-o-
The first time she came to, awareness was swiftly followed by a wave of nausea. Her body was bumping and bouncing against a hard, unforgiving metal floor, and she could hear a low, rumbling sound, something like the noise of an engine. It took a moment for her to gather her wits, and when she did it the realisation dawned that she must be in some kind of vehicle, a vehicle that was taking her further and further away from any hope of rescue. A surge of fear rushed through her, but when she tried to move, tried to fight, she earned herself another punch in the face for her trouble.
It sent her straight back down into the darkness.
The second time she regained consciousness it was more slowly, her head pounding and rusty nails digging into her eyeballs. The floor underneath her was rough concrete, coarse and cold, and she had no idea where the hell she was or how long she'd been out. Her weapons were gone when she reached for them, every tiny move she made sending spikes of pain through her head. They'd even taken her boots, and with them the silver blade hidden in the sole. Even with her brain sluggish and uncooperative, it only took a second for her to realise how utterly screwed she was.
She was going to die. No chance of a last minute rescue, no knight in shining armour, and no miracles, not for her.
She should have been more okay with it than she was. Dying had always been a possibility, and she thought she'd made peace with that every single time she strapped on her weapons and took a step outside the door of whatever sanctuary they'd built. But being faced with it now, when it looked like becoming a reality...
She took a deep breath, holding the panic at bay with some effort. She wasn't quite willing to give up yet, not without fighting every step of the way, and anyway, it wasn't death that really frightened her, not if it was quick and clean. But to die like this, when they'd thought the end was in sight, when she thought that maybe she'd finally get to have a fucking life...
It would be ironic if it wasn't so fucked in the head.
She pushed herself up onto her knees, the room spinning and leaving her nauseous again as she struggled to catalogue her injuries. The whole process took a lot longer than it would have done if her brain hadn't been pounded into Swiss cheese. Her jaw ached, that was the first thing, and there was a line of fire across her throat, where someone had cut her or half-choked her - she couldn't remember which and it didn't seem important now. Her kidneys ached as well, a dull, heavy throbbing that told her she could be in trouble, or would be if she survived long enough to piss blood for a week.
And speaking of blood, there was still blood on her eyelashes, burning in her eyes, but when she touched her forehead, where the blood had originated, it was tacky to the touch, telling her that she'd been out for longer than she'd thought.
None of that boded well.
She wiped at her eyes, ignoring the stinging, and started to rise to her feet, knowing that the chances were that she wasn't going to make it, not when her legs felt like Jell-O. She was right, but it wasn't her nausea that forced her back down again. It was the heavy hand that landed on her shoulder, the weight of it driving her back down to her knees as her stomach rebelled.
Maybe she should throw up on the fuckers, since that seemed to be the only line of defence she had left, but the thought faded as soon as she'd had it. She wasn't going to give the bastards the satisfaction of losing what little dignity she had alongside her lunch.
The sound of scuffling reached her ears and she turned her head just in time to watch Henderson being dragged into the room. He didn't look good; his face was red and puffy where they'd struck him and his nose was bloody and swollen, almost flattened in the ruin of his face. She met his eyes for one, long hopeless second - long enough for him to register that she was there, that she was pinned helplessly against the floor and that he was on his own - and then, just like that, he was gone, one of the vamps snapping his neck with a crack that she was going to be hearing in her dreams.
Assuming she lived long enough to have them.
The vamp let his corpse fall to the floor with an empty, hollow thud and stepped over it like it was nothing, just a worthless piece of trash.
She swallowed down the instinctive protest, lifting her chin and meeting the eyes of Henderson's murderer as calmly as she could. Her mind was still whirring sluggishly, tracking everything, looking for weaknesses she didn't find. Everything about this fucker was locked down tight, from his neatly tailored suit to his highly polished shoes: slick, professional, and empty.
Only his eyes showed any sign of life. Henderson's death, at least, had been quick. Judging by the cold, hard fury that burned in the gaze that met hers, she somehow doubted that her death would be as merciful.
She took another deep breath, this time holding it deep inside her as she prepared herself for the worst, but it was Carruthers they dragged in next, half carrying the girl as she screamed and struggled, her face blotchy with fear and the tracks of tears clear against her dirty skin. All of her bravado - her snark, her bitter little diatribes, her cocksureness - was gone, leaving nothing behind but a scared kid.
She was even younger than Abby, but there wasn't a damned thing Abby could do to keep her safe. The only thing she could do for Carruthers now was bear witness while Carruthers suffered the same fate as Henderson. Watch Carruthers die and then die herself.
She should have known better - she knew that vamps were sick and twisted, that they gloried in it, and these fuckers were no different. Their overdressed captor didn't snap Carruthers' neck, quick and clean, the way he had Henderson's. Instead the vamp simply grasped Carruthers by the throat, keeping his eyes locked on Abby while he cruelly gave Carruthers plenty of time to spot Henderson's corpse, to redouble her struggles, squealing and bucking more like a terrified animal in a trap than any kind of fighter.
Carruthers kicked and screamed, breath coming out in whooping gasps and cries as she struggled to free herself, becoming more and more mindless with fear, and he just stood there, a bored expression on his face, unmoved by her kicks and her punches, ignoring the sharp tang of her fear in the air. It was only when Carruthers' screaming reached a fever pitch that he finally jerked Carruthers' head to the side, brutally sinking his fangs into her exposed neck.
His eyes never left Abby's face as he fed. In the end, it was Abby who looked away, watching helplessly as Carruthers' feet twitched, beating out the last few moments of her life. It seemed forever before they finally stilled, Carruthers' head lolling to the side like a ragdoll's as her eyes glazed over.
She was looking straight at Abby as she died, although Abby had no idea whether Carruthers could still see her. She hoped not. God, she hoped not.
When Carruthers' corpse hit the floor it did so with the same hollow, horrific thud as Henderson's. One of her arms stretched out pathetically towards Abby, as though even in death she was begging for the help that Abby couldn't provide. It took everything that Abby had not to flinch at the sound as Carruthers' body landed, not to scream herself at the sight of Carruthers' lying dead and empty, knowing that she was next. The terror bubbled up towards the surface, but she dug deep inside herself, as deep as she could until she found a well of steely calm to call on, dragging it out to stifle everything else. It was flimsy and threadbare, but it gave her the illusion of strength she needed to stare the bastard in front of her straight in the eye, refusing to look away as he headed towards her.
She couldn't give him the satisfaction. She wasn't King, with his smartass one-liners to hurl in this bastard's face or to hide behind - and, God, the thought of him lying dead somewhere like Henderson and Carruthers, dying alone, without her, hurt - but she had her silence and it could be just as effective a shield, if she used it right.
She owed that much to Carruthers and Henderson. And to King, who was the only one she gave a damn about. I'm sorry. The thought was nothing more than a small whisper, buried somewhere deep down inside her, hidden where the vamp in front of her couldn't hear it. I'm so fucking sorry, Hannibal.
The vamp smiled, the expression forming so slowly so that it seemed to creep across his face as he straightened his cuffs and fussed with his cufflinks. Carruthers' blood was still smeared around his mouth, pinpricks of it staining the pristine whiteness of his shirt, and it ruined the urbane effect he was aiming for. That and the fact he was a fucking monster.
"So, you're the famous Abigail Whistler," he said, and his voice was low and melodic, deliberately cultured to go with the crisply tailored suit and immaculate shirt, all of it at odds with the look of predatory fury in his eyes. If it was an attempt to cow her by showing he knew exactly who she was, he failed. They were all the same, vamps. They thought they were the second coming, buying into the sensuous hype, as if they were in a badly written novel or something, all gothic cemeteries and centuries of pretty suffering when in reality they were nothing more than disease-ridden parasites.
She held onto that defiant thought as she stared back at him, projecting as much contempt as she could with silence and a single look, and his smile widened until his teeth showed over his lip. It was a wasted effort. Subtlety didn't appear to be his strong point, and it wasn't like she gave a fuck anymore, not when King was dead.
"I can't say I'm that impressed, frankly. I expected..." He trailed off, waving one long, dark and elegantly manicured hand languidly in the air. "Well, something considerably more than I got. I'm a little disappointed."
And then the smile vanished from his face, leaving something harsh and stripped bare behind, the reality that lurked behind the mask. He didn't look amused any more - he looked lean and hungry, something sparse consumed with rage, vicious and vindictive.
"You're considerably less dangerous than I thought you'd be, you Nightstalkers. You don't quite rate as highly as Blade when it comes to the Boogeyman, but I have to say that you don't seem to be living up to your reputation." He stepped closer, reaching out to stroke one be-taloned finger down the side of Abby's face and she focused on him long enough to pull her head back and spit in the fucker's eye.
She missed but it didn't matter. King would be proud of her, and she tried to take some small measure comfort in the thought. She'd be joining him soon enough.
The vamp stepped back, his face contorting with fury as he wiped her spittle from his face. It probably wasn't smart to make him pissed, but what was he going to do? Kill her? But when he lifted his hand this time, it wasn't to straighten his perfect cuffs. Instead, he smacked it across her face, hard enough to split her lip and leave her ears ringing.
Now he'd got her blood on his shirt as well as Carruthers'. Hopefully, she'd ruined it. That would serve the fucker right.
She spat blood out onto the floor, and glared back up at him, strangely glad to have ripped all of his pretension away. He was showing his true face now, and it was as ugly and twisted as the rest of his kind.
"Bring the bitch," he snarled, and one of the Neanderthals around her - familiars, she could tell now that her brain was less Swiss cheese like, not vamps - grabbed her by her hair and started dragging her behind him.
She fought him every step of the way, landing kicks and punches with a ferocious, unending fury, but it was no use. The more she struggled, the harder he hit her and, when that didn't work in his favour, a second familiar grabbed hold of her, and then a third, lifting her until they were half-carrying her through the building as she twisted and bucked and bit. She kicked one of them in the groin and he doubled over, clutching at his balls with a squeal of pain that she was savagely satisfied by. She pressed her advantage, using her fists, her feet, even her teeth, but another punch in the face dropped her again, her ears ringing and blood gushing down from the back of her nose into her throat, choking her until she coughed and spluttered, splattering blood everywhere.
She was too dazed to put up an effective fight after that, only half-conscious when they finally dropped her onto yet another hard concrete floor. But even then sheer instinct had her rolling awkwardly to her knees, too fucking stubborn to quit and too stupid to realise that she was already dead. She only stopped when one of the familiars drew his gun and pointed it straight at her. He was too far away from her to take him down before he could use it, and she finally subsided, sinking back down to the ground and never taking her eyes off him.
If she was going to die, it was going to be on her terms, and she was going to take as many of them down with her as she could. Vampire or human familiar, it was all the same to her, and some of that must have shown on her face; as pathetic as she was right then and even though he was armed and she wasn't, the familiar took a step back, nervously glancing towards his vampire master.
His cowardice earned him a snarl, but she was pleased to note that she seemed to have wiped the smile from the vampire's face, at least temporarily. He was scowling as he stalked around her, keeping out of striking distance as his eyes burned with an icy fury. It was that look - cold and calculating, like a shark's, no, like something rotting and stinking, unnatural - that finally seeped past Abby's defences, past the pain and grief, putting her on guard. He wasn't looking predatory, the way that she was used to with vampires, and it wasn't as though any of them had ever had an original thought. Instead there was an air of anticipation about him, and she was beginning to believe that it was more than just about the pleasure of an imminent kill.
He finally stopped in front of her and smiled again, slow and sure. There was something in his gaze, something that lit up in his eyes as he looked past her, focusing on something behind her, that put a chill into her blood. But she couldn't look. She refused to look, refused to take her eyes off the son of a bitch, even when his smile deepened, something ugly and unpleasant once again rearing up underneath his façade of civility. She lifted her chin higher, staring him down when she had nothing but a fuck you attitude and a willingness to die on her side. No weapons, not any more, but that didn't matter.
She'd make this bastard pay for her team - for King - if it was the last thing she ever did.
It would be.
The vamp's head tilted to the side, watching her as if she was an interesting insect, something he wasn't quite sure what to make of. His curiosity brought him a step closer to her, and that was a mistake - when he'd come close enough, she curled her lip up in a snarl of fury and lunged forward, gratified to watch him stumble back, his smile rapidly disappearing again.
The goon on her right twisted her arm up, sending white hot shards of agony up into her shoulder as her tendons and ligaments protested, creaking and coming close to snapping as her head was forced down towards the floor. She bit down on the scream that fought to rise to the surface, snarling out a quick and brutal 'fuck you' in its stead.
That was something that King would have done; she caught hold of the thought, rebuilding herself around the pain and the grief of losing him, making it the core of her, something strong enough to keep her going.
Blade might have taught her that, but King was her incentive. He always had been. She'd just been too stupid to realise how deep it went and too cowardly to act on it.
The vamp clicked his fingers, gesturing peremptorily to whoever the hell had come into the room before turning his stare back at Abby. When he jerked his head upwards, she was hauled unceremoniously to her feet, fingers fisted in her hair as they spun her around, forcing her to look behind her.
Her heart stopped as two more goons dragged King into the room, dropping him unceremoniously onto the floor.
He hit with the same hollow thud that Henderson had, and she lunged forward again, trying to reach him before she was dragged painfully back, fingers digging into her flesh and then a knee forced into her back for good measure when she continued to fight. It bent her spine until she thought it would break and she joined King on the floor, hitting it hard enough to rattle her teeth and send blood spilling into her mouth again. Even then, even trapped and pinned, she fought to get to him, only stopping when she took another blow to the head that made her ears ring and her vision blur. When she could focus again, King still hadn't moved, and that realisation drained the fight right out of her.
He lay sprawled on the floor, silent and too still. Her eyes darted frantically over his form, looking for something, anything to give her hope, to give her a reason to keep on fighting. For a long, horrifying moment she thought that maybe this was what the vamp wanted her to see - her partner, dead, nothing more than a corpse for her to weep over - but then she spotted it, the slight rise and fall of his chest, and she could finally breathe again.
She snapped her attention back to the vamp, but it was too late. She knew that she'd given herself away even before she caught sight of his smirk. There was something elated in his smile, something grim and gleeful, and she finally realised what this meant, what he was going to do. Her blood froze in her veins, the pain of it radiating outwards until every part of her being howled with it, knowing that what was coming was worse than she could possibly have imagined.
The only reason they could have to let him live was because they were planning to kill him now, right in front of her. Tear his life from his body like they'd ripped it out of Henderson and Carruthers, and that was going to kill her just as cleanly as if they'd put a bullet in her brain.
Anything they did to her after that would be a mercy.
"Hannibal King," the vampire purred, sauntering over towards King and ignoring Abby as she lunged for him again, the move desperate because she was out of options. But that didn't mean she wouldn't try, not when King was at stake. Not when everything was at stake. "The other half of the best that the Nightstalkers have to offer." He glanced over at Abby, his eyes alight with ferocious glee. "Two halves," he said, and there was a dark kind of joy in his voice, something ugly that twisted the harmonics of it, something that turned sullen as he reached down with one hand, sinking it into the fabric of King's vest to haul King up onto his knees.
There was blood running down King's face, and King's skin was too pale under the mask of it, but the fact that he was still bleeding confirmed that he was still alive. The vamp shook him like a dog with a rat and Abigail was forced to watch as King blinked his eyes open and looked straight at her, just as Carruthers had. The look was unfocused for a second, but then King's pupils contracted and he saw her.
King coughed, the sound harsh and hacking, like he'd cracked some ribs, or maybe was even more injured than that, judging by the way that he curled up afterwards, panting heavily, and the awful liquid bubbling sound that lay beneath each breath. Abby licked at her suddenly dry lips, watching King and not caring now who saw it. It wasn't smart, wasn't smart at all, but she wasn't stone, inhumanly cold like Blade, and this wasn't Henderson, whom she barely knew, or Carruthers, who was a snot-nosed kid Abby hadn't been able to connect with.
This was her partner. This was King, who had her back, who had her trust. Who had her, even if she'd never let him know it.
"Let's see if we can't reinvigorate this double act," the vampire said, and his voice wasn't gleeful anymore; it was rich with satisfaction, ripe with pleasure, and it promised nothing but pain. He switched his grip to grab King by his throat, hauling him up until he was dangling in the vampire's grasp, scrabbling at the vampire's hand around his neck and fighting for breath.
That wasn't the only way that King was fighting; he threw a punch but it failed to connect, and when he kicked out the move was sluggish and uncoordinated. Abby surged to her feet again, being smart be damned, but one of the goons knocked her straight back down onto the floor again, pinning her down more firmly this time, and she could only glare and snarl, twisting furiously, as animalistic as Carruthers had been even if it wasn't her life she was fighting for.
"Not so sanguine now, are you, Whistler?" The fucker stared straight at her, ignoring King, who was still struggling for breath in his grip. The light caught in the vamp's eyes, flashing an inhuman silver as he jerked King towards him and sank his fangs into King's neck.
The scream was ripped out of Abby, a frenzied howl of anguish and rage as she fought furiously, kicking and punching, bucking and scrabbling, trying desperately to get to King. But they had her pinned down too well; she could only watch in horror, the world narrowing to nothing but the sight of King's face, his lips moving in a soundless gasp as the life drained from him.
The vampire finally let go and King's body crumpled lifelessly to the floor, the sight stopping the scream dead in her throat. It stuck there, choking her, wet and heavy with the force of her grief. She couldn't stop the tears streaming down her face, couldn't do anything but let them fall, no longer caring who saw them. There was no use pretending now - King was dead and that meant that so was she.
The vampire stepped back, wiping the blood - King's blood - from his mouth with the back of his hand. He licked at his lips, and his smile this time was grotesque, lips stained red and his sharp teeth obscenely white and shining against them.
"He's not dead," he said, his voice low and gloating. "Not yet. That would be too easy, and you don't deserve easy." His mouth curled up in a snarl and his voice lost its cultured edge, becoming rough and angry. "I'm going to leave the two of you alone together. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? You and your partner, together again?" He took a couple of steps towards Abby, leaning in as his face grimaced into an expression of mingled hate and fury. "You've killed us whenever you've found us, hunted us down when we should be hunting you." The last word was a bellow, and red spit splattered against Abby's face.
"Well, now you're going to be the one hunted, Whistler, and you're going to be the one to die. But I'm not going to kill you." He stepped back, drawing himself up to his full height and towering over her as he snarled, "He is."
He stepped back and straightened his cuffs again, that same gloating smile reappearing on his face as he visibly controlled himself. "Or you'll kill him. Either would be entertaining."
She watched numbly as he pulled a pair of gloves from out of his pockets, too heartsick to figure out what the hell he was doing as he pulled them on. He made a production of it, not in any hurry to enlighten her as he slowly smoothed the fabric over each finger, one by one. The smirk was back to playing around his mouth and his eyes were mocking, the theatrics continuing as he produced a silver blade from out of his inside pocket, flourishing it so that it caught the dim light, glinting menacingly.
"It wouldn't be gentlemanly to leave you without any protection now, would it?"
Even the knife couldn't give her hope, not when there were guns pointed straight at her and she'd be dead before she could use it on the fucker who'd condemned King to his worst nightmare. And so she stayed where she was, watching hopelessly as he dropped the knife on the floor out of her reach and then backed out of the room, his familiars following in his wake, their guns staying trained on her until they'd reached safety and the door clanged shut behind them.
She waited until she heard the sound of the lock clicking home before she finally moved, ignoring the knife as she scrabbled over the floor to King's body and grabbed hold of him, half-rolling and half-dragging him over onto his back.
The vampire hadn't been kind; the teeth marks in King's throat were ragged and torn, already turning black around the edges where the virus was taking hold. She pulled King's head into her lap and cradled his face in her hands, calling his name and shaking him, first gently and then less so when he didn't respond. The tears rolled down her face as she smoothed the hair back from his forehead, falling to drop unheeded onto his skin as she begged him to please just open his eyes. Please.
Her throat was raw by the time he finally shuddered and came to, staring up at her blankly, his eyes unfocused and eerily empty. "Hold on," she whispered, the words coming out choked and broken, forced out of that painful well inside her. "Just hold on, King. Please."
He tried to say something, his hands fluttering up to catch hold of the fabric of her sleeve, snagging there as she stroked her fingers over his face, over and over again like it would do any good. His skin was already heating up as the fever took hold of him, and he started to shiver, his body shaking uncontrollably against hers.
She pulled him more firmly into her arms, holding him as tightly against her as she could. She wasn't going to let go. She couldn't ever let go.
King was trying to speak, fighting for every breath, for every word. He finally managed to get them out, every one hoarse and cracked. "You... have to kill me," he slurred and her heart broke all over again. "Abby..."
"No." She shook her head, furious with him for giving up, furious with herself for the way that the tears were still bubbling up, grief and snot all mixed together when she needed to be stronger, more focused. "No, you hold on, you hear me? You hold on. We'll... we'll get you the cure..."
She was babbling, the words spilling out of her desperately in a torrent of denial, as though saying it would make it true, because it had to be true, it had to be.
The expression on King's face changed, grief now mingled in with the pain he was feeling - grief for her, and the sight broke her all over again.
"Whistler -"
"Don't." Her voice broke, the words catching in her throat, choking her. "Don't you fucking dare give up on me! You fucking bastard, don't you..."
Her voice was rising hysterically, but she couldn't stop herself, the horror of the situation overwhelming her, shredding every last bit of sanity she possessed. She was making it worse for King, she knew that, and that might be the only thought strong enough to rein her in. But not yet, not when the pain was still ripping its way through her, tearing her apart.
"Don't want to hurt you." He was gasping and shivering, his eyes glazing over as the fever raged inside him, but he still managed to keep them fixed on her face. "Abby, please..."
"You won't. I won't let you."
It was a promise to both of them, but he wasn't listening to her, his fingers hot and frantic against her skin as he tried to tug her closer, as though if he got her close enough he could make her listen to him. He turned his face in towards her, his body still shaking, and she couldn't tell if that was due to pain or grief, guilt or hopelessness.
She couldn't do this to him, no matter how much it hurt. So she tried, she really did. "I promise... I promise..." But she couldn't say it. She wasn't strong enough for this, and she hated him for asking it of her. Hated him and...
She loved him, and that finally let her regain control of herself. It hurt, it fucking hurt, a gaping wound in her chest, but she wasn't stupid - she knew this scared him more than anything, more than dying. She'd never been stupid when it came to understanding King, just about letting him close and that had been the problem.
She stroked her fingers over his face again, calmer now as she wiped away the blood and the sweat, the tears that could be hers or his.
"I promise," she whispered, and she could feel her heart shatter at the words, a lurch and a crack that left painful shards slicing into her. But she meant it, pressing the words into him, and into herself, as she pressed her mouth against his, kissing him for the first time but not the last, she wouldn't accept that it was the last. She couldn't.
His mouth was bloody, tasting stale and like death, but he kissed her back, fierce and greedy, his fingers tightening against her skin. She burnt the feel of him into her memory: the weight of him in her arms and the desperation of his kisses.
"I promise I won't let you hurt me," she repeated, and he actually smiled at her, so fucking grateful, like she was doing him a favour. "But you have to promise me, too, King. You have to hold on. You have to hold on for as long as you can."
The tears were streaming down her face, dripping onto his blood-stained skin, but she still leaned in to kiss him again, long and deep, trying to give him as much strength as she could, trying to capture as much as she could in case she lost it all.
"You have to promise me that. Please, promise me that."
He blinked at her, the move sluggish and uncoordinated, and opened his mouth. But before he could promise anything, his eyes rolled back in his head and his body started to shudder, seizing as the vampire virus took hold. She held him steady, her muscles aching as his jerking body slammed into every one of her bruises. Held him and gave him what little comfort she could, even though it couldn't be enough.
The seizure seemed to last forever, stretching out until her jaws ached with the effort of holding back her tears, her fear, everything that wouldn't help him, but in the end it was probably only a couple of minutes before it was over.
King finally slumped against her, his expression glazed and his eyes wounded, as he tried to speak. It took him several long, agonising moments before he could and his words, when he got them out, were slurred, ragged with exhaustion, but still too clear for Abby.
"Get the knife."
She shook her head, tightening her arms around him instinctively.
"Abby, please..." Shudders shook his body again, and if it was hell watching the fever take him again, she could only imagine the hell he was actually going through. But then her imagination was a lot more vivid than most people would credit. The tears were streaming silently down her face, but she couldn't stop to wipe them away, couldn't even think about it, too focused on him for anything else to matter.
She held him through the next seizure, and then the next, never letting go as the spasms shook his body, ebbing and flowing as they increased in intensity and then died back down again. She knew it didn't help, but she couldn't let go - all she could do was wait for the worst to be over.
And then she'd know that the worst was yet to come.