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This evening. All out war. That’s the agreement they come to.
Apo stands at the top of the tower at the town centre watching the sun rise. For all its horrible-ness, Oakhurst at least has pretty skies. The golden sunbeams turn the red twilight skies a shade of pink that reminds her of Cherri, of magnolia trees and strawberry lemonade shared in the springtime with her lover.
This evening. It determines whether or not she sees Cherri again.
Apo takes a deep breath and climbs down the tower.
—
“I don’t want to hurt Cleo,” Pearl says. It’s around noon, and the remaining townsfolk of Oakhurst have gathered in the militia’s meeting room to discuss strategy.
“We might have to,” Abolish replies simply. “If they join the fight, we can’t just not fight back.”
“Well, yeah,” Pearl says, “but I don’t want to stake her. I don’t want her to die.”
“We’ll see how things turn out, I guess,” Legs says in that tired voice of his. The meeting is adjourned. Climbing up the ladder out of the basement, Apo isn’t sure if she feels better about their chances.
—
Drift shows up at the town gate at three o’clock. Apo, on guard duty, brandishes her sword, but Drift puts her hands in the air without a fight.
“I’m not fighting tonight,” she says. “I don’t… it doesn’t solve anything. All the people I want dead are on my side. I don’t know, I just…” she cuts herself off, biting her lip and scrubbing her face with her sleeve.
“Okay,” Apo says. “Okay. Find somewhere safe to hide out and check the town and the castle tomorrow. I’ll let everyone know.”
“Thank you,” Drift says, and vanishes into the golden afternoon light.
—
“Everyone who can wear and carry silver, got it?” Abolish asks. Murmurs of affirmation rise among their small crowd. Last checks before they leave for the castle.
“Good. Lanterns?” More murmurs. Apo has a crossbow strapped to her back, just in case, but she’s mostly prepared to use her claws and fangs. Abolish continues checks with the humans of Oakhurst, and in a blink, they’re walking into the woods.
Apo has never been religious. Now, she recites a silent prayer that she’ll return to her love.
—
The space between the tree line and the castle bridge has expanded to a small field since Abolish burned the most of the forest down. Apo sees their opponents from farther away than she ever could have with the trees still standing. Scott, Cleo, Pyro, Sausage, Shelby. Owen is notably absent, but Apo will take what they can get. Six to five. They can do this.
“Welcome,” Scott says with a smile.
The humans and vampires size each other up. Shelby death glares at Martyn. Legs and Cleo face each other with a resigned understanding. Abolish levels his gaze at Scott, perfectly indifferent. Pearl and Ren double up on Sausage. Apo ends up facing Pyro. She can see a stake strapped to his belt. Everyone is eerily silent. And then-
“For Oakhurst!” Ren cries.
And all hell breaks loose.
—
Legs goes down first.
Apo sees nothing, just hears a cry and a thump as someone hits the ground. She glances past Pyro for just a moment and sees Abolish, now fighting both Scott and Cleo. Owen has appeared from somewhere in the trees, reaching for the doctor. Shit, he is here. Abolish is quick to notice, swinging his lantern and wreathing himself and Legs in a circle of fire. All three of the vampires around him pull back.
“You alright?” Apo hears Pearl shout. Ren replies, “aye, lass!” and Pearl dashes over to Abolish, claws aimed for Owen’s throat. He snarls at her, jumping back towards the treeline.
“Not on my watch,” Pearl grins, teeth sharp. She lunges again, and her and Owen become a blur of bloody movement, exchanging slashes with their claws and dashing across the battlefield. Five to six again, but no longer in their favour. Still manageable. They can pull this off.
Pyro lands a hard blow on her cheek and Apo stumbles, landing in the grass. He yanks the stake from his belt and brings it down, aimed straight for her heart. Somewhere to her left Martyn cries her name. She just barely rolls out of the way, leaping back to her feet, and Pyro’s stake buries itself in nothing but sod. He growls in frustration, abandoning it in the dirt.
“That’s fine,” a smile overtakes his face as he stands to square off with her again. “I don’t need that flimsy thing to bring you down.”
“Good luck without it,” Apo spits at him.
Pyro laughs at her. “Really, I don’t! It was a good way to distract your friend, though.” He gestures behind him, and- no. No.
Shelby stands over Martyn, somehow facedown on the ground in the seconds Apo wasn’t looking. Blood spills from a blunt wound on the back of his head. Shelby holds his sword, the pommel dripping with his blood, a manic grin on her face.
Martyn was trying to save her. Shelby got the upper hand on him, managed to wrench his sword from his fist and strike him with it hard enough to topple him, to lay him low in the dirt with blood matting his hair, because he turned his back on her trying to help Apo.
Four to six. Oh, Apo is going to vomit. Shelby lets Martyn’s sword fall next to his limp form, and she and Pyro start towards Apo. Out of the corner of her eye, Apo sees Ren stumble when he notices Martyn. God, they can’t falter now. They have a town to protect, and now wounded to tend to. Apo doesn’t even know who would tend to them, their doctor is one of them, but the alternative- Apo can’t even bring herself to think it.
She’s started backing away to without even noticing it. Pyro and Shelby are encroaching, claws sharp and teeth bared. Apparently whatever feelings Shelby has about Pyro killing her fledgeling have been set aside for the time being, so long as it sees the town dead. So long as it sees Apo dead, right now. She’s a good fighter, but she can’t take two vampires who have had weeks longer than her to adapt to their powers, not to mention are better fed than she is.
She has to run. She pulls her skirts up and wills the fabric to transform from soft wool to leathery wings, taking to her bat form and fleeing. Pyro shouts out, infuriated, but Shelby places a hand on his shoulder.
“Let her. She has to come down eventually,” she says with a cool, cruel tone that Apo shudders to hear from a girl she thought of as gentle, even as a vampire.
She flaps overhead, observing the battlefield. Abolish’s fire has died down but he’s still managing, skillfully beating back Scott and Cleo, leading the fight away from Legundo, still unconscious in the grass. Pearl and Owen dash between the bodies of the other combatants in a twisted dance. And Ren-
Ren-
Where did Ren go?
Panic fills Apo’s tiny chest. There’s Sausage, who he was just fighting, but no Ren. She flaps over as quickly as her wings will take her, and-
Oh, god, they were fighting on the edge of the cliff. Sausage pushed Ren off.
Apo darts over the cliff and, sure enough, Ren’s body lies at the riverside. She remembers pulling Martyn from the river, leg broken and half drowned, dragging him back to town. He was lucky to survive the fall. Ren might not have been. Three to six.
A furious scream rends her throat open. She drops her bat form midair, falling onto Sausage and landing a terrible blow to his chest. She feels ribs crack underneath her fists, but he just cackles madly from beneath her.
“Traitor!” Apo screams in his face, “Traitorous bastard! How could you?!” She brings her claws down again and again, slashing his face and chest, all while Sausage laughs and laughs and laughs. He’s mocking her. Her fledgeling, the man she turned. She’ll kill him.
Something smacks Apo in the side of the head, knocking her away from Sausage and sending her world reeling. Before she can even process what’s happened strong arms have wrapped around her, embracing her, trapping her.
“Let go of me!” Apo shrieks. “Get off!”
“Don’t make this harder,” Cleo- Cleo, that self interested jerk- replies. Apo ignores them, biting at their arms until they growl “If you don’t quit it, I’ll pull your fangs right here and now.” She tenses on instinct.
Apo’s eyes dart across the remaining combatants. Sausage, bloodied as he is, starts making his way over to Scott and Abolish. Abolish is holding his own, but if more than two vampires start after him Apo isn’t sure how long he’ll last. Pyro wears a self satisfied smirk at seeing her contained, and she bares her fangs at him. He and Shelby are watching Pearl and Owen, both of them slowing down after their dance across the frontier. Pearl faces away from Apo, but she can guess that she has her teeth bared, too.
Owen looks over Pearl’s shoulder, a wicked glint in his eye as he meet’s Apo’s gaze. “Cleo, look out, Apo’s got a stake!” he calls, and Apo knows what he’s doing, using Pearl’s affection for Cleo to distract her. She opens her mouth, tries to shout for Pearl not to listen, but she’s already turning. Apo feels her heart sink at the look of panic, then confusion on Pearl’s face as she whirls around to look for Cleo. Owen is already raising his claws.
In a flash of blood and fur, Pearl hits the ground. Apo can barely register it. Two to six. Owen stands over her one second and in front of Abolish the next, fist connecting with his jaw. The force knocks Abolish off kilter, snaps his head to the side, and before he can right himself Scott has caught him from behind, wrenching his arms back and forcing him to drop his sword. Apo screams for him, thrashes in Cleo’s grasp, can’t quite break free as Abolish struggles against Scott to similar avail. He hisses out curses, kicks and writhes and none of it is enough to even loosen Scott’s grip. Apo’s unbeating heart somehow manages to sink even further into her stomach.
“Would one of you shut him up already?” Scott calls. He looks bored. Apo wants to tear his throat out.
Owen lines up in front of Scott and Abolish, grabbing Abolish’s chin in his claws and forcing their eyes to meet. “It didn’t have to go like this,” he says simply. “You had your chance to accept the gift.”
Abolish stares at him, fire burning behind his eyes. He leans as close to Owen’s face as Scott’s grasp allows.
“Don’t touch me,” he spits, and kicks Owen in the chest hard enough to send him stumbling backwards. Apo lets out a manic laugh, met with a threatening hiss from Cleo. Owen straightens, spitting mad.
“Ungrateful bastard,” he snaps. He marches up to Abolish with a renewed fury and before Apo can blink he punches him again, hard, knuckles connecting with Abolish’s temple. Abolish goes slack in Scott’s arms, and when Scott steps away he crumples to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, bruises blooming where Owen struck him.
One to six. Just her.
Tears run down Apo’s face. She’s not sure when she started crying but now she can’t stop, ragged sobs tearing themselves from her throat. Her allies, her friends, gone, wounded or dead or dying. Scott saunters up to her, so disgustingly casual, like he hasn’t murdered the entire town, like he hasn’t murdered her.
“I hate you,” Apo coughs out between tears. “I hate you! You’re an awful, sick, evil person! I HATE you!”
“Are you done?” Scott arches an eyebrow at her. “Really, there are better ways to go about handling your defeat. The screaming like a child is a bit pathetic.”
“You’re terrible,” Apo cries. “I wish you were dead.”
Scott tuts. “That’s not very nice. Oh, well. You’ll have plenty of time to reflect down in the crypt.”
That snaps Apo to attention. “What?”
“You don’t think I’d just kill you, do you? Your human friends, well…” Scott surveys the ground, littered with dead or unconscious bodies, Apo can’t tell. “We’ll see about them. But you, you’re still my fledgeling.”
Between the blood loss and grief, Apo starts to understand. “No. No, you can’t- you can’t just lock me down there.”
“Sure I can!” Scott says cheerfully. “At least until you’ve come around on our little alliance.”
“I won’t!” Apo screams at him, thrashing in Cleo’s arms. “I swear, I will despise you forever! I’ll kill you!”
“Forever is such a strong word,” Scott replies, unbothered. “After all, we have eternity. Owen?” Scott looks over to him and gestures to Apo. “Would you?”
Owen approaches slowly enough that Apo has time to process oh, god, this is it. They’ve won. She’s going to spend eternity locked in the Goldsmith crypt with people she wants dead. She’s never going to know if Martyn or Abolish or Pearl or Ren or Legs are okay.
She’s never going to see Cherri again.
“Cleo,” she whispers, voice raw. “Cleo, please.”
She feels Cleo tense against her, but they only reply with a soft “I’m sorry.” One final agonizing, terrified, rage filled sob wrenches free from Apo’s body.
Owen stands in front of her. “If it makes you feel any better, Pyro and I wanted to kill you.”
She wishes they had.
Owen raises his fist, and Apo’s world goes dark.