Carmilla's back sank deeper into the wet mire of earth as a dog bit through her forearm.

Before she could reach the mutt with her free hand, the young huntsman in the tricorn hat struck at her with his riding crop.

On reflex, she caught the crop with her hand. Almost no blood leaked out as the skin and muscle of her palm split open.

She grimaced from the pain of a bolt in her thigh, dog teeth embedded in her arm, and whip tearing her hand apart.

Those inflictions paled in comparison to the all-encompassing, burning alive pain of the huntsman shoving his crucifix into her forehead.

Carmilla screamed. Her body writhed as if it were on fire, ignoring the damage she caused itself by thrashing around her already injured limbs.

The young huntsman stepped with all his force onto Carmilla's non-bitten arm, pinning her from escaping his tortures. He plopped into sitting all his weight on her chest.

She was stronger than the young man, but he still outweighed her and had all the leverage. There was no way for her to buck him off.

Not that there was much thought she was afforded to focus on her escape. Her mind was busy being consumed in a never-ending cycle of torment as the cross on her face steamed her skin off her skull. Being buried with living coals and forced to swallow acid would be a welcome reprieve.

How much longer must I need persist? Carmilla prayed into the void. Can this be where I finally die?

The crucifix was raised from her head but was left hovering threateningly close above. It took her several moments to recall her faculties.

"…Enough fun for now." Vordenburg's voice came into Carmilla's consciousness. "We have her now."

"Bitch," the young huntsman on top of her said.

It was hard to tell how long she'd been out, but the young man was no longer using his own foot to hold down her arm, in which she would have lanes available for breaking free. Instead, that arm was tied tight by a rope and held taught by one of the crossbowmen. Testing a pull against it, she felt she'd become too weak to catch him off balance.

Her other arm was stood on by the whole weight of the trapper, no longer in dog's teeth. Her skin only made contact with his heavy boots, her cold power would be no good there.

Another crossbowman was working at binding her feet together with more rope, thought it was obvious he was an amateur compared to whoever had bound her left wrist. If her limbs were dependent upon proper blood flow there was no doubt the tightness would kill that hand.

Vordenburg had approached and looked down at her, an insufferably gloating grin displayed on his thin lips.

Carmilla's eyes glazed over. "Can I help you, sir? I don't believe we've met."

Vordenburg snorted a dry laugh. "Don't get cute with me, hag. You know full well who I am. And I know," he placed a finger onto Carmilla's forehead, digging a yellow fingernail into the raw skin flensed off by the crucifix, "Exactly what you are."

"I never did anything to you," Carmilla could hardly muster the energy to say the words she knew would be falling on dead ears. "You have no reason to be this obsessed with me. Just let me go."

Vordenburg sat back on his haunches and readjusted the golden framed glasses on his face. "To me, personally? No, you never did anything. But that poor girl Bertha, her corpse found drained of all blood in the forest? You did something to her."

Carmilla grit her teeth. It was no use explaining herself, but it felt wrong not to, "I'm not the one who attacked her. You've got the wrong monster."

Vordenburg looked to the sky and smirked proudly to himself.

She could just cave his face in.

Glancing around, all the other men were grimacing at her. Whatever joy Vordenburg was getting from the exchange, he was alone.

"After Bertha, there was another girl."

"Stop," Carmilla said.

"The one you bewitched."

She felt her eye twitch.

"You used your dark sorcery to beguile that poor girl under your lascivious influence."

"Dark-…? I can't do that," Carmilla snarled.

"Of course you can. What other explanation is there for how you could manufacture such unnatural urgings within her loins."

"Unnatural?" Carmilla felt the word strike her like a bolt. "What is more natural than a city choked to death by the fumes of a mountain writhing of molten iron, frothing rivers of brimstone and filling the land with smoke that petrifies flesh? What is more natural than a landscape sized boulder hurled down, wreathed in hellfire from the sky, leaving a crater like a mortal wound upon the earth, polluting forth pestilence into the air for the next thousand years? What is more natural and lethal a force in existence than love?"

Silence followed. Vordenburg stared at nothing in particular, his face unreadable.

"Sir," the young huntsman with the crucifix addressed Vordenburg. "I know we're getting paid for capturing it alive…"

Vordenburg shot a glance at the young huntsman.

"We should kill it," the boy said.

"No."

"She's a fiend escaped from the Pit," one of the other hunters added.

Vordenburg stood up and walked away from Carmilla. "Unacceptable," he said. "We bring her to Lord Xenosia. He is not a man you want to cross. This is nonnegotiable."

"Look at it," another hunter said. "God smites it. His relic burns her like piss in snow."

He's lost control of them, Carmilla realized. Against every fiber of her being begging to let it end, she took stock of her limbs. What could she use to break free?

She closed her fist strung up by the rope. The man on the other end was pulling tight enough it felt like her shoulder was on the verge of being yanked out of the socket.

None of her skin was in close enough contact with anyone else's to freeze them.

There was always another possibility, though one she had never done for more than a second or two, even in her century-spanning life.

Remaining still so as not to draw attention, she began freezing her own arm. The circumference of her tied wrist turned blue, deep violet, then black.

Vordenburg was still arguing with his men, though sounding deflated as if he knew it was hopeless.

"Bring me a stake," the young huntsman said, looking over his shoulder.

Carmilla twisted and yanked her arm in towards her. Her wrist cracked and shattered and her arm tore free.

Only a dull pain accompanied her hand being severed.

The crossbowman on the other side of the rope tipped over onto his back after suddenly losing his balance.

Before the young huntsman could react, Carmilla had slashed the hard and jagged edge of her shorn wrist across the boy's forehead. Gouts of blood poured out, obscuring his vision.

He screamed, dropping the crucifix and clasping his wound.

It was a superficial injury, but it was a spot that would still bleed a decent amount until bandaged.

In one, fluid motion, Carmilla stabbed her handless arm into the man's calf standing with all his weight on her right arm, while bolting up and sinking her thin fangs into the young huntsman's large vein.

She had attacked so quick and ferociously that the rest of the hunters were only beginning to process the sudden commotion. Before they could act, she used her returning strength to break her legs free from the paltry knot meant to bind her ankles.

The young huntsman in her fangs grasp, pushed out against Carmilla. If he had succeeded, her fangs could have sheared through his vein and killed him. She had the strength to resist his shove but decided to suck her fangs back in and let the boy go.

She had gotten about a teacup worth of blood out of him, just enough to return some of her strength and begin healing her most pressing wounds.

She rose and instantly began running.

The hunters all shouted around her, some chasing after her, others rushing to the two men on the ground.

They would make full recoveries, in time. She had caused little more than a slight frostbite in the trapper's leg and superficial wounds to the young huntsman.

Maybe they'll let me alone once they see how easy I've been going on them, Carmilla tried letting out a chuckle.

Her hitching gait melted away seconds after ripping the crossbow bolt out of her thigh. None of the hunters had their ranged weapons prepared, leaving their only hope being to outrun her. She was stronger than any of them and carrying far less weight.

Some of her aches worked themselves out and she sprinted into the forest easily before any of the men could catch up to her.

—

Carmilla woke up to the dark, moonlight dripping down through near leafless tree branches. Her bed had been a pile of fresh snow when she'd fallen asleep in the afternoon and had at some point become brown water. As she stood she peeled off soaked leaves that had plastered themselves all over her body. There were too many to deal with them all.

Her left hand fumbled uselessly as she made to adjust her shawl. That made sense, she noted, remembering her left hand was left back with those pursuing her, leaving her with a lump of taut skin tipped with four bony lumps, with one off to the side, poking out of the forearm.

Without more human blood, that was the best her hand was going to regrow.

She strained her ears but didn't hear any dogs. She didn't smell anyone nearby. It seemed as though she was still in the clear. It had been a full day of thrashing through the thick forest with no incident, despite Vordenburg and his men knowing she was in there. They hadn't even sent their mutts after her.

After arching her back for a good stretch, she continued sprinting toward London.

It had become difficult to think straight from her exhaustion, but she was realizing the obvious; Vordenburg and crew would be waiting for her on the rim of the forest. They knew where she was, where she was headed and could map out the most reasonable routes her roadless path could lead her out of the woods. And with the hunters taking conventional roads, it would be easy enough for them outpace her while cutting around her.

Down a hand, even less rested, and her last confrontation dealing out more harm to her than the sip of blood healed her, it was tough to imagine her next tussle with the hunters ending any more in her favor than the last time.

Her stride stayed the same, her course just as straight. What did it matter if they caught her? Being brought before Lord Xenosia was the last thing she wanted, but all the hunters had been rearing to mutiny against Vordenburg, so perhaps they would simply kill her if they ensnared her on her mad flight to the city.

She didn't smile at the thought but did lean into her run, finding reserves in her energy that were straining the frays of rope she was at the ends of.

The scent of piss in the wind whiffed into her nostrils, acting as a sort of wake up call.

Carmilla halted and whipped her head around to figure out where she was. The forest? Oh, right. She had been running her way to London.

Had she almost passed out on her feet? She hadn't been aware an immortal body could swoon, but she had lost most of the night, unable to remember the bulk of her trip after waking up.

She forced herself to focus on the piss smell. It smelled human, carried by a draft in the direction she was already headed.

In all likelihood, the man pissing in the woods was a member of the hunters pursuing her and was stationed as a perimeter sentry guarding her path.

There were no dogs she could hear or smell and the day was only breaking dusk, still quite dark. Carmilla steeled herself for an encounter but prepared to sneak around the hunter.

She was close. After these past excruciating weeks of playing the fox hounded relentlessly, her end was, proverbially, in sight. Why risk confronting the hunters?

Inching forward with all the reticent stealth she could muster from her taxed body and soul, she paused again. Whoever the pissing hunter before her was, all his attention would be on the tree line in her direction.

She looked up at the withered tree-tops, then down at her hand-severed forearm. The stump had regrown some of the baby skin covering it, but it was weak and sensitive. Rubbing the injured limb against bark was going to wreak havoc to the wound and hurt like hell, but climbing up and leaping over the hunter would be her best bet to avoid detection.

Moments later she had climbed up and over the man and noiselessly landed behind him. The hunter was tall and awkwardly shaped wearing an expensive top-hat that clashed in every conceivable way with the rest of his outfit.

Carmilla smiled.

She reached up and grabbed Vordenburg by the nape of his neck, skin to skin.

Vordenburg startled before slumping down, letting out a massive sigh that was visible in the cold. "Well… damn."

"You move, I freeze your neck and crush it like brittle porcelain."

"I know," Vordenburg said, voice subdued.

Carmilla plucked his top hat off and pushed him away. Donning the hat, she was taken aback at it being a perfect fit on her head. It would serve better than nothing at hiding the vicious crimson scar burned into her forehead in the shape of the Cross.

"This is your final warning," Carmilla splayed her fingers, mimicking claws, held down at her side like a pistol waiting to be drawn. "The next time we cross paths, I kill you. Until then, I am done killing, I am sick of it; sick of running, of hiding, sick of surviving. All I want is to be left alone."

The man in golden glasses moved a shaking hand to grab something off his person.

"Or you could try for your axe, your crossbow, or that pistol that may or may not be blessed with divine might, and then I get to kill you now and save myself the annoyance of checking over my back here and there."

From his vest, he slowly removed a flask.

Carmilla scowled. "Holy water, is it?"

Taking the top off, he threw his head back and swallowed a meaty swig. "Grog. A greasy swill, bitterer than dirt; from my home village."

"Do you believe me?" Carmilla waited for a reply that never came. "Do you believe him? Lord Xenosia? I understand you have a grudge against me, a compulsion to hunt my kind, but do you have any conception of what he really is?"

"I… do," Vordenburg tapped his golden glasses. "I can see things through a different lens than others. I can see alternate truths about the world."

"Alternate truths…" Carmilla scuffed the tip of her shoe into the ground, her body clenching as she dredged up memories better left dead, cremated, and the ashes scattered into the winds of the past. "Entertain this alternate truth: despite me being a monster, there was a person I cared about more than drawing my next breath. Use your imagination, if need be, to understand that I lo-" her voice caught in her throat. "I loved this person. But a romance between mortal and the undying is one borne of hell. Every caress, every brush of hair from a cheek, shared sips of chocolate, holding of hands in the rain… each laugh she blurted with abandon, wild as the wind and sweet as a newborn lamb… They were presages of eternal sadness, portends of doom. The very person who shone with more light and mystique than all the stars on a cloudless night in a moonless sky, the very same harbinger of my worst fears.

"She grew old, she grew weak and feeble minded, and she- the inevitable happened. And I," a pain shot through Carmilla's hand. She had clenched too hard and dug a scar into her palm. "During that time, I went on a quest to confront the man who provided me the choice to save my love. If I had acquiesced those years ago, after flinging myself like a wretch at Xenosia's feet, begging him to bequeath her with immortality at the cost of my freedom, at my oath to never see her again, for the sake of her gaining immortal life… But I refused his pact then. Know there is no alternate truth to this: I will never bow to him again. Never will I be his slave. I am as useless to him as he is powerless to bring her back to me.

"If you hate me, you can serve me no crueler fate than to let me crawl forth in my pitiful existence, burdened with the evil false hope that perhaps only my death can bring us back together."

Vordenburg stashed his flask away. He licked his lips and was silent for moments on end, his only other movement was his eyebrows furrowing. Finally, his head tilted with a nearly imperceptible nod.

Carmilla made no acknowledgment of their terse agreement other than turning and leaving.

No bolt from a crossbow followed her, nor a blare from a trumpet to alert others to her presence.

—-

The tree-line broke letting, nothing but a field between Carmilla and London.

She stepped out of the forest and into the breaking dawn light pooling around her feet and setting the cityscape before her ablaze.

A twang struck out like a dissonant cord behind her, and a crossbow bolt pierced her back and shot blood from her chest. The sharp point was close enough to have nicked her heart.

Carmilla turned back to the forest. The young huntsman from earlier, his tricorn hat shadowing his eyes, a reloaded crossbow hauled up in his arms and aimed at Carmilla.

"At this point," Carmilla wheezed through a punctured lung. "It would be insane to stop me getting to the city. Being this close, you could just admit I fought hard enough for this to count as my win. You could forget you happened upon me as I make my victory dash through this final kilometer?"

The young huntsman lifted his chin, letting light touch his face. His own hat had been hiding the bandage around his forehead where Carmilla had slashed him with her bone earlier. "I missed your heart with my first shot. I will not miss a second time."

"Is this a capture or an execution?"

"You will not be leaving here alive, but I doubt killing a being of pure evil could be considered anything but justice."

Carmilla let out a resigned sigh, echoing the one Vordenburg had let out not an hour earlier when he believed he was moments from being murdered. She measured the distance between herself and the huntsman, deeming it only close enough to breach if she could cause a grand enough distraction. Nothing came to mind, no final cards she could employ to escape. She risked a look away from her soon-to-be killer, peering out over the final expanse to the city.

To make it so far and be killed by some boy she didn't even know the name of and killed for one careless moment of not examining her surroundings. Not the sort of end found in the final chapter of an epic tale. She shrugged. It was as good a time as any, good a place as any… to die.

At last, she would be able to be properly dead. Dead, and at peace.

Carmilla looked the young huntsman in the eye. "Do me the favor of making sure you do hit your mark this time. I would prefer this to be quick."

"Better than you deserve, succubus," the huntsman's scowl deepened. "I want you to know, I don't get paid for slaying you. I set out to capture you, but now, you have proven too vile to let persist in this world."

"What made up your mind?" Carmilla's eyes were squinted close, waiting to die at any moment.

"The old man in the carriage. I don't understand what was wrong with his head, but he was giving you a ride, and he tried to protect you. A gentleman kinder than was smart for him. And for that, you killed him?"

Carmilla peeked an eye open. "Killed-? What are you talking about?"

The huntsman shook his head. "Lying like the devil till the end, are you? You broke his neck with the carriage door. As you flew from the carriage you bashed him to death in one fell swoop."

That couldn't be true. Carmilla was shaking. She hadn't realized. Her eyes stung, but the tear ducts had ceased working centuries ago.

"I- I didn't mean to," Carmilla could only whisper.

"You deserve to die," the huntsman's voice wavered with anger.

"No," she said, again, unable to make herself loud enough to be heard. "I deserve justice."

The sky above London tore open. The most gargantuan strike of lightning Carmilla had ever seen crashed into the city.

The thunder was loud enough to shake the air. The earth shook and made waves like the sea.

Carmilla didn't question the sign from God as she pounced the distracted huntsman.

Before he was anywhere close to gaining his composure, Carmilla had smashed the young huntsman's crossbow and had her fangs planted in his throat.

He gurgled once, attempting his last words as he was drained.

She drained his life completely and let the corpse fall into a puddle.

Full of life, full on fresh blood, her wounds began knitting themselves closed. The crossbow bolt in her chest evacuated. A wretched pain creaked in her handless forearm as if splinters were multiplying from within. The hand regrowing hurt a hundredfold more than when the hand had been snapped off.

She ran toward London as the sunlight ascended from orange to searing white, dawn becoming morning.

"You may be right," her voice came out clear and strong. It had been weeks since she had heard herself sound half that healthy. "About me being evil. You didn't deserve to die like this, but it was you or me." Once she entered the city she would need to find some proper clothing. All that was left on her were bloody rags. Carmilla looked to the brightening sky, "Sorry, Laura. I must be apart from you even longer."