Chapter Text
He was a damn coward. His pride, his future, and all his worldly possessions, were left behind as he ran. None of that mattered now. The only thing left in all the world worth holding onto was the little girl sobbing against his chest.
Screams rang out across the forest, swallowed up by distance. Someone was still alive back at the caravan. Fear and guilt welled up inside of him, threatened to overtake his heart as he pressed on, snow crunching noisily underfoot with each frantic step, blood pounding in his ears. The screams abruptly stopped and he knew whoever had been left was dead and drained.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to have been safe, all of them. Now he and Poppy were all that was left.
A month ago, Boothill had signed on as security for a decent sized caravan. It had seemed like a straightforward-enough job, getting them from their small, vulnerable settlement to the nearest city. He would help protect the people and the cargo, and in exchange he and his daughter would get safe passage to the city, with hot meals and a little pocket money to boot. There had been about thirty of them in all, including one other family with two grown sons that had been hired as additional muscle with a goal similar to his own. Another ten of the group had been armed and told to watch out for vampires, hoping their sheer numbers would help deter any attacks.
They had set out from their settlement only a few days before, and set up camp for the evening after a long, hard trudge through snow and dense forest. They had expected to reach the city early the next morning, after only another hour or two of travel. No one had expected an attack so near their destination, under the safety of a bright, full moon that kept the darkness at bay. At least it had, until the clouds had rolled in and a gentle snowfall had begun.
Boothill had only just finished tucking Poppy into bed, stowed safely away in a nest of blankets besides cargo crates in the back of one of the wagons. Returning to the warmth of the fire, he had listened to the forest grow eerily silent. The distant call of nightbirds and howling wolves had ceased, replaced with only the soft crackling of the fire; even the wind seemed to have stilled around them. He had strained his ears, already beginning to unholster his revolver as the hair on his neck stood on end. The faintest crunch of snow had alerted him to something just between the trees.
Before he had had time to raise his gun, a pair of vampires had rushed into the camp, jumping on one of the other men providing protection; it was the eldest son from that other family. Together they had knocked the man down, ripping into his throat so quickly that he hadn’t even had time to scream. Boothill had shouted out the alarm, followed by the discharge of his revolver. He had always heard that it took silver to kill these beasts, but a solid shot to the heart seemed to have done some degree of damage. The vampire he had shot dropped to the ground and had laid there, weakly clutching its chest while its companion dragged the gurgling man out of the firelight and into the darkness of the woods.
Through the glow of the fire Boothill had counted nearly half a dozen more vampires entering their campsite, descending upon the group in a frenzy as most of the camp struggled to free themselves from their blankets and sleeping bags. Those that had not immediately been pounced on and sliced open had scrambled to find weapons or run into the darkness of the forest. But the monsters were faster, leaping onto the members of the caravan and sinking hungry teeth deep into their throats. Screams and gunshots had rung out across their camp, the sickening tear of flesh quickly swallowing up every other sound as the vampires feasted on the people he had sworn to protect.
Boothill had let off another few shots as he ran to the wagon, sent another two vampires scampering away to easier prey. A bone-deep fear he had never experienced before had seized his heart as he whipped the cover back. He hadn’t had time to feel the relief wash over him as his daughter looked up at him with terrified, watering eyes. Still wrapped in a blanket, he had scooped her up with one arm, told her to cover her ears, and then he had turned back to face the dangers of their campsite, now a slaughter.
Only a few bodies had been scattered across camp, and he hoped that meant at least a few of the short-lived species from the caravan had gotten away. Three vampires had remained hunched on the ground over their prey, feasting greedily on one body before moving on to another. One had turned its dark eyes up at the pair of them, at the easy meal cowering against Boothill’s chest. He shot the beast twice through the heart like he had the other, his revolver clicking emptily as he tried to let off a third shot. There was no time to see if it would get back up. He ran.
They had set camp just shy of the road, not so far that other travelers wouldn’t have seen them, and possibly added to their numbers until the morning; Boothill had the vague thought that their location might have been their undoing. With the clouds parting for just a moment, he had found the road and hauled himself down the snowy embankment that separated it from the woods. Just as quickly as it has appeared, the moon vanished back behind the clouds, peeking out only in thin silver ribbons that cut into the near perfect darkness.
He had no way of telling if he was running towards the city, or back the way the caravan had initially come. But he had to get away from the camp, to keep Poppy away from the ravenous beasts he’d heard countless stories about growing up; the creatures were so much worse in reality than they had been in the campfire tales he had heard. The darkest part of his heart hoped that the vampires would have their fill back at camp, and that they wouldn’t pursue the two of them.
Boothill’s lungs began to burn, the child was growing heavier in his arms by the second, but he had to push on. There was a flicker of lights ahead, the tiny pinpricks of torches that danced against the darkness. It had to be the city. They would make it. She had to make it.
A guttural shriek tore through the woods from behind him. It was an animal sound full of agony, inhuman and horrifying. Not in all his years of hunting and trapping had he ever heard a creature sound like that. It couldn’t have been one of the caravan members, he told himself, and he prayed to The Hunt that there was one less vampire prowling around the planet. He wondered, with fear creeping into him, what sort of monster could cause a vampire to make such a sound.
Over his heavy breath, over the soft sobs of Poppy into his shirt, he heard it. Snow crunched behind him, rapidly, growing closer and closer. His body was almost at its limit, his legs screaming with exhausting. He knew he was beginning to slow. The city was so close, but the vampire behind them would close the distance before they cleared the woods.
No no no no no no no!
The words echoed across his mind, terror and a fresh surge of adrenaline forced his fatigued body far beyond its limit. It couldn’t end here, not like this, not until Poppy was safe. Even if he didn’t make it, she had to.
A rush of air whipped his hair around his head. For a brief moment he thought he had narrowly avoided a swipe from the creature. Not even a second after, a tree exploded to his right, littering the path before him with small branches and chunks of bark, sending pieces of wood pelting against his back. There was a wet gurgle and the sickening squelch of meat taunting him to look, to see what sort of wild beast had just attacked his pursuer and might be coming for him next. He refused. Whatever sort of thing could take out a vampire like that was surely monstrous beyond compare.
Together, he and Poppy escaped the tree line. The torches were close enough to illuminate the vast, high stone walls of the city and the huge doors that were shut tight to protect their citizens. All he needed to do was call out to the guards inside, and surely, they would let the pair of them inside.
Any relief Boothill felt drained from his body as something darted out from the trees and rushed through the snow to cut off his path. Boothill dug his feet into the frozen ground so hard he fell back onto his rear. The clouds overhead moved on for good, and he was able to make out the monstrosity before him as moonlight bathed over the area.
It came as no surprise that it was one of the vampires that had attacked the camp. He recognized it as the one that had dragged off the eldest son. Long, dark hair hung in matted clumps around a pale face, its mouth and jaw dripping with gore. It bared its teeth at him like an animal, a pair of sharp fangs winking wickedly at him. Sometime between the attack on the camp and its ambush now, it had lost its right arm, a jagged point of bone peeking out between ragged pieces of skin and sinew that hung from the stump. Its eyes were dark with hunger, watching him intently as it hunched forward, raising its blood-soaked arm as it readied to attack.
He had to do something, anything. It was only then, as he held Poppy tight to his chest, that he realized he was still gripping his revolver, clutching it desperately even as he had wrapped his arms around Poppy and ran. In a last-ditch effort to scare the thing off, he raised his empty gun. It had seen what Boothill had done with it to at least one of its companions, he was sure, but if it called his bluff they were done for.
The vampire stopped dead in its tracks, but it was no longer looking at him. Its pale face rose to stare at something behind him coming out of the woods. The creature took a step back with a frightening hiss.
Snow crunched behind him. A young man in a white suit heavily stained with blood walked around Boothill and stepped in front of him, obscuring the vampire from view; the paleness of his suit made him glow ethereally under the bright light of the moon.
“I can’t believe that vile creatures such as yourself are still plaguing the wilds of any civilized planets,” the man admonished with a smooth, disgusted voice. Without turning, he told Boothill in a much gentler tone, “Sir, I implore the two of you to look away.”
Boothill dropped his gun and covered Poppy’s ears with both hands, making sure her little face was pressed snuggly against the crook of his neck. But he couldn’t look away, leaning to the side just a little to witness what was to come.
The vampire was cowering, hissing at the man– another vampire, because Boothill knew that was the only thing that their savior could be –as it stumbled backward. Its wild eyes darted around, looking for escape. Before it could take another step, the man was there in front of it, so quickly he had seemed to teleport. The man shoved his arm through the creature’s chest, his hand exiting its back with the sickening crunch of bone. He withdrew his arm, dripping in dark blood, and the creature collapsed, unmoving.
The man turned to him, and it was only then that Boothill saw a tiny pair of wings folded up against his jaw, fluffed up against the cold air. He took a step forward and Boothill couldn’t help but push himself backwards on the ground. The man stopped.
“I’m sorry that you had to see that.” He sounded truly remorseful as he spoke, voice only loud enough to be heard across the distance between them. He took off his coat and gloves, absolutely ruined with blood, and folded them up in his arms to hide the gore. He still had blood speckled across his trousers and the bottom of his shirt, but he looked much less ghastly. “Are the two of you alright? Did they hurt either of you?”
He took a small step forward and when Boothill didn’t flinch away again he took another step, and another until he was in front of them. The vampire offered his hand to Boothill, but he refused to take it just yet. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t one of the creature that had attacked before, that not all their kind were inherently evil.
Most vampires, to Boothill’s understanding, were not terribly different from him, at least in their day-to-day lives. They had jobs, families, hopes and desires of their own. Being the majority species across the universe, he supposed that made sense. He had even heard rumors that some vampires were something like nobility, taking in all sorts of short-lived species into their care and protection as a form of philanthropy. Neither kind sounded like the one that roamed the wilds of this world, stalking settlements for prey; those were the only ones he had ever had encounters with before now. If he had to guess, this man was one of those noble types that considered Boothill’s kind charity work.
“Why’d you do it?” Boothill asked instead. Without the imminent threat, and no more bullets, he finally dropped his gun, and his arms wrapped securely against Poppy. The poor thing had somehow managed to fall asleep despite the chaos. It couldn’t have been an easy sleep, given that night’s events. His little girl deserved better than this fear that encompassed every moment of their lives. “What do you want?”
“You were in danger,” the man answered simply, still holding his hand out. “And those thugs give my species a bad name. I assure you, not all of us are such craven beasts.”
Satisfied enough with that answer, Boothill took the vampire’s warm hand and he was lifted to his feet with frightening ease. If this vampire had wanted to kill him it would have been easy work. But he was willing to give the creature the benefit of the doubt. For the time being.
Only moments ago, their savior had seemed larger than life. Now that Boothill was standing before him, he realized that the vampire stood a full head shorter. If they had met any other time, Boothill wouldn’t have thought such a small man capable of the sort of violence he had displayed only moments ago. He also realized, with no small amount of discomfort, that this creature was distractingly handsome. Though, he told himself firmly, his feelings must have been due to the flurry of emotions and adrenaline raging through his system; that was the only way he could have allowed him to think such a thing. This was a monster after all, one that had to sustain itself off the blood of the living. One that had saved his daughter’s life, and his.
“Would you allow me to escort the pair of you into town? Mister…”
“The name’s Boothill. And this here’s Poppy.” He wasn’t sure what compelled him to tell the man his name, let alone that of his daughter.
“If you will, Mr. Boothill, please follow me. There may be more out there,” explained the vampire before leading them towards the large doors that separated the city from the wilds.
Boothill followed his savior with an uneasy gait, his legs jelly-like with the adrenaline rapidly draining from his body. Still, he trudged on through the snow, his new companion adopting a purposefully slow pace so Boothill wasn’t left behind.
The vampire knocked loudly against one of the thick doors barring them from the city. In the moonlight Boothill could make out a seam cut into the door on the right, a smaller door carved into the wood that was made for the comings and goings of one or two people at a time, or for late-night visitors such as themselves. A slot opened near the top of the smaller door, just long enough for whoever was on the other side to distinguish them, and shut again. The sound of locks sliding loose clanked loudly and a moment later the little door swung inwards.
“Please, after you two,” gently urged the vampire. His eyes weren’t on Boothill. Instead, they were looking out into the dark forest beyond the city, scanning for any further signs of danger.
Boothill stepped through the threshold and past the pair of guards stationed at the door into a city larger than any he’d even seen. Great brick and stone buildings were painted silver by the moonlight as far as he could see, smoke billowing up from several chimneys into a gradually lightening sky. In the distance he could make out the huge, wide outline of the city’s spaceport, the tiny silhouette of shuttles dancing through the air even at that early hour as they came and went. There were a few people milling around the streets and grumbling in the cold, heading up and down cobbled roads to start their days. There would be safety in such great numbers, but he couldn’t let his guard down just yet, not until the reality of the situation sank in. They had made it. Of dozens of people, he and Poppy were the only ones that had made it.
The door that he had entered closed noisily, the numerous locks reset by the guard that resumed her post as soon as the vampire had been admitted. The other guard approached the pair of them; she was as human as he was. She took a statement from Boothill about what had happened, and why he was entering the city in the dead of night with a vampire holding a coat covered in gore.
What had happened a little over an hour ago felt like another life entirely as he described the events. He told her about the caravan and the attack, the number of vampires he had seen enter the camp, and of the way the vampire currently beside him had saved him and his daughter. The guard gave him a sympathetic look before informing him that he and Poppy were likely the only survivors, and that a contingent of guards would be sent at first light to investigate the scene. With no further use for him, she sent Boothill on his way and returned to her post.
“Will you two be alright?” The vampire finally spoke again, having been quiet through the entire interview. He sounded genuine, even concerned. “Do you have a place to stay?”
“We’ll manage,” Boothill told him through his exhaustion. But he wasn’t entirely sure how.
All he had were the clothes on his back and the child in his arms. He couldn’t even begin to imagine finding his way back to the caravan, even under the safety of daylight. Whatever he once had there he didn’t want now. Even if his possessions weren’t soaked in blood or torn apart, the thought of them now seemed different, wrong. Tainted.
Once the sun had risen, he could start looking for work. He didn’t have much in the way of education, but he was strong, and would work hard at anything he could find if it meant eking out decent life for them. Until then he hoped he could find a pub or other late-night establishment that would admit them for a few hours of rest. What a challenge their lives were about to become.
“If you’re certain,” the vampire responded. He didn’t seem convinced by Boothill’s words, though he did not press the issue. “Be well, Mr. Boothill.” The vampire turned and headed up the main road, probably towards the spaceport, if Boothill had to guess.
As he watched the vampire’s retreating back, the finely tailored shirt and vest glowing white in the moonlight, an idea began to form, a terrible, desperate idea. It was clear this vampire wasn’t from Boothill’s world. He was too fine, too delicate mannered and well-bred to be from there, that much was obvious. While Boothill had no idea if the rumors about vampire nobles were true, it was worth a shot. He chased after the man, realizing he didn’t even know the vampire’s name to catch his attention again.
“Hey!” He shouted without considering the hour. His legs almost gave out at he ran, the little energy left in his body draining from him with every labored step. “Wait!”
The vampire stopped and turned to him with a soft, fanged smile that disconcerted him. “Yes?”
Boothill pushed past his discomfort and asked, panting, “Is it true some of you fancy types will take in normal folk like us?”
The vampire chuckled lightly at the description. His smile grew. “We have been known to. Why do you ask?”
“Listen…” Boothill trailed off, trying to think of the right words to plead his case. “I appreciate how you helped us. I really do. And I ain't got a right to ask you for more, but I'll do anything it takes to keep my girl safe. And I mean anything.”
He couldn’t imagine that the charity of vampires was anything other than transactional. They could play at benevolence, but Boothill knew that his kind were no more than food to them. If not food, he knew that vampires were not so different from the short-lived species that they didn’t still have carnal needs. While neither thought sat well with him, he would give up a little blood or even his body if it meant safety and a future for Poppy.
“Do you know someone who might be able to take us in? Some… vampire nobles or whatever you folks are?” He continued, hoping not to elaborate on his offer.
The vampire considered him in silence for several long moments. “You don't seem very keen on my type,” he finally answered. “Are you certain that’s what you want?”
“I'll do whatever it takes to keeps my Poppy safe. I don't care what. She's the only thing that matters to me,” Boothill told the vampire with every ounce of conviction in his heart. He looked to the child in his arms, still mercifully asleep and sniffling from the cold.
“You really mean that, don't you? When you say anything.” The vampire looked him over, scanning every inch of Boothill’s body in a way that made him feel more vulnerable than when he had been attacked with the caravan. The vampire’s pale eyes sparkled with unbidden approval as they fell back on Boothill’s face.
Boothill swallowed hard. “I do.” And he meant it.
“Very well, Mr. Boothill,” agreed the vampire, his gentle smile falling back in place over his lips. “You and Miss Poppy will be safe in my care. You have my word. Now please, follow me. I'll need to purchase you both tickets for the next ship off-planet.”
The thought of leaving the planet suddenly terrified him. He had never even been outside his own country. But there was no backing out, and there was no reason for staying. Everything he had, everyone he cared about, was all gone. The fresh start he had wanted for them wouldn’t be in this city after all.
“Hey, what's your name?” Boothill finally asked of his savior as he followed the vampire up the road.
“Sunday. Of the Oak Family,” he said it with certain authority, but Boothill couldn’t imagine what it could mean.