The two seated vampires next to Percival start to rise, though I notice the faintest shifting of eyes from the woman Selena towards Percival. There's no such glance from Kofi, who hasn't blinked or moved his eyesight from boring a proverbial hole into us. Khalil gives me a helpless sort of look.

My anger rises from somewhere deep within me; the games of vampires getting on my last nerve or perhaps being bruised, battered, and injured has just lessened the amount of nonsense I'm willing to put up with.

"The fuck are you going? We're not done having a chat here. You don't get to dismiss us like these slaves you have running around. Fuck all that." I blurt.

My sudden challenging voice makes Aria glance my way and Khalil's eyebrows raise. Having partially turned towards the doors behind the three chairs, Percival comes to an abrupt stop of movement. A tenseness creeps into the air, thickening it with the threat of violence. The ring on my finger vibrates much more solidly. Very slowly, Percival turns and focuses his soulless green-eyed gaze on me.

"Did it just speak to us in such a manner?" His voice is calm, measured, and dangerous.

Tallulah moves from where she had been standing, suddenly placing herself directly between the three vampires and the three of us. Since both sides are about ten feet from the polished stone and gold inlaid bear icon on the floor, she winds up being equidistant from both trios. She holds up her hands carefully, an obvious attempt to stop any violence from breaking out.

"Liege lords, they don't know the finer points of discussions. Where they come from is a wild, forested place. Politics and polite social engagements are not highly valued, and it's only to be expected that they're rough around the edges. Please excuse it."

"Kofi, Selena, get your pet out of my sight before I permanently extricate it from existence."

I grit my teeth. First, it was Khalil, and now Tallulah? My full temper comes from nowhere, bubbling up like a flood. Not helping the situation at all, I bark from behind Tallulah.

"First off, fuck you, I'm not an it. I'm a man and fey. Secondly, fuck you, don't threaten her life, you blood-sucking-robot-fuck." I point with a finger directly at Percival each time I curse, and in my brain, it seems like a great, strong-willed idea. Thinking myself on a roll, I start up for a third time.

"Thirdly–hrgGUGHK!"

It was, of course, a terrible plan. There's a whisper of fabric movement, like a flag starting to wave in the breeze, and before I can even blink or Aria and Khalil can react, I find myself passing through the air. My brain hardly comprehends what is happening.

My throat is gripped by the man with the smooth, genteel southern voice, cutting off my voice. His icy grip is like steel around my throat, almost crushing my windpipe in the span it takes for him to grab me and slam my back–bow pack and all–against the colossal wooden doors at the entrance to the ballroom. Aria is even too slow to react. She's only starting to turn in the direction that the vampire leader has taken me in when his fangs distend, and he tears into my sutured shoulder wound to inflict more significant pain than the gunshot from the previous night.

Everything is seemingly moving in slow motion and all at once for me. I shriek in pain as I'm being savaged against the doorway and as Aria and Khalil start to run in my direction, my hands desperately trying to shove and get the face of the man off of me in a wild flail of limbs. Kofi starts to advance on Aria, and Selena–interestingly–takes simple, slow steps toward Tallulah.

A profoundly piercing screech–like a deep and dark call from the unexplored recesses of the Wilds–reverberates from the very center of the room. Tallulah has instantly changed; gone is the kindly-looking older woman, her vivid and shimmering emerald eyes having twisted and turned into sunken hollows of pitch black. Her skin has drawn back completely on her face, and she has completely lost all musculature from her body. She has already risen three feet off of the ground, her clothing hanging limply from her now skin-covered skeletal form as she hovers there in that spot.

The screech has staggered quite literally everyone supernatural in the ballroom that could hear it. The actual humans in the room–which applies to quite a few guards–immediately add to the ruckus as they instinctively react with unbridled hysteria. Instead of staggering, they panic with no control over their limbs and rush for the closest exit they can reach: the door that Percival was savaging me against before the staggering event.

Even Percival is stunned for the same moments that the rest of us are as if we were all hit by a percussive blast that overwhelmed our senses. Tallulah's gray hair is now prehensile and waving in the air like she were underwater. While we cannot act, save for an overwhelming urge to try and flee, an icy blast of frigid cold permeates the room, leaving even ice crystals on the ceiling above. The grasses and flora so carefully kept underneath the skylights instantly wither and curl, the supernatural coldness destroying the life within them. Tallulah starts to howl in an unearthly scream that could infect the mind's eye with thoughts of bloody blades, ravenous insects, and winter's death.

"RELEASE HIM NOW!"

The domestics and guards throw the doors open, all fleeing in a blind panic, and then flood by without hesitation. Percival's grip on my throat releases almost as though he was commanded. I hit the floor just in time to find myself trampled by feet, tripping and running over me as the regular people flee in sheer terror of the supernatural, oppressive presence in the center of the room.

The initial stunning of all of us starts to fade away, but a frosty vise of fear seems to have a hold over everyone. Tallulah is beyond focused on affecting all of us from the center of the ballroom. Her teeth are no longer teeth; they are long, pointed black spikes, and her skeletal form bears no resemblance to the woman who existed minutes before. Some part of me instinctively knows that she has become the terrifying personification of a Wilds' winter.

Selena hasn't moved closer to Tallulah, and Kofi hasn't moved either. Percival stands stock still, looming over top of me from where he was forced to drop me to the ground. Pain throbs from my back and the rather ghastly and now larger wound on my shoulder. Aria hasn't even shifted into her redcap being, and Khalil is standing there staring at Tallulah's change in pure fear.

All at once, I start to feel like I can move, and at the same time, Percival starts reaching out to me again. He is immediately stopped by a second and more forceful piercing wail of a screaming or dying woman. It's hard to determine which it is, but it's mind-numbingly oppressive; my brain can barely function while the noise commences. Percival is seemingly the greatest affected, and he winds up gripping his head in agony, his eyes, ears, and nose starting to bleed dark blood. The old vampire slumps to his knees next to me in pure anguish that cannot be faked.

Kofi's eyes widen in shock, while Selena–instead of continuing to advance on Tallulah–slowly backs away towards the doors behind the three chairs in the ballroom. The relatively few house vampires immediately start to flee like the guards did, seeing their strongest leader brought low by a hovering, skeletal creature with wildly waving gray hair and sunken pits of black for eyes.

Aria uses the moment of distraction to howl for herself, immediately starting to take on her battle form. As her skin starts to char and blacken, she grows in size, her dark eyes are replaced again by the giant red orbs that stare unblinkingly and terrifyingly at anyone she catches in her gaze. Thickened and powerful, with her spindly fingers tipped by deadly talons, Aria doesn't hesitate like the others. She starts to rush Percival in the opening afforded by Tallulah's actions. Kofi instantly reacts to the danger his maker is in, and he bolts forward at a preternatural speed to catch up with Aria and intercept her path.

Aria wildly brings her arms around in the direction of the prone Percival to land a taloned strike when she gets to him, but she's removed from her feet by a full-body tackle from behind before she can be successful. Kofi slams into her, dragging them both to the ground. They slide across the floor, twisting and wrestling, with Kofi holding Aria's arms with his hands. When they come to a sliding stop, they start to wrestle in place, aggressively trying to one-up each other with pure violence and strength alone.

Khalil slowly backs away from Tallulah and everyone, pressing his back against one of the marble pillars in the room, his eyes wide with a deeply seated sort of terror. Much like the vampires fleeing past me and through the opened massive doors, Khalil can't seem to act while the fear of Tallulah's change and terrifying screeches has him in its clutches. Khalil has essentially wound up frozen in terror, unable to bring himself out of it and act.

Percival seems to start coming around from whatever agony Tallulah inflicted on him, and his now bloodied, green eyes focus on me in sheer hatred. Immediately, I start kicking my legs in his direction, much like a turtle on its back, because the backpack is still hooked to my back. I can't get purchase to keep him away, and he launches himself back towards me with supernatural speed. This time, I can tell he doesn't mean just to wound me; he has every intention of killing me as soon as he gets me into his grasp.

"NO!" The howling voice of pure hatred and agony starts again. "I SAID LEAVE HIM BE!" The creature that once was Tallulah bellows, blasting the air with another feeling of frozen death. Large piles of sharpened ice start to rise from the marble floor, surrounding the skeletal supernatural terror, almost like it was starting to form a wall surrounding Tallulah. Percival lands next to me instead of on top of me, his eyes bursting into a shower of blood and gore as Tallulah blinds him with just her directed supernatural voice.

"Silence her!" Percival screams in agony as he tries to grab hold of me while blinded.

I finally manage to get myself to my side and scramble along the floor away from him now that he's blinded. With Kofi struggling with Aria, the only one who could actually follow through on Percival's command, Selena, has reached the three doors behind the chairs. Her dark eyes focus on the wavering Percival with unquestionably no love or regard there; in fact, she almost looks contented at seeing him brought so low by us vagrant fey. She takes one more glimpse at the literal floating flesh-covered skeleton in the center of the room and then presses her hand to the scanner on the wall, unlocking the door that leads to the private parlor on the other side. As Percival calls out again with the order to stop Tallulah, Selena elects to protect herself first. She slips away from the ballroom, surprisingly closely followed by a shadow-like Christina, and the security door closes behind them with a slight hiss.

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Kofi finally kicks Aria off of him, and her body slams into one of the nearby pillars, taking off a chunk of marble with her back. He starts to rush to his feet, trying to take advantage of the moment that Aria is prone, but he also underestimates her speed. She's back to her feet simultaneously, and the two clash again, strength for strength and speed for speed. They hold each other's arms and keep out of the range of either's fangs or maw.

Each time Percival tries to rise to his feet, Tallulah howls again, inflicting more agony on the vampire, who seems powerless to stop it from happening. Dark blood pours from his empty eye sockets, and blood has started to even come from the corners of his mouth now.

I slam my backpack down on the ground and reach up to tear off the remainder of my shirt sleeve. I pull out my compound bow and quickly wrap the fabric of my shirt around the shaft just below the broadhead point of an arrow. I pull out my cheap metal gas station lighter from a small front pocket of my bow pack. Though I don't kiss the lighter like the last time, I still manage to light the fabric's end with my shaking hands before waving to ensure the fire catches well along the fabric's length.

"You soulless sack of shit!" I yell through gritted teeth.

I nock the arrow and loose it from the compound bow in one smooth action now that I have the freedom to do so. My shoulder is in agony, but I'm only ten feet from my target. I know I won't miss. The broadhead-tipped flaming arrow whistles through the air and slams directly into the jaw of Percival, jerking his head back from the impact. I continue nocking and firing arrows into his body as fast as I can physically do it, sacrificing accuracy for speed.

Kofi finally throws Aria off of him and into a spot where it is a momentary struggle for her to get back to her feet. She's injured, one arm bent at an unnatural angle. He turns to see Percival being brought low by Tallulah and me and hisses in anger. As Tallulah screeches again, nearly black blood pours from the vampire Percival's ears and mouth, choking him and making his body pale even further by shades for every second that passes. Kofi makes a split-second decision as to who is the more dangerous assailant of his maker, and he dashes across the room, his whole strength ramming into the exposed ribs of the skeletal woman floating in the very center of the room.

The beginnings of frostbite shoot up Kofi's hands and arms within moments of touching her, but he is unabated–the cold of winter doesn't affect the dead very much. He slams her down to the marble and, without hesitation, slams his hands down into her body over and over, trying to break or tear every living organ still in her chest. Tallulah tries to screech in defense, but Kofi quite literally rips off her jawbone, his hands impaling themselves on her black spikes for teeth to do it.

Aria rises to her feet, staggering a few steps to regain her balance. Without Kofi on her, she has a split second to survey the room. Choosing to help me instead of Tallulah, she rushes over, and with her one good arm, she rakes the back of the prone vampire Percival, shredding and tearing the back of his body. I pull the fifth arrow from the quiver of my compound bow and fire it into Percival recklessly. The broadhead tip spins through the air, spanning the distance in a split second. The arrow slams into his body right at the base of his neck, making a new hole for his nearly black blood to pour out of.

Percival has been weakened so much by the sustained assault that he can only try to get to his feet to run blindly while trying to stop the progression of fire threatening to spread on his dead flesh. His facial hair has already caught fire from my one flaming arrow, rapidly charring his skin while spreading like a spilled liquid. With no more arrows outside of the ones still in my pack, my compound bow is dropped to the floor, and I rush over to try to get Kofi off of Tallulah and rescue her, or at least stop the brutal assault she's under.

Percival does not get far. Aria is on him and does not allow him to flee. She grabs hold of him and flings him back before slashing his face and body over and over, carving him up with sheer intent to destroy. A scream of terror and pain releases from his lips finally, and his burning hair and head start to collapse in on itself, turning into ash and dust, followed rapidly by his entire body.

I momentarily knock Kofi off of Tallulah with a brutal kick to his side, but he turns his attention to me the moment I impact him. He grabs hold of my already wounded arm and wrests me around and away from him. I feel a sharp cracking somewhere in my upper arm, followed by a piercing pain. I scream in utter agony as he breaks my arm, causing the bone to jut through my skin. Kofi's strength is immense and he uses it to toss me like a broken ragdoll into the closest pillar. My side slams into the unyielding marble of the pillar, my face hits the cold polished marble of the floor with a gruesome meaty thud, and I lay flat, losing consciousness.

My screaming in pain, as well as Tallulah's concentration being broken, seems to cause Khalil's trance to end. His eyes widen at the scene in front of him, and as I slam into the pillar and stop moving, he screams in unadulterated rage. His body immediately shifts into a mighty brown bear, and by the time he's fully changed form, he's already barrelling at Kofi full speed. In the limited ballroom space, Kofi only has a moment to turn from Tallulah on the ground to see the same sort of beast that marked him with those scars across his face and chest when he was alive bearing down on him.

Kofi is upended as Khalil's powerful force rams into him. The two of them slide across the marble floor, and this time the vampire Khalil is attacking has no gun to keep his dripping maw from inflicting damage. Kofi's eyes are wide with some trauma-inflicted past fear, and he tries to throw his arm up to stop Khalil's maw from clamping down on his face rather than immediately fight back. The bear savages the arm with teeth and power, while his claws drag deep gouges in the skin already marked while the vampire was alive by another bear.

A voice creeps out somehow from the wounded, panting, and dying skin-wrapped skeleton on the ground that is Tallulah. The whisper isn't mouthed, with no jawline to force the words. Instead, it's pulsed like a whisper in the back of the mind to those few still within close range. It's faint but still holds some small degree of power to it.

"No, don't kill–Don't kill him. Mercy. Please."

The pulse of energy from Tallulah is weak, but it exists. Khalil could ignore this one, but he doesn't. Khalil stops savaging Kofi but holds his superior position, threatening to start again if Kofi even seems to be going to get violent. Dark skin and muscles have been riven from bone on the vampire's arm that was being used to try and keep back the jaws of the bear, and bits of that white bone show underneath the relatively lightly bloodied wounds.

Aria appears–having left the remains of the vampire that was Percival behind–and looms over the bear for a moment to glower down at Kofi with her terrifying red eyes. Seeing instead that the violence has come to an end, she painfully limps over and kneels next to Tallulah. Though her voice is like the hiss of a serpent, the two creatures of night seem to understand each other without trouble.

"It is okay. We will remember you. Give in to the winter, fearless Austra. Spring will welcome you again someday. I will stand vigil for your Aeri."

The jawless Tallulah turns her dark pits for eyes to try and focus on Aria as she kneels respectfully next to her. There is some recognition there, The rage and wailing sorrow manifested through Tallulah in her last act ends with a ragged last breath and cold exhalation. In death, the skeleton remains; its gruesome appearance does not shift or change.

Aria moves to her feet while Khalil continues to hold Kofi down. She carefully walks over to check on me as I still lay there unconscious. Only after she sees and gets confirmation that I'm alive for herself does she shamble back to the bear and the vampire locked in a staring contest.

"Let him up, Khalil." Her voice is a whisper of sandpaper against wood. "Respect the last wishes of the Austra."

Khalil slowly backs away and moves off of Kofi. He doesn't shift back from his massive bear shape into human form but does sit down on his haunches. Kofi grimaces and starts to stand, holding his mauled arm against his also torn and shredded chest.

Once Tallulah is dead and her power is no longer seeping into the room, Khalil turns his head at the sounds of claws rapidly scraping across the floor, and steps from within the homestead as dogs are led in by guards. The bear growls and grunts, bringing attention to what is about to be truly a terrible second half of the fighting.

"Call them off, vampire. Do the right thing." Aria hisses at Kofi.

Even with Aria's broken limb hanging loosely on one side of her body, Kofi doesn't seem to like his chances against the two of them before the dogs arrive. He watches the massive dogs as they're released at the beginning of the hallway that leads in a straight path to the ballroom where they are. Their claws scrabble across the floor, seeking purchase on the marble, and their maws drip with saliva as they anticipate a meal to come.

"Do it, vampire."

Aria starts to rise up, and Kofi knows that is the last moment he has to make a decision. He barks the command in the vampiric language they use to control and force their beasts of destruction to heel. The dogs all slide and crash to a stop immediately, their trained instinct stronger than their desire to hunt and kill.

"Leash them and take them away," Kofi yells at the guards, who come running up afterward.

Khalil seems to think that the danger is over because he rapidly lumbers over next to my prone body and shifts back into his human form before he crouches down next to me.

"He's hurt bad, Aria."

"Yes."

Kofi gazes without remorse at my limp and unresponsive body on the marble flooring before he looks at Aria.

"Your hospitality is a lie." Aria hisses at Kofi.

"It would appear to be so in this case."

"Help him with your doctors, and we will be peaceful for so long as we remain here."

Kofi doesn't answer right away. Instead, he turns away from the hulking yet also wounded redcap. His body is working with his immortal blood to try and heal his wounds, but it's slow going. He slowly walks over to kneel next to Tallulah, and some part of his face softens at the damage he sees he's inflicted on the now-deceased fey.

"Why did she ask mercy for me?"

"You are lucky, perhaps."

"Where is Selena?"

"I do not know."

"Did you kill her?"

"No."

"Percival attacked your archer friend first."

"Yes."

Kofi carefully stands to his feet, looking at his arm as muscles and skin begin to weave back together over his exposed bone.

"I'll see that his wounds and yours are properly treated, and I will extend our hospitality properly until you three are ready to travel once again."

"Good."

After Kofi has said that, Aria seems to accept that the violence is over. She puts some space between them and folds in on herself, bones popping and cracking as she returns to her human-like form. Her left arm hangs limply, and bruises and long bloody gouges line her arms from the grappling she was engaged in for so long with Kofi.

Kofi flags down one of the unsure guards behind the dogs, who are being kept to heel on their thick leashes. With a whirlwind of orders and action, the household gets to work following Kofi's directives.

Shortly after the order whirlwind starts, several guards help to carry my limp, unconscious body out of the ballroom. Khalil follows shortly afterward, only pausing to grab my compound bow and pack before he quickly follows. Aria kneels next to the skeletal body of once-Tallulah and seems to be intently doing nothing in absolute silence. It only takes a few moments for Kofi to realize it's a faerie process of respectfully showing Tallulah "off." It doesn't last too long, and when she is done, she gets up and follows the procession to where I was taken.

Kofi unblinkingly watches the fey moving away. Only after do his dark eyes finally shift to look back at the doors behind the chairs where his older "sibling" undoubtedly fled. As domestics start to filter in so that they can try and repair the damage and clean up the gouts of blood everywhere, Kofi turns and makes his way out of the ballroom through the very same doors that lead to the house's private parlor.