Tragic Vampire Romance/Hunter’s Heart - 3 (Patreon)

[Again, CW for character death. It’s a tragedy.]

Heading out into the darkness of the night, Elettra hoped she’d bought enough time for Sole to escape. She could be certain she’d find out soon enough, at least. Keeping one hand on her stake, still not fully certain she trusted Sole, she continued to head into the woods and away from San Guerino.

There were a few clouds that night and the moon had grown thinner, but she could still see far enough that she spotted her new vampiric ally from a safe enough distance. She was sitting on a branch and quietly singing a song to herself. One that felt like it must be a song for children, the type a mother would sing to calm them. Not that it was a song Elettra knew.

What struck her more, though, was the beauty of Sole’s voice. It felt almost hypnotic, though not in the way a vampire’s charms worked. This was a genuine aspect of the other woman.

“You have a lovely voice,” Elettra said. “It is a shame you’re a vampire, you could have been a singer.”

Sole looked down at her, surprise on her face mixing with another emotion Elettra couldn’t quite read. “I… well, thank you. You… you have beautiful eyes… It is a shame you’re a vampire hunter and I have to fear meeting that gaze.”

The latter part was added quickly, and Elettra barely heard it. The genuine nature of the complement portion coming from one so lovely left her cheeks warm.

It had clearly been too long since Elettra had been to the sort of community where she could sneak off and find a woman to embrace… so long she was feeling her heart rush over a vampire. A blood-sucking spawn of hell… that had seemed to hold onto her faith and humanity after being forcibly turned. Her eyes held none of the hatred for humanity that were central to most of her kind.

Elettra shook her head, remembering that the woman before her had fed on humans. Upon the cultish followers of a heretical vampire, but upon humans all the same.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked, trying to distract herself with more practical concerns.

Sole slipped gracefully down from the tree branch, landing beside Elettra. That sent a shiver of fear through Elettra, the sudden proximity to a vampire—or was it the proximity to an attractive woman that was raising her heartbeat so?

“Not precisely, no,” Sole said, seeming to try to ignore the flush Elettra was sure was upon her cheeks. Failing though, as it was a sign of blood flow vampires found distracting. Sole’s eyes kept glancing her way and making Elettra feel yet more self conscious. “I have… I have little experience in these matters.”

Elettra nodded, a bit disappointed in that. It would likely take some time to come up with a strategy in this valley she did not know.

“First things first,” she said, drawing her rifle.

Sole jumped back, fear in her eyes until she realised Elettra was aiming it away from her. The hunter fired a single shot into a nearby tree, before nodding.

“They should hear that in the town,” she said. “Now, as for my own planning… I can continue to try to find opportunities to be alone with the heretic, but there is little guarantee there. He will likely realise I am suspicious of him before long. I think the best move is to send word to the rest of my order, lest we fail.”

Elettra pulled out a bit of paper, marked with the arms of the Order of Holy Hunters, and wrote a brief missive for the central authority of the order. The mark of the Hunters would ensure the local telegraphy office took the missive seriously. She then asked Sole to hurry down to the train station in the valley below, knowing a vampire could make the trip before dawn.

If she did not stop to feed.

Once Sole had left, Elettra moved to another portion of the forest, letting off a few more shots into the trees. The first two in short succession and the third after a long enough wait for Sole to be within earshot again.

The other woman’s pale face emerged from the woods a few moments later. There was no shift in her appearance that would indicate she had fed. All the same…

“Teeth. Let me see them,” Elettra said.

Sole looked briefly insulted, but opened her mouth after only a brief hesitation. Elettra stepped forward and leaned in, pulling out a match to improve her sight. There was indeed no sign of blood.

“Good. I had wanted to trust you, but you are…” she began to say, before looking up into Sole’s eyes and realised just how close their faces were.

How close their lips were. As well as how shy yet… cooperative the other woman seemed. There was an acquiescence and submission to her that Elettra had never seen in a vampire.

And that she found so very alluring in a woman.

Her eyes were drawn back to Sole’s mouth. Held slightly open now, there was a hint of her fangs, but also a clear plumpness to those undead lips. Moving up her face, Elettra soon found her gaze locking with Sole’s. All the same, she noticed the quiver of the vampire’s lips and felt the hunger within herself for another woman’s touch.

She found her hand lifting up, brushing against Sole’s pale cheek. She began to cup the side of the smaller woman’s face, was starting to lean in for a kiss, when Elettra suddenly turned away, eye’s dropping.

“You—I do not know why you awaken such feelings in me, let alone why you might wish to return them,” Sole said, “but I am not worthy. I have been had already... when he turned me…”

Elttra felt a twinge in her heart. A wave of agony based on the hurt Sole exuded. “I do not know how to heal your soul from the vampirism he inflicted upon you, but I ask that you let me try to heal you from the other pain he inflicted.”

Turning back to her, Sole had many emotions mixed in her expression, but a gentle and vulnerable hope seemed most prominent of all.

“… please,” she whispered, her voice so soft Elettra barely heard it.

She answered the plea with a kiss. A kiss that broke a flood, the smaller woman starved for a type of touch she’d never felt.

-

A final shot not long before dawn was Elettra’s last attempt to disguise her night’s adventures. Then she returned to the town, being allowed in by the thuggish Bruno.

“You look like you had a rough night,” he muttered.

“Hunting a vampire is not easy,” she replied. “They are rather stronger than us mortals.”

“Mhm,” the large man grunted.

She was sure he was eyeing her suspiciously, but she ignored him on her way back to the inn. Returning, she found the innkeeper offering her a bowl of milk and bread, which was about the most complicated thing she trusted him to make.

“How was the hunt?” the man asked.

“Tiring,” she muttered, scooping up some of the soaking stale bread up in her spoon.

“I do have to ask, would it not be easier to hunt a vampire during the day, when they cannot travel?” the innkeep asked.

“It depends on where one is. In a city, it can be. But in the mountains? They tend to retreat to caves too high for you or I to easily climb to. It is easiest to wait for them to exit and hunt them while they search for food,” she replied.

-

That night, she returned to her ‘hunt’, drawing Sole to her location with a few shots into the ground. Together again, she found Sole hungry for another kiss, but Elettra had to stop things from going any further. They had planning to do.

She’d had no chance to spend time with Father Conti that day. She’d also been rather too tired after poor sleep in the past days to attempt a fight with so strong a vampire. So she’d had to sleep. Then, once she’d woken the town had gathered for some dark and false mass.

Elettra promised Sole she would try again the next day, but that she was unsure how long we could keep up the illusion of her hunting. Before their time was up they would have to act. Yet a frontal assault on a walled village was all but impossible. As well, any attempts to play distraction seemed as if it required sacrificing at least one of them, and neither felt ready to accept that for the other.

Internally, Elettra cursed herself for having fallen so totally for Sole, despite her vampiric nature. Yet she could not deny her heart’s desire, regardless of her efforts to be a professional. How could she not love a woman who held onto her humanity in an impossible situation?

Eventually, frustration over a lack of progress saw their conversations drift to other topics. Specifically following an effort to probe Sole’s memories of the caverns of the church.

“My memories of being alive are too foggy for me to say. It feels like hunting through murky water for a fish. At times I may see it, but the chances of truly grasping it are so very slim… I hate how empty it leaves me feeling,” she said, drifting off to a mumble. Until a flush of earnestness washed over her. “But, time spent with you makes me feel so much closer to life. In a way that even feeding does not.”

Elettra felt her stomach turn slightly at the reminder of her new love’s specific appetite. She did her best to ignore it, however. This was not the time.

“I think,” Sole said, continuing on either oblivious or also attempting to deny the barrier between them, “I think that, if you told me of your life it might help? At the very least, I must wonder how one enters the career path of a vampire hunter.”

“Rarely on purpose, I can say that much,” Elettra replied, a shiver running down her back.

It was not a conversation she cared to have with anyone, especially not with Sole, who had brought her such joy so far. Yet Sole sat there so attentively, that earnest curiosity in her eyes. It was impossible to deny her inquiry.

And so Elettra gave in. She told the story of her childhood in an urban orphanage, abandoned by parents too poor to feed her. How food had still been scarce even in the care of the small church that looked after them, the nuns tired and often short tempered. Eventually she’d grown old enough that she’d been sent to work in the one factory that hired the orphans to help pay everything (not that it paid anywhere near well enough).

It was there that she’d noticed the children from her and other orphanages seemed to disappear more often than had seemed right. Sure, there were injuries, and back then the odds of growing poisoned from a wound were even greater, especially in a city. Still, Elettra had felt it suspicious how often her neighbours on the factory floor would vanish. She’d tried telling one of the nuns at her orphanage, but had been told it was her imagination.

Annoyed, one night she’d stayed after, sneaking about in the shadows armed with the largest wrench she could carry for defense. It had been her luck to be in the right place at the right time when the reclusive factory owner fell through his office window, locked in battle with a vampire hunter. The fall had hurt both of them, but the hunter had been the worse for it. The vampiric industrialist had dove, teeth barred, to feast upon the hunter, when young Elettra had cracked his skull with the iron wrench she’d carried.

He’d not noticed her in the shadows, allowing her to surprise him. While such a wound would not slay a vampire it was enough to render him immobile long enough for the hunter to tell her to grab his stake and drive it through the factory owner’s chest.

She’d found out after that the nun she’d reported her suspicions to had not, in fact, dismissed them out of hand. The woman had attempted to reassure young Elettra before informing the hunters, having had suspicions before but having lacked information on the children from other orphanages.

“Helping to slay a vampire is generally how one proves oneself worthy of the order,” Elettra said, still feeling slightly haunted by the memories. The first time she’d encountered the spawn of Hell itself.

“I will slay the priest, then,” Sole said, nodding as her eyes drifted into the distance. “If I do that then I will prove myself to your order, won’t I? And then they will help me undo this affliction…”

The vampiric woman shivered and hugged herself.

“I will try to find you a cure, whatever happens,” Elettra said, leaning over to cup her new love’s cheek and then to apply one last kiss before she had to leave for the morning.

-

Two more days passed with the floating bliss of fresh romance. The first night had been run as normal. The pair met in the woods, Elettra firing off her rifle on occasion, so that the shot rang across the mountains. It was reasonably convincing. The second day, though, Elettra was forced to change her strategy, to keep the townsfolk from growing suspicious. She gathered climbing equipment and set out to check the caves and crags of the nearby mountains before the sun had set.

She’d genuinely not known which one was Sole’s hiding place, to keep her safe lest the vampiric priest catch wind of her true loyalties.

She had signs that he’d come to suspect she was suspicious of him, the silver haired man escaping spending time alone with her whenever she tried. He’d had endless excuses. All of which spoiled her hope to slay him, even if Sole had asked for the right to do it herself. They’d both agreed it was better that Conti be slain, even if it was not under ideal circumstances.

It was after dark when Elettra began to trek towards the pre-agreed meeting place with Sole. They would not be able to spend the entire night together, Elettra having to shift to a more diurnal sleep schedule, but a few minutes would be far better than nothing. Their love was still too fresh and raw to endure more time apart than was strictly necessary.

“I thought you would be here earlier,” Sole said, once more sitting on a tree branch.

“Apologies. I wanted to do some actual climbing, to make my return more convincing,” Elettra replied.

She’d also felt a vague worry that someone had followed her, though she’d never felt the piercing gaze of a vampire upon her. It had led to her taking a somewhat circuitous route after her climb, to ensure she lost anyone who might have followed after her.

Or, so she’d thought, suddenly finding Sole slipping around her, serving as a shield just as the crack of a pistol reached Elettra’s ears. There was a spray of blood as a bullet hit Sole’s chest, her thin form sprawling into Elettra’s arms. While such a wound would not be lethal to a vampire, she was obviously in great pain and would take some time to heal. Especially if the bullet was not removed, her body forced to burn energy on fighting off the lead’s poison.

“Ah, I’d hoped the bullet would be the end of you,” Conti’s voice said, and Elettra soon felt the vampire’s cold gaze upon her. He stepped out of the shadows with an evil smile upon his lips. “Also, advice you will never get to use, hunter: a vampire’s nose is as good as a bloodhounds, while our ears are as good as a bats. We don’t need to watch you to track you, once we’ve been around long enough to master those other senses.”

He then drew a sword from his side, the blade a true antique. Elettra set Sole upon the ground, hating to leave her still bleeding; then she drew her own blade, single edged in the modern style of sabers.

When Conti charged, slashing with his superior infernal strength, he learned the main reason a hunter’s blade was single sided: it made half-swording all that much easier and allowed Elettra the leverage to block and parry his far stronger blows. He snarled in annoyance, before continuing his offensive. While he was far older than Elettra he clearly lacked her consistent exposure to battle. She could tell his forms were rusty, as well as archaic.

Unfortunately his strength was still greater and his reserves of energy far deeper. She was beginning to tire and clambered back from his striking range. She was after a moment to breathe, to draw her stake and see if she might succeed in slaying him if she tossed her own life aside.

Whatever the outcome of that effort would have been would remain a mystery to her, for, as soon as she managed a few paces space, another shot rang out. This one came from the lower ground behind her, and the bullet slammed into Conti’s shoulder.

He shrieked, fleeing faster than Elettra could respond. She turned, looking towards where the shot had come from, and found two others of her order. Both were men with their rifles ready, the shorter one dressed in a uniform of higher rank.

“Elettra Rossi, we received your letter. A hunting cohort has been summoned,” the man said.

“A full cohort?” she replied in surprise.

Such large movements were rare for the order, the last one having been nearly ten years ago to clear out an infestation in the town of Tivoli. She’d barely been old enough to participate.

“Having an entire town fall under the control of a vampire more than warrants it. Even if there is only one right now… who knows how many he might turn if he realises he is threatened.”

She nodded, accepting that, before indicating Sole. “She requires medical attention. He shot her and we must remove the bullet so that she might heal.”

“She… is a vampire,” the taller and younger hunter said.

“She was turned unwillingly by the master of San Guerino, and she is an ally,” Elettra countered.

“We could use the assistance,” the older man said. “At the very least her strength will serve us in moving the mortar into position.”

He then produced a small first aid kit, asking Elettra and the other man to help hold Sole down while he operated. There was some risk she could flail in the pain, even trying to bite him in the hunger the wound no doubt caused. It would end poorly as he wore the same collar of crucifixes as Elettra, but it would not reflect well on either her nor Sole.

In the end she did indeed thrash, it taking the weight of three hunters to steady her. The bullet was soon removed, however, and the wound began to close. The younger hunter let out a quiet prayer under his breath at the unnatural sight.

Elettra then explained the situation to Sole, who gave a subdued nod. It was clear the new hunters she did not know were frightening to her, and she clung as close to Elettra as she could. They headed down the valley, eventually reaching the point where the road declined into rather more of a footpath. A few horses were present, carrying supplies and a high ranking member of the order.

“Baliato Salucci… your grace,” Elettra said with a small bow.

“Ah, Sister Rossi, it is good to see you have survived,” the man said from his horse.

“Barely, your grace. The forward scouts saved my life.”

“It was your own letter that brought them, so take some credit there,” the baliato said, before his eyes fell upon Sole. “And this must be the poor cursed woman?”

“Y—yes, your grace,” Sole replied, clearly trying her best to look at him despite the large crucifix upon the breast of his cloak. “M—my family remained loyal to the… the true church. We each paid our lives for it… though I differently from the others.”

The baliato gave a small nod. “Well… someone give that young woman something to cover her torn shirt and the blood on her chest. We shall not have an ally so scandalously unpresentable.”

-

Once she was given a jacket, Sole was then asked to help the horses with moving the mortar. Much of the rest of the night was spent climbing up the valley, to reach the town.

The cohort received some scattered rifle fire while in the forest, but injuries were minimal and the returned fire was efficient enough to kill at least one of the defenders. They then set up the mortar before exiting the woods around the town.

“A few shots should stir up the hornets’ nest and bring out the worst of them,” the Baliato said, before indicating for the crew to begin firing.

The sound of the mortar roared across the valley, the whistle of its munitions and then the explosion at impact. Roughly at the sound of the impact reached them the mortar crew were firing off another shot. The process repeated a half dozen times until the commander ordered a halt.

Readying for a vampiric counter offensive, the cohort attached bayonets, raised their rifles, and waited. Elettra was unsurprised to see the force that rushed towards them was led by Bruno the gatekeeper, though the man had been changed in the last few hours into a monstrous beast of a vampire. The result of not being given time to recover from the sickness that took those being transformed.

The hunters opened fire, cutting down many of the advancing foes, though none were dead just yet. The remnants of the wave crashed into the cohort with violent fury, doing a great deal of damage but not having been prepared for the reinforced oak of the hunters’ bayonets, capable of slaying a vampire with a well placed strike.

There were losses, but the cohort as a whole survived to clean up those vampires that lay before them. As they did, the mortar crew began firing once again. This time continuing until the ammunition reserves were depleted.

Then began the most dangerous phase: advancing into San Guerino itself. The city walls were in ruins, making breaking into the town itself easier, but the townsfolk were loyal to their vampiric priest and prepared to fight to the last. Thankfully portions of the town had caught fire during the limited bombardment, the smoke and confusion serving as effective cover while Elettra and Sole led a small unit towards the defiled church, the Baliato himself following their lead.

Carved into the cliff face as it was, there had been little doubt in Elettra's mind that the vampire lord of the town would shelter there during the bombardment. A few townsfolk crossed their path, but were dispatched quickly. It took relatively little time to reach the church, entering with lanterns to illuminate it.

They found Conti in the process of turning yet another villager, his fangs still on the man’s neck. A hail of fire from the hunters ripped through the pair, slaying the would-be vampire and wounding Conti himself. Before the rest of them could react, Sole lunged ahead, attacking the wounded false-priest. He would have normally been stronger than her, but, between the strain of turning a small army and the holy-water dipped bullets within his body, he was weakened enough for her to quickly gain the upper hand.

While a stake through the heart was the most efficient way to deal with a vampire, there were two other ways to deal with them. Burning, usually by purifying sunlight but also by fire could work. Much more difficult for any mortal, due to a lack of strength, was decapitation.

For a vampire, however, the last option was often the most efficient to slay another of their kind. Sole had been given a knife before they’d entered the town and soon made use of it in her brief struggle with the one who had hurt her so deeply. She lifted the other vampire’s head in the air, taking a moment to celebrate her victory before Conti’s remains crumbled to ash.

Panting, she then turned towards Elettra and the other hunters, a tired but hopeful look upon her face. “The false priest, source of this vampire outbreak, is dead… and by my hands.”

“The vampire Conti of San Guerino is indeed dead,” the Baliato said, walking across the despoiled former church and towards Sole. “And the holy order appreciates your service, child.”

A smile wavered on Sole’s lips as she looked up at the Baliato, a face that said she spied salvation for the first time in far too long. “Will… I have heard that such acts can gain one acceptance in your order. I know that I am tainted, but I am happy to offer my service however I might.”

The elder hunter gave a small nod, seeming to spend a moment in contemplation. “Tell me, child… there is one thing I must ask…”

Elettra felt her heart fall as she saw judgement in the Baliato’s eyes. Yet she found herself frozen in place by the pain it brought her. Or, perhaps, by a refusal to admit what was about to happen.

“Child, led from light,” the man continued, “have you embraced the darkness? Have you fed upon the living? ”

Sole blinked, but then spoke before Elettra found her courage to intervene. “Only—only those loyal to the vampire I have slain.”

The Baliato produced a crucifix from within his sleeve and forced it against Sole’s forehead. It had been too fast for Sole to process what was happening… Elettra had begun to rush forward, screaming in protest, but had been too late. Her scream was drowned out by Sole’s own wail of agony as she collapsed upon the floor.

Elettra rushed to her side, cradling Sole in her lap. The vampiric woman writhed in her arms, the crucifix having burnt its form into her face. The brand of a crucifix upon her would continue burning of its own force. Tears welling in her eyes, Elettra forced her gaze up from Sole’s face of pain to glare at the Baliato.

“We—our order are killing the members of this dark cult as we speak!” she cried. “W—why was she so wrong to do what we do now?”

“Our duty is to purge darkness as servants of light. We take penance for our deeds, knowing that blood on our hands must leave us sullied,” the man said, a pity in his eyes as he looked at Sole. “With blood in her throat itself… a vampire that has fed has defiled itself to a far greater level than we could ever manage in our duties. Redemption is beyond one afflicted with vampirism that has fed… This branding is her penance.”

Elettra looked down at Sole, still screeching the unearthly cries of a vampire in pain, yet having some trace of her humanity in her voice. Her hands were raised and Elettra struggled to hold her wrists, knowing that Sole’s instincts were no doubt screaming at her to tear off the source of her pain. An act that would only burn her hands and further injure her face.

Looking up at her commander again, Elettra felt tears flowing freely. “This isn’t penance! This is Hell!”

“That is what her sins entail, sister Rossi… unless you would end her pain.” he said, producing a stake from within his cloak. “End it while knowing Heaven could not accept one as tainted as her, yet Hell will reject her for her services to light.”

Elettra’s stomach churned, but, looking down at the pained contortions of Sole’s face and body, there was no debate in Elettra’s heart. She could not see her suffer a moment longer. Reaching blindly behind, she took the stake, whispered a prayer to beg forgiveness, and then drove the stake into Sole’s heart, maintaining eye contact as she did.

Her love’s form dissolved to dust, but, for a moment, the cross burned into her forehead had collapsed while her eyes remained, and there was the briefest hint of release.

Yet there was nothing left to hold, and Elettra collapsed, letting out a wail of heart wrenching agony as she crumpled into only the barest traces of dust below her.

“This was the better ending, my child,” the Baliato said in a soft voice. “I—I know from experience that a vampire given compassion will fall to the Devil’s influence in time… There is no escape from his calling. This allowed her to end while still holding some humanity.”

-

Her heart empty, Elettra sat in silence as the train steamed towards Marghera. She’d been assigned a new investigation as soon as San Guerino’s ashes had cooled. The promise of burying herself in her work did appeal to the small part of her capable of long term thought, but the majority of her being was simply numb.

Staring into empty space, she then felt a sudden shiver down her spine, a chill rushing over her. An unseasonal cold.

Shaking it off to warm up, more out of base instinct than any higher brain function, she noticed a fogged patch on the window beside her that she swore had not been there before. A fogged patch with a simple finger drawing of a sun within it.

“Sole…?” she whispered to herself.

Feeling she was being watched, a calmness washed over her. After all, when both Heaven and Hell were closed, the realm of mortals remained for a spirit to wander.

Perhaps they could still reach out…

Perhaps.