by Jasmine Walt
Ralph snarled like an angry dog, but before he could do more, I drove my fork through his hand and pinned it to the table. He screamed, his inhuman shriek tearing out through the diner and forcing everyone in the immediate vicinity to look over at us. This was a problem for two reasons. One, it would attract attention, which was understandably bad, and two, most people couldn’t actually see monsters as such. They would just see me accosting a normal looking guy because their eyes would glaze over the fact he had fangs and red eyes. Then one of them would get the bright idea to call the police. We needed to be gone before that could happen.
I stood, throwing one last glance at my food before moving past the vampire as he tore his hand free in a spray of blood and gore. He turned his eyes on me and opened his mouth to reveal a fanged maw. Already, the damage I’d done was beginning to heal, and if I gave him enough time, he’d heal the wound entirely.
“Look, Ralph. I don’t want to kill you in front of all these people, but I’ll do it.” I shrugged as he swung at me, and I stepped backward, easily dodging his swipe. He was about fifty years too young to hit me with an attack like that. “I’m not sure why, but it seems like you want me to do just that.”
Instead of responding with words, the vampire’s legs tensed like he was going to spring at me. I let out a sigh and called upon my magic. Energy swirled around me, filling my muscles with strength and speed. As Ralph’s feet left the cheap linoleum, my left fist lashed out, catching him square in the nose. He flopped backward on his butt, clutching his face as dark viscous blood dripped through his fingers.
I took a step toward him and sighed. “Attacking a Dioscuri is punishable by death. You do realize that, right?” I asked, and though I’d been expecting some kind of reaction, I got nothing but hostility from the vampire. Didn’t he know who the Dioscuri were? He should have. The Dioscuri were the monster’s proverbial boogieman. We were what scratched outside their windows in the dark of night, the monster hidden beneath their beds, the shadow creeping across their walls.
“So what!” the vampire snarled as it scrambled to its feet, fangs distending from his mouth in a way that always reminded me of a snake.
“You wanted a lesson on vampires, right? Looks like you’ve found a volunteer,” I whispered, glancing at Jean Luc who stood transfixed on the vampire, his hands gripping the table. “Usually, they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. This one doesn’t seem to be worried about that. He must be some kind of dumbass.” I sighed and muttered a spell under my breath to keep the people inside from freaking out, well, more than they already were given the scene.
A strange calm melted over the denizens of the diner, and they stared off into space in a sort of slack-jawed stupor. It would only last a few moments, so I had to make this quick. As far as they would be concerned, we would just be normal people having a normal argument, which still wasn’t super low key, but better than the whole vampire thing.
The creature lunged at me, and just as its fist was about to make contact with my face, I stepped in past the blow, dodging under it and kicking the inside of his knee. A horrible snap filled the air as the joint broke, and the creature crumpled to the ground. His eyes flashed, the red in his eyes dimming as he started to get back up.
“The first thing to note is their eyes. The redder they are, the more recently they’ve fed.” I reached over and grabbed the steak knife from the table. “I’m not sure how they do it exactly, but blood is used like a fuel source. The more they have, the more magic they can do, like heal and make themselves strong and fast.” I drove the knife into the creature’s gut as it rose, tearing his stomach open. Blood exploded from the wound like I’d popped a water balloon. The creature deflated, his eyes fading to black in an instant as he tripped and fell on his back, clutching his stomach.
“So when you see eyes like that.” I pointed at the creature’s glowing red eyes. “You always try to puncture the stomach, then all the blood they’ve swallowed spills out of them, and they can’t use it.” People were standing now as I gave my lesson, and I wondered what they were seeing. Still, I didn’t hear anyone screaming which was good. I always hated when people screamed during jobs. It made everything so much more difficult. “Are you following?”
“Yeah,” Luc said, glancing around the room for a second before putting his eyes back on me. “Maybe we should continue this outside?”
“It’s your lesson.” I shrugged and reached down, grabbing the vampire by the ankle. I dragged his struggling body toward the door.
“Please,” the creature squealed as is fingers ground into the tile, carving grooves into the soft material. “I didn’t know what you were.”
“Do you know how often I hear that? And yet, somehow, your kind always uses that as an excuse. Like I’m going to forgive you for trying to kill me because you didn’t know you shouldn’t attack me. News flash, fang face, you shouldn’t attack anyone.” I pushed the door open and flung him into the parking lot like a bag of laundry. He hit with a wet smack and lay there unmoving as I stepped out to confront him.
Already the spell I had cast in the diner was starting to thaw. I probably had thirty more seconds at best before people came out to help, called the cops, or worse. Good thing I had magic on my side or that might be a problem. I’d just have to make sure I got the hell out of dodge before the other Dioscuri could find me. On the bright side, I was leaving anyway.
The door behind me chimed as Luc stepped followed me outside, watching me with amused eyes. When he saw me looking at him, he smirked. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“I wasn’t going to let you stop me,” I said as the vampire got slowly to his feet and turned like he was going to run away. Not that it mattered, he wouldn’t get far. “So as I said before, the best way to kill them is decapitation.”
I reached over my shoulder and pulled my magical wakazashi, Set, free from its hidden sling down the center of my back. It was designed to aid me in my monster hunting by acting as both a focus for my spells and a backup battery. With the blade in hand, I could call on more power and wield it better than I could without it. All Dioscuri crafted their weapons as part of their graduation from the academy.
My wakazashi was actually part of a paired set. Its sister was a katana named Isis, but she was way too long to keep on my body without someone noticing, so it was safely stowed away. Yeah, I know, it was dumb to have Japanese swords with Egyptian names, but I hadn’t picked the weapons, Dirge had, and she’d been Japanese. Blame her. I did.
The vampire glanced over his shoulder, probably wondering why I hadn’t chased him down. When he saw my weapon, he tripped and fell to his knees, bloody tears dripping down his cheeks as he held his hands out to me. “Please… I didn’t know,” he repeated like it made any difference at all.
“You were going to kill me for wanting to finish my breakfast. Since I was pretty hungry, that makes you pretty much the worst thing on the planet.” I pointed the magical blade at the creature. “Goodbye.”
An arc of crimson lightning leapt from the tip of the sword and smacked into the creature. It threw him several feet into the air before he hit the ground with a hard thud. Acrid smoke rose from his body as I sprinted over to him and with the same deft movement I’d done a million times before, took his head from his shoulders. I was always a little surprised at how little force it took.
The body began to dissolve into smoke as the symbols etched into the length of my sword glowed with red light. I sighed, turning away from the body because even though he was a vampire, I wasn’t especially fond of killing. The moment his blood had evaporated from my sword, I stuck the wakazashi back into its hidden spine sheath and approached Luc, not super worried about the monster’s remains because anything killed with a Dioscuri weapon would dissolve into the ether within moments.
“That was amazing,” Luc said, wide-eyed. “How did you call lightning, and how did you make the body dissolve? I’ve never seen a monster dissolve before.”
&nbs
p; “Being a Dioscuri has a few perks,” I said, grabbing his hand and leading him back toward his car, an old black van that was more rust than metal. “Like being able to cast spells and use magic weapons for instance.”
He nodded dumbly at me, not getting into the vehicle as people started to exit the door and stare at us. “I suppose so…”
“Let’s get out of here before police show up,” I added, already hearing the shrill cry of sirens in the background, though I could have been imagining it for all I knew.
3
“So why exactly was that vampire out in the open like that?” I asked, gesturing back at the diner as it receded into the distance. “Usually they stick to the shadows and dark alleys if they come out during the day at all, but that guy was acting like he owned the place, and he was just a newbie. I bet he hadn’t even joined a caste yet.”
Jean Luc stopped in front of a big red sign with the word “stop” written on it before turning left down a street and gunning his engine. Our van made a half-hearted groan and things inside it sounded like they were grinding together before we lurched forward, and I wondered if it was about to die.
“Do we need to take your van out back and shoot her?” I asked as he shifted a knob with his right hand, the grinding noise stopped, and we drove normally, weaving into traffic as the strobing red and blue lights of law enforcement appeared in front of us. Thankfully, they were going in the opposite direction, but it wouldn’t be long before someone identified our black van.
Then again, with no body to find, I sort of doubted they’d actually look for us anytime soon. More than likely, the cops would just write down a few notes and move along. That’s what they normally did on the occasions I’d stuck around to watch them work. It was one of the reasons why Dioscuri weapons were designed to make corpses dissolve.
The other reason was because it made it easier to kill things if there was no carcass to stare at afterward. I wasn’t quite sure why that was true, but all of our research had shown it to be. Still, I didn’t exactly enjoy killing things even if they evaporated when killed with one of our weapons. It was more of an occupational hazard I’d come to terms with, albeit uncomfortably. And besides, I wasn’t always lucky enough to strike the deathblow with one of my swords. When that didn’t happen, the corpses remained behind, a stunningly horrible reminder of the horrors of our war on the monsters. Let’s just say, killing a werewolf who reverted back into a ten-year-old girl upon death was not one of my fondest memories.
“I told you already,” Luc said, ignoring my comment about shooting his precious van. “The vampires run this town. That’s why I need to kill them.” He smacked his palms hard against the steering wheel, and the suddenness of it made me jump, though I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like I was super worried about him attacking me, after all. I could call upon my magic and throw him from the vehicle with ease if need be. Still, something about his sudden rage was a little unsettling, and I was glad it didn’t seem to be directed at me.
“That’s impossible. While the Dioscuri don’t monitor this area very closely, they observe it enough to keep vampires from taking over the town.” Then again, maybe they didn’t. One of the reasons I’d picked Orange County was because my people barely paid attention to it. Maybe the reports showing it lacking activity were just pencil whipped? A bad feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Maybe lots of places were infested, and the reports were doctored to make it look like it was better than it was?
The Dioscuri were already stretched thin… and report writing wasn’t exactly high priority since almost every able-bodied warrior was in the field ninety-plus percent of the time.
“Believe what you want, Lillim. I haven’t seen a Dioscuri set foot in the city since Dirge last came here.” Luc glanced at me before turning his eyes back to the road.
“But that would have been years ago,” I said before I could help it.
“Yeah, that’s my point. I’ve even tried to petition for assistance the way she showed me, but my hails have gone unanswered.” He glanced at me. “Then you show up out of the blue and I think, ‘hey, there’s a Dioscuri who can help us,’ and you won’t even do it.”
“I am showing you things right now, aren’t I? Or do you want me to stop?” I asked even though his words made me feel like the worst person in the world. He had a point after all. I hadn’t wanted to help him. I’d been more concerned with staying hidden from my people even though I knew they needed me right now. With me gone, others would have to take up the slack left in my absence… and sadly, there weren’t very many of them. More than likely, it’d mean the monsters would kill more people. I tried not to think about it, tried to hold onto my justification for leaving, but as I did, I suddenly felt responsible for everything happening. The weight of this town’s infestation fell upon my shoulders like a leaden weight. My job was to keep this type of thing from happening. By running away, I was going to cause this to get worse.
“No, I don’t want you to stop.” He sighed. “I just want you, and by you, I mean the Dioscuri, to do more than you are.” He gestured back behind us in the direction of the diner even though it was far out of sight. “That shouldn’t be happening.”
“And that somehow makes this my problem?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked out the window. “You don’t understand what it’s like. You don’t know what I’ve seen. You don’t know what I’ve done on a daily basis. You’re looking at a very tiny sliver of the world!”
“Is this where you imply my friends and family getting killed off by monsters doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things?” he asked in a voice so low and cold, it almost made me shiver. I’d just pissed him off because that was exactly what I was implying. In fact, it was the main reason I’d run away. Yes, I was tired of going out on missions to fight things so scary they gave me nightmares, but I could have gotten past that. But when every single day someone didn’t come home, and we got smaller and smaller in number… no, I couldn’t stay and watch that happen. I just couldn’t. Call me a coward, it’d fit.
“I was going to say just that, yes.” I hoped he could hear the apology in my words. “I’m sorry for that, Luc. I know you said something about your friend’s parents…”
Luc glanced at me even though he should have been watching the road. Every time he did it, my heart hammered just a little faster than it should have. “It’s fine. Just teach me how to get rid of these vamps, and I’ll forgive you for implying it’s not important for me to lose friends and family to the monsters.” He turned back to the road and slammed hard on the brakes, sending me hurtling into my seatbelt. The force of it hurt my chest as I smacked back into the dirty brown seat.
The black car ahead of us was stopped, though I couldn’t understand why. Another black car pulled up behind us, boxing us in. A bad feeling came over me as I looked around, suddenly claustrophobic. There were tall houses on all sides of us, and judging by the time of day and lack of vehicles in the driveways, I was guessing the people who lived there wouldn’t be home. They’d be out doing whatever things they did. No one would see us if something happened.
“What’s going on?” I asked as the doors to the cars opened and men clad in very nice suits stepped out of the vehicles. They all looked eerily similar though that could have been due to the shaved heads and dark aviator sunglasses.
“We’re about to get paid a visit by our ‘protection,’” Luc said, unbuckling his seatbelt and reaching casually into the spot between the door and his seat and clutching something. “You may want to cover your ears. This may get loud.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked just as one of the suits rapped against the glass, and Jean Luc rolled the window down a couple inches. The guy peered inside, barely glancing at me. It was kind of nice. Normally, people always focused on me, especially back home. With Jean Luc here, I wasn’t noteworthy. Awesome.
“What can I do for you, Dimitri?” Luc said, his voice calm and surprisingly even.
“
News is you killed Ralph. You know what the rules are Luc. You aren’t allowed to kill vampires within the city,” Dimitri said, laughter on the edge of his lilting voice.
“But he has a writ. That makes his kills valid anywhere,” I piped up before I could stop myself.
The man’s gaze swiveled to me. He lowered his glasses to peer closer at me, and as he stared at me, I realized the truth. Dimitri was a vampire too. “Writs are not valid here.” He turned back to Luc, about to say something else when I started laughing.
“That’s a joke right?” I said only no one else was even smiling.
“I think we might need to teach you just who is in charge here, girly,” Dimitri said as my door opened, and I felt hands on my shoulders.
I was jerked roughly out of the seat, which took some doing since I’d been seat-belted inside. Pain ripped across my body as I hit the pavement in a heap. Another of the suits stood over me, hands clenched into fists as he placed one leather loafer covered foot onto my chest and pressed. Agony exploded through my ribs.
“You really shouldn’t do that to her,” Luc said from within the car.
“Or what? What will you do, Luc? Use the Vulcan death grip on me?”
Rage filled me as the suit pinning me to the ground started laughing like his friend had made some kind of really funny joke. I wasn’t sure what was so funny. I wouldn’t want any kind of death grip used on me. Still, as the guy stepped off me, I was sort of happy they’d turned most of their attention back to the hunter. Evidently, they didn’t expect me to do much, which was fine by me. You know, since I was planning on killing them.
“Anyway, I think we can make a deal. Ralph wasn’t especially well liked or anything, so I’m willing to let you off easy. Let’s say, $20,000?” Dimitri said, and I heard Luc’s door start to open.