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Year 60
Cassian knew that he had better things that he could have been doing, but instead he was scaling a wall and climbing through the open window of a brothel. He wasn’t really sure why he was doing it, only that he wasn’t thinking about it.
All gods, I hope it’s the right one.
Even for him, this was a stupid move. He knew it while he looked up at his goal, and he still knew it when his clawed hand gripped the windowsill. He’d never even done anything like this while he was with Briar. Not that he could remember, anyways. But even though he’d just abandoned a bloody scene, his veins were already starting to itch under his skin once more, aching for the familiar thrill of a good fight.
A fight which he wasn’t going to get, since they’d agreed to abandon their whole dance. He wasn’t going to be the one to break their truce.
An empty bottle was smashed into the nightstand before his feet ever hit the ground. The next thing he knew he was thrown full force onto the floor, his face pressed hard into unfinished wood. He almost shot back up, until he felt her knee digging into the curve of his spine. It would have been easy to break her hold, as easy as she’d put him in it. She left herself wide open for him to retaliate, with one of her hands braced on the floor by his neck, one knee bearing her weight down against his back, and the other next to his ribs. The sharp edges of the glass bottle were lightly pressed into his jaw. It was enough to be a clear threat but not enough to cut. He couldn’t tell if she wanted him to try and bite at her wrist, or if she was just rusty and caught off guard. He thought he might flip their positions, but that would be a very rude way to express his gratitude. Which he hadn’t yet decided to give.
He wasn’t all that sure what he was there for.
“Good evening, Wraith,” he muttered, watching her scowl out of the corner of his eye. He held his hands flat on the floor above his head, splinters from the wood threatened to snag at his crimson skin. He tried to smile, but it looked more like he was flashing his fangs at her. They were still protruding a little bit, and the red color that his arms and ears turned hadn’t quite yet faded from the recent kill. Luckily his eyes had changed back while he was climbing.
He waited for her reply, but it never came. She pressed her knee down harder instead. His claws lightly scraped the floor when his fingers twitched. He eyed her without any disguise, taking in the full state of her. He half expected make-up or some scrap of fake jewelry, but she wore neither. Her eyes were tired, and glared down at him like twin yellow stars. She was wearing simply a plain looking nightgown and a bandage wrapped around her right arm. She wasn’t dressed like she worked in a brothel. Now that he thought about it, she might not have been dressed the part when they briefly made eye contact from where he stood in the street. He wasn’t looking for her, he just happened to glance up from the street and saw her spot him at the same time.
“That was a neat trick with your spear,” he said, meeting her cold gaze, “I didn’t realize you followed me.”
She’d saved his life. His target had friends that he hadn’t accounted for. Vampires, like Cassian himself, so he had no way of tracking the number of heartbeats. They were younger, freshly turned from what he gathered. But Cassian himself hadn’t been a vampire for even half a century. It would probably have been his own body stuffed in a barrel beneath a bridge if she hadn’t helped him out.
She eased up on the bottle, but didn’t move it far away, and kept her full weight on her knee. “Your footwork was off,” she said after a minute of contemplation.
“One of his friends got me in the shin,” he tried to explain. It was a flimsy excuse. She leaned back to try to get a look, but he had the injury well covered. “Worried, Wraith? Don’t be, I heal fast.”
Her scowl only deepened. She leaned forward again, her hair falling around their faces like a curtain. It almost glowed in the candle-light, dark strands illuminated in a flickering warm light. He couldn’t figure out if it was more of a claret violet or a pale clay color. It seemed to be both when met with candle glow and soft shadows. Her breathing was harsh against his skin, too fast for how controlled the rest of her movements were. “Which one were you after?” she finally asked him.
“The human man who had the tattoo over his eye, En Throxton. He was wanted in three kingdoms across the way.”
“What for?”
“Targeted acts of violence against ‘demonic’ women.” He tried to say it matter-of-factly, like it cost him nothing, but the words left him in a slow way, like he was unwillingly chewing each one before swallowing it. He had planned to kill the man much slower than he did.
One of her long ears twitched, but her expression didn’t change. “Is that why you’re here?”
He knew what she was asking, but he decided to play dumb. “Why I’m in Thorrid or why I climbed through your window?”
“Both.”
“I’m in Thorrid for the bounty, it was business. I tracked him to this point, but I didn’t realize he had a crew with him. I didn’t think he was that smart. The window was…” he trailed off, trying to think of a good explanation. He didn’t have one. “My own idiocy, I suppose. When I was approaching him I heard him saying some things about a brothel that he passed by earlier, and then your spear flew by me. I thought I would come see what all the fuss was about.”
She didn’t reply immediately. He’d given her as much confirmation about her suspicions as he was willing to give himself. Her eyes moved rapidly over his face, searching for any signs of deception. When she found none, she moved off of him and sat with her back against the bed. “You came to check on me.”
“I wouldn’t phrase it like that,” he said as he rolled over onto his back to look up at her. “But tell me, what’s a woman like you doing in a place like this?”
“I work here as a healer. And security, when necessary. Trel is friends with the owner, Catrina, and he got me the job. It’s free room and board for as long as I need it.”
“That’s generous.” Cassian’s voice was drier than he intended as he sat up fully, rolling his shoulders back with a faint crack. She watched him rub his jaw where the bottle had pressed in. She’d been careful enough not to draw any blood. She stood fully, wiping dust and broken glass off of her legs, and then carefully set the broken bottle back onto her nightstand. It rolled for two seconds, and nearly fell before it was stopped by a second, half-full bottle of something cheap looking.
“I give a cut of all my earnings to her,” the Wraith explained, “She’s a faithful woman. Worships ‘the’ sunsol, apparently.”
“So you’re sitting in as her personal living saint?”
“More or less.”
Cassian considered this for a moment. He already knew that the Wraith herself wasn’t faithful to any god of her own soul-line, she might as well have renounced them both after he told her about his deal with Lady Death and Sire Life. But if indulging someone else kept her somewhere safe, then it would have made sense. But then again, he wasn’t under the impression that this place was safe, much less legal. “And the other women,” he asked, “how’d they end up here?”
She scoffed, almost laughed. Her expression went back to deadpan when she saw that he was serious. “This isn’t a brothel, Hollow Man, it’s a goods and services establishment. Did you even look at the sign?”
He’d barely glanced at the front door before deciding that her window was a safer bet.
When he didn’t say anything immediately, she took it as a sign to continue her explanation. “I offer healing, the woman next door to me offers cleaning services, the woman next to her will offer manuscript editing or accounting work when the mood strikes her. Do you need more examples?” She raised an eyebrow, as if daring him to say yes. He decided not to take the bait, though he’d already made an ass of himself just by showing up.
“No, I think I get the picture. My apologies, Wraith.”
“Accepted,” she replied, turning her head to look out her still open window, to the crowded street below, before her gaze drifted to the glass on the floor from the shattered bottle, “It’s nice to know that you’re still holding on to the notion that only you have the right to kill me.”
“I’m not,” he said defensively, casting a meaningless glare up at her. She met his gaze evenly, clearly not believing him. He didn’t really believe himself either. His obsession with her had morphed into something far less sharp, but it was still a sore enough spot for him that anyone could see it. He could not think of a name for it, so he decided it was some sort of twisted respect. He certainly didn’t love her, but he didn’t hate her anymore and he knew that it wasn’t indifference, otherwise he wouldn’t have come.
Silence stretched out between them for a very long moment, thick with bloodied history and the scent of burning candle wax. Her breathing was still faster than what he would have considered to be calm. Cassian’s claws had retracted by then, and his skin had returned to its usual brown color.
The Wraith extended a hand down for him to take. He did take it, but did most of the work to push himself up so as to not bother the bandaged arm that her hand was attached to. She looked him over for a moment, gave him the same studying look that he’d given her earlier. She must have spotted the blood on his boots, because her gaze lingered there when she finally spoke again. “That man would have come here if you hadn’t.”
Cassian dusted himself off, smoothing out his dark clothes. “Let’s not get sentimental, Wraith,” he said, while plucking out a splinter from his palm, “he would have met the same fate to you as he did to me.”
The Hollow Man might not have remembered to be slow about the kill, but he wasn’t particularly gentle. Once the four vampires were dead, three becoming dust and one as just a body, Throxton was just a big man who grossly overestimated himself. Cassian lived for moments like that, when he could completely let loose and tear a person to shreds. Of course, he had to leave him recognizable enough so that he could collect his money. Which meant that he could stomp him into a barrel and roll him under a bridge for easy storage until he was finished with his other business.
She would not have been nearly as thoughtful about it. If Throxton used the front door, then she would have been clinical, her movements would have been sharp and efficient and the man would have been dead in under thirty seconds. If he used the window, then there might have been more of a struggle, but it would have ended with a bottle in his neck.
“You should go,” she told him, nodding towards the window.
“Of course,” he agreed, pushing some glass into a pile with his boot. When he’d climbed mostly out he turned back to cast her one last look. “I’ll see you around, Wraith.”
She nodded again, her eyes never leaving his. “Never again, I hope.” He half expected the comment to sting, but only found it mildly amusing as he finally climbed out of her room and back down the wall. With their luck they’d see each other again in just a month.
The barrel was almost right where he left it, though it’d fallen onto its side and rolled into a wall a few yards from its original location. There was something symbolic in that somehow, he was sure. He picked it up and hoisted it over his head, and started slowly limping towards the ship he’d booked passage on earlier in the evening. It had been unexpectedly nice to see the Wraith again. Maybe it would be nice to try it again later down the line. Or maybe he’d never see her again. Maybe that would be for the best.