Mona had long ago decided that she didn't mind the rain: sure it weighted her cape and made her hair tails flop into her eyes and bleached her already pale skin paler and set her shivering uncontrollably…
Okay, she didn't mind the rain if she could avoid those things. She was no pushover; regular rain was something she could deal with. This rain however was so heavy and cold it might as well have been ice; her skin had been struck so completely numb she'd probably be able to nick herself on her bike's exposed chain without flinching.
She made a mental note not to dismiss the weather forecast so incautiously anymore, there might have been a mystery to solve but a few hours ago but if she knew tackling it today meant she'd be caught in one of the worst rainstorms, probably ever, she would have put it off for a while; not even the monsters she usually dealt with would have braved a downpour like this one if they could help it.
To add insult to injury, in her eyes, her most recent case had arguably also been one of the most boring; the thought that she'd tangled with such a minor threat to wind up feeling like frozen death kept the bitter expression on her face.
Zap-Man had been unavailable, barring his alias' recovery from a rather nasty bout of the flu and Princess Giant had insisted on spending much too long a time with him before they went to confront the most recent horror plaguing the good people of the town. Long story short, they'd taken much too long on something much too unimportant. Now she was alone, toilsomely powering through ankle-deep puddles on her bike at eleven o'clock at night.
She'd be dwelling on the thought of her parents worried and angry if she weren't so cold and admittedly nervous.
Her plasters had soaked and peeled off her knees to reveal angry-pink skin; her arms had turned to tingling jelly even as her fingers maintained a furious grip around the handlebars; her legs didn't need the rain to benumb them, practically inert from fatigue as they were. The sound of the veritable storm overhead and the water sprinting over the hulls of garbage bins and gutters kept her from hearing her own breathing but she could definitely feel the frigid, empty grinding in her lungs as ragged gasps stung through her throat.
The buildings were framed in a sudden burst of lightning that sent a jolt of fear through her bones and pushed her aggressively chattering teeth together; her plastic fangs were almost pushed out of her mouth as her back wheel bumped into a crack in the pavement and sent her into an uncomfortable lurch.
Eventually she could make out the familiar signs of Dracula drive (it would always be Dracula drive to her dang it!) and took rigid hold of the flush of relief she felt at being so close to home; her peddling became even more laboured and uneven on the last, uphill stretch and for more than a moment she felt as if her legs might give out on her.
Suddenly, as her eyes blinked out a particularly vicious lash of light and spray her heart panged sharply at what she could have sworn were a set of baleful eyes glinting venomously at her from some interstice: they looked to be attached to a black, shapeless mass that meshed with the surrounding shadow; she was seized for a moment by a slice of dread, but as soon as she'd shook her aching head and blinked, it was gone.
She didn't have the energy to pick up the pace any further so instead she rooted her inflamed eyes ahead to the affectionate, promising light of her house: fenced with a well-trimmed hedge and looking ever so cosy as the silhouettes of her parents trembled and paced from one room to the next, probably worried sick about her.
Mona didn't have time to feel any guilt at that thought however as she was abruptly knocked off her bike to soar several feet and land rather roughly in a wound of slick asphalt, scraping her already scabby elbows and knees; she didn't have enough breath left to cry out loud but she could feel the warmth of clenching tears on her cheeks even as the warmth from the grazes leaked and wept over her skin.
Her skull felt tight and fleecy in a cruel juxtaposition to the rest of her, replete with cold silt; this made it all the more horrible when she was grasped roughly by the hair and dragged over the road into one of the alleyways by a set of dirty, bony fingers.
She grimaced at the sharp, gravelly pain that dug into her back as she was crudely tugged up onto the pavement and finally dragged away to where the streetlight couldn't reach.
Her assailant dumped her against the brick wall like a heavy suitcase and Mona, after straining past her grogginess and discomfort at last got a good look at the man she was more than certain had been the red-eyed shadow.
Even in darkness she could see he was fearsomely tall, she could guess the sheen of unnaturally pallid skin in his outline. The clearer things got the worse he appeared: his gaunt face was wrinkled and drawn to the point of emaciation, which set a permanently depressed expression on his thin, dry lips, weeping and crusted with rancid copper.
His eyes were what truly set her torn heart racing however; they were indeed a deep, fleshy red with black, beady pupils that throbbed and quivered as if appraising her.
She tried to move away but only found her grazed hands feverishly scuffling over the filthy brick wall and her legs kicking frantically against nothing; her lungs were empty, she heaved in sharp gasps that sounded much too loud in her ears.
Without warning the man lunged onto her, closing around her in a blink; his fingers clasped her cheek until it was drawn sore by his nails, which also gripped her shoulder; he approximately drew her head to a painful angle, in her peripheral vision she spied an unmistakable quartet of huge, sharp teeth gleaming, peaking out from a gummy, cavernous maw; her eyes grew wide enough to cringe as the rain spat into them.
Then everything was engulfed by a blinding, searing hurt; her neck felt like it was being drilled into by hot knives; the pain pushed all her energy out of her until what little struggles she could make were expended and she fell limp.
It felt like she was falling in a dream and everything was being drained from her; even her nerves felt like they were disappearing; after an unidentifiable amount of time her sense of location and coherency became drifty and imprecise; agony was replaced with a gloomy listlessness, as sight and sound became a faraway mirage.
'Am I dieing?'
She thought for a moment she could hear voices calling out to her, she thought of Charlie and Lily and how'd they'd have fight the terrors of the supernatural world without her, she thought of how very happy Angela would be to learn of her disappearance, she thought of her parents blaming themselves for no good reason, maybe even getting blamed by the police and ending up thrown in jail.
She thought pf Fang and found all she could do was cry.
These swimming thoughts lasted only a moment and went as quickly as they came before lucidity unexpectedly resurfaced, slowly but surely.
Feeling returned to her limbs: the searing, burning sensations drew back and began to trickle throughout her veins again; her throat, dry as bone, made a sandy, wheezing sound as her chest grew full and frigid. She became vaguely aware that the man, still strictly connected to her throat, was undergoing agitated convulsions: he made retching motions as his grip on her lost its purchase; she could hear his smothered voice choking and heaving as his entire body was wracked with distressed tremors.
Then, starting at the point of contact, Mona felt the strangest sensation of them all birth and spread throughout her body; it pulsed in the back of her head and neck at first and then she was slowly reminded of the pain she'd been in as the burning in her mouth returned, scratchy and arid, raw from the desperate, broken noises that had been coming out from it, her arms began twitching again against the same crushing cold that had weighed them down before.
Then something changed, her twitches became strikes, her gasping turned to growling and her fear twisted into a primal, vengeful rage.
She wasn't entirely sure what to compare the accompanying feeling itself to at first but as it dolefully lanced into her scabby knuckles and crawled about beneath her tightening ribs, she was reminded of meals she'd eaten after tripping onto her face that didn't taste of anything except the dull, meaty throbbing in her jaw as she chewed on them for too long.
Before she had full grasp of herself she could feel her nails rearing up from the pavement and digging into her attacker's throat. Her legs positioned themselves into his chest and kicked with piston like power, sending him a dozen or so feet in the air to sprawl and quiver against the wall not unlike herself moments ago.
He staggered to his feet and limped away, his lanky frame was weak and clenched with frailty as he disappeared into the night.
Mona followed a moment later and shambled towards her bike, quivering with excess adrenaline, her mind spinning on a wheel.
The next thing she new she was collapsing through the front door of her house to screams and frantic arms.
When she felt the loving warmth of her bedclothes' embrace her she fell asleep almost instantly.
And woke up screaming.