Chapter 4

The beast who was once the Hunter called "Father Gascoigne" stalked the courtyard of Oedon's Tomb, his large ax dragging on the ground as the demon inside him demanded blood, more blood, sweet, sweet blood… he wanted to go and hunt for more monsters whose blood he could drink, but another voice whispered that he mustn't, that a Hunter was coming and that he would miss him if he left.

A Hunter… Father Gascoigne licked his lips, a grin spreading across his face as he contemplated the sweet, sweet blood of a Hunter, blood that he had not gotten to taste in ages. He thirsted for it as a drunkard thirsts for liquor, but had only gotten to drink it once, after he had killed the yellow-clad Hunter that didn't seem very willing to fight him.

A Hunter… Gascoigne suddenly felt a wash of discomfort. Half-remembered wisps of memories flitted through his head, of him and that Hunter fighting monsters side by side. He shook his head clear of the uncomfortable memories, growling savagely. No, he couldn't have been friends with the Hunter-he was a beast, a sworn enemy of Hunters. No, a friendship could not have been possible.

Now, what to do while he waited for the Hunter to arrive…

Dante and Cain walked to the two-story house cautiously, their nerves still shaky from an encounter with another pair of beasts, bigger ones that more closely resembled werewolves, that they had encountered on a great stone bridge. They had fought through a horde of beasts to get there, and were now proceeding back to where they thought the beginning of Central Yharnam was.

"Be on guard, man," Dante muttered to Cain, who nodded in reply. They cautiously proceeded into the house, weapons ready…

And were greeted by a sword-wielding maniac, who swung a saber down at them with full force with a "Die!"

Cain handled this one, sidestepping the attack and swinging down his folded Beasthunter's Saif at the man's torso. The razor-sharp edge caught on the man's flesh and ribcage, then Cain ripped it free with a grunt of effort. Blood sprayed from the wound like a fountain as the beast stumbled to the ground.

"Gross," Dante said, flicking a speck of blood off of his coat.

"Oh, shut up," Cain replied, stepping further into the house. "It's not like the way you killed that giant was any less gruesome, bloody, or brutal."

"Good point," Dante conceded as he shot the other sword-wielding maniac hiding behind a pile of crates in the head. "Come on, let's go check out downstairs."

"Just a warning, there's two more baddies down there," Cain stated as they descended the stairs to the downstairs section of the house. He unfolded his Beasthunter's Saif, then sidestepped another attack from a third saber-wielding maniac and sliced him into two halves. Dante walked over to a man in a wheelchair, then shot him in the head. "That's that," he said, blowing out Ebony and re-holstering the handgun. He followed Cain out the front door, then swiftly turned as the sound of heavy footsteps reached his ears. "You know what that is, by any chance?" Dante asked Cain, who was engaged in a fight with a beast similar to the first one Dante had encountered in Yharnam.

"Actually, yes, I do," Cain replied as he shot the beast's head off with his beautiful, ornate flintlock. "It's a pair of those ogres, like what we encountered earlier after we got through the first part of Central Yharnam."

"Ah," Dante said. "Should we go fight them?"

"No, we should go fight the Cleric Beast first," Cain said. "He's through that one arch that was at the end of that bridge we just got off of. I just wanted to open this gate before we went, so that we could quickly return to the area where we have to fight him in case we-erm, I-die."

"Ah. Alright, well let's hurry, I wanna see-"

An earsplitting screech split Dante's eardrums, which was swiftly followed up by a series of loud kradooms. Dante and Cain looked at each other, then stared at the area where the sounds had came from. "The heck-" Cain began. Dante silenced him with a look, then began to run back to the bridge, his red trench coat fluttering out behind him.

"Come on, slowpoke, let's move!" Dante yelled over his shoulder at Cain. "Someone beat us to the Cleric Beast, and I want to fight the bugger at least a little bit!"

"But-but I-"

Dante vanished into the house.

"Dammit," Cain muttered, then he raced off after Dante, exchanging his Beasthunter's Saif for his Burial Blade as he did so.

Oooh, a mystery! Who could it have been that's beaten Dante and Cain to the Cleric Beast? Read on, and discover...