A/N: Thanks to all of you for your kind reviews. It's nice to see people interested and following. For those of you that have stayed, you will be rewarded with one terrific story. And if you know others that have given up after the first chapter or two, that's my fault. The very beginning was always my toughest part in writing the original version. I never could get it quite right. Trust me, tell them to come back. They don't want to miss out ;-)
Fortunately, by the time Jade figured how to get out of the subway and back to the surface the sun began setting. It wasn't dark yet but she found comfort in the long coat that enveloped her body. The high, stiff collar practically hid her face. She wandered the streets marked by the ensuing twilight.
It got dark by the time Jade stood before the door to her apartment. She knocked on it.
"Mira, you there! It's me."
No answer.
She pulls out her key and her progress of opening the door is impeded by the chain. She had to be home.
Poking her face through as much as possible, Jade called out "Mira!" Nothing. "Mira please, open the door!" Silence. Jade steps back and kicks the door in, sending the golden chain flying.
Jade enters and looks around. When she didn't come back home last night, girl must be assuming the worst. But there wasn't much else she could go to. "Mira!" The pit of her stomach was really giving her a bad feeling. "Mira, you can stop hiding!"
It was then that Jade noticed the open window leading into the living room.
She immediately ran into her sister's bedroom. Nothing. Then she checked her own. She found what she was looking for. But not as she left her.
There was massive amounts of blood. Toppled furniture and other paraphernalia indicated a serious struggle. Mira's clothes were strewn about. It wasn't until Jade walked to the other side of the bed that she saw her body.
Mira laid in the fetal position, arms covering her face instead of towards her chest. Whatever bastard attacked her unleashed fresh blows up until her final breath. Anybody would have said it was unnecessary but Jade didn't care. She picked up Mira's left arm and checked for a pulse. Nothing.
Whatever attacked Jade the night before was vicious but it didn't kill her. But whomever or whatever did this was even more unforgiving. And she was just a fucking kid!
Jade sat down on the floor beside her lifeless sister and pulls her close to her chest. Holding her, rocking back and forth, Jade and Mira were in a similar position that time she got bad food poisoning and was throwing up every hour.
But Mira wasn't sick. She would never get better. Jade cursed herself how she could survive but a young girl couldn't be spared. Despite this new physical strength and apparent invulnerability, Jade couldn't feel more helpless than she does right now. All she could do was cry, her tears disappearing into her sister's dark brown hair.
Officer Shapiro clocks out from his shift and goes down to the third floor of Precinct One to target practice. He signs in and gets his safety gear.
Rob placed the ear protection on his head and pressed the button on the wall. A loud bell rang and the paper target zipped far to the back wall. He pulls out his standard issue and fires his rounds squarely at the poster of a generic torso and head. Once his gun ran empty, Rob lowers his weapon and hits the button to send the target back to its starting position.
He landed seven shots out of his clip. Six of them would have in and of themselves been fatal.
Not bad for a kid, he thought.
A tall young man sleeps in his chair, a crucifix dangling from his drooping right hand. The phone rings and he pulls out a gun, pointing it toward the space behind the chair. He huffs when he realizes that it's the cellphone on his table.
"Hello?" he answers it in a groggy and irritated voice.
An elderly man is heard on the other line. "You asleep?"
"Sorry, but getting to sleep at night is a luxury these days for me."
"Are you watching?"
The man rubs his eyes "Watching what?"
"The news. Turn on Headline."
He raises a remote nearby on the table and pushes the button and begins scrolling the channels before landing on the 24-hour news station.
"…police still have no leads on the this Samaritan with a penchant for the sadistic. The man, identified as Ben Clarke, was found badly injured in an abandoned subway station. He claims that a woman attacked him and drank his blood. While Mr. Clarke was found with deep cuts and significant blood loss, authorities attribute these claims as from being in shock…"
The TV mutes.
"So our suspicions on the Northeast were sound," the elder said.
"You want me to head out tonight?"
"Better leave tomorrow. It's going to take time to prepare. If our sources are accurate, we might be looking at one of the highest concentrations of vampire activity in the United States."
"I'll overview my inventory."
The boy hand to hang up. He was now a man on a mission.
After weeping for several hours, Jade was finally able to collect herself enough to stand, pick up Mira's body and place it gently on her own bed like she did many times when she was little.
Jade stroked Mira's hair away from her face. She was like a sleeping angel. The elder sister's fists clenched hard. She went into a rampage around the apartment, smashing everything in sight. Nothing was safe. No personal possession, Jade's or Mira's, held any significance anymore.
Mira was dead and in some cruel cosmic joke, she was left all alone. And clearly no longer human.
The liquid hate boiled in her guts. All she could think of was breaking the goddamn beast that snuffed out her baby sister.
Jade jumped out the window and scales the fire escape onto the roof. She stared down the city illuminated by thousands of manmade lights. Somewhere down there, was the thing that murdered Mira. And Jade doesn't care if she had to face the thing that almost killed her. Whatever the guilty one was…
She would make them pay.