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monstersfear · 2 years

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counting cards // costia & emilio

TIMING: current PARTIES: @costiagrace & @monstersfear SUMMARY: costia suspects the son of a former enemy may be responsible for her sister's death. emilio wants, but does not get, a break. CONTENT: Sibling death, suicidal ideation, drug use (very briefly), parental death (mentioned)

Elena Cortez. The name had been stuck in her head like a post-it with an axe to grind ever since she had come across the ad in the local newspaper. Private Investigator for hire. At first the young vampire had been intrigued but as she read further down the name at the bottom had caught her attention: Emilio Cortez. Cortez. No time passed as her mind made the connection. His mother had been a thorn in her side ever since Mexico. Costia had spent nearly three years in the country in an effort to take care of the hunter on her back. It was in vain. She was too inexperienced and the hunter too good at her job. Eventually, she fled. A part of her had wanted to give herself up, to pay penance for what she had done, but the part of her that had lost the goodness she used to hold was what ruled her then. Hooded eyes gazed at the dusty, partly peeled sign: Em l Cor e, Priv te In esti. The appearance was something she was sure would deter the weaker minds of the population, those who didn’t have the constitution to walk into the unknown. Costia did not even need to steel herself as she walked through the door. Over the years she had grown stronger, better able to defend herself. Thirty years a vampire was just a drop in the bucket to some, but it had been enough to teach her. Nearly enough for her to destroy her soul; perhaps she would have had it not been for Lettie. Seeing her again had given her hope once more that things could change for the better. Though now that hope had been dashed in the way Lady Macbeth had dashed her child’s brains against the wall.

With a soft nudge the door creaked open and inside she stepped, the dingy interior nearly as unappealing as the door itself had been. Costia took note of the man inside and surveyed him for weakness. The dark circles under his keen eyes and the haggard lines across his countenance indicated that he was tired, weakened. Easy Prey.

Her head cocked to the side and a derisive smirk stretched full lips. “Tell me what you did to my sister,” the knife she had been gifted by her sire was twirled between perfectly manicured fingers, “And I’ll make this as painless as possible.”

The number of cases Emilio had been taking lately had slowed significantly, down to almost nothing as he spent most of his days half drunk and angry. He’d had a few customers come in — he thought he might have even spoken to some of them, though he couldn’t quite remember what he’d said or why he’d said it. Between the alcohol and the constant zoning out, most things were a haze, these days.

When the door creaked open, it was all he could do not to groan. When he felt the familiar twinge in the back of his head that told him the visitor was undead, he sighed. He didn’t recognize her, when she stepped into the darkened apartment, but there was a knife in her hand. Emilio eyed it with some interest, though he didn’t look entirely concerned by its presence. If he hadn’t cared what became of him before, it was much worse now. If anything, he was eager to see where the knife would end up.

She asked a question, and he sighed again. “I don’t know who your sister is,” he replied dully. “Based on my day-to-day, I’d say I probably either staked her or took her head off. Don’t do much burning these days.” He’d probably do even less of it now. The memory of the warehouse fire caused nausea to tug at his gut, and he pushed it away and got to his feet. “I don’t exactly take down the names of the undead I put down, so if you’re waiting on me to remember, you’ll be waiting a while. You might as well just do what you came here to do.” He gestured to the knife in her hand, then to his chest.

“Do you truly think I would let you off so easily?” There was a growl to her voice, a feral snarl that clearly enunciated her displeasure. In a flash the knife scratched down the side of his face from eye to chin, an ugly gash that began to leak blood as soon as the blade was pulled back. “You’re going to give me the answers that I want, Emilio Cortés, hijo de Elena.” The resemblance between mother and son was uncanny and the twisted part of herself that had come out to play reveled in the fact that she had the great Elena’s son in such a position. He was at her mercy. A shell of what a hunter should be. “Did you kill her to draw me here? To finish what your bitch of a mother started?” Costia cocked her head to the side, the grin that stretched across her full lips sadistic in its nature. “Lettie wasn’t even fifty. Her heart beat. Not like mine. Or apparently yours.” She did not want him to move as she made to dig into the pocket of her leather jacket and so placed the knife through his hand to anchor it to the table. The photos she produced showed her sister as she had looked shortly before had been killed. Lettie’s hair had been long and braided, the relaxed smile on her aged face pretty and joyous. “This woman did not deserve what happened to her.” Her leg kicked, knocking the chair out from underneath him. It would serve to further damage his hand as his body weight slammed to the floor. Perhaps he would manage to catch himself. But that did not matter. “How do you live with yourself hombre malvado?”

Emilio opened his mouth, ready to snap back with something dry and angry and ill-advised, but she was on him quickly. The knife sliced through the side of his face, blood already running down the wound. Sober, he would have been faster, might have stopped her. Drunk, he stood less of a chance. Of course, the laceration was less of a concern than the words that came after — hearing not only his full name, but his mother’s name from the mouth of a vampire he’d never seen before was enough to burn through him, sobering him significantly. More so when the vampire continued. Hearing his mother referred to in such harsh terms stirred up an impressive amount of rage in Emilio’s gut. “Shut your fucking mouth,” he snapped, “or juro por Dios, I’ll shut it for you.”

Beyond the anger, he realized only in the vaguest sense that the things the woman was saying made little sense. Emilio did plenty to draw vampires out of hiding if he knew they’d been involved in the massacre in Etla, but he’d never targeted anyone with a beating heart to do it. And he’d never seen this woman before. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy here. Go check with someone else you’ve pissed off, you pinche —” He didn’t finish the insult. The knife she put through his hand and into the desk beneath it stopped him with a grunt that only refrained from being a yell thanks to his ability to bite his tongue. The sharp pain and blood in his mouth was nothing compared to the pain in his hand now, and it occurred to him, for the first time, that she might actually kill him. It had only been a passing thought when she’d entered, but it seemed a much more likely thing now. It didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should have, even with the knife in his hand warning him that she likely planned to make it slow.

Lost in thought — and maybe dangerously close to experiencing more of the dissociation that had been clinging to him even more stubbornly since Silas’s death — Emilio nearly missed the way she moved. He barely managed to get his feet beneath him before she was kicking the chair away, the quick response saving his hand from further damage but causing his bad leg to ache in protest. Gritting his teeth and tired of the game, he reached down and yanked the knife from his hand, sending an arch of blood behind the blade. “I don’t know who your sister is,” he bit out, tossing the knife aside and pulling a stake from his jacket pocket instead. “You wanna fight, we can do that. I can turn your ass to dust and vacuum you up in the morning. But coming at me isn’t going to do shit for avenging someone I’ve never fucking seen before. I didn’t kill your sister. But you come at me again, and I will kill you.”

It was almost cute. The way he threatened her. Costia could feel the truth of the intent in his words, yet his broken form left her far from quaking in her boots. “You of all people should know better than anyone else that there is no God. Only monsters and the merciful.” Slowly she stalked around him, studying every move that he made. Her eyes took careful note of the way one leg seemed to buckle under the sudden pressure of his full weight. Could almost hear the way the bones rubbed together disharmoniously. His threats did little to concern her, the stake in his hand an afterthought in her mind. All that mattered was the truth. And if the truth was that he hadn’t known her sister? “I can be the latter,” her voice trailed off as she delivered a brutal kick to the knee of his bad leg. “If you’re being truthful.” His threats did little to concern her, the stake in his hand an afterthought in her mind. All that mattered was the truth. And if the truth was that he hadn’t known her sister? Then this would be an unjustifiable slaughter if she continued. Something that her sister would never let her do, were she here to stop her.

With a soft ‘pop’ her fangs receded up into her gum line and the rose red tint left her irises. “We both know that you aren’t currently capable of killing me. Perhaps if you caught me by surprise.” Costia let out a soft laugh as though the situation were actually humorous and extended her hand in a gesture of good faith. His blood would burn when it came into contact with her skin, not that she cared. It was a gesture of help after all. “Someone did kill her. Murdered her. Lettie never hurt anyone. She was good. Everything that I was supposed to be before I was cursed to this life.” There was not any self pity in her voice, just a sharp smattering of pain that echoed in her tone. “I saw your name in the paper and I thought..” Costia took a sharp intake of breath, “Surely you must have had something to do it. Your mother’s mission was to destroy me thirty years ago. It seemed only logical that her son would have picked up where she left off.” Her shoulders shrugged. “Not that what happened was entirely my fault. I had just wanted to save people. To give them a better life, like I thought I had then. When I was young I believed this,” she gestured at her form, “To be a gift. I was wrong.”

She circled him like a beast stalking its prey, and Emilio hated it. He hated that his threats were just as effective against her as they were against Levi. He hated the way she looked him up and down like she was searching him for weaknesses. He hated the fact that, the way he was now, she probably found no shortage of them. He hadn’t been at the top of his game in weeks now. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even been in a particularly good place before Silas’s death, even if that had served to push him a little further over the edge. Emilio had been on a downward spiral since Etla fell, and ever time he thought he hit the bottom, he found a way to fall further. Right now, in this moment… There was a part of him that wanted to let her do it. There was a part of him that wanted to claim responsibility for her sister’s death if only to invite his own. And it was a stupid, selfish thing, because Ari would come in for work in the morning or Rhett would come in for a shower or Teddy would bring coffee over and there would be a corpse by the desk for no good reason at all. Emilio didn’t want them to suffer, even if he desperately wanted his suffering to end, too. Even if he couldn’t pretend he wouldn’t welcome it.

Lost in thought, he barely heard her words. Barely present, he didn’t see the kick until it landed, until the pain shot up his knee with an intensity too great to keep him from yelling out a startled, “Fuck,” as the useless limb buckled beneath him and sent him sprawling on the floor. It radiated pain in a way that let him know it’d take at least a few hours of healing before he could stand with ease, but he shoved away the hand the vampire offered him regardless, opting to pull himself up on the desk and lean heavily against it rather than accept her help. He shot her a nasty glare, seething.

She was right; he couldn’t kill her like this. Not half-drunk and hobbled, not trapped in a sea of grief too deep for him to break through the surface. As she spoke, Emilio felt an unwanted sense of kinship. It was impossible, in this moment, not to think of Silas. Silas, who was kind and funny and good. Silas, who was dead long before he should have been. The vampire lost her sister; Emilio could relate. Even if he wished he couldn’t. Even if he didn’t want to. “I didn’t kill your sister,” he repeated lowly, an edge to his voice as he bit back any sign of the pain still throbbing from his leg. “Hurting innocent people to punish guilty ones… That isn’t my style. Wasn’t my mother’s, either.” At least, not humans. He didn’t think his mother would have hesitated to kill anything undead, innocent or not, but… Emilio had fallen away from that line of thinking. “If I were going to come at you, I would do it directly. Not like that.” He wasn’t a good man, but he was an honest one. He made a point of it. “It’s a curse. This thing you have, this thing you are. It’s unnatural. And the things you’ve done — there’s no excusing it. No making it okay.” He paused for a moment. “But I don’t think your sister deserved what she got. Maybe I help you find who really killed her. Maybe I let you get your vengeance. And maybe you steer clear of here, after. Because make no mistake, I won’t hesitate to kill you if you come here like this again. You can underestimate me if you like, but I’m more than capable of it. If I want to be.” He leaned forward on the desk a little more, trying to alleviate the weight on his leg without making it obvious that he was in pain. “But I know what it’s like. To lose someone. To want… justice. I know. So maybe I help you find yours.”

“At least sit.” She understood the refusal of her hand, to be helped by someone who had just knocked you down was unnatural. Especially when it was a hunter’s pride that had been wounded. The chair that had been kicked away from him was rolled back to the edge of the desk and left there. If he needed to sit, Costia hoped that he would, stubborn or not. The tone of her words was markedly more human, a warmth there that had disappeared in her threatening anger. “The things I have done haunt me. It was my sister, who dragged me back to the surface. When I saw her performing on Broadway, a dream she’d had since a child, I knew.. I knew I couldn’t continue on the way that I had.” Her shoulders hunched into themselves as her frame seemed to shrink. There was so much pain. “That was nearly five years ago, now. I had turned my life back around. I quit killing to feed.” Of course the way she chose to eat now was not necessarily better. A knife cut to the wrist of a compelled stranger was still a violation, but less of one. When finished they got to go on with their life, home to their families. Something she herself would never get to experience. Perhaps this was part of the reason her sister’s death had caused her to become unhinged. Her last possibility of reuniting with her family had been cruelly taken from her and she had not realized how desperately she had clung onto that hope to keep herself sane.

She shook her head at his words. Leaving White Crest was not an option. This was where her sister had chosen to call home. Costia wanted to learn why. To see what the lure of this strange town had been. “I won’t promise to leave here, if I find what I’m looking for. About her death, I mean. Perhaps something drew her here? I want to figure it out. Do her memory justice.” Costia picked up the knife from where it rested on Emilio’s desk and cleaned the blade by sliding it across the side of her pants. Satisfied it was returned to its holster on her belt. “Her death. It triggered the evil that I’ve tried to hide. I don’t think I will ever be entirely rid of it. The urge to hunt, kill. It will never leave. But I can manage it. And I can learn to manage it again.”

Umber eyes met Emilio’s with a look of heady determination. “You know this town better than me. Understand the people here. I would gladly accept your help. On one condition.” Her fingers twisted and tangled together as she spoke, “When we find the person who did this, they are mine to do with as I please.” She thought it was a fair trade. In return for beginning to be less of a menace to the society of White Crest, she wanted her sister’s killer on a platter. To toy with and torture. There would be no mercy shown.

“Fuck you,” Emilio bit back, gritting his teeth tightly. He continued to glare at the vampire for a moment before slowly lowering himself into the chair, eyes never leaving hers. He hated the thought of sitting while she stood, but if he tried to stay on his feet, he risked furthering the damage done by her infuriatingly well-placed kick. “You stopped killing people. It’s not exactly something to brag about. The people you killed are still dead.” Justice and vengeance were two concepts that, while often going hand-in-hand, shouldn’t be confused for one another. Emilio tended to gravitate towards the latter. Justice might say that this vampire ought to find her redemption through changing her ways and growing into someone better than what she’d been before — something it seemed she was trying to achieve. Vengeance said she’d be better off dying for it. If not for the pain in his leg and hand, Emilio might have gone for it right then and there. No one had ever accused him of critical thinking.

He was less surprised than he should have been that she had no intention of leaving White Crest. This town had a way of drawing people in. It had given Emilio no shortage of reasons to stay; why should she be any different? Again, he found himself caught with a sense of unwilling understanding. He could relate to the desire to want to make something of the death of someone you’d loved. He’d been doing it for years now with his family. “Then you manage it,” he said lowly, “or I manage it for you.” He tapped the stake against the desk, a clear threat. He didn’t want to let her live. Everything in him was screaming out against it. He wanted to kill her.

But he wanted to help her, too. And the oxymoron was an infuriating one. He wished she hadn’t brought up her sister at all, wished it wasn’t so easy to draw parallels between Lettie and Silas, wished she’d shown up a few weeks earlier or a few weeks later when he might have been more likely to be something more closely resembling sober or put together enough to kill her before the first word left her mouth. He wished he were anyone else, with thoughts that made sense and actions whose consequences didn’t feel like gallows. But wishes, he knew, rarely did anyone any kind of good. He paused only momentarily before nodding. “Do what you want with them,” he decided. It wasn’t his problem, anyway. If he found whoever was responsible for Silas’s death, or tracked down what was left of the vampires who’d destroyed Etla, he’d want the same. Vengeance wasn’t justice, but it made it a little easier to breathe.

Costia snorted. “So they are. They’ll remain dead while I live for the rest of eternity. It's sad how fleeting life can be. I could lie and say that I regret the actions of my past. Perhaps I do to some extent, but really, I made the best choices with the knowledge that I had. And it’s kept me alive, for whatever that’s worth.” There was derision to her tone, a self-loathing. Getting to live her life as she chose was once all that she had stood for as she rebelled away from her parents, her sister. Look where that got her. Thirty years of a life that had not always been worth living. “Lettie did not make me suddenly wish I had never done what I had. She made me want to start to live again. A life that was worth living. It turns out humans have got a few things right.”

At his threat her fangs popped down audibly, an involuntary reaction to the words. In the time she had spent as a creature of the night she had learned to take words seriously. Being threatened was not something that she took lightly, even in a fairly neutral setting such as this. “I do not take kindly to threats.” With effort her face returned to normal, “Especially not from someone who looks a few minutes away from being roadkill.” Quickly she reached for the stake, careful to pry it from his hand without breaking the bones so that she could snap it in half. Her meaning was clear. If pressed, their alliance wouldn’t stand. Should he get in the way of her attempt to find her sister’s killer or prevent her from enacting revenge, there would be a fight. And not one so tame as what had happened tonight. “I’ll see to it that the people I kill, if I choose to do so, are for a reason. If you have friends of yours you’d like me to avoid, let me know. I’ll steer clear.”

She teetered on the edge of her heels. “I’m sorry. About your friend.” The look in her eyes was genuine. Costia did not enjoy seeing others in pain. It was not something that she found fun, and mental pain wore on her more heavily than physical. She suspected it may be the same with him as well. “I truly am. Perhaps we will both be able to gain something from this arrangement.” Her hand rattled around in the pocket of her leather jacket for a moment before it emerged with a bottle of pills. They rattled and rolled as she set them atop his desk. “For your leg, the pain. They’ll help.” This was her peace offering. Costia waited to see whether or not he would accept it, one foot already out the door. Whatever his decision she’d leave the bottle behind. She had others. “Take care.”

“Wouldn’t count on making it to eternity.” Vampires could live forever, sure, but most of them didn’t make it to elders. They got cocky, got sloppy, and someone took them out. More often than not, it was someone like Emilio. It was an endless cycle of its own — slayers killed vampires and vampires killed slayers. A twisted sense of balance. But not, he thought, a balance that would be met tonight. “We get plenty right. Your kind are just too self-centered to see it.” A smarter man, he thought, might have been a little less abrasive towards her. After all, he was in a vulnerable position here. He was drunk, he was grieving, he was aching. Killing him in this moment wouldn’t be as much of a feat as he’d like to think it was. But Emilio was never one to keep his mouth shut when he ought to, and he lacked the self preservation necessary to even want to do it now.

For a moment, he thought he’d said too much. Her fangs popped out and she spoke of threats, pointed out the vulnerability of his state. Emilio only glared, fire burning behind his eyes. When she lunged, he tensed in anticipation, but she didn’t attack him. Instead, she took his stake and broke it in two, leaving little to the imagination as far as her opinion to his threat. They had an understanding, it seemed; a path of mutually assured destruction. It was a fragile thing, but it had to be. Vampires and slayers rarely found anything else. “Anyone you see coming and going from here is off limits.” He made no attempt to pretend to believe that she wouldn’t keep an eye on this apartment; he might not be the smartest guy around, but he was too smart to believe she’d let a threat go unsurvielled. “And if I find out you’re killing innocent people, any kind of understanding is off the table. I won’t stand for that.”

He bristled at her apology, quickly looking away. “I’m not sure what’s left worth gaining for me.” There was no quiet reprieve from a pain like this. This, like the priest in the Confessional booth had told him months ago, was one he’d have to carry. So was hers. When her hand went to her pocket, Emilio tensed again. But it wasn’t another knife that she retrieved; instead, it was an orange bottle full of pills. Against his better judgment, Emilio took it. “I’m sure I’ll be in touch,” he replied lowly. He didn’t take his eyes off her until the door closed between them, didn’t relax his shoulders until he heard the elevator at the end of the hall ding. Slumping in his seat, he leaned forward and opened the bottle she’d left behind, washing two of the pills down with a swig of whiskey from the bottle in his drawer.

Christ, Emilio, he thought to himself, letting his head fall forward to rest against his clenched fist, what the hell did you get yourself into now?

#costiagrace #costia: counting cards #sibling death tw #suicide ideation tw #alcoholism tw #drug use tw #parental death tw

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