17 – Moroi

Mors were simple. It was always the Strigs you had to look out for.

Moroi were stupid. Strigoi were also stupid, but in a more human way.

Mors were like varcs, though they didn’t wear human skin. They were a mutation, a transformation, not in the same way as a varc. Nothing tore its way from the inside. A human who became a mor was twisted, not torn. Flesh paled, eyes reddened, hair thinned, teeth lengthened to needle points. 

Moroi were a distortion of the body, a mix of bat and human with ears and wings to match. Their jaws were designed to clamp down, needle teeth plunging into flesh before their purpled tongues stabbed forward, shoved into arteries and veins to fill the mor’s throat with rich blood.

The white-bodied beasts were a plague. One that needed to be burnt out where they were found.

Ella was good at burning things. Her orange hair fit the flames she liked to work with. She could  have been an Inquisitor in another life, but she loved fire more than saints, and though her face was scarred with burns and her eyebrows were still largely seared away, her hazel eyes were still intact. A black half-mask covered her lower face and a thick, brown coat kept her protected from the flames she spread.

Some considered her looks intimidating. Bonnie couldn’t find anything intimidating about the chatterbox she was currently partnered with.

“–then Lizzy was sayin’ there might be firewyrms coming down from the mountains, like some type of volcanic thing? But not exactly, on account of it comin’ from a dragon instead of the earth. Course if you listen to the Loremaster, volcanoes were born from dragons. Or was it dragons that were born from volcanoes? Anyways–“

There was no bothering with stealth when it came to mors. Either it was daylight and the monsters were hiding from the sun, or it was night time and they already knew they were there. Mors had better hearing and senses of smell than humans, and while Bonnie felt it was unfair for them to have decent eyesight as well, the monsters had an uncanny ability to spot people in the dark. 

The more educated of the Hunter’s Union considered that the mors had a form of thermal vision or perhaps something they called “bloodsight”, though all that really mattered was that the bastards were deadliest in darkness and vulnerable to heat and light. Anything too bright burnt their eyes, the bright days would burn their skin, and fire caught easily on their pale flesh. Toss a match at them and they’d light up like dry wood.

Ella had flamethrowers strapped to her wrists, so they were a great deal better off than if they’d had a box of matches.

The problem with mors was that they tended to hole up in the daylight. Varcs would come out, night or day, and didn’t seem to sleep at all. Mors though would find somewhere to hide.

In the case of the town they were traveling to, abandoned and empty aside from the monstrosities that had devoured and subsumed the townsfolk, there were a decent number of buildings that the creatures could be hiding within. As such, the job was simple: check for survivors, and if there are none, burn the house.

“HEY! IF THERE’S ANYONE HUMAN ‘ROUND HERE, COME OUT NOW! WE’RE BURNIN’ HOUSES, SO EITHER YOU STAY AND DIE OR COME OUT AND LIVE!”

Ella had a very simple, straightforward way of achieving their aims. One that was very attention attracting, and thus good for bringing out any potential survivors. Vicious as they may be, mors were more cautious than varcs, and they would stay hidden so long as they had shelter to hide within.

That made them easy to deal with when collateral damage was allowed.

Screeches filled the air as the first infested house burned. Bonnie waited with her rifle, staring down the sights, and when the first of the burning monsters came racing out, screaming in agony and seeking blood to quench the flames, she was ready to fire.

Its head burst like a pumpkin under a warhammer, splattering thick and goopy, before she turned and fired through the heart of the next one out. The headless one would need to be shot in the heart too, assuming it didn’t just burn away. Some monsters didn’t go down unless you handled them correctly, though mors had enough weaknesses to make them not too tricky to take out.

It was long and bloody work though. The reek of burnt flesh permeated the air with the crackle of flames. There was no point in taking risks though. Everything there was slated to die.

And Bonnie was very good at her job.