You quickly head down the staircase of the basement, descending into the dark basement, lit by a dim candle. You slow down as you notice the counters piled with jars filled to the brim with red liquid. A bloody metal table sits there with unopened leather straps, a series of tubing and IV's connected to it. You're certain that it's equipment to drain the blood of victims the Thrall captures, to feed his master when he doesn't wish to hunt for himself. 


However, the highlight of the room is a large, ornate coffin, leaning against a concrete wall. You've seen enough coffins in your life for any man, but this one is a fairly nice one. It's solid wood, cherry, with brass handles, sitting up on its side so its resident can sleep standing up. The face on the front of the coffin shows a grinning, gargoyle-like face made of brass, its eyes shining at you. You flinch at the sight of it, nervous about what lies behind it.


You hurry up to the coffin, readying your shotgun to perform the breaching actions. Swinging around and standing back, you quickly measure the size of the coffin and roughly calculate where the center of its heart is. You aim, your fingers tightening on the trigger as you fire the weapon.


Your shotgun bucks, firing lead and magnesium shards directly through the heavy wood of the coffin. You fire four times as the wood splinters and explodes away, your shells bursting through them as they tear through the coffin, swiveling your aim between where the head and heart should lie. After a few seconds, you pause, quickly reloading your shotgun as you step back, hoping the creature lies dead inside there.


Stepping forward, you grab the handle of the coffin and wretch it open, tearing open the splintered and almost destroyed door. Staring inside, you find splintered wood and torn apart coffin... but no vampire, or no ash to show a clean kill.


"That was expensive," a dark, chilling voice says. "You'll pay for that."


Your voice chills when you hear the voice, but you know it's not the time for tears. Turning your head, you find yourself staring up at a tall, deathly pale figure, baring a pair of ivory daggers that descend from its upper jaw. It's skin seems almost entirely hairless except for the thick black hair that hangs down from its head. Its eyes, however... its blood red eyes betray an inhumanity that you'll never be able to comprehend. 


The creature dashes forward, grabbing your shotgun by the handle and punching you in the stomach. He quickly begins to wrest the shotgun out of your hands as you use all your strength to stop it, fighting for control of your weapon while using your knees to keep the vampire far enough away from you so that it's fangs can't sink into your flesh and drain you of your blood.

You release your grip on the shotgun and draw your revolver

You release your grip on the shotgun, allowing the Vampire to tear it free from himself as you rapidly backpedal, grabbing the revolver at your side and drawing it in one smooth motion. You aim the revolver at the vampire's chest. For a moment, you see the smile drop from the vampire's face as you open fire, releasing a burst of silver bullets from your gun. The silver bullets embed themselves directly in the Vampire's heart as it topples back, the force of the bullets leaving the Vampire stumbling back as it gasps. It's flesh begins burning away to ash as the creature collapses to the ground, and soon there's nothing but an ash pile left. 


You gasp, leaning back as you sigh, putting away your revolver. You look down at the pile of ash, walking forward as you drop to your knees, searching through the ash to recover your spent bullets. You pull them out, stuffing them into your pocket to be reforged into fresh bullets later. With that, you stand.


A bright ringing noise startles you from behind, and you almost open fire in that direction as you redraw your revolver. You find yourself staring at a simple cellphone sitting on a table, vibrating and ringing away. You pause, looking at it with confusion.


You walk over slowly, reaching down and flipping open the phone, lifting it to your ear.


"Hello?"


"Hello, Mr Matasan."


Your blood chills for a moment, as you take a deep breath, terror ringing through you.


"And who may I be speaking to?"


"My name is Hrólfr Gaange. It's a pleasure to meet you."


"Is there something I can help you with?" you ask.


"You don't seem particularly afraid, Mr Matasan."


"Should I be, Mr Gaange?" you ask, trying to keep your calm.


"Of course not. It's just refreshing to speak to a new person without them being so terrified. Now, let's be quite frank, Mr Matasan. You killed one of my agents, and their thrall, did you not?"


"I did," you say, not wanting to waste the time that would've come from lying, since you know the creature's certain about these facts. 


"Interesting. Good. He was a weak, impulsive creature. He wasn't useful. Quite frankly, he was a threat to our existence. But you... you could be of assistance to me. You have potential. I want you to work for me." 


"No," you reply, almost instantly, prompting a dark chuckle from the bastard. 


"I understand. You've dedicated your life to protecting the innocent. But, so have I, Mr Matasan. I may be a vampire, but I do what's necessary for this world. I don't stalk through the streets at night attacking helpless women hiding in their beds. I'm not one of these crass specimens that wants to blot out the sun, or who wants to enslave mankind, or raise a legion of damned souls. I like the world the way it is. And I'm going to keep it safe from darker creatures of the night. I keep the world of darkness under wraps, as you do. I keep my dark brethren in check. I protect society. You could help me with that, and do a far better job than you do as a mortal." 


"No," you say again.


"Think about what I'm offering you. Immortality, riches, power, strength, speed, intelligence. Everything you could want." 


"I can't do that, Mr Gaange. I think you already knew that, though."


"Oh, I did. But I'm not looking to recruit you right now. I'm offering you a favor. You types never take the power offer. You don't join my side out of power-lust. You join out of desperation. A day will come when you need me. Perhaps you need some arcane knowledge. Perhaps you need money. Perhaps a cure for some unknown disease. Anything you ever need. Just... keep this phone. My number is under Mr Black. Generic, i know. When you need me, call. I can give you anything you want. And what do you lose for that? Your finite mortality, your weakness, your diseases, your poverty... a fair bargain, no."


"I'm not going to..." you begin to see, before a dark voice interrupts you.


"Keep the phone. I know you don't think you'll need it, but you might. I'll talk to you sooner or later, Mr Matasan. Best of luck to you tonight. I've heard it'll be a big one."


The phone beeps as Mr Gaange hangs up on you. You pause, looking down at your phone as you try to think through what to do.

You take the phone

Thinking long and hard, you decide to take the phone. Perhaps it could be of some use. Maybe. Hopefully, you never have to use it, but you didn't survive this long in the field by turning away potential gifts, and you're not going to start now. Everything you can use in the fight against darkness, you will use. You slide the phone into one of your secure pockets, buttoning it up and patting it to make sure it's secure.


Your job done, you quickly set apart eradicating the evidence this place ever existed. You pack up the jars of blood into the truck, for disposal somewhere that won't be investigated. You also take the IV and tubing, before grabbing your fuel cans. You quickly perform the same patterns, spreading it through the house evenly enough, focusing on that you need destroyed and that which is most flammable. Once that's done, you head out of the house and set the home alight, watching as the flames run through the house and engulf it in an inferno.


You don't feel like watching it, not feeling the usual satisfaction of watching a lair of darkness light the shadows as a beacon of warmth and light. You just feel tired, even more so knowing that you're not finished your work tonight.


You head back to your truck, climbing in and heading off down the road again. The drive goes by quickly, as you turn your radio up until it's almost blaring some inane Norwegian pop song, and continue off down the road. 


It's not long before you pull up to the old country house again. The signs of the night's lateness are more obvious, now. A few of the vehicles parked outside are dented or have blood smears or bullet holes, and the Hunters that walk about them seem more exhausted. You head into the house, taking a moment to appreciate the light of the fireplace. But, the night is still young, and you have targets to hit. 


You walk towards the sitting room, one of the old house's converted into a "base of operations" of sorts. Although as Hunters, you tend to work independently, only using the Lodge for resources, resupplying and rest, as well as letting them know every so often you're not dead in the long periods of investigation and tracking in trying to find the lairs and dens of beasts, and trying to distinguish psychos and fools from men tainted by the demonic, or worse. 


However, it's the night of the Hunt, that beautiful night of the year where you wipe out the monsters that dwell in the shadows in one quick sweep, not even giving the bastards time to flee or figure out what's going on. And on the night of the Hunt, sometimes you need to work together. While maddened werewolves and loner vampires are easy prey with modern technology, hard-work, training and of course the element of surprise, when the creatures of darkness work together, so must you. When that happens, you plan and prepare in the lounge. 


You walk into the lodge, finding a large table with a map stretched across it. A half dozen men stand around it, all of whom you recognize as veteran Hunters. The leader of the group is the head of the Lodge, a man known as Ernest Collier. The old man's scarred, wrinkled face smiles at you as you enter. Ernest's too old at his age to still hunt, having since lost the physical peak that Hunters are required to be at, but his mind is strong and he's well experienced. Thus, he serves the cause through leading the lodge. Everything from supplying Hunters to recruiting to planning the larger hunts falls under his purview.


"William. How have your two hunts been?" he asks.


"Successfully," you say simply.


The next man is Father Féval, a tall, gaunt figure with spectacles dressed in black. His lips turn upwards in the barest facsimile of a smile as he looks at you. You know he's only trying to be polite, his professional, cold nature means he rarely takes joy, and lives of a live of abstinence and religious duty. You retreat to the car, calling into the Lodge. They report back that they've a spare Hunter to send out, one who is only acting on stand-by. Father Paul Féval. You know the man well, and have worked with him before. The man's a representative from the Vatican, a priest even, and as adamant in following the laws of the Bible as you are in never leaving the Lodge without a spare, but the man's a professional and an experienced Hunter. The man's permanent cold, professional demeanor means you'd be hesitant to call him a "friend", but you feel it'd be disrespectful to like anything. 


After him stands former-Unteroffizer Hans Hirsch. The tall man has dark black hair and light eyes, his face decorated with a long scar that goes vertically just left of his left eye. He leans over the table, scanning the map. His finger gently runs across hunting paths through the thick forest as he whispers to himself. Hans is a strange man, with a taste for drink, cigars, cigarettes, whores, gambling... anything he can get his hands on. But, he's a good hunter, having served in the military of his home country and having a great record on all his previous hunts.  


The final man is an Alaskan by the name of Russel Sloane. Time has taken the black from his thick beard and the hair from his head, but left the man's strength, speed and cunning, and only given him experience and wisdom for the trade. He's a powerful Hunter, and took the shift from bears and wolves to Kushtaka and Tupilaq with ease. He smiles at you grimly when you enter, his face showing a hint of more worry than usual.


"Are we ready to start?" you ask.


"We're waiting on someone," Russel says.


As you raise an eyebrow, the door swings open and you find yourself staring down at a young boy, barely in his mid teens. 


"This is my boy Wyatt. Now that's he's a full man, we'll be taking him on tonight's hunt, showing him how we fight. I filled him in on the details."


"Pleasure to meet y'all," he smiles nervously, as you look him up and down.


He's young, short, weak and skinny. You don't think he should be coming out, but he's a man more than you would normally have for this mission, and you're not going to be telling his father how to raise his own child. 


"Take a seat, Wyatt," Ernest smiles. "We're going to go over tonight's details."


Ernest takes a seat, as you stare down at the map ahead of you, which shows you a massive woods, with several hunting paths, potential lairs and scenes of incidents highlighted.


"Let's recap for those who didn't get to hear it directly from me!" Ernest says. "There's been several mauling's in these areas, and we've had reports a werewolf pack is responsible. Not just one werewolf, but an entire pack of about six to twelve creatures. We're taking a small team in their to set up an ambush, draw them out and kill them all. The plans' simple. Take a truck into the woods with a mutilated deer carcass, slathered in human blood. The scent should draw the werewolves into your area, where you'll have set up an overview to take them out. Simple."


You all nod, the review of your plan unnecessary for everyone but Wyatt.


"We're heading off in an hour and a half. I want all of you prepared and by the truck for then, understood?"


There's a chorus of affirmatives, as Ernest smiles. 


"Good to know. Best of luck, men."