“Zero.” Zoé softly muttered, drawing her Colt and turning toward the downed Shadow.

Something briefly flashed across her field of view before the world suddenly turned upside down.

The back of Zoé's head cracked against the asphalt- fiery pain exploding through her skull and neck as white stars burst across her vision like television static. She was momentarily stunned, and couldn't even tell that her beloved Colt had flown out of her grip, skidding across the snow and coming to a stop- partially buried beneath a snow mound beside the front tire of a blue truck. It's wooden grip frame peeked out of the snow.

She was then roughly hoisted upward by her ankles and swung around to be slammed face down onto the ground. She grunted as shooting agony laced through her entire body, especially in her chest, as most of her ribs once again broke and some punctured her lungs, causing her to involuntarily spit out a mouthful of blood. The binding around her ankles tightened as she was then roughly dragged through the snow, her holsters and clothing scraping against the road.

Coherent thought was currently difficult, seeing as she had just suffered what felt like the mother of all concussions- one that not even her natural regeneration could instantly patch.

She had severely underestimated Shadow's recovery time. Even Runner was most likely up and moving. She needed to focus. She needed to move. She needed to move.

'Move.' She gritted her teeth.

Zoé smacked the icy ground with a fist in self-recrimination and to orient herself before circulating her vitae- thud. The accumulated blood in her punctured lungs involuntarily sprayed out of her mouth, followed by a bought of wet coughing and hacking as she expelled ruined organ tissue and more blood- leaving a messy trail as she was slowly dragged.

Excruciating pain hacked away at every nerve ending in her upper body as she was dragged across the uneven, bumpy asphalt- her regenerating ribs grinding, shifting, and contorting against one another and the ground to reposition themselves.

It was the type of pain where all you could do was silently scream- because there was no sound you could make that would convey the proper expression of torment you were experiencing.

Most of Zoé's face was now covered in a snowy, bloody slush and some loose strands of auburn hair that had gotten free of the ponytail. Her vision was blurry and red; her mouth coated with taste of her own blood; her nose stuffed with the heavy, metallic stench of copper. Her thoughts were a complete mess as she could only lay on her stomach, face down, moaning into ground as her face was used as an improvised snow plow.

Somewhere... within the recesses of her 'soul', The Beast's nose twitched.

The dense fog blanketing her mind abruptly lifted as her skull finally knitted itself whole and everything shifted back into position. Even the intense, stabbing pain in the back of her head and the throbbing migraine vanished without a trace.

Sometimes, it really payed off to be a supernatural parasite.

Zoé viciously dug her fingers into the snow as her clarity of mind returned, and every muscle in her body went as taught as steel cabling as she took control of the disorganized flow of vitae coursing through her veins.

The shadow tendrils restraining her ankles strained for a second before bursting apart in an inverse flash of darkness and a faint, almost unnoticeable, otherworldly screech.

Once free, Zoé scrambled to her feet and wiped her face with a forearm- smearing her lipstick and eyeliner. Though honestly she could not care less about how she looked at the moment.

She was mad, very mad.

When was the last time she had been handled to such a degree? Even that incident over three years ago involving a small gang of ten Brujah and Lasombra chasing her through the Virginian countryside had gone better. She had not survived that night unscathed, far from it. But at least she had managed to escort three of the filthy Brujah to their Final Deaths before suffering a single wound.

And now here she was- soiled designer clothes, ruined makeup, and broken bones.

And both of the fuckers... were still... alive.

Somewhere... within the recesses of her 'soul', The Beast growled in its sleep.

A low, baritone growl reverberated deep in her chest. Her peripheral vision took on a red-tinge as she inadvertently bared her fangs. The glowing, golden flecks within her emerald irises took on a red outline as they erratically flicked between Shadow and Runner, daring them to make a move.

Shadow was the furthest of the two, kneeling on the ground with both knees while clutching his left shoulder. The shadows wreathing his limbs were moving discernably slower, and fading in and out of existence like a poorly connected lightbulb.

Zoé's lips curled into a predatory smile that looked positively demonic with her bloodied face.

She was going to rip Shadows throat out... She was going to taste his blood...He was weak.

Despite having been caught off guard a few times, it was now clear to her that Shadow was a talented, but weak-willed Oblivion user who depended on others to coordinate the brunt of the fighting away from him so he could focus on large-scale, environmental summoning.

And he was in no condition to summon anything from the depths of Oblivion. If anything, he already had one foot on the other side judging by his appearance.

Most of the credit naturally went to Zoé for her crack shooting, but she also knew that she had gotten lucky.

If Emissary Whitaker had come to the exchange with whatever orders he had received, then Shadow would have had an opportunity to perform a ceremony. Ceremonies were highly taxing, but extraordinarily powerful. And with a wide variety of uses.

An Oblivion user could call upon unwholly darkness from the Abyss to raise corpses, summon spirits, or spread a suffocating, all-consuming darkness across a large area to mute sound or suppresses all other senses. The utility of manipulating raw entropy itself was incalculable. The downside, is that every time an Oblivion user casts their will into the Abyss, they're treading a knife's edge as they're effectively pitting their willpower, sanity, purpose, and desires, against something fouler than death... and twice as hungry.

Had Shadow known, he would have certainly spent time exploring the city to determine the location of the nearest local Shroud, as this was where ghosts could more easily cross between worlds. Once he found a Shroud, summoning or binding a vengeful wraith from beyond the veil to his will would have required significantly less vitae, time, and concentration- three of the most important assets a Kindred needed to survive in the world.

As it was, it looked as though her breaking Shadow's hold over the Oblivion energies binding her legs had taken a severe toll on the man. Even if there were a ceremony surrounding them that passively anchored or increased any ambient necromantic energies, she doubted he could safely interact with the Abyss or the Underworld in his current state.

Not unless he was in a hurry to unleash a new strain of bubonic plague or become possessed by a Greater Wraith.

It didn't matter. She wouldn't give him the opportunity to think.

Thump!

Zoé vanished from where she was standing in a puff of powdery snow. Heading directly for Shadow.

Runner's crouching figure similarly blurred as he hastily tried to intercept her.

Her unexpected decision to attack Shadow allowed her to pass Runner by just enough that he was behind her.

Runner was directly behind her, his arm fully extended as he tried to snag the back of her ponytail...

'Gotcha.' Zoé cracked a Cheshire cat smile as the euphoria of outwitting her prey coursed through her veins like a drug.

Somewhere... within the recesses of her 'soul', The Beast restlessly shifted its considerable bulk as something brushed against its waking consciousness.

Zoé grabbed the still-holstered Glock 19 hanging beneath her left arm, flicked off the thumb break as she slightly tilted her body, angled the barrel inward, and squeezed the trigger; the holster's frame wasn't covering the barrel.

The unsuppressed report of a 9mm round was explosive even within a minor snowstorm.

Zoé heard the fleshy impact, and further confirmed it when she heard him stumble and collapse to the ground.

To anyone who might have seen what occurred, it would have appeared as though two indistinct, humanoid shapes were closely following one another before the one behind suddenly materialized into the shape of person holding their throat with both hands and collapsing to the snow.

Zoé let go of the Glock and closed the distance to Shadow, who had managed to stand, although still hunched forward as he favored his injured left shoulder.

'Wait-' Zoé's rational mind flared in warning.

However, her bestial, primal side was roused. The desperate fighting, the blood-loss, the constant use of vitae... the hunger clawing at her throat... the hunger that made her canines itch. The closer she got, the clearer she could see Shadow's pale neck hidden within his hoodie. Could taste his blood between her lips, could feel it pouring down her dry, aching throat.

Zoé was two meters away when two icy, blue eyes locked onto hers from within the hoodie.

Zoé snarled and lashed out with her now-clawed right hand. Victory gleamed in her eyes as she gleefully watched her razor-sharp claws sink into the meat of his left pectoral and then... seamlessly pass through as his form burst a puff of shadow.

Zoé's animal instincts screamed at her- and she naturally responded by completing her swing and spinning around with its momentum to swipe nothing but air behind her as well. But there was only Runner, shakily climbing to his feet as copious amounts of dark blood seeped into the snow around his feet.

A flicker of movement.

Zoé tried to move aside.

A heavy boot slammed into her upper right arm from an impossible angle.

Zoé right humerus shattered like glass. The force of the strike dislocating her right shoulder, fracturing most of the ribs on her right side, cracked her sternum, and sent her haplessly careening into the snow.

This time, Zoé screamed.

Not only because of the obvious pain, but because she could feel the oily, viscous, unholy Oblivion-stained vitae corrupting her blood as it nefariously seeping into her veins. This was beyond pain. This was an invasion of her very essence. One her rational mind couldn't possibly comprehend or hope to control.

Somewhere... within the recesses of her 'soul', The Beast's eyes flew open. It could sense the presence of another encroaching on its home. And so it rose to its full height, raised its head and bellowed with uncontrollable rage.

Zoé writhed and shrilly screamed until her throat gave out and had to regenerate. There was only the pain. There was only fear. There was only hunger. There was only the smell of blood. There was only... The Beast.

Zoé's violent convulsing and screams dropped to a shallow, breathy panting as she sporadically twitched and heaved on all fours. A thin string of blood and saliva hanging from the corner of her mouth.

Shadow and Runner silently looked at one another. Runner nodded and got to his feet, taking one step before pausing and looking back at Shadow.

Shadow nodded once before taking off his hoodie and tossing it into the snow, exposing a ruined, plain black T-shirt riddled with bullet holes and most likely soaked through with blood, although it wasn't readily apparent given the color.

Shadow then reached behind his right shoulder with his right hand and unsheathed a footlong, steel, stiletto dagger, which he then tossed over to Runner.

Runner smoothly caught the dagger and started toward Zoé.

He stopped once he stood right over her, and cocked his head to the side as he silently inspected her. Then, without preamble, he flipped the dagger into a reverse grip- point facing the ground, and held it above and directly over Zoé's heart. He plunged it down.

The tip scraped the asphalt beneath the snow.

Black blood sprayed across the snow directly in front of him in a crescent shape, staining his hands and the dagger's hilt. Then the world turned sideways. Runner could see the side of his bloodied hands and the length of dagger as it tipped over and clattered to the ground, out of view. Then the world went dark.

Shadow recoiled and slipped onto his backside as for the first time in memory, he experienced primal, unadulterated fear shooting down his spine.

He watched as what was once a beautiful woman silently stood over his brother's melting corpse. The horrifyingly long, sharp claws on her right hand dripping blood.

Then, a terrifying, bloodcurdling scream mixed with the howl of the snowstorm as The Beast made its displeasure and hunger known at being denied its meal after a successful hunt.

Shadow frantically communed with the Abyss, summoning Oblivion energies to wreath himself in darkness itself.

The Beast did not care. The Beast could hear, feel, and smell vitae. It didn't need sight. It needed a direction.

And Shadow had just rung the dinner bell.

The Beast howled and recklessly sprinted towards the presence of vitae, unwilling, and uncaring of any further damage done to its host's body.

Shadow understood in that moment that he was a goner. And in that moment of extreme clarity, came a freedom that allowed him to do the unthinkable.

Closing his eyes for the last time, he completely submerged his conscious into the Abyss- allowing pure, unmitigated entropy to flood into his physical form through the connection.

His soul shattered.

His body decomposed into a withered husk in the space of time it took for The Beast to arrive over the crumbling remains.

The Beast howled, this time tinged with a slightly frantic rage as the storm reduced its excellent senses. It couldn't sense any blood!

It stood in place, slowly turning in every direction, sniffing the cold air, wobbling, and unbalanced.

It needed blood! Where was it?! Where was IT?! WHERE WAS IT?!

And then, suddenly, as though it had been there all along.

A heartbeat.