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She hadn’t anticipated running into him again. Not that she was avoiding him, or anything. Elsa Bloodstone didn’t avoid people. It was just … the way of things, as a hunter. You didn’t tend to see people again. You met them once, usually on the worst day of their lives, and then never again. For one reason or … Well. The other.
Plus. He was a werewolf. Any monster with even a lick of sense would stay well away from the Bloodstone heir, now that she’d claimed her heritage. Sort of, anyway. Loosely speaking.
Of course, she thought wryly, looking across the alley at greying hair and a sheepish expression, that thought right there should have told her that she would see him again.
Any monster with sense would stay away. But so far there was very little evidence that sense was anything Mr Jack the Werewolf had even passing acquaintance of.
He smiled nervously at her, a pleased and startled crinkle of his eyes. He was wary, at least, his eyes did glance cautiously down at the crossbow in her hand and the faint gleam of red at her throat, but then they came right back up to her face again with nothing but hope and welcome in them.
“Ah,” he said lightly. “Ms Elsa. It’s, um. It’s good to see you again?”
She stared at him for half a second, still down the sights of her crossbow. And then she sighed in aggravation, and let the weapon drop to her side, one hand automatically removing the bolt and releasing the tension in the mechanism. He followed the gesture, and his smile broadened to disgusting proportions. She glared at him and stomped over to his side of the alley.
“Jack,” she growled, thoroughly disgusted only two seconds into the encounter. “What are you doing here? This place is going to be hunter central in less than a week, if it’s not already.”
Fourteen people dead in five months, and messily dead. Showing signs of long, protracted torture. It was the kind of long term, continuous assault that drew hunters like flies. Did he have no sense at all? This was the last place anyone like him should be within fifty miles of right now. All it would take was one wrong look …
His eyebrows bumped upwards, and then settled down again, surprised and pleased. She did her best not to find that aggravating. And, also, not to find it oddly endearing that his makeup was still there, the white dots and lines cleaned up and refreshed. It was a silly indulgence, all it did was draw attention to him, but she had to admit she was oddly fond of the look.
“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” he said, interrupting the thought. “I’m not Ted, so I shouldn’t draw too much attention. Unless somebody knows me, they shouldn’t have much reason to think I’m anything but another hunter.” He smiled, a little, half of a smug, cocky little thing. “It worked the last time, after all. So long as I don’t try picking up any shiny rocks …”
Elsa stared at him. Seriously?
“How about I shove a shiny rock into your chest,” she growled. Shoving him lightly with one hand. And regretting it, immediately afterwards, the skin of her hand tingling slightly at the contact. Not for any mystical reasons, just … For no reason. None at all. She tucked the limb hastily back down at her own side, and scowled at the smug little bastard.
Who grinned back at her, clearly delighted at the gesture. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes creased his make up, and Elsa wanted nothing so badly as to hit him for them. He ducked his head, smiling shyly back at her.
“You wouldn’t do that,” he asked, with entirely too much confidence. Warm and blithe. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’re far too kind for that.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she snarked back. “No one in my entire life has ever called me ‘kind’, and I highly doubt they’re about to start now.”
He straightened a little, at that. His expression went from smug to startled, and then to something else. That gentle seriousness that had disarmed her from the bloody first.
“That’s strange,” he said, with an odd hint of something hard in it. “Ted and I would call you so. I don’t see why anyone else wouldn’t.”
He sounded serious. Almost angry. Completely, one hundred percent in earnest about it. And Elsa could not. Absolutely could not. No. Definitely not dealing with that.
“Nevermind,” she said, taking a step back. Shaking her head. “Not the point here. You need to get out. This sort of thing, these sort of killings, they’re the kind of thing that draws hunters like flies on shit. If I’m here, I can guarantee you that others will be too. You need to get out of here, Jack. Maybe you can pass as well as anyone three weeks out of four, but there’s no point risking it.”
She had killed hunters for him before, and she was more a little bit alarmed to realise that she would do so again. Without a qualm. The first time had been at least half for herself, for survival’s sake, disgust at everything they stood for, but this time … This time it would be for his. Just for him. If someone raised a weapon in his direction, she would kill them, and she had no idea what to do with that realisation. She’d only known him for what? Six hours all told? And already she would kill on his behalf. She had no idea what to do with that.
Well. Aside from send him away, so she wouldn’t have to deal with it. And for his own safety. There was a killer on the loose. Several of them, counting her. And he had nothing even resembling sense.
But he shook his head too. He looked down, a tired, rather rueful edge decorating his smile.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m in town for those killings. So ...”
Her stomach sank. Honestly, she should have known.
“Don’t tell me you know the killer,” she said. Pleaded, really. “Don’t tell me you’re going to have to protect them. These aren’t rampage killings, Jack, they’re not someone out of their head. If you’re trying to protect them, I am going to have to fight you.”
Fourteen bodies, all of them showing signs of torture. Occult symbols, hints of a ritual death. This wasn’t a werewolf or … whatever Ted was … trying to defend themselves. This was a patient, deliberate pursuit of horror and pain and death. Not even he could justify ignoring it. And she hadn’t thought it was the sort of thing that he …
But no. No. She could see it in his expression already. He wasn’t ashamed at her response. If anything, he was satisfied by it. Pleased.
“I don’t know the killer, no,” he said softly, standing carefully straight in front of her. “But I … Another hunter, you know, I wouldn’t tell them this. I think I can trust you, though. Some of the victims, Elsa. They were … known to me. Some of them were … things not everybody would entirely call human.” He scratched his ear, and held her gaze, something steady, patient, weary in his own. “And the others, I’m sure, there would have been rumours about them. I don’t know if they were true or not, but from the ones I do know … I’m thinking there’s a pattern there. There would have been rumours. About parentage, maybe, or bargains they’d made. There’s … There will be a pattern, when I look. I’m sure of it.”
If her stomach had sunk before, it sank more now. Chilled, a ball of ice in her abdomen. Suddenly, she was very tired herself.
“You think it’s another hunter, don’t you,” she said. Not a question. “The killer. You think it’s one of us.”
He smiled faintly. A thin flicker of his lips. “One of you?” he said. “Never. Nothing like you, Elsa. I don’t know if it’s a hunter. There’s a lot of … groups, people, who think that monsters or … deviants, witches, whatever they think is happening, that they should be destroyed. It might not be anything to do with any of us. It might be a human with no evidence of anything, just killing people. But I did know some of them. So I do want to … to figure out what happened.”
Of course he did, Elsa thought. Just. Of course he did.
“And what if you get into trouble?” she asked. Already exhausted by her acceptance of him, the instinctiveness of it. “If it is a hunter, if it’s hunting things like you. What are you going to do if you get into trouble?”
Nothing that had happened to those bodies was anything she wanted to see happen to him.
But his grin came back. Shy and smug. “I never get into trouble,” he said. With a straight face. “Don’t listen to Ted, that’s all him. Don’t worry about me, Elsa. I never get into trouble.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. Stared. He’d done nothing but get into trouble, the entire time she’d known him. Which hadn’t been long, admittedly, but she was sure the rest of his life wasn’t much different, just by how blasé he’d been about it at the time. She remembered the cage. The horror of a forced transformation. The sound and smoke of the shock batons, hitting him over and over again. The howl of rage, pain, as the Bloodstone forced him to the floor, time after time. But he never got into trouble, he said! Don’t worry about it. Ted was the only one who got into trouble around here.
She had a vague thought that she should find Ted, one of these days, and ask him how the hell he dealt with it. With him. Jack. This idiotic man. And it said something, it certainly said something about how well they’d upended her life with only a bare few hours of interaction, that she was considering going out and finding a tree monster for the sole purpose of commiserating with him.
They weren’t even anything to do with her. Either of them. She’d never thought she’d see them again. They’d been a weird fucking interlude in her life, and then they’d vanish again, a phantom memory of two ridiculous monsters, two ridiculous idiots, who’d … helped her out, at no benefit to them, and been willing to …
Been willing to die on her behalf. Asked to die, rather than be used to hurt her.
Damn it.
“… Right,” she said. Flat and tired and abrupt. Unimpressed. “Right, here’s how this is going to work. If you find anything, to do with the killer, or other hunters, or anything else, you’re going to come to me. All right? You’re going to come to me, and tell me, and I am going to decide what we’re going to do about it, okay? Because I’m not knocking around out here with you running around doing god knows what. If we’re both going to be here, we’re going to coordinate, all right?”
Because he was a werewolf who walked up to the bloody Bloodstone heir without a care in the bloody world. He had zero sense and zero survival instincts and if she had to sit on him to get him through this alive, she was damn well going to. She could shoot him in the knee, probably. He was a werewolf, he’d recover in a decent amount of time.
And it would be lovely if she could pretend that the thought of hurting him, of deliberately causing him pain, even in jest, didn’t make her flinch to her core.
He blinked at her. Studied her, that shy, hopeful amazement in his eyes. That … godawful expression. He bounced on his heels a little bit, like an eager hound, and grinned at her once more.
“Of course!” he said. “We can work together. Just like old times, eh?”
God, she couldn’t deal with him. She just … could not deal with that. That much enthusiasm. That … ridiculous bloody expression. She was exhausted just thinking about it. But, well. She’d signed up for it now. At least until this killer was caught. At least this one more time.
“Right,” she said again. Still flat. “Well. Let’s get to it, then.”
He caught her wrist, as she turned to leave. Gently. So gently. A flutter of fingers, of pressure, and then he let her go again. Her wrist tingled. Her breath caught. All the hairs on her arms prickled at his touch.
She wondered what he’d felt, in his other form, when her fingers grazed his cheek. She wondered if he remembered.
“Wait, Elsa,” he said. Soft and hesitant. Hopeful. Warm. “Just … I wanted to say thank you. Since we’re here. I wasn’t sure I’d get the chance, but I wanted to thank you.”
“… For what?” she managed, her voice rough and hoarse. He ducked his head. The way he had when she’d asked if smelling her, remembering her, would work. He ducked his head, and then … looked up. That weight of something heavy and earnest and true in his look once more.
“For being worried for me, instead of afraid of me,” he said, soft and rueful and small. “Despite, ah. Despite the last time. Thank you for … for not being afraid. From both of us, myself and Ted. It’s … It means a lot.”
She nearly laughed at him. She was petrified of him. Of every breath he took, of every … expression on his face. But not for that reason, she supposed. Maybe he was right. It wasn’t because he was a werewolf. It wasn’t because he’d been meant to kill her, because he almost had.
She was petrified of the way he made her feel. Of the way she’d kill for him, now, without a qualm. She’d known him six hours, and she couldn’t deal with him at all. From the moment she’d met him in the maze, when he’d wanted to just walk on, unwilling to kill anyone even in the middle of a death match. To the crypt, god, and the feel of his hands on her leg, this strange worried creature taking his own bloody clothes off to bind up her wound. And then … the cage. Everything that had happened in the cage. Outside it. She’d looked death right in the eyes, those white bloody marks standing out amidst the fur, his claws already raised. And not falling. He’d been willing to die to spare her. She’d put her hand on a werewolf’s cheek.
She’d killed two hunters for him. Struck Verusa down. Stowed the Bloodstone away where it couldn’t hurt him. She’d betrayed her family, her heritage, as little as she’d ever valued it. And all she could think was that she would do so much worse again.
She hadn’t thought she’d see him again. She’d almost hoped she wouldn’t see him again. She hated the way he made her feel.
But damned if she knew how to say any of that, and damned if she wanted to.
So she shrugged, instead. “I guess I figured,” she said, “if you didn’t kill me then, you probably weren’t likely to kill me now.”
He nodded. “Never,” he said. Fervent, earnest. “I would never hurt you. Not while I had means to prevent it.”
And yeah. She knew. He’d begged Verusa to kill him instead.
“Daylight’s wasting,” she said, doing everything in her power to shake it off. “Come on, Mr Hunter. We’ve got a monster to catch. Whatever type of monster it turns out to be.”
And god, but if his eyes could just stop crinkling when he smiled at her. If the little white dots around them didn’t draw attention to it.
Maybe Ted would let her rant at him for a bit. She’d met Jack again, she’d probably meet his friend at some point too. Maybe the monster would let her … vent. Decompress. He’d been minding Jack for a while too. If anyone knew what the hell this feeling was, it was probably him. Maybe he could, she didn’t know, show her how to breathe through it.
Whatever she’d thought would happen when she went home after twenty years to win the Bloodstone, this, whatever the hell this was, had not figured into it.
All it took was one bloody werewolf with a bomb and a friend to change her life.
But hell. She guessed it wasn’t the worst that could have happened.
“Come on then,” she said, determinedly ignoring the happy bounce to his step. “Let’s get to it.”
“After you, Ms Elsa,” he said, bowing over one arm, and she thought she did extremely well not to hit him for it.
This was going to be a long bloody hunt.
And nowhere near long enough.