A/N: Ugh, feeling so off kilter cause I didn't get as much done yesterday as I would've liked, spent most of the day at my parents for Father's Day, so time well spent but now I just feel like I'm playing catch up…
Disclaimer: I own these about as much as I own Father's Day, which is to say, not at all.
Forbidden Blood
"Are you sure that it's here?" Nero asked her as they took out several more hunting dogs. When the air was quiet again Katherine checked the letter once more.
"Quite sure." she said, holding out the letter to him. "It states Hemwick crossing. We are at Hemwick crossing where else could it be?" she asked, starting to get annoyed with the partial devil. He snatched the letter away again, glancing over the contents.
"It also says "do not hesitate", how long ago did you pick this up?" he asked again. Katherine couldn't help the beleaguered sigh that escaped her lips before she answered.
"I found it just prior to encountering you for the first time." she said slowly, as though the repeated answer had a higher chance of sinking in if delivered at a measured pace. Nero gave her a flat look.
"I remember what you said before, I just wanted to be sure." he said, handing her the piece of parchment back.
"If you are not sure after the sixth time you should be concerned for your memory." she stated, snatching it back rather angrily. Nero was about to give some sort of snide remark, she could tell, until he was interrupted by the sound of hooves on pavement. Both of them watched curiously as a carriage pulled up, horses unguided by a driver and the entire thing smelled of musty decay. Katherine raised an eyebrow at her compatriot and swung the door open.
"I think this is for us." she said, Nero eyed the whole thing skeptically.
"No, must be for the ax wielding maniacs down there." he said, gesturing with his thumb down the path away from them. When she didn't react he sighed heavily and followed her into the carriage.
"I don't trust the creepy driverless horse drawn carriage." he grumbled as he settled into the musty velvet seats. Katherine rolled her eyes, pulling her hat from her head and leaning into the sidewall, between one deep breath and the next she was asleep.
-Devil's Hunt-
She was awoken by a gentle shaking at her shoulder, she jolted and looked at the devil hunter who had reached forward to gently rouse her.
"Sorry." he whispered, "We just went over some sort of bridge and the horses were slowing down, I think we might be almost there." Katherine nodded at him, yawning and trying to shake the sleep from her mind and the stiffness from her limbs. Her neck was cramping horribly from sleeping at such a strange angle and she wondered if in the before she'd ever fallen asleep in a carriage like this one.
"You didn't sleep?" she asked as she started to feel more awake, the whispers from beyond the veil dimming to a gentle lull in the background as dreams slipped into consciousness. Nero shook his head
"Can't sleep in vehicles." he said simply. She wondered what other vehicles he meant when he said that; most descriptions of the world that he came from went over her head, almost too fantastical to even be real.
The carriage slowed to a halt and both of them waited to see if it would pick back up again. When no motion was forthcoming Katherine sat forward, putting her hat back on and opening the door to view wherever it was that they'd ended up. They were both startled by the shock of cold air that rushed in to greet them.
"How long were we travelling?" Katherine asked the partial devil, who just gave a vague shrug, time seemed to both speed along and drip sluggishly in this world, she couldn't blame his nonanswer. She stepped from the carriage and looked up at the grand castle that rose from the frigid mountains ominously.
"Uh… Katherine?" Nero said from behind her, she turned to find him looking down at what had been their horses, the bodies now corpses, laying on the cobblestones and frozen over as though they'd been there for ages. Looking beyond the horses…
"The bridge is gone too." she said, pointing to the vast empty chasm that now greeted them.
"Great, there goes our way back." Nero grumbled, flipping up the collar of his jacket against the cold. "Have I mentioned that I don't have a good feeling about this place?"
"You may have brought it up." Katherine said with a sly grin. "However it appears our only option is forward." she said, pausing just long enough to light the lantern on their way toward the large building.
They both paused as they noticed something move, the smell of blood thick in the air. The large creature resembled a tick, if one had crossed it with a human perhaps, similar in appearance to some of the ones that she fought in the Nightmare. Katherine tensed as it lifted its head appearing to scent the air with a long lashing tongue before springing at them.
The creature was not much of a fight for the pair of them, Katherine's cleaver and Nero's blade biting into soft flesh, killing the creature quickly. And messily. The flesh split, spewing blood in all directions, covering the two of them thoroughly. The Hunter made a face, shaking some of the warm fluid from her arm.
"That was… y'know I think I'll stick to shooting them." Nero said, wiping some of the blood from his face.
"That sounds like a wonderful plan." Katherine said, pulling out her fire-arm as several more of the tick-like creatures started in their direction; likely attracted by the smell of fresh blood. They continued to fight off the creatures, primarily from a distance but by the time they'd cleared the small area before the castle there was more blood than cloth visible on both of them. Katherine was accustomed to being coated in all sorts of gods-know-what but that didn't make the process any easier each time it happened. She was nearly sure that she'd forgotten what it felt like to be clean by the time they reached the main door of the castle. One mighty heave and they slid open, dust that had sat undisturbed for a long time being swept up into their faces. Nero coughed lightly, waving a hand in front of his face in a useless attempt at trying to rid the air of it.
"I wonder what happened here?" he said as they looked around the rather empty shelves and ladders in the dim light.
"I do not know." Katherine said softly, as though this were a place that would be disturbed by her voice alone. "Though the bodies we encountered on our way in do not bode well." she said and Nero nodded, taking a couple of cautious steps into the room. He hadn't made it far before he ducked with a muttered
"Shit!" and some sort of dart flew through the space he had just occupied, Katherine didn't wonder after it, she'd already started in the direction that it had originated in, taking to a table or two before landing on the stairs the small, frail creature stood on. The Blades were already in her hands and into the creature's body before it had the time to react, giving only a soft wheeze as it died. Katherine grinned beneath her mask, the Blood was burning a bit hotter in her body right now. That was probably the only thing that saved her as her ears picked up the sound of ethereal sobbing and she was already ducking before it registered. She turned and fought off a knife stab from a rather angry ghost, as Nero was already at work with two more, fiery sword piercing through the ghosts as though they were part of the material world. Well that was one less thing to worry about, and the Hunter sunk her own blades into the ghostly body before her, severing its connection to this world in two quick swipes. It wailed as it faded away, soon leaving the room in silence.
"So we're exploring a haunted house, great." Nero sighed, eyes now flitting warily around the room as they knew more of what to expect.
"They were all women." Katherine said, the partial devil simply raised a brow at her.
"So?"
"That seems unusual for a castle of this size." she said.
"Could be exclusive." Nero shrugged, giving a snarky response was clearly a knee-jerk reaction for him as he paused, thinking the matter over further. "Their hands were bound. I don't think they were just killed, I think they were executed." Katherine nodded at him, though unpleasant, that seemed apt to be true.
"Do you recall if the bodies outside were male or female?" she asked, trying to recall herself and coming up short.
"I don't, we were a bit preoccupied, I'd be surprised we noticed them at all if you didn't have the habit of rifling through the pockets of every corpse we see." he teased as they moved forward, deeper into the castle.
"They often have useful tools." she said as though that were the most sensible explanation, and it was, why waste the blood or the bullets just because of some old taboo of disrespecting the dead? The dead didn't care and neither did their loved ones if their corpses had just been left on the street to rot.
"Yeah, a mystery bottle of liquid, very useful. Or better yet, blood that we have no idea where it comes from, blood that you keep insisting on injecting into yourself." the partial devil rolled his eyes
"I'm sure that the "mystery liquid" has a use, else none of those hunters would have been carrying it. I simply do not know what that use is yet. As for the blood, that blood saved your life." she said and Nero sighed, a shiver running down his spine and his tongue snaking over his lips as he considered it, Katherine wasn't sure if he was even aware of the motions. She often wondered if that had been the right choice, after all he may have just revived at the lantern, just as she always did. But that was not a guarantee. She wondered if Nero had gained the Insight that she had to help temper the beastly urges or if his demonic heritage interfered with that.
"Yeah, don't remind me…" he grumbled, he seemed discomforted but rounding into the next room didn't give them time to consider it as they ran into a very large grouping of ghosts.
The fight was a pleasant distraction from the ponderings that Katherine had found her mind wandering down, both about her compatriot and about the history of the castle that they were exploring. But it was over too quickly to erase them from her mind entirely and she couldn't help but mull over the creatures that they'd slain. If the hunters outside had been the men of the castle, or at least anyone trained to fight, and all of the women in here were ghosts, clearly whomever had attacked had made it through. But where were the attackers…? Had they simply slaughtered everyone and left? Or were they waiting further up ahead?
The castle appeared to have been abandoned for some time and was in a rather major state of disrepair, the two of them resorting to using Nero's ability to grapple up walls to explore more of the castle and even found themselves traversing the roof.
"Why are we out here again?" Nero asked, clearly shivering. Katherine had been doing her best to ignore the chill in her own bones but seeing her friend's lips turning blue brought it to the front of her mind. She shivered herself but dropped from one ledge to another, the partial devil following behind despite his complaints
"I'm trying to find out who invited me here." she said simply. The letter had been a mystery, why had it been addressed to her? Who had done so? There had been no signature on the letter, only that it was from "Cainhurst", which was very unhelpful. She continued forward, the roof path a bit easier to follow now.
"I don't think that you're going to find them on the roof." Nero grumbled, taking out a beast from a distance, the bat-like creature's body falling off the rooftop to the ground below.
"Yes. However vast portions of the castle are destroyed, I find traversing the roof far easier than removing rubble." she stated, continuing along the ice-slicked stones.
"Do you know anything about this place? Or the people who used to live here?" he asked, he seemed to be asking more to take his mind from the cold, or at least that was what Katherine presumed, she was all too happy to acquiesce, to take her own mind from the shivers that kept shaking her arms.
"I spoke with someone about it," she said "he seemed a bit… eccentric-"
"And everyone here isn't?" Nero snorted. Katherine sighed before continuing.
"He was very enthusiastic about someone whose teachings he followed, a man by the name of Logarius. Purportedly, Logarius is still here, as some form of gatekeeper for the ruler here."
"Your informant may have been mistaken, we haven't found anyone here who isn't dead or a beast." the partial devil said, taking a moment to look over the edge of the roof, the ground was obscured by the swirling snow, making it almost appear as though they were walking in the clouds.
"Very true. However when he mentioned the people who lived here, the Vilebloods, it was with disgust, but there was respect there too. I hope that these Vilebloods have more answers, perhaps even some power that could help us." the Hunter mused. Nero stopped, looking at her curiously.
"What the hell kinda name is 'Vilebloods?'" he asked
"I do not know, the man, Alfred I think his name was, told me that they were created from a forbidden blood, brought here from Byrgenwerth." they both stopped behind some pillars that blocked some of the bitingly cold wind, both of them rubbing their hands together, trying to keep circulation going.
"Forbidden blood? I thought that Healing Church was all about blood, why would they consider any of it-" he stopped mid sentence, a realization striking him "you think it might be the Paleblood don't you?" he said. She nodded
"It is an appropriate conclusion. Though that doesn't explain why the church doesn't have any knowledge of Paleblood, though they may not think outsiders to be worthy of the information." Katherine said, Nero huffed
"Reminds me of my hometown." he said bluntly. The confusion must've been plain on her face as he carried on "They weren't big on 'outsiders' either. Even if you were born there if you didn't fit in with the Order it was hard to get along, things are changing now but it's a long slow process to change a whole city's worth of people's habits." he shrugged, but Katherine could tell there was something behind that, it was more than he was saying. The more time she spent with him, the easier he became to read, she wasn't sure if it was familiarity or if she was having an easier time remaining in touch with her humanity but she placed a gloved hand on his shoulder, not caring that both were covered in semi-frozen blood.
"You were one of the ones who 'didn't fit in with the order' were you not?" she said gently, he glanced at her, scoffed and shook his head.
"Like I said, it's a lot better now, but yeah. I didn't exactly see eye to eye with the Order all the time, 'sides, they weren't huge fans of my demonic heritage; not that I knew I had any at the time." he stepped away from the pillar they were hovering behind, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation. Katherine let him go, unsure of what an appropriate response would have been, she wasn't a huge conversationalist, nor did she have prior experiences of comforting others to draw on, there would've been no point.
Nero had taken several steps through the archway, arm up to protect his face from some of the swirling snow and then he stopped.
"Hey, uh, your friend mention what that Logan dude looked like?" he called back over his shoulder. Katherine jogged the couple of steps to meet him.
"He did not, why do you ask?" she said. In response, the partial devil just pointed at the corpse that sat in the massive chair, crown upon its head and a large scythe-like weapon in its bony grip.
"Y'know after last time we saw a dead body in a chair, I'm not inclined to believe he's actually dead." Nero grumbled, pulling Red Queen from his back and settling into a more combat-ready pose. The Hunter took another step forward, hoping he was wrong but tensed her grip on her blades anyway.
It was a good call as there was a cracking sound and the fingers of the corpse moved, ice breaking away from the desiccated skin. A shoulder twitched, the other hand moved, and a horrible wheezing sound came from it as lungs that had sat dormant for a long time surged back to life. The figure surged upward, ice and frost breaking off of long frozen clothes and skin as it took a staggering step, leaning heavily on the staff of its weapon. Katherine waited, she wasn't going to attack until she knew whether this was an enemy or not. Another assisted, unsteady step. And then the figure straightened, all stiffness gone from its posture, and swung the scythe-like weapon in a smooth gesture as it prepared to fight.
"Hope you're ready to beat up an old man." Nero taunted, she smirked beneath her mask.
"Not the first time this Hunt."
A/N: I feel like I waffle between making Katherine sound more appropriate for the Victorian-esque era of Bloodborne, and giving Nero sass back. Anyway next time we'll be getting to Analise, woo!
Till next time,
-Winged Element