Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse

"We considered what you said," Anton was the one that spoke immediately as they walked up to him.

"But it’s just rain, and even if it does come down, we can manage. Sixty people need to eat, and we’ve already lost enough of the night."

Dion rose his brow a little. They should have met Basil on their way and he told them where he was, he guessed.

"It hasn’t even been an hour," Dion said, briefly glancing out at the night, "It’s barely been thirty minutes, you know?"

Anton glanced at the window behind him, at the sky that was still as clear and alight as before.

His lips pursed faintly, and he shook his head a little.

"If there’s nothing up there after thirty minutes, another thirty isn’t going to change that. Are you coming with us?"

"..."

There wasn’t anything more that Dion could say to convince them, at least, not without having to explain far more about himself than he could afford to.

His gaze briefly went to Irvin who looked a little smug, and Yara who seemed to be looking forward to hear that he would come with them.

And he shook his head.

"I’ll stay and help Basil here."

Anton nodded as if he had expected that answer, and Irvin was already past them and heading down, Yara giving a brief nod as she followed.

"Good luck," Dion faintly said.

Anton held his eyes for a second, then turned and went down the stairs, their footsteps fading floor by floor until he could no longer hear them.

’For all of their sakes... I hope this nose of mine is wrong for once.’

Dion left after that, and he happened to find Basil near the north partition, and the man looked up as he approached, immediately giving him a knowing look.

"They just went down. Are you heading out with them?"

Dion shook his head a little, "I did say I would help you with the people didn’t I?"

Basil raised his brow a little, then shook his head with a bit of a smile.

Then, several moments later he straightened and folded his arms, looking as if he was considering his words.

"You’re adamant about it being about to rain. Is it that serious?"

Dion nodded at him, saying, "I’m certain, yes."

"How would you know?"

Dion once more grimaced a little internally. He gave himself a bit of a sigh, muttering back, "...Call it instinct. I can feel it coming."

It wasn’t much of an answer, and Basil’s expression said as much.

However, he didn’t ask another question. He turned and walked toward the windows along the west wall, where a handful of people had made their beds against the glass.

"Hey," Basil said, crouching beside the nearest of them and putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. "I need you to move your things further in, away from the windows."

The man blinked up at him.

"What for?"

"Might rain tonight. No sense sleeping where you’ll get a draft sneaking in through the gaps in the windows."

It was put so simply that the man just nodded and gathered his blanket, and Basil moved on to the next person, and then the next, the few who asked why getting the same answer.

Dion had watched him work through all of it, surprised that the man had actually listened.

And for what it was worth as well, he understood why he did it.

’Even if it doesn’t rain, nobody loses anything sleeping a few feet further from the glass... and if it does, they’ll have him to thank for moving them.’

After that, they worked the floor together without discussing it, Basil pointing him toward someone, or handing him a water bottle or a blanket, and Dion would go.

The distraction was something that he was rather grateful for, at least for the most part of everything.

After all, it gave him something to keep his mind occupied from the smell of that special blood so concentrated on this floor.

Within ten minutes, the window line was clear and the middle of the floor, closer towards the back had grown crowded.

At some point, Basil didn’t say anything as he just tipped his head toward a corner of the shelter, where a woman sat against the wall with a boy curled beside her, and Dion knew immediately he hated this.

’Why does it always have to be the corner with the blood in it,’ Dion thought, his internal expression grimacing as deep as ever and his heart beginning to pound.

He almost turned himself back around to head to the roof, when he forced himself to stay still with a deep breath.

Dion took a shaky step forwards, gritting his teeth.

’I’ll just ask them to move and leave. Just ask them to leave, and then make myself scarce!’

The boy had kicked free of his blanket somewhere in his sleep.

He had a stuffed bear clamped against his chest, one ear chewed soft, and Dion crouched and pulled the blanket back up over him before he even looked at the woman properly.

It was only once he’d done that, once his hands weren’t busy anymore, that he let himself see her.

But even with that said, Dion felt so overwhelmed with the scent of her blood that his vision was swimming and he couldn’t actually see her properly.

For once, he found it difficult to see in the dark, her features were swimming in his vision and extremely obscured.

She watched him from the corner of her eye the whole time he fixed the boy’s blanket.

"You guys need to move," Dion said. "It’s going to rain really hard soon."

The woman didn’t answer right away. Her eyes went to the boy, then to Dion.

"...Move where," she finally spoke quietly, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask.

"Anywhere as far from the windows as possible." Dion was already straightening up, already half turned away. The blood smell, and his resistance against it felt as if they were giving him a headache at this point with how he was constantly trying to control his blood like earlier and failing. "Basil can show you if you’re still unsure. I’ve got to go."

Dion immediately left her at that point, and a harsh sigh escaped him as he went to catch his breath a corner away from everyone’s sight.

’This... is not good, at all.’ he thought as his eyes teetered between roundness and sharpening.

Eventually he managed to calm himself and they finished, and Basil led him off the main floor and down a corridor where a few rooms had been kept separate.

Basil stopped at one of them and pushed the door open.

The room was small, an office that had been cleared out with a sleeping bag laid across the floor and a folded blanket on top of it.

"Do you need more blankets?"

"This is fine."

"If you need anything, Madeline’s room is right across from yours." Basil nodded toward the door opposite.

He turned to leave, and Dion reached into his back pocket, bringing out a handful of 9mm rounds and holding them out.

Basil looked at them, and then at Dion.

"For the CZ," Dion said. "Thanks for not telling on me."

"...So you did take something from the shop after all."

"Consider them Ephraim’s, then. Passed down through family."

Basil huffed a short laugh, taking the rounds and closing his hand around them.

"I appreciate it."

He tapped the doorframe once with his knuckle before he walked off down the corridor.

Dion listened to his footsteps fade, and then he closed the door, pressing it flush until the latch clicked into the frame.

Then he switched the light off.

The sleeping bag and the blanket sat untouched against the far wall, and the only light came through the gap beneath the door.

He stood in the centre of the room and brought the Vestige notification back into his vision.

{You have earned the preservation of a Vestige: Gnoll-Bone Longsword.}

’Now then... I’d like something to celebrate something a little, so let’s see you.’

He willed it forward.

It began as a faint red mist, gathering in the air before him, drifting in slow currents.

Then it thickened, and droplets of a dark, blood-red colour drew themselves together, hanging in the air between his hands.