by Sasha Medly
“I love how wanted you make me feel. You make me feel like I’m so sexy to you.” Ravi said, lying in bed as Lucas got up and started getting dressed for work as night began falling on the small town of Qualro.
“That’s because you are.” Lucas replied, stifling his urges to tell Ravi everything, to lay it all out but he was terrified of Ravi leaving him, but scarier than that fearing him.
“It’s a good thing we both have night jobs too, otherwise I might start thinking you’re cheating on me what with you being gone every night.” Ravi said jokingly with a sexy smile as she got up and started getting dressed; Lucas walked over and hugged Ravi from behind, smelling her brown hair before he sighed, “I know, we can’t spend all day in here watching the picture box or having sex, as great as that would be.”
“Gotta pay the bills.” Lucas replied before he kissed Ravi on the cheek and headed out, “Your shift start in an hour or two?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna get ready now though. I don’t feel like sitting here alone.” She replied, seductively looking over at Lucas with a smile, “It kind of works out for both of us too then, cuz working night shifts at the Drink ‘n Sink is fairly lax compared to the day shift. That sucked.”
Ravi gave Lucas a kiss before he headed out, believing him to go to the towns gun store and work as a security guard. In reality Lucas went to his real boss, a vampire lord Jorin at the gun store he claimed to work at, so in a way, he wasn’t lying to Ravi, but he knew he really was. She thought he was just standing around protecting a shop owner and his guns from robberies or anything like that, but in reality he went in the back and spoke with his boss.
“My lord,” Gram said as he walked in, slightly bowing his head respectfully at his vampire lord, “What do you have for me tonight?”
“One of the heads of the Restless Nightshades need taken out; it’ll weaken their grip on the city just that much.” Jorin said, handing Gram an envelope with all the details on his mark in it; Jorin poured himself a glass of blood and sipped on it before he looked up, “Would you like a drink? I’ve got the good shit.”
“Sure, I’ll take a drink while I read this over.” Gram said as he pulled the papers out of the envelope and began reading about an extortionist who was suspected of murdering the old potion shop owner and burning the place down, “Seems the old potion shop owner didn’t pay.”
“Now that we’ve got some evidence of that and we’re damn near sure he’s the one that did it we can take him out. Besides that we know he’s the one giving orders for his underlings to carry out.” Jorin said as he poured Gram a glass of blood and handed it to him before sitting back down in his comfortable brown leather chair; he took another sip of blood as Gram read over the files, “He’s one of their power players and needs to be taken out. Good thing for us he’s a creature of habit.”
“I see. He likes the titty bar, eh? I don’t blame him.” Gram said before he looked at his watch and back at the papers, “I could hit this mark tonight.”
“You asked for tonight, I gave you something I needed done tonight.” Jorin said as Gram drank down his glass of blood with a couple of chugs and nodded a thanks at Jorin before heading for the door, “Make sure he’s dead too. We don’t need him faking it and getting away.”
Gram left and snuck his way into an alleyway before he looked around, made sure nobody was watching, and launched himself up to the top of a single story building before climbing up the side of a three story building. He stayed crouched when Gram got up there and crept his way across the roof before he stayed there and peered down at the street below. He still had a little while before his target would be leaving the strip club so he checked the streets, looking for some criminal up to no good. He didn’t like picking people off if he didn’t know they deserved it so for street level crime he typically stayed put unless he heard or saw a crime taking place. Those he would act on and those were his favorite. They really got his blood pumping, the adrenaline flowing again, and it made him feel alive again. He heard a woman scream and that scream quickly get covered up but he had heard it and Gram was off. He ran across the rooftop and leapt all the way across an alleyway before running across that roof towards where he heard the scream. Two men were standing there with a knife pointed at a woman and that was all Gram had to see before he dropped down into the alleyway. He grabbed one man by the scruff of his jacket and the back of his belt and slammed him face first into the alleyway wall. The other man stabbed Gram in his side and the woman shrieked with fear as Gram grunted but his grunt turned into a low growl like thing as he stared at the man. The man stabbed at Gram again but Gram caught the man’s arm and crushed his head against the side of the alleyway. Knowing the woman hadn’t seen his face Gram just leapt up into the air and back to the rooftop, leaving the woman to pick up her purse and flee for her life.
“Good riddance.” Gram thought as he crouched on the rooftop, thinking about the two men he’d just murdered but how they were scum, the evil that had driven him to even become a vampire and still motivated him to that day, or night, to fight it every chance he could; as he thought he looked down the street and spotted his target, “Found you…”
Now was the most important part; the people, the public, they weren’t supposed to know about their war so their fights could never take place in front of people. He was already worried about that woman seeing him jump up a couple of stories but could easily be excused away as post-traumatic stress. Gram watched as his target walked down the street and forced him to jump over various alleyways until his target finally walked into the small pond area in Qualro, one of the very few open areas in the middle-sized city. Gram used his enhanced strength to jumped down silently before he used his speed to quickly run over and tackle the target into some brush, out of the view of the public.
“Dante Sanguine, your time has come!” Gram said as he formed his claws and jabbed his four fingers straight into the man’s chest and into his heart.
“Hahaha…” A voice spoke out of a device on the man, startling Gram before a group of people started emerging from behind trees, out of other bushes, seemingly everywhere, surrounding Gram there in the pond area, “you’re easier to trap than I thought.”
Chapter Two
Before any of the witches and warlocks surrounding him could set off a sing spell Gram used his enhanced speed to flee. He knew when he was outmatched, it was partially why he was still alive and he’d gotten what he needed. As Gram ran he zig zagged and evaded the possible spells launching at him, but they didn’t shoot at all.
“Run while you can, but your life will be a living hell,” Dante spoke over the device loudly, “Starting with Ravi.”
Gram fled up into a hiding spot he had on top of a two story building between two three story buildings that gave him a snug, nice little cove. Here Gram put one of the fingers he’d stabbed the man with in his mouth and drank the guys blood, getting his memories out of it.
“You’ll do this for me,” Gram could see and hear Dante Sanguine telling a human man cowering fearfully in front of him, “Or they’ll die.”
Gram gritted his teeth, seeing an innocent man having been setup by Dante and knew he’d been setup too. He began shaking as his adrenaline flowed once more, knowing that he’d promised Jorin that he’d get Dante that night. The worst part was that Dante had known Ravi’s name, which meant he knew who he was. Gram ran as fast as he could to the Drink ‘n Sink, quickly wiping his hand of blood off along the way. As Gram walked in rather abruptly he caught everyone’s attentions but quickly noticed that nothing was amiss.
“Hey babe, what’s goin…” Ravi started saying as she walked up but the windows all burst at the same time, shattering all over; suddenly blinding flashes of light flickered throughout the bar and inn and Gram quickly realized he’d led them right to her!
“Get down!” Gram yelled, using his enhanced speed to run up to Ravi and yank her out of the area; as he ran Gram got shot in his back with a fireball and roared and as
he did his iris disappeared for but a moment and he dropped Ravi, “Run!”
“Ah,” Dante’s voice spoke as a white flash flickered over Ravi’s head and she fell asleep; Dante caught Ravi with one arm as he walked around the corner and aimed a fireball at Gram with his other hand, “she’ll be alright, for now… but you? You’re not getting out of here alive.”
Dante aimed the fireball at point blank range at the weakened Gram, knowing fire was his kinds weakness and used it to his advantage. Other warlocks walked around the bar sitting fire to the whole thing, burning it all around them as Dante kept his fireball trained on Gram glaring right back at him, trying his best to push himself to his feet. As Gram forced himself to his feet Dante shot him in his face at point blank range with the fireball completely intending on killing the vampire.
“Scum…” Dante said, glaring at Gram lying there motionless within the burning building; just as Dante was turning to take Ravi away he noticed Gram cough and start groaning as Gram continued to force himself up to his feet, “well, what have we here.”
“I’ll… I’ll kill you…” Gram muttered as he failed to regenerate from the burns but still forced himself back to his feet, reserving much of the energy he’d mustered up just for a last attack on Dante; Dante walked up and lifted his hand, immobilizing Gram as he did, “Guh…”
“You see how powerless you are to me? You’re nothing… but you could be of use.” Dante said before he started walking out of the burning building and made Gram levitate behind him while everyone else was left in there to die in the blaze, “Your stealth could be of great use.”
Dante took both Ravi and Gram while the city guards tried to put out the flames, but the building collapsed, turning their rescue mission into just putting out a fire. Dante flicked his wrist and Gram went unconscious and was unaware of where Dante had taken him, he just knew he’d been taken to one of their hideouts. Had it not been for Ravi being there Gram would view it as a good thing, since he’d be figuring out where his enemies hung their hats so to speak. Gram beat himself up internally as he knew he’d led Dante right to Ravi and that she was in grave danger because of him. On top of that Ravi was bound to find out about him and that just served to compound the entire problem.
“Look who’s awake.” Dante said as Gram came too and realized he was chained to the floor with Ravi locked in a cell on the other side of the room; Gram glared at Dante and his iris’ disappeared the more he caved into his vampire instincts but held back in the presence of Ravi, “Oh, you’ll calm that stink eye right now unless you want Ravi here to just… lose her mind… would you?”
“Leave her out of this you coward mother f…” Gram roared before Dante stopped him mid-sentence by raising his hand, stopping Gram’s body with powerful telekinesis.
“You’ll do as commanded or Ravi dies, let me just make that clear. Any more mishaps and she’s dead, got me? I don’t have time for this, not really. I had time for a little messin’ around but I’ve got no time for your shit and I’m just makin’ it clear right now that while you’re out there doin’ what we tell you if you slip up, if you try to escape, if you try anything she’s dead.”
“W… wha…” Gram said, his head hanging as he realized how powerless he truly was.
“What? Speak up!” Dante yelled, relaxing his telekinetic grip on Gram completely.
“What do you want?” Gram muttered, his eyes darting once to the right, towards Ravi, then centered before darting over again followed by his head turning just enough for him to actually look at Ravi but Dante used his telekinesis to force Gram to look straight ahead and at him, “What is it that you want me to do?”
“Good…” Dante said, grinning down at Gram helplessly looking up at him.
Chapter Three
Gram left Qualro and headed to the northwest, towards Delaro. He used the dark of night to stay hidden along his path there and snuck up snug with the wall. Gram swallowed hard, in disbelief of what he was planning on doing but wouldn’t let Ravi be harmed. He hated himself for having gotten stuck in that position and beat himself up inside thinking that he should have known better. He focused on the job and snuck his way to the gates of Delaro but they were guarded by four guards rather than the two he expected. He turned back and found a nearby tree that was tall enough for him to possibly jump to the top of Delaro’s city walls. Gram climbed the tree, his heart beginning to race but had a tainted feeling to it. He didn’t like it this time but knew he had to do it, for Ravi’s sake and he climbed as far up in the tree as he could get and still have sturdy enough branches to jump off of. He scoped out the area first, watching the Delaro guards pacing back and forth and looked for an opening. As soon as he spotted an opening Gram launched himself out of the tree with his enhanced strength and squatted as he landed to make his landing quiet. Gram looked to his sides, spotting a guard walking around each corner and quickly rolled over the edge and into the city, again squatting as he landed on a rooftop to quiet his landing. He scanned the city of Delaro and looked at each building, figuring out what they were within a few moments. Most stores had a sign hanging from the front of it while others had their names plastered on the side or front of the building itself. Then there were the obvious houses and the castle with one building in particular that stood out as being odd. It was the size of four to five of the houses long wise and right up next to the castle itself. Gram snuck across the rooftops and headed that way and crouched at the edge of a building. He spotted city guards standing out front of the building but none on top of the building. Gram leapt from where he was to the top of the building and started checking around for a gate but found a door. He peeked through the opening but couldn’t see very far as the stairs almost immediately went to the right and around a corner. Still he took his chances and opened the door before using his enhanced speed to run up and climb onto the ceiling from there, hiding in the shadows of the building. He glared down, seeing that he was, indeed, in the jail, where he wanted to be, but knew he needed to get deeper inside. He did what he could to slip through only the darkened areas and as he went he checked out the areas, finding where he needed to go. He dropped off the ceiling in front of a stairway and quickly ran down there, finding himself in the Delaro prison. From here Gram snuck around on the floor, using his sense of smell to whiff out where the guards were and evade them. He snuck up to once cell in particular Tatiana’s cell.
“It took them long enough.” Tatiana whispered as Gram used a skeleton key to pick the lock of her cell and free her.
Gram closed the cell door behind them and they both headed out, sneaking as best as they could for a moment before Tatiana suddenly disappeared, leaving Gram to deal with the consequences of his actions if he got caught. His heart began beating rapidly, knowing that he’d spend the rest of his days in a cell just like the one he free that bitch from if he got caught. He really didn’t get too excited over it though since he knew what kind of an evil witch Tatiana was, having heard most rumors ever spoken about her. Gram snuck his way up a wall and headed for the rooftop exit when he was spotted by a guard.
“Someone’s here!” The guard yelled before seeing nothing but a dark blur zip across the wall and out the rooftop access, prompting some of the guards to storm there as others checked the cells, quickly finding that Tatiana’s cell lock had been opened.
Gram ran out onto the roof of the jail and jumped as hard as he could, launching himself through the air as fast as he could. He nearly landed right in an alleyway but managed to catch the edge of a building. The sound of Gram slamming into the corner of the building caught the attention of a guard and he looked up just as other guards were running out of the jail yelling about the jailbreak.
“He’s over here!” The guard yelled, shining a light on where Gram was but he was already gone.
In fact Gram was already several buildings down by that point and was fleeing the city as fast as he could. He had helped free Tatiana but feared that if he didn’t return they’d kill Rav
i. Gram stopped on a rooftop and tucked up against the wall of another building to catch his breath for a moment and listen for guards. He knew he’d crossed a line into villainy and gritted his teeth in frustration. He knew he wasn’t a hero, but he had always believed himself to be an anti-hero of some sort.
“Not even anti-heroes spring villains from prison.” He thought to himself as he listened to the guards footsteps in the distance slowly getting closer as they scoured the city in search of him and Tatiana, “I’m just another villain now…”
Gram ran off, running for the city walls and planned on jumping passed even if a few guards were in his way but it was lined with guards. Gram stopped in his tracks and slipped behind a part of another building, hiding from sight. He didn’t think he was going to get out of there as the footsteps of guards got closer and closer. He knew he couldn’t move from where he was without being spotted and if they spotted him the entire city would be on him. He stayed put, hoping the guards wouldn’t go up onto the roof but they did. As the guard walked around the roof his footsteps got closer and closer to Gram. As the guard walked around the last little area on the roof he hadn’t checked a group of bats were seemingly startled from their nesting place high up there under the ledge.