The fun thing about being the hunter, the killer is the seduction, the hunt. It was a game played for thousands of years, a game played out on different killing grounds all around the world. There was even fun in those moments of intimacy that occured right before the end. Sometimes it lasts seconds or minutes as the rhythm of your heartbeat, mortal or preternatural, matches the target's motion.
Suddenly, with a percussion that sounds like a mass of compressed air, your weapon or sometimes yourself, being the weapon. hurtles at subsonic speeds towards the target and lands with a sting so fast the victim doesn't even have time to contemplate his or her shift from life to death.
One heartbeat he's walking along the road, riding along a path or dancing in a club, the next he's in front of the pearly gates trying to tell St. Peter exactly why he should let his sorry corrupted ass into heaven. Most people that get nixed aren't the kind that go to heaven anyway. Neither are the killers going there either. Not that he or she would want to, not with the Earth as their own personal and eternal hunting ground.
Riding along the road on their horses, Hawke and Viper conversed, albeit silently as their horses trotted at a steady pace alongside the other. Passing gorges hidden behind small forests but through this passage, the distant sounds of battle brought them to a halt and as they scanned the landscape, their preternatural eyes functioning like infrared heat sensors, detected a large number of men just through the wood. Human. The red glow distinguising them from a band of Garou, demons or other kindred.
Dismounting her horse, Viper took a few steps forward with Hawke right on her heels as she made her way through the glade of trees then up an incline, crouching lower as she came to the edge, the top of the hill giving way to a small valley below. There they were, two groups of men, one smaller than the others but by their white habits with the unmistakeable red crosses on them, they could be only one thing.
Bloody 'ell luv, Templars, we 'ave to go and go quick"
"This is just unreal Hawke, look at them"
"I am, which is why we must go"
Then it happened, the larger army though on the retreat were in fact leading the Templars into an ambush and as this new onslaught took place, Viper watched with morbid facination as once again the Templars regained lost ground, but not without casualty, one had taken a severe blow and was knocked from his horse by a massive barbarian who immediately thrust his sword into the Templar, dealing him an injury he would not survive.
Templars trained for this, they took vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience but it was their cardinal rule of never surrendering. They simply would not leave that battlefield till the end even if it meant their own. Their belief in their faith so strong, their honor so unshakeable, that they had made their peace with the very real prospect of death as they knew they would be rewarded in the afterlife.
"Hawke, imagine if we had a Templar on our side, we would have someone on the inside of a very elite group, of a very well connected group, an ally in these times. Their excellent training and heavy armament...Hawke I must"
"Luv leave him.." Hawke warned "It could serve us no good in the long run and we won't be here for very much longer" "Then there's no harm to be done, it would mean one less Inquisitor to persecute our kind"
"Luv...no, you..can't.."
It was too late, as the dust settled from the departing Templars, Hawke saw Viper already on the field and approaching the fallen man. He glanced up at the sky and cursed under his breath a moment before he set off after her. Viper however had already crouched down to one knee beside the dying Templar. Her eyes glancing over his wound, examining it before letting her gaze drift to his blood splattered face, his eyes were semi closed and his face was a grimace of pain, a cold sweat already breaking out across his forehead. She knew as he did that he would not live much longer.
"So heroic..so faithful and much to young to have your life cut short like this. You should not die" Viper whispered hesitantly, smiling a bewitching smile that drew his gaze to hers.
The Templar attempted to focus his eyes through the sudden fog that had enshrouded the valley floor, his vision clearing regardless and taking in the face of the one speaking to him through the haze. "I have accepted my fate and honored God" He stammered. "My duty is complete"
"Your duty was to die alone on this field? To let the worms make nothing of a life that you toiled all those years to make? Of a life you have yet to live? Is this what you truly want?" I cannot believe that your God, did not have more meant for you than this"
"I---I do not want to die" he coughed as his breath grew more labored and his death drew nearer "But there is nothing to stop it now" he resigned himself.
"Not as you are but if there was a way, would you take it? To live a full life of your choosing, a life without end. I can give that to you Templar, right here and right now."
"How is that possible, you are not God" The Templar stated with conviction.
"No, i'm not your God, he would let your life drain into the Earth. I, on the other hand offer you life, I am something better" She cooed and with a fiery glint in her eyes, descended on the Templar's neck, sinking her fangs into his flesh and drinking deeply from him. The warrior gasped as he felt his body weaken further, the mingling of pain and ecstasy as she gave him the Kiss. The Templar saw images of his own life flash before his eyes in rapid succesion and as his eyes closed, Viper's eyes became red as she drank, seeing the same images of the man's life and experiencing his memories. He was of noble birth this Michael and his spirit was of a warrior. A man of conviction and a man who was a survivor.She saw it all, felt it all.
And then, it stopped.
The Templar struggled to breathe, his throat already constricting and his body shivering from death's icy touch.He looked up through his fear flecked eyes, widened at the blasphemy his ears had just heard and the sadism he had just experienced. With a hard swallow, he attempted to speak again, pausing a few moments to gather what little strength he had left. "What...what would I have to do?"
Viper smiled and she slid down to both knees, carefully placing the dying Templar's head on her lap. "Just take my hand" she enticed, just like the legendary Serpent in the Garden of Eden itself, she offered the Templar the taste of the proverbial forbidden fruit when she swept an elongated nail across her wrist and held it over his lips letting a couple of droplets of blood fall onto his lips.
"Drink if you wish to live"
Turning his head to one side, he pushed her wrist away in resistance, but the Templar didn't let go completely.
"Drink.."
The Templear gazed back up and seeing the thin trail of crimson across the silky skin of her wrist, the Templar brought her wrist down and pulled it to his mouth, feeding hesitantly at first then causing Viper to let out a sigh as the man fed from her more voraciously. The Templar's eyes closed as he felt the hammering of his own pulse as he fed. He broke contact with her long enough to open the thin wound further, shearing the soft skin and pressing his lips to her again, drawing forth even more of her blood..
"Enough" she ordered but he kept drinking causing another sigh to escape.It was then that Viper pulled her wrist away forcibly and began to seal her own wound while Hawke moved forward, placing his boot on the man's chest.
Glancing at the Templar, she smiled inwardly. His lips and chin stained crimson from feeding and his now dark soul was linked to hers. Hawke maintained his stance as Viper rose and then, both stepping back, she watched him writhe on the ground, his body shuddering with convulsions as his mortal body died, but as it did, it also regenerated itself, transforming itself.
"You have a good appetite" she smiled darkly. She had always suspected that these warrior monks were as blood thirsty as those they would eventually drag to the inquisitions and she had been right.
"Now, Michael," she said. "On your knees. You have fed and now you pulse with life. I desire your knowledge and your services"
"My Queen" the Templar bowed his head in reverence and in obedience. The words seemed to come from somewhere far away in his mind, at first barely sure they were his own but looking over his perfectly healed body and taking in everything with his new senses, he seemed to come alive and pulled his tunic from his body.
"Come" Viper entreated, motioning the Templar from his knees to follow her and as she joined Hawke, she smiled at him speaking to him telepathically. "Cake"
"I hope you know what you're doing luv" Hawke sent back telepathically.
"I always do m'heart, I always do"
The fog grew even more dense as the three made their way from the field, vanishing into the fog that provided them with cover and protection.