A Silver Bullet

Vampires don't sparkle; nonetheless, there are those who stand up for their rights.

“Remember, Kasey, all creatures were put here by the will of The Great Father and The Merciful Mother. They did not make any creature with the talent of speech above another; so no creature able to speak should be able to take the life of any other speaking creature purposely. We are to live in harmony with one another. Do you understand, Kasey?”

“Yes, Momma.”

 

“Will you hurry up?” I called behind me, stopping a moment to look over my shoulder. In the dim light cast only by her and my lanterns, I could see her dirtied face scrunched in concentration, trying to keep her hands and knees moving forward. “We don’t have all night,” I snapped. “Kahr help us if they find us crawling around down here.” I watched her face contort into an expression of annoyance; I could tell it was not because I was being short with her, but because I named the Father in vain. The report I’d skimmed over in the lair suddenly came to mind.

“NAME: Kasey Lar. AGE: Unknown; about 17. RACE: Human, Caucasian. IMPORTANT NOTES: Religious to a fault; keeps mostly to herself; would be most useful for recon missions.” Had I paid attention to that last note, I would have just as soon taken one of the other new recruits.

I held my lantern in front of me and kept crawling through the dark tunnel. I was used to only using three limbs to propel him forward; Kasey, on the other hand, seemed to be having more trouble than most would. Nonetheless, I pressed on; I didn’t have time to waste on waiting for her to catch up.

A few minutes passed; silent, besides Kasey’s occasional high-pitched grunts as she pressed on. The ground under me began to become softer, and every few paces I’d beat the packed earth above me, listening carefully. If Kasey was curious, she didn’t ask. Just when it felt like we both would start sinking below the tunnel, the heel of my hand hit the wooden board I was looking for. Bits of dirt began to rain on top of me, but I could care less.

“Over here,” I went to look behind me, but Kasey was only a few paces behind me at this point. I beat on the board, slowly moving it upward. After what seemed to be ages, I was able to push it aside and climb through the hole left in its place. I offered a hand up to Kasey after a moment’s consideration. She refused it, (as an attempt to show me she wasn’t completely useless, I’ll wager,) and pulled herself out on her own. I turned, shaking my head, and surveyed the room.

It was a bathroom, seemingly long abandoned.  The checkered floor was coated in dust, and the bathtub was bone dry. Cobwebs stretched over the two sinks on the counter, and a bottle of soap had been knocked over and spilled to the floor, but the contents were long beyond their usable state; spots were sticky, but the rest of the soap had dried up and was virtually a fine powder.

“Kasey,” I looked back at the girl. Her blond hair was streaked with mud, her face nearly covered in dust and dirt, but still she regarded me as though she was ready to go down fighting, “Asha and Jordan were both sent to talk with these… vampires… this morning, in an attempt to draw up an agreement. At this point, we’re only here to retrieve them.” On the word retrieve, I involuntarily reached for the silver cross and chain I kept in my pocket and it found its comfortable place in my palm as I continued.

“Seeing as, ah, things didn’t go quite as planned when we sent them, we’re best if we’re not caught here. Understand?” She paused for a moment, then nodded. I didn’t have time to worry about her hesitation. I was about to walk out into the deserted hallway with my lantern as she spoke.

“Mister… Mister Roy? We’re only here to retrieve Jordan and Asha, right?” Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. I nodded once, then continued into the dark passage. I heard her footsteps follow me through the mansion. It seemed that the entire west wing had been left alone for years. Perhaps the clan had gotten too small in the past years to feel comfortable spread out in the giant house. I had to grin at that. I was one of the ones who had caused their clan to dwindle.

We entered the main hall; I could tell it was very recently used. The floors were polished, at the very least, but the whole place reeked of vampire. Down the hall to the east wing, a few lights were on. We passed them as silently as possible, but from one room, I heard Jordan’s voice. Carefully, I peeked around the doorway. She was alone, covered in sweat, and curled in the fetal position.

“Jordan!” Kasey’s voice, although quiet, seemed to resonate off of the marble floors and pillars as she hurried into the room. I followed silently as the blond girl knelt beside the seasoned vampire hunter. Her dark hair fell over her face as her face twisted into expressions of agony.

“Kasey…?” The voice that once commanded me on various missions had lost its edge and strength; instead, it was very weak and fragile. “Oh, thank The Mother…” She wrapped her arms around Kasey’s neck, collapsing on her.

“Jordan, what happened? Don’t worry, we’ll get you back to the lair as soon as we can…” As Kasey spoke, Jordan opened her mouth and suddenly became very interested in the trainee’s neck. In an instant, my hand went to my pocket, wrapping around my cross. The metal melted in the heat of my hand, reforming as it always had in a time of need…

BANG. “Damn!” I’d narrowly missed Jordan’s head, wasting a silver bullet. I moved to reload the pistol. “Kasey, MOVE!” Kasey sat as though she was made of stone. “NOW!”

“What are you doing?” she demanded, shielding the now shivering Jordan. “You could have killed her!”

“That’s what I’m aiming to do, idiot! Now shut up, the rest of the clan had to have heard that shot!”

“Are you stupid?” Kasey suddenly seemed to gain a resolve she hadn’t had crawling in the hidden tunnel. “This is Jordan! You’ve told me yourself she’s one of the most valuable we have!”

“She just tried to bite you,” I hissed. Kasey froze, but she didn’t release Jordan, who was shrinking against the wall, muttering to myself.

“…believe I just… What have I done? I’ve… I’ve… Oh, Mother of Mercy...”

“Leave her,” I said finally, knowing that if I fired another shot now, I’d either hit Kasey or send her into a fit of rage that would attract more attention. “We’ll attend to her later.” I felt the pistol become a cross once again and slid it into my pocket. Behind me, I heard her say something in a hushed tone to the ex-vampire hunter, then rise to follow me once again. In her mind, I’m sure she was thinking we were simply going to find Asha, then collect Jordan on the way back before returning to the lair. I, however, had other ideas.

I marched down the hallways, looking in each room for the head of the clan. She was lying among the higher-ups of her clan, discussing something casually. She looked up abruptly from under her black bangs, her red eyes locking on my own.

“Well, this is a surprise,” she said after a moment. “Have you come to re-establish the rules of the agreement already?” The blood-suckers around here rolled their inhuman eyes, talking in low tones about how humans were never happy with what they had, and how grateful we should be that concessions were made for us at all. As if I couldn’t hear them.

“You did establish the agreement, then?”

“No transforming humans to vampires unless the situation is dire. Theirs, not ours,” she amended after sighing at my glare. “And we’re only to drink if one of your kind wanders onto our territory.” She sighed, as if such restrictions were a huge opposition on her.

“Then explain to me the hunter who has already turned in a room down the hall.” I stepped toward her, and I heard Kasey enter the room behind me. I’d forgotten she was there. The head of the clan’s eyes widened.

“The underlings wouldn’t have… been informed yet…” she said slowly, carefully. Not carefully enough.

BAM. I’d fired off another round, aimed perfectly at the matriarch’s heart. A quick enough death that it was ‘merciful,’ but slow enough that I could still say what needed to be said. “All vampires within this clan were to know before our hunters stepped off your land, you leeches! What have you done with the other one, fed her to…” I stopped talking, my rage fading as I realized she was unharmed.

However, a blond girl with mud caked in her hair laid on the cold floor, curled up, breath coming in gasps. It seemed she’d dived in front of the leader to save her, and I’d hit her in the stomach. The matriarch looked up at me again, her eyes flashing.

“You shot to kill me, didn’t you? And now you’ve gone and hit an innocent girl for it. This will not be the last you’ve heard from us. Our agreement is off.” She moved toward me, but Kasey waved her off. The woman eyed her, but backed off all the same.

“No creature… with the talent to speak… should harm another… on purpose…” she panted, “as creatures… given skills… from The Father… and… Mother… Ah!” she curled in on herself, trying to keep tears from running down her dust-covered face. The matriarch picked her up, and with a harsh, backwards glance at me, began to melt into one of the back passages from the room, along with her followers. In the quiet, I could hear her murmuring.

“If we can extract the bullet, we can save her. It’s no use turning her if she has a silver bullet lodged in her, though.”

I watched them go in disbelief. Two, maybe three hunters lost to this clan today, and no agreement. And what it came down to now was my stupidity for putting Kasey on this mission. No doubt this would result in some sort of retaliation, if not a war. I threw down the pistol, and it clattered against the cold floor.

“Damn it all!”