85. Back to the Mess of the Present
My aim is dead on. The vampire drops to the ground with a smoking hole in his heart, just like that member of the Dulce clan I found daring to attack someone and feed out in the open last night.
This vampire by contrast was one of Luc’s, but Luc never would have truly punished Phillip, even if he wound up putting this woman in the hospital. He would have just given him a slap on the wrist and a few months of undesirable guard duty. Phillip has raped and killed before, and that’s all he has ever gotten. Luc never gave me *any* punishment for the praels I have bled dry and murdered. He cares nothing for human life, but I exist now to set right his sins. These animals I'm hunting deserve to be put down, just like me.
The brunette Phillip was sucking on keeps staring at me wide-eyed for a few more seconds, looks back to his dissolving corpse, and flees screaming down the alley.
“You’re welcome,” I mutter. Then I turn the revolver right around and press the heated barrel right up against my forehead.
Still can’t pull the trigger. I lower it with a sigh.
“Need a hand?”
I tense, aim instantly shifting to the trench-coat covered figures looming at my back. I never even heard them approach. Their slitted eyes glow a sickly yellow, driving back the shadows cast by their wide-brimmed fedoras. I exhale in anticipation. It’s the Dulce. They want revenge for their brother that I put down just the night prior. I could easily shoot these two before they could lay a finger on me, but another three are closing in at my back from the other end of the alley. I’m trapped on all sides, and they are going to execute me. *Finally.*
I have nothing but disdain for these cold eyed reptiles though, so I am at the least going to take a few of them with me. I shoot the first man, catching him completely off guard, because I’m sure he expected me to attempt to explain myself, to bargain, surrender. The second rushes me in a blur of speed. I still would have put an end to him to, but another Dulce enforcer is already on me from behind, catching my gun hand and breaking my wrist. The last fired shot goes wide and catches the vampire in the thigh instead of the chest. He drops to the ground with a ragged howl, and his colleagues tell him callously, “Shut it, Vanque. Just fish the fucking bullet out and let it heal, you pussy.”
Vanque grits his teeth and digs his nails into his leg, unable to keep in his continued whimpers and hisses of pained breath, as he catches hold of the round and his fingertips start to sizzle.
I stay utterly silent by contrast. The ache of my shattered wrist means nothing to me, even as the bones squirm and strain beneath the skin, unable to mend themselves with the enforcer’s fingers still clamped tight around the injury, keeping them displaced. His other hand is digging into the back of my neck, sending the blood running right down my neck. I close my eyes and calmly wait for him to complete the move – punching his nails right through my spine and tearing my head off.
“Easy,” his superior commands, as those nails drive in deeper, making me jerk. “Resa wants to talk with him first.”
“He just murdered Calico,” the Dulce hisses, snake-eyes glued to the dissolving body of his friend stretched out at the head of the alley. “We saw it with our own eyes! I don’t care if we couldn’t find the bullet in that other ash pile – We know that’s all that’s left of Kade, and we know this little shit,” He shakes me. “was spotted in that neighborhood. We don’t need a formal trial. He’s dead.”
He snaps my spine, and my vision floods with red, the blackness closing in--
His superior rips him off me before he can complete his work, pinning him up against the alley wall.
I drop limp to the ground but feel the vertebrae realigning in an instant, the bloody punctures from his claws already closing over. I grit my teeth against the pain. My vision clears, and I exhale in bitter disappointment. The pain will never end, even with enemies here to deal the blow. I will always, somehow endure, cycling on and on like this forever.
“Resa ordered us to bring him in, you insubordinate snake!” the leader hisses, right up in his follower’s face. “That means hands off, until--”
The idiots left my revolver still clenched in my hand, a hand that is once again fully functional with wrist bones reattached, so I tilt up the barrel and fire a round into the leader’s back. He’s faster than I anticipated. He must be near as ancient and Resa, and he slides to the side long before the bullet strikes. He’s ontop of me even before the impact, driving his knee into my forearm and slamming my skull against the pavement.
The bullet takes his disobedient friend in his place, hitting him dead in the heart, before his feet have even touched ground. He slumps to the ground with chest pouring smoke and eyes fixed and lifeless.
The leader breaks my arm. “You’re just adding to your sentence, Romane,” he hisses, the nickname for Luc and Roman’s clan. “You are going to die for this. Each one of us you kill just adds days to the torture beforehand.”
“I’m used to torture,” I mutter, uncaring.
“Not like this,” he promises, tearing the revolver free of my weakened grip and holding it out to his last surviving cohort.
The man snatches it from him and backs away – retreating clear across the alley. He seems genuinely terrified of me. That makes me grin – a weary echo of triumph twisting over my face, before the leader smashes my head into the pavement again, and I black right out.