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The knock at the door came sharply. It roused Mulnur from the slumber he had half-slipped into in his chair by the fire, relaxed by the sound of the rain on his shack’s roof. After taking a moment to decide he hadn’t dreamed it he rose, wiping his jowls with the back of one hand, crossing to the door and opening it a crack.
‘Good evening, sir,’ said the stranger on the other side. ‘I appreciate the hour is late, but I was hoping I could come in.’
‘What’s this about?’ Mulnur said in a low voice, his unseen left hand fingering the tiller of his crossbow where it was hanging on the wall.
‘Perhaps you’ve heard the rumours of late.’
‘Rumours.’
‘There are reports of a werewolf stalking the Falkreath forest,’ the man said. He was an Imperial. Dressed like a guard, with a few extra bits and pieces signifying his rank. Without meaning to, Mulnur eyed his visible weapons: a steel sword at his right hip, and what looked like an iron dagger strapped to his boot. ‘We’re visiting all of the homesteads nearby, to ask if anyone has seen anything.’
‘…Ain’t seen nothing,’ Mulnur said, and began to close the door.
‘You are Mulnur the Gray?’ the guard said quickly, and Mulnur paused. There was a distant rumble of thunder. ‘The huntsman?’
‘Yes.’
‘My understanding is that you knew Bette. The apothecary in Little Wisp, two miles from here?’
‘…I didn’t really know her. Sold things to her.’
‘She was missing for two weeks, but we found her last night. It looks as though it was a werewolf that did it. Nasty business – but I was hoping to ask you some questions while I was here.’
Mulnur eyed him a moment longer before opening the door and backing in. ‘Yes. I suppose you’d better.’
He half-turned to pour himself some moonshine into a grubby tankard, keeping the younger man in his eyeline. He wasn’t moving, though, only hovering at the doorway.
‘What’re you standing there for?’ Mulnur growled. ‘Come in, for Arkay’s sake.’
‘…Sorry,’ the guard said, stepping inside. He seemed abashed. ‘I didn’t know if you wanted me to… that is, I hadn’t realised you were…’
He nervously gestured to Mulnur’s body, exposed as it was in a cotton vest and no other clothing. Mulnur shrugged. ‘I’m fine like this.’
‘It’s a cold night,’ the guard said, shutting the cabin door behind him.
‘Nord blood keeps me warm.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ the Imperial joked, but it didn’t land. He cleared his throat. ‘My name is Septimius. I’ve been the new deputy captain of the guard since Frostfall. Though I don’t believe we’ve met.’
‘You seem… on the younger side to be a deputy captain,’ Mulnur commented.
The fresh-faced guard straightened a little, perhaps offended by this. ‘I’m not as young as I look. I have experience. The civil war… you understand.’
‘Then tell me, not-so-young sir, why a deputy captain has travelled all the way into the woods to my shack so late at night? And all by himself. You should know how dangerous it is, round here.’ Mulnur moved over to stir the pot hanging over the fireplace. ‘Stew?’
He didn’t wait for an answer before ladling some into a dirty bowl and holding it out to him. Septimius accepted it gingerly. ‘I apologise for the late visit. I have been taking only night shifts of late – to catch this werewolf. I believe that to be when it hunts.’ He sniffed the bowl and made a face. ‘What, ah… what’s in this?’
‘Skeever meat with garlic and onion,’ Mulnur said, serving himself some and slurping it without a spoon.
‘Very kind, but… I ate recently,’ Septimius said, carefully setting the bowl down on a rotting table. ‘So, about Bette…’
‘Can’t get picky with what you eat out here,’ Mulnur said between mouthfuls. ‘Falkreath Forest ain’t what it was. Not so many deer no more. Skeever is on the better side of average.’
‘I’m sure.’
There were a few moments of quiet while the Nord finished his food. When he was done he stretched and scratched at his pubic hair, noting the way his visitor’s gaze was repeatedly drawn by his cock swinging left and right. ‘Bette?’ he eventually asked.
‘Uh… I asked around,’ Septimius said. ‘Locals said you normally visited her house once a month.’
‘What of it?’
‘There were the carcasses of two dead foxes in her kitchen, which it looked like a hunter had left. And the final entry in her ledger listed some poisons traded to one Mulnur the Gray—’
‘Yes, I said I visited her. What of it?’
‘The thing is, it seems you were possibly the last person to see Bette alive,’ the Imperial finally said. He looked pale. Not cut out for his work. ‘I’m here specifically to ask you if you knew anything, or… saw anything.’
Mulnur ran a tongue over his teeth. ‘I can’t says that’s right. Seems the last person to see her alive would’ve been the werewolf what killed her.’
‘…True,’ Septimius said, taking an almost imperceptible quarter-step back. ‘But as the last… human to see her alive. Do you have any idea why she might have been attacked?’
Mulnur, at full height, was half a head taller than the Imperial. He straightened his back, exercising this asymmetry. ‘You’ve not been in Falkreath hold for long, have you, lad?’
‘No, sir.’
‘People go missing all the time. We get attacks from werewolves, demons and ghosts as sure as Oblivion burns. If you want to catch one, you’ve got to know how one thinks. How they hunt. At the very least, you should have a silver weapon!’ He pointed a crooked finger at the young guard’s inferior steel sword. ‘You do not go door to door hoping someone’ll do your job for you – or hoping to stumble on a nine-foot beast of Hircine wearing silk bedclothes and knitting by the fire.’
‘It’s more than that,’ the guard said, his voice betraying a glimmer of petulance. ‘Werewolves typically hunt along roads. Out of doors. But the three victims so far… they’ve all been found dead in their own homes.’
‘That a fact.’
‘We think this suggests they were killed by someone known to them. Someone already established in the community, who would have… had reason to travel around. Visiting others.’
‘So you do want my help.’
‘I thought a former monster hunter might offer it!’ Septimius insisted, another grumble of thunder punctuating his sentence. ‘If that is really true.’
Mulnur looked the smaller man over again, reevaluating. ‘You know more than you let on.’
‘It’s my job,’ the Imperial answered, relaxing a little. ‘I know you used to work as a monster hunter. I know you have experience with werewolves, among other things. I also know you’re retired, now working as a simple huntsman, but I don’t know why.’
Mulnur said nothing, scratching his hairy belly.
‘I heard your husband was killed by a werewolf, five years ago.’
Mulnur avoided his eye, slugging back the rest of his drink and refilling the goblet. He kept his fingers near the bottle. ‘I don’t like talking about that. As you can imagine.’
‘I also heard they never found the werewolf that did it.’
‘Why don’t you tell me the real reason you’re here?’
The Nord’s eyes flicked up to meet the Imperial’s. There was a second’s pause in which they both understood each other, and moved at once. Septimius went for his sword, but by the time he had drawn it Mulnur had already lunged forward with the moonshine bottle, cracking it over the side of his skull where it shattered violently and sent him to the ground, cold.
Mulnur was preparing himself when Septimius began to stir. The older man watched him grumble, moan, remember with a start where he was and pull ineffectively at the rope binding and fixing each of his limbs to a different corner of the shack’s only bed.
‘Gah… uh… please… don’t do this…’ he said, before looking down at his dirtied front and noticing the smell. ‘What… what did you…?’
‘I’d prefer you to be quiet,’ Mulnur snarled, pulling his dirty vest over his head and tossing it to the dusty floor.
‘You can’t kill me. A deputy captain of the guard – they’ll find out. They know I was coming here. They’ll hunt you down.’
‘I said, shut up.’ Mulnur climbed onto the bed, knees settling between the younger man’s parted legs and fixing him with a predator’s glare. Septimius’s armour was already gone; only his underclothes remained.
‘Dear gods…’ Septimius whispered in fear.
‘The gods have little chance of saving you,’ the older man snarled. ‘It’s amusing. I almost thought I’d killed you with just the bottle. You had no pulse when I checked. But it’s my lucky night. I haven’t gotten to do this for a while.’
‘W-what are you…?’ the guard began, before Mulnur dug his fingers into Septimius’s undergarment and ripped it apart with raw strength.
‘Ah! Stop, monster!’
‘I’m no monster,’ Mulnur said, baring his teeth. ‘I hunt them, remember?’ He slid his hands up Septimius’s naked legs, scratching with his fingernails as he went. He aggressively pushed the thumb of his right hand between the parted cheeks and into the hole he found there.
‘Ow! F-fuck!’
‘Get used to it. I’m not planning on being gentle – and this is no less than you deserve.’
Septimius whimpered in fear. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong… nothing wrong. I should have brought another with me, werewolf!’
Mulnur slapped his pallid face with such force that he spluttered. ‘You can drop the act, you know. We both know the only werewolf here is you.’
It seemed to take the young guard a moment to register what had been said, before managing a word between staggered breaths. ‘…What?!’
‘Don’t think you can fool me. The new deputy captain, who happens to arrive just before the murders start? You think I’d make a perfect target. Kill me and convince everyone I was the werewolf. You researched me. No one that committed would be stupid enough not to carry a silver weapon to hunt their quarry with – but then, you can’t, can you?’ He grasped Septimius by the throat, forcing him to stare into his eyes. ‘It’s anathema to you. It’d burn your skin to the touch. But don’t worry – a bolt of silver is exactly what you’ll get, right between the eyes, after I’ve had my way with you.’
Mulnur had been masturbating his large and greasy cock as he spoke, and he now lined it up with Septimius’s unwilling entrance.
‘…Gods! No!’ the guard shouted.
‘You’re probably thinking about turning. Maybe you’ve tried already, and are wondering why you can’t? I’ve daubed your chest with a special ointment, courtesy of Bette. Stops werewolf transformations. You should’ve looked at what “poisons” she sold me before you killed her, fiend.’
With one hellish thrust, Mulnur forced his cock into the body of the man below him. Septimius cried out in agony.
‘N-no! You’ve got it wrong! I-I’m not a werewolf, I swear!’
‘Hircine and I have long… battled,’ Mulnur grunted, thrusting in and out of Septimius and ignoring his pleas for mercy. ‘One of your kind, another skinshifter, fucked me when I was only a lad… swore, I’d get my… revenge… hunt monsters and do the same to them before killing them.’
‘Ah! Fuck, please!’
‘This one’s enjoying it,’ Mulnur laughed, picking up his pace and nudging Septimius’s swelling cock. ‘Good little bitch knows its place.’
That the young guard seemed not to be hating the experience, his cries of pain occasionally giving way to softer, sweeter whimpers of sexual need, only served to spur Mulnur on and fuck him with even less consideration.
‘P-please…’ Septimius begged, tears running down either side of his head. ‘I’ll do anything!’
‘Your only… fucking job… is to make me come,’ Mulnur growled, his hair matting his sweating brow. ‘And here it… fucking comes…’
The older man gripped Septimius’s throat firmly, forcing eye contact as he reached a shuddering climax. The bed creaked a few final times in protest, and then it was done.
Now the only sound was Mulnur’s lungs gulping down air, besides the gently crackling fire. The Nord’s hand slid from his victim’s throat, a sudden exhaustion overcoming his arms. A morsel of guilt entered his mind, and he banished it. He swept back his grey mane and opened his eyes again. Septimius was only staring at him.
‘What, nothing to say now?’ Mulnur rasped between breaths. ‘Nothing to… to…’
A tightness had formed in his chest. It was becoming harder, not easier, to catch his breath. He still couldn’t move his arms.
‘Are you alright?’ Septimius asked in a strange, singsong voice that set Mulnur’s hackles up. ‘You look a little… weak.’
Weak was the word. He couldn’t move. He felt as though his stamina was being drained, but more than that – it was like his life essence, his soul was being slowly unwrapped from his bones and encouraged out of him. ‘What… what is…?’
‘For a monster hunter, you’re quite terrible at discerning your prey,’ Septimius cooed.
When Mulnur looked down, he saw the man seemingly quite comfortable, his erection grown to full mast now. The older man tried to speak again, but found even a fragment of a word to be too much for him to manage.
‘Let me help you, then,’ the young guard said, squirming with pleasure. ‘You already noticed the lack of a silver sword. Well done. But there’s so much you didn’t notice.’
Septimius pulled again at the bindings fastening his arms and broke them effortlessly with a borrowed strength – Mulnur’s strength. It was his turn to grip the other by the throat.
‘What being are these the traits of, I ask? Sleeps during the day… older than he looks… has no pulse… and, in the case of my particular bloodline…’ He forced Mulnur’s head to the side, pointing him at the skeever stew where it bubbled over the fire. ‘A strong aversion to garlic?’
Mulnur’s mouth flapped open and closed, seeing his mistake spelled out so clearly, but too late to do anything about. His dick was still inside the vampire, his energy being sapped and drained with dark magic. With every second that passed he was less able to resist, and Septimius’s hunger only seemed to grow.
‘Fuck, that’s it, give it to me…’ he moaned, his otherwise pale cheeks now flushing with stolen warmth. ‘This feels so good! I’ll do it this way every time from now on, it’s so direct, so intimate…’
The vampire’s dick was so hard it was throbbing, now, leaking a little from the tip each time it twitched. Mulnur’s thought desperately of his silver-bolt crossbow, still hanging on the wall, too far out of reach. Careless.
‘Yes, I’m ready for the rest of you now,’ Septimius said, pulling Mulnur’s compliant body downward into an embrace. He ran his fingernails over the huntsman’s back, kissed him twice on the mouth, and sank his terrible fangs into his exposed neck.
As Mulnur’s consciousness faded to darkness, his last ever formed memory was of his prey-turned-predator climaxing underneath him. What a dark end, he thought: to have all of his body’s vitality, his very soul to be sucked out, consumed and thrown away in the form of something so fleeting as an orgasm.