Author's notes: Wasn't really satisfied with this chapter. :\ Can't win them all, I guess.
As Star embedded herself in Cliff's chest, she delved deep into herself for the dark rage that had driven her to cling to the living world after death. The anger and bitterness Max had somehow created in her, when the pills had done their work, and she was no longer the girl that used to dream of days on the beach with Laddie and Michael, but a shapeless mass of shadows. She indulged the hatred again, nurtured it as she wrestled with Cliff's mind, testing just how far she could truly go and just how much she could do to a human being.
"You alright?" The man beside him reached out to touch Cliff's shoulder, and the leader of the group recoiled, his face crumpling as he fell to his knees and clutched at his chest with his one free hand, flailing at the ground with his other as he refused to release his grip on the crossbow. His jaw hurt. His head hurt. His teeth hurt. He began to wretch, trying to hold back the contents of his stomach as he did so.
Bruce, the man beside him, watched in horror. Unsure exactly how to handle losing one of their number when they still had to check on the remains of the vampires outside. And Frankie? Frankie was fascinated. He slid forward in his chair, lowering his head to try and meet Cliff's gaze, "you having a heart attack, Uncle?" He asked quietly, not offering any aid whatsoever.
"Yes," Cliff gasped out, clenching his teeth as he pressed himself up against the wall behind him for support. Of all the times for his heart to give out on him, tonight was the night. But it came on all at once, out of nowhere, and he just couldn't understand it. He'd had a heart attack before, and it wasn't like you saw in the movies. Not dramatic and sudden. Not like this at all.
"Guess you're down for the count then," Frankie mumbled under his breath, standing up and pointing his knife towards Cliff while he fingered his own crossbow he'd kept on a small table beside his easy chair. "Don't worry. Once we clean up this mess, Bruce'll drive you to the hospital. If you're still kicking. But you understand, don't you? Gotta take care of all this shit," he swept his hand towards the front door. "Wouldn't want to leave any evidence for other biters to find out about our little operation, would we?"
"Untie the kids first," Cliff grunted, squeezing his eyes shut tight while Bruce knelt beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He reached up to grip tightly to Bruce's hand, assuring him that he would be fine. The pain was beginning to ease a little.
"Are you sure I can't take him, Frankie? He don't look so good." He looked back towards the other man, who gave a quick shake of his head in response.
"No," Frankie responded coldly, "we gotta make sure this is done. Something tells me it was all just a little too easy. I'm gonna need you to go outside and check the perimeter. Make sure we got em all. Then after that, maybe. Just maybe we'll let his bitch in the other room take care of him. But right now, we got priorities, and a hunter who can't even walk out to his god damned front lawn ain't one of them."
Star wanted to finish it now. Kill the man she was inside, leap to the next one, and keep doing it until they were all lying dead on the living room floor. But something inside had finally snapped when she got a firm grip on the man's heart, and it was as if all at once the black energy keeping her going died away. She struggled, kicked, bit, scratched, and flailed at the presence that seemed to be yanking her away from the man's body, from the house, from the property, and towards the sky...but there was nothing she could do. Something was pulling her away, and she didn't have the energy to fight it anymore.
"Michael!" She shouted, as she floated off towards the unknown force. Purgatory had finally found her, after this little show, and it was calling Star home.
Michael remained in the kitchen, watching the exchange in a detached way. He had actually wanted to kill Cliff himself, given he had seemed to have such a major hand in this whole mess. But it didn't seem very sporting now, dining on a guy already in the process of dying. That kinda took most of the fun out of it. Somehow he knew, too, the others outside would be pretty disappointed if they didn't get to draw a little blood of their own tonight.
He slunk further across the kitchen floor, ducking under the table, and watching as the man beside Cliff helped him climb to his feet to half-drag him to the couch so he wouldn't be blocking the door anymore. Then the man paused and turned a fearful eye back to Frankie, who gave him a quick nod, and yanked the door open so he could step out into the night air.
Just through that opening, Michael's eyes lit on the group of teenagers strapped down in the middle of the yard, and when he heard Sam's screams, black rage overtook him. They'd used his brother as bait?! Fuck it, he wasn't waiting around anymore. He was taking them all out. Right. Now.
His major mistake wasn't revealing himself, nor was it when he launched his attack on the hunters in the living room. No...his mistake was going after Cliff first. There was a reason Lucy had warned him to get better control of his temper. Unfortunately, he was going to have to learn the hard way. Again.
When the door drifted open, the boys were silent. Watching. Waiting. Let the people inside come out. Let them think they were completely safe. Let them think they'd won. After all, they'd put such a lot of effort into their little set-up. They deserved to celebrate a little before their guts were used for fertilizer on the flower beds.
David descended, just enough to get a closer look, to be closer to Michael in the house...but still well hidden in the darkness of the night sky. The moon was hidden behind the clouds, silver fingers reaching through the mist doing very little to illuminate the Lost Boys, and it would serve them well to hide just a little longer.
"Don't you worry, now," a voice called out as a tall bearded man in camouflage stepped out of the house, pellet gun in one hand, a hunting knife in the other. A line of stakes on a belt were strapped across his chest, as if they'd do him any good if he wasn't holding them in his fists when a vampire went after him. It was all for show, of course. Something the 'hunter' imagined probably made him look like more of a threat, and less of a meal waiting to be torn into. "Your daddy's inside, girl, and he's real proud of you. Being brave, sticking out around here with your friends," the man continued to talk as he approached the teenagers tied to the car engine in the yard.
Edgar was looking about, trembling, terrified, confused. Unable to speak. Alan was unconscious. Roxanne was scowling at the man who approached them, and Sam...
"ASS-EATING SHIT MUNCHER!" Sam shrieked, shaking his head wildly, "CROTCH-MONKEY! DUMPSTER BABY!" He was struggling to come up with more insults, flinging them into the man's face as if they were weapons, while the very confused hunter approached.
"Now, son, I know this was all a bit much for your first run-in with the stuff that goes on in Santa Carla," the hunter replied calmly, getting closer to them and hefting up his knife in his hand so he could cut the ropes, "but you don't gotta start talking like that. Girls don't need to hear those kinds of things," he shook his head. "Ain't right. Ain't nice."
"What the hell do you know about being nice?!" Sam demanded.
The boy bit down on his bottom lip hard, fuming and glaring. He'd wait until he was free before he wailed on the man, maybe he'd even manage to get the knife and avenge Michael's death. David listened in on all these thoughts, amused. He should calm the kid down, he supposed, before he got himself killed trying to take on a man more than twice his size...buuuuut...
Well, David didn't really give a shit about the kid. If Michael wanted to protect him, he could get his ass outside and deal with it. After all, by now it should be child's play for him to get to the front door, with one less hunter in the house to worry about.
"Can we come down already? I'm tired of waiting," Marko protested in David's mind, sailing towards David and anxiously plucking at the leader's sleeve with an excited grin plastered on his face. With his fangs drawn, it was far more on the demonic side than the baby-ish effect it normally had.
"Go ahead," David gestured towards the yard. No sooner had he given his permission, than all three of the other Lost Boys were on the ground, boots crunching over broken bits of wood as the illusion of their vampire army began to fade and reveal the truth around them. The fake smoke popping out of existence made for quite an amusing sight. One second it was there, and the next...nothing. The air about them was sharp and clear. As for the hunter...he was too busy focusing on cutting the ropes that bound the teenagers to notice, until it was too late. The last thing he ever saw was the surprisingly rare expression of dark glee on Dwayne's face before his head was torn clean off, and the dark-haired vampire dined from his neck as if he were a milk jug. But he wasn't sharing, so he didn't need to worry too much about manners.
Sam and Roxanne scrambled away from the car engine, their ropes safely cut, and Sam hurried to reach for Edgar so he could draw the delirious Frog brother to his feet. This was all just too much for him right now, and he'd decided to take a mental vacation. The younger Emerson still wanted revenge, and still wanted to take it out on whoever was left in the house...but he also didn't put it past the Lost Boys to eat him now that his brother wasn't around to protect him anymore.
Marko sidled up in front of them, grinning still, and cocked his head as he waved his fingers in front of Sam's face, "boo!" He made as if to jump at him.
Sam panicked, shrieking and shoving Edgar ahead of him towards the front door of the house. Marko spun about with his arms crossed, hovering a few feet in the air and cackling madly. Far from the vulnerable creature he'd been that fateful afternoon last summer when the gruffer Frog brother had tried nailing him with a stake. It was no surprise he was enjoying their fear so much.
"Mikey's gonna kill you for that," Paul laughed with him, turning towards Roxanne, who was kneeling down and dragging Alan after her. She didn't look at any of them, avoided even making eye contact. Didn't even have some crazy theory or idea to spout out at them. It looked like being terrified for her life actually made the girl act and think like a normal person. What a shame.
Roxanne sobbed, struggling to get to the house with the dead weight in her arms, but she wasn't the sort of person to just leave someone behind to get slaughtered by a pack of bloodthirsty monsters. Even if she'd only begun to believe in them about five minutes ago.
"C'moooon, man! Help me out here!" She squeaked, several feet away from the door by now. Dwayne had dropped his quarry, and was busy licking his fingers, while Paul and Marko both hovered menacingly, edging closer...but not really fast enough to catch up.
"They're playing with us..." Roxanne realized, blinking several times and throwing her head back as her sunglasses began to slip down. Ugh, she was going to get rid of these stupid things. They really weren't worth the trouble of making a fashion statement if they were going to obstruct her vision while vampires hovered nearby on the verge of tearing her throat out.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," Roxanne panted, repeating the words over and over again with each step towards the house to give her strength. Alan was still unresponsive. She definitely decided now that she did not like Sam's friends anymore. They were far more trouble than they were worth, and definitely dead weight. If she didn't have a sense of honor, she'd ditch Alan in the lawn right there and then. Unfortunately, she was raised better than that.
David watched the scene play out, amused, though slightly surprised Michael wasn't outside by now to bitch at him for scaring his baby brother like that.
"Michael," he called out, "what's taking you so long?"
"...Fuck...fuck...arrow in my leg...shit, shit, shit...holy water on my face. Can't think. Can't stand. Why the hell does it burn so much?!" Michael's fearful thoughts screamed in his mind, panicked and confused. He'd never had a run-in with holy water before, of course. Had no idea how painful it could be. He hadn't even been in the room to see it do the dirty work on Paul, after all. With a menacing hiss, David sailed towards the house, and the others followed without a second thought.
