Chapter Text
Back in Kaiser’s old town, there had been an unspoken rule and one rule only; never wander out after dark.
Stories and claims of mysterious bloodsucking creatures, vampires, had circulated for years. Ever since a string of deaths marked by exsanguinated bodies filled the newspapers, an organisation had emerged.
The sector had been founded by his father, and of course, he’d been brought up to inherit every last bit of that ridiculous legacy. Forced to train with guns, stakes, and even tolerate the stench of garlic. That part felt even more ludicrous.
Vampires weren’t real. They were a stupid myth, made up by drunks who struggled to tell the difference between their lefts and rights. It was all very much a laughable fantasy, and Kaiser certainly hadn’t bought into any of their money hungry lies.
Until, of course, everyone in the town had been torn to bloody, fleshy ribbons amongst the streets one night. That included his father, but frankly, Kaiser had been glad the man got what he deserved. To say he was abusive and neglectful would be a serious understatement.
After that, he’d moved away. Far, far away from any scheming vampires that wanted to lurk in the shadows— waiting for the right time to pounce.
Or so he thought.
Living on his own had been peaceful for a while; working a simple job, living a regular life, until yet goddam again people started being picked off.
It was at a much lesser rate, sure, but with what happened during his childhood and teenage years?
He knew better now to not underestimate the beasts.
From what he could tell, they were strong, feral and painfully smart. Those piercing magenta eyes slowly blinking awake at him only confirmed his theories.
“... where am I?”
The creature spoke with such a soft tone, voice smooth and utterly dripping with honey. He seemed to finally register the ropes wrapped tightly around his body, and flexed his arms awkwardly amongst them.
Kaiser scoffed, cocking his head to the side. The other certainly didn’t look tough, yet those innocent blinking doe eyes looked all too well like a trap.
“A warehouse. I like it here, hidden and quiet. It’s good for my kind of business.”
The stakes, axes, knives, guns all propped up on the wall weren’t just for display. He’d use them the second he needed to.
Judging by the way the vampire's gaze flickered to them too, the thought was mutual.
“You’ve tied an innocent person up in the middle of nowhere?”
Ah, here it came.
There were two hypocritical things to comment on in that. One, innocent was a highly dubious term to be throwing around after Kaiser had found a dead body with two puncture wounds in their neck not too far from the vampire's residence.
Two, person. Vampires weren’t people, mortals, humane none of it. They were mindless filthy beasts that deserved to burn alive beneath the suns harsh gaze.
His lack of response caused oh so sincere tears to swell in the tied up man's eyes.
“P-Please— I have a family… I-”
Kaiser kicked the chair. The creaky wood smashed to the ground, taking its hostage with it. He was damn well impressed it didn’t break upon clattering into the stone cold floor. Leave it to a heartless vampire to try talking about family.
“Cut the bullshit crocodile tears and bear your fangs at me, vampire.”
His expression soured. It wasn’t quite a snarl, more like he was cringing up at Kaiser from where he was awkwardly bound on the floor.
“Firstly, my name is Ness,”
Kaiser had known about Ness’s true identity for a while. It didn’t hurt to put a name to the face of the man constantly lurking the town streets at night though. Everything had seemed fine at first, since no one had died aside from random animals in the forest. Of course, things couldn’t always stay so peachy. As long as he stayed to himself, kept feeding off of the animals, he could’ve lived. Pity.
“Secondly why go to all this effort of kidnapping me? If you wanted to check if I was a vampire, you could’ve just asked for gods sake.”
Kaiser raised an eyebrow. He watched Ness’s mouth move as he talked, and it did in fact confirm the fact he was a vampire. Sharp, murderous pearly white fangs.
Yet, that retort was oddly laid back.
“My friends warned me there was some lunatic hunter here. I guess that must be you.”
Ness huffed, attempting to wriggle out of the ropes once more.
He couldn’t care less what the townsfolk thought of him, the real question was why would a bunch of humans knowingly be friends with a vampire? Ness didn’t exactly do too well trying to hide it.
“I brought you here for interrogation over a murder. A vampire attack, to be precise,” Kaiser shot back, “I don’t suppose the only known vampire in this area knows anything about that?”
Those magenta eyes lit up once more with surprise. Realisation, perhaps, that Kaiser wasn’t messing around.
The tension between them was thick. He could see the way Ness gnawed on his bottom lip with his fangs, daring to cut it open. To his credit— he held his composure together well, simply just analysing the situation. Kaiser had never come across a vampire so eerily calm, but the change of pace wasn’t unwelcomed. In his eyes, a vampire was still a vampire- gone feral or not.
“I… do, but not because I killed them.”
It was quite unnerving how human the other man acted. Of course, he held no doubts that it was a façade, yet it’d be understandable how your regular person would crumble.
“And I’m supposed to believe that how, exactly? A woman was found dead, washed up on the riverbank amongst the reeds sporting two puncture marks on her neck. It was made clear she was dead before the hit the water. All happened within a mile of your house.”
Ness gawked at him from his awkward position on the floor. It had to be growing uncomfortable, and that’s exactly what Kaiser was after.
“Well— yes I- could smell the body, but I seriously didn’t kill her!” He argued, a slight pout appearing on his lips, “Why would I kill now, when I’ve been living peacefully amongst humans for so long?”
Unfortunately, he did have a point. Kaiser hated to admit it but the incident was random— extremely out of the blue.
“Maybe your resolve finally snapped,” He sneered, grabbing the top of the chair, “You couldn’t stand not feeding on innocent blood a second longer.”
“Or maybe your watch on the town isn’t as crystal clear as you think, hm?”
In one swift movement Kaiser had pulled the chair back up, earning a surprised yelp from Ness. It was uncanny, strange, weird, how despite being undead his face still had the ability to flush. Perhaps from the blood rushing back to his head.
“Here’s the deal, bat. You tell me everything you know and I’ll maybe, just maybe, consider letting you leave alive.”
Those pretty pink eyes lit up once more. With definitely too much information, Ness began spilling out every exact detail of how he stayed level headed, why he came to this town in the first place and his own theories on what had happened.
To be fair, Kaiser had entirely zoned out about half way through it.
He admired the willingness to tell a total stranger every move of your life for the past week. Truth be told, Kaiser was damn well good with liars. It wasn’t entirely out of the question that another vampire had managed to sneak into their town to cause havoc. As long as Ness had been telling the truth, which, as far as he was aware he had, he had no intention to kill. The murder of someone, even a bloodsucking leech, would gain him far too much attention. It was honestly more harm than good. With the condition Ness continued to stay out of trouble, his presence in the town wouldn’t be a cause for concern.
“… hello?”
“Oh, yeah, cool.”
Kaiser snapped out of his own thoughts. His eyes focused back on an expectant expression, probably waiting for some kind of verdict despite the fact Kaiser’s mind had long since been made up.
He took out his dagger, the silver glinting menacingly. It sucked he’d tied the rope knots too tight, since the stuff certainly wasn’t easy to come by. Nonetheless, he sliced carefully through them as if they were butter.
Ness smiled gratefully up at him. “Thank you… they were beginning to hurt.”
“Yeah yeah,” Kaiser waved him off, and pocketed the knife. “Get out of here and stay away from trouble.”
Realistically, turning your back and walking away from a vampire seemed like a really dumb mistake. However, Ness wasn’t overly… threatening, per se.
He shuffled his leather jacket off, placing it down neatly on the counter. If Ness, the only vampire he knew of in the town, hadn’t committed the murder then who did? It couldn’t have just been your average joe, no. Those niche fang marks belonged to one species and one species alone.
But then who else did it?
How frustrating. The only evidence he had to go off of was the fact a vampire had done it, and the only one present in the town was Ness. A small part of him had been hoping it’d be this simple, and the dark rose coloured haired man had been the culprit.
Of course, things could never be that simple.
“Wait wait, is that really it?”
Ugh, what a pain. Couldn’t he just count his blessings and leave?
Silence fell between the two for a moment. Kaiser assumed his glare, or the fact he took the dagger out once more, would be enough to get the other to take the hint.
But yet again, things could never be that easy.
“I can help you catch them.”