A secret part of me rebelled at the words I had just written. I wanted to share all of my indulgences, instead of the mere teasing and then withholding I had penned down. Yet instead of listening to those feelings, I shuttered them deep inside of me, kept the letter as is, and signed my name at the bottom.

I’m sorry dad.

Miss you.

Please stay safe.

That was all I could hope for, that my dad would need some time to think about the meaning of my letter, and to weigh his options. My deliberate vagueness would keep him safe. Because eventually, he would read between the lines. He would remember that only a life on the move kept me safe. That if he was reading about how I was staying in one place, that I might already be dead.

I shifted my posture on the rough straw bedding, and let my eyes rove around the cramped inn-room — barely more than a single bed crammed in between four walls — while I waited for the ink to dry. Blowing a strand of hair out of my eyes, I braced for the inevitable now that I was no longer visibly busy: smalltalk.

Rivenston, unlike Birnstead, was a city, so my room here at the North Gate Inn was a shared one. Private rooms cost extra. You paid for every single bed they could otherwise have crammed in a room and every single person they could have stuffed in a bed. That was way beyond anything I could afford. So instead of sympathetic bunkhouse owners like Eryn and Rafe that gave you an entire room for free, I now had roommates.

“You always write with your gloves on?” the man sitting on the other side of the bed remarked.

Nosy roommates.

The annoyingly curious human belonged to a party of three farmers. He was the only one of them in the room with me right now. They came from someplace west-ish and were here to do... stuff. Probably sell their produce or something. I honestly could not be bothered to remember.

All that mattered to me was that I had to share this room with them for the night. That meant pretending to be perfectly human, displaying at least a semblance of politeness, and suppressing the exhilarating desire to toy with the food.

Yes, exhilarating. This was not Birnstead. Here, I wasn’t haunted by the looming specter of people suspecting what I was. They did not know. Completely unaware. I did not need to rein myself in so much. I could indulge a little. In little ways, I could be me, and even if I acted a little strangely because of it, they absolutely believed I was human.

As long as I did not completely shatter the illusion of humanity, did not answer this male’s question by taking off my gloves and giving him a little wave of my claws and a full-fanged grin, he would remain convinced vampires were a threat a continent away.

But I could not indulge. Could not mess with him. Not even a little. I was going to live with people. Really live with people, even if only for a short while. I had to be better. More compassionate. Sociable. I should practice being nice.

The prospect only made it so much harder to behave. All his questions were so insufferably intrusive. And he had not even shared his name with me. Most people would have at least tried to exchange names first. Most people would not voice all their thoughts aloud as he did. Worst of all, the man tasted so utterly bored and disinterested. He wasn’t even looking for an actual conversation, but merely the pretense of one. Or maybe this was all me again, failing to comprehend the intricacies of social interaction.

And perhaps I was complaining too much as well. All things considered, I could have ended up with worse.

I mumbled something incomprehensible in response to the man's question while I folded my letter and gathered up the writing supplies. Hopefully, the noncommittal non-answer would be interpreted as whatever he wanted, and then he would leave me alone.

“What was that, Girlie?”

Girlie?

Not a— Gah!

I tried so hard not to draw attention to my overly-youthful appearance. Even the tiny slit of a window, only letting in the slightest hint of sunlight and casting the room in an abundance of dark shadows, helped disguise my age. Yet he still treated me like a little girl. Never mind not toying with your food. I was going to enjoy this.

I turned to face him and gave the man a far too gentle smile. “Ever shoved your fist deep into one of a cipactli’s many jaws and pulled on its tonsils to prevent it from biting your arm off?”

Wildly exaggerated tales were what people expected to hear from wandering hunters like me. So much so, that when I launched into an obviously embellished tale like this, explaining why I had my gloves on, everyone just sort of bought it.

Still, this was quickly turning into the most preposterously absurd explanation I had ever given for my gloves. And he was still buying it. Really, with some audiences I could probably slip the honest truth about my monstrous nature into a tall tale, and they would simply believe it to be part of the excessive dramatization. Regardless, I was not going to risk being that honest.

“... if the price for keeping my fingers is practicing writing with gloves on, I’ll gladly pay it,” I finished blandly.

The farmer fiddled with the bedding, eyes drifting across the room, out of focus.

Right, might have overdone it.

I exhaled loudly through my nose, deposited all the writing implements on the ground — not even enough room for a desk or chair to write on in these cramped rooms — and scooted over to his side of the bed. Sitting down right behind the man, I gently slapped him on the back. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m just messing with you a little.”

I was comforting this man. Birnstead really had done something to me. Usually, I would rattle people a bit and then walk away, feeling a little smug about my accomplishments. Now though, having dumped such gruesome imagery on the man felt uncomfortable. A single week in Birnstead, a single week of going back somewhere I should never have returned to, and it had changed something in me.

“You... you’re just a kid. How can you say those kinds of things yet be so happy?” the farmer asked.

To assuage my own agitation I took off my gloves, and kept one hand’s worth of exposed claws hidden behind his back. I splayed and flexed the fingers of my other hand, the one holding my gloves, claws handily hidden away behind folds of leather. It was a trick that came from long practice. Give me a scrap of cloth or leather to hold and I can go around bare-handed, claws hidden by nothing more than a stray piece of fabric.

It was not something I felt at ease about doing in a place with too many witnesses. Or with too many things I might accidentally tear holes in. But in a smaller room, with maybe one or two people present, it was a clever way to make people think they had seen my hands.

“As I said, it’s really not as gruesome as I made it sound,” I lied. “Mostly it’s just tedious jobs, like getting rid of mimixcoa infestations. And hey, I’ve got things to be happy about. I’m about to take a break. Nice little village a couple of days upriver. I’ll be staying there for a week or two, mostly doing nothing. Just some fun and relaxation.”

Another slap on his shoulder, and then I stood up. “Going to hand this letter in and run some errands.”

I rolled over to my side of the bed again and snatched up my letter, the inkwell, and the quills. Now with even more stuff to hide my claws behind, I hopped over to the door, gave a quick wave, and then slipped out of the room. Leaving the borrowed quill and inkwell with the proprietor of the inn, I ducked into town.

Away from the annoying farmer, what lay ahead of me should have been a fun shopping trip. After all, every task completed brought me closer to my return to Birnstead. The prospect made even the incessant summer sun bearing down on me tolerable.

But the letter to my dad I carried with me still nagged at me. Its tone was off. Despite how hard I had aimed for it, I simply had not been able to match the perfunctory matter-of-factness that was my usual. Dad might notice too soon. Despite having scrubbed the fiercest of my joy from my writing, he would still see the difference. There was too much emotion in my writing. And while a part of me wanted some of my genuine delight to shine through, it also made me wonder what it would make him think.

No, I didn’t wonder. I already knew. It would distress him. He understood what kind of creature I was, recognized what sort of things made me happy, and I could imagine how he would worry. His mind would turn to what I might do, what I might have already done. I could only hope he did not wonder how many—

No.

Happy thoughts!

At least he would not have the means to find me. As we had agreed before I left home, I never included my residence in my letters to him. No way for him to reply. No opportunity for him to chase after me. Not even with this kind of letter, a goodbye.

It was better this way. Everyone in Birnstead knew what I was. That information would leak. When staying in one place caught up with me, when the Inquisition came for me, he would at least be safe.

He safe, and I happy.

Yes, happy thoughts. In Birnstead I would be able to not hide, to be myself. Sure, at the end of it I would end up dead. But that was an abstract, far-off thing. From now on until the inevitable happens, I would simply be able to enjoy life. From now on, I will only think happy thoughts, and make good memories.

Cities were, ironically, easier for me to traverse than small villages. So many more eyes that could spot my unsteady pace, my reluctance to step into the sun, and my blindness, yet as long as I managed to avoid the wide-open spaces I was just another faceless nobody in a crowd.

No one noticed if I limped and shambled along because in packed streets all you could manage was a slow shuffle anyway. In those busy thoroughfares, even my sun-blindness did not bother me. I did not need to feel my way along, but merely follow in the footsteps of someone walking ahead of me. And in smaller alleyways, buildings were packed together so tight that there was plenty of shade.

The only thing worse in a city was the constant press of the food around me. Their sweat, their taste, it saturated the air, a constant assault on my senses. Yet even that I could mitigate. I had caught myself some little wildlife nibbles right before entering the city, and properly fed, all of the prey around me was mostly ignorable.

Closer to the good parts of town the architecture changed. The ground beneath my feet turned from packed dirt to cobbled street. When I traced a hand along a wall, the feel of those too had changed, less wood, more stone.

One of those stone buildings was my destination, the Inquisition branch office. I could not see much of it now that it shone under the light of the sun, but I still remembered it from when I was here last winter. It was a strange construction, with a purely functional square floor plan, a central courtyard, tiny slits instead of windows on the ground floor, and then gold filigree, chiseled decorations, and a roof with elaborate spiral towers on top of that. The thing only made sense once you considered its confused multifunctionality, part fortified villa, part grandiose prayer house, part impromptu garrison if the needs required it.

Arriving at the sturdy iron and wood gate that leads to the courtyard, I presented my letter to the bored woman guarding the entrance.

The gate guard radiated annoyance, probably shot me an angry glare I could not see in this sun, and finally, rudely snatched the offered mail out of my hand.

I shrugged, and ignoring her sour attitude I slipped past her and into the courtyard. She was just annoyed because they never expected lowly little kid hunters like me to actually hand them mail. She would get that letter where it needed to go regardless.

Access to the Inquisition’s secured mail delivery was one of the few benefits of being a monster hunter, and it was one I gladly made use of, even if at times it meant coming a little too close to the people whose job it was to kill creatures like me. Officially, access to their mail service was a way to reward monster hunters for the pretty much free service they provided the Inquisition. In practice, it was a fake gesture, a mostly useless benefit that cost nothing to provide, but felt generous nonetheless.

The vast majority of hunters were orphaned kids, the destitute, or those with no other way to get by. People that had no one to turn to, that often could not even read, did not need to send mail. The Inquisition did not expect me to actually use the service. That was exactly why I so liked handing them my letters. It was endless fun. At first glance, I was nothing but a dirty street rat. More often than not they snatched the piece of paper out of my hand as if my slovenly look was a deadly contagious disease. And then, the shock when they actually looked at the letter and saw it penned in beautiful calligraphy. Perfect.

Yes, the Inquisition had really thought this through. They barely needed to do a thing. In return, they got an army of foolish child hunters, desperate to do all of the most menial monster-hunting jobs. The Inquisitors themselves only needed to busy themselves with the things that we idiots did not return from.

Having had my small pleasure with the mail, I crossed the central courtyard and entered the side room of the chapel, the place reserved for monster hunters like me. In smaller cities like these, it was only open for a couple of hours each day. Sitting behind a creaky desk I would find a bored clerk — either a parchment-old priest or a page stupid enough to end up with the fool job. I would hand in the proof of slaying for the ahuizotl from Birnstead, they would update their little register, and that would be it. Then I would finally be free of my monster hunter duties.

That was not how it went this time. There was no bored clerk waiting for me, but a full Inquisitor team.