They were both gaunt, as though they hadn’t drunk in quite a while, and their skin was nearly translucent with age. Even their hair was scraggy and bleached almost white, which only happened when a vamp was not only seriously old, but dangerously malnourished.
I could feel them with my strange Spidey senses, their energy, the pressure building at the back of my skull. Their age pressed down on me so hard I lost my balance, hitting the ground with one knee. Really old then, over four hundred years, at least, maybe even twice that. Once they got that old it was kind of hard to tell, but if I wasn’t expecting the energy spike that came with a really old vampire it could knock me a bit off kilter. There were two of them, which made it worse.
The male lifted his head and sniffed the air, scenting like a bloodhound. He couldn’t smell me, of course. It was all part of my “gift” inherited from the virus that should have turned me but didn’t. Vampires couldn’t seem to scent me like they could normal humans. Kind of weird, but there you go. I’d take what I could get.
I closed my eyes and forced back the overwhelming pressure as I slid my blade carefully from the sheath across my back. I preferred my gun, but the UV light didn’t work very well from a distance, and while swords may not have been faster than bullets, they were faster than UV guns, and just as effective. Especially since my little baby had a blade edged in silver and anointed with a holy blessing and a couple of magic spells. Overkill? Me? Naw.
I stepped out of my hiding place just as the female vamp made her move. The minute she lunged for the couple on the ground, I swung my sword. I was too far away to do serious damage, but the edge of the blade sliced across her midriff, spilling dark blood down her front. Not fatal for a vamp, but it would seriously hurt. She shrieked like a banshee and lunged again.
This time she went for me instead of the couple. I caught a brief glimpse of their horrified faces as they lay frozen in terror on the blanket before she was on me. I looked into her face and saw nothing but madness there. All instinct, pure rage, she jumped on me, knocking me to the ground. My breath went out of me in a whoosh and I was pretty sure I saw stars.
Damn, she was strong. I hadn’t expected that with how malnourished they were. Her eyes were that same eerie red as Blondie’s had been. Her bony fingers curved into claws as she went for my eyes.
“No you fucking don’t,” I yelled at her. I swung my right fist up to punch her in the side of the head. She reared back with another shriek, this time more of anger than pain, and swiped a clawed hand along my cheek while I twisted my hips under her, trying without much success to buck her off.
A sword was pretty useless in close quarters, so dropped it and scrabbled for my UV gun with my right hand while trying to hold her off with my left. She was strong. Really strong. Even nearly starved, there was no way I could hold her off for long, and while I was focused on her, I had no idea what the male was doing.
I didn’t have time to think about it. She screamed at me again, her foul breath strafing my cheek, making me gag. Her fangs glistened in the moonlight as she reared back. I so did not need another set of fang marks on my throat.
My fingers finally found my gun just as she struck. I turned my head and twisted my upper body at the same time. Her fangs hit my collarbone instead of my throat, sending sharp pain shooting down my body. I was pretty sure I screamed loud enough to wake the dead, but her bite didn’t scare me. It hurt, and it pissed me off. My right hand closed around the gun and jerked it out of its holster while I grabbed her throat with my left hand and squeezed as hard as I could.
She screamed, this time a strangled, choking scream, her face filled with fury. She really didn’t like me much. She surged for my throat again and I prayed to the entire Pantheon that I could hold her off long enough.
I finally got my gun up and wedged it between our bodies, the barrel pointed against her chest as close to the heart as I could get, and pulled the trigger. She froze, her eyes going wide, suddenly realizing through the rage and bloodlust that something was very, very wrong. She stared down at my gun barrel pressed against her breast and the black mark slowly spreading its way across her body. She threw her head back and shrieked at the moon. This time, there was an edge of fear to it.
Then she burst into a cloud of ash and smoke.
I think I might have been shaking a little, as I slid the gun back in its holster and wiped the ash from my face. The UV had done its work, but I still had the male vamp to deal with. I looked around, a little panicked at the thought of what he could have been doing while I’d been dusting his girlfriend.
He’d been waiting for me. While I’d been fighting off the female vamp, the male had grabbed the couple. The girl was on her knees, sobbing, with the vampire’s hand around her throat. One move and he could snap her neck. He had the boy by the hair, his body twisted at an odd angle so he couldn’t fight. Not that it would have mattered; the poor kid was terrified.