Chapter six
Surprise
Standing on shaky legs in the dark alley, Michael cursed his own stupidity even as the corpse of the demon slowly dissolved into the shadows it had cloaked itself in.
Yet, even as one hand dropped the broken dagger and feebly reached for the .45 while the other desperately sought to keep his intestines from falling out of the slash across his stomach, he couldn't help but feel more alive than he had in years. And that was not a problem. He knew that feeling. It was merely the result of adrenaline combined with the ecstasy of emerging alive from a fight that could very well have ended in his permanent death. It was a feeling well known to him, and easily controlled. He wasn't about to go running into potentially fatal fights just to feel alive.
Neither was he upset about the wound; the demon being both stronger and faster than him, opening his defences to let the demon in had been the only way for him to get close enough to drive his dagger into its skull.
No, what he cursed at was his stupidity in approaching the demon in hand-to- hand combat in the first place. The species was strong, and the strike that opened his stomach could just as easily have decapitated him, had it hit his neck.
Of course, hand-to-hand had been the only way to kill it. Had he approached with guns, it would have never left the shadows to take solid form, and he would have been unable to kill it. And he should have just walked away when he realised that.
But he knew the species, and he knew its methods. They delighted in stalking their victims, always in the shadows, fading in and out of view for hours, maybe days. However long it took before the child's parents stopped responding to the screams. And that is when it would strike, ripping the child apart and devouring it while the parents sighed happily at the silence, thinking their child finally asleep.
And so he had risked his neck, going up against a shadow-stalker armed with two daggers. For the sake of children he'd risked his life? HOW IN HELL COULD HE HAVE BEEN SO STUPID!? After spotting it, he should have identified its current target, set up surveillance and prepared the child's room with lights and sealable exits, then waited for it to materialise before blasting it back to hell with heavy weaponry.
But no, couldn't risk the child that way. Had to run into the dark, shadowy alley armed with daggers and challenging the stalker one on one. Next thing, maybe he'd even start participating in the Game. Or maybe just cut off his own head.
Having sworn off any further heroics, and assured himself there were no other immediate dangers around, his attention turned to staying alive while his wound healed. Standing immobile, barely even drawing a breath, he focused on his heart, slowing it down and feeling his pulse rate drop rapidly and with it the loss of blood. As his quickening got to work on healing the wound from the inside out, an electric blue glow spilled out of the wound, creating an eerie dance of shadows around him in the alley. At least the wound were closing fast enough that he wouldn't die from it. He remembered the days when smaller ones had left him dead for hours. At least age carried with it some benefits.
When he at last felt and watched the wound close, Michael began to take stock of the situation. Shirt, jacket and vest torn to pieces, his remaining clothes drenched in blood, and one dagger broken. Definitely not suitable for a public appearance.
First priority, getting new clothes, was taken care of by quietly picking the lock and rerouting the alarms of a small clothes-shop. After picking out new clothes, he washed off the worst of the blood and dirt in the staff bathroom before getting dressed and then set to work removing all traces of having been in the shop. Cleanup accomplished, he repaired the alarm and carefully locked the door behind him, and began the walk back to the hotel.
And almost walked into a vampire. A tall, dark and handsome vampire that he'd been sure was dead. In fact, if the vampire hadn't smelled the blood he hadn't completely removed and frowned at him as it and its two companions walked past him, Michael would have believed it a human and merely shrugged at the similarity with one of the few vampires he had ever bothered to hunt.
Suppressing the shock and struggling to keep his heart rate from increasing, Michael kept walking even as he heard the commotion behind him. Apparently, its companions were wondering, loudly, why it was staring after him. Having roused its interest, and unwilling to merely kill it, a quick escape was necessary.
Turning a corner, he rapidly walked over to a parked car, forced open the door and jumpstarted the engine. Driving off, he spotted the vampires two companions in the mirror, and frowned as the situation suddenly got a lot more intriguing. Neither the bald, black man or the young white woman were vampires. The woman (girl almost) definitely fit the vampire's target profile, but the man was tall and powerfully built, not a likely target for the cowardly creature.
Returning to the hotel, he took a quick shower, dressed and then began reviewing what he could remember about the vampire.
It was on the old side, for a vampire at least, having been turned in Ireland around 1750, making it almost a tenth his own age. In life, it had been a drunken, womanising piece of shit. Undead, it was a monster with enough imagination and pure malice to rival the worst human killers Michael had ever tracked. In fact, he'd believed the killings to be done by a human pretending to be a vampire when he first began the hunt. Only when he backtracked it and noticed the number of years it had been active had he come to believe it truly was a vampire.
He'd hunted it for almost eight years when he lost it. Having followed it to China, at first he assumed the Boxer rebellion had covered it's tracks, but as the years went by with no trace of it, he'd slowly come to assume that it had been dusted by the Slayer he'd found killed by William the bloody, a member of it's "family".
And now, more than a hundred years later, he found it undead and active in Los Angeles, and accompanied by two apparent humans. Quite an interesting situation, not fitting to it's old patterns at all. Failing to understand how he could have missed the tracks of it's slaughter for a hundred years, Michael had to assume it had gotten smart enough to cover them, making it an even craftier opponent. Oh yes, hunting it down and repaying it for it's crimes would definitely be a challenge. One that he would enjoy for weeks, maybe even months, as it screamed in agony.
Author's note: Sorry for the delay since last update, but my interest in writing seems to be directly linked to the number of reviews I get. Could be because they are the only payment I get for writing. So, if you like the story and want me to keep writing, please do review.
Standing on shaky legs in the dark alley, Michael cursed his own stupidity even as the corpse of the demon slowly dissolved into the shadows it had cloaked itself in.
Yet, even as one hand dropped the broken dagger and feebly reached for the .45 while the other desperately sought to keep his intestines from falling out of the slash across his stomach, he couldn't help but feel more alive than he had in years. And that was not a problem. He knew that feeling. It was merely the result of adrenaline combined with the ecstasy of emerging alive from a fight that could very well have ended in his permanent death. It was a feeling well known to him, and easily controlled. He wasn't about to go running into potentially fatal fights just to feel alive.
Neither was he upset about the wound; the demon being both stronger and faster than him, opening his defences to let the demon in had been the only way for him to get close enough to drive his dagger into its skull.
No, what he cursed at was his stupidity in approaching the demon in hand-to- hand combat in the first place. The species was strong, and the strike that opened his stomach could just as easily have decapitated him, had it hit his neck.
Of course, hand-to-hand had been the only way to kill it. Had he approached with guns, it would have never left the shadows to take solid form, and he would have been unable to kill it. And he should have just walked away when he realised that.
But he knew the species, and he knew its methods. They delighted in stalking their victims, always in the shadows, fading in and out of view for hours, maybe days. However long it took before the child's parents stopped responding to the screams. And that is when it would strike, ripping the child apart and devouring it while the parents sighed happily at the silence, thinking their child finally asleep.
And so he had risked his neck, going up against a shadow-stalker armed with two daggers. For the sake of children he'd risked his life? HOW IN HELL COULD HE HAVE BEEN SO STUPID!? After spotting it, he should have identified its current target, set up surveillance and prepared the child's room with lights and sealable exits, then waited for it to materialise before blasting it back to hell with heavy weaponry.
But no, couldn't risk the child that way. Had to run into the dark, shadowy alley armed with daggers and challenging the stalker one on one. Next thing, maybe he'd even start participating in the Game. Or maybe just cut off his own head.
Having sworn off any further heroics, and assured himself there were no other immediate dangers around, his attention turned to staying alive while his wound healed. Standing immobile, barely even drawing a breath, he focused on his heart, slowing it down and feeling his pulse rate drop rapidly and with it the loss of blood. As his quickening got to work on healing the wound from the inside out, an electric blue glow spilled out of the wound, creating an eerie dance of shadows around him in the alley. At least the wound were closing fast enough that he wouldn't die from it. He remembered the days when smaller ones had left him dead for hours. At least age carried with it some benefits.
When he at last felt and watched the wound close, Michael began to take stock of the situation. Shirt, jacket and vest torn to pieces, his remaining clothes drenched in blood, and one dagger broken. Definitely not suitable for a public appearance.
First priority, getting new clothes, was taken care of by quietly picking the lock and rerouting the alarms of a small clothes-shop. After picking out new clothes, he washed off the worst of the blood and dirt in the staff bathroom before getting dressed and then set to work removing all traces of having been in the shop. Cleanup accomplished, he repaired the alarm and carefully locked the door behind him, and began the walk back to the hotel.
And almost walked into a vampire. A tall, dark and handsome vampire that he'd been sure was dead. In fact, if the vampire hadn't smelled the blood he hadn't completely removed and frowned at him as it and its two companions walked past him, Michael would have believed it a human and merely shrugged at the similarity with one of the few vampires he had ever bothered to hunt.
Suppressing the shock and struggling to keep his heart rate from increasing, Michael kept walking even as he heard the commotion behind him. Apparently, its companions were wondering, loudly, why it was staring after him. Having roused its interest, and unwilling to merely kill it, a quick escape was necessary.
Turning a corner, he rapidly walked over to a parked car, forced open the door and jumpstarted the engine. Driving off, he spotted the vampires two companions in the mirror, and frowned as the situation suddenly got a lot more intriguing. Neither the bald, black man or the young white woman were vampires. The woman (girl almost) definitely fit the vampire's target profile, but the man was tall and powerfully built, not a likely target for the cowardly creature.
Returning to the hotel, he took a quick shower, dressed and then began reviewing what he could remember about the vampire.
It was on the old side, for a vampire at least, having been turned in Ireland around 1750, making it almost a tenth his own age. In life, it had been a drunken, womanising piece of shit. Undead, it was a monster with enough imagination and pure malice to rival the worst human killers Michael had ever tracked. In fact, he'd believed the killings to be done by a human pretending to be a vampire when he first began the hunt. Only when he backtracked it and noticed the number of years it had been active had he come to believe it truly was a vampire.
He'd hunted it for almost eight years when he lost it. Having followed it to China, at first he assumed the Boxer rebellion had covered it's tracks, but as the years went by with no trace of it, he'd slowly come to assume that it had been dusted by the Slayer he'd found killed by William the bloody, a member of it's "family".
And now, more than a hundred years later, he found it undead and active in Los Angeles, and accompanied by two apparent humans. Quite an interesting situation, not fitting to it's old patterns at all. Failing to understand how he could have missed the tracks of it's slaughter for a hundred years, Michael had to assume it had gotten smart enough to cover them, making it an even craftier opponent. Oh yes, hunting it down and repaying it for it's crimes would definitely be a challenge. One that he would enjoy for weeks, maybe even months, as it screamed in agony.
Author's note: Sorry for the delay since last update, but my interest in writing seems to be directly linked to the number of reviews I get. Could be because they are the only payment I get for writing. So, if you like the story and want me to keep writing, please do review.
