Jack and Jill

Two siblings sit on their car hood in a dimly lit garage. Both have long, thicker reddish-brown hair, but where the sister has braids, the brother has a long ponytail. In truth, if not for the slight wrinkles forming at the edge of her eyes, they'd look like twins.

The brother looked at his watch impatiently. "Okay, I'm about five minutes away from feeling totally scammed. Is this loon even showing up?"

"Calm it, Jack. We all gotta keep a low profile these days." The sister sighed, although she was getting tired of waiting too. Her trigger finger was starting to itch.

"Right, damn bloodsuckers. I thought those government stooges handled the mess?" He asked, rolling his eyes.

"Right, the government that can't even keep a simple quarantine going will take out an entire secret society. But, that's what we're here for, and hopefully, this guy is the real deal so we'll find more of us too." 

"I'm glad you feel that way." A serene voice entered the garage from the other end. The figure was tall and wide but had a hooded coat and mask on. Most surprisingly, however, was that he arrived totally unnoticed. It didn't take long for Jack to draw two hunting knives while his sister casually pulled out one of her pistols.

The figure held his hands up. "Jacob and Gillian Bellamy, I take it?"

"Ugh, just call me Jill. You the guy from the phone?" She said, rolling her eyes.

"Yes. I am the King of Swords. I am glad you two actually made it tonight, many don't deem it necessary to actually meet."

"You sure kept us waiting long enough, arrogant ass." Jack chided before Jill put up a hand to back him down. But, she didn't disagree with his words.

"I did, and I apologize." His deep voice was eerily still, as if a tidal wave was waiting politely at the crossroad. "You two have...well, made a name isn't quite right, but have popped up on my radar. The brother-sister duo, who have taken down nearly a dozen Ghouls, and at least two full-blown Kindred. It's not a simple feat." He began.

"Yeah, well, when you're as skilled as us-"

"For beginners."

Both siblings looked shocked and offended.

"Ghouls are only so different from us humans. They have been tainted, corrupted, but not made alien. While exterminating those monsters was quite the feat, both of them were young. Untrained. Weak. You have gotten my attention, but you are just beginning."

"So," Jill began, choking down her own frustration. "What's that make you then?"

"As I said, I am the King of Swords." The pair each made their own stink faces, but the King did not let that deter him. "You are not the only hunters in the area, not by far. My group, we recruit those with promise, those who can actually fight the monsters of the night, and dissuade those who cannot."

"Are you going to stop us? Just because we're not good enough in your eyes?" Jill nearly spat at his feet.

"If you are stopped, it is to prevent the greater loss of human life. But, that depends on your actions tonight." He steps forward, producing a small bundle of papers for the pair. Jill took and opened the papers, but Jack looked over her shoulder.

"I ask that you eliminate this threat. If you do so, and do it well, we will accept you into our group. You will have the support, resources, and information of the Swords. If not, you will be politely asked to cease your hunts, at least the physical side of them."

"And if we "fail" and refuse to stop? Jack asked with a cocky smirk.

"That depends. If you endanger only yourselves, I could do no more than watch you crash into the inevitable wall of a true threat. If you endanger other innocent humans in the path of some personal crusade, well...perhaps I don't have to finish that thought." The tidal wave made sure the onlookers knew it could rush at any second.

"R-Right." A man alone cannot stand against a tidal wave.

"What the fuck is a tuh-zye-miskey?" Jill added on, cutting through the distress.

"Tzimisce." The stillness returned. "We don't know much about them, but we know they are an influential breed of vampire, and have the ability to warp bodies. You will see evidence of that on the next-"

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!" Jack exclaimed.

"...yes, that. What you're eliminating is thankfully not an actual vampire, but one of their odd creations."

"Think we couldn't handle the real deal?" Jill asked.

"I know it, for one. Secondly, many of the genuine threats were either eliminated by Project FIRSTLIGHT officers or by their fellow vampires late last year."

"Why would vamps turn on each other like that?"

"From what we've been able to learn: politics. Not every monster hunts alike."

"So what exactly are we hunting?" Jack asked.

"Currently, we have confirmed the following via drone footage and minor investigation: It has taken a dozen victims, all random people who just so happened to be there. Second, it isn't a full vampire, as none of the victims have had their blood drained or sustained more than a head wound. Third, it has attacked only people who have arrived at this specific house on the outskirts of Federal Way. We believe it is an experiment of the Tzimisce's body warping, whose owner is no longer present." The King explained with unfeeling precision.

"Get in, take out, get out, yeah? Any backup we gotta worry about?" Jack questioned brusquely.

"Not that we've observed."

"Shame," Jill began. "We'd really love to impress the mighty king."

"Worry not, you can impress me by finishing this job. Then, we can discuss the future. Good night, and good luck." The king leaves just as quietly as he came, and with the flicker of overhead lights, disappears entirely.

The two carefully drove up the small hill to the location, lights off and speed low. 

"Think this is gonna be worth it? We can just tell him to fuck off if we keep to ourselves, yeah?" Jack asked, keeping an eye out as he drove.

"Trust me. His whole "King of Swords" thing was pompous shit, but that group is no joke. They have arms, they have information, and most importantly, they got fucking money! The guy who gave me the king's number had a premier modified gun to one-tap a vamp! We can't pass that up!" Jill explained as they drove past the chain-link fence. 

Getting out, they opened the trunk and retrieved their proper outfits and primary arms. It was bulky, but did the job.

"Wanna make this a contest?" Jack asked, checking his pistol and SMG.

"What contest, it's one target in one house?" Jill asked, making sure her own pistol and shotgun were ready.

"Well yeah but it has two floors and a basement. You go high, I go low, and whoever takes out the damn thing wins!"

"Wins what, jackass?"

"Uhhh, I don't fuckin know, whoever wins gets to be the cool guy in the Swords and the other is their lackey?"

"Really? You think that's gonna be how it turns out?"

"Why not, they have a king! There can be a knight and a knave, yeah?"

"Ugh fine, that can be your prize. But, if I win, you buy me that sniper rifle I've been wanting."

With an affirmative, yet sardonic, groan, Jack holds out his hand and the two shake. They put on their helmets, and the mission is underway.

They look onward at the house, a simple-seeming two-floor house. On the outside, you'd imagine a regular family lived here, one that liked growing strange sunflowers that littered flower beds near the fence, but an otherwise regular household.

That's why the two had to be careful, why they had to do the job they do. Because the monsters could blend into every normal crack, and you have to be safe and prepared to take them head-on.

Unfortunately, the two had already failed, without their knowledge.

Stepping into the house, both of them raise their guns to begin their scan and split up. 

The second they stepped away from each other, the empty yet otherwise normal house fell entirely dark.

"Jack?"

"Jill!?"

The pair tried to find each other, they had only taken one step after all. However, for all their stumbling and fumbling, neither could reach the other. They just kept running and running, trying to find the exit, a window, each other, anything.

But as they kept running, their minds shifted and changed. No longer were they scared, stumbling people in the dark, but children once more, running through a sunlit field.

It was a wheat field, one right outside where they used to live. How they would run and run, watched by their parents. What happened to them, again? It was so hard to remember. They were long gone, so far off, but right there at the edge of the field, watching them run and jump.

Jack wanted to race to the hill in the middle of the field. Jill wasn't so sure, but she could never back down when he egged her on. 

Oh, how they ran and ran, weaving through the wheat, making the crows fly around. Look at them now, circling overhead.

The two of them run, almost neck-to-neck with each other, and they get to the base of the hill. They push, they strain, they climb the incline as hard as their legs will carry them!

A rock trips up Jill, she stumbles for just a second, but that second is all that Jack needs to overtake her! He runs, and runs! He gets to the edge of the well first! But wait, he goes too fast, it's too much! He falls down into the well.

There is no splash, but a sickening, wet crack.

"Jack!?" Jill shouted, terrified. She races to the edge of the well herself, able to slow down and stop. But when she looks in, there is water. But something is in the water, it's a murky dark something, that flows like loose ink.

It's collecting, forming...a cross? There are two equal lines, and there's a dot at each end with one more in the middle. Something about that mark looks...comforting, safe, and almost enlightening. It feels divine, in a way.

Then, the sound of something dragging across the ground, and a deep echo.

"WAKE UP"

"JACK!!!" Jill shouts, lunging back to reality from the darkness. She snaps back into her mind and sees that she's maybe two steps away from an open second-floor window. Freaking out, she scurries back, tripping over loose papers and falling backward. 

Looking around the room, she sees loose papers, drawings, and glass vials full of various small clippings of plant life. She can't understand the language anything is written on, and certainly can't understand the scientific diagrams and abbreviations. But, she does see Jack's helmet and guns, laid neatly on the desk right next to the window.

Getting to her feet, and scanning the immediate area, she looks out the window, seeing small puddles of blood, one very fresh, littering the backyard, all with accompanying drag marks towards one location. A window into the basement.

Making sure her own helmet was on tightly, she grabs Jack's SMG, and nervously makes her way downstairs. She is nervous, and her breath is ragged, but something within her feels comfortable. Feels safe. Feels almost enlightened.

But it's also an extreme headache. Each step she takes, she sees in triplicate. Minor differences, a moment's change, but all carry safety with them. Until she looks at the basement.

She sees herself running to the exit. She sees herself burning the whole house down. She sees herself entering the basement.

The second option feels the safest.

She walks towards the basement door instead.

Opening it up, there is just a small wooden staircase down into the darkness of the basement. Gun at the ready, she heads down but doesn't make it one step past the bottom when she hears a sickening snap to her left, like a plank twisting and splintering.

"J...i...ll? A...re...you...ther...e?" Jack's voice wheezed out. 

"Jack? Are you okay?" She turned the gun in that direction but didn't take another step. Something in her gut told her not to.

"J-Jill...w-where are you?"

"I'm right here, come on follow my voice, we need to get the fuck out of here! Fuck the Swords!" She took a step forward this time, but when she did her triplicate sight showed the paths, all ending in an attack. Her gut feeling was verified.

"I...can't...see."

"Jack...can you remember the field outside our house? When we were kids?"

"The...field...? Oh...yeah...I wo-uld chase...you would...run...I win..." Jack chuckled lightly as if the air was leaking from him. Finally, Jill gathers the courage to turn on the flashlight attached to the SMG.

Thankfully, her helmet blocked the vision of her face twisting in anguish. Jack was slumped against a support beam for the basement, head visibly split open, with some thing attached to his head.

It was sickeningly red with white and green pustules, pulsing and undulating in time, as more of its bulbous form was trying to wrap around Jack's face. Thin tendrils were wrapped around his entire body, weaving in and out as it manipulated his form.

"I rem-em-ber...the well...I...raced you...I won..."

A whimper is barely blocked by the sealed nature of the helmet. 

"I'm sorry, Jack...there was never a well...I'm so sorry..."

The helmet could not cover the sound of the desperate scream, but SMG fire did the trick in its place.

A week later, Jill sat in a sterile hall in a hidden base, one of the many locations the Swords have access to. She sat at a bench in that cold, empty hall, clutching an urn close, eyes a mile wide.

"You did the right thing, Jill." The king returned, still covered with a hood, but without the mask, showing a full ginger beard.

"This might be cold comfort, but...autopsy confirmed blunt force trauma as the cause of death. He was already dead in the basement."

"But...he talked..."

"The things autopsy showed it did have a well-developed mind. It was a hunter, and you were its prey. He...unfortunately, was bait."

"I don't...how did this even happen?" Jill choked out. Her eyes were still wide, but they looked up at the king, full of sorrow.

"Spores."

There was a silence with a thousand questions. Only one made its way out. "Huh?"

"Jack had spores all the way up to his brain and wherever the monster tendrils got him. I wager you had some as well. When our security team did their investigation, they found they came from the sunflowers near the fence. Well...calling them sunflowers isn't right. I guess bodies aren't the only thing the Tzimisce can corrupt." The king looked away, ashamed of himself.

"We...we put our helmets on after the fence...oh god." She put the urn on the ground and cradled her head in her hands. She had no more tears to cry but felt the emptiness in her heart all the same.

"This...this was supposed to be our meal ticket...but now. God, what am I supposed to do? I'm already hearing voices, seeing things!"

"You are? Like what?"

"I don't know I don't know! Back...back in the house...I heard a voice! A-And now...every time I move I get these fucking visions!" Her stress was building, but the King knew exactly what this was. But time would have to come first.

She is handed a card. A tarot card, specifically. "Page of Swords."

She looks up, seeing the king taking off his hood, showing a head of long ginger hair, starting to turn white, and a pair of kind brown eyes. "A journey that begins with a loss. It reminds us that good things can be found in the worst of situations and that we can grow past our worst moments."

He sits down next to her. "Welcome to the Swords, Jill. We want you in our number, our family. But, when you're ready."

There is silence for a moment. "Thank you, King." She doesn't seem to believe herself as she utters the words.

"Please, that's just a codename to keep things private. Call me Ethan."

While she seems to acknowledge it more, her eyes do not turn from the card, and then the urn at her feet.

"What was he like?" This caught her attention, as she turned to face Ethan. "Can you tell me about him?"

A tear returns to her eye, before a small grin forms on her face.

"When we were kids, there was this field next to our house,"