The Fangs of the Assassin

                                              (Non Serviam)

                                                 Ilara Bonaparte

           

 

                                                One

Home.

            I don’t know why the apartment made me feel so safe; it’s not like it was different than any other apartment I’ve owned in my life.  Sure, there were cultural differences; A New York penthouse was different than a pad in England or a villa in Italy.  But then again, there was that essence of home when I walked in, which I couldn’t explain.  I could barely remember a place that I’d called home and actually meant the word as something more than a place to sleep.  It was mostly a place that I slept in that had my touch, my panache to it.  It was mine, and I had an affinity for things completely my own.  Call me selfish, it’s true; I suppose I never really grew out of the arrogance of a teenager.

            Or the terrible twos…depending on how you look at it, they’re pretty much the same.

I dropped my red leather suitcase next to the door, and turned lithely, looking at all six locks.  I only locked three- I made it a point to make it hard for burglars.  Now, you might think six locks goes above and beyond the paranoia stage, but I lived in an apartment once with three locks, and I’d been kidnapped from it.  Of course, they hadn’t dealt with the locks, they simply knocked down the door; but…paranoia dies hard. 

            My apartment was the usual upper-crust New York apartment.  An entire wall of the living room was adorned with windows.  Heavy dark red curtains went over them, making the darkness inside more like an impermeable fog to any human; but I’m not human.  The carpet in the living room was a tasteful dark red.  The color was there before I moved in, and part of the reason I bought the apartment was the fact that it reminded me of blood.  If I remember correctly, the sight made me hungry.

            My furniture was tasteful, as always; my fetish for leather obvious.  A black recliner and sofa faced the flat-screen TV.  The dark wood of a cabinet covered my DVD player and stereo.  I hit the light switch and I switched to day vision.  No need to tire my eyes when there’s light so readily available. 

            I went to the empty kitchen and hesitated, looking around it slightly.  It had pale blue tiles with sky blue paint that somehow looked good with the light wood cabinets.  The refrigerator was a light cream, and my black answering machine next to it blinked ominously.  I ignored it for the time being and crossed to the refrigerator, withdrawing a bottle of wine, tasting it, and putting it in the trash.  My housekeeper had gotten the wrong kind; again.  I made a note not to tip her as much as usual.

I could drink liquids, but never food.  It saddened me to no end.   I missed chocolate; probably why I had a canister of hot chocolate mix wherever I went.  I found that I had three messages; one from my lawyer, another from my hairdresser and friend Ophelia, and another from Reynauld.

            I frowned and hit play, taking off my leather jacket and heating up a cup of water.  I withdrew the hot cocoa mix from the empty cupboard as I listened.

            “Good job.” He said gruffly.  “Transaction just took place; we’ll call on you again soon.” He hung up quickly, slamming the receiver so hard that the machine picked it up even after the fact.  I shook my head and waited for the microwave to finish with the water.  Reynauld was one of the people that employed my services as a professional killer.  

            Yes, professional killer.  And don’t get all high and mighty about how it’s wrong to kill others; I specialize in killing very, very bad people.  I kill people that the FBI can’t track but have escaped prison.  I’d been used as a government ghoul before, and I must say it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Freelance agrees with me much more.  More risk, too, and lots more money.  I pity the fool that is still a ghoul.  Either way, I get a call from miscellaneous governments from time to time, asking for assistance.  It’s my choice to accept the job or not. 

            My lawyer simply muttered something about my fingerprints being found in a motel in Atlanta, and I shrugged.  He was an overly cautious, paranoid person.  If the cops even had my prints on file, it’d be a problem, but according to them, I’d died fifty years or so before.  They’d just think it was a glitch in their system.  However, I made a note to give a bonus to my lawyer- he deserved a reward for such considerateness.

            Ophelia simply sounded like her usual cheery self, but there was an undercurrent of fear to her voice.  “Ila, it’s me.  People at the shop have been asking about you- they look like G agents.  Call me.”

            My brow furrowed.  Government agents.  They had my number, if they needed me, why not just call?  I frowned and picked up the phone to call Ophelia as there was a knock at my door. 

            I hesitated, looking to the curtained windows.  I walked to the door, slowly, and slightly parted the curtains to my windows and looked out.  A normal human wouldn’t have seen it; a single hotel room alight about half a mile away with its light on.  A small figure sat at his window, and I knew he was watching me.  He was only a few floors down from myself, but at the topmost floor of the building.  Penthouse.  I wondered how much Uncle Sam had dished out for that.

            I left the curtain open, allowing for an easy escape if I needed it.  There was a small office building across the road, and I had no doubt I could jump half a mile on the rooftops.  The problem however, was that I wouldn’t be able to reach the place in time to kill the agent before he called in reinforcements.  Another problem was that no other buildings were as tall, so I wouldn’t be able to jump down to it.

I could almost fly, but not quite, and it takes quite a bit of concentration to do so.  Of all the tricks vampires learn, flying is the hardest.  I’d only seen three vamps in a hundred or more that had been able to even come close to flying, but here I was, and I almost could.  The question was; would I survive jumping the half-mile as well as the drop ten floors down, maybe more depending on the arc of my jump?  I wasn’t sure.  Could I even jump a half mile?  I had before, once, and almost died from it.  I just wasn’t sure about it.  After fifty plus years of vampirism, I still wasn’t sure.  I knew I could jump from rooftop to rooftop, but if I wanted to kill my watcher, I’d have to do it quickly, with a single bound.

            Another knock, more insistent.  They were using earpieces, and I almost swore at myself.  They knew that I’d been looking out my window for reinforcements; I couldn’t play innocent civilian.  I withdrew a fake ID from underneath my coffee table (it had been taped in place by myself a few weeks before) and put it in my purse, ready to pull out if I had to show identification.  Couldn’t show them my license, not if they knew my ghoul name of Ilara Bonaparte.  The fake ID was just for these situations, one I used when dealing with the government.  My ghoul name was different than my assassin name, for many reasons.  One was that the government would recognize the name Ilara Fox.  Ilara Bonaparte hadn’t been a vampire killer before she’d turned human.  Ilara Fox had been that, and much more.

            Ilara Fox had once told a CIA agent to go to hell.  The human that I had once been had hated the government for so many reasons.

            I sidled up to the door, slowly, and undid the locks with one hand, giving the door my flank.  I flung the door open and stepped to the right, trying to appear gracious while being cautious.  The door banged against the wall to my left and I examined the figures that had knocked at my door.

            Two government agents were there, earpieces and all.  One had the Tommy Lee Jones look- old, gray haired, weathered and wrinkled, but he wore the suit well.  His upper body was more in shape than his lower- he had the beginnings of a gut that only comes on with age.  He gave me the blank eyes that I attributed to the CIA.  You can always tell what side of the government an agent comes from, be they NSA, CIA, or FBI.  Their eyes all hold a different level of arrogance and superiority.  This one had the look of a CIA agent; arrogant to a tee and with a superiority complex.  It didn’t help that the CIA was an organization still whispered about in dark corners, as if saying the name above thirty decibels would call them into being.  My gut sank to the floor.  When the CIA came to my door, it was never a good thing.  I began to wonder about my escape route again.  I had a forty-sixty chance of surviving the fall of ten stories.  I had a ten percent chance on top of that of being able to walk away from it and get out before I was apprehended.  Even imprisoned, though, I could escape.  I’d done it before. 

            The CIA agent said in a dangerous southern drawl, “I’m Agent Henderson, this is Agent Johansen.” He motioned to his friend, and I slowly turned to face them fully, abandoning the flank position.  I left out a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d held.  They could have killed me before now.  “May we come in?” He asked, still that threatening lilt to his voice.  I stepped aside, abandoning my former belief that a southern accent couldn’t sound frightening. 

            They stepped in, and I got a chance to look at Johansen.  He was my height, about five-five, short for a man.  He still had that luster of youth to his eyes, but the CIA arrogance was there.  It happens, when you’re involved in the most secretive operations on the face of the Earth.  After all their failures, you’d think they’d earn some humility.  However, he was handsome with an athletic build.  Dark brown hair, almost black, tanned skin and brown doe eyes.  Simply because of the eyes, he’d never be really threatening.  It’s hard to look threatening when you look like a car is coming at you and you don’t know what to do.  But still, he was cute, and my stomach tightened.  I remembered that I hadn’t had a relationship of any sort in more than three years.  My libido was suffering.

            He seemed to catch me watching him, and he smiled.  He was definitely new, he hadn’t learned that CIA agents don’t smile.  Because he was new, I could flirt.  I smiled back at him, careful to not flash fangs.  Any human gets nervous where fangs are involved.  He turned, followed his instructor to the kitchen, where I’d left the light on.  I admired his backside as I followed.  Nice.

            “So, forgive my bluntness, what are you two doing here?” I asked, following them.  Henderson was regarding my microwave. 

            “Coffee?” He asked.

            I shook my head, motioned to the hot cocoa tin.  He regarded me with blank eyes, and sat at my two-seater table.  “For me.” He said, arrogance flashing through cold blue eyes.

            I withheld a retort, much to my pride, and merely smiled.  I made sure it was a secretive smile, just to piss him off.  It always seemed to annoy G agents when I use that smile…so of course I use it all the time around them.

            I let my heels click on the tile, putting more weight on the floor than I normally do.  While in Rome, act as the Romans do, and while amongst humans, make noise with your feet.  Humans are always unnerved by the fact that I never make noise when I walk.  I had fallen into the human routine, dropped my vampire ways.  I knew my eyes had lost their emerald sheen, returning to the green they had been as a human.  I breathed like a human, which took an enormous amount of effort, as a vampire needs only the occasional breath a minute to live.  My catlike grace I toned down, with an effort.  It had taken me fifty years to appear human as a vampire, but I still couldn’t take the grace out of my step.  Normally, my excuse was that I was a ballet dancer, but it was more than that.  I had the walk of a predator.  I knew that if I didn’t mask it, the agents would see it.

            I made coffee in silence intended to be uncomfortable.  However, I was used to silence, since I was a night creature, and I was perfectly comfortable.  I would play the human, but not the scared human.  I was better at acting the stubborn, bitchy human female.  Among other things, it was just more fun.

            I toyed with the coffee maker and listened to Johansen shift positions in his chair opposite his superior.  My microwave had beeped long ago, and I intended to have my hot cocoa and drink it too.  I was stubborn enough to make sure they knew I wasn’t adjusting my routine to their arrival.  They had a tendency to get suspicious when you did such.

            Finally, the coffee maker started to whir.  I hated the thing; it had been a Christmas give from Ophelia.  I barely used it.  Why use a coffee maker when you don’t need caffeine?  A vampire sleeps an average of three hours a day, if that, and with or without caffeine, we managed.

            I moved to the microwave and withdrew my favorite mug.  It was a plain black mug.  Yes, I know.  I have a black problem, but I’m a vampire.  I can have any kind of problem I want, thank you very much.

            Johansen broke the silence as I stirred the cocoa into the cup.  “So, Miss Fox, where are you from?”

            Fox.  They knew my birth name.  Uh oh.  I kept myself from tensing up, but it was difficult.  My temper flared to the surface.  All these years and they’d found out, probably even known before.  Secretive…argh.  I couldn’t think of a cuss bad enough for it.  It pissed me off.  I said in a tone of ice, “If you know my name, I’m sure you know where I’m from.”  I turned my head to Johansen’s shocked face and smiled.  He slowly nodded as I turned to face the two men.

            “We know.” He said softly, and I realized I’d taken him too much at face value.  He was young, inexperienced, but still CIA, and thus dangerous.  I needed to stop underestimating people.

            “So what’s this all about?” I asked, sipping my cocoa.  Ah, chocolaty.  Heaven.

            “You’ve lied to the CIA.” Said Henderson.  “That’s worthy of a year of jail.”

            I withheld the urge to smile or scoff.  Jail.  Please.  I could get out the day they put me in.  Prison, too. “Okay.” I merely said, sipping the mug to hide my slowly creeping smile.

            Johansen stepped in again.  “To make amends, we want you to do a job.”

            I rolled my eyes.  I couldn’t resist the urge to scoff this time.  “I always take jobs from you spooks.  Why the macho act?  Normally you call me up and send me info, and I do it.  Why the show?”

            Johansen stiffened, as if not expecting his immaculate CIA to be involved with assassins.  I resisted the urge to tell him that Uncle Sam wasn’t as great a guy as he thought.  Henderson merely gazed at me with his cold eyes.  “We want intel, not death.”

            Whoa.  “No way.” I said, setting down my mug.  “I don’t do intelligence ops.”

            “Not even to avoid prosecution?” Johansen asked, smile tilting his lips.  I glared, crossed my arms, revealing my scars.  Johansen’s eyes widened and gulped visibly.  Vampire nails.  I’d been human when it’d happened, like all my other scars, so they stayed.  Most of my other scars weren’t visible, but I was wearing a tank top with thick shoulders.  My gunshot wound on my right shoulder was partially visible, but it wasn’t as bad as the scars from the vampire’s nails.  Johansen raised his eyes to look at me.  “Werewolf?”

            I nearly laughed.  These guys were CIA?  Oh, how I pity America.  “You don’t know your supernatural.  Think more on the lines of vampire.”

            “Wouldn’t they have healed?” He asked, eyes all for the scars again.

            I looked at Henderson, who regarded his companion with amusement.  “Is this kid for real?”

            Henderson’s eyes twitched with something like amusement.  “As you can see, Johansen didn’t read the whole file.” He looked into my eyes, directly.  I hesitated to work a mind trick on him.  “I did.” He said.

            I slowly nodded, understanding.  Johansen may not know how I’d gotten to be where I was, but Henderson did.  He was regarding me with the respect due to a vampire slayer, not a perp.  Obviously, Johansen was regarding me as a criminal.  An interesting, dangerous criminal with breasts, but still a criminal.

            Henderson still looked into my eyes, and I realized it was a trick.  He was wearing lenses that protected him from vampire eye contact.  I could work around it, but I didn’t want to.  For an odd reason, Henderson had my respect.

            Johansen really did not.

            “If I turn it down?” I asked.  I had a feeling I knew the answer.

            “You’ll find yourself in a jail cell facing the eastern sky.”

            I flinched, because it was expected of me.  But sunlight wouldn’t kill me.  It did other vampires, but not me.  That one is a long story.  “Can I have a few days?  I’ve got another job to do.”

            Henderson stood, regarded me.  He respected me, but deep down he didn’t like me.  Fancy that.  I was a murderer, an assassin, a trained killer, after all.  Anyone with morality wouldn’t like me, no matter how bad the guys I killed were. “Anyone I know?”

            I smiled secretively, and Johansen bristled at the smile.  “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough.”

             Henderson swept out of the room with the expert grace of an agent, not giving me his full back but not looking like an imbecile either.  Johansen followed, not offering his back to me and looking like an idiot with his knees bent and hand itching to grab his gun.  Without his superior watching him, his calm act gave way to outright fear.  I smiled at him angelically as he backed out, and then followed his superior to the door.  He thought I was dangerous.  My, my.  He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.  Be still my heart.  However, he gave me his back when he was out of the kitchen.  That could get him killed one day.  It’s not like the bad guys wouldn’t shoot you if you left the room, but were still in sight. 

            The bad guys.  How odd of me, I still considered myself one of the good guys.  Silly of me.  I was a vampire.  I drank blood.  I was not a good guy.  Any vampire that thinks so is delusional, and I may be a lot of things, but delusional isn’t one of them.

            They left, and I closed my curtains, put the locks back into place.  Damn them.  I wanted nothing more than to simply skip town, but if they were using this much power just to make sure I was home, I didn’t think it was a good idea, not without a plan.  So, I’d have to tell my secretary to take a week or so off. Not a good thing, since I was almost always getting calls to kill important bad guys.  And now I was going to have to play watchdog just to keep out of jail.

            It occurred to me that I could have twisted their minds, used my power to make them leave me alone.  I realized that I didn’t do it because they were the good guys.  I don’t do bad things to the good guys, no matter how big of assholes they are.  It’s just how I am.  But if they came back, demanding I be watchdog, I wouldn’t hesitate again.  Mostly, I didn’t give them an answer so I could buy time, ready myself for an escape.  I would not watch some fat politician and take pictures of him cheating on his wife.  I was called in to kill, not to be a photographer.  It annoyed me.  I was a good killer when I was human, and I was better one as a vampire.  Mind you, when I was a human I killed vampires, but as a vampire I’ve really lost a preference.  Vampires are still more fun, but I’d killed half their population before and they’d all gone into hiding.  I was the big bad wolf to the vampires, and I was one of them.  Ironic.

            It was quite simple; when they came back, I’d do something to their minds; make them think me dead or the like, then skip off.  Perhaps I’d seduce a vampire and open the shades of the bedroom while he slept.  Oh, fun.  It’d been too long since I’ve watched a vampire burn to death.  That’d be an easy thing, and it’d be easier to get out of my own building and not get caught. 

            Yes, I had a plan forming.  Seduce a vampire, bring him home, expose him to the Eastern sky while he slept, then turn into a shadow and escape via the various shadows in the dimly lit areas of my apartment complex.  A vampire’s charred body and a furnished apartment left behind, and I could do it all easily.

            Sometimes, being a vampire had its advantages. 

I’d perfected my skills with shadows and darkness manipulation before I’d gotten fangs.  I’d been abysmally powerful as a human because of all the vampires I’d killed.  More than a hundred or so, I think.  I’d stopped counting at sixty.  Every time a vampire died, some of its power went into its killer.  Not much, but when you’ve raked in a hundred plus kills, you start gaining vampire powers.  It’s some of the reason why I can wear a cross without screaming and deal with sunlight, and also why I’d had the ability to manipulate shadows and send psychic blasts before I’d been turned vamp.  No wonder they’d turned me.  I was more dangerous than any human on the planet and they wanted me on their side.  Too bad they didn’t realize that old habits died hard.  I’d killed the vampire that had sired me.

No, killed isn’t the right word.  Tortured.  I’d enjoyed making him hurt.  I was partially insane when I finally broke free of my cage, so it was no wonder I’d dragged his death out for over a year.  Just the memory filled me with hate.  I’d wanted to kill him in the sun, but in the end he’d simply given in to death, denying me the pleasure.  I’d still killed him; I’d been in the process of torturing him with stakes when he simply died.  It happens, sometimes; old vampires have the power to simply give up.  It pissed me off.

            I liked my idea more and more.  I hadn’t watched a vamp burn in sunlight since 2003, a week before I’d been kidnapped and changed into a vampire.  Simply the idea sent chills of reminiscence down my spine.

            I collapsed on my couch, suddenly sleepy, with that thought in my head.  I don’t know why I didn’t make it to the bedroom, but I didn’t mind.  I can sleep anywhere in comfort.  After all, the dead feel no pain.  Not completely true; it should be modified to “the dead feel no discomfort”.  I’d been an assassin long enough to know that the dead feel pain.  The dead just don’t scar.

            I thought that I’d dream of burning vampires in the sun, but instead I dreamed a memory more like a nightmare.  The night I’d been kidnapped and turned into a vampire.  It was a usual nightmare for me; every time I dreamt I had a high chance of dreaming that night.  Unfortunately, I’d always been a dreamer.  Part of why I don’t sleep often.

 

                                    April 15, 2003- 57 years earlier                   

I was in another apartment, asleep under blue covers.  It was night, and I’d had a hard day.  I’d rooted out another nest of newbie vamps and I needed a nap before I tracked any others.  I was safe; I had five bodyguards in the apartment, all friends.  They too had lost family to vampirism, so we connected.  They adored me for my skill with killing the putrid race of vamps, as well as my skill for using their own powers against them.  They were my followers, you might say.

            A sound woke me; a soft thump.  I recognized the sound; I’d heard it, instigated it before.  The sound of a body hitting the floor.  I’d recognize it, well, in my sleep.  I silently rolled of the bed and withdrew a shotgun from under my bed.  All guns and crossbows were kept loaded and clean.  It was a house rule.  I crouched low to the ground and withdrew a stake from under my pillow and shoved it in my pajama pants’ back pocket.  I shifted my weight to my left leg, stretching my right out to the right, then quickly shifted my weight there.  It was a silent way to move, and my preferred way.  I shifted the shotgun to my left hand, and took the crossbow perched against the wall in my right.  I mutely spread the bolts on to the floor for easy access.  I held the shotgun pointed to the door, the crossbow on the singular window to my right.

            A sound outside the door, and I put my back to the wall.  I put the shotgun on my lap and got a box of shells from the nightstand, reaching, and placing them next to my left thigh.  I sat with my butt on the floor, no longer crouching.  I pulled back the hammer, ashamed I hadn’t before.  I would have been dead if, with a shotgun aimed at the door, it wasn’t cocked and ready.  The crossbow already had a bolt in it.  I was breathing steady, as quietly as I could, but I knew that if the vamp was good, he’d merely need to hear my heartbeat.  The shotgun was mostly a last resort; my favorite had always been the crossbow.  The shotgun was to blow the head off a vamp if he got too close.  I was always slow at loading, so a single-shot shotgun was a last resort, as was the stake in my back pocket.  Speaking of, it dug into my butt hard, hurting, but I ignored it.  I’d deal with bruises later.  My knees were at my chest, shotgun in my left hand, facing at the ceiling harmlessly, crossbow in my right, facing the door at chest level.  I concentrated on keeping my heartbeat slow, breathing even.  Maybe I’d trick some vamp into thinking I was still asleep.  I had no doubt my friends were dead, and it pissed me off.  My right shoulder ached, but I ignored it.  I had a gunshot wound there that wasn’t quite healed yet, and holding the crossbow hurt. 

            The door crept slowly open, glowing eyes peeked out, regarding the empty bed.  Seeing it was empty, the vampire growled and threw open the door, spilling light into the room.  I smelt blood on him, and it didn’t help that I saw it all over him as well.  I shot him in the heart with a bolt and had another popped in before he hit the floor.  I took a deep breath.  That hadn’t been all of them; it couldn’t have been.  Five people didn’t simply fall under control of a vamp and stay silent as they died.  There had to be at least four more vampires.

            I opened the box of shells, spilling them to the floor.  Four vampires, just me, complete darkness.  Daylight wouldn’t be for another few hours, I sensed it in the air.  After years of hunting vampires, you begin to smell dawn.  It’s saved my life more than once.  The odds weren’t good, but I’d had worse.  Of course, I’d had a flamethrower on my side the one night in my life I’d had worse: me against seven vamps.  We had a flamethrower in the house, but it was in the cabinet in the living room downstairs.  Too far.  I’d have to deal with it.  If I lived through the night, I was putting a flamethrower under my bed.  I’d been a fool not to.

            I’d had too much faith in my friends, my bodyguards.  I’d thought that they would protect me, but I had to concentrate on the fact that only I could protect myself.  Twenty-eight years old and I was still dependent on people.  Pathetic.

            I was shocked I hadn’t heard a struggle.  Most of my friends, companions, bodyguards, followers; whatever you want to call them; would have put up a struggle.  My only answer was betrayal.  We had enough anti-vamp spells on the house that no vamp could come within miles without being invited.  Not even former humans that had worked for me that had been turned vamps could get in.  At another house, we’d had that problem.

            I didn’t realize it, but I was shaking.  Not a good thing.  Five people down, no struggle, no warning.  Whatever had happened, it reeked of betrayal and psychic power.  I thought I’d killed enough vamps that had the power to control you with their minds, but I guess I’d missed some.

            I felt a psychic blast suddenly, and I grit my teeth.  They were attempting to control me, or it would have been centered somewhere else and not at my brain.  I strengthened my shields and withstood accompanying attacks.  Shit.  Not four more vamps, ten, all with psychic power. 

            The only reason they weren’t controlling me already was the fact that I was immune to control.  I’d killed enough vampires to be.  I was immune to a lot of vampire power, but if they centered a crippling psychic blast, say to the heart or spine, I’d either be dead or unconscious.  I bet that the oldest of the ten was over a thousand, and the youngest a little over two hundred.  I attempted to trace their positions in the house, but only with extreme difficulty.

            Two were outside my door.  They were young, and they smelled my fear.  I got enough from their minds to know they were waiting for the thousand year old.  He was coming up the stairs.  The rest were downstairs, holding the fort.  My fort.  They were in my house, the supposedly safe house, and they weren’t dead.  It really annoyed me.

            I missed my flamethrower.

            I couldn’t kill the thousand year old with the crossbow or shotgun.  I’d use the crossbow on the younger ones, even though I wasn’t sure if they’d work.  For anything over a hundred and fifty, I always used flamethrowers or stakes, simply for safety.  But I had a feeling the bolts would work alright; it just made me nervous. 

            The old one reached the top of the stairs.  My shields were being pillaged by the other nine, but he was silent.  I was afraid of that.  He reached my door and suddenly they all stopped.  I knew what was going to happen, and I braced myself for it.

            Power!  My brain was seized with it, and my shields nearly fell.  I was sweating and felt faint, but I wouldn’t let him control me or rape my mind.  I simply wouldn’t.  Ten vampires.  I considered shooting myself a moment, but I wouldn’t.  I was too stubborn; it was that simple.  There’s always a way out.  I repeated that in my head, to help keep him at bay.  There’s always a way out, there’s always a way out-

            The two vamps charged in, hungry for blood.  The old one yelled something along the lines of “Not yet!” But they charged in and I shot them both in the chest easy, pausing only to reload after the first shot before I killed the one on the right.  I reloaded again, regaining confidence.  I felt the old one’s anger as he pushed all his psychic power at me.  I retreated to deep within my mind, using not only my shields, but the old way of doing it, repeating a single phrase in my mind.  It was the way to keep them out when you don’t have supernatural shields.  My shields were still partially up, but he slipped through a minute hole.  He entered my mind, searching for something; a weakness perhaps.  Unlike most vamps, he didn’t hurt that much.  His touch in my mind was soft and gentle, like a lover.  But I reminded myself harshly that I didn’t have a lover, that he was dead, and the old one pulled back and laughed softly in my head.

            Suddenly, it hurt like hell as he abandoned the lover angle.  I could hear him outside my door, but all I knew was him in my mind, searching, searching.  He retreated when he found what he wanted, and I used some of my energy to push him out, but the damage was done.  I didn’t know what he’d been looking for, but I pushed my shields back up with an effort using all my energy just to do that. 

            I kept my eyes closed and slowed my breathing, trying to get stronger.  The other vampires were coming.  Eight vampires versus a woman that can’t stand.  No, six; the other two were hanging near the downstairs door.  I had a good chance of taking them out before the old one killed me.  I had a feeling it would take a lot to kill him.

            Two reached the stair top first, and they laughed, the sound hurting my now-sensitive ears.  A woman’s shrill laughter and a man’s soft, throaty snigger.  Another woman walked up the stairs, and I heard her express her thrill over being there to see the Assassin break.  The Assassin.  That was what the vampires called me, because I’d killed so many.

            See me break, bitch?  No way.  My resolve returned and I opened my eyes, adrenaline helping me.  I will never break. 

I got into a different position, right leg out and weight on my left, which was in a crouching position, flank to the door.  I held the crossbow against my right thigh, the shotgun braced against my left shoulder at the door.  I heard them move an instant before I saw them in the light of the doorway. 

I raised the crossbow as I shot one in the head with the shotgun-a man, judging by his scream as his head came off.  Blood splattered my back wall, and I almost frowned-I’d need a lot of soap to get that off my wall.  The blood wasn’t red, but black against the darkness.  Against the walls of my bedroom, the blood was merely black on a lighter black.  Without the darkness, I knew that I’d see splattered, glistening red on pale blue.

Another vamp I shot in the chest with the crossbow as I reloaded the shotgun left-handed; not easy, but not impossible either.  That one didn’t make a sound as he slid to the floor, clutching his chest.  There was a second between the crossbow shot when I was reloading the shotgun that the other three swept at me, the old one entering and standing at the threshold, blocking my only light source, thickening the darkness.

            I shot a blond female in the head, exploding her brains all over the old vamp.  He touched his face gingerly, hands coming away bloodied,  as the headless corpse crumpled before him.  He wiped the gray matter of her brain off his face with a handkerchief as I shot a burly man with the crossbow.  He halted, but didn’t collapse.  He was too old for that to kill him, but it did stop him.  He crumpled to the floor, gasping, and I knew that the poison of the wood would kill him before he could recover.  I listed him among the dead. 

The last vamp reached me before I could reload any weapon, and he threw them both aside, knocking me out of my crouching position and pinning me to the wall.  I let him think he’d won as he moved in for the kill and I grabbed the stake in my back pocket.  He hissed as I slid it under his ribs, and the dark light behind his eyes gave out.  I pushed him off me, withdrawing the stake, and he fell onto the fallen shotgun.  The crossbow was unseen, and I deduced his blow had probably broken it anyway. 

            I looked at the old vamp and he looked at me.  I switched the stake to my right with a quick expert toss.  The old one suddenly disappeared.  I almost swore.  Shadowmeld.  I needed to get into light, but I had one stake and two vampires climbing the stairs.  They had heard the deaths of their comrades and were coming to kill me.  However, if I had a choice between the old one and the two sort-of old vampires, I’d choose them.  The old one scared me to no end.  All thousand-year old ones did.

            I made a leap for the light and rolled.  I felt an invisible hand soar above my head as I slid into the adjoining room.  The vampires mounting the stairs saw me, and I threw the stake with all my might at the one closest.  He collapsed, gurgling black blood.  His companion tripped over him, and I gained a few seconds. 

            This room was all white with blue border at the top.  There were two lights: a normal, halogen light and a UV light that hung above the doorway to my bedroom.  The wood floor was streaked with the blood of a friend and bodyguard who lied motionless on the white couch placed next to the banister, facing a fireplace, mouth half-parted in pleasure.  I noticed his genitalia was partly sticking out of his pants, and his hands were behind his back.  His throat was torn open, still leaking blood.  Trust a vampire to use sex to distract someone before you kill them. 

            The switch for the UV light was across the room with a sword hanging next to it.  We had weapons in every room, but the living room downstairs was most stocked.  The sword I grabbed with my right hand as I flicked the UV light switch with my left.  I whirled to the sound of the scream, sword held high.

            The blond male vampire on the stairs was tumbling back down.  My eyes were all for the old vamp, emerging from the darkness of my bedroom like a ship out of fog.  Terror, I knew, was rolling off me in waves, but I didn’t care.  I had a sword.

            The old one smiled, the UV lamp simply beginning to give him a mild sunburn.  He raised his left hand in a wave, my fallen crossbow in his right, aimed at me.  He let a bolt fly, and it caught my right arm, catching it halfway between my hand and elbow.

            I dropped the sword, my right arm pinned to the wall.  My only weapong lay at my feet, and I couldn’t take the bolt out of my arm so I could reach down to retrieve it; all of a sudden, he was there.  He gingerly turned off the UV light and grabbed my left wrist with his hand.  His nails dug into my sweat-sheathed skin and I regarded him with terrified pale green eyes.  His body was pressed tightly enough against me that I could smell his skin, could feel the line of his body.  In the light, I realized he was handsome, with black curly hair past his ears and dark brown eyes.  His cheekbones glimmered with the redness sunburn only brings, and he hissed into my ear. 

            “Assassin.  I’m not here to kill you.” He breathed.  His voice was soft and gentle, but I remembered that his touch in my mind had been that, too, before he mind-raped me.  I resisted the urge to say, “Coulda fooled me,” because I figured it would get me killed.  So I stood, helpless, pinned to a wall by both a thousand year old vampire and a crossbow bolt in my arm.  Blood dripped down my arm to my shoulder, where, he lapped it up.  He pointedly moved his tongue over my healing gunshot wound, reopening the scar.  My body shuddered in terror.  I was utterly helpless.  I tried moving my left arm and was met only with his nails drawing blood from my skin.  I tried my right and held a scream back as more blood dripped from my movement.

            The old one looked into my eyes, and I pointedly looked away.  He pushed himself so hard against me that I could barely breathe.  The smell of vampire invaded my nostrils; the smell of snakes in darkness, of death after dark.  He licked my earlobe and I felt tears shuddering down my cheeks.  I knew what he was going to do, somewhere deep inside, and I was terrified.

            He whispered, “You know what I found in your mind when I invaded it.”

            More tears.  “Yes.” I whispered, clenching my eyes shut.

            “And what was it?”

            I stayed silent, hoping to make it go away by not saying it; afraid that by saying it, he would do it.

            His nails bit deeper into my wrist, and my blood dripped on the white wall and wood floor.  I could hear it; drip…drip…drip…The drips were going faster, and I realized I was going to pass out.  “What was it?!” He yelled into my ear, making me jump and forcing my right arm to bleed more from the crossbow bolt.

            “My fear!” I sobbed, tilting my head forward, afraid to show the tears.

            “Yes…”He whispered, breath hot over my neck.  “Your greatest fear.  You’ve killed our Council.  Now, you will suffer for eternity.” His fangs tore into my neck, and I felt the blood spray over his mouth, down my chest.  He was being terribly messy about it, and I hoped that maybe I’d die before he made me into a vampire.  That maybe, luck would be on my side, like she usually was.

            I screamed and writhed beneath him, but slowed as my life flowed into his mouth.  I sagged as he finally withdrew, mouth red with blood- my blood.  My eyes were cloudy, and he tore into his own wrist.  My blood still pumped from the neck wound, and I kept my mouth firmly shut while he tried to goad me to drink the blood from his wrist.  Frustration shown in his eyes, like he hadn’t expected me to fight to the last moment.  Shows he didn’t know me at all. 

He let go of my now limp left hand and plunged a knife he’d withdrawn from his waist into my stomach, turned it.  I had enough energy to scream, and he firmly placed his wrist into my mouth, using his left hand to plug my nose.

            I tried not to breathe, but in the end, mother nature won.  I breathed, and choked down vampire blood in the same instant.  He took the bolt from my right arm, and I crumpled to the floor.  My last sight was him looming over me, smiling.  A last, animal, defiant scream tore through my throat before I lost consciousness.

           

            I sat up, falling off the couch, skin soaked in cold sweat.  My breathing was hard, and I sighed and stopped.  The subconscious wants to breathe in sleep, and with nightmares it reacts like it did when I was human.  I sat on the floor, back to the leather couch, keeping to my normal vampiric way of breathing; by practically not.

            I’d learned later that the old vampire was named Jehovah.  Irony never seems to stop in my life.  He-they, the other vampires- had chained me in a cage and deprived me of food until I was mad with bloodlust.  They then sent in one of my friends or followers one by one and I’d had no choice but to drain them of all blood.  It was amusing to Jehovah, as well as the other vampires that had escaped my wrath.  They deemed it the ultimate irony, that the Assassin of their kind was now a vampire.

            It drove me insane, eating my friends and having no control over it.  When in bloodlust, I would drink until I drained the being, then when I was in my right mind, I’d look down and recognize the person.  A friend, a companion, a former lover.  I killed them all, and until bloodlust set in again, I cried and pleaded for death, meditating on it until I drove myself mad.

            I returned to the present to find a bloody tear on my cheek.  I wiped it away hurriedly and stood.  I still had the scars from that night, the crossbow bolt wound, the nail marks around my left wrist, the scar on my throat from it being torn apart.  Because they’d happened when I was human, they had healed at a human’s pace, but I hadn’t bled from them.  I’d had nothing to bleed, not until I’d fed the first time.  I tried not to think about that.  Out of all of them, that had been the worst.

I looked at my left wrist.  No, they had faded.  But they’d never completely disappear.  It was my curse, and my reminder, as was the cross I wore occasionally.  A reminder of what I once was.  What I should be.  What I never would be, again.