As if things could not have gotten worse.

  Mayme sat on her knees, she had groveled for what amounted to maybe two or three seconds of reprieve. Her teary eyes were cast over her shoulder at the church woman that stood almost entirely enveloped in shadows. Such a pathetic display would never work on her. She seemed emotionless— just an unfeeling cog in the church’s machine. Mayme couldn’t even begin to imagine how she could deal with such a person. For all Percival’s faults, he still wore his emotions proudly. Those emotions, no matter how volatile, could be used to her advantage. She had no other skills to deal with people, more so without her firearm.

  Mayme’s head spun back to Percival, she gave him a big pleading look. His dark green eyes were narrowed on the blonde who stood in front of the maw of the church. Not once did he glance down as he stepped around the pathetic trembling girl at his feet. The look was utterly unnecessary, her priors words had already done the work.

  “Some upstanding member of society you are,” Percival barked. He gestured with the pistol in his hand, first to the blonde across the courtyard, then out towards the town. “Lock yourself away while letting the whole town be overtaken by the plague? Thought you righteous lot were trying to protect and save.”

  “For the greater good, my monster hunter.” The church woman’s palm rested on the hilt of her sword. Each little nudge made her collection of belts and buckles around her waist jingle. Her long coat jostled with the movement, teasing the sight of the gun strapped to her body in short silver shimmers. Her voice was an eerie calm, as if this was a polite discussion about the weather. “I figured your little pet would follow some thrall in hopes to find her kin. Just a dog returning to its pack. Speaking of, thank you for delivering her here, best be on your way now.”

  His eyes were stuck to the church woman like flies on honey. He was trying to read her face, but the night’s shadows and sheer distance between them made the finer details completely indistinguishable. The polite smile told him nothing, nor did the lightless icy eyes. It was the same expression every church member wore when greeting folks into their magnificently bland cathedral— it was little more than a practiced mask. It had never looked sinister to Percival before, though he had never seen them wear it while so thoroughly drenched in blood.

  “This one is none of your concern,” He said.

  She clicked her tongue disapprovingly and her blonde hair dusted over her shoulders as she shook her head. A tinge of annoyance gave an edge to her voice. However, her tone and body language was more akin to a mother scolding a small child than anything. “Neither of us want trouble, now.”

  “I said this one is not yours,” Percival said again with more force.

  Finally the nonchalant mask the woman wore broke as her brows furrowed. She barely held back a sneer. “Do you not know what we could do with her?! She’s half human, I can see it! Our medicines haven’t been all that successful with a pure breed, but that? Oh that thing could truly advance our knowledge exponentially! You see, we won’t even have to dilute her blood! Yet you reject that, for what? You were a proud killer of her ilk once, you left us because we didn’t want to support more slaughter. Has this one dainty little thing truly perverted your morals so much?”

  Mayme’s ears were burning. She looked past her want-to-be captors and at the slightly ajar maw of the church. She crawled in order to turn her body towards the building. The loose pebbles on the cobblestone stuck to her palms and dug into her wobbly knees.

  Follow some thrall to her kin…

  The thrall’s attempts to get into the church still stained the doors in long, bloody scratch marks. The ones who had been cut down before her arrival nearly all bunched near the entrance and windows, curled up like sleeping babies. She moved one hand in front of the other and dragged herself forward through the gore and viscera of the courtyard-turned-battlefield. Whatever bloodsucker was within those walls had to be powerful, even if they were imprisoned. They had to be— swaths of the town’s populations were their thralls. Maybe there was even an army of her kind within that wicked building. She wasn’t mentally all there enough to think past the knowledge of her kin’s presence. The other implications of what was being said were lost upon her. Her rattled brain clung desperately to the possibility of safety alone; it left everything else to float unheeded within her brain as words she couldn’t put meanings to.

  The church woman’s eyes left Percival when she saw Mayme move from the corner of her eye. Her hand that was on her sword flew to the gun strapped under her long coat, she drew it so quickly it looked like a silver streak. She had started to say, “Your per—” However, the sudden movement had startled Percival.

  He pulled the trigger and a thunderous shot reverberated through the courtyard so loudly the windows shuttered. His shot had missed, hitting the stone of the church’s wall with a loud crack. Rock splintered and exploded in a puff of shrapnel that proceeded to shatter one of the shaking windows. The avalanche of falling glass shards was silenced— another gunshot rang out just as it collided with the ground. Between that and the ringing in everyone’s ears the glass was basically silent. This time the shot was from the church woman’s gun. The pained yelp that followed could have been mistaken for a dog’s.

  Mayme hit the ground, she covered her head with her arms and flattened herself best she could. Filth and viscera stuck to her cheek as she smooshed herself into it. So much of her breath caught in her lungs it felt like they were smothering her battering heart between them. A hot wetness bathed the back of her head. It trickled down her neck into her shirt’s collar, some droplets strayed from the main river to pool in her ears— dampening the sound of the world around her even more than the buzzing did. She waited for the pain to kick in, for a searing sensation to pinpoint where she was shot exactly. Her head still hurt from her prior beating, her brain ached from stress and crying, her body was numb from everything else… nothing burned. None of her pain was from a bullet.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Clatter-clang

  The metallic sound had her slowly raise her head, arms still awkwardly atop it. Her pistol bounced off the stone a few feet away from her, nearly within reach. Another hot, wet drop hit her head. The air slowly left her lungs in a strained, wavering stream. Another drop hit her. That yelp had not been hers. Another drop hit her. She looked up. Percival was grabbing at his arm, or shoulder maybe. Her angle was too odd to say for sure what he was grasping at, but she could tell that his arm was dangling in such a way that suggested he couldn’t hold it up anymore. His shoulder was unnaturally slumped and his fingers were limp. There was a heavy sway to his arm, almost like a dying clock’s pendulum. His clothes had been stained with blood for a while now, but all the old blood was rusty and brown. A new, vibrant sanguine oozed from the fabric around his shaking fingers, dying his clothes anew. His teeth were clenched, only allowing a tortured hiss to escape.

  Mayme’s eyes were wide. She should have been pleased, she told herself, she should have been happy. Instead panic and fear began to well in her guts. No. No no no. No not him— he couldn’t have been shot. She could handle him. The other one— the other one she knew she couldn’t handle. The other one should have been shot. Not him. Not him. Her eyes fell back to the pistol laying uselessly on the ground. Its once pristine body was tainted by gore. Three bullets left in its chamber. She reached for it, her finger barely grazed its hot barrel.

  Clicks of slow, measured steps echoed through the courtyard. The deafening shots dampened everyone’s ability to hear them. The woman slipped her gun back into his holster to instead draw her sword. That break in her mask had been mended. That haunting polite smile was back, but this time it seemed a lot more genuine. “Don’t feel too bad, you’re out of practice.” Her voice too had returned to its calm, this time to mock. She was enjoying this.

  Percival wanted to curse at her, spit all the venomous bile building in the back of his throat at this cocky bitch. No words came. The venom stayed stuck within him, almost choking him. He could feel his warmth leave through the bullet hole as if he were some gruesome hourglass, even as he tried to hold the blood within himself with his working hand. The adrenaline that was pumping through, and subsequently out, of him prevented him from truly knowing where he was shot. However, the shards of shattered collarbone that racked against the inside of his skin gave him a good enough idea— as did his unresponsive right arm. It was an odd sensation. He couldn’t feel the pain, everything just felt wrong. He was boiling and freezing at the same time, a red hot fuzz unfurled from his shoulder whilst everything else felt as if it was in ice. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, his brain did nothing but scream ‘danger’ at him while offering absolutely no recourse. All he could do was stare at the woman as she approached. The weapon in her hand was distracting, but he kept looking her in the eyes. He needed to retain some dignity. He would never grovel. Slowly his limbs returned to him— all but that mangled arm. He took a stumbling step back.

  “Last words?” She asked as she raised her blade.

  At last, Percival found his voice, “Fuck you.” His hand left the wound, splattering blood in rivets against the ground and the church woman’s clothes. He tried to pull out his own weapon, but the angle due to him using his non-dominant hand made grasping the handle of his axe difficult— as did the wet blood covering his leather glove.

  The woman smiled something a little more real, amused by the display, but that smile wiped from her face as her eyes snapped to something to his right. He had started to turn his head to see what caught her attention on instinct, but there was no need. There was a voice before he could even manage to look.

  ”Get away!” Mayme warned, her laboured breath broke the two words up. Her wobbly legs were trying to raise her from the ground alone since both her hands were clasped around her gun trying to keep her sights steady. She did manage to stand, even though her knees knocked the whole while.

  Percival was befuddled at first, but it made sense. Had she not just confessed to him? Of course she’d protect him. Of course. She was his. A wolf was easier to tame than he thought. A dry laugh left his throat instead of the building venom. He shouldn’t have laughed, he wasn’t safe yet. However, he felt incredibly light headed. It was hard to keep face when the edges of his vision darkened and his mind no longer cared for even his lackluster decorum.

  Mayme was unbothered by his laugh. She was more preoccupied with the multiple wars in her brain. She was really doing this. She was really protecting this absolute monster of a man. She could handle him. Even more so now that he had a lame arm. Though that wasn’t what was really bothering her. The barrel of her gun, Elisabeth, was pointed at the head of a human and the fact her finger was on the trigger was what bothered her. No matter how much of a danger this woman was, she was still a person.

  Memories of the explosion her last shot caused to a body danced in her head. The cloud of misted gore that painted everything around it. The visual of a newly headless body collapsing like a marionette that had its strings cut. That God awful smell of singed hair and burnt flesh. It was vile. Killing a thrall was one thing, it was like putting down an animal, but a person? Could she do that?

  She almost felt dumb for asking herself such a question. This woman wanted to do awful things to her. This man wanted to do awful things to her. These people wanted to do awful things to her.

  And yet.

  Her heart hurt, she felt so, so sick.

  Was she not supposed to be the monster here?

  Mayme’s hesitation was noticed. A slight glint in the other woman’s eyes was the only hint she gave before she lunged at her. There was no more time to think. Mayme gasped and jolted the gun downwards. Her eyes slammed shut as she pulled the trigger.