The shadows slithered and danced across the walls, exaggerating harmless figures into grotesque and frightening forms. She was well past fearing the shadows of the night, there were worse things that lurked in the darkened streets; it was their shadows that one could come to fear. Vampires! Bloodsucking filth! That in Aideen's opinion should be eradicated from the face of the planet. Yet time and time again they proved themselves as versatile and hardy as the bloody cockroach. There were some days where she believed that nothing short of a nuclear holocaust would remove their pestilent grip on society, 'and even then' her pessimistic side reminded her 'they would probably be the most likely to survive, along with their cockroach buddies.
"They deserve each other" Aideen mumbled under her breath, as she drew her weapon. Her high powered semi-automatic pistol was not only a comforting weight in her hands, but the modified UV rounds gave her further reassurance. At the sound of approaching footsteps, she moved into the shadow of the large apartment block. Steadying her breathing, she quietly and slowly edged round the side of the building, hoping to gain a glimpse of her quarry. There were three of them two males and one female. As they approached her hiding place, she was able to catch snatches of their conversation.
"A fine night for hunting, aye?" the female voice stated.
"Do you have to be so open and obvious about our intentions? Somebody might hear" cautioned a male.
"What? And tell the whole world that vampires roam through the city, gorging themselves on human flesh? Oh I can see the paper headlines now …Vampires! Monsters of the Night!" mocked the second male. "Your pathetic" he added his tone changing from mocking to scorn.
Waiting patiently in the shadows Aideen, wiped the sweat from her palms. The adrenaline was kicking in, all her senses heightened as the first of them came into view.
"There is no need to be afraid of some ity bity humans, what are they going to do? Scream at us? The female sarcastically remarked as she came round the corner.
With a smile, Aideen stepped out of the shadows and around the building, gun up level with the nose of the female.
"Ity Bity this bitch!" Aideen snarled as she blasted a single round dead centre between the vampires's surprised eyes. Without waiting to see her turn to ash, Aideen was already spinning to her left and releasing two rounds into the chest of the closest male vamp, "for a vampire you have shitty reflexes mate" she mocked as the UV rounds turned him to dust before his body even had a chance to hit the ground. Quickly scanning the abandoned street she spotted the last vampire fleeing from her. With a sigh of exaggerated patience she raised her weapon and shot him once in the back of the head.
Muttering "pathetic" she holstered her weapon and slipped back into the shadows, the night was still young.
************
"What do you mean we cannot afford to buy more coffee? We are a multimillion dollar, albeit highly secretive underground movement. And we can't pull together the cash for some coffee?! My God! What is the world coming to?!" A very tired and now pissed off Hannibal King ranted. "I happen to need coffee! Especially at this time in the morning"
"You seem to be functioning just fine without it at the moment, and it's the afternoon" an overly patient Abigail pointed out. King glared at her from the other end of the table, choosing to ignore the fact that she looked busy reading something from her laptop.
Waving his favorite coffee cup in the air, the one with the blue and yellow care bears on it he continued to rant at Abigail. "I'm only functioning at the moment cause I'm working off the rage, from the poor management of our…of this…whatever the hell you want to call it. But mark my words…" he paused for effect, watching to see if Abigail was paying any attention "when this anger wears off I'll be as useful as a paraplegic in a foot race! He finished dramatically.
"Oh, so no real change from normal then. Abigail absently returned, not even bothering to look up from what she was reading on her screen.
"Ow! Now that hurt Whistler" King replied, changing tact and placing his coffee cup over his heart and making puppy eyes at his long suffering friend, who continued to pointedly ignore him. He stood in that pose for a several seconds, then realizing she wasn't going to play ball, he walked round to where she was sitting and proceeded to read over her shoulder.
"You know I hate it when you do that" Abigail stated.
"All the better reason to do it then" King replied, distractedly, the article on the screen now drawing his full attention.
Sitting back in her chair, Abigail watched him read the article. He really was quite pleasant to look at. Having a toned strong build, tall, blonde, blue eyed and just emanating masculinity, a powerful adversary and a loyal friend, he was everything a girl could want, if it wasn't for his ability to annoy the hell out if her she might have made a move. But relationships in this trade made things more complicated than they already were, so he was her closest friend but nothing more. Snapping out of her brief daydream she noticed he had finished reading the article and was giving her a weird look. He looked about to say something overly witty, so she cut him off with a question.
"So what do you think King?"
King decided to let it go and contemplated the information on the screen then sighing dramatically he replied "I think we need to find this wannabe and tell them how it's done; I mean you gotta be professional about this sort of thing. It's not like we just go out and shoot every single one we find. Then again, on second thoughts that's exactly what we do! I think we should find this fellow hunter and reward them with a medal, no a trophy, wait! Better yet! A jar of coffee!!"
"Ha ha! Very funny" Abigail sarcastically returned
"Hey I was being serious, coffee is a precious resource it seems, what better gift could we give, I mean..." cutting off what looked to be another of King's prepared rants with a look that could kill birds mid flight, Abigail calmly closed the top of the laptop. "So you reckon we should find whoever it is that's pissing off the local vampires and extend an invitation for them to join us?" She asked trying to direct the conversation away from King's new found coffee fixation.
"I don't see why not. I'm so over being a ring in for this cell. I reckon it's time we built up our own stalker cell again." King sedately replied, he really wasn't a fan of Abigail's dirty looks, cause when it came down to it, she could whoop his ass if she wanted.
"Okay then it's settled, we're going hunting for the hunter tonight." Abigail began packing up her things, she paused what she was doing surprised that King hadn't made some smart arse reply. She had to smother a smile after glancing at him. He was just sitting there staring into his empty coffee cup, looking like a little boy who had opened his Christmas presents only to have found coal. "Okay, fine. First we'll go buy you some coffee. Abigail relented
"I knew you'd see it my way eventually" King joyously replied as he headed towards the door.
"The things I do for him, I don't know why I bother" Abigail muttered under her breath.
In hearing her mutterings he retaliated over his shoulder "Because you love me"
"Only because no one else will" She called after his retreating back.