— Jacke Jaywood, “Beasts, Men, and The Hunter’s Dilemma,” page 194
On the riverfront of Outer Peccatum stood Saint Black Hospital and Asylum. To many, it looked no different than the surrounding factories, warehouses, or dockside tenements. With how large the industrial city was, people shuffled through the doors in droves. Some came with cholera and typhoid, while others came with broken bones from factory accidents, deep gashes from barroom brawls, and the frequent knife or bullet wound. For some, it was the most convenient place to go. For others, it was their only option. But one thing shared amongst them all was the consciousness that the hospital seemed… odd.
He was marching through the dimly lit corridors with a jar of medical herbs; Thornmire Leaves. The very prospect of providing medicinal herbs to such a foul monster sickened him. But he needed to serve for the sake of the plan, for the sake of Emily. They had done as Mina said, taken the voyage to Alwnick and back again under the orders of Baroness Verena Holt to act as Draven’s personal servants. It was hard to convince her, but they managed. Now came the hard part: maintaining their cover.
It was quiet in Saint Black Hospital and Asylum tonight, except for the occasional groan or wheezing cough. He came into a wide chamber lined with beds, each separated by thin yellowing curtains that swayed faintly in the draft from the open windows. They ran the length of the far wall, their glass smeared with grime but still offering a glimpse of the Peccatum riverfront. The spiral stairway at the end of the wing led to a sturdy steel door, from which no sound could penetrate. It was thick and heavy, and only a man with the strength of a vampire could open it. What lay beyond, though, was nothing like the hospital above.
When Arthur had first arrived, the asylum was a warren of cold tunnels and cells, barely lit by more than a few gaslamps. The air was filled with sounds that barely sounded human: dry-throated sobs, wet coughs, muttered strings of nonsense incoherently stitched together. It was a disgustingly sickening cacophony of noise that left Arthur sick to his stomach. Arguably, the worst part of becoming a vampire was the enhanced senses. He could smell every bodily fluid, hear every dry cough. It was nauseating. He didn’t know how the other half-bloods employed here managed to tolerate it. But, in the months since his arrival, he and Clara had managed to help turn the place around, just enough to make it bearable.
“Eldric, there you are,” a voice purred.
Arthur paused. He was still getting used to that alias.
From the end of the corridor, a nurse sauntered forward. She was dressed no differently than any of the others patrolling down here, a uniform that could be easily and quickly changed out of. Her platinum-blond hair had been shortened since the last time Arthur saw her, but then again, it changed by the day. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said sweetly.
“Not now, Lyssara,” Arthur said as he sidestepped her. “I’m busy.”
Her smile widened. “That’s the problem, darling. You’re always too busy.”
“Whatever it is, it can wait,” Arthur said as he marched on, only to freeze as something long and sinuous slithered around his waist. It was smooth, warm, almost inviting. The forked tip of a pale-skinned tail curled up his torso, constricting him like a boa before brushing against his cheek with a featherlight caress. He turned, slowly, to see the tail stretching impossibly long from the base of Lyssara’s hip. It tugged him backward, pulling him flush against her body. Her breasts pressed against his chest through the thin fabric of her uniform, and an unnatural yet soothing heat seeped through his clothes like liquid fire. Her scent of jasmine and charred sugar flooded his senses.
“Lyssara,” he said firmly.
She tilted her head as she gazed up at him through her long lashes. “You’ve been doing such a good job lately, Eldric. Not even Xeliara has been able to control the sisters as well as you have. They’ve already finished cleaning for the day, and it’s all thanks to you.”
Arthur swallowed, his enhanced senses betraying him as he caught every nuance of her presence, from the faint pulse of her heartbeat to the warmth of her breath and the subtle shift of her body against his. He had been around these creatures long enough to know their tricks. “I appreciate the gratitude,” he said, forcing his voice to stay steady. “I only wanted to make this place more livable. But I need to go, Lyssara. Really. Lord Draven is in need of these herbs.”
“Let me at least thank you for all your hard work.”
“You can thank me by letting me go.”
She laughed. “Leaving my side isn’t a reward.”
“I won’t be able to accept a reward if I don’t deliver these to Lord Draven.” He exerted just enough effort to break the contact. Her tail unraveled, slipping away from his waist with a reluctant slowness, the forked tip brushing his arm one last time as it retreated. “Thank you, Lyssara,” he said firmly. “Now go enjoy your evening. The baths are working again.” He turned and hastily continued his march down the corridor.
Arthur didn’t look back, but he knew she would follow him up until the turn leading to Draven’s chambers. The other succubi patrolling the halls and wheeling jars of blood gave him small winks and waves as he passed. They were dressed in tight uniforms that framed their plunging cleavages, and walked with the calm and grace of a proper lady who had been well trained for years in the art of elegance. It was almost too perfect in how they moved, with such fluidity and grace, one might think they weren’t human at all. Hair like silk, skin as soft as a baby’s. They were conventionally attractive, what many men considered ‘perfect,’ from the shapes of their bodies to the tones of their voices. Every word they spoke was like a note from a siren's song, easing their patients' tension and helping them relax as they were cared for. Arthur had even heard of a few men purposefully hurting themselves just to come see them, and if Arthur didn’t know what they truly were, he might have fallen for them like every other poor bastard down here, but each time he looked at one, it left him feeling hollow inside.
Despite the blood having been scrubbed from the floor and the cells he passed cleaned of feces and grime, it didn’t change what this place was. In one cell, a man was crouching in the corner with his knees drawn tight to his chest. His hair hung over him like oily ropes, obscuring most of his face, but his eyes were just visible; wide, red-rimmed, and darting constantly. Further along, a woman lay crying on a rusted cot. Her pale, naked body was stitched to hell, and painted with dry blood. Arthur had forgotten her name, but he recognized her as the woman the nurses used to practice stitching. Her screams and cries echoed through the halls frequently, and many times Arthur had contemplated helping her escape, but that was too risky. He had to stay in line, act in character as best he could. One slip up, and they’d send him to ‘The Nest.’ There was nothing he could do to help these people. They were all being condemned to the same fate.
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Draven’s chamber was deep enough into the asylum that Arthur was not spared a single atrocity. He witnessed them all, and the worst came from the observation rooms. He forced a stern face, holding back disgust from forming each time he walked past them. In one of them, a wasted, trembling man was struggling for his life against the leather straps around his wrists and ankles. His screams were smothered by a thick, grey gag wedged deep between his teeth. A nurse tightened a belt over his mouth to keep it in, while another, humming a light, airy tune beside him, got to work. Her nails grew long and sharp like daggers. Arthur’s grip on the jar tightened as the nurse ran one of her nails down the man’s forearm, slicing through his flesh with the ease of a hot knife through butter. Blood flowed freely from the wound, dripping into a large glass jar below with a rhythmic plink, plink, plink. Then, the skin on the nurse’s palm began to peel away like a flower blooming in the early morning. Rows of serrated teeth unfolded from the raw, red meat beneath. A sinuous, black tongue slithered out, curling around the edges of her palm before dipping into the dripping blood. The tongue flicked eagerly, catching each droplet, and the nurse’s smile widened.
Arthur turned away and continued his hurried walk through the corridors, dodging past nurses wheeling beds and carrying jars of blood. He tried to ignore the horrors around him. It was all he could do. The sights, the sounds, it made him sick, but he needed to persist. There were some things too great to ignore, though.
Ahead, one of the patient’s doors had been left open, and the man inside had been secured to the bedframe, his wrists and ankles bound. A fair-skinned maiden with fiery red hair had discarded her skirt on the ground and was bucking her hips wildly against the man’s face. Her soft moans grew more and more ferocious. Arthur came to a dead stop and wrinkled his brows at the sight. The wooden bed started creaking as the woman grew more violent with her movements. The man was screaming, but the sound was muffled between the nurse’s thighs. His body convulsed, bucked, and writhed violently beneath the maiden. Her lustful cries reached their peak as she threw her head back. The nurse’s spine flexed as if the bones were slithering under her skin. Arthur cringed as several wet crunches came from between her legs. Blood pooled out and splashed onto the woman’s uniform. The man’s agonizing screams faded to wet gurgling, and soon, he went limp. The nurse opened her eyes, breathing hard. Slowly, she climbed off the mutilated mess of the man’s face, if it could even be called that anymore. Bits of bone and brain matter floated in the red soup dripping from the cavity in his head.
Arthur struggled to hold back his disgust.
The nurse glared back at him with a sultry smile. A sinuous tongue slid out briefly past the hem of her shirt, lapping at her bloodied thighs. “Eldric, dear. Did you enjoy the show?”
He swallowed the bile in his throat. “You're sick.”
“We’re succubi,” she replied casually, “What are you expecting?”
“T-To take the patients to the nest before you do such things to them,” he said, turning away from the sight, and walking on.
The succubus walked out after him. “And where do you think you’re going? You’re to clean up this mess.”
“I’m not a housekeeper, Xeliara.” Arthur kept walking, but before he could reach the next turn, Lyssara’s voice rang out.
“Xeliara!”
Arthur sighed and glanced back. The succubus had managed to catch up and was peering into the now blood-splattered.
“We could’ve kept using him for his blood. Days, maybe weeks, if you’d shown a little restraint!”
Xeliara leaned against the doorframe. “Darling,” she purred, her voice low and sultry, each word a caress. “He was as good as dead anyway. Weak pulse, brittle bones. I just… hastened the inevitable. Besides, he tasted divine.”
Lyssara’s tail flicked in agitation, the forked tip brushing against the wall with a soft scrape. “That’s not the point,” she hissed. “Long-term patients mean we don’t need to look for new people, and the families will continue to charge for the care. And you could at least try to keep things tidy for the sake of this place.”
Xeliara laughed. “Tidy? Lyssara, we’re not here for money—”
“If we want to keep our nest from being found by hunters, we need to keep this facade up. The vampires have their part, and we have ours.”
“You forget our true nature. Ravenous. Insatiable. Why suppress it for the vampires’ sake? Draven doesn’t care about a little mess. He likes us wild.” Her tongue flicked out, grazing her lips as she smirked.
“Enough!” Arthur cut in, walking back toward them. “Xeliara, this stops now. You don’t get to slaughter patients just because you’re hungry. This isn’t a butcher’s shop, it’s a hospital, or at least it’s supposed to be.”
Xeliara glared back at him. She sauntered closer. Her eyes gleamed as her pupils split vertically like a cat’s in the dim gaslight of the corridor. “You think you can lecture me?” she whispered. “I can’t help my true nature, darling. It’s what I am.” The succubus undid the buttons of her bloodied uniform, then tossed it aside. Without so much as a stitch of clothing on, she stood in the corridor with the confidence of a queen, utterly unashamed of her nudity or the gore streaking her skin. “Have you forgotten who’s in charge down here? This is my domain.”
Arthur stood his ground, his jaw clenched as he met her gaze. “You might run these tunnels, Xeliara, but I carry more favor with Lord Draven. He likes what Selene and I have done with this place. The asylum doesn’t smell like rotting meat anymore, and the patients aren’t screaming themselves to death every night. That’s because of us.”
Xeliara stepped even closer, her body nearly brushing his. “You think you’re the only one with Draven’s ear?” she purred, glaring deep into his eyes. “I have his favor, too, Eldric. More than you might think.” She tilted her chin, her lips parting slightly as she fixed him with a challenging stare. “If you’re on your way to see him, why don’t I join you? We can all have a little… conversation about this.” Her tail slithered down from her waist as she brushed past him, marching toward Draven’s chambers.
Lyssara, standing just behind, let out a soft, exasperated sigh, her own tail flicking with irritation. She turned and marched her own way.
Arthur begrudgingly followed Xeliara. It was sickening, the way the succubi carried themselves, like refined ladies, but they were nothing more than parasites. They were a festering disease that he could do nothing about. At first, he hadn’t understood why monsters like Xeliara nested in the basement of a hospital, especially in a forsaken place like Outer Peccatum. He’d imagined succubi in brothels or seedy lounges, preying in the open, but after some time here, it all made sense. Those places drew eyes when bodies piled up. No one questioned a death in an asylum. It was perfect, a feeding ground where vampires and succubi could siphon blood, drop by drop, unnoticed.
Xeliara stopped abruptly. “You there! Half-blood!” She blocked the path of a silver-eyed young woman in a servant’s uniform. She was clutching a tray of surgical tools, her dark hair pinned tightly under a cap.
“Give me that uniform,” Xeliara demanded casually, one hand resting on her bare hip.
The half-blood blinked, her grip tightening on the tray. “W-Why?” she stammered. Her eyes darted to the passing nurses, who didn’t so much as glance their way.
Xeliara’s smile widened. “Because I need something clean,” she purred, stepping closer. “I have to look presentable when addressing our master.”
The half-blood’s eyes widened, her tray rattling as her hands shook. “P-Please, I can’t—I need this for my rounds—”
Xeliara’s hand shot out, nails elongating in an instant, stretching into wicked, knife-like claws. The half-blood was slammed against the wall, her neck bleeding from the sides. The tray crashed to the floor, and an array of tools scattered. Slowly, Xeliara leaned in. “Refuse me, and it’s to the nest for you.”
The half-blood’s face crumpled, a sob catching in her throat. “No, please, don’t—” she begged, her voice breaking as she glanced around at the nurses and orderlies passing by, none of whom paused to intervene. Xeliara stepped back and watched as the vampire unbuttoned her uniform with trembling hands. She handed the uniform over, then crossed her arms over her body, her thighs quaking. Her cheeks burned red, tears welling as she stood exposed and vulnerable in the cold corridor.
Xeliara slipped the uniform on. It was a size too big, but within seconds, the proportions of her figure molded to match. “There, wasn’t that easy?” she cooed, then turned to glare at Arthur. Her tail slithered to the base of her hip before melding into her skin, vanishing entirely. “Come along, Eldric. Let’s see how our master’s fairing.”
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