The world stood still for a moment. A startled breath caught Enid's throat at the sight of the only person she cared about baring fangs at her with eyes that didn’t belong.

She’d lived with Valen long enough to know that those weren’t his eyes even without the obvious colour change. The real Valen always made a conscious effort to relax his sharp eyes so that they drooped in a way that made them less intimidating.

This thing made no such pretence. It had turned Valen’s red eyes into black-white orbs burning with maddening fervour for something that no mortal mind was ever meant to comprehend.

And as Enid and Louise stared in horror at the creature standing in their best friend’s body, so too did it stare back at them.

When its eyes met Enid’s, the grin on its face melted away into a fanged snarl. Its black-white eyes flared with hatred and it pointed at her with one slender finger, the black nail having grown into a long claw sharper than a dagger.

“UNNATURAL CREATURE,” it bellowed, “YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE.”

Fear and horror melted away in an instant. Louise wasn’t sure what the thing was talking about. She just knew that it pissed her off speaking through her best friend’s body. Apparently Enid was feeling the same.

“The fuck did you do to my Valen?!” they shouted in unison.

Enid shot out a blast of electricity carrying enough volts to stun a cow. Louise raced alongside the lightning towards the thing in Valen’s skin.

The lightning hit the possessed Valen in the chest. It reacted with only a tiny flinch and slight stumble that allowed Louise to get close enough to have a swing at it. Normally Louise would be more than happy to punch an attacker as tall as him in the crotch to get them more on her level, but it was still wearing Valen’s body and she was still holding up hope on becoming a godmother.

So instead, Louise launched herself off the floor to land a right uppercut in its chin hoping Valen won’t be mad once he regained his senses.

The thing using Valen’s body caught Louise by the forearm before her fist could reach him. It dangled her off the ground with a hungry grin that tainted a face that it didn’t deserve.

Undeterred, she started punching the thing with her free left hand. Her furry white fist slammed into its chest over and over again to no visible reaction. It didn’t even make an effort to block or resist. She felt several ribs break from her punches, but if that hurt then it sure as hell didn’t show it.

“YOU HAVE SPIRIT, LITTLE ONE.” Its voice seemed to echo directly into Louise’s head with a hollow yet cacophonous cadence so alien that she couldn’t tell if it was mocking or complimenting her.

Too pissed to back off, she swung her left open hand at his face. Three razor-sharp claws raked across Valen’s forehead. Dark red blood trickled from the three bleeding streaks of torn flesh into the thing’s white-black eyes.

That finally got a reaction. The thing in Valen’s body grabbed Louise by the throat with its other hand and held her up to its face. Her eyes widened when she saw the blood spread over half of Valen’s face and solidify into a pulsating mass of coarse red muscles-a parasitic tumour angry at being forced out of its host.

A cluster of red-white eyes opened in the parasite, followed by a single toothless mouth that spat blood in her face as it hissed at her.

“INSOLENT MUTT!”

Louise clawed at the hand strangling her throat but made sure to snarl back at the parasite highjacking Valen’s body. If she was going to die, she wasn’t going to give the thing the enjoyment of seeing her afraid.

“Oy!” Enid rushed to one side of the room for a clear shot. “Hands off the poodle!”

Another bolt of blue lightning shot from her extended knuckles.

The parasite forced Valen to hold Louise up to it as a shield only for the lightning to curve around her directly into the tumorous growth it had formed to keep itself from spilling out.

This time, Valen’s entire body convulsed from the electricity coursing through it. The parasite released its grip on Louise and she had just enough time during the long fall down enough to make sure to land on all fours. She rubbed her aching throat and pushkicked Valen’s leg, sending him and the parasite on his face toppling down.

Louise scurried away on all fours before Valen’s body could fall on her. She stopped at Enid’s side and bared her fangs at the parasite. Her crushed throat didn’t allow her to call it a wanker just yet, so she resorted to just growling at it to show her contempt.

The parasite struggled to puppeteer Valen’s body back up, its control apparently still imperfect. But when the head raised, it was Valen’s black-red eye that looked at them behind the parasitic growth on his face.

“Enid?” squeaked Valen’s voice, confused. His head, still throbbing from the side effects of the sleeping pills he took, felt heavy from the wet fleshy parasite hanging from his face. “Louise?”

“Valen?” said Enid. “Is that-”

“NO!” The parasite forced Valen to throw back his head. “STOP IT! STOP. RESISTING!”

“Get off my bloody face!” shouted Valen, his voice was drowned out by the parasite’s scream as he attempted to tear it from his face, his black claws digging into both it and his own face.

“Valen!” Louise shouted his name through a hoarse throat and ran up to him.

“Stay away!” Valen pushed past her and ran out of the bedroom in a blur of vampiric speed.

Louise and Enid followed right behind him, running as fast as they could.

They caught up to Valen at the head of the stairs. He had one hand clutching the parasite on his face and the other gripping the stair post for dear life like a sailor to the mast during a storm while his legs attempted to run the other way under the parasite’s control.

“Valen!” Louise shouted after him. “Let us help you!"

“No!” Valen shouted back at her, his voice having become guttural from the thing possessing him. His hand tightened around the wooden stair post until it began to splinter in his grip. “I won’t-”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The parasitic flesh squirmed on his face as its dozen eyes got a good view of the ground floor from the top of the stairs.

“-Let it hurt you!”

In a single painful tug, Valen pulled himself and his disobedient legs over the ledge of the stairs. Memories from his life flashed in his mind as he plummeted down.

The first time he said hello to Enid. The last time he said goodbye to Louise. And most significant of all, the sight of his mother’s burning in the flames of a holy place, a victim of people afraid that they would become hers. For the first time since the image seared itself into his consciousness, seeing it made him feel at peace.

He’d promised himself to not let anyone he loved have to die the same way she did. If it took him falling to his death to keep that promise, he gladly considered it a fair trade.

His state of peaceful acceptance in the face of death was promptly interrupted when he felt his back smash into an end table, splintering it into sawdust before finding himself very much alive and in a good deal of pain afterwards.

“Uuugh.” Valen groaned, and he could’ve sworn he heard the squirming parasite latched on his face did the same.

As the adrenaline drained from his system, the damage that had been dealt to his body finally dawned on his senses. There was a lingering buzz of electricity all over his body that hummed with magical static and he was fairly certain some of his ribs were broken with how shaky his breathing was. His left arm was also dislocated from its socket, though whether that came from pulling at the stair post or crashing into the end table he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Valen!” Enid and Louise’s voices echoed each other from up above.

Valen felt his body lurch to its feet without his input. The parasite forced his nails into long claws and threatened to drag him towards his friends.

Though he was conscious now, the blood in his veins and muscles felt like it had a will of its own that tugged and pulled at him from the inside against his wishes. He felt as if he were a marionette controlled by strings pierced so deep inside him that they were fixed inside the very marrow of his bones.

In his relatively short life Valen had been shot, stabbed, and beaten within an inch of death, but this was the single most excruciating experience he ever felt. That wasn’t even the most disturbing thing about it though.

He could feel what the parasite was feeling. Not in the sense that he was able to empathise with it. The damn thing was so alien that comprehending its emotions was liable to drive him mad. But flashes of malicious intent lit up inside his mind, all directed at his friends and especially Enid for some reason.

The parasite calling itself a god wanted them dead. Of that he was sure, though for what reason he couldn’t tell. Maybe it wanted to eliminate any witnesses to its existence. Maybe it just wanted to punish him by killing them.

Whatever its reasons, Valen wasn’t going to let it do as it pleased. He’d already lost enough people.

“No!” Valen forced his hands to close into fists.

His own claws dug into the flesh of his palm. The sudden jolt of pain and warmth of his own blood on his skin gave him the split-second spike of adrenaline he needed to wrestle back control of his body.

With fist and fang clenched tight, Valen ran past the kitchen towards the living room. The footsteps of his friends echoed behind him as they raced down the stairs he’d fallen from. Enid’s bare feet slapped against the floor with each step while Louise’s clawed paw-feet skittered towards him with the speed of her wolven ancestors.

“Valen!” Louise shouted when she caught up to Valen. She grabbed him by the wrist before he could get away. “You need to-”

Valen’s body turned around to face her, but it wasn’t Valen in control. The red-white eyes speckling the parasitic tumour on his face glared at her with burning hatred while Valen’s black-red eye widened in horror beside it. His clenched free hand raised in the air in preparation for a punch. Louise got ready to dodge or block it but was surprised when the punch swung around to slam into the parasite on his face.

Seizing back control of his own flesh, Valen tore his hand away from Louise’s grip and pushed her to the ground to keep her from following as he continued running towards the living room.

The push nearly launched Louise in the air, Valen having put a bit more strength into it than intended. She crashed into Enid as she was about to catch up, cushioning her fall and sending both of them toppling onto the floor.

Valen didn’t have time to feel bad. It was for their own good and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to retain control with his mind still groggy from the sleeping pills’ side effects. His only hope was getting into the living room before the Unborn God wrestled the reins away for good.

But just as he was about to leave the kitchen, his feet slipped on a bag of cheesy crisps that was lying on the ground.

“Why the hell was that even there?!” Valen thought before his face smashed onto the ground.

Thankfully it ended up being a blessing in painful disguise. Though he was left seeing stars after face planting onto the floor, so was the parasite on his face which absorbed the full brunt of the impact.

Valen spat the blood from his mouth and ran towards the direction of the living room with his vision still blurred and marred by white stars dancing in the corner of his eye. This thing wasn’t going to let him go anytime soon. Not unless it wanted to, at least. Valen decided that his only shot at getting rid of it was making himself such an undesirable host that it’ll leave him on its own.

“Here goes nothing,” Valen said under his breath.

“WHAT ARE YOU-” The parasite stopped when it found itself in the living room and realised that Valen was running towards the thin privacy shades separating them from the morning sun rising outside. “NO!”

Valen resisted the parasite’s influence and the fear gripping his heart to keep running towards the sheets of black nylon keeping the sunlight at bay.

His instincts screamed for him to slink back into the darkness away from the searing light of day. His mind told him that this was the single stupidest idea he’d ever had, which was probably true. He wasn’t even sure if this plan would work or not, but it was the only thing that came to mind so he just had to roll with it.

Valen stopped in front of the nearest privacy shade, flinching at the faint light that seeped through the seams. Even with the shades still on he could feel the intense heat of the sun burning on the other side of the glass. Just standing there made him feel like he was being baked in an oven.

He grit his fangs and reached out to tear down the shade.

This time, it was the parasite inside him trying to keep his claws from coming out. The muscles in his hand forced it to snap shut, controlled by the parasite that had made his veins its home. He stood before the shades, struggling to regain enough control over his body to smoke out the parasitic intruder inside it.

“Valen!” Louise and Enid shouted in unison, their footsteps rapidly approaching him.

Valen felt the parasite’s malicious intent flare up within his veins at the sound of their voice.

Time was running short.

If he didn’t do something soon, Enid and Louise would have to fight the parasite as it puppeteered his body around. And while he was sure they could take him down under normal circumstances, the risk of them holding back and getting killed out of fear of hurting him was too much for him to accept.

Valen squeezed his eyes shut and in one violent motion swung his head around the shades. His face touched the sunlight outside and boiled the blood inside his veins in an instant.

The parasite on his face let out a shrill scream that would’ve shattered the glass if it wany louder. Something about the genuine shock and surprise he felt light up in the veins it inhabited told Valen that the life of a god made it unaccustomed to feeling pain, much less the sensation of burning alive in the sunlight.

Unluckily for it, he was.

Fighting through the pain, Valen bit the edge of the shades and yanked it away with strength powered by a potent mix of adrenaline and anger.

The nylon tore at the seams and fell to the floor when Valen loosened his bite, leaving only a panel fo clear glass between him and the rising sun outside.

Valen felt the skin on the exposed part of his face burn until only exposed muscle remained, allowed to boil in the shining light of day his kind had been cursed to shun. Glimpses of the yellow sunlight outside began to pierce his eyeball as the squeezed eyelid protecting it burnt into irritating cinders.

On the bright side, the parasite latched on the other half of his face wasn’t having a good time either. Valen had assumed that it manifested from the Unborn God’s blood inside him, but the way it squirmed and burned in the sun alongside him made him think it had helped itself to some of his vampiric blood as well.

How unfortunate.

“STOP THIS!” The eldritch parasite screeched as its stolen flesh burnt in the unforgiving sunlight. “WE’LL BOTH BURN!”

Valen was pissed off just enough to speak to muster up a hoarse reply shouted through a heat-shrunken throat.

“Then get the fuck out of me!”

After an agonising second of burning alive, the Unborn God screamed out one last message, the empyrean dignity in its ancient voice replaced by mortal hatred.

“CURSE YOU, NOSFERATU!”

Valen felt the Unborn God’s parasitic form leap from his face into the shadows behind him, taking with it a long stream of blood straight from his veins.

Electricity crackled behind him, followed by a ringing thunderclap that accompanied the sound of the Unborn God’s final shriek.

Weakened and burning with consciousness slipping away from blood loss, Valen slumped to his knees in the sunlight. That thunder must’ve killed the Unborn God, or at least the form it had decided to take.

“Good job, Enid,” he thought as his flesh continued to burn, too weak to retreat from the light.

But Enid and Louise were safe, and that was all that really mattered. He only hoped the Primordial Church would ignore them after he was out of the picture.

“Valen!” cried Louise’s voice. “Oh gods, oh gods, I got you!”

Valen felt soft fabric wrap around him, shielding him from the burning day. He didn’t dare open his eyes yet for fear of them exploding should they touch sunlight. Hell, at this point he wasn’t even sure if they hadn’t melted from his sockets yet or not.

“Get him in the shadows!” shouted Enid’s voice.

Louise and Enid each took Valen by the shoulder and dragged his slumped over body into the corner of the living room far away from sunlight invading through the torn privacy shades.

“Come on, come on!” Louise hugged Valen through the bathrobe she’d wrapped around him. “Say something!”

“You’re in the dark now, Valen,” said Enid, much calmer than Louise. “It’s safe to open your eyes.”

Valen did just that and saw nothing but white in his vision. He wondered for a second if his eyes had been damaged from sun exposure before realising that it was just the fabric Louise had wrapped around him.

“I’m okay.” Valen forced himself to sit up leaning on a wall.

He removed the mystery fabric around him, taking care to not damage his burns any further. The first thing he saw was Enid looking down at him with a relieved look on her usually neutral face. The second thing was Louise, crouched next to him with an odd choice of attire, or lack thereof.

“Why are you naked?” Valen asked.

Louise let out a soft chuckle. She had a rueful smile on her face, slightly amused that Valen still cared about propriety after almost burning to death.

“I had to wrap you in my bathrobe,” she said.

Valen looked down at the fabric that had been wrapped around him to find that it was, in fact, a white bathrobe. He raised his unburnt eyebrow at her, making sure to look at her face and nowhere else.

“You sleep in a bathrobe?”

Enid crouched down in front of him.

“It’s not that weird.” She put two fingers on his wrist and her face scrunched up in worry when she felt how slow his pulse was. “How do you feel?”

“About as bad as I look, probably,” said Valen. “My diagnosis is three broken ribs, some mild electrical burns, and a lot of regular third degree burns. Also maybe a concussion.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” said Louise.

Valen looked over Enid’s shoulder, trying to see where the parasite had gone. “What happened to the thing that was growing out of my face?”

“It melted into blood when I zapped it,” said Enid.

“Good riddance too,” Louise added.

“Yeah.” The strength in Valen’s voice began to fade. “I’m quite certain a lot of that blood was mine.”

“You need blood,” said Enid. “Your healing factor won’t activate otherwise.”

Louise nodded. “I got it covered.”

She raised her furry left forearm to her lips and bit into it. Her fangs pierced her own thick wolven hide without issue. Lifeblood flowed from the wound, staining her pristine white fur with tiny rivers of red.

Valen looked away. His fangs grew inside his mouth at the sweet scent. They wanted nothing more than to sink into warm flesh but his conscious mind didn’t dare to let it indulge.

“Valen.” Louise cradled his burnt cheek. It stung a bit but he was too distracted trying to ignore the blood to offer a reaction. “It’s okay. You can feed off me.”

Enid walked to where Valen had turned his head and crouched down to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Snowball can handle a little nibble, Valen. Please, if not yourself, do it for us.”

She was right. Louise had survived much worse than a little love bite. But he still worried that he might end up hurting her with his fangs because of his own thirst. He was thirstier than he’d been in a long while, his unhealed injuries forcing his battered body to cry out for blood to replace what was lost. He didn’t trust himself enough to not hurt her with his fangs.

Fangs still grit tight, Valen allowed his gaze to turn back to Louise and the bleeding forearm she extended towards him. She wouldn’t stay bleeding forever. Her own healing factor will kick in to seal the wound soon. If that happened she’d just bite herself again and continue to ask him to drink.

Valen noticed the slowly healing bruises on her neck, the ones caused by his own hand, and decided that he couldn’t let her get any more hurt for his sake. He leaned towards Louise’s arm and gently lifted it up to his face.

“It’s okay,” Louise assured him again. “You can bite me.”

Valen opened his mouth. Drool dripped from his fangs. It was an undignified sight, and not one he ever wanted his friends to see from him. He clamped his fangs shut, biting the thin air inches away from Louise’s bleeding arm.

Valen felt Enid rub his back with a gentle hand. She said nothing, but he could tell that she was encouraging him to drink. He fully intended to too, but not like this.

His fangs parted again. Two sharp breaths escaped his lungs as he tapped onto his last reserves of willpower. There was a soft squelch when he forced his fangs to sheathe back inside his gums.

Instead of biting her, Valen put his lips to Louise’s bleeding wound and kissed it. The sweet blood trickled down his throat, quenching the dried muscles like a gentle rain on drought-cracked earth.

Valen tried to ignore the taste as best he could but couldn’t stop himself from enjoying it. Her blood was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted, warm and succulent and threatening to overwhelm his mind.

Long neglected neurons in his blood starved brain flashed to life upon tasting the ambrosia of his people. An intoxicating euphoria crept into his conscious mind, straining his mental effort to fight through the instincts urging him to sink his fangs into Louise’s arm.

He held up long enough for Louise’s wound to heal up on his own. His own wounds had been completely healed, his body restored better than new thanks to a healing factor being put to work for the first time in many years.

Valen tore his lips away from Louise’s arm and let out a content sigh. Louise smiled at him with a mischievous spark in her yellow eyes.

“So?” She said in a teasing tone. “How’d I taste?”

“You might want to cut down on the alcohol.” Valen lifted the bathrobe on him and draped it back over Louise’s shoulders.

Her face reddened a bit and she pulled the robe close to her bare body. “Thanks.”

Enid placed a hand on Valen’s cheek and swivelled his head to look at her instead.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “I can give you some of my magic blood too if that didn’t cut it.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Valen rose to his feet and immediately almost fell back down again.

“Easy there,” said Enid, steadying him by the shoulder.

Louise slid her arms through the sleeves of her bathrobe and helped support his other shoulder. “It’s over now. You can rest.”

“Not yet.” Valen looked to the puddle of blood on the living room floor, the last remnants of his parasite. “That thing was a god. It won’t die this easily. We just killed a mortal avatar it took to manifest in our world.”

“How do you know what?” asked Enid.

“It was inside me.” Valen rubbed his temples. “And I was inside its mind. Sort of. I could sense that it wasn’t giving up. It was retreating back to its realm to recuperate. We can expect more of its followers to come after us now.”

“Let them come.” Louise cracked her knuckles. “I’ll fuck them all up.”

“We can’t just stand waiting to be killed anymore. And the police won’t believe us so we’ll just have to handle this ourselves.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Enid asked.

“Stick to the plan we made yesterday.” Valen turned to Louise. “I think it’s time we paid your old ‘friend’ a visit.”