A/N: =3
Chapter 21: Nightmare
"Hey, you fucker over there."
I wouldn't kill him right away. I'd watch him cower in fear first. As I strode over to the kid, I went through every possible way to off him in my mind. He'd probably be armed, but that wouldn't harm me. Maybe a shot to the head or being beheaded would kill me, but I wasn't gonna let that happen.
"Whaddaya want, slag?" The boy was sneering at me, his eyes filled with some kind of unfathomable aggression. "First off, I want you to shut up. Then, I want you to fuck off with your tail between your legs, or I'll gut you." No perception of anything beyond anger or my one target. The only thing I sensed was everyone's eyes on me. "Eh? Gut me? Don't screw with me. Ya really want to die?" He reached back to grab something in his bag. I didn't waste a moment. As soon as he turned his body, I smashed my right fist into his face, followed by a punch to the gut.
Even though the sound of his jaw splintering sickened something human deep inside of me, I decided to kill him off that very moment. It went so much faster than I was used to. As he doubled over, I grabbed his neck and dug my fingers into his flesh. Twisting my wrist and pulling my arm back, I heard the wet, cracking sound that signaled one more life on my conscience. Slowly surfacing through the red haze, I surveyed my surroundings. Marie was staring at the boy's corpse, her eyes wide open in terror. Jenna was grinning triumphantly, sinking into a battle-ready crouch with a wild gleam in her eye. The young woman was gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, muttering something under her breath, while the boy's girlfriend was struggling to prevent her knees from buckling under her. The military-looking man showed no emotion, only staring at the man in the duster, as if awaiting a command.
The man only smiled.
His coat billowing in the faint wind and his face shadowed by the intensifying rain, he took a single five-foot step, getting far too close to me, with not even a foot of space between us. A broad smile was spreading across his face, mirroring my own bloodthirst. "Well, looks like we were lucky. Missed Brandon, but found this 'ere demon chick. Really my lucky day, eh?" "Demon? What do you mean?" Was he calling me a demon? I was only... no, he was right. "Y'know yerself, don'tcha? Don't play dumb, vampire." Found out again. No way to help it, except killing. Or trying to win his sympathy.
"Yeah, I'm a vampire, but I'm not a demon." Smirking, I added, "It's still an insult, you know. I'm just human after all." The young woman stepped forward, a look of pure rage on her face. "Human? Demons are liars. That body you're using may once have been human, but you're not. How high are you? A fallen angel, a devil, one of the Horned One's right-hand men or just plain hellspawn?" This woman was insane. She'd probably try to kill me, so I couldn't afford to have any qualms about killing her. At least I could try to keep it human, not just kill without emotion, but put a bit of myself into it.
"Hmm, fallen angel sounds about right. But you know, you're wrong. If I was a demon, I'd have killed you right now. Actually, I don't wanna kill you all that much. You can leave now." Even though my voice was confident and arrogant, inside me, the part that was still even remotely human was clawing at the seams of my thoughts. What was I doing, taunting and ridiculing her? No, I didn't have time for this. Let go, just let go.
"What? You think I'll believe you? Like I said, demons are liars. I won't ever run away from you."
I only narrowly dodged as she lashed out at me, the glint of a machete narrowly flashing by my cheek. As I struck her clean on her left shoulder, I caught a glimpse of her face, her eyes boiling with madness.
And then she stabbed me in the stomach.
Damn, she was fast. Judging from the pain as I stepped back to ready my next strike, leaving the machete buried in my guts, it must have had gone at least seven inches in. The man in the duster was just standing at the sidelines and smirking like a madman, his burly right-hand man by his side.
As I sprang forward, grabbing her by the throat and hammered her head up against the dripping wet concrete of the asylum wall, I saw Jenna slam into the soldier, grabbing his right arm in the process and smashing her knee into his elbow in midair. The crunching noise as his arm snapped cleanly and his grunt of pain were only more signs of our victory. Maybe we were demons, but who cared as long as we could kill everyone who was out for us?
The noise slammed into my ears just a moment before the searing pain ripped its way through my chest. A burn I hadn't felt from bullets or blades tore its way through my body, bringing with it the smell of ash and the feeling of my body crumbling. The acrid stench of gunpowder drifted through the air as I slumped to the ground, managing to snap the young woman's neck with the last shred of my willpower. Struggling, I turned my head towards the man in the duster, feeling a thousand years of Hell's worth in pain for each inch I moved my agonized body.
Below the shadow of the rain and darkness, his eyes were wide with sadistic pleasure as he seemingly tried to keep himself from breaking out into laughter. In front of him, he was holding a huge gun, its jet-black paint not even glinting in the faint light.
"Th' power of God, girl. Sure as hell we're gonna clean you up."