by Erin Hayes
“So we’ve gotta give them something bigger and badder than the sheep they’ve been putting on our doorstep to draw them out,” Delilah finished with a nod.
Zoey nodded. “Right, but we have to be careful about what. They’ve made it this far by actually being the biggest and the baddest,” she pointed out. “I don’t know for sure what happened to them to motivate all of this, but whatever it is produced something that’s more than just scare tactics and show. They’re every bit as powerful as they appear—the agility and speed of a sangsuiga and the savagery and natural weapons of a therion; all their strengths combined into an entirely new mythos creature—and that means that when they show up to take on whatever stands up against them we’d better be certain it’s something strong enough to handle it.”
Delilah frowned at that and shrugged. “So why not just bring everyone—all of us!—to take them on? You said it yourself: they haven’t just outright attacked us ‘cause it’d be too risky. If my entire pack shows up, muscles flexed and teeth bared, then—”
“Then there’s a strong chance you’d all be butchered in the blink of an eye,” Isaac interrupted her. “Remember, Dee, that all of you just got the Fantasia treatment from one auric vampire. And while Zoey can hold her own in a skirmish she’s not much in the physical strength department.”
Delilah growled at that and motioned to Zoey. “But she’d be with us, too!” she argued, “And you! You’re trying to tell me that our muscle—yours, mine, and all theirs”—she waved an arm towards the others—“plus her can’t stand up against just the two of them?”
Zoey bit her lip, her nervousness sparking to life at the idea. “They’re vampire abilities make them more of a threat than you’d think, even with the addition of my auric abilities,” she confessed. “They’ll be able to move faster than me and my constructs; faster than anything, really. In the time it takes us to blink an eye they could circle all of us ten times over and slit our throats as they did. When they move like that we might as well be standing still—we would be standing still as far as they’re concerned.”
“Then we lure them in with just a few of us—make them think we only sent our best—and then have the others get the drop on them once they show. Just come down out of the rafters or something! What can they do if we’re already in free-fall and converging on them?”
“Provided you catch both of them off guard and take them out in that one instant? Nothing.” Zoey sighed shaking her head, “But if one of them suspects something—and it’s better to assume that they’re smart enough to suspect everything—and they’re able to use their speed before the others finish the attack then they’d all be just as vulnerable.”
Isaac nodded. “It’d just be a matter of us being frozen on our feet or in the air; hovering there, waiting like a bunch of piñatas.”
“Hovering like…” Delilah frowned, “You’re telling me they’re that fast?”
Zoey nodded, her face solemn.
“Circle us ten times over in the blink of an eye,” Isaac repeated, rubbing the back of his neck. “Hell, it’d probably be more accurate to say they could do it a hundred times in that much time. Probably even have time to explore their surroundings and admire the view, too.”
“How can you know that?” Delilah asked, more skeptical than doubtful. “It’s not like either of you can do it.”
“I’ve been carried in overdrive,” Zoey admitted, adding “that’s what some call it” to clarify. “It’s not the easiest thing to describe, since my senses aren’t equipped to handle that sort of motion, but imagine being here one moment and then back at the apartment the next; a little short of breath and maybe a bit dizzy, but all in less than a second.”
“I’ve seen sangs outrun explosions that they were practically standing in the middle of before they went off,” Isaac added. “They’re not even a blur when they move like that; they’re just there, and then they’re not. Poof.”
Delilah cursed under her breath at that and looked at Zoey, asking, “And, what, you can’t use your aura to bitch-slap a sang?”
Zoey shrugged. “If it was just one sang and I was lucky enough to land the ‘slap’”—she used her fingers to air-quote the word—“before they jumped into overdrive. In a one-on-one there’s a chance it could go either way. If an auric can end the fight quickly or get in the sang’s head to know what they plan to do—where they plan to be—then they might be able to win. But an auric can’t read the thoughts of a sang that’s already moving that fast, and there’s no defense against an attack that they land while in overdrive. If I know that a sang intends to move behind me to shoot me in the head then I can plan how to dodge once they’re moving normally again, but if they choose to use a blade against me or punch a hole through my chest while they’re still in overdrive…” she shook her head.
“Shoot you in the… couldn’t they just shoot you in overdrive?” Delilah narrowed her eyes, still confused.
Isaac shook his head. “Guns are worthless if you’re moving faster than a bullet. They could kill you with their hands a thousand times over before the bullet even left the chamber. If this were a normal pair of sangs you and your pack might even stand a chance. We’re tough to punch holes through and, most of the time, stronger than your average sang, so they’d have to rely on weapons against our kind of numbers. But…” he drawled out.
Delilah nodded, “Yea. Yea. They’ve got the strength of our kind on their side, too.”
Zoey nodded. “And they’ve got claws; no need to even carry a blade,” she added. “Either way, there’s only so much I could do if it was just one hybrid like that, but there’s two of them.”
Delilah slammed a fist down on the table they were seated around and growled. “Dammit! Why didn’t The Council send more of you? How are we supposed to kill two of something like that?”
“We weren’t even sure what they were up until recently,” Isaac admitted, then added, “Didn’t even know there was more than one of them. They were good enough to avoid capture from the get-go, and there were never any reliable witnesses left alive to get a clear report on them. The Council figured they’d send a tactician and some muscle and sent the request to the closest clan—less warriors against a single threat ensured less chance of there being an incident.”
“Incident?” Delilah looked between them, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Zoey blushed and shrugged. “Let’s just say our clan has a bit of a recent history of flamboyance and extravagance.”
Delilah blinked. “And in English that would mean…”
“The Vailean leader is a hothead blonde and a sang-auric hybrid vampire who, near as I can tell, is a magnet for chaos,” Isaac clarified. “Battles in the streets, destroyed buildings, and blood anywhere and everywhere.”
“A sang-auric hybrid with a history like that?” Delilah’s brow raised. “Sounds like she would’ve been a better choice for this… no offense, Zoey,” she gave a sincere nod of apology her way.
Zoey nodded. “It’s fine. I’ve been thinking the same thing, actually,” she admitted.
Isaac frowned and cleared his throat. “Serena might get the job done,” he leaned back, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “but most of the time the job gets done by nearly blowing up the entire city and making enough of a scene that those like Zoey are erasing minds of the memory for days afterward.”
“Oh…” Delilah frowned at the idea. “Like that Stryker guy? You know the one? Started some new clan a little while ago and then, like, right after went and started knocking entire buildings over? What the hell is his problem? He’s one of the reasons we’ve been trying to avoid you clan members all this time!”
“Xander?” Zoey blushed when she realized how quickly she’d blurted the name. “I… I mean, I know him. Or, rather, I know… knew”—she frowned at the reminder—“somebody who worked with him. The ones who were causing all that trouble killed him, though. It wasn’t Xander’s fault that all that happene
d!” She shot Isaac a glare then and shook her head, “Just like it’s not Serena’s fault that all of what we faced happened!”
Isaac sighed and shook his head, muttering “Fan of the damn Stryker fan club, I swear” before shrugging to Delilah. “Credit where credit’s due,” he said, “Serena—and others like Serena—” he added for Zoey, “handle situations that, more often than not, could be the end of the world, so it’s no surprise when a city or two crumbles as a result, I suppose.”
Delilah frowned. “And what we’re facing isn’t the end of the world?”
“I’m sure that if they’re left to their own devices they could certainly help start the end,” Zoey sighed.
Isaac nodded, “And, more to the point, since they’re here to wipe out your pack and your pack has made the city their own, preventing the entire collapse of the city sort of becomes a key focus. Serena would certainly have these two dead and buried real quick, but she’d probably be burying them under what remained of this club and all the structures around it. And if you were as pleasant to her as you were to Zoey in the beginning, she’d probably have done it with all of you in here when she did.” He shrugged as Zoey shot him another angry glare and let out a heavy sight. “If for whatever reason we fail and these two do wind up succeeding, you can at least rest easy knowing we’ll have Serena be the one to avenge you, but”—he shot a quick pre-apologetic look to Zoey—“as I’m sure you want your pack and your city to still be existing, Zoey and I are your best bet.”
Delilah shot a skeptical glance to Zoey. “Buried in my own club’s rubble, huh?”
“Serena…” Zoey blushed and cupped her face in her hands, “She’s really not that bad.”
“Buried in rubble?” Zoey repeated, finally punching Isaac in the shoulder on her friend’s behalf. “Buried… in… rubble?”
Isaac laughed, barely flinching from the punch but rubbing at his shoulder just the same, and giving her a “sorry but not really sorry” grin. “Am I wrong?” he asked. “If you can look me in my eyes and tell me with total sincerity that you think I’m wrong and that Serena would’ve handled this case with any sort of professionalism—y’know what, just to give her the benefit I’ll rephrase this: that Serena would even try to handle this with any sort of professionalism—then I will give you my utmost apology and tell Delilah that I was wrong about her the next time we see her.”
Stomping her foot on the sidewalk, Zoey stopped and turned to face him. Seeing this, Isaac stopped, turning to face her as well, and smirked knowingly as he waited for her to try to get the words out.
They didn’t come.
Isaac was already laughing as Zoey groaned and palmed her face once again, repeating “She’s really not that bad.”
“Whatever you say, baby,” Isaac said, already starting to walk down the sidewalk again, “but you’ve been in the car with her driving before, and if that’s not proof that she’s chaos in the flesh than nothing is.”
Zoey didn’t even bother to stifle the shiver that seized her at the multiple memories of the platinum-haired vampire vixen howling with crazed laughter as whatever car she was driving—likely stolen—peeled about a skid-marked street.
“She’s really not that bad!”
“Once more,” Isaac called back to her, still laughing, “I think you almost sounded convinced that time.”
The rest of their time in the Blue Moon had been spent considering and ultimately deciding against various plans of action. Ezra’s file was reviewed and re-reviewed until the three of them could all but recite it from memory, and they finally agreed that his partner, while still a mystery, was undeniably the same species as him and therefore to be considered as his equal in every conceivable way. Perhaps a brother? Zoey guessed that was the most likely their connection, since the chances that such a rare hybrid should happen across another solely out of coincidence were too slim to humor as a possibility. While it didn’t help them come up with a plan, having at least some idea of the reality of what they were up against—Ezra and Ezra-two; real name unknown—offered more comfort than the alternative—Ezra and who-knows; everything unknown. All the same, “more comfort” was a long way from being at all comfortable with the situation.
But at least Zoey wasn’t facing that problem with Delilah’s scorn and hatred looming over her like an acid rain.
Sisters.
The word on its own felt so simple in any other context, but for Delilah, a therion with that sort of pride and arrogance, to use it towards her…
“Should have kicked her ass sooner,” Isaac had said when they’d all first parted ways at the end of their meeting once the Blue Moon had been tidied and thoroughly combed for any further “presents” that the police might have missed earlier.
Though Zoey didn’t like to think that violence was a solution to social disputes, she had a hard time, even then, arguing with the results, and she and Isaac had shared a laugh as they’d started down the street. While their problems were far from over and there was still work to be done, the calmness of the moment beckoned the two to enjoy it for what it was, and they’d decided take a more scenic route through the city. While the way back to the apartments was a simple left-right-left on the right streets that took, at most, fifteen or twenty minutes to walk, reversing the path—taking the right-left-right instead—and finishing ten blocks away on the same length of street as the apartments insured a longer stroll without the threat of getting lost. The majority of the reflected path had been taken with Zoey continuing to vent her annoyance at Isaac for speaking badly of Serena, but it had kept coming back to the same thought process. She’s not that bad. By the time they’d reached the familiar street—save for the unfamiliar surroundings from being ten blocks away from “home” still—Zoey was beginning to wonder if Serena really was “that bad” and, by extension, what that said about her.
“I will say this, though:” Isaac finally said after she’d caught up with him again, “bad or not—whatever you want to call it—the world needs people like Serena and the Strykers, whether it’s the crazy dead one that sparked all those changes in the world or his crazy kid… who will more than likely spark all sorts of changes in the world. The world needs them. Otherwise the world would have been destroyed who-knows how many times by now. It’s the ones like them that are willing to take crazy chances—the insane, maybe even suicidal chances—that make the impossible possible. The world needs people like them.” He nodded, but Zoey wasn’t sure at that moment if he was nodding to her or himself, “But the world needs people like you, too. If it wasn’t for people like you then the people like Serena wouldn’t know when to stop; when to put a cap on their crazy or suicidal ways. Then it might be them that the world needs saving from the next time. Maybe that’s all any of these crazy, world-threatening rogues are: those like Serena or the Strykers who never had somebody like you to keep them in check. Serena’s got you, and I’ve gotta hope that that Stryker fellow has somebody too.”
“He does,” Zoey said without pause, then instantly felt the curious and quizzical stare that her abrupt certainty earned.
Zoey blushed at that and looked down, considering what her late friend, The Gamer, had said about Xander Stryker. They’re work on weapons and synthetic substitutes for mythos feeding needs kept them busy enough to avoid too much personal conversation, but it wasn’t uncommon for bits of information to cross over from time to time. He’d known about her, even gone so far to send an ecard for her birthday each year, and, in the same casual friendliness that The Gamer knew about Isaac, Zoey knew about Estella. The Gamer wasn’t one to share the in-and-outs of his own life—either because he was too private to do so (he was a human who worked almost exclusively with mythos, after all) or because, true to his confessions, he simply didn’t have any life of his own worth sharing—but the details of his most prized client’s renowned adventures? Well, those had been an entirely different story altogether. Xander Stryker was the crown jewel in The Gamer’s life; it seemed that he v
alued nothing over the “privilege” (his own words) of making weapons and supplies for the young vampire. Before he’d begun sharing the details of Stryker’s exploits, he’d been a mystery to Zoey—a mystery to most, in fact. At first the details had been light and almost funny—The Gamer mentioning that the son of Joseph Stryker was “a real moody jerk, but a total badass” or detailing in hard-to-understand depictions of his first few blood-drenched “adventures” (what Zoey would have sooner called “vendettas”). Even before he’d been brought into their world death seemed to follow Xander, and, true to Isaac’s claims, the death toll had only grown exponentially since then. And while to most it would appear that it was the product of a renegade kid who’d been wrongfully brought into their world and given special treatments because of his heritage, The Gamer seemed eager to share his client’s stories with Zoey; seemed eager to defend him at every turn. Human or not, The Gamer had been more insightful and brilliant than most elders who’d seen their thousandth year come and go, and in hindsight it didn’t seem unreasonable for her to believe that he knew that working with Stryker would eventually cause him to become one of the corpses stacked up in his name. That name did have a way of drawing out the worst in the extremists. Maybe he’d wanted to share what he knew with Zoey before it was too late. Who knew now? What Zoey did know, though, was that even The Gamer admitted that Xander could be a danger on his own—not the same, exuberance-filled, “do as I please and worry about the outcome later”-sort of danger that Serena exhibited, but something darker; a “hellish goth-rage” as The Gamer had put it—but, true to Isaac’s words, he wasn’t on his own. He had Estella; a human—a witch—as it turned out. (And didn’t it just figure that the sins of the father should be the sins of the son, as well?)
The Gamer hadn’t said much about this Estella girl other than the fact that she’d since been turned into a vampire, as well. Why the exploits of Stryker seemed to be an open book but those of his lover should be so different was unusual, but Zoey had her suspicions that Stryker himself had a hand in how little was known about her. With how many were out for his blood—with how many had been out for the human wife of Joseph Stryker before him—it wasn’t a stretch to assume her protection would be a priority. How much protection she would need if she was capable of keeping Xander’s destructive potential in check would remain to be seen.