บท 26: Mercy
Cain found a spot not too far from the temple where he felt mostly confident he'd not only be able to spot the vampire once he left, but would also be able to avoid the sun if the vampire somehow managed to leave during the daylight hours. It had never happened before, but there was a first time for everything. If nothing else, the last night had certainly taught him that. His chest still felt slightly warm, like a soft glow was resting behind his breastbone. It felt odd, like he had a beating heart again. It was difficult to adjust to the sensation. He wondered if the witch's werewolf boy had felt a similar pull from the moment he first felt drawn to Cain, or if it was a different sensation altogether. He'd thought the poor pup's imprinting on him to be an inconsequential accident and altogether unimportant for the rest of his day-to-day living. He'd certainly not expected the mate-bond the young werewolf felt to be so important that it would save him from the same thrice-blessed blood that the boy's mother had treated once before. It was somewhat ironic, to think that he now not only owed his life (undeath) to the old witch, but now also her werewolf son.
Eventually, the night became day, and Cain pressed as deep back into the recess of the hollowed tree as he could, hoping the sunlight wouldn't find a lucky path to him. Whether it was the continued protection of Brinn, or just dumb luck, he managed to survive a day in the tree without being burnt to a crisp. He continued to watch the temple, shielding his eyes against the awful brightness of a daytime sun, but saw nothing. The screams had ended an hour or two after Cain's welcome had been revoked, so he'd expected a hasty exit. Instead, nothing had happened. If the vampire still didn't leave by midnight, Cain would return to the temple and demand answers. If the priests and priestesses of Brinn had managed to sneak the clan's traitor out through another entrance, Cain might just risk the wrath of the goddess by doing a bit of light property damage. (Even in rage, Cain wasn't the sort to risk the level of divine animosity that killing a priest would certainly earn).
If he was lucky, the vampire was just too weak to move, and therefore had not yet exited. It wouldn't be the first time a vampire was so weak they couldn't find the strength to exit the temple complex. It happened far more often with blood sacrifices - if they sacrificed the eyes and didn't exit, there was a good chance their abilities were being taken advantage of by the priests and priestesses who now held total control over the subservient vampire.
In any case, Cain just had to wait out the day and hope for the best.
For once, it seemed as though fate favored him, because the vampire didn't appear until just after sunset, clearly in no condition to be traveling but also no longer welcome in the temple. Cain waited until the vampire had put a little distance between himself and the temple, but wasn't near enough to the edge of town to draw attention. Once the vampire was distant enough, Cain took a little bit of time taking care of a small but necessary preparation, and then made his approach.
When he appeared before the weakened vampire, he could see his hands were already shaking. Whether it was from pain, or blood-hunger, though, remained to be seen.
"Going somewhere?" Cain asked, mostly to catch the vampire's attention. The man was called Thomas Fletcher, and he'd never made much of an impression on Cain. Now he never would.
Thomas drew back in alarm, grimacing as a look of exhausted comprehension crossed his face. "You," he said, voice heavy, "Solveig sent you."
"He did," Cain confirmed.
"Can't you just let me go?" Thomas asked. "Just this once? For a day or two? I want to taste freedom, if only for a little bit."
Taste was a funny word for him to use, given the condition he was likely already suffering from, though he may not have realized it yet. Cain shook his head slowly. "Believe me, it's better if you never find out."
"I don't believe you," argued the vampire, scowling at Cain. "Of course you'd want to discourage me. You have no respect for a thrall who longs for free-"
Cain sighed internally, and then asked, bluntly. "You hungry?"
Thomas blinked in surprise, his (likely prepared) monologue momentarily forgotten. "...why do you ask?"
That was good, it was wise to be cautious. Cain wasn't really being tricky, though, he was just trying to prove a point. "I got blood," he said, and plucked the little flask of blood from his inner pocket. He was fairly certain it hadn't been affected by the divine energy of the temple, but just in case, he sniffed it before taking a sip. It tasted cold, and congealed. Altogether, not great. But the instant it hit his tongue, Cain could feel some of the stress and exhaustion lift from his body. Blood was potent stuff, to a vampire. "Want some?" he offered the pocket flask to Thomas.
Thomas was staring at the small flask, a confused frown creasing his forehead. "...no," he said.
"It's safe," Cain said. "I just drank it myself."
"That's okay, I'll pass," Thomas said.
"You've been through a very intense ritual, surely you're tired," Cain insisted. "If not this, maybe you could find a donor in town to satiate your hunger?" he gestured back over his shoulder.
Thomas' gaze followed his gesture, but his frown didn't lessen. "I don't think so…" he said, a bit faintly.
"Why not?" Cain asked. He already knew why, even if Thomas hadn't figured it out yet.
The vampire's frown deepened as he turned his gaze back to Cain. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "Stop it!"
"You've done it to yourself," Cain answered. You poor fool, he didn't say aloud, though his tone conveyed the message clearly enough.
Thomas was blinking hard, glancing between Cain, and back over his shoulder in the direction of the temple. "What do you mean?"
The answer may have been obvious to Cain, but that was mostly because of his role as a clan enforcer. Most of the vampires in the Solveig clan had no knowledge of what happened after you broke the bond, the ways that they would suffer. If they knew they would never attempt it. "Did you never wonder about the many stories we hear of desperate vampires feeding on their own blood?"
Thomas frowned. "What does that have to do with me? With the ritual?"
Cain just leveled a cold stare in his direction.
The vampire grew more agitated. "You're lying!" he snarled, "I feel fine! Why would I do something as stupid as feed on myself?"
"Why, indeed?" Cain echoed. He shook his blood-flask again. "Hungry now?"
"Stop asking me that!" Thomas snarled. "I'm not!"
"Why not?" Cain pressed.
"I just don't feel hungry," Thomas said. A strange look crossed his face as he said it.
Vampires were never completely satisfied. The first thing a vampire learned was how much blood they needed to recover without creating waste, because only so much power could be gained through the consumption of blood. But the hunger of a vampire was unholy and not easily satisfied. A vampire learned how much they needed to survive through trial and error, because the hunger for blood never truly went away. Vampires were unholy creatures of a twisted immortality curse, and that dark magic craved blood constantly. Vampires were never "not hungry."
Thomas was starting to look less confused and more awed, now. "I'm not hungry," he said, quietly.
This was the next stage of the purification. Some vampires experienced a sense of denial, and became convinced that they had been saved from their cursed affliction. The euphoria of being not hungry for the first time in eternity was enough to make many believe they were cured, made whole again. But they still had no soul, and unholy, soulless creatures couldn't be cured, because there was no magic to bestow a soul upon a creature that had none. Perhaps there was some way to retrieve a soul that had been lost, but if the magic existed, it had long since been lost to time.
"You're not hungry because it's inverting," Cain said, wishing faintly he had the energy to show compassion to the poor, foolish vampire. "Soon you will start to hunger again, but it will be all wrong."
Thomas' awe was gradually turning to anger. "So I will just die anyway? Is that what you're saying? I should just stand here and take it because I am going to die whether you kill me or not?"
Cain sighed, and tucked the blood flask back into his breast pocket before shucking his coat entirely, setting it aside. "Consider this the mercy of the Solveig, that you will die by my hand, and not your own," he said tiredly.
Thomas snarled, flashing his fangs like a wild animal. "Mercy?" he hissed. "What a joke." Then, he surged towards Cain, and the fight began.
Thomas was weakened by the ritual, and even weaker because he had not realized just how weak he truly was. Beyond that, the man had never been an especially good fighter - Crowe had despaired of him long before Cain was even turned. Thomas mostly worked with Morgan, as one of those who coordinated the shifts and duties of the thralls. Sometimes, Cain suspected that although she was human, Morgan actually held more power than Thomas, given how much power she had over all the thralls in the Solveig fortress.
However, Thomas also had one advantage that most of Cain's victims did not; Cain was himself weakened by his own recent encounter with the holy blood. He could smell the divine magic radiating off of Thomas, and it made him slightly ill whenever the vampire drew too close. Thomas fought like a cat, all teeth and claws and hisses. Cain did his best to avoid the strikes, economizing his movements so that he only dodged when necessary. He didn't have as much energy to spare as he usually did, and these fights could go for awhile. In this instance, though, his best bet was to injure Thomas gravely enough that the blood-hunger inverted at a more rapid pace. Once the vampire started thirsting after his own blood, it would be much easier to take him down.
Cain dodged another slashing attack from Thomas, but he'd miscalculated the speed at which the other vampire was able to attack. The claws caught him in the shoulder, tearing through delicate flesh, and Cain bit back a hiss of pain as he danced away, taking several extra steps to create distance between himself and Thomas. When he looked up, he saw his adversary do something truly disturbing. Thomas was licking Cain's blood from his fingers, running his tongue along the sharp edges of his claws.
Vampire blood was only fed to humans, during the turning process. As far as Cain knew, it had no value to a vampire, and could not sustain them. But there was a mad light in Thomas' eyes as he tasted Cain's blood, a sick smile curling his lips. "You know," the vampire said slowly, a gravelly rumble in his chest that sounded very unlike the Thomas of mere moments earlier, "I think this blood-hunger inversion might not be such a bad thing, after all." His eyes danced with madness as he took a step towards Cain.
Cain took a step back, eyeing the man warily.
"I don't feel any hunger for human blood," Thomas continued, "And I don't have to listen to any of Solveig's fucking commands anymore." He started to laugh then, baring his fangs - a clear sign that he was preparing to feed - as he continued stalking towards Cain. "But you? Oh, I could drain you dry in under a minute."
This… was new. And profoundly uncomfortable.
Cain felt the heat of Brinn's divine power pulse softly behind his breastbone, and wondered, faintly, if perhaps the bond magic there had done something to him, after all. Because he had never seen a sanctified vampire hunger after a vampire's blood, not any more than he had seen a sanctified vampire seek out a human's blood. But he had seen the way that an inverted blood hunger sought blood that had been made pure through a ritual. In every case he had witnessed, the only blood that fit that criteria had been the vampire's own blood.
But now, Cain had been exposed to that same ritual as Thomas. Had the ritual fundamentally altered his own blood, somehow? And if that was the case, why was he still enthralled to Solveig? It didn't seem fair that he ran the risk of blood hunger himself while also being caught under the heel of a powerful vampire master. But then, Cain's life had never been particularly fair, much less the shitty hand he'd been dealt in his undeath.
"This is incredible," Thomas said, his laughter bordering on mania. "I don't have to die if I can defeat you. I can live! I can be free!"
Cain flexed his fingers, hating the way the Solveig enthrallment tugged at the back of his mind, reminding him that he couldn't run away, even when facing a far more dangerous threat than he had originally anticipated. He had no choice. He would have to stand and fight, and hope that Thomas' ability to gain power from Cain's blood was a temporary stage in the blood-hunger inversion. If he could survive long enough for the blood-hunger to finish, Thomas might change his tune.
For now though, Cain's only option was to survive. What came after that was anyone's guess.
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