The last delivery for the night was to an elderly woman by the name of Mrs. Downy. She was a retired, veteran mage that used her talents to combat natural disasters and was a window. The girl only discovered last night the woman was alone most days and nights and only had the company of her bloodhound to offset what must be terribly silent nights. Her children didn?t live anywhere near the chaotic city, her grandchildren having taken to the road along with them.

Mrs. Downy, with her curly, powdered white hair and clouded blue eyes, wasn?t so much eccentric as she was just another victim of old age. The senile kind that still possessed an exceptionally good heart and always strived to warm the hearts of others that she came into contact with. Mrs. Downy always preferred a sheet of cookies and a warm mug of cider over words when given the chance and it didn?t much matter to her if she was feeding a small child or a bastard of an ogre.

To her, they were all the same beneath the flesh and past the bone that gave both mortal and immortal beings an appearance.

?Mrs. Downy?? the girl verified the address by reading the small box outside the home. 227 Pillsbury. That was it, all right. The street it resided on was the seedy kind, with grievous holes in the pavement, scoring likely from unruly street battles between Gods, and the occasional shady character dressed in long coats and top hats, trying to sell a quick stim or other paraphernalia that could make dragons overdose in the matter of seconds.

It didn?t matter to the girl where a person decided to live. So long as they were warm, safe, and with a warm belly of food every night. Likely, it?s what the box she was lugging between her arms was for. The pungent odor of onions and peppers wafted from the folded cardboard stamped with St. Agnes? seal, a further verification that came after Marlena?s reminder she be hasty with all food deliveries.

The feeling of ice surged her spine as she thought of the chef?s cold regard to people that disregarded her scornful warnings, and quickly smashed her finger into the button that triggered the inner bell. Its dulcet chime was lackluster, low-key and scratchy, and without the usual punch that befitted an announcement. Mrs. Downy?s bloodhound let loose a ripping howl that gave the impression it had just been shot at (or had a terrible case of the runs), drowning out the bell?s ring. He did a tremendously better job of signaling the old woman?s attention, considering she was hard of hearing and often lost in her own, cynical reverie.

Time passed where nothing went on. The dog continued to howl and bark at the door with drooling scruffs and paw scratches before the woman finally answered her animal?s incessant bickering. Two deadbolts snapped open, a chain following. The ghastly whine of worn-out hinges bereft of oil hit the girl?s ears as old Mrs. Downy pulled the door ajar and peered out behind heavily prescribed glasses. It was difficult to see the woman past one lens and a magnified eye through the crack of space she allowed.

?Eh? Whadaya want?? the woman grumbled, still in the process of setting a pair of oversized denture teeth properly in her mouth. Without them, she was just some sweet old woman with the usual attitude all people her age developed when they grew tired of what they?d call ?the sh*t.?

With them, with her perfectly understandable senile personality, she looked ready to bite off a brick of wood and spit it through your heart.

The girl blinked, owlish battings that couldn?t be helped. She momentarily forgot why she was there, as she?d reacted every other time this week when dropping off an unknown proportion of cooking ingredients.

?Hello, ma?dam,? a voice greeted, seated deep in the pendant bathed in embers of fire and ice that the girl wore around her neck. ?We?ve brought you another order from St. Agnes?.?

The old woman looked from the girl to the box. ?Eh? Who ya callin? a hoarder??

The girl had entirely forgotten that the woman was hard of hearing. ?Ah? An order from St. Agnes? Cathedral. You requested some extra cooking ingredients.?

?Hooking? I ain?t hookin? today, sweet girl,? old Mrs. Downy said with the straightest of faces. To suggest she was being serious would be putting it mildly, invoking the most horrified of expressions out of the girl.

?Um. No. Not hooking, Mrs. Downy. Cooking? You know, with a stove and a fire?? This was not the first time she had to go through this kind of conversation with old Mrs. Downy.

?You found my spin dryer? Wonderful, lass! Put ?er in the back until I can get this crazed wing bat of a hangnail out of my ear. Damned thing?s makin? me nuts!? The door slammed shut and was promptly locked back into place.

Silence hung heavy over the girl and the box she was carrying. Silence so loud her ears rang with the anticipation that a hidden camera crew would come out and verify everything was some elaborate prank.

That moment never passed.

?Hm. I believe we were just told to put a dryer in her backyard,? the voice commented, somewhat for a loss of words.

??do you think we were supposed to actually bring her one? She seemed expecting?? the girl answered whilst staring down at the box locked in her arms.

The voice answered after a thoughtful pause, ?She likely hasn?t any idea what a dryer even is. If we brought her a dirty sock and told her to clean her laundry with it, she may just try it.?

The box was lowered to the stoop of Mrs. Downy?s home, nudging it a little closer with the tip of her foot. She buzzed the bell a second time, sending the bloodhound into another frantic fit of howls and snarfs. ?If it?s all right with you, Rin, I think I?m just going to take off from here. After that whole ?hooking? line, I?m a little afraid of Mrs. Downy.?

?Agreed,? the voice answered, succinctly. ?With due haste.?

With due haste the girl took, bounding down the one step of her stony porch and back out to the street. Since it was the last of her duties for the evening, she had time to kill. Time she was desiring to kill with a certain pink-haired corpse that was likely lying in wait at a flat she?s been spending too much time at, recently.

Navigating herself through town since her return to RhyDin was a difficult one. She?d mostly forgotten many of the faces she once frequented herself with. While the occasional look and wave was sent her way, nobody registered. She felt more blind than a bat flapping away in the open plain. No single mind was perfect. Over time, things eventually were forgotten. From her understanding, even super computers wouldn?t have survived two thousand years with its data intact. It was all to be expected.

That?s what she told herself every single time somebody calling her a friend came up to her and hugged her tight or told her that they?d missed her. She could feign knowing who somebody was, smiling and nodding and telling them things they wanted to hear? but that was it. She never actually remembered anybody.

Not today.

The few people she did keep track of, those were the people that mattered most to her little heart before it was altered and fitted into a clay body, effectively turning the small mortal girl into a walking, breathing golem. While she didn?t speak to very many of them today, she couldn?t rightly forget them. They were the ones she fought to hold on to, the ones that influenced her life in some way, shape, and/or form.

The pink-haired corpse girl was among the top. Chastity had always strived to look out for her and keep her interests close. She kept her safe when things looked grim. She kept her heart from breaking when they were forced apart. Yet, at the same time, never once gave up on her. She never forgot the girl that no longer held a name or even a friend to keep by her side.

Obsessive as she was, as jealous as she could get, Chastity was somebody the girl needed since the initial day she fell into RhyDin. A girl that she fell for fast and hard. A girl she could relate to and confine in and trust despite their obvious differences.

A girl she could expose her own jealous tendencies and her own obsessions -- insecurities she couldn't erase or forget about.

By the time she realized she?d been lost in poignant thought and wandering endlessly through the streets on a predefined path, she was already up the stairs of the Cordial Sin and standing outside her lady?s room. The door was unlocked and slightly ajar, telling the girl that Chastity was away.

?Out?? she asked herself as she nudged the door open and peeked inside. All the signs were confirmed with only a cursory glance into the unoccupied room. Leading her steps inside, she bumped the door closed to avoid any unwanted stares from those passing by and to kill the many cries of fornication that the club?s halls were all but steeped in. She was used to the lewd moans of sexual gratification by now, her innocence deafened by personal experience and familiarity with what took place behind the many walls of the club.

?I suppose I could wait for her here. She wanted me to get more comfortable with her place, anyway?? She was just about to kick off her loafers when she caught glimpse of the note Chastity left behind for her. The barren room didn?t leave her with much opportunity to miss it. She plucked it up with a little perk of brows.

?The docks? I wonder if she ordered something special and needed it to be shipped in?? Glancing around the room, she wasn?t sure that she saw Elizabeth, the bass that she named personally for Chastity?s sake, and assumed that meant she planned on being gone slightly longer than just a few measly minutes.

Snagging the juice that was left behind from underneath the pillow, she worked off the cap for a meager sip and started her way back out the door. Knowing where her lady was and already feeling lost without her company, she headed off to give chase. Her dependency for Chastity left her pining, no, craving for her presence. To feel her chilled body in a warm embrace and the taste of her lips against her own.

Being apart as they were, it was all a vivid reminder to her that, even after two thousand years, the heart still knew what it wanted. And she definitely knew? her love was just as strong as always.

?The Docks,? the girl repeated, glancing down at the small note Chastity left for her as she hurled herself from the top of one roof to another. Air travel was one of the many methods the more supernatural beasts of RhyDin preferred to use. She couldn?t fly like they, however. She didn?t own a set of feathery wings or the ability to displace gravity. All she had in her favor were powerful legs that could hammer through her scant weight and shove her high in the air like turf was stringy elastic and moldable to her every whim. It kept her from being seen, most days, with only the occasional lift and point of a child?s finger that happened to catch sight of her passing.

She knew there were silly whisperings of her existence. ?The Roof Phantom? some would murmur. A girl that kept high on sloping, mountainous tops who refused to use the street for travel. Over time, those ridiculous rumors would grow out of control, saying that she often peddled souls on the roofs so the Gods could see her acts. That she used the many vantage points provided to her to prey on the small and the weak.

Stories mothers told their children before bed to ensure they follow the path of good, no doubt.

The waning noise pollution of city life initially left her ears, replaced by the raucous calls of late night gulls as she mounted the top of a warehouse building. In the distance, she could catch glinting moonlight on the surface of the disturbed, rippling water surface, her nose saturated by the foul aroma of salt. She couldn?t make out the many piers through the haze of lamp light, which troubled her greatly. If wooden planks jutting from the coast was difficult to see, how was she going to find a lone girl roaming the various many streets?

?I may be in a little over my head here,? she quietly admitted to herself.

The voice was a perpetual presence in her life, however. It saw and heard everything the girl did, if not more. ?Perhaps it would make sense if you waited for her back at her place? There?s also the matter of completing the seals we begun constructing for Dweller activity.?

Even the mentioning of the name Dweller made the girl grit her teeth, her face contorting bitterly. She had as much respect for them as she did a standard stray of Shamanista?s populace. They were one in the same, after all. Any and every citizen that was freed from Shamanista?s shackles that bled into the corporal realm was denounced a Dweller. It didn?t matter if they tried to feast on the living to ascertain their existence or if they tried to play nice and fair.

?While I should be working on preparing for The Hunter Prowler in the off-chance he?s already in the city?s limits, I worry for Chastity?s safety,? she answered the Voice, glancing down at the pendant that dangled from her neck. It was a massive, dark-hued opal that churned embers of fire and ice; containing her strength and the abilities that she owned, today. It was because of that Voice that she could exist at all in the realm of the living.

She was, no matter how she looked at it, already dead.

?Your dependence on these people will only serve to deter your focus when you need it most,? the feminine voice pointed out, speaking sagely and soundly. It was as though she were reciting laws.

The girl only shook her head. ?I realize that. I realize I?m only here to finish a task and that nothing of my past serves any purpose, anymore. I realize I have nothing left here. ?still??

She couldn?t erase everyone. She couldn?t erase the people that she remembered. The reason she wanted to fight to see a world such as RhyDin prosper, even were she a silent, unseen and determined vigilante.

The plateau of a rooftop she laid claim to was excused from with a flex of thighs, hiking herself high in the air and with the speed of air currents, drifting low to catch the next as though she was only taking a single step.

?Eh, look?t those titties??

The Hunter paused her stride and instinctively drew her body low in a crouch. ?Titties?? she questioned herself, a hushed roll of her sweetened voice on the air where it evaporated instantly. Liquid silver dipped low to the stormy pendant wedged between her breasts. ?I don?t see any titties??

?Hm. I didn?t mention anything of the sort,? the voice opted to verify for the girl, just in case.

?That wasn?t you?? The voice certainly held more masculinity to it, gruff and assertive. Hungry, almost. She twisted one leg, turning it outward as she pivoted on the sole of her loafer and waddled toward the abrupt cut off of the roof she was high atop. Below, she could catch a glimpse of two silhouettes wading through the dank shadow of night. From her distance, it was difficult to discern what they were up to; their voices lost among the din of night activity that was a frequent happening at the port.

?Hooligans. Not the sort that matter to us, from the looks of it.? The Voice served its point with factuality. It didn?t take the girl very long to examine the silhouettes, even from her considerable distance, to tell they were living, breathing mortal beings that didn?t burn with the flame of death itself. They were untouched, by both Dweller and their despicable monster-servants. They were of no concern--

?Chastity?? the girl suddenly interjected mid-thought, still hushed and more in her thoughts than on her lips. Her attention was pulled away from the two men in question and aside to where a girl in an untarnishable white dress jutted from the dark like an Celestial straight out of Heaven. Her milk white skin chased away the shadows that seemed intent on wrapping around her; making her stand out like a bastion of purity in a den of hellish destruction. What riled her and sped her to a rather uncanny conclusion, however, was that hair. Had the tamed mane of sakura blossom pink not topped her head and blanketed her spine, she would have already taken to the air once more, off to prepare her search and perhaps call out for her.

The ridge of incisors cut into her lower lip as she remained vigilant in her observations. She didn?t care about the sea of other women that these two seemed to throw aside like the trash they obviously were. All she cared about was what seemed to be coming next.

The flirtatious advances, the cackling of mischief and seedy desire. The eventual retrieval of cash and obvious payment. Upfront.

??damn it. We made an agreement on this?? she uttered sharply, the tang of blood staining taste buds as she pried her teeth from the punctured holes in her lip. She didn?t acknowledge it; her mind to fixated on what she was seeing Chastity partake in. Disappointment swelled through her body until her stomach felt like a massive knot.

Lightning-quick surges of sunlit gold struck through inky black tresses of hair as she rose from her crouch. The explosive color snaked like circuits through the protein and ignited it like fire, causing it to fan out unevenly behind her as though she?d been blasted by a high-powered fan; the tails of her long coat flapping and snapping and threatening to blow away. An unexplainable well of power surged all around her, kicking up floor length strands of hair that were tepid and cool despite the phosphorescent glow that funneled through the wealth of considerably expanding fire blonde. It only took a second for raven black to vanish entirely, transforming the diminutive girl into the smallest known light house in existence. Campfire embers flecked the air, crackling and hissing and popping as though she was reincarnated as a lit hearth.

She hadn?t blinked, but it didn?t stop silver eyes from alternating to a majestic, royal blue. She glowered down at the transaction and their initial movement.

?Stop,? the Voice commanded, a little more assertive than it?d been only minutes prior. ?Becoming angry over a situation like this will not solve anything.?

Surprisingly, the girl only nodded her head and held her ground. She didn?t tense up or ball her hands into tiny boulders. She didn?t bark threats or spew her hatred. She remained composed, quiet, with only a dark leer that bloomed a thin shadow across the tip of her nose from the light she was emitting to denounce what she was witnessing. ?I know. I?m not angry.?

?As you are now, it would seem otherwise.?

?It means I?m serious. I have no reason to distrust her until the moment those men do something with her. Until then??

Until then, the girl would hold her ground and wait?

She paced the rooftop, from corner to corner, stomping out a rhythm that bordered agitation and remorse. Tendrils of golden hair bathed in steely flame writhed all around her, embodying the angst that pulsed with the hot annoyance a heartbeat only could. She didn?t dare look back over the edge of the building as the pink-haired female and the two men started through an alley. She was lucky to have managed to keep track of them the short distance they traveled on its own, let alone see the outcome of whatever event was on the verge of unfolding.

Her bright blue eyes soared high, sifting through the stars to the darkening abyss of night. It was an endless void that welcomed her eyes and her ears, a place where she could aim the shedding of tears and the quiet sobs that never quite breached the squeezing of her throat. It was the second time in less than a month that she had to fight through this kind of ache. The second time in less than a month she had to acknowledge the fact that the living world was a place she unwillingly was torn from and, yet, was ultimately content with that.

She was loathe to think she had to even consider remaining among the living for a day longer than necessary. She wanted away from it, from the people that inhabited it.

The voice knew it too well. It had nothing to provide her with, nothing to encourage her or remind her of her mission. In a way, its silence was a sign that it understood what she was feeling all too well. At the same time, though, it did not. It despised the girl for bothering with petty matters that only the living could thoroughly enjoy. Those little things like love and eternal happiness. They were pitiful distractions that needed to do away with.

Perhaps, from this, the tool of destruction could learn to finally let them go. The voice stored in the pendant?s stormy opal didn?t maintain its silence for very long. ?Get a hold of yourself! There are other matters more pressing than this.?

The girl didn?t agree with that. Not when the sounds of a convincing moan was reinforcing her lamentations. She didn?t take her eyes off the ceiling of the world for a minute. ?I asked her not to do something like this. For there not to be? anything funny??

?And you learned a valuable lesson. If you continue to spew high levels of existence like this, The Hunter Prowler will have all the information necessary to catch you off-guard. We can?t have that.? The voice served an important point. To take the present appearance she was in now involved exerting power; existence that those from Shamanista often required to feast on in order to grow and become permanent fixtures in the corporeal realm. As she was the prominent exception to the rule, no due thanks to the pendant looped around her neck, she leaked that power at an exponential rate. A rate that any Dweller could sense like a nose could smell baked cookies, and just as delicious.

It made her, the Hunter that sought out Dwellers, an easy target to be dispatched without warning.

It was difficult to tell simply by a glance, but the alteration of appearance held much deeper meaning beyond the obvious. Even though she?d been pacing, the grace of her step and the speed that she exhibited were on a whole new level. Otherworldly.

Still, it didn?t deter her. She didn?t exhaust the flame of gold or lower the fuel that gave it life. She required it in case she was forced to act. ??I?m not going through this again. I should go down there and cut those two guys until nothing is left of their existence. Cut it apart and watch it be extinguished only to replace it and do it all over again??

The Voice?s silence meant it knew the girl had more she was going to say and patiently waited for it.

??that?s what I would have said a long time ago. I?ll wait for her to? finish? and then tell her that this whole thing with us is over. Done. I shouldn?t have gotten involved, and wh--?

A horrified scream pierced the night air and silenced the girl mid-rant, snapping her frame in the direction the cry spawned from. Her legs worked incredibly faster than her mind, tearing off at a neck breaking pace to the roof?s edge and clean off the side without even bothering to steady her weight or shift the most of her strength into the muscles of her thighs to brace herself for the quickly approaching ground. She succumbed to gravity, lively blue eyes tipped low and leering between the spread of legs and hike of skirt the moment she could see underneath her.

Her descent was similar to a meteorite punching through the atmosphere of a planet. She was steeped in a hot flame that streaked various colors of vibrant orange and red, which tickled with the vibrant phosphorescent gold that shed a thousand tiny embers due to her hasty momentum. She hit the ground with enough force to snap bone and break it down into dust and turn muscle into liquid. She, however, remained unscathed, the force of impact shattering pavement and leaving a steep indentation at the zone around the soles of her feet.

She didn?t want to look. She didn?t want to see two crazed, horny men atop the woman that had caught her heart twice in the past year and was quickly tearing it to shreds. She didn?t want to fathom the idea that Chastity was willing to break what she deemed an unbreakable pact and ransack the last of her faith and trust in the world at large. It?s why she had closed her eyes somewhere during her drop and prayed to anything and everything willing to listen to her for this to be some horribly misunderstood coincidence.

Ignoring the voice in her skull telling her to turn around and run as fast as those powerful legs of hers could allow, the girl succumbed to temptation and surmounted her fears. She opened her eyes without a hint of hesitation and willingly embraced whatever it was she was about to see.

No men.

No sex.

No men engaged in sex. Not with each other, or the woman that had resembled Chastity to a point.

Instead, she was staring into the maw of an entirely different nightmare. One that she hadn?t been expecting or even considered in all her life. The nest of pink that resembled thick cords rather than wispy locks of shrewdly tantalizing flavor that she adored to be tucked away in late at night when they shared a bed. The definition of muscle that enhanced the appearance of an already luscious body that she couldn?t keep her hands off of even when they were in public. The zounds of inky black cables and tendrils of what resembled torturous shadows when bathed in her own fiery lamplight.

Her jaw unhinged, her hands tightened until they were severely wound fists, and she uttered the only thing she knew she could in a moment such as then.

?? Chastity???

The wondrous phantom flame swelled around her body as she took an initial step back from the murderous scene before her. To immediately jump the gun and consider this woman a monster was a heinous thing to even consider. Her mind was quickly coming to that end, however, and the horror filling her eyes was unprecedented.

She didn?t know which was more appropriate to stare at. The terribly malformed body that disgustingly slapped the cracked pavement like an old dirty rag, the head that had been clutched tight in talon fingers, or the forest of inky cable that shrouded the bestial woman in a veil of mystery. She could taste the saturation of iron in the air, something hard pressed to miss, and the rank aroma of spilt carnage in the form of blood. It was an unmistakable misery that even the most pure and na?ve couldn?t simply shy away from.

In this gawking girl?s case, she was already well beyond the level of familiarity with blood. It was a staple of her life. Every single person she?s ever known has either bled around her or on her. She?d almost come to expect it of the people she sought to remain close to.

Somehow, she willed herself to remain in Chastity?s vision, standing tall and immersed in the wealth of golden flame that indicated her presence like only a thousand spotlights could. Yet, eerily, the abyss of night blanketed all around them, hinting that the phosphorescent shine she emitted like a small flame was singular; for her and her alone. Even the campfire ember that flecked with subtly made motion refused to ignite and chase off the long, winding arms of shadowy essence that was a plague to each and every alley at such a late hour.

In a moment encounter such as this, she was thankful for the smaller things in life. Shadows was just one of them.

The rattling tin of the broken down lamp that dismally painted the scene in a dull glow of luminescence aided her in catching a glimpse of the disembodied head that rolled, its tumble a vivid macabre of sound that rumbled in her ears and made her stomach flip inside out. It was an impulsive reaction that she swore even the most merciless serial killer felt in the initial moment of realization that a life had just been snuffed out. She wasn?t feeling ill. Her body wasn?t desiring to destruct itself in perpetual sickness. No, she could only stare past the sea of cable toward the slightest, most vague impression of the woman?s countenance. Whatever was left of it worth recognition.

Anger wasn?t part of her repertoire. It wasn?t something she fed on when she felt the abominable pangs of betrayal or disgust slither their way into her emotions. Even now, when she was aware that Chastity had allowed herself to be groped and molested and was feeding on the living like she was a terror of the night, she didn?t feel a shred of indecency known as ?anger.? Something else reached the core of her emotional heart and stroked at it like fingers on harp chords.

Sorrow. Pity? A sadness that didn?t quite reach the level of grief. The hazy flame of gold and orange and red petered out, the billowing pulse of radiating power quieting and turning the girl?s golden hair locked in perpetual motion back to raven black. All of her became a silent essence in the night, blanketed by its cool embrace and momentarily becoming one with its wide breadth of presence.

She tucked herself away beneath the dim, warm glow of the sole lamp that accompanied them, around the emptied skull and past the decapitated body of the one man Chastity feasted on most. Pausing on the outskirts of endless inky tendril, she stood, arms wide open, and a rueful smile plastered on her face--the only emotion she could fathom.

?Explain?? Explain your needs to feed on the living to sustain yourself?? It was half a guess, half an assumption. Either way, she didn?t care. She didn?t belong in a world where it was necessary to try and change another. Not anymore. She had exhausted herself and angered her most treasured friends trying to do what she felt was the right thing. Today, she didn?t want those moments to repeat themselves. It was too late to try and amend the past, she felt. Those in her life had moved on, forgotten about her and loathed her like a child loathed vegetables.

She could only take from the experiences of the past and try to work with them today. ??look at me, Chastity. It?s okay?? Her voice was sweet, low and husky and with a gentleness that a mother would use when cooing to her newborn. ??go ahead and explain, if you want, but? I?m going to tell you I love you in the end.

?No matter what.?