Mayme stumbled behind Percival in a daze. She kept her eyes half-lidded to minimize how much moonlight could seep in and worsen her pounding headache. She wasn’t sure if that was helping the pain slowly dissipate or if her inhuman blood was. Her guts told her it was the latter. Her own body was betraying her. Each footstep whispered to the man in front of her that she could handle the amount of abuse he had put her through; it told him he could do worse.

With no good outcome in her sights, she found herself hoping for the lesser of two evils. She’d prefer he just took her back to his house. She wanted the whole night to be put behind her, whatever that might still entail. It was likely going to end the same way regardless.

What a sick hope, and a short lived one. It was dashed as from the corner of her eye she caught it— the beast with half its head blown clear off. Her doing. She wanted to blame the corpse for getting her into this situation, but how could she? It was an animal working off sheer instinct, nothing more. She killed it. She revealed her vampiric bloodline. She thought a man would be easier to reason with than a beast. She lowered her weapon. She chose what brute she cozied up to.

Her eyelids drifted completely shut. Percival wasn’t taking her back to his house, they were going to her’s. He was going to make her expose her own mother as the vampiric monstrosity she was. He was going to kill her mama. He was going to kill her papa. He was going to have his way with her. It was going to be all her fault.

The moon vanished behind the looming church. So soothed by the darkness over her eyelids, Mayme failed to notice her grip on Percival’s cloak went slack and she stumbled right into him. Her eyes shot open and she peered around him to see what caused his pause. They were at the foot of the stairs that lead to the church ground. At the top there were bodies of beasts that laid sliced open with their innards bubbling out of them like an erumpent fungus. The stars reflected within the wetness. The air was still and silent, only the misty breath of the pair stirred it. Percival was as still as a statue, Mayme, however, was shaking. Her wavering hand caused the fabric locked in her fist to dance. The stench of gore overtook her as soon as she saw it— but she wasn’t sure if it was the death in front of them or Percival’s blood that still stained her senses.

“Do you hear anything?” Percival asked in a whisper, not even turning back to look at the girl. While she tried to listen to her surroundings he glared back at her and spat, still in a whisper, “Well?”

Immediately her chest tightened and she sunk into her shoulders. “No, Percy, I… I don’t,” she said. The words rushed out of her mouth so quickly there was no way she could have actually validated them.

He nodded and turned to begin his ascent. Though she dreaded the bobbing movement of stair climbing, she followed without hesitation. Her dread was well placed, each step on the hard stone stairs made her head feel like it was being bashed by a hammer. She scrunched her eyes closed so tight that fuzzy, bright colours flashed on the backside of her eyelids. Her breathing harshened to the point it was all she could hear, each hissing breath bounced around inside her skull and scrambled her brain. She bit the insides of her cheeks just to try and endure it all.

The climb, which was torturous on the best of days, wasn’t even half way through when Percival stopped. The action made Mayme's heart drop. While she was preemptively bracing herself to face his wrath something besides the strained noises of her own body caught her ears. There was faint scratching and laboured breathing that sounded half submerged from just how much saliva was being exhaled. Beasts. From the sounds of it they were up on the platform where the church was rooted. Now instead of fearing her suffering gained the man’s ire, she worried her incorrect statement had. She left her lungs empty as she watched Percival for a reaction. His jaw shifted as if he was grinding his teeth, but after a pause he just carried on. His hand drifted to his musket for a short moment before he seemed to think better of it and move it to the gun he had stolen from Mayme instead. The pistol looked far too dainty and delicate for his hand— his finger almost didn’t fit between the trigger and its guard. He motioned for her to follow him.

The church was surrounded by death. Corpses peppered the courtyard from the flight of stairs to the church’s doorstep like a macabre trail of breadcrumbs. The shadows made the blood stained ground look as dark as obsidian, the only hint to its true colour was how the starlight’s glints were a distinct sanguine hue. No longer was the building just the blackened obelisk that towered over the town, but a sleeping behemoth. Its windows were dark, unconcerned with the scourge its clergy had allowed into Letcham. Its immense maw was closed up tight. It was totally unphased by the pleading of the beasts camped at its entrance. Their nails racked at the solid wood which did nothing but turn their fingers bloody and give them splinters.

It was another hoard. Though their numbers had been thinned, the remaining lot still rivalled the group Mayme saw earlier. She glanced up to Percival for some kind of direction, or at least to see how angry he was, but he just looked on at the display coldly. She wasn’t left with much time to ponder his thoughts before he reached behind himself with his free hand and pulled the girl in front of him. She gasped and stumbled, barely catching her footing. The clicks of her heels felt as loud as gunfire. Her joints locked her in an awkward position, but it was too late. The beasts turned their heads towards her. The sound of her stolen pistol clicking echoed behind her, the barrel was pointed at the back of her head.

“Call them off,” Percival said in a low, rumbly voice.

Mayme began to sputter, unable to spit out a real word. Her vocal cords were stuck in a loop of ‘wh-wh-wh’s as she struggled to even begin to comprehend what was being asked of her.

“Don’t act obtuse with me unless you want me to paint this place with your damn brains!”

The beast’s whines turned into hungry chirps. They bared their teeth and began to bound away from the door. In the reflections of their expanded pupils Mayme recognised something. Their eyes were not on her, but past her. All her encounters with beasts throughout the night flashed before her eyes— they never attacked her, never charged at her, never threatened her. She realised just a millisecond before Percival spoke his next sentence what exactly these beasts were.

“I said: call off your damn thrall!”

He jabbed the cold metal of the pistol into the base of Mayme's skull, exacerbating her splitting headache. The thumping of the thrall’s feet hammered in tune with her heart. Though her ghoulish white knights were right there— stampeding to her aid— she knew Percival could pull the trigger faster than they could reach her. She took a deep breath and commanded, “Stop!”

The beasts’ knees locked and the hunched forms skidded to a rigid crawl. They still moved around Mayme and Percival, trying to encircle them from a distance, but only ever managing a semi circle. They sniffed and gnashed their teeth at the air; low growls of displeasure rumbled from the back of some of their throats, the others whined hungerly as they slobbered all down their fronts with their eyes burrowed into Percival. Regardless of their actions and noises, they had obeyed for all intents and purposes, much to Mayme's surprise.

She had heard of thrall before, but only vaguely from tales her mother told her. Servants. Mindless, enchanted servants, even. They were generally described as well behaved— they would be at their master's beck and call and do little else whilst awaiting commands. Truly, they sounded immeasurably loyal, so much so that the cautious wandering of the batch before her seemed uncharacteristic. However, she supposed she couldn't truly be the judge of whether it was odd or not. She hadn’t interacted with thrall before that night, nor did she have any other information on them. She didn't even know how they were created besides it being a supposedly ‘intimate process’. That was to say, they couldn't be her thrall. She wished at that moment her mother spoke more of the less desirable parts of Sangmont living. The lament of her lack of knowledge did not go on for very long, though.

The barrel of the gun was sharply thrust into the base of her skull again. “I should have— you fiendish—” Percival tried to speak, but whatever maelstrom of inchoate thoughts that were whirling in his head prevented anything coherent from leaving his mouth. His words devolved into a guttural vocalization— not quite a yell, but more than a growl. Whatever it was, it paralysed Mayme. It sounded primal— entirely too garbled and hefty to have been controlled. When his lungs ran out of air he stood there panting for several long seconds. The gun shook in his hands. His vocal cords were rasped and tired. He regained his composure and cleared his throat. It did little to help his voice. He said very slowly, “Send them away.”

Mayme didn’t want to. For the first time in her life the sunken eyes, saliva drenched chins, and gaunt cheeks of the beasts brought her comfort. Still, with the reminder of what refusal would bring her still pressed to the back of her head, she steeled herself. A shaking finger rose and pointed in the direction of her little lane leftward of the church. She figured if she could wield the thrall so could her mother. Maybe a full blooded monster could even wield them better. Maybe this was the one way she could still protect her family. “Leave.” The word was strained so hard it sounded like a squeak.

With a few more defiant snarls the beasts did just that. They stalked off down a different set of stairs and were swallowed completely by the shadows of Letcham. Their scampering feet and inhuman vocalizations faded soon after their forms did.

Percival let out an embittered snort. “You did this to Letcham. I should have known, I really should have known. You played the part of innocent little pup well, ya know. Really fooled me.” The familiar tinge of hatred was there in his tone, but buried behind resolve that sounded like an eerie calm to prelude a storm.

Mayme felt herself begin to sweat as everything in her chest came alive with too much vigour, it made the pain in her head vanish in a snap. “Percy, I didn’t, I-I swear! Remember? Please, remember— I-I killed one, I killed one to save you. I wouldn’t do that if they were my thrall, right? If I wanted you gone I’d never… They’re not mine! I didn't know they'd listen to me, promise!”

He inhaled sharply as if he had been stabbed, but didn't say anything. The leather of his glove rubbing against itself as his finger curled told her he was about to pull the trigger. Words popped into her mind as every fibre of her being screamed at her to say them. They weren’t her words, she had no idea where they came from— however that did not matter, she didn’t have time to question them.

“I want you, Percy, I want to help you— I want you to make me better! I know I’m a monster, I know. I want you to save me, please! You promised me!”

His shaking finger stopped. His breathing was unsteady, like little gasps. She had no idea what that meant. She needed to see him. She needed to know his expression, just as she needed him to see hers.

“Remember?” It came out in a whisper, slowly she turned her head to look him in the eyes. The presence of the gun that was still entirely too close to her skull made it hard to look at him, her eyes kept wanting to drift to it instead. She managed to avoid looking down the twisting eye of the barrel, though she felt it would have been less frightening than looking at him. She couldn't read his expression, it was a contortion of too many things that no doubt matched whatever vortex was happening behind his eyes. He was conflicted, that was all she needed to know. She kept her eyes steady on his, allowing her tears to fall freely. “I protected you. I like you. I like you, Percy. I… I didn’t hurt anyone, I promise. I’m innocent. I’m your innocent pup, okay? I promise. Please…”

His finger twitched, though he did not pull the trigger. Any little movement made Mayme want to close her eyes. She wasn’t even sure how she resisted doing so, nor did she care as long as her face remained steadfast in looking pitiful and pleading. Little flecks of the light glimmered in his eyes as his gaze flickered between hers. He seemed to settle on looking her in the right eye instead of the left. The ‘human’ eye. That boring, ordinary brown opposed to the pale one of a monster. The wave of relief hit her even before his arm dropped to his side.

Out of danger, she immediately collapsed to the ground. The blood on the cobblestone was still wet, but cold and starting to congeal. It almost felt like it squished under her as she crumpled into it. It soaked into the knees of her skirt. The pair were once more in silence— a heavy silence that lasted too long. Her gaze dropped as she was no longer brave enough to look him in the face. Her eyes stayed half lidded as she watched the gun in his hand. Its brass and silvery form was blurred by her eyelashes and it shook with her tears, or perhaps those were both illusions caused by her returning headache. It did not matter, as long as it remained pointed away from her. That was all she could ask for.

Elisabeth.

The name of her pistol.

It was supposed to protect her. She despised just how much fear it struck into her heart now. Her lips trembled as soft sobs tumbled uselessly out of them. She half expected to be hit for such pathetic noises, though they had been drowned out by something else.

Loud scraping of the church door dragging across the floor caused both Mayme and Percival to tense and turn their attention to the behemoth of a building. Mayme was thankful for the distraction briefly, at least until she recognised who opened it. The door was barley ajar when a woman slipped out. Her blond bobbed hair and pale face were the only things not completely swallowed by the night. The outline of her black church garb could only be assumed by how a dark belt hugged her sword to her hip. Her icy blue eyes studied the couple as an amused smile touched her lips.

“Oh how adorable,” the church woman mused, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to stop this lover’s quarrel right there.”