The abbess and sheriff had most likely hoped to lose their pursuers in the forest, unaware of how keen their huntress’ nose was. She could smell them as she crossed through her beehives, focused entirely upon the footsteps through the muddied terrain. Momentarily however, she noticed a small hole in one of them. With a sigh she tore a segment of her habit loose, stuffing the cloth within it. Whether they found themselves in the town or not was immaterial. The only decision left to them would be the number of bodies at night’s end.

It wasn’t until she was halfway through the wooded boughs that her pace began to slow. The scent had become confused, lingering in a far thicker haze than she’d predicated. Perhaps they had stalled due to injury, though no odour of blood filled her nostrils. She pottered about for a moment or two, searching for signs of passage beyond the small clearing she now occupied. It was old, surrounded by oak trees with thick leaves which obscured the night sky. There was enough light for her eyes to see by, though she imagined it considerably darker for her quarry.

A branch above her creaked. With a snarl she looked up to see the sheriff falling upon her, a dagger held in reverse grip. She deftly moved from his ambush, lashing out with her claws as he rolled to a stop on the softened earth. He was cannier than the faithful, jamming his sword up through the twin bones of her forearm. Pain spiked through her vision as white light, extracting a hiss and growing hunger. No matter. His blood was befouled by his attire, but it would serve all the same.

“Go Margaret! The queen must know!” Gustav howled to a hollowed tree at the exit of the clearing. From within, the panicked form of the abbess burst forth and began a mad dash toward the town. Most likely the barges within. The bakers would soon be taking their deliveries, if pain hadn’t taken Sybil’s alacrity from her.

The blonde creature tore her hand free of the sword, kicking Gustav and sinking low to give chase. But the sheriff was no fool, panting with exertion as he jammed his dagger into her thigh. It held her fast, inciting the beast within her to direct its fury back toward him. Sybil lashed out, turning bodily from the fleeing abbess with a terrible snarl on her obscured features. Gustav caught the claws with his dagger, eyes widening as he endured the full breadth of her strength. But he was a man grown, used to the burliest of men drunkenly beating him. He would not surrender to one good strike.

“A last stand? How noble,” Sybil taunted, recovering her wits enough to take her sword in both hands. Gustav was no arrogant fool, dodging the swings as they threatened to overwhelm him. The nun could likely break his breastplate like a pewter pot if he dared to use it. If he felt the sting of her taunts, he gave no indication. His eyes had taken on a steel that he did not possess in the cells. The malignancy within the blonde woman forced a smile to her lips. This was a man prepared to die. A cow fit only for slaughter. She’d overestimated his cowardice she’d give him that much.

It wasn’t long before Sybil realised her strength would buy her no advantage against the sheriff. He wielded his sword with trained finesse, his dagger rising to strike her whenever she dared use her claws. He would not permit her the same advantage he enjoyed. To do so was death. While she had not gleaned his weaknesses, he had more than noticed hers. He dove to her side, moving under her guard. She was not prepared for the pain, shying from it at every opportunity. In so doing, Gustav had taken the beast and made it a hound cowering before its master. He found his most apt punishment for her timidity, ramming his dagger beneath her ribcage. Then, like a macabre lever, he forced the nun to her side in abject agony.

He'd raised his sword to strike her, opening himself momentarily. But Sybil’s paralytic pain allowed for nothing but a crushing kick to his ankle. He grunted with the shock, righting himself as she staggered to her feet. He did not relent, ruthlessly charging forth with an overhead blow aimed at her arm. If he could not slay the beast, he would simply pacify it. The blow never connected as the nun rolled herself clear. As he felt the momentary resistance of his blade biting into the earth, he released the hilt with panic in his eyes.

He was wise to. Sybil’s sword would have taken his arm otherwise. He returned to their delicate dance, redirecting the hammer blows of her blade with the dagger. The sheriff was beginning to feel the toll, his breathing coming in ragged bursts. He had slain too much tonight, fought too long. Now this inexperienced girl was to bring him low. Sybil, unable to break the guard of her superior opponent, flung her sword as she’d seen Judith do. The flying blade scored a shallow cut in Gustav’s neck as he deftly dodged, checking to see the sword buried almost to its guard in a nearby tree. His eyes returned to the fore just in time to see Sybil swing his own sword at him, jumping back with just enough time to see the tip score his breastplate. As she brought his sword to bear for another strike, he saw his opportunity. Foolishly, she’d released a hand to strike from another direction. Knowing his dagger could not do damage enough to fell her, he made his choice.

Gustav leapt forward as the sword came around, slipping his dagger beneath the grip of her sword as if it were a scallop. He accepted the claws as they dug into his face, screeching with pain as he felt muscle fibre and tendon fray like rope. He would have scars but as he withdrew from her, kicking her stomach, Gustav stood with bloodied jaw armed in both hands.

“If this be the standard of Hell’s soldiers, I go to my grave gladly,” the sheriff laughed weakly, breath coming like liquid to his lungs. Perhaps it was. “A true soldier would have you filleted like a fish by now, cowardly abomination that you are,” he continued, limping somewhat from the ankle sprain he’d sustained. The creature stood hunched over, mithering after the long cut that had been left in her hand. Her other held the wound in her side while its owner whimpered in pain, barely able to keep herself upright. He cast aside his dagger, taking his sword in two hands. One good blow should put it out of its misery. He had begun this night as sheriff, ended it as executioner. As he came within range to hew Sybil’s head, bringing his arms over his shoulder to power the blow, the nun struck.

She wrapped her arms about him as if embracing him. He felt the bones of his arms rub together, almost coming to buckle under the unnatural strength of the woman before him. Her veil had fallen partially to the side, revealing the fanged grin and a single red eye.

“Coward, abomination, sinner or sodomite. I’m all these things,” Sybil muttered as if in atonement. He snarled at her mockery, spitting his own blood at her cheek. “None of you gave testament to my duplicity,” the nun chuckled, ramming her fingers under his breastplate and ribs. The sheriff coughed and retched, the wine of his veins dripping from his mouth as his lungs filled. With a satisfied hum, she withdrew her hand and licked at her fingers. She dispensed with the veil completely, eyes falling upon Gustav as he desperately tried to staunch his wound. The systems of his chest, having ticked away for what seemed to be forty or fifty years, now lay in tatters. He was drowning on dry land.

Sybil took his sword from his fingers, continuing to clean her own as she began walking toward the town. Sustenance could be stymied for the time being. She did not need to breathe, after all. And the abbess, though she be but a messenger now, had sent many to their graves. Even Sybil, indirectly.

“God damn you woman, have you no mercy?” Gustav demanded from somewhere behind her, voice barely audible over the whistling of red foam that now coated the corners of his mouth. “Your shoddy blow would see me suffer for hours!” he explained as the nun turned with an arched eyebrow. Tilting her head to the side, she realised that her claws had shied from their intended target. His heart still beat strongly despite the carnage that surrounded it. She stood over the man, placing a foot on his chest lest he try the same ploy she had.

“My beloved courts death for your actions. Do you have final words?” Sybil spoke solemnly, bringing the sword up from her aiming strike. It would not do to disappoint her accidental mentor twice.

“You may tell my family that I almost bested the devil,” he chuckled weakly, blood beginning to fall in earnest from his chest. Sybil smiled despite herself, suppressing a giggle. “I served my shire. I regret not the ends our means have wrought,” Gustav instructed, struggling to remove his beard that she might see his neck better.

The strike was true, her strength forging a clean cut through even his spine. She then placed his blade upon his chest, enfolding his hands over it. Sybil stood and heaved a great sigh, eyes closed tightly for a moment. She reassured herself that there was but one more. One more then never again. The thought struck her as a lie even as she applied that poultice to her wounded psyche. With a conflicted growl, Sybil resumed her hunt.

Her suppositions had been on the mark. The barges from Liverpool began to approach Banshire, laden with grain. The empty docks afforded the nun an eloquent tracking of the abbess. She followed the scent of perfumes and her blood to a warehouse set upon the riverside, opening the door with a casual ease as she noted the broken lock.

The scene before her was as perplexing as it was unexpected. Amidst the rows of winter food stores the town had set aside, now in the process of being replenished, a table had been brought betwixt the two ranks of stalls that held barrels, crates and sacks of nonperishables. Upon it, a singular candle had been lit. Enjoying a meal of preserved sausages, a pilfered loaf of bread and cheese, the abbess sat with her habit next to her. She’d even taken steps to remove her crucifix from her breast despite its twin hanging from Sybil’s shoulders. Margaret wore her grey-streaked hair in a bun and ate calmly, her eyes merely flicking toward the blonde woman as she entered and closed the warehouse door behind her. As she moved toward the table, she realised that a pair of chairs had been laid on its opposite end, as if inviting them to supper. A shame she hadn’t laid out plates for them. Though Sybil conceded a diet of blood alone seemed to be their prerogative. What she didn’t suppose was why the abbess believed herself to have any notion of leaving the building without her burial shroud.

“No doubt by now your curiosity is roused,” Margaret began, chewing a forkful before resuming as if they were merely taking afternoon tea. “I am fortunate the more sensible of the lovers deigned to give chase. I wish to parlay,” the abbess smiled diplomatically before pouring herself a gout of wine into a tin cup she’d procured from the workman’s station behind her. Sybil merely scoffed at the suggestion her arms folded such that her bleeding forearm emerged from the robes. The older woman sighed, raising her cup. “A good man to the end. Only after his death do I realise his folly,” she toasted, draining the goblet in one. The nun raised an eyebrow, inquiring why she had set out two chairs. Why she expected to live. “A wager I have placed on the soul of your kind, Sybil. Judith has ever been rebellious, cruel and callous,” the abbess began, easing back nervously as a growled warning escaped Sybil. “But how you have tamed her. It is that leash I have need of to survive. She will come to you, as she always does, mithering after your wellbeing. All I ask is that you comport yourself as the gentle soul who arrived on my doorstep four years ago when she does,” Margaret spoke meaningfully, eyes toward the door as if she expected the Francian to walk through it at any moment.

“You forget, you were witness to my father’s actions. You know of our true nature. You could have surrendered the abbey yet chose to send men to their deaths instead,” Sybil snarled, fingers splayed upon the table. Her shoulders had hunched forward, claws etching the wood beneath her. “The world would do well to have fewer people like you within it. The spineless, prevaricating wretches who bend to wherever their closest fortune glistens,” she continued, Margaret’s eyes widening as she realised what the once delicate blonde was doing. She rose with her hands aloft, placating her with pleas to reason, to calm herself. All fell silent when Sybil slammed her fist to the table. “Parlay with a creature such as you, who feels nothing for her fellow man, is pointless! Oaths are forged in mercury where you are concerned! Your hypocrisy saw Judith suffer while I walked away with rope burns on my wrists!” The nun bellowed, stalking forward as her claws jittered in anticipation. Margaret backed away, eyes flying from egress to exit, calculating whether she would make it before the monster reaped its bloody price from her flesh. Her panicked breaths turned to hyperventilation as Sybil wrapped a hand around her throat, blue eyes dancing with a fury the abbes had never seen in any natural creature. “You know the absurd thing? I would have spared you if you’d believed,” Sybil chuckled hopelessly, the irony of it all crashing about her. It all seemed so pointless. All the suffering and death. All on the decisions of one woman.

The warehouse doors opened behind them, flooding the room with light from the moon. Sybil looked back, slamming Margret against the wall as she attempted to leverage the nun’s distraction. Judith stood in the entryway, panic etching her features as she saw her love’s blue eyes. As she raced over, her love pivoted the abbess before her as a shield. It brought the Francian to a halt, bringing a wretched cough from her lungs. The nun whimpered, clawed hand reaching out to her love before the abbess’ second ill-thought escape attempt brought it snaking about her throat.

“She won’t return to the abbey,” Judith wheezed. “You don’t need to do this.”

“If she goes free, she will hold her knowledge above our heads until her dying day. She is too conniving not to. Look what she did to you! Would the world truly lament the loss of this thing?” Sybil spat the last word, clawed thumb drawing a trickle of blood from the abbess’ face. True fear had possessed the woman now. There were no words or parlay, no reason to keep her from harm. Just the whims of two squabbling predators. “If the church discovers us there will be exorcists, inquisitors, men with as little remorse as the blades they wield. Without this thread to cling to, there will be no crusade for you. No precession of righteous death. With the abbess gone, we need never fear them again.” Sybil ranted, almost emphatically as she ignored the breathless woman in her arms. She would commit a great many sins, even the darkest, if it meant an end to this. A definite insulation from the world upon her father’s estate with her feckless brother and horses. Perhaps she needn’t kill the wretch. Perhaps her callousness had simply cost her hands and her tongue. No, such barbarity would only enflame sedition. It had to be complete.

Judith reached out a hand. Her love dragged her prey away, fearing her knightess intended to enforce her will by the sword. She persisted, prising Sybil’s frantic hands from the older woman’s neck and stomach. The nun eventually allowed it, heaving a great breath. Something left her eyes then, falling into the dark-haired woman’s arms with wracking sobs. Their embrace was only broken once the desperate Margaret attempted yet another escape. Judith’s hand snapped up to ensnare her collar, laying a kiss on Sybil’s forehead. Then she rounded on the source of her misery.

She slammed the other woman into the chair she’d occupied moments ago, sitting herself on the table before her. She then took up a knife, spearing some morsels of food for herself as she considered her options.

“She could have killed me,” Margaret gasped tightly, running her fingers over the claw marks that pockmarked her neck. Judith arched an eyebrow as she chewed, drawing one of her swords with a pensive air. The gently weeping blonde beside her knew that she likely tallied each infraction the abbess had made. Every insult, every condemnation, every whipping, every night spent in the penitentiary.

“My beloved is no murderer,” Judith eventually snorted to the astonished eyes of her clerical superior. “Even with the bloodlust I have burning in her breast, she can barely bring herself to defend her own life. Even with her love of mankind dulled, she still leapt upon me to save one of your nuns. A nun who, but for your actions, would have been safely abed,” the Francian drawled as she levelled the sword tip to the abbess’ throat. Was it murder, she wondered, to knowingly send someone potentially to their end? It mattered little. She was to be juror now. “Now that we know we speak monster to monster, what say you to my star’s accusations? Why should I not gut you as a trout?”

The abbess’ eyes widened as she realised that her perils had not passed, only to narrow as her devious mind began to work upon a story that would save her life. Judith placed a boot firmly on the woman’s stomach before looking over, running her thumb over Sybil’s tear-stained face. The nun smiled wanly, almost sheepish as she realised her mistake. A mistake Judith had been guilty of but a few days ago. It was not their place to decide for the other. They kissed, relief surging through them both. Sybil reassured the other that she was fine. Merely shaken. Once all was said and done, she was likely to spend the next three days at rest. Or in tears.

“Her father,” Margaret eventually offered, stirring Judith from her quiet conversation with her Aphrodite. “As you no doubt noticed, he is a political beast as much as I. In order to protect your union, he will likely appoint Lora as abbess. He will then cast me into the street. Just another rambling madwoman speaking of demons drinking blood. What sway would such a woman have with the queen, even if she claimed to be an abbess?” the older woman spoke calmly, pouring herself more wine with a cautious hand. She did not want to give the hungrier of the two inclination she intended to escape. “I have far more to gain from becoming party to this conspiracy. I remain abbess. I reap the rewards that follow. So long as I keep my peace and silently ascent to this barbarity, I am useful. And your father is too careful to allow me other options.”

“Yet you breathe,” Judith replied with a grin as Margaret drained the last of her wine. Her hand shook as she placed her goblet down. “Whilst you live and retain your position you are a threat. Deposed, I daresay you can cry conspiracy and rouse a few bishops,” she crowed, content to argue the night away. Sybil however was not. A solution had presented itself and sickened her to consider it. But it was a solution, nonetheless.

She took the cup from the abbess’ hand, looking her dead in the eyes as she bit into her own wrist. Dark, almost black blood fell from it into the waiting receptacle. Margaret looked on as if Sybil meant to poison her. Judith turned with a look of utter shock. Shock which quickly mutated into vehement opposition. She rose to voice it before Sybil silenced her with a look.

“Enough. This is your choice,” the nun asserted as she placed the cup on the table with a thud. “You die here. Now. Judith will make it quick,” she commanded with a severe look toward her love. The abbess swallowed, looking to the cup with horror. “Or you shall spend the rest of your life as we do. Condemning us only condemns yourself. You’ll retain a whole abbey as your sustenance, far from this place. The sun shall burn and blind you. The bloodthirst will rob what little humanity remains in your heart. And if you should stray into mankind’s notice, Judith shall have my blessing to end you. She will not make it quick,” Sybil concluded dispassionately, though her voice quivered somewhat.

Her Francian did not like the terms. Margaret had turned whiter than the moon as she stared into the abyss of her choices. But it was, in the beekeeper’s mind, the only way to ensure her silence. Giving her some semblance of life beyond that warehouse was her mercy. It was her choice whether to take it. A small part of her hoped she would. That there would be more creatures like them to share the burden. Though, she supposed, it was the nature of predators to become more burdensome as they became numerous. All this bloodshed and death for the sake of one nefarious voice. Whether a god or a goddess, they had been rendered lunatics in service to them. Judith endured because of that voice. And for that reason alone, it had secured her loyalty. She imagined it similar to her knightess’ reasoning. In the end, it had chosen its servants well.

The abbess attempted to argue for more time to decide, cajoling for the dawn at least. But Judith would have none of it, citing that if she wished to live, she had one option. If that. Sybil laid a hand on her love, keen not to incite additional resentment in their interlocutor. After all, they may have to deal with her antics for centuries. Sybil smiled to herself, believing that she’d saved as many as she could.

“I have made my decision,” Margaret announced, standing with surprising certainty. “Judith, I would have you take my head now,” the woman spoke with steel in her eyes. Sybil almost broke, whirling with a frustrated curling of her fingers demanding to know why. That it was foolish to spend her life so cheaply. But the woman would not be moved, Judith heaving her sword to her shoulder with resolve. The nun pleaded and persuaded, attempting to reason with the pair. But neither paid her heed, having satisfied her wishes.

“Sybil, go stand outside until this is done!” Judith ordered with compassion infusing her voice. The blonde stopped for a moment with eyes wide. She’d seen death, inflicted it that very night. She began to voice her concern before she was interrupted. “This is her choice. Allow her some dignity in it,” the dark-haired woman entreated softly. Her love silently obeyed, casting one look to see the abbess kneeling and saying her final prayers. It was only when Judith inquired after her last words that she spoke directly to the pair.

“I have seen the savagery that controls your kind. I would rather die as Margaret than fight to remain her,” the abbess spoke loudly enough that her voice carried to Sybil’s sensitive ears. “The Lord may forgive me. Whatever dwells within you will not,” she concluded. Moments later, the song of Judith’s blade and a thud sounded. The life of the abbess ended.

Sybil sank to her knees, a torrent of emotions she could not identify overcoming her. Through that typhoon, that endless storm, she dwelt on only one question. What had it all been for?