And so marched onward the hunters of Blackmere...
It is 1897, the twenty-eighth of May. My name is Brialla Wren, and I am the newest member of the Blackmere Society, a hidden cadre of hunters consisting of creatures that would be feared, would be dreaded, were there not a far greater evil lurking beneath us.
This night, sleep comes deep and restfully, my weakened body exercised into exhaustion by a curious newcomer to Blackmere Manor. A creature of the underworld, unshackled from the entity that had enslaved her, a horned beauty of scarlet skin and ebony hair. She calls herself Rubii, and on the night prior she found me in hospice, seemed to... link, to me. We made love - or rather, she to me - and in spite of my limited cooperation I find no regrets haunting my thoughts.
I awaken to the sensation of gentle nuzzling, the hell-creature's nude body entangled with my own, legs wound around mine and her face buried between my breasts as a young child may cling to its mother, not wishing to be far separated from that which is most crucial to it. Her golden eyes remain shut, soft snores rumbling out from her soft, slumbering figure, mouth open just enough for me to view a single small, sharp fang. I try to shift, but find myself quite unable to, my body still resisting my attempts to control it. There is only the most minor sign of recovery - one finger shifts forward, barely half an inch. Enough, however, to give me some hope.
"Who are you..." I whisper softly, not rousing the demon-girl, though taking some comfort from her closeness. She's wonderfully pretty in her unholy way, and now that I've acclimated to her being so near I find it quite soothing. A kind of presence I've not felt for far too long, despite its unlikely source. A low, rumbling sound, something between a snore and purr, burbles out from the red-skinned stowaway. Curiously pleasing...
I'm startled to full waking by the sound of voices outside of the makeshift infirmary where I'm being held, the door's handle rattling. My eyes snap open, and I whisper harshly to Rubii, "Girl! You mustn't let them see you! You have to go!"
She does not hear. Her slumber is absolute, her body completely relaxed in its embrace of me. I knew this moment would come, and even though I know far too little of Rubii's origin or intention, I have no wish to see her mistreated for what she appears to be, rather than her expressed character. Nonetheless, the inlaid ash door creaks open, and two members of the Society enter: Mr. Commons, his jacket doffed and vest open, giving him something of a disheveled appearance; and Anathema, the graceful vampyress clad scandalously a crimson shift, woven from what I can only assume are the fine silks of the East.
"Last I checked she was still asleep, perhaps she's roused now?" I can hear Edgar's voice saying as the door opens, both of them slipping inside. They look upon me, seeing my visitor, and both freeze as if they've seen a ghost - or something far more ghastly, I suppose, seeing as the Society considers a ghost among its full-time members. "
Crivvens.
"
"Well, it certainly seems as if our little witch has found a friend," Anathema's scarlet lips twist into a wry sneer, one I find almost impossible to read - at least in relation to whether she finds Rubii's presence acceptable or not. "Were you planning to tell us about your new lover, Brialla?"
I find my throat quite dry, all eyes on me, with Rubii still asleep and nuzzled into my bosom. If I tell the truth, they won't understand how gentle she was, how... careful, she appeared to be. "It's... i-it's not what you think!" I exclaim, a clumsy attempt to buy time while I contemplate a more digestible retort.
"Oh?" the vampyre drifts close to me. She has the speed of Rubii with none of the discomforting movements - first she is far from me, and then she is near, and the interim is scarcely noticed. "Would you care to explain, sweet witch? Explain how a thing from the underworld ended up in your bed?"
"It's quite a good question," Edgar intones from the other end of the room, making his way over to the bed's other side, cautiously keeping his distance from the slumbering Rubii. "After you sealed the rift and had yourself a wee nap, that thing in the basement dragged us back here, all of us. I remember not a thing about that monstrosity's mouthpiece showing up with us."
"She's..." I swallow hard, trying to think of the best way to explain it, not knowing what they'll want to hear. I still know so little about the other Blackmere hunters and how they'll react. "We freed her, I think. When that... t-that horrid thing... when we closed the rift, it broke its hold over her. She came to me, possibly because I broke the-"
My eyes widen in horror when Rubii stirs from her rest, finally distracted from sleep by all of the voices around her. She looks at me first, then tilts her head, tail lashing suddenly when she sees first Edgar, then Ana. A hideous shriek - not unlike that of a feral cat that's been doused in cold water, or had its tail sharply tugged - erupts from the demongirl, and she detaches from me, scurrying away from the bed completely and darting up the wall. Still naked, facing the other members of the Society, she backs her way up nearly to the ceiling, hands and feet clinging to the smooth, plastered surface as might those of a cricket, or cunning arachnid. "Hssssch!" she wails out, tail lashing wildly.
"Aye, she looks quite sorted, doesn't she?" Even in my state of growing distress, Edgar's sarcasm doesn't miss its mark. Of more concern to me, however, is the sound of footsteps rushing toward the infirmary from elsewhere in Blackmere Manor... footsteps that, logically, could only belong to a single individual.
"Ahh, the brute arrives," Anathema sighs, seeming strangely unfettered by Rubii's sudden display of defensiveness. She simply slinks back a step or two, moving out of the open doorway's line of sight - and in doing so, as if by some premonition of her ungodly humours, retroactively evades the barreling form of a Mr. Erasmus Grey. The lycanthrope storms into the small infirmary, fingers spread in an imitation of beastly claws, but no transformation yet taking place.
Rubii, naturally, refuses to make things at all better. Her attention quickly turns to Mr. Grey, a second shriek escaping her dark lips, the challenge of which causes the werewolf to immediately roar back, a human shout that swells into a bestial howl as Erasmus's already-remarkable figure begins to swell and pop, hair sprouting from various extremities as he enters a state of partial transformation. "What is that
thing
doing here?!"
"It seems our witch brought home a stray," Ana replies coolly. I shall, at some point, have to inquire as to her ancestry; for her rolling, velvet accent continues to elude me. Romanian, perhaps? Or even so far east as the Ukraine? A query for another time. "To the creature's credit, it has yet to attack."
"Like a cornered rat will stand its ground until the jaws of a greater predator draw near," Erasmus snarls, his eyes flaring gold and canine teeth bared. "We saw her serving that... thing. That's all I need to know."
"Not to be rude, lad, but are you quite able to come up with anything besides 'thing'? If you keep using it for everything you don't understand, matters are liable to get rather confusing rather quickly," Edgar inquires, only to be flatly ignored by Erasmus, who (unfortunately) turns his seething attention towards me.
