Eyes in the dark

The hunt can be maddening, dangerous… intoxicating. Father Gascoyne has been on many hunts, killed many fell beasts, but this time the threat is not the beast, but Gascoyne himself.

The putrid stench of corrupted blood hung thick in the air. Father Gascoyne knelt, his cloak pooling around him like the shadows that lurked in the hall, and touched the stain on the ground. As his fingers brushed against the paw print the world leaped into sharp clarity, colours and light swirling across his vision. The hallway, certainly, cast in sharp relief by searing silver moonlight for all that the moon was new this night. He felt the flex of powerful muscles rolling easily along his arms, his legs carrying him swiftly forwards towards the fear-scent of his prey—

He hurled himself backwards, away from the mark, breaking contact with the power. The darkness slid back over his vision, the sensation of whiskers tasting the air slipped away like a dream. His heart thundered in his ears as he sprawled on the floor, drowning out the shallow rasping gasps of his frantic breaths. It was powerful, this one, and the taint was... overwhelming. Fingers shaking, he fumbled at his neck, digging beneath the tightly laced fastenings of his cloak. A necklace slithered forth, sliding over his fingers. The locket hung loosely, swinging hypnotically back and forth, the silver barely visible in the shadows.

A hiss and a crackle brought light to the corridor, a tiny orb of red-orange illumination that seemed to make the shadows on its periphery darker just with its mere presence. But Gascoyne clutched at the amulet, pressed it to his forehead, his heart. The metal was like ice against his lips.

It clicked open, and in the dying light he saw her beautiful face, her gleaming eyes smiling up at him with such benevolence that his heart ached and strained at the thought that she, that anybody, could look at him like that.

The match went out.

A sigh slipped between his lips, and he pushed himself up, leaning for a moment against the wall to steady his shaking body. The smell of the taint seemed stronger now, thicker and more acrid, as though having been pushed back momentarily by the light it was determined to drown him. He carefully, carefully, stowed the locket beneath his clothes, feeling the cold metal press against his chest. Around him, the building shifted and settled. Timber creaked and groaned like a living thing, like his old bones when he rested in his armchair by the roaring hearth.

Father Gascoyne stepped further into the shadows.

The ancient stairs were sturdy, coated with thick dust that rose around him like pale ghosts as he stepped carefully into the lower levels. The servants’ quarters, probably, when this place had housed lords and ladies and people with need for such things. When humans had walked the halls, and beasts were something that existed only in feverish dreams and far-off places.  Now, he hunted, and if he was yet the hunted himself he had yet to realise that fact.

His boots thumped reassuringly on the stones as he wound through narrow, twisting passages. The shadows crowded closer, reaching out to tangle dark fingers in his hair and whisper dead, forgotten secrets he couldn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand. Corruption oozed from ahead of him, a sickening metallic smell that made his heart pound and his blood race. The thrill of the hunt bubbled in his stomach.

Or maybe it was his dinner, objecting to the foul aura of the place.

Gascoyne’s cloak fluttered in the still air as he strode forwards. The corruption called him onwards, his blood sung with the rush of pursuit, the joy of the hunt; he was close. So close. The smell was thick, almost physical now, with a lighter, sweeter edge like the moon peeking from behind thick clouds to line them with delicate silver filigree. His teeth gleamed white in the dark as he smiled.

The kitchen was cavernous, hearths blacked with soot and cold as the grave. No fires burned now, no warmth, no laughter, just the smell of tainted blood and shadows. Gascoyne’s eyes swept over the room. Heavy tables lay scattered, splinters and crockery and pans fallen to the floor and left. Dark stains on the walls. The floor. He glanced up. Yes, splashes of blood, black on black, on the ceiling. His eyes were adjusting now; where before he would have sworn there was only darkness he could see the texture of the shadows. How they moved, swirling and pulsing, almost in time to his frantic heartbeat. Gascoyne breathed deeply, and the sweet scent of the place buzzed through his brain, filling his senses with a pleasant tingling sensation. Yes. Very close now.

The soft slithering sound of flesh on stone echoed around the room. In the shadows, something stirred.

A gust of stale, fetid air washed over Gascoyne as the beast rose. The shadows clung to it, obscuring its form but for the eyes that gleamed in the darkness. Not reflecting light, for there was none here; hunger burned in their depths and gave weight to the gaze that seared through him and pinned him to the spot. Gascoyne snarled. Interloper! Enemy! His blood was filled with fizzling rage but his limbs felt thick and leaden, dull. He trembled as he tried to move, to attack. He would tear it apart, this thing which had come to his domain, which advanced slowly on him through the darkened hall.

The beast tensed, haunches settling, and it launched itself towards him. Flashing claws, teeth, bone, white on black as it came rushing inexorably closer. Broken items, shards of humanity, scattered beneath its paws and it crashed into him like the fist of some god. Backwards, into shadows, they tumbled and Gascoyne could move now, could fight. Blood flew, singing sweetly in his mind, as claws and knives and teeth met in deadly earnest. A thud, as he hit the ground. A deep, aching pain along his back, the crack of a pistol as bullet bit into corrupted flesh. His cloak, torn away, fluttering to become just another shadow on the periphery. Fur and fangs, a lashing tail, a flash of silver.

Clarity, burning like fire, like ice, as he mindlessly grabbed the locket. He couldn’t lose it. He couldn’t remember why. It was important. Something slammed into him, sent him sprawling, his head cracking hard against the stones sending bright multi-hued flashes of light burning across his vision.

Light. Yes, light.

The stench of the place, the sickly-sweet smell of rotten flesh and the acrid bite of death and corruption assailed him. There was no light here, only darkness, and he couldn’t see, couldn’t see. The taint wrapped around him, whispering softly in the back of his mind, but the point of ice in his hand helped his mind stay clear and focussed.

His hand scrabbled, nails finding no purchase against the cold flagstones. Tracking the creature from only the soft scuffing sounds of its tail dragging on the ground, the click clack of its nails against the stone, his head flicked from side to side as he pushed himself up against the wall. Over the sound of the beast, his heavy heels thudded against wood and his hand vanished into empty space.

Silence.

Gascoyne could hear the blood thundering in his ears and smell its thick scent hanging heavy in the shadows. His nostrils flared, even as the locket burned in his hand, and he could feel that the beast was likewise scenting him. Fear chased away the earlier thrill as a pair of slitted eyes blinked in the darkness before him. Rope and chain rattled behind him. Wood creaked as a heavy weight slammed into his chest, knocking him backwards as his knees caught against a low section of the wall and his body tumbled backwards into a tight space that pinned his arms and rattled his teeth as his head collided with the stonework containing the box.

Pain flashed across his chest, sharper and brighter than the seeping pain bleeding through his skull and dimming his thoughts as talons scored across his leathers and dug into the flesh hidden beneath. With a creak and a groan, as much of the old wood beneath him as his bones and sinews, Gascoyne hauled himself upright. His breath came fast and shallow, hissing between clenched teeth as he fought the call of blood and the thrill of the fight. Adrenaline flooded through his body, his fingers clutched at the rope that he had used to pull himself up, as above him the sensation of a empty space stretching away above him seemed to pull at him. A snarl tugged at his lips. The threat of the beast, the interloper, intruder, burned at the back of his mind but the cold brightness of the locket clutched tightly in his fist kept him focussed.

Pulling a deep, shuddering breath into a chest that felt too tight, Gascoyne drew his blade. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he tensed. His body screamed at him to leap, to go in teeth bared and claws flashing, to feast and to fight. To kill.

The locket cut into his flesh as he gripped the rope and, with his other hand, cut the cable.

His arm was wrenched upwards, shooting pain and sudden movement almost making him lose his grip, but his head was clear. Clearer, even, as he rocketed away from the rank, thick scent of decay that pervaded the darkness below. The old dumbwaiter counterweights rattled and clanked past him in a rush of air, heading down, down, down as he rose. Light above him, spilling through a small rectangular opening, and he flung himself out, landing with a thud and an impact that pushed all the air out of him, leaving him gasping on the ground like a dying fish.

But he was alive. Battered, bruised, the darkness still flickering at the back of his mind, shadows never far from the smell of blood, but alive.

As he pushed himself laboriously to his feet, the windows in the corridor began to lighten as dawn crept over the outside world. The locket in his hand, slick with blood, was now warm in his grip as he began his slow descent to the ground floor and the exit. He would come back, but he wouldn’t be alone. He wouldn’t let the hunt defeat him.