The Mary Sue Virus: Before Death
Feb. 18th, 2022 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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marysuevirusTitle: The Mary Sue Virus: Before Death: First Hunt
Fandom: Anita Blake universe
Rating: 18 and up
Warnings: not much. just some language, teenaged girls being mean to one another
Disclaimer: the recognizable characters and places contained herein are the property of LKH. i'm merely borrowing for the sake of entertainment. no money is being made from this venture. the concept and title of The Mary Sue Virus are used with permission from Dazzledfirestar.
Author's Notes: wow. i managed words. this only took me forever...
The Mary Sue Virus: Beyond Death - Index Link
"You haven't accomplished the job I paid you for." The man's voice was low and filled with anger. Even across the expanse of time and space and the telephone line, he thought he could feel some... thing in those words.
"Do you doubt my skills and my ability?" he drawled slowly, curious to see where this particular conversation was going.
"Actually, I do. When I looked into hiring contractors, the people I spoke with told me you were the best at what you do. That you specialized in problems like mine. I hired you on the understanding that you would deal with my unique problems swiftly and quietly." There was more anger in the voice. Less polish. As if the rising of his temper lowered his ability to sound composed. "Not only have you failed to rid me of the girl, but now I've gotten a phone call from the school where she was being educated to say that she disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace!"
"Your point?" he drawled softly, waiting to see if the man took note of the ice that filled those two words.
"My point is you lost the rotten little bitch!" the man snapped. It was the closest he'd come to outright shouting since their very first phone call. Which meant he was rapidly losing his temper. Edward allowed himself a small smile. "Are you even out there looking for her? How did she get away without anyone noticing?"
"She's a teenager. Teenagers are good at disappearing. It happens all the time. We've both seen the missing persons posters," he remarked, making sure the comment sounded very non-chalant.
"She's a minion of the Devil!" There was a note in the man's voice that might have been hysteria, but it was gone so quickly that Edward wasn't sure he'd actually heard it. "You cannot leave the girl to run free. She will entice the unsuspecting with her evil wiles. She must be dealt with. She must be destroyed! I've paid you a very large sum of money for results. Not excuses!"
Tired of the man's attitude, which went far beyond holier-than-thou, Edward let the small amount of humanity that had been in his voice slide away and replaced it with ice. "You paid me a large sum of money to kill a teenaged girl. A teenaged girl, I might add, who just so happens to be your daughter. Both pieces of information you failed to give me when you agreed to the contract. You're lucky that I didn't consider your lack of full disclosure a serious breech of said contract. I am not a very nice person and it doesn't pay to cross me."
"Are you threatening me?" the man asked, voice back to normal.
"I don't make threats. I make promises," Edward said. Then he made sure the man on the other line had a reason to take him seriously. "And I promise you, Reverend Solomon, that you do not want to cross me. It wouldn't be good for you, your wife Ruth Ann, or any of your eight children. Its so easy for children to go missing. And so hard for anyone to find them because resources are scarce."
The man was silent for several long beats of his heart. It was at moments like this that he wished he was capable of reading a person's mind. He could read the look in their eyes, the expressions on their face. But he wasn't able to do those things due to distance between himself and his client. He could take clues from the man's voice, of course.
Those clues, however, were no substitute for thoughts. Or their words. "How dare you threaten my family!"
"Again, Reverend Solomon," Edward reminded him, the iciness of his tone deepening. Spreading. "I do not threaten. I promise. And I promise you will not like what happens if you upset me any further. I'll find the girl. I'll find her and I'll deliver her to you. You have my word and I always keep my word. Just remember that my goodwill toward your family is dependent upon you."
Edward hung up the phone, turned it off, and set it aside. Let the arrogant prick stew on that bit of information for a while.
It had been nearly a month since he'd found her in that cemetery, surrounded by zombies she hadn't meant to call up. Nearly a month in which he'd learned that he really didn't know anything about kids and teenagers. There were times when he regretted his impulsive actions. There'd been a lot of those times in the first two weeks of their... Was it a partnership? Is that the word to be used for what the two of them were to one another. Could one call it a partnership when he'd more or less held the threat of her death over her head? He didn't know anymore. All he knew was the first two weeks had been rough. Just thinking about it made his head hurt.
Because it had been two weeks of looking for the perfect place to leave her. It had to be someplace her father would never think to look, so a religious based school was off the menu. So it had taken time for him to find a good school. One that wasn't anywhere near that religious prison her father had stashed her in, but still close by. Her father would never think to look for her in the same place as he'd left her. Most people wouldn't. When most people ran away, it was to someplace as far away as they could get. So leaving her in nearly the same exact place had been easy enough. Even if she'd complained about it. Endlessly.
It had been two weeks of being holed up in a cheap motel with the girl. A girl who happened to swear like a sailor. She ate like one, too. He thought teenage girls were supposed to be picky about eating in order to keep their girlish figure or some shit like that. Granted, his experience with teenage girls was quite a few years out of date, but the girl constantly threw him for a loop. She was an odd mix of worldliness and naivete that he found bizarre. How could someone be so knowledgeable and yet so innocent at the same time?
He had a lot of worries and concerns about everything he'd done in the past month. He'd never been responsible for someone other than himself. Not for a very long time. It was much harder than he'd thought it to be. Because he'd had so many things to consider. Her safety. And that of those who ended up being around her. Teaching her to use her powers when he knew next to nothing about them. He could see if Anita Blake would like to have a protegé, but some inner voice warned that the woman would not be very welcoming to a young girl who had more issues than "National Geographic".
Those two weeks had dragged. But it had been an opportunity for them to learn about each other. Of course, he'd learned more about the girl than she had about him. There were things he couldn't, wouldn't ever tell her. Not that getting her to open up to him had been easy. He'd had to coax the information out of her. Hell, sometimes he'd had to threaten the information out of her. That had been far too easy to do. The right tone of voice. The right look. There had been more than one occasion the girl had nearly pissed herself out of fear of him.
It didn't bother him that she was scared of him. Fear would help keep her sharp, which would help keep her alive. But it did bother him that she was scared because she saw her father in him. There was the superficial similarity of their looks. Both with blonde hair and blue eyes, though that wasn't all of it. There was also the fact that he was as forceful and authoritative as her father. That scared her more than the physical aspect. Any time he used that particular bit of power, she responded without question or hesitation. She hated it. He could see that she hated it. But she still responded.
His musings were cut short by the ringing of his phone. Not his business phone, as he'd turned it off after his latest farce or a conversation with Carter Solomon. No, this was a newer phone, one he'd purchased just recently. He tapped the button to answer it and brought the phone to his ear. "Ted Forrester," he said into the flat piece of cutting edge technology.
"Mr. Forrester. This is Sharon Baker. The principle here at Stonewick School." It was a woman's voice, rich and almost melodic.
"Good afternoon, Miss Baker. What can I do for you?" he replied steadily, letting his good old boy accent slide into his words.
"I'm calling about your niece, Katie," Miss Baker said. There was nothing to go on in her voice to suggest why she was calling, which put him immediately on edge.
"Has Katie done something wrong?" he asked, making sure his tone was curious and concerned. Not filled with dread. School administrators didn't call unless there was some kind of problem. With Katherine, there could only be a few specific problems. He hoped it wasn't anything to do with her abilities.
"Oh, no. No, Mr. Forrester," Miss Baker hastened to assure him. There was a touch of apology in her voice, along with something that sounded oddly like laughter. "Katie hasn't done anything. That isn't what this call is about."
"I see," Edward responded. The words came brushed with a touch of relief. Which wasn't entirely fake.
"I'm calling because I want to convey to you just what a talented and intelligent young lady your niece is. We're so lucky to have her here at this institution. Despite only having been here for a few weeks, and despite the sad circumstances that brought her to our doors, she's already made a place for herself here at Stonewick. Her instructors have mentioned more than once that she's been a wonderful addition to their classrooms."
"I'm very glad to hear that," Edward replied, letting some more of that relief fill his voice. He'd been concerned about leaving her at the school. Despite having researched it, and several other options, quite thoroughly, he hadn't been convinced that leaving the girl in a private school was the best idea. Between her temper, her unique abilities, and her contempt for authority figures, leaving her at any school had been filled with challenges.
"I was curious, Mr. Forrester. Have you thought of finding Katie a therapist? Its obvious she's dealing with a great deal of trauma." There was no judgement in Miss Baker's voice, just honest curiosity and the desire to help. He knew that stemmed from the story he'd given when he'd enrolled Katherine at Stonewick.
"I wanted to give Katie some time to come to grips with the loss of her parents before suggesting a therapist. Their deaths were so sudden that I wasn't sure if she'd be open to the idea of seeing a therapist," he admitted. In point of fact, he hadn't really given it much thought. He and Katherine had come up with the story they'd told the school administrators when enrolling her. Her parents, his brother and wife, had been killed in a car accident while out of the country. Said parents had left instructions in their will that they wished for their only daughter to be cared for by her father's brother until she was legally of age.
It had been easy enough to get a friend to forge some very convincing documents that made him Katherine's legal guardian. That same friend had forged other documents to give Katherine some anonymity by giving her a new last name and social security number. While it wasn't the best solution if her worthless piece of shit father decided to hire someone else to look for her, it would give another hunter a bit of trouble. And it would give Edward time to move her again.
"I understand the sentiment, Mr. Forrester. But I think you should act sooner rather than later. I've seen what the loss of family can do to young minds time and time again. I can recommend an excellent therapist who deals specifically with children's trauma."
"I appreciate your concern and the offer, Miss Baker. But this is ultimately up to Katie. And I'd like her to get fully settled at school before interrupting her life any more than it already has been," he told the woman. It was the truth, in so much as she needed to know the truth. He suspected Katherine wouldn't welcome the suggestion of therapy, despite the fact that she probably needed it. Everything he knew about her father said the man was a raging piece of shit and Katherine had most definitely suffered at his hands when she'd lived in his home.
"Very well, Mr. Forrester. I know you have Katie's best interests at heart so I will leave this up to the two of you." He could tell that she wanted to say more, but she was polite enough and professional enough to hold her tongue. She sighed, and he swore he could feel her switching mental gears across the line. It looked as if their conversation wasn't over just yet.
"Was there something else, Miss Baker?" he asked in order to move the call along.
"As a matter of fact, there is," she responded, her tone bright. "Have you spoken with Katie recently?"
Well, that question didn't sound ominous at all. "Not in a few days," Edward responded. In fact, he hadn't spoken with Katherine since he'd dropped her off at the school. "Is there some reason I should have."
"The holidays are coming up," Miss Baker said. "Which means the school will be closed for two weeks. And our students will be going home to spend that time with their family. When I mentioned this to Katie, she said something to the effect that she wouldn't be going home. I let her know that she couldn't stay here over the holidays and she needed to contact you to make arrangements. I realize that you travel for work, Mr. Forrester, and that you're still dealing with your own grief, but Katie can't stay here. We feel that our students need to spend as much time with their families as possible and we encourage them to go home during extended holiday breaks."
Edward said nothing for a moment, mentally going over his current business schedule. After several seconds, he felt he'd thought things through well enough and had a plan to make this unexpected wrinkle work in his favor. "As luck would have it, Miss Baker, I will be home for the holidays. I'll be happy to have Katie come home with me."
"Oh, that is excellent news, Mr. Forrester. The last day of classes will be on the nineteenth. School will be out at noon. I look forward to seeing you and I'll make sure Katie knows you'll be here to get her."
"Thank you, Miss Baker. For your call and your concern," he said. And he meant it.
~*~
Katherine stared down at the gun in her hand and frowned. "Do I really need this?" she asked. He could hear the undisguised displeasure in her tone. When she lifted her gaze to him, he could see the silent plea in it.
"Yes. You do. We're hunting a vampire. Hunters haven't used wooden stakes and hammers in a few centuries. Guns are a much faster, much more effective method in this age of new fangled technology," he told her. She shot him a sour look to let him know she didn't appreciate his humor. Granted, it was dry. But he didn't think it, nor his joke, had been that bad. A moment later, her gaze was once more locked to the gun in her hand and her expression had shifted back to one filled with apprehension.
"I don't want it," she replied quietly, arm extending to hand it back to him.
"Katherine." It was just her name. But his use of it was sharp and filled with authority. The fear she lived with made her react the way he'd come to expect. She jerked in surprise, but her arm drew back and her gaze lifted to meet his. "Inspect your weapon. Now."
She went through the routine he'd taught her, her motions contained. Precise. Methodical. A mirror image of his own actions. A faint sense of something he thought might be pride swelled within him.
Edward had determined, in the first few moments after he'd made his decision, that he'd need to further the girl's education. Oh, the school he'd eventually found for her had been perfect for the knowledge teenagers were expected to learn. But he'd decided that she needed a unique education. One that suited the talents she possessed. And so, almost from the beginning, he'd been teaching her the proper use of weapons. Because if there were two things he knew, the girl needed to be able to defend herself. And she needed discipline.
So they'd started with firearms. He'd purchased a Browning for her, something that he knew would fit her hand and be easy to handle. He'd walked her through the steps of loading and unloading, shown her how to check to see if the chamber held a live round or not, and put her through the act of flipping the safety on and off as many times as it took for the actions to become second nature. She was proficient in the handling of the weapon. She was also proficient in firing the weapon.
He'd started training her in firing the weapon in earnest after he'd picked her up from Stonewick just last week. He swore she'd taken to it almost naturally. While she hadn't hit the bullseye in the first few days, she more often than not did hit the target. Which was better than most people could claim. They'd spent many hours at the range, Katherine firing her weapon over and over while he watched. While he corrected her mistakes. While he cheered her successes. While he encouraged her.
"I don't know if I can shoot a living being," she whispered, her hands finishing the task he'd set them to. She didn't look at him, didn't look up from the weapon she held at all.
"Vampires aren't alive," he told her simply. The coldness in his words brought her head up so that she could look at him. "They're called undead for a reason. And the one we're hunting is a special kind of monster."
He picked up a file and held it out to her. Katherine stared at it apprehensively for a moment or two, then made sure her weapon's safety was on before setting the Browning aside. She took the file with a hand that trembled and opened it to stare at the glossy photo that topped the small stack within. Her face paled, which was a feat because she was always pale, and he saw her swallow. No doubt that bloody image she stared at had made her want to puke. "That's what this monster is doing. He's breaking rules set down by the government and the vampires' own ruling body. There's a bounty on his head. And we're going to go put an end to it."
"Why do I need to come with?" she asked, gaze still locked on the top photo. Her free hand hovered near the edge, as if she was trying to convince herself to flip to the next image.
"Because you probably won't have a choice when you get older. Your power will put you in the middle of the undead, whether you like it or not. You need to be able to defend yourself, Katherine." And this was the only way he could think of to make her learn control. He didn't have any experience with kids, and certainly not any with the ability to raise the dead. The handling of a gun, the use of it, required the kind of discipline that he felt would work to help her control her powers.
He watched as she battled with herself, her gaze still lingering on the photo before her. Eventually, she flipped the file shut and set it down on the table before her, next to her Browning. There was no tell-tale curling of her fingers into fists or anything that suggested some kind of inner turmoil. But there was a tension to her shoulders that was hard to spot if you didn't know what to look for. There was a bit of tightness at the corners of her eyes, of her lips, that told her story.
Finally, she lifted her gaze to his. He could see her answer there before she even spoke. "What time do we leave?"
~*~
The house smelled. Of fetid, rotting food. Of dirt and decay. Of spilled blood. Lots of spilled blood. The metallic scent practically clogged his nose. Under all that, it smelled of death. It was an odor he'd smelled many times before. So many times before that it barely fazed him.
He couldn't be so sure about the girl behind him. And he knew she was there. He couldn't hear her, her footsteps soft and silent on the wood flooring. She wasn't breathing loudly, either. He wondered, only very briefly, if she'd learned such tricks trying to sneak out of her father's home or if she'd learned them to avoid her father noticing her at all. Not that it mattered to him one way or the other why she was capable of being quiet. All that mattered was that she could be quiet while they hunted. So far, she'd maintained a silence he hadn't expected of her. He only wondered how long it would last once they got further into the house. Because he knew exactly what they'd find when they did.
And he could feel that she was still there behind him, following at a short distance, trusting him as he led them deeper into the lair of their prey.
There were no lights on in the house. It was abandoned, had been for some time, so there were no utilities at all. No electricity. No gas. No water. Not that a vampire needed such things. Especially one that was less concerned with anonymity and more concerned with feasting on whatever poor soul they could lure into their clutches. He'd gotten the contract on this one from an acquaintance, someone who had an ear to the wall and knew all the latest. Story went that this particular vamp had left a trail of bodies in its wake, shattered corpses drained of blood and life. The authorities hadn't been too concerned with finding the vampire responsible because most of its victims had been homeless. No one to file a missing persons report. No one to care about one less deadbeat in the world.
That indifference had come to an end when a trooper had found a station wagon left abandoned at a rest stop off a major highway. The engine had still been running, as if the car had been waiting for its driver to return. The car had been filled with the trappings of a family on vacation. Suitcases of clothing. Books. Toys. It had also contained things it shouldn't have. A smashed camera. A cell phone with a cracked casing. A shredded and torn square or blue that was deemed part of a blanket. And spatters of blood. Both inside and outside the vehicle. Suddenly, it had been a priority to find and destroy the horror responsible for it.
Edward had been hunting the vampire for a few weeks now. Since before he'd gotten the call about Katherine from Miss Baker. He knew why Katherine had never called him about the break. She'd thought that he wouldn't be able to get away from his work long enough to spend time with her. Hell, she'd probably thought he didn't want to spend time with her. And while the idea of spending two weeks with a teenaged girl who was dealing with a huge case of 'all adults are assholes' wasn't something that was high on his list, he was the one who had committed himself to hiding the girl and protecting her. He hadn't planned on taking her on a hunt with him.
Well, not yet, at any rate.
But he'd gotten information on the vampire's location only a short time ago and it was a perfect opportunity to see what Katherine was truly capable of accomplishing. So they were in a disgusting, decaying house filled with the stench of blood and death. And he had put his trust in the girl being smart enough and calm enough in the face of danger to not shoot him in the back by mistake. He'd be really, really pissed off if his assessment of her character had been so far off the mark.
They moved slowly, following the thin beam of light that shone from the flashlight mounted to his handgun. It showed them the carnage that the vampire had made of the living room as they came through a doorway from a short hallway. The stench of blood and death was overpowering here. He panned the light around the room slowly, looking not only at the scene before them but checking for anything that needed to die. Unfortunately, the only things he found were limbs that had been torn from bodies, the skin ragged at the ends.
Some of the flesh was still fresh, still a healthy color that suggested the person they'd been attached to had been alive not all that long ago. Some of it was grey, rot eating away at it until shriveled muscle and pale bone showed through growing holes. The floor was thick with fluids, not all of them blood. Any furniture that filled the room was caked in dried blood. Fear rode the air, thick as smoke on the wind and oppressive as the heat from a raging fire.
There was a hand at his side, the touch deliberate and light. Edward shifted his position, turned so that he could see her pale face and still keep an eye on their surroundings. And she was pale, with eyes gone so large he could see the whites of them. But her touch was steady and solid. When she knew she had his attention, she raised her empty hand and showed him two fingers. Then she pointed toward the far wall. For a moment, he didn't grasp her meaning. Then a loud growl rent the silence and the wall she'd just gestured at exploded toward them in a barrage of flying drywall dust and slivers of wooden studs.
The beam of light in his hand caught a pair of vampires practically flying across the room toward them. And, for a half a second, he allowed himself a look of surprise. Then he was leveling his weapon on the larger of the two vampires in order to take a shot.
The echo of the gunshot covered the grunt of the vampire as it went down. But not the vampire he'd shot at. No. That one had dodged his weapon at the same exact second he'd pulled the trigger. But the smaller vampire hadn't been so smart and had taken his shot right to the heart. That vampire, a young man with wild hair and wilder eyes went down with a scream. He hit the floor with a soft thud and remained there. Then there was another scream and he was turning with his weapon at the ready.
The bigger vampire, an older woman, had Katherine on the floor and was trying to go for the girl's throat. Katherine struggled against the vampire's strength, one bony hand curled tightly into her red hair while the other held the hand with the gun in it pinned to the floor. Katherine, to her credit, had one arm jammed up under the vampire's chin in order to try and keep sharp fangs from the tender skin of her throat. But he could see that such a tactic wouldn't keep her alive for long. A brief touch of regret washed through him, then was gone as he settled himself to what he needed to do. He raised his weapon in order to sight his target, the spot in the vampire's body where her undead heart rested, and eased into his firing stance. But the vampire, either sensing his actions or seeing them out of the corner of her eye, shifted her body around so that Katherine was before her, a living shield meant to stop him from firing.
If only the undead creature knew...
Katherine stared at him silently. The girl's eyes were wide in a face gone pale with fear. He expected pleading to be in those eyes. But there was nothing of that to be found. Instead, he saw understanding. And determination.
And then the exterior wall shuddered. It trembled and shook before it, too, exploded. More drywall dust and shards of wooden studs flew inward at them. A pair of zombies stumbled through the hole they'd ripped into the building and moved toward the vampire with quick steps. Their fingers grabbed for the vamp, trying to pull her away from their summoner. The vampire fought them, ripping their fingers from her body the same way a gleefully wicked child might rip the wings off a fly. The zombies kept at the vampire, though, uncaring about their dwindling extremities.
He could see that they would do little to stop the vampire. In a minute, she was going to have them reduced to parts and she'd be free to return to Katherine's neck. But in another second, the zombies were no longer necessary because Katherine was bringing her Browning up. She somehow managed, with the vampire still behind her, to shove the barrel of the gun into the vampire's mouth as it hissed out its rage. And then pull the trigger.
The gunshot was loud, echoing back and forth around them for a few seconds.The vampire jerked back, half of her head gone after having a silver round tear through it. Blood and brains oozed and dribbled from the lower part of her skull, just above her jaw. The part that had been ripped away by Katherine's gun. But there was still enough of it attached that she tried to lunge at Katherine once more. Fangs and teeth coated red with blood snapped at the girl's neck. If the sight of a vampire with half its face and head missing grossed Katherine out, she didn't show it. Instead, she brought her elbow up, slamming it with force into what was left of the vampire's face. The thing hissed and growled as blood ran freely from its shattered nose. There was another explosion just as the vampire tried to grab Katherine again. This time, the girl's shot took the vampire through the heart and it saw the corpse falling back to the floor.
Silence held for a moment before Katherine emptied the rest of her magazine into the vampire's chest. Edward was sure, when she finished, that she'd shredded the vampire's heart into an unrecognizable lump that would never again beat inside the vamp's shattered chest. The move had been unnecessary with the silver-coated rounds, but he would forgive her a little overkill on her first hunt.
Katherine rose to her feet on shaky legs and took a couple of steps from the corpse. She turned to the zombies, a look on her face that suggested she hadn't expected her call to be successful. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her lips for a second before being quashed. The surprise faded. "Thank you. For your help. You can go back to sleep now," she told them quietly. The zombies lingered a second or two, eyes wide and focused on Katherine, before turning and exiting the building through the hole they'd made in the wall.
She gave her attention to him then, nothing on her face to suggest she was waiting for praise or condemnation. He suspected she expected him to tear into her for nearly getting bitten. And he considered doing so. Just to remind her that her thoughts and actions affected more than just her. Maybe he'd chew her ass later. But he was more interested in something else at the moment. "You signaled two vamps. How did you know?"
The question was soft, but his tone was anything but. There was a terseness to it that she picked up on right away. He saw the tension return, only barely visible in the way she held herself. She stared, silent and pale in the floating debris and weak moonlight that streamed through the hole her zombies had made. He thought maybe she wasn't going to answer him, but she finally heaved a sigh and shook her head. "I don't know. I guess I just felt them."
Edward considered that a moment. "Explain."
She bristled under the order, but the answer came slowly. As if she was still figuring it all out. "When we entered the house, I felt... them. Like, their power. It touched me. It responded to me. And I could feel that there were two different powers touching me."
He digested that tidbit. "Have you ever done that before?"
"This is the first time I've ever been near a vampire," she admitted. There was a challenge in her voice, as if suggesting she knew he wanted to call her a liar. The girl was many things, but he'd discovered in the short time he'd known her that being a liar wasn't one of those things. If she said she'd never been near a vampire before, he believed her.
"Is there anything else in this place?"
She blinked at that question, but her eyes unfocused as she tried to discover if there were anymore undead using the place as a residence. Several seconds later, her eyes were back to normal and she shook her head. "I don't feel anything undead," she told him.
"Then let's burn this place and get out of here. We need to get back to the motel so I can check you over for bites," he told her, holstering his gun in order to tug free the flask secreted in one of his pockets. He made note that she put her gun up after he did, sending a faint touch of pride through him. He was pleased that she'd waited until he'd given the all clear to holster her weapon. He put that feeling aside and concentrated on pouring the contents of the flask on the two corpses.
"Gasoline?" she asked, nose twitching with the pungent smell rising up from the bodies.
"To ensure that they burn completely. Not that they wouldn't without it. But I don't believe in taking chances." He tucked the flask, now emptied, back into his pocket and withdrew a box of matches. Tugging two of the matches from the box, he struck one on the side and set it aflame. The tip of the second match caught quickly when he touched it to the first. Each burning match was tossed toward one of the corpses, where they met up with the gas he'd just poured and set it blazing in the blink of an eye. Katherine watched him with a clinical eye. When he headed for the door, she was right behind him.
The fire was spreading as they climbed into his car, hungry flames eating away at the trash that covered the floor and at the aged, dry wood of the floor and walls. Before they'd even reversed down the driveway, they could see that the flames were starting to lick at the exterior of the building. Edward pulled the car to a stop at the end of the driveway and made a quick call to 911. Reporting the blaze before it could spread to the trees would keep it contained.
Then he put it in gear and pulled out onto the road and didn't bother to look back.
~*~
"You're mad at me," Katherine said softly while he tended to several deep scratches in her arm.
Edward glanced up at her, letting her see a touch of ice in his eyes, before returning them to his task. She fell silent and glanced away. He felt her tense when he applied the disinfectant to her scratches, but she remained still and stoic. He wasn't sure if he should be impressed or saddened by her show of spine. She was just a girl. She shouldn't have felt the need to act like a wild rabbit out in the open, frozen in fear because a predator had spotted her.
Truth be told, he wasn't mad at her. Well. Not much, at any rate. He was more angered with himself for not considering that there might be more than one vampire in that broken down house. And he should have. He'd been on plenty of hunts in his life and he knew how vampires worked. He should have been prepared for a second or even third vampire. For fifty or one hundred. His momentary lapse had nearly gotten the girl killed.
It had been her warning that had reminded him just how goddamn tricky the bastards could be. He didn't want to think about why he'd let that tidbit slip his mind. It couldn't, wouldn't, happen a second time. After all, the vampires called him Death for a reason.
He disinfected the scratches four times before moving on to the topical antibiotics. Through it all, the girl sat perfectly still for him. She didn't complain. Nor did she argue or offer up apologies that meant nothing. She didn't look at him, either, her gaze trained on the window across the room. Chances were good she wasn't seeing anything outside the clear pane. He had no doubt she was replaying the short struggle she'd been part of back in that house.
The bandages he used to cover the scratches were waterproof, because she still needed to shower and wash the blood off. There was a lot of it, but only a little of it had actually been hers. Most of it had been the vampire's. That had been his reasons for not letting her shower immediately upon returning to the motel. He'd wanted to clean her wounds to ensure that none of the vampire's blood had gotten into them. It didn't matter that the vamp in question was dead. He'd wanted to make certain nothing untoward came from the encounter.
"You could have been killed, Katherine," he told her, his voice gruff and brusque. She cringed and, at first, he thought she was doing so because of his tone. But she turned to him and flashed an annoyed look.
"I hate that name. If you insist on calling me anything, call me Katie," she admonished with a touch of heat. He hid the smile that brought to life and busied his hands with packing up the first aid supplies.
"You should have shot the vampire the moment she came through the wall," he said, not looking at her. "You were the one who warned me there were two vampires on the other side of the wall. You should have had your weapon up and ready to fire before letting me know."
"You were in front of me," she responded.
He shot her a look at that, one that suggested she listen to him. "When its a matter of your life, it doesn't matter if I'm in front of you or not. Always take the shot. Don't ever hesitate. Hesitation could mean death."
She didn't answer for a moment, then rose from her seat so that she could glare down at him from a not very imposing height. "I told you earlier. I don't know if I can shoot a living being. And I don't want to, either. That includes your annoying, overbearing ass."
Her words almost brought a smile to his face. Almost. But he fought the urge to set it free back and leveled a look on her. "Someday, you aren't going to have a choice in the matter. You need to be ready to do whatever it takes to keep yourself alive. Even if that means shooting my annoying, overbearing ass."
"You're making fun of me," she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. Her freshly doctored scratches must have pulled and ached, but she didn't let him see it. "You can go fuck yourself."
He considered calling her on that, but ended up letting it slide. Because, when all was said and done, he was proud of how she'd dealt with her situation. "Good job calling up the zombies. I wasn't sure they were going to afford you any help, but you proved me wrong. What made you think it was a good idea?"
"I didn't think. I just did." She moved to the dresser where her suitcase had been set. He watched as she pulled a fresh change of clothes from inside of it, using the time it took to consider what she would say to him. If she planned on saying anything more. "Her hold on me was too tight for me to pull my wrist from her grip. I needed a distraction. And I could feel the dead outside the house just... waiting. They hadn't been there long, but they felt forgotten. I used them as a method to take her focus off me."
He said nothing, but nodded his head. "It was a good bet. All in all, you did decently on your first hunt. Go shower. Rest. We're going back to the range tomorrow."
She rolled her eyes at that, already on her way to the bathroom. He could well imagine that she was grumbling in her head. She'd get used to it. She needed to work on her discipline and control. She'd gotten lucky with the zombie stunt. But such tricks weren't always going to work for her. She needed to learn to shoot first and forget the questions after. She needed to learn that everyone was expendable when it came to protecting herself.
The bathroom door shut with a soft click and he heard the lock turn. He pretended he didn't understand the implications of such an act and listened intently for the water to come on. When it was going full blast and he was certain she'd climbed under the hot spray, Edward pulled a cell from his pocket and powered it on. There were four missed calls, all from the same number. The most recent had been only an hour ago.
Some idiots never knew when to give up.
He called the number back and waited for it to be answered. "Hello?"
Time to milk the idiot for everything he could.
"Reverend Solomon. I have information on your daughter."
Fandom: Anita Blake universe
Rating: 18 and up
Warnings: not much. just some language, teenaged girls being mean to one another
Disclaimer: the recognizable characters and places contained herein are the property of LKH. i'm merely borrowing for the sake of entertainment. no money is being made from this venture. the concept and title of The Mary Sue Virus are used with permission from Dazzledfirestar.
Author's Notes: wow. i managed words. this only took me forever...
The Mary Sue Virus: Beyond Death - Index Link
"You haven't accomplished the job I paid you for." The man's voice was low and filled with anger. Even across the expanse of time and space and the telephone line, he thought he could feel some... thing in those words.
"Do you doubt my skills and my ability?" he drawled slowly, curious to see where this particular conversation was going.
"Actually, I do. When I looked into hiring contractors, the people I spoke with told me you were the best at what you do. That you specialized in problems like mine. I hired you on the understanding that you would deal with my unique problems swiftly and quietly." There was more anger in the voice. Less polish. As if the rising of his temper lowered his ability to sound composed. "Not only have you failed to rid me of the girl, but now I've gotten a phone call from the school where she was being educated to say that she disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace!"
"Your point?" he drawled softly, waiting to see if the man took note of the ice that filled those two words.
"My point is you lost the rotten little bitch!" the man snapped. It was the closest he'd come to outright shouting since their very first phone call. Which meant he was rapidly losing his temper. Edward allowed himself a small smile. "Are you even out there looking for her? How did she get away without anyone noticing?"
"She's a teenager. Teenagers are good at disappearing. It happens all the time. We've both seen the missing persons posters," he remarked, making sure the comment sounded very non-chalant.
"She's a minion of the Devil!" There was a note in the man's voice that might have been hysteria, but it was gone so quickly that Edward wasn't sure he'd actually heard it. "You cannot leave the girl to run free. She will entice the unsuspecting with her evil wiles. She must be dealt with. She must be destroyed! I've paid you a very large sum of money for results. Not excuses!"
Tired of the man's attitude, which went far beyond holier-than-thou, Edward let the small amount of humanity that had been in his voice slide away and replaced it with ice. "You paid me a large sum of money to kill a teenaged girl. A teenaged girl, I might add, who just so happens to be your daughter. Both pieces of information you failed to give me when you agreed to the contract. You're lucky that I didn't consider your lack of full disclosure a serious breech of said contract. I am not a very nice person and it doesn't pay to cross me."
"Are you threatening me?" the man asked, voice back to normal.
"I don't make threats. I make promises," Edward said. Then he made sure the man on the other line had a reason to take him seriously. "And I promise you, Reverend Solomon, that you do not want to cross me. It wouldn't be good for you, your wife Ruth Ann, or any of your eight children. Its so easy for children to go missing. And so hard for anyone to find them because resources are scarce."
The man was silent for several long beats of his heart. It was at moments like this that he wished he was capable of reading a person's mind. He could read the look in their eyes, the expressions on their face. But he wasn't able to do those things due to distance between himself and his client. He could take clues from the man's voice, of course.
Those clues, however, were no substitute for thoughts. Or their words. "How dare you threaten my family!"
"Again, Reverend Solomon," Edward reminded him, the iciness of his tone deepening. Spreading. "I do not threaten. I promise. And I promise you will not like what happens if you upset me any further. I'll find the girl. I'll find her and I'll deliver her to you. You have my word and I always keep my word. Just remember that my goodwill toward your family is dependent upon you."
Edward hung up the phone, turned it off, and set it aside. Let the arrogant prick stew on that bit of information for a while.
It had been nearly a month since he'd found her in that cemetery, surrounded by zombies she hadn't meant to call up. Nearly a month in which he'd learned that he really didn't know anything about kids and teenagers. There were times when he regretted his impulsive actions. There'd been a lot of those times in the first two weeks of their... Was it a partnership? Is that the word to be used for what the two of them were to one another. Could one call it a partnership when he'd more or less held the threat of her death over her head? He didn't know anymore. All he knew was the first two weeks had been rough. Just thinking about it made his head hurt.
Because it had been two weeks of looking for the perfect place to leave her. It had to be someplace her father would never think to look, so a religious based school was off the menu. So it had taken time for him to find a good school. One that wasn't anywhere near that religious prison her father had stashed her in, but still close by. Her father would never think to look for her in the same place as he'd left her. Most people wouldn't. When most people ran away, it was to someplace as far away as they could get. So leaving her in nearly the same exact place had been easy enough. Even if she'd complained about it. Endlessly.
It had been two weeks of being holed up in a cheap motel with the girl. A girl who happened to swear like a sailor. She ate like one, too. He thought teenage girls were supposed to be picky about eating in order to keep their girlish figure or some shit like that. Granted, his experience with teenage girls was quite a few years out of date, but the girl constantly threw him for a loop. She was an odd mix of worldliness and naivete that he found bizarre. How could someone be so knowledgeable and yet so innocent at the same time?
He had a lot of worries and concerns about everything he'd done in the past month. He'd never been responsible for someone other than himself. Not for a very long time. It was much harder than he'd thought it to be. Because he'd had so many things to consider. Her safety. And that of those who ended up being around her. Teaching her to use her powers when he knew next to nothing about them. He could see if Anita Blake would like to have a protegé, but some inner voice warned that the woman would not be very welcoming to a young girl who had more issues than "National Geographic".
Those two weeks had dragged. But it had been an opportunity for them to learn about each other. Of course, he'd learned more about the girl than she had about him. There were things he couldn't, wouldn't ever tell her. Not that getting her to open up to him had been easy. He'd had to coax the information out of her. Hell, sometimes he'd had to threaten the information out of her. That had been far too easy to do. The right tone of voice. The right look. There had been more than one occasion the girl had nearly pissed herself out of fear of him.
It didn't bother him that she was scared of him. Fear would help keep her sharp, which would help keep her alive. But it did bother him that she was scared because she saw her father in him. There was the superficial similarity of their looks. Both with blonde hair and blue eyes, though that wasn't all of it. There was also the fact that he was as forceful and authoritative as her father. That scared her more than the physical aspect. Any time he used that particular bit of power, she responded without question or hesitation. She hated it. He could see that she hated it. But she still responded.
His musings were cut short by the ringing of his phone. Not his business phone, as he'd turned it off after his latest farce or a conversation with Carter Solomon. No, this was a newer phone, one he'd purchased just recently. He tapped the button to answer it and brought the phone to his ear. "Ted Forrester," he said into the flat piece of cutting edge technology.
"Mr. Forrester. This is Sharon Baker. The principle here at Stonewick School." It was a woman's voice, rich and almost melodic.
"Good afternoon, Miss Baker. What can I do for you?" he replied steadily, letting his good old boy accent slide into his words.
"I'm calling about your niece, Katie," Miss Baker said. There was nothing to go on in her voice to suggest why she was calling, which put him immediately on edge.
"Has Katie done something wrong?" he asked, making sure his tone was curious and concerned. Not filled with dread. School administrators didn't call unless there was some kind of problem. With Katherine, there could only be a few specific problems. He hoped it wasn't anything to do with her abilities.
"Oh, no. No, Mr. Forrester," Miss Baker hastened to assure him. There was a touch of apology in her voice, along with something that sounded oddly like laughter. "Katie hasn't done anything. That isn't what this call is about."
"I see," Edward responded. The words came brushed with a touch of relief. Which wasn't entirely fake.
"I'm calling because I want to convey to you just what a talented and intelligent young lady your niece is. We're so lucky to have her here at this institution. Despite only having been here for a few weeks, and despite the sad circumstances that brought her to our doors, she's already made a place for herself here at Stonewick. Her instructors have mentioned more than once that she's been a wonderful addition to their classrooms."
"I'm very glad to hear that," Edward replied, letting some more of that relief fill his voice. He'd been concerned about leaving her at the school. Despite having researched it, and several other options, quite thoroughly, he hadn't been convinced that leaving the girl in a private school was the best idea. Between her temper, her unique abilities, and her contempt for authority figures, leaving her at any school had been filled with challenges.
"I was curious, Mr. Forrester. Have you thought of finding Katie a therapist? Its obvious she's dealing with a great deal of trauma." There was no judgement in Miss Baker's voice, just honest curiosity and the desire to help. He knew that stemmed from the story he'd given when he'd enrolled Katherine at Stonewick.
"I wanted to give Katie some time to come to grips with the loss of her parents before suggesting a therapist. Their deaths were so sudden that I wasn't sure if she'd be open to the idea of seeing a therapist," he admitted. In point of fact, he hadn't really given it much thought. He and Katherine had come up with the story they'd told the school administrators when enrolling her. Her parents, his brother and wife, had been killed in a car accident while out of the country. Said parents had left instructions in their will that they wished for their only daughter to be cared for by her father's brother until she was legally of age.
It had been easy enough to get a friend to forge some very convincing documents that made him Katherine's legal guardian. That same friend had forged other documents to give Katherine some anonymity by giving her a new last name and social security number. While it wasn't the best solution if her worthless piece of shit father decided to hire someone else to look for her, it would give another hunter a bit of trouble. And it would give Edward time to move her again.
"I understand the sentiment, Mr. Forrester. But I think you should act sooner rather than later. I've seen what the loss of family can do to young minds time and time again. I can recommend an excellent therapist who deals specifically with children's trauma."
"I appreciate your concern and the offer, Miss Baker. But this is ultimately up to Katie. And I'd like her to get fully settled at school before interrupting her life any more than it already has been," he told the woman. It was the truth, in so much as she needed to know the truth. He suspected Katherine wouldn't welcome the suggestion of therapy, despite the fact that she probably needed it. Everything he knew about her father said the man was a raging piece of shit and Katherine had most definitely suffered at his hands when she'd lived in his home.
"Very well, Mr. Forrester. I know you have Katie's best interests at heart so I will leave this up to the two of you." He could tell that she wanted to say more, but she was polite enough and professional enough to hold her tongue. She sighed, and he swore he could feel her switching mental gears across the line. It looked as if their conversation wasn't over just yet.
"Was there something else, Miss Baker?" he asked in order to move the call along.
"As a matter of fact, there is," she responded, her tone bright. "Have you spoken with Katie recently?"
Well, that question didn't sound ominous at all. "Not in a few days," Edward responded. In fact, he hadn't spoken with Katherine since he'd dropped her off at the school. "Is there some reason I should have."
"The holidays are coming up," Miss Baker said. "Which means the school will be closed for two weeks. And our students will be going home to spend that time with their family. When I mentioned this to Katie, she said something to the effect that she wouldn't be going home. I let her know that she couldn't stay here over the holidays and she needed to contact you to make arrangements. I realize that you travel for work, Mr. Forrester, and that you're still dealing with your own grief, but Katie can't stay here. We feel that our students need to spend as much time with their families as possible and we encourage them to go home during extended holiday breaks."
Edward said nothing for a moment, mentally going over his current business schedule. After several seconds, he felt he'd thought things through well enough and had a plan to make this unexpected wrinkle work in his favor. "As luck would have it, Miss Baker, I will be home for the holidays. I'll be happy to have Katie come home with me."
"Oh, that is excellent news, Mr. Forrester. The last day of classes will be on the nineteenth. School will be out at noon. I look forward to seeing you and I'll make sure Katie knows you'll be here to get her."
"Thank you, Miss Baker. For your call and your concern," he said. And he meant it.
~*~
Katherine stared down at the gun in her hand and frowned. "Do I really need this?" she asked. He could hear the undisguised displeasure in her tone. When she lifted her gaze to him, he could see the silent plea in it.
"Yes. You do. We're hunting a vampire. Hunters haven't used wooden stakes and hammers in a few centuries. Guns are a much faster, much more effective method in this age of new fangled technology," he told her. She shot him a sour look to let him know she didn't appreciate his humor. Granted, it was dry. But he didn't think it, nor his joke, had been that bad. A moment later, her gaze was once more locked to the gun in her hand and her expression had shifted back to one filled with apprehension.
"I don't want it," she replied quietly, arm extending to hand it back to him.
"Katherine." It was just her name. But his use of it was sharp and filled with authority. The fear she lived with made her react the way he'd come to expect. She jerked in surprise, but her arm drew back and her gaze lifted to meet his. "Inspect your weapon. Now."
She went through the routine he'd taught her, her motions contained. Precise. Methodical. A mirror image of his own actions. A faint sense of something he thought might be pride swelled within him.
Edward had determined, in the first few moments after he'd made his decision, that he'd need to further the girl's education. Oh, the school he'd eventually found for her had been perfect for the knowledge teenagers were expected to learn. But he'd decided that she needed a unique education. One that suited the talents she possessed. And so, almost from the beginning, he'd been teaching her the proper use of weapons. Because if there were two things he knew, the girl needed to be able to defend herself. And she needed discipline.
So they'd started with firearms. He'd purchased a Browning for her, something that he knew would fit her hand and be easy to handle. He'd walked her through the steps of loading and unloading, shown her how to check to see if the chamber held a live round or not, and put her through the act of flipping the safety on and off as many times as it took for the actions to become second nature. She was proficient in the handling of the weapon. She was also proficient in firing the weapon.
He'd started training her in firing the weapon in earnest after he'd picked her up from Stonewick just last week. He swore she'd taken to it almost naturally. While she hadn't hit the bullseye in the first few days, she more often than not did hit the target. Which was better than most people could claim. They'd spent many hours at the range, Katherine firing her weapon over and over while he watched. While he corrected her mistakes. While he cheered her successes. While he encouraged her.
"I don't know if I can shoot a living being," she whispered, her hands finishing the task he'd set them to. She didn't look at him, didn't look up from the weapon she held at all.
"Vampires aren't alive," he told her simply. The coldness in his words brought her head up so that she could look at him. "They're called undead for a reason. And the one we're hunting is a special kind of monster."
He picked up a file and held it out to her. Katherine stared at it apprehensively for a moment or two, then made sure her weapon's safety was on before setting the Browning aside. She took the file with a hand that trembled and opened it to stare at the glossy photo that topped the small stack within. Her face paled, which was a feat because she was always pale, and he saw her swallow. No doubt that bloody image she stared at had made her want to puke. "That's what this monster is doing. He's breaking rules set down by the government and the vampires' own ruling body. There's a bounty on his head. And we're going to go put an end to it."
"Why do I need to come with?" she asked, gaze still locked on the top photo. Her free hand hovered near the edge, as if she was trying to convince herself to flip to the next image.
"Because you probably won't have a choice when you get older. Your power will put you in the middle of the undead, whether you like it or not. You need to be able to defend yourself, Katherine." And this was the only way he could think of to make her learn control. He didn't have any experience with kids, and certainly not any with the ability to raise the dead. The handling of a gun, the use of it, required the kind of discipline that he felt would work to help her control her powers.
He watched as she battled with herself, her gaze still lingering on the photo before her. Eventually, she flipped the file shut and set it down on the table before her, next to her Browning. There was no tell-tale curling of her fingers into fists or anything that suggested some kind of inner turmoil. But there was a tension to her shoulders that was hard to spot if you didn't know what to look for. There was a bit of tightness at the corners of her eyes, of her lips, that told her story.
Finally, she lifted her gaze to his. He could see her answer there before she even spoke. "What time do we leave?"
~*~
The house smelled. Of fetid, rotting food. Of dirt and decay. Of spilled blood. Lots of spilled blood. The metallic scent practically clogged his nose. Under all that, it smelled of death. It was an odor he'd smelled many times before. So many times before that it barely fazed him.
He couldn't be so sure about the girl behind him. And he knew she was there. He couldn't hear her, her footsteps soft and silent on the wood flooring. She wasn't breathing loudly, either. He wondered, only very briefly, if she'd learned such tricks trying to sneak out of her father's home or if she'd learned them to avoid her father noticing her at all. Not that it mattered to him one way or the other why she was capable of being quiet. All that mattered was that she could be quiet while they hunted. So far, she'd maintained a silence he hadn't expected of her. He only wondered how long it would last once they got further into the house. Because he knew exactly what they'd find when they did.
And he could feel that she was still there behind him, following at a short distance, trusting him as he led them deeper into the lair of their prey.
There were no lights on in the house. It was abandoned, had been for some time, so there were no utilities at all. No electricity. No gas. No water. Not that a vampire needed such things. Especially one that was less concerned with anonymity and more concerned with feasting on whatever poor soul they could lure into their clutches. He'd gotten the contract on this one from an acquaintance, someone who had an ear to the wall and knew all the latest. Story went that this particular vamp had left a trail of bodies in its wake, shattered corpses drained of blood and life. The authorities hadn't been too concerned with finding the vampire responsible because most of its victims had been homeless. No one to file a missing persons report. No one to care about one less deadbeat in the world.
That indifference had come to an end when a trooper had found a station wagon left abandoned at a rest stop off a major highway. The engine had still been running, as if the car had been waiting for its driver to return. The car had been filled with the trappings of a family on vacation. Suitcases of clothing. Books. Toys. It had also contained things it shouldn't have. A smashed camera. A cell phone with a cracked casing. A shredded and torn square or blue that was deemed part of a blanket. And spatters of blood. Both inside and outside the vehicle. Suddenly, it had been a priority to find and destroy the horror responsible for it.
Edward had been hunting the vampire for a few weeks now. Since before he'd gotten the call about Katherine from Miss Baker. He knew why Katherine had never called him about the break. She'd thought that he wouldn't be able to get away from his work long enough to spend time with her. Hell, she'd probably thought he didn't want to spend time with her. And while the idea of spending two weeks with a teenaged girl who was dealing with a huge case of 'all adults are assholes' wasn't something that was high on his list, he was the one who had committed himself to hiding the girl and protecting her. He hadn't planned on taking her on a hunt with him.
Well, not yet, at any rate.
But he'd gotten information on the vampire's location only a short time ago and it was a perfect opportunity to see what Katherine was truly capable of accomplishing. So they were in a disgusting, decaying house filled with the stench of blood and death. And he had put his trust in the girl being smart enough and calm enough in the face of danger to not shoot him in the back by mistake. He'd be really, really pissed off if his assessment of her character had been so far off the mark.
They moved slowly, following the thin beam of light that shone from the flashlight mounted to his handgun. It showed them the carnage that the vampire had made of the living room as they came through a doorway from a short hallway. The stench of blood and death was overpowering here. He panned the light around the room slowly, looking not only at the scene before them but checking for anything that needed to die. Unfortunately, the only things he found were limbs that had been torn from bodies, the skin ragged at the ends.
Some of the flesh was still fresh, still a healthy color that suggested the person they'd been attached to had been alive not all that long ago. Some of it was grey, rot eating away at it until shriveled muscle and pale bone showed through growing holes. The floor was thick with fluids, not all of them blood. Any furniture that filled the room was caked in dried blood. Fear rode the air, thick as smoke on the wind and oppressive as the heat from a raging fire.
There was a hand at his side, the touch deliberate and light. Edward shifted his position, turned so that he could see her pale face and still keep an eye on their surroundings. And she was pale, with eyes gone so large he could see the whites of them. But her touch was steady and solid. When she knew she had his attention, she raised her empty hand and showed him two fingers. Then she pointed toward the far wall. For a moment, he didn't grasp her meaning. Then a loud growl rent the silence and the wall she'd just gestured at exploded toward them in a barrage of flying drywall dust and slivers of wooden studs.
The beam of light in his hand caught a pair of vampires practically flying across the room toward them. And, for a half a second, he allowed himself a look of surprise. Then he was leveling his weapon on the larger of the two vampires in order to take a shot.
The echo of the gunshot covered the grunt of the vampire as it went down. But not the vampire he'd shot at. No. That one had dodged his weapon at the same exact second he'd pulled the trigger. But the smaller vampire hadn't been so smart and had taken his shot right to the heart. That vampire, a young man with wild hair and wilder eyes went down with a scream. He hit the floor with a soft thud and remained there. Then there was another scream and he was turning with his weapon at the ready.
The bigger vampire, an older woman, had Katherine on the floor and was trying to go for the girl's throat. Katherine struggled against the vampire's strength, one bony hand curled tightly into her red hair while the other held the hand with the gun in it pinned to the floor. Katherine, to her credit, had one arm jammed up under the vampire's chin in order to try and keep sharp fangs from the tender skin of her throat. But he could see that such a tactic wouldn't keep her alive for long. A brief touch of regret washed through him, then was gone as he settled himself to what he needed to do. He raised his weapon in order to sight his target, the spot in the vampire's body where her undead heart rested, and eased into his firing stance. But the vampire, either sensing his actions or seeing them out of the corner of her eye, shifted her body around so that Katherine was before her, a living shield meant to stop him from firing.
If only the undead creature knew...
Katherine stared at him silently. The girl's eyes were wide in a face gone pale with fear. He expected pleading to be in those eyes. But there was nothing of that to be found. Instead, he saw understanding. And determination.
And then the exterior wall shuddered. It trembled and shook before it, too, exploded. More drywall dust and shards of wooden studs flew inward at them. A pair of zombies stumbled through the hole they'd ripped into the building and moved toward the vampire with quick steps. Their fingers grabbed for the vamp, trying to pull her away from their summoner. The vampire fought them, ripping their fingers from her body the same way a gleefully wicked child might rip the wings off a fly. The zombies kept at the vampire, though, uncaring about their dwindling extremities.
He could see that they would do little to stop the vampire. In a minute, she was going to have them reduced to parts and she'd be free to return to Katherine's neck. But in another second, the zombies were no longer necessary because Katherine was bringing her Browning up. She somehow managed, with the vampire still behind her, to shove the barrel of the gun into the vampire's mouth as it hissed out its rage. And then pull the trigger.
The gunshot was loud, echoing back and forth around them for a few seconds.The vampire jerked back, half of her head gone after having a silver round tear through it. Blood and brains oozed and dribbled from the lower part of her skull, just above her jaw. The part that had been ripped away by Katherine's gun. But there was still enough of it attached that she tried to lunge at Katherine once more. Fangs and teeth coated red with blood snapped at the girl's neck. If the sight of a vampire with half its face and head missing grossed Katherine out, she didn't show it. Instead, she brought her elbow up, slamming it with force into what was left of the vampire's face. The thing hissed and growled as blood ran freely from its shattered nose. There was another explosion just as the vampire tried to grab Katherine again. This time, the girl's shot took the vampire through the heart and it saw the corpse falling back to the floor.
Silence held for a moment before Katherine emptied the rest of her magazine into the vampire's chest. Edward was sure, when she finished, that she'd shredded the vampire's heart into an unrecognizable lump that would never again beat inside the vamp's shattered chest. The move had been unnecessary with the silver-coated rounds, but he would forgive her a little overkill on her first hunt.
Katherine rose to her feet on shaky legs and took a couple of steps from the corpse. She turned to the zombies, a look on her face that suggested she hadn't expected her call to be successful. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her lips for a second before being quashed. The surprise faded. "Thank you. For your help. You can go back to sleep now," she told them quietly. The zombies lingered a second or two, eyes wide and focused on Katherine, before turning and exiting the building through the hole they'd made in the wall.
She gave her attention to him then, nothing on her face to suggest she was waiting for praise or condemnation. He suspected she expected him to tear into her for nearly getting bitten. And he considered doing so. Just to remind her that her thoughts and actions affected more than just her. Maybe he'd chew her ass later. But he was more interested in something else at the moment. "You signaled two vamps. How did you know?"
The question was soft, but his tone was anything but. There was a terseness to it that she picked up on right away. He saw the tension return, only barely visible in the way she held herself. She stared, silent and pale in the floating debris and weak moonlight that streamed through the hole her zombies had made. He thought maybe she wasn't going to answer him, but she finally heaved a sigh and shook her head. "I don't know. I guess I just felt them."
Edward considered that a moment. "Explain."
She bristled under the order, but the answer came slowly. As if she was still figuring it all out. "When we entered the house, I felt... them. Like, their power. It touched me. It responded to me. And I could feel that there were two different powers touching me."
He digested that tidbit. "Have you ever done that before?"
"This is the first time I've ever been near a vampire," she admitted. There was a challenge in her voice, as if suggesting she knew he wanted to call her a liar. The girl was many things, but he'd discovered in the short time he'd known her that being a liar wasn't one of those things. If she said she'd never been near a vampire before, he believed her.
"Is there anything else in this place?"
She blinked at that question, but her eyes unfocused as she tried to discover if there were anymore undead using the place as a residence. Several seconds later, her eyes were back to normal and she shook her head. "I don't feel anything undead," she told him.
"Then let's burn this place and get out of here. We need to get back to the motel so I can check you over for bites," he told her, holstering his gun in order to tug free the flask secreted in one of his pockets. He made note that she put her gun up after he did, sending a faint touch of pride through him. He was pleased that she'd waited until he'd given the all clear to holster her weapon. He put that feeling aside and concentrated on pouring the contents of the flask on the two corpses.
"Gasoline?" she asked, nose twitching with the pungent smell rising up from the bodies.
"To ensure that they burn completely. Not that they wouldn't without it. But I don't believe in taking chances." He tucked the flask, now emptied, back into his pocket and withdrew a box of matches. Tugging two of the matches from the box, he struck one on the side and set it aflame. The tip of the second match caught quickly when he touched it to the first. Each burning match was tossed toward one of the corpses, where they met up with the gas he'd just poured and set it blazing in the blink of an eye. Katherine watched him with a clinical eye. When he headed for the door, she was right behind him.
The fire was spreading as they climbed into his car, hungry flames eating away at the trash that covered the floor and at the aged, dry wood of the floor and walls. Before they'd even reversed down the driveway, they could see that the flames were starting to lick at the exterior of the building. Edward pulled the car to a stop at the end of the driveway and made a quick call to 911. Reporting the blaze before it could spread to the trees would keep it contained.
Then he put it in gear and pulled out onto the road and didn't bother to look back.
~*~
"You're mad at me," Katherine said softly while he tended to several deep scratches in her arm.
Edward glanced up at her, letting her see a touch of ice in his eyes, before returning them to his task. She fell silent and glanced away. He felt her tense when he applied the disinfectant to her scratches, but she remained still and stoic. He wasn't sure if he should be impressed or saddened by her show of spine. She was just a girl. She shouldn't have felt the need to act like a wild rabbit out in the open, frozen in fear because a predator had spotted her.
Truth be told, he wasn't mad at her. Well. Not much, at any rate. He was more angered with himself for not considering that there might be more than one vampire in that broken down house. And he should have. He'd been on plenty of hunts in his life and he knew how vampires worked. He should have been prepared for a second or even third vampire. For fifty or one hundred. His momentary lapse had nearly gotten the girl killed.
It had been her warning that had reminded him just how goddamn tricky the bastards could be. He didn't want to think about why he'd let that tidbit slip his mind. It couldn't, wouldn't, happen a second time. After all, the vampires called him Death for a reason.
He disinfected the scratches four times before moving on to the topical antibiotics. Through it all, the girl sat perfectly still for him. She didn't complain. Nor did she argue or offer up apologies that meant nothing. She didn't look at him, either, her gaze trained on the window across the room. Chances were good she wasn't seeing anything outside the clear pane. He had no doubt she was replaying the short struggle she'd been part of back in that house.
The bandages he used to cover the scratches were waterproof, because she still needed to shower and wash the blood off. There was a lot of it, but only a little of it had actually been hers. Most of it had been the vampire's. That had been his reasons for not letting her shower immediately upon returning to the motel. He'd wanted to clean her wounds to ensure that none of the vampire's blood had gotten into them. It didn't matter that the vamp in question was dead. He'd wanted to make certain nothing untoward came from the encounter.
"You could have been killed, Katherine," he told her, his voice gruff and brusque. She cringed and, at first, he thought she was doing so because of his tone. But she turned to him and flashed an annoyed look.
"I hate that name. If you insist on calling me anything, call me Katie," she admonished with a touch of heat. He hid the smile that brought to life and busied his hands with packing up the first aid supplies.
"You should have shot the vampire the moment she came through the wall," he said, not looking at her. "You were the one who warned me there were two vampires on the other side of the wall. You should have had your weapon up and ready to fire before letting me know."
"You were in front of me," she responded.
He shot her a look at that, one that suggested she listen to him. "When its a matter of your life, it doesn't matter if I'm in front of you or not. Always take the shot. Don't ever hesitate. Hesitation could mean death."
She didn't answer for a moment, then rose from her seat so that she could glare down at him from a not very imposing height. "I told you earlier. I don't know if I can shoot a living being. And I don't want to, either. That includes your annoying, overbearing ass."
Her words almost brought a smile to his face. Almost. But he fought the urge to set it free back and leveled a look on her. "Someday, you aren't going to have a choice in the matter. You need to be ready to do whatever it takes to keep yourself alive. Even if that means shooting my annoying, overbearing ass."
"You're making fun of me," she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. Her freshly doctored scratches must have pulled and ached, but she didn't let him see it. "You can go fuck yourself."
He considered calling her on that, but ended up letting it slide. Because, when all was said and done, he was proud of how she'd dealt with her situation. "Good job calling up the zombies. I wasn't sure they were going to afford you any help, but you proved me wrong. What made you think it was a good idea?"
"I didn't think. I just did." She moved to the dresser where her suitcase had been set. He watched as she pulled a fresh change of clothes from inside of it, using the time it took to consider what she would say to him. If she planned on saying anything more. "Her hold on me was too tight for me to pull my wrist from her grip. I needed a distraction. And I could feel the dead outside the house just... waiting. They hadn't been there long, but they felt forgotten. I used them as a method to take her focus off me."
He said nothing, but nodded his head. "It was a good bet. All in all, you did decently on your first hunt. Go shower. Rest. We're going back to the range tomorrow."
She rolled her eyes at that, already on her way to the bathroom. He could well imagine that she was grumbling in her head. She'd get used to it. She needed to work on her discipline and control. She'd gotten lucky with the zombie stunt. But such tricks weren't always going to work for her. She needed to learn to shoot first and forget the questions after. She needed to learn that everyone was expendable when it came to protecting herself.
The bathroom door shut with a soft click and he heard the lock turn. He pretended he didn't understand the implications of such an act and listened intently for the water to come on. When it was going full blast and he was certain she'd climbed under the hot spray, Edward pulled a cell from his pocket and powered it on. There were four missed calls, all from the same number. The most recent had been only an hour ago.
Some idiots never knew when to give up.
He called the number back and waited for it to be answered. "Hello?"
Time to milk the idiot for everything he could.
"Reverend Solomon. I have information on your daughter."
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-19 03:39 am (UTC)Gotta love it when you play with Edward too. :) Even more, I'm SO glad you were able to word bb - I know how hard it's been.
Love these teaching moments. There are times when I think it'd be totally awesome to have a relative like Edward. But then I remember what it is he does and some of the places he goes to and...um, no.
LKH eat your heart out...LDF has it all over you in this 'verse now. :)
xxoo!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-22 11:12 pm (UTC)i am so enamored of Edward. with Edward. which is probably why i
obsess overwrite him as much as i do. and i feel like this is how he would try to help someone who needed to learn control and discipline. (pretty sure he's done something like this in canon) there may be a paternal bone or two in his body. just a couple. really small ones. also. chances are good that, if you had a relation like Edward, you wouldn't know who and what he was. what he did. so...i don't know about that part, hon. you're opinions are colored. heavily.
but i'm glad you enjoyed it.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-21 05:18 pm (UTC)I must say, I'm really enjoying this peek into Aedan's past. And I do so love the way you write Edward. The good(NOT!) reverend doesn't have the slightest clue who he's dealing with. I know he doesn't get his comeuppance until much later, but man would I love to see Edward put him in his place. *wistful sigh*
Well done, bb. Huzzah!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-22 11:06 pm (UTC)Aedan's past still isn't entirely set for me. so each time i write something about her life before Edward, its like i find another piece of the puzzle. one i didn't know i was missing. maybe someday, we'll have a complete picture of who Aedan really is. and what her life was like. i gotta admit, i love the way i write Edward, too! hopefully i don't sound too full of myself in stating that. daddy really doesn't know who he's gotten mixed up with. its going to be the death of him.
glad you liked it, sweets. thanks for taking the time to give it a read. (i feel like, at this point, i'm just writing this stuff to fulfill my own selfish desires)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-02-22 11:32 pm (UTC)Not at all, bb. Not at all.
Keep writing; I'll keep reading. :)