Work Text:
The first thing that was drilled into the heads of every orphan that the Church took in was that being bitten was instant death, even if you survived. Even if a vampire didn’t drain you dry right then and there, they could still bind you to their will and make you their slave. Then, you’d wish you were dead.
—
“What if I die?” Before Wolfwood could even think, the words came out. “What if I can’t kill him? What if nobody can kill him?”
He leveled his gaze on Chapel, eyes boring holes into the red goggles grafted to his mentor’s face. Chapel only looked at him with the same faint, empty smile he often gave Wolfwood whenever he failed to snatch the apple from his hand.
“Then you will meet God, and be at peace in Heaven knowing that you have sacrificed yourself for the human race.”
Wolfwood bit his tongue before he could burst into laughter. The Church really was trying to kill him. After so many years breaking him down as a child and building him back up into their perfect weapon, they’ve decided that he’s finally outlived his usefulness and now they were determined to throw him away. What a sick joke.
What a cruel, twisted, sick fucking joke. Maybe this was God’s punishment. If it was, then he knew it would be exactly what he deserved.
—
The moment Wolfwood took his first breath in the new city, he knew he had found exactly what he was looking for.
It was a quaint little place, built atop an ocean of hills. If he had to wager a guess, he’d say that it was home to the upper class. Even they weren’t immune to attacks from the undead. Those monsters didn’t care how much or how little of daddy’s money entered these people’s hands. The only thing that mattered was blood, and everyone bled the same.
The more he descended, the older the city seemed to look. Stone walls crumbled, entire houses collapsed in on themselves. The roads were blocked off, forcing Wolfwood to navigate unlit alleyways. It wasn’t ideal. This was exactly what monsters like the ones he fought and killed hoped for: to force their victims into the shadows before emerging and feasting on them.
Nevertheless, this could only be the work of the Harbinger. Said to attract destruction everywhere he walked, this guy surely must have attracted smaller horrors towards him just with his mere presence. That would explain all of the smaller attacks Wolfwood had encountered on his search. It wasn’t usually a vampire’s style to have “henchmen”, but one could not be faulted for wondering if that was what these were.
None of them evoked any fear in Wolfwood as he put them down. They were already mangled corpses, so he was just returning them to where they belonged: the ground.
Even so, he could not shake the nagging feeling in his gut that he was walking into a trap. The beasts would bait him out, waiting for him to pause for the slightest moment before filling his world with teeth and claws and gore. Wolfwood would shoot them before they could touch him. It was a routine thing, and yet…
When Wolfwood was able to evade the alleyways, there was one thing he’d kept hearing murmured amidst a sea of unintelligible sound by the townsfolk as they fled.
July.
Wolfwood gripped the Punisher, shifting its massive weight. Not even the sound of the townsfolk remained after a couple of minutes, and he could practically smell the monster lurking and waiting to emerge.
And then he heard his opponent. It looked deceptively human, from its short blond hair to its blue eyes and even its futuristic outfit of red, white, and gold. Wolfwood wasn’t fooled for a second, gathering himself before shooting at it without hesitation. He shot the thing four times. All but one of the bullets were dodged, with the last one burrowing into its arm. Even so, the only thing he had appeared to accomplish was pissing the beast off.
That was when Wolfwood knew he was screwed. These bullets were supposed to be effective against undead abominations, and they really were. Some of the other members joked that they were made from pages of the Bible, and sometimes he really believed it. But this…
The bullet in the beast’s arm appeared to be at war with its flesh, and the vampire looked to be winning. Impossible.
The vampire bounded after him, not even needing to be able to see him. Wolfwood started running, bringing out his smaller pistol and shooting without looking. He could hear that he hadn’t missed this time, but he knew that his bullets were less effective on this creature than they normally were on undead beings.
But that was fine. This was why his Punisher was built with more than one function, and there was one he had in mind. The back of his large gun wasn’t exactly a rocket launcher, but that was the best way to describe it for lack of a better term.
He would need to get into position, which would mean that he’d need to stop running. Wolfwood ducked behind a wall, positioning the Punisher so that the barrel of the rocket launcher was pointed towards the vampire that was quickly getting closer.
The barrel was almost touching the thing by the time Wolfwood pulled the trigger. Two things happened simultaneously.
The vampire appeared to explode into flame and light, its scream and the Punisher’s boom deafening in such close confines.
The vampire did not give up, even as it was hit. It moved so fast that Wolfwood could not understand what it did. All he knew was that the momentary daze caused by his own attack, impossible even for him to ignore, dulled his senses enough that he only realized he was on uneven ground when he was already falling.
He could not even orient himself before he hit the ground flat on his back. He lay there, stunned, only able to hear his own labored breaths and what sounded like a quiet, thin stream of water.
And then, he heard a voice.
“Know that you humans bring this upon yourselves,” the deceptively human voice said. “You will pay for your arrogance.”
Wolfwood felt a rush of pain that he could not identify the source of, even as he began to cough blood. He felt stupid, and yet he also felt betrayed. Everything he had been told about the Devil of July suggested that it was a force of destruction, yes, but not one with the level of intelligence that this thing seemed to display. He wasn’t even fully aware of what was happening around or to him.
The creature may have still been attacking him. With a shaky hand, Wolfwood fumbled until his fingers found the small pistol on his person. He knew he had some vials of the drug somewhere, but even if he could find them, they wouldn’t be able to help him if he was killed before he could swallow them down.
He steadied his hand as he raised it, even as he continued to lose blood, and he aimed between the creature’s eyes. When he pulled the trigger, he was vaguely aware that he missed, but it seemed like the creature hadn’t expected Wolfwood to still have some fight left in him, as its left eye was struck.
The creature reacted in anger, but by that point Wolfwood could no longer make out what it was saying. He could only hear a few more gunshots, but he was certain they weren’t coming from his gun.
Then, before everything went white, he saw a different shade of blonde towering over him. Were Wolfwood more cognizant, the crimson coat would have given him pause, but he could swear right now that he was looking at an angel in his final moments of life.
There was no time for Wolfwood to feel bitter, no time for him to reflect on his many regrets, but even though he was certain he was on the brink of death and would wake up in Hell, he had a strange feeling that everything would be okay.
The first sensation Wolfwood regained was the taste of blood in his mouth. He forced his eyes open and found himself on what felt like a bed of blankets.
“The…hell-”
The moment he spoke, he regretted it. Although he was able to breathe, his jaw felt full. He immediately wanted to wash the taste out of his mouth. The drug. The drug would suffice.
He started to feel through each of his pockets for a vial, but as his fingers wrapped around one, his hand brushed against something most peculiar. Wolfwood gingerly tilted his head so that he could look down, and…
…his body was a mess. It wasn’t just because of the blood, though his shirt was in bloody shreds. The thing that was really baffling was the haphazard mess of hand towels and duct tape wrapped and plastered all around his chest and abdomen, and even his arms now that he was looking more closely.
He was seeing red. It permeated his vision. Wolfwood wasn’t even mad. He couldn’t be mad at whoever had done this. They had saved his life, after all. No, if anything, Wolfwood was just shocked. So much so that he’d laugh his ass off if he wasn’t feeling like he’d just had his guts rearranged—and not even in the fun way.
Because his savior was an idiot.
Suddenly, Wolfwood heard footsteps. Without hesitation, as if the action was automated, he grabbed his pistol and pointed it at the door, alternating between it and the window in this tiny room. With his other hand, he grabbed the vial he had been looking for previously. He pulled that out, and then another one. That would be enough to heal what would normally leave you bedridden in a hospital.
Wolfwood clenched the vials between his teeth and bit down just as the door opened.
As his torn flesh closed itself back up and bones he hadn’t even realized were broken set, the blonde from earlier stepped inside. Wolfwood was able to get a better look at him this time. His hair was so spiky you could prick yourself on it, and the crimson coat Wolfwood had briefly been able to see before caused him to squeeze the grip of his gun tighter, his finger resting on the trigger.
The blonde man had been carrying a large box, which he had dropped when Wolfwood had pointed his gun at him. He raised both hands in the air.
The man laughed awkwardly. “Hey, is that any way to thank someone who saved your life?”
As he said that, a bullet just barely missed his left eye, finding its mark in the feeble wooden door.
“Can it,” Wolfwood spat. “I know exactly who you are. Consider that a warning shot, because this ain’t gonna end well for you no matter how much you run your mouth.”
“Are you always this mean to people who help you when you’re hurt?”
Wolfwood scoffed. “Yeah, if they think towels and duct tape are gonna solve anything. You’re lucky I don’t have gasoline on me at the moment.”
“It was the best I could do on short notice!”
“Next time, just check my pockets.” Wolfwood paused, squinting and studying the man more closely. “Not that there’s gonna be a next time anyway.”
The man replied, “Because you still need to go back into the line of fire and put down my brother, right?”
Wolfwood froze. Brother, huh? This man claimed to be the brother of the monster Wolfwood was sent to put down? More importantly, he knew Wolfwood’s intentions, and yet he still saved his life?
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Wolfwood growled.
The man nervously scratched the back of his head. “Well, you see, nobody ever believes me when I tell ‘em, but I’m Vash. Though I’m not actually the one you want dead.”
What Vash said made Wolfwood’s mind flicker for a moment. There was only one word that rang in his train of thought. The word that, no matter what language it’s said in, all people used to distance themselves from something being true, to refuse to believe that something was real, that it was happening to them or affecting them in any way.
No.
There were a lot of different ways to express it, but the simplest form of the word was “no.” Just a flat, easy “no” that people used when they needed to disagree, to refuse to believe the reality of something.
“Bullshit.” This just so happened to be Wolfwood’s preferred means of expressing denial. “There’s no way you could possibly be him. Are you just making fun of me?”
This man claiming to be Vash the Stampede had to be full of shit. First of all, why would anyone introduce themselves like that unless they were begging to die? Secondly, since when did Vash the Stampede have a brother, assuming for a moment that this man was to be taken seriously?
“No,” Vash said, entirely straight-faced. “I’m not mean like you, Mr. Preacher Man. I’m not a liar either.”
“...Wolfwood,” he said, before letting out a long, heavy sigh. “Let’s pretend for a moment like you’re telling me the truth, ‘Vash’. Why the hell would you save a hunter’s life?”
Vash averted his eyes, choosing to take interest in a spot on the floor.
“The world is made of love and peace,” he said. “Not ugly things like blood and death. That’s the only reason I need to save a human.”
Wolfwood rolled his eyes. “You’re a vampire. Feeding off of humans is what defines you.”
“I’ve never drank human blood before.” Vash glances out the window.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Wolfwood said. “What kind of vampire is afraid of sucking blood?”
“Not a very good one, I guess. But I don’t think I’m missing out. Blood doesn’t taste very good.”
“Even humans get hungry merely by existing. If it’s a matter of life and death, why be picky?”
“Like I said,” Vash responded, “I’m not very good at being a vampire.”
His gaze traveled around the room until it landed back on the floor where he’d dropped his box.
Vash frowned as he picked up the box. “I can’t believe you distracted me long enough to make me forget I dropped this. Which was also your fault. You’re a really mean man, Mr. Preacher. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Nope,” Wolfwood replied. “They all tell me to come visit more often, that no one likes a deadbeat.”
He bit his tongue immediately after that admission. Why was he sharing personal details like that with his quarry? Dammit. Vash the Stampede was truly a tricky foe, but not for the reasons everyone at the Church believed.
Vash stuffed a donut in his mouth, and within a few seconds it had disappeared. “You’re certainly popular. But, uhm, all of that is to say that if I really needed blood that badly, I could just pick up some blood bags. There’s places specially made for it. But human food is a lot better. Did you know that it’s possible to live entirely off of eggs and coconut water if you can’t keep blood down? I know plenty of folks with that sort of diet.”
That was the most humane way that a vampire could eat, Wolfwood supposed, as strange as that sentence sounded to him. Nobody was hurt. Even blood banks weren’t the absolute worst thing ever. At least in those places, humans gave up their blood voluntarily.
“So you’ve never deliberately harmed a human?” Wolfwood asked.
“I wish I could say that was true,” Vash said. “But sometimes I’ve had to, when running away wasn’t an option for me. But I never aim to kill anyone, or hurt ‘em in a way where they can’t get back up from it.”
“And have you ever turned a human?”
“N-Never! I’ve never even bitten a human, not once. I wouldn’t do something like that if there’s a better alternative.”
“Such as?”
“I wouldn’t wish vampirism on anyone. But I can’t just sit there and watch someone die. If there was no other way to save them, then…I might. But that’s never happened before.”
Wolfwood then understood what he was feeling as he was sitting up in his bed, face to face with Vash. It wasn’t the kind of fear that a normal human would feel encountering a vampire. This was all-consuming, the feeling of turning from predator to prey. It was irrational, but Wolfwood understood what he had felt when he was on the brink of death. In a sense, he really was gazing upon an angel. Even though he knew that Vash’s kind were abominations, Wolfwood still wondered which of them was really unholy.
“So, let’s say I believed you.” Wolfwood pulled a cigarette out of the now crushed box in his jacket and lit it. “Hypothetically speaking, I mean. You’re the actual Vash the Stampede, but your brother is the real baddie. Is he older or younger?”
“Older,” Vash replied. “But we’re twins.”
Wolfwood whistled. “An evil twin brother? Sure, I’ll buy it for now. You’ve got an evil twin brother, but somehow you’re the one everyone wants dead.”
“I’d sure hope you believe me,” Vash said. “He’s got a bad habit of sending hunters after me. Though usually they don’t know any better…”
Wolfwood exhaled hard, expelling a mouthful of smoke from his lungs. He raised an eyebrow and frowned in Vash’s direction, crossing his arms. “I don’t think I heard you quite right. You tryin’ to claim your brother’s sent hunters to get you? Your vampire brother sends vampire hunters to hunt you down?”
“They usually don’t know any better,” Vash reiterated. “Everyone knows about Vash the Stampede. But nobody knows about Knives Millions.”
Wolfwood rolled his eyes, but the name still gave him pause. “Knives…Millions. Sounds edgy enough, I suppose.”
Would the Church really not know of such a creature? It was hard to believe. Even so…if the monster that had wounded him earlier was this ‘Knives’ fellow, then perhaps Wolfwood had been given bad intel. But the weapon he’d used had barely done anything to Knives, even though he knew he’d hit him. Unless Wolfwood could figure out a way to harm him, he was screwed.
Wolfwood’s thoughts were interrupted by loud chomping noises. He looked up to see that the blonde idiot had eaten two-thirds of his box of donuts already. It was a strange sight. Vash could easily be mistaken for a human. Wolfwood had to actively remind himself that he was the same as that vicious creature. There was nothing human about Vash, no matter how friendly he acted. A vampire could still bind you to its will and make you its slave with its eyes alone. That was among the first things Wolfwood had been taught at the Church. Even humans could possess eyes with supernatural powers, but the power to enchant and bind sentient beings was something all vampires had.
Wolfwood felt something placed on his lap. It was the donut box, which was surprisingly not already empty.
Vash flashed Wolfwood a smile. “You humans have a slogan, what was it again? ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’? And right now, you look even crankier than my brother at his worst, and that’s saying a lot!”
Wolfwood’s eyes darted downwards, away from Vash’s face.
“Can it, Needle Noggin,” he said, as he reluctantly reached into the box, pulling out a maple-glazed donut and even more reluctantly taking a bite out of it.
His gaze only went back to Vash’s ever-present smile a few more times, but it never lingered. As Wolfwood’s irritation started to subside slightly, he realized why. That smile hurt to look at.
—
At this point, Wolfwood had brushed off the worst of the shock. It had been about three days since he had been attacked and then saved. Three days since he had learned that the so-called Devil of July was a massive idiot.
He didn’t know what there was to be nervous about. Nobody would punish him for not immediately killing off a vampire unrelated to his mission, who showed no hostility towards him. Hell, nobody could even stop him from collaborating with said vampire to take care of the main threat. It was an ironclad rule of the Church, that hunters like him would have complete independent authority to resolve an incident until their task was complete. Under the protection of this rule, not even someone at the top of the Church’s authority was allowed to interfere with his work.
After yet another gunshot rang in his ears while they were on the prowl, Wolfwood realized exactly why. Vash’s subsequent silence in the hours after confirmed it.
Childish. It was truly childish and immature. Lately, more vampires (albeit creatures of lesser power) have found where the pair were staying at night. Vampires who would have ripped either of their hearts out and eaten them if they so wished.
“It wasn’t going to kill me,” Vash would insist.
Wolfwood would always retort, “They weren’t innocent, Needle Noggin. They’re monsters.”
“But they were human, too, once!”
Perhaps that was true, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Vash was their kind. It didn’t matter if there was good in them. And apparently, it didn’t matter if Wolfwood didn’t want to see them gnaw all the meat off of Vash’s bones.
“You’re great at pissing me off,” Wolfwood said, and that was that.
The argument was one that would never truly be over, but by the end of the night, Vash would still quietly clean the claw marks left in Wolfwood’s chest.
Wolfwood winced. “The sight of my blood doesn’t whip you into a frenzy?”
“Not at all,” Vash said, uncharacteristically seriously. “Beings like me can survive quite a while without drinking blood. But the impulse still exists. Now, let me ask you: how do you think a vampire might resist the urge to drink blood?”
They don’t, was Wolfwood’s knee-jerk thought. But despite their reputation, there was one way.
“They seal it,” Wolfwood replied. “They can use their powers to suppress their impulses by force.”
“Yep,” Vash said. “But what do you think happens if something external causes them to lose that power?”
“Something external?”
“Like a wound that forces them to use their power to regenerate.”
The inquiry gave Wolfwood pause. Every vampire had a certain amount of power, and they used three-fourths of that power to suppress their urges. But if, for some reason, that total power was slashed in half…even using all of their remaining power, they didn’t have as much power to resist.
He had a nagging, gnawing feeling in his gut that he couldn’t blame on a wound of any sort. He hadn’t given it much thought, but—
“They can’t resist the urge anymore,” Wolfwood replied.
Vash nodded. “And then what?”
After giving into the urge to drink blood? Nothing. Even Wolfwood knew that. A vampire could only keep falling. Once they discovered the taste of blood, the urge became more and more painful. Then it would be basically impossible for them to resist anymore.
Something didn’t sit right with him. It was hard to believe that creatures that bloodthirsty could resist their urges for even a second. Every single time Wolfwood had slain a vampire, it had always been a split-second decision between his life or theirs.
Life is an incessant series of problems... all difficult, with brutally limited choices - and a time limit. That was what Chapel had drilled into his head since he was a child. Hesitation would only invite death. That was why Wolfwood couldn’t understand Vash’s apparent willingness to let them have at him. The more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off. It took half a pack of cigarettes for Wolfwood to shake off the urge to punch him in the face.
—
A couple of days later, Vash all but kicked the door to Wolfwood’s room down at the break of dawn.
“It’s not safe here anymore,” he said, in that unsettlingly serious tone that didn’t suit him at all. “Something’s wrong. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s bad. I can feel it. We’re being watched.”
Wolfwood’s body moved on its own, leaping off the bed and ignoring the pain in his chest as he picked up the Punisher.
“Who? Knives?”
Vash shook his head. “I don’t know for sure, but we need to leave right now.”
“But the sun’s coming up,” Wolfwood replied. “You’ll go up in flames before we’ve even left town.”
Vash averted his gaze, looking as though he was at confession for the very first time.
“Not quite,” he muttered. “I’ll explain once we head out, but the sun won’t be a problem for me.”
The two fled, with Vash taking the lead. Along the way, he began to tell Wolfwood what he really was.
—
Before vampires, there were angels. It is said that there was once a good angel who was led by the Devil and turned against God. Upon being cast out of Heaven, the fallen angel became one with a human woman and thus, the first vampire was born. Of course, that’s just one theory, but there’s no way of knowing the truth for certain. It’s probably not that relevant anyway.
Either way, there had never been a being like this vampire before. Humans hadn’t learned to be afraid of them yet, so as soon as they discovered this one, they began to study and experiment on her.
At the time, there were also two twin angels who acted as warriors on behalf of God. They not only loved humans but were also very curious about them. However, everything changed after their encounter with the original vampire.
That she was of another species, an impure one at that, was all the justification that the humans needed for the horrible, unyielding experiments done on her. But since she emoted and communicated like a human, the angels treated her as such and even called her by her name, Tesla…even when she had been reduced to being a husk of a person as her life began to falter.
She could only survive by taking in blood. But no amount of blood could restore her in the state she was in, not even that of an angel.
When she died, the twins died their own figurative deaths as well. One went from a pure angel to an unholy mix of angel and vampire, while the other began to despise the humans he was supposed to guide and protect. When the newly-turned vampire was cast out of Heaven, his twin followed him to Earth.
Though they were now cut off from the divine source of their existence, the twin known as Knives wanted to be nothing even remotely resembling the humans who lived here. He was amazed that Vash did not hate the humans as he did, but the truth wasn’t that simple.
Vash actually did hate humanity once. He clung to Knives as the only other non-human left on Earth. With that in mind, it was not terribly difficult for Knives to trick his younger twin into drinking his blood. And it was only after turning Knives into a vampire more powerful than the original had ever been and having half of his power stolen that Vash would learn the consequences of drinking blood.
From then on, Vash had to suppress the urge to drink blood constantly. Or rather, that was the choice he ended up making. Knives, on the other hand, did not bother. He feasted, and feasted, and feasted on the blood of humans, not merely to sate his own hunger, but to turn them into beasts with the same impulse as his own. Looking back on this time, the twin angels’ fall from Heaven would then be dubbed the Great Fall.
God had told them that only if they did no evil, partook in no pleasure, and denied themselves for centuries with no relapses, could they be pure again and returned to the heavens. But never once did Knives wish to return under His rule. Even if they had evaded Hell, he would not take up the humiliation of the yoke again, not when Knives knew the true nature of the humans he served.
Thus, when Vash met a human woman who taught him newfound respect for life, Knives could only view that as a betrayal. Even Vash hadn’t expected to feel sympathy for a human, not since being turned, but this one—Rem—was different.
A horde of lesser bloodsuckers—Undead of Knives’ making—had closed in on a town. This was, in Knives’ words, his way of saving non-humans who were trapped on Earth from the evils of humanity. Perhaps he would be proven right if he witnessed their reactions.
People pushed each other in front of the monsters so they could get away safely. Parents killed their own children. Children killed their own parents. Corpses were discarded as soon as they’d been drained of blood.
Rem did no such things. She had tried to save as many lives as she could, delaying her own escape to help others flee. Though she hadn’t yet been bitten, she was still wounded. And Vash felt no catharsis watching her get hurt. Instead, he found that he could only feel horror. That was why he couldn’t watch that strange human die.
The irony dawned on Vash later. The mass killings that were intended to save vampires from humans were what ended up turning vampires from predators to prey.
Vash had an even harder time understanding how anyone was meant to be saved when Rem was later killed when another town was wiped out by Knives’ Undead. Rem, who had shown so much humaneness to beings that humans labeled as abominations, to the point where even Knives could hardly wrap his head around how someone like her could exist. Rem, who had convinced Vash to have faith in the limitless potential for the future.
Even when Vash was later captured in a small town by a group of amateur vampire hunters, he still felt nothing but sheer horror when Knives slaughtered the entire town to save him. Killing the spiders to save the butterflies, as Knives would put it.
—
Then came July.
Vash had suppressed his impulses for such a long time, even though Knives told him he was only making himself weaker by doing so.
There was no reason to feel such foolish sentiment towards humans, Knives had said. Humans were the enemy. Didn’t Vash remember what had happened to Tesla? That was the doing of humans.
Vash knew that Knives would do to July City what he had done to so many other small towns before. He couldn’t bring himself to kill his own brother, but he knew he had to stop him. Thus, he attacked.
He attacked, but it was as Knives had said. While he had feasted upon the blood of humans, Vash had been using his own power to suppress his impulses, thereby making himself weaker. All the more so upon drinking his brother’s blood. So all Knives had to do was inflict such a serious wound upon Vash that he would slip until he fell.
All it took was cutting off Vash’s arm, and Vash wouldn’t be able to stop himself from succumbing to his urges. Knives had successfully turned his brother into a living wine press whose sole purpose was to collect blood.
Vash would have an anvil of infamy dropped on his head, while Knives would go on to be worshiped to the point where he could weaponize hunters of his own kind against Vash. Nobody would even know his name or nature.
Such was the birth of the Devil of July.
—
Wolfwood didn’t believe it at first, nor would he believe it for at least an hour.
Surely not every hunter on the planet has ever been used by Knives. Surely Knives wasn’t actually revered or worshiped. That was impossible. That went against everything he was taught, and everything he knew to be true.
But Vash wasn’t a liar. Vash was a stupidly pacifistic idiot who had saved a human he had every reason to let die.
And he was an even bigger idiot who would die all because he refused to take a life.
Somehow, Wolfwood actually felt protective towards him. It was equal parts blasphemous and hilarious. Vash was a vampire—a vampire and an angel—who by all rights should be a billion times more powerful than him.
His power had been used to kill over two-hundred thousand innocent civilians, expending virtually no effort. But Vash would never drink blood of his own free will. Both of those things were somehow true. He couldn’t even bring himself to raise his head and look Wolfwood in the eyes after what he had confessed.
And in the town they had escaped to, Vash blended in so well. He really could be mistaken for a human, with Wolfwood being the only other person who knew that he was something more.
“Stay inside.” It was less of a request than an order on Wolfwood’s part upon finding a new tiny, empty house to squat in.
“Where are you going?” Vash asked. “You don’t want me to come with you?”
“I’m just keeping watch,” Wolfwood replied. “It’s pointless if we’re both out there.”
I know how much you hate watching me kill, he didn’t say. Even if it’s what I had to do. I can’t believe that a vampire can make a priest feel so unholy. Now, that’s just unforgivable.
Wolfwood headed towards the door, turning back once more.
“Don’t come out until I’m back inside,” he said, before leaving the house.
—
First, a man ripped out his own heart.
Then, a man and a woman shot each other.
Legato Bluesummers could only feel amusement at how unnecessary his actions were. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t have killed each other and died anyway. That was just the way humans were. They tortured and sold their own kind for whatever reason made them feel the most good about it. The best part was that they still viewed themselves as so insignificant that they would need a God or a Devil or a Hell to cause eternal torment, as if they weren’t doing that already. It was laughably disgusting.
Vampires, by comparison, weren’t so bad.
How could they be, when it was humans who were so cruel to each other? When it was humans who erred and sinned and never learned? It was humans who tore each other apart, and to hell with anyone who got caught in the crossfire. Even after being turned, Legato hadn’t been able to escape stray bullets all the time, not even in the center of town.
Still, when a bullet sank into his shoulder instead of his heart, the most he felt was irritated.
“Tsk. Annoying,” Legato said. “And woefully pathetic. Are you not supposed to be the best shot that the Eye has ever produced? And here I was almost excited to see how desperately Vash the Stampede’s attack dog wanted me dead.”
“You must be Knives’ bitch, then,” Wolfwood spat.
“If Vash refuses to be by his side, then I have to,” Legato replied. “But no matter how many demons chased after him, he refused to kill a single one. It was always you. Only you. What will he do when he no longer has the option of taking the easy way out, I wonder?”
“Why?! Why are you so…obsessed with him?! With making him kill people? Aren’t you and your ‘boss’ good enough to do that yourselves?!”
“Because his pacifism is annoying,” Legato said. “Knives only has so much patience for his nonsense. He’s been waiting for such a long time. But that ends tonight. Show me what Nicholas the Punisher is capable of, and then once Vash arrives he can be punished in turn.”
—
It wasn’t the gunshots that woke Vash up, but the smell of blood.
His senses weren’t as sharp as they usually were, but within seconds he was already on his feet and dashing out the door.
He made it to the town square, arriving just in time to see a gun pointed at his head. Its wielder’s hand shook, trying to fight against his body’s betrayal. Wolfwood said nothing, but he didn’t need to. His and Legato’s wounds, and whatever feeble resistance Wolfwood could muster, said enough.
No.
“How kind of you to finally show your face, Vash the Stampede,” Legato said.
“What are you doing?!” Vash reached for a gun of his own. “Let him go!”
Legato tilted his head. “Why should I, after all the effort I put in to catch him like this? No, you don’t get to handle this the easy way. Not this time. In situations like this, it’s kill or be killed. So you can either fight back, or you can die slowly.”
No.
“I can’t!”
“Can’t you? Aren’t you angry at me, for hurting someone you care about? Look at him, he might die soon if he bleeds out. Won’t that make you angry? Wouldn’t you want to kill me?”
…well, Legato was right about one thing, and one thing only. Vash wouldn’t take his life, at least.
The blue-ish green of Vash’s eyes faded before glowing with a golden flare. Legato may have been skilled at weaponizing his Mystic Eyes of Enchantment, but he wasn’t the only one who had them. Vash hated the idea of enslaving anyone. The mere thought disgusted him.
But it would be far from the worst thing Vash had ever done, especially if this meant that nobody would have to die.
“Drop your gun.”
Neither the Church nor any human alive could hope to replicate hypnosis of such a high level. Vash may have been weakening himself willingly, but he was still leagues above Legato in terms of sheer power. Whether it was for that reason, or for the simple fact that Wolfwood favored Vash over Legato, it still meant that Wolfwood instinctively let the gun slip from his fingers, even though he looked like he couldn’t even hear Vash.
Vash looked up and met Legato’s gaze. “Let him go, and leave this town. And I had better not see you around again.”
Legato dropped Wolfwood, who crumpled to the ground. His eyes stared blankly ahead, seeing nothing, before he turned on his heel and walked away.
Vash rushed up to Wolfwood, picking him up. It was only upon seeing him up close that he could see just how miserable of a condition he was in. A human heart wasn’t supposed to beat so fast. A human wasn’t supposed to breathe so raggedly. Hell, despite all that Vash had seen in his lifetime, it still shook him to the core to see a human bleed so much.
Wolfwood put a shaky hand over his. “Jeez, Needle Noggin.” His voice was raspy even for someone as addicted to smoking as he was. “You look like you’re about to cry. Calm down, will ya? Can’t have you wailing like an abandoned baby when I’m trying to sleep, you idiot.”
Wolfwood wasn’t making any sense. He was probably even worse off than he looked, if he was this delirious.
“Seriously,” Wolfwood continued. “Help me up if you’re that worried about me. And go get me a pack of cigs. I could use a smoke at a time like this. The drugs don’t agree with me if I’ve swallowed too much.”
Vash laid a hand on Wolfwood’s chest, grimacing at how wet his clothes were—and not with water. He could practically see his heart just itching to claw itself out of his ribcage.
Vash bit his lip. “I’ve never had to turn a human before. Not of my own free will. But I will if it means you’ll live. But only if you say you want it.”
“How bad’s it hurt?” Wolfwood asked.
“It won’t if you don’t want it to,” Vash said. “You know I don’t like hurting people.”
“Fine,” Wolfwood replied. “I’ve sorta gotten attached to you, and it’s not like I want to die.”
Having acquired permission, Vash then sank his teeth into Wolfwood’s throat.
—
The moment Wolfwood woke up, he put his hand to his chest, recoiling when he felt nothing.
“Whoa,” Vash said, and it was then that Wolfwood realized that they were in a completely different room in a completely different house. “It’ll take some getting used to, but your heart serves no particular purpose now. You don’t even need to breathe anymore.”
“I can still smoke, though, right?”
Vash shook his head. “I can’t believe that’s the first thing on your mind after you technically just died. But you could if you really wanted to.”
Wolfwood held his breath just to confirm, realizing that it was true. He felt no need to let out a breath.
Wolfwood laughed. “Hah! I won’t even have to worry about my lungs giving out on me, then. I’ve never felt luckier in my life.”
Vash frowned. “You should feel lucky, Wolfwood. People normally die when they’re killed.”
“For it is only through death that one can be granted the gift of eternal life.” It felt strange, now, to quote the Church’s sole magical miracle, especially one he himself had used to send vampires to meet God.
Now he was one of them. He already thought the Church was throwing him away by sending him to hunt down the so-called oldest vampire in existence, but now he really would be an enemy of the Church.
And he hadn’t even completed the mission the Church had assigned to him. What a shame.
But for now, Wolfwood was alive, sort of. He was here, and Vash was here, and even though Knives was and still would be a threat as long as he was alive, Wolfwood felt like things were okay for now.
Death was normally the end for a human. But in this case, it was only the beginning. And for once, Wolfwood actually felt excited for it, excited to live.