Chapter Text
III peers through the scope at the nest from the hillside, moving from window to window. Three fangs upstairs in the far bedroom. One downstairs. Four of them accounted for. Four sets of footprints leading inside, four fangs. Makes sense. Old squatters house. Run down. Typical. The country is full of desolate run-downs that are there for the taking, a roof over their head and protection from the sun. It’s always the same. This house is old. The fangs aren’t new. They aren’t dumb. The squadron tracked them all the way from Bristol, disappearing temporarily into the channel just to show up back in Wales, doubled back to try to get the squad off their trail. Didn’t work. Obviously.
“Mantis, you ready?” the left IEM fucking buzzed as II spoke, an annoying hum that reverberated through his brain. He could feel it in his molars, old fillings chewing aluminium foil.
“Listen - one main floor, three in the upper bedrooms. Go in with a flashbang after you get the downstairs one. I’ll get the stragglers. Be careful. Might be more.”
“Don’t tell me how to do my fucking job, Mantis.”
Fuck you too, II.
III shifts, glancing around the countryside. Pretty. It was the third of April. Wildflowers starting to spring up, everything becoming a little more green by the day. It didn’t matter. Nothing matters. They had twenty minutes to get this fucking job over before III had to pull out and they were already behind schedule. Twenty minutes until the sun rose and he needed to be back in the vehicle under the protection of the tinted windows. Nineteen minutes.
“Pulling up.”
Ivy is driving. Ivy should never drive. He’s fucking reckless. Takes the time to adjust his seat reckless. Who the fuck does that? Even II doesn’t do that, all five foot whatever of him. III knows why he was reassigned to a fucking squad comprising of an undersized oompa-loompah and a bloodhound. It wasn’t for height compatibility. Wasn’t even species.
He had a reputation. Bad one. The type that made people sneer when his name was brought up, hissed out like a curse. Didn’t matter. Not anymore. III couldn’t give a shit. He was reassigned to the only other squad with a creature after he was cleared medically from his last major incident. Thank fuck the fang got him in his leg and not the arm. Would’ve rather turned the gun on himself if he couldn’t get his release. Nothing felt better than a pretty bullet hole between the eyes of a fang. He was assigned to this squad so someone didn’t try doing that to him.
Fucking reckless Ivy. Fumbling with the front door as if he wasn’t a fucking tank of a man. Of course it was locked, who wouldn’t lock a fucking nest? II had the right idea, kicking the door open in one fluid movement. Bang bang bang. II was methodical. One bullet to subdue, one between the eyes, one for luck. Ivy followed with the machete, severing the head from the spinal column. Getting the blade between the canine teeth and cuspid, twisting until the tooth was dislodged and he could pull it free and add it to the collection. Right canine as proof of death for payment. Left as a token of the kill.
The three fangs upstairs clambered through the window. Showtime. III peered through the scope, resting his finger on the trigger. Not yet, not yet, pull, bang. One down. Bang. Two. Bang. Three. Three shots, three kills, all of them between the eyes. What a pretty sight. Blood barely pooled. Each bullet cauterising the wound as it passed through the layers of skin, bone, and brain.
Fifteen minutes. They had to clear the house. III packed the sniper, throwing it into the back of the vehicle to deal with later and pulled out his 9mm. Safety off. He’d collect teeth later. Ivy could do it. He could waste the time. Trading money for teeth was old world politics. Maybe they still did that in Wales. Didn’t know. Didn’t care. Ivy could collect the teeth.
“Coming in.”
III didn’t. He circled around back, in case one of the fangs was listening in and thought it could outsmart them. Bang. He was right. Like usual. II was smart, but III had experience. He had a good head on his shoulders. Didn’t mean that he wasn’t an annoying little fuck. Wasn’t as bad as Ivy but he got on III’s nerves. Opinionated. Righteous. Boot licker. Rule-follower. Played the politics because who would treat him seriously when looking so far down? Back ram-rod straight, chin up, knees apart. Had to have dominance coming out of his pores if he was going to make it. He did.
Ivy called clear as the duo moved from room to room. Five total. One he didn’t account for. Damn. Twelve minutes. Main level, cleared. Upstairs, cleared. Bodies lined up by the door. One, two, three, four, five.
“Got a cellar over here!”
They waited for him to open it first. Handle covered in dust. Not opened for a while. No streaks of blood, nothing audible.
“Mutt, what’s your call.”
Ivy closes his eyes and opens his mouth, scenting the air. Lines appearing on his forehead, nostrils flaring. Something was down there. Something alive.
“I’ll go in. Mutt, cover me. II, cover the door.”
Ivy opens the hatch. There’s a ladder. It goes down maybe two meters, dirt floor. Old floor. The smell is revolting. Piss, human excrement, semen, blood. It’s always the same. III doesn’t care anymore. They usually find bodies in cellars like these in various stages of decay. Thrown away like pop cans once drained. Sometimes necrophiled. Always abused. There was not one case where a blood bag was treated with respect. Fangs didn’t have it in them. III would know. He hadn’t smiled for months.
III foregoes the ladder, a small cloud of dust and grime kicked up when he lands. Gun up, finger on the trigger. One room. Four bodies. Three of them laying on the floor, throats ripped open like silly string. Damn, the bites were usually cleaner than this. One chained to the wall. III pays them no attention. Humans. Can smell it. One room, no exits other than the ladder. Broken glass and dust-covered shelves. No fangs. Four bodies, four casualties.
“Clear. Got four husks.”
Ivy was wrong. Four bodies, four husks, nothing alive. He goes over to one, early adult female. Fried yellow hair. Face contorted into an expression of absolute terror. III doesn’t care. He moves to the next. Dead. Next, dead. The smell is terrible. Festering infection and shit. Fucking fangs, even animals lived better than this. Cared more than this. They were the scum of the earth. III would know. He was one.
Last one. Male. Mid-twenties. Limp wrists chained together, tight. The metal shackles digging in to the skin, leaving nasty red welts. A daddy-long-legs crawling over bloodless fingers. Shoulders kept at unnatural angles, head bowed forward with dead weight. Three leather straps visible overtop matted brown hair. Fucking kink muzzle. Disgusting. It wasn’t worse than the other atrocities in this room. He could smell the semen. The body was naked. Busted up. Bruised, bitten, and bloody. It fucking reeked. Fangs were disgusting creatures. Thin ankles shackled, skin half grown over the metal. Couldn’t have been dead long. Maybe even today. III didn’t check for a heartbeat. He knew the signs.
Four husks. Five fangs. Four bodies to return to families, missing person posters torn off the wall and celebrations of life scheduled. Four ends. If there was someone back home to give a shit. Body recovery wasn’t his job. III pushed himself up from kneeling in front of the shackled one. Fucking weird. Three bodies in the dirt, one tied up. It was revolting to touch the husk’s hair, greasy and matted and felt wrong. Pulled it up to look at the face.
III doesn’t just scream, he screeches. Piercing blue eyes stare back at him. Finger on the trigger. Wasn’t a husk. Fucking alive. How? Heartbeat. Audible, but barely. His own thoughts were so fucking loud that he missed it.
“We got a live one!”
He knew what II would ask. If the blood bag was salvageable. The answer was always no. A mercy bullet between the eyes. No teeth collected. Do not pass go. Another casualty of the fangs. Alive but unsalvageable, soul tormented beyond reason. Mercy bullet. II never left survivors.
III stares. The blood bag blinks. Slowly. Unfocused. Gone. Muzzled. Chained. Weird.
“Hey.” III nudges it with his foot. The head fall back down, blue eyes staring unfocused at the dirt floor. Alive. Barely. “What’s your name?” He squats. He was a sniper, didn’t deal with blood bags. Never needed to before reassignment. Didn’t know what to say, what to do. II was methodical. Walk over to one, bang. Even if they pleaded. Even if they were on the cusp. There had to be a story behind his apathy. III didn’t care.
Ivy is beside him in the darkness. Safety on. Why the fuck was his safety on? They were in an active fang zone, even if the house was ‘cleared’ there could be more lurking in corners unknown.
“Why does he have a muzzle?”
“Dunno. Do you wanna do the honours?”
“All yours.” Ivy drags the bodies closer to the ladder. It isn’t their job. There’s a whole team of people that will zip the bodies into bags, break the shackles from the wall, transport the husks to the morgue. Ivy doesn’t care. Makes it easy for them. Lines up the bodies by the door, by the ladder. He waits for III to pull the trigger.
It feels wrong to shoot a man with no defence. It reminds him of the fucked up terrorist group execution videos lurking around on the internet. Some would probably say that they are the fucked up terrorist group executing innocents. It’s a mercy bullet. Release. No more pain, no more memories. No more PTSD, no more nightmares. III doesn’t care. He just does his job.
Finger on the trigger. Hesitation. Barrel pressed against the matted hair. Hesitation. Safety on.
He rips the shackles from the wall easy. The body slumps forwards, no self-preservation as it hits face-first into the dirt floor. Blue eyes staring up at him, narrowing. III turns on the flashlight to get a better look. He can see fine in the dark, but just wants to make sure. Pupils retract. Slowly, but not slow enough.
He can hear II’s words. Just do it already. He can hear it’s slow heartbeat. Slow respirations. Body holding onto absolutely everything it could, slowing down metabolism and processes in order to keep itself alive. III swallows, laryngeal prominence bobbing. Safety off. Finger on the trigger. It doesn’t make a sound. Stares directly into III’s eyes. Challenging him. Do it already. Do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Why is it wearing a fucking muzzle?
Ivy hesitates at the ladder, bodies lined up. Task completed.
Two minutes.
He has to call this in. Report a blood bag that needs transport to the hospital. They couldn’t put blood bags down at the hospital as easy as he could. They needed explicit permission. III just needed conscious. Finger on the trigger. He could do this.
II is annoyed. “What’s going on? One fucking minute, Mantis!”
He has to call this in. III doesn’t care to. His gun is tucked away. The floor shackles are ripped up out of the dirt. The body is too light as he throws it over his shoulder. It’s not a human anymore, it’s just a blood bag.
“The fuck are you doing?” II hisses, narrow little eyes judging III as they head back to the vehicle, the body’s head bumping against his chest with every step.
III can feel each photon against his skin. It burns. Early morning radiation wasn’t too bad, it still hurts. He throws the body into the backseat, climbing in with it.
“The fuck are you doing? Kill it! We’re not bringing it home!”
“Shut up. Trust me on this one. Something’s weird,” III doesn’t beg. States. Sits up straight as Ivy gets into the driver’s seat. Chin up, shoulders relaxed. III could play this game too. II concedes. Starts to type up the report even before engine’s on. Calls home office. Three husks. Five fangs. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ivy dumps his handful of canines in this morning’s coffee cup. They rattle with each bump, the suspension shot.
Blue eyes stare up at III. He doesn’t care.
?¡
They’re the only ones due at headquarters. Espera’s gone on a multiday. Techs, who knows. III doesn’t. II stews the entire trip home. Ivy turns on the radio. II turns it off. The blood bag doesn’t stir. Maybe it’s dead. Hopefully. Then he could dump it on the side of the road. Fingers on its neck. Alive. III is tempted to wrap his hands around it’s throat and squeeze until the light left its eyes. Would make II happy. III doesn’t care. He doesn’t take off the muzzle. It reeks. Ivy cracks open the window. II shuts it.
Headquarters is a house that looks like a shipping container. Void of personality. Typical government accommodation. III gets his own room. Blackout curtains and a mattress on a cheap frame. II and Ivy share a room. III should really be sharing one too. The Techs and Espera are confined to bunkbeds where the dining table should be. III doesn’t care. Ivy sleeps on the floor like a real dog. Maybe it’s a kink thing. Maybe he’s just dumb.
The blood bag is carried downstairs. Basement. Some gym equipment, extra supplies, and a storage room. III clears it out. The storage room has a one-way lock on the door. The body reeks. He should’ve hosed it off outside like Ivy after a full moon. Didn’t have time. Sunny day today. His skin is burning. The body crumples to the carpet, disjointed limbs and naked flesh when he lets go of it. Disgusting. Leaves a stain. The blood doesn’t entice him. Not when it smells like perforated bowel.
III leaves the body. Closes the door and turns the lock, even if he’s quickly running upstairs to grab the tool kit. The shackles need to come off. He’s afraid that he’s going to see bone under them. Wouldn’t have a choice then. His 9mm is still tucked into his belt. He could still have mercy. The bite marks are deep and infected, oozing pus and plasma. Two toes are gone, the wounds healed over. A third is on its way to market, blackened at the tip. He could still have mercy.
The blood bag is where he left it in the middle of the room. Didn’t move. No muscle tone. Pathetic. III doesn’t care.
The shackles fall. The hands shake. Nails too long and packed with blood and god knows what. The ankle cuffs are harder to get off. III grimaces as he takes an exacto to the areas where the skin has completely grown over the metal. Years. It took years to get to this point.
“What’s your name,” III tries again. The blood bag stares. Slowly blinking. III claps, it winces back. Not deaf. Just dumb. Its ankles are free. It does not move, remains curled up on the floor of the storage room. Leaks plasma into the carpet. He should clean it up. He didn’t want the wounds to stink up the whole house. II would never shut up about it. Maybe he’d get reassigned. Again. To a squadron that wasn’t as accepting. He was in the mood for a new piercing, maybe one between the eyes.
It’s late. Or early. He can hear Ivy snore. Good enough. The body can stew in its own filth for one more day. There’s a bathroom connected to the storage room. Maybe it was supposed to be a bedroom after all. III prays that the blood bag knows how to use it. It didn’t look like it had anything to process in order to do so. Hopefully it would die overday. Then III wouldn’t have to care.
He twists the lock, hears it click, and tries the door to make sure. He’s sure.
Free night. No assignments. Headquarters is quiet. II and Ivy leave when it was still sunny out. III sleeps the hours away. Nightmares plague him. He wakes up in a cold sweat. He’s not used to that since the incident.
The body isn’t where he left it. Finds it in the bathroom cupboard. The smallest space it could fit into. Alive. Barely. The muzzle remains. With its hands free, surely it’ll figure out how to take it off eventually. III leaves an open bottle of Gatorade and a protein drink in the room. Reads up on refeeding syndrome. Takes back the Gatorade and dilutes it until it’s barely blue. Turns off the lights and keeps them off. The body stinks.
III comes back with a bucket of sudsy water and a washcloth. The blood bag remains in the cupboard under the bathroom sink, knees pressed up against its chest. It’s easy to grab an arm and pin its shoulder back with the cupboard door. He submerges the cloth and rings it out. Drags it against the exposed arm. The water turns murky fast. The body unwillingly complies. Blue eyes watch him from behind the muzzle. Weird.
The body’s littered with scars and open wounds. Overlapping semi-circles concentrated on its neck. Festering infection. He should take mercy. It’s too far gone. It stares without truly seeing, head lolling forward when there’s not enough energy left to engage the muscles properly. III takes the opportunity to pull at the arm and drag the body halfway out of the cupboard. The head makes a terrible crack as it bounces against the bathroom floor. III doesn’t care. The body is limp and he has a task at hand. He wrings out the washcloth again.
The water is changed four times before III even starts thinking about the torso. He should wear gloves. It’s castrated. Crudely. Done by a sadistic butcher. Revolting. III changes the water for a fifth time. Sixth.
The body isn’t clean. The majority of the stink is gone. III washes his hands until his skin is fire engine red. He picks up the washcloth. It used to be white. Now it’s stained almost black. The blood bag’s hair is so matted it has hardened into a cast. III can see the purple bruises peek out from where its pulled so hard on the scalp that blood vessels have burst below. He gets a pair of scissors. It has lice. III wants to burn the building down. Everything feels dirty.
The cut isn’t pretty. It’s functional. Chunks of hair and scab litter the bathroom floor. Bugs crawl. III is happy he doesn’t need to breathe. He wedges the blades of the scissors between the scalp and the cast, using the skull as leverage. It bleeds. It bleeds a lot. He lets it. The straps of the muzzle are in the way and the cast is too thick to cut around it. It has to come off. The straps meet in the back, joined together by a padlock. Heavy duty. The straps give before the lock does.
The muzzle falls onto the floor, revealing the rest of the blood bag’s face. Weak chin. Gaunt cheeks. There’s layers of dried blood around its thin lips. Scraggly facial hair and a crooked nose. It spits. Bloodied saliva and phlegm hit III’s cheek. The scissors clatter to the tile floor before his fist connects with the blood bags temple. It crumples against the floor with a gasp, but stares up at III with those piercing blue eyes. Blood trickles across its skin, accumulating in the well of its sunken eyes. It blinks but does not move to wipe the blood away. Instead, it smiles. Unnerving. Unnatural. Fucking revolting. Blood-stained teeth and white gums. III’s hand hovers over the 9mm tucked into his belt. Mercy kill. Right between the eyes. II would be happy. He reaches for the scissors. It’s just spit.
The cast is thrown away. Tufts of reddish brown hair double bagged and immediately taken out to the dumpster. III makes sure to lock the storage room door behind him. He wants to burn headquarters to the ground. He takes a shower, dried blood is drawn into solution and escapes down the drain. III feels bugs on his skin even though he triple checks. They’re all on flea prevention anyways, it should cover lice too. Ivy’s paid to get the house bug-bombed four times over now, bringing the annoying fuckers in after full moons spent in the wilderness. So they’re all on flea prevention. Ivy is a fucking mutt.
The Techs are back. Canines are dumped into mason jars like a fucked up piggy bank.
“Thom asked a favour of us,” Sam says. “A buddy of his is going to spent the night tomorrow. I’ll make up the couch.”
“Tell him the basement is off-limits.”
Sam gives III a look but doesn’t question him. They don’t talk more than what is necessary. They aren’t friends. III doesn’t have friends. Not when there’s alleged money offered for his teeth despite the official memo circulated when he was cleared from medical. Despite his kill count. Despite his reputation. People sneer when they hear his name. It’s a bad one.
He brings the blood bag simple foods which it barely eats. It hides in the bathroom cupboard. There’s bloody footprints tracked across the tile. Piss puddles in the corner. It still fucking stinks. III turns the blow dart of tranq around in his hands. Four left until Ivy’s hooped. Fucking government pulled the funding. Budget cuts. More interested in dick-sucking contests overseas than making sure their men are safe in their own homes. Ivy can go choke himself out on a silver cock. Three left. III pockets the dart.
The blood bag stares, yellow teeth on display as it smiles up at him. He assumes it’s a smile. Maybe it’s a snarl. It’s unnerving. III doesn’t like it. Mercy kill. Too late now. The Techs don’t know it’s here. Espera still aren’t back. II and Ivy have been quiet. Another free day. Another mission tomorrow. South London. Two fangs each with over a dozen husks in their wake. Newborns. Fucking stupid. Both the easiest kills and the most dangerous. He remembers the rage. The thirst.
Despite the NHS declaring a national emergency over the lack of blood donations, bags still expire. They don’t go to waste. There are only three fangs in active duty, but only one in special ops. He gets the deliveries biweekly. At the end of the fortnight, the blood is rancid but still works the same. He chokes it down. The added B12 gives it an aftertaste of smegma. It’s ethical.
III finds an extra bedframe in storage. Flimsy and broken. Enough. Maybe too much. There’s a moldy bloodstained mattress in the yard from the last time Ivy got shot and didn’t fix himself up properly. He’s always getting shot. III wants to yell at people to have better aim and to use silver bullets. Ivy’s fucking annoying. Nobody’s home. It’s sunny. Why is it always fucking sunny when he needs to go outside? It’s fucking Britian for fuck sake. He wears a bucket hat and moves quick. Black sheets to hide the inevitable carnage and grime the blood bag would leave. The carpet was already ruined. The smell of piss and bile clings onto his sinuses. Doesn’t bother with a blanket. The luxury is already more than the blood bag had ever experienced before.
He leaves out soda crackers and two bottles of water. A fucked up offering to Santa, but this creature didn’t have anything in its sack. Barely had enough muscle to move. III knew that it was tall, maybe even as tall as himself. Spider limbs and harsh corners of protruding bones. He can see where fractures had healed back wrong. Ribs. Clavicle. Nose. A slight indent on the left side of its skull. Mercy kill, right between those pretty blue eyes. His fingers twitched to his gun.
II hadn’t said a word since they came home and it wasn’t going to change. They got ready for the mission in silence. Balaclavas on, bulletproof vests, camo. III had a red exclamation mark patch on his jacket. Ivy had one in blue. Identifiers. Creatures. II was the scariest of the duo, but he was human. Sometimes the depravity of the human mind was scarier than any myth or fable, legend or legacy.
III knew his place. If he was forced to work with a squadron, he was going to do it his way. His way, out of the way. Behind his sniper. Bang, between the eyes. Sometimes a suppressor, usually with some sort of flash hider. He wasn’t stupid. They gave him leeway. Space. Despite II’s urge to dictate every last detail of the mission, III proved to work best when left to his own devices. He wasn’t a shit soldier. After the assumed number of fangs were eliminated he’d help clear the building. Kill off the stragglers. Mercy execute the husks. Ivy would line them up by the door. II would stew.
Techs were out by the time they left. Key under the welcome mat for their guest. Storage room locked. Basement door closed. Hopefully he didn’t fucking snoop.
South London. Two fangs. Newborns. Easy in, easy out. They got back an hour before sunrise. III drove. II typed up the report and sent it off to head office. Ivy fucking snored. Useless. He wanted to leave him in the vehicle, but the duo were fags for each other so II dragged him inside. III barely undressed before he was asleep on the top of his covers.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Was there a fucking leak in the roof? Stupid fucking government-issued lodging. Shit contractors that did more blow than work. III groaned as he was pulled up through the layers of consciousness. It was the middle of the fucking day.
Drip.
Drip.
Fuck off. He wiped his face. Ugh fuck he should’ve showered when he got home. Could only smell blood. He was sick of it. It wasn’t the worst. Not nearly the worst.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
It was a sunny fucking day. He could see the glow around the edges of the blackout curtains.
He looked at his hand. It was covered in blood. Not his blood.
Drip.
Red stained yellow teeth and piercing blue eyes. Smiling over him. Eyelashes clumped together with red. Chunks of viscera on the blood bag’s face, sinew dangling caught between its teeth. Eyes wide, pupils huge. Like it was possessed. Or horny. Hungry. Blood dripped from its open maw. Nails digging into III’s chest. III couldn’t move. It hummed happily seeing he was awake, smile widening. A slip of a pink tongue wetting its lips. Sitting back. Belly distended. Eyes fluttering closed for a moment. He fucking snooped. III inched his hand under his pillow for his glock. Grasped at nothing. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t die anyways. Not without a piece of metal passing right between his eyebrows, or a well-placed blade to his throat.
A scream. The blood bag twisted from its perch on III’s lap, gaze darkening as it glanced into the hallway. II going spastic as he ran to Ivy’s aid. Their guest had taken the time to paint the basement apparently. In red.