Private A Vulpine Refrain

The sun was setting.
It yellowed the outlines of the roofs, the cranes at the docks, sent narrow strips of brightness between the crates and the mice slinking in the dark at the warehouse. The hazy ripple shivered on the water in runaway blinding splotches.

Walter looked down onto the bustling street from the narrow window in the attic of 'William's Whale', a drinkery established from what seemed like a butchered and built-over carcass of a much larger ship that held by weave and prayer thirty years later once it had been dragged ashore. An ambitious project, undercooked for reasons lost to history. Light sifted through some cracks in the walls. Beside him, Ilyn was at the washing basin, splashing with an occasional loud huff.

The plans have already been laid, sooner than the lord himself arrived. They kept the masking wards going and scattered to the winds. He handled what came after dusk, as family tradition prescribed. The higher undead were not to be suffered to live for what they became with time showed in countless tragedies.
He'd tried to argue that, once or twice. Must have fallen into the same trap as the rest of the von Bremen bloodline, whoever they were.
All violent things would meet the same end.

With how quickly the adversary moved after the deed, however, it had to be tonight.
And for the rest of the men's disagreement, he was fully intending to go alone.
"Let me leave you the brews at least, milord," Ilyn tried again. He'd been at it more insistently the closer the hour drew for him to depart. Walter shook his head. The man would not relent. "'T least the hazemist, eh? Doesn't sit right with me, none of it."

Walter shook his head again. The dimming dust-yellow outlined his face, played against the bright and contrasting color of the iris, got tangled in the silver-threaded black curls. His neck was covered by a scarf. He wore leathers, but no shoulder guard on the left, no traditional armored vestments. No point in armor with creatures that tend to move faster than average man and hit like battering rams. Metal would get crushed inward from the blows, he'd seen it himself. Cause more than a bruise. Set him on the backfoot. Couldn't afford that with anything that kept moving until properly stopped.
"Ilyn, don't linger. I have this well in hand." One or the other. "Wash up, leave, keep an eye out. You and your girl should come to Elkhart after your moon had passed, so let's convene there in three weeks." Two for travel, one for issues.

Eyes lowered to the signet ring, bronze looking so much duller as the light receded. Fox on crescent, briar rose on its back.
Would have been silver if they were only military. Grandfather's known history made it sound that way, for sure.
But it was bronze. Unassuming, un-prestigious, and as symbolic as the shape of the dagger he carried as a spare, where the heraldry has been set into the framing of a large tree.

Boards creaked under the heavy man's steps. The Huntsman bowed, offered him the ghost lantern, freshly reignited.
"Good hunting, milord."
"Be well and travel safely," Walter echoed, turning his eyes to see the man off.
It was going to be a long patrol along the streets once night fell.
Perhaps he'd feel the Call before the blood started spilling.
Perhaps he'd even make the distance before the blood was done spilling, too.

The last light of evening was already bleeding out across the harbor when The Vagrant came into town.

He did not arrive by road or carriage, nor by any particularly respectable means. Instead, he was sprawled across the deck of a cargo vessel that had been making its way upriver since late afternoon, tucked comfortably behind a stack of half-rotten crates and an old coil of rope. One boot hung lazily over the side while the other rested against a barrel, his battered cap pulled low over his face. To anyone who happened to glance his way, he might have looked like some unfortunate drifter who had managed to sneak aboard sometime during the day and promptly fallen asleep. Which, in fairness, wasn't entirely inaccurate.

He didn't have an issue on the water. Over the centuries, that had become less and less of a problem, much like sunlight, which only irritated him now. Rivers, streams, lakes—even some fairly miserable stretches of water—held no particular power over him anymore. Oceans, however, were another concern entirely. No matter how old he became or how much power accumulated in his blood, the open ocean remained one boundary he had never managed to overcome. Whatever ancient law governed creatures like him had never bothered explaining itself. So The Vagrant had learned to improvise. Boats were useful things.

The Vagrant stirred as the vessel bumped against the dock. His crimson eyes opened beneath the brim of his cap, catching the last sliver of sunlight before he grimaced and pulled the hat lower. The dying warmth of the sun wasn't particularly dangerous to him—not anymore—but he had never developed much appreciation for being reminded that daylight existed. He rolled onto his side, listening to the sailors begin shouting as ropes were thrown and cargo prepared for unloading. The smells of the harbor rolled over him with the evening breeze: salt, tar, fish, mud, sweat, old wood, spilled ale.

And blood.

His nose twitched. There it was. Warm. Fresh. Human.

The Vagrant slowly sat up, and his stomach answered first with a low, almost offended growl.

"Shhhh..."

He slipped from behind the crates, landing on the dock with barely a sound. Nobody noticed. A few sailors passed within arm's reach without giving the ragged-looking man a second glance, too busy with their work to question where he'd come from. The Vagrant simply adjusted his coat, tipped his cap back into place, and wandered into the gathering dusk.

He made it perhaps three streets.

That was all the restraint he had in him.

The scent grew stronger in a narrow alley between two buildings, and his wandering pace slowed. He could hear the heartbeat, almost feel the blood move through the veins. There was someone there. A dockhand, perhaps. Young. Alone. The man never even noticed the shadow detach itself from the darkness behind him. The Vagrant stepped in close, reached over the man's head, and casually cupped his chin in one clawed hand. Then he pulled.

There was a sharp, wet crack as the vampire wrenched backward and up, tearing the man's head completely free of his body. The corpse would have crumpled immediately if not for his other large hand holding it up. The feet dangled, brushing across the cobblestones as he stood there, holding the man's head by the jaw in his other hand.

He barely looked at it.

Instead, he let the head fall from his hand. It hit the cobblestones and rolled a step or two before settling in a squelch of blood and grime. With a lick of his lips, tongue traveling over fangs, he leaned down just slightly to shove his face into the open, warm neck.

Then he drank.

There was nothing theatrical about it. No warning. No taunting. No ritual to the act. Just the brutal, animal efficiency of an ancient predator feeding. Blood poured hot across his mouth and down his throat as he tore into the ruined neck, both hands gripping the corpse to keep it steady. The dockhand's body twitched in his grasp, but The Vagrant paid it no mind.

When he finally pulled away, the body sagged in his arms. The Vagrant stared at it for a moment, red eyes reflecting faintly in the gloom. "Mm." He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of one hand, then smiled.

"Much betteh."

He let the corpse fall unceremoniously to the ground.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he crouched and rummaged through the dead man's pockets. A few coins. A piece of dried meat. A bent little brass key. He considered the collection for a moment before giving a small shrug.

"Well, ain'tchu just fulla trinkets and treasure."

The Vagrant pocketed the coins and stood, leaving the rest behind. He stepped back into the street as though nothing had happened, adjusting the collar of his coat while the town continued its evening routine around him. People laughed nearby. Doors opened and closed. Somewhere down the street, some busker was playing music that made him whistle along.

His grin returned.

It had been a long time since he'd wandered through a new town. Perhaps he'd stay a while. Perhaps he'd find something interesting.

Yet somewhere in that same town, unbeknownst to him, another hunter was already preparing for the night.

He stood over the body, blood still fresh. No magic but a ripple smoothing over as the weave of the body dissipated. Minutes.
What physical superiority fed the decapitation through internal weaveworks - remained in the body that did the reaping, and that body was walking along the still populated streets, no doubt looking for the next sliver of entertainment.

The older the gaping scar got where humanity once had been, the more bored one got.
A dead spirit was bored in perpetuity, regardless of how broad their experiences lay or how many years they've been suffered to pass through the world. Boredom and power mixed poorly. Threat of violence became conversation, because simply speaking did nothing to elate the spirits anymore. Death malformed the numbness of senses while the animated core screamed to be excited. By anything. Anyone. Any excess.

There was no scream. The sailor boy died quickly. This was the first step to curing boredom. Blood didn't pool like it should have, not nearly enough. Narrowed the step down to sustenance.
With that, the target expanded possibly maneuvers.

Violence came the easiest, on par with lust, mixed with it or replacing it. He'd seen it before, first hand, in the ruddy bastard of the Black Dogs who wanted him to embrace it too, as gospel and a way of life. He'd seen it before, in the captain of a pirate fleet. In a feral rage of the creature who sought to die an artist, not a blade. In a collected, structured glee of the creature who tortured him for almost three days until his mind was on the brink of unravelling, a perfect vessel.

"Stop! Murderer!"
Walter turned his head to see the crossbow aimed at him by one of the city guard.
"Put up your hands where I can see them!"
Two more poured into the alley, just as Walter's hands came into view from under the folds of the cloak. His eyes were void of expression as his bare hand bore the ring with the sigil, and the other held a bronze sgian dubh by the blade, so they could see the glove and the tree on the grip. A blue lantern hung on his belt, its wisps of light fainter than the glimmer reflected off lanterns this close. But the living could see that light - and the dead could not. Both of their eyes flicking down to it for a moment was a good sign.
"What's that supposed to-" the whistleblower started piping up, but the other one elbowed him.
"He's one of them people, you oaf."
"You mean the-"
"Sh."
That one listened to the briefing yesterday. Good job.
Both of them were staring at him now, half-agitated, and half - like he was the monster.

He was not there to waste time, though.
Walter gave a few curt, to the point, instructions.
The seed of malice was still in town.
They would abide by silence, on threat of joining the victim.

---

He could feel the thrum of destruction. Caught it earlier than oft, this time - when it was building up still, a breeze promising a squall turning into a whirlwind. Could feel its center point, meandering, just like he was, among dozens of faces.
Street next over. Some fence, some clutter leaning to it, building scaffolds stretching across.

He climbed the ladder, walked the creaky, unfixed boards, feeling their give, the slight shift as he leisurely took almost his height's drop on the other side of the alley, then turned the corner back into the river of noise.

This one didn't resonate right. The Call was there, the immense potential was... there...
Now it clicked. The potential did not yet become expressed intent. And there was no overwhelming pull, a compulsion that screamed to stop it, kill it, break it apart as soon as inhumanly possible.
Then, why was he sensing it?

Eyes narrowed, the pinpricks of light at the bottom of the pupils easily mistaken for a trick of the light, the rich-hued irises seeming black in dimming light.

He stalked patiently, waiting for the target to dive into a more secluded area, or to meander long enough for the streets to empty. To make it clear who the face was in the crowd, or to get close enough to tell. He'd studied the map the Hound compiled earlier, with remarks pointing out shortcuts and pathways, even roofs reliable for traversal. They were turning into streets adjacent to the market.

Not boding well. And yet... in a bid for revelation, Walter turned into a darker, empty side street first.
Unsheathed the knife he wore for decorum, got a firm grip with his left hand.
Concentrated, and made a precise shallow cut through the glove of the right hand, by the thumb, so it saturated the glove a little before it healed over.
Humans wouldn't be able to tell the scent in a myriad of others.
But a monster moving downwind - might.
The dagger sheathed, Walter took off again, steps poised hurried but route leading away from the market, his senses sharper than a razorblade and tracking, with continuous focus, just the one sensation.

Would the land shark take the bait?

The Vagrant had no particular destination in mind. That was hardly unusual. He wandered wherever the streets took him, following whatever scent or sound happened to catch his interest, letting the town reveal itself one alley at a time. The evening had settled properly now, and the last traces of daylight had vanished between the buildings. Lanterns had begun to glow along the streets, their warm light spilling across cobblestones crowded with merchants packing away their wares and patrons spilling from taverns. The Vagrant moved among them with the same careless ease as everyone else, hands tucked into the pockets of his weathered coat, battered cap tilted low, his crimson eyes hidden beneath its brim. He looked like any other drifter passing through. Perhaps a little too ragged. Perhaps a little too tall. Perhaps the grin showing beneath the shadow of his hat was a touch too wide.

Then he smelled blood.

The Vagrant slowed.

Not the lingering copper of the sailor he'd fed on earlier. That scent was already fading from his senses, replaced by the countless lesser smells of the city. This was fresh. Warm. Close. It drifted toward him on the evening air with an almost deliberate clarity, threading its way through the stink of the river and the bodies filling the streets. He lifted his head slightly, drawing another slow breath through his nose.

His tongue slipped briefly across one fang.

"Hmm."

It was barely enough for a human to notice, but The Vagrant's senses had been honed by centuries of hunting. Blood announced itself to creatures like him, and it traveled great distances. He turned down the next street, following the scent without any particular urgency. It pulled him away from the market and into a quieter stretch of town, where the noise of the crowds began to thin and the shadows grew longer between the buildings.

There was something familiar about the scent.

Not the man himself. The Vagrant had never met him.

But the blood...

His brow furrowed slightly as he drew another breath. He knew that scent. Or, more accurately, he knew its kind. He had encountered it before, carried by members of a particular family whose blood had crossed his path more than once over the long centuries. The Vagrant couldn't have said how many of them he'd met, nor remembered every face, but some things stayed with a creature as old as he was. Certain bloodlines had a flavor all their own.

And this one belonged to that family.

"Huh."

That was enough to pique his curiosity.

He should have noticed how cleanly the scent traveled. He should have wondered why it seemed so conveniently placed. He didn't. Or perhaps he did, somewhere in the distant recesses of that ancient mind, but curiosity had a way of making certain questions feel terribly unimportant. Besides, there was something almost amusing about the idea of someone bleeding alone in a dark street. Perhaps he'd found another meal. Perhaps there was something more interesting waiting for him.

Either way, he was curious.

The Vagrant turned another corner and caught the scent more strongly. His eyes glimmered beneath the brim of his cap, and the lazy amusement in his expression sharpened into something more predatory. His pace quickened—not enough to draw attention, but enough that the distance began disappearing beneath his feet. The city seemed to blur around him as he followed that little thread of copper through the dark.

Then he saw the man ahead.

Not clearly at first. Just a silhouette moving farther down the street, cloak shifting with each hurried step.

The Vagrant stopped.

His grin slowly returned.

"Well, well..."

There was something about the way the man moved that caught his attention. Not quite fear. Not quite haste. Purposeful, perhaps. And the scent...

The Vagrant's head tilted.

It was coming from him.

His nostrils flared as he drew another breath, and this time he caught something else beneath it. Something subtle. Something that didn't belong.

Magic.

The vampire's expression didn't change, but the amusement in his eyes deepened.

Now that was interesting.

He stepped forward again, following at an easy pace. He wasn't trying to hide anymore, though there was little need to announce himself. His footsteps were nearly silent against the cobblestones, his presence swallowed naturally by the darkness between the buildings. Whoever this man was, he seemed intent on leading him somewhere.

And The Vagrant was perfectly content to follow.

After all, it had been quite some time since someone had gone to the trouble of preparing dinner for him.

His grin widened.

Down the alleyways, leading a predator who'd probably gotten arrogant enough to think even an ambush was a temporary obstacle to the full course, so to speak. Arrogance, curiosity, and boredom, were a potent drug. They made a man make bad decisions - and that, Walter knew first-hand, too.

But the von Bremens were dead, so most vampire havens would have recorded and promptly forgotten, centuries ago now. Most of them have been civil, anyway. Died simple, explainable deaths. Taken ill, suffered a horse accident on a hunt, went on a pilgrimage and never returned. Some of them tried to pursue occult with fractured knowledge that remained to them with the larger clan's dissolution. A lot of them were explainable, too. Killed due to debts, taken their own life in a bout of madness, or have always been poorly due to the occult nature of their studies that surely wormed through their souls. Entire branching bloodline, trickling away until it was gone.
The Thornleys knew why this happened.

Not even a twitch to betray that he'd heard that, even from far away.

This was his expertise. Even despite the rebel phase when he had tried to give monsters leeway out of youthful naivety, or hopeful idealism. Tried to treat them like hunger did not do to them what it did. The weave of what emerged from the ashes of those souls fed on things that have already been there, in one way or the other.
And now that he'd become, a thought visited him more often than not on sleepless nights.
Was his own hunger that much different?

The blue light that the dead could not see shone onto the walls as Walter moved through darker shadows. Funny how creatures that saw in the dark did not immediately clock light being a necessity for most mortals.
As if to tease, he left a faint print, having grabbed the door of the large building he'd entered, not a warehouse but some kind of long, wide production that stank of fish, chemicals and something else. Some kind of oil. The sting of ozone in the nostrils.

This section of the town, at least a couple alleyways, seemed rather more barren. Farther away from the market, made perfect sense. Moreso with it being the middle of the week - no wandering workers, and those who made their living by alms would have been by the closing market streets.

"Amusing." was the first word that snapped through the cool, dusty air, a metal-bound thunderclap in silence against what remained of the windows stretching along the central ridge of the rooftop.

Walter turned, indigo eyes glinting in the darkness with a faint halo around the irises, faint spiderweb of light sinking to feed the ghost lights in the depths of the pupils. He carried silver blades, one obvious and sheathed at his side, a longsword - the other, hidden and beyond perception. The bronze one had no use that Walter wished to blunt it against.

His nostrils flared, as if he was taking in the scent, too, but it was his eyes that saw.
"Who are you?"

The Vagrant followed the scent of blood through the narrowing streets, his pace unhurried and his hands tucked comfortably into the pockets of his weathered coat. A little mystery made for an interesting evening, and the scent trailing behind his quarry was enough to keep his curiosity piqued. It was familiar—a particular quality to the blood that stirred old memories from the distant corners of his mind. He couldn't place the man himself, but he'd encountered others who carried that same blood over the centuries. Something about it tugged at his mind, like a friend trying to pull you away from danger.

His red eyes drifted down to his left forearm, then across to his right. Scattered among the pale skin were tattoos—little runes, wards, and sigils carved into him centuries ago, each a relic of a past he rarely cared to revisit. Yet something about this moment stirred an unsettling sense of déjà vu. The familiar blood, the presence of those wards, the strange atmosphere hanging over the fish house... all of it tugged at the edges of his memories, stirring something deep within the darkness of his past. Something was calling out to him, reaching through the centuries to remind him of a truth he had long since forgotten. He could feel it there, just beyond his grasp.

But he couldn't hear it.

When the man led him inside a fish house, the vampire glanced up at the building's darkened silhouette. The Vagrant knew fish houses well. He'd spent enough of his mortal years along the waterfront to grow familiar with the rough, open-sided buildings where fishermen hauled in their catches to be cleaned, gutted, and cut down for market. He remembered the long wooden tables slick with seawater and blood, the steady scrape of knives against bone, and the sharp, briny stink of fish that clung to the planks long after the day's work was done. They were busy places at dawn, full of shouting workers, sloshing buckets, and gulls squabbling over scraps. To a fisherman, they were honest work. To The Vagrant, they were familiar ground—and, on occasion, a convenient place to find a meal.

By now though, the sounds of the market had dwindled behind them, replaced by the creak of timber, the distant groan of the river, and the faint rustling of something shifting within the old structure. The air carried the pungent smells of fish, oil, chemicals, and damp wood. Not exactly a charming place to spend an evening, but The Vagrant had slept in worse. He crossed the threshold without hesitation, his boots making scarcely a sound against the floorboards. His crimson eyes swept across the fish house, taking in the shadows, the stacked cargo, and the spaces between them. Somewhere nearby, a ghostly blue light might have been spilling across the darkness—a cold, spectral glow that would have illuminated the living and revealed the dead to those capable of seeing it. But The Vagrant saw no such light. He was undead himself, and whatever strange lantern Walter carried, its glow was hidden from his sight. There was only the warehouse’s ordinary darkness, and the man waiting within it.

The Vagrant tilted his head, regarding his host with lazy, almost friendly amusement, as though they'd met for drinks rather than under circumstances that might reasonably end with someone bleeding on the floor.

“Now, ain't dis cozy,” he drawled, the words rolling from his tongue with that relaxed, musical cadence of his.

The Vagrant took another step into the building, then let his gaze wander briefly toward the weapon Walter carried, a silver longsword that was hard to miss. A Hunter, of course. The vampire made no effort to reach for anything of his own. He'd come empty-handed, as he generally preferred to do. Besides, he had little need for steel when his own claws would serve just fine.

His eyes returned to Walter's face, lingering a moment on the indigo glow of his eyes before he gave a small, exaggerated shrug. “It don't matteh what dey call me,” He tapped a claw against his chest.“I'm deh ting you fear in deh dark. Dat chill runnin' down yo spine” His grin sharpened.

He paused, nostrils flaring as he drew in another breath. That familiar bloodline was unmistakable now, and beneath it lingered the subtle trace of magic he'd caught in the street. The Vagrant's expression grew thoughtful for a fleeting moment, though the amusement never quite left his eyes.

“I knew a few o' your kin, I tink, back when,” he said, his tone casual, as if discussing old drinking companions.
“Can't promise Ah remember every name or face. Time's a funny ting when ya got too much of it.” His gaze narrowed slightly, studying Walter with renewed interest. “But I remember deh blood.”

The vampire's tongue slipped across one fang. “So tell me, cher... who are ya? Ya went through an awful lotta trouble ta get me somewhere quiet. I’m hopin’ you got somethin’ more interestin’ planned than a friendly chat.”

The lord turned fully, his gloved hand resting on the sword that he could not pull nearly fast enough, surely, if the Vagrant decided to pounce. He listened in a politely withdrawn way that someone might indulge small talk. There was no apprehension at the proclamation of titles, nor amusement. Just a still, tired sort of expression that eerily almost did not sport a spare twitch. It was schooled to perfection, to where sharpened senses could not pick up much. A difficult feat for a human to accomplish, what with the amount of hot blood pulsing all through them at every squeeze of the heart.

There was absolutely not a single soul in this place, and then some dozens paces around. They have been truly alone, save for the rats.
Eyes fell on the script. Comprehension. Familiar hand.
Eyes widened, just a fraction.

There was a recollection, but nothing in the family records for generations now.

The vorpal sword digging its tip into his chest. 'The wards are failing.'
More than the ones over Bremen, apparently.

A slightest cringe came to the side of the nose, noncongruent with anything that was said or happened, like trying to swat a memory that landed a throughline to what he needed. Almost all the way.
What's the point of any amount of time if you can't remember dear old grandfather?

He blocked off the bit that threatened to bring tension into his posture. Precise, never in free flow, one sequence into another, because these monsters were fast and even if he could compete - his ace was in melee. In melee that you didn't enter with something that could snap your spine with an idle hug.

The wards on him were right bloody there. And, same as with lighting the lantern, he could do nothing with them at a distance. Thoughts were swirling, searching for a plan of action.

"Good of you to remember," Walter acknowledged casually, a smile in the corners of his mouth measured but never reaching his eyes.

A spitting image of another, one who imprisoned under the foreign earth and bent it to his thought. No glasses, eyes a different shade, more wave to hair, but there was something in the canny, almost unblinking glare that was familiar, the features of the face, the hard line shape of the mouth.
What was not like Meinrad is the man did not smell like magic. Did not smell entirely human either - the sweat was there, vague thick note, but almost like an aura around him, there were the earthy herbs, the sweet-mossy scent of cleansing sage. Some kind of perfume, for sure.

A long inhale, Walter's hand lifted to the buckle of his cloak, and loosened it. Slowly, methodically, purely by feel, as his eyes never left the vampire.
"Courtesy for courtesy. I am the old blood and hallowed bone. I will dance with you until you fear and remember."

He pulled out the sword, the metal exposed to air coming to life with magic concealed by the sheath.

Most silvered blades were infused with a syphoning aspect of the Moon. It would be natural to the metal's receptive aspects, relatively easy to enchant and modify. Devastating to creatures that depended on daily feeding, or some after that level of power. Not against those who could muscle through, however, and had more power in reserve to spare to maintain the grip.
Because the aspect of the Moon also aligned with the magic in what made the dead - undead.

No, this entire sword burned, hummed in its volatility contained, with the aspect of the Sun, silver spread at the edge but the middle of the blade black as if charred. It would not drain. It would restore true form and illuminate the true nature of things - in other words, it would violently destroy the internal weave and set the Shroud released from that on fire.
From the guard, elk antlers spread, echoing an old god of the huntsmen and the wild. Antlers turned into oak branches bearing sparse leaves.

Walter pulled the sword to the side, as if to offer it, not brandish it. Same deliberate move, the will'o'wisps in his eyes soaking in the knowledge of the other's pattern.

Fingers loosened. The sword fell. It remained there, thrumming with power and untouchable, clattering on the floor like a discarded coffin nail.
"I just wanted some privacy for our mutual lesson in humility, I suppose." He squinted slightly. For just a moment, his amusement reached all the way from his lips to his eyes. "Shall we?"

The Vagrant's grin lingered as Walter spoke, the vampire regarding him with a look of easy amusement that did little to conceal the predatory interest simmering beneath it.

The old blood and hallowed bone.

A curious way to introduce oneself, certainly. The words stirred something in the back of his mind, another faint tug at those memories that had been clawing at him since he'd first caught the scent. His gaze flickered briefly toward the runes and wards scattered across his own forearms. That strange sense of recognition remained, just beyond reach, like a half-remembered nightmare whose details slipped away each time he tried to grasp them. Then Walter's hand moved to his cloak, and The Vagrant's attention returned to the present. He watched the man draw his sword, his red eyes following the blade as it emerged into the dimness. Even without seeing the magic concealed within it, he could feel something change in the air. The weapon carried a presence of its own, a pressure that prickled against his senses and made the old instincts buried beneath centuries of hunger stir awake.

“Well, now,” he murmured, his grin spreading to show the tips of his fangs. “Ain't you just full o' pretty words, cher.”

The sword fell, clattering against the floorboards between them. The Vagrant's eyes followed it down, and for a moment he simply regarded the weapon where it lay, listening to the strange hum of power that seemed to linger around it. He didn't reach for it. Didn't even take a step closer. There was something about that blade he didn't much care for, and while he was hardly the sort to shy away from a little danger, he saw no reason to go putting his hand on a thing that was practically begging to bite him.

Instead, he lifted his gaze back to Walter, his expression bright with a sort of delighted curiosity. “A lesson in humility, huh? Now, that's a mighty ambitious thing ta promise a fella you've only just met.” He chuckled, rolling one shoulder beneath his weathered coat. “Though I gotta admit, I admire the confidence. Most folks have the good sense ta look a li'l nervous when they're standin' in front o' somethin' that'll tear their head off before they can finish a prayer.”

He took another slow step into the fish house, boots whispering over the worn boards. His posture remained loose, almost languid, but the casual slouch couldn't quite disguise the way his weight settled beneath him, ready to move in any direction without warning. His eyes never left Walter's face. “But you don't seem too worried about that, do ya?” The Vagrant tilted his head, studying the man's measured expression, the faint amusement that had finally reached his eyes, and the way he held himself with such deliberate control. “No, there's somethin' else goin' on here. You got a whole lotta confidence for a man standin' all alone in a fish house with me.” His grin sharpened. “Makes me wonder what you know that I don't.”

For a moment, his attention drifted once more to the runes on his arms. The familiar sensation pressed at him again, insistent and irritating, as though some long-buried part of him were trying to claw its way to the surface. He flexed his fingers, dark nails catching the faint light, then gave a small shake of his head as if dismissing an unwelcome thought. Whatever it was, it could wait. There was a more immediate matter to attend to, and Walter had been kind enough to arrange it. The vampire spread his hands a little, empty palms offered in a gesture that was almost mockingly welcoming.

“Now, I ain't much for dancin', mon ami,” he said, his voice dropping into a softer, more dangerous drawl. “But I reckon I can make an exception.”

His grin widened.

Then he was gone.

A sound like the fluttering of dozens of leathery wings stirred the darkness above. Then, without warning, The Vagrant dropped from the shadows, descending upon Walter with predatory speed. His clawed hand was drawn back, cocked and ready to strike, the long, dark talons poised to tear through flesh. And all the while, he was still grinning. His crimson eyes remained calm and focused, fixed upon his target with unsettling precision. There was no snarl, no growl, no outward sign of excitement or anger. Not even a flicker of emotion crossed his face, outside of that grin. Just that same unnervingly composed expression, as though he were performing some mundane task rather than launching a sudden attack.

Then his arm snapped forward, claws sweeping toward Walter's head with the intent of slashing it clean from his shoulders.

Walter let his cloak hang on his arm, folded into a heavy woolen drape. He had a straight dagger on his belt, looked like a family heirloom or a ritual knife. A glass sphere cased in bronze that to Vagrant's eyes was just that, a bauble.
He was not very colorful in presentation, that one. Black suede vest, the sword belt, ash-colored shirt with sleeves clasped by long armguards and emerging in ruffled folds on the other end. He carried no crossbow, of potions - two thick narrow tubes that carried anaelgesic and disinfectant scents, not that of potions or self-igniting liquids. For all intents and purposes, he did not seem fight-worthy.

The dropping of a sword enchanted to this degree of deadly against this particular target was not a bait to pick it up - though it might have been for someone less intelligent than this prey. But for one who was savvy to magic - it was a proclamation.


A smile touched the corners of Walter's mouth for a beat.


Eyes watched the man's approach. Past the few peparations the man seemed intent to make, he did not move, like a polite host waiting for the guest to stop beating feet around the threshold and make it inside.
Good thing I don't pray anymore.


"Perhaps you're about to find out," Walter offered, and he sounded friendly.
Not entirely facetious, either. Violence was familiar. It was a relief, the certainty of getting hurt when you were expecting to be rather than anxiety of waiting for pain to come into the most vulnerable spots when he wanted nothing more than peace.

The cloaked bastard tried to disappear, but his weave shone brightly like bloodstains in the snow as it traveled.
His eyes tracked the movement. In that fraction of a beat, he was incredibly patient for that dispassionate skull-grin to reemerge closer to his face.

The claws did not meet his head.
The Shroud screeched and parted with indistinguishable whispers that made the shadows fall deeper and wither some into sharper outlines. The man moved impossibly fast, and with precision complimenting his economy of movement, making a full heel turn as he passed under the arm, so close that his hair brushed against the forearm. Not like a fencer breaking distance. This was, besides the speed that was most certainly not human, an entirely different style from western swords.

His own claw-blade of the southern design, pulled from its back sheath and nested with fluidity in his gloved hand - hooked and ripped into the tendons of the clawed hand at the wrist, using the arm's careless swing of far superior power as anchoring point.
With that slice came not heat but draining cold. Much harder to reconstitute exactly along the line of the cut.
Because while he grew by the oaken groves, he became where jaguar claws cut through the dark.

Walter stopped, allowing the motion to end and make distance between them. His nostrils flared - was that a huff? Pinpricks of light in his eyes absorbed every movement bathed in dim azure glimmers.

"Slow," he stated, seemingly unimpressed. Fully ready for the next assault to be far longer and varied. His muscles were feeling with the scorch of strain a single motion put on him. He had to gain closer access to the one dastardly vessel of weave in this room, or sort it fast. The lines on him, however... "Predictable," he pointed out, anyway, with an air of apprehension that said they might not bother if the bloodsucker would not take this seriously. "You know what? Get inventive."

He poked through the cut in his glove to draw fresh blood and threw the decorative sgian dubh tip down under his feet, embedding it into wood, words in a tone weighty and paced with impatience.
"Tha mi ag ràdh gur ann leam fhìn a tha an t-àite seo. Is leam na h-oiseanan, is leam na faileasan, agus tha na dorsan dùinte. Biodh e mar sin."*
The weave in the place shifted. Blood seeped into the old wood without a trace. The bronze blade that remembered generations of the incantation recited and the blood of those who used to channel their weave through it, sealed the space across four corners, from the sky above and earth below.

Many things operated not on continent-tearing displays of power, not on demon hands bursting from the ground or undead armies. The older, foundational principles of magic lay in something as simple as 'water claims the strength of the warm', as personable as the concept of ownership or as symbolic as an offering at a shrine.
The arcane mathematics, the elaborate constructs of the modern age, the flashy spells, have all forgotten that the ground they sprouted from was dark and solid, and it was this.

You named me host, I name you prisoner. You are not free to leave.

---

* I say that this place belongs to me alone. The corners are mine, the shadows are mine, and the doors are closed. So be it.

The Vagrant's grin didn't falter when Walter moved. If anything, it widened, the vampire's crimson eyes following the man with the same calm focus he'd shown from the beginning. He'd expected resistance, of course. The sword had been a rather obvious declaration of intent, and Walter's composure suggested he wasn't some frightened fool who'd wandered into the wrong alley. Still, there was something satisfying about watching a human attempt to meet him on equal footing. The Vagrant had seen it countless times over the centuries: the brave, the desperate, the arrogant, all convinced that a little steel and a steady hand might be enough to put him down. Usually, they learned otherwise.

This time, however, Walter moved with a speed that deserved a little more attention.

The vampire's claws swept through the space where Walter's head had been, meeting nothing but empty air. Before The Vagrant could complete his turn, a sharp, unfamiliar cold bit into his wrist. The hooked blade caught his hand and tore through the tendons, its edge leaving behind a sensation that was altogether different from the ordinary sting of a wound. His arm recoiled slightly as he passed, and the grin on his face tightened—not with pain, exactly, but with surprise. It had been a long while since someone had managed to make a cut feel like anything more than a momentary inconvenience.

He landed a short distance away, boots scraping against the floorboards as he turned to face Walter once more. His injured hand hung loosely at his side for a moment, the fingers twitching as he tested them. The wound resisted him. He could feel the familiar pull of his body's unnatural restoration, but the cold clinging to the cut made the process sluggish, the flesh reluctant to knit itself back together. The Vagrant glanced down at it, then lifted his eyes to Walter.

“Slow,” he repeated softly, rolling the word around in his mouth. A low chuckle followed. “Well, ain't that a shame. Here I was thinkin' we were just gettin' acquainted.”

Walter's next word drew another flash of amusement from his eyes.

“Predictable, huh?”

The vampire flexed his injured fingers again, studying the stubborn wound with open curiosity. Then his gaze shifted to the dagger as Walter drove it into the floor. He couldn't see the weave spreading through the fish house, nor the unseen boundaries taking shape around them, but he felt the change all the same. The air seemed to settle, the shadows growing strangely still. Something old and foundational stirred beneath the ordinary world, and the wards scattered across his forearms prickled in answer. For the briefest moment, that same nagging sensation returned—the impression of a memory trying to claw its way out of the dark. His expression grew distant, his grin fading just a fraction as he looked toward the corners of the room.

Then Walter spoke, and The Vagrant's eyes returned to him.


The vampire stared at him for a beat.

And then he laughed.

It began as a quiet, breathy sound, but quickly grew into something fuller, echoing through the empty fish house. He tipped his head back, shoulders shaking with genuine amusement, as though Walter had just told him the funniest joke he'd heard in a century. When the laughter finally subsided, his grin had returned in full, his crimson eyes gleaming beneath the brim of his battered cap.

“Oh, I like you, mon ami,” he said, voice warm with a dangerous sort of delight. “You got some bite to ya. Most folks start beggin' by now. You just went and shut the door.”

He glanced toward the entrance, then back at Walter. The Vagrant took a leisurely step to the side, testing the space around him without any particular urgency. He could feel the magic pressing against him now, the invisible claim laid over the building, and he understood enough to recognize the shape of the trap. Walter had named himself host, then turned the invitation into a cage. It was an old idea, one that carried the weight of something far older than the elaborate spells and flashy tricks he'd encountered in more recent centuries.

The vampire's smile thinned.

“Now, dat ain't very hospitable.”

He looked down at the wound on his wrist once more, then slowly curled his fingers into a fist. It had been impossible at first, but once the tendons knit back together, they moved just fine. The flesh remained stubborn though, the cold still gnawing at the edges of the cut. His gaze rose to meet Walter's, and the playfulness in his expression settled into something quieter. Not anger. Not fear. Just the patient attention of a predator who'd realized the prey had teeth of its own.

“But if we're playin' lessons, cher...” He rolled his shoulders, letting his arms hang loose at his sides. “Might as well make sure we both learn somethin', eh?”

The Vagrant's grin returned, broad and razor-sharp.

""Dis gon be fun."

Then he shot forward like a bullet, charging toward Walter at inhuman speed. In the span of half a second, he had closed the distance, his arm once again drawn back for a vicious swipe. The Vagrant made no effort to disguise his movements, allowing the attack to remain deliberate and predictable, yet every motion carried a clear and deadly purpose. As his arm snapped forward, black claws slicing through the air toward Walter's throat, something stirred within the vampire's shadow.

Two rows of crimson eyes snapped open.

A massive black shape erupted from the darkness between The Vagrant's legs, surging upward with a feral rush. It was an enormous hound, its shaggy coat as black as the shadows from which it emerged, its glowing red eyes fixed hungrily upon Walter. Its jaws gaped wide, revealing a cavernous maw lined with jagged teeth as it lunged for the man's midsection, intent on tearing a great chunk from him.

It was a simple stratagem, of course. Poke, see what makes stir. Because stirred beasts were distracted from planning. Bruised egos demanded retaliation that was immediate, and, of course, violent.
He was still present in his head, but just barely. This whole exchange would end in blood, of course, they've already started - but what else was new?
The dark eyes glimmered dimly with the light of their own.

Under all the concealing clothes, the veins darkened in violet, and his muscles mended. Not needed, not just yet, but that spared him time layer. The lantern on his belt was a light to any Huntsman. One more portion of trapped light to consume.


"Farbeit from me to argue your intent to get acquainted close," the pale lord almost crooned back. "At least you have the patience." A nod to the monster's wrist. "Many lunge with their jaws open." Guess what joint the blade finds then.

He stalked slowly, not to change positions, but seemingly priming up for a lunge of his own, and let the vampire talk. The look sharpened, from under those lids stared back someone who had done this, over and over, and was still in possession of all his limbs. Truly, luck's own child, by how close and personal he seemed willing to get.

A jet eyebrow quirked to the remark, eyes squinted slightly. Was he suppressing a chuckle?
"And yet, I am still here and not on the other side of it." Tone lowered, conspiratorial on the verge of darkly playful, "Do you believe in second chances?"
Karambit went from one hand onto the other, bare index finger ran along the bloodied blade, pushing the blood to thicken in a drop. Faint dark wisps rose from the finger. The monster's blood dripped down the finger as it turned into ashen-grey dust, its power absorbed completely and some of it pushed back to make the blade clean again. This was not an offering. This was the take. Still, for the amount of it...

"Ah, there it is." No doubt he'd seen the dimming of that bright, wide snarl, dubbed internally 'dead man's smile' for the type of people, him included, that splayed it in the face of overwhelming violence. Taking it seriously.
Almost a shame. He wanted more.


Walter offered a smile, and against his better wishes it also split wider in response to that grin, a keen shape that betrayed the pointed fangs teasing his upper lip. Enough to break skin, and the pair of teeth behind that seemed to be sharp, too - but not large enough to pierce all the way to the jugular.

If he were a hunter, he would be on every potion and weave imaginable to make sure he could match the beast at least in pure physical capacity, withstand a few more wounds, move just a fraction of a step ahead or match.
If he were still human, he'd be suppressing terror - not for the enemy being unfamiliar, but for knowing just the extent of what the enemy could do to make him wish he were dead, that animal existential instinct that wanted out.

But Captain Brezat had it right from the get go.
Zere is ze same r'ed in you as 'alf my most favor'eet people, whelp. Just 'ave to give it a r'ight nudge, and zis mask ov your's vill come r'ight off.
He spent the life refusing Vincent, and himself. Keeping control. Adhering to the pure calculated architecture of every kill.
There was no joy in the task of overcoming a monstrous enemy of unfathomable power, ...right?

Blink of an eye, or most, that was how fast the vampire got, from standing still into a full-tilt run, closing distance between them once more, once more with claws seeking purchase.

The air shifted around him with ghostly rasps, and the Huntsman moved.
Back and away just enough, allowing the cleaving blow to pass so close that if those fingers moved backwards they could have touched his face. Almost seeing if the enemy would go for defying inertia in that way, too.
To the side.

He felt the shadow thicken before it sprouted eyes.
Walter's lips parted with a gasp. His eyes, haloed by strange violet glow on the outer rim of the iris now, widened. With something dangerously akin to excitement, in those few beats of time that he had, he watched the spawn rise, admired its jaws seeking to block off his line of sight by the sheer scale of it, at the head of crashing tide of darkness.

But the shadows belong to me within these four corners, remember?

He wove faster than most would register, wisps of dark and shadows on his form falling sharp and deep. Step sought a creaky quick purchase against an old crate, launched him into the air for a short arc.
Allowed the dark beast to ram right through the wood, instead.
The gloved hand touched that back instead of the blade. Boots met the floor again.

The weave deadened like tissue drained of fluid, frailed. The shadow hound split open along the spine line like a cracked chestnut.
There was still a degree of separation from the full effect, still a layer of the glove, perhaps bandages beneath.
But there was something irrevocable beneath the pull. The aspect of form was broken. Not destroyed, but cracked to where it would be even harder to control it. Not that it would be easy to target him without a token of his essence - to the arcane-made eyes, Walter was there visually, but his presence in the Shroud seemed wrapped in the weave around him, only leaving a distortion where the weave bent. And passed through him, but that was not for anyone to know.

Eyes like will'o'wisps found the one responsible for shadow puppets, glistening with approval beneath a smile that sought to close behind composure again.
"How wondrous!" He praised, not quite in an exclamation, but in a tone of voice elated for the compliment to land sincerely. And deadened like the weave on shadow hound, smile dropping from his voice last. "I knew you had it in you." His exhale sent out a cloud, barely extant before it faded, body radiating heat that only a living person could produce, the smell of sweat slightly sharper, eyes burning with vigorous hope. "That all of it?" A request wrapped in mockery. Summon your sword so I can pick up mine. Call forth everything you have so I can shackle it, destroy it, bring it low. Draw my blood. Fight me. More. Now.

He was slipping. Not far away, but right here, right now. Into something... satisfying.

The Vagrant's grin remained fixed as the shadow hound lunged, its enormous jaws opening wide enough to swallow a man whole. He expected Walter to move, of course. The Huntsman had already demonstrated that he was no ordinary opponent, and the vampire had begun to suspect that every seemingly careless movement was part of some larger design. Still, watching the man spring away from the beast with such precise timing earned a flicker of appreciation. The hound crashed through the crate instead, splintering the old wood in a spray of broken boards. Then Walter's gloved hand touched its back.

Something went wrong.

The Vagrant felt it before he understood it. The connection between himself and his creation shuddered, as though an unseen hand had seized the shadow and begun to pull it apart. The hound's form faltered beneath Walter's touch, its darkness splitting along the spine in a grotesque rupture. The vampire's smile finally slipped—not into fear, nor even pain, but into a moment of genuine surprise. His eyes narrowed as he watched the creature's shape buckle and fray, the beast's crimson eyes flickering amid the collapsing darkness. Whatever Walter had done, it had reached beyond flesh and bone. It had struck at the very thing that held the hound together.

“Well, ain't that somethin'...” he muttered.

The hound's form broke apart, its massive body unraveling into ragged streams of darkness that spilled across the floor and bled back into the shadows. The Vagrant's fingers curled, a subtle motion that might have been an attempt to call the creature back—or perhaps simply an instinctive response to feeling something of his own being handled by another. The familiar connection was still there, but damaged, distorted in a way that made it difficult to grasp. He could feel the fracture, an ugly little weakness that would not mend as easily as torn flesh. His gaze lingered on the remains for a beat before lifting to Walter.

And there it was. That look in the Huntsman's eyes. The approval. The excitement barely contained beneath his careful composure.

The Vagrant's grin returned, though it had changed. The lazy amusement was still present, but something sharper had taken its place, something that recognized the challenge for what it was. He rolled his injured wrist once more, testing the movement. The cold still clung to the wound, and the flesh had only just now fully recovered, but his fingers responded well enough. He flexed them slowly, then spread his claws.

“Wondrous, huh?” The Vagrant echoed, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Now, I ain't heard someone compliment my work in a long, long time.”

His eyes narrowed with renewed interest as Walter challenged him again. The vampire rolled his shoulders, letting his arms hang loose at his sides, and for a moment he seemed to consider the request. Then, slowly, his grin spread.

“Oh, you want somethin' different?”

The Vagrant raised his injured hand between them and turned it palm-up. His black claws drew across the pale flesh of his forearm, opening a long, deliberate cut. Blood welled from the wound, dark and thick, gathering in a glossy ribbon that slid down his wrist. He watched it for a moment, almost fondly, before closing his fingers and squeezing. More blood spilled between them, pattering onto the floorboards.

“Shoulda said so, cher.”

The blood did not simply fall. It hung in the air, gathering around his hand in twisting strands, each droplet drawn into the next until a dark, viscous mass began to coil and writhe before him. The Vagrant moved his fingers, and the blood responded, stretching into long, whip-like tendrils that snapped through the air with a wet hiss. One lashed toward Walter's legs, another arced high toward his shoulder, while a third swept low across the floor, seeking to catch him from the side. The vampire advanced behind the assault, his own movements no longer following the same straightforward rhythm as before. Each feint and sudden change of direction was accompanied by a gesture-less command, sending the blood surging at Walter from a different angle.

He'd learned something from their last exchange. If the shadows belonged to Walter here, then The Vagrant would simply use something that didn't.

That being said, as The Vagrant charged toward Walter, one of his hounds lingered in the darkness behind the man, poised to strike. Its monstrous jaws hung open, ready to snap shut the moment Walter moved, whether to evade the blood lashing toward him or dodge the vampire's incoming attack. No matter which way he chose to flee, the beast would be waiting, prepared to lunge and tear into him with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.

Walter's excitement was sincere. That was its main application. It also held true that the excitement did not negate the calculation.
There was no way in the world that he could make it closer to the vampire, but vampires seemed, at least some of them, keen on basing magic on their own essence and lack of self-preservation instincts. Truly, why would this ancient be bothered? He was making a weapon. The weapon was not yet taxing him anything remotedly significant.

Will'o'wisps burned in the dark. Shifted, tracking. Shadows fell deep, not only in the crevices between the boards, under the rubble of the broken crate, in every nook of the building - but on the pale man's face and in the folds of his own clothing.
Because to expose something to the Great Vacuity - meant that he was the point of contact.
One didn't get used to it.
One simply rode the edge of existential terror and clung to everything that comprised a conscious mind.
And hoped it was enough.

The air leaked fragments from the shadows on Walter's figure, his pupils and irises seemingly consumed into the starlit, haloed darkness. A strange expression was settling on the features as his heart picked up and settled. Muffled, almost.

One could admire the fury of a storm at sea, the ardent colors of a wildfire, one could write poetry to their glory and yet consider them calamities still, remain fully aware of their destruction.
He was the thing that stopped calamities, unless it broke beyond repair.
The calamities themselves, like the one he was looking at, probably have stopped pondering destruction as it happened a long, long time ago. They wouldn't start. Not even if someone looked at them kindly. This was their rubedo.

He had to balance. Between concentration, presence, some degree of fleeting emotions - and the state that had but one cause and no negotiating power.

It did not matter why the monster of obscene potential was bearing his grandfather's runes.
It did matter that Walter's assessment did not yield any other chance of survival and success both but the gambit in play right now.

That thing could spend its strength forever before it was spent.
He could draw its power forever, long after his mind or body might have gone past breaking.
A part of him just wanted to stop... and let it happen.

"What if I could go on forever, just like you?" His lips barely moved, as if numb, voice escaping in a breath of a murmur. Not a genuine question to his tonight's company and more a musing out loud.

Heel dug into the blood lash on the floor. It... stopped, fell down in a thick, glistening streak that was inert.
Body tilted to miss the one falling like a hammer on his clavicle.
Dropped down and leaned, seeking purchase with one hand behind him to avoid the claws.
The hound's own senses had trouble locating him, now, directing the leap at nothing over him. Would have run into the vampire himself if it weren't recalled or repositioned. Any golem would have to be controlled directly, with split attention - or limited maneuvering.
Only so many puppets you can run with real eyes, and your body is one.

The vampire's weave filled the air just as surely as the metallic scent of blood infused with magic.

Walter had to fold into a crouch and immediately stagger backwards. The crescent blade worked, all the while, until...

One thinner lash caught him with burgeoning spikes across the back and wrapped around his head halfway before it started going inert. Because his teeth closed around it and his jaws bit down, and his mouth filled with the direct extension of the other's essence and power. In the best offering a Hunter could reap short of a peaceful one.

Blood. That familiar scent multiplied tenfold. The pale man was bleeding, visibly - a few punctures on his neck that didn't spurt nearly enough to betray a pierced artery, his cheek cut to the corner of the mouth. Invisibly, where the lash dug into the muscles of the back and right shoulder through the clothes, but didn't have the chance to tear before liquefying.

The Vagrant would feel it.
Cold. Abyssal, numbing, frigid vacuous void that was so vast, so cold and so empty that no mind could grasp the edges.
A sort of feeling one has when someone is looking into the back of your head with the cold eyes of a hunter. A sort of presence when someone lingers just behind the shoulder. A sort of awareness just skimming past, but there, there where it should not have been.

The pale man was before him, not behind. Just a couple leaps away.

Walter's mouth parted to pull in a hoarse gasp, heart beating in tact with veins pulsing a deep purple on the exposed hand and neck. His gloved fingers splayed, straightening to the limit of the joints, then curled. His eyes burned into the Vagrant's face with an expression that was determined, and still not nearly enough fogged to mar the sharpness to it.

He smiled cheerfully as the cheek knit back together, not in a hurry to move any more than he needed to.

The agony was overwhelming. But he had to keep balancing.
He had to keep his human calculations, because having balanced thinking over this calamity was paramount.

But behind the vampire... no, not behind, where was it? Something was there. Something that appeared when Walter tasted his blood. Something as final as that touch that ruined the golem, only...

Walter himself has begun to blur around the edges, in a way. He was there. Body and blood dripping to the floor and the unnatural eyes and the weird shadows. But the mind also... tried to slip off of him, see things behind him as if he was a distortion walking that only bent the light.

"More." The demand landed in a weighted rasp. "Thoir dhomh barrachd, a thusa a tha air do mhallachadh."

And then, he made a step forward, toward the vampire. Another. Toward? It was hard to gage distance.
"Just me against you, once-a-man." The voice, trembling with either pain or elation, made locating a little more precise. "Closer."

It hurt to move.
Gods, it was agony of muscle overstraining, tearing, mending immediately, and now the wounds added to it.
If only he could let go. Slip into the welcoming embrace of the Call.
No. No, that would not do. He would do this as a von Bremen.
Maybe die as a von Bremen, too. Seemed to run in the family.

The Vagrant felt it the moment Walter bit down.

It was not pain—not in any way that flesh could understand. The vampire had endured blades, fire, and the frantic little efforts of mortals who believed enough steel could make a difference. This was something else entirely. A coldness seeped through the blood he had sent against the Huntsman, spreading backward along the tendril and into the very essence from which it had been shaped. It was as though the world had opened beneath him, revealing an emptiness so vast that his mind could find no edge to it, no bottom to fall toward. For one terrible instant, the familiar certainty of his own existence seemed to waver. Something was looking through him—or past him—and the sensation crawled beneath his skin like fingers searching for a way inside.

The Vagrant's grin faltered. His crimson eyes narrowed, fixed upon Walter as the blood lash slackened and dissolved between the man's teeth. The vampire could feel the damage, though he could not name it. His essence had been touched again, just as the hound's had, and whatever lurked within the Huntsman was not merely a means of breaking his creations. It was hungry. Not for blood alone, but for something deeper. Something that made the Vagrant's instincts stir with a warning he had not felt in a very long time.

“Well, now...” he murmured, his voice quieter than before. “Ain't you just full of surprises, cher?”

His gaze swept over Walter's injuries—the punctures at his neck, the cut that stretched toward the corner of his mouth, the blood staining his clothes. The Huntsman was hurt, certainly, and yet he was smiling as his flesh knitted itself whole. There was a terrible determination in that expression, a willingness to endure agony that bordered on the incomprehensible. The Vagrant had met men who fought through fear, men who fought through pain, and men who fought because they had nothing left to lose. Walter seemed to be doing something altogether different. He was balancing on the edge of something monstrous, and every step he took brought him closer to letting it swallow him.

The demand came in a language the vampire did not understand, but its meaning needed no translation. More. The word that followed made that abundantly clear, and Walter began to advance, one measured step at a time. The Vagrant watched him approach, his head tilting slightly as the air around the pale man seemed to distort. For a moment, it was difficult to keep his attention fixed upon him, as though Walter were becoming less a man standing in the room and more a strange absence that the eye struggled to settle upon. The vampire's nostrils flared. He could smell the blood, the magic, the cold emptiness clinging to it all—and beneath that, something familiar enough to make the old runes carved into his arms feel suddenly, unpleasantly present.

“Just you and me, huh?” The Vagrant rolled his shoulders, then slowly flexed his fingers, allowing the dark claws to slide into view. He let his ragged coat slump off of his shoulders and onto the floor, then he tore his shirt off and tossed the tatters to the ground. The cap he stuffed into his back pocket. He had a soft spot for that one. His grin returned, but the humor behind it had grown thinner. “Now, I reckon I can do dat.”

The last of the blood fell away from the air and spattered across the floorboards. Rather than waste more of it trying to bind a man who could simply devour the magic woven through it, the vampire let his wounded arm fall to his side. He could feel the lingering chill in his essence, a phantom ache that had nothing to do with the cut on his wrist. It irritated him more than he cared to admit. He had spent centuries learning what could hurt him, what could slow him, and what was best avoided altogether. Walter was rapidly becoming a new entry on that list.

But the Huntsman had asked him to come closer.

The Vagrant obliged.

He moved in a sudden blur, closing the distance with a burst of speed that pushed debris away and sent loose splinters skittering beneath his boots. But this time, there was something different in the way he approached. The Vagrant did not angle away at the last moment, nor did he attempt to conceal his intentions behind a feint. Instead, he came straight for Walter, shoulders squared and claws bared, making the attack almost insultingly obvious. His left hand swept toward Walter's upper body, claws reaching for the shoulder and collar, while his right came around toward the ribs in a vicious follow-through.

Yet the opening was deliberate.

The Vagrant left his centerline exposed. His weight settled just a fraction too far forward, his guard opening rather than closing as he committed to the attack. Any competent fighter would recognize it immediately: an invitation. A chance to strike before the vampire could recover. And after everything Walter had shown him, The Vagrant had little doubt the Huntsman would recognize it.

That was precisely what he wanted.

He was giving Walter the hit.

The vampire's crimson eyes remained fixed upon him as he advanced, watching for the smallest shift in Walter's posture. There would be no blood tendrils this time. No shadow hounds. No trickery between them. Walter had asked for him, and The Vagrant intended to give him exactly what he wanted—an opportunity to put everything he had into a counterattack.

Because the moment Walter committed to it, The Vagrant would already be waiting.

He would take the blow rather than evade it, allowing whatever weapon, claw, or spell Walter chose to sink into him. He would let the pain come. Let Walter believe, for the briefest instant, that the opening had been real. Then those long claws would close around him.

The Vagrant would seize him before he could retreat, locking the Huntsman against him with the strength of something that no longer needed to care about its own wounds. One arm would wrench Walter's weapon hand aside while the other hooked around his body, dragging him firmly into the vampire's reach. No distance. No room to dodge. No shadows between them. Just fangs to skin.

And then the game would be over.

A low, almost feral growl rumbled from The Vagrant, reverberating throughout the building as he rushed toward Walter. He committed himself to the ploy, playing his part and trusting that, if it failed, he was unlikely to get another chance. He didn't like the feeling settling in the pit of his stomach, that unwelcome sensation others called fear. He wasn't accustomed to it, and the unfamiliarity left him deeply uneasy.

Something in him could still hold that prey response as he was sized up.
Clever fiend was beginning to figure out, even through that arrogance, that something was terribly amiss, something was not going any kind of right for how it should have. It was no longer secure in its knowledge of the world.
The part of him that was von Bremen felt an unmistakeable, intoxicating schadenfreude.
The part of him that recognized his own state as anything but human, was pulling his lips into an idle smirk, parting to show the edge of fang. Welcome - back - to the club. We just faff about until we concoct something useful and rise above in bodycount.

He was under no illusion that the beast could be killed. Too much of it. He could drain and drain - and it might have drowned... well, not the world but a decently sized county... first.
His newer 'instincts' weren't overtaking him only on a deep understanding that the alternative was available only - and only - while he remained Walter von Bremen-Thornley, heir of his family blood bonds and blood oaths. Even a small part of him would be enough so long as it was live and true. He had the means, he only needed to maintain the method.

He moved, too, fast, but just not enough away.
That way when collision happened - it would not be enough to wreak havok by forward momentum alone.

And, all of a sudden, Vagrant's claws - did find the collar. Creased the leather that was not easy to crease as the grip furled. Unfortunately, the weapon migrated hands, and the claw-blade rested - without pulling - exactly at the base of the thumb. Walter did not go for the center with a blade. Did not even try to pierce the heart with something that was designed for slashing.

In the fraction of a second that it took for the blow to the ribs to connect, fracturing bone and bruising organs, the glove fell to the floor.

It was a grotesque thing, that hand. Scars a latticework of purple and black, barely resembling a proper hand with chunks of flesh missing where the softer parts should have been. It was tortured before it was seemingly withered, and the carving, slashing, piercing, burning scars went far under the pale man's gauntlet and sleeve, ran like twisting tendrils in a familiar reddish-purple that graduated to charcoal-dark only at the fingertips. And yet, it moved just like a living hand should.

That strange dessicated hand did not strike. It touched lightly above where heart should be with skin-wrapped knuckles. Not enough distance to brace for a push. Nothing came. Perhaps, a spell of the Huntsman had misfired? Perhaps, the blow was hard enough to sink the would-be grip at the vampire's throat?

Oh, one desperate, righteous counter. If only.
You will discover, enemy mine, that I am frustratingly harder to tear apart now that I possess a part of you.

The shirt's seams gave way at the connection of the shoulder and collar.
It was less than a beat before the fangs connected, pierced, sunk, by the same force of motion that was driving the ploy. The desperate need of something recklessly powerful to prove to itself that it had no need to cower, by destroying the very thing that might have made it.
...There were other puncture wounds along the shoulder. Familiarly shaped. An old mark of some fangs that were ripped away mid-bitedown, so old that only its outline remained. A slightly less faded pattern that was fully healed, where the bites have been deep but careful, aiming at the same spot.

The blood was the resolution of the warning. It sprayed slightly from high pressure, up the chomping fangs and along the roof of the mouth, and probably felt like chugging on unfiltered spirits, or entering freefall over a well without a bottom. The anchoring essence of the living human, of that particularly unremarkable bloodline, and That Which Was Anchored by his frail shell, and reinforced it, incrementally, until...

Walter wondered, based on other statements, if being extremely grounded in the body, being cut off from manipulating weave, and feeling not the draining sting but the ripping force of sheer vacuity exposed to a vessel full of power and seeking to strip it bare before it would drift back into the world unclaimed... he wondered how it felt.
One thing he also knew was that the energy potential in that blood was a sacrament of his own.

Perverse, distorted sharing of bonds.
The wards did not just blaze into awake, they regrew, and stretched further to the core where the mummified fingers were.
There was a blood bond there. This blood to his bloodline. Crude, simple, effective in the way big, crude things were. Dormant no longer.

And once the inscriptions woke, they triggered. Because, blood to bloodline, the Vagrant was doing harm to one of the von Bremens.

His senses beginning to fade and crumble around the edges, Walter wondered what kind of punishment Meinrad had chosen to bind the mutt with. Strip it of its bite, for certain. If only Walter managed to retain his consciousness, he could certainly watch it unfold.

Walter's lips moved ever so slightly, even though all tendons in his neck felt so taught that they'd snap at an attempt to raise his voice or swallow. The words escaped in a slithering whisper at the far end of a raspy, stilled exhale,
"Bad dog."