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chaotic-orphan · 7 months

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Hi! Can you please write more of The Immortal Hunter? I'm so invested

Hello!!! Yes! Absolutely, I forgot how much I liked this story, I hope you enjoy <3

The Immortal Hunter

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

*~*~*~*~*

They walked in silence except for their shoes crunching off of gravel. That was fine.

Killian had been through enough already today and last night, and Heath didn’t really want him to talk, he just felt like Killian needed to.

Or Killian was going to talk anyways, once he found the right words. There was the taste of anticipation heavy in the air between them, but Heath was fine with basking in the silence for now. Happy to let Killian mull it over as they walked down the archway of trees that lined the driveway to Felix’s estate.

The light was filtering through the tree’s leaves like shattered gem shards of topaz and the birds were chirping in the trees. It was shaping up to be a nice day, and with it, Heath felt a heavy longing for his mortality and let out a soft sigh.

“You…” Killian began, then faltered and stopped when Heath looked at him. “Thank you for everything you did, uh, did for me back there.”

“No problem,” said Heath easily in reply.

Killian spoke again and said: “no. I mean—“ then he sighed and broke off again so Heath stopped walking and turned to face the boy, pulling his little metal cigarette case from his back pocket.

Killian looked at Heath, an embarrassed blush colouring his cheekbones, right above where Wolfe had sliced into his cheek with his claw. Heath focused on the dried blood caked under the wound from the coagulation in his blood as he lit the cigarette between his teeth.

“I feel like “Thank you” isn’t enough for what you did for me.”

“It is enough.”

“No,” Killian protested, meeting Heath’s eyes with his blue ones and then looking away sheepishly, a hand going to the nape of his neck and rubbing it. “It isn’t. You said you would protect my s— my family no matter what happened…”

Heath nodded, exhaling smoke through his nostrils. “It’s what I would have wanted someone to do for me.”

“But you meant it…” Killian said, like it was a challenge and a gift much too sentimental and overwhelming for knowing someone for such a short time. “You said you would protect her— even after I didn’t tell you my first name or—“

“Hey, kid. It’s okay,” said Heath, voice gentle as he extended his hand to Killian. Killian looked up at Heath’s face then down at his hand and took it in his. The warmth of Killian’s palm was almost addictive, Heath longed for that comfort. He doubted Killian even valued how much his body worked to make sure it was heated at all times, not too hot, not too cold just perfect human temperature. Heath knew he never appreciated it, not until it was too late.

Something settled over Killian’s features, resolute and accepting as he gave Heath’s cold dead hand a good, firm shake.

Heath smiled softly, a little sadly, then dropped Killian’s hand.

“I was in the same position as you,” Heath continued, turning to walk further away from Felix’s mansion and prying ears. Killian easily fell into step beside him.

“In debt to Felix for family reasons that don’t matter anymore because my family is dead. Felix tried to tell me that before I signed my soul to him, but I refused to listen,” Heath said, voice turning wry towards the end of the sentence. He shot a smile over to Killian who’s eyebrows were knitted together in sympathy. “Who knew, right?”

Heath took another long inhale of smoke into his lungs, filling his dead tissue husk with the burnt remnants of tobacco. Somehow the two dead things twisted and combining together warmed him and made him feel as close to alive as he was ever going to get.

Except for maybe blood… blood sang to every nerve and muscle and organ in his body, craved it, clung to it and was never satisfied no matter how much or little he drank. The point of satiation would be producing his own blood in his body, like back when he was, y’know— alive, and that wasn’t ever going to happen so yes.

Blood and, a close second, smoking cigarettes, made him feel alive.

Or as alive as he could feel.

He remembered last night. His old knife in his hand, his blood lighting up the runes of the Hunters’ blade. Remembered his heart beating and the blood rushing through his ears like phantom limbs. Remembered the rush of breathlessness as he sunk the blade into Wolfe’s strong body and watched him crumble around it.

Remembered zoning out during the Hunter’s high and crashing back into his body with a wave of nausea and exhaustion hitting him like a truck.

Heath knew he was made to kill vampires, as all Hunters are. As the Immortal Hunter he knew he would spend eternity fighting and killing every last bloodsucker on the planet, protecting humans as best as he could, and when all the vampires would dead, so too could Heath rest in peace eternally.

That was his purpose.

His sole mission.

When Felix killed him he thought that was the end. That he failed and he doomed humanity to endure the vile, ruthless creatures in the night with no protector.

Wolfe yesterday seemed like a test, like the world was trying to figure out if he really wasn’t the immortal Hunter anymore, or if he was.

Heath nearly scoffed at his own thoughts. “Like the world was trying to figure out…” if the world was currently sitting at his dining table enjoying breakfast with Celeste and went by the name of Victor, then yes, as he would like to think of himself it, the world really wanted to answer that burning question, and answer it he did.

It gave Heath something he forgot he ever had.

Hope.

Hope that one day, someday soon, he could repay Felix the favour of death and be able to continue this life without having to suffer sadistic vampire.

Heath paused in his steps, eyes staring at the gravel road in front of him. Killian stopped too, looking over his shoulder at Heath. Heath realised he looked a bit crazy then, so he tapped his cigarette and watched the ashes flutter to the ground, mixing with the wide ranging palette of small grey stones.

The worst part was that Heath remembered. He remembered gripping the knife as Killian helped him to his feet, remembered holding onto it like a lifeline. He pushed Killian away and then tried to take a step and collapsed, and the knife…

“Heath? You okay?”

“Mmm,” Heath grumbled in reply. Maroon eyes finding inquisitive human ones peering back at him.

“The dagger that I killed Wolfe with,” Heath said, tilting his head, “did you see what I did with it?”

Killian turned to face Heath, folding his arms across his chest. “You— well, Felix told me it was part of some ritual you needed to complete.”

Heath let out a huff of breath from his nostrils, shaking his head. “I must have dropped it when I collapsed,” Heath said, taking in a quick puff of his cigarette. “Did you hear it clatter?”

“What’s so important about it?”

“It’s — uh, it’s like an extension of the Hunter’s arm. Very sacred, the dagger and the blood of a Hunter are what—“ Heath looked at Killian and smiled, not wanting to get into it in detail. “Sorry. Long story short, it kills vampires.”

Killian frowned. “And Felix had it?”

“Yes,” Heath said with an exhale of smoke, slipping the cigarette between his teeth. “He did. But if you didn’t hear it clatter to the ground then Felix must have it again…”

“I doubt he’s the type to just leave it lying around, even if you did drop it.”

“You’d be right,” Heath said, stretching his hands to sky and cracking his back, letting out a loud satisfied sigh as his wound up muscles loosened and cartilage cracked. “Ah, problem for another day. We can worry about that later.”

Heath started walking down the tree lined drive again with Killian following and falling into step beside him. “How can you be so nonchalant about that? Can’t that knife kill you?”

Heath shrugged. “A lot of things can kill me. That knife is not one of them. It’s the whole point of Hunter’s blood being needed for the dagger to work. Otherwise it’s just a normal knife. If it killed Hunters, it wouldn’t be that useful.”

“But you’re a vampire now,” Killian said, and Heath’s dead heart stuttered at the blatant truth so easily flowing from Killian’s lips. “From what Felix was saying today you, well, it seemed like you should still be human.”

“Mmm, first of my kind. I’m truly unique.”

“Does it not scare you?”

“Death?” Heath asked with a breath of laughter. He stopped waking, took the last pull of his cigarette, down to the butt, close enough for his fingers to feel the burn before dropping it and extinguishing it beneath his shoe. “That’s a bit too philosophical of a topic for a Thursday morning, Killian.”

“No, I mean—“ Heath smiled and put a hand on Killian’s shoulder silencing him.

“I know what you mean, but trust me when I say that there are things worse than death when it comes to Victor Felix. You almost experienced it first hand last night.”

“I… Wolfe attacked me last night, he was the one who took me and tied me up in the basement. He was the one who hurt me and—“

“Felix was the one willing to let Wolfe turn you or torture you to prove a point to me.”

The corner of Killian’s lips turned down into a scowl. “I’m not a pawn to be played in your and Felix’s game.”

“No, you’re not,” said Heath straightening up and taking his hand from Killian’s shoulder, to run it through his hair. “I’m just saying you should be more careful about what jobs you take for Felix.”

Killian went silent after that and Heath didn’t press him further on it as they walked out of the imposing wrought iron gates that sealed the estate away from the local town.

The gates that made it such a formidable foe when Heath was running, trying to escape Felix in the night. Worn and tired, human lungs gasping for air and heart pounding blood and adrenaline to fuel his body. He remembered coming up to see the always open gates shut and padlocked tight with chains.

He remembers shaking the gate and cursing under his breath and then throwing caution to the wind, gripping the iron bars and pulling himself up. He had only got a foot off the ground when a hand tightened in the back of his shirt, clenching the fabric into bunched up cold fist.

Heath froze.

He remembers hearing the low tsk of Felix and the smile in his voice. Felix didn’t do anything else. That small contact was enough to humiliate Heath, show him how powerless he really was.

“You can come back willingly and I promise I’ll only bleed you a little,” Felix purred, voice as deadly as Heath’s vampire slaying blade. He remembers tightening his grip on the bars until his knuckles turned white. Heath pressed his forehead against the cold bars, lamenting his freedom which was right there in front of him. He could’ve reached out and grabbed it.

If he was fast enough.

If he was strong enough.

If he was better.

Heath shuddered out a shaky exhale, feeling less of Felix’s cold dead hands on him. Unnatural hands.

“Or you can do this in your own special way, Heath,” Felix continued, voice almost fond. “In your penchant for raising Cain and really make me work up an appetite…”

Heath let out a pathetic cry of frustration into the night, rattling the gates along with his scream at the gates that were closed to him by Felix, for Felix’s own amusement. He liked his prey to run, he had told Heath that much after he tried to run so many times, told him he liked the high that adrenaline gives to the blood. Makes it sweeter, almost frenzied.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop feeding on you after you pass out if that’s the route you want to take, and you know, I would have to punish you for running away again once you wake up. You’ve been so good for me lately, Heath…” Felix’s fingers walked up Heath’s spine as far as they could and yanked Heath off the gate as if he wasn’t holding on at all.

Heath’s feet had barely hit the ground when in a flash he was pressed against the gate, his cheekbone digging into the metal as Felix rested his now clawed fingers on the nape of Heath’s neck. Heath pushed with all his might and struggled to get Felix off him but Felix didn’t falter. It was as if Heath wasn’t struggling at all.

Felix leaned in and sniffed Heath’s neck, smiling against the thin skin between his major veins and arteries, pumping the blood, the terror, the adrenaline, the life through his veins.

“Hard way it is,” he hummed, yanking Heath off the gates and dragging him away from them, kicking and fighting and screaming. “Dear boy, a chase and a fight and a feast. You’re really spoiling me tonight.”

Heath remembered it like it was yesterday. It feels like it was yesterday. Or maybe it was the fact that even after Felix took his humanity and turned him into an unnatural immortal thing, last night when it came down to it, when it came to Heath being able to protect Killian from Wolfe and Felix’s schemes, he couldn’t do a thing to stop them.

The moment Felix threw a casual arm over his shoulder and wrapped it tight around his torso he knew he couldn’t fight him off, let alone Wolfe.

His humanity, his dignity and his family— all traded for eternity as a leech, and still he was too weak to fight off the sadistic fucker who took everything he loved from him and left him with nothing except misery.

Heath looked at Killian walking beside him and he hated himself because he knew even now that the only reason Killian was walking with him back home, and not still tied up in Felix’s basement, is so Felix could dangle another good thing in Heath’s life to rip away. To leverage against him, to torture him with, to keep him in check and make sure he behaves.

Or else, went unsaid.

Behave or else Killian dies, or gets turned, or something worse that Felix could conjure up in his twisted mind. Heath just knew whatever it was would involve suffering.

And the worst part was that as far as Felix was dangling another good thing in front of him, Heath was too stubborn or too stupid to not take the bait and get in too deep.

Maybe their sick little game was doomed to continue for eternity, with new calamity as collateral with every new generation of humans.

“My home is just…” Killian began, tearing Heath from his thoughts. Killian stopped himself short, glancing over his shoulder at Heath. Heath nodded encouragingly, waiting for the answer for a beat too long before he realised and a smile spread across his face.

Heath nodded again, tilting his head at Killian. “You don’t want to tell me.”

“No,” said Killian after careful thought. “I don’t.”

“That’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“It is. Can you promise me you’ll get home safe?”

“Yes.”

“Can you promise Felix won’t come after you?”

Killian hesitated. Heath nodded and said, “then I’m coming, kid. Trust me it’s safer for us both.”

“How is it safer for me?” Killian demanded, nostrils flaring stepping closer to Heath, squaring up slightly. Heath grinned showing his fangs and took a small bit of sick pleasure at the slight falter on Killian’s face.

Heath stepped forward, closing the gap, exposing Heath’s clear height advantage and stared down at Killian waiting for him to back down.

Killian didn’t.

Despite it all.

He didn’t back down and Heath couldn’t help let out a soft happy laughter.

Killian frowned. “What?”

“I’m just impressed is all.”

“Thank you?” Killian asked.

Heath shook his head. “Never impress a vampire, Killian. If you listen to anything I say, listen to that. They’re obsessive things. Possessive things. They’ll steal your life to keep you because you’re entertaining.”

“You’re barely a vampire. You’re basically human.”

Heath sighed. “I was never human. I was a hunter, and then I was a vampire. Such is life. Now, you can either agree to show me where you live or I can wait — trust me, immortality gives you great patience — and I will follow you home when you eventually relent to check on your family —“

“Okay!” Killian huffed, throwing his hands up helplessly. “Fine! Why do you want to know so badly anyways?!”

Heath felt his face grow solemn, eyes turning poignant and lips almost pouting.

“I want to make sure Wolfe is dead and not coming for revenge, and I want to make sure Felix doesn’t come and take you away in the night. I don’t even need to go inside, just… let me watch over you tonight, and your family. Keep you safe.”

“I have work in the morning,” Killian said.

Heath shrugged, “then I’ll walk you to work.”

“You can’t protect me every minute of everyday,” Killian reasoned and Heath just shrugged again.

“I can try.”

Killian huffed, crossing his arms across his chest. “Is this another Hunter ritual thing?”

Heath smiled, a small genuine smile. “Yeah, something like that…”

Killian nodded, then turned and started walking. He gestured over his shoulder for Heath to follow and Heath did so in a comfortable silence, listening to the boy as he rambled on about how annoying the walk to work is in the morning, or when it’s raining.

Heath smiled as he spoke, unaware of the figure that was watching the pair between the trees.

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