Bishop sat in darkness, his gas lamps not dim in their typical low lit glow. The shades were drawn shut, the blackout curtains holding out the garish, hard rays of sunlight, poisonous to his skin.
Bishop ignored the crashing against his front door, each louder than than the last. With scarred eyes once capable of painless sight, he clenched them shut, thin tears running down his pallid cheeks in twin streams.
Let him come. Let him bear down on me, those piercing green eyes staring into my cadaver. The curse of sunlight could not stop me; Samael Grifford's Zealots could not stop me; exile could not stop me.
If I should die...
The door creaked, the heavy oak wood frame straining with each strike.
Bishop sighed as the door strained, the wood bowed, and groaned as the sound echoed through his empty house.
Let him come.
Strain turned to cracking, splintering, breaking, the hinges of the door tearing away from the frame one stripped screw at a time.
The heavy oak door bowed in again, and buckled off it's hinges, collapsing flat into Bishop's foyer.
Bishop closed his eyes.
"Bishop!"
His eyes opened wide, the blade balancing along the thing skin of his throat. "...Cameron Dean?"
"She's dead!"
Bishop arched his head back, pushing his throat forward into the blade. He felt the razor edge split the edge a layer of skin. "Do it."
Cameron eased off the pressure on Bishop's throat, and dropped his blade onto the hardwood floor betqeen Bishop's legs, the blade clattering onto the floor. "...she's gone, Bishop. She's gone."
Bishop nodded as Cameron slid down the back of his seat onto his knees, bawling like a child. "Cameron..."
"Don't!"
Bishop stood up from his seat, letting the shallow cut in his throat bleed down into his robe. "I told her not to."
"...she's gone. God, Bishop..."
"I know."
"Why are you here? Why aren't you out there? Why haven't you done something? Anything?"
Bishop frowned. "She's gone, Cameron..."
✟ ☧ ✟
"...she's gone.
...then you need to live, Cameron, House Dean. For Gina."
Cameron's ragged voice echoed through Bishop's voice as he raced through the woods, dashing between bark boughs, dodging sunlight where it pushed through the dense canopy of pines.
Heavy boots slid through the mossy, pine littered earth, soft mulch piling at his hard soles. Bishop turned, skidding on his knees, his back flat against the woodland floor as Bane's long blade swept overhead.
Bishop watched the front of his long brimmed hat cut free, the front brim fluttering down over him.
"Where are your owls?"
Bane stared over his shoulder, turning only enough to see Bishop as he recovered to his feet, casting g his hat to the forest floor. "Gone."
"Then your dead god has abandoned you."
Bane nodded.
"Who are you without the dead god?"
"Bane." The whisper of his voice called from all around them. "Only Bane."
"You killed my little girl."
"Not your kin."
"She was my only kin." Bishop removed his cowl to reveal his pallid face, the dark circles of his bruised looking sockets contrasting against the golden hazel-brown of his eyes. Bishop squinted against the light.
Bane turned to fully face Bishop. "She took her own life."
"Where is she? What did you do with her?"
"Ashen in a pyre." Bane touched the fractures in his mask. "Worthy grave... my only equal."
"Today you join her in death."
"No." Bane shook his head once. "...dead long ago." Bane moved in a swift blur, long blades flashing in a glint of silver light reflecting off their polished surface.
Bishop dodged the blades as they coasted past him, twin gleaming flashes of steel. Bishop unrolled the whip from his belt and lashed it out at Bane, the whip cracking against Bane's mask.
Bane stumbled back, droping his blades, his mask battering his empty, wounded eye socket. Bishop cracked his whip again, and again at Bane, the salted leather snapping against the dense bone mask.
Bane drew his pistols, and Bishop lashed out again with a master's control over his whip. Bane's heavy revolver pistols fell from his hands, his fingers both numb, and burning from the pain of Bishop's every lashing.
Bishop drew back his whip and flung it out again, the length coiling around Bane's neck. He pulled, and Bane reached for the taut woven leather, gripping, and pulling. Bishop held fast, even as Bane pulled hard. Bishop felt his boots leave the ground, his body airborne. Before the giant could react, Bishop's bootheels were planted firmly on Bane's chest, drawing the ship's length closer, tighter as Bishop held tight.
Bane wrestled against Bishop's whip, struggling to breathe as the stubborn pale man pulled it tighter. Bane dropped to his knees, and Bishop recovered to his feet before Bane could collapse on him. The world swam by him, Bane's eyes taking in the stark brown of boughs, and green of pine needles as they began to fade to colorless shades of gray.
Bane quit fighting against tight leather coils around his neck and reached for the ankle of Bishop's boot, but the aging hunter was faster still. Bishop dodged around the tattered gloves of Bane's grasping hands, leaping finally upward, and using the tension in his whip to bring himself onto the back of the rogue giant. "She loved you, once. You know this? You were never worthy."
Bane clutched once more at the whip's tightening coil around his throat and found no purchase. His voice caught in his throat, his windpipe cut off from breath, his mouth unable to produce so much as a syllable of speech. The world existed now only in shadows, silhouettes void of detail. His only remaining eye bulged in its socket, and he felt it may burst.
Bishop drew the taut line of his whip, pulling Bane's head back as the giant struggled to push himself up. He leaned to the side of Bane's head, and whispered near his ear. "For all this, I can forgive. Sometimes we kill them. Sometimes they kill us. Heresy, though. That, I cannot forgive. Such a blasphemy as you, I cannot forgive."
Bane collapsed forward, and Bishop loosed his slack on the whip. "You can bleed. You can die."
Bishop's voice was far away, floating in the darkness around him. Bane's arms were heavy, his legs stiff and dense as lead. There was a faint whistle, and rush of cold, a trickle of ice that drained into this throat. He felt the whip around his throat go limp, the sensation of a snake sliding off him. Then there was something harsh, something rough, something heavy in its place. Bane rolled over to see Bishop standing away from him, pulling rope down over the heavy boug of a thick branch. "It is death for you, creature. Death, for your crimes against The Order."
Bishop pulled, and the rope went from slack to taut; he pulled it again, and Bane felt himself slide forward a few precious inches. "...stop."
Bane felt the force of Bishop's strength, those old rites and blessings, hoist him to his knees. He pulled at the rope, even as the rope pulled at him. Bishop did not relent. Bane felt his knees leave the forrest floor, his boots scraping only a moment as Bishop pulled him up, suspending him from the branch of the pine. His eyelid felt heavy, and he felt sleep beginning to overtake him. Bane felt his arms drop to his side, fingers tingling on his hands. His bladder threatened to let go.
Struggle! Fight! Jonathan, if you stop now, or if you quit, you will die!
Bane opened his eye. No. He tensed his neck, and lifted his shoulders first, and then his arms. He willed himself beyond the strength he did not have, his hands grasping the rough rope. He Pulled himself up, and there was an immediate flood of air in his lungs. Bane held fast to the rope, as he spun suspended there above the forest floor in slow circles. The old hunter was gone, the rope tied to the tree next to his, the tree meant to be his final grave.
No. I do not die. I cannot die. Not pain, not agony, not drowning, and not choking... I am the rain, and the wind, and the storm. I am the desert that beats down on you... Bane pulled, and heard a discordant musical twang somewhere high up near the boughs. He pulled again, hefting his weight into it. There was another, higher note, and the rope gave way a little. Bane pulled himself high, dropped and let the rope burn his fingers on the way down. He caught and gripped it again only at the last moment, and there was sharp snap as the rope broke against the rough bark of the bough, and he felt, collapsing into a pile of himself on the earth and pine of his wooded hunting grounds.
Bane lay on his side, gasping, loosening the rope around his neck. There was pain - real pain - and yes, even fear... and oh.
Oh, yes.
He could use that. He could do so much more. More than thunderous weapons, or blades. He could whip them, and rope them, and strangle, and they would fear. He could create a slow, deliberate demise. He could take his time, and there would be nothing they could do.
Not Coven, not The Order.
For the first time in his existence in the world of men, Bane smiled.