A/N...Well, here we are. At least, I'm here. You're over there, just a bit. Probably just as well. I'm not wearing any pants.
(Just kidding)
Lucia had watched the car carrying the married couple turn into the underground car park. She sat opposite the laneway access, her car off, contemplating what her next move could be.
She knew what had taken the couple, she had seen their true form as they turned the car into the laneway and she drove passed. They, she was sure, did not know what she was.
She was in two minds as to what to do now. This was a strange, difficult situation. Normally she only dealt with werewolves. Vampires were not something she had actually come across before.
She had thought them extinct. She had heard of them, but had not really paid much attention. She had no idea how to kill them. Maybe stakes? Didn't all the lore say stakes?
She knew there were more than she could probably safely handle. There were two waiting at the car park entrance when the car pulled in.
While she did have the element of surprise, she was pretty sure that wouldn't be enough against at least four vampires, stakes or no.
Four was more than she wanted to fight, especially as they would soon be joined by two hungry wolves.
What vampires wanted with wolves...well, she really had no idea.
She flipped her lap top open and let it fire up. She knew this was the club the FBI had been checking out, the girls had gone missing from here.
So, she needed to research anything to do with vampires, werewolves, and, what? Virgins?
After an hour she had found nothing useful so she turned her computer off.
She had a couple of hours until night fall, the sun was on its final descent, spreading soft golden fingers of light through the gaps in between the taller buildings.
Lucia both loved and hated this time of day.
The promise of the end of the day, when life was slowing down in its rush and bustle of the every day, the return home of the nesting birds, the sleepy sojourn of the farm animals, the wistful cry of the night birds.
It also welcomed the horror of the night, of all of the things that made her life so different, so shocking, so heartbreaking since she was just a child.
Not exactly sure of her course of action, she decided to go back to the sites of the animal mutilations, see if there were any clues or hints to prompt her next step.
Hopefully she could figure something out before night fall.
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The door to the basement was easy to open from the outside. Vikki pulled a bobby pin from her hair and jammed it into the locking mechanism.
"What?" she frowned at Kristine, who seemed shocked by what she had just done.
"How did you learn to do that?" Kristine asked.
"Stopped the gym door locking on us when my friends and I used to sneak out for a smoke at high school" Vikki smiled back. "Easy peasy"
The five girls walked down the stairs, their vampire enhanced senses letting them know without searching where the people were being kept.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs they startled the man they had heard talking earlier. His fangs exposed and he flew at them, but one experienced vampire was no match for five angry teenagers and within minutes they had overpowered him.
"Hold him still" Darla growled as she raised a stake to kill him.
The vampire started to laugh at the girls. Darla thrust the stake into his chest with all her force, and his laughter turned to a shocked gasp of pain, blood spilling from his mouth.
He breathed deep, then laughed at them again.
"Maybe you missed his heart" Michelle offered.
Darla removed the stake and tried again.
And again.
The vampire was clearly in pain, but the expected result of him exploding into dust, or crumbling into ash, had not occurred, leaving the girls confused and frightened.
"Well, that sucks big time" Moaned Kristine. "What do we do now?"
"You can take your filthy hands off me, and let me up" the vampire snarled.
"Yeah, that's gonna happen" Steph stood, releasing her grip on his legs. "We can tie him up, I guess. There's tons of duct tape in that utility closet"
"I don't think that will be enough. We'd need, like, chains and stuff" Darla sighed.
"Well, we don't have that. We're just going to have to try something else"
The vampire pushed back against the girls and managed to get to his feet. He was bleeding from the chest wound and his mouth, but was very much functional and sneered at the girls and their useless efforts to kill him.
"His head" Michelle looked a little more confident. "I think we have to remove his head. I was watching this movie and that's the only way they killed the monsters on that'
"What do you mean, remove?' Steph looked shocked. "You mean, like, cut it off?"
"Well I don't think he comes with a zipper, so, yeah, cut it off" Michelle rolled her eyes.
"Bitch" Steph whispered no real effort to cover her displeasure. Michelle leaned right into her face.
"You want to do this? Now? Really?"
Vikki grabbed them and pulled them away from each other. "We don't need to go all The Hills, here. We only have us, now. That's all. We're all afraid and stressed and confused, we don't need to start tearing each other's heads off"
"Tear it off. Yeah, you know, I bet I could! Hold him still!" Darla gave an evil little grin.
"Gah, Darla, that's gross" Kristine frowned. "But I guess you'll have to try, no one brought a knife, did they?"
"An axe!" Steph ran towards the utility closet. "There was a fire axe in here. Hang on"
The vampire started to struggle harder. His expression was less smug now, and this gave the girls more confidence in their plan.
Steph returned with the very nasty, red painted fire axe, and it took the strength of the four remaining girls to hold the man down while Darla clumsily removed his head, taking several attempts and once hitting him square in the face.
No one mentioned that they managed to do this with pretty much ambivalent feelings towards the man, no one gasped when the axe smashed into his face or the blood splattered their arms as he struggled.
"Let's find these people and make sure they get out of here" Vikki turned to make her way to the room.
"Hang on just a sec" Kristine stepped over the bloody corpse. "How do we know we can control ourselves this time? I mean, the last two times we came across humans we ate them on the spot"
Vikki shrugged. "I'm thinking we're getting better at this, and we're not real hungry right now. We can hold on to our feelings, can't we, guys?"
The girls looked around at each other, and one by one they nodded. "We can do this" Michelle was quiet, her confidence sounding a little shaky.
They found the secure room without any problem, but this time they had doubts.
"Do they smell different to you?" whispered Darla. The other girls nodded back to her.
"There's blood, and humans, but, I don't know at least two are different. They smell weird"
Kristine tried the door and was surprised to find it opened easily. The lock was one that released without effort from the outside, the same as the door that led to the basement.
There, in the dim light the teenagers saw a young couple, they had been tending to two unconscious men, makeshift bandages from torn shirts adoring the injured men's necks.
The smell of blood was almost overwhelming, but Kristine straightened her back, she closed her eyes just for a moment to compose herself, then stepped into the small room.
"We're here to help you" she told them.
The couple clung to each other, shrinking back from her in obvious fear.
"Girlfriend, your fangs are hanging out" Vikki admonished. "You're freaking them out!"
Vikki stepped into the room and tried to smile as reassuringly as she could. "Hi, I'm Vikki "she tipped her head a little to indicate her new friends."All the girls here were hurt by the guys that locked you up here. We are not going to hurt you."
Kristine felt her teeth with her tongue, she had managed to banish the wayward fangs. "I'm Kristine. Vikki is right. We only want to get back at the ones who hurt us. And we're thinking maybe we should help you guys out while we're at it."
She looked down at the two men on the floor. She could tell, just being this close, they were both alive, one hurt a little more than the other, as the taste of his painful sweat coated the air and teased her senses.
The one who was not hurt as bad groaned and she bent beside him. For a moment her vision blurred and her head swam, she could taste him, taste his blood, his very life, without even touching him.
"Kris, you okay?"Whispered Vikki.
She closed her eyes to steady herself, then opened them again, her resolve steeled against her hunger.. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so"
She touched the man on the forehead, his eyes flickered and he moaned. "I remember this guy" she told her friends. "Both of them. They were at the club the night before I…well, you know"
"Yeah, I remember this one" Vikki bent to Dean, she brushed his check with a finger tip. "I made out with him. He's really hot"
Kristine touched the wound on the young man's neck and his eyes opened, groggy and unfocussed at first, so she took his hand. "It's okay, you're okay" she soothed him.
He struggled to sit and she helped him up, and as he turned to see who was helping him he snatched his hand away. "You..you're a vampire!" he exclaimed.
Kristine pouted at him. "It's not my fault. It's not like I wanted to be like this!" She sat on the floor opposite him. "What's your name?"
He looked at her, his expression torn, as if deciding whether he could trust her, or not. His gaze travelled over to the couple, still clinging to each other, eyes bulging in fear, to the other man on the ground, then to Vikki, and the three vampire girls crowding the door.
Realizing he had no choice but to cooperate, he gave her a small duck of his head. "I'm Sam. That's my brother Dean"
Vikki laid a hand on Dean's chest. "Your brother is hurt, but he's going to be okay. His heart is beating well, and I can feel his pain...it's manageable, I think."
Sam frowned. "You can tell all that? You only just touched him"
Vikki's eyes locked with his. "I could tell that before we came in here." She looked up at the other girls. "We all could"
Sam tried to get to his feet, Kristine catching him as he swayed, his face pale and sweaty.
"You've lost quite a bit of blood. You should take it easy" she told him.
"Who bit you?" Darla asked him.
Sam turned to her. He ran a hand through his hair, his breathing becoming more even. "A woman. Long kinda reddish hair. She was with this other vampire, darkish guy. Long hair. I, um, I think his name was Javier"
Darla nodded.
"Sounds like our guy" Steph confirmed.
Sam looked over at the frightened people in the corner. "He called you werewolves"
Vikki snorted. "Werewolves. Hah! What a load of hooey"
Sam gave her a sad smile. "I bet you thought that about vampires before now, too"
Her eyes became very round with the realization that there could be more on this Earth than she had ever thought about. "Are there other monsters? I mean, other than vampires and werewolves?"
Sam stood taller, his head no longer spinning. "I think big foot's a hoax, but yeah, pretty much, everything's real"
Michelle pushed her way into the small room. "Can we wake him up? I guess we can carry him, otherwise. I'm thinking we better get a move on soon"
Sam carefully knelt beside his brother. "That vampire threw him pretty hard into a concrete pillar. He could have internal injuries."
Michelle joined Sam at the side of his brother. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, taking in the scent of the injured man.
She opened her eyes and looked at Sam, seeing only a look of great alarm.
"Oh, sorry" she let her fangs slip back inside her gums. "He just, you know, smells like blood"
Sam put a hand on his brother protectively. "I don't care what he smells like. You better not lay a hand on him or you'll find out who I really am" His voice was low, dangerous.
Michelle rolled her eyes, looking for all the world like a normal teenager. "Buddy, to me you just smell like dinner. Your brother is hurt but he's not bleeding internally. I mean, that's what I think. He doesn't smell like he is"
Sam still hovered protectively over his brother. "I can carry him. Just gimme a minute to catch my breath"
Darla snorted. "You're barely standing up, man. Seriously, we can carry him. We're stronger than you"
"Yeah. Maybe you are, but here's the thing. My brother would never let a vamp carry him, and he would never let a girl carry him. You're both of those. He'd kill me"
"Sam, if we don't get him outta here, those other vamps are gonna kill him"
Dean groaned and Sam looked down at him, then back at the girls. "I don't know if we can take them out" he said, his head duck towards the married couple giving no room for doubt as to who he meant.
"Why? We can't stay here, they'll kill us!" Terry exclaimed.
Sam turned to look at them, both so frightened, unaware of what they were, innocent until they turned.
"You guys already have figured out that you're different. Tonight is the third night of the full moon. If we get you out, then there's a lot more people in danger than just us"
Jo shook her head. "I don't understand any of this. We wouldn't hurt anybody. We're vegetarians, for god's sake! We can't even hurt animals!"
"Yeah, about that" Sam's face, while sympathetic, was also grim. "You been waking up in strange places? Or maybe, back at home, but covered in blood that's not your own?'
Jo and Terry didn't answer, but their expressions gave them away.
"Those animals that were ripped apart on the farm the other night? That happened again last night, only this time you damn near ripped the farmer up, as well. It was you, whether you want it to be, or not"
Jo had gone white one tear sliding down her pretty face. Terry frowned. "You don't know that. You don't! It could have been anyone!"
Sam softened his gaze and gave them a little nod. "Yeah. Thing is, I do know. And so do you"
"We can tell too" Kristine spoke softly, feeling for these two. They, like herself, had had their lives ripped from them , with no chance of ever coming back.
Jo started to sob, softly, wretchedly, and Terry held her close, his face against the top of her head.
Dean's legs started to move and his arms flailed wildly as he fought for consciousness.
"Hey. Hey, dude, I got you. Dean? I got you, man" Sam knelt to Dean, he held his brother's arms as the thick eyelashes seem to struggle to drag his eyelids open.
"Dean? Can you hear me?"
A moan answered him, then the first glimpse of the vibrant green eyes that anchored Sam's world.
"Freaking bus hit me" Dean growled.
"Ah, no. Freaking vampire threw you"
Dean struggled to get up, so Sam helped him sit, then gently pushed his head between his legs when he turned decidedly green.
"Take it easy. You've had quite a blow to the head, and lost a lot of blood" Vikki told him.
Dean tipped his head up just enough to see who was talking to him. He smiled at the pretty girl.
"Do I know you?"
Vikki smiled back. "Kinda. We made out in the dance club. You said you were an FBI agent"
He gave her a weak smile. "We're looking into the missing girls"
"Bingo. You found us"
Dean dropped his head again, then lifted it back to look at her. "You been turned, haven't you?"
Vikki nodded, her smile fading. "There's five of us. We got out, but we've come back to kill the S.O.B that did this to us"
"Sounds valid." Dean coughed, the action causing him to gasp and hold his stomach until the wave of pain subsided. He took a deep breath and glanced briefly at the young girl."Do you know why they did this to you?"
Kristine helped Sam stand and kept a hand on him for a moment to make sure he was steady. "We have no idea"
Terry cleared his throat. "Um, we overheard something. Before we got here"
Sam gently helped Dean to his feet then stood with him, Vikki holding one arm, him the other, as the injured man hung his head, the lack of blood making him dizzy and weak.
Finally Dean stood, but hunched, one arm across the gash on his stomach, the other firmly supported by Sam.
"What did you hear?" Sam asked him.
"Wait." Dean flicked one finger towards the married couple. "Who are these guys?"
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Lucia watched through her powerful binoculars as the woman finally caught up to the running man, he had slowed to let her do so after she had called for the last mile and a half.
She watched as they talked, and then finally the man, Todd, the woman had called him, allowed himself to be led back towards the farm.
Lucia placed her binoculars back into their case and sighed.
Watching the couple walk hand in hand, the woman's head now resting against Todd's shoulder as they walked, the bond of love so obvious between them, Lucia sighed.
She opened the glove compartment and pulled out her gun, checking the clip was fully loaded.
Silver bullets.
Hand cast by her.
She felt a pang in her gut, low, pulling at her conscience.
Sadness?
Regret?
Didn't matter. This would not be the first time she had to put a wolf down, and she was pretty sure it wouldn't be her last.
She just had to figure out how to get to the guy before nightfall.
And hope to hell his girlfriend hadn't been turned, as well.
A/N...now don't forget, this story is for my wonderful reviewer Branchsuper. You, girl, are my muse...
So, if you have nothing better to do, leave me a review. I promise I'll put my pants back on!
