Suze froze in the center of the puddle of light cast by the overhead. It lacked the familiar UV sting on her skin that she felt in the wealthier, newer parts of town. It meant that vampires were able to be in the area, since light itself didn't bother them, only the UV enhancement provided a modicum of safety from them at night. The UV would fry a new vampire, although an older one could stand several minutes as the surface of its skin flaked like a really bad sunburn flaking off. They lacked the blood flow, or so the scientists said, for their bodies to repair light-burns.
She grabbed Daniel's arm as he moved restlessly, edging toward the house they were observing. It was an older one-story in a depressed older neighborhood, lawn just starting to go to seed. and the paint beginning to show the grime of uneven attention. Daniel was anxious to have his first destruction under his belt. It would begin his move from trainee answerable to anyone, to slayer answerable only to the council. It was up to her to prevent him getting killed, or getting her killed by the things they hunted.
She burned between her shoulders. Something felt wrong, and she couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was someone, unseen but there, watching and listening. But even her genetically enhanced eyes couldn't see any movement, nor stillness where there should be movement.
Silently signing Daniel towards the door, they sped across the unmown lawn. As required by Council, Daniel knocked on the door - no bell, and they waited. Then he knocked louder, and they waited. The requisite third loud knock brought no answer, so she tried the knob. It was unlocked, so she eased it gently open. It always seemed silly to give such notice to a potential vampire, but the Council required humans be allowed to respond. Back-in-the-day she would have just kicked it open, and any human homeowner would just have had to lump the expense caused by sleeping too deep to hear the knocking and leaving an unmown lawn to make neighbors suspicious.
They slid carefully into the cluttered front hall, lights on in standard anti-vampire precaution. Again there was no tell-tale UV sting on her skin from the recessed lighting, and she knew they were facing either poverty or a vampire. Looking for dark spots where vampires liked to hide, they paced quietly down the hall looking into each room as they passed it. The dining room still had dishes on the table, with stale drying food suggesting the report was correct. Although based on her own housekeeping ability, Suze thought wryly, it could just be someone too tired, or too busy to clean up constantly.
The first door to the right of the dining room was a bed-room, and Daniel gestured to the slightly open window that faced the unlit lawn behind the house. A slight breeze was blowing the curtain, and she tensed. It was strictly prohibited to have a window open after dark - too much like setting raw meat out for a lion. The bed was a dark curtained shape against one of the walls, without the surrounding UV light that most people, even poor people, surrounded the curtained four-posters with. Cheap set-ups were available to provide even poor people some protection. Otherwise, the vamp population would be comprised almost entirely of them. She signed to Daniel that he should pull the curtain back quickly, while she stood at the ready with a hand-held crossbow in one hand, and the razor sharp Bowie (her signature piece) in the other. Daniel practically ripped the curtains down he parted them so roughly. And he stepped into her path as he did it! She hissed under her breath. Not only would the noise alert any lurkers exactly where they were in the house, but his stupidity could have cost them both their lives; vampires were fast and utterly ruthless when cornered.
"Nothing there!" Daniel announced, and she quickly stepped forward and slapped a hard hand across his mouth, before he could further compound his errors.
When it was clear he got the need for silence, she gestured to the closet. Suze decided that Daniel would open it since he had been the one to announce they were there. He should be the one most at risk.
When Daniel threw the door open, it opened onto darkness. The clothing hanging in it made the corners difficult to see, and she felt - with an inborn feeling - that it wasn't empty. She wasn't surprised when the male erupted from the near corner, knocking Daniel out of its way in its dash for the open window and the darkness beyond. An older vampire would have killed Daniel, and come for her, and she silently thanked her Saints for their protection.
Her cross-bow was faster than the vampire, and the quarrel took it in the center of the back, spinning it around as it crumpled. Moving almost as quickly as the quarrel she grabbed its hair and gestured to Daniel to do the decapitation.
Picking himself up from the floor where the vampire had tossed him, Daniel crossed to her, took out his machete, and struck at the vampire's neck. His strike wasn't clean, only going part way through the neck. And she mentally shook her head as he did the second strike of the amateur. His clumsiness caused the stale black vampire blood to spray over the front of her tunic and trousers. She made a mental note to make him pay - both for the cleaning and the inept decapitation. Even if it was no longer human, it deserved a quick kill.
Gesturing silently to Daniel, they left the body where it lay, and went quickly through the rest of the house, finding no other vampires. Returning to where the body lay, Suze let Daniel bag the head they had to take the head back to the Center with them, to prove dissolution. A cleanup crew would come get the rest of the body for cremation.
"Sucker didn't know what hit him," Daniel bragged to her, strutting up the block to their car. She stalked along beside him silently, wondering what the trainers were thinking, sending someone as badly trained as Daniel out on a call. She noticed that he didn't even keep an eye out for the vampire that had turned the one they destroyed. She knew that all-too-often the sire would be near the new-born vampire. The scientists said it was chance or a genetic group reflex - not thought or care. She wondered, but knew better than to voice her suspicions that perhaps the vampires weren't the mindless suckers the powers made them out to be.
Arriving at the car Daniel hit the open button on the remote keypad, and threw the head into the trunk. Suze looked around suspiciously; she still felt the disturbing offness - eyes and ears - around her. But nothing jumped out at them as they slid onto the black leather seats, and she breathed a sigh of relief to herself that she wouldn't have to work with Daniel again. He just wasn't trained adequately. He could wind up getting the more experienced Slayer assigned to work with him killed if they were foolish enough to step between him and the consequences of his foolishness.
Tuning back in, she realized that he hadn't even realized that she wasn't listening. He thought the destruction was all his, and she was just the admiring adjunct to his performance. "At this rate, it won't take long to take back the night..." he crowed.
She fought the urge to take his head and turned the radio on... loud ... for the drive back to the Center. "Thank God it's not far!" she thought, looking at the buildings racing by since Daniel drove as carelessly as he slayed.
Soon they were walking into the Center building, and she jumped hurriedly from the car once it pulled into the parking lot. "I'll see you in the morning for briefing," she told Daniel, getting away from him while she still had some hold on her patience. She reminded herself that he was not genetically altered for the job. He was at a disadvantage, as were all the non-genetically slayers.
She nodded to the guards who waved her through the security protocol - no need to check and make sure she hadn't been bit. The vampires didn't like her blood. Hitting the elevator button or her penthouse, she was slightly happier thinking of the rather nasty and invasive protocols that awaited Daniel. Maybe they'd shut him up, take him down a peg. But she would damn well see that she didn't pull duty with him again. He was not only an irritating idiot, he could wind up getting her killed. Humanity was in trouble if he was the best slayer they could produce.