Chapter 184: Red Trail II
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At first, he thought they were travelers.
Then he saw the way they moved. No dust. No lantern. No beast cart. No hesitation.
The watchman’s fingers tightened on his spear.
"Who goes there?" he called.
His voice cracked in the middle, not from cowardice, but from the simple human instinct that recognized the shape of wrongness before the mind could name it.
The three did not answer. They kept walking.
The watchman swallowed.
He turned his head and shouted toward the nearest house.
"Wake up!"
That was as far as he got.
Sofia disappeared.
No dramatic flash. No loud step. One moment she was walking below, the next she was gone from the road.
The watchman’s eyes widened.
Then she was on the tower with him.
Her hand closed around his throat before the second scream could form.
He was a grown man. Strong enough to survive bad harvests, winter wolves, trade route thieves. His legs kicked anyway like a child lifted by the scruff.
Sofia’s face was inches from his.
Her smile remained.
"Too late," she said softly.
Then she bit.
The man jerked once.
His spear slipped from his hand and clattered down the ladder.
By the time it hit the ground, his body was already limp.
Sofia drank without hurry, one hand still holding him upright, as if this was etiquette rather than murder.
Below, a second watchman came running from the opposite side of the village line, clutching a torch and a short blade.
He saw the body. He saw the silver-haired woman on the tower. He opened his mouth to shout.
Natasha moved.
She crossed the open space so fast the torch flame bent in her wake. Her hand struck his wrist first.
Crack.
The blade dropped.
Her other hand caught his jaw and twisted his head to the side with clinical efficiency.
The man wheezed, stunned.
Natasha’s expression did not change.
She bit his neck and pulled him into the shadows beside a fence post, drinking as if this were simply the first task of the night.
Alex remained on the road.
Still walking.
Still calm.
The first house door opened with a creak.
An older man stepped out holding a farm tool like it could pass for a weapon if courage were desperate enough. Behind him, a woman clutched a lantern with shaking hands.
"Who is there?" the old man called.
Alex stopped at the edge of the village square.
Moonlight touched his face.
The woman’s lantern hand trembled harder.
The old man took one look at Alex’s eyes and understood, in that terrible instant, that whatever stood in front of him was not a traveler.
He tried to raise the tool.
Alex was already there.
He did not tear. He did not lunge like a beast. He stepped inside the old man’s guard, one hand resting briefly on the man’s shoulder as if greeting him.
The other hand slid to the back of the man’s head.
A small twist. A sharp wet sound.
The body dropped before the wife could scream.
Alex turned to her.
She did scream.
It carried through the village at last, shrill and sharp, and that scream did what screams always did.
It woke people.
Doors opened.
Feet stumbled.
A child cried somewhere.
Two young men ran out of a grain barn with axes that were meant for wood, not war.
A mother dragged one child toward a back path.
An old woman began shouting for the shrine keeper.
One of the dogs finally found its voice and barked so hard it nearly choked itself.
The village came alive all at once.
And that was when the killing truly began.
Sofia dropped from the tower like a falling ribbon of silver and red. She landed lightly, blood still wet on her mouth, and stepped into the first man who rushed her.
He swung an axe wildly.
She leaned aside and let the blade cut empty air.
Then she caught his arm and fed as easily as another woman might link hands for a dance.
The second young man hesitated. That hesitation killed him.
Natasha came behind him and drew her fingers across his throat so fast he did not understand what had happened until blood poured hot over his chest. She bent, caught him before he fell, and drank from the opened wound without wasting a drop.
The mother trying to flee with the child made it to the edge of the back path.
Alex reached her first.
The child never understood what was happening. That was the only mercy in the village that night.
Alex struck the mother at the temple. She crumpled. Unconscious before fear could fully become pain.
He took the child from her arms, set the child down against a wall, and looked at it for one long silent heartbeat.
Then he turned away.
He did not feed on it. He left it crying. Not out of kindness. Out of standards.
Even monsters had lines they considered beneath them.
He moved on to the next house.
Inside, the villagers tried to organize.
Not because they believed they could win.
Because mortals fought even when winning was impossible. Sometimes from courage. Sometimes because dying on your knees felt worse than dying with something sharp in your hand.
A shrine keeper came out clutching a hanging charm that glowed faintly blue. He shouted an old prayer and flung the charm toward Natasha.
The charm burst in the air.
A pulse of protective light expanded, enough to make most lesser undead recoil.
Natasha walked through it. Her skin smoked slightly for half a second. Then the glow shattered around her like brittle glass.
The shrine keeper stared, face draining.
"That’s rude," Natasha said quietly.
Then she broke his neck and drank from him where he fell at the base of the shrine.
The village square became a slaughter field.
A lantern overturned. Fire spread along a spilled line of oil and began chewing through a stack of dry crates.
A man tried to rally others behind a cart. Sofia gutted him before he finished the sentence.
A teenage boy threw a stone. Alex caught it without looking, crushed it in his hand, and then ended the boy’s fear with one clean bite and no wasted movement.