Sous and Tany walked toward the entrance of Leenway, seeing the large iron gates opened in a crack. The two exchanged looks and proceeded onward.
"Is Hacate going to help us?" Sous asked.
"I...I don't know. I never asked and she desires something else for the covenant," the witch responded.
"Are you the leader of it?"
"I have my position to Hacate which was the goal from the start," Tany smiled. "She's not some evil wicked witch of the west that everyone is making her out to be. Her execution is questionable on many fonts but she hasn't any desire for destruction or mayhem."
Sous nodded her head, choosing to believe what her ex mate was telling her. They walked hand in hand ever since coming from Oflen. Choosing to walk and see the scenery versus take flight or even teleport.
"Kara has a lot of faith in you to have you be alone with me," Tany whispered.
Sous looked down at the silver headed tanned woman. "I will always love you, Tany."
"You're just in love with her," Tany finished.
"Yes...that's right."
EAAAK!
They pushed the gates opened, stepping into the ghetto. Their shoes were overcome with puddles of blood. They quickly stepped out of it and looked before them.
Rotten corpses laid sprawled out on the cobblestone road with arrows poking out of them, bullet ridden bodies. Skulls caved in. Ribcages busted open with organs dried up. Skin melted off. They weren't just dead, they were massacred.
The stench was unbearable. Flies buzzed, larvae crawled beneath skin flaps, maggots feasted in eye sockets. Sous clamped a hand over her mouth, stomach lurching as bile rose in her throat.
Tany's grip on her other hand tightened, her nails digging into skin, but neither screamed nor gagged. This was war. They'd seen horrors before, just never so...freshly preserved. Like time stopped mid-slaughter.
Sous swallowed and stepped to some of the bodies to get a closer look.
Her eyes traced the pattern of the wounds, deep slashes and puncture holes that could only be made by blades, not claws. The bullet wounds were deliberate, concentrated in the chest and head, the kind of precision only trained soldiers could manage.
The corpses' hands were still curled around makeshift weapons, broken bottles, rusted pipes, as if they'd been fighting back right up until the end.
Their clothes were tattered but recognizable: the faded insignia of Leenway's ghetto numbers, the patched elbows of dockworkers who moonlighted as neighborhood guards.
Tany stood rigid near the gate, her back pressed against the rusted iron bars, fingers twitching at her sides like she was counting spells under her breath.
She didn't look at the bodies, not at the child-sized skeleton curled around a bent frying pan, not at the old woman whose spine had been severed mid-crouch. Instead, she stared at the sky, where storm clouds gathered thick enough to blot out the sun, painting the carnage in tones of bruise-purple and gangrene-yellow.
She took a deep breath and met up with Sous who was standing up by now. Sous turned to her.
"I should have killed all the humans in Oflen. Words must have spread. We should have got here faster. I think its best if we split up, section the map off. The other ghettos in the area will be vampires. Let's liberate them then we'll move to the next section on Canas," she said to Tany.
"Ill put a spell on the areas liberated so they can't be taken over again by Apex or their allies," Tany exclaimed. She popped her knuckles and looked at Sous. "Its gonna be a whilr until we see each again." Sous nodded her head while Tany stood on her toes and kissed the Alpha on the cheek.
She would give anything to make love to her...just one more time, but no. The Alpha was taken.
They both teleport to their next location on the map. Sous landed on top of a high cliff looking over a well guarded ghetto. She made her peace that she was going to kill every single guard in this ghetto. Every-single-one.
Sous crouched low on the cliffside, fingers digging into damp shale as the wind carried the smell of blood up from below. The ghetto sprawled like a festering wound, makeshift watchtowers with snipers scanning rooftops, patrol routes weaving between corpse-strewn alleys where chains still dangled from lampposts, swinging gently despite the absence of bodies. Fresh ones, at least.
Her pupils dilated, counting: twelve guards on the west perimeter with rifles slung carelessly over shoulders, five more smoking by the ration depot, two in the central tower flipping through a ledger, likely inventory logs for their "livestock."
She memorized the rhythm of their boredom, the gaps between rotations, the blind spots where floodlights didn't reach.
She used her antennas to see their body heat for when they went inside so as to keep tabs on them.
Sous didn't blink for 48 hours. Her knees fused with the shale, her spine locking into the curvature of the cliffside until her silhouette matched the jagged rocks. Rain came, soaking her cloak until it clung like second skin, but she didn't shiver.
The guards changed shifts, twelve rotations, each sloppier than the last, and she tracked their yawns, the way they scratched at lice under uniform collars, how one kept checking his wristwatch like it might grant him mercy.
Moonlight bled through storm clouds, glinting off pooling rainwater on the cliff's edge, and then the last sniper turned his back to piss off the watchtower railing. Her spine uncoiled.
Sous was airborne before his zipper hit midway, silent as the maggots still feasting in Leenway's sockets.
The wind tore at her wet cloak, plastering it against her body like a second layer of skin as she arced downward. The sniper's neck snapped before his bladder finished emptying, his body crumpling against the tower floor with a muffled thud that blended perfectly with the pattering rain.
Sous landed in a crouch, one hand braced against the damp wood, fingers splayed to absorb the impact. His rifle clattered, too loud, but the storm swallowed the sound.
His wristwatch ticked against the floorboards, second hand twitching forward as she peeled it from his wrist and crushed the face between in her hand, glass crunching like crystallized sugar.
By morning, this camp would be liberated.