[8/16/461 AC, 11:01 AM]

  “You sure about this?” Thalia asked, as a thin trail of silver-gold parted from her bright lips. Embers flickering, like the poroid camera over her shoulder, as her spent cigarette ground into the dirt. “Annie is sweet . . . maybe too sweet for all of this. For even you Bumble.”

  Squelch.

  And neon viscera.

  Bck work boots into a warped pile of glistening aquamarine. Smelling of sulfur and clove, and coppery tang. As her fingers drummed against her thigh.

  Twitching.

  “She’s tougher than she looks. Plus . . . We could use a Kinetic.” A low voice, warm like her skin and fittingly deep for her height, hummed. As Beatrice wrenched a gnarled gray horn free from the bashed-in-mass of dark eyes and mousy furr, that was once a head. Now more like a paste. “And I can’t lose her. Not again.” Her almond eyes, pensive. Like a myst over water. Churning. As she wrung blue-green slime from her ponytail. The scrunchy, like her fingertips, irrevocably stained.

  “If you say so.” Sighed Thalia, she turned back, walking down the overgrown path. “I’ll shoot Corri a heads up. Just . . . keep her safe.” Brown eyes glinting a pyrite hue in the dappled light, as she ducked out of Bea's line of sight. Bck bob resulting into the breeze.

  Into the oak and thorn.

  Leaving the blonde haired hunter. Alone. With a cryptid corpse and her thoughts. In the little patch of woods.

  Keep her safe.

  * * *

  [8/17/461 AC, 8:13 PM]

  A hunter walks along the roadside, away from the station. Thinking. Cement chipped by weeds, and lips scuffed by worry. The scent of coffee and smoke, lingering on her unkempt hair. Even in summer, with light pollution as it is in San Toros. It’s dark.

  Too dark.

  Like the kind of ink where shadows bleed away, and the sound of footsteps five meters ahead could be your overly friendly neighbor Paxton, or a faceless creature that feasts on spleens and wild asparagus. And you’d never know the difference.

  A muggy purple haze, pierced by lithe skeletons of worn brick and paint pstered pnks. Bea can almost hear the creaking of two dozen foundations. Haunting, and windows watching. Like the specters no doubt bound there. Uneasy and misangled. In the often forgotten heart of the old district.

  The houses of Vervain Way. Where one— the only, Andromeda Lee Meadows, now lives. At 1483 Vervain Street.

  Her chest tightens, fingers gripping bitter metal and jacket leather. Phone still silent.

  And where a mons— cryptid, was reported heading. A Leech, a bloodsucking cadaver, with an open death warrant.

  Ironic.

  One she intends to cash out.

  Until Bea sees it . . .

  And her breath flickers blue.

  She sees her. Standing there.

  Sickly pale in the moonlight.

  Clothing torn.

  Shoulder bare, small bck stars smeared under red spttered skin and still redder hair.

  Eight little scars, pinpricks, glistening.

  1483 Vervain Way.

  No breath.

  Yellow headphones and a star shaped purse.

  A fsh of hollow eyes. Doe-like and lightless. And dead. Like long rotten leaves, below the shady oak.

  A corpse. Humming to jittering music.

  As she moves to open the door.

  Keep her safe.

  * * *

  My skin burns. Cold metal sinking into my neck. Cracking cartige. I try to turn around, catching a glimpse of shimmering blue and olive tanned skin, edges breaking like static, as the steel toe of a heavy boot sms into my back. I don’t fight back. I can’t. As the metal rings in my head. Burning. Screaming.

  KILL ME. KILL ME. KILL ME.

  I crash into the screen door, as broken wire rakes my skin.

  Face smashing into hardwood.

  Wet and lukewarm. Bitter, more like bile than blood. As I hack a breath, more out of instinct than need.

  “I’m sorry Annie.” Bending through the broken door, she hesitantly steps. Steadily stalks, a Hunter. Smelling of ash. “It'll be over soon just . . . ” My blood wails as the bde rises, thrashes. My body tightened and frozen, breathless and unbeating. Eyes open. Ears thrumming. A knife bde running.

  As Beatrice aims to kill.

  I strike back.

  Nails rake bck leather. Tearing Bea’s jacket open. Rosemary and sandalwood burning my nose, as I grip into her side. My stomach growls. Her hand is almost uncertain, grip wavering. I take advantage.

  I twist out of the way. As the bde sinks into the hardwood and rug, with a shuddering crack. Like brittle bone, bleached in the summer sun.

  Two inches from my face.

  The dark steel gleaming in the dim light of the entry hall.

  Like her eyes.

  A haze blurring.

  A pale blue, like her breath.

  Winnowing.

  Magic.

  She promised to never . . . I’m not . . .

  My eyelids cmp shut. As my lips pull back. Bck smoke leaking between my canines. Blood thrumming, head screaming. Tears. Her tears. Like fire on my skin. As my breath flickers red. My eyes snap open. “FUCK YOU!”

  I shove her back.

  And everything breaks apart.

  . . .

  First thing I notice. I can’t feel my arms.

  Second. I’m in the basement.

  Splinters and half colpsed boxes surround me in the pitch dark, as dust billows like lownd fog. Coating me. Shoulder popping as I can feel my torn skin slither. I would be choking from hereditary asthma right now, but lucky me. Dead girls don't breathe.

  Well except to scream.

  “Shut up!” Bea sputters, cutting through my voice like the crack of thunder. “If they get here they're gonna take you in.”

  “As opposed to you killing me?!” I stumble from the pile, arms prickling and thorn, out of the pale light and into the dust-bitten dark. Away from the aetheric haze of her eyes. Gnawing. I fold into a pile of sports memorabilia. Ducking behind a cardboard box.

  “You don’t even know what you did.” She growls, before I can even ask who else is after me. Boots crashing. As dust plumes and swirls in her wake. A prowling coyote of a woman, speckled with blood, and face alight with anger and panic. Eyes darting. She can't find me. But I can smell her.

  Sweet and red. Iron below cedar and smoke.

  So, I find her first.

  Finger grip an oak handle. Thwack. Her leg buckles backwards, cold steel scraping the side of my face. I block her next strike, as it cuts into the wooden bat. She's strong, but now, I’m stronger. Snarling, I grasp her arm, turning away, and pull. Sending her six foot frame downwards, as her leg sweeps mine from under me.

  She’s still the Hunter . . . And I forgot where she was standing.

  Fuck magic.

  I crash on top of her. Or her on me? She’s shouting, I’m hissing. I can hardly hear my racing thoughts. Her face inches from mine. Her blood and mine, mingling, as my dead skin eats at warmth. Her bde scraping into my palm and my nails into her si— Fuck is that a six pack? Her scent is thick on my tongue. Something curing in my gut, slithering up my throat, as my stained lips give way to ruddy fangs.

  Her colrbone glisting, her lips soft.

  I am empty. Hollow.

  Closer.

  I want her.

  Crave.

  I need her

  Take.

  Bea

  Ki—

  “Ms Baker.” A beam of light stabs into my eyes. “We’ll take it from here.”

  Bea takes the opportunity.

  “Hide.” She whispers.

  Knee sms into my groin.

  * * *

  I see stars. I half squeak, and embarrassingly, and audibley, half moan. As I topple sideways off her. Bat cttering. Curling in a sudden blob of pain and chestnut hair, only comparable with my slow and excruciating murder. She cracked my nuts . . . again.

  She gets up, standing between me and the approaching figures at the open celr hatch, slowly climbing in. Hunters. Two men and one woman. Suits sleeker than their drawn pistols and daggers, and yet more beige than manil on a Monday mornin’.

  “Sup’ BOTEMs” Dusting off her leather jacket, and fixing her bangs. “You need something? I’m kinda busy here.”

  “Well firs—” The taller of the men speaks first, an offended look crossing his well groomed face. “You know we prefer The Beuro. Right? We’ve met before.”

  “It's not my fault that’s your acronym.” Chuckling. “‘Beuro for the Obfuscation of Thuama-memetic Events of the Myst.’ Kyler. ”

  Kyler’sface turns pink (I think, I still can't think straight). He sputters as he steps closer. “Well at least we don't go around calling ourselves FAGGs”

  “Woah dude.” The woman’s eyebrows furrow. “You can't just say that!”

  “Agreed.” Grumbles their final member, as Bea snorts in response.

  “Shut up!” Kyler whines, as his eyes gleam yellow. “Where's the ripper? Baker. I tracked her to this street, and this house has half its foyer blown out. ”

  “It's my score. I’ve got her handled.”

  “This isn't some normal drinker or biter on the mb after draining one too many frat boys.” “A ripper killed the Archwizard. That has consequences. She’s a dead girl walking.”

  “Hand her over” He steps closer. Gun point aimed at her chest.

  “No.” She pulls her weapon.

  “Baker, don’t make m—”

  I lunge for his throat.

  I hardly feel the bullets as my teeth sink into his jugur. I rip and tear, fangs ganshing. Blood. Warm blood. Living blood. Soaks my throat. The thirst churning in my every dead cell won't let me stop. More. More. MORE.

  Until a bde sluices upon my gut . . . And my atrophied intestines spill onto me and my prey. Like a dark slithering mass of squelching snakes. Lost in the crimsone ecstasy, and now pain. I hardly notice.

  “Leave her the fuck alone.” Beatrice stabs the woman in the gut.

  “You’re helping the vampire!?” Her breath tinges red, as her fingers crackle. “Traitor!” And a bolt of scralet lighying, courses through Bea’s bme asn throught her body, twitching and bruning, as she falls into the ground.

  Unmoving.

  Snaps back. Just as the half eaten man stabs through.

  And another bde.

  And another.

  The bdes scream. Wordlessly.

  KILL HIM. KILL HER. KILL THEM.

  I wail like a durge as my pale skin blisters and boils, as every bone vibrates with a frigid pain. Every part of me is on fire. Smoke churning from every opening, the color of scabbing blood, as I open my jaws. Releasing a sound that's mine and the daggers’. Mine and the thing they can't hear, as they will it to tear me open. The thing that twists like my viscous blood. Now only a scream.

  KILL THEM. KILL THEM. KILL THEM.

  I scream.

  And with a shudder, it all goes quiet. As the agents disappear. Into the dark. Leaving only the cluttered room, bathed in glistening red and brittle white. Tendrils of flesh floating and unwound, like a pealed apple. Until with a final exhale, they all drop. Unspooled organs, strips of skin, and peeled bones, spshing in blood and dust. Clothing fallen, untouched.

  I snort.

  As I hear a strangled gasp, only to see Bea. Making a face I didn't know she could make. As she turns, and runs. Runs form me. Out of the horror show, and into the night. It's sprinkling again. I can smell the petrichor, and hear the rain. A calming patter now so dissonant.

  I struggle to get up, tripping and almost slipping, as I manage to grab a red stained jacket, hosting it over my bare shoulders. As I step out into the side yard. Following a faint scent. Rosemary and sandalwood, smoke and coffee.

  Avoiding the gnces of waking neighbors in the distance. I stumble into the street.

  In a passing puddle I see, not the same corpse watching back at me. But a girl, a monster, bathed in blood. With eyes of emerald green. Faintly, flicking red.

  I take a deep breath. Red streaks mixing with the rain on my face. I look at the lights of the overgrown city center. To where people are. Where Bea is. I reach towards it.

  And run.