Mortal Fear

Music pulsed rhythmically from the speakers upon speakers hidden in the walls, swaying electric lamps washing ancient architecture in warm orange waves of light as Ollie held the door for her. Autumn smiled with a small bow in thanks – this was new for him. Confession had been ridiculed initially by the general populace – who builds a nightclub in an old cathedral? But now that she was here, listening and drinking it all into her, feeling the rush of the beat bounce off of her exposed shoulders and pounce back into the crowd on the dance-floor… Glancing back at the gentleman her rough around the edges boyfriend was trying to be, Autumn giggled and shook her head, the lilt in her voice assuring him he wasn't doing anything wrong, “C'mon Sir Lancelot – you can't be a noble knight all night. I came here to dance.”

His hand found hers and Ollie brushed his free hand through his disobedient locks, grinning crookedly and nodding, “Alright then – but you remember you set yourself up for this. At least I've got rhythm.” Autumn's free hand playfully thudded against his shoulder, the grin on her face widening despite her uncertainties. Ollie was a nice guy and she liked him... She only hoped he'd kept in mind what she'd said before agreeing to try again. Ollie wasn't known for playing by the rules – something Autumn had quietly admitted to herself she envied. But that didn't mean none of them applied to her – and if she was who he wanted, Ollie would have to get used to that. It made her dizzy with relief that he seemed to be trying exactly that.

His voice bellowed over the music – just – as she looked around at the mixing of new interior and centuries old stonework, “Do we wanna head to the bar and get something to loosen up with?” The question rang an alarm bell or two in Autumn's head, but she shook the thoughts away – she'd never asked him to stop drinking completely, just to keep it in check. “Sure – but you're paying.” She said with an impish grin and a wink, taking his hand and hip-swaying her way through the crowded floor. While the crowd didn't exactly part for them, it wasn't quite busy enough to have difficulty traversing the floor – that only happened around ten or eleven, when the drinkers came in. By then, Autumn hoped to be long gone.

She put her back to the bar and let Ollie order, only half-listening to the chatter between him and the bartender as she passed her gaze all around the club. She nudged Ollie slightly and spoke, struggling to be heard over the DJ's hard work, “I'm gonna look around for a few minutes. I won't be long.”

She brushed a wave of her red hair out of her eyes and strode back into the crowd, her eyes following the building and its' modifications with a certain degree of awe. Although her lecturers would jump right down her throat for looking at something so industrial as anything but an unfavourable addition to the landscape, threatening the habitats of birds, small scavengers and countless other wildlife, Autumn couldn't help but see it as a feat of engineering, a task that must have required a strong, imaginative vision to complete. She envied people like that.

She was jostled then, danced into by a couple and gripped by a hand to keep her from the floor. She went to thank the man but he was already gone, leather shoulder holster and a black t-shirt sculpting the muscle in his thick back that slowly was devoured by the crowd. She shook her head – probably staff. Black shirts were common uniform for places like this – though God only knew why. It was hardly easy to see. She opened her mouth to shout after him but a small glass was suddenly hovering before her, Ollie’s fingertips gripping the rim. “Your favourite – not that they’re cheap in this place. What were you lookin’ at?”

She didn’t respond immediately, catching hold of the glass with care given the near-violence of some of the attending dancers. “Just how they’d changed the internals, y’know? Believe it or not, my Ma an’ Da got married in here.”

Ollie’s dark eyebrow raised with a semi-smile coursing up to the edge of one cheek, “You gotta be kidding.” Autumn was about to motion to where the pulpit had once stood, but another voice chimed in with a shock of blond and blue hair swaying atop the face responsible, “Sounds pretty cool to me. Were you there or what?” Autumn blinked in multiple before she quite registered the newcomer to the conversation, and once more again before she managed a response, “Um… Do I know you?” She sputtered awkwardly, her accent flowing as her thoughts refused to.

Ollie was the one to respond, triggering Autumn’s spine-shiver response for the second time in too short an amount of time, “This is Viola – met her at the bar. She’s cool.”

The blond-blue clubbing girl promptly flung first one arm and then another across Ollie’s shoulders, his suddenly concerned expression saying it all to the date he’d arrived with, “Only cool? I remember you sayin’ a little more not so long ago, Ollie. I didn’t scare you off, did I?”

Autumn could feel her face flushing its’ way up to the same tone as her fire-truck red hair, the anger in her glare like rippling leaves flying from branches in a gale. “You… You dare… “ She sputtered out, her voice quaking as the crowd around them all but disappeared from her interest. Ollie’s mouth moved but she didn’t hear him, his voice muffled down into indistinct and annoying noises, like a whole colony of flies buzzing around her head. “You drag me out to this place, in this dress, surrounded by all the people here, and then move over onto someone like her!? A bar floozy!?” Her smoothly accented speech transformed rapidly into a torrent of liquid fire, insults she’d never felt the need to use spat from between her teeth like rapidly firing bullets. “No. No! I do not have to tolerate you, Olliver Grange! There’s someone good and kind out there, and they're owed me, by thunder!” Autumn whirled from the dancefloor, leaving Ollie and his precious Viola in her flaming wake.

The wind felt pointed as she stalked out, like strands of hair made of saw blades gently scraping at her bare shoulders. She was furious – she had been warned by everyone who'd seen her with him that Ollie was trouble. Took after his father, her mother had said – the father that had left more or less the moment he'd been born. She'd dressed up, gone out, enjoyed herself at Confession for all of two minutes before he'd started drinking... And flirting. Again.

They'd discussed it briefly – something he'd not liked, clearly, but had tolerated – and she thought she'd made her opinion clear. She did not share – at all. He was welcome to choose her if he meant it, but she'd never once said she'd be willing to let him just get all touchy-feely with other girls, especially not when he was already out with her. Footsteps sounded behind her and she shook her head, wavy red hair flying across her face for a moment as she continued down the alley, “Don't even try Ollie – you knew what I thought about this. We're done.” Her accent was thick and broad as it channelled her anger, a musical Irish lilt that had given her more trouble over the years than it had helped.

Nothing was said in response – just the continued heavy trudge of well-worn boots thudding against newspaper-clad concrete. It sent a crooked, juddering feeling down Autumn's spine, a cold pang of uncertainty. “Ollie?” She turned – and the face she saw was not that of her philandering ex-lover.

He was pale, his hair sodden and dark – were it not so short, Autumn imagined it'd be awkwardly plastered to his forehead. His eyes were so pale and yellowed she had to do a double-take – nobody had eyes like that. Then he opened his mouth – and something out of a horror film descended from his jaw. Fangs. Long, pearly and twinkling with a subtle menace, a level of subtlety that the rest of him struggled to even look at much less compete with. Autumn's jaw shuddered all on its' own, not sure how long or loud to scream but knowing it definitely should.

She stood, frozen, as her nightmare shuffled closer, nose scrunching up and drawing a long, analysing sniff of her scent. Her heart sank – her studies at University meant she knew for certain now it had her scent. And whatever this thing was – really – she had no idea how long it'd take for it to lose track of it. It may never. A clang sounded from a fire-escape further down the alley, drawing the attention of the skinny and pale as snow figure with a second baring of its' fangs and a hissing snarl – this was the only chance she was going to get. Autumn felt the world slow as she counted down the seconds and splits of seconds between her present and the only two actions she could take – attack it, or try to get somewhere more public. This could still all be a prank – or at least she could still keep telling herself that. As the yellowed gaze of the creature began to swing back to her inch by inch, she made her choice.

Autumn ran.

She took three full steps before a great coat swirled from around the corner of the noisy fire escape and the man wearing it drew a strange contraption from within the folds of cloth, her distraction tripping her and scraping her knees angrily across the ground. Crying out, Autumn looked to the man she'd nearly collided with and saw what he held in his hands – a crossbow. With a whisper of the string letting fly, she watched him reach up to the silver handle standing upright from the wooden grip and he pulled back, the string returning to its' previous place and... Another bolt? Just like that? “Don't worry, ma cherie – I got this.” He said, his voice carrying a strong American accent that Autumn found herself struggling to place given the amount of questions and panic running in her mind, her pulse pounding in every extremity and her knees stinging with frozen bloody scrapes.

He fired again, and this time Autumn's gaze followed the bolt, striking the pale assailant in his chest – and as he fell, he erupted, a bloom of fire rendering him nothing but a scattering shower of ash in the winter breeze. Autumn looked to the stranger, his grey eyes analytical and calm despite having just committed murder with a frigging crossbow, and found her head feeling worryingly faint as the questions just stacked and stacked and stacked. “You're gonna wanna get up, cherie. They hunt in packs.”

Gingerly wiping the grit and grime from her bloodied knees, Autumn stood on shaky feet, her eyes locked to the small patch of the alley floor that was slowly accumulating most of her deceased stalker, ash gathering in several little heaps atop old discarded newspaper pages like oil sitting atop water. Her jaw juddered at first, requiring her full concentration to send her question stumbling out into the night air, “What... What was he?” Her eyes drifted to the man who saved her and his steel gaze locked to hers, examining her as if her question triggered a thousand and one of his own.

He nodded and turned back from her again, his eyes everywhere as he cast his gaze about the alley like a security guard swinging the beam of a torch, “Believe me when I say there are things you don't wanna talk about in an alley that may not be safe for too much longer. Where there's one, there's usually more – for now ma cherie, that'll have to do.” He made to move, and Autumn felt her heart beat violently against her chest, reaching outward and grabbing his arm with a vice-like grip, “You can't leave me here. You saw it, you saw its... Teeth.” She spat the last word as though it stung her to remember, the alley's breath of a breeze scooping at her long coiled hair but struggling to carry it, “If that's really real – the fire, the crossbow, the pointy fangs? I can't just go back. This changes everything!”

She watched him carefully, seeing the cogs turn beneath the dark brown hair and flesh-wrapped skull – there had to be some way out of this. Autumn was no fan of just drifting off with someone she'd never even met before, but whatever else she thought of this man, he knew how to kill whatever those things were. “Look, I'm not some action woman – I can’t kill those things. But you can – and that means you could keep me safe. At least long enough to go home. Let me come with you - please.” Autumn held her gaze to him as her accent plucked her words like guitar strings, not giving him the choice of looking away – this was not the best idea she'd had, but then apparently considering Ollie her choices weren't that great to begin with.

The man with the crossbow relented with a short nod of his head, though his expression suggested reluctance still. “Alright – but you stay close an' you match my pace. Any slower and the pack will find us, understand?” Autumn nodded, ignoring the cries from her bloody knees, the scrapes seeping like tears slowly rolling down a widow's cheek. Keeping pace was likely to hurt – but temporary pain won out over the potential for whatever those creatures would do. With fangs that size, Autumn barely needed to wonder.

With their brief exchange, however, the crossbow was stashed across his back in a harness of brown leather – something that she had outright missed upon first sight – and he barrelled down the alley, Autumn's eyes widening at his pace. It was not impossible, no, but she had expected something of a run, not a sprint. “Wait!”

“No – keep up!” Was the call over his shoulder. Irritably, and with no small amount of pain from her bloody knees, Autumn pelted after him as fast as her short dress allowed. The blue and green number had seemed like a great idea earlier on, but then she had been expecting to hit the dance-floor, not to find herself running hell for leather after an unknown man with a weapon that belonged several centuries behind them. “I don't even know your name!” She cried, closing the distance between them and then quaking mid-step as a feral screech sounded above them.

Her only-somewhat-helpful saviour slung his weapon into his hands again and ground to a halt, grey eyes sharp and focused. “That just makes us even, chere.” He said offhand, closing his eyes and obviously straining to hear the slightest noise. After what felt like too long to be stood still when they were only another run's length from the alley's end, he nodded ever-so-slightly, “There's three on their way. They have our position – stay close.” Autumn did as he said with a frown – as if she had a choice. “Would it not help if we moved? They wouldn't 'have our position' then.”

He smirked as one came into view atop a building and took aim, “Wasn't you I was talkin' to, chere. I got an innocent in tow and a roofer in sights – focus on the other two and meet back at the van. Remember to take the Brood Master back alive – we need info here, mes amis.”

The crossbow was raised to the creature crouched atop the building, and Autumn watched in equal parts awe and fear as he just pulled the trigger, another eruption of flame and ash wiping the creature from the world as if it had never even been. She could scarcely believe this was even happening – it was like every terrible campfire story her grandfather had ever told her made flesh. “My name is Autumn Davies.” She said finally, her voice steadier than it had been earlier on but not by as much as she would have preferred. He turned to her, a raised eyebrow perched well above the other and a curious look in his eye that she couldn't place. “A belle name for a belle femme, ma cherie. David Montilyet, at your service. Now come on – best not be here sittin' pretty as ducks if any of my associates fail, hmm?”

Again, David shouldered his weapon, fishing something else from beneath his coat – a pointed chunk of wood, for what little Autumn could tell, though the tip looked to be slick with some rich, dark liquid. She felt her stomach roll, but held herself in check as they began moving, finally breaching the alleyway and beginning the short trek towards... Well, to Autumn it looked like nowhere. Paranoia bloomed in her mind as a twisted flower, gnarled roots running past every thought and turning it towards ones more sinister – what if these were not the saviours that she had them pegged as? After all, she'd only met one. His friends could easily be fictional, and his supposed randomly encountering her just as much. Had she been targeted by more than one faction of insane people? If so, why? What made her worth the trouble of people who clearly couldn't be legally allowed to do the sorts of things David – assuming that was his real name – had just done. “So... What the hell is all this?” She asked, not entirely certain what kind of an answer she expected. Considering that Autumn found herself running mostly on adrenalin and a definite desire to stay alive, her initial shaky start seemed all but gone, though she was certain the moment they stopped for too long she was going fall faint and try to pretend it was all just a terrible dream.

Montilyet's eyes never once locked with hers, his vision cast around them on constant watch and his voice suitably distant given the focus he devoted to the task, “Well ma cherie, 'this' is everything you've ever been convinced don't exist. Right now, three others alongside yours truly are hunting down a vampire. Perhaps more specifically, we're hunting the top dog – he's the only one who's gonna know a damn thing anyway.” Autumn watched him continue walking, his hand firmly gripped around the object he'd drawn from his coat and the pointed end drip-drip-dripping rich, red-black liquid with every few steps. Her eyes grew wide as the open sky and she pointed with a trembling, well-manicured finger, “Your blood's all over that thing!” She hissed, certain that he'd not used the much more robust piece of wood as ammunition – if he had, then God Himself had somehow put it back into Montilyet's coat pocket.

He looked from her to the stake and smiled briefly, the flash of pearly white teeth only assuring her that he thought her stupid – or at best naïve. “Not mine, chere. This is dead man's blood. It's a poison to a vampire – even if I miss the heart, this'll rot 'em from their insides out. When you set out to fight monsters, there ain't no such thing as being over-prepared.” Autumn gulped, her jaw threatening to quiver as it had earlier in the alley – but he was right. As grim as the red fluid was, she currently had little choice but to believe all that Montilyet was telling her. With that in mind, she could honestly say she'd rather the stake bloody than not – for now her stomach would just have to turn in silence. “This just gets more and more brutal, doesn't it?”

Montilyet's steely eyes grew dark like thunder clouds as he moved onward, avoiding the car park's interior and sticking close to the wall as they moved further ahead. He waited until he had reached the last border between Autumn, himself and the suburban misanthropic forest of envy-filled neighbours and barely-hidden affairs – her home neighbourhood. “You got no idea, ma cherie.” He said.

Cautiously, Autumn moved further towards David's left side and began to look hard for whatever it was he kept looking for, not sure what she was looking at beyond her neighbourhood after dark. The plants in the wall-topping flower beds were blackened with the lack of light, only brightening rapidly to an artificial orange when street lamps deigned to cast light down upon them. The more she thought about it all, the more Autumn realized how sinister the place looked, and another juddering shiver rocketed down her spine. She'd never seen a place she'd called home look so much like it'd chew her up and spit her out just to remind her that in the end, she was only human. Not whatever that pale creature had been... And certainly not whatever Montilyet was.

The man moved forwards, sticking close to the darkness and the walls, and Autumn gave serious thought to the matter before following. He was a human being on the surface, sure... But things were not adding up. The crossbow, the stake, the fearlessness... Ollie was the bravest guy she knew, and even then David Montilyet would've stared him down armed with no more than a stick of bubble gum.