VERSE ONE: ONCE UPON ATROCITY

Paris: City of Light. For all its renown as such, Damon found the darkness in abundance. Of course, he had opted for the city's roads less traveled, keeping to the seedy sort of neighbourhoods that would never find their way into a Paris travel brochure. Less scenic, perhaps, but thankfully that made it easier for the fox's presence to go unnoticed - though the late hour didn't hurt in that regard, either. Decrepit building facades with the haunting stare of their vacant windows were the only eyes that followed Damon's passage as he ducked into another dreary alleyway.

Well, they were almost alone in their attentions, at least. His keen pointed ears and nose had alerted him recently to the fact that he was being followed. Damon paused briefly to sniff again but regretted it, wrinkling his nose in disgust: the only reward for his efforts had been the ripe scent of urban decay.

"This place stinks," he murmured to no one in particular, though if his shadow heard it he hoped it would at least keep him or her from suspecting that Damon was aware he was being followed.

As he navigated the heaps of rubbish and shards of broken glass that littered the alley Damon fished a crumpled fag from the pocket inside his overcoat and pressed the filter to his lips. The fox lifted his lighter to the other end of the cigarette and hesitated. He had no way of knowing how keen his pursuer's sense of smell might be, but a trail of smoke would be easy enough for most people to follow. "Fuck it," he needed to cleanse his palate of the aroma of piss and old garbage. Damon flicked the light a few times before getting the flame to take, and he breathed a sigh of relief at the first drag he took. The nicotine seemed to help take some of the edge off of his current predicament.

Emerging out the other end of the passageway Damon found himself in the ruddy light of a dying street lamp. He ducked into the nearest source of shadows that didn't lead directly back the way he'd come, golden eyes scanning his surroundings for another back-road he could take to try and lose his tail.

"Damon Vulpes," a light tenor called. A statement, not a question. Shit.

"...Quoi? Je vous demande pardon; Je ne parle pas Anglais-" Damon bit off the last word as he was interrupted by a curt laugh.

"None of that - you were living in Manchester not six months ago. Speak English. You're not fooling anyone. Your French is terrible, anyhow." The accent he pegged as American. Adjusting the rucksack slung over one shoulder, he tried his best to continue playing it cool. Damon turned around to get a better look at the stranger: the musteline shape of his face was apparent even beneath the mop of long, curly hair on his head and a short, scruffy beard and moustache: an otter.

"...The name's Damon. That's it." The fox's reply came after another long drag to calm his nerves. He didn't need a surname. He didn't need that surname.

"Call yourself whatever you like - to me you're just a number." The click of a safety disengaging echoed off the crumbling walls around them.

"Bounty hunter?!" Damon whirled to face the otter fully and nearly twisted his ankle on a loose cobblestone in the process. He bit down on the end of his smoke and reflexively tensed one paw around the handle of his own weapon, but kept it concealed beneath his long coat. The otter was smiling and sighting at Damon down a massive black pistol that would have looked more at home in an action movie than, well, facing Damon right there in real life.

"I take it you've been through this routine before?" the hunter surmised, "good." Now let's make this nice'n'easy and-"

Damon fled.

Richard sighed, "Or we could do this the hard way." The fox was quick; he had to give the bastard credit for that much. It probably would have helped if he'd kept his finger on the trigger, too.

Richard made hasty pursuit after Damon down the grungy Parisian alleyway into which he'd ducked. The otter could review his approach to the target with the benefit of hindsight once he completed the task at hand. Spotting a door left ajar with dirt disturbed on the steps that led to it, Richard hoped it would not be very long at all before he had that chance to reflect. Damon had had the good sense to discard his cigarette in his flight, but the wafting scent of its smoke on his fur still lingered on the air and confirmed the otter's suspicions as to which way the fox had fled.

"They're so cute when they try to run and hide," Richard couldn't resist muttering to himself with a knowing smirk. Finger inside the trigger-guard this time, he sucked in a breath and booted the door violently inward.

Damon was trying to calm his breathing, distractedly smoothing his bottlebrush tail when he caught the hunter's outline through a grimy window. The fox cursed under his breath and drew his coat open to grip the handle of his own weapon. This was the second bloody hunter after him since London and certainly the most visibly armed! Was the price on his head so big as to be attracting Yanks from across the pond, now? Damon rallied himself and carefully drew his sword, suppressing a flinch as the door to the vacant storeroom was kicked open, its rusted hinges squealing in protest.

"I know you're in here!" the otter shouted boisterously, pistol drawn and leveled with one hand as the other steadied the door to keep it from swinging back at him.

If he was aiming high, Damon would go low. He rushed the hunter, closing what little distance there had been between them, though not as quickly as he'd hoped. Though he managed to nestle his sword-tip comfortably in the fur of the otter's throat, the mustelid's pistol was making itself rather intimate with Damon's eyebrows.

"Touché," the bounty hunter grinned wryly, attempting to hide his surprise that his prey had all but gotten the drop on him in spite of the advantage conferred by his firearm.

"Indeed," Damon agreed, catching his breath and gripping the hilt of his sword tighter. "Look, I'd rather not have to fight you, alright?" He tried reason. One option seemed as good as any other with the barrel of a gun resting between his eyes.

"Good, it's settled then," the otter's grin widened, confident and cocksure now. The wan light from outside glinted off of the rectangular lenses of his glasses, partially obscuring his eyes. "I'll take you into custody and we'll head back to jolly ol' England. I'll get my £200,000 and you can await the trial where you belong."

"200,000 Sterling, is it?" Damon asked. Though the otter's tone was nearly friendly, he hadn't relaxed the pressure on Damon's forehead. This favour the fox returned with the blade to his opponent's throat.

"Price the British government's got out of you," the mustelid responded, either ignoring the bite of the sword or putting on a good show of it. "Impressive, if you ask me, considering you've yet to be tried for the mur-"

"Shut your mouth!" Damon cut him off with a snarl, "I've never killed anyone...especially...especially not her..."

"Oh no?" the jovial retort had a harsh edge to it, "Well you can tell it to the judge, or whatever you Brits've got in court anyway, pal. I just wanna get out of her and collect my reward. Now with that said: I don't give two wet shits about a lying, murdering bastard like you so let's just be on our way before I lose my temper and do something one of us might regret." The otter's grin was baring teeth, now, "Wanted 'alive' doesn't mean 'undamaged', you know."

"...Miranda..." Damon didn't even realize he'd said it aloud. The bounty hunter said something in reply, but Damon couldn't seem to hear him any longer.

"Are you listening?!" Richard shouted, nudging Damon roughly in the face with his pistol. The otter's blood was up now, and he was feeling much more confident as the fox's resolve had seemed to waver and the sword had been lowered from his throat. "What'd I just say? And leave her name out of this you piece-"

"I..." was Damon...smiling? "I did...not...murder...her..."Damon took one step back, then another. He staggered like a drunk, and Richard felt it prudent to draw attention to his obvious control over the situation absent a sword at his throat.

The words never left his lips, however; a strange gust of wind seemed to blow straight through him, momentarily taking the air from his lungs with it. Another eerie breeze joined the first, and soon there were currents of air billowing through the dark, enclosed space, converging on the black-furred fox in a vortex that smelled of sulphur. Invisible fingers plucked at Damon's clothes and his long, silvered hair, and both billowed around the fox as the breezes grew in intensity. The temperature in the room dropped suddenly, dramatically, but Richard couldn't decide whether the sudden chill or the pool of unearthly red light forming beneath Damon was the stranger occurrence. The light hurt Richard's eyes, forming strange symbols he somehow knew he could never understand.

"What the hell?" the otter managed to wonder aloud. He winced as Damon began to laugh. The strange light overtook the fox, pulsating brighter, its throbbing intensity nearly overwhelming Richard's senses along as the fox's laughter escalated to a mad cackle. Damon threw back his head and laughed like a maniac - something from a children's cartoon made unsettling by its presence in the real world. The laughter was building and the sound grew harsher and coarser until Richard found it as painful and unsettling as the pulsing light and billowing gusts.

"I've had enough of this," the otter determined, squinting through the splayed tips of his fingers to combat the glare of the light. With practiced precision he shot Damon between the eyes, muscle memory serving him where his frayed nerves might otherwise have not. The fox's laughter was cut short as he crumpled, the round dropping him cleanly. The strange light receded into Damon's body, leaving the room more ominously dark than it had been before. Richard blinked hard to clear spots of red light from his vision.

"And that concludes tonight's psychotic outburst. Sweet dreams, freak," Richard breathed a shaky sigh of relief as he holstered his pistol. If anything the whole ordeal seemed even more unsettling now it had ended; perhaps that was the adrenaline wearing off. He felt safer at least knowing the tranq. round he'd landed between the fox's eyes meant Damon wouldn't be giving him any trouble for the rest of the night. The only way Damon could stand back up would be if he had the constitution of a rock...

"Heheheh...ooh, I feel all tingly..." Or not, evidently.

Richard nearly jumped out of his skin when the fox stirred, but he had enough presence of mind to pull the second pistol from inside his jacket.

"H-how the fu- Hold it!" Damon didn't listen and instead pulled himself up into a seated position. "Stop right there!" Richard insisted, disengaging the safety to show he meant business. "I won't hesitate to use live rounds!" Damon, for his part, continued to rise. The grating sound of steel on concrete send shivers down Richard's spine as the fox pressed the end of his sword - was that the same sword? It seemed somehow different...more barbed and wicked than it had appeared before - into the floor, using it for support to pull himself up onto one knee. "Hey! I said_don't _move!"

Damon didn't listen. He put weight forward into one leg, pushing himself up into a standing position right before Richard put a bullet through his knee. Fuck. The sight of blood made him nauseous. "That was a warning shot!" the otter insisted, as much to himself as to the fox, attempting to assuage the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that came from discharging his weapon at another living thing. Damon didn't seem to mind, at least.

Richard stared wide-eyed, mouth agape. The gunshot had made Damon stagger, of course, blowing out his knee, but he hardly seemed concerned about it. He was grinning still. "And...and you're still...standing...?" The bullet had barely hindered the fox's upward momentum, and still he grinned that awful grin, taking a shaky half-step toward the otter with his wounded leg, giving voice to some sort of gleeful little laugh as he did.

"S-stop!" Richard insisted, shooting Damon's other leg. He heard the bone snap as the bullet contacted it, but the fox was unfazed. "Stay back!" Richard's words were edged with panic now as he put another useless bullet into Damon's chest. The fox took another step. "Back!" Richard shot him again, then again and then he lost count of the trigger squeezes beyond that point.

Damon pinned him against the wall. Richard wasn't sure how that had happened. The fox had closed the distance between them in a blur of black fur and trailing spatters of blood. Damon closed one paw around Richard's throat and pushed him right off his feet, slamming him back against the brick wall with that vice-grip on his neck. "Oh fuck," the otter croaked uselessly, fighting for breath.

"Fuck?" Now the fox seemed to take notice of him, as if for the first time. Damon grinned somehow wider, "Mmmh that_can be arranged..._"

Richard's eyes watered and rolled in their sockets as he struggled to breathe. His feet kicked uselessly and his free paw groped at the insanely strong paw around his neck in a vain bid to loosen its grip. He heard Damon's retort and even in his panic managed to comprehend enough to wonder if there was more he had to fear than his imminent demise.

Desperately, the otter snaked his arm up in between himself and his captor, pressing the end of the pistol he still gripped to the fox's throat. He fired until it clicked impotently and the only reaction Damon deigned to give him was to laugh that horrible laugh.

Richard's feet contacted the floor again and though he was not freed he gratefully gulped in what little air he was able to draw. His head was swimming, but through the haze of vision blurred by oxygen deprivation and ears ringing from the close discharge of his gun and that terrible laugh, Richard noted that Damon's wounds were healing. Before the otter's very eyes, the fox's injuries knit themselves shut, tendrils of blood and gore swirling tidily back into his body. The room resounded with the ominous clinking of lead on the concrete floor as the ruin of Damon's face set itself aright where before two rounds had blown a hole through one eye and broken his jaw open.

"Jesus...w-what the...Damon...h-how...." Richard was only dimly aware he'd spoken aloud until the fox focused on him again, turning Richard's blood gelid. The fox was looking through him as much as at him, and Richard whimpered ineffectually as Damon's grip tightened around his throat once more.

"Damon's not here anymore," the fox lamented, leaning closer and giving his captive a slow, contemplative...lick? Even with his head swimming Richard felt a fresh surge of panic as Damon's impossibly long - and pierced, he noted - tongue passed across the otter's muzzle.

Richard opened his mouth to protest, but his own tongue was swelling against the roof of his mouth and the closest thing to a complaint he managed to voice was a tiny squeak. Damon released him then and Richard slid down the wall to land on his tail with a grunt. His head lolled weakly as he tried to squint up at Damon, his glasses having been knocked askew - not that they could have sharpened his dimming vision.

"Huh?" Richard asked intelligently as Damon appeared to disregard him. The fox turned to disappear into the darkness, casting the briefest of glances over his shoulder to reply.

"Soon," he said simply, that manic grin flashing in the dark, and then he was gone.

Richard blinked his bulging, bloodshot eyes painfully while his paws scrabbled weakly on the dirty floor in search of his weapon, but his limbs were leaden and he could feel his grasp on consciousness slipping away. What the hell...

Darkness took him.