The whore squealed as Lord Reginald Pitt entered her. Lord Pitt had not been gentle, as he hadn't been with any of the whores he's been with for the past week. It was always like this when he returned from a successful hunt, and his trip to North Africa had been fruitful indeed.
He was barely thinking of the woman he was fucking. Instead, his mind drifted to the moment that he drove that stake into the heart of that monster. And he thought of the moments before, where she was pleading with him, trying to ply him with her devil's logic. She only took the lives of people who were suffering, she said. Only those who wished to leave this terrible life behind, and move on to their eternal reward.
He remembered the tears rolling down her caramel cheeks, coming down from hazel eyes that glowed faintly in the moonlight. She was a beautiful Moroccan woman, and one could certainly be tricked into believing that she was some sort of angel of mercy. That's what the people in the area said she was, but Pitt knew better. His family had been the crown's clandestine monster hunters since the days of Queen Elizabeth, and Lord Pitt inherited their vast reserves of knowledge regarding the supernatural. And when he heard whispers of an angel of mercy in Morocco visiting the sick and dying, taking them away and supposedly giving them final respite, he knew that there was something else going on.
He had barely been in Morocco for a week before he figured out that his target was a vampire, all the signs present in the dead that she left behind. He was frustrated with the families of the deceased, who did not seem to share his urgency in destroying this abomination, but it was little issue in the end. He set his trap and sprang it.
The monster did not put up a fight. She only pleaded for her cursed life, and while Lord Pitt enjoyed combat, he also took pleasure in her pathetic ministrations. What joy it is to see the devil begging, and to have such power over monsters.
In her last moments, as she crumbled into ash, the monster uttered her final words: may he have mercy on you. Lord Pitt took that as his final victory, the demon in her last moments delivering a Christian blessing.
The whole affair invigorated him, as all hunts did, and he returned to England eager to fuck. As an upstanding Anglican, he did not prefer the company of whores. But even in her younger years, his wife Celestina was always reserved in the bedchamber. And after her difficult pregnancy, she seemed almost averse to any carnal contact. She had instead dedicated herself to running the household, and raising their daughter Rose to be a proper Victorian woman. Rose had just recently come of age, and Celestina busied herself with the business of introducing her to society, taking her to salons and galas and whatever else filled up the time of women of a certain breeding.
A shame, he thought. Celestina was still rather fair, even now that she approached middle age. But the aftermath of a hunt is not something that can be shared with her. It necessitates the services of women more willing and able to take a ploughing. He kept this small apartment in London specifically for this purpose, its doors only open for ladies of the night. And he had found satisfaction in this arrangement; having a respectable wife at home while indulging in the pleasures of the flesh outside of it.
"Please, sir," the whore said meekly. "Not so rough."
Lord Pitt pawed at her breasts, his fingers leaving indentations in the rosy flesh. He paid no heed to her pleas, and continued his rut. She could only whimper as he picked up speed, his eyes betraying no sympathy for her plight. His right hand released her bosom and moved up to her throat, grasping firmly around her airway. The edges of her vision dimmed as she struggled for air, drawing focus to Lord Pitt's icy gaze.
"Take it, whore," he said. "Take it." Pitt felt a heat in his loins, and all at once it surged through his member, releasing into the whore's cunt. Satisfied, he pulled out his sticky length, and released his grip on her throat. She gasped loudly and then coughed violently, before turning over limply.
Pitt found a nearby rag and wiped his privates clean. He casually tossed the rag at the panting whore, whose name he never bothered to learn. He walked towards a nearby desk, where he kept the money to pay for these services, and he noticed a strange shadow passing in the window. Lord Pitt could have sworn that the silhouette resembled that of a man, but the thought was simply ridiculous. He was on the third floor of this building, and not even the most agile thief could move that quickly on the facade's narrow ledges.
It was then then that he heard the shattering of glass. Shards from the window flew towards him, accompanied by a form that moved at a speed that he could barely register. Pitt did not have any time to realize what was going on, before the form was on him, and the world faded to black around him.
***
Lord Pitt awoke to a sharp pain in his head and a dull ache everywhere else. He tried to move, but found that he couldn't, his body bound tightly to a sturdy oak chair. His arms were lashed together behind him, and his legs were tied to the chair's legs. He raised his head slowly, hissing from the pain as he straightened his slumped neck and shoulders.
His surroundings came into focus, and he realized he was home, in his private den in Pitt Manor. He was on his chair behind his large wooden desk. The room was barely illuminated with candles, their orange glow hardly reaching the end of the room. They were concentrated around the settee at the center of the large room, on which there lay a bound female form. It took a second, but Pitt recognized her as the whore he hired that night.
A voice shot out from the darkness at the end of the room. "Let me tell you a story, Lord Pitt."
"Who are you?" Pitt yelled. "Show yourself."
"Long, long ago, there was a man born into war," the voice said, ignoring him. The words were spoken with an accent Pitt could not quite identify. But there were notes of refinement to it, a certain precision of elocution that tended to indicate an educated sort.
"He first killed when he was but a child," the voice continued, "defending his mother from some marauder. He failed to save her, but was successful in becoming acquainted with murder. And he would only become more familiar with death in his following years."
Pitt struggled against his bonds, trying to find some weakness as his mysterious captor seemed distracted in his reveries. But he found no slack in the rope, no place that wasn't tightly secured.
"He grew up strong, forged in the flames of endless conflict. He learned the ways of warfare, and killed many, many people. He fought under a banner, but the truth of it was that he killed for killing's sake. It was all he really knew, the justifications behind the various conflicts never really mattering to the man on the battlefield."
The whore stirred, and her eyes opened wide in panic. She tried to scream, but found her mouth gagged. A figure emerged from the darkness, tall and wiry, wearing a simple white shirt and heavy moleskin trousers. His clean-shaven face had delicate, youthful features, except for his dark, grey eyes, which carried the weight of age. His long, black hair seemed to resist the light, the candles doing nothing to illuminate his mane. He moved with an unnerving grace towards the whore, his footfalls making no sound against the wooden floors.
"Hush now, Betty," he said, running his hand gently through the whore's red curls. "I'm telling a story."
The whore seemed to settle down somewhat, though the panic had not fully left her eyes. It appeared as though there was comfort found in the man's light stroking, calming her to some measure.
"You reveal yourself, monster," Lord Pitt spat.
The man turned to him, looking slightly puzzled. "Oh, yes, he said. "Sometimes I take for granted how little men can see in the dark. I hope you don't think I was hiding. Allow me to introduce myself. I have been known by many names, but I have of late been going by the name 'Cain.'"
"Untie me," Lord Pitt said. "And then we'll determine if you were hiding from me."
"No I don't think so," he said. "Now where was I?"
Cain strode towards Lord Pitt, coming face to face with him.
"Now, there came a day when the man had spilled so much blood that he could no longer be a man. And so, he stopped being one. He became something else: a creature more suited to the oceans of blood that he was creating. He did not know how it happened, but it did, as though a gift from death himself. Much later, they would come to call him a vampire."
Cain looked up at him and smiled grimly.
"This...vampire lived for a very long time. Lived many lives, under many names. His blood allowed him to make other vampires, and every now and then he would make companions. But few are able to carry the burden of immortality, and those that were able attracted the attention of hunters. And while they shared some of their master's strengths, they were imperfect beings who had vulnerabilities that could be exploited."
Cain shot Lord Pitt a hateful glare that he felt in the pit of his stomach. "You know this, of course."
"So his existence was lonely," the man continued. "And though he could have anything he wanted, he still grew weary of his overlong life. There would never be any peace, for he was in the eyes of the rest of the world a monster. He then traveled to North Africa, intending, perhaps, to have a long, fitful sleep in the desert."
Pitt's captor looked him straight in eye. "But he met a most remarkable woman."
Cain rose to his full height, towering over the bound hunter. "In the centuries that he had lived, our protagonist had never felt anything resembling what people called love. And yet there it was, in this kind woman that smelled of rose water, my Fatima."
Pitt felt a chill run up his spine.
"She betrayed no fear upon learning what I was. She only had love and grace in her, and would suffer the curse of a vampiric hunger to be with me. And through her, I learned to turn death into a gift: a means to end suffering, rather than cause it."
