Worth sat at his desk, his left hand tapping an idle rhythm on his thigh. His practice was empty barr himself, and the air was as cool as the scalpel pressed against his forearm. He jigged his leg which he had stretched across his desk, causing the instrument to bite and nick his arm. Satisfied with his progress, he laid the scalpel to the side, swapping it for a small tumbler of a frankly unidentifiable liquid. Worth cherished these nights, lonely as they were. Hanna probably had "serious investigating business" to take care of, six foot odd pin cushion in tow. He couldn't say where Monty was for sure. If he had to guess, he'd bet on deliveries or certain duties to certain clientele. Worth didn't care. Nights like these were his, long stretches spent in good company. He had all the time in the world with every idea how to spend it. Worth decided that he was going to need a lot more than one measly glass. His blood was hot and itched under his skin, and with that coursing through him he grabbed his coat and walked out to the street, leaving the door unlocked.
He hit up three bars in succession and at around quarter to four in the am, Worth found himself pissing quite happily in an alleyway bridging a desolate drug store and a block of boarded up flats. All shook off and zipped up, he was ready to move on to the fourth of that night, some seedier place that still opened at this hour, before something caught in the corner of his eye. The glint was miniscule; a cat's eye dotted along the road in thick fog, but it was unmistakable. Worth slipped his hands in to the pockets of his coat in a feigned attempt to look casual and unassuming, but one hand was gripped tightly around the scalpel in his pocket. A meagre defence, probably worth doing fuck all, but it was a hell of a lot better than throwing a few slightly drunken punches.
The air was stagnant around the two, no, three of them and Worth made a mental note to curse himself for being so careless if he got out of this. The small specks of light were advancing, but were moving at a pace that was painstakingly slow. They were drawing this out, Worth knew, their eyes leaving thin trails of copper light like blood on water. Worth found himself pressing deeper in to the alleyway. A soft groan escaped his cracked lips as his back collided with something that was decidedly not a brick wall. His weapon hand slid out of his pocket slowly, an attempt at avoiding drawing attention to himself, but this slight movement caused the blockade to chuckle.
This made Worth mad.
He struck out with a razor sharp elbow, striking the thing behind him sharply in the gut. It was sheer luck on Worth's part that he had been paying more attention to the scalpel, and Worth got a few short seconds of victory as he doubled over, momentarily winded. However, this minor win fell apart in front of him as a sharp crackling accompanied by a sickly hiss filled the alley. The vampire's skin seemed to sluice of his skull, his teeth growing impossibly sharp and his fingernails following suit. Worth had dealt with vampires before, even put up with one on a daily basis, but never like this. He was sure those teeth could bite through steel if they wanted to. He sure as hell didn't want to find out. With a grunt, Worth threw out a leg, hoping that it would connect with the vampire's chest and knock him off balance, but the vampire was adamant that it would not be fooled twice. He grabbed Worth's outstretched foot easily and rotated his ankle slowly in his iron grip until the doctor felt more than heard his ankle snap. Worth bit back then swallowed a cry of pain, inhaling sharply through his nose. The vampire dropped the limb and Worth winced as it hit the ground, poker hot pain shooting up his leg and settling in his chest. Worth was paying so much attention to the present problem that he failed to notice the other two slipping behind him until one had swiftly sliced her elongated fingernails through his abdomen. He cried out, the sound strangled and foreign. The pain darkened his vision, but still he twisted and lashed out, the scalpel managing to connect with the third vampire's shoulder, drawing a haggard gash across his collar bone. He drove the blade in between the neck and shoulder, but the vampire on the receiving end of this merely stared at him.
"Yer a bit out of yer territory." Worth spat at him. The vampire's full lips twitched slightly, the look in his eyes a tad too predatory for Worth's liking. Coming from someone else, he was sure that look would have been fine, but there's something about having a sharp object shoved through you that just ruins the mood for a guy. The vampire didn't respond to Worth, but the girl beside him did.
"We're here to send a message." She drawled, claws twisting lazily inside of Worth.
The doctor hissed, eyes clenching shut as he struggled to speak.
"Ngh, yeah?" he heaved. "To who?" It was the vampire behind him, the one that had broken his ankle who answered.
"Cross and his band of merry men." He laughed. "We was going to take out the fag that calls himself one of us, that was the plan, but we got rules against killing our own kind." Worth spun around sharply to glare at him, face twisting uncomfortably and not just from the pain. "Not that they ain't been broken before." Worth near snarled at him, and the girl laughed vacuously, digging her nails in deeper.
"Look, fellas. I think we struck a nerve!"
"Enough." Worth's throat closed at that single word. The voice that uttered it was cold and rotten, veiling something that Worth was all too familiar with. He swallowed hard and sent out a silent plea that if Hanna did get this message, he would return to sender. If Worth didn't know better, he'd think he was dealing with Death itself. He started as a chilled hand slipped it's way around his neck. The girl beside him leant in to his ear, mouthing it as she spoke, voice filled with a sickening pleasure.
"Any last words?" Worth would rather die than to ever beg for his slip of a life, so with effort he turned to her with a forced grin.
"Yeah, darlin'". He hissed. "Go fuck yourself." With a piercing shriek she pulled her claws out of him, splattering the ground and her legs with flecks of the doctor's blood. If it wasn't so painful, Worth may have laughed.
"You got anything worth sayin', Nosferatu?" he shot over his shoulder, receiving an empty glace in return. "Yeah. S'what I thought." With tremendous effort, Worth put his weight on his broken ankle, ignoring the bile that settled in his throat, and in one fell movement he swiped his good leg at the big vampire while throwing his fist in the general direction of the walking, talking icebox. His leg connected, but had no effect and his efforts at punching only earned him a tightened hand around his larynx. Any protests bubbled and died on his lips as the most sinister of the trio applied pressure and began to leisurely drag his nails along Worth's throat. Worth tried to shout out a warning, a profanity, something, but all that came out was a feeble whistle following by a gurgle and a pop.
"Better hurry it up, Atticus, the sun's coming up soo…" the bulk of a vampire trailed off at the look thrown in his direction. "Right." He finished, noncommittally.
The girl was not so easily quietened. "Well I'm outta here. It's done, that thing's as good as dead." She tossed her auburn hair over her shoulder before making a low noise of horror as she caught sight of her blood stained hand. "Oh, that won't come out." She cried, mostly to herself. With a sigh and a lingering glance at the scene, she transformed and departed. The other vampire looked at his leader before grunting and following suit. The final vampire looked at Worth with an expression that portrayed only boredom. His lips pursed as he made the decision to speak, thought better of it, then changed his mind again.
"If Cross doesn't come, the abomination is next." He stated. Worth's eyes swivelled to him in an act of committed defiance, and hips lips worked wordlessly. Whether he was attempting to say "be my guest" or "I'll kill you myself" was never discovered, as Atticus made one frenzied motion and promptly ripped Worth's throat out. For a second, Worth's eyes opened in shock as he reached partway to his neck, but they soon dulled as the vampire let go, the rapidly cooling body crumpling to the ground.
It was four days before anyone found him.
Lamont balanced three boxes of miscellaneous items on his knee as he fumbled for the keys in his pocket. After a full minute he cried out triumphantly, and made to open the door. It moved slightly on contact, and Lamont frowned for a second before toeing it open with his dangling foot. He shifted the packages on to his hip and made his way inside.
"Worth?" he called out, free hand fumbling for the light switch on the wall to the left of the door. He found it after a few seconds of aimless searching, and waiting until the bulb had spluttered to life. "Ay Doc, you here?" Putting the packages down on the desk, Lamont stalked through the practice, checking in the small closet of a bedroom which was rarely used and the thin concrete strip of a yard before returning to the main room.
Something about this didn't sit right. It wasn't uncommon for Worth to up and go for a short period of time, but usually he'd give Lamont a forwarding address for the more delicate packages. No, something about this didn't sit right at all. That was how Lamont found himself combing the streets of the city. That was how Lamont found himself asking around in bars and clubs. That was how Lamont found his closest friend decomposing in an alleyway.
"Jesus Christ." He groaned, rubbing a shaking hand over his jaw. "Fuck."
He looked at him lying there for what seemed like an hour. His entire front was soaked in his own blood, his limbs twisted in ways they shouldn't. Lamont thought about calling someone, the authorities maybe, but he could tell from the wounds that this was no mugging or bar fight. He uttered one more low groan before crouching and picking the body up. Ignoring the looks he got from people passing, he carried Worth to his practice and shouldered open the door. He placed him on the desk, swiping the packages to the side and stared at him for one more minute before throwing up directly on to the floor.
An hour later, the door to the office slammed open and bounced off the opposite wall. A rather stormy look crossed Lamont's face as his head snapped around to glare at the intruder, but it slid right off again in seconds. Hanna stood unblinking as he stared at the desk, mouth slightly opened. One hand was still on the door, but the other had begun to ball up in a fist and his entire frame had begun to tremble. The zombie placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him in to the room, gently forcing him to sit down on the only other available chair in the room. He was still staring at the body, eyebrows knitting together.
"He was always telling me to be careful." He muttered after a while. "Every time I came in here it was always 'damn it Hanna, what'd I tell you about getting yourself involved. Christ, Hanna, you're going to wind up dead and I won't be able to fix you back up." He gasped slightly, before pointing shakily at the desk. "Well how the hell is that careful?! Who's going to fix that up?" Lamont swallowed thickly, not knowing what to say or do. He'd only seen Hanna lose his cool twice since he'd known him, and it was always Worth who'd wise him up. The zombie crouched down and said something to Hanna, who just bit his lip and shook his head. He stood again and turned to Lamont.
"I'm taking him home." Hanna opened his mouth to object, but he continued. "We'll return in a few hours to see what can be done about this." It took another fifteen minutes, but both left leaving Lamont alone again.
"You stupid son of a bitch." He mumbled, before lapsing in to a sleep of exhaustion. Some time passed midnight, the door to the practice opened again, a rather stormy and irritated man stepping through.
"Okay, I swear if you're not here this time I'm going to get it on tap. Seriously, I thought we had a deal but it would be just like you to hold out on your end, wouldn't it. God, I don't even know why I bother coming here, it's certainly not for the company and frankly I think you're spiking the bags with something." Conrad stepped through the doorway, the same sneer he always wore the second he came in plastered on his face.
"Conrad." Lamont said, voice cracking over the two syllables. Conrad turned his head, first surprised to see Lamont, and then the surprise twisting grotesquely in to something else.
"No. No, this is sick." He spun on his heel and began to walk towards the desk. Behind him, a patch of dishevelled red hair poked in. "This is a sick, sick joke, Worth." He had reached the desk and this point and his nostrils were flaring. Hanna and the zombie stepped in quietly, and they seemed reserved to let Conrad have his moment. "This isn't funny, you prick. Stop it." He slammed a fist on the desk next to Worth's wasn't happening. Conrad had been around these people enough to know dead people don't stay dead, he himself was testament to that, and even if they did Worth wasn't dead. Worth was like a cockroach, he couldn't die. Just a few more seconds and he'd start chuckling. "Business 's been slow. The look on yer face is priceless, princess."
Conrad gripped the front of Worth's coat and dragged him upwards. He wanted to gag when his head lolled back, the jagged mess of his throat opening further and filling the practice with the stench of congealed blood. He shook him once, twice, three times before turning and yelling "Hanna, do something!" The red head just looked struck, and he sat down heavily on the stool behind him.
Conrad shook Worth again. "Wake up, you asshole, this isn't funny anymore." His breathing was harsh, although unnecessary. Conrad seemed to forget that. His hands shook from holding up the body, even though he had enough strength to hurl it across the street. He forgot that too. He felt a hand drop on his shoulder, squeezing slightly in a futile attempt to be reassuring but Conrad batted it off.
"No! He is not dead." Was all he said. The ripple that travelled around the room suggested that he wasn't convincing himself any more. He turned back to the body and with barely a seconds thought he connected his fist with the doctor's jaw. Everyone in the room moved at once. Lamont stood with such force that the chair behind him toppled precariously on its legs. For a second it looked like he was going to swing Worth's returning punch for him. Hanna stood, swaying slightly, his mouth working dumbly. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to be peacemaker here. It was the zombie that restrained Conrad, gloved hands tightening around his forearms before deciding better for it and wrapping his arms around Conrad's chest.
For a brief period Conrad fought back, his fists batting against the other man's legs. Then he simply gave up. His knees buckled and he slumped to the ground, the zombie's grip the only thing keeping him upright. He took a few deep, fruitless breaths before shaking him off.
"I have to get out of here. I need—I have to leave."
"Conrad…" Hanna began, but Conrad had already walked to the door and flung it open.
The incessant drumming in his skull that Conrad had simply attributed to the shock of the evening now intensified, and Conrad cried out. The building's facing Worth's place were dusted with harsh, pink hues and the smallest slither of a sun could be seen in the distance. It was almost morning. With a small sound of indignation, Conrad turned to go back inside, hand waving feebly at the open door.
"There's a room back there." Lamont said, not looking at Conrad. "No windows. His bedroom, kind of." He laughed bitterly, the sound almost a bark, to the surprise of everyone. He had been mostly silent barr a few grunted words up to this point, but now he threw open his arms, gesturing around the room. "It could have been any of us. It could have been any one of us, but it was him. Why? You know, I've been sat for hours thinking that one over, thinking maybe he just royally pissed someone off. It'd be just like him, right?" he gripped the edge of the chair tightly with his fingers, splitting the skin that he'd bitten to the bud.
"How…how did it-" Hanna prodded, voice unusually and frighteningly quiet.
"Vampires." Lamont spat, fixing his gaze almost accusingly at Conrad. Conrad, to his credit, glared right back.
"I didn't do this." He said coolly.
"No, but you sure as hell didn't stop it."
"Sto-how the hell could I have stopped it?!"
"Don't your kind have some sort of network? Some kind of vampire grand central?"
"In case you haven't noticed, I don't exactly fit in with my kind. If you want to know that, why don't you go ask the one of my kind that you're sleeping with! For all we know, she could have done this!" Conrad gestured wildly to the desk.
Lamont stood and strode over to the vampire and for the second time that night, someone got punched. Conrad couldn't say he didn't expect it, but he didn't expect it to hit as hard. He touched his jaw gingerly for a moment, before shrugging, and swinging a punch of his own. It connected sharply with Lamont's shoulder, causing him to veer to the side, but not before throwing another punch that missed Conrad completely. Instead, he fisted his hands in Conrad's sweatervest, yanking him forward before slamming his forehead in to Conrad's face. Hanna looked horrified, and he stepped forward with his arms raised, a small attempt to cool them down. All he got in return was Conrad's elbow cracking in to his face, breaking his nose cleanly.
Hanna's face bloomed in pain and the zombie moved across the room faster than anyone thought he could. First, he shoved the two sparring men apart, glaring at them in turn with a fierce intensity. Then he moved to Hanna, tilting his head up by the chin. Hanna gently pushed his hand away, focusing on his own which was peppered with blood.
"Hey, it's okay." He laughed thickly. "It was my fault." He dropped his hand to his side, and looked blindly at the desk, repeating "it was my fault".
"It was his own damned fault." Conrad quipped, but there was no real bite behind it. It shut everyone up, even Lamont who had settled on the floor beside the desk. An uneasy silent wormed its way through the hairline fractures in the room.
The night dragged on and none of them slept even though they all felt the effects of the day wearing down on them. Conrad wouldn't touch the bags Lamont brought for him, choosing instead to poke holes in them with his fingernails and to watch as the blood trickled out and soaked the cardboard. At one point he hurled one at the wall with a cry, before throwing himself on the ground with a sound that resembled a wounded animal. He spent the rest of the time scratching at the flecks of blood that splashed back on his vest. Hanna curled in on himself, his knees pulled right up to his chest. The zombie rubbed slow, rhythmic circles in to his back and shoulders, occasionally muttering soothing words. Hanna may have cried once, but he buried his face in his hands so no-one was sure. The zombie suggested they move the body, or at least cover it up, but he was met by a swear from Lamont and a snap from Conrad, so he reserved himself to comforting the young detective
After what seemed like decades to the entire room, the sun slipped back behind the skyline, and the air began to chill around them. Conrad stood up and stretched, the muscles in his back and calves popping painfully, before stalking silently to the door. Hanna stood, alarmed.
"Where are you going?"
"…"
"Conrad!" Hanna almost began to sound distressed, a panicked flutter travelling through his voice. Conrad sighed, trailing his fingers on the door handle.
"Out. To find answers." His voice was quiet but firm. "I'm not going to stay here and look at him like—like that. I can do something. Lamont was right, I can find out who's responsible."
"Well, me and Cormac could start looking in to stuff, like maybe there's a nest or something? We know what we're doing, and-"
"Cut the crap, Hanna!" Conrad whirled to face him, voice coming out a needle sharp hiss. "If you could do something, you would have done it already. Whipped out your runes or used a spell that could bring him back, but you haven't. You can't, he's-" he hesitated, running his tongue over his bottom lip. "He's dead," he said with finality, "and he's staying that way." Conrad's voice was a slow diminuendo, and his eyes dropped from Hanna's worried face to the floor.
"I know that, Conrad." Hanna replied gently. "But what if you can't do anything? Say you find them, then what? They're probably better than you, stronger, faster, more used to their abilities. Me and Nicholas can defend ourselves, right, put up a barrier maybe, but you can't defend yourself. You'd have no chance, they'd kill you too!"
"Well maybe I'm better off that way!" Conrad snapped. The meaning of the words resonated through the air, stunning Hanna in to silence. Conrad through up his hands noncommittally, then threw the door open.
The sun was barely down and there was still a near excruciating pressure behind his eyeballs, but he had already wasted too much time. If he was honest with himself, he didn't know which was worse; being in that room with Worth's body, or being away from it. Either way he felt helpless, useless and lost. He didn't know where to go from here. Not just in his search, but at all. He hadn't been turned for very long, was still more than slightly attached to his human life, but he had quickly become accustomed to how things were. This new life with vampires and ghosts and werewolves. This life with magic and men raised from the dead. Sometimes. This life with a back alley doctor that would sooner give you a scathing remark than a remedy, and you just took it for granted. It was sick, really, how he'd almost begun to enjoy his trips to the practice, the cheery falseness of "Count Fagula! Was startin' t'think maybe you'd gone feral. Sure as hell would save me some effort."
They fought more often than not, the crookedness of Worth's nose become more apparent every few weeks. Conrad knew he enjoyed it, hell, he probably got off on it and wasn't that a thought train and a half. But Conrad had enjoyed it too. All the times he'd glared at Worth, daring him to say something as he licked the other man's blood off his knuckles. Worth never did, but he grinned lecherously at him, an almost self-gratifying smile. The times where neither of them were in a fighting mood, but neither had anything better to do, so they just sat and they talked. Yes, talked. They talked about Hanna mostly, and the things he got himself tangled in. Worth told stories that would have made Conrad turn green if he was able to. The vampire was shocked at the fondness he found in Worth's face and voice sometimes, but like everything else, he grew accustomed to it. Sometimes they even talked about themselves.
Conrad found out that Worth wasn't in touch with his parents any more, but that he had a sister he called up some time. Conrad tried to picture Worth with a family, and then Worth as a kid, and the absurdity of the image had him doubled over. A small part of him believed that Worth emerged from the womb middle aged and grimy.
Worth found out that Conrad wasn't as prim as he'd thought, and after a whole half an hour of goading, Conrad showed him the small tattoo spanning his shoulder. Worth traced it with a finger, muttering "didn't think you'd have t'stomach fer that, sweetheart." Conrad said nothing.
Conrad found out that Worth almost got married once. He had to ask him to repeat that one again, as the first time around he laughed directly in Worth's face. Turns out he bailed less than an hour before he walked down to aisle. "She was alright in the sack, but fuck, she was a bruiser. Don't think I coulda woken up to that every mornin'."
Worth found out that Conrad had never had a girlfriend, and laughed cruelly at the fact that Conrad had still been a virgin. This sparked off another fight, and this one lasted a lot longer than the rest. Ruthless as it was, this one was different, and it wasn't hard to figure why. After that, Conrad's virginity was never brought up again.
Some nights, this went on for hours and they talked until the sun began to rise. At this point, Worth would bustle Conrad in to the back room, saying "I ain't got any suncream for you, so stay put." He'd toss in a blanket or two and then shut the door, and Conrad would just lie there listening to him wander around his practice, sometimes with a patient but more often alone, until he fell asleep. Then the sun would go down, and he'd drop a box of blood bags on top of Conrad and tell him to get out, there'd be enough there to do him for weeks. Still, weeks only ever seemed to amount to a few days, a week and a half at most, then Conrad would find himself at the practice again, a surly but completely unsurprised doctor throwing him a backhanded insult before telling him to get his ass inside.
So what was he supposed to do now? Even if he found the vampires, even if he killed them himself and honestly, what were those odds, after that things would still be off. His nights would still be empty and Worth would still be gone and he honestly didn't think he could put up with a moping Hanna and a volatile Lamont for another minute. Conrad wanted to scream, to curse Worth for leaving them all like this. He wanted to find those vampires and tear them apart, wanted to tie them to pylons and force them in to the sun. He wanted to make them feel physically what he was feeling inside himself. But on the other hand, a very small, very selfish part wanted to do all that to himself. He wanted to be torn, he wanted to burn. He wanted to give up and lie in an empty room until he simply ceased to exist.
Those seemed like his only options, but what would they accomplish? What would any of it really do? The former would just leave him an empty, purposeless husk and the latter would only serve to bring more grief to Hanna, and he already blamed himself enough as it was. Conrad didn't know if he had the strength or the resolve to carry out either option, so he was left with no-where to turn. He began to idly wander the streets, his head turning at every alley looking for something that would give him an answer, something that didn't exist.
He thought briefly about Hanna and Lamont, and what they would decide to do. In time, Hanna would probably go back to investigation and Lamont would maybe continue carrying out delivery duties, but maybe they felt as hopeless as he did. Then he thought about what Worth would say to them if he could see them now. Conrad tried to imagine him laughing, and saying something callous like "yer all a bunch of pansies, you knew I wasn't gonna live forever" but the mental image fell short, the words flat, almost as if they were being read from a script.
He was slipping away, and this thought finally broke the dam that was holding Conrad back. He grasped at the nearest wall, sobs as dry as paper wracking his frame. Worth was fading and before long, he'd be gone completely. Eventually so would Hanna, and so would Lamont, and who was to say how long the magic piloting the zombie would hold up. Soon Conrad would be left alone with dulling memories and a crumbling building, and then what would he do? He slid down the wall, threading his fingers in his hair and pulling. He needed it all out, but something was stopping him from crying. He screamed, long and loud, his chest swelling until he felt like he was going to burst. He hated himself for being so pathetic, but at that point he didn't care. About himself, about Hanna or Lamont, about anything.
He just wanted to sit in that alleyway and wait for the sun to rise. Maybe then he'd find the answers he needed. Maybe then he'd be free.