Slayer
The base beat thundered out of the club's speaker system and pulsed energetically across the dance floor as hundreds of people danced to the steady rhythm. It was heaving in here tonight and Brim loved it! So many people meant plenty of girls and plenty of girls meant plenty of chances for a guy like him! This girl dancing with him was a prime example. She was a brunette for one, something he'd always gone for. To him blondes were merely ditzy airheads, more concerned with how many drinks they could scam out of a guy before they bled him dry. Oh, that didn't mean he didn't enjoy bleeding them dry on occasion. Blonde blood had far more pep to it than that of a brunette. It was kind of like sucking on a strawberry Push Pop when you drank from a blonde, where as when you drank from a brunette… Oh boy, now that took some appreciation.
Yes, Jack Brim was a vampire, had been for a couple of years now and he absolutely loved it! Oh at first he hadn't quite been able to get the hang of it. He'd forgotten a couple of times that he was officially dead and that therefore, he didn't have to go to work. He'd nearly fried twice, waking up in the morning and getting ready to drive into work simply as a result of him being unable to shed the human mindset. It had taken him a month to get used to sleeping through the day and moving about at night for God's sake. But in the end he had got used to it and the more he experimented with it, the more he enjoyed himself. He could party all night, suck on the necks of beautiful women as a way of life and best of all, no one was in anyway equipped to deal with him! That had shocked the hell out of him when he'd found out just how much he went beyond normal human strength. It had been when some meathead had jumped him outside a club one night for hitting on his girlfriend. The guy had been twice Brim's size but Brim had lifted him like he weighed no more than a child and throne him like a pro quarterback. He could do whatever he wanted and never have to face the consequences. In all his buttoned down, blue collar life as a human, he'd never once thought his wildest dreams could come true, that he could do whatever he wanted without having to worry about recrimination. It kicked ass!
This brunette though! God she knew what she was about. She knew exactly how to move, exactly how to sway to get him going. The way her hips rolled, her lips pouted and the games she played with him with her eyes! He didn't think he'd been this randy in a long time. He was tempted to try his luck and sleep with her before he bled her. Their blood always tasted better after sex, probably something to do with the energy involved.
The music changed tempo to something slower. The girl smiled at him coquettishly. She'd told him her name but he hadn't really been listening. What did it matter what the chicks name was? All that mattered was when he got to eat her. He had the feeling this one was going to taste gorgeous. She slid her arms up around his neck and pulled him in close. He kissed her hungrily. She pushed him away fairly quickly, her finger wagging at him with mock scolding. She was playing with him! He loved it! She could play with him as much as she wanted, but it would be him who had the last laugh in this little game. After all, he had a game face that no one expected.
"C'mon." she whispered in his ear. "Let's get out of here." If his heart could still beat it would have been doing back flips by now. A sly grin split his face as they slipped along the dance floor, weaving through the crowd as if it didn't exist. He never saw a third figure move away from the bar and follow them.
Outside, a dull neon tube light advertising the club's name flickered sporadically on an off, bathing the alley in soft pink light one second and plunging it into darkness the next. The brunette led him down the alley into the shadows away from the crowd. He kicked aside a Coke can as he moved. It clattered noisily off the walls and came to rest by a nearby dumpster. He smiled slightly. That would be a good place to hide the body. It wouldn't be found for a day or two at least. The girl turned and leaned up against the wall, beckoning invitingly to him.
"Let's see what you can do then handsome." She said mischievously. Brim strode confidently over the tarmac, smiling at her as he went.
"Oh I can do all sorts of things." He said, the smile never leaving his face. "I do this really cool role-play thing."
"Oh really." Said the brunette, her eyebrows rising in interest. "What do we pretend?"
"Well…" he began, his arms bracing against the wall, blocking her in between them. "I play at being this scary monster, and you pretend you're really scared and try to run, but you can't get away."
"Doesn't sound like much fun to me." The girl pouted. Brim chuckled.
"What can I say," he said as his face rippled, his brow slumping and protruding more, his teeth lengthening and his eyes glowing a feral yellow colour, "It's how I get my kicks." The girl opened her mouth to scream but his hand shot out and clapped down hard over it, muffling the sound.
"Don't struggle babe." He said soothingly. "I'll make it quick, I promise." With a low, hungry snarl he ducked in low for her throat.
Suddenly he felt strong hands on his shoulders tugging him roughly off the girl and throwing him hard against a wall at the other side of the alley. His head banged hard against the cold stone, and he snarled as his vision span dizzyingly. When it finally cleared another girl was standing in front of him, and she was a brunette as well. She was wearing a pair of tight fitting leather pants, a cheap looking imitation leopard skin halter top, and seemed to have applied her mascara with the business end of a trowel.
"You know, rushing in like that kind of disappoints a girl." The stranger said cockily. Brim frowned, although it was hard to pick up on when he was wearing his game face.
"I can pace myself." He retorted, and without warning, threw himself at the girl with a loud snarl. The girl moved like nothing he had ever seen. She ducked his right hook and stuck her leg out, craftily tripping him and causing him to stumble head first into a nearby wall. Shaking his head to dispel the double vision he suddenly seemed to have acquired he whirled back to face her. The girl was examining her fingernails! How could she be so blasé about him? Something wasn't right, but he wasn't going to leave her alive to find out. He approached her a little more cautiously the second time around. She was surprisingly small. Surely she couldn't be as strong as she had seemed a minute ago. It just wasn't natural. He took a tentative swipe, and the girl dodged aside as if he'd barely moved. With a grunt he swung for her again, and once more his fist met nothing but air.
"This is really getting old." The girl said sounding almost bored. "At least try and make a go of it." With a growl of impotent fury he swung as hard as he could for her grinning face. The girl dipped and slipped inside his guard, reaching up and grabbing his outstretched arm. She swung him around with a strength he couldn't imagine any ordinary person, let alone one as seemingly slight as this girl, possibly possessing. She let go sending him careening headlong into a pile of trashcans. Groggily he clambered back to his feet and turned to face her, his eyes widening as the girl slipped something into her hand. It was a wooden stake. He frowned. Was that a tattoo of a black bladed sword on her forearm?
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, his voice filled with worry as the girl advanced toward him. She cocked her head and grinned devilishly.
"Didn't I tell you?" her smile widened.
"I'm Faith." She said. "The Vampire Slayer."
