It took nearly two hours of flying before Gaius finally spotted the hunter.

Animals were useful spies, but their directions left something to be desired. The lower classes of un-reasoning creatures had no notion of what a street name was.

The hunter left an building, which looked not all together unlike the one Gaius slept in, though this one was a few stories shorter. He walked down the street until he found an acceptable looking place to eat, and sat down at the outside bar. The elf took some noodles and sniffed at them, before beginning to eat.

Tall, lanky, and pale with silver hair. He was the quintessential high elf. Gaius' own appearance matched that same description, under more normal circumstances.

The crow resolved to get a closer look, and swooped down onto the counter next to the hunter. The elf swatted at him, but Gaius leapt in the air and out of reach. Then he cawed back angrily, even nipping at the man’s hand and savoring the drop of his blood.

“Damned, crow! Be off with you!” The man cursed more quietly, and with greater vulgarity, in Sylvan.

Gaius stayed silent and stared daggers back.

“Is she bothering you, Ser?” The owner, a rather rotund looking woman in her middle age approached with a ladle in her hand. “I could get rid of her- only blackbirds are sacred to the Lady.” The woman bowed with reverence towards an ikon of the Death Goddess, patron of the city.

Gaius had learned the art of taking animal forms from a madman, centuries ago. It was an unnatural inward twisting of the humors, and an exhausting process. Following a known pattern of alteration made the process marginally easier, and he usually chose to take the form of a crow for its religious significance to the inhabitants of the Republic.

“No, no.” The elf grumbled in Imperial, sucking at his finger where Gaius had bit him. “That’s quite alright, wouldn’t want to offend the gods.”

“Well, then.” The woman held out the ladle lengthways to Gaius, and deciding to be amiable, he hopped atop it. “Why don’t you come with me princess. I’ll get you your own food, and we’ll leave this man alone.”

He felt her offering a psychic rapport with him. The woman actually appeared to have some aptitude at animal whispering. That was a rare trait among city dwellers. He made note of the house’s name, although he had no reason to eat the food they served.

The woman took Gaius back into the kitchen and deposited him in front of the bloodied corpse of a skinned rabbit. Presumably the animal would be prepared for cooking soon. The woman gently stroked Gaius’ feathers, and he decided that he liked her. “Now you just help yourself to this. What happens before it goes into the stew is none of the customers concern.”

Gaius cawed in thanks, and the woman left to tend to her patrons again. He wasn’t really hungry, but he licked up some of the blood and tore up the meat a little to be polite. He made a promise to himself that he would send one of his coven back here with a gold sovereign to pay for his meal. This could be a useful place to return to.

Once he was finished, Gaius flew upwards into the building’s rafters where supplies were kept. Then he made his way back to where he could see his target again. The hunter was still eating and mumbling to himself in Sylvan.

The elf finished his meal and left a few copper quarters on the table to pay. Gaius followed after him, flying at a discreet distance, as he walked south towards the docks. The crowds thinned as they moved off the beaten track. Gaius began to consider the most convenient place to take his prey, when the hunter took a turn and entered a dockside building.

Swooping down for a closer look, Gaius found the door bore a written sign. ‘Vincent’s Investigative Services’

Gaining height, he checked the windows until he found the hunter sitting across a desk from another man, presumably the eponymous Vincent.

‘Vincent’ was an oddly proportioned man with long arms and legs, but a short torso. Humans were always shorter than a high elf, but this one was short even for his own kind. His hair was unkempt, and somehow, he had managed to get a food stain on the back of his cloak.

The two of them were speaking, and Gaius amplified his hearing. He was mildly surprised to detect a third heart beating in the room.

“Do you have the item we discussed?” asked the hunter.

“In a manner of speaking,” Vincent replied.

At that moment, a woman in a long dress and a courtesan’s mask stepped out from a shroud of darkness, which had surrounded her in the back corner of the room behind the elf.

The hunter didn’t lose a moment.

Gaius didn’t even see any trace of discovery cross his face, he just seemed to know that the woman was behind him. One moment he was standing there, and a moment later, daggers were in his hands.

The first went flying towards Vincent, who threw himself awkwardly out of his chair to avoid it. The blade nearly struck Gaius himself – and would have hit him dead center – had it been a few inches lower. The second dagger remained in the man’s left hand as he charged at the woman.

Gaius watched the woman’s movements as she worked a paralyzing spell over the hunter. He could see subtle runes in chalk and blood over the walls, floor, and ceilings. This was a well-planned trap. By desecrating it this way, however, they had also allowed him to enter without an invitation. Gaius could feel nothing oppose him as he hopped inside.

At first the spell seemed to be taking effect, as the hunter came up short. Then, after a second’s concentration, the hunter forced his body forward clumsily into the priestess, breaking her focus. The woman was clearly unused to direct physical combat, and scrambled away from the hunter on the floor. He was already back on his feet and fully in control of his body once again.

Vincent had also disentangled himself from his chair, but the hunter threw his second dagger, sending him back under his desk.

The hunter turned and made a break for window – and might have even made it – had Gaius not returned to his own shape in a storm of black feathers directly blocking the man’s path.

Gaius felt some satisfaction as he saw the look of shock and then resignation cross the hunter’s face. The emotions passed, as the hunter sailed through the air with Gaius’ clawed hand grasped around his neck. He held the elf up with one hand, then slammed him down onto Vincent’s heavy desk in a single swift movement.

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

The hunter could only cough and splutter in response, trying to regain his wind. He grasped ineffectually at the vice of cold flesh that had ensnared his neck.

“Gods be damned! Now who in the ten thousand hells are you?” Vincent said, as he rose from behind his desk for a third time. Gaius noticed that he was now missing his hair.

“You may call me Gaius, though I assure you that is not my true name.”

“Well, we appreciate your help, but what are you? I saw you transform from a bird, so your either some kind of Skin-walker…”

“...Or a vampire.” The priestess finished Vincent’s thought for him, as she returned to her feet.

“You have the right of it, priestess." Gaius bowed flamboyantly. "Your divinity has no quarrel with my kind, and I have no feud with any of Moros’ servants. Can I presume that we are on peaceful terms, at least for the moment?”

Gaius could hear the man’s heartbeat increase when he mentioned the God of Loss. Apparently, he didn’t know his ally’s entire story.

Interesting.

Gaius might not have recognized the holy symbol she disguised as a piece of jewelry either, had he not been born long before the crusade which destroyed the followers of Moros.

Not all of them though, it seems

“No, there is no hostility between us,” the courtesan priestess conceded. “Perhaps you’ll be so good as to tell us what your feud is with this man.” She indicated the hunter Gaius still held pinned to the desk.

“I was told this man was a slave hunter. I was hired by an interested party to remove him.”

“Hired by the property he was sent to recover, I suppose.” The priestess said it more as a statement than a question.

“Who?” Their prisoner rasped out.

Gaius squeezed and the man began to turn purple. “We’re asking the questions, worm. I take your claim not to know my employer as further indication that you’re not the common slave hunter I was led to believe. Why would someone want to remove you?”

“Not. Telling. You. Sh-” The hunter gasped as Gaius smiled and tightened his grip.

“Can’t you just entrance him and make him answer us?” Vincent asked, returning to his seat and putting his wig back on.

“No, unfortunately. Elven minds are better defended than... other-” He halted his initial instinct to reach for the word lesser. “-reasoning creatures. It’s substantially more difficult to turn them into thralls.”

“It’s no matter, I expect our friend has learned other means of forcing information from unwilling subjects in his long centuries of unlife. I will sift the truth of what our prisoner says away from the lies.”

The priestess was correct.

She worked her enchantments, and Gaius slowly broke the man a piece at a time. After thirty minutes he had told them that his name was Anige, and that he was a scout for the current ‘High King’ of the Alfsteppe.

He was sent to Whitegate by royal order, to locate a particular jeweled box.

He intended for Vincent to steal the box, and then to sweep in and kill the thief, before the priestess Catherine could track the intruder with her powers and recover it. Or failing that, to enter the theater himself, while they were distracted by Vincent.

He didn’t know why he had been sent after the box in the first place, or what it contained. When the questioning was over, Gaius smothered him to prevent him from rising again, then drank him dry.

“We still don’t know who hired you to kill him.” Gaius discovered that Vincent had a habit of stating the obvious, and it was beginning to annoy him.

“No, but it doesn’t matter." Gaius dropped Anige's husk. "It seems to be an internal political feud within the Khagan’s court, something I’m more than familiar with. I have no doubt he wore a false face when meeting with me. That will make tracking him harder, but not impossible. My job is the easier of ours, I'll wager. I’d advise the two of you to move that magic box of yours somewhere safer. It would seem its current location is compromised.”

“No need. I never had the box in the first place,” Catherine replied.

Vincent seemed incredulous at his own partner’s claim. “You don’t expect me to believe that this whole mess was the result of a misunderstanding. I was given a detailed description, and told where to find it.”

Gaius could see the woman’s cheeks move to either side of her mask, as a smile crossed her face. “No, of course not. I was involved in a hunt for the box, how could I create such a believable fake to use as bait if I wasn’t. But I swear by that which I worship, the genuine article never crossed the threshold of my establishment.”

“It doesn’t mean a thing to me,” Gaius said, climbing up onto the windowsill. “My part in this affair is over. I’m already starting to feel a bit peckish again, and I have some very special prey left to hunt tonight.” So saying, he transformed back into a crow, and leapt out into the night.

Allura came to her window with rapture on her face. A thrall knew their master’s presence no matter their shape.

“Come in, my love.” She clutched his bird form to her chest and he unfolded himself back into his own body. He would never use his shape altering powers so casually, if he didn’t expect to be having another meal before dawn.

“I wish we had time to play together now, but I need your help, sweet one.”

“Anything, my Lord! I live only to serve you.”

“Excellent, that’s exactly what I wished to hear. Now, last night you placed a hunting talisman on a certain man.”

“I did, master?”

“Oh yes, and I need you to lead me to that man. Now listen closely, the phrase is shadow-lily. Do you understand?”

“Not at all master-” She was already walking to her laboratory. “-but I never do.”

“And that’s precisely what makes you so perfect.”

She beamed with pride at his praise, and set about her work at once with diligence.

The elf knew that Gaius had found him, but to his credit, he didn’t try to run. When he saw Gaius and Allura he stood up and spoke to them very calmly.

“I understand.” He bowed. “We should do this away from unclean eyes. These sub-elven things should not see their betters like this.”

“Agreed.” Gaius nodded.

“I have rented a room nearby; I’ll take you there. Then you may do what is necessary in private.”

He took them to the room and invited Gaius in without resistance. Gaius ordered his thrall to remain outside and ensure that they were not disturbed.

“I will not die like this.” He began to drop the illusory enchantments he hid behind, and washed off the mundane makeup and dyes beneath them. Gaius respected the disguise-craft, to pose as a member of the low-caste must have been especially galling to a man of such refined skills. “I asked the sorceress if she would be tracking me. She promised me that she was not.”

“It’s a simple matter to speak truly when one is unaware of their own actions. You shouldn’t be too reliant on lie-detecting spells, they’re far too open to interpretation. Moon priestesses call it ‘Luna’s own truth,’ because the nature of truth can shift, just like the turning of the moon. It’s the same reason I never trust soothsayers.”

“I see.” When he was finished, the man stood in front of Gaius tall, pale, silver haired, and proud. When he spoke again, he did so in Sylvan. “There’s no way I could wash the stink off, so I shall only hope that gods can accept me as I am.”

Gaius answered back in the same, it felt good to have his native tongue on his lips again. “I’m sure they will. Tell me your name, and why you trespassed upon my domain.”

“This so-called ‘Khagan’ is a fool.”

“So has every man who has held that title for more than a millennium, but I can see you’re too young to remember that time.”

“His hunters are looking for a box which should not be opened.”

“Which Khan do you serve?”

“Do you hear me, striga!? That box must not be opened. You will kill me very soon, but you must understand. For the sake of all, yourself included. Don’t. Open. That. Box.”

“Tell me, now. Who are you, and what Khan do you serve!”

“I serve no Khan. I am a slayer.”

They each struck the other in an instant.

The slayer died, and the vampire healed.

Gaius hadn’t seen where the dagger came from, but it would have killed him if he still breathed. In return, he had torn out his opponent's throat. Their battle had been brief, but honorable. He bore no malice towards the slayer. Each of them knew that no quarter between their kind could be either asked, or granted.

Yet, before he died, he was so insistent that I not let anyone open that box.

The Order of Slayers knew much about 'those things which no man should know of'. If one of them was so insistent, even at the moment of his own death, and to his own killer, the matter could not be cast aside casually.

“Is everything alright, master?” Allura asked from outside the door.

He invited her in. “Oh, yes. Quite alright. I just have a few more things I need you to do for me.”