Chapter 2: The Price of a Head - Part 1

The taste of ash and death coated his mouth as if he had just rinsed it out with an old, dirty sock. The brown trench coat that hung around his shoulders was more than a little tattered, and his matted red hair hung in clumps over his forehead, just long enough to cover his eyes in shadow. His boots clattered heavily across the cobblestone of Bristol, and as he exhaled the cigarette smoke, he could feel the taste grow ever more potent.

The man walked with purpose as he moved through the city—people bustling around him even though the evening had long since fallen. The ports that controlled the trading traffic from Bristol to the New World (as well as countless other locations) were so loud with voices and ships that the din could be heard almost citywide. The man’s eyes glinted in the evening light as he walked through the busy crowds of people. The green orbs held a mysterious light within them that just barely shone through the shroud of his hair. He effortlessly shifted his body, twisting his shoulders in precise measures to slide past every person that approached him or slowed him down. He was a man that some people would catch a glimpse of as he moved, but few would ever remember seeing—a master of disappearing in plain sight.

The tip of his cigarette flared as he took another long drag, and the smoke wafted upwards and into his eyes. He cursed as he ducked towards an alley and rubbed at them vigorously in a futile attempt to staunch the burning sensation. He hurled his cigarette into the stones at his feet and stomped it out, glaring down at the broken object as if it had offended him before his ears perked up. There was some sort of commotion rising up over the sound of the busy streets. He smirked to himself as he identified where it was coming from, forgetting about the thrumming pain in the backs of his eyes as he whirled on his heel and stalked off down the alley into the gutters of the city.

“No! Henry! Run!”

“Where are you goin’ sweetheart, we’ve just started having fun.”

There was a loud snarl—either a battle cry or a sign of being attacked—and a woman’s scream echoed through the alleyway as the red-haired man rounded the corner. He moved silently, now, even in the heavy coat and boots. He lifted a hand to brush his tangled hair from his face, the bright red (obviously colored) locks parted to the sides and his vibrant green eyes seemed to pierce the dim light of the alley as he approached the kerfuffle. One man was holding another in a suit and tie against the wall of the alley. The victim’s feet were dangling and the assailant had his face buried into the dapper man’s neck.

Two other men were pursuing a woman in an evening dress and a fur boa around her neck. Her diamond rings and bracelets flashed in the miniscule amounts of light, but the red-haired man knew that these beasts weren’t after her jewellery. He walked toward the group of them and placed a hand to his mouth, balling it into a fist and coughing into it. The thug who had been holding the man against the wall immediately dropped his captive and he turned in a flash, whipping around to see the man’s green eyes locked directly onto his. Blood dripped from the thug’s mouth, and a savage bite wound could be seen in his victim’s neck, still pumping out surges of crimson like a fountain with its trigger stuck.

The red-haired man reached into his pocket and he pulled out a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes. He carefully removed one of them from the pack and then looked at the empty, crumpled package with disdain as he tossed it to the alley floor. He continued to walk forward, noticing that the two accomplices that had been following the woman had stopped their chase, looking from side to side as if she had vanished. The red-haired man stopped a foot in front of the thug with the bloodied mouth, and he could almost smell the copper on the man’s lips. His hand flashed downward in a blur and when it came back up, he was holding a silver tube in his hand. He flicked his thumb and a lid popped off of it, revealing an interior packed with matches. The man plucked one of them out and he struck it off of his pants, bringing the fire up slowly to the tip of the cigarette and taking a long drag. He flicked the match so it went out and dropped it at his feet before pulling the cigarette from his mouth and breathing a long stream of smoke into the thug’s face.

“Evening, Gents,” the red-haired man spoke, winking at the man he’d just blown smoke at. “Quite a lovely time for a snack, eh?”

At first the thug seemed completely shocked, but he licked the blood around his lips as he stared the red-headed man down and burst into uproarious laughter as the thin, unassuming male attempted to act like a tough guy.

“Kill this fool,” one of the other men spoke. The two of them now merely stood in the alley, leaning against the wall, snickering.

“I’m sorry, little man, but you wound up in the wrong place, at the worst possible time,” the thug spoke, his mouth splitting in to a vicious grin.

The green eyes snapped to the man’s teeth, catching the points gleaming in the light of the overhead lamps, and a grin spread over the red-haired man’s features as well. “No, no, no. You see, this is exactly where I needed to be, and there is no better time than the present. For me at least,” he stated, the grin never wavering. “Please, allow me to make a wager.”

“A wager? And exactly what is this wager?”

“I bet your life that by the end of this cigarette, all three of you will be dead.”

At first the thug laughed, but when the man stared seriously back at him, the thug’s laughter faded into a vicious snarl. The crazy son of a bitch was actually serious. The thug’s fists balled up in frustration as he cocked back his hand, throwing a powerful right hook at the man in front of him. The red-headed man seemed to dodge effortlessly. His cigarette still hung from his mouth and both of his hands were in his pockets as he ducked low and swung his body beneath the lightning fast punch. The thug’s hand landed on the brick wall of the alley and exploded through it, leaving a crater in its wake.

“My, my. You must work out. That, right there, is almost…inhuman. Be careful though, you’re running out of time. I smoke fast.”

The thug’s face contorted with rage as his fingernails began to grow, extending into a savage point. He blasted forward, closing to gap between him and the red-haired stranger in the blink of an eye, swinging his clawed hand downward towards him. With each subsequent strike, the man with the red hair would move just enough to avoid the blow and simultaneously make the enemy think that he was close enough that he would land the next strike.

“You could use some work on those hands of yours, too. Golly, they look atrocious. I bet you’re single. I’m sure a nice girl to warm your bed could do wonders for you.”

“Shut up!” the thug roared as he hopped backward, putting some extra space between them before suddenly blasting forward.

The thug dashed the ten feet that separated the two of them so fast that his body seemed to leave a trail behind him, but as he charged forward, using nothing but blind speed, the red-haired man heaved a bored sigh. He reached into his left sleeve and pulled at his wrist as the thug approached him, skillfully side-stepping at the last second to avoid the charge. However, he immediately stepped back in behind him, his hands gripping tightly around the silver wire that he had pulled from his sleeve, and he looped it around the man’s neck as he charged. As soon as there was tension on the wire, and the man knew he had caught his target, he yanked the wire in opposite directions. With a swift jerk the man’s head was removed from his body, and the flesh began to ignite almost instantly, burning away as if it had been soaked in gasoline.

The two men who had been laughing and waiting for their comrade to finish the smaller man off stopped their jests as they watched their friend fall to the ground. They looked on in fear as the man grabbed their friend’s skull and rotated the blackened bone in his hand.

“Well, looks like there’s not much left to hide, huh? It’s been a while since I’ve seen vampires moving this far into the city.”

“You Crusader dogs are all the same. You believe that you’re the heaven sent exterminators of evil. That you are infallible. Well, I have news for you. Your whole world is about to crumble down around you, boy. You might kill a few of us, but this world’s oceans are going to run red with your kind’s blood. A force you’ve never seen is coming, and it is going to drink your planet dry.”

“Always the prophecy of doom with you guys. We’re coming for you! We’ll win next time. We have a secret, scary, weapon that is going to crush your whole world. It really gets old after a while. I mean, you could probably come up with something more original, no? Perhaps an apology, or a plea for your life. It’s much more likely to save your life than hollow threats.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and examined the half-smoked dart, regarding it with a simple, confident, set of nods.

The vampires began to snicker as they stood up, their bodies seeming to bulge against their street clothes unnaturally. The hunter’s eyes widened as he looked at them and he knew that these two were the real problems. Physical manipulation was an ability that most vampires had, though to be able to control it to the degree that you could enhance your muscular system across your entire body was something that no peon could handle. These vampires were here for something other than a midnight meal.

The vampire on the left was the first to reach full size. He had grown at least a foot taller, and his limbs were easily double their original muscular capacity. The vampire blasted forward, kicking off of the cobblestone so hard that many of the bricks either cracked beneath the pressure or were torn up and thrown backwards from the sheer force. The hunter’s green eyes darted to and fro, analysing his surroundings and attempting to find an escape, but there was nowhere to go. The vampire’s fist landed in the center of the hunter’s gut and sent the man rocketing into the air, the breath taken clean out of his lungs as he spiralled back downward, slamming hard into the alley floor. As soon as he had hit the ground the vampire’s massive fist came slamming down toward him and the hunter was only just able to roll out of the way of the strike.

Even as he rolled, however, he could feel the splintered ribs from the initial strike screaming in agony. He bit his lip as he sprung to his feet, still managing a cocky smirk as he rolled his shoulders. He felt the bent cigarette in his mouth, having damaged it while rolling across the cobblestone, but he gave it a few experimental puffs and felt the smoke fill his lungs—it was still lit. He reached into his jacket once again, slipping a vial off of his belt and holding it tightly in his hand as the vampire prepared to strike once again. The vampire’s speed was something that the hunter could not keep up with in their present form, and he knew that the next strike could cause enough damage that he could no longer fight back. He bit his lip and he hoped to dear god that Raimey hadn’t skimped on the equipment that he had bought from him.

As soon as the vampire poised to launch forward, the hunter slammed the vial down onto the ground and it blasted outward in a cloud of mist. If he could not track the beast’s movements, he would have to anticipate them instead. As soon as the vampire realized that he had fallen into a trap, he jumped backwards and looked from side to side frantically, trying to use his keen sense of smell to find the hunter. However, as soon as the vampire took a strong whiff of the air around him, his nose began to violently burn with the scent of garlic. It was everywhere, and he realized too late that the man had laced pressurized water vapor with garlic.

The vampire felt weak immediately—his senses failing him as he was overwhelmed by the powerful scent. The monster fell to his knees, gasping for breath, and in the enemy’s moment of weakness, the hunter appeared beside him like a phantom and drove a stake down through the top of his shoulder. The red-haired man kept pushing until he had buried it all the way down into the vampire’s heart. The vampire moaned in pain as his skin began to ignite around the oak stake and the hunter pulled the weapon free, allowing the fire to consume the vampire’s body as he turned to the last of them. The third man had been halfway through changing his body when the garlic mist hit his nose as well, and he was coughing when the hunter approached him.

“Who the hell are you?” the monster growled.

“The name’s Ellis Carter. Son of the late Christopher Carter. I believe a few of your friends in hell should know who we are.”

Ellis’ body seemed to disappear, fading into the dark of the alley like an illusion. As he walked out of the darkness behind the last man and slammed the stake through his back, the creature coughed violently, though it sounded eerily like laugher. Ellis left the tip of oak protruding from his chest as the man’s body was consumed by flames, leaving nothing but a smoldering skeleton. Ellis grabbed a shoddy burlap sack from a nearby trash can and began to toss the three fanged skulls into it, using one hand to sling the bag over his shoulder while the other gently gripped his cracked ribcage. He took one last drag of the cigarette and he immediately spit it out, choking and spluttering as he attempted to remove the taste of the burnt filter from his tongue.

“I know someone who would just love to meet you folks,” Ellis stated with a sigh as he began to walk back towards the main streets of Bristol. He needed to figure out if anyone else knew about the problem that this city was facing.

Everyone went about their business in the city, unaware of the dark backdrop that tainted their lives without ever touching them directly. This pleasant ignorance was what allowed them to ignore the street dwellers that went missing, or the neighbor that they never heard from again. ‘Well, it has nothing to do with me. I am sure someone will figure out where they’ve gone,’ they would say. Ellis snorted in disgust as he moved through the groups of people, the sack still slung over his shoulder. He felt throbs of pain issuing through his side, where he knew at least three of his ribs had been fractured. Nothing too serious, but enough to make his breathing that much more labored, and slipping through the crowds that much more difficult.

The burlap sack bounced off of a man’s shoulder and he stopped in the crowd to turn and shout at Ellis. However, by the time that the man was talking to him, Ellis was long gone, and he was left with his mouth half open as the crowd swept him away. Ellis grinned as he walked, holding the pack of pilfered cigarettes tightly. The man he had passed would notice when he got home that night that the cigarettes were missing. He would ponder where he possibly could have left them, but eventually he would pass it off to having left them at work. When he did not find them there, he would curse himself for being so forgetful and buy himself another pack. That was the way of the world now. Nothing held true value to people anymore. Everything could be replaced.

There were always at least two faces to a city. Bristol was no different—it has many. There was the section of town that you would bring your wife or woman of interest. This section of town had windows full of gleaming bobbles and restaurants with candles illuminating their mysteriously alluring interiors. It had little children running through the streets, avoiding horse carriages and laughing all the way, while their parents chased after them, their grins equally disarming.

Then there was the side of town that you wouldn’t bring anyone to. The side of town that you slunk off to alone at night. This place would have windows full of old newspaper clippings and boards. It would have restaurants here and there, where the main food was liquid, and if you ate too much you ended up unconscious and robbed more blind than you were before you toppled over the curb into the street. It had children running through the streets, picking the pockets of anyone who didn’t seem to belong there, and laughing as they threw eggs at carriages and dawdled off to whatever alley had a warm barrel fire to sit by. Their parents were either dead or just didn’t have the money to support another mouth to feed. These streets were louder, dirtier, scarier, and most importantly of all: they were a hell of a lot more fun.