London, England. April 17th, 1866.
The thunder of a shotgun cut the silence of the night, a chunk of the wall disintegrating under the force of the shot. Connor bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain as stone shrapnel from the wall dug through his shirt and bit into his shoulder, the white cloth soon staining red. He took a heartbeat to examine the wound - painful, bloody, but not critical. It could wait. He could still use the arm.
He twisted around the corner and brought up his revolver, answering the roar of the shotgun with the bark of his Colt, the bullet ripping through the man's belly. He folded over and fell to the ground, holding the bloody wound. Connor stepped out from the cover and kicked his shotgun away, then knelt at his side, drawing his dagger.
"Your torment is over. Be at peace." He slid the blade into the man's neck, severing his carotid artery and jugular with a quick cut. The man gurgled for a moment before the light left his eyes and he went still, his soul slipping the shackles the Vampire had placed upon his body and going to his judgment, whatever that may be.
Connor wiped the blade off on the dead man's clothes, then slid it back into its sheath before proceeding towards the door, out of this dark and dingy tunnel. He grabbed the condensation-dampened handles of the door and pushed, the doors swinging open with a hideously loud and tortured wail like a soul trapped in purgatory, admitting Connor into what would look like it was cut out of a Duke's estate if he didn't know better.
The entry hall to the lair proper wasn't so much opulent as it was elegant, brightly polished mahogany floor leading to a pair of stairways that gently curved to a landing on the second floor. A door lie between the two stairwells, and a pair on either side, all made of rosewood with what looked like ebony doorknobs. On small tables here and there were works of fine art - Connor recognized a few, but most were far too obscure for him. Jade, fine carvings, sculpture.
A surprising lack of precious metals. Minor use of copper and aluminum, but little else. Peculiar.
He shook his head - he wasn't here on visit, he was here to fight, and Morgana certainly knew he was here, between the commotion and the ripe scent of blood now wafting through the lair - between his own and the considerable amounts of other people's blood on his sleeves, pant legs, and boots. No matter, he had business to attend to. He readied his revolver in one hand, a tomahawk in the other, and headed for the first door, the one directly in front of him, planting his boot into it with all his strength. The door resisted the first kick, but the second broke it open, admitting him into the next chamber, a richly appointed study that stank of old books and lamp oil.
Another curious thing to note - despite that the scent suggested the lamps had been burning for hours, they all were completely filled. So then the rumors were most likely true - Morgana was not just a Vampire, she was also a Witch. That would make this more complicated. And yet she had not come forth to wield her powers against him. Was she afraid? Biding her time? Curious?
Maybe she wasn't even here right now?
Vampires were difficult to predict. They were not truly Human anymore, and as such their minds did not operate in the same way that Humans did, trying to predict their movements while in the mindset of a Human was like trying to guess the movements of a madman without accounting for his madness.
Connor grasped the rosary, rubbing his thumb on the cross. "Elizabeth, pray for me now."
"I hope you don't think your prayers will save you from me." The shadows spoke back to him. "So you are the Hunter who has given so much trouble to my colleagues. I must say, I'm impressed. You're quite resilient for a Human being."
Connor didn't grace her with a response. She was trying to distract him, and he had no patience for playing banter with thousand year old monsters. This Vampire had a reputation as a scholar, though, so to draw her out...
He began knocking books off the shelves, shoving them into a pile, then withdrew a book of matches from his pocket, striking one and throwing it onto the pile, the flames quickly snatching up and beginning to lick across a centuries-old manuscript. The response was almost immediate.
"Ignorant fool, do you have any idea what you've done!?"
Connor didn't respond, he just pulled back the hammer and began to turn, his instincts, honed by six years of hunting and studying these monsters giving him the edge he needed as a pale shape scurried along the wall before leaping at him, fangs bared, only for her momentum to be halted as his revolver cracked, launching a bolt of silver that pierced the Vampire's throat, the attack aborting as the creature scrabbled, tearing at its neck and letting out feeble squeaks that would have been screams of agony if the monster's throat wasn't a ruin. A swift hack of his tomahawk finished the work the bullet had started, severing the monster's head and causing the rest of the creature to collapse into a puddle of dust.
That was easy.
Far too easy. That wasn't Morgana. A lesser Vampire, perhaps one of her spawn or apprentices.
"Very well done indeed." Morgana's quiet and contemplative tones were now tinged with anger - Connor wondered if it was because of him killing her servant or torching her books. Either or, really, he didn't care. This place was of some delightfully flammable material and he knew from experience that Vampires didn't do well with flames. A quick snatch of a burning scroll and a throw set another section of the library on fire, and it wouldn't be long before it built to an inferno
Looking back on this Connor would think that setting an underground fortress on fire might not be the best idea he ever had.
"You can't afford to play this game forever, Morgana."
"No, you're right. I suppose I should take the back exit." A moment of skittering along the walls and a door on the other side of the library sliding open as if on its own, and then the voice was gone. The dim, flickering light of the fire wasn't best for spotting much of anything.
In a heartbeat, Connor weighed his options. She could be bluffing to draw him into a trap. Or she could be telling the truth to draw him into a trap - it was obviously a trap either way. He knew it, she knew it. A back exit made sense, a witch like Morgana could conceal it or protect it any number of ways - that made a certain degree of sense, a sorceress using her magic to guard her back and minions to guard her front. There were any number of other means she might use to survive this as well, between her vampiric powers and her sorcerous might. He could turn and walk away, exit the way he had come in, secure in the knowledge that he might not have killed her, but he did destroy her library, ruined her haven, slew her servants. There would be other opportunities.
No.
No compromises. No retreats.
He shoulder-charged through the rapidly spreading fire, feeling it scorch at him but ignoring the pain. The door - what had once been a rather elegantly carved piece of cedar - came down at his impact. He continued through, hitting a curving stone wall in the dark as the floor came away under him. His hands flailed, his revolver and tomahawk sliding out of his hands to fall to the ground, the tomahawk clattering down the stairs.
His hands found purchase before he began his undoubtably fatal tumble, grabbing the railing and steadying himself.
"Not...going to do that again." The flickering light of the fire had revealed a pathway into darkness, a tightly curving staircase of gray stone, unlit by lamps or torches. He collected his gun, then considered before grabbing a piece of the shattered door and plunging it into the blaze, creating a makeshift, crude torch before he began his descent, leading with the gun with the torch held at his side, high enough up that the light did not blind him.
This alone would have protected her from the fires, there was no place for the flames to find purchase here. Even if there was not a back exit he should also be able to survive down here assuming there was ventilation of some kind - the air was a bit stale and musty, though - although hopefully he wouldn't need to survive more than an hour or so before the flames finally finished their work.
After a long descent he came to a stone door, and his tomahawk lying before it - a bit worse for wear, the grip scratched and the blade chipped, but still serviceable. He returned the weapon to his belt and dropped the torch to the ground before opening the door.
Beyond was a dimly lit chamber, lamps casting pale yellow light across what Connor guessed was a ritual chamber, a strange design on the ground, like several geometric shapes overlaying one another. The air stank of blood and incense, and in the center of the circle stood Morgana. For the first time that night he got a look at her, and she was not what he had expected. He'd dealt with female Vampires before, and more often than not they were sensual predators, succubi cloaked in undead flesh, wielding their feminine wiles as much as tooth and claw. But Morgana was almost demure, plain-featured and clad in a simple, unflattering shirt and trousers.
That wasn't important, though. Her hands were dripping blood and she was chanting, although as he entered a smile crossed her face and she pushed out the last words, some strange dialect - Aramaic, perhaps? - before smiling at him as a faint whistling sound filled the room, light itself shifting and twisting around them, causing colors to shift and change.
"Too late, Hunter."
He thought fast, raised his gun and fired - not at her, at the circle ringing her, the bullet striking the stone and chipping it, disrupting the delicate lines of the circle. She looked at in horror. "Oh, shit."
Then a blinding flash of light.
When it cleared, both were gone, and the haven was collapsing.
Harsh wind beat across Connor's face as he came do, and jagged stone pressed into his back. He opened his eyes, staring up at a clear blue sky. He licked his cracked, dry lips and slowly sat up, staring out across the crashing waves of the sea.
Wait, the sea?
"Oh, shit."
