Not so Dead and Gone
@gravemagicks
Beau pressed the heel of his palm against the scar on his throat with a grimace. The damn thing throbbed as though it had a life of its own, and he knew he was getting close to his latest mark. And, if he was lucky, closer to the vengeance he so desired.
Vengeance. Revenge. It wasnāt a thing heād ever imagined himself pursuing. The man heād once been wasnāt vengeful. Not until--
He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth to stave off the tears he could feel burning behind his eyelids, his hand drifting to close around the watch in his pocket. Percivalās pocketwatch. The one heād charmed to correspond to his two-way mirror. The glass was cracked, and the hands no longer moved around the watch face. It hadnāt worked since President Picquery had returned it to him.
āPercy would have wanted you to have it back,ā sheād told him.
Beau couldnāt bring himself to try to fix it.
Ā His current companions--though he couldnāt really call them good company--didnāt get why he carried the broken watch with him everywhere, checking it every so often as though it might start ticking away again if he just looked at it often enough. They thought heād gone off the rails. They didnāt care, though, as long as he pulled his weight. They didnāt understand. It was his anchor.
It wasnāt only vengeance he sought--it was closure.
It had been two years since heād lost the man he loved--lost him to a foe Beau couldnāt even remember. Percival was gone, and Beau had no memory of what had happened. All heād been left with was the imprint of a vampireās fangs in his flesh and a hole in his heart where once there had been love.
Two years of hunting, searching for answers, and he was no closer to them than when heād started.
His latest lead had brought him to a little town in the West German Rhineland, where heād met up with a group of vampire hunters heād worked with periodically since leaving MACUSA. Theyād heard the same stories he had regarding the area. Tales of a vicious killer slaughtering people and livestock, savaging them and leaving them drained of blood. The townsfolk didnāt seem all that concerned, though. They simply continued on with their lives as though it wasnāt obvious there was a vampire residing in the fortress across the field from the edge of town. Those heās spoken with even seemed...grateful to the creature.
Beau suspected they were in the vampireās thrall.
His companions werenāt willing to investigate the fortress at night, saying it was better to go in during the daylight, when their prey was weaker. Beau, however, wasnāt about to wait.
