Once he was in the shadow of the building, Sayre concentrated and used one of his most taxing abilities. With one step into the shadow, he was on the ground walking as if he would go straight through the wall; in the next he was on the roof, in the shadow of the smoke stack. The human’s head was turned away, expecting him from elsewhere.

The look of surprise thrilled Sayre. As did the squeak he silenced.

“I have just one question…” said Sayre as he held the squirming human hunter by the throat over the edge of the roof. “Are you really that inept, or—”

Another bolt dug into his back. He growled and turned to look over his shoulder. “Wait your turn.” A flick of his hand forced the second hunter to the tips of his toes, choking on the necktie that held him aloft.

“Where was I?” Sayre took a deep breath. “Right. Who sent you?”

The human squirmed. “Never…tell…” he managed through gasps.

“Are you certain?” Sayre bore his fangs.

“Have to…kill…me…”

Sayre narrowed his eyes. He shot a peeved glance towards the other hunter. “I assume the same for you?” He interpreted the gurgle as a yes. A deep sigh rumbled out of Sayre. “Well then—”

“Oi! Fangs!” a werewolf, though human, shouted through cupped hands up to him. “You gonna waste all that meat?”

Waste, waste, waste? Everyone was complaining.

“What’s it to you?” he said back, knowing damn well he didn’t need to shout.

“Considerin’ they injured a few of my guys, I’d like to return the favor.”

“These idiots staked me.”

“Yah-huh. Sounds painful,” he appeased Sayre. “Still though, why don’t you come on down, and we’ll figure this out. No more blood.

Sayre considered the offer. “No.”

“That’s disappointing,” he sighed. Sayre could hear the werewolf’s hand fall to his hips. “Then how about a barter?”

Sayre stepped closer to the edge of the roof. “I’m listening…”

“You come on down with those humans, and we talk terms. Nothing that a good breaking of bread and wine can’t solve.”

“No,” Sayre repeated.

“You see” —the werewolf stepped closer, holding out a hand, begging for Sayre to wait— “I know where the pack leader is on this fine, dark eve.”

Sayre raked in a deep breath, and exhaled it through a sigh. He glanced at the humans hovering in the air by his power alone. They would know nothing. The both of them were clearly low-ranking to whatever foul plot was made against him. “Mustache or side-burns?” he posed.

“What?”

“Pick one.”

“Uh, side-burns?”

Sayre flung the second human hunter over the edge of the roof. They crashed into the hard ground a moment later with a horrible squelch and mewl. Broken, but alive. “There,” he said to the werewolf, before turning eyes back to the human hunter still in his clutches. The human whimpered a little, but demanded bravery, even as he shook in fright. “Now, are you sure you don’t have anything to tell me?” Sayre smiled, and it looked as if it were made out of saws and needles, and agony.

The human squirmed. “Never tell… You bastard! You…monst—”

Sayre broke their neck with a twist of his wrist. Then he bore his fangs into the throat and drank to his fill.  When he was satisfied, he smeared a kerchief across his mouth and chin, and kicked the body off the roof. It fell with a crack. Then he stepped off the edge and landed like a cat.

The werewolf pursed his lips in displeasure. “Where’s a necromancer when you need one?” he grumbled. 

Florida, Sayre thought, but refused to say. Instead, Sayre stormed over. “Tell me where he is,” he threatened with a smile (and teeth still rouge).

The werewolf shook his head. “This wasn’t what I had in mind, you know.”

“That one is still alive. Feast, or torment. I don’t care. Tell me—”

The werewolf crossed muscular arms. “You’re awfully demanding. You brought hunters here—”

“Tracked them here. How did they manage to get past a pack of werewolves?”

The werewolf blinked, and thought. His rough, work-calloused hands returned to his hips—over trousers of rough, but warm fabric, and a tucked in shirt. The vest sported a patch of mismatched fabric. Like his hair, with streaks of brown and gray and strawberry blond. “That’s…a damn good question.” He sent his brown eyes over Sayre, then extended a hand. “Name’s Howard.”

Sayre didn’t shake. He kept his hands in his coat’s pockets. “Sayre.”

“Oh!” Howard’s eyes widened. “Well, shit, that explains a lot.” Howard glanced to the human hunters—one dead, one alive—then went back to Sayre. “Who’s stupid enough to try and stake you?”

His expression darkened. “My thoughts exactly.” 

“This can’t be good.” Howard ran a hand through his hair. “Can’t be good at all for us. If someone is coming after you” —he pointed with the hand that was extended— “then it may as well turn its sights on us.”

Sayre sent his eyes to the squirming broken hunter. “I think it already has,” he said as he walked over. Howard followed. Sayre bent a knee and placed a hand over the human’s chest, over his heart. “You can either die quickly, or slowly,” he started, “honestly, I could not care less either way. Your choice.”

“Now, wait—” Howard tried to interrupt, but Sayre kept on.

“Who is daft enough to try and kill a vampire, and a pack of werewolves? Who thought only the two of you would be enough?”

The human hunter only squirmed.

“Who—” Sayre pulled the necklace free that he had used to track them. He hadn’t given it a real look, until now. It dangled in the moonlight. A long silver chain—confirmed silver by the way Howard flinched at it—with a thin, oblong medallion. Carved into the metal, a holy looking figure. Maybe a saint. He didn’t keep track of those things.

But, Howard must have, because he pulled Sayre’s arm higher. Too afraid to touch the thing himself, Howard let his brown eyes search it. His nose even twitched.

“Well, this is very much not good,” he exhaled. “That’s…a, uh, that’s a pendant for some human cult, or, uh…club? I don’t know what the hell it is, all I know, it’s bad news. Very, very bad for us.” Howard ran a nervous palm across his mouth, deep in thought. “So bad.”

“Explain,” Sayre demanded as he looked over his shoulder. One hand holding the silver necklace, the other holding down the squirming human.

“I guess you don’t get the missives,” said Howard. Sayre narrowed his eyes. “Perks of being part of—nevermind. Humans like to think themselves mighty every once and a while, and every once and a while, they grab their torches and pitch-forks and really like to get in touch with their ancestors.” Howard mimed a finger across this throat. Then he dropped his eyes on the human. “Looks like they’re—Hey! Stop that!”

Sayre turned over as the human slipped something into his mouth. He chomped his teeth against it. Sayre tried to force the jaw open, but the body twitched and foam lifted.

“Shit!” Howard barked. Then his eyes widened, and he said it again as something black grew beneath the human’s skin. Tendrils that followed the veins and painted his body cursed. “Big shits!”

Sayre stepped back and hauled Howard with him. Lapping, shadowy tendrils expunged from the dead human’s chest. They lifted towards the moon, before falling over the body, dissolving slowly in the passing seconds.

“Like I said: very, very, very bad news,” squeaked Howard with unease.

Sayre snarled. “So it would seem.”

When Howard tried to run, Sayre clenched a fist in his shirt. “Now…” he grumbled, “where is your pack leader?”

“I dunno where exactly, just that—Okay, okay! Ow. That hurts. You don’t have to—Some party. Some human party.” Sayre released him with a grunt. Howard flattened his shirt and adjusted his vest. “That’s all I really know.”

“Where?”

“I mean, isn’t a whole building of humans enough to sniff out? So much perfume.” Howard pointed about his nose. “It is for a werewolf.”

Sayre rolled his eyes. “I’ll find it.”

“Yeah, right, best of luck.” Howard waved a hand as Sayre left him. “Tell him I said this is why we don’t take deals with witches!”

Only three steps away, and Sayre’s scowl deepened. “What did you say?”

“Deal…with witches. He got an invite to some human party. Was meant to be a date to some High-Priestess. I told him it wouldn’t be good news. I warned him. Nothing good ever happens when dealing with a witch. Nothing. Nada! Nyet! ”

So Sayre was beginning to understand. His cold dead blood roiled with fury. Sayre clenched his hands into fists, and gnashed his jaw. A terrible rumble shook his chest. “Where?” he growled murderously.

~*~

There was laughter in the street, before Sayre dropped off the roof before the pack leader. He landed swiftly, barely bending his knees. The only thing that gave way to the fact he had fallen from a height was the dance of his scarf and hem of his coat, and the part of his hair that broke from the mold to cast a dark scar across his forehead. He towed it back with a gloved hand as he walked to the couple before him—a well-dressed woman and a man with a glorious mane of hair that would have made a lion envious. Without a word, the pair stopped dead in their tracks. She squeaked with affront, but the man said nothing.

All he did was look Sayre over, head to toe, with bold brown eyes, and a quiver in his lip he tried to contain. The recognition was palpable. 

“Fergus,” Sayre greeted, though flatly.

“You will address him properly, whoever you are!” the woman chided, whipping a hand and fan tied to her wrist about his face. “You—”

“Not now,” Fergus said, pushing her arm down. To Sayre, he managed, “What do you want?”

“Your invitation.”

“My—? What? Wh-what invitation?”

Sayre tilted his head, eyes stormy blue and cold. He pierced them into Fergus as if they were icicles.

Fergus chuckled nervously. “Why? Couldn’t you just enthrall your way in?”

A terrible, scheming smirk sliced across one of Sayre’s cheeks. “I could, but where’s the fun in that?” He tugged on every word. Tugged, like he was wiggling out their teeth.

A shudder moved up Fergus as he soaked in the sight of Sayre. The woman on his arm froze for a moment, before insult took her again, and once more, she whipped a hand about Sayre.

She opened her mouth to scold him, but a single, “Enough,” low and gravelly from the depths of Sayre’s throat silenced her.

Sayre slipped a hand out, open palm up, expectantly. His glare bore into Fergus. His expression: frigid and unwavering. It morphed into a smile—but only after Fergus slipped a shaking hand into his breast pocket and pulled out a black envelope adorned with a golden wax seal. The second it hit Sayre’s gloved palm, he stuffed it away and turned.

Without so much as a good-bye, or thank you, Sayre stepped into a shadow and disappeared into the night.

Before he had, he heard a hand slap against an arm, a huff, and:

 “Why didn’t you do anything?” shrieked from the woman’s painted lips.

Only to be replied with, “Oh, thank gods,” whimpered in relief from Fergus. “You don’t understand. That’s Sayre.” 

“Who?”

“The Old One.”

“...Oh,” the woman shuddered. Her voice shook with the realization of how close to death she had just been.

Sayre smiled and purred in delight. As did the thought of how glorious his revenge against the witch would be. The various ways in which he was going to carve out her heart were ghastly and hideous. He was going to gnaw on her aorta with a leisurely chumble, seen only by those chewing on tobacco. He was going to floss his teeth with her tendons. He was going to use her innards like a rosary, and from her bones make the altar to which he would pay reverence for his delightfully heinous thoughts.

Yes, he savored. He was going to rip that impish little smirk from her lips and sink his teeth into that shadowy pocket in the corner of her neck. And, he was going to be lulled to madness by the sound of her voice.

Sayre grunted and growled.

Then he was in the shadow, and gone.