Chapter Text
Al-Hakim pushed his pencil back upwards on the desk, and watched it roll back down the gentle slope again, stopping against his fingertips. Then he did it again, jaw tight. The night was quiet, and that was pleasant enough--he should have been in bed by now, but another bout of inability to had him sitting upright, looming over his checklist.
Bags still had everything in them. The room was clean so leaving should be easy. Nashala was comfortable, thankfully. Probably resting. Picking the pencil back up, he tapped it against the paper, trying to think. The margins were littered with clusters of ashy dots from previous and exactly similar motions.
He wrote what he was thinking in small font off to the side: The night grows old, and I cannot sleep.
Abd sat back and put the pencil to the side. Then he stood, and moved to the window, peering out at the street from in between the curtains. There weren't many people out at this hour, and he rested his head against the side sill, running his tongue over his teeth. He could go for a walk, maybe. But Nashala would be alone in that time. Maybe a smoke outside. Maybe he could just open the window and get away with it, actually.
He unlocked it and lifted it, slowly, trying to keep it from creaking. He retrieved a cigarette from his pocket, and poised it in between his lips while he felt for a light in his other pocket. The sound of the occasional distant car was a little louder now, but sparse enough he felt it was a non-issue--
Abd's head snapped up from his hands, hearing a shrill scream from somewhere outside. He tapped the loaded gun at his hip, and then shut the window, locked it, bounded across the room to the door. He fumbled for his key, slipped out into the night, and locked the hotel suite before scrambling for the stairs. They were on the third floor, and the steps were exposed, partially--he made it down to the second floor, went a bit further, and then bounded over the railing. The screaming continued.
Once his feet hit the pavement, he sprinted in the direction he heard it echo from, drawing his gun and blindly double checking the safety was off before sliding into one of the alleys. This wasn't quite it--it was behind the building across the street from his and Nashala's hotel. The screams had died, and he grew more worried, heartbeat thundering in his ears as he rounded the final corner. Abd misunderstood the situation--he was not a savior, nor would he be saved, the exchange of stares sealing his fate in seconds.
Hunched over what was just freshly a body, a looming--beast--person--thing--looked up towards him, red eyes reflecting what little light there was here back at Abd. The face was wholly bloodied, large yellow canine teeth jutting from an open maw that hovered above the stomach of the disemboweled. He grew very queasy, and very quickly, the creature moving slowly. He realized one of its hands--was it a man?--was somewhere inside the body, and it retracted, a fistful of something squeezed within. And then it brought it to its mouth, and pushed it inside, stuffed it down its gullet, and swallowed. His paralysis left him, and he pointed the gun towards it.
It stood on its legs, and he realized just how huge it was. Nearly 7 feet tall, 10 fingers turning into wicked claws at the ends. Its teeth interlocked into a wide half-moon grin.
And he fired, two shots in the torso and one in the head. It staggered back, and he waited for it to fall, but it didn't even drop to a knee. He had shot it below the left eye, in the cheekbone, though the extra blood was hardly noticeable.
The person was already dead, he was certain of it. Their entrails were decorating the cobbled stone under their boots. He wracked his mind for ideas, trying to think--not a werewolf, not a common undead as far as he could tell, and vampire attacks were increasingly rare with their integration to most modern society--
Vampire. Pointed ears standing upwards to listen, fangs, claws. A monstrous one, for sure, but a vampire. Abd understood that his best bet was to...
Two more shots in the head while it was dazed. Bang--bang.
He turned on a heel and started to sprint, hearing it drop down to its knees. It had just ate, so he figured that would give him maybe a minute. A minute was all he needed. Full speed down the alley, he swung around the corner with his hand against the brick of the building he passed, heartbeat pounding in his ears. Then another sound--racing behind him, thunderous footsteps. Not as fragile as he'd thought--he hadn't encountered a vampire before, but he sure as hell thought that 3 gunshot wounds to the fucking head would slow at least something down. Then he spotted the stairs--once he reached the bottom, he began to soar up them two, sometimes three steps at a time, huffing and puffing. Fuck--he locked the door, he locked the door, he locked the door--
He didn't hear it ascend behind him, and looked over his shoulder. It was scaling the outside of them, nearly outpacing Abd in its climb. He skittered to a halt in front of the outer railing in time to avoid a swipe towards his torso, cursing out loud. It was met with a laugh.
"Come on, pretty boy!"
Definitely not an accent he recognized. It must have been some form of american, though, if he were to spot a guess. Abd knew better than to fire his gun so close here and now--people were already turning on lights nearby. He prayed they wouldn't come out.
Abd shuffled backwards as the vampire began to haul itself into the stairwell with him.
"I will shoot you again," he warned, not so sure about his previous thought now. If it was between his life and a noise disturbance, there was an obvious answer. Maybe it would even warn the other patrons.
"Come on then. Give it to me." Bloodied arms spread wide.
He had to get up the stairs and inside. He had to get past it, somehow. Abd backed up more, trying to think of something to put between the two of them. The vampire matched his steps, and his pace, and he realized that this must have been a game. He probably would have been dead if it were not. So, survival perhaps hinged on how long he could keep this interesting.
He was two flights of stairs up. That was definitely ankle breaking height, but there were shrubs at the bottom. Abd stepped back a couple more feet before lurching over the railing in front of one of the rooms, swinging around the side to slide down the wall as far as he could. His hands found a gutter pipe--he rode it down as claws swiped over the top of his head and then kicked off backwards into the shrubs. It knocked the wind out of him, and he felt the limbs inside of it jab into his back. It would definitely hurt later, but he knew he had to keep moving. If he stopped he would probably get tired, too tired.
He sprang up and watched as the vampire climbed out to follow him, but instead it perched upon the railing, watching him with a grin. He glanced left, then right, looking back at it between them--when he looked back from the final glance it sprung, and he darted to the side, firing his gun upwards and into its shoulder. All that elicited was a grunt.
It rolled onto the ground, seeming unphased by the distance it had dropped, and then sprang onto all fours, bloody spittle bubbling out from its teeth as it growled. Abd kept his gun pointed, circling around the landscaping, eyes wide and trying to think of a route around it to even try to climb the stairs again. He figured he knew how that would go, but--he heard sirens in the distance. His ears pricked to the wail of them.
If he could just outlast--
It charged at him, jaws open, and Abd fired again, trying to recount how much ammunition he had left. 3 shots prior, 2 now--that's 5--he sidestepped a swing--he spotted a telephone booth to circle around--now he was circling cars--one more bullet, I have probably 6 or so left--
He backed into a mailbox and started to slip around it, ducking a blow for his throat.
"Fuck!" He let slip, stumbling back, heel caught in a crack on the sidewalk, and the monster cackled at him. His ass hit the pavement, and he started to try and scuttle away on his back until it brought an old boot down onto his chest. This is it. This is it, he figured, staring up at cruel red eyes while his own were blown wide. Firing the gun wasn't really any good against this animal, so he tried to just force its boot to the side to not much avail at all.
"You're not very good at running away, are you, boy?" Its head tilted inquisitively to the side, and he wheezed as it pressed down, leaning forward and putting more weight onto his chest. Its breath smelled horrendous enough to make him retch.
"Don't talk to me," he sputtered, his voice full of vitriol.
"All work and no play." Its lips peeled back to reveal far too much teeth for him to be any amount of comfortable with, and then it kneeled down on his shoulders, face looming closer and closer until it was mere inches from his. Abd's hands trembled, and then seethed with rage at himself. If he had minded his own business, and stayed with Nashala--who would watch her, soon, if he was about to die?
The vampire squinted down at him as he made a sound in the back of his throat, and then jerked its head back when he spat right in its face, aiming for the eyes. Its eyes screwed shut as it blinked, shook its head a little. Abd reached for a fistful of kicked up rocks and snow sitting next to the mailbox, and while it was no gunshot, he was simply angry, angry at himself, at this murderous thing, at his whole situation--and flung it up at its face, merely as a means of disrespect. Some of the rocks bounced back and hit him, but he didn't care. Maybe if he pissed it off he would die quickly rather than painfully. Or if it did torture him, maybe he would survive once the emergency responders arrived. Even if by a slim and permanently injured margin.
It shook its head again, hissing but not flinching again, and wiped its face with a bloody hand. As if that helped.
"Feisty little..."
Abd wrinkled his nose as he watched it lick its lips, knowing his own spit was all over its face. He heard the sirens wailing closer and closer, and felt like he might vomit soon if something didn't happen. And then it made a noise in the back of its throat--he scrunched his whole face up in time to get spat back down upon. He kept his lips pursed tightly, very very sick now. Bile swelled up in his throat. He swallowed it, barely.
"No screaming, no carrying on, no beggin' for mercy," it continued, amusement decorating its malicious words. The sirens wailed louder, and Abd opened his eyes, seeing clawed fingers near his cheek now. "But you ain't even been hurt yet."
His acidic throat caught a guttural sound of pain as two sharp scratches were dug into him, from the cheekbone down to the jaw, and his teeth grit down upon each other until they creaked. He would not give it the satisfaction of a scream, and turned the noise into a growl of his own. He heard cars turning onto their street.
Still, it seemed preoccupied with its quarry, gripping him by the chin and tilting his head to look at the scratches. Then it leaned down and licked his wounds. Now Abd was yelling--cursing, trying to wrench free as the cold, slimy feeling dragged down from just under his eye into his beard. All of it was livid. And then the vampire let go, police getting out of their cars and barking orders it ignored. Abd couldn't see around its body, but he noticed an ear swivel backwards before it got up, teeth bore in full. One voice didn't belong to the standard New Yorker.
"Drifter!"
It stood up from Abd, who started to shuffle backwards now, quickly, until he hit the back of his head against a Pontiac. He expected some sort of bloodshed, for a moment, leaning to see who was standing on the other side of the blacktop. Enrobed and heavily armed, a vindicative finger pointed towards the vampire. Drifter. He didn't recognize that title. Or... name?
He knit his brows, trying to place the man standing in front of the gaggle of nervous officers. Something, something...
The 'drifter' jogged his memory for him. "Venator."
It glanced back at Abd over its shoulder, and red eyes flashed with some emotion he could not place, though he was certain it was nothing favorable to him. The priestly man's eyes were entirely fixated on the creature between the two of them, and he shifted, making ready to fire. Before he did, the vampire launched itself off to the side, moving far too quickly for any creature not supernatural, weaving around obstacles and darting out of sight.
Abd watched the venator's face grow disappointed, and he began to walk over, while calls for ambulances were being made just in earshot.
"Should've crawled away so I could shoot at it, lad." He got down on one knee, resting one of his guns down next to him.
Abd wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve, a little too dazed to come up with a clever response. "I... yes. Right. Sorry."
"Nevermind that. Though, you are very lucky."
"Somebody--it got somebody else. I couldn't..." His face twisted with guilt. "They're very dead, sir."
The stranger glanced down, and sighed heavily through his nose. "To be expected. Here. Are you wounded, my friend?"
"Just... my face." He reached up and touched it, feeling it sting. His face was warm around it. "I should go--"
"Oh, no, you wait here. That needs proper disinfectant. Your name?"
"Abd."
"Abd. That was no ordinary vampire."
He couldn't help but laugh. "Almost 10 bullets in, I think I realized that, sir."
The venator raised his eyebrows, rolled his head side to side, and shrugged his shoulders.
"But--still, more. That was an ancient beast, there. We of my title have been hunting it for a long time now."
They met gazes, and he began to realize what this would likely mean:
Questioning.
"I, ah, I must return to my lady."
"Aye. Wife must be worried sick about you. I'll escort."
"Ah--no, no, I am a bodyguard. And we are staying at this hotel here."
The venator cleared his throat. "Oh. Er, well. You may not want to stay here another night."
"We've check in for a week already."
"And I would not like to see another man splattered through the road in public after a very painful death. Allow me to buy you and your friend a new room someplace safer. Near me."
Abd narrowed his eyes at him.
"With all due respect--"
"The Vatican sent me." He pulled out a trinket from his pocket--a simple medal with a seal. "I insist, though if you do think you can handle keeping yourself and your friend both safe from this creature, I will accept your refusal. But I do worry for you."
"I doubt it will return to kill one man."
"Oh, but it can, and it does. And the fact it did not kill you before it faced me means grave things are approaching you." He sounded deathly serious, and Abd began to reconsider.
"... It may return?"
"Yessir. And if it does, I ensure you, it loves to play with its food."
He started to stand, wincing from how his muscles ached from both the chase and his previous falls. The venator stood along with him, picking up his gun in the process. And Abd's. He handed it to him, after examining it momentarily.
"When should we go?"
"Of the morning, when it should be resting. I would like to walk you to your room. Tomorrow we will make arrangements, and I will have you stay where I am staying. Tracking this monster has been my life's work. I will also have questions for you, should you be willing to return the favor of me... temporarily rehoming you."
It was a generous thing to do, indeed. He supposed a few conversations could be spared.
"Very well. And where are you staying, mister..?"
"Call me Father Dalca. And that would be The Baroness."
--
Abd sat down across the table from her, pursing his lips as he waited for her to appear.
"Nashala--I, ah..."
He looked down at his lap as purple and golden flame licked out of its opening.
"I fucked up."
He sat with the injured side of his face away from her as she manifested, the flame collecting into a shape across the table in the other chair. He did not look over, but he did know what she looked like:
She was a smaller woman, dressed in robes that covered her whole body, hands and face only visible from the coverage of the chador. They were a lilac purple, accented in gold and pink. She had a smiling face, appearing in perhaps her 60's, with lines around her mouth and eyes thanks to her usual comely nature. Her eyes were gold. And out of the corner of his eye, she was not smiling now.
"What happened?"
He cleared his throat.
"I... left, last night, briefly. Without you."
"The door was locked?"
"The door was locked, yes. 5 or so minutes."
She tilted her head, eyebrows knitting together. "And why is that?"
He swallowed.
"I heard somebody screaming. I thought I could intervene."
"... well, I cannot fault you for that. But you know that could have been to draw you away from me."
"Yes, I realized this once all was said and done."
She sighed through her nose, folded her hands in her lap.
"You were hurt. You will not look at me."
Abd lifted his head, momentarily taken back by her astuteness.
"Abd..."
He let out a heavy breath and turned his head to look at her fully.
"Oh, Abd, what happened?" She leaned across the table, not touching his face, but reaching out as though to.
"I... could not save the person I sought out to. And a vampire attempted to attack me."
"'Attempted'? You have stitches!"
"I don't believe it wanted to kill me."
Nashala looked at him with the sort of cross concern that a loved one would. "What happened, exactly?"
"I can inform you of it better in a bit, but--you may want to save your form for now. A venator will be coming to speak to us around noon."
"A venator?"
"Priest-warrior-fellow who hunts down the--"
"Abd, please, I know of them. But the fact one is coming to speak to us concerns me. Do you know who that vampire was, exactly?"
Drifter. The word hung in his mind, and he decided to not say it. She was already so worried, he saw it in her gilded stare.
"I don't know."
She sat back proper in her chair, and shook her head. "Then I will ask the venator."
Nashala began to dissolve into flame, recollecting in her bottle.
"I'm very sorry. It won't happen again."
"Abd," she spoke, through the container, "you did what you thought would save a life. I cannot wholly blame you for following your instincts, even if the judgment was revealed to be poor afterwards. But, please, take me with you or do not leave me."
He nodded, despondently, some of the guilt weighing on him at least somewhat relieved.
Well. It was about 8 in the morning. Maybe he would have breakfast. Maybe some yogurt. Not like he could chew all too well at the moment. His face ached from the talking--and from a few times, in his 2 or 3 hours of sleep, trying to continue being a side sleeper. He had flipped the pillow over onto its non-bloody side in the morning, hoping they'd be all ready and gone before it was noticed. His bad, but... well, what can you do?
He leaned against the small, small fridge, pulling his pocket calendar out.
December 29th. Well, his birthday was in January. Maybe he would split a cake with Nashala, wherever they were by then. No candles--55 was way too many for a tiny little cake. He shook his head, repocketed it. Christmas had made rooms scarce in all the hotels, so he figured whatever they got at the Baroness wouldn't be so ritzy. Not that this one was much more than the others. And it was a suite--another unused bed was in the room. Nashala had joked about him tucking her into one with a blanket and everything. Amusing, but she stayed right by him on the bedside no matter what.
Drifter. He thought about it again, how its face looked with three gunshots in it. Its head should have burst like a melon. It did crack, a little, from the first shot to the forehead, the shape not quite right. The third went through its jaw. The mouth should not have been in usage whatsoever. And the way it unhinged, large enough to fit his head in, almost... Gristle stuck in between its teeth, down near the gums...
He pinched in between his eyes, grimacing. And that poor bastard he couldn't get to in time... He judged that from the nature of the beast, they were probably mortally wounded at the first strike. There wasn't anything he could really do at all but feel awfully sorry for them. It wasn't something he was looking forward to retelling to Nashala more fully, and the chase was a blur. His whole body still ached, and he could not stop yawning, slowly, delicately, not allowing his mouth to really open. The muscles in his cheek and chin spasmed slightly as he kept it to a closed mouth one, and then he touched his cheekbone, trying to calm it before it hurt too much worse. The iodine scrub was the worst part of last night's hospital visit, he felt. That and having a little chunk shaved out of his poor beard.
At least he kept most of his things together. Packing would be nothing.
--
"Good morning, Mr. Abd."
"Father Dalca. Would you like to come in and take a seat?"
"I was actually hoping to... my, you look tired."
"You wanted to head right to the Baroness?"
"Let's get coffee first."
Abd cradled Nashala a bit closer to his chest. "Shall we wait to check out 'til afterwards? I would like to not carry my things there and back."
"Yessir. Would you like me to-?" Venator offered his hands for her, not understanding what exactly she was, and Abd instinctively jerked away, putting his shoulder between her and him.
"This is my employer I told you of."
"Oh--ohhhh, I see." Dalca scratched the back of his neck. "My apologies to you both."
"None taken. But do not touch her." He gave the venator an eagle eyed look. "Ever."
"Understood. So. Coffee. Your eyebags are so grand, I could mistake them for your luggage."
Abd did laugh a little, though dryly, stepping out and beginning to lock the door to the room with a hand. "Maybe I should get 2."
"Your new room will have room service, I'm sure the... er... well, he's a bit creepy, but the doorman ought to fetch you things at request."
"So he doesn't just tend the door?"
"He's everywhere. Creeps me out, but I have no concrete proof of anything at all, so I don't think I need to investigate anything. No real complaints."
"Mmm, I see." They began to head to the stairs, and Abd glanced around, as if the drifter would reappear in the shadows. It was cold--he pulled his coat a little tighter. He had outfitted Nashala's bottle with a scarf wrapped around the body, up to the neck.
"What's your friends name, there?" Dalca looked over, Abd carrying her in the arm furthest from the Irishman.
"Her name is Nashala. She will introduce herself in time, but keep it brief. She can only handle about 45 minutes of time manifested a day."
"I see. So, can she also have coffee?"
"... We shall see."