Muddy

Hey everyone, guess what? This is not an update about yet another delay, but an actual chapter. It is the first of six chapters in a short story. New chapters will be posted every four weeks. Hopefully, by the time I’m done posting this short story, volume two will be ready for you.

It’s obviously been a while since you read volume one, so if you want a bit of a refresher on what happened previously, here is a recap:

Spoiler

Last winter was exceptionally wet. It rained, sometimes for weeks on end. Under this absolute deluge of water, the Maru river burst its bank. In the middle of the night, right before I arrived in the tiny riverside village of Birnstead, the flood of water swept through the town. Several people almost drowned. They might really have if I hadn’t fished them out of the water.

The morning after the flooding of Birnstead was my fatal mistake. A young girl, Shae, discovered what I was. Not human. Monster. Vampire. Surprisingly, the girl was not afraid. Instead of running, she... trusted me. Somehow. In front of her, instead of pretending to be human, instead of hiding my true nature, I could simply be myself.

It was liberating. Addictingly so.

I ran from there soon after. 

A continent away, in Ostea, mankind was locked in a deadly war for survival with vampires. So far, our country, our continent remained spared of the vampire threat. Mankind lived in constant fear of the vampires finally crossing the ocean and destroying the entirety of civilization. And there I was. The only known vampire in Thysa, discovered.

I expected the girl to talk. I expected to arrive at my next town one day, an Inquisitor team ready to kill me. I expected to die. Months passed. None of that happened. Instead, I developed a longing to return to the one place where, to the one person with whom I had been myself.

I vowed never to return to Birnstead. And then I did so anyway. It was foolish. I told myself not to go back, over and over and over again. In the end, I found myself back there regardless.

Wondrously, Shae still remembered me and was delighted to see me again. More, she needed my help. River monsters were plaguing the town, and one of the villagers had gotten injured. I was a professional monster hunter, so Shae begged me to help them. I gladly did.

Then Onar, the girl's father showed up. Shae hadn’t divulged my secret, but he suspected it anyway. I had made other mistakes that careless winter night. In my hasty flight, I had left behind a blood-drained cat carcass. He’d found it, and now he feared me, and threatened me. He didn't want me anywhere near his daughter.

He could not prove anything, but then he didn't need to. Even a mere suspicion, when reported to the Inquisition, was enough to get me killed.

I ran from town once more. And then I returned immediately after. I had promised Shae I'd help, and I did. I took care of the river monsters. I amputated the injured man's leg and stabilized him. It earned me a shaky foundation of trust. From Gery the carpenter who helped me clean up the monster carcasses. From Meg, Gery's wife who I had pulled out of the river last winter. From Rafe and Eryn, the elderly couple in charge of the town.

My help also came at a cost. I wasn't able to continue pretending to be perfectly human through all that. More people had seen impossible, inhuman things from me. And Onar was busy rallying the entire town against me.

And then there was Reya, the town healer. I did not know where she stood. Simultaneously supporting and spiteful, she was the only person I couldn't read.

I should have run as soon as I was done. But I was weak, exhausted, and blood-starved. Yet even once I had managed to recover somewhat, I still couldn't. It would mean returning to a life of lies, and I could no longer stand the mere thought of that. Not after I had finally found people that trusted and cared for me, despite my monstrous nature even.

I knew staying any longer would get me killed. Regardless, I still couldn’t find the motivation to leave. Didn’t even have the courage to leave when it very nearly did kill me. Shae openly defied her dad to see me again. He attacked me. Nearly hurt his own kid in doing so.

I couldn't understand his reasoning. I hadn’t hurt anyone. Had only ever helped people. Still, he feared me. I needed him to… I don’t know? Make him see beyond his irrational terror somehow? The only thing I could think of that might work was giving him perfect control over me.

I handed him the amulet that kept me safe from the light of day.
I burned in the sun.

I woke not knowing what had happened, fearing I had maybe slaughtered half the town. Somehow, miraculously, I had not. Still, I knew instinctively I had messed things up beyond repair now.

My instincts turned out to be wrong. I was so worn down, and everyone suddenly treated me so differently. I spoke to people, actual heartfelt and genuine conversations instead of my usual deflections and avoidance. The people I talked to, they forced me to interact with even more people. So many people wanted to understand me, apologize to me, and even help me.

Yes, help me. Help a monster.

It sounded absurd, but in between all that madness, Nebby returned to town. She had brought an Academy trained doctor with her, to look at the man I’d treated. Everyone should have simply reported me to the doctor. Instead, they sheltered me, pretending the town wasn’t secretly harboring a vampire.

And them keeping my true nature a secret, that must have been more difficult than it seemed. Onar still hated and feared me. His two siblings had been Inquisitors, I learned. They had fought and died in Ostea, fighting the vampire threat. Rafe and I tried one final time to make Onar see reason, but he knew damning and terrifying things about my kind the Inquisition would much rather have kept secret.

In the end, all we managed was an uneasy truce. Onar simply gave up fighting my presence in town, knowing he couldn’t win against a vampire that had set its sights on conquering the town.

I can’t describe how much that hurt, the way he saw me.

In the end, the town offered me a place to stay. I accepted. I could trust most of these people. I could be myself around some of them, and that was more than I’d ever had before. It would get me killed, I was certain of that. An entire town knew about me. The secret would leak, and then the Inquisition would hunt me down.

But that certain death was months away.  For now, I had a place to call home. All I needed to do before I could claim that home, was make a quick trip to Rivenston to report on the river monsters I had slain.

And then… happiness? Maybe? For a little while.

[collapse]

And that’s enough distracting author-y words from me. Enjoy the chapter!

Side 1 — Journey’s End

A secret part of me rebelled at the words I had just written. I wanted to share all of my indulgences, instead of the mere teasing and then withholding I had penned down. Yet instead of listening to those feelings, I shuttered them deep inside of me, kept the letter as is, and signed my name at the bottom.

I’m sorry dad.
Miss you.
Please stay safe.

That was all I could hope for, that my dad would need some time to think about the meaning of my letter, and to weigh his options. My deliberate vagueness would keep him safe. Because eventually, he would read between the lines. He would remember that only a life on the move kept me safe. That if he was reading about how I was staying in one place, that I might already be dead.

I shifted my posture on the rough straw bedding, and let my eyes rove around the cramped inn-room — barely more than a single bed crammed in between four walls — while I waited for the ink to dry. Blowing a strand of hair out of my eyes, I braced for the inevitable now that I was no longer visibly busy: smalltalk.

Rivenston, unlike Birnstead, was a city, so my room here at the North Gate Inn was a shared one. Private rooms cost extra. You paid for every single bed they could otherwise have crammed in a room and every single person they could have stuffed in a bed. That was way beyond anything I could afford. So instead of sympathetic bunkhouse owners like Eryn and Rafe that gave you an entire room for free, I now had roommates. 

“You always write with your gloves on?” the man sitting on the other side of the bed remarked.

Nosy roommates.

The annoyingly curious human belonged to a party of three farmers. He was the only one of them in the room with me right now. They came from someplace west-ish and were here to do... stuff. Probably sell their produce or something. I honestly could not be bothered to remember.

All that mattered to me was that I had to share this room with them for the night. That meant pretending to be perfectly human, displaying at least a semblance of politeness, and suppressing the exhilarating desire to toy with the food. 

Yes, exhilarating. This was not Birnstead. Here, I wasn’t haunted by the looming specter of people suspecting what I was. They did not know. Completely unaware. I did not need to rein myself in so much. I could indulge a little. In little ways, I could be me, and even if I acted a little strangely because of it, they absolutely believed I was human. 

As long as I did not completely shatter the illusion of humanity, did not answer this male’s question by taking off my gloves and giving him a little wave of my claws and a full-fanged grin, he would remain convinced vampires were a threat a continent away.

But I could not indulge. Could not mess with him. Not even a little. I was going to live with people. Really live with people, even if only for a short while. I had to be better. More compassionate. Sociable. I should practice being nice.

The prospect only made it so much harder to behave. All his questions were so insufferably intrusive. And he had not even shared his name with me. Most people would have at least tried to exchange names first. Most people would not voice all their thoughts aloud as he did. Worst of all, the man tasted so utterly bored and disinterested. He wasn’t even looking for an actual conversation, but merely the pretense of one. Or maybe this was all me again, failing to comprehend the intricacies of social interaction. 

And perhaps I was complaining too much as well. All things considered, I could have ended up with worse.

I mumbled something incomprehensible in response to the man's question while I folded my letter and gathered up the writing supplies. Hopefully, the noncommittal non-answer would be interpreted as whatever he wanted, and then he would leave me alone. 

“What was that, Girlie?”

Girlie?
Not a— Gah!

I tried so hard not to draw attention to my overly-youthful appearance. Even the tiny slit of a window, only letting in the slightest hint of sunlight and casting the room in an abundance of dark shadows, helped disguise my age. Yet he still treated me like a little girl. Never mind not toying with your food. I was going to enjoy this.

I turned to face him and gave the man a far too gentle smile. “Ever shoved your fist deep into one of a cipactli’s many jaws and pulled on its tonsils to prevent it from biting your arm off?”

Wildly exaggerated tales were what people expected to hear from wandering hunters like me. So much so, that when I launched into an obviously embellished tale like this, explaining why I had my gloves on, everyone just sort of bought it. 

Still, this was quickly turning into the most preposterously absurd explanation I had ever given for my gloves. And he was still buying it. Really, with some audiences I could probably slip the honest truth about my monstrous nature into a tall tale, and they would simply believe it to be part of the excessive dramatization. Regardless, I was not going to risk being that honest.

“... if the price for keeping my fingers is practicing writing with gloves on, I’ll gladly pay it,” I finished blandly.

The farmer fiddled with the bedding, eyes drifting across the room, out of focus.

Right, might have overdone it.

I exhaled loudly through my nose, deposited all the writing implements on the ground — not even enough room for a desk or chair to write on in these cramped rooms — and scooted over to his side of the bed. Sitting down right behind the man, I gently slapped him on the back. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m just messing with you a little.”

I was comforting this man. Birnstead really had done something to me. Usually, I would rattle people a bit and then walk away, feeling a little smug about my accomplishments. Now though, having dumped such gruesome imagery on the man felt uncomfortable. A single week in Birnstead, a single week of going back somewhere I should never have returned to, and it had changed something in me. 

“You... you’re just a kid. How can you say those kinds of things yet be so happy?” the farmer asked.

To assuage my own agitation I took off my gloves, and kept one hand’s worth of exposed claws hidden behind his back. I splayed and flexed the fingers of my other hand, the one holding my gloves, claws handily hidden away behind folds of leather. It was a trick that came from long practice. Give me a scrap of cloth or leather to hold and I can go around bare-handed, claws hidden by nothing more than a stray piece of fabric.

It was not something I felt at ease about doing in a place with too many witnesses. Or with too many things I might accidentally tear holes in. But in a smaller room, with maybe one or two people present, it was a clever way to make people think they had seen my hands.

 “As I said, it’s really not as gruesome as I made it sound,” I lied. “Mostly it’s just tedious jobs, like getting rid of mimixcoa infestations. And hey, I’ve got things to be happy about. I’m about to take a break. Nice little village a couple of days upriver. I’ll be staying there for a week or two, mostly doing nothing. Just some fun and relaxation.”

Another slap on his shoulder, and then I stood up. “Going to hand this letter in and run some errands.” 

I rolled over to my side of the bed again and snatched up my letter, the inkwell, and the quills. Now with even more stuff to hide my claws behind, I hopped over to the door, gave a quick wave, and then slipped out of the room. Leaving the borrowed quill and inkwell with the proprietor of the inn, I ducked into town.

Away from the annoying farmer, what lay ahead of me should have been a fun shopping trip. After all, every task completed brought me closer to my return to Birnstead. The prospect made even the incessant summer sun bearing down on me tolerable. 

But the letter to my dad I carried with me still nagged at me. Its tone was off. Despite how hard I had aimed for it, I simply had not been able to match the perfunctory matter-of-factness that was my usual. Dad might notice too soon. Despite having scrubbed the fiercest of my joy from my writing, he would still see the difference. There was too much emotion in my writing. And while a part of me wanted some of my genuine delight to shine through, it also made me wonder what it would make him think.

No, I didn’t wonder. I already knew. It would distress him. He understood what kind of creature I was, recognized what sort of things made me happy, and I could imagine how he would worry. His mind would turn to what I might do, what I might have already done. I could only hope he did not wonder how many—

No.
Happy thoughts!

At least he would not have the means to find me. As we had agreed before I left home, I never included my residence in my letters to him. No way for him to reply. No opportunity for him to chase after me. Not even with this kind of letter, a goodbye.

It was better this way. Everyone in Birnstead knew what I was. That information would leak. When staying in one place caught up with me, when the Inquisition came for me, he would at least be safe.

He safe, and I happy.

Yes, happy thoughts. In Birnstead I would be able to not hide, to be myself. Sure, at the end of it I would end up dead. But that was an abstract, far-off thing. From now on until the inevitable happens, I would simply be able to enjoy life. From now on, I will only think happy thoughts, and make good memories.

Cities were, ironically, easier for me to traverse than small villages. So many more eyes that could spot my unsteady pace, my reluctance to step into the sun, and my blindness, yet as long as I managed to avoid the wide-open spaces I was just another faceless nobody in a crowd.

No one noticed if I limped and shambled along because in packed streets all you could manage was a slow shuffle anyway. In those busy thoroughfares, even my sun-blindness did not bother me. I did not need to feel my way along, but merely follow in the footsteps of someone walking ahead of me. And in smaller alleyways, buildings were packed together so tight that there was plenty of shade.

The only thing worse in a city was the constant press of the food around me. Their sweat, their taste, it saturated the air, a constant assault on my senses. Yet even that I could mitigate. I had caught myself some little wildlife nibbles right before entering the city, and properly fed, all of the prey around me was mostly ignorable.

Closer to the good parts of town the architecture changed. The ground beneath my feet turned from packed dirt to cobbled street. When I traced a hand along a wall, the feel of those too had changed, less wood, more stone.

One of those stone buildings was my destination, the Inquisition branch office. I could not see much of it now that it shone under the light of the sun, but I still remembered it from when I was here last winter. It was a strange construction, with a purely functional square floor plan, a central courtyard, tiny slits instead of windows on the ground floor, and then gold filigree, chiseled decorations, and a roof with elaborate spiral towers on top of that. The thing only made sense once you considered its confused multifunctionality, part fortified villa, part grandiose prayer house, part impromptu garrison if the needs required it.

Arriving at the sturdy iron and wood gate that leads to the courtyard, I presented my letter to the bored woman guarding the entrance.

The gate guard radiated annoyance, probably shot me an angry glare I could not see in this sun, and finally, rudely snatched the offered mail out of my hand. 

I shrugged, and ignoring her sour attitude I slipped past her and into the courtyard. She was just annoyed because they never expected lowly little kid hunters like me to actually hand them mail. She would get that letter where it needed to go regardless. 

Access to the Inquisition’s secured mail delivery was one of the few benefits of being a monster hunter, and it was one I gladly made use of, even if at times it meant coming a little too close to the people whose job it was to kill creatures like me. Officially, access to their mail service was a way to reward monster hunters for the pretty much free service they provided the Inquisition. In practice, it was a fake gesture, a mostly useless benefit that cost nothing to provide, but felt generous nonetheless.

The vast majority of hunters were orphaned kids, the destitute, or those with no other way to get by. People that had no one to turn to, that often could not even read, did not need to send mail. The Inquisition did not expect me to actually use the service. That was exactly why I so liked handing them my letters. It was endless fun. At first glance, I was nothing but a dirty street rat. More often than not they snatched the piece of paper out of my hand as if my slovenly look was a deadly contagious disease. And then, the shock when they actually looked at the letter and saw it penned in beautiful calligraphy. Perfect.

Yes, the Inquisition had really thought this through. They barely needed to do a thing. In return, they got an army of foolish child hunters, desperate to do all of the most menial monster-hunting jobs. The Inquisitors themselves only needed to busy themselves with the things that we idiots did not return from.

Having had my small pleasure with the mail, I crossed the central courtyard and entered the side room of the chapel, the place reserved for monster hunters like me. In smaller cities like these, it was only open for a couple of hours each day.  Sitting behind a creaky desk I would find a bored clerk — either a parchment-old priest or a  page stupid enough to end up with the fool job. I would hand in the proof of slaying for the ahuizotl from Birnstead, they would update their little register, and that would be it. Then I would finally be free of my monster hunter duties.

That was not how it went this time. There was no bored clerk waiting for me, but a full Inquisitor team.

Muddy

If you skimmed over it at the top, the update schedule is one chapter every 4 weeks. That means the next chapter will go live exactly 4 weeks from now, on Thursday, April 27th. 

Also, in case you skipped right past my “progress update” fake chapters, I now have a discord in case you want to discuss the story or whatever.

And finally, I am currently in the process of uploading edited versions of past chapters. You do not need to reread anything for that. Except for three half-a-sentence changes for increased clarity, it’s all just spelling, punctuation, and capitalization fixes.