I have no excuse for not getting this in sooner other than writer's block and procrastination. Again, I come crawling for forgiveness, because it's not fair to you, and you guys don't complain.

"What time is it?!" Andy asked Patrick. "I don't know how much longer we can keep doing this! They seem to have an advantage in numbers!"

Patrick looked at Andy, then looked up at the broken lobby of the hotel. Smoke was in the air, the chandelier had fallen, furniture tossed. A hundred vampires were milling about, most of them closing in on Pete, Patrick, Joe, and Andy. "Yyyyyyyeah… an escape would be a good idea." Patrick cringed.

"Should we pray for a miracle?" Joe asked.

"You're Jewish anyway." Pete answered, brown eyes skimming the volatile vamps. By now, most of them had already been injured, leaving them broken, bleeding, limping, and extremely pissed off.

"So?!"

Patrick looked up and caught the time from the giant black-marble-with-silver-hands clock on the wall. "It should be nearly night! Pete, when you tossed that Joel guy out the window, it must have been close to sunset!"

"I wasn't honestly paying attention!"

"So do we go for the doors or WHAT?!" Joe shout-asked.

"You won't make it out in time!" Rachel led the mob. She charged forward, as did seventy-five other vampires. Patrick shakily aimed a crossbow gun at her, but she was tossed across the room by Sorel's force.

Sorel ran towards wherever she fell, but was yelling at the vigilantes in a panic to keep his 'mean asshole' reputation as Gerard and the other two lieutenants began thinning out the crowd. "Mark my words! This doesn't change anything! I'll kill you one day! One day soon! I still hate you! You're next! And you're UGLY!"

"You're ruining EVERYTHING!" Rachel shrieked, her face turning red. Her white, frilly top was stained with blood and dirt. "Why couldn't you have just curled up and died or joined us like EVERY OTHER VAMPIRE BEFORE YOU?! We would've let you feed with us! YOU RUINED THIS MISSION!"

"I didn't curl up and die or join your stupid little army like every other vampire because I'm BETTER than every other vampire!" Sorel shouted in response.

Her rebuttal was to shriek a battle cry and run toward him. But Sorel, using his telekinetic power, smashed the clock on the wall, making it begin to crumble and the pointy silver hands stick out. He sent it flying towards the fast-approaching vampire girl's back. It smashed into her, silver minute hand piercing her heart. She screamed before the clock crashed onto the pile of dust, formerly Rachel.

---

"OW OW OW OW!" Andy managed as three pairs of hands tugged on him, dividing strength between his left arm, hair and right leg. He tried poking them to get them to go away. It didn't work and he sliced instead. One person yelped and fell backward. Andy kicked another guy (looked like a deliveryman, brown UPS clothes) in the neck and was able to fight off the elderly woman grabbing his long hair.

He looked to his left and saw some writhing mass of Purity vampires, somewhere between fifteen to twenty of them, dogpiling someone (he had no idea who). Fearing it might be someone on his team, he started attacking them as well, but it was like trying to stop an ocean's wave with his rapier. Even though his hits, pokes, and slices were all making impact, no one was moving. Blood just began to decorate the ground around the moving pile. Andy stomped in his foot in frustration. His sword was of no help. He put it on the ground for a minute under his foot, then bent down, put his tattooed arms under a few people's legs, and grunted as he simply heaved people apart. It worked, and he was able to use his sword to fight people away. A few ran out of the hotel. In fact, only about ten or so vamps remained in the hotel lobby.

The victim at the bottom of the pile was Mikey. He looked incredibly dazed and badly beaten up. He only shakily began lifting himself off the ground, coughing, blood dripping off his chin with no one source of the blood visible on his face.

"Holy crap! Are you okay?" Andy held his hand out for Mikey.

The skinny vamp was crouching now, spitting blood and teeth, holding his ribcage. He looked up to the outstretched hand, only now acknowledging Andy's presence. He looked to Andy's face, then back to the hand. Then Mikey looked all around before looking back to Andy and shaking his head with a fearful look.

"Why not?" Andy watched with a pitied look for nearly a whole minute as Mikey straightened himself up. "Hey… wait a minute… where is everybody?"

They both looked around. The lobby was empty except for them. Outside, night had fallen, but fire made everything glow.

Without another word, Andy turned and darted outside. Mikey watched him leave, turned to give one final look around the lobby, wiped his chin, and limped out the broken doors.

---

Gerard watched as Sorel laughed hysterically. Now this must have been some kind of fun to him! He wasn't just torching humans like he normally did when he lit a town on fire – these were vampires. As half the city burned, he watched and laughed as vampires of every age, race, and social group ran around in a tizzy, either trying to put their ignited selves out, running to get help, or trying to put someone else or something out.

But Gerard looked horrified. This was a nightmare. A true, horrific nightmare. All he could see was the orange glow of fire, casting a light on Sorel's overjoyed face. He could only smell burning wood and flesh. He could only hear people screaming and buildings crashing, structures weakened by fire.

Sorel turned to see Gerard's reaction and mistook his look of sheer horror with a look of excitement and maybe arousal. "I know, isn't this great?!"

Gerard's dark eyes widened even more, but before he could answer, Mikey came into view. "Can we go? This isn't fun anymore!"

"What are you talking about?!" Sorel yelled at him, making him flinch. "The fun's just begun; light something on fire!"

"Where'd those other guys go?" Gerard asked Mikey as he helped him stand up straight, noticing his injuries.

"You mean Andy and the other three? I was in the lobby with Andy…" When Mikey straightened his spine, he clenched his teeth as his ribs made odd popping noises, as if they were popping back into place. Then he looked physically fine, notwithstanding some blood on his face. "I saw him leave."

"Why didn't you stop him?!" Sorel demanded, teeth bared, leaning towards Mikey's face.

Mikey flinched again. "Uh, even if I tried he would have gotten away. I was injured from when some mob of preps lynched me."

Sorel growled at him but didn't push the issue. "I've fucking had enough of this! Once we're done with this place, we're following them! And when we do, those idiotic bounty hunters I hired had better have gotten there first or I'll tie them up and consistently slit their throats as punishment for days on end!"

"Uh… they're not vampires," Gerard pointed out.

"Yes they are," Mikey said. "Wow, Gerard, that's the first time you've been wrong in what… three years?"

"Four."

"You're right! You're back on track already!"

A few seconds before the brain gears in Sorel's mind clicked to make him register all of this. "Doesn't matter, they're still idiots! And their still getting their throats slit!... Damn, I need a drink. I sound like a fool."

Gerard's mouth dropped. This was taking it a bit too far and he couldn't hold his tongue. "How can you think about drinking at a time like this? EVERYTHING'S ON FIRE!"

Mikey's mouth dropped as well. He turned to Sorel, then to Gerard with an "ooooh-you're-gonna-get-it-now" look on his face.

But Sorel didn't really care. "Crap, Gerard. Calm down. We'll ditch this hellhole late. For now… light something on fire. Even better, light somebody on fire."

---

On the red-tiled roof of a small office building, Shadows had his disgustingly oversized stake gun (more like a stake launcher, or maybe a harpoon). He was only about two stories up, but the current situation allowed for this. The burning city was in such a panic that it was unlikely people would begin to notice that others running around them were (one by one) being shot with stakes by one main source, let alone be able to place that it was from above. As people scurried about like ants after someone kicked an ant hill, he assisted in the slow burn that was formerly successful Purity.

"With the help of those four weird nomads-in-an-RV and the biker guy, picking off vamps is almost too easy." Shadows must have been so caught up with his own success that he didn't mind talking to himself.

---

"That was the second town we leave in ruin!" Joe looked in amazement, blue eyes wide, at the city-shaped bonfire as his four stood at the gates. "I don't know whether I should be really impressed with us, or disgusted or what." Even though they were far away from the biggest part of the fire (the center), the flames seemed to rise into the sky and cast an eerie orange glow over everything. The orange lit up Joe's eyes and made him look slightly crazed, more wide-eyed than usual, somewhat manic even. He crossed his arms and pondered the fire more.

"Neither. I say we forget we ever went here." Pete's arms were crossed and he slouched with his hood up. His curved figure was parallel to the glowing flames, casting his shadow on the ground. The distortedness of the shadow combined with his naturally skinny frame, now bordering on sickly, made his shadow look like a curved bow, sticking out black among the orange.

Patrick slouched too, but it was more of a natural, exhaustion-caused slouch with his shoulders drooping down. "I don't know. I just really want to go. We have to meet up with the priest soon at… oh hell, I forget. Let's just go."

Their RV was right where they left it. While the other three were thinking in front of the flames, Andy had already darted into the RV and scanned it to check for any immediately noticeable stolen or broken items. He threw open the door and jumped out. "Everything's cool in here, guys! We're ready to go."

"Not so fast!" They looked up at the source of the voice to see something large fall toward them. On instinct, Pete thrust his fist up and connected with something. Pete knew it was a face… he had punched enough faces now to know exactly what they felt and sounded like. The force of his punch threw the person off-trajectory, and they fell to the ground with a grunt of pain right in front of Pete, instead of on top of him like they had attempted. "Ow… I paid a million dollars for this nose job!"

"Oh, hi Mayor Z," Joe said blankly, unable to decide what emotion to use to greet him and too drained to use much anyway.

"Dude, what brings you to Pete's fist?" Andrew asked. "And why did you pay a million dollars for a nose job?"

"Don't give me that crap," the mayor yelled as he struggled to his feet. Pete noticed the stake Z had dropped, and quickly placed his foot on it. "You ruined my town! Ruined my dream! Ruined years of hard work, over a decade!"

"You… hurt my knuckle," Pete said. "Oh, and of course you tried to kill me and my friends."

"Also, your dream is the sickest, most twisted thing since Courtney Love," Patrick added. "We didn't even burn your town down, why didn't you go after those scary guys on the motorcycles?"

"I didn't think I could take all of either group down," Mayor Z admitted. "If I could only kill one of you bastards, I'd go after you four because you actually care about each other. And I want to hurt as many of you as possible!" He dashed toward Pete, but Pete kicked him to the ground and pinned him there.

"Here's what I think of you and your town," Pete growled, picking up the stake and slamming it into the mayor's heart. To his credit, he kept fighting until he was dust. "Let's go."

----------

"This is so weird!" Patrick stole a glance at the crowd from off to the side of the small stage. "I didn't think there would be so many people here tonight!" He was serious; he hadn't expected this crowd of thirty-five or so.

Pete was standing, looking bored, hood up, bass guitar in hand. Joe was powered with nervous energy like Patrick, but it wasn't quite as apparent. Andy was off to the side drumming on a folding table, him and his drumsticks settling for any flat surface they could find.

Their name was announced. Pete and Joe walked quickly onstage, followed by Andy, followed by Patrick (who, upon their name called, gave a quick little "AAAAGH" face).

Patrick was at the microphone (well duh, he's the singer). "Uh, hey, we're here to perform for you!"

Joe fake-sneezed "No shit!"

Patrick shot him a look as he continued. "Tonight we'll be performing the soooonnggg-…" He trailed off. Patrick froze, eyes locked on something in the back.

"Oh, for-" Pete figured Patrick got stage fright and was about to jump forward and grab the mike. But when he did, in the back, he saw what Patrick saw – four people (three men and one woman) walking in, clad in matching black suits and sunglasses…