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Furiously, Pyro wiped the holy water from their brow, the drops that had not immediately evaporated in the moment it touched their skin seared sharp against their hand and sharper still against their eyes. It rendered them momentarily blind, and they had to pull to a stop to not trip and fall on the roots below their feet. Or rush straight into a tree, which would be their luck.
With no clear sight, the noises of the fight no longer made sense. They heard Martin shout, Pearl’s quickfire response and Sire’s voice carrying a sharp threatening edge in the normally sugary-sweet, and then Apo’s short and cut scream brimming with rage. Pyro had not even known she was there.
A sound like the world itself took a breath, and then a rush of heat and noise and brightness that even managed to be clear through his eyelids.
He backed away from the heat, finally able to force his eyes open to take in his surroundings, the shadows of the dark forest now dancing with the flames that overtook it. The light made it difficult to see anything, the sudden contrast against the shades overpowering when there was a new moon up above the canopy.
Somewhere ahead past the flames, Apo was laughing, though it was far from a joyful sound. It was a laugh that had been torn from her throat and twisted, moulded from a sob. Following the cracked noise, he found not her but Martin, meeting his eyes through the fire a brief moment before he backed away, almost getting hit by a quickly crumbling branch above him.
They disappeared, the flames kept roaring in front of him, and there was still no sign of Scott.
Dread pooled in his stomach, like claws carving his insides. The townsfolk had not seemed like they were being hunted, as they escaped the inferno they had started.
He could go after them, but Sire had probably already left, was probably already back at the castle, and there was no point chasing them anymore.
He could also just leave. Even if the tide of the battle had turned too quick for comfort.
They almost felt Scott’s eyes on the back of their head, watching them hesitate, watching them abandon him. The thought of his disappointment, of returning to the castle and seeing his Sire waiting, neutral and unimpressed expression signalling his fate alongside biting words about Pyro’s performance, cut his choice to pieces.
Bracing against the ground, feet sinking in deeper for a second, Pyro rushed through the flames, feeling their embrace swipe around him and trying to burrow into his skin. It was all he could feel, for a second, flames crackling around and grabbing onto every bit of foliage that it could reach and trying to pull him down into it.
He almost missed it, as he passed through the wall to the other side, to where the fire had yet not spread. Only seeing a shape in the corner of his eyes.
Scott had been pinned to the tree, the blackened ashen bark a crude backdrop to his pale skin, arms hanging limply down and the red vest darkened in spreading patterns as blood soaked into the fabric. The stake through his chest was the only thing that kept him upright. His hair, while still bright in the fire all around, had returned to that unnatural blue, and strangely as it was his face had in final death taken on a slightly healthier hue. His eyes were only a sliver open, not enough to discern the colour of his eyes through the lashes.
Pyro had not noticed his feet moving himself closer, standing right in front now, reaching out with a shaking hand.
He snapped it back before it could make contact. Scared of what, he did not know. Scared that he would feel movement, or not.
The fire was creeping up around him, consuming the forest in fierce and steady steps, ready to embrace him once more. But as he took a step back his heel caught onto a root and he collapsed down onto the ground.
He had to go, but the indecision of where bound his legs, the beacon of the castle was calling him, a quick escape. He could lie, tell Shelby and Owen that he had lost sight of Scott, let the town get the glory and rage of the reveal. But wouldn’t that it be it? If Scott was gone, he would be next. He took a shuddering breath to steady himself, eyes plastered on Scott’s feet, slumped at an unnatural angle against the roots bulging from the base of the tree.
The town had to take him back. They had to. They had listened to him before, reached out before, he just had to swallow his pride, cower just slightly and they would allow him in, allow him back.
He hunched over, pressing his hand against his mouth and feeling his fangs touch against his palm.
The fire was still going, it shook the world, it sounded like growling and howling from the trees themself, rumbling in the ground beneath him, a haunting raven-like cry rising that had to be his imagination.
Scott was dead, he was–
“Aw, you’re not wasting your grief on me, are you now?”
He stilled, as if the roots pressing up against him had bound him, as if his body had remembered how to be properly dead. If he had been allowed another moment, a second more, to let the false feeling of relief strike through, Sire would have seen it. He squeezed his eyes shut, quelled any shiver that might have arisen. Who was he kidding, Sire had most likely seen it either way.
As if pulled by a puppet's string, they raised their head, slowly. Scott was smiling down at them, eyes as red and cold as dawnbreak where the chill of night still reigned. The stake was still there, struck through his heart and it moved when he took a shallow breath to speak.
”There’s those lovely eyes.” Sire said, unbothered by the carnage dripping from his chest, except for a slight wince as only one lung expanded.
Pyro’s own breath had been stolen yet again, drowned and taken.
Delicate fingers wrapped around the wood, and Scott pulled it out slow and steady. It made a squelching, cracking noise as blood and viscera, as his ribs, repaired themselves the moment they got the chance, mending themselves in the hole left behind. With a flick of his wrist, blood splattered away from the stake and a stray drop pattered down on Pyro's cheek.
The fire was spreading, coming closer, and he was cold, frozen against the ground. For some reason, the crackling of it was too quiet, less that it had been a tick before.
“Well, this is ruined.” Scott said, pulling at his vest, preventing the fabric from sticking to the rapidly scarring wound. He glanced down again, and impatient of the lack of response, in motions that felt too quick to react to, like he was swimming underneath water and Scott was not part of that very same substance, Sire’s hand grabbed onto his shoulder and dragged him up onto his feet.
Shook from the limbo of his being, Pyro screeched and tried to pull away, uncoordinated and hopeless as the hand on him tightened in expectancy to his resistance, shifted and moved and then Sire’s hand was grabbing onto his chin, and pulling him close.
His expression did not match the threat of violence his movement shoved.
”You’re not scared of me are you?” His voice strummed with a joke. ”A little death is nothing new.”
”How?” Their voice shook, a mix between desperation and demand, eyes drifting down to the thing still in Scott’s hand. “You said- Was that a lie, that we would die if we got struck. The stake–”
“...would kill you, silly.” Scott said, closing the distance between them even further and tapped the stake above their heart. “They had to put me to sleep, remember. You don't think I have had people who would have loved to put a stake through me while I was down and out?” He paused, and gave a grin. “And not the fun kind, mind you.”
With a gentle shove, he pushed the stake against his chest, and instinctively Pyro reached up to grab it. He wanted to back away, but felt like a maw would strike closed around him if he even proved himself a smidge closer to prey.
”Hold onto this for me. I want to see if Apo wants to keep her… participation trophy, later.” The hand still on his chin gave a squeeze, claws prickling at his cheeks and then Sire dropped his hold, moving away and Pyro scrambled after, grabbing at the cloak sweeping behind. He had felt the hand, heard his voice, but it wasn’t until he felt the tug pulling it away from his fingers that it finally landed that this was real.
Scott kept moving one step ahead, away from the flames still going, direction clear towards one of the scattered tombs of the land. His sire didn’t even glance back to see if he was following. Pyro continued moving, inexplicably it felt like the ground itself was nipping at his heels, only being stayed by him being in range of Scott.
They dropped down at the tomb, crashing through the water’s surface as it caught them.
The cold was almost welcome, for a second and then even that feeling changed. Water pushing, dragging him down. He wondered if that would be preferable to just stay down here, drowning below, rather than what would happen after all of this.
Scott had been dead, a second death. Pyro was sure of it.
As the water started to push down, trying to lay heavy into his lunges, Pyro pushed up, pulling himself up by the stones at the edge. In the hall, Scott had ripped open one of the walls, and was holding a skull up towards a lit torch. As he heard Pyro break the surface he turned, holding the skull next to his face, like a comparison.
”Close enough?” Scott smiled, ”I would go fetch Derek, if we had time, but this will have to do.”
“Derek?”
“The guy I wore while messing with Avid, way back.” Scott glanced at the skeleton in the tomb, and using the threaded base of the coffin wrapped it up and lifted it up. ”We were the same height.”
”What are you-, we doing.” They quickly shifted their speech, as Scott handed the crafted bag of bones to them. It was surprisingly light. ”They’re going to come back, once the flames die down.”
”Something I fully expect, so we’re pulling a small prank, in return for theirs. I am curious how everyone will react if I allow them to believe they succeeded.” There was a make-believe playfulness in his voice, calculated wrapped cruelty. As he had freed both hands, Scott reached over to hold his face, his thumbs sweeping over his cheeks, claws brushing by his lower eye-lashes. ”Not everyone will react as sweetly as you, will they?”
Even as they were being told, it felt pointed, the stake in their hand feeling nothing better than a throw-away toy, not a sign of trust but rather the futility of it. He knew, he had to know, he had to have seen Pyro’s false-relief, the horror at his awakening. This was forgiveness. This was mercy.
“It shouldn't have burned this quickly, the flesh.” Pyro swallowed, belaying an answer.
“And a stake should have killed me, yet here I am.” The hands fell away, Pyro almost wanted to chase the touch, if only to keep that confirmation of his absolution close. “You'll make something up, and it’ll be a nice distraction and another round of theories for the humans to entertain themselves for a while.“
“Maybe you turned back into a human in death.” Pyro suggested, could still not shake his first belief, though now it sounded like a convenient lie.
“Exactly.” Scott said, and betrayed nothing if he knew the full truth of the fact.
A storm was called, reigning down hail and rain to quell the fire, one with no wind but freezing none-the-less. While it could not fully battle the blaze, it aided. The flames had grown softer as they returned, the ever-dampness of the air creating a less than habitable growing-ground for it, even with the denseness of the forest. Still going, but no longer threatening to consume the area in full as they first had assumed.
As they had exited the tomb, Scott had disappeared from sight, taking a simple step forward into invisibility, and Pyro’s senses became one-of-mind to follow the slight sound and shift of his Sire back through the now smoke-filled forest. The ground was smouldering, the heat and humidity mixing to a rotten fog to hide their path.
He stopped breathing. The feeling of being stalked, of something hunting and hovering just beyond each returned as well. Pyro made sure to keep up, keeping an eye out for unnatural bats in the sky, but it was difficult when sound was the only thing he could follow. His eyes stung from the smoke-mixed fog.
And he knew how silent Scott could be, when he wanted to.
“So this is… not new to you, Sire.” Pyro sprouted, and when he heard his voice he quickened his steps to be closer to him.
“The first one to manage to stake me was this lovely older painter, hid it among her supplies while doing a portrait. Preparing for a year until I let down my guard.” Scott mused. ”…I think her paintings must have been destroyed alongside the castle. A shame really, she had such a way with colours.”
”She betrayed you.” They pushed on the word, marked it with hatred, as if to push it further from themselves. A burnt-out root cracked beneath their boot.
”I was in a conundrum, once I realised that I wasn’t dead. It was really difficult to get people of her skill all the way out here, almost a miracle that she had sprung up from a small town a little bit east of Oakhurst. The possibility of something similar appearing again was slim, she had no children of her own and her brothers and their kin shared none of the skill.”
”But there’s no town…” Pyro let his thought come to completion before the words continued out his mouth. He had read about that, one among the many tragedies of the area that he had skimmed only because it had been so short. A community erased, and a mystery as there had been none to tell the tale. For all it seemed, everyone went to bed one night, and the next they were all gone. ”I see. A… suitable punishment.”
As little as they wanted to be here, with heat and rain and the feeling like the ground was going to open up beneath their feet, it was better than imagining the hollow and unknowingly illusionary cheer and celebration that the townsfolk would have. It was better than imagining Apo, and how close he could have got to be on her path, if he had taken a step further.
He kneeled down, arranged the skeleton on the ground below one of the burn-brushed trees. Still standing, but most likely the embers of the fire had nestled far inside. Ready to be set ablaze once more when the conditions were right. The thing missing from the scene was the stake in his hand.
A hand settled on the nape of his neck. “Go ahead, stab me.”
For a second he did see it, that brief image of when he thought Scott was no more, the feelings of hope and liberty intertwined with it. Pyro took the stake, and with one fell motion stabbed it through the ribs, breaking them in the process, pushing further and further down, until the hand on his neck tightened its grip.
Pyro released the stake, and left the useless thing behind. They could make up their own theories on how it survived the flames.
Within a moment they were both gone, and Pyro happily replaced the heavy air in his lungs as they exited the beacon on top of the mountain, able to overview the distant, focused, storm with the glowing fighting blaze beneath. There was no one there, as Scott became visible once more.
Dawn was approaching, though the heavy clouds were shielding them from its arrival. From this distance, the area looked deceptively beautiful, Oakhurst barely visible through the darkness, even with the chaos spreading. It was like watching a beast of prey, curled up and asleep, aware of the teeth and claws on display but tucked away for the moment. A dragon sleeping on an empty hoard.
”You were slightly off.” Scott causally corrected, stepping into the shadows of the tower as dawn was starting to breach the horizon. ”The town was a punishment, but it was just as much a reward.”
”…For the painter, to get to live?”
”No.” Scott smiled. “Say, did you ever have a pet, growing up?”
The question caught him off guard.
He didn’t think the rat at his dorm counted, the one he found escaped from the psychology laboratory. Halfway domesticated and clever, to the point that he had to improvise mazes in its cage to keep it satisfied. It seemed to have forgotten it was allowed to eat if it was part of a reward. Instead, sparing himself the reaction his Sire would give, Pyro brought up something less loved.
“A dog. For a short while. It wasn’t mine, exactly, my family thought it to be a good gift. And it never quite learned to listen. Growled and bit me.” He was seven, it was cute as a puppy and then it grew up in a blink of an eye. “It ran away.” He had left the door open. He genuinely couldn’t remember if it had been an accident or not.
Scott hummed, as they had let the script veer too far into silence and Pyro scrambled to repair.
“And you Sire? Did you have any pets?”
A smile in return was approval enough, a step appearing in front of him just as he felt the ground crumble.
“I had. A scrawny, mangy, wild thing,” Which is not what Pyro had been expecting, nor the crudely fond way that Scott spoke about it. “I didn’t really see it as my pet at first, didn’t quite realise that it was eating the scraps I threw out. Barely knew I was feeding it, until it started to scratch at my door.”
He thought of the howling, rushing through the Oakhurst the moment of their arrival. “A wolf?”
Scott paused, and embarrassment crawled up Pyro’s neck as the smile was pressed closed, holding back a larger grin. Pyro was well aware of the feeling of having an implication flying right over his head, his guess an unnecessary shot in the dark.
“You’re cute.” Scott said, and they knew they should just have kept their mouth shut, not tried to be part of what was now obviously not a conversation. It felt worse, knowing they had caught the fact that they missed the joke, but still not seeing the joke itself. They bowed their head, in silent apology, and Scott saved them further embarrassment as he continued. “It wasn’t a wolf, might have been easier to collar if it was one. Someone sure has tried to collar it now, but I think it remembers its master well enough.”
“Has?”
“Pets can be loyal things, if you give the correct incentive.” Scott said. “You’ve heard of dogs, laying close to their charges to keep them warm and alive in winter, cats chasing away predators far larger than themselves to protect, clever ravens swooping everyone except the one they know will leave out water for them.”
He remembered the rat, perched on his shoulder and eating cut-up cucumber from his fingers as he tried to push through yet another late-time studying, the small thing an anchor in the long night. Sire would laugh if he told him.
“Owen’s sire must not have known, tried to keep it starving until it chased rats into his home and bit him.” Scott rolled his eyes, as if Pyro’s heart wouldn’t have stopped a second time had it still a reason to beat. ”I sure kept it well-fed and happy, until people decided to get rid of me other ways. And now see what happened.”
“Your massacres, you fed it with your massacres.” He followed Scott deeper down into the tower, the view disappearing, but the feeling remaining. He didn’t know if Scott’s grin was as approval that he was figuring his way out through the maze of his words, or as a reaction to the horror that Pyro couldn’t quite shave from his voice.
“It is very particular about mealtimes. It gets… creative, when it gets hungry. I told you, didn’t I? The plague was not from me, it brought that one itself...” Scott sighed, “Gorged itself but in return had to starve, it took me quite some time to build the population back up again after that. Poor thing must be starving now.”
”Oh don’t look at me like that, you’re a far too valuable morsel to give to it.” His voice held the similar type of comfort that he had carried, back from when he had held Pyro beneath the water to take his breath and life. ”But I think you can give me something, to help me play dead.”
Scott had got close to him.
”Of course.” Pyro said, speaking quickly to smother the ”please don’t” from ever reaching his Sire’s ears.
“Share with me? Living again sure made us both hungry.”
Pyro’s claws were longer, sharper, at a further stage. Scott’s hand almost warm in comparison to his skin as fingers grabbed his chin. Gentle, but he did not need to use force as he pushed him back towards the wall of the tower. The imprint of the stake was still in Pyro’s hand, Scott’s drying blood in smudged in the ridges of his palm, from when had pushed through the skeleton facsimile.
He could resist, could bat away, run away, and for the moment Scott would not be able to catch up to him. As fangs sank into his neck, he stayed put.
He did not want to awaken the maw underneath.