Chapter Text
The city night was an eternal, humid bruise, leaching the color from everything it touched. Moving through it was a woman with hair of an extraordinary cascade of midnight blue—the pigment of a deep sea trench, barely contained by the high, severe collar of her travel-worn cape. The garment itself was a second skin of heavy wool, big enough to hide a multitude of sins and the silver-tipped secrets she carried beneath it.
It was night, and the air was thick with the city’s exhaust and the faint, unsettling aroma of magic and. Shimmer. She moved with a kind of grace that suggested both discipline and danger as she headed for a brothel known for its discretion and isolation.
She turned a corner and in the distance, she could already see it, tucked away in a district where morals were traded cheaply and anonymity was expensive. As she neared the establishment, she felt an instant, subtle disturbance behind the shadows.
Someone was following her.
She proceeded as if oblivious, allowing the encounter to unfold on her schedule, not theirs.
She continued and pushed the heavy oak door open. The scent of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and rich mahogany hit her first, followed by the low, familiar thrum of bass and hushed conversations. She was a regular, known to the staff not by name, but by the respect she commanded and the heavy gold she left behind.
As she moved past the reception, her focus was not on the faces waiting in the plush seating. It was on a subtle coldness, a flicker of unnatural stillness just outside the edge of her peripheral vision.
Not a civilian.
It was a scent like ozone and old iron, and it lingered on the street like a stain. Her nose scrunched at the stench.
Still, she didn't look back. She merely chose a room on the second floor and let the evening dissolve the tension from her shoulders, all the while keeping that faint, icy prickle centered in her mind.
…
Several hours later, her errand was complete. She left the brothel and turned immediately into a shadowed alleyway, a common choice for a shortcut, and a perfect stage for an ambush. As expected, she had not gone far when the air solidified around her.
Predictable.
Three figures, lean and unnervingly still, blocked her path. Their eyes glowing red and their smiles were long and hungry.
Vampires.
The one in the center, taller and clearly the leader, wore a predatory smirk as he started to slowly walk towards her.
"humans shouldn’t be out in the streets so late,” the leader said, his voice a mocking rasp. He circled her slowly, assessing, then let out a low chuckle.
“It’s been too long since we’ve tasted something worth the effort.” The other vampire, noticeably larger and paler, grinned, a flicker of drool at the corner of his mouth as he devoured her with his gaze.
The woman remained motionless, her head steady, but her eyes were sharp, tracking every calculated shift the three creatures made.
“We shall end you tonight, Huntress,” the leader declared, his tone laced with absolute finality. As if this time, they will succeed.
A soft, mocking chuckle suddenly escaped the hunter's lips. “You should know better, Deckard.”
The leader, Deckard, jolted, his eyes widening for a fleeting moment at the mention of his name before the shock gave way to a furious growl. He dropped back slightly, moving to flank her, and signaled his two companions with a sharp gesture. The hunter’s right hand subtly began to move beneath the folds of her cape.
Deckard's signal was the last warning she needed.
The attack was immediate, delivered with the speed too fluid to be human. The larger one, a pale brute, lunged first, his claws extended, aiming for her throat.
The hunter moved with a speed that outstripped theirs. Her hand drew a compact pistol from a hidden holster. Its dark metal gleamed faintly, accented with subtle inlays of midnight blue. She raised it in a swift, practiced motion.
The first shot cracked in the confined alley, impossibly loud. It struck the larger vampire cleanly in the knee, shattering the bone and sending him crashing to the ground with a guttural roar of pain. He would not be moving far.
Before the sound of the first shot fully dissipated, the hunter spun. The second vampire, caught between advancing and retreating, found himself directly in her line of fire. Another sharp report, and this one, too, collapsed, clutching a ruined leg.
Then there was silence, broken only by the groans of the two incapacitated vampires.
Deckard, who had been preparing his own lunge, was frozen. His predatory glare had vanished, replaced by fear as the Hunter slowly turned her head, fixing him with a gaze that promised an entirely different kind of terror than death.
His carefully constructed dominance had crumbled in seconds.
Suddenly, a faint, chilling smirk curled on the hunter’s lips. She began to walk toward the vampire, her boots crunching lightly on the alley's grit. Deckard instinctively shuffled backward, panic tightening his throat.
“Too bad I couldn't say the same,” the hunter murmured, her voice silkier now, colder than the silver on her pistol. She stopped just before him, towering in her dark cape. “You’re not even worth the effort.”
As she spoke, the deep blue of her eyes intensified, the color shifting inward until two brilliant, hungry sapphires seemed to glow from within. Deckard’s eyes widened at the realization.
“Please, I-I didn’t know.” he whimpered, he continued to crawl backwards until his back hit the cold wall. Realizing he has nowhere left to run, he turned to her.
“Please, Caitlyn, have merc–”
What followed was only the sickening, wet sound of breaking skin and cartilage yielding, and the heavy, metallic splatter of blood against the brick wall.
The alley had claimed its price.
—
“Idiots!”
The sudden, violent noise of a breakdown ripped through the stale quiet of the room. It began with the high-pitched shing of shattering glass, followed quickly by the heavy, frustrated boom of metal-on-metal.
Jinx groaned, the noise successfully yanking her out of a deep, much-needed nap. She was currently suspended high above the ground, laying comfortably in a frayed canvas hammock she had painstakingly secured between two thick, dusty ceiling beams. Up here, the light was dimmer and the air marginally cleaner, making it her preferred sanctuary.
"Again," she muttered, rolling her shoulders. The wooden beam beneath her fingers vibrated with the aftershock of the tantrum.
She slowly opened her eyes and peered down through the webbing of the hammock. Below, bathed in the burning out fluorescent light of the main workshop floor, was her father, the Chem-Baron, Silco. His slim body was vibrating with silent rage, his nose flaring in and out as he rubbed his hands over the sides of his head in utter frustration.
The broken glass, Jinx noted, was from a glass bottle he had probably knocked off his table. The metallic rumble was the result of a tossed metal plate.
Jinx sighed, already getting bored. This was not new, it was merely Tuesday. The temper of centuries-old vampires, even one who ran a sketchy operation by night, remained predictable.
She shifted her weight, rolling onto her back in the canvas hammock. With a bare foot, she nudged the rough surface of the nearest ceiling beam, initiating a slow, rhythmic sway that smoothed the tension from her posture.
"What is it this time?" she asked lazily, her voice carrying resignation across the echoing space to her distracted father.
Silco stopped rubbing his temples, his gaze snapping upward to the ceiling then back to the crumpled paper he was gripping.
“Deckard’s pack,” Silco spat, the name laced with fury and contempt. He kicked a fallen oil can, sending it skittering across the wooden floor. “They’re dead. All three.”
He threw his hands up, a frustrated gesture. “Not only that, but their lifeblood was consumed. They were thoroughly and efficiently fed upon. Sucked dry.”
Silco’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. “It’s an abomination, Jinx. the hunter is weaponizing one of our own. She has a pet, a controllable feeder, who preys on us and leaves nothing but corpses.”
Jinx stopped swaying, her feet instinctively pressing against the beam to halt her movement. Her eased demeanor instantly dissolved, replaced by tension.
“So,” Jinx said, sitting up abruptly, her bare feet now dangling in the air. “She took the alley bait. And she brought a vampire with her to clean up the mess.”
Just then, a rough step echoed from the entrance. Sevika, Silco’s right-hand person, walked quickly towards them.
“Silco,” Sevika said, her voice taut, ignoring the broken glass and Silco’s simmering temper. “The brothel where she came from says she’s a regular, tips heavy. But nothing on where she went. No one even saw her...prisoner.”
Silco’s face, already flushed with anger, darkened further. His jaw clenched, and a low, rumbling sound began deep in his chest.
He snarled, slamming his fist down on the old wooden desk, stacks of paper and objects went clattering all over the floor. “She walks into a public establishment, leaves a trail of evidence, and vanishes, and not one of those bloodsucking sycophants can give us a direction? Useless! They are all utterly useless!”
Jinx, watching the steam practically rise off her father, let a sliver of genuine, almost detached curiosity replace her frustration. She pushed off the beam to sway slightly again, her attention drawn by a detail Silco was ignoring in his rage.
"Wait," Jinx interjected, tilting her head. "Did you say brothel? Where people go to fuck?"
Silco sighed and was now back on rubbing his temples "Now is hardly the time for your idle curiosity about the local trade in flesh, Jinx."
Jinx’s expression tightened into a flat, dismissive frown. Beside Silco, Sevika made a low, almost cynical chuckle. The dismissal was routine, but tonight, Jinx felt the edge of impatience.
She pushed off the beam, her body unwinding from the hammock. She dropped lightly onto the wooden table before stepping down onto the floor. It was the first time she had been on the ground in hours, and her movements were fluid and silent.
Silco, momentarily distracted, watched her move toward the door.
"Where are you going?" he demanded, his voice suddenly laced with concern, the remnants of his fit forgotten in the face of her sudden action.
Jinx reached for the cold steel of the knob and looked back at her father over her shoulder, a small, unnerving smile playing on her lips.
"I'm going to feed," she simply stated.
She then turned the knob and pulled the door open, allowing the cold, magnetic scent of the night to rush into the room, before stepping out and closing the door, leaving Silco and Sevika standing in the dim, messy light.
—
The massive oak front doors groaned shut behind her, the heavy sound echoing through the spacious foyer. Caitlyn didn't even register the journey up the winding, darkened hill, all that mattered was the oppressive silence that instantly swallowed her.
She had just returned home.
The cold, hollow confines of her bedroom instantly struck her. The night air, thin and sharp, seeped through the ancient, single-paned windows, penetrating her coat and chilling her bones to the marrow.
She didn’t mind though. Coldness was a part of her.
Caitlyn resided on the city's far side, a place of forgotten history and unending shadow atop the highest point where the wind always mourned. There, perched like a vigil watching the distant city lights, lay her family's century-old, sprawling stone manor.
The space was more tomb than a home, vast and relentlessly empty. A ballroom where dust motes danced in single columns of moonlight, hallways where footsteps vanished without an echo.
The only person occupying the manor now was Caitlyn herself.
and the thing that lurked behind the shadow, waiting patiently in the echoing emptiness.
She reached up and unclasped the heavy silver hook at her throat. The thick, travel-stained cape slipped from her shoulders, falling on the polished marble floor like a freshly shed skin, the release of its weight was immediate.
She stood for a moment, listening.
The chill that now crept into her bare neck wasn't just the cold of the old house, it was the icy breath of something that had been waiting for the door to close.
“The house had enough lingering ghosts as it is,” Caitlyn whispered, she began to strip off her clothes, her movements slow, almost ceremonial. She started with her shoes, kicking the expensive leather onto the dusty marble. Then, with an unhurried grace, she unfastened her belt, slipped out of her heavy top, and let her pants fall to join the discarded cape far below.
She stood in the deep chill, exposed in only her undergarments. The cold air raised goosebumps on her skin, but she didn’t shiver. She actively let the lingering presence watch her.
Caitlyn didn't need to see the entity to feel its change. She could already sense the deepening of its own breathing.
The silence finally shattered, cut by a voice like crushed ice, brittle and strangely musical.
“You reek,”
the hunter remained facing her bed, not turning to where the voice spoke from. Her own heightened senses confirmed the presence was shifting, pulling away from the deep shadow it had occupied. She heard the softest abrasion of silk against stone as the person slowly started to step out into the darkness, showing herself.
“I can smell Deckard on you,” the voice added, laced with a hint of disgust.
Caitlyn finally turned. There stood a girl who should have been a vision of delicate beauty, yet radiated dangerous energy. Her hair was a vibrant powder-blue that seemed to absorb and hold the moonlight. Her skin was unnaturally pale, like polished bone, and starkly contrasted with the most arresting feature, her eyes. They glowed with an internal, fierce power, burning in a hue unlike any of her kind, a searing, hostile magenta.
The vampire stepped fully into a patch of moonlight. The hunter met her gaze.
An entire minute stretched between them, thick and heavy, both refusing to waver. The vampire’s magenta eyes burned while Caitlyn’s were steady, unreadable, and assessing.
She was the one to break the silence, her voice cutting through the stillness like a razor on skin—flat, devoid of emotion.
"I'm sorry about your friend." Caitlyn gave a short, almost imperceptible shrug before turning her back and started to walk towards the bathroom. “He got in the way.”
The vampire's perfect porcelain face, instead of exploding in grief, creased into an expression of cold disdain.
"He's stupid, and he’s not my friend," the vampire replied, the words spitting venomously.
Deckard isn’t just some random vampire she decided to kill, they knew each other and even had the chance to be in each other’s company, even for a short time. Unfortunately, their worlds were just far too different and he was a bridge Caitlyn had decided to burn, a shared history of a damage too severe to repair. The sorrow of that necessary act was a stone in Caitlyn’s own gut.
Caitlyn heard the Vampire’s footsteps following her. She sighed before she stepped into the tiled bathroom. The space was colder than the hall, smelling faintly of mildew and ancient copper. She walked directly to the massive sink, twisted the brass faucet hard, and the rusty water shuddered before bursting forth.
She started to splash handfuls of ice-cold water onto her face, scrubbing away the faint traces of road dust and the metallic scent of dried blood from the creatures she’d hunted. Her eyes remained closed, seeking a moment of absolute, desperate blankness.
Caitlyn paused, dripping water on the floor, and opened her eyes to stare at her own reflection in the mottled mirror but all she saw was the magenta glow reflected in the periphery, the vampire standing right behind her.
“What are you doing here, Jinx?” Caitlyn asked, her voice tight and accusatory.
Jinx, the vampire, walked closer, her posture rigid and serious. “Silco’s looking for you. You pissed him off, killing his favorite labrat.”
Caitlyn’s face, wet and cold, creased sharply at the mention of the name, the cold water failing to mask the sudden unease.
“What were you thinking?” Jinx asked again, moving close enough that Caitlyn could feel the unnatural chill radiating from her skin. The scolding sharpness in her tone wasn't enough to hide the unmistakable layer of concern that softened the final word.
Caitlyn moved away from the sink, creating distance between them. She looked down at her bare arms, where the gooseflesh was rising thick and fast.
“I… I needed to feed,” Caitlyn whispered, the confession a defeated admission of her true nature.
Jinx stopped dead, the glow in her eyes dimming. She didn't need Caitlyn to elaborate. She knew the hunter's curse, and had figured it out a decade ago. Caitlyn was part human, part vampire. Her blood lineage was a collision—her mother from an ancient line of vampire hunters, and her father, a powerful bloodsucker who had betrayed the world for a moment of human warmth.
Caitlyn had always been torn between two worlds. The human part anchored her to morality and the hunt, the vampire part granted her strength, speed, immortality, and the inescapable hunger. She knew she only had to choose one world, but the necessity of the vampire's thirst always pulled her back into the shadows she swore to eradicate.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Jinx whispered, the furious ember in her eyes softening with sudden vulnerability. She walked back to Caitlyn, closing the distance the hunter had tried to impose. Her hand reached out, hovering over the hunter’s jawline, about to caress her cheek.
Caitlyn, however, suddenly moved her face, turning her head sharply away from the impending touch. The movement was a rejection as sharp as any wooden stake.
She sighed, “Please leave.” Caitlyn then took a step back, “I told you, we can never see each other again,” the hunter stated, crossing her arms defensively over her bare chest as she faced the vampire.
The hurt that seeped through the bloodsucker’s face was quick and faint, a single, devastating moment of vulnerability, before it instantly morphed into something vicious; anger, hate, and a glint of challenge.
A playful, predatory smirk crossed Jinx’s lips, replacing the raw emotion. She started to walk towards Caitlyn with a more confident, sensual stride, her magenta eyes blazing.
“Alright, half-breed,” she said, her voice dropping to a suggestive purr, her face now dangerously close to the hunter's ear. “I’ll leave.”
Jinx pulled back just enough for their eyes to meet, her gaze lowered down to Caitlyn’s lips, the promise of something shimmering beneath the surface of her charm.
“But let me feed first.”