporary camp they’d set up in the audience and the rotting remains of Fletcher on the stage. In the flurry of the first two nights he’d nearly forgotten of the report that one of his men had brought in. A recruit, still green about the ears and shaking from having fled, had told them that the doctor had come for them in the theater. Few escaped with their lives and further reports had informed them that Swansea had died in the aftermath. Geoffrey still didn’t know if his men had taken ‘rough him up’ too far or if the damned Dragon had gotten tired of the Stole Bastard. Either way he wasn’t here now. In fact, some of the notes that he’d been missing and had been pretty sure were here were also gone. Geoffrey wandered the streets, unsure of where else to look. His feet eventually took him toward the graveyard, whether he wanted to go there or not. He may as well pay his respects while he was here…

 As he made his way through the gravestones he started to hear the shuffles and howls of a Skal. He paused to listen, no there were definitely more than one here… The exact number eluded him until he let his vision slip into the red tinged monochrome of a leech’s vision and he was able to count out three of them. Well… he was getting cold and needed to stretch his limbs anyway so he leapt into the fray, snarling and slashing at them with his sword. He didn’t need to resort to his own leechy abilities much, just to dodge out of the way here or there and let the monsters’ momentum do the rest. About halfway through the fight there was suddenly a… weight on his consciousness, something that he couldn’t explain and had every hair on the back of his neck standing on end. It only took a few more moments to take out the creatures before him and he could feel a rising bloodlust in the back of his throat, it was with dawning horror that he realized that it was the doctor’s presence that he was feeling. He paused when he was done killing the lesser creatures and stood, able to feel the Dragon’s gaze on the back of his coat.

“What do you want?” he asked, waiting for the monster to emerge from the shadows. There was an inordinately long pause, like the damned leech was enjoying his impatience.

“McCullum.” The word was half a purr as the Dragon materialized from the shadows nearby, stepping into the diluted moonlight. Geoffrey wondered how anyone could mistake the man for human, he knew that most leeches put up a glamour of sorts. He’d been doing it himself, but just the way that Reid moved , like a predator… The monster stopped and observed him, stared at him, an almost perplexed look crossed his face.

“What do you want?” Geoffrey snapped, hand clenching on his sword. He’d come out here with the intent to hunt down the Dragon and try to kill him, but it wouldn’t hurt to know why the leech was showing up now.

“I’m not allowed to look into your wellbeing?” the monster with a man’s face asked, words sickly sweet and Geoffrey couldn’t tell if the mesmerism was intended or if the other man was just particularly good with words. Regardless the hunter just raised his crossbow to point at the monster ahead of him.

“No, in fact, you shouldn’t be allowed to live.” McCullum said. He expected the Dragon to come for him then, for the fight to start and yet… the doctor just laughed. His rich baritone bounced off the gravestones around them, like this was just the world’s funniest joke.

“I didn’t come here to fight you McCullum.” Reid said, Geoffrey didn’t believe him for a minute, not with the way he tilted his head and the way he stared, like he was seeing straight through the hunter. “I came to ask a favor, and to see how you…” the leech stopped, continued to stare, it was making McCullum damned uncomfortable to be under that black and red gaze. “I swear I saw you die, Geoffrey… how are you…” the doctor trailed off, still looking at him as though he’d grown a second head. It slowly dawned on Geoffrey that whatever glamour he seemed to naturally put up that prevented his men, men trained to identify vampires on the spot, seemed to be working on the Dragon as well. This was an advantage if the leech still thought he was human, but it wouldn’t last for long, he needed to get the first strike in or he was dead meat. It seemed that Reid was done inspecting him however and just shook his head

“It doesn’t matter. I need to ask you about-” he didn’t get to finish whatever he was saying as McCullum swung his sword forward. The Dragon leapt away, but the sword swirled the dark wisps that he left behind, a far closer strike than he’d ever been able to make before on the leech. Reid frowned, he was mad if he thought that Geoffrey would make some sort of deal with him. Instead Geoffrey launched straight for the second attack, firing his crossbow in the spot he was certain that the leech was going to materialize in. He was right, and was rewarded for his efforts with a grunt and the smell of the Dragon’s cursed blood in the air. Geoffrey knew he was damned when that smell danced over his senses. How could the very same blood that had ended his life be making his mouth flood with saliva now? It didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was another strike. Another and another and another. The doctor was dancing backward through the tombstones, still trying to say something between the shadow jumps and leaps.

After catching the leech in the side with a small dagger, he finally seemed to actually piss the Dragon off and Reid snarled, the shadows around them coalescing in a way that McCullum recognized. He waited as long as he dared and then rolled to the side, the spikes slashing up through empty air instead of the hunter’s body.

“McCullum dammit, won’t you just listen to me, for one moment?” Reid snarled, suffice to say Geoffrey wasn’t particularly convinced, especially not when the words were followed by a slash of claws. The hunter scoffed

“I’ve heard enough of yer lies.”

“Very well,” the Dragon said, a sort of mad grin playing across his features. “I’ll just have to take what I need by force then.” Their dance continued, though this time the doctor was actually fighting back. Geoffrey’s mind returned to the moment that they’d been in the attic of the hospital but now was nothing like then, now… now he could actually fight back. Now he had actual power on his side. The doctor may have been a fighter, a soldier, but Geoffrey had been training to fight leeches all his life. This may as well have been any other time that he’d gone toe to toe with an Ekon, except this particular Ekon was far more powerful than he was used to, and the other exception was his own abilities. They finally reached the point at which Geoffrey had had enough, one set of claws grazing his side in a sting of fiery hot pain and the Dragon swiped with the other hand, having lost hold of or tossed the dagger he’d been using earlier. The lashing out was lazy, an awkward slash of one unaccustomed to fighting in this way and it left him wide open…

Geoffrey saw his chance and he took it, leaning in, shoving the leech’s chin up with one hand and biting down hard. There was a gurgled sort of noise and the hunter realized that the damned snake was trying to laugh. It was unsettling but that idea was quickly lost under the waves of joy now pulsing down his throat. He couldn’t think past it, even though he knew it was important, he was doing… something that he needed his mind for… The slamming sensation in his solar plexus had him choking and wheezing despite the fact that he no longer needed the air that was suddenly hard to come by. With the gasping sensation however, came some clarity and the color trickled back into the world around him and he could see the doctor, blood oozing from his torn throat, giving him a mad sort of grin. The look of it sent a shiver down McCullum’s spine but it only made the determination in his gut burn brighter; he needed to take this monster down, now. The laughter grew clearer as the doctor’s throat healed and he launched himself at the hunter once again.

“I thought for a moment I was somehow wrong, that it hadn’t taken… but this… this is better than I expected, Hunter .” the last word was practically purred into his ear and it just made Geoffrey all the angrier. This was all a game to the Dragon wasn’t it? None of it mattered so long as he got what he wanted in the end, and it wasn’t fair . How could the world take an already arrogant man and make him a monster, give him self aggrandizing ideas about what he was supposed to do, let him trample over anyone who got in his way, manipulate and kill and rob the few unlucky enough for their paths to touch his own. Geoffrey snarled and pulled the shadows beneath the doctor’s feet, barely catching the leech as he dodged backward and around a tombstone. The Dragon laughed again and they both dove back into the dance, this time with blood and shadows accenting the steps. Reid was putting up a hell of a fight but Geoffrey could tell that he was wearing him down, the couple of mouthfuls of the other Ekon’s blood that he’d managed to swipe gave him about as much of a boost as he needed and the while the doctor hadn’t been restraining himself when it came to his feeding habits, he also clearly hadn’t walked in here expecting a fight. It was only a matter of time before the dance between them drew to a close.

It wasn’t shocking, or graceful, or even particularly satisfying. McCullum saw the leech miss a swing, saw the instant regret that entered his eyes, and shoved his sword between the Dragon’s ribs and straight for where he knew that dead heart was. There was a small choked sound from the former doctor, a claw that raked the side of his face in a desperate attempt to get away, and a dissipation of shadows at his feet before Geoffrey leaned forward to claim his prize. Draining the other Ekon would help keep him down long enough for the hunter to finish the job. That’s what he told himself to justify it but in reality he was simply hungry and the Dragon’s blood tasted like nothing else he’d stolen in his cursed second life. He didn’t wait for the giddy high to fade before standing on shaky legs to finish the job and instead jerkily went through the motions that those who hadn’t spent a lifetime dealing with things that refused to stay dead probably would’ve called excessive. 

When the fire was steadily burning McCullum sat, knees drawn up to his chest, and shivered. He didn’t know if it was the cold, or the fresh blood, or if it was the strangely relieved look that had been on Reid’s face at the end and he wasn’t about to allow the introspection that would let him figure it out. Instead he sat, waiting for the fire to burn out so he could scatter the ashes, how fitting they were already in a cemetery… and tried to think of nothing at all. When the shivering abated enough and his mind felt enough of his own, he looked at the small pile of objects that had seemed worth keeping from the former doctor’s coat. There was some cash, Lloyd would put it to good use, and wasn’t that a strange thought, that he wouldn’t be the one deciding where the money went, there had been a pistol and some ammo, always worthwhile, and a wad of notes. Those hadn’t been worth sorting when he was trying to take care of the body but now he had some time… There were two small vials that came tumbling out and plinked to the ground when he undid the tie that was holding all the paper together. Thankfully they didn’t break and Geoffrey set them off to one side before looking at the paper that had been surrounding them. The innermost was something that the hunter didn’t understand, scribbled notes in the leech’s handwriting with words he didn’t know scrawled and crossed out. There were two items worth taking note of though… Marshal, and Arthur. Marshal had been crossed out but Arthur had not. McCullum thought of the flask, sitting amongst other Guard treasures, that had the blood of a king in it, and wondered if that was what the Dragon had been intending to ask him about. The idea struck him and he sighed heavily, of course… the missing notes from the theater… This was the Dragon’s warped idea of the protection against the Blood of Hate… What a load of crock. He stood, rather shakily, to his feet, collecting the few items that he needed to take back with him to headquarters and dusted off his rear, not that it helped much, he was covered in muck and blood to a degree that only his worst hunts. It was going to be a long walk back…

-Twisted Fate-

Dawn was starting to peek over the horizon and McCullum knew he was pushing it as he turned the final corner toward home. He was going to cut through a particularly shady alleyway just to lessen the risk of the sun hitting his skin. As he walked through it, it seemed to get darker and darker… The hunter paused. This was not normal. And not particularly something that he wanted to deal with today. He paused, took a long, slow breath and turned around.

“Whatever it is, it’s been a hell of a night and-” Geoffrey felt the rest of the words die in his throat as he found himself face to face with a legend.

“ You know not what you’ve done…”