The Hunter

Chapter Four - The Judas

Theo could not help but clench his fists, his arms hanging down by his side, yet the anger roared within, a brutal reminder of just how much he hated him. Before he was named traitor, Theo could have just about tolerated him, but the revealing traitorous behaviour created a whole new level of hatred for Theo. He glared at the forsaken one, the traitor as he approached the blood-father, yet something did not feel right. He did not realise just how wrong it felt, until he saw the glinting of a knife, silver, threatening. He put two and two together and realised he had to stop it, stop Lewis.

There were gasps of horror, the colour drained from the blood-father's face, but Theo was no traitor. The traitor drew a blade, aiming it at the blood-father himself. Theo jumped without hesitation, stabbed through the air, shivering in pain as the silver made it around his blood stream.

More gasped followed, he could barely see Lewis being restrained by other vampires, furiously trying to claw at them, edging towards their blood-father. Pulled back and led down into the dungeons to be restrained, shackled on the cross to make undeath unbearable.

"I should never have doubted you, my blood-son."

Theo smiled a little, expecting himself to turn to ashes. It was a good death in his view, an honourable one, to die for his leader, his father. He hissed, his teeth clenching, clamping down on his tongue violently as a couple of vampires attempted to tease it out. Athena just rolled her eyes and grabbed the handle, hissing as her gloveless skin sizzled. She wrapped her hand in her coat before curling her fingers around it, clenching them. She ripped it out without a warning, the sound dulled by Theo's painful shout, his mouth covered in blood as he lay on the steps.

"Take him downstairs, give him blood and let him rest. If he dies, you will burn, is that clear?"

"Yes, My Lord."

They carried him to his coffin, feeding him blood until he was strong enough to completely heal the wounds. He had lost a lot of blood, some from the infection of silver, the rest from his tongue, from the pain. It was enough to make him sleep, to make himself heal that way while he slept.

He lay there, trying to fully sleep, healing his wound in his half-sleeping state but never fully being able to fully sleep, to allow his wound to heal faster. He imagined that in case of another attack, after all, his own life did not matter, that was pointless but the life of his creator, the blood-father, that mattered more than anything.

He was a teenager when he found the blood-father, or rather the other way around. Memories prior, still haunted him, his own 'people' despised him, left him there, a weak, sympathetic child, no use to any hunter, he just did not realise why, why he was like that until fate revealed his path.

He just could not sleep, thoughts of Lewis, the traitor, ran through his head. He was unsure about why, it was not as if he was sympathetic to a traitor, like Lewis nor believed that he was not the culprit, after all, he had been caught red-handed, there was no doubt, yet still, he could not get him out of his head, the face the elder-blood, one of a handful of vampires rumoured to be the blood-father's choice, next in line, for when the blood-father chose to sleep rather than lead.

He grumbled to himself incoherently, even he did not know what he was trying say. He pulled himself out of his coffin and walked down the path, known to the traitors as the Path of Shame, the last thing a traitorous vampire would see, before the method of execution was announced and the disloyal creature, destroyed. If Theo was Lewis, he would hope for quick death, a stake to the heart but the blood-father probably had something more painful in mind for him.

The Path of Shame was what he imagined, dark and grim. Stony yet had a beauty to it, perhaps because he knew that he would not meet his end, perhaps if he was going to, it would look different, somehow. Tomorrow, it would be Lewis' turn to be named and shamed, before being executed. It was a rather affair, Lewis had been there by the blood-father's side for years, yet turned his back on him. Perhaps unanswered questions were why Theo was drawn to him, to walk the Path of Shame, opposite the footsteps of so many before Lewis and likely, many after him, too.

He stopped dead at the gate. Guards recognised him, let him through yet Theo did not utter a word, just walked quickly down the cobbled path towards the prison. He stopped once he found Lewis, chained to a cross, an ingenious mechanism. If he should pull too hard, in attempt to escape, the chains would activate the mechanism in the cross, allowing it to burn the victim until one of the guards finally found him.

"Did you come to see the monster, before my death?" Lewis asked.

He looked so awful up close, Theo had never noticed. His face was seamed and so weather-beaten, almost leathery in places, with a strong chin and possibly quite fine, before the damage.

It was a contrast to his hands, they were scarred beyond belief. Deep scars from the way he lived before he became a vampire, what he did for a living. If Theo had to hazard a guess, he would have said sailor, he allowed his mind to wonder as he looked more closely at the man, his hair a little longer than his own, dark in places, yet grey strands flew through it.

"Pirate, not sailor" Lewis corrected.

"I am surprised you are sane enough to read minds."

"As am I, yet here we are, I have access to those thoughts of yours."

"You cannot use them against me, I have done no wrong" Theo warned aggressively.

"Why so angry? Why so tense? So intense."

"If you wanted company, you should have tried the guards" Theo snapped.

"No need for all that, Theo. After all, I found you, or have you chosen to forget?"

"I could never forget" Theo admitted. With a sigh of boredom, he asked, "just why have you summoned me down here? Have you come to spill your master plan?"

"That would put you in the blood-father's good books, but sadly, I have no plan, you ruined it so, I have come to offer you... a warning, call it a favour."

"I do not plan on returning it" Theo snapped, guessing Lewis was going to force Theo's hand, force him to break him out of prison.

"No, no, no. I will die, gladly, for the cause. I have merely come to request that you talk to the blood-father, tell him I want to see the sun," Lewis stated with a twisted smile, grinning from ear to ear. "Come on, Theo, it will not the last time you are forced to hear the screams."

"Fine."

"The hunters know who stopped their plans, and know who killed Jonathan, but fear not, child, they are not going to kill you, they have something even worse in mind for you... just watch, wait, you will see it soon. Enjoy being the top of your game, while you are."

"I am supposed to listen to the demented ramblings of a blood-starved madman? No. I do not think so. I hope we do meet again, until you are roasting out there."

"Such anger. I am surprised, I thought you would be tamer. You forget, I know your history."

"You and everyone else, older than I."