Vampire Wars: Small Bites

Evilyn Strogovanna smashed through the window of the small diner. Shards of glass flew everywhere as she freakishly rolled to her feet, posture straight and perfect. Everyone in the diner stopped what they were doing and stared at her, mouths hung open in disbelief. Evilyn had jet black hair, tied up tight in a ponytail and spilling down her back. She was pale, which was to be expected from a vampire, and quite beautiful and determined looking.

“Would anyone who is not a shifter, please kindly make your way to the nearest exit and vacate the premise immediately,” she told them, pausing to brush off a shard of glass from her shoulder.

No one moved. They continued to look at her in bewilderment while she took turns staring them down. The diner sat just off the nearby highway, and several trucks were parked alongside it. But there wasn’t much else nearby that would notice what was about to transpire.

A very large trucker got up from his seat and started walking toward her. “Lady, I don’t know who you think you are, but you picked the wrong diner to visit this night.”

The trucker walked up to her and towered over her.

“Forgive me, I didn’t introduce myself. Evilyn Strogovanna, daughter of Vadim Strogovanna, I’m here on Ender business.”

There was a small gasp from across the room, so at least one of the people in the diner knew what she was talking about. The rest could have been innocent, but she doubted it.

“This lair has been targeted for Ending. So, as I said, anyone who is not a shifter should promptly leave the establishment while they still can.”

“Look, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. But there’s only one of you, and quite a lot of us.”

“Seven,” Evilyn told him.

“What?”

“There’s seven of you. Three at that table, the cook in the kitchen, the waitress standing with her mouth open, you, and the person trying to circle around behind me.”

The person trying to circle around behind her stopped and waited, at a respectful distance. Evilyn winked at him.

“Fine, there’s seven of us,” the large trucker continued.

“It won’t be enough.”

“Excuse me?”

“Even if you are all shifters. Seven to one won’t be enough. Especially since I’m an Ender. I spend my entire existence hunting your kind, learning the quickest and most painful ways to incapacitate and kill you. And I’m very good at what I do. I’ve probably killed more shifters than you’ve met.”

The trucker stopped for a moment and regarded her. Evilyn simply smiled up at him.

“You’re crazy,” the trucker concluded.

“Dedicated. I prefer the word dedicated. While it’s true that many of my peers feel I don’t have a life, pun intended, I like to think of myself as committed to the cause.”

“The only cause you’re going to get here is a beat down. I should let you know that I’m not afraid to hit a lady.”

Evilyn smiled at him again, relishing the challenge. “Good, neither am I.”

That really pissed off the trucker, and his friends, who quickly stood up from the table. He brought his hand back and punched Evilyn full in the face. She dropped to her knees and held her nose in pain as it gushed blood.

The trucker turned around to laugh with his friends, proud of himself for punching a woman less than half his size. He turned back and grabbed Evilyn by the hair, forcing her head up to see him. Evilyn winced in pain. The trucker snorted, enjoying himself, accidentally allowing his large canines to show. Evilyn saw them, and smiled through her blood.

“There it is,” she said.

Evilyn batted his hand aside and stood up. She grabbed the trucker by the throat, pulled back her hand, and punched him in the face so hard that his nose completely caved into his face with a loud crack. He screamed as he turned around to his friends, giving them a horrified look at his new, flat face.

The man who had tried to sneak up on Evilyn now charged her, trying to tackle her to the ground. Evilyn sidestepped the attack and kicked him in the face so hard that his head spun around a little too far. The man held his neck, falling to the ground and trying to regain control of his limbs. Evilyn brought her foot down on his throat, pulverizing it into the ground.

“Five left.”

The three at the table attacked her together, surrounding her. One of them grabbed her, she pulled back his wrist too far, thoroughly breaking it. Another pulled a knife and stabbed. Evilyn spun the first attacker around to receive the knife in the side of his neck. Blood spurted out onto the third, who backed away wiping it.

Evilyn sprang at him, launching him to the floor and sending them sliding across the room. She licked off the blood on his face until he hit the far wall. She straddled him and bit into his neck, getting a quick taste before grabbing his torso and ramming his head into the diner wall, breaking both his head and the wall.

Evilyn stood up, blood all over her mouth, licking off any remains on her hand.

The knife trucker flipped his knife and threw it at her. Evilyn caught it by the hilt, cocking her head before throwing it back, embedding it in his eye.

“Three,” she told the room.

The waitress stayed where she was at the counter, not knowing what to do. She flinched slightly when the cook emerged from the kitchen, a large cleaver in his hand.

“Now we’re going to have some fun,” Evilyn told him.

The original trucker, with the flattened face, was still screaming and holding his destroyed nose.

The cook stalked up to her warily, the last trucker from the table of three by his side.

“Don’t let her out of your sight,” the cook told him.

Evilyn stared at him incredulously, before gesturing to herself. “I’m kind of hard to miss.”

The cook swung the cleaver at her. Evilyn stepped to the side and then punched the other trucker in the face. The cook swung again, Evilyn grabbed his hand, bent it slightly, getting the cleaver, and then swiped at the other trucker, taking his hand off, before tossing the cleaver to the cook and stepping away.

The cook stared in confusion at Evilyn and the cleaver, back in his hand, and the trucker beside him, who was holding his stump and yelling in dismay at his hand on the ground.

Evilyn stared at the stump, at the blood, mesmerized.

The cook took advantage, pushing the trucker, and the bleeding stump toward Evilyn. She grabbed the trucker, and dove into his neck, sucking the blood out of his body before it left through the stump. The cook swung the cleaver. Evilyn turned the trucker slightly, shielding herself. The cleaver went into the trucker’s back and he screamed. The cook pulled it free and swung again. Evilyn pivoted with the trucker, and the cleaver went into the trucker’s back again. Undaunted, the cook pulled it free one last time and watched Evilyn, still sucking greedily at the blood from the trucker’s neck. He waited, timing his moment, and then swung again. Evilyn moved, oh so slightly, and the cleaver embedded into the trucker’s head, inches away from her face as she finished feeding.

Evilyn let the drained body fall to the ground. “That was exciting.”

The cook glanced at his cleaver, in the dead trucker’s head and just out of reach. Flattened nose trucker was still screaming and holding his destroyed face.

Evilyn shrugged at the cook. “It wouldn’t do you any good.”

The cook tried to punch her. Evilyn ducked aside and punched back, and then she punched again, and again, full in the face, knocking out half his teeth. The cook held his mouth in horror as they fell to the ground, shattered into little pieces. Evilyn stepped in and uppercut him, jamming his lower jaw up and using what few teeth he had remaining to sever his tongue in half, sending it flying out of his mouth.

The cook yelled through his fused mouth, stumbling around in shock and confusion. Evilyn casually walked over to him and twisted his neck, ending his suffering.

Now there was just her, flattened nose trucker, and the waitress, still standing by the counter.

“You’re not a shifter, are you?” Evilyn queried, in a slight tease.

The waitress shook her head back and forth, wide eyed.

“Then you probably should have left a long time ago.”

Flattened nose trucker doubled over, his eyes watering. His shirt ripped up the center, his arms started growing hair and lengthening, his face jutted forward and his teeth extended.

“Took you long enough,” Evilyn said.

The waitress was horrified as she saw a massive man-like wolf towering up to the ceiling. His mouth was more like a jaw, and hair covered his entire body. His arms almost hung down to the floor. But his nose, which Evilyn had destroyed, had now changed into a destroyed snout, flattened at the upper part of his jaw.

He stomped toward her and roared, spittle flying from his face. One hairy claw swung at her, and Evilyn wasn’t quick enough with her dodge. The claw clipped her and sent her flying through the air. The shifter chased behind his swipe, catching her in the air and pinning her to the far wall. It lifted her up high and stared at her with its beady eyes, roaring in her face, threatening to engulf her head with its massive jaws.

Evilyn tried to squirm free, but the shifter was too strong. “Okay, now I’m a little worried,” she told the beast.

Gunfire boomed in the small diner, shot after shot, as the waitress had finally willed herself to use the firearm kept under the counter for protection. Bullets whizzed by Evilyn’s head, and some of them found the back of the massive man wolf. It roared at Evilyn in pain, like it was her fault he was shot.

“You’re not helping!” Evilyn yelled at the waitress, as if it were her intention to help a blood sucking vampire that had just killed almost all of the people in the diner.

The shifter tried to chomp off her head. Evilyn kicked off him, freeing herself and staggering him away. A few more bullets found themselves in his back, and one seared by Evilyn’s cheek, leaving a thin, red line. He charged at her again, and Evilyn flipped over him, letting him charge into the wall.

Evilyn turned to see the waitress holding a shaky gun in her hand. She ducked low as a bullet was fired over her head, hitting the shifter in the face behind her.

“Would you please stop?” Evilyn asked, as she dodged even lower and three more bullets found the shifter.

It screamed in agony and picked Evilyn up, throwing her high into the ceiling and letting her crash back down to the ground.

Evilyn groaned in pain. “You know, if you had led with that you might have stood a better chance,” she told him, rolling to her knees.

He kicked her in the head and Evilyn slumped to the ground, still.

The waitress let out another shot, hitting the shifter in the side of the head. It turned to snarl at her and she dropped the gun, holding her hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry.”

The shifter turned back to Evilyn, but she was gone. Alarmed, he glanced around the diner, trying to figure out where she had gone so fast. He glanced at the waitress, as if she had something to do with Evilyn’s disappearance. She just shook her head, her face filled with worry. The shifter turned back again to find itself nose to destroyed nose with her.

“You know, I might be the vampire here, but you really suck at this,” Evilyn told him, before she buried her fist into his face, punching through the gore and exploding it out the back of his head, spraying the waitress in brains and bits of fur.

She looked down at the body bits all over her and then started screaming hysterically. Evilyn, meanwhile, was having trouble removing her arm from the center of the shifter’s skull. She had to brace his head and pull back, taking out more of the thing’s insides as she finally got her arm free.

“Disgusting,” she told the dead body as it slumped to the ground.

The waitress continued screaming while Evilyn found a napkin and started the impossible task of wiping the remains of the shifter off her arm. The napkin was completely soiled in a few swipes and didn’t really help at all. Evilyn walked over to the screaming waitress, who continued to scream at her while she watched Evilyn approach, taking only the slightest of moments to refill for air. Evilyn reached for her, and the waitress screamed wide eyed and point blank in her face, ready to die.

Evilyn grabbed the apron from around her waist and pulled it free, using it to wipe at her arm.

“Thanks.”

The waitress screamed back hysterically in reply.

Evilyn casually walked out of the destroyed diner.

*

The crash came from somewhere in the house. The little girl, about eight or nine, had been sleeping, and she groggily peered around her darkened room, trying to figure out what she heard. Everything was as it was supposed to be. She brushed her long dark hair out of her face and then rested her head back on the pillow.

The crash came again, followed by someone yelling.

She sat up in her bed, trying to process what she had just heard. There were more crashing noises downstairs, and more yelling.

“Mommy?”

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to think. What was going on? She crawled out of her bed and walked over to the door, opening it a crack and peering down the long hallway. The lights were all out, but her eyes were adjusted to the dark. Nevertheless, there was nothing different about the hallway. She listened at the door a moment longer, trying to hear anything else.

Everything was silent.

Her mind screamed for her to go back into her bed, to pretend that she hadn’t heard anything, to get safely within her covers and wake up to a safer day.

She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. She thought about calling out for her mother or father, but quickly changed her mind. It was best to stay hidden. At least, until she knew what had happened. She crept to the edge of the stairs and peered down. She could see the front door from where she was. It was open to the night, letting in the cold. Her parents would never have done that. Something was wrong.

She placed one foot on the stair, and heard it creak loudly. She winced. She had forgotten about that. Every other step in their house creaked, so if she wanted to be absolutely silent, she would have to avoid each one. She gripped the railing and rested her foot on a quiet step, stretching out her small leg, she found the next quiet step and shifted her weight onto it. As she went, she could see more of the downstairs floor. She could see that two of the dining room chairs had fallen over. What had happened? She wanted to call for her mother and father again, but instinct told her that it was best to stay silent. Something was in her house, something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

When the little girl got to the bottom of the stairs she confirmed that the front door wasn’t really closed. Something was really wrong. She willed herself to let go of the bannister and walk toward the family room. Maybe she should just run outside? Get away? But where would she go? And what if her parents were in trouble?

Rounding the corner, the little girl walked right into the middle of a pack of things huddled on the ground, surrounding and slurping at an unmoving body between them. They hadn’t noticed her. The little girl looked at the body and wanted to scream. It was her dad! His lifeless eyes looked past the dark things toward her. She had never seen him like that, so still, all familiarity gone from his gaze.

A hand clamped on her mouth and dragged her back. She struggled, punched, kicked, tried to bite. But she was dragged away and turned around, sparing her from seeing her dad and the things that were on him. She was moved toward the front door, when the door suddenly opened to admit more of the things into the house. The little girl got a good look at them, even though it was so dark. They were featureless, like shadows, and they seemed able to bend and lengthen their limbs in unnatural ways.

Windows broke throughout the house, one by one, as the shadows entered from every available area. Her captor reversed course, guiding her toward the basement, further into the dark. But one of the shadow things lifted its head and saw them. A high pitched shriek erupted from its mouth. It was taken up by several more of the things, until they were all shrieking, from everywhere at once, the entire world was one long hideous sound.

The little girl was pushed forward, and somewhere from the depths of that shriek she heard her mother yell at her to run. But she was pushed toward the basement, with only a lone window much too small for her to get through. She turned around and saw her mother guarding the way, yelling something at the shadow creatures that were converging around her. She didn’t want them to get her mother, she didn’t want them to do to her what they had done to her father. But what could she do? The things surrounded her mother, long tongues fell from their shapeless faces to drag along the ground. Her mother yelled at them, buying her time, lost in the purest biological need of all: to protect her child.

The shadow things didn’t care. They darted forward, gashing her, slashing, and then darted back, as if this one person could do something to stem the tide of their horror. Her mother hobbled, her leg cut, when another of them dashed forward and cut her arm, and then another her face. Her mother staggered, confused, losing consciousness. The shadow things kept attacking, silently communicating in some kind of pack mentality, not risking a thing in this weak prey before them.

And then one got bold, and leaped onto her mother, taking her down to the ground. The others saw that they were going to miss out on the prize, and the floodgates were open as shadow after shadow surged onto her mother’s body, jostling each other aside, fighting to be able to get more from her body.

She couldn’t move. All the little girl could do was stand there and watch as they devoured her mother in a frenzy of blurring darkness. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. Whatever these monsters were, they didn’t exist. Nothing so evil could really exist. She could see her mother disappearing to the reality of the nightmare. Parts of her were just gone, glimpsed between the moving limbs, the inky darkness, darker than dark, as her mother was taken from her forever.

One of them paused from the feeding and lifted its head, spotting her standing at the top of the basement stairs. It shrieked, and others stopped and spotted her also, joining in the shrieking. The world was once again filled with that one hideous noise.

The little girl turned and ran, running down the basement steps until she lost her footing and fell the rest of the way. She looked behind her, to see them peering at her from the top of the stairs, climbing over each other to get a look. They were aberrations, animals, and they had her scent.

Her father was gone. Her mother was gone. And now they would get her.

The window!

The little girl scrambled to her feet and ran. She heard them shrieking again, the worst sound she had ever heard in her life, before she heard them crashing down the stairs. They fell over each other, bit and shoved each other, a rolling ball of limbs and death flooding into the basement. But she wouldn’t look back again, not anymore. She couldn’t bear the sight. But she couldn’t blot out the shriek, which followed her and enveloped her, no matter how hard she ran.

The window was ahead of her, her only way out. It looked so small, so high. She grabbed the lever and unlocked it, flipping the window up on hinges that hadn’t been used in forever. She was never going to fit, she was never going to escape. They were going to catch her, and eat her, piece by piece. The shriek told her so, the shriek promised pain and unending suffering.

The little girl dove through the window, feeling herself catching fast along her body. Her head was out, and she could feel the wind, smell the fresh night air. She was free, free to run and hide, but she was also caught fast by the too small window. It was the cruelest trick. She struggled and wriggled, feeling her body moving a little at a time. She would be able to get through, she could fit, if only she had enough time to wrench her body through.

And her body did go through, she moved out into the free night air.

A hand clamped on her leg.

She screamed.

More hands clamped on. Slimy, oozy, coated things covered her legs. She clawed at the grass, desperately searching for something to hold onto. She risked a glance back into the window, and thought she could see a multitude of eyes staring back. Jaws opened, the night glinted off their teeth. She redoubled her efforts. Grabbing fistfuls of grass and pulling. But the shadows pulled also, and they were stronger, and there were more of them. Much more.

The little girl was wedged into the window again, pulled away from the night, away from the freedom, away from life. She struggled one last time, her adrenaline having long run out. But the darkness pulled her in. She screamed into the waiting jaws of death.

*

Vadim Strogovanna regarded the pitiful human before him. He was an ancient vampire, an elder, with white hair starting in a widow’s peak and slicked back over his head. His muscles were old, tight, and strong. And his stern face voiced his displeasure at having to talk to one as low as this thing he usually dined on. “Tell us what you saw.”

The human was petrified. He looked around the room with fear, trying to take in the too high ceiling, and the age old furniture that bordered the area he found himself in. The mansion he had been taken to was immense, more like a guarded compound, and he had seen countless vampires eyeing him hungrily as he had been brought to this room.

On the other side of the human, Lizabeta Kuznetsov, the other ancient vampire of the covenant, smiled as she sensed the human’s fear. Unlike Vadim, Lizabeta didn’t seem to be affected by the passage of time. She kept her beauty, her youthful face, and her long, fiery red hair that almost reached her lower back. Lizabeta was known for her sense of cruelty, and her ambitious nature. Both she and Vadim ruled their kindred equally, speaking with one voice to the other covenants when need arose.

The human looked between them, and then down at the floor, unable to meet their gaze.

“Speak while you can, or I’ll rip out your tongue if you have no use for it,” Vadim told him.

“Patience, Vadim. The little thing is frightened,” Lizabeta cooed, clearly enjoying the fear.

The man built up his courage. “I saw shifters meeting with wraiths. They weren’t fighting, they were planning something.”

Vadim and Lizabeta waited for him to continue, but that was all he said.

“You know of our kind? You know of shifters and of wraiths?”

“Vadim, look at his arm.”

The man had an odd symbol tattooed on his right bicep, just visible below his t-shirt. Lizabeta walked forward and grabbed the man’s arm, digging her nails into it, she ripped off the strip of skin and showed the tattoo to Vadim.

“He’s from the church,” Vadim said with a sneer.

The man started screaming, staring at the exposed red muscle where his skin used to be. Lizabeta, not even looking at him, backhanded him with enough force to daze him. “Many of our kind have been lost to them,” Lizabeta agreed with the contempt, tossing the man’s flesh back to him. “But if what he says is true, then we may have bigger things to worry about.”

“You think they are planning something against us?”

“I think we are finally beginning to win the blood war. How could they not?” She asked.

Vadim contemplated what she said. The man on the floor, hovering on the edge of consciousness, was moaning in pain.

“Give me a moment, a long moment, alone with him. I’ll find out what we need to know,” Lizabeta promised Vadim.

He considered for a moment. He knew how much she loved to play with her food. Something he had begun experimenting with in his later years. Finally, he relented, and began leaving the room. “Tell me what you learn.”

Lizabeta smiled, darted over to him and inhaled his scent. She began to work. The man hovered out of consciousness while she meticulously peeled off strips of his skin. When the man finally awoke, he looked up to see Lizabeta straddled on him. Her Victorian dress was completely smeared in blood and she was removing a needle from the side of his neck.

“To help keep you lucid,” she told him.

He looked down to see that he was completely naked, and that his skin was almost completely gone. The pain, even with whatever she had injected him with, was beyond anything he had ever experienced. He didn’t even look human anymore. Lizabeta bent low and licked at his red, glistening tissue.

“Tell me more about this merging of the bloodlines,” she said with rapture, letting the small amount of blood trickle down her throat. “I really don’t know how much longer I can hold myself back.”

She was really enjoying herself.

The man hadn’t remembered telling her anything. He had remembered screaming. Screaming and screaming. He looked down where she gently grinded, to see that she had even taken from him his most personal possession.

He was nothing now, except a red smear, an imitation of a person.

Lizabeta couldn’t help herself. She bent in low and bit into his lower lip, sucking out more of his life. When she straightened up, she took his lip with her, savoring it and draining it dry, before letting it fall from her mouth.

He moved his mouth up and down, feeling with his tongue the gaping wound of his lower face.

“Don’t tease me,” she said, licking up his face and meeting his tongue. “Tell me.” She licked more. “Tell me quickly.”

He started crying, and then he started fighting again. It really wasn’t much of a struggle. He also started begging at one point, but in the end he told her everything he knew. He thought he would be rewarded, he thought she would kill him quickly. But she did exactly the opposite. She called to others, who came in with blood bags. She hooked him up and started transfusing more blood into his system while she sucked his out. She bit him all over. Took the blood from everywhere. Then she would let him recover, let the new blood enter his system while she stared down at him ravenously, before taking it out again. Lizabeta toyed with him for hours and hours. Her dress had become completely soaked with red, her skin smeared with it, until she almost looked as skinless as him. Her appetite knew no bounds, and she kissed his cheek while rubbing her face against it.

“We are coming to the end now, my dearest. Let’s make it a night to remember.”

He vaguely understood what she was saying, but he was also confused. He didn’t really understand. Why was such evil allowed to exist in the world? Why did it have so much power? He doubted he was the only one who experienced such torture at the hands of these things, and he doubted that he would be the last.

“Why?” he croaked up at her, his voice barely a whisper. It was the only thing he was able to say, and she seemed to understand exactly what he meant.

Her face was completely covered in red, making the whites of her eyes stand out. And her lips, those cruel, malicious things, redder than red, were still distinct as she smiled down at him.

“You think me such an evil thing, don’t you?” She let out a little laugh. “But we’ve shared so much together. I believe you deserve an answer, my poor little thing.”

Lizabeta ripped off her dress, completely naked, and hugged him, pressing herself against his body. Reveling in the sweet, sticky feeling. She picked at a small, remaining piece of skin on his neck, as if it were a blemish. Peeling it off.

“It’s the same for us as it is for you. Why do you hurt your own kind? Why do you destroy the world we all live in? Why do you cheat, and take, and hurt, and torture, and kill?” Lizabeta held up the small skin, inspecting it, as if it were the clue to the answer he sought. And then she casually tossed it aside and turned his head toward hers.

He had been fading, remembering some moment from his childhood. A girl he had liked in school. A very pretty girl. He had always wanted to ask her out, but he had never had the nerve. He thought about her now, wondered what had become of her life. Wondered if she was far away and safe from the things that hid in the shadows. He tried to hold onto her image, but Lizabeta’s blood soaked face appeared, threatening to fill his last remaining moments.

She leaned in close, whispering in his ear. “Why do we do the things we do? Because we can.”

In his mind the pretty girl won through, she smiled at him and nodded. Had she already died? Was she waiting for him? He thought the girl held his hand while Lizabeta licked his neck and then bit into it, engulfing his throat with her jaw and ripping it free, swallowing it whole.

*

Lizabeta felt wonderful.

She had a quick shower, regrettably, preferring to lounge about with the blood all over her body. But there was business to be done, and she had to act fast to capitalize on it. What she had learned disturbed her. The wraiths and shifters were trying to merge their bloodlines, trying to create something stronger than the sum of their pathetic parts, something to challenge the rule of the vampires. And after countless failed experiments, where human subject after human subject had died, they had finally succeeded.

With a little girl.

She lived. And she was human no more. She was now some kind of hybrid, stronger than both the wraiths and the shifters. And Lizabeta knew exactly where she was. And Lizabeta knew exactly what she had to do.

First, she met with Vadim, lying to him that the man had known nothing of consequence. And that after an enjoyable night, she had finally released him. Next, she went down into the basement of the complex, to the training areas. She had to meet with Simone, who handled all the covenant’s missions, and assign someone to deal with the matter and get rid of the evidence. Preferably, until Lizabeta could figure out what she was going to do with this information.

The underground area of the large mansion was immense, with different areas for firearms, hand to hand combat, tactics, and strategic planning. At any given time, Simone could have been in any one of the different areas. But Lizabeta didn’t mind searching, she loved to see her kindred engaged in becoming stronger, more lethal, more powerful, for her, and for her kindred.

She passed the firearm area first, and stopped to watch. The humans from the pens were not only used for food, they were brought here as disposable training partners, putting them in a variety of situations that the kindred could face in the city above. The firearm exercise, specifically, thrust humans into a small course with live firearms. It was the kindred’s test to avoid the shots and take down the threat, incapacitating them. You never knew how a human would react when you gave them a loaded gun. Some of them went berserk, trying to fire at anything and anyone that came near them, even their fellow humans. Some of them gave up instantly, shooting themselves in the head and becoming no use to anyone, other than an instant meal before the blood ran out. But feeding from a dead human was usually a disdainful act, and kindred were aware of how their status would lower if they stooped to that depravity. There was the biggest difference in the world between dying and dead, and most kindred knew it.

This particular human, a woman with short brown hair, stood in the middle of the training area, the gun shaking uncontrollably in her hand. A vampire sneered as he approached her, seeing that this wasn’t going to be much of a challenge. Perhaps she would taste better than she fought?

“You have to raise the gun, love. It does no good shootin at the floor,” he told her with a laugh.

She backed away, really not having too far to go. Other vampires called out in encouragement, trying to get the woman to shoot at their friend. Bullets hurt a lot, but they weren’t too much of a threat to vampires. Unless enough bullets were fired to sever a head, usually it just took a few days to heal from the wound and it would be blood sucking business as usual. Still, as the most common weapon used by the humans, it was always a good idea to learn how to fight against it, and avoid becoming paralyzed to other methods of attack.

The woman shook her head. “Please, let me go.”

The vampire smiled at her, spreading his arms wide. “Didn’t they tell you? You’re free to go. As soon as you win this fight. All winners are free to go.”

It was a lie. Of course it was. But humans desperately wanted to believe it.

“You’ll really let me go?” She asked, her hands continuing to tremble.

“Just shoot me right here, and you can go,” he pointed to his head.

A crowd had formed, and others called for her to shoot him. The bloodlust began to build, and teeth began to show as eyes glazed with hunger. The woman looked all around her in fear. She had already been fed upon, she knew what these things were, she knew how hopeless her situation was.

“Shoot me,” urged the vampire, darting in and startling her, before retreating out and laughing.

Lizabeta finally spotted Simone in the crowd. Her long black, braided hair was hard to miss. She was eyeing the training critically, no doubt making notes on how to improve it for the next time. But Lizabeta had got caught up in the exercise, and wanted to see how it would end.

“Shoot me! I haven’t got all day!” Yelled the vampire.

The woman raised the gun and turned her head away. That always got Lizabeta. No matter how this woman must have suffered, no matter how much they fed on her, she was still turning her head away before committing violence. One would think that she would have been eager to dole out violence on the ones that had tortured her. But some of the humans were squeamish to the end. Or perhaps it was something else, perhaps some of them abhorred violence, even against their tormentors. It made them weak, it made them prey, no matter what they thought of themselves and their enlightened values.

The woman pulled the trigger. At least, she tried to. But nothing happened.

The vampire was upon her in a moment, grabbing the gun and tilting it to the side. She cried out at his speed and strength, and could do nothing but stare fearfully at him.

“Safety’s on. You don’t want it on, it’s definitely not safe here,” he flicked the safety off for her and then casually swatted her on the side of the head before darting back.

She staggered from the blow, but managed to get control of herself. Looking at the gun with shaking hands. But something felt wrong. She looked at the vampire in front of her, who couldn’t help laughing at her. She glanced all around her, at the vampires watching, they were all in on something. What had happened? She felt woozy, but her adrenaline was spiking too high for her to fully notice. There was a wetness on her shoulder, coming from her head. She definitely didn’t feel right. The vampire looked at the ground, and then back up at her.

“You can fire now,” he said with exaggerated loudness.

Why was he talking like that? What had happened? The woman glanced at the ground to see an ear lying in the middle of the floor. It took her a moment longer to understand the significance from the wetness on her shoulder and that ear on the ground.

Horrified, she brought up a hand to the side of her head, feeling the flatness, feeling the stickiness where her ear should have been, where it had always been. She recoiled from the sharp pain, and then looked at the vampire in shock.

He just shrugged and laughed. “You weren’t really using it, were you?” He said loudly.

The woman brought the gun up in shaking hands, aiming it all over the place, but trying to center it on the laughing vampire in front of her. They were so cruel, so sadistic, so evil! He laughed at her, urging her to fire. So she fired.

The bullet plunged into the vampire’s right eye, knocking his head back and sending him sprawling to the ground. The crowd got silent. The vampire clutched his head in pain, protecting his useless eye. The woman took a few steps toward him, firing the gun repeatedly at him, shot after shot, until the gun was empty. She stared around her. Faces from the crowd looked back at her angrily, low hissing noises began to build.

The vampire on the ground moaned in pain.

“You said you would let me go,” the woman told the crowd, not addressing anyone specifically. Part of her knew it was a lie, that it could never be true. But she had to hold onto the lie, she had to believe it, it had to be true.

The crowd converged on her, pressing in, stalking from all sides.

“You said you would let me go!” She yelled at them in desperation.

Fangs, claws, the anticipation in the crowd was overwhelming.

“You said you would let me go,” the woman said one last time, a small whisper, a prayer, nothing that would change anything.

She brought the gun up to her head and fired.

It clicked empty.

She had forgotten.

Nothing would save her.

The crowd surged forward with grasping hands. The vampires biting into her body simultaneously from everywhere. She cried out as she felt the first few fangs clamp onto her, but then they were coming from everywhere, it was too hard to tell where the pain was. They bit into her arms, her legs, her stomach, her neck. One clamped itself onto her cheek, another bit into her head. The pain was everywhere. The pain was nowhere. It lasted longer than it should have, as her blood stayed in her body longer as multiple points of suction vied for it. But finally the stronger vampires in the group won out and got more than their fair share. In her mind, the bullet erupted in the side of her head. She was finally free of them.

Lizabeta watched the crowd feed, and then looked over to the wounded vampire, who no one was helping. It was a valuable lesson they all learned. He had played with the prey too much, and the prey could be deadly. She spotted Simone and walked over to her.

“I need a mission,” she told her.

“What kind of mission?” Simone asked, flipping through screens on a pad.

Lizabeta wondered how she should phrase the request. She didn’t want anyone else knowing about the little girl with the merged bloodlines, not until she knew what to do with the information. Perhaps it was better to bury it, for now. “An informant needs extraction from a shifter base. They could have valuable information.”

Simone looked at all the available vampires she could send out.

“I would like Vadim’s daughter to handle it personally,” Lizabeta added.

Simone looked up from the pad. “She’s an Ender. She doesn’t exactly save people.”

Of course she didn’t. Enders were trained to demolish and destroy. Lizabeta had no doubt that if she sent Evilyn Strogovanna into that building, there wouldn’t be a creature left alive, or a building left standing, or a little girl with merged bloodlines for anyone to find.

“Evilyn will be perfect,” Lizabeta assured her with a smile.

*

Carl was finding it harder than usual to walk home after work. He was already a slightly pudgy guy, and he hadn’t exercised on purpose since the last time he could ever remember choosing to put himself through that, which was never. Maybe it was all catching up to him? Truth be told, he wasn’t that old. But maybe life had a way of catching up to you if you weren’t looking? Carl was definitely not looking. He was doing his best to keep up with work at his accounting job, often having to work overtime to finish the work he should have been able to finish during regular time. It didn’t help that he was slow and meticulous. It also didn’t help that others dumped their work on him when they thought they could get away with it. Which was usually most of the time. But Carl didn’t complain, he was not the complaining type. Besides, if he did complain they probably would have given him even more work. It was best to keep your head down, not look for trouble, and just try to get by in this crazy world. Unfortunately for Carl, this crazy world had other plans for him.

The scream came from the alley, at precisely the exact moment that Carl was walking by it. It was a horrifyingly desperate cry, and it made Carl freeze in his tracks and stare down the darkened alley, standing right in the middle of the entrance. He couldn’t see a damn thing. Probably needed a stronger prescription, but then Carl didn’t even wear glasses. He probably should have. He also probably should have just kept walking.

The scream came again, a woman’s voice, and Carl even managed to flinch and crouch down a bit, as if he was about to get hit by the scream. There was definitely someone in trouble. And they were definitely in that alley. And Carl was going to do his best to ignore it and go home as soon as possible.

“Help me!”

Carl had almost cleared the entrance of the alley, and was about to literally put the entire thing behind him. But now he paused. There was no one else to help. If Carl didn’t go down into that alley, no one would.

“Everything okay in there?” Carl asked, still trying to find any reason he could to just keep on walking.

There was no response. Carl took that to mean that everything had resolved itself peacefully and he could go home with a clear conscious.

“Okay then,” he said, about to continue on his merry way.

“Please, anyone, help me!”

Carl stopped again and swore under his breath. He was anyone, he could help. He was also no one, what could he do to help?

But there was no one else.

There was only Carl.

If he didn’t help this woman, then no one would.

Carl squared his shoulders and tried to crack his neck. It didn’t work, even though he did it exactly as he had seen it done on TV. But it also didn’t matter, because Carl felt about as brave as he did before he did it, which was to say, not brave at all.

Carl took a step into the alley. Nothing happened. He didn’t get attacked, didn’t get jumped, the world didn’t end. Maybe he could do this?

Carl took another step into the alley.

“Here I come!” He yelled, hoping that he sounded big, and brave, and much stronger than he felt.

The world continued to go on, and Carl was still unhurt. He actually got a bit braver at that realization, and managed to take several more steps in quick succession.

“I’m coming to help! And I am not happy about it! I’m going to be late for my martial arts class, so watch out whoever is making me late for my extreme martial arts class!”

Carl felt like a hero.

There was nothing that could stop him now.

Glancing around wildly, and trying to look like someone who was mad that they were missing their martial arts class, Carl finally spotted a woman bent over against the wall and crying. There was no one else around. They had probably run off when Carl had announced how terrifying he was.

Carl tentatively approached the woman, before remembering that he was supposed to be big and tough and know how to fight. So he squared his shoulders, trying to widen them beyond his small frame, and approached with much more confidence.

“It’s okay. I’m here now, everything’s going to be okay. My name is Carl.”

He reached out to help the woman up. She turned and grabbed his arm, pulling him toward her and sticking out her leg, tripping him and slamming him face first into the wall behind her.

The woman must have thought he was the attacker, the one that Carl had scared off. She was probably in shock. Much like the shock that he was currently experiencing from having his face slammed into an alley wall.

“I’m here to save you,” Carl said, trying to say it to the spinning world, to the woman that was just out of focus and blurry. His head really hurt.

The woman punched him in the stomach, and then punched him in the face. Carl groaned as he fell over, almost throwing up, winded on his hands and knees.

Wow, that woman could really fight. With skills like hers she probably didn’t even need anyone to save her from the attacker that was still nowhere in sight.

“I’m saving you,” he managed to say again, right before she kicked him full in the face.

Carl fell over onto his back, spread eagle. He couldn’t remember the last time he had ever been hit so hard. He was actually having a hard time remembering much of anything at that moment.

The woman bent over him and started checking if he was okay. She must have realized that he wasn’t the attacker. With a little bit of effort, she managed to turn him over enough to get his wallet. She was probably checking to see who he was so she could get him some help.

“I’m Carl,” he tried to tell her.

He lay there for a moment, to see what she would say or do next. After a moment more he realized that he couldn’t quite tell where she was. He looked around, still spread eagle on the ground, to see that she was nowhere in sight. She must have gotten too scared and run off.

Carl tried to roll his weight over onto his side. Everything hurt. He felt for his wallet to find that it was gone. She must have dropped it somewhere nearby. He tried to focus. The world was still spinning and everything was blurry. He thought he could hear breathing. Really heavy breathing. She must have come back. Carl held his head as he looked up. A massive wolf beast thing towered over him! It looked like it was as tall as the moon! It roared at him, and Carl was pretty sure that he wet his pants. His vision was returning, and he was really wishing it wouldn’t. The big dog, wolf, beast thing roared again, and Carl screamed as he crawled over to the alley wall, trying to get as much distance from the thing as possible.

“Please kill don’t me Carl!” He yelled at it, not able to control the words that were coming out of his mouth, or the order that they came out in.

The thing probably didn’t understand him. It was a monster. A hideous, evil, massive, soul crushing beast of epic proportions. And it was going to kill him. And he was going to die. And then he really wasn’t sure what would happen next. At least that woman had got away. At least he had been able to save her from the fate that he was now going to face alone. Carl was going to die a hero. He could be proud of that. He could live with that.

The thing thundered toward him, its massive arms stretched out wide. It roared in his face. He could feel the warm of its breath, the rotten stench, the suffocating despair. This was the end. Its muzzle was inches away from his face. He could count its teeth if he wanted to, and he really, really didn’t want to.

A lithe form dropped behind it. The beast sensed it and turned its head away, giving Carl a moment of respite before it ripped out his spine. At least, he was pretty sure that’s what it was going to do. For no particular reason.

The wolf monster was yanked backward and flung into the other wall, crashing into it, breaking it. A woman stood before it. His woman! Well, not his woman, but the woman he was saving. She had come back for him. She was going to risk her life for him. And maybe she had also found his wallet.

But this woman looked different. She had black hair, tied tight in a ponytail, and when she looked back behind her, Carl could see that she was very pale. The beast detached itself from the wall and jumped before her, roaring a challenge. She hissed back at it, quite a weird thing for her to do, and brought her hands out to the side. Carl could see that she had very long fingernails, almost like claws.

The beast swiped at her, and she dodged back. It swiped again and she darted under the attack and raked at the thing’s side. It howled as blood flew from its body, and backhanded her before she could get away. The woman flew through the air and landed beside Carl, who just managed to stare back at her wide eyed. She looked over at him, she was very beautiful, alluring was a better word, stunning was an even better word.

“Stay here,” she told him, before getting back up and facing the beast.

Carl was pretty sure he wasn’t going anywhere, and it seemed that what happened to him next greatly depended on who won this battle. So Carl decided he was going to cheer for the beautiful, alluring, stunning woman over the hideous, grotesque, roaring monster.

The woman ran at the beast, ducking another swing and launching herself at its face, claws extended. One of her claws went into the thing’s neck, the other pierced into its eye. It yelled and grabbed her, throwing her off. The woman landed on her feet and sprang again, right into the beast, she tore into its shoulder and pulled.

Carl heard a horrendous, ripping sound before he saw the woman pull the thing’s arm free from its body. The arm flew toward him and landed just beside him, claws still reaching toward him. Carl inched away as the arm reflexively grasped for him.

The beast screamed at the woman, grabbing her and crushing her against it one handed. It opened its mouth, ready to bite. She punched it in the snout, causing it to yelp, and then dove into the side of its neck. Carl couldn’t be sure, but it looked like she was biting it, like she was eating it or something. He must have been delusional. The beast threw her off, and she attacked again, coming in low and tripping it to the ground. She pounced on it and let fly with her claws, shredding fur, bits of skin, lots more bigger bits of skin, another arm, various organs. The beast had stopped moving a while ago, but the woman kept clawing, shredding, and dismembering the thing into an unrecognizable pulp.

Finally satisfied, she rolled off the dead gore.

Carl kept very still. He was one hundred percent certain that this woman was not the same woman that he had saved earlier. He was also pretty certain that he didn’t want this woman to notice him, or save him, or even know that he existed.

Maybe she had forgotten about him?

She got up and looked over at him. Carl gave a little shriek. She had blood, and bits, and fur, and who knew what else all over her. Her face was drenched in it. She looked like a horror show.

Carl didn’t move. Maybe it was some kind of survival mechanism? She casually walked over to him, as if she hadn’t just been involved in the most disgusting battle Carl had ever seen, and crouched down beside him.

“My name is Evilyn, Evilyn Strogovanna. What’s your name?”

“Me?” Carl managed to ask.

“Yes, what’s your name?” She repeated, as she disdainfully picked up the beast’s arm and threw it over her shoulder.

“I’m Carl. Don’t kill me.”

“Carl, listen to me carefully. This is all going to sound a bit strange.”

“Okay.” Carl didn’t really think he had much of a choice. And he really didn’t want her to tear off his arm, or gouge out his eye, or shred him into nothingness. He was still trying to move as little as possible.

“Carl, that was a werewolf. I was tracking it. It was going to kill you.”

“Okay.”

“I’m a vampire, an Ender. I hunt and kill werewolves, and other things.”

“Okay.”

“I need someone to help me. It’s called a ghoul. It’s kind of like a servant.”

“Okay.”

She looked at him pointedly.

“Wait, what?” Carl was beginning to realize that she probably meant him. She thought he was a ghoul, or something.

He watched as she bit into her wrist, drawing blood, letting it run down her arm.

“Drink this.”

“That’s gross. Look, I’m not a ghoul, or whatever you think I am. I’m Carl, and I’m not really helper material. I’m actually kind of useless. My parents said so when I was younger, and my boss kind of tells me that a lot now.”

Evilyn grabbed the back of his head and forced his mouth toward her wrist. He clamped his mouth shut, refusing to drink any of the blood. She punched him in the side of the head, and Carl opened his mouth in pain. The wrist went into his mouth, the blood was swallowed. He gagged a bit more blood before she pulled her wrist away.

“That’s enough,” she told him, as if he had wanted more.

He definitely didn’t want more. Did he?

“Now you will come with me. Your body will change in the next few days. You’ll get stronger, your senses will get sharper. You’ll be much more than the humans.”

“I can’t believe you did that. Am I infected?”

“In a way.”

“Do I need to go to a hospital?”

“Absolutely not.”

He did feel different, a lot different. He felt unstoppable! Maybe this wasn’t so bad? Maybe this was just what he needed, a new life. Carl sprang to his feet, marveling at his newfound strength and speed. “I can’t believe it! I feel amazing! Like I could punch through a brick wall!” Carl punched the wall beside him as hard as he could, not doing a thing to it. He grabbed his hand in pain.

“As I said, the changes will happen over the next few days. Right now you’re just delusional.”

“Is that a part of the transformation?” He gritted through the agonizing pain.

“No. That part is just you.”

Carl was dismayed for a moment, and then he brightened up considerably, running to catch up with Evilyn as she left the alley, still covered in blood, not waiting for him.

“Hey, can I be like you?”

“Like me?”

“Yes.”

“You mean a woman?”

“No. A vampire!”

“Oh, that. No.”

“What do you mean no? Don’t you turn people into vampires?”

“On occasion.”

“So you could turn me into a vampire.”

“I could. But I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are my ghoul.”

Evilyn tried to get some distance from him, walking away faster, partially regretting her decision to turn Carl into a ghoul and be stuck with him.

“But I could help you more as a vampire!”

“Perhaps.”

“I can feel myself getting stronger! Can you turn me into a vampire tomorrow?”

“No.”

“How about next week?”

“I will never turn you into a vampire.”

Carl flexed his arm, stopping when he saw Evilyn staring at him out of the corner of her eye. He was really warming up to becoming a ghoul and moving on to becoming a vampire.

“I think this is the start of a legendary partnership.”

“I have my doubts.”

“So, this is like a stepping stone toward becoming a vampire.”

“It is not.”

“What about in a month? I’ll probably be ready. Can you turn me into a vampire in a month?”

“No.”