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those who slay together; chapter one (dead man’s blood) pairing: cora/allison words: 1880 summary: cora and allison are hunters taking on a nest of vampires. it gets kinda gnarly. they can take care of themselves, but is there a weak spot when it comes to each other?

It's a cold winter night; the kind that rattles your bones and shows you your breath.

Cora and Allison walk shoulder-to-shoulder, two sets of eyes scanning the surrounding treeline as they move down the long, dark driveway. The path ahead is lousy with blind spots where it curves into impossibly blacker darkness. Cora keeps a tight grip on the hilt of her sword, and beside her Allison’s bow is raised, arrow dipped in dead man’s blood poised to be fired.

They left the car on the main road, not willing to risk the engine alerting their targets to scatter. But the way the gravel crunches underfoot as they make their way up the winding drive, Cora doubts they still have the element of surprise on their side.

The house is a disgusting, dilapidated old thing; well-vandalized, with busted windows and layers of bright spray paint starkly apparent even in the dark. Their best guess when they tracked the vamps to this place was that it was only intended as a temporary hideout, and seeing it now up close, Cora feels quietly vindicated for having insisted that they move in on them immediately. Because nobody—not even vampires on a bender—would stay in this shithole for long.

Cora pauses at the door, arching a brow at Allison, who nods in return. She's ready.

She tries the handle, and wouldn't you know it? The vamps managed to find the only rundown old flophouse around that still has a functioning lock on the door.

Allison motions for her to kick it in, and Cora grins wickedly. Taking a few steps back, she lands a hard kick to the door, sword drawn by the time it crashes open.

She goes in first, barely clearing the threshold before a vamp comes at her. He's too close too fast, grappling with her for her sword, fangs bared.

Cora connects a hand with his chest and shoves him back with as much force as she can manage. He staggers backwards, giving her just enough clearance to swing. With a noise akin to a snarl, she swings her sword and cuts clean through his neck, savoring the look of shock frozen on his face and the thunk of his severed parts hitting the floor. Life’s all about the little things, really.

A cry of sheer agony sounds behind her, and she knows without looking that Allison’s hit her target. Hopefully not through the eye, like the wendigo back in Colorado. That was legitimately the grossest thing Cora has ever seen, and the list is pretty long.

Cora turns to find Allison reloading her bow; vamp slumped against the wall, arrow sticking out of his chest. His cries are pitiful, but they won't get him any sympathy. Cora and Allison had begun tracking this particular group of vamps after they started racking up kills over the span of two weeks and several towns. They’d popped up on the grid seemingly out of nowhere, and the first thing the dirty bloodsuckers did was raid a playground. So he can writhe and cry all he wants; if anything, it's music to Cora’s ears.

"That’s the dead man’s blood you’re feeling," Allison tells him, voice low and cold as she looms over him. "It hurts, doesn't it?"

And that’s why they work so well together. Because Cora's fast and rough and will throw herself into anything headfirst without looking, while Allison favors a more patient, strategic approach. But this? This drawn out, twisting the knife in the wounded bad guy? It's something they can both agree on.

"You little bitches are gonna die," the vamp splutters. "You can’t take us all."

Cora huffs a quiet laugh as she sidles up to stand beside Allison. “No?” she asks, cocking her head to the side as she takes in the vamp with derision. She jerks her head towards the decapitated vamp on the other side of the room. “Think your buddy over there might tell it different.”

The vamp snarls up at her, reaching out in an attempt to grab her and pull her down. Cora tuts as she presses her boot to his chest, deliberately nudging the arrow as she shoves him back against the wall.

"Ahh!" the vamp grits out, fangs bared and eyes wild when they lock on Cora’s. "You know why we picked kids?" He asks, mouth twisting into a sinister smirk. "It’snot just that they’re easier to grab. It's the taste. They're so much sweeter."

It's only after Cora cuts through his neck like soft butter that she realizes he was probably taunting her into killing him fast, just to spare himself torture. But she looks to Allison and finds her glaring with sheer malice at the stump where the vamp’s head used to be, so she figures she made the right call.

Cora shakes the blood from her sword. “You ready?”

Allison’s jaw is tense, fingers latched onto her bow in a white-knuckle grip. She looks more furious than she does scared. The vamp they just made too short to ride the big boy rides wasn't lying: he has enough brothers and sisters to make the place a full house, and Cora and Allison are there to gank them all.

Allison gives a tight nod, and as if on cue, two vamps materialize in the doorway, fangs out for a fight. They launch themselves at the hunters, and Allison shoots an arrow into the female vamp's throat before she even fully clears the threshold.

The second's faster, dodging out of the way of the Chinese ring dagger Allison sends careening towards his face. It lunges while she's reloading her bow, but Cora's already got her sword raised.

They come in twos and threes after that, charging in with their lips stretched angrily over their razor sharp teeth, but they had this coming for what they've done. Cora and Allison fall into a pattern of slash, shoot, reload, until a dozen more headless bodies join their comrades on the dirt-and-blood-caked floor.

Cora's looks at Allison, chest heaving as she catches her breath. "I don't know about you," she says, "but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna skip cardio tomorrow."

Allison exhales, nods her head solemnly. "Sounds like a plan."

"I doubt any of those vamps were the sire," Allison says, pulling another arrow from her quiver. "We still need to find him."

Cora opens her mouth to respond—possibly with something hopeful, like that they might have already gotten him afterall, but more likely with a sarcastic and ultimately unhelpful comment—when there's movement behind her. Arms encircle her before she can react, pulling her tight against a body that feels more like a solid brick wall.

"Perhaps I can help you find what you're looking for," the sire says.

"About time you show up," Cora taunts, even as he's digging his cold fingertips into her jaw. "We ganked all your little murderbabies and were honestly starting to get kinda bored."

"Cora," Allison hisses, and shoots her a look at that says she doesn't think Cora should be antagonizing the bloodsucking piece of shit that's got his face inches from her jugular. Which, fair point, actually.

"Sorry to have kept you," he says. "But let's see if you're still bored once I'm done tearing your throat out." He must look at Allison then, because he says, "Would you like to see that?"

Allison doesn't answer him. She's standing stock still, arrow poised to be fired. Cora waits for her to shoot, but she doesn't.

The sire lets out a low, repulsive laugh directly into Cora's ear. He forces her head to the side, exposing her neck. His breath feels wet against her skin, and she shivers.

"Allison!" Cora yells, panic starting to rise in her gut. "Shoot him!"

Allison shakes her head. "I don't have a clean shot!"

Cora thinks she can hear his fangs descending. The look on Allison's face suggests that she's right.

"Take the shot, Allison!"

Allison doesn't move. She's not gonna shoot while Cora's in the line of fire.

Cora feels fangs scrape over her skin.

"Wait!" Allison yells. She looks as panicked as Cora feels, but when the vamp lifts his head away from Cora's neck, Allison quickly schools herself. "Don't you wanna know how we found you so fast?"

"Why would I care," he asks, "when you've just wiped out all of my progeny?"

"Well, it's just, if I had sired a traitor I think I'd want to know," Allison says, tone impressively casual. "But hey, maybe that's just me."

"Who?"

Allison shrugs. "Look around," she tells him. "Which one looks like a dead rat to you?"

Cora takes the distraction as an opportunity to slip her free hand into her coat and grabs her pocketknife, which is not laced with dead man's blood but will still hurt like a bitch. She turns her hand and flashes it to Allison, who gives a curt nod.

"You're a liar!" he yells. "My children were loyal to me!"

Cora flicks open her knife.

"Maybe so," Allison says. "But look how that ended for them."

"You bitch," he growls. "When I'm done with your friend I'm gonna rip your fucking tongue out."

And that's about all Cora needs to hear. She torques just enough to jam her knife into the side of his neck. He splutters and lets go of her, and she dives out of the way.

Allison's firing her third arrow into him by the time Cora's done picking herself up off the floor.

Something's not right, though. He should've dropped by now, with the amount of dead man's blood he just got dosed with. He shouldn't still be standing, but he is. He's standing and he's snarling and he's lunging for Allison.

He slams Allison against the wall, fangs bared. It hits Cora like a punch to the gut, but she's got her sword in her hand an instant later and she's closing the distance between them and swinging.

The sire's head hits the floor with a satisfying thud. Cora steps over his body when it drops, moving in close to Allison, checking her over for injuries.

"You okay?" she asks, brushing a strand of sweat-sticky hair out of Allison's face.

Allison's eyes linger on the sire's body, but she nods. "Yeah, yeah. I'm okay."

Cora drops her hand to Allison's shoulder. "You sure?"

Allison's eyes meet hers, and she gives Cora the faintest of smiles.

"Yeah," Allison says. "I'm good. Now let's torch this place and get the hell out of here."

Cora watches her carefully. She's not good. Her hands are balled into fists and her breathing is erratic. Her eyes keep flitting back to the sire's body, like she expects him to get up, reattach his head and finish the job.

It happens like this sometimes after a hunt; they're filled with adrenaline and one or both of them has almost died and it's too much. They don't talk about it, but Cora feels it. That simultaneous anger and relief and fear; holds it like a stone in her chest, and smiles anyway.

"Sounds good," she says, kicking a vamp chunk out of her path. "I'm starving."

Allison wrinkles her nose. "You're so gross."

"You love it," Cora says. "Now buy me a burger."

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