Chapter Text
My Beloved Cherri,
I write this letter from my desk in town. This place was improving but I fear it has become entrenched in paranoia since I last wrote to you. There is yet more speculation of vampires and there is less and less people I can trust to be sane.
Except, now I fear that they speak the truth. Last evening I made the mistake of following the lumberjack out of town. I had thought him odd, not dangerous, but he led me to a greater threat that I still cannot understand how I managed to survive. However, in doing so I have started a game where I cannot see a way to win. Instead of taking my life there and then they asked me to sacrifice one of the townsfolk or they will kill us all. It pains me to write that I hesitated, but it goes against my duty as the only military presence to endanger even one of them.
I fear I am getting too attached; you must think me selfish to risk our future together to save the life of people I met just a few weeks prior and for that I apologise. I am about to do something unforgiveable, so I hope you can look past it for me.
I will survive tonight, for I must return home to the future we planned together. I finish this letter with the hope you know just how much you mean to me.
Yours with love,
Apo Kuna.
…
Only a fool would make a bargain like this. Apo would never consider herself a fool, yet she curses that past self, who thought that playing games with what is probably the greatest threat out here was by any means a good idea. The poor townsfolk should not have to take the consequences of her stupidity. Therefore, she cannot trade her life for one of theirs or warn anyone without risking the vampires retaliating against the unprepared civilians. So, she can only see one way forward; to take out the town’s biggest threat and carry out her duty to protect its people by killing Scott and the other vampires.
Killing Scott is an insane thing to think about. Apo has never been a fighter, she’s in the architect division for a reason, and struggles with the sight of blood on a good day. But she’s sharpened her axe and ensured her armour is free of any cracks. Her gear wasn’t supposed to see much conflict, and she prays that they hold together long enough for her to carry out the deed.
The crypt is nestled deep in the forest; there’s a clearing outside and four glowing lamps to mark each corner, which shine bright against the evening gloom. The drop down is as gut-wrenching as the first time she was here, and Apo feels the icy cold-water lap at the edges of her boots. Inside a dark corridor stretches out to where Apo knows, but cannot see, the alter with its offering chest. Its there she chooses to wait; shield raised as the last fingers of twilight fade into the blood red moonlight that’s characteristic of Oakhurst.
Apo sits there long enough to start questioning if anyone is coming. She feels her resolve weaken. It’s silent except the soft flow of the water nearby, and she thinks it awfully fitting that someone shall die here in this hallowed place.
There’s no warning when Scott appears. One second Apo is staring into the middle distance, the next the vampire casts a shadow against the stones from where he looms in the corridor between them. Spooked, but determined not to show it, Apo calls out to the creature before her.
“Hi Scott.”
“My, you’re looking rather alone, what happened?” Scott almost looks disappointed, tilting his head in some strange mimicry of concern.
“I’m not letting you turn anyone, it’s my duty to protect this town. You’re the one whose dying.”
“I’m dying?” The vampire sounds incredulous and Apo cannot wait to wipe the confidence from his face forever.
“Yes. You’re dying”
“Okay, That’s fun,” he clasps his hands together and she can feel him mocking her. “Do you know how to kill a vampire?”
“Where’s the others?” She asks ignoring his question. Apo doesn’t know what he’s talking about; an axe through the chest will kill anything and she isn’t about to hesitate.
“You’ll see them, don’t worry”
Apo cannot wait any longer in case her nerves fail her. This time though she has a spine of steel and her blade sings true. Each slash finds its target of chest and throat. It’s almost a shame she thinks, all that talk just to go down the same way as any other being. Scotts body crumples to the floor lifeless and Apo runs.
Oh my god. Apo thinks to herself as she flees the cursed place. She cannot believe Scott just took it and didn’t even try to fight back, or run, or anything. It’s confusing Apo struggles to reconcile her understanding of the vampire with what’s happened. It feels fully out of character and that worries her, because she doesn’t know what happens next.
Before she had killed Scott, he had been cryptid about the other vampires and now she’s unsure, were they supposed to be there? Are they in the trees here somewhere, ready to attack her once her back is turned?
“Owen. Pyro. Show Yourselves!” She calls out in desperation. When no one appears, Apo decides she will hunt them down instead, she cannot let them find out that Scott is dead and take retribution on the town. And, if they’re not at the castle, Apo imagines that turning the beacon will be enough to lure them to their deaths. They all need to die tonight.
Ahead the crumbling bridge stretches out into the fog that Apo knows hides the ruins of the castle that she had visited with Martyn and M only a few days prior. In the wine-dark moonlight it appeared more imposing than before, towering remains of a grand entrance surrounded by jagged stumps of what once was walls. The floor is uneven where the floorboards have fallen away and the smell of rot festers.
Ahead there was a ghost.
“Goddammit, why’d you have to come back?” Scott’s voice drawls out from ahead of her. Except its not Scott. Because he’s dead.
“What!” Apo feels her voice shake as she stumbles forward. In front of her, in the middle of what once was some great hall, is a figure who cannot be, but is despite all odds, Scott Goldsmith.
“What’s the issue” Scott calls.
“Why are you still alive? I killed you!”
“Mmhmm… No, you thought you killed me, there’s a difference.” He wags his finger at her like she is some small child ignorant of the ways of the world.
“I put an axe in your throat.”
“I see that, it was –”
Apo doesn’t wait to hear him out this time. Her axe flies forward in a mimicry of what happened in the crypt. Scott’s body collapses just the same. Apo backs away towards the beacon, mind crying out in confusion. She doesn’t understand what’s happening.
It’s there with her back to the far wall that she watches as the corpse in front of her reanimates again. The wounds seal up leaving not even scars, and Scott bloody Goldsmith is there, alive again, unbothered and eerily calm for a man who should be bleeding out on the floor.
“So… did we get our anger out?” He mocks her, climbing to his feet. Apo doesn’t know what’s going on. He was dead. She killed him. Twice! “Are you done?”
“Why… why are you still alive,” Apo whispers in disbelief.
“This is what I was saying before. This could be you. You could spend all eternity with your loved one. I don’t get what the issue is. I’ve not hurt anyone. I’ve not killed anyone.”
Apo’s arm throbs from where he had grabbed her yesterday before stealing her blood. He’d hurt her then and she’d never be stupid enough to not think him capable of more. She’s desperately afraid and wishes she had thought to bring backup, to tell anyone so that she isn’t here alone. She’s stuck with a man who doesn’t seem to die and thinks of himself as a sort of saviour.
She throws herself at him again praying that this time it’ll stick. But it doesn't. His body knits together in front of her eyes and soon he’s standing brushing off the injuries, as if they’re nothing but imaginary dust on his shoulders.
“That was rude. I’ve not killed anyone.” Scott pauses, looking around at an imaginary audience. “Maybe I’m not the monster, maybe you are.”
“You can kill people.”
“So can you. As you’ve proven, by killing me, unprompted I might add.” That’s not exactly true. Apo doesn’t believe for a second that if she had stayed her blade Scott wouldn’t have killed her in the crypt. But the vampire is still talking, “I was going to turn you, you know, but since you’ve spat on my hospitality, I think I won’t. I’m not sure you deserve the eternity and all my gifts that I could give you.”
“I can’t kill you”, Apo realises the inevitable, “But what if I tell the whole town about you?” She still has some leverage, hopefully.
“They’d think you crazy. They only trust you right now because you’re one of the sane ones. What do you think will happen if you go on back and claim that you killed me, multiple times, and that I’m a vampire?”
Apo knows he’s telling the truth. The town is an unknown, potentially she’ll only make things worse for herself. Even so, Scott still threatened to kill them. She needs to do what she can to stop him from taking advantaged of the unprepared people that her duty is to protect. She tries to keep him talking. Aims to give herself the time she so desperately needs to work out a solution that’ll let her protect the towns people and keep her humanity.
“What do you want then?”
“Nothing in particular. I just woke up.” Scott rambles on about how he’s oh so uninvolved and not at all a threat, he just wants to be left alone, promise. Apo doesn’t let him out of her eyesight as he stalks circles around her. The axe and shield in her hands are cold, wood biting into her skin where she grips it with white knuckles.
“Why did you take my blood then?”
“How was I supposed to know that you hadn’t agreed to it with Owen already? You were already a meal in my eyes what else should I have done?”
“I’m just a meal to you.” Apo’s voice shatters in disbelief. She can still feel the unwelcome intrusion into her arm, still has the wound carefully wrapped under her jacket. Few things in her life have ever felt so wrong and to hear it brushed off as ‘harmless’ makes her tightly wound muscles tense even further.
“Well, you don’t have to kill people, I could always just feed on you and keep you around” Scott offers with a slight frown.
There is no other way out of this. Apo will either die here now or, maybe, if she gets turned, she can find the strength to get rid of this man once and for all. If she had his ability to cheat death, then maybe she would have the time and strength to warn the town and learn how to kill the monster in front of her. It would be her duty even if the idea of drinking blood makes her squeamish and the idea of being anything like the man in front of her sends cold fear to the core of her being. But there is no other possibility, and she has promised to return from this place. She knows now that she won’t leave here alive, but if she wants to leave at all she must take this opportunity. Praying that this is the right choice she silently apologises to Cherri for her next words.
“Turn me then.”
“What?”
“You heard me, turn me. If not me it’ll be someone else.”
“True.” Scott stops pacing and his smiles is sharp with satisfaction. Apo regret her words.
“No – no, wait.” Apo begs, hands scraping against the wall behind her. Her eyes search desperately for any means of escape, but the creature grabs her by the neck. He rips aside her shirt exposing her throat to the cold night air. All Apo can do is try to ignore the cool press of lips to her jugular and the wet glug of her blood being siphoned before her vision blurs and her eyes fall shut.
…
At first there was a great nothing. Swiftly followed by a darkness that left her body weak and her mind weary. She had only her thoughts clouded as they were by the dull aching pain that gnawed at her bones. It was hard to know what was up or down, good or bad, in a world that seemed to only be broken for the want that now consumed her.
Outside of her mind, something was pushed against her bodies mouth, soft against her lips. It was the first and only thing she had smelt in a long time. Then every sense was flooded with the sharp bitter tang of blood.
She couldn’t stop. Not matter how her brain spiralled and begged her body not to give in to the all-consuming hunger her limbs disobeyed. Apo felt what little control she had snap under the weight of that want. Unable to stop herself Apo bit down and drank deeply, feeling the dying pulse of whatever creature had been thrust before her stutter before being snuffed out.
When she finally came to Apo through the remains of the carcass away from her feeling the tacky residue of blood on her hands and face. She was crouched somewhere underground, likely the burial chambers that stretched out below the castle. Before when she had explored them with the other townspeople, they had been dark, impossible to see down with lanterns or torches. But now she could see the carved inscriptions engraved on each wall and the individual strands of cobwebs that clung to every corner.
Above her, just far enough to not be in reach of any blood splatter was Scott. He stood between her and the only exit, but Apo wasn’t foolish enough to risk attacking him again. Scott was smiling that self-satisfied smirk that was the extent to any emotion she’d ever seen him show, which only deepened when he realised that she was lucid once more.
“How was your first meal?” Scott glanced over to where the poor animal’s carcass lay, “I was surprised just how messy an eater you are, but I suppose you have plenty of time now to learn some manners.”
“Scott.” Apo growled.
“Mmhmm.”
“What have you done to me?”
“What have I done? You asked for it, remember?”
“I would never.”
“I remember quite clearly you begging to be turned”
“No. I… No” Apo’s mind is in disarray, and she cannot quite remember if she had refused in the end. She had thought it though, a last second realisation that she was giving in too easily to the monster before her when there were still other options that would let her get back to Cherri safely. She didn’t want to be immortal. But she had asked, and Apo thinks the guilt for giving in so easily might never leave. She’s not a weak-willed person and yet she had let him drain her dry and inflict upon her this curse he calls a ‘gift’.
“You should be thanking me really, you know? Vampirism is such a gift, now you can live with that lover of yours forever.”
“No. There must be a cure for this curse; the town will help me put you in the grave, permanently.”
“Oh?” Scott stifles a laugh with the back of his hand. “I think you’ll find that you can’t live in the town like this, you know. Your eyes are already red; they’d hunt you down in a heartbeat.”
Apo cannot check if this is true, but she knows the other townspeople, knows them better than Scott. She isn’t sure how they’ll react, but they’ll at least let her talk and explain what’s happened. But Scott is smiling like their derision of her is inevitable and that she has no options but him. He’s acting as if he’s won a round of some twisted game and Apo can see no other way forwards. She has no choice but to play into his hands, Apo silently prays that this isn’t another mistake.
“What am I supposed to do then?”
“Well, if you apologise for speaking badly of my gift to you, I suppose I could let you stay with us, Pyro and Shelby would love a new playmate I should think, and we do need more people to help us build the castle.”
“Fine. I’ll come with you.”
“That’s not an apology.” Scott is suddenly close enough that Apo can see the straining anger under his skin and becomes hyper aware of how much strength is hidden just mere centimetres away from her face. If he was human Apo bets she would be able to feel his hot breath against her skin. Instead, there’s just an eerie silence that freezes her in place, like not moving would stop the predator from noticing her. Stop him from being a threat. It’s a naïve wish.
“I… I am sorry, I misspoke.” She manages to choke out eventually. She wishes the thing next to her dead with every fibre of her being, but she needs to play nice right now. Apo needs to survive long enough to make a new plan on how to leave and that means not giving in to her true emotions until she can guarantee that her axe leaves Scott the sort of dead he’ll never come back from.
“I guess that will do for now.” Scott suddenly is gone, striding back across the room to the exit. “You’ll learn, in time, and I’m going to have fun teaching you. Now come along, I have other things to do tonight.”
Apo watches as the vampire glides away down the corridor. She’s never been this deep in trouble, and her tormentor knows that too.