The cold streets of the busy city are not entirely devoid of life. Even now, scavengers stalk the streets picking through homes and shops for things left behind though most of it has already been scoured through. Cheap relics remain from what the city was but a year ago.

As the survivors grow more desperate, even rusted, broken knives, and pots that can’t hold water for all the holes, find some new value. Is there some amateur smith beating the metal into something useful? Or are these people only clinging to things that no longer have any use?

The night is thickest with these sorts, but there is no longer an hour of the day to be found where they aren’t digging for some scrap of what’s been lost.

In the night the scavengers can try to hide away from the predators, the thieves, and the other things that stalk the ruins. Most of the strongest brigands have already left, chasing the fleeing refugees like carrion feeders following some half-dead beast. Most anyone left here has found a group to cling to, or been driven out.

Worse still are the things that simply shouldn’t be allowed to exist, let alone in this city. The monsters reflect my worst qualities a little too perfectly, standing tall in the empty streets as if to claim them.

“A hollow…” Ollie whispers in her difficult accent, disgust and horror competing in her expression as she writhes her own serpentine body about herself. “How is it here?”

“What is it? What is a ‘hollow’?” I ask, staring at the creature that almost imitates a human. Its limbs are much too long and out of scale with the rest of it, each of its fingers nearly as long as my forearm. Its skin is hard and even more pale than my own, the joints closer to that of a doll with something strange and sickening slithering about within the joints.

“They scavenge, and move slowly, but they are strong. They mess with your head. Look at them too long, and your head gets fuzzy, and you pass out. Easy prey.” She explains as I start to feel the headache forming, a thick hushing noise pushing into my ears as my eyes lose their focus on the thing. “It only hunts things alone. It doesn’t attack groups.”

“A common magic for the species? So more of a beast than a person?” I ask, stalking around it, my own head starting to ache as I circle it. There are blood stains covering its mouth suggesting that it’s eaten recently, and I suspect I know what it’s been eating.

I flash my vampiric eyes at it, but it doesn’t react even slightly to the magic. There is an apathy hanging about it, a total indifference that I’m not sure can even be broken.

“Their weakness?” I ask.

“Ice, and lightning,” Ollie says. “The cold has to get through their skin to hurt them.”

I step in closer and wash the hollow through with a wave of freezing magic as my senses grow more twisted. The frost bursts out of my flesh through my dagger and spreads through the arm of the creature. The creature lazily raises the other arm to grab for me, but it is much too slow to even dare think of catching me.

The dark, empty caverns in its head shiver with strange life as something worms its way out, the ‘bone’ itself screeching as it bends back into itself. The ‘eyes’ collapse inwards giving room for thick slugs to escape, each one the length of my arm. They are slick with thick green slime, spitting up reddish liquid from their bodies.

I rush back, the slugs soon covering the unmoving corpse of the ‘hollow’. Exposed to the air, they start to wither and die before us, I wash them with another blast of cold and they writhe about in agony.

“Is that… normal?”

Ollie nods, her expression twisted up in disgust.

“A creature that looks human,” I say, gazing down at it as I consider Aldramodore’s plans. He intends to hide the truth of vampires by releasing so many monsters similar to us that we’ll be lost in the mess. How many other monsters that look close to humans, will he be releasing? Are they all so evil as this? Or has he brought out innocent creatures as well?

I’m not certain if it is a genius plan, or simply insane. People will still remember us. I’m sure that they will.

Using my ice magics to finish the worms that have escaped the hollow, I move on only when their writhing ends. Ollie follows me eagerly, happy to come along and see for herself what I can offer her.

In truth, though we look more proper, we are no different from the others monsters stalking the streets.

“Tina-Tina!” A familiar voice cries out through the night, waving to us with a feigned smile on her lips. A demon, how fitting. “What are you doing out so late at night? You can’t go getting yourself hurt, there are people waiting for you, you know?”

Vael pouts, wearing the red ears and tail to disguise herself as a norkit but that is hardly the strangest quality about her right now. She’s shouldering the unmoving body of a strange and thickly furred creature, hauling it along the street as if it weighs only a fraction of its weight.

“I am out seeking a meal,” I say, tilting my head and conveying my interest in what she’s carrying.

“You’re curious?” She asks. “I don’t mind sharing. I’m carrying this poor sod home so that he can recover. Haven’t you ever seen someone dragging a drunk back home before?”

She twists her grip on the creature and shows me his face. He looks like some twisted amalgam of wolf and man, the fur and snout clearly inhuman but the torso shaped a little too similar to a human or an elf. I’m unsure if it’s just some wild beast that Vael is toying with, or if she’s genuine in treating it as a person.

“Handsome, isn’t he?” Vael asks rubbing at the hair on his head. “More so when he’s not drooling like this.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Oh, most definitely. Not for his own fault, though,” Vael shuffles him onto her shoulders. “Fate’s path has been unkind to him and his pack. A little advice, their kind are very highly regarded by the norkit tribes, especially the tribe that Blackhearth, their dear dictator, comes from.”

“I thought that Aldramodore wanted to prevent more conflicts with the northerners?” I ask. “Why would he…?”

“Ah, sweet child, our parents and seniors aren’t always as wise as we think,” Vael says, sliding closer to me and resting a hand on my shoulder. “Sometimes, they don’t have a plan. Sometimes, they’re just idiots. Anyway, I need to get this guy back home before anyone sees me, I need to play my role just as everyone else.

“I knew fate had something in mind for this city. She does adore irony.” Vael stumbles away with the furred creature still on her shoulder.

I make sure to remember his face and shape. If I come across others like it, I might wish to avoid killing them outright.

Anything Vael does or says needs to be considered thoroughly. Either that or disregarded without a single thought. She is as ever a strange one.

“Let us not delay,” I say, finally coming to the community where our killing is to take place. It is a gathering of lesser nobles in their mansions surrounded by countless homes for their servants. The temporary roadblock has turned into something more permanent as the guards and mages have constructed proper fortifications.

“Can you climb?” I ask, looking back at Ollie who snorts derisively at her comment, slapping her tail on the ground.

“I’ll be fine,” she says.

“Then avoid being seen and follow me,” I say, walking around the edges of the fortified village and finding an easily climbed section of ruins near to my target. I’ll need to find the materials to build a handful of effigies to fuel the rest of the hunt.

Ollie quietly follows giving me a confident nod each time I check on her, unfortunately, her presence is already messing with some Skills. Yet, I must test her. I must know if she’s one that could use my curse well.

Or do I? If she accepts, then would it be wrong to hold some of my power over her? I’m not the same as the others who own slaves. I’m sure that I could do it the correct way, with noble dignity.

Climbing the wall, I start over to the marked house. There is no access from the roof, but there is a balcony that can easily be reached. Thankfully, there is already someone standing there, smoking a long pipe and staring over the dark streets.

The older woman isn’t the matriarch of the house but looks more like her sister. Her painted face hides all expression as she stares into the darkness, seeing nothing from it.

I slip down from the roof, making only a hint of a sound as I hit the stone. The woman spins quickly, but I’m a step faster, reaching out for her and taking her in my arms as if in a dance. She opens her mouth, about to shout but my magical glare sets her tongue to the top of her mouth.

“Now, now,” I whisper close in her ear as I spin her around. “Not a word.”

My vampiric glare should have the strength to fully force a person to submit to my will given enough power. She licks her lips, hesitating but forcing a quiet word out against my will.

“Who… are you?” She asks, trying to step back from me, but tripping on her dropped pipe and instead falling more deeply into my arms. Her cold shiver and darting eyes prove that she’s not enjoying this as much as I am. She was surely quite a beauty in her youth, but it will be just as wonderful to break her mask now.

“Me?” I ask, pulling her close and spinning her around again before pressing her up against the railing. “I am your last dance partner, your last conversation, and I will be the one to hear your last wish.”

I casually draw my dagger and press it to her neck. She breathes in sharply to scream but I plunge the dagger into her oesophagus and release the frost into her lungs. Her scream comes out husky and weak, but as I freeze the blood leaking into her throat she loses all chance to scream.

Covering her eyes and raising a walled shadow over us both, I move up to the rooftop where Ollie is waiting for us. Should the dying woman start slinging spells in her panic, it would alarm the house. So, carrying her in my arms as a knight would do for a princess, I carefully step down to the outside world.

“Why’s she like that?” Ollie asks, watching as the woman clutches at me, desperate for breath that she can’t find. I will need to give her some air if I want her to survive long enough to suffer.

“I’ve slit her throat, and frozen the blood in her lungs,” I explain, lowering the woman to the ground careful not to bump her head. The woman meets my gaze, begging for help. “I will be fixing that shortly, but I’ll need you to stay silent. Do you understand?”

She nods fervently, hands gripping at me desperately as she gasps for breath she can’t find. I carefully manipulate fire and frost magic to clear up the blockage in her throat and she instantly starts to cough up her lungs. I pat her on the back as she works it all out.

“Why…? If you’re going to kill me, why…?”

“Stand,” I order her, and she jumps to obey, clearly aware that I can kill her as I please. I raise my dagger and rest it on her dress pressing down to cut through the layers of cloth, I don’t care that I cut through her flesh just the same.

She whimpers biting her lip but remaining silent.

“Do you know what the institution of slavery was made for?” I ask, stripping her clothes from her. It is not a matter of attraction, she is an ugly thing regardless of how fine her shape may be to others. She is less than a human should be.

“To make the beasts know their place,” she whispers, she can’t see as clearly in the darkness and she’s surprised by each new cut.

“No.” I cut her off and stop to stare into her terrified eyes. “Slaves are those who cannot be trusted to live in society under their own power, they are to be raised so that one day they can navigate society without causing problems. They are meant to be cared for, but you will understand that in time.”

It will weaken the effigies I build from her, but the less trauma she suffers the easier she will find it to recover after. I need assistance in my work, and it is time for me to overcome my hesitance. I cannot be sure if those I turn will be proper, but slavery itself is not wrong. It is how all others go about it.

For a warmongering slaver like this woman here, it would not be wrong to try and help her recover from her own twisted ways.

The hungry smile crawling up my lips, and the warmth of fear that I take from the woman may be affecting my thoughts, but I’m sure that I’m not wrong in this. This woman deserves a chance to prove herself.

“When you awaken, you will be a slave in my care. Do not worry. I will raise you properly,” I say, slashing her neck and thrusting the knife into her throat to keep her screams from breaking through.

Her blood is rich with anticipation more than simply fear. She claws around for me, a few spells fizzling out as she panics. Ollie watches on with a deep smile on her lips. Her long tail flicks back and forth, no doubt she sees her last master in place of today’s victim.

When the woman properly settles into death, I take a few fingers to twist them into effigies for the coming hunt.

“Come, Ollie. What are your thoughts so far? Can we work together?”

“I want to see more,” she whispers, licking her lips as she follows me.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

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