"Are you sure about this, Pale?"

Pale turned towards Kayla, a frown crossing her face. "Admittedly, no. But this is the only plan we have at the moment. Someone needs to draw the vampire out, and I don't like the idea of either of you putting yourselves in harm's way."

Evie crossed her arms. "Hmph. And what makes you think the two of us are happy that you're so willing to jump into the fire like this?"

"Believe me, I know you both don't like this idea at all. But we don't have any other options right now – someone needs to do this, otherwise a whole lot of people are going to die. And I'd rather it be me than either of you two."

Evie shook her head. "You're so selfish, you know that? We're gonna have words about this later, but for now, tell us where you want us."

"I want you both to stick together," Pale emphasized. "There's a chance he'll come after you two rather than me. If that happens, I want you both to be watching each other's backs. At the same time, I'll need you to provide overwatch for me. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, I get it." Evie hefted her bow for emphasis. "We'll be on the rooftops, moving from house to house. The buildings are close enough here that we should be able to just jump between them without much difficulty. That being said, do us a huge favor and try to stick to this area, would you? Moving too far away from here will make it harder to cover you."

"Understood," Pale said with a nod. She turned to Kayla. "You know what your job is?"

Kayla blinked, but nodded a moment later. "You need me to burn him when he comes out."

"Assuming I don't take care of him first, yes. Hold your fire unless it looks like I'm about to be overwhelmed. If that happens, you know what to do."

Kayla swallowed nervously, then gave another nod. Pale took a breath, then looked to the sky. The blizzard had let up just enough that she could make out the full moon peeking out from behind some clouds, casting a dim glow down on the snowflakes that were gently descending to the ground.

It was beautiful, she had to admit.

It was a shame that it was all about to be interrupted with violence.

XXX

Pale marched through the town, bundling her coat around herself as she did so, fake-shivering the entire time. Truthfully, her layer of thermals kept her warm, but anything she could do to sell the act would be helpful. Right now, she was trying to make herself look like easy prey more than anything.

Being hunted was a decidedly new sensation for her. She'd been on the other side of the gun plenty of times, back when she was still fighting the war against the Caatex, but this was the first time she'd ever purposely made herself a target like this. Even worse, she didn't have access to any of her usual weapons to help her if she got into trouble – all she had to help was what she'd brought with her. Even her new rifle had been left behind by this point, its bulk proving to be too much to hide under her winter layers without looking suspicious. She was still armed, of course, but this was the lightest she'd ever been loaded up since the fight against Sven.

His smug grin flashed through her mind, and Pale grit her teeth, shaking her head to clear it. Sven Greymane was dead, she was sure of it – she hadn't confirmed the kill, but she had reduced his entire village to glass with an orbital bombardment. In retrospect, that had been a waste of perfectly good explosives when just a few well-placed shells could have done the same thing, but she'd been past the point of caring after watching Kayla's father die.

"Need to be more conservative…" she muttered, doing a quick inventory check of her ammunition. Most of those 250-millimeter explosive shells had been depleted by this point, with only a few remaining now. On top of that, her usual armament had been stripped and replaced with that singularity bomb she'd loosed against the Caatex before arriving on Sjel. Somehow, she was in an odd predicament of being nearly out of both her lightest weapons and her heaviest one, leaving just the middle-of-the-road gear behind, plus the various pods full of small arms she'd been loaded up with in case of an emergency.

That wasn't to imply she was defenseless, but everything else beyond the 250-millimeter shells was a weapon of mass destruction of some kind, and even in her current situation, she was hesitant to use them for any reason.

This was a dangerous planet, to be sure, but if she could avoid the collateral damage caused by WMDs, then she would, if only because she didn't want to scare Evie and Kayla by showing them what she was really capable of when the gloves came off.

Pale continued to trudge through the snow, doing her best not to follow along with the two black-clad figures nearby as they quietly jumped from rooftop to rooftop, their footsteps muffled by the canvas of white covering the town. As she walked, she focused, trying to determine if she'd been successful in attracting attention to herself. From what Evie had told her, vampires tended to prefer weaker prey; the hope was that a young woman such as herself walking alone in the middle of the night would be sufficient to get his interest and draw him in.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Unfortunately, it hadn't seemed to work yet. She'd been wandering through town for thirty minutes, and the only people she'd encountered had been the occasional city guardsman on patrol. They'd all given her an odd look, but thankfully, none of them had tried to stop her.

Perhaps they figured that she'd get herself killed by being out and about, and would therefore stop being a pain to their lord.

As thoughts of the guardsmen ran through her head, Pale suddenly paused, then looked around, raising an eyebrow at what she saw. The falling snow had nearly completely covered it up, but it was still there – two sets of footprints, one overlapping the other, and several large impressions on the ground. There had been some kind of scuffle here, she realized, and she'd very nearly missed the signs of it. Of course, the moment that thought crossed her mind, so did another.

There had been a guardsman posted here, patrolling this area. And the last time she'd seen him had been several minutes ago.

Pale instantly stiffened, then turned towards the rooftop Evie and Kayla were perched on.

"Get down!"

Both of them obliged without a moment's hesitation, falling off the roof and onto the ground below just as a large bat swooped in from above. At the very last moment, just before it made impact, Pale blinked, and the bat was suddenly replaced by a tall man wearing a black cloak. His hand passed through the air directly above Evie's head, so fast that even Pale's computer-enhanced reflexes could barely track it.

Without missing a beat, Pale threw open her coat, drawing her handgun and putting shots downrange at the vampire. To her dismay, the bullets had absolutely no effect; each one made impact, but the vampire was completely unfazed. Instead, he merely stood tall and grinned a wicked-looking grin at her, exposing rows of sharpened teeth capped off by four razor-sharp canines that glinted in the moonlight.

"So, we finally meet in person," he mused.

Pale ignored him, instead slamming a fresh magazine into her weapon and chambering a round. A short ways away, Evie helped Kayla to her feet, and both girls retreated to stand next to Pale.

"Are either of you hurt?" Pale asked, not taking her eyes off the vampire for a second.

Evie shook her head. "No, we're fine… bastard nearly took my head clean off, but you called out to us just in time. How did you know?"

"He's not as subtle as he thinks he is."

The vampire smirked, drawing his cloak around himself. "Ah, but you wound me. Truthfully, I despise having to work from the shadows – it gets so utterly dull. But, I suppose, sacrifices must be made from time to time." He shook his head. "But where are my manners? I am Tenebris Vincent. It is a pleasure to make your-"

"Kayla, do it," Pale commanded.

Kayla immediately stood up, loosing bolts of lightning from her fingertips. To Pale's dismay, Vincent somehow sidestepped out of the way, managing to avoid the lightning before it struck him in the chest. He moved like a blur, the same as before – a pit formed in Pale's stomach as she realized what was happening.

Vincent was playing with them for his own amusement. If he wanted to, he could kill them all right now. The only reason he hadn't was because they were interesting to him in some way.

Vincent brought his hands together, interrupting her thoughts. "Well played," he offered. "Not everyone knows to use fire or a variation of it upon meeting a vampire. I suppose the elf is responsible for teaching you that little trick? She seems old enough to have met some of my kind back before they were extinct."

Evie stepped forward, gritting her teeth. "How in the three hells are you alive? Your people were wiped out centuries ago."

Vincent grinned at her, crossing his arms. "An elf of all people should know how hard it is to completely wipe out an entire race. You may have succeeded in eliminating most of us, but some of us yet still survive, lurking underground, hibernating and waiting for some intrepid fool to release us."

"Is that what happened to you?" Pale asked, trying to buy time to think of something. "You were asleep, and some idiot woke you up thinking they could buy your loyalty?"

"That easy to figure out, hm? Well, I suppose I didn't exactly do a good job of hiding it," Vincent mused. "Well, it matters not; the night grows short, and I am still quite famished. As much as I would enjoy continuing to make small talk and toy with you three, I simply must be going. We'll meet again, though, I'm sure… but for now, I think it'd be best if I let my new pets have a taste."

Vincent snapped his fingers, and Pale stiffened as she heard the gentle clinking of plate and chainmail armor from between several of the nearby houses. She shifted, bringing her handgun around to scan the area, and just about froze as she saw several ghouls dressed in guardsmen armor and carrying weapons come shambling out from the nearby streets.

"Pale…" Kayla whispered.

"I know," she growled. "He set us up – went and eliminated the patrolling guards while we tried to draw him out."

"You're a smart one," Vincent complimented. "It will make consuming you all the sweeter in the end. But you know how it goes – the main dish must come last at any good feast."

"Is that what this is for you?" Pale said, not taking her eyes off the ghouls as they closed in on the three of them. "One big feast?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Vincent replied. "But, I must be going. Until then, do your best to entertain my pets without dying, yes? I would simply hate knowing that someone of your caliber fell to a mere ghoul."

Pale grit her teeth as she watched Vincent jump off the other side of the roof. She wanted to give chase, but that wasn't possible, given the zombified guardsmen surrounding them.

"Pale, what do we do?" Kayla asked, fear leaking into her tone.

The ghouls began to move, and at that moment, Pale realized she was out of options. She pulled something out of the inside of her jacket – a glass liquor bottle with a tar-soaked rag. A quick flick of her lighter, and the rag caught fire; she hurled the bottle at the group of undead, watching as several of them went up in flames. A series of inhuman screeches echoed through the night as the bodies burned, dropping to the ground and landing in a big heap, filling the air with stench of burning, rotting meat. Next to her, Evie and Kayla gagged, but Pale didn't pay it any mind, instead grabbing them both by the hand and charging through the new opening made in the crowd of undead.

"Where are we going?!" Kayla shouted as Pale led them through town.

"Anywhere but here!" Pale called back to her.

Up above them, the clouds rolled in once more, and the blizzard again began to intensify, drowning out their last vestiges of moonlight and shrouding the town below in darkness.