Daylight, Verbayne +Demonata-Freak [book recommendations .txt] 📗

He frowned at me. The people around us seem to disappear as I focused on that one man. Green eyes stared at me like a pair of broken mirrors; nothing was given away by them. It was like looking at a stranger. I lowered my face, eyes on the ground.

“It seems I didn’t have to go looking for you after all,” my eyes flicked up to see the man’s reaction, “hum, Alex?”

He never acknowledged our connection, just played it off as a misunderstanding. “I don’t know why you would need to find me.”

I laughed the sound coming out harsh and broken. “So that’s how it is. Do you really want to play games with all these cattle standing around?”

I waved a hand in the air to motion to the Hunters. They hadn’t moved since they came into the light. It made my muscles tense with anticipation of the kill.

“You have lost yourself.” Was all he said.

My eyes narrowed. His voice sounded low, empty and emotionless. Seems I’m not the only one. Instead of snarling at him I cocked my head to the side. I let my face slacken, eyes going a little wide.

“What do you mean?” I said as innocently as I could manage.

He grumbled, the first expression I had seen from him making his face crumple into a fearsome glare. “Don’t bullshit me, Claire.”

“Then don’t act naive with me, Alex.” I snapped.

We glared at each other for a hand full of minutes. He broke away first, face turning away from me to look at the ground. “We have nothing to talk about.”

My voice edged from my lips like venom. “Then just get it over with.”

His face snapped forward, an unexplainable emotion flashing across his eyes. “Goodbye baby sister.” He whispered brokenly.

The Hunters standing in the ring of lights moved. I hadn’t seen Alex give a signal, but then again maybe it wasn’t his to give. I stepped back, the hair on my neck rising as the Mexican cowboy came within reach. I whirled grabbing the arm that held the machete.

“It’s only goodbye if someone dies.” I called back to Alex.

Dragging the Hunter forward I popped his elbow out of joint, making the arm useless. He screamed in pain, making me hyper aware of my surroundings. Everyone was moving in, maneuvering to be the first one to kill me. My eyes flickered to the closest Hunters. Using the Mexican’s body as a shield I flung him into the four advancing males.

They crashed to the ground in a tangled mess of limbs and weapons. The downed Hunters gave me a brief moment of stillness as everyone turned to see the fallen group. I took a second to glance back at Alex during the confusion. But when I did all I saw were unfamiliar faces. He had been lost in the crowd.

That second of calm ended, the other fifteen Hunters having recovered themselves for another attack. I didn’t think about where to run or how to move, I just moved. I was in that state of mind where everything seemed so slow and yet fast at the same time. That bizarre state let me sense rather than see seven Hunters circling around me to restrict my movements. I spun on my right leg, using my left to kick another machete out of a Hunters grip.

A woman ran up on me screaming as she sliced at my arm with two knives. I bowed my back, reaching for the ground as I pivoted on my heel to avoid her blade. My right leg kicked out hitting the woman in the chest. She disappeared as my hair fell forward into my face. I kept the momentum going thou I was blind to the other six Hunters surrounding me.

When my weight shifted from my legs to my arms I spun. Weapons and limps went flying from the impact. From the corner of my eye I saw the dark glint of a gun barrel level itself at my chest. I flipped, barely escaping the silver plated shells. Straightening my left leg I came down on the shooter, throwing my calf into his shoulder for a wicked axe kick.

Landing in front of the stunned and defenseless Hunter I smiled. He was just too easy a meal to pass up. Grabbing a fist full of black hair I wretched his head back, teeth sinking into his neck. The second his blood spilled into my mouth I felt my body pulse. Someone screamed and I turned shoving the donating Hunter into his comrade’s blades.

I saw the horror on the woman’s face as her own sword slid from the back of the man’s chest out through the front in a bloody spray. Smiling I threw my head back in a gut busting laugh. The Hunters around me yelled curses at me for feeding off one of them. That evil grin widened into a full blow smile. Opening my mouth I started to sputter curses back but stopped.

A familiar voice broke through the night. The sound was shrill and terrified, a wordless call that could only belong to someone who was withering in agony. I was charging through the crowd before I realized exactly what I had heard. Saoirse. A small group of able bodied hunters threw themselves in front of me. I swatted them away like flies, fangs finding the necks of two of them.

I bulldozed my way through the few battered and bloodied ones who dared stand in my way. Emerging on the other side of the clearing I glanced down at myself. My shirt had a huge tear in the front that split from just below my bra to the hem. The one sleeve was missing along with two of the top buttons. My face, as well as my clothes, was soaked with blood by the time I made it to the edge of the clearing.

I glanced back at the carnage. The ones I had disarmed in the beginning were lying in crumpled piles of torn flesh near the center. The rest looked like bloody bread crumbs, dying where the fell as I pushed my way through them. The stone paved circle looked like a small lake of blood. I smiled at the corpses.

All that blood I had drunk, all the blood I had spilt on the ground, excited me. Another scream tore me from the breathtakingly beautiful destruction. I had to get my priorities in order. I could fawn over my work later, first was catching Saoirse. I turned into the darkness of a street, eyes scanning the area for any alleyways hidden behind the shadows. Something metallic caught my attention.

Turning towards it I noticed that every foot or so was a round metal bar. It was a latter. Fingers wrapping around the cold steel I flew up the bars until it ended just before the edge of the roof. Using my inhuman strength I coiled my legs on the last bar. A third scream cut through the humid night air, I jumped.

I was moving forward before my feet even made contact with the slick tiles. Saoirse was in danger, I could feel it. There was no other explanation for her to be screaming so loudly, so desperately. My body moved as swiftly as the hot wind that blew through the trees. As silently as the dark that seeped from every crevasse of the town.

“Hold her still, Smokey!”

My body jerked to a stop. The voice was coming from behind me, I had gone too far. Flying across a small opening I let my shoulder take the impact of my landing. My body rolled to a stop on an adjacent roof, closer to the voice. Crawling along the roofs steep angled top I let myself drop down into the passage between the two buildings.

Energy vibrated in a low hum around three bulky shadows. I inched closer until the shadows gained definition.  Three Hunters crouched in a circle. A whimpering cry drew my attention from the Hunters to the thing they had trapped between them. From the crate I was hiding behind I couldn’t make out what it was.

But I could see one thing. Rich fiery red hair was splayed across the ground in messy waves between the blood stained cowboy boots of the Hunters. The hair alone was enough to tell me it was Saoirse. I glanced back up at the Hunters. Two of them had Saoirse pinned to the ground, one of them a woman.

The last one was straddling her, a pair of pliers in his hand. My eyes flicked to the small pool of blood on the ground. A fang glistened in what little light surrounded us. I growled. The woman whipped around, Saoirse forgotten for a second.

I only had eyes for the blood. It was blood from Saoirse, the reason behind her cries of pain. Anger built in me until I thought I would explode from the heat rolling down my body. Mine, they dare hurt what is MINE.

“Cian we got-“

The sound of the woman’s voice drew me back to the rest of the world. She turned this way and that trying to find me, her voice slow and high pitched with fright. Pain, she caused Saoirse pain. She unintentionally took a step closer to the crate I was crouched behind. I didn’t hesitate, I was too angry to think straight.

Standing I took the two steps forward to close the distance between us. She saw me, hands going for a blade in her belt. My hands seized her face, cradling her cheeks gently in my palms. Her eyes widened for a second, voice coming in a rush of words.

“Vampire, another vampire.”

My hands twitched as I jerked her head to the right. A wet snapping sound filled my ears as I broke her neck. I let go, taking a small step back so that when her body fell it didn’t touch me. The sudden silence drew the other Hunter’s attention.

“Minitra!”

The man holding Saoirse’s shoulders shouted the woman’s name again as if she would answer. When his calls were meat with silence his face flushed purple, the color of rage. My eyes fell to the ground to look at the heap at my feet. It nothing as I stared into her unblinking eyes. She was called Minitra, I had killed her and I didn’t give a damn. Something rammed into me while I had been distracted. I stumbled back a couple of feet, eyes locking onto the man’s face.

“You, I’ll kill you for this!” the man roared.

My eyes narrowed, the moment of empty calm passing. Anger flared in me again. I had, had, just about enough of these Hunters. Raising my arm I back handed him so hard he flew back, skidding to a stop next to Saoirse. The last Hunter, a red haired male, pulled the bleeding vampire up off the ground, placing a knife at her throat. I hissed at him.

“I’ll kill her.” I bared my fangs at him, taking three steps forward. “I said stop!”

I was almost close enough to touch them when I saw something from the corner of my eye. I gave the glistening object a side long glance. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. A hand was pressed against my face, a miniature cross bow strapped to the persons arm. My eyes followed the length of their arm till I saw their face.

“Alex, how nice of you to interfere once again.” I seethed.

“Stand down Clair.”

“Bite me!” I growled.

The second I said it Alex’s hand twitched, an arrow loosening from the contraption. The world slowed down, the arrow the only thing I could see. Twisting around the silver tipped arrow I slammed my fist into Alex’s stomach. He crumpled over me, hands grabbing my shoulders as I lowered him to the ground.  I grabbed his face with my hand, slamming his head against the stone street.

He went limp. Sorry Alex but I can’t let sibling rivalry get in the way of saving her. My back prickled with that energy