Chapter Text
Winter, 1897
The snow came down in whipping sheets carried by a cutting wind. Ethan's heavy coat did nothing to keep out the chill as he trudged through the knee deep snow that blanketed his path. The wide gap between the trees being all that gave him hope he hadn't already walked off the winding road.
He had bought a ride to his destination from the last town, only to have the driver stop them dead at the base of the road and refuse to drive the horses another step once he realized Ethan's goal.
Monsters, he said, roamed those woods and haunted that village. There was no reason a sane man could have to get even a step nearer than they already had. Ethan hadn't argued, the man was right.
Ethan knew what he was hunting.
Four years ago he had marched his way through a swamp and directly into hell to find the woman he'd make his wife, Eight months ago she had been stolen from him again, and with her their infant daughter. He had spent every day since searching, even if the pool of blood that had soaked their home's floor stole the hope of every authority long before the search had even begun. Ethan wouldn't believe they were dead. He couldn't.
Not when he had already gone through so much to claw her back once.
The long cold walk didn't get any easier as the sun set. The storm carrying on through into the night, leaving him to walk by the narrow circle of light his lamp could cast.
Then the howling began.
The stock of his gun was warm from his iron grip on it.
The snow had soaked through his boots. His feet too numb from it for him to feel his own steps.
He already knew he would make it to that village, what shape he'd be in when he got there was all the dogs hidden in the darkness around him would decide.
One bolted past him. Its gait wrong and stumbling. Its figure misshapen in the half second his light could brush it.
Fear curled in Ethan's chest and there was nothing for him to do but ignore it. He set down his lantern and readied his revolver, listening to the howling night for the crunching footsteps that circled him.
Ever since Louisiana things had been different. He used to call it luck.
The gunshot rang out. He knew he'd hit his target by crunch of it collapsing into the snow. He knew now Luck had nothing to do with his life.
The monster behind him surged. He turned and took the attack full on, rolling with the man shaped beast in the frigid snow until he was on top and another shot left its head a warm splatter of gore in the snow.
Sharper senses, instincts unmatched despite not having the good sense to back them up. What he'd become in that swamp was no more deserving of life than what he now hunted. He'd never been a selfless man, though.
He was going to find Mia and their sweet little girl and no monster was going to stand in his way.
Another beast shot through the dark, its attack pulling him further from his lanterns light. Teeth and claws he barely felt. The focus given by fear and agony overwhelming the pain. He kicked it off him and shot where he heard it land.
The thing was up and running but he knew he wouldn't be so lucky as to be left alone. He had three shots left before he needed to reload. No matter how good his hearing was he wasn't going to be able to pick out a head count from the tangle of steps still circling him in the dark.
He bolted for his lantern's circle, taking a pot shot at one of the monsters when it edged too close. Its blood staining the snow where it fell.
Ethan turned in time to hit another before it could tackle him once more. His breath coming hard, his side beginning to throb. He had one bullet left, and he already could tell it wouldn't be enough. There was one dog either side of him. He would swear he could hear their drooling breaths over the wind.
Though that was not what made him freeze. A red glow, faint but unmistakably there hovered in the darkness. It flared brighter before drifting lower. He knew what threat the dog like beasts were, but the unknown danger behind that simple light in the dark had his instincts growling something fierce.
The glow rose again, and both the dogs bolted for him. He turned to fire at one but was knocked into by the other before he could pull the trigger. Its dull teeth burying in the flesh of his neck. They land in the snow away from the lantern, too close to the glow. His arm is clawed open, his revolver lost in the fray as he fought to elbow the monster tearing into him in its ribs. Its snarling breath burning in his ear.
A gun goes off. The shot makes his ears ring as the assault stops. The beast turning to dead weight over him.
He scrambles backwards, knowing there was still one dog lurking, and grabs his lantern to bare it before himself. Needing to catch the source of the glow in its light to know what beast now bore down on him.
It was a man. He leaned against a tree like not a single thing in the world was wrong, a cigar with its burning cherry in one hand, Ethan's revolver in the other. A strange pair of glasses black as pitch on his face.
"Who are you?" Ethan demanded. "Give that back there's another -"
"It won't bother you." the man straightened up. His long green coat making him look twice his size as he stepped to loom over Ethan. "They don't attack if they're alone." He tapped the ash from his cigar into the bloody snow. "New to town?"
"You can say that," Ethan didn't trust the stranger a hairs width as he stood to attempt to level them out. Only to find the man had half a heads height on him. "Local?"
"Oh yeah, been here my whole life." he shrugs, turning to walk back into the darkness as abruptly as he had arrived. "There's not a proper inn, but if you go into town looking that sorry someone will take pity on you."
"My gun-" Ethan stumbled to follow him, his wounds beginning to get their words in as the fight and fear faded.
"What about it?" The man asked.
"Give it back."
"Nah. You aren't going to need it."
"It was my wife's - Give it back." Ethan surged to try to grab it from him, only to have it yanked out of his reach.
"I hear that accent, they don't have manners where you're from?"
"You're the one stealing from me."
"I'm the one saving the stupid foreigner from walking into town a bloody mess, while armed. No one's going to give a man that obviously a problem any grace."
Ethan scowled at him and got smirk in response, those dark glasses glinting in the lantern light.
"You're a hunter too? Surely you've already got a gun. No need to steal mine."
"Not the same kind of hunter as you. I was just out looking for a meal when I heard the gunshots."
"And a revolver is pointless for game- Give it back."
"You said it was your wife's? Why don't you send her to come get it, I'm sure she and I could get along well."
"She's-" he stops himself from saying dead. "She's missing. I'm looking for her."
"Here?" he cocks his head.
"You're local. You didn't flinch a second at those wolf-men. Don't act like you think there's no reason she could've been brought here."
The man takes a long drag on his cigar. "You don't know a thing about what you're walking into, do you?"
"There's a coven based out of that village of yours. People have been being kidnapped and stolen into this town for a century to feed its ranks."
"Where'd you hear that?" he didn't deny it.
"Found a lead in Germany. A pair of twin boys was stollen here, one of them wrote to their birth family when he was grown telling them what happened and cursing them for not stopping it. I'm going to find him"
The man made a sound that was almost lost to the storm around them. "Towns small. I don't think I know of a single pair of twin-"
"His brother died instead of turning. There'd be only one."
"Then you're looking for a man. Do you even have a name?"
"Heisenberg. He didn't sign his first."
The man is quiet a long moment. "I'll give you the gun back, and tell you something real important, only if you swear on that wife of your's life that you and I never had this conversation."
"Deal," Ethan nodded.
"You're hunting the four lords of the village. Lord Heisenberg, Lord Moreau, Lady Dimitrescu, Lady Beneviento. Fucking monsters every last one of them. What they have to do with that wife of yours I couldn't tell. Can tell you this: You're out of your depth with any of them."
"So you knew they were vampires." he takes the gun as it's held out to him.
"It's an open secret. They keep the town running well, a few folk go missing every so often. What other choice do people have?"
"They'll know soon." Ethan couldn't stop this hunt no matter what depended on it. This village would simply need to adapt to the loss of its overlords.
"Ruthless." The man said with an approving chuckle. "There's no swaying you to turn back?"
"Would you try to?"
"No, just needed the measure of you... Go for Beneviento first. She's the youngest of their lot."
Ethan feels he might stare a hole in the strange man's profile, but when he searches his words he finds no reason to distrust his suggestion.
They walk for a time in silence. The man puffing on his cigar like it was any other night. Not a single ounce of concern in his countenance as he and Ethan trekked through the storm.
The torch light of the village glows faintly across the bridge when the man stops dead in his tracks.
"You're going to cause problems." The man says bluntly, "I don't want seen with you. Get into town. Get warm. Don't die before you do something useful."
"Wait, I'm Ethan," he holds his hand out for a shake, only for the man to snort and blow acrid smoke in his face.
"Good meeting you Ethan." without another word he turns and strides off into the darkness.
Ethan watches him go, and notes that the supposed hunter had no sign of gun on him.