|| -- f e e l i n g N O T H I N G

[Chai High Tuba]

"Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live."

- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus [1818]

[Chai High Tuba]

❝ＨＯＰＥ ＴＯ ＤＩＥ， ❝ＨＯＰＥ ＴＯ ＬＯＶＥ， ❝ＨＯＰＥ ＴＯ ＬＩＶＥ

xxxxxxxxxx ⇢ xxxxｙｏｕｒ ｔａｌｅ ｂｅｇｉｎｓ
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███ ❤『 ❝ HUGO . ULRIKSEN.
xxxxxxxx ❝ ┇ MR. GRAVELY !! xxxx ❝ ┇ MID-30S !! xxxx ❝ ┇ CHAI HIGH TUBA !!
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

| ❝ ＡＰＰＥＡＲＡＮＣＥ


█「gender 〉 〉┊ male
█「sexuality 〉 〉┊ pansexual
█「height 〉 〉┊ 6’11”
█「weight 〉 〉┊265 lbs
█「hair color 〉 〉┊ silver
█「eye color 〉 〉┊ blue
█「species 〉 〉┊ vampire
█「occupation 〉 〉┊ close-protection officer to Mr. Angove
█「noticeable features 〉 〉┊ a weather-beaten stone rune hangs from a leather strap around his neck, often hidden beneath his shirt
█「marks/scars 〉 〉┊ sudden changes in skin tone from replaced body parts, djinni-style tattoos on arms and back
█「weapon 〉 〉┊ his whole body is tailored for fighting
█「picture links 〉 〉┊ ◆ ◆




| ❝ ＰＥＲＳＯＮＡＬＩＴＹ


█「positive 〉 〉┊ Stalwart
█「negative 〉 〉┊Judging
█「positive 〉 〉┊ Practical
█「negative 〉 〉┊Self-sacrificing
█「positive 〉 〉┊Reliable
█「negative 〉 〉┊Serious

█「dislikes 〉 〉┊ babysitting, rebelliousness, foggy days, pets, threats
█「likes 〉 〉┊pain, his “family”, old myth, innocent blood, sketching
█「secrets/goals 〉 〉┊he recently created a new vampire, The Sweet Runaway; to help Mr. Royalty realize his vision and to protect their kind are his only goals





| ❝ ＢＩＯＧＲＡＰＨＹ


█「childhood memoryxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There are few things Hugo can now recall so clearly as the snow, the fog, the shore, and footsteps.

The son of a hunter in ancient Scandinavian lands, Hugo was the eldest of many children and well-versed in the ways of the land. Winter had come that year in silence, dense snow in dense forest, and despite the warning of their father, the children of Ulrik were quick to take to fun and games within the forest surrounding their home. Almost as quickly as his siblings dispersed, Hugo was sent to collect them. He spent the day discovering what mischief his brothers and sisters could come up with, some innocent and others malicious. All relented under the withering gaze of their protective brother, his temper hot and his eyes sharp.

“Go home,” he would tell them. “Follow my footsteps back to the house.” And so many did, sporting bruises or mud for their mama to tend impatiently by the fire. By the time he found the youngest, fog had set in over the forest floor and the two became lost. One hour in the dark would surely kill them, which made Hugo hasty in judgment. Warnings abound surrounded the brook near their home, but it was the surest way back. Countless times each child had been warned of the malevolent spirits that waited just in the waters, and despite the chill the water had yet to freeze. Taking this as a good omen, Hugo led his sister up the brook along the shore. To their great fortune, there appeared a great white horse that seemed to beckon them to ride. So happy he was for this luck that Ulrik’s eldest blindly set his sister astride the back of the horse, who in an instant vanished into the water with a victorious cry. His sister disappeared underneath the surface last, but when he went to chase after her the water became suddenly deeper, and as if being pushed by a mighty river, Hugo was sent crashing down the way he had come.

He awoke again in daylight, chilled to the bone beside a young fire clearly made by someone who was briefly absent. Shame washed over him anew as he remembered the fearful cries of his youngest sister as she was unwittingly taken by what he now understood to be a bäckahästen. How could he return home without her? Would her spirit ever find rest? Their father would never again trust him. To return to their home now would be an insult to his unburied, dishonored sister that might bring down a curse upon his family. In a feverish panic, Hugo collected himself and ran from the kindly fire of a stranger before they could return. The only sound he could remember besides the pounding of blood in his ears were his footsteps crunching on fresh snow, making a new path that he wished for no one to follow again.


█「important incidentsxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

His body hit the ground hard, shaking and wet with blood, shocked from the sudden strike. The sword that now ripped itself clean of his flesh soared away with a marred glint of steel under dark red fluid, taking with it Hugo’s whole arm. Unbidden, he yelled in anguish while struggling to gain feeling in fingertips no longer attached to him. The feeling of cold, harsh panic sank in quickly. As he writhed on the ground and tried to make sense of what had just happened, he watched the boots of his adversary move around him — no, over him — toward his next victim.

War had destroyed a once quiet existence, miserable as it was. Human emissaries known as Exorcists now ruled the day, and for all their weaknesses they were doing a damn good job of keeping those of the underworld, Hugo’s kind, under their boot heels. Despite the panic that now forced his body into seizures and made his head spin, the young Icelandic man forced himself to sit up. A high-pitched scream punctuated the air, a sound of pure terror some short distance away from behind the shoulders of the departing exorcist. The tavern was nearly burned to the ground and many lay dead throughout the remains of the existing structure. He had seen this kind of set-up before, a pub fire that killed everyone left inside. This “holy” fire made his skin boil, but their foe seemed untouched by the tongues of flame that lapped at his clothes. The exorcist’s work was nearly done now, only one or two stragglers left to lead to damnation. A lycanthrope mother and her children had lost their hiding place from behind a fallen table when one of the cubs tried and failed to escape. His little corpse lay among the pile of bodies somewhere behind Hugo’s position on the floor.

Rolling over through the pool of his own blood, he scrambled after the one-man army like another weak child trying in vain to stop the inevitable. In that moment, it seemed impossible, like enclosing the sun in one hand, but still he struggled to grab at the man’s greatcoat. From his warped perception, he felt so close that he could take hold of the hem and wrench him backward like he had with so many others on so many other occasions. This time was not like those, and it took the deafening howl of a powerless creature to remind him. Despite otherwise herculean strength, the wolf mother was being subdued with the same sword that still carried his own blood. Her children were crying for her, begging for mercy when there was none to be found. Hugo had long since learned never to ask.

He was losing a lot of blood, but his body was finding ways to compensate and keep him alive. The blood that ran through his veins, now trailing onto the charred floor and dirt foundation beneath, had been a mysterious and generous gift. How many times should he have died, and yet miraculously lived? How many times had he defied the laws of nature as dictated by Exorcists and their God?

The wolf mother was thrown to the floor, dead before her skull bounced off of it. High above their heads, a child was skewered on a sword. She squirmed and screamed, yet the Exorcist did not yield. Though he knew it was not her voice, though she knew not his name, he almost heard another voice call to him, begging for him to take her home. Another hour meant nothing if only he would put her back on her own feet and take her hand. The cold settled in on him, but it was nothing like death. He would never know that feeling. What he did know was the cold and quiet rage, like cloying ice invading the land and stealing victory from the hands of Summer and Spring. Hugo dragged himself to his feet nearly too late, setting a deathly grip upon the sword arm of the Exorcist, right upon the shoulder. Perhaps then would have been a moment to comment on the law of retaliation as understood by laymen, but Hugo was far from the bantering sort. Instead he dug in claws that were not his and soundly tore apart bone, ligament, and muscle to appropriate the arm from his adversary.

It took little to no effort to find exactly where this arm lined up with the old one. After just a moment of holding the torn flesh of his own to that of the Exorcist, his body began to accept the new growth as his own. Now it was their foe’s turn to fall to the ground and writhe in agony, perhaps having never experienced anything like this before. So rare was it for one of His to be taken down. Hugo, however, knew exactly how to repair his own broken body with a surprising amount of focus. The man died at his feet. Fire made it hard to breathe. Across from where the vampire stood was the last surviving cub of the wolf mother’s litter, who had long been shocked into stunned silence. While their shared enemy screamed and died on the floor, she stared on and on. Was she trying to make sense of this senseless massacre? Would she ever recover from this?

In time, after he had rescued this wolf child and escaped the burning tavern, Hugo would leave her to her own devices. He had saved her twice, but his fury was too great a burden for her to bear. He refused to let her try. The death of their kind, different as they were, was an abomination in and of itself and one that would not stand. That night, Hugo left the wolf child with his earthly possessions and disappeared from the land. He would return to the people from whence he had come, not as a human child but as a scared young vampire, murderous and blood-thirsty. Were he to find the strength he needed to protect his world from holy Exorcists, he would need to go to the very source of his strength.

█「recent memory xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hands still. Heart unbeating. Eyes, glassy, staring into the distance as if searching for something he already knew he would not find. Far removed from the din of local life, human stacked on human stacked on human into maddening eternity. Their fresh blood beckoned him with every waking second, yet still he stayed, caring neither for the hunt nor the need for it. For centuries he had brutalized every human that would get in his way, or any that struck his fancy. Their blood was his favorite paint and meal in one, the only sensation left to feel through long-dead or unresponsive nerves across the stony skin of his arms, the claws hiding at his fingertips, the stronger-than-steel bones planted posthumously into his own body. An amalgamate bodyguard.

The numbness had spread. How dead felt the immortal, a patient pet for one who would lead them into a sanguine future.

Somewhere outside their home, outside this self-imposed exile that left his ears buzzing and his molars grinding, there existed a new child who was undoubtedly hungry and peerless. Newborns were often so needy, yet still she had run from them with no indication that she might consider returning. Her mind was too far gone to be concerned with such trifles as where she would next find a safe home. In truth, she was a weapon. Unwittingly, foolishly, she would be out there attempting to make sense of her new desires and powers. She was his first child. He would need to kill her.

How could he? Would Gabriel see this as a declaration of disloyalty? Would he be required to prove himself, or would he simply pay for this in some new and fantastically gory way? No, best to kill her and be done with it.

Even if he knew he could not.

Where could she be?

█「family 〉 〉┊
◆ Gabriel Angove
◆ Geneva Angove
◆ Ellery Sokol
◆ Brexton Beauregard
◆ Christelle Leveque
◆ Alair Angove
◆ Winifred Sawyer
◆ Erica Takeda
█「extra 〉 〉┊YouTube Playlist, voice: Billy Zane as Ansem (KH)

[Chai High Tuba]

P L O T xx C R A V I N G S xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I Fxx I N T E R E S T E D ,xx P Mxx O Rxx Q U O T Exx M Exx ♡

❛ legacies.
▌required: exorcist.
▌hugo quietly prides himself on taking the fight back to exorcists.
▌a century ago, he barely failed to kill a famed exorcist who went on to reproduce.
▌this new generation holds a familiar bloodline, and this time he will not fail.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxclaimed | Visenia Dusange

❛ disciplinarian.
▌required: Mr. Monster or Miss Serial
▌occasionally hugo must take on a role of authority as the garbage man.
▌among hotter personalities his own becomes cold as ice as he calls calmly for self-control.
▌are you gonna take that?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxopen | character

❛ predetermined.
▌required: supernatural
▌centuries ago, perhaps more than he says, Hugo betrayed someone important to him,
▌what of the hunter's family, bereft of their eldest and youngest in one day?
▌perhaps meeting the supernatural just runs in the family.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxopen | character

[Chai High Tuba]

R E L A T I O N S H I P S xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &.


❛ mr. royalty. xxxxx ( xx G A B R I E L xx A N G O V E !
▌Not originally aligned with Gabriel, Hugo came under his employ centuries in the past and has learned many things from him and about him.
▌While their bond could not wholly be called a "kinship," Hugo has developed what can only be described as a fierce loyalty to Gabriel -- it's the only thing he shows emotion about more than once a year.
▌Hugo was present for much of the time when the Angove siblings were together, and was there the day Gabriel slaughtered his brother. Hugo sees the matter as resolved.
▌No matter his disagreement with Gabriel's actions or methods over the years, Hugo has nearly died for him countless times, and still would if his life were in danger.

❛ miss primeval. xxxxx ( xx G E N E V A xx A N G O V E !
▌Their relationship can best be described as businesslike: so long as he keeps her brother alive, she has no qualms.
▌From his own ties with Winnifred, her favorite waif of sorts, Hugo has learned to respect Geneva from a distance.
▌Having been a witness to some of the worst of the Angove family disputes, he has some knowledge of her feelings, but says nothing about them.
▌Just the same as her brother, he would die for Geneva in a heartbeat.

❛ miss bloodlust. xxxxx ( xx L U C I L L E xx K L E I N !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ mr. monster. xxxxx ( xx B R E X T O N xx B E A U R E G A R D !
▌The interaction between these two is combative at best and brutal at worst, as they are natural enemies - chaos versus order.
▌In the past, their relationship could have tentatively called brotherly, as Hugo took on a somewhat mentoring role in teaching him blood manipulation.
▌Their "sibling rivalry" goes back centuries at least, but came to a zenith after a bad loss to M. Dusange back in the 19th century.
▌After discovering the carnage of Erica and turning her, Hugo took on a protective role almost specifically to keep her safe from Brexton.

❛ miss serial. xxxxx ( xx C H R I S T E L L E xx L E V E Q U E !
▌Because of her proclivity for leaving behind carnage after feeding, Hugo often finds himself following after Christelle in an attempt to contain her.
▌Her somewhat combative nature conflicts with his cold, quiet behavior in a way that makes them seem like polar opposites.
▌He was present for the day she was abducted from her home as a child, and has unwittingly been a witness to her entire life story since then.
▌Secretly, he watches Pixar movies with her, and is particularly fond of the mythology from Brave.

❛ mr. halfbreed. xxxxx ( xx A L A I R xx A N G O V E !
▌Looking at Alair in his cloak is an oddly jarring experience for Hugo, as it belonged to Alair's father, whose kinship had at one time been painfully valuable to him.
▌Present as he is at Gabriel's side almost always, Hugo was again a witness to the disaster at the orphanage surrounding Alair's kidnapping.
▌Alair seems bothered by Hugo's presence in general.
▌It's a fair assessment.

❛ miss friendly. xxxxx ( xx W I N I F R E D xx S A W Y E R !
▌She is young in every sense of the word, but at least outwardly loyal and kind.
▌Her growing friendship with Alair could prove useful, but Hugo is watchful of them.
▌He never expresses himself fully around her.
▌Oddly, he finds himself wanting to help her.

[Chai High Tuba]

R E L A T I O N S H I P S xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &.



❛ miss valiant. xxxxx ( xx C O L E T T E xx H A R V E L L E !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ mr. protection. xxxxx ( xx ? ? ? xx ? ? ? !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ miss saintly. xxxxx ( xx V I S E N I A xx D U S A N G E !
▌A century ago, Great Grandfather Dusange met Hugo in battle and nearly died. He went on to continue the family line after narrowly escaping.
▌Although the conflict was left alone, Hugo never forgot the fight that nearly put his family in grave danger against highly powerful exorcists.
▌Visenia recently arrived in New York, where the Angove Coven is alive and well. Hugo still remembers the smell of Dusange blood and knows she is near.
▌There are to be no more loose ends -- not the way things are now.

❛ mr. heartless. xxxxx ( xx C A S M I R xx L E V E Q U E !
▌The last time Hugo saw Casmir was when Christelle was being abducted from their family home after the murder of their parents.
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ miss rebel. xxxxx ( xx L I T H I A xx D E R R E CK !
▌Outwardly, the two could not be more different and that shows on even the most average of days.
▌Friends with benefits without friends... that's just benefits, right? Their relationship, at least from his point of view, is strictly physical.
▌He does not know much of her ruthless nature against his kind, but he harbors conflicting opinions about the way she lives her life.
▌In a world and lifetime when you can feel anything, why does she choose to numb herself with any chemical she can? It's a source of interest.

❛ mr. ace. xxxxx ( xx ? ? ? xx ? ? ? !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ miss newbie. xxxxx ( xx ? ? ? xx ? ? ? !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ mr. greenhorn. xxxxx ( xx M Y L E S xx L Y S A N D E R !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

[Chai High Tuba]

R E L A T I O N S H I P S xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &.


❛ miss nurse. xxxxx ( xx ? ? ? xx ? ? ? !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ mr. satanist. xxxxx ( xx S I M O N xx M A C K E N !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ miss wrong place. xxxxx ( xx M A R C Y xx H E M L O C K !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ mr. detective. xxxxx ( xx J O H N A T H A N xx F A U S T !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ miss determined. xxxxx ( xx P A T R I C I A xx A T R A Y U !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ mr. vengeful. xxxxx ( xx K U S H xx K E S S L E R !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

[Chai High Tuba]

R E L A T I O N S H I P S xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &.


❛ the helpful hound. xxxxx ( xx A L R I C K xx L I U L F R !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the dainty doll. xxxxx ( xx T A R A L Y N N xx O R M A N !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the clever trickster. xxxxx ( xx C O N S T A N T I N E !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the lonely one. xxxxx ( xx A Z A Z E L !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the entrepreneur. xxxxx ( xx J U D A S xx G R E M O R Y !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the tough gangster. xxxxx ( xx ? ? ? xx ? ? ? !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the deranged doctor. xxxxx ( xx S I G I xx A S M O D A I !
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship
▌describe relationship

❛ the sweet runaway. xxxxx ( xx E R I C A xx T A K E D A !
▌During already stressful times, Hugo discovered this Little One in a puddle of her own blood after one of Graeme's famed massacres.
▌In a moment of weakness brought on by guilt and curiosity, he offered her a solution and made her his first "child".
▌Their relationship is strained, as she attempts to make sense of her life which has now begun to spin wildly out of control and he adjusts to being emotionally linked to a moody teen.
▌Despite failed attempts to ease her gently into their lifestyle, Hugo believes that Erica's place is with the coven. (As opposed to anybody else, who she might harm or be harmed by.)

[Chai High Tuba]

tab Focus on where you are. What do you feel?

tab With eyes shut, he nearly felt weightless. Gravity most assuredly kept him connected to the earth and he still breathed, but Hugo had long since forgotten the feeling of cold air on his skin or the soreness of one’s feet after days of work with no rest. Fatigue nagged at him briefly, but he had no mind to rest. Regardless, his body moved like he was in peak condition, fluid despite heavy bone and muscle at a height that set him well above average. No longer did he rely on his sense of touch, nerves too dulled in hands that were only his from the slow flow of cold blood through their decayed veins. Their minimal role in his overall scheme as a being were as tools alone. How much of the currently existing body truly belonged to him, born from cold and raised in snow? No longer the hunter’s eldest boy, fingers calloused from bowstrings and knife work. No longer the stumbling fool with blood on his hands and in his mud-colored hair from when his eyes had been clawed out by the nattravnen. Only the square-jawed, hollow-cheeked face of a man and what existed behind it could be called original, and those had technically died centuries ago.

tab Too long had he felt hyperaware, catching hold of everything that moved for the sake of survival. Too often he had felt fear and anger, burning at him like fire across pale skin. The world beat back at him, and with each loss he was born anew as something colder and quieter, more prepared for the next time and less jumpy from the last. He was years in the making, immortal-borne madness tempered by non-mortal concerns. Dead he had become, and dead he would stay, despite attempts later in what could only be called half living to catch a glimpse of experiences he could no longer feel. But this mattered only enough. Attempting to revive such response to stimuli of a physical or emotional kind was a fruitless effort. He discovered this very quickly some few decades ago, and while he occasionally made the attempt to try again at fearing for what it meant for him as a living creature — almost living — the truth was that the knot in his chest over it was so small and weak that it undid itself in the seconds it took for him to realize that something was wrong. Any fear he might have for himself dissolved away. Not feeling something was a good thing, considering just how often his body had been mangled in the past. If he were disturbed by the prospect, it would simply waste time that his coven, his family never had.

tab With eyes open, eyes forward, the giant man searched for the one blip on his radar. That little spark of energetic emotion, as much part of him as a maggot was part of a corpse, eating away at emotionless insides while looking for sustenance, felt nearly intangible. That bright creature, free from the clutches of a coven still deciding her fate, seemed immediately defiant and yet liberating. It had been one week, and where the moon now shone bright on patches of snow along wet concrete that still yet lingered, his own mind was clouded by the noise of rampant teenage emotions that had burst forth almost immediately upon her escape. Now she was out somewhere, too new to control her urges and too naïve to recognize that staying with the coven had been her best bet. In a way that was infuriatingly addictive, he could see the world her way as it was now — confusing, fearful, but somehow tinged by a sense of hope and resolution. Those brief glimpses, at times too intense, served equally as distraction and guide as he followed her trail of escape from the catacombs out onto the streets.

tab He had missed Radcliffe’s sermon, but that was nothing new. When you were alive to watch nations slowly turn to bow to the pope, the magic lost its luster. Finding Erica, as per directive and choice, took precedence. Nevertheless, this culminated in his stalking out of the nave just before mass began. There had been no time to pay respects. She was a danger to everyone and everything she came into contact with. Were she to reveal the existence of the coven or even the catacombs to a sympathetic ear, or if she were to hastily feed on the first victim she could find, she would compromise their home and reveal to the world — and the now obviously present Exorcist outfit — to the exact location of the Angove coven. But she was a danger, too, to herself. Losing a newborn was never a good thing, but with the new focus of their blessed-blood enemies on the city, Hugo found himself doubtful that her unknowingly murderous tendencies would be met with the mercy he had heard whispers of from one of their own.

tab Erica… You blasted fool girl. She was the first he had turned. By rite, he was her master. Having only been the servant, he found himself more like the owner of a lost pet than the parent-child relationship so often displayed within vampiric communities. While he was privately glad to not have inspired Erica to act the way churlish Christelle did toward Gabriel, some kind of staying power would have been better than having to hunt for her now. Especially when he was not the only one looking for her. All she had needed to do was stay put and be seen by Gabriel. All she had needed to do was face judgment.

tab Judgment that might have found her wanting.

tab Judgment that might have killed her.

tab Paused in a dark alley, Hugo searched the shadows with sharp, wolfish vision before carrying on. The link he had with Erica, that emotional bond, was waning the further away time moved from her turning. A week out, he would only be able to get the dumped parts of her emotions and sense when she was in danger. Pinpointing her location was not included on the short list of new mental abilities shared between them. He could only follow traces of her.

tab Hugo did not make it very far before the sound of a little voice nearby made him look down and around, as usual. Exactly two feet below, he could see the bubblegum pink of a girl’s head. Winifred. Fresh from mass? His progress had been slow.

tab “You…” he started, then paused. She wanted to help, but what could she do? With a clearer head and uninterrupted thought, another vampire was a good candidate for help, but what was she likely to do to Erica if she found her first? Irrational protectiveness nearly kept him from accepting the offer, but as he looked back at the church, Hugo was reminded that somewhere out there, the idiot who had started this mess in the first place was prowling around in search of his charge as well. Two eyes would be faster. Winifred was not his enemy here, nor truly was she ever. He had a second to consider his offer when another voice popped up from inside the park they stood before. Like she had been summoned, Christelle appeared to offer her own opinions on the matter. She never cared for much outside her own reality. He nearly ignored her completely, and soon she was slinking away again. More to Winifred, quiet and watchful, he replied.

tab “Gabriel expects her return,” he said, the only confirmation he gave the small woman. This response was the greatest admission he would give to his own shortcomings. Her help was needed, not just appreciated. As with the rest of their coven, he left her to fill in those blanks by herself while continuing onward.