Something burning in his chest every time he went out there. The hunt was less about protecting the town as it was about waking him up. Fires lit up beneath his skin every time he saw the beasts, every time they lashed out at him, every time he fired off a shot at them or managed to cut them open with a blade.
The others had to drag his ass away from the field half the time. Sure, he was a good fighter. He was one of the best; solely because he would not stop at anything to get the job done. As reckless as he was efficient, he’d come away from each fight all battered, bruised and broken, his team dragging his beaten-down body from the horrifically maimed body of his latest target. And yet, through all the pain and the blood dripping from his mouth, he grinned. Because despite all of it, despite the danger, despite the overwhelming threat of monsters and Hellspawn infesting the forest, despite the death wish that everyone knew he had;
When his life was on the line, he always felt so alive.
It used to be hot.
Now it was all cold.
As with all things, the hunt only fueled his fire for so long. Sure, he liked a good fight. It got the blood flowing, it still woke him up.
But now there was something else there.
There were two things that mattered in his line of work: Getting the job done, and coming back alive. He could do both of those things, no problem. He could. Others, they had more trouble. He knew that. They didn’t have the same lifeline he did. He watched enough people die to know that.
Maybe that’s why it got cold. The responsibility.
He knew two things: Those people, those hunters; they had homes to go home to, lives to live, people to love. He didn’t.
Their lives mattered, to someone, somewhere. His... didn’t.
The contracts came in, more, and more, and more. Hunters were always in high demand; there were always monsters to be killed, hordes to rout, hell to pay.
Aurelio took them all. Better him than someone else. He handled them all with horrifying efficiency. A knife to the heart here, a bullet to the brain there. Don’t stand there and take the hit, dance around it, turn around and make it regret it.
The change was drastic. Obviously, everyone took notice. He got some commendations. Compliments on his record, his skills, his courage. And he got complaints; people pissed at him for stiffing them, leaving them jobless, as if going to die in the forest was the only option they had.
He didn’t bother telling them. Half the hunters in town hated him, and he returned their feelings with a snide grin and a swift middle finger. It was easier to let them stew in it, let them believe he was a punk kid addicted to adrenaline rushes.
It didn’t matter to him. He was a hunter, through and through, and he knew the routine better than anyone. Go in. Kill shit. Patch up. Get paid.
((Had an idea, and wrote a follow-up to this thing. Time for plot))
People were... much harder to deal with than demons. Some unidentified monster in the middle of the woods? Riddle it with bullets, cut it limb-from-limb. Nobody knows it lived, nobody knows it dies. People though?
“How much time do we have?” Aurelio questions the recon specialist.
“I’d give you about.. Thirty minutes. Any more, and...”
“Yeah, I know. Suspicious people and shit. Go keep an eye out.”
People problems came with all kinds of complications.
Say, if a renowned-but-not-respected private investigator went missing without a trace after losing his family, reputation and general happiness to misfortune. How long would it take for someone to look into it? How long would it take for a missing persons report to get to the police? How long would it take for the police to stumble onto his last case and start looking out for a band of suspiciously nocturnal criminals?
The Hunters couldn’t let that happen. But they had to work differently. Separately. Secretly. There was only so much they could accomplish without raising suspicion, without attracting the attention of the proper authorities. They would most certainly taken note of a long string of tampered-with crime scenes in Fairbairn.
They had to stay discrete. Unseen. Which is why Aurelio found himself in a missing person’s home, in the dead of night, under orders and obligation to flit in and out of the scene like a fucking ghost.
Easy, right?
“Azzy,” he mutters under his breath. “Look around.” Aurelio feels the demon leave his side, quietly moving to search somewhere else, with all his intangiblity to keep him undetected. Aurelio himself, thick cleaning gloves on his hands and plastic bags strapped over his boots, went off to conduct his own search.
He’d concluded that Reginald Harper Dickman, despite having a name as fucking awesome-sounding as “Reginald Harper Dickman,” was either one of the plainest old men he’d heard of, or that whatever happened to him was covered up well. Ideally, Aurelio would find evidence pointing to the latter.
Aurelio did not live in an ideal world.
There’s death in the air, Azazel’s cryptic conclusion reaches Aurelio. Recent. Stay alert.
“It’s never fuckin’ simple, is it?” Aurelio sighs. “Tell me you’ve got something?” From the window, the reconnaissance guy (Lio really should’ve paid attention to his name) gives Aurelio a wary look. He knew about Azazel, then. “Eyes on the street, security,” Aurelio says dismissively, and the agent begrudgingly focused his attention toward keeping watch.
Traces of blood on the ceiling. High up on the wall by the door, too. Someone tried to clean it off, but they were too short to do it effectively.
“Seriously?” Aurelio half-snickered, looking up at the spot Azazel indicated. There might’ve been blood up there, invisible to the naked eye.
You have a blacklight? Luminol?
“No. And what the fuck is ‘luminol?’“
Don’t worry about it. The blood is there. Spatter looks like impact stains. Low velocity.
“From... What, blades? Bludgeons?”
Can’t tell. Not without a body.
“So, there is a body.”
Probably.
Aurelio turned to the rest of the room. “Need more information.”
As he returned to his own search with renewed (and irritated) determination, he noticed more and more things in Dickman’s living room that pointed toward foul play. Furniture that hand long sat undisturbed wasn’t re-placed perfectly, leaving relatively cleaner shapes in the dust and dirt on the floor. Innocuous-looking spots in the house were wiped clean: no prints, no dirt, no nothing. Azazel was picking up traces of blood from all over the floor, concentrated in one specific spot.
Something that drew a lot of blood. More than a mortal could afford to lose.
“Someone moved all the furniture from the center of the room, then back.”
They needed room to do it-
“But what did they do?”
“What the fuck are you trying to get at?” the other hunter in the room left his post, signalling to Aurelio that they needed to leave, immediately. He had a rather impatient look on his face. Aurelio didn’t ask whether it was from the question or the need to exfiltrate the area.
Aurelio took one last look around the room and moved to follow him. “Our guy definitely died here.”
The recon guy gives him a look. “Definitely?”
“Most fuckin’ likely,” Aurelio gives. “Whatever the case, we’ll need to conduct a fuller investigation.”
They push open the door to the backyard, pausing to pull the gloves and bags off their hands and feet before they move to a more visible area. “I need to make a call,” Aurelio states.
“To who?”
“Not important.”
The recon guy frowns, but doesn’t press the issue. They split up, Aurelio making his way toward his truck a couple blocks away, recon guy going wherever he holed up.
In the relative privacy of his truck, Aurelio clicked Marcus on his phone, pulling into the street as it rang, once, twice. Then his contact picked up. Aurelio skips the pleasantries, “Marcus, I looked into your thing.”
“What’ve you got?” Marcus’ cool baritone voice responded.
“You definitely need to have someone look into this more. Seems important,” Aurelio shifted into vague-talk-but-with-just-enough-context-for-the-one-guy-to-understand speak.
“How ‘important?’“
“Like, ‘missing teenage daughter report’ important. Except, y’know, with an old white guy.”
“Aurelio?”
Aurelio stops at a red light. “Yeah?”
“Speak fucking clearly,” Marcus deadpanned.
“Well excuse me for trying to be discrete, ass-hat!” Aurelio retorts, only slightly miffed. The light goes green, and Aurelio keeps driving.
“You’re not being ‘discrete,’ you’re being a suspiciously-vague piece of shit. The call’s secure. Do I have to go on?”
“Yeah, I thought it was funny too,” Aurelio huffs amusedly, turning onto another street, “But no, that’s his actual name.”
Marcus paused to think about it. “What makes you say he’s dead?”
“Found a shit-ton of blood all over the place. Haven’t found a body yet, but there was definitely too much blood there for any human to survive losing.”
“...The place was cleaned out, wasn’t it? Nobody saw any blood, anywhere in there.”
“Yeah, I used, uh... ‘Specialized investigation tools.’ Hey, do you know if we have any ‘luminol’ in our supplies?”
“Luminol?” Marcus pauses, and Aurelio hears typing in the background. “That’s specialized forensic investigation shit. Did you get your hands on some?” he asks.
“Uh, no. Just curious.”
“Sure,” Marcus concedes, suspiciously-but-mostly-ambivalently. “You figure out anything else?”
“Nothing. Whoever killed him must be good.”
“If someone killed him,” Marcus corrects him. “No concrete evidence yet. But alright, I’ll have someone else look into this,” he continues, the admin in him resurfacing. “Also, I’ll need you to come back in. Got another tip that I need you to look into.”
Aurelio’s interest is piqued. “Another investigation?”
“Yeah.”
“Two in one night, huh Marcus? You do know I’m more of a fighter than a detective, right?”
Marcus makes an annoyed noise and a face that Lio can’t see through the call, but definitely can envision in his mind’s eye. “Yeah, I fuckin’ know. But they asked for you. Specifically you.”
What? Aurelio purses his lips. “You sure?” he asks, doubtfully. If people ask for him by name, they look for his prowess in a fight, and most likely not for his (admittedly lacking) deductive ability. “What, like, ‘the hunter kid with the red hair?’”
“No, literally. Some guys came into the bar, asked to relay a message to you. Think his exact words were ‘the Morgenstern boy with the demon pet.’“
Aurelio almost runs a red light. “What the fuck?” That more or less confirmed it. Somebody had eyes on him. And Azzy. For better or worse.
“Says they have information, on this missing persons case. Wanted to give it to you. Personally.”
“Personally,” Aurelio repeats. grip tightening on the wheel. Somebody’s aware of his existence. And, more importantly, his demon. Somebody other than the three, possibly four people who should know.
“They’ve set up a meeting. Tomorrow night.”
“Understood,” Aurelio tensely replies. He definitely had to meet this person. Friend or foe, anyone who could find out about Azzy was dangerous. And needed to be looked into.
Tomorrow night? Aurelio could do that. Get the time. The place. Case it, secure it. Get ready. Aurelio changed his route, there were places he had to drop by now. “These people who contacted you... They happen to mention who they are?” Aurelio asks, warily.
There was an unsettling pause. “Yeah... Uh, yeah. The Wilk Clan.”
Pulled the trigger. Bang, his rifle sounded, and the demon dropped dead.
He breathed. Inhale. Three little demon heads turned to look at him The ugly little fucker had friends.
Exhale. He pulled back the bolt and loaded in a fresh round. Fluidly, unconsciously. It was muscle memory by now; he’d been doing this for years. Several years.
Don’t need to be a demon killer to handle a gun.
His dad taught him how to use them--back when he was the man’s only daughter and his dad liked her a little better because she still could’ve become something respectable when she grew up.
Aurelio learned how to shoot hunting rabbits. Tiny little shits, harmless, but hard enough to hit that it was so satisfying whenever he managed to pop one. Dad taught him how to skin and cook them, too--because what’s more badass than hunting and eating your own dinner? Hell yeah.
Hunting was in his blood. Shooting was in his blood. He didn’t even need Azzy’s help with it.
“Why don’t you put the gun down?” he took a step closer. “Let’s be civilized.”
“I think I like my gun where it is,” Aurelio said, pointing his gun at the stranger. “Yours, on the other hand...”
The stranger took a glance at his sidearm. “Ah, to hell with it,” and he uncocked it, and tossed it to the side.
Aurelio watched it fall. “You’re working some angle here, aren’t you?”
He held up his hands. “Guess you’ll see.”
A tense laugh. “Right,” he flicked his gun down, “Where’d you get that necklace?”
The stranger raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“The necklace,” Aurelio demanded. “Where?”
A little too hasty. The stranger smiled. He stepped closer. “A friend gave it to me. Why?” Closer. “You want one for yourself?”
Aurelio stepped back. “Hey, back off-”
“Oh, come on,” the stranger said, coolly. “You’ve got me curious now, what’s so interesting about this little thing,” he held his necklace up by the string. He stepped closer.
“Back up!” Aurelio shouted, “What’s your ‘friend’s’ name?”
“You didn’t answer me. I think you should answer my question before you ask another one.”
“I’m armed!”
“Oh, I can see that. But what good does it do you?” He put his hands in his pockets.
“Answer the fucking question-”
“Look, you know what I’m gonna say. Now you can either answer me,” with a few graceful flicks of his wrist, the stranger was brandishing a bright silver butterfly knife. “Or I can make you.”
Aurelio still had a gun trained on him. The stranger stepped closer.
“Listen man-”
“Answer me-”
“I’m warning you-”
Closer. Closer. Closer.
He raised his gun. A finger twitch. A loud bang.
The knife fell to the floor. The gun too. And also a body.
Oh god.
Oh fuck.
Aurelio’s hands were shaking. His breath too. Everything about him was rattled. His hands, his thoughts, his guts. There was a big hole in the guy’s forehead. Probably a bigger one on the other side.
Aurelio puked off to the side.
He wiped himself off--no time to shit around, he had to go.
There were people in the doorway.
He fell backwards. When did they get there? When did they get there?
More strangers came out of the woodwork. Maybe literally, maybe not. He was surrounded. They stood there. Staring. Blankly.
Aurelio cursed. He reached for his gun, and the gun reached back.
Wait, no. That was a hand.
He screamed.
“Didn’t think you’d have the balls to do it,” the stranger with a bullet hole in his head chuckled. “Not bad.”
Aurelio pulled, and pulled. He couldn’t shake himself free.
“Walk with me.” He didn’t give Aurelio much choice, by way of wrapping his fingers around his throat, and dragging him.
“I know you work for someone,” the stranger monologued. “I don’t care who they are. What they do.” He pulled Aurelio around to the front of him, and forced him to look into his cold, blue eyes. “I want you to tell them somethin’ for me.”
Aurelio felt glass on his back. The stranger said, “You tell them to stay the fuck out of our way, and we’ll let them live.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Aurelio rasped.
The others in the room gathered around him. Glossy-eyed, blank-faced, they all leaned in. They opened their mouths to speak as one, and they said, monotonously:
“I. Am. Legion.”
They reeled back, and threw. The glass shattered. There was a moment of weightlessness, as Aurelio found himself staring through the broken window.
He was packing a demon-killing knife and a Kimber Warrior. Steel for monsters, lead for humans. Enough to improvise his way out of here if shit went south.
It was an old office building. Three floors tall, plus a basement. Abandoned when the company went to shit and couldn’t pay their bills anymore.
Someone had bought it out recently. Slowly established it as a church--or temple, or forward-operations base. Whatever the case, it was home to a new player in Fairbairn.
One that Aurelio Morgenstern was meeting face-to-face.
“You took your time,” he had a clear voice. A practiced, public-speaking voice. He was in his twenties, dressed in unassuming business casual. He was also carrying a huge revolver in his right hand.
Dangling from his neck was a black stone, cut into a cube, hanging from a simple leather cord.
Aurelio was intensely aware of the identical necklace tucked under his shirt.
Unexpected affection, embarrassing situations, being caught off-guard in a non-lethal manner, and sexual propositions toward him.
15. What it takes to make them cry
Not much tbh, he’s kind of a baby
19. People they’ve hurt or indirectly killed, and how it affected them
Lio was too slow once during a hunt and it lead to his teammate’s suffering a horrific injury to his leg--and forcing Lio to amputate it to save his life. He remembers it to this day and prefers not to talk about it--unless he’s drunk, where he refers to it as his first surgery (and a glaring success)
Lio actually doesn’t scar often, thanks to his demon-induced healing factor. He’s generally a normal, fleshy human even with it, so pretty much everything on him is a painful spot.
4. Best places to kiss on their body
His lips, obviously, and also his forehead and cheeks. He loves little affectionate pecks like that ^_^ Also his neck and, uhhh, other places.
