by R. Lee Moore
The shelves shattered into splintered shards when Tamina crashed into them. A sharp agonizing pain wracked all throughout her body and she felt splinters piercing deep into her sides. She could breathe again, though, even if it was painful to do so. She'd landed hard against the same side of her jaw that the vampire had backhanded, and it felt like the inside of her throat had been sandblasted raw from the vampire's vise-like grip, but she was alive.
Surprisingly, the vampire kept her distance. When Tamina looked up, she saw the other woman pacing back and forth in front of her like she was stalking at her prey. Those red flecked eyes watching her every movement with utter disdain, yet there was a hint of curiosity in them that danced around the edges. She had to buy herself some time, she thought. Time enough to think of something to get out of the situation she'd found herself in before the vampire grew tired of whatever game she was playing.
“You going to kill me?” she asked hoarsely. She spat out a wad of blood and wiped the remains from her lips staring down at the red streaks on her fingers tiredly. “You actually look like the type of person that plays with your food first. Is that what this is, or are you just one of those freaks that gets off on this sorta thing?”
The vampire smirked and threw Tamina an incredulous look.
“Do you think your words will wound me any more than your feeble attacks, little human?” she said mockingly. Her voice was deep and rich with a distinctive and pronounced accent that spoke of a lifetime spent far away from here. “Nothing more than the taunting of an impudent child.”
Tamina managed a faint chuckle that felt like holes ripping through the raw bruising of her throat. She pushed herself against the wall, and used it as leverage to push herself shakily up to her feet. She didn't have much strength left in her, and needed time to recover. The only way to get that time was to keep the vampire talking. Keep her distracted.
“Sadly, that's not the first time I've had people tell me something like that,” she said. “Still didn't answer the question though? Seems to me, that killing a Supernatural Affairs agent would cause a lot of problems for you and your people.”
The vampire offer a dangerous derisive smile.
“Not for me,” she said. “Neither you nor your Supernatural Affairs have any authority within our walls. You are nothing here, little human, and you have no power here.”
She began gracefully twirling the short handled stabbing spear in her hand as she nonchalantly circled around the room towards the counter. Once there, the vampire peered over the edge and offered a negligent and disapproving look to the blue-hair girl still curled up and still crying fearfully in the corner. With a flick of her wrist, she drove the tip of her weapon into the countertop and left it there buried down deep into the wood. She turned back to Tamina, and began gliding back towards her with an inhuman predatory grace.
“I could spend night after night slowly siphoning away your life until you were nothing more than a lifeless husk. Peel the skin from your flesh bit by bit and carve the bones from your meat one by one until you begged for death. And your Supernatural Affairs would do nothing when I dropped what remained at their feet but wring their hands helplessly at our gates,” she said pleasantly. “But I find myself curious, because I think you already knew this before you even stepped foot within our realm, yes?”
Tamina nodded her head.
“Had crossed my mind,” Tamina replied. “But, I have a habit of not thinking things all the way through sometimes. Character flaw.”
The vampire gave a soft, deep-throated laugh. It was enough of a distraction, Tamina thought, for her to make her move. She pushed back against the wall and launched herself forward at the vampire as hard as she could. She caught the vampire by surprise and off guard, but it still wasn't enough.
Tamina drove her shoulder with all of her weight and strength directly into the vampire's chest, and she'd barely managed to even force her back half a step. It was like running headfirst directly into a wall. All she'd managed to do was hurt herself far more than she did the vampire. If she'd had been armed, things might have gone a bit different. Unarmed against a vampire however, she stood almost no chance at all.
The vampire laughed gleefully as she reached down and latched her hands around Tamina's waist. She flipped her up into the air until Tamina was being held up off the ground in a seated position with her legs dangling over the back of the vampire's shoulders.
Tamina recognized the danger she was in instantly. She started raining down a series of rapid-fire strikes down onto the vampire's exposed head giving it everything she had. Jolts of pain shot up through her arms with each strike. The vampire barely reacted, and each punch felt as if she was driving her fist into solid concrete. Any effect she was having at all was negligible at best.
The vampire's hands shifted quickly and came up under Tamina's arms to lift her back into the air. There was a sudden rush of air and Tamina felt herself being dropped, flung like a rag-doll back first down to the ground where she slammed violently against the counter.
“Your attacks are no better than those of a clumsy child,” the vampire scolded. “And yet you persist. I would be impressed if I didn't think your efforts driven more by stubborn stupidity than courage.”
The whole of Tamina's body felt as if she'd been hit by a train. Everything hurt, and every breath she took made her want to scream out in agony. She rolled over onto her stomach, and shakily clawed her way up the side of the counter. She had to use every ounce of her strength she had remaining and the sheer force of her will. Even then, all she was able to do was to rise unsteadily to her feet and lean against the counter for support.
“Gotta tell ya, this would be a lot easier if I was armed,” she grumbled under her breath.
The vampire gave a soft amused laugh from behind her.
“There is a weapon within reach,” the vampire pointed out. “All you need do is take it in your hands and strike me down. If you can.”
Tamina's eyes fell on the vampire's short handled stabbing spear, and for a moment she contemplated pulling it out of the countertop. In her condition, she wouldn't be able to do much armed with a melee weapon against a vampire. Wouldn't likely be able to do much even if she hadn't been beaten all to hell for that matter. The weapon wasn't going to be of any use.
Still, if she was going to go down, she thought, she might as well go down fighting. The chances of her actually harming the vampire in any significant way were infinitesimally small, but there was always a chance.
“I think I'll pass,” she said tiredly pushing herself away from the counter. “I've been in enough fights to know that the minute someone pulls a weapon, someone always ends up dead. Might be tempted if I thought I had a chance, but we both know I don't.”
“You're smarter than you look,” the vampire replied dryly. “Surprising.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot too,” Tamina said.
She turned with aching slowness back around to face the vampire and leaned her back against the countertop. As she turned, she noticed that against all odds that her phone was still there laying forgotten halfway off the counter just about to plummet off the edge. She reached over and had to force her fingers to close around her phone to pick it up. Punching a vampire was like punching a brick wall, and her fingers didn't seem to be obliged to cooperate with her after all the abuse she'd put them through. She looked over at the vampire and saw the wide condescending smile she was being given. She hated that look no matter who was giving it. All it ever did was steel her resolve and reinforce her determination if for no other reason than for pure spite.
“Here,” she said tossing the phone towards the vampire. “Take a look. This is what I came here for.”
The vampire effortlessly plucked the phone from the air. Tamina took advantage of the faint momentary distraction to again launch herself at the vampire. From the look in the vampire's red-flecked eyes, it must have seemed to be one last final act of desperation. One final burst of hope agains
t all odds. If it had been anyone else, she might have been right. Tamina on the other hand, just wanted to wipe that smirk from her mouth just to spite the woman.
When Tamina rushed in, the vampire didn't even bother trying to defend herself, and that was what she was counting on. She wanted the vampire to not take her seriously. It let her get in close enough to pull her fist back, twist her hips and rocket an uppercut right up under her jaw with all the force and speed she could muster. There was a bone jarring impact that caught both of them by surprise. The vampire's sharpened teeth gnashed together, and bit down deep into her own flesh.
The vampire staggered back in shock and reached a hand up to her mouth to touch at her lips and wipe away the thin trail of blood that crept down her jawline. The red flecks in her eyes burst a bright glowing red that quickly consumed anything that might have been human within them. Her reaction was both instantaneous and brutal.
Tamina had never seen anything move so fast. With bared fangs and a rage-filled hiss, the vampire had sent a vicious backhand that lifted Tamina up off her feet and snapped her head back violently. Before she'd had a chance to hit the ground or register the flash of white-hot pain rushing through her, the vampire already had wrapped her long fingers around Tamina's throat and plucked her right out of the air.
Tamina felt herself being flung back and forth through the air like a rag-doll as she was repeatedly driven through what shelves still remained standing sending debris and splinters of wood exploding all around her. The enraged vampire snarled in her native tongue with every word punctuating each violent assault she delivered.
Fighting back was out of the question. All Tamina was able to do was flail her arms and legs about in a vain attempt to mitigate as much of the incoming damage as possible. It wasn't much, but it did manage to spare her from being impaled by sharp broken fragments of wood splintered off from the shelves. The small tactical vest she wore beneath her shirt helped to keep her flesh from being gouged open and torn asunder to some degree, but it wasn't intended for the kind of abuse it was taking.
By the time the vampire had satiated her rage enough to toss Tamina once again to the side, she was barely conscious. There were small lacerations, dark bruises, and blood soaked wounds all over her body. Her t-shirt and the armored vest beneath were both shredded to pieces. What remained was barely hanging on by the thinnest of threads. She was broken inside and out.
Through the bleary blood-filled haze she'd been left in, she could just make out the vampire scooping up her phone from where it had been discarded and swiping through the contents within. She tried to move, but her body wasn't cooperating. Nothing worked anymore. It was all she could do to breath and keep herself from fading away into the darkness.
The vampire suddenly turned on her again, and in a blur of speed Tamina found herself hoisted up off the ground and pressed hard against the wall. The dizzily spun around her from the impact. She could hear the vampire's heavily accented voice snarling in her ear, but she couldn't make out any of what was being said. She'd gone through too much to fully focus on anything but the pain wracking the whole of her body.
She was pulled back from the wall and slammed back against it a second time. It jolted her senses into a momentary clarity. Just enough to see the vampire's piercing red eyes boring into her. There was still anger there, but it had been mostly supplanted by a frightening single-minded sense of purpose.
“Where did you get this?” the vampire demanded.
Tamina didn't have a clue about what the woman was talking about until the vampire shoved the screen of her phone into her face. It took her a bit to recognize what was being shown. Her eyes could barely focus, and it took every bit of concentration she had to clear up the image in front of her. It looked like the picture she'd taken of the mark on the victim's wrist, but she couldn't be sure. Everything was still a blur no matter what she did.
“What I came here for,” she said in a hoarse pain-filled whisper. “What I'm trying to find out.”
The vampire slammed her against the wall a third time.
“Sfebhe!,” she snarled. “Are you one of them? Speak!“
The only response that Tamina managed to give at first was a hoarsely whispered groan of pain that slipped past her lips. She wasn't going to last much longer if this kept up, she thought. She was going to be mashed into a pulp right against the wall and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.
“Murder. Culver City,” she managed. “The victim. The girl in the corner knows who she is.”
The vampire flicked her eyes away and turned her attention towards the counter on the other end of the wreckage strewn shop. Her eyes narrowed sharply, and she gave the girl trembling in the corner a look that seemed to pierce deep into the girl's soul. With a sound of disgust spitting past her lips, the vampire turned her attentions back to Tamina and offered a dangerous looking smile that let her fangs peak meaningfully out past the corners of her lips. She leaned in close enough that Tamina could feel a wash of heat rushing over the curve of her neck. The vampire gave a whispering laugh and hovered her lips over Tamina's throat.
“If you are lying,” she whispered. “You will never leave this place. Of that I promise you.”
The vampire pulled back, then suddenly slammed her forehead into Tamina's. There was a bright flash before her eyes that was quickly consumed by a rush of darkness that washed over her sending her instantly into the oblivion of unconsciousness.
CHAPTER TEN
There were a few moments of consciousness here and there. They were brief, and only lasted long enough for the vague blurred realization of being lifelessly drug through crowded city streets to flit through the dazed confusion of her thoughts. It felt odd to her that there were so many people all around her, and yet no one seemed to even notice what has happening to her right in front of them. It was as if the vampire and the minions she commanded were ghosting through the crowds of people unseen and unnoticed with Tamina hanging limp and barely alive within their grasp.
They took her down a dark alleyway off the beaten path and without a word dumped her onto the street in front of a heavy steel door tucked against the outer wall. Tamina didn't know how long she lay there sprawled lifeless on the pavement after they had left, and she only had a dim recollection of the door opening and uniformed soldiers scooping her up and dragging her inside. She'd passed out again before she was able to figure out what was going on.
When she awoke some time later, she found herself laying flat out on a narrow bed in a sterile white room with a long thin tube dug deep into her wrist. Her vision was still blurry, but she could see well enough to recognize an aid station when she saw one. She groaned painfully, sat herself up as best she could, and haphazardly yanked the tube from her flesh.
“Hey!” a panicked voice shouted.
Tamina turned and looked over gray haired little man in uniform frantically rushing over to her side. He snatched up the flailing plastic tube and tried to press Tamina back onto the bed, but she had enough strength left in her to resist and push him away.
“The hell are you doing?” the man demanded. “Lay back down. Are you out of your damn mind?”
Tamina scowled at him and dropped off the bed onto her feet. A wave of dizziness washed through her immediately and she had to desperately grip onto the side of the bed to keep herself on her feet. The medic might have been right, she found herself thinking. Not that it mattered. She wasn't staying here another minute longer.
“Fuck off,” she rasped out in defiance. “I'm fine. Get out of my way.”
“You are not fine!,” the man retorted.
Tamina shoved past him and stumbled to the doorway ignoring whatever else he was saying. She'd had enough of this place and everyone in it, and was getting out one way or another. It was slow-going staggering and bouncing back and forth against the walls, but she made her way outside and found herself standing beneath one of the large archways that served as both entrance and exit to the Prese
rve. She was at a checkpoint. That made things easier, she thought.
Uniformed men and women started swarming all over her trying to haul her back inside and back into the aid station. She shrugged them all off and wormed her way free with surprising ease considering how she was feeling. There was something to be said for determination and having an intense dislike of anything medical.
“Get the hell off me,” she snapped. “I'm going home. Which one of you idiots has my gun?”
No one seemed interested in letting her go, but they did back off once she started throwing badly aimed punches at anything and anyone in range. It didn't get any better when the Watch Lieutenant arrived. The man's curt orders to her fell on deaf ears, and the whole thing quickly devolved into an argument and shouting match that only ended when Tamina begrudgingly agreed to being escorted home. He didn't want to give her sidearm back, but Tamina was sure he eventually relented for no other reason than to get her out of his face.
She tossed her keys to one of her escorts once they found her car, and she slid into the passenger seat. After a few strongly worded threats of what she'd do if she found herself anywhere near the aid station again when she woke up, she promptly passed back out for the whole trip home.
The sun was shining painfully bright through her bedroom window when Tamina came to. She didn't know how long she'd been out, or even how she'd managed to make her way into her apartment to sprawl herself across her bed, but she had somehow and that was all that mattered. Everything hurt, and it took her several agony-filled attempts to lift herself up out of bed. By the time she'd managed to get herself into a sitting position and forced herself up to her feet, she was fighting back the tears and struggling to control the shaking in her legs and arms.
She felt a little better after a long steaming hot shower, and a change of clothes. A fresh cup of coffee with a lot of vodka in it did wonders too.