The Victorious Fire Wolfe
Breathing hard, Cinaed sprinted forward along the street, his sword held with the flat of the blade braced against the leather bracer on his forearm. He could hear the vampire behind him, laughing as it sang out, "Come on, little Wolfe! Don't you want to play?"
The vampire in question? Clayton Miles. African American. Turned in the 1960s at a party in Los Angeles by an unknown vampire of the Arshaka line. He had been a drug dealer then and continued to be so, though he had become more brutal after being turned.
And Cinaed, all of twenty, had been tasked with hunting him down as his first kill to be a full hunter in his father's clan. If he succeeded, he'd be a true Wolfe - despite the disapproval amongst some in the clan surrounding his birth status, his blood wasn't something they could deny. If he failed...well, he hoped that someone would call his mother and tell her kindly that her son wasn't coming home.
Tracking Clayton had taken months, especially on his own. He had been hunting in groups and pairs before - and once with his oldest half-brother, Darcy - but this was his chance to prove that he could track a vampire on his own. Thankfully this one had made it easy in that he was still, one, going by his real name, and, two, still doing business as a drug dealer in the Los Angeles area. Cinaed had tracked the man to a sleazy bar on a bad side of town and and tried to blend in.
Of course, blending in wasn't easy when he was cursed with his mother's auburn hair, his father's bright blue eyes, and had the build of a long, lanky athlete standing at 6'7". Not to mention that he looked as much like his father as Darcy did...and Clayton Miles had apparently had a run-in once with Daniel Wolfe III during his time as a hunter in the field and not head of the clan.
Thankfully magical senses tipped him off and Cinaed ran, hoping that his information on the vampire would be correct. That he was arrogant and liked to brag about his kills. A vampire who would want to hunt down and kill a hunter in his territory with his own hands. The seven other younger vampires that Cinaed had tagged in the bar with his magic would be told to stay back.
So far, he had been proven right.
Sprinting around a corner, Cinaed skidded to a halt as he suddenly came up against a gated fence that was too tall for him to go over and didn't have any way for him to easily climb over. Dead end. Which meant he had to turn and win the fight or it was over.
A snarl on his lips, he turned towards the entrance of the alley and let the sword fall to the ready at his side. He could feel his magic rise under his skin but held it at bay, keeping it as a trump card more than anything else. It wasn't against the rules that he couldn't use his magic - in fact, as a witchblood hunter, he was encouraged to use it more than anything - but he didn't want to give away an advantage. Currently, to Clayton, he was a young, unblooded hunter looking for his first kill, with only the advantage of his magically enhanced blood to aid him.
"Oh-ho~o," the vampire sang out as he rounded the corner casually, leaning up against the building. "A little Wolfe caught in a trap." Then he frowned, looking Cinaed up and down, and said in a more joking tone, "Or maybe not so damned little. What they feedin' you, boy? At that height you should be playing basketball for good money, not about to die here in a back alley."
Smirking, Cinaed replied, "No better food than anyone else, just good genetics." Not from the Wolfes, his height and build was all Hancock. His mother and grandmother weren't as tall but Mom was six foot even and Gran had been 6'2" once upon a time. "And I was homeschooled."
Clayton scoffed at that and then shook his head, saying, "Shame you have to die here, boy. You got sass. I appreciate sass." Then he scowled and moved, suddenly going from leaning against the building to right in Cinaed's face. Thankfully his active magic was all too aware of the vampire and he felt him move, allowing him to get his sword up between them. The blade rested just against the thin skin of Clayton's neck, the edge under his adam's apple, and the vampire growled darkly with pleasure.
"Fast for a pup. How fast can you stay though?"
Cinaed smiled wolfishly, knowing all too well that the expression made him look like Darcy and their father. Like a hunter. "Come find out, Clayton," he replied. Then Cinaed reached for his magic and released it, fire sparking off of the bracer on his free arm before it gathered in his hand in a swirling, violent vortex. At the same time, he tightened his grip on the sword and fire surged up the blade from the hilt. It was hard to keep active for a long time but easier on a witchblessed blade than a bare one, the vampire harming magic in the sword clinging to his own power like briars to clothes.
As the vampire leapt back with a snarl of pain, the smell of burnt flesh in the air, Cinaed growled, "Even pups have sharp fangs, vampire. And we aren't afraid to bite."
Clayton Miles roared, leaping at him, and Cinaed met him with fire. Adrenaline and the bright hot line of fear blurred the edges of the fight after that. It felt more like watching two strangers shadowboxing than actually participating, like he was outside of his body. Even when fingernails moving fast enough that they tore through his thick leather coat and into his shoulder and the thick copper of his own blood filled the air, everything was still distant. Yet Cinaed's body moved, following his training to deal out swift strikes, brutal counters, and the occasional acrobatic dodge.
When the fire on his blade banked and then died with a sputter, the vampire laughed and surged forward. As his hand wrapped around Cinaed's neck, there was victory in his eyes...at least there was until the second blade came out. By then, however, it was too late, and the long hunting knife that had been his eighteenth birthday present from Darcy flashed up out of the sheath at his back and drove up through the chin and into the brain of the vampire. With the hand around his throat, he didn't hesitate to send his magic into the new blade and Clayton Miles' head erupted into a flaming pyre.
Stumbling backwards as his prey collapsed with a slowly dying scream, his free hand rising to press his still flaming fingers to his now surely bruised throat, Cinaed felt a small, delicate hand press against his back. Closing his eyes, he breathed, "Hi, Auntie." After five years since she had saved him from drowning, his magic knew her presence, that slight taint in her earmarked as friendly by his own power.
Niamh O'Connell sighed behind him and he felt both of her hands against his lower back, which was exactly at the normal height for her arms. Cinaed trusted that she would brace his weight as he leaned back into her touch, hissing through his teeth as the wounds from his fight caught up with him - shoulder burning, his throat aching, bruises and cuts one after another and another making themselves known. After a moment, she said quietly, "I was about to step in. When he got you by the throat."
"Wouldn't have counted for my hunt if you had," he pointed out tiredly. Cinaed then wearily put his weight back onto his feet, sheathing his sword underneath his long coat and letting go of the magic that he had been holding so close. Turning to face her, he smiled down at the now (at least in comparison to him) diminutive form of his adoptive great-great-great-something aunt. "You know what this hunt meant for me, Auntie."
She sighed and nodded, saying, "I'm well aware but I'm also aware of the promise I made to your grandmother. That matters more to me than anything else. And I'm old nephew, honor doesn't mean all that much to me anymore. Not when it doesn't always mean that you end up coming home."
Cinaed wilted at that and nodded, bashfully rubbing at the back of his neck. "Fair," he admitted. Darcy was more on the whole 'being an honorable hunter' thing than he himself was but that was more because the clan was his half-brother's life. Cinaed was torn between his clan and his sect and he honestly didn't know which one was really home just yet. And no witch who wanted to survive for long lived by honor, not after what their own had been through in the past with various witch trials.
He then grinned and said, "You didn't have to, though. I did it. I did it, just me."
Niamh laughed and stepped forward, throwing her arms around his waist in a hug that definitely bore some of the strength of her half-cursed existence in it. As Cinaed settled his arms around her shoulders in turn, she stated warmly, "Congratulations, Cinaed. The flame lives bright in you."
And Cinaed Hancock, born of a witch and a hunter, smiled fit to break his face at the age old words from his sect, spoken from the lips of one of the women who mattered deeply to him. "Thanks, Auntie," he said as he hugged her tightly.
Timeframe: 2018
Location: Los Angeles, California
Event: Cinaed Hancock is sent out on his first solo hunt for a vampire - the hunt that will prove to the clan that he's capable of being a hunter, able to hold his own against the creatures of the night.
Consquences: Cinaed wins the fight with the vampire he went after and has a small congratulation from his adoptive aunt, Niamh O'Connell, who has been watching the whole time in case she needs to step in to make sure he stays alive.
The product of a brief fling during a hunt between Daniel Wolfe III, a hunter, and Bridget Hancock, Cinaed grew up between both of the worlds he came from. Living first in Ireland with his mother and then Australia with his father, he has trained as both witch and hunter. Though he also, of course, has secrets that he keeps - mainly the existence of one half-cursed by the name of Niamh O'Connell, who was adopted into the Hancock family by his own ancestor centuries ago.
The younger sister of Darragh and Daman Ó Conaill was hidden from the world for a long time, adopted by Rohan Hancóc after her mother came covered in blood to his door. Despite being blood cursed, Rohan raised her as his daughter and his children by birth also saw her as such, a trend which has continued to present day - though only some of Cahir Hancóc's descendants still acknowledge her. While she does think of the Hancock sect as her family, one day she hopes to still be able to reunite with her brothers.
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