Mayme put the pistol in its spot in her corset then grabbed at the padlock that clasped the iron barred door closed. The metal was cold, and unlike the rest if the room not splattered in ever oxygenating blood. The sunken eyes of Elisabeth followed her every movement from within her cell, her chains clattered against themselves as she weakly tried to move her withered limbs and speak. Her speech was garbled and wet; whatever words she had been trying to formulate deformed by the lack of tongue and being so out of practice with speech Mayme couldn’t make a single word out. It sounded like a baby’s babble, but with more purpose.

“Don’t Worry, I-I’ll get you out,” Mayme promised, but the lock would not budge. It held proud and sturdy, almost mockingly so.

Elisabeth weakly slammed her pale, skinny arms against the wall. Her fingers flexed and her whole body winced. She gasped and whimpered. Her head nodded forward, making her fine white hair obscure her gaunt face. She deflated with a long, defeated exhale.

“I’ll find the key,” Mayme assured, but as she turned around she saw glint from the other side of the small room. She dropped to the floor before her mind even caught up with what she saw, let alone why her body did what it did. A gunshot thundered through the small room, the bullet cracked against the iron bar like lightning. It had whizzed just above Mayme’s head, barely scraping across her scalp as she dropped. She would have yelped, but hitting the cold concrete floor knocked the wind out of her lungs and left her gasping.

There in front of an open cabinet stood the church woman, on unsteady legs, clutching her stomach with one hand and holding a gun with the other. Her breaths were shallow and her face was pale. Sweat glazed whole whole face, cementing her once wispy bangs down to her forehead. Her top was unbuttoned entirely and draped over her chest as the only thing protecting her modesty, sweat drenched her chest was well. Droplets riveted down her chest, funnelled down the space between her breasts. An abundance of bandages were wound tightly around her abdomen just under her ribs— they were already dyed red. Her skirt must have also been stained, but it was black and just looked drenched and heavy.

Mayme frantically reached for her own pistol, but her sudden drop had knocked it off her. In the commotion she hadn’t noticed it had fallen to the floor and slid away so she was left foolishly patting at herself. Her eyes could not leave the other woman, paralysed on her and unwilling to even attempt to look for her missing firearm.

“Wait, please,” she squeaked, even finding her own voice pathetic. She searched her brain to try and find the name of the woman she was staring at, but she had never heard it. How she appealed to Percival’s humanity could not be used here. “I just want to get home to my Mama— we never hurt no one, I just want to go home.”

The woman said nothing, she slowly lowered her gun to Mayme’s level. Her eyes seemed unfocused, her eyelids drifted closed as her head swayed side to side. Stay stands of her blonde bob clung to her slick cheeks. She did not even react to Mayme’s words, it was a mystery if she even heard them or not.

“Please— someone! Help me!” Mayme screeched as she scrambled to try and get up. Her eyes darted to the wide open door that led out to the stairs. It was dark, impossibly so. Thick, oppressive. and desolate. A sick reminder of how little hope she had any right to have. Her pleading before did not yield any results, no thrall came to her when she wasn’t miles underground. It was desperation that had her try again, but just then, over her pounding pulse, she heard it. Somewhere on that staircase, somewhere close, meaty thuds and slams. But it was too late. The gun in the church woman’s hands clicked…

It only clicked.

The chamber was empty.

The woman clicked it again, confusion was slow to wash over her dazed face as her drooping eyes drifted open once more. She went to click it a third time when a form burst through the doorway into the dim light. It was a blur of motion with only one distinct thing about it: one of its limbs was lame. The arm dangled behind, flailing sporadically with the figure’s twitchy movements. The thing launched itself at the church woman. She screeched hoarse and scratchy it barely actually made a sound as she shoved the beast away with quaking arms. Blood splattered against the wall in an arc. The woman grabbed her neck, red oozed from between her fingers. Her desperate gasp to refill her lungs was wet and more of a gurgle as if she was half submerged in water. She only managed a few weak steps back before the faint light faded from her icy eyes and her wobbly legs gave under her weight. She just crumpled. All that vigour and self assurance she had displayed all night evaporated long ago, she died with the same confused and dazed look she wore when the gun clicked instead of fired.

Mayme had managed to sit herself up and pressed herself against the cell bars at this point. She knew it was a thrall that had come to her aid, even if panic blurred her vision and obscured its detail. The figure was hulking, even as its shoulders rolled forward and gave it a hunched back looking posture. On the same side as the lame arm was tendrils of torn fabric swaying and dancing at its waist.

She knew it was s thrall… she knew.

She knew.

“Percival..?”

The figure slowly turned its head to face her. His arm swayed worthlessly at his side, blood and saliva flowed down his greying stubbly chin. His breath was hot in the cold basement air, each breath was a cloudy puff that obscured the flesh stuck between his gnashing teeth. His eyes were sunken in his deep sockets, but they were not dull. The green had a little life left to them. His pupils dilated upon seeing her. “What… have you…” he rasped, but words faded into an animalistic growl. He clicked his tongue and turned his body towards her. His steps were unnaturally forced and uncoordinated— it was as if he were moving his legs with marionette strings. His arm twitched, raising slowly as he got closer in uneven jolted motions. His arm shook as if fist weighed a ton.

Mayme pressed even harder to the iron behind her, jabbing a bar against the length of her spine. She threw her arms up and cowered behind them. Her eyes slammed shut. “Percy, please don’t! I can explain— Stop!”

As his fist began to hammer down his body froze like every ounce of blood in his vein turned to stone. The bulging veins in his neck expressed he was trying to fight it, they vibrated with stress. It did not matter. He was still.

Mayme sat silently, waiting to be bludgeoned, but it never came. She lowered her arms and cautiously opened her eyes. She made eye contact not just with him, but with her reflection staring back at her from within his expanded pupils. His eyes were almost completely black, what little flecks of green within them had fizzled from hatred to horror. Mayme’s mouth hung agape, she wanted to explain as she said she would. But what was there to say? She didn’t even fully grasp what happened. She may not have understood the process fully, but she knew whatever she was going to say next might have been the last words Percival, as he was, would ever fully hear. She swallowed hard. Should she comfort him? Should she say sorry? Should she say she didn’t know this would happen? None of those words came to her. She knew him well enough to know he’d think them all insincere. Maybe they’d upset him more.

“Lower your hand please.”

He did so, it was a twitching motion. His muscles tensed and strained, his bones even creaked, but he obeyed. His eyes did not leave her, not even to blink.

Her own gaze broke away from his, falling on the blood bags labelled ‘Untampered’. The church was using those to heal the citizens, or trying to. That explained why the beast outbreak after the fall of Sangmont and the church’s take over of Letcham. That also explained Percival’s state. It made sense. Vampiric blood healed her kin exceptionally well, of course people might try to harvest that for themselves. Unfortunately that appeared to be how thrall were created. Not even her blood being half human seemed to spare humans of that fate.

Mayme’s hand drifted to the nook of her arm. The small prick in her skin suddenly burned as if her blood itself was ablaze. Even if she knew it was psychosomatic, it was unbearable. “What have I done..?” She asked as she coiled in on herself.

“Abomination…”

Was that her voice? Was that Percival’s? Did it matter? She sunk her face into her palms.

He was a thrall. He was her thrall. What did that make her? His master? His mistress? She wished she had let him bleed out on the floor. She wished she had never found that transfusion kit. She thought she was doing good— she thought she was proving she was a better person than him by saving him in spite of how awful he was to her. She took pride in such a monstrous act, thinking it a mercy. She thought that kindness might have made him reevaluate his thoughts on her kin, even! But no.

No.

A drop of hot spittle dribbled onto her hand as a low croak from the beast’s throat begged for her attention. She slowly raised her face to look upon her creation. The green flecks in his eyes were gone. He stared at her like an expectant puppy awaiting a treat for a trick well performed. That ‘trick’ being tearing a woman’s throat out for her. For her. For his damned mistress.

The jingling of chains behind her pulled Mayme out of her horror-struck state. Right. Keys. She was looking for keys. Her eyes drifted to the dead woman a few feet away. A puddle of blood had formed under her corpse. It was shocking she had so much of that left in her, frankly. Her shirt pooled on either side of her and exposed her whole torso, including the loosened belt around her hips. It had the expected: a gun holster, her sword, and a silver key ring.

“Percival.”

He perked up at being addressed, almost shaking in excitement. Mayme couldn’t look at him. Her gaze fixated on the ground. Still, she felt his eyes burrow into her flesh. She feebly pointed to the church woman.

“Fetch me those keys, please.”

He trotted over to do just that. His movements were uncoordinated like any beast’s, but had more purpose than she was used to seeing. Was it because he was fresh? Was it because he was hers and given proper direction, not desperately trying to seek a mistress locked away, out of their grasp like the rest? She didn’t want to dwell on it. Whatever the answer was it only made everything more nightmarish.

He delivered the keys and gave her that same expectant, almost effervescent, expression. She took them from his hand without daring to look him in the face again and focused on the lock.